It’s clear that across all public service unions there is widespread opposition to the deal
Apr 9th, 2010 by Donagh
Workers Solidarity Movement have a couple of posts on the recent INTO conference that are worth reading.
One
In what is being described by RTE as a blow to the leadership, delegates at the INTO annual Congress in Galway today (Tuesday) passed a motion which declared that the Public Sector Agreement 2010 -2014 is contrary to INTO policy. After a lively debate, it was agreed to endorse the union leadership’s decision to put the deal to a ballot of the membership but the section of the motion which called for a recommendation that members reject the deal in that ballot was defeated by just 4 votes - 308 to 304.
This close vote came despite the efforts of the union leadership to convince the delegates that this deal was the only alternative. Clearly many union members are extremely unhappy with both the content of the deal and the manner in which the Central Executive Committee of the INTO was one of the first public sector unions to issue a recommendation for acceptance to its members.
Following the vote a meeting of INTO members opposed to the deal took place and a campaign for a No Vote will be launched at a press conference which will be addressed by a number of Branch and District officers from around the country at 11:30a.m. tomorrow morning (Wednesday).
Earlier in the day, Minister for Education Mary Coughlan received a very frosty welcome when she addressed the Conference. Up to 200 delegates held up placards during her speech with messages such as ‘Top 1% control 34% of the wealth – Fair? Cut My Pay. No way’ and ‘Leave our public services alone. Stop blaming public servants’.
Meanwhile the Teachers Union of Ireland Conference in Ennis has unanimously backed an emergency motion calling for rejection of the deal. It’s clear that across all public service unions there is widespread opposition to the deal.
INTO Conference has again had a narrow vote in relation to the Public Sector deal. After another lively and angry debate, Delegates voted by 306 votes to 248 against a section of a motion which would have had the effect of postponing the ballot on the deal until the full details of any revised teachers contract were made available.
The vote will be seen as another blow to the union leadership’s strategy as they had argued strongly against this section of the motion but only managed to get just over half of the delegates to support them. Meanwhile, delegates from around the country launched a campaign for a no vote at a press conference this morning. The vote when the deal is balloted on by members is expected to be very close.
Also Gavin Titley has a good letter in the Irish Times about that papers coverage of the teachers conferences.
Madam, – In the Editorial (April 8th) you struggle once again to understand why teachers, in common with other workers, are currently organising to oppose the neo-liberal flexibilisation of their working conditions under the unquestioned mantra of “reform”. The INTO conference, having voted as the Editorial writer desired, is credited with mature, deliberative decision-making. ASTI and TUI, having rejected it, are dismissed as suffering from an “extraordinary” absence of debate. For a newspaper that has recently called for an educational emphasis on critical thinking over rote repetition, this is hardly exemplary.
Examining why elements of the union movement are mobilising against a deal that legitimises the wholesale transfer of State resources away from core areas of social investment requires political analysis. Instead, the Editorial depends on the reduction of all areas of social and political life to an empty economic rhetoric – what is an “additional productivity demand” in a meaningful educational context? This is propped up with moralism: teachers shouldn’t protest against a drive towards insecurity and precariousness because that is what private sector workers are forced to endure.
In the event of a private sector strike, will you advise them to count their blessings and think of the starving masses? If you are serious about renewing the Republic, credit fellow citizens that organise against the delusion that “there is no alternative” with more than a puzzling irrationality.