TEEU warns Government ‘what we have we hold’ and will resist any attempt to implement on Bord Snip Nua cutbacks
July 21st, 2009.
The Country’s largest craft union, the 45,000 strong Technical Engineering and Electrical Union, has warned the Government that it will resist any attempt to slash social welfare payments or pay rates. The union’s executive gave its response to the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes today.
“During the boom years workers exercised a degree of moderation and discipline that was not, unfortunately, matched by bankers, speculators or developers”, The TEEU General Secretary Owen Wills said. “Now we want to give fair warning to the Government that we not intend meekly accepting the cuts proposed by a group of consultants who were themselves cheerleaders for the boom.
“Our members have done no more than secure increases over the past decade that were hard earned and, as far as we are concerned, what we have we hold.
“We are also determined to protect social welfare rates. IBEC, the CIF and ISME are queuing up to support cutbacks proposed in An Bord Snip and endorsing its claim that a five per cent cut in rates is justified by deflation of up to 4.7 per cent. But this deflation rate includes factors such as interest payments on mortgages, which do not affect most people on social welfare. When you exclude these items, the real drop in prices over the past year is less than two per cent.
“Proposals to slash Job Seekers benefit for young workers are also unfair, especially in the construction sector, where huge revenue was raised by the state in terms of income tax and PRSI contributions from workers. What is particularly regrettable is that many of these workers were forced into bogus self-employment by unscrupulous employers in the dying months of the boom to hang onto their jobs. When they were eventually let go they found that they had forfeited any right to Job Seekers Benefit, although they had been paying into the fund for years.
“On top of this, those with young families now find they could face cuts of 20 per cent in Child Benefit and higher charges for hospital treatment and medicine.
“Those of our members in the public service have already been hit by the income levy and the pension levy. The latter is particularly galling because they have to pay the pension levy on all their earnings, not just the element used to calculate their actual pensions.
“The last benchmarking report decided to allow 12 per cent of public sector pay to be taken into account when comparing rates with in the private sector because of superior occupational pension entitlements. But the irony is that where our members are concerned occupational pensions are higher in the analogue companies in the private sector against which their pay rates are determined.
“We see similar flawed thinking in relation to cutbacks in education and training. At a time when we urgently need to invest more in upskilling our workforce An Bord Snip wants to slash and burn. On the one hand it says subsidies to employers should be scrapped and at the same time it says funds should be taken from FÁS and given to a revamped Enterprise Ireland.
“The reality is that funds given to Enterprise Ireland will be channelled to employers anyway and used as a subsidy. At least if training funds were channelled through FÁS they would have to be spent on the purpose for which they are intended, enhancing the skills and qualifications of workers, including the tens of thousands joining the dole queues every month.
“Any Government claiming it is promoting a knowledge economy which opts for such an approach is going to bring its credibility into serious doubt where workers are concerned. We are putting the Government on notice that if it opts to follow the advice of An Bord Snip Nua and squeeze workers and the unemployed even harder, it will have a fight on its hands.”
