This week I took a message of solidarity to the members of Public Service International’s Irish affiliate IMPACT, as they held their conference and voted on whether to accept a proposed agreement with the government, following two pay cuts in the last 14 months.
I told IMPACT members that they are not alone in what they are experiencing in Ireland with a government that is using the economic and financial crises as excuses to cut public services, and slash job security, wages and benefits.
From Canada to Columbia, Iceland, Korea, Greece, Portugal, Spain, to the UK and Ireland – I see that a Social War is being waged.
A “Social War” is what Michael Hudson, a former Wall Street economist and current Chief Economic Advisor to the Reform Task Force of Latvia, calls what we are in the midst of today.
In his words, “a Social War is unfolding on a global scale – not the class war envisioned in the 19th century, but a war waged by finance against entire economies...and governments as well as against labour.”
There would be no economic crisis in Ireland or elsewhere if governments weren’t using taxpayers’ money to bail out the players who’ve caused their own financial crisis.
Meanwhile, financial lobbyists are using the Greek crisis as a lesson to warn about the need to cut back public spending on public services, especially essential social programs like public healthcare, unemployment relief and education.
“This is quite the opposite of what Greek demonstrators are demanding,” Hudson says.
“They want to reverse the global tax shift off of real estate and finance onto the backs of working people.” And further, that what working people want is to see retirement pensions given priority over claims by the banks to get reimbursed for bad loans.
This ideology of the profiteers promotes the mechanism of capitalism as the only viable road to democracy.
But what is democratic about the “Greek bailout”, for example?
How is it democratic when government policy is taken out of the hands of voters?
I know that the citizens of Ireland are concerned, for example, about independence of national tax policy.
Predatory finance. That’s the true name of this game.
And the financial sector’s aim is to take as much bailout money as it can and run.
It is in this climate that the members of IMPACT are voting this week on whether or not to accept a proposed agreement with their employer, the government of Ireland.
If accepted, this agreement would commit the government not to cut pay levels again.
It would also require the government to begin reversing recent pay cuts if sufficient savings flow from public service reforms that are also part of the agreement.
Whatever the members’ decision, they must also be applauded for having initiated pragmatic approaches to public service transformation, even before the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
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