Republican News · Thursday 3 July 2003

Union membership meltdown

We have a whole generation of union officials who never negotiated a wage increase

What is happening to the Irish unionised worker? Startling data compiled by the Central Statistics Office has shown a crisis in union membership. Only 20% of private sector workers are in unions, and when you include the public sector the overall figure for union membership only rises to 34.6%. Only 10% of union members are under 25.

It seems that the Irish union worker has not just grown old; they are also middle aged, middle class and working in public sector professions. This week, Irish Congress of Trade Union (ICTU) delegates meet in Kerry for their biennial conference. "People in unions are better off" is the conference theme but ICTU has a mountain to climb to get young Irish workers to join a union.

The difficulties facing unions do not end there. Union membership percentages are high in the transport and communication sectors, which are facing privatisation, so if unions today are not geared to representing the needs of private sector workers, how are they going to retain members as the privatisation treadmill gathers pace again?

This week, ROBBIE SMYTH interviews Mick O'Reilly, Ireland's most outspoken voice on the radical left in the trade union movement on the future for trade unions in the Irish economy.

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Organise!

Senior ATGWU activist tells how the unions can fight back

Mick O'Reilly, recently reinstated as Senior Industrial Organiser with the ATGWU, is an oddity in the public face of trade union leadership in Ireland. Openly advocating radical surgery for the trade union movement in the form of a return to first principles of organising, recruiting, and representation as well as forging a union leadership that provides an "independent voice" separate to employers and government is something not often heard from trade union leaders today.

But this is just part of O'Reilly's philosophy. He has been opposed to the EU's process of economic and monetary union, campaigned against the Nice Treaty and has been a tireless voice against the current partnership process between unions, employers and government.

O'Reilly comes across as a bundle of energy anxious to be unleashed. This could stem from a 21-month-long dispute with Bill Morris, the recently retired, with knighthood, head of the ATGWU in Britain. O'Reilly was suspended from work as leader of the ATGWU in Ireland for the duration of the dispute that culminated in the most serious charges levelled against O'Reilly by Morris being dismissed. O'Reilly and Eugene McGlone, another union official, were reinstated with full salaries.

So why are unions failing to represent private sector workers today? O'Reilly believes that it is because the years of partnership have created an impression among many workers that "unions are seen as a prop for employers" and that "we have a trade union movement based around only servicing the needs of existing members".

"Workers are not organising, union officials need to be raising consciousness among workers, teaching them bargaining skills. You have to be their voice and this is not the case now," says O'Reilly.

example of the focus on the needs of existing public sector union members rather than the private sector was the huge effort and resources put into securing the benchmarking agreement. That agreement, according to O'Reilly, "is a contradiction. It interfered with the status quo in the public sector because it didn't do anything for low pay. Benchmarking will increase differentials between high and low paid in this sector." O'Reilly predicts that the coalition government will delay full payment of the awards.

He argues: "Unions should have a two-pronged agenda". The first is to work on the pay and conditions of members. The second is to develop and articulate a political agenda. He says "the trade union movement needs a vehicle to deliver on economic and social policies". It needs, he repeats over and over again in the interview, "an independent voice". There is great disillusionment with the current trade union leadership, he says.

"There is a need for more involvement of workers in decisions that affect them," says O'Reilly. One problem with the partnership agreement is that trade union officials are "not active participants" and have become "police officers for the agreement".

Local trade union officials should be "setting the priorities" for their unions. One of O'Reilly's greatest fears is that "we have a whole generation of union officials who never negotiated a wage increase". This is a danger because O'Reilly believes that "employers don't' stand still" and will exit partnership when it suits their interests, not the unions'. He warns: "If we don't organise there will be no organisation."

There is, according to O'Reilly, "no magic to organising workers". He says the main reason workers give for not joining a union is that "no one asked us to join". This means unions have to facilitate their agenda. Workers want "secure jobs, a more meaningful work environment with better wages and conditions".

Perhaps the most revealing comment from O'Reilly is his treatise on the structure and organisation of trade unions. Unions have to be representative and democratic and represent their members' interests. That is their purpose. Union structure is then a function of purpose.

The problem is, says O'Reilly, that "purpose gets lost in the institution. People end up fighting for the institution, not the purpose".

For many ATGWU members, O'Reilly is still seen as the real head of the union. With so much at stake for the rights of workers in the modern economy, it seems inconceivable that he will be nothing less than a major force in the trade union movement in the coming years.

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Better off in a union?

The trade union movement in Ireland is at a crossroads. Those in unions are more often in secure public sector employment. The CSO figures shows that 48% of people working in the professions were union members, with the proportion falling to 37% of skilled craft workers, 32% in the services sector, 20% of sales staff and only 12% of those in hotels or restaurants.

It seems that the lower your pay is, the more difficult your working conditions are and the more in need of union membership you are, the less likely you are to be in a union. Surely this is a huge contradiction?

The ICTU describes itself as "representing a wide range of interests of almost 750,000 working people, both in the Republic and in Northern Ireland".

There are 64 unions affiliated to Congress, 48 unions with 543,882 members in the South and 36 unions with 215,478 members in the North.

The motions before ICTU delegates this week cover a lot of progressive proposals on the economy, privatisation, taxation, corporate enforcement, low pay, the health service, education and equality. They clearly know what the problems facing Irish workers are. But have they the practical commitment and know how to make a difference in the workplace?

Part of the ICTU conference's work is to plan a new recruitment campaign. Will it be enough to have some different figures on union membership and activism in two years time?