29 July 1999 Edition
New in print: They haven't gone away you know
The Bitter Word
By Mike Allen
Published by Poolbeg
Price £7.99
Last week the Central Statistics Office (CSO) produced their latest quarterly Labour Force Survey. Attending the press conference in Dublin Government buildings were the usual business journalists, one or two academics, and Mike Allen, General Secretary of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU).
Allen was there, ready to give the INOU line on the figures that showed one of the many institutional measures of unemployment falling below 100,000 for the first time ever.
As ever Allen was approachable relaxed and affable. He also remains as committed and dogged in emphasising the needs of the unemployed as he was when the Live Register was regularly tipping 300,000 people in the 26 Counties in the early- to mid-1990s.
Allen's recently published book The Bitter Word - Ireland's job famine and its aftermath gives a remarkable insight into him as a person and his journey through the unemployment mill.
It also provides an excellent overview and analysis of the Irish economy in the 1990s. Written in a simple readable format, The Bitter Word moves back and forth between Allen's own experience of being unemployed in Galway to setting up an unemployment group, a drop in centre and then a national group which transcended partition and organised the unemployed as an all-Ireland group.
What makes the book all the more readable is that it is divided into four sections. It outlines the economic and political failures that led to mounting unemployment in the 26 Counties. It explains the difficulties Allen and others had in organising the unemployed and how the INOU came into being.
In a section of the book titled ``Why don't the Unemployed fight back'' Allen writes of the difficulties he and others faced organising unemployed people in Galway. They leafleted their local dole office for a week, talking to those signing on. On the day of the meeting only eight people turned up, five of whom had been giving out leaflets.
It is the story of experiences like these and others that make this book.
Allen writes in another section of a Cork man who used to cut his neighbour's grass for no payment while he had a job. After redundancy he still cut the neighbour's grass and still for nothing.
However, the local social welfare office considered that he was not available for work and threatened to cut his payment. Allen explains that he could have filled a book with stories like this, including the man who was docked unemployment benefit for attending the birth of his own child.
The Bitter Word mixes these personalised accounts of the unemployed with Allen's own story, which emerges as a sort of a history of the INOU. This also builds into an academic analysis and criticism of unemployment theories and policies as well as providing a detailed indictment of government inactivity and institutional discrimination of the unemployed.
The only drawback to this book, and it is a minor quibble, is the layout of the contents. The actual book has a multitude of small subsections that are not listed in the contents but if referenced would help the reader.
Allen's book culminates with a prescription for the unemployment problem, because despite the hype and the biased news coverage, there still is a serious unemployment problem in Ireland. They too haven't gone away. All in all, this is one of the best books written about the Irish economy in the last 30 years and deserves the widest possible audience.
BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN
By Mike Allen
Published by Poolbeg
Price £7.99
Last week the Central Statistics Office (CSO) produced their latest quarterly Labour Force Survey. Attending the press conference in Dublin Government buildings were the usual business journalists, one or two academics, and Mike Allen, General Secretary of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU).
Allen was there, ready to give the INOU line on the figures that showed one of the many institutional measures of unemployment falling below 100,000 for the first time ever.
As ever Allen was approachable relaxed and affable. He also remains as committed and dogged in emphasising the needs of the unemployed as he was when the Live Register was regularly tipping 300,000 people in the 26 Counties in the early- to mid-1990s.
Allen's recently published book The Bitter Word - Ireland's job famine and its aftermath gives a remarkable insight into him as a person and his journey through the unemployment mill.
It also provides an excellent overview and analysis of the Irish economy in the 1990s. Written in a simple readable format, The Bitter Word moves back and forth between Allen's own experience of being unemployed in Galway to setting up an unemployment group, a drop in centre and then a national group which transcended partition and organised the unemployed as an all-Ireland group.
What makes the book all the more readable is that it is divided into four sections. It outlines the economic and political failures that led to mounting unemployment in the 26 Counties. It explains the difficulties Allen and others had in organising the unemployed and how the INOU came into being.
In a section of the book titled ``Why don't the Unemployed fight back'' Allen writes of the difficulties he and others faced organising unemployed people in Galway. They leafleted their local dole office for a week, talking to those signing on. On the day of the meeting only eight people turned up, five of whom had been giving out leaflets.
It is the story of experiences like these and others that make this book.
Allen writes in another section of a Cork man who used to cut his neighbour's grass for no payment while he had a job. After redundancy he still cut the neighbour's grass and still for nothing.
However, the local social welfare office considered that he was not available for work and threatened to cut his payment. Allen explains that he could have filled a book with stories like this, including the man who was docked unemployment benefit for attending the birth of his own child.
The Bitter Word mixes these personalised accounts of the unemployed with Allen's own story, which emerges as a sort of a history of the INOU. This also builds into an academic analysis and criticism of unemployment theories and policies as well as providing a detailed indictment of government inactivity and institutional discrimination of the unemployed.
The only drawback to this book, and it is a minor quibble, is the layout of the contents. The actual book has a multitude of small subsections that are not listed in the contents but if referenced would help the reader.
Allen's book culminates with a prescription for the unemployment problem, because despite the hype and the biased news coverage, there still is a serious unemployment problem in Ireland. They too haven't gone away. All in all, this is one of the best books written about the Irish economy in the last 30 years and deserves the widest possible audience.
BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN