Jack o Connors qualifications

Caveat said:
So what does that tell you?
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I have no interest in exchanging views with anyone who asked in another thread for information on the standard sentence for an assault on a trade union official.
Even with an accompanying it was most offensive.
 

Yes you would if he were representing a public office. However, he isn't. His position is the decision of the executive council of the union. They would have had to consider him the best candidate for the job (which would also have had to have been advertised externally).

All we know is that he left school at 15. Well you know what? So did my dad. And he's still someone who has a great deal of business, management and economic sense and more importantly common sense.
 
And future nobel prize winning economists almost brought the Financial System to it's knees in the 1990's. I couldn't care less what his education is like. I judge him by what he says and what his actions are and that is where I have a problem. I don't think he is stupid or ignorant. I just fundamentally disagree with most of the things that he stands for.
 
Jack O'Connor's suitability for high office was democratically decided upon by the members of SIPTU who elected him General President.
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I think he ran unopposed last time round, unopposed elections stretch the definition of democracy especially when you've 200,000 members and not one of them thought they'd any alternative to offer.

On the qualifications as far as I know he went back and eventually did the leaving after he'd been forced to give up school at 15 due to some difficult situation at home. Which is an impressive thing to do.

Ordinarily a union leader needs more belligence then intelligence, if you're working on a factory floor you don't really want a barrister to speak for you.

However when the government bring them in to help decide economic policy - we're in trouble as this is where you really need people who know what they're doing. Then you need to take into account the lack of qualifications.

The government ministers though largely unskilled in economics will have a range of advisors behind them helping to see what's possible, the unions guys are pretty much on their own and have to try individually to inform themselves on a huge breadth of economic topics with the handicap (or useful shortcut) of being ideologues who've learnt to simply discard the majority of options.
 

We have a President who was "elected" on the basis of being unopposed.

Plus the unions aren't just a bunch of bearded guys in Farah slacks and Hush Puppies hacking out social policy. The officials also have a team of well educated advisors and executives. It's is analogous with a Minister in the sense that the spokesperson for the Union is presenting policy hashed out by an experienced and educated workforce behind them
 

I have to say this is the most intelligent response I have read so far.
 
Deiseblue said:
I have no interest in exchanging views with anyone who asked in another thread for information on the standard sentence for an assault on a trade union official.
Even with an accompanying it was most offensive.
Click to expand...

Why are you individualising this to caveat?
It was quite clear that caveats post was meant in fun,to most of us who have a sense of humour.
If you have no interest in exchangeing views with someone who tries to lighten the mood ,why are you posting at all.
It is quite normal behaviour that people joke and I would have thought that looking at caveats track record ,there was no offense intented.
 
For those of you whom are interested,there is an interview with Jack O Connor written by Kathy Sheridan in the Irish Times November 7th and can be viewed online.

In particular have a look at what he says about not contuining his education..
Heres an extract:
O’Connor says he gave
up because he couldn’t envisage himself being able to carry on to third level at that stage. “ I had this idea that I would go to work and I would study at night and I would get the Leaving Cert. Meanwhile, I would have earned money and I would have been able to go on to third level. I had ideas of doing something like political science or history and economics or something like that. But the other reason, to be honest about it, was that I found the second-level environment very restrictive and I didn’t like it at all. Perhaps it was more my fault than theirs but I wasn’t amenable to regimentalisation in any way, and I didn’t identify with the ethos or the outlook.” And like all his decisions, the decision was made only after careful reflection.
He had a job to go to, a pleasant, family-run horticultural business. “They were very nice people . . . I couldn’t ever claim I was exploited or anything.”
So nothing there to make him an angry young man? “No. But I don’t think I was anyway. I was perhaps an idealistic young man”. His future was being set through his political activism even as he worked in pipeline construction and as a bin man. The evening classes soon folded. “I never sat the exam because there were always more pressing issues to be attended to.” Has he regrets about that? “I do believe that I could have done a better job if I had obtained a better education and I do think it would have opened doors for me that are otherwise inaccessible. I wouldn’t for a moment suggest that someone who isn’t well educated is not as well equipped as someone who is, everything else being considered, but I have endeavoured through trade union studies and through my own self-directed studying and through engagement with other people to educate myself.”.

Draw your own conclusions...
 
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