How ICTU Failed US:For Election,Re-Election of General Secretaries

For Democratic Reform of Unions by Members from Within!
No Legislative Interference!
Introduction

The ongoing destruction of conditions of service established over decades under the Croke Park Deal threatens the very survival of trade unions.Now the ICTU President is reported as giving “qualified support” to the formation a new government which is committed to eliminating 25,000 public service jobs. Blair Horan,CPSU General Secretary and member of the Executive Council of ICTU, also spoke in favour of the Programme for Government on behalf of a branch of the Labour Party. Clerical officers represented by CPSU will be a key target for job elimination with consequent work overload for those remaining.
Will hundreds of thousands of members continue to pay dues to a body which has failed to protect them from pay cuts, “pension” levy, recruitment moratorium and which even offered up their existing conditions of service to government in December 2009? The answer is: not for very long unless there are major changes! One leading public service trade unionist has described the Croke Park Deal as “a suicide note by trade unions” .

The Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland has responsibility for ensuring prudence in banking. The Irish Banks borrowed and lent in recent years in a manner that has led to effective national bankruptcy. The General Secretary of ICTU, David Begg was a director or board member of the Central Bank for 15 years up to the middle of 2010. The General Secretary and the Executive Council of ICTU which he serves have a case to answer. The facts are set out here.
Social Partnership in recent has underpinned a systematic government policy of undermining the tax base through concessions to the super-rich and increased dependence on unstable transactional taxes based on a construction bubble. By their actions, ICTU leaders supported this neo-liberal policy despite the verbal warnings issued by it from time to time.
These policies pursued by trade union leaders preceded their historic capitulation in the Croke Park Deal and abject failure to protect members from recent budgets which heaped the burdens of recession on low and middle incomes and protected the rich.

At a minimum the general Secretary of ICTU, David Begg and ICTU President, Jack O’Connor should resign. Their track record undermines the ability of the trade union movement to lead a fight back against the impoverishment of members and of the majority of the population not to speak of the national humiliation and subordination to the international financiers represented by the IMF and the EU.

This pamphlet is based on a discussion which took place at the National Public Service Alliance meeting held in Teachers Club on Monday Nov 1. Material supporting the points made has been added by the author.
Among the conclusions drawn was that the contractual position of General Secretary must be fundamentally altered to provide for election, regular re-election and democratic removal from office for failure to pursue agreed union policy. This must be addressed immediately through rule changes at national trade union conferences. Other conclusions are also outlined at the end of this pamphlet.

The pamphlet gives examples of the many remunerations and funded trips abroad available to serving and retired trade union leaders arising out of appointments to public service posts and nomination to public boards by government. The number and extent of the rewards involved have hugely increased under “social partnership”.
The dependence of trade union officialdom on continued government agreement to Deduction at Source arrangements and on government funding of internal union education activities under “partnership” is discussed.

Is remaining within partnership arrangements irrespective of the policies and actions of government against members the over-riding principle determining the approach of the caste of general secretaries who control the trade union movement? Readers will be in a position to give an answer to this question after reading this book.

The unions affiliated to ICTU represent over 600,000 members in Ireland. It is by far the biggest civil society group in the country. Despite recent reverses, it has the potential to wield devastating power in resisting employers and governments acting for the wealthy. Such action was never more necessary as government and opposition agree to intensify the process of loading the problems arising from the delinquency of the rich and of the government on the poor and middle income earners. This is being done with the full backing of the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission. For example, the success of the recent Claiming our Future initiative is heavily dependent on the restoration of trade unions as accountable fighting organisations free of dependence on government.

The abject failure of the leadership of Irish trade unions, which essentially resides in general secretaries, to protect the pay and working conditions of members, the level of welfare benefits and public services provision, is outlined and discussed.

Recent Major Retreats by General Secretaries (ICTU)

• Refusal to offer any significant resistance other than verbal opposition to removal of the Christmas bonus and the imposition of benefit reductions on social welfare recipients by government

• Support for neo-liberal or Thatcherite government policies through “social partnership” which led to an economic collapse throwing an additional 350,000 out of work and forcing tens of thousands to emigrate

• Consenting to a recruitment ban or moratorium which is devastating public services including health, education, social care and many other essential services

• Acquiescing to cuts in public service pay

• Acquiescing to a “pension levy” on all public servants which is a selective and discriminatory tax

• Offering huge worsening of conditions of service of public servants and “temporary” pay cuts for all public servants to Government in December 2009, in return for government agreement to make pay cuts “temporary”.

• Conceding the right to government (for the first time in Ireland and the UK) to make permanent public servants redundant in talks leading to Croke Park Deal

• Calling off the campaign of stoppages and demonstrations in support of ICTU Economic and Social policy- “There is a Better Fairer Way” before entering into negotiations that led to the “Croke Park Deal”

• After Budget 2011, acquiescing to cuts in public service pensions, a reduction in pay and huge worsening of pensions of incoming public servants, reductions in social welfare payments and increased taxation of low and middle incomes.

Letter by Shay Cody —Chair Public Services Committee ICTU and Gen Sec IMPACT to Dail Deputies

The above series of events represents a historic retreat by the caste of general secretaries and senior full-time officials which form the executive council of ICTU and its Public Services Negotiating Committee. Shay Cody, successor to Peter McClune as General Secretary of the biggest public service union IMPACT recently (Nov 2010) wrote a letter to Dail deputies. Shay Cody is also Chair of the Public Services Committee of ICTU. The content of the letter is indicative of the extent of the retreat which the IMPACT leadership is willing to countenance.

Date 17 November 2010 18:25
Subject Croke Park Agreement
Dear Deputy,
I am writing as general secretary of Ireland’s largest public service trade union to briefly update you on the ongoing implementation of the Croke Park agreement and related reforms, which are essential to help meet the challenges currently facing Ireland.
You may be aware that the Minister for Finance recently met officers of the ICTU Public Services Committee and confirmed that the Government remains committed to the agreement, on the understanding that it will quickly deliver substantial savings and reforms. Leaders of the main opposition parties have also given public support to the agreement on the understanding that it will deliver substantial savings and reforms.
On foot of this, union representatives on the Croke Park national implementation body, including myself, have continued to press management for tangible proposals that either:
• Produce savings
• Avoid future costs
• Bring service improvements and/or
• Deliver quantifiable efficiency improvements.

Departmental action plans for reform, which are required under the agreement, have now been produced across the public service and these include real measures that will deliver savings or maintain services as substantial savings are made though the public service recruitment moratorium and other staff reductions.
I have personally pressed management very hard to ensure that the agreement is implemented quickly, effectively and transparently to deliver the savings necessary to avoid further cuts in public service pay and to ensure that the agreed reforms deliver on the objective of protecting and prioritising services as budgets and staffing levels continue to fall. The staff redeployment measures agreed under Croke Park are particularly significant in this regard.
As well as the pay cuts of 2009 and 2010, big ticket changes that will produce huge savings have so far included:
• Staff reductions of over 11,000 in the last 18 months with more to come
• The newly-announced scheme to reduce health staff numbers by 5,000 through voluntary redundancies
• The abolition of 25 agencies, with more to come
• A halving in the number of VECs
• The introduction of new pension arrangements for new recruits to the public service
• The implementation of other changes put forward in sectoral action plans, which will collectively result in very significant changes.

None of these measures has so far led to significant reductions in service provision.
I would be happy to give you more detailed information on the ongoing implementation of the Croke Park agreement, or to respond to your specific questions on related developments. You can contact me by emailing Bernard Harbor at bharbor@impact.ie.
Yours sincerely
Seamus Cody
General Secretary
IMPACT trade union
Hard pressed public servants including hospital staff will find the statement by Cody “None of these measures has so far led to significant reductions in service provision” absolutely astounding.

There is a Trident Consultancy Report to the three teaching unions which analyses the proposed Pension Scheme for New Entrants to the Public Service which is included in “big ticket changes that will produce huge savings” mentioned by Shay Cody in his letter. The Report concludes that the return from the compulsory pension scheme will be less than the employee contribution unless the pensioner lives beyond 95 years. In effect there will be no employer contribution, a circumstance which is contrary to law in private sector pensions. Incidentally, there will be no savings for government for 47 years when the pensions are due to be paid.

Clearly the IMPACT leader has agreed to this outrageous scheme.
After Budget 2011
I have distributed the Email message below to activists in the National Public Services Alliance 14/12/2010: Subject: ICTU, Most Unions silent on Pension Cut

Only IFUT and TUI proposed doing anything about Public Sector Pension Cuts. INTO and INMO mentioned the cuts in statements. There was no mention of the cuts on Websites of the following bodies: ICTU, SIPTU, ASTI, CPSU, PSEU, IMPACT.
While INTO, ASTI, TUI are running a campaign against the pension rip-off of new public servants announced in the Budget, there is no mention of this issue by the silent unions above.
It is believed that ICTU has refused to oppose the new “pension Scheme” which is in effect a tax because the individual gets less out than was contributed unless he/she lives to 95 (Trident Report to Teaching Unions).
There is no proposal by any union to do anything about the pay cut for new entrants to the public service. This decision breaches a whole range of existing industrial relations agreements and agreed circular letters.
Was there a Secret Deal between Government and the General Secretaries Group called ICTU?
It is already widely believed that the government intends to take our conditions of service under the Croke Park Deal and to cut our pay again when this process is completed. The Review of the Croke Park Deal in conjunction with IMF/EU in 9 months time which was recently announced lends credence to this belief.
Minister Lenihan met an ICTU delegation before the Budget. He assured them that there would not be a new cut in public service pay in the budget.
Was there a quid pro quo? Did ICTU agree a whole range of “savings” at the expense of public servants. No action of any kind was proposed at the mass demonstration sponsored by ICTU (before budget)
In addition to the matters mentioned above several other budgetary measures reduced the public service pay bill as I pointed out- –

There was much protestation by ICTU against the cut in the minimum wage and Claiming our Future organised a petition against it. But ICTU has made no proposal to oppose it through any form of industrial action. A proposal by UNITE The UNION for a campaign of industrial action against the budget was sidelined by the ICTU executive council.

No general secretary has sought to effectively and persistently oppose the range of concessions by ICTU outlined above.
This suggests that the fundamental problem is not one of individual leaders, however compliant or determined they may be in representing members. It resides in the current role of general secretaries in individual unions and the related composition of the executive council of ICTU. Members, through ballots, through national congresses, through election of executive members, have negligible effective control over general secretaries for reasons outlined further on in this document.

Some of the items in the bullet points above need further elaboration. This is particularly so as ICTU leaders have recently attempted to disclaim any responsibility for the current economic collapse.
ICTU “explanations” are carried below.

ICTU Defends its Record

Firstly, we read the following in the recent ICTU pre-budget submission:
“Congress in Social Partnership, Not in Government” ( ICTU Pre-Budget Submission, Autumn2010)
“Some people seem to really believe that Congress, as one of the Social Partners in Ireland, is actually part of the Government. Thus they think Congress sets policy and so we must share in the blame for the bust. Not so. Congress makes submissions to Government and discusses them with officials.”

Contribution of SIPTU President, Jack O’Connor can be heard in full on the ICTU Website as he chaired the Lord Skidelsky lecture. Click here http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10161557#utm_campaigne=synclickback&source=deniedbyhost&medium=10161557
Or http://www.ictu.ie/

David Begg, ICTU General Secretary, made his contribution at the TASC Conference which was covered in Irish Times on Monday October 25 by Reporter Marie O’Halloran. Click here http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/1025/1224281952146.html

Jack O’Connor said that the mistake that was made was to give members to understand that election outcomes could be balanced by social partnership. The unions did not do enough to ensure that “the best Minister for Finance in the history of the state, Rory Quinn”, remained in power. The clear implication was that there was nothing wrong with social partnership itself either in conception or content.

David Begg blamed the people not the General Secretaries.
“Irish people are not the same as French people,” he said. “Irish people are much more conservative. Social democracy has never taken root in Ireland.”
He said “most Irish workers would not thank me for creating havoc in Ireland as they would see it.”
It was “absolutely important for any trade union movement, if it purports to lead social movements, to align itself as far as it can with what the people of the country are willing to do.”
He said if trade unions pushed “what is perceived by the population to be a narrow class interest beyond what is good for the whole population, what you will create is a fascist backlash”.-Irish Times, Monday, October 25

ICTU and the Central Bank

“In domestic legislation the legal basis for the role of the CBFSAI (Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland)in this field (in addition to the Eurosystemderivedrole) is set out in the Central Bank Act, 1997:Part II — Regulation of Payment Systems. In addition,Section 7 of the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland Act, 2003 includes the objective of ‘‘promoting the efficient and effective operation of payment and settlement systems’’.————————————-
At a domestic level, regulation (or ‘oversight’) of payment systems is principally aimed at promoting the orderly functioning of such systems, thereby minimising systemic risk in order to protect the banking system as a whole from the possible ‘domino effects’ that could occur if one or more of the credit institutions participating in a payment system were to encounter credit or liquidity problems.” Paul O Brien, Deputy Head of Payments & Securities Settlements Department, Central Bank, Financial Stability Report 2004

ICTU General Secretary, David Begg was a director and member of the board of the Central Bank from 12/05/95 until recent months (2010), a period of 15years. His tenure covered the period between 2003 and 2008 when that body allowed banks to borrow huge sums abroad which have now led to the insolvency of all major banks.

Before he became governor of the Central Bank, Professor Honohan in Economic and Social Review (Summer 2009) said:“Irish banking system had been, in effect, on a life-support system since September 2008.—-.Complacency resulted in the banks fuelling the late stage of an obvious construction bubble with massive foreign borrowing, leaving them exposed to solvency and liquidity risks which in past times would have been inconceivable–At the end of 2003, net indebtedness of Irish banks to the rest of the world was just 10 per cent of GDP. By early 2008 that had jumped to over 60 per cent”

In the 2007 report, issued at year end, the then governor, John Hurley said in his foreword: “However,Irish banks have negligible exposure to the sub-prime sector and they remain relatively healthy by the standard measures of capital, profitability and asset quality. This has been confirmed by the stress testing exercises we have carried out with the banks”. Begg did not issue a dissenting minority report. We are unaware of any explanation by David Begg or by the Executive Council of ICTU which he serves. He has recently(2010) been replaced on the Board of the Central Bank by Des Geraghty, former General President of SIPTU.

Extracts from recent Central Bank Reports are carried below. The report issued at end 2007 has particular relevance due to its proximity to the emergence of the banking crisis.
Central Bank Report 2009–Extracts

“The Board has overall responsibility for the system of internal financial control in the Bank, which is
designed to safeguard the assets of the Bank and to prevent and detect fraud and other irregularities.
To discharge this responsibility, the Board has established an appropriate organisational structure.
In this regard, the Audit Committee of the Board meets periodically with the Internal and External
Auditors and members of the Management of the Bank to discuss control issues, financial reporting
and related matters. The Internal and External Auditors have full access to the Audit Committee.”

————————————————————————————–

Membership
Audit Committee/Audit and Risk Management Committee 2009
David Begg (Chair), Alan Gray, Deirdre Purcell,
Gerard Danaher, Alan Ashe.
————————————————————————————-

Extracts From Central Bank Report 2007
The of the Board as at 30 April
Governor’s Foreword

The Irish financial sector was, of course, impacted like all others by these global developments. Medium- to long-term funding was not as readily available on wholesale markets as had been the case. However,
Irish banks have negligible exposure to the sub-prime sector and they remain relatively healthy by the standard measures of capital,profitability and asset quality. This has been confirmed by the stress testing exercises we have carried out with the banks.—–

I would like to thank Patrick Neary, Chief Executive of the Financial Regulator and all his team for their ongoing cooperation and support.
Finally, I pay special tribute to all the management and staff of the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland for rising to, and meeting, the challenging times we faced in 2007.
John Hurley
Governor
(Financial Regulator, Patrick Neary has recently (2009) taken early retirement.—“ In recent months, he had come under heavy fire for not stress-testing the banking sector hard enough, downplaying the risk of rising bad debts on substantial property loans and, most recently, his handling of the directors’ loans controversy at Anglo Irish Bank.”-Irish Times, January 10, 2010)
——————————————

“Stress-Tests of the Domestic Banking Sector
A key tool used to inform our assessment of the strength of the banking system is
stress testing, whereby banks assess their resilience to plausible, but extreme,
economic scenarios. During the year, the Bank continued to develop its stress testing
procedures and participated in two Eurosystem task forces on stress
testing. This afforded an opportunity to benchmark our approach in this area
against methodologies used internationally. The results of a ‘top-down’ stress test
were published in the Financial Stability Report 2007. The results of that exercise,
notwithstanding some important caveats,suggested that the banking sector’s shock
absorption capacity remains strong.”—John Hurley, Governor
————————————————————————————————
Membership
Audit Committee 2007
David Begg (Chair), Martin
O’Donoghue, Deirdre Purcell*,Alan Ashe**
————————————————————————-
“The Internal Audit Department independently and systematically reviews the controls in place and reports
to the Board Audit Committee on a regular basis. The Audit Committee approves the Internal Audit Plan
and work programme. In addition, the Audit Committee meets with and receives reports from both external
auditors. The Chairman of the Audit Committee reports to the Board on all significant issues considered by the Committee and the minutes of meetings of the Audit Committee are circulated to the Board for consideration at subsequent meetings of the Board.
The Board-level Committee structures have been designed so that the Board and the Irish Financial
Services Regulatory Authority work closely together to ensure that their respective obligations in relation to the control of expenditure and the management of operational risk are managed within a consistent and complete framework.
I can confirm that the Board reviewed the effectiveness of the system of internal financial controls during the year ended 31 December 2007.”
John Hurley, Governor David Begg, Director 17 June 2008
SOCIAL WELFARE CUTS
On simple grounds of human solidarity it was most regrettable that ICTU did not launch a huge campaign of resistance to such cuts. In addition, it was clear that increasing numbers of union members were being thrown out of work and would be subjected to such cuts.
Cuts in social welfare undermine wages as impoverished workers are forced to accept work at low rates. This is one of the reasons why trade unions have traditionally opposed lowering of welfare rates. How could trade unions appeal to the public to defend their members against pay cuts if the poorest of the poor were being cut?
The abolition of the Christmas bonus had been announced in summer 2009. It was an open secret that cuts in social welfare were due in the budget. The neglect of the trade union leaders on this issue had a direct effect on the ability of the government to impose direct pay cuts on public servants. When trade union leaders offered “temporary pay cuts” in December 2009, there was unrest among Fianna Fail backbenchers. This was mainly because they had been told by Ministers that there would be permanent cuts in social welfare rates in the budget due within days. How could they defend the welfare cuts to constituents if public service pay was not to suffer similar cuts? This facilitated the Government in rejecting the capitulatory offer by union leaders of “temporary pay cuts” and the four sectoral documents containing huge worsening of conditions of service of public servants. ( see PETER McLOONE , Chairperson Public Services Committee, ICTU, IrishTimes,Tue, Dec 08, 2009)
The government promptly pocketed the worsening of conditions offer to pick it up later in Croke Park Deal and made straight cuts in public service pay. The government was cheered on by employer bodies and the very rich as these cuts made it easier to cut pay in the private sector. (The recent Labour Court recommendation that statutory minimum pay rates in the construction sector be reduced is a direct result.) How could experienced negotiators on the trade union side allow themselves to be trapped like this? If it was their own pay and conditions they were negotiating, would they fall into such a trap? They wished to stay in a partnership type relationship with government. They knew that they could evade accountability for their actions and unfortunately they were right.

ICTU “Not Responsible” For False Boom and Real Bust?
Statements by ICTU leaders including the statement that they were in “partnership not in government” are carried above. ICTU can also point to various warnings by ICTU to government about the dangers of the property bubble and other aspects of government policy.
The important thing is what the ICTU did, not what it said. Like politicians, trade union leaders have become adept at “spinning” words to cover their tracks.
Social Partnership Agreements were not merely about pay. They were agreements on general economic and social policy. The Towards 2016 Agreement concluded in 2006 at the height of the false boom was such a strategic plan for ten years. The actions to be taken under the Agreement were:
“With monetary policy set by the European Central Bank, macroeconomic policy is now essentially concerned with management of the public finances, incomes policy and structural reform. The key principles referred to, particularly sustainability and prudent fiscal policy, will guide the management of the public finances.
The following strategies will be pursued within the Government’s budgetary and economic framework:
A Fiscal Policy which will provide sufficient room for manoeuvre to meet our obligations in the event of an economic downturn;
Page 5
Government capital investment ratio in the order of 5% of GNP, to provide the level of investment required to tackle the economy’s infrastructural deficit;
Taxation Policy designed to maintain and strengthen the competitive position of the economy, foster improvements in productive capacity, economic and social development, and equity, while maintaining a sound fiscal stance. The Government will seek to maintain a tax policy at EU level that fosters economic growth and employment, without the requirement of tax harmonisation at all levels;
A Public expenditure profile that reflects the growth in the economy, provides for investment in a sustainable way in public services, and a public expenditure allocation and management system that optimises value for money, including implementation of public procurement reforms.” T2016.pdf (ICTU Website)

Clearly the actions above were actions of government to which ICTU was assenting for ten years.
The sections were drafted to include words which IBEC, ICTU and Government could “spin” to their respective audiences.
For example fostering “equity” in taxation is buried in the middle of the Taxation Policy action. This would serve to verbally cover the rear end of the General Secretaries. The reality was that the government was making huge tax concessions to the rich and pursuing a fiscal policy of undermining the reliable income tax base and replacing the shortfall with unstable transactional taxes on house sales. It is ironic to note the agreed action: “A Fiscal Policy which will provide sufficient room for manoeuvre to meet our obligations in the event of an economic downturn” in the light of the recent fiscal collapse.

The absence of an insistence on specific changes in fiscal policy by ICTU means that it was assenting to a continuation of the neo-liberal or Thatcherite policy that led to the bust. The income gap between rich and poor in Ireland was among the worst in the world. Yet there is not a specific measure by taxation or otherwise to address this matter. PD ministers McDowell and Harney were openly lauding the concept of income inequality to foster enterprise.
Clearly the agreement to foster tax equity was totally hypocritical on all sides and the commitment was akin to the charity that covereth a multitude of sins.
In the context of government practice at the time, it is clear ICTU assented in practice to the totally neo-liberal right wing government policy of the day. The failure of David Begg, then on the board of the Central Bank, to blow the whistle on the grossly excessive borrowing by banks which was being permitted by the Central Bank must be seen in this context.

National Economic and Social Council (NESC)
This partnership body provides research and analysis which underpins partnership agreements. At the height of the false boom in 2006, current ICTU president Jack O’Connor and the ICTU general secretary were on the council together with their economic advisers. There was no mention in the Report of the NESC (2006) of over-borrowing by banks though ICTU, Business and the Department of Finance are represented on the board of the Central Bank as well as on the NESC. Though the report did point to risks arising from a downturn in house prices and an international economic downturn, the overall prognosis for the economy was positive.

In Chapter 1 of the Report, it is stated: “The public finances are in a healthy position. The slowdown in the growth of current public expenditure that occurred was consistent with the recommendations of the Council. However, the reductions in public capital expenditure in 2003 and 2004 differed from what was recommended by the Council. These cuts will be partially reversed with the large budgeted increase in expenditure in 2005.”
In fact the tax base had been undermined over the years by concessions to the rich and revenue was unduly dependent on transactional property taxes such as stamp duty. The public finances were “an accident waiting to happen”. Yet the trade union leaders assented to this Report. There was no dire warning about imminent collapse in banking and public finances. Indeed government was entitled to conclude that its economic policy had been endorsed by the social partners. The government through several General Secretaries of departments of state, who sit on the NESC, assented to the Report together with the ICTU leaders. (Incidentally, the professors of the state economic research agency, ESRI, also assented to the Report!!)
ICTU Pre-Budget Submission (2011)
Some aspects of the current ICTU pre-budget submission are very useful(Pre-budget submission, ICTU website). It is shown in the submission that income inequality Ireland is worse than in 21 of the 30 OECD countries and also: “ Irish earnings, wage rates and salaries are still below those in most competitor countries.2 The total cost of employing workers in Ireland is well below the cost in nearly all developed competitor countries. Total labour costs in Ireland are 22nd lowest out of 30 OECD developed countries.3 ——However, it is seldom mentioned that Ireland’s productivity — was 2nd highest in the world after Norway and ahead of the US in 2006 and will still be close to the top performers. Even adjusting for Transfer Price Fixing by multinationals, it will still be in the top 10 countries in the world.
Total current public expenditure in Ireland– was cut from 40.2% of GDP back in 1994 to 30.2% in 2007, according to the EU Commission. The average in Europe also fell in the EU 15 from 46.2% in 1994 to 42.5% – a drop of almost 4%.
So was Irish day to day spending “out of control”? The answer is no.
Further, according to the European Commission, “Final consumption expenditure by general government” in Ireland is much lower than in most other EU states. In 2007, it was 16% of GDP compared to 23.1 in France, 25.1 in the Netherlands, 22.2% in Belgium or 20.5 in EU15 and the same in EU27. So the evidence is that IRISH PUBLIC SPENDING IS LOW compared to other countries in Europe. It is at the same level as the US by this criterion—
Indeed, the Commission on Taxation report contains a table (page 54) outlining just how unequal income distribution is. And this is based only on disclosed income. It shows that 8500 persons or ‘tax units’ earned over €275,000 in 2006 – a total of €5.8bn. On this total they paid just €1.9bn in tax on income. Indeed the combined income of these high-earners equalled that of 165,000 earners further down the earnings scale.”

While this information is useful, it does not occur to ICTU that the existence of gross income inequality, hugely inequitable taxation and low wages is an indication of abject failure of the ICTU approach after 23 years of so-called social partnership!!!
The collapse of state finances and the banking system merely confirms this failure

The Perks of Social Partnership
Recent hearings before the Public Accounts Committee have highlighted mismanagement and “junketing” at FAS and the unbelievable story of the National Health and Local Authority Levy Fund to which large lodgements were made by HSE and Local Authorities. Though two prominent SIPTU members were signatories to the account, SIPTU has stated that it had no knowledge of the fund. It is alleged that 31 foreign trips in which union officials and state officials participated were financed from the fund. The hearings continue. One of the Reports of the PAC Hearings which appeared in the Irish Times is worth reading in full
Public money controlled by Siptu officials funded 31 trips
COLM KEENA, Irish Times Fri, Oct 08, 2010
OVERSEAS TRAVEL: PUBLIC MONEY controlled by two senior Siptu officials was used to pay for at least 31 foreign trips over the past six years, the Dáil Committee on Public Accounts heard yesterday.
An inquiry by HSE auditor Dr Geraldine Smith has resulted in 29 people being identified as having gone on 31 trips, some of them on multiple occasions. The people involved are civil and public servants and trade union officials.
Dr Smith said that because the fund controlled by Matt Merrigan and Jack Kelly was used for the trips, the HSE had no related documentation. She had established some of the details from interviews with HSE and other personnel and other methods.
The money in the account controlled by the Siptu officials came from the budget of the Skill programme, which was designed to provide training to low-paid health sector workers.
Mr Merrigan and Mr Kelly are believed to have travelled on a number of the trips. They and others travelled to New York in March 2004 and Boston in March 2007. Mr Merrigan travelled to New York in January 2005, March 2006, February 2007 and May 2008.
Alan Smith, who ran the Skill programme, travelled on 22 trips according to a list produced by Dr Geraldine Smith. One trip in October 2008 was to the US, Australia, Hong Kong and the UK. Mr Smith has since availed of the public service severance package.
Pat Harvey, the former chief executive of the North Western Health Board, Peter McLoone, the former head of Impact, Kevin Callinan of Impact, and Peter Bunting of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, are among those listed as having travelled on trips paid for by the fund.
Mr McLoone is listed as having travelled to Boston in 2007 and Mr Harvey to New York in March 2006. The committee was told the HSE had some information as to the purpose of the visits, but it had no formal written records of the purpose and outcomes of the trips. This was because they were organised through the fund controlled by the Siptu officials.
The secretary general of the Department of Health, Michael Scanlan, said his department had identified trips on which officials had travelled funded by the account. Some were additional to those listed by Dr Smith.
He said an official had gone to Vancouver, Canada, in March 2003. Bernard Carey of the department had gone on a “partnership visit” to New York from March 13th to 20th, 2004.
Three officials had gone to St Paul, Minnesota in September 2004. In March 2005, Frank Ahern had gone on a trip to the US and Australia and in March 2008, by which time he was retired, he had gone to Savannah, Georgia. In March 2005, Eddie Flood had gone to New York.
In March 2006, an official had gone on an employer/union study visit to New York. Mr Carey had gone to New York between March 13th and 23rd, 2007. In October 2008, Jim Breslin, an assistant secretary at the department, had gone to Australia. Mr Breslin was at yesterday’s meeting.
In March 2009, Mr Carey and Mr Ahern had gone to New York. Mr Carey is also an assistant secretary in the department. Some officials brought their wives with them on some trips, but paid for them out of their own resources.
The committee also heard that an official from the Department of Finance, Tom Dowling, had gone on eight out of the 31 trips identified by Dr Smith. Five of these were to the UK and three to the US. Mr Dowling retired in October 2009.
Some of the costs incurred on the trips were subsequently recouped unvouched through Skill by the Siptu officials, Dr Smith said in her audit report on the matter.
© 2010 The Irish Times

We also read in Irish Independent Oct 7, 2010
“SIPTU official got €1,000 a day from HSE’s €2.35m slush fund
By Eilish O’Regan and Ann Marie Walsh,
Irish Independent, October 07 2010
A FORMER trade union boss was entitled to fees of up to €1,000 a day for chairing each meeting of the group overseeing the controversial state training scheme for health workers, the Irish Independent has learned.
SIPTU’s Billy Attley chaired the steering group for the €60m ‘Skill’ training scheme, which will be at the centre of a hearing by the Dail Committee on Public Accounts today.
A damning internal Heath Service Executive (HSE) audit has found that €2.35m paid into a SIPTU account to administer the scheme was poorly accounted for, with money lavished on foreign study trips, taxis and a private pension.
The union announced last night that it had lodged €348,000 with the Commissioner for Oaths “in good faith”. This is equal to a sum that the auditors found could not be accounted for.
A SIPTU spokesman again insisted that the account was not in the control of the union. But he said the union had told the HSE it would reimburse any expenses that could not be properly accounted for.
Expenses
Mr Attley, who was appointed to the chair in 2004, told this newspaper he was entitled to up to €1,000 for chairing each meeting, but only claimed half that for half-day meetings held every second month.
Mr Attley said he was also entitled to unspecified expenses that he did not claim.
The audit report showed that he had been paid €26,750 up to the end of 2009.
He rejected claims that the steering group was at fault for not monitoring the €2.35m fund, saying its brief was to approve training programmes.
“We had no control over finance. We had no role in that area — that was the responsibility of the HSE,” he added.
The report revealed yet more waste of the €2.35m. It found :
The Skill office clocked up service costs of €526,444, none of which were tendered for.
• One journey involved a taxi from Dublin to Kilkenny, a wait for the client and a return to Dublin at a cost of €432.
• Another involved a journey from St James’s Hospital in Dublin to Tullamore, returning to the capital via Louth and Dublin Airport, at a cost of €544.
In evidence to the audit committee, one of the union officials with access to the account said the Department of Health gave him the grant with no guidelines or terms and conditions as to how the money should be spent.”
- Eilish O’Regan and Ann Marie Walsh

Funding of Trade Union Education by Government
Trade union education and training activities became heavily dependent on state funding under partnership. An example is set out in the press report below from the Irish Examiner. When activists questioned such dependency in the past, they were routinely told that the funding had “no strings attached”
We were soon to learn otherwise!
“Fás fund paid out €4.5m to two unions
By Conor Ryan, Political Correspondent
Irish Examiner, Monday, September 06, 2010
A MASSIVE €4.5 million was paid out to SIPTU and ICTU from the misspent Fás training package which has caused the European Commission to withhold €57m in social funding.
However, the main union involved has said the benefits it received from this training fund, the Competency Development Programme (CDP), had nothing to do with its vociferous defence of the continued existence of Fás after news of Europe’s actions broke.

At the weekend Jack O’Connor, president of SIPTU and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said Ruairí Quinn of the Labour Party was “completely wrong in his call for closing down Fás”.

Mr Quinn had made his comments after the Department of Education confirmed the last round of European social funding (2000-2006) worth €57m had been withheld and the next tranche (2007-2013), worth €211m is frozen, pending an audit of how Fás spent the money.

A major part of this was the CDP, which was focused on programmes for workers who wanted to up-skill.

The commission has already said Ireland had “serious questions to answer” in how Fás paid out money to a multitude of private companies to provide training.

Since 2004 SIPTU College received €2.06m from Fás under the CDP. ICTU was paid €2.46m. In 2008 alone SIPTU College was paid €862,644 and ICTU received €1,338,064.

These figures were published by website The Story.ie.”

These revelations have raised questions about the relationship between senior trade union officials and government under partnership
In the next section, we set out the remunerations of general secretaries including salaries, pensions and fees from state bodies.

Pay and other Incomes of General Secretaries

General secretaries (General Presidents in SIPTU) are normally paid in accordance with the salaries of the highest grades in the civil service. While practices differ across unions, a small public sector union would typically pay its general secretary on the assistant secretary scale reaching €147,036 in the fourth year of service. The salaries of the general secretaries of the bigger unions would typically relate to the higher Deputy General Secretary and Secretary General scales below. While unions must purchase pensions in the private sector, the pensions in payment are roughly similar to equivalent public service pensions. Despite the salary equivalences, salaries of general secretaries were generally not cut in accordance with the public service pay cut effective from Jan 1, 2010.
Revised pay with effect from 1 March 2008 for General Service Grades.
Circular 5/2008 – Appendix 1A

ASSISTANT SECRETARY
€128,535 €134,378 €140,707 €147,036
DEPUTY SECRETARY
€173,217
SECRETARY GENERAL
€216,516
Senator Shane Ross and Nick Webb of the Sunday Independent have authored a book called “Wasters” (2010). They are hostile to the trade union movement and they wish that social partnership should be replaced by an even more neo-liberal system.
They continually peddle the myth that the first benchmarking award for middle earners in the public service was excessive at 8.9%. In fact public servants had not received any catch up award with their established private sector comparators for the previous 9 years and the award was far less than adequate to bridge the gap.
Senators,TDs, Ministers and general secretaries did benefit hugely from the separate benchmarking of higher grades to chief executives of private companies. For example, the maximum of the assistant secretary grade in the civil service increased from E95,487 in 2003 to E147,036 in 2008, an increase of over E50,000!! Increases for higher grades were even larger.
However the Chapter on the “Social Partnership Industry” is interesting and it is worth remembering that it has been scrutinised for vulnerability to libel action by the authors’ legal team. While NPSA dissociates from the elitist denigration of the humble beginnings of trade union leaders and even their personal appearance in the right wing narrative, the financial facts cited appear to be correct. A general secretary in service would receive the remunerations mentioned below in addition to salary, while a retired general secretary would receive the remunerations in addition to pension

Extracts from “The Social Partnership Industry”, Wasters, Nick Webb and Shane Ross
A brief flavour of the Chapter entitled “The Social Partnership Industry” is included here:
“Meanwhile, nearly all the top union leaders were landing handy part-time state positions. Peter McLoone, boss of the public-service union IMPACT, not only held the chair at FAS for €24,000 a year but was appointed a director of the Labour Relations Commission at €14,000 a year. Senator Joe O’Toole finished up his term as president of ICTU, only to find himself on the board of the Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority at around €9,000 a year and as the ICTU nominee on the Personal Injuries Assessment Board at a fee rising to €14,000 in 2008. Christy Kirwan, formerly head of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, had earlier totted up several other semi-state board posts including Aer Rianta and the chair of FAS; he even landed a Taoiseach’s nomination to the Senate courtesy of Labour leader Dick Spring as far back as 1983.
SIPTU’s Patricia King, another loyal survivor of the 2002 PVGs, notched up lucrative terms on the RTE Authority and the National Roads Authority. Hardly a union leader with a partnership pedigree was forgotten.
One particularly useful vehicle for rewarding social-partnership veterans in the twilight of their careers was the office of rights com¬missioner. Rights commissioners were creatures of the Labour Relations Commission, established under partnership deals to pro¬mote the improvement of industrial relations’. The LRC’s first chief was Kieran Mulvey – a former general secretary of the powerful teachers union ASTI – who in 1989 had sought a nomination for Fianna Fail in the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown constituency; its board included not only Peter McLoone and Peter Bunting of ICTU but also Brendan McGinty of IBEC. Rights commissioners were appointed to investigate workers’ grievances under various acts of the Oireachtas. By 2008 their number had expanded to fifteen after a promise made to ICTU in the most recent partnership agreement, “Towards 2016″. In April 2010 the Rights Commissioner Service admitted to us that in 2009 each commissioner was paid a per diem fee of Euro 470
The spokesman also noted, incomprehensibly, that most commissioners `work a five-day-week basis, others choose to operate a lesser regime in terms of availability’. Those who work the five days get €2,350 a week for their trouble, comfortably exceeding €100,000 a year——–“
(As hearings are held all over the state expenses are significant—PH)
—————————————————————————————————————-
“He (Des Geraghty) had been on the board of FAS, the national training and employment agency, for nearly ten years.
For nearly twenty years, eight seats on the board of FAS were reserved for the favourite sons of the big employers and the unions. The chairmanship of the board – with its €24,000 salary – rotated between a top boss at the big employers’ outfit, IBEC, and a union chief. Geraghty was one of the insiders who drew € 14,000 a year for the privilege of sitting comfortably beside so many other `social partners’.Four months after the UCD conferral, FAS would be exposed as a hotbed of waste, junketry and mismanagement. A year later, at the end of 2009, the entire seventeen-member board of FAS, including Geraghty, was forced to exit, some exposed as junketeers, others (like Geraghty) simply ineffective.
In 2005 a little quango called the Affordable Homes Partnership (AHP) was created under the terms of the most recent social-partnership agree¬ment. The Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, offered the chair to Geraghty, who accepted. The chairman’s fee was settled at €13,000. Geraghty received only €8,000 in 2005 because it was a short year, but the quango paid him €30,000 in 2006, another €30,000 in 2007 and €25,000 in 2008.——— Add that to his fee at FAS, his pension as general secretary of SIPTU and other perks, such as a sti¬pend from his post as chairman of the Irish Print and Packaging Forum, and an observer might conclude that Geraghty has been in the right place at the right time.”
(Des Geraghty was recently appointed to the Board of the Central Bank to replace ICTU General Secretary, David Begg–PH)

“Billy Attley was one of the first social-partnership quangsters. He retired as general secretary of S I P T U at the age of sixty in 1998, hav¬ing helped to deliver four partnership deals to Fianna Fail governments. He was picked by Bertie Ahern as one of the original trade-union directors of FAS, and served for years alongside his pal, chairman John Lynch, and another trade unionist, Christy Kirwan. There is no known record of a moment’s discord on this chummiest of boards. Billy Attley had torn himself away from the joys of FAS long before the board was forced to leave office; but he made up for the loss elsewhere. Despite his friendship with Bertie, he maintained his Labour Party membership, a link that did him no harm when he was appointed to the RTE Authority by Labour minister Michael D. Higgins in 1995.
Attley’s good working relationship with Bertie probably landed him his seat on the board of Eircom in 1999. This was a real jackpot: the part-time job carried an annual fee of €48,000.”
-Wasters extracts end here

We recall from Irish Independent report carried above
“SIPTU’s Billy Attley chaired the steering group for the €60m ‘Skill’ training scheme, which will be at the centre of a hearing by the Dail Committee on Public Accounts today.– –
The (HSE) audit report showed that he had been paid €26,750 up to the end of 2009.” –Irish Independent

Threats to Union Officials by Government

After the pay cut in the public service which was effective from January1, 2010, the strike movement of the previous year was not resumed but works to rule were implemented across the public service. The Report below, from the Irish Times describes the situation very well. Already the membership of the new FAS board had been announced in Mid-January. The Board had previously been chaired by IMPACT Gen SEC, Peter McLoone, Chair of Public Services Committee ICTU, and a number of trade union representatives also sat on it.
The new board did not contain a single trade union representative.
“Government plan to clamp down on services to unions
MARTIN WALL, Industry Correspondent, IRISH TIMES, Sat, Jan 23, 2010
THE GOVERNMENT is to consider proposals next week to clamp down on services and facilities which it provides to trade unions representing staff in the public service.
The proposals, which will be contained in a memorandum for Government drawn up by the Department of Finance, come as industrial action across the public service in protest at pay cuts following the budget last month get under way in earnest.
Among the issues to be examined by the Cabinet is the facility which allows union subscriptions to be deducted at source from the pay of public service staff.
The Government is also expected to consider the future of officials on the State payroll who currently work on local partnership issues between unions and Government departments and bodies.”—————————————————————————————
The material in the article above could only have come from the Department of Finance.
Government was threatening to remove the perks of partnership from full time officials. Appointments to state boards would end. Would state funding of trade union education and training dry up?
Deduction at Source

Trade union officials of Public Service are paid from the proceeds of Deduction at Source. Union members authorise the state to deduct union subscriptions from their pay cheques. This is a hugely more effective means of collecting union dues than collection from individual members by local trade union representatives. Trade Union head offices receive large financial transfers on a regular and predictable basis.
If this facility were withdrawn union finances would be endangered. Unions representing general clerical and manual grades such as SIPTU and IMPACT would be particularly badly hit as a system of direct debits from bank accounts would be more difficult to put in place among low paid members.
A drop in revenue to union head offices could be very large. Unions had already failed to prevent a pay cut and a selective tax called a pension levy on public servants. Would the members pay up every week and how would dues be collected even if they were willing? The old system of dues collection by shop stewards is virtually non-existent in the public service.

Would union officials have to take a pay cut? Would there be redundancies of union officials?

The General Secretaries on the Public Services Negotiating Committee sought to get into talks. Committee chair Peter McLoone was on the board of the Labour Relations Commission. Kieran Mulvey, former ASTI general secretary, and CEO of the Commission soon intervened to call the government and unions together. This process culminated in the Croke Park Deal.

Compulsory Redundancies in the Public Service

However, there was another problem. From the talks in Nov/Dec 2009, the union leaders knew that the government would be demanding huge concessions. How could these be “sold” to union members? How could it be imposed on individual unions? Already, thousands of jobs had been eliminated under the public service recruitment embargo and the vast majority of public servants were heavily overloaded and public services were being cut back.
A key strength of “grass-roots” public service trade unionism has always been the understanding that permanent whole-time public servants could not be made redundant. This was also understood to apply to holders of Contracts of Indefinite Duration (CIDs).
NPSA can find no public threat by Government representatives to make permanent wholetime public servants compulsorily redundant prior to the opening of negotiations. The moratorium/recruitment ban relies on non-replacement for job elimination.
While there is no statutory provision for public service permanency, it is strong custom and practice stretching back to the era of British rule. This is reinforced by the fact that public servants employed prior to the mid-nineties are not covered by the Redundancy Payments Scheme.
There are no compelling legal judgements in this state on the issue. However, the British Law Lords found in favour of a public servant on the issue stating that permanence in the public service meant retention in employment until pensionable age. A contrary decision by a lower court was overturned.( McClelland v Northern Ireland General Health Services.)
Any redundancy could be contested in court. Irrespective of the law, public service unions were in a position to insist that permanence to retiring age was a condition of employment in industrial relations terms. Compulsory redundancy could be contested in the Labour Court and it would form a legitimate basis for industrial action. The Public Services Negotiating Committee sought legal advice.
It says that the legal advice is that public servants can be made redundant under law.

PSC then decided to seek an assurance in an industrial relations agreement with government (Croke Park Deal) that public servants would not be made compulsorily redundant!

Though it may appear to be a reasonable action to the uninformed, this was a historic retreat by the general secretaries on the PS (Negotiating Committee)
What are the implications of seeking the incorporation of such an assurance in a time- limited industrial relations agreement?
It is a clear concession that public service permanency is not a legal entitlement though this had never been decided by a court. Legal advices often differ in such circumstances.
It is also a clear concession that government had a right in industrial relations practice to make permanent public servants redundant.
Experienced negotiators would know that immediately such concessions were made, the government would demand huge concessions from the trade union side for the inclusion of such an assurance in a Public Services Agreement.
Furthermore, after the current agreement expires, government would be expected seek further concessions for the renewal of the assurance in any new agreement.

The Croke Park Agreement contained two clauses relevant to this issue.

6. The Government gives a commitment that compulsory redundancy will not apply within the public service, save where existing exit provisions apply. This commitment is subject to compliance with the terms of this Agreement and, in particular, to the agreed flexibility on redeployment being delivered. To that end, the redeployment arrangements referred to below will include opportunities for re-skilling and re-assignment as a key method to retain and secure employment in comparable roles in the public service.
28. The implementation of this Agreement is subject to no currently unforeseen budgetary deterioration.

It is not widely understood that the government escape clause (28 above) applies to the “no compulsory redundancy” clause (6 above) as well as to the assurance of no further pay cuts and the process of pay restoration.

Government could renege on the conditional “no compulsory redundancy” assurance at any time because of the current “unforeseen budgetary deterioration” which led to the intervention of the IMF.
The threat of redundancy is now being used to pressurise members of unions which voted “no” to the Deal to comply with it or lose their jobs. (The threat that the pensions of public servants, members of non-compliant unions, retiring in 2011 would reflect the pay cut is also being used)
Experienced general secretaries could be expected to foresee that this is precisely what would happen.

The concession by General Secretaries that permanent public servants could be made redundant was, indeed, a historic retreat. It was such a huge retreat that a special congress of each individual union should have been called to discuss the matter before the assurance was sought.
Not alone did this not occur, but none of the many trade union executive members who attend NPSA meetings can recall the matter being explained to the executive of their union before the negotiations.

The biggest retreat in Public Service trade union history took place without many trade union executives and executive members being aware of what was happening and its implications.

Sun Back in it’s Heaven!!!
Sept 29,2010
The Minister for Finance, Mr Brian Lenihan, TD, has today appointed five members to the Central Bank Commission with effect from Friday, 1 October.
As provided for in legislation, the terms of office of the first appointees will vary in length in order to ensure that future vacancies on the Commission will be staggered. The appointees and their terms of office are as follows:
Professor John Fitzgerald (5 years)
Mr. Max Watson (5 years)
Mr. Michael Soden (4 years)
Mr. Des Geraghty (4 years)
Professor Blanaid Clarke (3 years)
From http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/…/the-central-bank-commission
As pointed out above, there was no trade union representative among government nominees to the board of Fás which was announced in January 2010 before the Croke Park Deal was done.
As can be seen from the above announcement in the wake of the Croke Park Deal, the sun is back in its heaven. Former SIPTU President Des Geraghty was appointed to the Board of the Central Bank with effect from October 1, 2010 . David Begg is no longer serving on that body.

Technically Social Partnership Agreements may be dead but the Social Partnership Industry is back in business.

General Secretaries Must Be Brought Back Under the Control of Members

Current ICTU President and Siptu General President, Jack O’Connor should resign. Current ICTU General Secretary, David Begg should also resign. All the members of the executive council of ICTU in the past decade, but particularly in the 2003 to 2008, period have a case to answer.

David Begg, ICTU General Secretary, was a member of the board of directors of the central bank for 15 years until mid-2010. This included the 2003 to 2007 period when Irish banks were allowed to borrow an additional
50% of Gross Domestic Product of the country. The banks then lent the money in a manner that led to national economic disaster.
Both ICTU and SIPTU employ professional economic advisors whose services are available to the leadership.
General Secretary – David Begg

David Begg became General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in 2001. For five years prior to that he was Chief Executive of Concern Worldwide, an international humanitarian organisation working in 27 countries and with offices in Dublin, London, Belfast, New York and Chicago. He is also a Director of the Central Bank (since 1995), a Governor of the Irish Times Trust, non Executive Director of Aer Lingus, a member of the National Economic and Social Council (NESC), and of the Advisory Board of Development Co-operation Ireland. He also sits on the Executive Committee of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). (ICTU Website)

General President
Jack O’Connor has been General President of SIPTU since 2003, having been re-elected in 2006 for a second term.
He is also President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) since July of 2009 and served previously as Vice President from mid-2007. He has been a member of the Executive Council of Congress since 2001. (SIPTU Website)

ICTU remained in social partnership with a government which led the country into bankruptcy, a condition which is now causing untold hardship to working people, the unemployed and their dependents. Partnership agreements were not narrow wage agreements. As shown above in relation to the ten year long agreement Towards 2016, they effectively assented by their actions to an economic and social policy of government which led to disastrous outcomes for members. In the private sector members have been forced to accept redundancies, pay cuts and devastation of pension schemes. After 23 years of social partnership there is no legal requirement on employers to recognise trade unions. An EU directive protecting the pensions of private sector workers has not been transposed into law. The pensions of British workers in the Waterford-Wedgewood Group are protected up to 90% of value by law. The Irish workers in the same Group, former employees of Waterford Crystal, are taking legal action under EU law to recover their pensions. In the public sector, pay cuts and pension levies have been imposed “on the watch” of the the current executive council and officer board of ICTU. At the request of ICTU, a Public Service Agreement (Croke Park Deal) has been brokered under which conditions of service established over the past fifty years are being removed. Public Services are being devastated under a staffing moratorium which does not protect caring and educational services with 2000 nursing posts already eliminated.
It all happened under the watch of the current leadership. They have led members into misery and full retreat.

The leadership of the caste of General Secretaries and Senior Trade Union Officials has failed.

Why are general secretaries currently beyond the control of members?

Firstly, general secretaries are permanent employees and are normally not subject to re-election. Most are members of a single Branch of SIPTU. As permanent employees they are not subject to the outcomes they negotiate. They have career interests which are separate from the interests of the members they represent. Except for the very large unions, they sit alone on the executive council of ICTU. Even where a large union has more than one representative, each is invariably a senior full-time official. SIPTU and IMPACT together have a majority in ICTU. These two unions effectively decide who gets the nomination to public boards, who gets the post-retirement job as a rights commissioner, labour court judge etc. Any general secretary who stands up to them will get no preferment. The same is true for sub-general secretary officials in the big unions. The lucrative post-retirement job is now structured into the career path of general secretaries.
General secretaries have developed very sophisticated manipulation techniques. Among these is the combination of militant talk with practical collaboration. The SIPTU-IMPACT nexus can tolerate strong public opposition by the smaller unions in initial voting on national agreements. The general secretaries of the “no to Croke Park” unions are forgiven for their initial stance. This stance is seen as necessary to deliver up recalcitrant members later. But once SIPTU/IMPACT has expressed its majority within ICTU, general secretaries would not be forgiven for failing to bring their unions into line. The absence of any sustained opposition by a single general secretary to the plainly disastrous policies of the ICTU leadership speaks volumes.

During social partnership all the main business of unions is done through ICTU. The caste of general secretaries and senior full time officials who sit on the executive council of ICTU have complete control of information and they habitually collaborate together to ensure this is so. This allows them to withhold information or to give partial information to national executives until their desired fait accompli is in place. Because none of the elected members of national executives including elected presidents have first-hand knowledge of the proceedings of the executive council, the executive is highly vulnerable to manipulation by general secretaries. Because sectoral talks within national negotiations take place under the auspices of ICTU, lay presidents can be ( and have been) excluded from vital talks. In recent months the secretary of the Public Services Committee (ICTU) urged unions to send only one official to a meeting of the negotiating committee—no tales out of school there.
General secretaries are in constant contact with other general secretaries in the sector and with the employer negotiators. This allows them to bring processes forward in stages until there is no way back for the elected representatives when they realise what is happening. Planned scheduling of executive meetings of different unions in the sector is common. The meeting of the weakest executive is scheduled first. After the desired objective is passed there, this result is used to pressure the next executive into compliance.

There is nothing new in the collaborationist tendencies of full-time officials. James Connolly himself remarked on such negative tendencies before his death. The difference in approach between the militant Big Jim Larkin and the conservative Willie O’Brien split the old ITGWU (now reunited in SIPTU) for decades. There were always some preferments available to some general secretaries.

What is new is the overwhelming extent of the rewards available to senior union officials under social partnership. There is effectively “one for everyone in the audience”—provided they stay in line
Huge preferments on the nomination of the government with whom they negotiate are available to the most prominent union leaders.
General secretaries can also distribute minor preferments including “junkets” to members of national executives helping them to maintain control. Under “partnership” minor preferments and “junkets” are now routinely made available to some favoured branch officers, giving a further instrument of control to head offices.

Why are elected Presidents and elected national executive members unable to control and direct general secretaries though they are empowered to do so under rule?

(NPSA relies here on the experience of several former union presidents and current and past executive members who participate in its deliberations).

Firstly, many presidents and executive members have no wish to control general secretaries as they form part of cliques centred on the general secretary. The extent of the largesse available to general secretaries for allocation to executive members is a factor here. In addition the extent of expenses paid in most unions not only tends to attract the wrong type of full-time official but also the wrong type of executive member. Many executive members and Presidents owe their election to the general secretary’s clique in the branches.

National executive members who genuinely wish to control officials on behalf of their members face an impossible task though some presidents and executive members have achieved important victories. It is a victory to merely survive a period in office without being compromised.
National executive members and Presidents face regular re-election. General secretaries, even where originally elected, do not normally face re-election. The general secretary has a vast array of contacts including contacts with other general secretaries in the sector, contacts with employer representatives, contacts with journalists, contacts with the retained union solicitors, and importantly contacts with members of the general secretary’s clique in the branch of each executive member. The permanent general secretary is in a powerful position to “trip up” an elected person and to damage their prospects of re-election. Often, understandably, lay presidents require expert assistance
in order to operate on the national stage, a role to which they are unaccustomed and for which they have no training. If the general secretary withholds such assistance or is trying “to trip them up”, the president would face serious difficulties. Faced with this, most presidents allow the general secretary to determine policy and to lead the union. This often means allowing the general secretary to allocate nominations to partnership bodies and to distribute “junkets” to favourites.

Bringing Smaller Unions into Line

General Secretaries of smaller unions face a problem if their union has opposed a national pay agreement with which SIPTU/IMPACT has agreed. ICTU is not a trade union and has no power to conclude industrial relations agreements. Each individual union must be brought into line. The general secretary will not be forgiven if his union does not accept the SIPTU/IMPACT decision. He will be cut out of preferments such as rights commissioner appointments and nominations to public boards. He must ensure, firstly, that the smaller unions do not combine together to oppose SIPTU/IMPACT. Then in collusion with colleague general secretaries an order of business is agreed. The union whose opposition is weakest is pressurised into capitulating fist. Then this capitulation is used to pressurise another union into submission. This process is continued until the remaining “hard-line” unions are isolated and crushed. This process has been made more effective in considerations of the Croke Park Deal as members of recalcitrant unions can be threatened with compulsory redundancy and further pay cuts.
The Old Legal Advice Trick
National executives of trade unions routinely deal with complex matters. A diligent national executive member may demand legal advice. The General secretary may agree.
The General Secretary, perhaps together with a compliant President, meets the legal adviser. Crucially, this enables the general secretary to brief the lawyer and frame the questions. Often, the solicitor receives a large volume of business from the union and wishes to remain in favour with the general secretary. If the legal answers are not entirely helpful to the general secretary, he can give a report of the legal advice to the executive rather than written legal advice signed by the lawyer. The manipulation of legal advice is a key tool of general secretaries.

Officialdom Cloning Itself

It is usual for ICTU officials to sit on interview boards for the appointment of officials, including new general secretaries, of affiliated unions. Also, the current general secretary of the individual union is almost always on the interview board. The ICTU official and the general secretary are well known to each other. The ICTU representative is often chosen by the general secretary. The possibility of a candidate not meeting the approval of the caste of general secretaries and/or who is opposed to partnership being appointed is very remote. “Dumping” of unwanted officials of powerful unions on smaller unions is not unknown.

As I have said in the introduction to this pamphlet, the ongoing destruction of conditions of service established over decades under the Croke Park Deal threatens the very survival of trade unions. Will hundreds of thousands of members continue to pay dues to a body which has failed to protect them to pay cuts, “pension” levy, moratorium and which even offered up their conditions of service to government in December 2009? The answer is:not for very long. One leading public service trade unionist has described the Deal as “a suicide note by trade unions” .

How are General Secretaries to be brought under control

This task is of extreme urgency if trade unions are to be restored as genuine fighting organisations championing the interests of members as a central priority.
The first requirement is that general secretaries should be elected by members and, even more crucially, should be subject to re-election at frequent intervals. I am completely opposed to any governmental or legislative interference in this area. The trade unions must be renewed from within.
Changes of union rules should be proposed at national congresses to effect these changes. Re-election at intervals of 3 years would be appropriate.

Unions should ensure that representatives on all ICTU bodies are lay elected officers in service or on short sabbatical (not long-term secondment) who are subject to re-election.
Control of information and the timing of its release has always been crucial to the survival of powerful elites. An adviser, member of the national executive, should accompany the representative to every meeting at ICTU. Such adviser should serve for two years only with re-nomination precluded.

There is no ICTU rule confining eligibility for election to the executive council to general secretaries. Over the years, general secretaries have established a custom and practice that they hold these positions.

It is totally inappropriate that a caste of permanent general secretaries can meet alone at ICTU and make decisions about which national executives may have insufficient knowledge. Some of these decisions are effectively irreversible.

It should be part of the conditions of employment of general secretary that s/he cannot take up employment in the public service for two years after severance. The Labour Party has recently proposed that a two year ban on civil servants taking up employment with private companies with which they engage in office should replace the current one year restriction. Similar principles also sometimes apply in private sector employment.

Activists making such proposals will be accused of questioning the integrity of the general secretary. This is not so. A systemic problem, not the qualities of an individual, is being addressed. These are normal principles of accountability. Accountability, like justice, must not only exist but must be seen to exist. Such accusations have always been made against those advocating true democracy.

Representation on public bodies can often be helpful for trade union members. Full-time officials should be precluded from accepting such appointments while serving or after severance. Lay members should be nominated to such positions for a time limited period only with re-nomination precluded.

Contracts of employment of general secretaries should be revised to provide for removal from office for failure to uphold union policy in all dealings. A specific offense should be written into disciplinary codes and a fair procedure for processing an allegation in this regard should be put in place.

Remuneration of full-time officials should be directly related to the pay of those they represent and should not exceed the maximum basic pay of members subject to an upper limit of 100,000 Euro indexed to future inflation. Where members on a number of scales are represented, statisticians would have no difficulty in establishing a basket of scales maxima and an appropriate multiplier to establish a salary scale.
This would ensure that the general secretary would be subject to the outcomes negotiated for members.

The model of leadership of unions by general secretaries has failed

The above proposals may sound drastic. But they are necessary to rescue the Trade Union movement from the debacle into which members have been led. The negative tendencies in permanent officialdom identified by James Connolly almost 100 years ago have led to support for disastrous government policies with attendant unemployment and emigration, to acquiescence to pay cuts and to surrender of hard-won conditions of service in state employment under the Croke Park Deal.
The implementation of these proposals is a matter of urgency. It takes priority over policy determination. Policy has very little effect if it can be made ineffective by the general secretary and colleagues on the executive council of ICTU.
Union activists may have further proposals which will be discussed at future meetings of NPSA.
Readers are invited to submit suggestions.

Paddy Healy March 2011

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