Flexploitation and the need for politically focused trade unionism

It was unusual to read a soundly argued and trenchant defence of the interests of public sector workers in the op-ed pages of this morning's Irish Times.  But there it was, a piece by UCD sociologist, SIPTU activist and Socialist Workers Party stalwart Kieran Allen.  His basic point is that the partnership deal is a bad one for trade unionists.  He attacks the neo liberal assumption "that the thriving, dynamic section of the economy lies in the private sector and that the public sector is a burden which, in the words of Charlie McCreevy, could break 'the back of the wealth creators'".  Also conveniently ignored is

how the public sector subsidises the private sector by providing it with an educated, healthy workforce and by picking up the costs which economists coldly label "externalities".  It might be equally argued that the private sector benefits from enormous levels of "corporate welfare" as the state taxes companies at rates that are significantly lower than those the average workers pays. It is not for nothing that Ireland is labelled the "Bermuda of Europe" in corporate circles.

Allen makes the point that you do not get quality public services by "flexploitiation".  The partnership proposals, he claims, rests on a fundamental imbalance between two parties claiming to be partners.  For instance

Employers can claim inability to pay wage increases if they can point to "loss of competitiveness", but workers cannot place extra "ability to pay" claims on companies who are making huge profits. In the public sector, increases are only granted "on verification of co- operation with flexibility and ongoing change" but there is no sanction on managers who refuse to engage in meaningful discussion with unions.

Allen concludes that the deal should be "sent back" and the negotiators told "to bring back an improved version that better reflects the contribution that workers have made to the Celtic Tiger".  Well there's no chance of that happening as the current crop of union leaders are so entirely committed to partnership that they can barely conceive of life outside its framework.  So how will union leaders ever be convinced that they should not just sign up to any deal for the sake of i?

For Allen the answer lies in revolutionary socialist politics; in The Celtic Tiger?: The Myth of Social Partnership in Ireland  he concludes

The employers rarely fight alone but increasingly bring the power of the state to bear on workers who defy their rule. All of this implies a need to move from economic struggles to a revolutionary challenge to the system as a whole. What is required is a political movement that starts from the struggles of today but links them to a strategy for overall change. Ironically, the Celtic Tiger has laid a new basis for this politics to emerge.

I am no supporter of Allen's brand of Trotskyist politics but he's by no means entirely wrong.  The state is not a neutral arbiter between employers and unions.  It is structurally disposed towards favouring business interests and the purpose of what George Taylor of NUI Galway calls "negotiated governance" that emerged in the late 1980s and 1990s was to create a stable political environment in which management was encouraged to innovate and reduce productive rigidities.  The Irish model of neo-corporatism has an outcome or effect that is more neo-liberal than social democratic. 

Trade unions can do a lot better in making their case.  Earlier this year the ICTU produced a document called "The case for a generous wage settlement" (available here).  It was impressively researched and capable of easily rebutting the simplistic nostrums of the economic journalism of Matt Cooper, Frank Fitzgibbon, Alan Ruddock et al.  But it was rare to hear trade union leaders articulate the argument in public via the media with any degree of confidence.  I would be happy to see  rank-and-file trade unionists take a more critical and politically sharper line on the whole question of partnership, not as a precursor to the emergence of a class conscious proletariat who will lead the revolutionary struggle through the vanguard party, the SWP.  As a class traitor social democrat, I would prefer a re-balancing of partnership rather than scrapping it altogether. 

Comments

[Simon]

how the public sector subsidises the private sector by providing it with an educated, healthy workforce and by picking up the costs which economists coldly label "externalities". Just because the public sector teachs people does not mean they should be in airlines.
Thing I have against social partnership is that is is un-democratic. People who are elected by a few dictate to all.

I agree on Matt cooper though poorly argued columns. I remember reading his column on Nuclear energy and it was so full o mistakes that i never read him again

[anon]

It's hilarious how the Left worldview is so often willing to accuse churches and religion in general of having an anti-democratic influence on politics, but it doesn't mind the influence of trade unions one little bit. Of course, it wants trade unions to have even more influence over government policy. How absurd. Socialism and the more traditional types of religion have embarrassingly more in common than they are willing to admit.