Ireland: SIPTU joins the fray

We might be out of the World Cup, but the Irish working class is at the forefront of the struggle against the bosses crisis. It’ll take much more than a dodgy hand ball to take the heat out of this situation. Earlier today yet another major union voted massively to join the public sector strikes on November 24^th. SIPTU’s 70,000 members voted by 85% in favour of participating in what is becoming more or less a de facto Public Sector General Strike.

SIPTU organise a wide range of workers and its interesting to note the different returns in each area. The breakdown of the Yes ballots per sector was 85% in Health, 78% in Local Authorities, 91% in the Fire Service, 79% in Education, and 77% in Government Departments. The figures vary, but they are overwhelming. This illustrates that the government and media assault on the public sector workers is back firing.

The extent of the mood of opposition within the public sector is shown by the fact that even the Gardai are planning to protest, although they are banned from striking. But huge votes from the teachers, lecturers and IMPACT members as well as the CPSU and the Higher civil servants mean that next Tuesday not a wheel will turn, a class be taught or a file processed except where the unions have agreed emergency cover.

Despite the front that Lenihan and Cowen are after presenting publically there is no doubt that they are concerned about the scope that this strike will encompass. As we reported recently according to the Sunday Business Post it seems that they and the trade union leaderships are resigned to the strikes going ahead. Even if some sort of deal is presented to ICTU before next Tuesday the trade union leaders will be forced to assess whether in the light of the March debacle - when they called off national strike action,- they can justify calling of the action if all that is on offer is more talks about talks.

The mood is much harder than it was in March and the reason for that is the imposition of the emergency budget, the effect of the Levies, NAMA – or bailing out the bankers and of course An Bord Snip. There’s also all the families where one partner has lost their job and one parent, maybe a public sector worker is trying to put food on the table every night. As we have explained elsewhere, there’s no brick wall or iron curtain between the workers in the private and public sector. The truth is that it’s solely in the interests of the bosses to invent divisions between workers.

The strike on Tuesday has to be backed up by the threat of escalation and that means generalising the mood in the public sector and seeking the solidarity support of workers in the private sector as well. Capitalist Ireland is in a deep crisis, the only guarantee of success is to keep up the pressure on the union leaderships and to maximise the involvement of the workers. Sections of the trade union leadership no doubt feel the need to let the workers “let off steam”. But such is the pressure from below they could be forced to go further than they intend. One thing’s for sure, talks about talks are not going to stop the destruction of big chunks of public services.