What happens when the ‘watchdog’ is watching the wrong people?

Brendan Ogle UniteDo you remember the infamous ‘Galway Tent’? As a symbol of the sort of gombeenism that pertained as the nation was led to penury, the ‘Galway Tent’ is a good example. Basically, Fianna Fail party fundraisers would hire a marquee at the Galway race festival in Ballybrit and invite their friends to enjoy their ‘hospitality’. Here beer and wine would flow, a canape or two maybe, and brown envelopes packed with wads of cash would be handed to the political worthies as ‘donations’. €150,000 a year is admitted to having been raised in this way. There were even long waiting lists of cash-clad citizens hoping for cancellations so that they might get in, get to dine at the ‘top’ table, and also hand over an envelope full of ‘green’. Of course no favours were ever asked for, or offered, in exchange for this largesse. That would be corruption. In Ireland? Of course not!

It was stopped in 2008 amid widespread public concern. And Ireland got cleaned up. Didn’t it?

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Continue reading “Let us take our collective heads out of the sand and just trust women”

Trade Union rights and the need for change

Brendan Ogle UniteIf, as I wrote last week, there is a reason why ‘Neo-Liberals have anti-trade union positions’, this should not be interpreted as applying to employers only. On the contrary, many employers realise that collective bargaining with their employees through representative trade unions is not only a rational way for employees to look after their interests, but that it can also aid progressive employers to create a mutually beneficial working environment. In Ireland the search for anti-trade-union, anti-worker bias shouldn’t start with neoliberal employers. That’s the second place to look.

The first place is with our government(s).

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There’s a reason why neo-liberals have anti-trade-union positions

Brendan Ogle UniteIf you are under 30 years of age there is a strong possibility that you have never read, or seen, a positive feature about Trade Unions in the mainstream media. In that environment a climate of suspicion towards, and even hostility to, collective organising is easily fostered. But in essence a union is nothing more than a collective of workers coming together (in ‘union’) in the belief that they have more leverage and influence in improving their terms and conditions acting together than they do on their own. This idea, working together for the collective good, stretches right back to the late 18th century but it is as necessary now as it has ever been, perhaps in many ways more so.

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