Jack O'Conner on being elected President of the ICTU

I wish to express the deep appreciation of my union for the honour of my election to the office of the President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. I know the affiliated unions, in supporting me for this position, were conscious of the fact that this is the centenary year of SIPTU making the honour even more significant. In this regard, I want to acknowledge that this is also the centenary year of another affiliated union, the ASTI, and I want to congratulate them for what they have achieved for their profession over the past 100 years.

I am assuming office against the background of what, I think, everyone accepts is the worst economic downturn globally and domestically - certainly since the Second World War and possibly since the aftermath of the Wall Street crash of 1929.

I am also conscious that I am assuming office after the presidency of Patricia McKeown who worked very actively to ensure that the imprint of the trade union movement is firmly placed on the developing infrastructure of the all island economy. I am acutely conscious of the central role and legacy of our movement in the struggle to reconcile the issues which divide the people of this island and they way in which we have always emphasised the unity between workers of all traditions in this country and often in the face of the most strident adversity – including the significance of decisions taken by our movement in 1918 and the price we have paid for those decisions and I want to assure Conference that in so far as I possibly can I will remain true throughout my tenure in this office to that legacy.

Patricia also elevated the importance of international solidarity throughout her presidency reinforcing the internationalist outlook of our movement and working tirelessly to highlight graphically the plight of those suffering injustice and oppression in the world particularly the greatest injustice of them all – that being suffered by the Palestinian people, which incidentally not only diminishes them but the Israeli people as well and because our common humanity has allowed it to happen diminishes us all.

In this regard, I want to reassure conference that I will endeavour to do everything I can to ensure that our honourable tradition of internationalism, reflected in the work of the Global Solidarity Committee, of extending solidarity to beleaguered and oppressed people, particularly in Palestine and Colombia, will remain on top of the agenda.

But ultimately, delegates, we make our history in our own domestic context and we face economic conditions and their social implications at least as severe as any we have ever encountered. The domestic aspect of this crisis is entirely attributable, in the South at least, to decisions made at the end of the 1990’s which actually prioritised speculative over sustainable development – even sustainable capitalism – resulting in a catastrophe of such a scale never previously witnessed in this State.

By way of emphasis, think for a moment of the difference between the Swedish banking crisis of the early 1990s which entailed 8% of GDP compared to our current crisis entailing as much as 60% of GDP and we have not yet seen anything like the full potential of how this crisis will impact on working people and its capacity to inflict enormous human misery.

We are facing into this under a centre-right government which is committed to an austerity policy which reflects the same outlook that created the problems in the first place. Thus, they are concentrated on saving the banks from nationalisation; rectifying the public finances without alienating the better off because they regard them as potential investors; and simulating devaluation by promoting a pay cutting agenda across the economy – a policy which incidentally apart from its inherent immorality will actually serve only to exacerbate the problem by further depressing the economy.

That being said, we have to be clear that there is neither a pain free, nor risk free alternative, and wish it as we would it is not open to us to simply wave these problems away – there is a requirement for a sustained national effort by all sectors of society, acting on an all island basis, to meet the challenge.

This can only be constructed on the basis of fairness which means that those best able contribute the most while those most exposed are protected by society as a whole.

That is why we advanced the idea of the Social Solidarity Pact; why we promulgated the Ten Point Plan; why we urged unions seeking mandates to ballot for industrial action across the South in pursuit of the Transitional Agreement or negotiated alternative. That too – believe it or believe it not delegates – is why the Executive Council of Congress deferred the action scheduled for March 30, last and why we agreed to enter talks with government and employers and it is why within those talks we highlighted the issues of job retention; private sector pensions and protection against home repossessions and why in relation to the public sector we have demanded guarantees against compulsory redundancies; the protection of temporary workers and reassurances against further pay cuts as well as commitments that the pensions levy would be addressed in a structured way in the context of economic recovery.

And it is also, delegates, why the Executive Council concluded unanimously that the proposals which emerged from the talks on June 23, fell short but sought further engagement to see if a platform for agreement could be constructed.

Because we must be prepared to try to find agreement which maximises the prospects for the protection of the livelihoods and advancement of the interests of our members and of working people generally and their families. And it is why, also, that we are engaged with the Construction Industry Council in relation to imaginative proposals which would save 70,000 jobs, preserve our critical skills base and provide physical infrastructure which is so crucial to enhance the productivity of our economy rather than the kindergarten economics of cutting people’s pay. In that regard, I want to make it very clear that we are amenable to working with any and every employer who is prepared to recognise their employees right to organise and be represented by trade unions, to negotiate and comply with collectively negotiated agreements and to treat people fairly, in order to meet the challenge ahead.

I am acutely aware of the level of disillusionment among trade union members and working people generally at our response to the assault on their standard of living and quality of life as it has unfolded to date. I have to say, quite frankly, that it would have been better if we had gone ahead with the day of action on March 30, as a united movement - but it wasn’t going to happen as a united movement.

But let us be clear on this, delegates. This is a marathon not a sprint and we will not successfully meet the challenge with which we are faced by walking around town for a few hours. Let us be clear because there is a great deal of confusion about it. What we decided to do at the Congress meeting of February 24, was to urge unions to conduct ballots to secure mandates for a sustained and relentless campaign of action in pursuit of collectively negotiated agreement.

And in the absence of that I am not going to threaten the Minister for Finance with the riots in the street that seem to pre-occupy his imagination but I believe we can offer instead the prospect of a sustained and relentless industrial campaign conducted workplace by workplace and I believe we can promise him and those who believe that working people should carry the burden of this crisis a response that will not end in one day like a walk about town - or a riot for that matter – but will go on and on, workplace after workplace, and that will be there to meet them every morning they wake up.

I do so in the knowledge that if it has to happen – and I very much hope it doesn’t - that while we will take punishment we will inflict it as well and I am determined to ensure that in so far as I can this movement will not allow any group of workers to be isolated or to have their agreements torn up or to have Labour Court recommendations disregarded and to have avenues of resolution deliberately obstructed. This is why, delegates, I considered it critically important to declare our clear and unequivocal support for the electrician members of the TEEU after their talks at the LRC broke down last Saturday.

In saying all of this I am equally determined to ensure that the battle is conducted in an intelligent way that does not expose union members, or their families, or indeed the ordinary citizens of this island, to unnecessary hardship or potential danger through some blind adventurism.

And all the while being ready and willing to conclude terms for a realistic agreement that respects the interests of working people and our entitlement to dignity at work.

In that regard, I will be making no attempt to camouflage the fact that our government has failed to honour commitments in respect of nine separate pieces of employment protection legislation and their recent exercise in persuading the Heads of Government at the European Council to adopt a solemn declaration affording a high priority to workers rights when they are not prepared to apply it domestically is nothing short of monumental hypocrisy.

Indeed, this is graphically illustrated by the plight of ten contract cleaner members of my own union who are today picketing the office of the Minister for the Environment in the Customs House having been dismissed for no other reason other than that they are members of a trade union.

It is also evident in the application for an all out picket in Dublin Port which is due to be considered by this Congress shortly because a company called Marine Terminals is determined to smash any trade union organisation including an attempt to carry out the mass dismissal of SIPTU members. It was also reflected in the presence here earlier this week of workers employed by Mr Binman a company in the waste disposal industry in support of their colleagues who have also been dismissed for simply seeking to exercise the right to organise.

All this arises in the context of the impending vote on the Lisbon Treaty which, if ratified, would enshrine entitlement to participate in collective bargaining as a fundamental right, which would inevitably entail a prohibition on victimisation for seeking to vindicate that right, but which our government refuses to commit to domestic legislation.

In this context, I believe that the two most significant and potentially far reaching developments of our conference this week were the clear and explicit commitment which seems to have gone unnoticed by the leader of the Labour leader, Eamon Gilmore when he addressed us last Tuesday to enshrine that fundamental right into Irish law if the Treaty is ratified in the October referendum – the other one being our decision to establish a commission on trade union organisation. Lets be frank about it delegates. We are not nearly as well equipped as we should be to address the challenge facing the people we represent over the period ahead and we must address ourselves to this as a matter of the most urgent priority.

Unless and until we do the content of our resolutions will remain little more than aspirational.

I want to assure you that these matters will receive my fullest attention over every day of the next two years and in that regard I look forward to working with every member elected to the incoming Executive Council to ensure that as far as I possibly can that the interests of every member of every union affiliated to this Congress are upheld to the utmost possible degree.

My fundamental objective is to achieve the maximum unity in our trade union and labour movement because it is not just about unity between organisations and institutions but, more profoundly, between the working men and women of this island.

With that in mind I look forward to working with the other officers, with Joe O’Flynn and Patricia King of my own union, and with Eugene McGlone of UNITE and, in particular, I look forward to working with our general secretary, David Begg, whom I hold in the utmost esteem and whom, I have no doubt, is without question the best person to see us through these difficult times.

I’m often reminded of a remark passed by Esther Lynch of the Congress staff in a passing conversation a few years ago. She said; “This is our watch”. We are only the custodians of the proud legacy of the determined, and courageous, working people who founded this Congress and we owe it to them and to our members and working people today and to those who are not yet born to meet the challenge presented by these times and to reassert the objective of fairness at work and justice in society. I promise that I will do everything I can to bring this about and I know that together as a united movement we will overcome.