“Partnership” and the Corruption of the Irish Trade Unions

national | worker & community struggles and protests | opinion/analysis

Saturday October 23, 2010 23:10

by Kerry Worker - Kerry Public Service Workers' Alliance

Notably absent from the media analysis of the recent SIPTU scandal has been the conclusion that Irish trade unions were corrupted by government hand-outs under the guise of “partnership”. That during the “Celtic tiger years” Irish trade union leaders’ interests diverged strongly from that of the ordinary membership. That “partnership” and “benchmarking” significantly advanced the interests of the managerial class within the trade unions, while yielding miniscule cost-of-living pay increases for ordinary members in a time of rapid inflation. That these same union bosses need removal every bit as urgently as do the current crop of Irish political and financial leaders.

The lurid details of the SIPTU National Health and Local Authority Levy Fund scandal have been popping up in bits and pieces in the papers recently. The angle being taken in the media is one simply of more government waste, tax-payers money being flitted away by the public services, trade union fat-cats living it up with high-flying trips abroad etc etc.

Notably absent has been the most glaringly obvious aspect of the scandal: that Irish trade unions have been completely corrupted by government hand-outs under the guise of “partnership”. That during the “Celtic tiger years” Irish trade union leaders’ interests diverged strongly from that of the ordinary membership. That “partnership” and “benchmarking” significantly advanced the interests of the managerial class within the trade unions, while yielding miniscule cost-of-living pay increases for ordinary members in a time of rapid inflation. That these same union bosses need removal every bit as urgently as do the current crop of Irish political and financial leaders.

Of course, such a reading of the affair does not fit well with the ideology gripping the Irish media: that trade unions represent the interests of their lazy, cosseted members too well. The details of the SIPTU scandal have been coming out in dribs and drabs for a while and have been hard to fully appreciate. As a service to the trade union movement the Kerry Public Service Workers’ Alliance has put together the salient points of the scandal and what it says about the Irish union-government nexus and “social partnership”. The full story can be accessed at the link below.