Gery Lawless Archive | ETOL Main Page
From Socialist Worker, No. 92, 12 October 1968, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
|
Police savagery in Northern Ireland does not make the South, by comparison, a haven of democracy. GERY LAWLESS, editor of Irish Militant, describes moves by the Southern ruling class to strip workers and unions of their rights |
ON OCTOBER 16 voters in the southern part of Ireland will go to the polls to vote in a referendum.
They are being asked by the government party, Fianna Fail, to agree to abolish election by proportional representation and replace it with the English ‘first past the post’ system.
Fianna Fail has been in power for 31 out of the last 36 years. Their last attempt to abolish PR was rejected by the people in 1959.
Why should they now seek another referendum? The answer is simple.
Fianna Fail, in the interests of the Irish bosses, is introducing a set of vicious anti-trade union laws. They are well aware that when such laws come into force they will produce a swing to the Left among workers.
They want to abolish PR to offset this challenge.
The Irish ruling class, with its weak economy tied openly and brutally to Britain, knows that if Britain enters the Common Market, then Ireland must follow. It needs to build up its industry to survive the ruthless competition from Europe.
A massive propaganda drive was launched to win foreign investment. It worked for a while and unemployment fell in some areas and in certain skilled trades.
But under such conditions the workers, after years of depression, found themselves in a seller’s market for labour and were able to push up their wages, often substantially.
Faced with this new-found confidence, Prime Minister Sean Lemass launched himself into a series of india-rubber contortions in an attempt to discipline the workers.
He used force but not sufficiently. He granted concessions but not enough of them. Workers could neither be coerced nor induced into acting in the so-called ‘National Interest’.
From 1961–1965 there was a gradual increase in the number of man-hours lost through industrial action. By 1964/65 Ireland headed the International Labour Organisation’s table for man-hours lost per thousand workers. Alongside this trend there was a gradual weakening of management domination.
This could not go on. The workers had to be disciplined.
Up to October 1965, despite differences in the Cabinet, Lemass’ strategy was to mark time and wait until Wilson had created the atmosphere and conditions for a showdown with labour in Britain. In other words, he wanted Wilson to do the dirty work first.
While biding his time he granted concessions, in some cases substantial concessions, to the working class, through the official union leaderships, such as the 12½ per cent all-round wage increase in 1964.
He knew that as long as the official union bureaucracies could win concessions for the workers they would be able to contain the situation, at least as far as national wage agreements were concerned.
Lemass and his successor Jack Lynch were well aware, that an outright show-down with labour would further discourage foreign investors, and that, as can be seen from the experience of other working classes, workers, if beaten down on the industrial front, tend to turn towards politics – hence the swing to Labour in recent years.
Fianna Fail want to abolish PR and hammer the Labour Party before forcing the show-down with the workers.
In April 1967 came confirmation, in the form of the minutes of the Working Party of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in its meeting with the Department of Labour, of Fianna Fail’s success in getting agreement with the union bosses.
Basically the plan called for the formation of union ‘groups’ in given industries. The proposed ‘groups’, with a government-granted monopoly of negotiating rights, would concentrate effective power in the hands of a tightly-knit bureaucratic apparatus.
‘Central’ – presumably government-control of balloting, and state pensions for union officials made redundant, would tie this apparatus even more firmly to the state machine. The suggested banning of ‘unofficial’ pickets and the creation of conditions which would virtually rule out the formation of new unions would nullify any attempt to by-pass the official leadership and leave rank and file militants to the mercy of the states
When these laws are put into full force the struggle for higher wages and better conditions will become a struggle against the state, with a consequent politicisation of the working class.
This will drive workers to vote Labour. Hence the need for Premier Lynch, egged on by strong-man – and future Premier (when Lynch gets the knife in the back) – Charlie Haughey, to smash the present system of election by proportional representation and replace it with the ‘English’ system.
At the last election Fianna Fail had 71 seats, the other right wing party Fine Gael 47 and Labour 22. There were four others.
Political scientists at Trinity College, Dublin estimate that if PR is abolished Fianna Fail, without necessarily gaining an extra vote, would get 97 seats, Fine Gael 37 and Labour would be reduced to seven.
In the face of this threat, the Irish Left has formed a united front, the like of which has not been seen for many years. Social democrats, Trotskyists, orthodox Communist Party members and even the leadership of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, have joined the campaign to defend PR.
But there are microscopic elements who have learned nothing trom the German events of the 1930s. ‘What the hell does it matter which way we vote?’ they say, ‘it’s immaterial what method is used to elect the executive of the bourgeoisie.’
This is precisely what the Irish bosses want: step aside, let Fianna Fail wrap Ireland up in the way most advantageous to the City of London. This is neither marxism nor common sense.
If PR is retained, Fianna Fail will be forced to introduce its anti-trade union laws in a situation which could lead to its utter rout. This would create a major parliamentary crisis, putting Southern Irish politics once more back on to the streets.
Whatever its other weaknesses, the Irish working class has a very good record in situations like this.
A special issue of Irish Militant on the PR ballot swindle was printed in London on September 20 and posted the following day to distributors in 14 centres in Ireland. Editor Gery Lawless said this week that to date only four packages had reached their destination.
Last updated: 26 October 2020