From Unity, 12 December 2009

GRA challenges authority

by Pearse McKenna

After years of social partnership, battle lines between the state and the trade unions are now clearly drawn.
     The President of the ICTU, Jack O’Connor, said workers would not take it lying down if there were more public-sector pay cuts. The chief negotiator of the public-sector unions, Peter McLoone, has warned of a long and sustained campaign of industrial action if the Government proceeds to impose pay cuts in the budget this week. He said co-operation with the Government’s change agenda has come to an end.
     Following the breakdown of talks between the public-sector unions and the Government, the Garda Representative Association said that they will ballot their members for industrial action.
     There have been few occasions when the front line of the state has come out and supported workers in struggle.
     The Liverpool police strike of 1919 showed a willingness to participate in industrial action. Also, the events leading up to the Soviet Revolution of 1917, when the army and police of the Tsar moved towards more democratically elected public structures.  

1907

  The first recorded strike by police was during the summer of 1907, when workers on the Belfast docks united against their employers. The support came from the Royal Irish Constabulary.
     The struggle threw up leaders, some willing, some less so.
     The Belfast leader, Constable Barret, stood side by side with the dockworkers and James Larkin on the streets of Belfast to galvanise wider support for the strikes.
     Today the GRA also have a willing leader in their general secretary, P. J. Stone. He said the state cannot be allowed to use the law to deny the Garda the right to engage in industrial action.
     The Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, responding to the announcement by the GRA that it will ballot its members for industrial action, said the move was a challenge to the authority of the state and one which the Government will not countenance. He said the GRA action is ill-advised, and the Attorney-General had given him legal advice on the issue.
     The GRA openly admitted that it had not sought legal advice on the matter.
     In the face of legal threat, P. J. Stone and the Executive of the GRA cannot be left to stand alone. They must be supported by the whole trade union movement in Ireland.

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