A national strike is planned for the 24th here in Ireland, which looks like it will shut down most of the public sector, and while everyone has a right to protest about the mess we are in, I have a right not to protest, a right to go into college and teach my scheduled classes on that day for those students who wish to attend.
I’m not just being contrarian, I feel I have a reasonable position. I took care not to vote for Fianna Fail in the last two elections, and even ran for the Seanad in 2002 as an independent. I was one of a number of people who raised in a Faculty meeting the question whether we could decline the benchmarking pay increases, and were told it was administratively complicated, and it would be easier to just take the money. It would certainly have taken time, and therefore cost money, to administer an opt out.
I feel benchmarking was a scam, and that Fianna Fail paid for enough public sector votes with generous pay hikes in the past decade to buy their continued role in government. Many people voted against them, but they got more votes than any other party; and a significant proportion of those came from the public sector workers who are now, somewhat hypocritically I feel, protesting about the mess we are in.
Unfortunately, the protest looks like being disorganised and haphazard. UCC, like all universities in Ireland, is a public institution. Some of the unions with members in the College have voted to participate in the protest. Some members of those unions feel they didn’t vote on the issue, but now, apparently, are going ‘out’. Many people feel strongly about not passing pickets. I want to work on the 24th, but now, less than a week before the event, I do not know if the university will be able to open that day.
More importantly, I have students, some of whom I only see on Tuesdays, and some of whom travel some distance to get to class. I’m not in a position to tell them if we can have class next week or not. I’ve had no choice but to arrange reading assignments for those classes, which is not the most convenient, but it is the best I can do. At least I can use digital tools to minimise the impact on those of my students to carry on, but many others cannot do this so easily.
I’m not happy with this, and if the Public sector unions claim, next Tuesday, that UCC was closed and fully participating in their protest, I’ll be less happy – I’m not cancelling classes to support their protest; I’m forced to cancel face to face classes because they haven’t sorted out who is working and who is not yet. Effectively, my right not to protest is being denied. Freedom of association also means freedom not to associate.
Thats my grumpy 2c, which, as in all these blog posts, in no way represents anty official college or dept position.
Bravo Mike, well said! You’ve taken a very unbiased view of it all and are dead right. The Public Sector have rode the wave of the boom better then most and now they’re being asked to take pay cuts which reflect national averages but also the drop in the cost of living in this country. You say it better then me though!
The whole point of unions is to organise labour for better conditions and pay. If what you’re saying is true, the “organise” part of that is being neglected, so maybe no one will even notice that you’re not on-message.
In other news, I don’t think benchmarking was a “scam”, except in the sense that capitalism in general is a scam: there’s a strong argument to be made there.
The local primary school sent a letter home today explaining that staff members that were members of two unions would not be at work and so the Board of Management decided for health and safety reasons to close the school on the 24th as there will be insufficient staff numbers. That sounds reasonable, regardless of one’s opinion of the unions’ action.
I for one will miss not being able to attend your class. I only have the two a week and I get such a buzz from both of them. Plus Digital history is so much fun, I’m beginning to like computers now!!!
In saying that though, as a rule I just couldn’t pass a picket line. But I do agree in principle with what you have said. I don’t quite grasp what happened here while I lived in England but someone, actually a nation it would seem, went fairly nuts and lost touch with reality. The amount some people are paid is outrageous and in the current climate unfeasible. As a rather poor single mother/student, I reckon we all have to take a hit to get the country back onto its wobbly feet, and maybe striking is not the answer…my revolutionary heart and my rational mind are for once at odds with each other…