IS PARTNERSHIP DEAD?

Jack O’Connor, President of SIPTU, has opened up an interesting debate – should we set aside the grandiose talk of social partnership and instead settle for an old-fashioned deal with the sectional interests?

Participation in social partnership is no longer popular among union members. Frustration among rank and file trade union members is hardly surprising. It reflects widespread fury in our entire community at the pain that people are suffering, which was in no way caused by them. Workers in Waterford Crystal saw a lifetime of pension contributions go up in smoke. Facing wage cuts, shorter hours and layoffs, workers want more hands-on representation from their unions. If they can’t get it from the established union leadership, they will look elsewhere.

The same pressure to disengage is evident on the employer’s side also. IBEC, represents big corporations well established in their market places, and has interests that are increasingly remote from the tough struggle for survival of small businesses in a climate of credit restrictions and scarce customers.

We are facing into a period when the country is going to have to embrace change on almost every front. Is it not naïve to imagine that consensus can be achieved across all the various interests on the nature of the changes that we need to make?. If agreement is to be constrained to the pace of the slowest mover, we will be unable to make the necessary changes on time.

BORN OUT OF FAILURE

Social partnership only made its contribution to solving our problems in the 1980s, after several years of fruitlessly chasing price and tax increases with wage increases, and years of delay in facing up to a hole in the public finances. Both constrained the emergence of a competitive economy which could support job creation and growth. The shared understanding of our problems only emerged after soft options had been tried and failed. We cant afford that slow learning curve again in this time of crisis.

In more recent years the Social Partnership was again content to shelve necessary reform when faced by a government who was happy to buy out every problem instead of confront it. With partnership dominated by producer interests (both union and employer), it is no surprise that the changes which were ducked were in areas where producers had vested-interests to protect:
 The regulation of public utilities and monopolies
 Competition and rip-off in key markets
 The accountability of big bureaucracies.

Each side could adopt a live-and-let-live attitude to shortcomings when the ultimate victims were consumers not represented in the partnership at all.

While this stand-off could protect the short-term interests of the big players, it could not deliver their ultimate objectives of a strong competitive economy and a strong social contract that would make partnership ultimately worthwhile. Neither side could deliver their member’s aspirations and these weaknesses have been cruelly exposed by this recession. Ordinary workers and businesses are suffering the brunt of the pain in an uncompetitive economy without the support to help them manage the risks.
The question now is should we abandon a cooperative model and accept that conflict will deliver the survival of the fittest?

In a situation of conflict it is the strongest who will prevail. The weakest will have to make do with what is left. The weakest of all are those with no stake, with no job, with no wealth, with no voice. It could set the country back years. It is young people in particular who will get it in the neck if an attitude of “the devil take the hindmost” prevails. They are the country’s main long term asset.

A NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT

It is up to the political system to forge a new social contract. Politics cannot save every job or every business. However, it can help people manage the threats created by these risks. There are short-term and long-term goals that can make cooperation worthwhile.

 Work: In the short term we can match job loss with reskilling and supported placement, while in the long run rebuild an innovative economy supported by life-long learning.
 Enterprise: In the short-term we can freeze business charges and roll back burdens, in the long-term create world class infrastructure physical and human.
 Housing: In the short term we can develop a response to the threat of repossession, while in the long term create a fair framework for the balanced contribution of the property sector.

 Health: In the short term we can set standards to be achieved for the care of public patients, in the long run bring the two-tier health service to an end.

 Pensions: In the short term provide a safety net for pensions that are wiped out, in the long term develop a single pension system for all whose value is secure and supported by the taxpayer up to a reasonable ceiling.

 Family: In the short term ensure no child or older person falls through the net, in the longer term create a broad pro-family framework in tax, welfare and in the workplace encouraging independence and developing potential.

Of course a huge transformation must occur if we are to make this social contract a reality – a transformation in the public service, in our competitiveness, in our financial system, in our Public Finances. These key arteries for delivering a high-performance society have become blocked, and cannot be effortlessly cleared. A leaner diet and the building up of muscle will take time to yield results. We will all have to make a down-payment on the delivery of social good.

With the need for radical change pounding at the door, we now need a government with the authority to lead that change.

We cannot settle for the restoration of the old order of unaccountable management in the public service, of unsupportable bonuses in the private, of cosy boardrooms and pliable regulators. The systems which steered the Celtic Tiger onto the rocks of a property crash must be destroyed.

We can rekindle the ideals originally embraced by a partnership, but can those who led us into this crisis, who asserted just two years ago that our economy and social system was based on ‘sound fundamentals’, achieve that?

We need an election to rebuild social partnership based on a new political vision with a mandate from the people to support it. This government lacks the necessary authority and Social partnership will be inevitably constrained until that is dealt with.