Rights and responsibilities

This was written two weeks ago in response to the difficulties locally with local authority workers on strike.

We live in an age where everybody knows their rights. My mother, a teacher, has come home with tales of five-year-olds who are aware of their rights, and use them as a threat. And they’re not unusual. In post Celtic Tiger Ireland we’re all very well aware of what’s owed to us, how we should be treated, and our personal dignity.

But what about our responsibilities? It’s very often forgotten that ‘rights’ is an incomplete term when the word ‘responsibility’ is omitted. We all have human rights, but equally we have human responsibilities. Most of them are based on respecting other peoples’ rights. 

At the moment, there is a type of warfare going on in Ireland in which some people are trying to assert their rights at the expense of others.

In this week’s paper, Eoin Weldon reports on the frustration being felt by local politicians at the fact that they can’t do the jobs they were elected to do. The local representatives quoted have a right to be allowed to do their work but, more importantly, the people they represent have a right to that representation. That’s a pretty fundamental right.

Also this week, Christine Allen writes about the Cork people who are being denied their legal right to passports.

Behind both stories we see the right to a living wage come to the fore – some CPSU members are having a very tough time making ends meet since the pay cuts of last year. I heard of one chap who, since the pay cuts, is earning €1600 per month. His mortgage (which he qualified for under his previous, substantially higher, salary) is €1400 per month. Nobody can live on that, and I feel genuinely sympathetic to him and his colleagues who have been put in that position.

The CPSU are right to be angry. But we’re all angry. Most of us have taken pay cuts, while many have lost jobs, or even homes.

What about the private sector workers on short hours who can’t get appointments at their local social welfare offices because civil servants are on strike? What are they supposed to do? Strike action is not going to solve their problem – they won’t go on strike, because they are glad they have a job, and they will do nothing to jeopardise it.

A social welfare officer recently told an acquaintance of mine on a three-day week that he didn’t qualify for any payments – because he wasn’t actively seeking work. Patently incorrect, but where should he go for help? His local councillor? Well, he could – but she won’t be able to get anywhere either.

What about people who have jobs, with start dates, abroad, who can’t get passports and take up their positions? Where should they go for help? The passport office? They could – but they will be so long queueing that their job will be filled by the time they get their travel documents.

As we’ve all been told by teachers throughout the ages, two wrongs don’t make a right. Equally, rights do not exist without corresponding responsibilities. Margaret Thatcher once said that society did not exist. If things keep going the way they are, soon, she might be right.

 

Compromise will hurt services

Compromise will hurt services

Conflicting statements from the Government and the unions over the last few days have left most of us in a state of some confusion. The fact that they are talking again, rather than issuing tit-for-tat hollow threats, is to be welcomed, but the subject and focus of these talks are something to be wondered at.

A number of weeks ago I wrote about a campaign run by the public service unions that was disingenuous at best, and at worst cynical and dishonest. I won’t go over old ground, but the campaign in question featured stock images of a fictitious sick baby (‘Laura’) and the claim that the child needed services more than the Government needed to cut them.

And what has happened since? One public service strike, which caused a lot of hassle (for non-public service parents in particular, many of whom lost a day’s pay in order to stay at home and mind their kids). Widespread flooding across the country, throughout which public service workers have been admirably diligent and dedicated. And now, talks which have seemingly resulted in a decision not to cut their pay, but to cut the amount of time they work.

I may be getting something wrong here, but will this not impact directly on the level of services being offered to ‘Laura’ and others like her?

It’s not fair to blame public sector workers for the disaster the country is in. And if you follow this line of reasoning, it’s not fair to cut their pay either. But companies across the country have already done this, and private sector workers, most of whom did not get any great benefit from the boom, have already taken the pain.

I have great admiration for most public servants. I could never be a nurse, or a teacher – I simply don’t have those skills. But the unions are doing their members a disservice by talking out of both sides of their mouths.

Unions represent their members. They do not represent anyone else – sick babies, old people or flood victims. This is evidenced by the proposal to cut days worked, which will have a clear and major impact on services provided, especially those in key front line areas, where staff are already stretched.

The Government and unions have been uniquely short-sighted in seeing this as a solution. As one private sector friend of mine suggested yesterday, why not reduce public sector sick pay to the statutory level that private sector workers have? This would decrease the amount of absenteeism and make a hug saving. Some imagination would not go amiss.

Another public sector strike would merely have served to deepen the divide between public and private sector workers, when we really are in this together. Let’s just hope a more imaginative and equitable solution can be found.