Statement by the Communist Party of Ireland
26 February 2013
The General Secretary of the Communist Party of Ireland, Eugene McCartan, commenting on the conclusion of the talks between the Government and the public-sector trade unions, described it as a dead end, a handcuffs and leg-irons deal for public-sector workers.
There is nothing in this deal for workers other than longer working hours, pay cuts, and a worsening of their terms and conditions. All for what? To pay an odious debt that does not belong to us, to bow and scrape and prostrate ourselves before the gods of the markets, and tug the forelock to the European Union.
If this deal goes through it will give a green light for further attacks on all working people, on the unemployed, pensioners, the weak, and the vulnerable.
He went on to condemn the leader of the Labour Party for attempting to prevent other political parties intervening in trade unions’ discussions and debates or to show solidarity with public-sector workers. This is rich coming from a party devoid of any understanding of the plight of working people, a party scrambling to save a collapsing and bankrupt economic system. The deal is seen as a lifeline for a bankrupt party. The majority who negotiated this deal on the trade union side are in fact senior members of the Labour Party.
What Gilmore, on behalf of the government, wants is to give the bosses’ media a clear field to bully and coerce public-sector workers into accepting this deal and to whip up the anti-union lobby to marginalise and break public-sector workers.
