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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
— April – May 2013
THE events of the last few weeks show that the
Irish Trade Unions are in existential and psycho-
logical crisis.
First, the crisis of identity, best epitomised
by the conclusion of the Croke Park . deal in
which the Unions once again traded the interests
of their future members – the younger public-sec-
tor workers – to preserve the privileges of their
current and past members. This is hardly surpris-
ing. Over the last fifteen years, the Unions and
their leadership have become firmly embedded
in the corporatist structure of the Irish state. Self-
serving, focused on their immediate membership
and concentrated in the least productive sectors
of the economy, the Unions have focused on their
pay cheques rather than their relevance to our
changing economy and society.
Second, the crisis of amnesia. In recent weeks,
the Irish Trade Unions have blustered on about
the centenary of the Lockout. Throughout
the crisis, the very same Unions have been vocal
on the usual topics of fairness, austerity and
protection of frontline services. Yet, all along,
Liberty Hall has attempted to sweep under the
rug its principal role in helping the Irish state
to polarise and pillage society and the economy
during the Celtic Tiger era, in part facilitating
our national insolvency. Promoting the narrow
interests of the state and private sector elites,
Social Partnership (including the two Croke Park
agreements) assured board representation, fund-
ing and other pathways to decision-making for
Unions. This power was deployed consistently
to reduce accountability in the public sector and
semi-state companies. As the money rolled into
the unionised sectors of the economy, the Unions
had no problem with rampant cost inflation in
health insurance and health services, energy,
transport, and education. The interests of their
own members were always promoted ahead of
the interests of society at large. Thus, today, in
an environment of reduced incomes and high
unemployment, with hundreds of thousands of
households in severe financial distress, Liberty
Hall sees no problem with state-generated infla-
tion in state-controlled unionised sectors.
Ironically, the Irish Trade Union movement
has been travelling along the same road as Anglo
Irish Bank: reducing their scope of competencies,
their reach across various social, demographic
and economic groups, and focusing on a singu-
lar, medium-term unsustainable objective. Where
Anglo, post-, became a monoline bank for
funding speculative property plays, Irish Trade
Unions today are monoline agencies for preserv-
ing the status quo of the division between public
and private sectors in the economy.
The failure of the Trade Union movement
model in Ireland is best demonstrated by the
years of the current crisis.
In the current economic recession Irish
Government policy, directly and indirectly sup-
ported by the majority of the Unions’ leaders, has
Ireland needs Unions that represent
the public interest: not unethical and
Social-Partnered pay-day monkeys
Unions had no problem with
rampant cost ination in
health insurance and health
services, energy, transport,
and education
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Unions lockout the
young and dynamic
been to shift the burden of the economic adjust-
ment to younger workers in both private and
public sectors, indebted Irish households, and
consumers. Liberty Hall’s clear objective has been
to retain, at all possible costs, the protected pay
and working conditions for incumbent full-time
employees in the public and semi-state sector.
Grumbling about ‘low-paid public-sector work-
ers’ aside, Unions have consented to the creation
of two-tier public-sector employment with incum-
bent workers collecting the benefits of job security
and higher pay, and the incoming workers col-
lecting lower pay and virtually no promotion
opportunities. The very same Unions are now
acting to preserve, at huge cost to the economy,
unsustainably high levels of employment in our
zombified banking sector.
Headline figures clearly show that Unions
protect the pay and working conditions of pub-
lic-sector employees. Average weekly earnings
in Ireland fell .% between and
in the private sector, but only .% in the public
sector. Over the same period, the dramatic pay
gap between public and private sector has risen
from .% to .%.
But the reality is much worse than that.
Between and , numbers in employ-
ment in the private sector have fallen .%
compared to less than .% in the public sec-
tor. Within the public sector, the largest losses in
employment took place in Defence (-% since
), Regional bodies (-.% since ),
Semi-State bodies (-.% since ). No lay-
offs or compulsory redundancies took place. All
of the adjustments came through natural attrition
and cuts to contract and temporary staff.
In simple terms, the Machiavellian Croke Park
deals have meant that Irish public sector ‘reforms’
were neither structural nor progressive in their
nature. These ‘reforms’ do not support the long-
term process of realigning the Irish economy to
more sustainable growth.
Lack of layoffs and across-the-board shedding
of temporary and contract staff have meant that
the public sector in Ireland cannot link pay and
promotions to real productivity differentials. This
was further compounded by the Croke Park .
agreement. The ‘shinier the pants, the higher the
pay’ principle of rewards has now been legally
enshrined, re-labelled as a ‘reform’ and fully pro-
tected at the expense of younger, better educated
and potentially more innovative employees.
Such a system of pay and promotions means
that the quality of applicants for jobs in the
public sector is likely to decline over time, with
more employable candidates opting elsewhere.
This ‘selection bias’ effect will strengthen as the
economy starts to add private jobs in the future
recovery.
Non-meritocratic employment in the public
sector will also mean continued emigration of
younger workers with internationally market-
able skills.
Meanwhile, according to the EU-wide KLEMS
database, when it was most bloated - in - the
labour productivity of Ireland’s public sector was
already running at below levels. In Public
Administration and Defence labour productivity
stood at below % of levels, in Education
at % and in Health and Social Work at %.
In contrast in Industry, labour productivity in
was % of levels. The ‘techno-
logical innovation intensities’ of these sectors is
analogous. Public Administration, Education and
Health all posted declines in productivity associ-
ated with new technologies compared to of
-% against an increase of % in Industry
and % in Manufacturing.
If Irish public-service productivity fell in the
era of big-ticket capital investment programmes,
what can we expect in the present environment
of drastically reduced investment? Unfortunately,
we do not have data beyond to provide such
an insight. But the most probable answer is that
stripping away ostensible productivity gains
- recorded due to higher current spend on social-
welfare supports being managed by fewer overall
state employees - plus the productivity growth
arising from reductions in employment, there has
been little or no real same-employee productivity
gain in the public sector.
Even the ‘cost reduction’ measures enacted
in Budgets - suggest that during the
crisis the Irish public sector was shedding, not
adding, responsibilities. Much of the reduction
in services was picked up by private-sector pay-
ees and providers. This too implies that the actual
productivity in the public sector in Ireland has
probably declined during the years of the crisis.
Marking the centenary of the Lockout,
the Irish Trade Union movement needs a serious
and deep rethink of both its raison d’être and its
modus operandi. Otherwise the movement risks
being locked out of society itself as the irrele-
vant and atavistic remnant of the Celtic Tiger and
Social Partnership.
Liberty Hall must shake off the ethos of its
corrupting proximity to state power and re-dis-
cover its grass roots. It will also need to purge
completely the legacy of Social Partnership and
embrace a new base within the workforce and
society at large in order to outlast the rapidly
advancing retirement age of its members. Unions
should think hard about their overall role in soci-
ety to better balance the interests of members
against the needs of the country and the reality
of the new economy.
Irish society needs strong and ethically-un-
derpinned Unions as the guarantors of rights of
association and contributors to policy dialogue.
What Ireland does not need is another layer of
quasi-state bureaucracy insulating protected
elites and sectors from the pressures of a compet-
itive, technologically-modernising and youthful,
small, open economy.
Liberty Hall must shake off the ethos of its corrupting
proximity to state power and re-discover its grass roots
