Business

Unions keeping the spirit of the Agreement

Events are being held today to mark the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement
Events are being held today to mark the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement Events are being held today to mark the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement

LATER this morning, the trade union movement will be standing outside Parliament Buildings in Belfast with placards and banners - not as a picket, but calling for the very opposite of a strike.

The unions remain completely supportive of the spirit and letter of the Agreement signed 20 years ago today, and are united in calling for its structures to be returned to the people who voted for it.

In the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), we believe that locally accountable politicians are better at responding to the needs of the local economy and the society it serves than any part-time Tory minister, however well-intentioned.

Nor should we easily blame the senior civil servants, who have been conscripted into keeping the ship afloat by rigid circumstance and an inability to compromise. Indeed one of the messages we will be delivering to our political class comes from our experience as negotiators.

No matter how painful, even embarrassing, it is not a bad thing to compromise sometimes, and to earn the trust of your adversaries, for the long-term betterment of the enterprise.

Another message we are pressing home is that the economy is suffering from this stalemate. The private sector is becoming rigid with the uncertainty over Brexit, and cannot properly invest in people or research or innovation or exports.

Recruitment is a growing problem in both private and public sectors, and important initiatives to boost infrastructure are not being addressed.

Given the absence of a functioning Executive, or ministers to meet, or Assembly committees to share expertise with, this society needs other more innovative means of keeping those people making decisions from making the wrong choices.

The recent draft Budget Outlook document offered three main choices: keep things the same, or cut more, or charge more. These are major policy choices that will affect, or afflict, everyone. So we need something new to ensure that enough opinions are considered, and not a tiny coterie of messengers from HM Treasury in London.

In recent months, NIC-ICTU has actively pursued better policy options through our Better Work Better Lives campaign. As well as arguing for policies to tackle the problems of low pay, insecure work and public investment, we have been lobbying politicians and other civil society groups for a robust forum for social dialogue.

This is not a substitute for an Assembly: rather, it could complement it when it returns.

But if it's to be restored it must be vertical as well as horizontal. Our movement, as the largest cross community representative body in Northern Ireland has a right and indeed an obligation to influence public policy in the interest of workers.

Tomorrow, the unions meet in Derry to debate and decide our collective policy priorities for the next two years, issues such as Brexit; defending the Agreement, developing an industrial strategy, marking the NHS’s 70th anniversary, gaining real terms pay rises for working families, and tackling harassment in the workplace and other equality matters.

We then carry a clear policy platform and we intend to deliver as much as we can, regardless of the political circumstances.

:: Owen Reidy is assistant general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU).