Ireland: An Bord Snip Nua – Cowen’s Procrustean Bed

Irish civil servants face wholesale restructuring and even the closure of some departments. Public sector pay is also threatened. The An Bord Snip report, yet to be officially published, is a recipe for class conflict and the trade unions should act accordingly.

What with stalled talks over the national wage agreement and the Pension Levy, an emergency budget worthy of Dracula and a huge hole in the government’s finances also, there’s no surprise that the government’s “expenditure review body” has been christened as An Bord Snip.

The body, which is chaired by bourgeois economist Colm MacCarthy is due to report tonight (June 30) and the expectation is that the projected cut in public spending will be as high as €5bn. This figure is 300% of the value of AIB and the Bank of Ireland – that were valued in February at €1.65bn. More importantly it’s also 20% of the state budget. This report will herald a disaster for workers in the public sector and the poor, young old, sick and unemployed, who depend on the state for support.

“There has been extensive speculation on the scale and nature of the cutbacks identified by 'An Bord Snip Nua', with areas ranging from social welfare and child benefit to garda staffing mentioned.

“The body has examined every public programme involving expenditure and has identified significant savings which could total up to €5bn if fully implemented.

“It is thought that some of the proposals may include the amalgamation or abolition of certain Government departments or agencies.

“If cuts are to be implemented staff will expected to be flexible

“Increased flexibility in redeployment will then become crucial in dealing with surplus staff if the cuts are to be implemented successfully.” (RTÉ 29/6/09)

It’s quite likely that the governing coalition will decide not to publish the report – although we can expect that it will be leaked in some way, shape or form. The truth is that it will provide a green light for Lenihan to force through savage cuts.

In the Greek Myths Procrustes would trap unwary travellers and offer them a night’s sleep. He would then cut off their legs and arms if they were too tall for his bed, or stretch them if they were too short.

Lenihan will no doubt combine the two and make brutal cuts and stretch the workforce to make them work harder to cover the gaps.

As Finfacts points out today (June 30^th):

“The chairman of the so-called An Bord Snip Nua, Colm McCarthy, is recommending that Mr Cowen "review" the entire operation of the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism and the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.”

“A government source said Mr McCarthy's agency would "advise of the need for a review of the whole departments and how they operate and the rationale for keeping them in their present format or for keeping them at all".” (Finfacts 30/6/09)

So Civil servants will face wholesale restructuring and even the closure of some departments. Public sector pay will also be threatened. There have been a number of reports in the bourgeois press about the alleged “high wages” that public sector workers “enjoy”.

For sure, there are various degrees of enjoyment and no doubt the effects of the pension levy and all of the other levies will have meant that that enjoyment may now be tinged with a certain sadness and massive concern for the future.

It is highly likely that the public sector workers will not “enjoy” the report at all. Given the depth of the cuts that are likely to come out of this report, it is going to be less and less possible for the ICTU leaders to manage to sell the idea of social partnership to the workers.

We’ve explained that there is a world of difference between the idea of social partnership in a boom – and remember the Irish economy doubled in size during the Celtic Tiger years - and a position where the bosses and the Government are after placing the entire burden of the crisis on the shoulders of the working class.

Trotsky, writing in 1940 shortly before his murder, explained in his unfinished article “Trade Unions in the epoch of imperialist decay” that the trade union leaders will always seek to find agreement and an accommodation with the state, but that conversely the pressure from below inevitably makes this process break down.

The response of the working class to the reneging on the wage agreement and the imposition of the Pension levy was the monster March in February. As far as the public sector is concerned the implication of the An Bord Snip report will be much greater. The ICTU leaders decided call off the March 30^th strikes and instead chose to place their eggs in the basket of the talks about talks with IBEC and the government. That has proven to have been a grave error that sold the movement short. Hundreds and thousands of workers will have drawn a critical conclusion from those events. The only way is to fight fire with fire.

As we have pointed out, it is likely that the detail of the report will be leaked, at least in part. But the ICTU leaders should demand that it be published in full. Public Sector workers must demand full access to the report. We would argue that the economic crisis is a crisis of capitalism, a crisis the working class didn’t create. Why should we pay for it? As the details of the report become clear ICTU should make plans for a one day Public Sector General Strike. Make the bosses pay!