Harney's new threat

     
Harney was not alone in wanting to have it both ways this week. Labour and Fine Gael returned to government displaying remarkably short memories
Opportunism, fickleness, short memories and complete madness. This has been just some of the politics at work in Leinster House over the last week. However, pride of place must go to Enterprise and Employment minister Mary Harney who has presented a report to the coalition cabinet which proposes cutting 8,000 places from the Community Employment scheme. Only last week Harney had promised 7,500 new training places would be available from Fás under the new Employment Action Plan.

What is most strange about the report produced by Deloite and Touche is that it proposes that the people taken off the CE schemes would revert to the dole or other schemes. Those who would be affected most include young lone parents and the disabled.

Up to this week it seemed fairly clear that Mary Harney wanted to cut numbers off the dole by any means necessary. This week, however, a new agenda is at work and saving the Exchequer up to £44 million is now the goal. But U-turns and reneging on commitments is nothing new for Minister Harney.

Give us a chance


Hundreds of demonstrators turned out at the Department of Enterprise and Employment last week to protest against Mary Harney's Employment Action Plan. ``Mary Harney's threats to unemployed people are a greater threat to social partnership than the wage claims of nurses or Garda,'' said Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) National chairperson Barrie McLatchie.

INOU General Secretary Mike Allen outlined to the protestors the ways that Mary Harney had undermined the agreed social partnership approach during her term in office.

Harney had failed to ``appoint a representative of the INOU to new board of Fás''. She had refused to meet the INOU to discuss or explain their confusion.

The Employment Action Plan had been introduced with a series of threats to ``cut people off the dole'' creating a climate of fear and conflict.

There was no planned implementation of the minimum wage proposals while at the same time the minister was forcing people to take up low paid work. Some of the Enterprise and Employment Department's resources had been reallocated from the long term to short term unemployed. This was according to Allen a breach of the commitments in Partnership 2000.

Double Standards


Mary Harney was not alone in wanting to have it both ways this week. Labour and Fine Gael returned to government displaying remarkably short memories. When in Government the plight of farmers and housing was not on the priority list of these parties. Now in opposition both parties have had a change of heart and are entering the new term of Leinster House pushing the social justice agenda they spurned when in government.

Fianna Fáil, though, are not aloof from the dubious political processes at work in Leinster House. They cannot, it seems, make up their mind if they are or are not going to participate in the industrial relations process they have set up and negotiate with the Irish Nurses Organisation.

None of this bodes well for the next months in Government. It looks like its going to be a long hard winter.

Couriers with a message

Motorcycle couriers only have status as casual workers without proper social insurance, sick and holiday pay
 
Motorcycle couriers are to write to their employers this week with the simple request that they sit and negotiate wages and conditions with their workers.

Up to 700 motorcycle couriers in Dublin have formed a Couriers Coalition to lobby for a better deal for their members. Couriers driving in the city work long hours in all weathers and in conditions that are often dangerous. Over the past five years a dozen couriers have been killed while many others have been injured, some paralysed.

Most couriers aross the city are paid a single rate for their work no matter which company they work for. A lucky minority are on a basic rate. Couriers are paid £1.40 for the first two miles of any journey and 25p for every mile thereafter.

These rates have increased by only 22p for the basic rate and 7p for the extra mileage over the past12 years. These increases are actually less than the rate of inflation for the same time period so the motorcycle couriers are actually worse off in real terms now than they were 12 years ago.

Worse still, most couriers are not actually seen as employees by the courier companies. Instead, motorcycle couriers only have status as casual workers without proper social insurance, sick and holiday pay, as well as pension entitlements.

The couriers have to carry the costs of buying, insuring and servicing their own bikes. Most do not even have basic facilities such as a place to have their lunch.

The couriers want the company owners to agree to regonise their group and negotiate with them on these issues. As one courier told An Phoblacht, all they want is to be given their human rights. Has economic life in Dublin got to the stage where even that is too much to ask for?

Bricklayers union representatives threatened

Two shop stewards of the Building and Allied Trades Union (BATU) were threatened and ordered to leave work on a building site in North Dublin this week. The two bricklayers' representatives have over the past month secured the wages and working conditions of their fellow workers on the building site.

A BATU representative told An Phoblacht that the shop stewards had managed to halt the use of sub-contractors hiring workers on the casual C-45 scheme and paying workers cash-in-hand without the proper social insurance and tax contributions being paid. The building workers were all being paid different rates while one was sacked from his post for refusing to work in conditions too wet to properly lay blocks.

The bricklayers are all now directly employed by the main site contractor. This week, however, the two shop stewards were threatened at the site. They said they were told they would be shot if they did not cease work.

The BATU official who spoke to An Phoblacht said he deplored the attempted intimidation of their members and that the union would not be deflected from working to ensure its workers' rights were upheld.

Asian flu costs 10 million jobs

One third of the world's workforce is unemployed or underemployed, according to the International Labour Organisations (ILO) World Employment Report published last week. The ILO study also shows that ten million workers have already lost their jobs in 1998 as a result of the international currency crises.

The report shows that even though much of the emphasis of media coverage of the crisis has been on stock market turbulence there are other more real costs being incurred by families and communities throughout Asia and now Russia as a result of the global financial crisis.