irish ferries (new version)

[Observer]

I think this is a sinister move by teachers trade unions. Has anyone any info on how many/ any children went to the protests.

Yes, I saw about 3 groups of students in uniform, about 40 to 50 in total I'd guess. There may have been more...hard to see all parts of the demo. They seemed to be in good spirits and enjoying the occasion like everybody else. No sinister mind control by teachers was in evidence. Anecdotally, I believe they were from schools that had closed early for the day. AFAIK No schools/teachers brought or made arrangements for pupils to attend - insurance issues etc.

Not one person in my company asked to go or took the day off to go.

fair enough..... presumably they're all delighted to have such an exemplary employer who treats them all with complete fairness and honesty all the time....hope it lasts

These sort of publicity stunts by the unions are treated with derision and contempt by most people working in private sector that I have talked to.

Fair enough, I suppose your private sector acquaintances must not be representative of the tens of thousands of private sector workers on the march.

All of the reasons why this is a red herring and is not the thin end of the wedge etc, has been outlined above by various posters. Those who do not see this choose not to see because reality doesn't fit in with their political beliefs.

Or could it possibly be because they have an analysis of society and ethics that differs from yours? This doesn't make them wrong, you know, just different.

Irish trade unions sold out the poor years ago. They sold out low paid workers at the same time.

Really? Trade unions have fought for, and achieved, the highest minimum wage in Europe, lower taxes - particularly for the lower paid, and improved employee rights legislation. The minimum wage in particular, didn't just fall like manna from heaven. It was negotiated through successive partnership agreements, largely by unions whose memberships would earn in excess of it anyway. So much for selling out the poor!

They have no interest in really helping to keep low paid and/or manufacturing jobs in this country because doing so would require them to push for wage moderation and a more business friendly environment.

An extraordinary argument!! Wage moderation helps the low paid, huh? Jeez, how could trade unions have got it so wrong all these years looking for increased wages to offset poverty? And all along, they just had to look for more moderation in wages, tut, tut, so simple I must explain that one to the lads down in ICTU!! And a more business friendly environment too? Presumably you mean less of that tiresome legislation that actually gives RIGHTS to the working classes. Yes, far too good for the likes of them! I suppose that we can just trust the Gama/Irish Ferries of this world to offer secure employment to the poor if we lift the "burden" of state regulation off their backs?

100 jobs a week are going in manufacturing, the traditional home of the trade union, and they are doing nothing about it because things like benchmarking and the realities of what that does to the cost base of the economy does not fit in with their real public sector agenda.

The only "agenda" trade unions operate to is to increase the long term, sustainable, pay and conditions of employment of all their members, public and private sector. Nothing hidden about that! I can assure you that private sector unions are every bit as effective as their public sector counterparts in doing this.

 

[Purple]

Observer, I have no problem with children attending the protest. I have a problem with teachers pushing their political agenda on their students, if it happened.

fair enough..... presumably they're all delighted to have such an exemplary employer who treats them all with complete fairness and honesty all the time....hope it lasts

You have it in one. They also realise that we have to compete with companies all over the world.

Fair enough, I suppose your private sector acquaintances must not be representative of the tens of thousands of private sector workers on the march.

My private sector acquaintances have international competition. They live in a different world to the trade union sector and know that unionised work practices close them down. No one likes what Irish Ferries are doing but they realise that this has bugger all to do with Irish Ferries and lots to do with trade unions getting air time and page space in the media.

Really? Trade unions have fought for, and achieved, the highest minimum wage in Europe

Which costs jobs in the internationally traded good and services sector, but screw them they aren’t in unions. Is that what you are saying?

lower taxes -

Rubbish

The minimum wage in particular, didn't just fall like manna from heaven. It was negotiated through successive partnership agreements, largely by unions whose memberships would earn in excess of it anyway. So much for selling out the poor!

But their pay rises have been relative to those whose wages went up with the minimum wage. The reality is that €7.5 an hour minimum wage has cost this country thousands of jobs. €5.50 an hour is better than no job. Unions see this but don’t care.

And all along, they just had to look for more moderation in wages, tut, tut, so simple I must explain that one to the lads down in ICTU!!

Are you trying to tell me that Benchmarking for civil servants made this country more competitive and will result in employment growth?!?

Presumably you mean less of that tiresome legislation that actually gives RIGHTS to the working classes

Who are the "working classes"? According to Tony Ben they are anyone who relies on their weekly wage, earned for the work they do, for an income. That means me and most everyone else who runs a business or is in a management position as well as those who fill other rolls on the economy. The modern trade union movement is a sick parody of the one that James Connelly and people like my great uncle founded in this country. A fat lot of good the unions were to the Gamma workers, the first read incident of blatant exploitation in about 30 years and they failed utterly. No soft government to push around so they crawled back into their hole with their tail between their legs.

The only "agenda" trade unions operate to is to increase the long term, sustainable, pay and conditions of employment of all their members

I agree, and damn the rest of us who have to pay the bill.

 

[RainyDay]

So just to clarify Purple - You're saying that the 100,000 people who marched last Friday are just too dumb to understand what's really going on - 100,000 people are being duped by their unions - Is that what you're telling us?

 

[Observer]

OK, purple, you say that the unions have "sold out" the poor, the minimum wage has cost "thousands of jobs" and that €5.50 an hour is better than no wage.

So how far do we carry your logic? Isn't €4.50 an hour better than no wage? €3.50/hr? €3/hr? €2/hr? Do we go right down to 50c/hr? After all, if the great god of "international competitiveness" must be appeased, that's all right then? Would you be prepared to work for €5.50 yourself? If not, then you have a damn cheek suggesting it's ok for others. Can you not accept that there are standards below which we should not be prepared to let our society sink, no matter what the "economic imperative" dictates. In other words, the market, on its own, does NOT solve all socio-economic problems and it is necessary to intervene, particularly around the edges, to ensure a somewhat fair society.

And you know what? Every single intervention in the labour market, every single piece of employment protection legislation we've got was opposed, bitterly, by IBEC and their predecessors and cheerleaders. Go right back to equal pay for women - not possible, we were told, would wreck the country, end of civilisation as we know it. Maternity Leave? Have you heard the whinging from ISME? Minimum 20 days annual leave - serious loss of competitiveness. The minimum wage - a serious disadvantage to job creation, according to IBEC (and purple)

But! We've got what is effectively full employment now. In fact, the Irish population can't fill all the jobs on offer (at minimum wage or above) and we are seeing tens of thousands of immigrants per year take up the slack. So if we've got full employment at the minimum wage, where are the tens of thousands of jobs lost by its introduction?

Or put it another way - reducing or abolishing the minimum wage will not bring more people into employment but it will mean that some of those in employment will earn less. By and large, these will be the less well educated and unskilled and disadvantaged. Is this what you want? You invoke Connolly and others of that era - I can't help but think that Connolly would nod approvingly at the minimum wage - granted perhaps as only a temporary stepping stone but that's a different story.....

I do agree with the Bennite definition of the working classes - ie those that derive their income from selling their labour rather than from investing their capital or employing the labour of others. (OK, there are anomalies, but its a good enough working definition.) Trade unions exist to maximise the share of national wealth that goes to "labour" rather than "capital" - that benefits all "workers", be they public sector or private sector, and of course, you and me. Put simply, in national wage negotiations, the better deal negotiated by the unions benefits workers in unionised employment directly and automatically. But the "headline" figure also inevitably "informs" and influences wage movement in the wider economy, thus benefitting almost all workers.

 

[Purple]

To be clear Observer, I am not saying that the unions sold out the poor over the minimum wage. IMHO, and I am no economist, benchmarking sold out the poor. The civil and public service unions pushed for benchmarking, or large pay increases for their members, but insisted that there was no increase in direct taxation to pay for it. The government was also pushing that policy so PAYE increases were never on the cards. Both government and unions alike knew that increases in indirect taxes were the only answer. So we got bin charges and increases in fees and other charges that we all had to pay. These charges affect poor people more than the better off. The cost was not just met with charges; it was met by not spending on social welfare etc. The unions knew this and still went for it; they pushed a policy that redistributed wealth upwards. I don’t think Connelly etc would have been chuffed by that. Personally I have no problem paying more tax in order to help those at the bottom. I do object to those at the bottom being squeezed to give more to those in the middle.

Would you be prepared to work for €5.50 yourself?

Yes, I have worked for £1 an hour. I have been working for 15 years and have acquired a number of skills and qualifications over that time. I would not expect anyone in this country to work for less than €7.5 an hour in similar circumstances. I would expect anyone to start work on less than that if they were 17 and had no skills. What the minimum wage has done is wipe out the apprentice system in many industries because most young people don’t see the long term gain, they just see that they can get more money working in McDonalds.
I have no problem with the minimum wage, I have a problem with it being €7.50 an hour in an economy that is built on stealing jobs from higher cost economies where the only indigenous growth seems to be in the construction industry. Bubble anyone?
Our internationally traded goods and services sector is shrinking as a proportion of our overall economy. Do you think this is a good thing?

By the way equal pay for women in the civil and public service was given at the same time as the marriage bar was removed, both in 1973 in anticipation of the EU Equal Treatment Directive. As far as I remember the unions opposed this. Unions, like political parties, like to take credit for things that they had little to do with.

reducing or abolishing the minimum wage will not bring more people into employment but it will mean that some of those in employment will earn less. By and large, these will be the less well educated and unskilled and disadvantaged. Is this what you want?

Reducing the minimum wage will bring more of the poorest people into employment and that’s exactly what I want. Having a job gives an income but it also give the opportunity to increase your skills and increase your earnings, it gives you a better chance of getting another job but most of all it gives you dignity and a sense of self worth. Very few people stay on their starting rate of pay for years. No one minds starting low as long as there is the opportunity to move up. There is no chance of a pay rise on the dole.

Trade unions exist to maximise the share of national wealth that goes to "labour" rather than "capital" - that benefits all "workers", be they public sector or private sector, and of course, you and me. Put simply, in national wage negotiations, the better deal negotiated by the unions benefits workers in unionised employment directly and automatically. But the "headline" figure also inevitably "informs" and influences wage movement in the wider economy, thus benefitting almost all workers.

I agree with the first bit but don’t accept your premise that pay raises in what are for the most part heavily protected sectors of the economy benefit “almost all workers”.
Unions, like ISME and IBEC, are pressure groups that represent their members. They have no social or moral agenda beyond that.

 

[ubiquitous]

So just to clarify Purple - You're saying that the 100,000 people who marched last Friday are just too dumb to understand what's really going on - 100,000 people are being duped by their unions - Is that what you're telling us?

The logical extension of this argument is that Arnold Schwartznegger was 100% correct to refuse clemency to death-row prisoner Stanley Tookie Williams because the 100 million + Americans who support the death penalty couldn't all be wrong. And the London & Madrid bombings and the 911 attacks on the US were justified because the millions of Al Queda supporters around the globe couldn't all be wrong either...

 

[RainyDay]

The logical extension of this argument is that Arnold Schwartznegger was 100% correct to refuse clemency to death-row prisoner Stanley Tookie Williams because the 100 million + Americans who support the death penalty couldn't all be wrong. And the London & Madrid bombings and the 911 attacks on the US were justified because the millions of Al Queda supporters around the globe couldn't all be wrong either...

That's a pretty breathtaking logical leap, which misses the fundamental point of the original premise - that the 100,000 just don't understand what is happening in Irish Ferries.

 

[stuart]

That's a pretty breathtaking logical leap, which misses the fundamental point of the original premise - that the 100,000 just don't understand what is happening in Irish Ferries.

To rob another members signature

the mass of a nation will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one. Adolf Hitler.

 

[podgerodge]

this seems like an amicable agreement