The trade union movement is not formally planning to oust the Government in response to last week’s Budget, Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) general secretary David Begg has said.
Speaking after a meeting of the Ictu executive council today Mr Begg said, despite strong comments from Irish Bank Officials’ Association (IBOA) president Larry Broderick, the Ictu had not adopted a policy to try to remove the Government from power.
Ahead of the meeting Mr Broderick said the trade union movement needed to respond to cutbacks with “a strategic approach, focusing on local issues, non-cooperation and taking the Government out of power”.
He told RTÉ news that Ictu members in the public and private sectors were suffering as a result of the Budget and warned that the country faced a “very serious winter of discontent”.
Mr Begg later said that Mr Broderick’s comments were in line with the general feeling of the meeting, but that no such plan of action had been adopted.
The Ictu executive condemned the Budget as “a savage and brutal attack on working people and the most vulnerable - the single worst budget in the history of the state”.
It unanimously adopted a motion describing the Budget as a “profoundly ideological exercise” which attacked working people, the unemployed and families.
“Its aim is to drive down the wages and living standards of working people across the entire economy,” the motion states.
Mr Begg said he did not believe there was a prospect of reinstating social partnership following the Budget, which was neither “an exaggeration nor an over reaction to say” marked a watershed in how the trade union movement would deal with the Government.
He said the Government’s withdrawl from partnership talks earlier this month “drove a stake through the heart of social partnership as a concept”.
“What we have to try to do now is deal with the residuals from it which are quite significant.”
Mr Begg told RTÉ news that a lot off issues remained to be addressed following the collapse of the social partnership talks, such as private sector pay, a significant legislative programme and institutional issues.
He said the Ictu would first engage with employers in the private sector regarding their commitment to the 6 per cent pay deal negotiated in September of last year. He added that the Ictu public sector committee was preparing a strategy to resist the pay cuts for Government employees.
