Striking Uncertainty
A hot topic around the Department for the last few days has been whether or not we’re all going to be on strike on Thursday 12th November. Since the suspension of the strike planned for 21st October, negotiations between the public sector unions aand government officials got going and then stopped and a new strike day was called, initially for 11th November, then changed to 12th November (i.e. this Thursday).
Instead of the pickets at individual workplaces as on 14th October, the plan for 12th November was a number of rallies as seen on the map above.
The route for the Dublin march is shown on the left here. The complication for Dublin is that there are two EU summits taking place this week thanks to it being Ireland’s turn at the EU presidency, so a big area of the city is cordoned off. We have received instructions on where to gather at the start – our marching orders, so to speak – and I’m planning to go into Dublin by train in the morning as other public transport is heavily disrupted by the EU business.
There are rumours that progress may have been made in the negotiations so the strike may be suspended (again) and the rallies called off but as things stand they are still very much on.
I am very annoyed with the Government, and especially Tanaiste Simon Harris, for the way they have handled this dispute. For one thing, they have been leaking details to the compliant establishment media of what is claimed to have been offered, which is inappropriate when the discussions are supposed to be confidential. Worse, though, the leaks have been misleading: they have for example been describing an “11%” offer which is nothing of the sort. Yesterday Simon Harris on the one hand called for “de-escalation” of the dispute and on the other said the unions had 48 hours to decide whether to “take it or leave it”. That doesn’t sound like de-escalation to me! With breathtaking hypocrisy, Harris also called upon the unions to engage “in good faith” with the offer. Where was the “good faith” when the Government failed to start negotiations until long after the previous deal expired and failed to implement that deal in full anyway?
These inept political posturings haven’t helped the negotiations one little bit, but if a deal is struck and Thursday’s strike is cancelled then whatever is offered will be reported to union members who will have a ballot on whether or not to accept it. I will be looking very carefully at the details before casting my vote.
As for work, I have a contingency plan in place for Thursday. As things stand, my two tutorials are cancelled but I have the material ready in case they go ahead. If I am on strike on Thursday I may take the opportunity presented by a trip into Dublin to do a little shopping after the rally.
On a personal note I was relieved that the strike was postponed from 11th November (tomorrow) because tomorrow I was due to have my latest knee treatment then and that would have been cancelled if there was a strike that day. That wouldn’t be the end of the world as I could have it later but between you and me I am struggling a bit with the old arthritis and really want to get it done. Now whatever happens with the strike I’ll get my injections tomorrow. The last time I had the jabs, six months ago, one knee decided to swell up which was quite unpleasant for a couple of days. I’ve had these injections a dozen times, though, and that’s the first problem I’ve had so hopefully I’ll be fine for Thursday.
Leave a Reply