Striking truckers need our support
Lorry strikers an issue for all European workers
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What is the point in having a single market for business if there
isn't a single market for workers that guarantees their rights?
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Striking lorry drivers have brought France to a standstill this
week with 140 blockades at refineries, fuel depots, major
highways, border crossings and seaports.
The media coverage and political commentary on the dispute has
played on the emotive issues of layoffs and financial losses in
other EU states as a result of the strike. The European
Commission has turned the strike into an issue of freedom of
movement making the case that the French government has to ensure
free movement of goods and people.
EU commissioners Neil Kinnock and Padraig Flynn have also
emphasised the freedom of movement issues saying that it is the
``foundation of a European single market''. They have also warned
of the potential ``negative impact on employment''. The Spanish
Young Farmers Association have called for a boycott of French
goods. In Ireland 3,000 fishery workers could be laid off while
exporters and hauliers face losses of nearly £2 million a day.
The culmination of this is to blame the French workers for
engaging in what is a just strike. Their pay and working
conditions are unacceptable for European workers. For example one
of the workers' key demands is an hourly wage rate of £5.88 which
has been denied by employers. Drivers also work very long hours.
Only 5% work less than 230 hours a month. Part of the reason for
such low pay and long hours in France is competition from
Portuguese truckers.
It raises the question of what is the point in having a single
market for business if there isn't a single market for workers
that guarantees their rights.
This is the core issue of the dispute, if French workers rights
are being denied because of conditions in other EU states, it
makes the EU structures laughable. Yes, there are costs for Irish
business and workers because of the strike, but the French
workers deserve and need our support because the denial of their
rights today could be ours tomorrow.
$37 billion bail out to Suharto's brutal regime
Donor's blind eye to Indonesian human rights abuses
At first the news seemed too good to be true - the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) were going to use their financial muscle to
impose reforms on Indonesia's corrupt anti-democratic regime.
Don't hold your breath. The IMF and fellow partners the World
Bank had little or no interest in ending President Suharto's
bloody regime.
The only `reforms' that the IMF were interested in were the usual
package of privatisation and deregulation of markets - measures
that are their stock in trade when lending money to desperate
states.
$12 billion dollars was the amount of funding Suharto needed to
pay off debts run up by industry and banking groups under his
control. Suharto's family and allies control according to the
Financial Times ``some of the most lucrative business sectors in
the rapidly growing economy''.
Issues such as the ongoing systematic human rights abuses within
Indonesia and the brutal occupation of neighbouring states such
as East Timor is not a problem to the IMF. Also not a problem is
Suharto's constant spending on weapons and military equipment.
The IMF only wanted ``stricter rules to ensure transparency of
government contracts and curbs on state and private monopolies''
The IMF is not the only one offering financial aid to the
Indonesian regime. Singapore and Japan have donated $5 billion
dollars each to Suharto. The USA has donated $3 billion and
Malaysia offered $1 billion, adding up to a grand total of $37
billion. More funds are expected from Australia, Hong Kong and
China. The IMF, World Bank and the Asian Development bank have
pledged $23 billion
The opportunity to use Indonesia's economic problems as a lever
to secure concessions on human rights issues from Suharto's
regime has been spurned. Expectations from the IMF to use their
influence for a positive end were never high. However the role
that the USA and Japan and others seem to be playing in bailing
out Suharto financially is utterly deplorable. Yet again it seems
that dollars and human rights just don't mix.
3,900 less farms
Irish farmers are one of the forgotten elements in the Celtic
Tiger tales that fill our papers and news bulletins these days.
They somehow just don't fit into that high technology image that
the IDA and others portray of the Irish economy. Yet they are the
corner stone, the basic building block of the economy we live in
today.
Figures released by the Central Statistics Office last week show
the negative effects of the ongoing transformation of Irish
farming life. In 1995 there were 153,400 farms in the 26 Counties
but in 1996 3,900 of these farms disappeared and were subsumed
into other larger units. There is a slight increase in the number
of people working in farming up from 293,300 to 301,000,but still
lower than the 1994 figure of 310,200 farm workers.
The net result is that the average farm size is increasing. In
1996 it stood at just over 72 acres. There are currently almost
71,500 farms whose size is less than 50 acres. What hope have
they got of surviving the trend towards increasingly large and
ranch size farms? Is this the rural Ireland we really want?
sbacher 15 to escape trial
It now seems likely that the 15 rich Irish citizens who stashed
their money in the same offshore accounts as Charlie Haughey will
escape prosecution in the 26 Counties for tax evasion.
In mid October An Phoblacht reported on Charlie McCreevy stating
that he would not be asking the Central Bank or the Revenue
Commissioners to investigate the other people who had shares in
the £38 million Ansbacher offshore accounts.
Now files have been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions
by McCreevy and to the new Moriarty Tribunal on Payments to
Haughey and Lowry. Despite his claim earlier this month that the
Central Bank was independent of his office McCreevy did actually
ask the Central Bank in August to investigate whether or not
exchange controls were broken as the money was moved out of sight
of the revenue commissioners.
The 15 owners of the £38 million will not be considered in the
Moriarty Tribunal and it is unlikley that they will ever be named
publicly. Even less likley is that prosecutions will arise as the
Revenue Commssioners do not have the legal power to investigate
the accounts. Now that really is a miscarriage of justice.
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