Time to vote

The envelope arrived at the week-end containing the ballot paper. ASTI is now balloting its members on acceptance of the Croke Park Agreement. While we voted to reject Croke Park last year as members of ICTU we’re obliged to discuss its implementation and its these proposals that are now before members. Last year I voted no. Having seen how the industrial landscape has changed in the last year I’m now having a long hard think about it.
There is no suggestion that the ASTI will resort to industrial action if the union votes to reject the deal. The CPA does offer the unions abiding by it protection for earnings in 2011. That’s effectively what the state gives. What the public service gives is flexibility (i.e. concedes to government what the department had long pursued, PTM outside of school hours, filling in and additional 33 hours to be worked in the working year).
I voted against the CPA last year because I preferred to protect teachers jobs. Personally I’d accept a pay cut over a reduction in working conditions. I’d prefer to protect the jobs of younger teachers, those with mortgages rather than seek to protect my own income for the moment. Let’s be honest there is a low level of morale among public sector workers. They’ve been the subject of abuse and denigration for some time. A poll last week in the Sunday Indo showed that 54% of Labour supporters would support a reduction in the numbers. Support among supporters of other parties for cuts were much higher with 69% of Sinn Fein supporters wanting to see job losses. In the north SF have frozen the pay of all public sector workers on as little as £21,000.
But there are 2 issues that are making me think about voting at all. One is the Fine Gael proposal to get rid of 30,000 public sector workers on top of all that. I think that that would be disastrous. I don’t deny that there are people in the public sector who want to go and that if a voluntary redundancy package was on offer that they would leave and take their pension. Before Christmas such a scheme was on offer at the HSE but there weren’t as many takers as management thought there were.
The other thing that concerns me is the upward trend in mortgages. I’ve a mortgage with Permanent TSB. It seems that interest rates are now increasing not because of any ECB decision but because banks want to increase their liquidity. It’s likely that other banks and building societies will follow up. There is less competition in the banking sector following the withdrawal from Ireland of HBOS and the ECB/EU stated objective of restructuring the banking industry; i.e. closures. Mortgage interest relief is only available for 7 years for first time buyers.
The brunt of this move is going to reduce the amount of disposable income for home owners like public servants. Where is the money that will re-boot the economy? What worries me is that there will be less spending rather than more spending in the economy. That in turn will prolong the slump, not any decision on the part of public servants to implement the CPA.
So when I vote today on the proposed deal, I really get the feeling that power to actually decide your future in the workplace and power to participate is gone. Regardless of how I vote and I’m still veering towards No, most workers feel it ultimately won’t matter. There are lessons for all of us in the context of a general election. What’s the bet it’ll be a low poll?

Will Fine Gael’s Leo get the message in time?

I believe that FG and Labour will eventually form a government after the next government. That will happen because the people have grown tired of the present government. I’m sure that no matter how much worse it gets Fianna Fail’s credibility has been shot to bits while the greens are facing oblivion. Someone recently compared the greens agonising on NAMA and government to a man on death row attempting one more 11th hour appeal to postpone the inevitable. There’s a strong element of this to the feeling out there on the ground.
All of which makes Fine Gael’s response to Labour this week in the light of John O’Donoghue’s resignation somewhat difficult to understand. The days when Alan Dukes used to sneer at Labour “when you’re bought you should stay bought” are now a dim and distant memory. Many in Fine Gael have learnt the lessons although no one seems to have passed on the word yet to Leo Varadkar who spent much of his time on Vincent Brown attacking the Labour Party. One person who understood very well that the greater good was served by taking the longer view was John Bruton.

Bruton had spent much of his political career in regular conflict with Labour. There was the collapse of the first Fitzgerald government to the row with Frank Cluskey over Dublin Gas, the collapse of the second Fitzgerald government and the daddy of them all the showdown at the Shelbourne Hotel when Dick Spring and himself fell out over the formation of a government in 1992. Despite it all and even stronger resistance to the then Democratic Left, Bruton overcame all of this to form the Rainbow government in 1994. I think that the Rainbow was the best administration we had. Divorce was legalised, record number of jobs were created, a successful EU presidency, the spadework done for the euro and when the left office they left their successors a current budget surplus. This administration put in place the conditions for the growth in the economy. Under pinning this administration was a strong social democratic ethos that a conservative like Bruton had no problem living with. I admire Bruton for what he did in the interest of the state.

Leo Varadkar should take a spin out the N3 from Blanchardstown the next time that Ambassador Bruton is home and pick his brains. Leo is some one who has strong traditional views despite his relative youth. Leo’s call to pay unemployed emigrants to return home pushed the right buttons with those in Fine Gael who’ve watched helplessly as the Just Society supporters ran the party for a generation. Leo is opposed to benchmarking, increased public services, quango’s and the national pay agreements. But on the plus side he has a good sense of humour as he recently kindly offered his apartment to NAMA.
This may all be good copy for Leo. But other implications will flow from baiting the Labour Party, public service workers and the unions. Tension will build if this continues. It will contribute to distrust. The less likely that it is that we’ll have an election, the more likely it is that the tension will continue. I haven’t personally come across the tension at a local level.
Loe has criticised Eamon Gilmore’s leadership in the light of the Ceann Comhairle’s resignation suggesting that he should tell ICTU to agree cut wages and jobs but surely Enda Kenny is open to criticism too for his indulgence of Varadkar’s love of his opwn voice.
If Enda Kenny is the strong leader that the country needs, he would surely tell Leo to take a long deep breath when he next sees a microphone and remind him that if Leo ever wants to hold ministerial office he should predicate any remarks he makes on the reality that the voters who he needs to realise this ambition may well reward him are not his own but Labours.