Parasites on the back of working people

[Stallit 2 de Halfo]

Parasites on the back of working people

“There has been deterioration in our cost-competitiveness in recent years, and arresting this trend will be [the] key to growth prospects . . . This must be a key consideration when we come to consider the next phase of negotiations on pay under Towards 2016.” These are the words of our illustrious leader Bertie Ahern a day after the Government announced a massive increase in pay for politicians and senior civil servants. The economy must avoid “wage-inflation spiral,” and workers must “manage expectations’’ as the pace of economic growth eases.
The €38,000 increase self-awarded to Ahern compares with the average industrial wage of €31,252.
The number of parasitic elements feeding off working people continues to grow. We have had builders and developers making vast fortunes, and hospital consultants describing a salary of €250,000 as “Mickey Mouse” money. Now we have the establishment politicians and senior civil servants—1,600 people in all—awarding themselves pay rises far beyond what workers have achieved through the “partnership” agreements.
Ahern’s increase of €38,000 brings his salary to €310,000, plus expenses, which include a state car with driver and a gaggle of civil servants to work in his constituency. This will make him the highest-paid head of government in the capitalist world: he will receive more than the German chancellor, the French or American presidents, or the British prime minister.
When he steps down he will have a pension of €170,000, index-linked to the pay of future Taoisigh. Pension indexation is something workers can only dream of.
The review body recommended an interim award of 7½ per cent two years ago, followed by the current 14 per cent for the Taoiseach, 15.6 per cent for the Tánaiste, and 12 per cent for other ministers. It is estimated that the total cost will add €16 million to the public-sector pay bill. Most public-sector workers will have to endure a mere 3 per cent rise under the existing agreement.
The highest average increases (18.1 per cent) went to the judiciary, because they are benchmarked against the high salaries earned by barristers, which had to be taken into account by the review panel. Circuit Court judges gained a staggering 22.4 per cent increase, bringing their salary from €160,950 to €190,000.
The highest average, however, was 19.2 per cent, awarded to specialists in public-health medicine and directors of public-health medicine, at a time when there is an embargo on recruitment in the health service because of “budgetary difficulties.”
Thousands of poorly paid public-sector workers will go on enduring increasingly poor conditions. Senior nurses, working in very difficult conditions in a failing health service, will still get paid €38,213 a year, while TDs will now receive more than €90,000 plus expenses.
The spongers keep getting fatter and fatter.

Communist Party of Ireland

[Stallit 2 de Halfo]

Joe Higgins

The massive wage increases which the government recently awarded themselves have infuriated ordinary workers. They see a government which has been in power for ten years get more arrogant and more out of touch with ordinary people by the month.

The fact that the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, accepts a wage increase of €38,000 utterly demolishes the already crumbling facade he has put forward of being the ordinary man on the street. The average industrial wage is around €33,000. Many workers on this wage find it very difficult to make ends meet. It would be totally impossible to get a mortgage for a house based on one wage of this amount. And of course there are tens of thousands of workers who are earning only half that amount. For them, life is a constant struggle to keep their heads above water in what is one of the most expensive countries in Europe.

Of course the Fianna Fail pretence that Bertie Ahern was the workers’ champion was severely dented already with the revelations at the Planning Tribunal. We know now that vast amounts of cash were going through his hands as far back as 1994 courtesy of business friends and acquaintances who organised a few ‘digouts’ for him at that time.

A capitalist government made up of right wing politicians is going to be out of touch anyway with the day to day struggle of people on average or low incomes. But when they have been in power for more than ten years, then they are light years removed from the reality of life for working people. Living on massive salaries, how can they appreciate the difficulties of meeting huge mortgage payments each month? To begin with, it was them who allowed the speculators and profiteers to run riot in the housing market.

After ten years of being chauffeured around in luxury, they are contemptuous of the ordinary taxpayer who finances this privilege. How can they appreciate the daily frustration of tens of thousands of workers in Dublin battling through debilitating traffic gridlock each day to get to work?

How quickly the Green Ministers have taken to the bad habits of the political establishment. Imagine they had been in opposition when this happened. John Gormley would have levitated from his seat in the Dail chamber with sheer indignation!

We now have a government made up of parties who have been in power for a decade. The addition of the Green Party merely adds a pale green decoration on top of the Fianna Fail cake. And how tightly it is clinging to the icing! Such a government is heading in a direction where it will make more and more mistakes.

In the real world of working people, the strike by Dublin Bus workers and the resistance of Aer Lingus workers to being walked over by a privatised management send out a strong signal that things are beginning to change. Because of the lack of leadership at the top levels of the trade unions, the government was able to sell off the national airline to the sharks on the international stock exchanges. It was inevitable that these new owners would begin to clamour for attacks on the wages and conditions of workers in their greed to maximise profits. But now, with their backs to the wall, the workers are faced with a stark choice of fighting or accepting massive cuts in their basic wages.

Although only re-elected six months ago, this government is highly detested by a growing numbers of ordinary people. While the Local and European Elections in June 2008 will be a good opportunity to pay them back for their neo-liberal policies and arrogance, we mustn’t wait until then. In the meantime every opportunity must be taken to actively mobilise and oppose them on all the key issues.