February 2018 – Unite for a Real Alternative

What happens when the ‘watchdog’ is watching the wrong people?

Brendan Ogle Unite Do you remember the infamous ‘Galway Tent’? As a symbol of the sort of gombeenism that pertained as the nation was led to penury, the ‘Galway Tent’ is a good example. Basically, Fianna Fail party fundraisers would hire a marquee at the Galway race festival in Ballybrit and invite their friends to enjoy their ‘hospitality’. Here beer and wine would flow, a canape or two maybe, and brown envelopes packed with wads of cash would be handed to the political worthies as ‘donations’. €150,000 a year is admitted to having been raised in this way. There were even long waiting lists of cash-clad citizens hoping for cancellations so that they might get in, get to dine at the ‘top’ table, and also hand over an envelope full of ‘green’. Of course no favours were ever asked for, or offered, in exchange for this largesse. That would be corruption. In Ireland? Of course not!

It was stopped in 2008 amid widespread public concern. And Ireland got cleaned up. Didn’t it?

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Let us take our collective heads out of the sand and just trust women

Brendan Ogle Unite In 2015 in Croke Park the Unite Ireland Policy Conference debated the issue of Repeal of the 8^th amendment to Bunreacht na hÉireann. I was a proud Unite member that day, not only because of the outcome of the debate, but because we had it. As an observer it was a difficult debate to listen to in many ways. Feelings ran high. If you think of the most extreme views you can imagine on the issue, on both sides, or that you might see on social media or hear on your doorstep from canvassers, rest assured that they were expressed in Croke Park at that conference too.

The outcome was that Unite supports Repeal of the 8^th Amendment, and will campaign for that in the upcoming referendum. We will do so as a founding member of the Trade Union Campaign to Repeal the 8^th Amendment, as a member of the Coalition for Repeal, and also in our own right as a Union. Of course, that does not mean that every member of Unite supports that position, and people will of course vote freely in the referendum in accordance with their own views, but it does mean that the Union has a decided position following a decision of our elected delegates at the appropriate Conference.

The necessary debate that we will have as a nation in the coming months promises to be difficult, and there is little enough sign that it will be conducted in an appropriate manner, but to me the matter has crystalised around a number of points.

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Trade Union rights and the need for change

Brendan Ogle Unite If, as I wrote last week, there is a reason why ‘Neo-Liberals have anti-trade union positions’, this should not be interpreted as applying to employers only. On the contrary, many employers realise that collective bargaining with their employees through representative trade unions is not only a rational way for employees to look after their interests, but that it can also aid progressive employers to create a mutually beneficial working environment. In Ireland the search for anti-trade-union, anti-worker bias shouldn’t start with neoliberal employers. That’s the second place to look.

The first place is with our government(s).

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There’s a reason why neo-liberals have anti-trade-union positions

Brendan Ogle Unite If you are under 30 years of age there is a strong possibility that you have never read, or seen, a positive feature about Trade Unions in the mainstream media. In that environment a climate of suspicion towards, and even hostility to, collective organising is easily fostered. But in essence a union is nothing more than a collective of workers coming together (in ‘union’) in the belief that they have more leverage and influence in improving their terms and conditions acting together than they do on their own. This idea, working together for the collective good, stretches right back to the late 18^th century but it is as necessary now as it has ever been, perhaps in many ways more so.

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