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Macdara Doyle of ICTU responds
to Constantin Gurdgiev
I
f Constantin Gurdgiev is correct – and he
seems very sure of himself – Europe’s most
progressive societies are corrupted to the
very core and will soon endure an Irish-style
collapse.
Social dialogue is a hallmark of the socio-eco-
nomic model adopted by countries like Sweden,
Norway, Denmark and Finland, where it has
attained a level of sophistication not seen here,
where the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ model holds sway.
Much the same can be said of Germany, France
and Austria, where social dialogue became a key
building block of post-war reconstruction and
development.
While the models vary, the essential common
element is a desire for greater civil-society influence
over the operations of the market. At a practical
level this means comparatively strong representa-
tion rights for trade unions at both workplace and
national level, along with an array of legal protec-
tions that are glaringly absent in Ireland.
Trade unions here – uniquely in the devel-
oped world – have no legal right to negotiate for
members, and activists can be sacked with the full
sanction of the law. It is a little difficult to recon-
cile this with the ‘truism’ advanced by Mr Gurdgiev
and others that ‘unions ran the country’ during the
years of social partnership (-).
The Gurdgiev Model postulates a causal link
between trade union access to the centres of power,
institutionalised corruption and inevitable eco-
nomic collapse. Apply Gurdgiev to the Nordic
countries and others that prioritise social dialogue
and all should now lie in ruins.
Except they don’t. Indeed, the Nordics in par-
ticular seem remarkably unscathed by the current
turmoil.
His is a fine theory in print, but a little less solid
when confronted with reality. Indeed, it stretches
the bounds of credulity when Mr Gurdgiev
attempts to link social dialogue with the fraudulent
activities of senior bankers, specifically attributing
blame for the “mis-selling of investment products”
and “misclassifications of (bank) deposits”.
‘Far fetched’ would be an understatement.
Applying the same standards of evidence, a
compelling case could be made for the devastat-
ing impact social partnership had on the fortunes
of the Dublin senior football team: just two finals
and one title in its year lifespan! And only when
the shackles of social dialogue are thrown off do
they triumph again! Uncanny.
But there are more serious (unspoken)
assumptions at the heart of Mr Gurdgiev’s flawed
proposition. Strip away the verbiage and it is the
very right of trade unions to represent members
and engage in dialogue with other national inter-
ests that is being contested.
Business has no problems with access.
Government ministers meet routinely with
business lobby and interest groups (many with
questionable representative credentials).
And then there are the private lunches and
social functions, the fundraising golf classics and
‘chance’ encounters in golf clubs that lubricate the
modern economy, often with disastrous results.
(As an aside, surely the role of golf in the collapse
of late-th-century Irish capitalism demands
urgent study?)
Yet, when genuinely representative bodies
such as trade unions engage in such dialogue, their
right to do so is queried, their intentions depicted
as selfish and malign.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions is the
single largest civil society group on the island of
Ireland, representing over , working peo-
ple in both jurisdictions. It represents working
people as a matter of right, not by the grace and
favour of business interests and commentators.
Equally, the attempt to tie unions to the eco-
nomic collapse is but a variant of the lie that has
flourished across Europe and the US since private
banks and the buccaneering financial markets
brought the house down: blame the public sector,
blame the Government, blame social spending ...
In short, blame everyone but the
perpetrators.
Serious studies of the Irish experience of social
dialogue confirm that it helped lay the foundations
for a genuine boom in the s, which gener-
ated real growth and real jobs, as opposed to the
House of Sand model adopted post-.
In , the FF/PD coalition assumed office,
impelled there by front-page editorials claiming
‘pay back time’ for the taxpayer. They then diverted
the proceeds of the real boom to fund their own
pet ideological project – building the low-tax, low
-regulation, bargain-basement economic model.
Mary Harney correctly framed it as a choice
between Boston or Berlin. Business and gov-
ernment were as one and they prevailed. We
got Boston. On speed. And now we have Berlin,
afflicted with a bad case of historical amnesia.
Social partnership had its flaws and errors
were made. But perhaps the greatest failing was
its inability systematically to engage with and
shape that key debate.
And trade unions too must take blame for
failing to grasp the significance of what was
then unfolding and contesting it more vigor-
ously. Berlin no longer holds much attraction.
Copenhagen anyone?
Macdara Doyle is Communications Officer with
the Irish Congress of Trade Unions
Gurdgiev
mischievous in
blame game
opinion
Child’s play: the Swedish model is better
