The Partnership talks are in deadlock and Bertie Ahern is doing his best to broker a last minute deal. Some have predicted that the failure to broker a deal will damage the Taoiseach politically. The ICTU are saying there's no point in making a deal just for the sake of it. An Irish Times leader recently concluded tentatively that partnership may have had its day. In fact there is very little enthusiasm in press commentary for another deal in comparison to a fair amount hostile opinion surrounding the very nature of partnership.
Typical of this position is Matt Cooper's piece in the Sunday Times. For Cooper, partnership is ideologically driven by the ICTU, is ill-judged and excessive and will impose unnecessary and damaging costs for business and he goes on to attempt to deconstruct the myth of partnership over the last couple of decades. The only people to benefit from partnership, he claims, are public sector workers "and the government should then benefit from their grateful votes at the next election".
In an Irish Times article on Saturday Marc Coleman discusses the core beliefs of the Fine Gael and Labour parties and the potential flashpoints if they win power. He draws attention to the National Employment Survey, published last week, which showed that public sector workers earn 40 per cent more than private sector workers. Coleman claims that this highlights a growing divide between the two sides of our economy, one of which is broadly aligned with Fine Gael and the other with Labour:
As the competitive and protected sectors of our economy square up to each other, Fine Gael and Labour may find that their respective constituents want very different approaches on questions such as public sector pay, privatisation and public sector reform.
This is typical of much commentary that seeks to expose divisions in the Irish workforce between the public and private sectors and then read off the supposed political consequences or effects of this. In Cooper's view public sector workers will all flock to Fianna Fáil at the polls in gratitude for brokering a partnership deal which secures their alleged privileges. Coleman speculates that "the time for a left-right realignment of Irish politics finally arrived" as if "the left" can be reduced to the public sector.
We have little evidence of the actual voting intentions of public sector workers compared to the rest of the electorate. The 40 per cent earnings differential is calculated on the basis of excluding professional and technical staff in the public sector. Just because somebody happens to work for a health board, state agency, government department or local authority does not mean that they do not share the same concerns as their fellow citizens. To argue otherwise would be an example of the worst kind of economism, a habit that certain types of Marxists were once prone and which seems to effect economic liberal ideologues in the media these days.
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