Jack O' Connor says ICTU may support default in the future

Brussels Sprout

Outing Irish Congress of Trade Unions president Jack O'Connor has warned that the time may come when they will have to advocate default on Ireland's debt.

However, he warned that such a move could have serious consequences for jobs and public services.

Jack O'Connor said that Ireland had to extricate itself from what he called the 'straightjacket of the Troika' agreement, which was suffocating any prospect of growth in domestic demand.

Addressing the ICTU conference in Killarney, he said the question was how to trigger renegotiation.

The ICTU president said opinion was divided as to potential consequences of threatening default, adding that Congress had not supported the call so far.
However, he said they may well come to so and were conscious that resources were being run down as time passed.
Mr O'Connor cautioned that they could not anticipate the response of the European Central Bank, which could withdraw support from Ireland's covered banks.

He said they could not forecast how default would play with global companies upon which so many people depended for their livelihoods.
However, he said he was pretty certain it would mean balanced budgets overnight - which would be devastating for working people and all who depend on public services.

Surprised to hear this outbreak of common sense from Jack O' Connor. I wonder if he'd be saying this if he wasn't stepping down?


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femur61

just heard him on News at 1, very surprised off late have noticed he is not shouting down the microphone but very placid. Does he know how much he thought so little off in the private sector.

sollar

Hasn't he seen the books... he prob knows we are buggered and realises the bunch of fools who have taken over the ship are even more clueless than the last lot.

Nijmegen

I like how he says default will affect jobs in the public sector. Naked self interested priorities.

The patriots of Irish freedom are spinning in their graves.

Lumbo

femur61 wrote: »

just heard him on News at 1, very surprised off late have noticed he is not shouting down the microphone but very placid. Does he know how much he thought so little off in the private sector.

Aren't most of his comrades made up of members of the Private Sector?

sarumite

O' Conner is part of the problem. I really couln't care less about what he says.

Sleepy

Why is this a surprise? The element of our debt which is arguably unsustainable is the banking debt. Even if we could get our current account deficit under control (i.e. cutting government spending - exactly what Mr. O' Connor wants to avoid) we'd still have the burden of repaying / servicing banking debt.

It's the same tactic the unions have adopted since the start of the downturn tbh: deflect all attention to "dem bankers" in an attempt to protect their members from reality.

eigrod

Sleepy wrote: »

It's the same tactic the unions have adopted since the start of the downturn tbh: deflect all attention to "dem bankers" in an attempt to protect their members from reality.

I think their members have been exposed to reality far more harshly than any of "dem bankers" over the last 3 years.

Sleepy

Depends on which level of banker you're talking about eigrod but assuming it's the top level guys, I'd largely agree.

Apples being green doesn't mean oranges aren't blue though

Sand

O'Connor is just playing to his audience who probably are stupid enough to believe we can default *and* run a huge deficit.

An insider like himself will never be in favour of default - as he said himself, the crazy wages, conditions of employment and benefits and junkets enjoyed in the public sector are courtesy of immense borrowing which would no longer be possible post default. Who pay Jacks wages then? Turkeys dont vote for christmas.

hmmm

What kind of odd speech is this? The leader of the biggest union in the country comes out and talks about default which immediately will lead to a higher cost of borrowing, and pushes out the date we can return to the bond markets unaided.

He says he doesn't really know what the impact will be, but he does know we will have to immediately close the deficit. He doesn't know what the impact will be on employees in multinationals. Most commentators would say closing a deficit of 10% overnight will lead to massive redundancies amongst his union members and a massive economic shock.

Yet he still thinks that ICTU may support a default "in the future"? What was the point of this speech?

ei.sdraob

the likes of Begg and SF make it harder for people like me (who are quite on the opposite end of spectrum to them!) to point out that yes the banks are as large and equal problem as the deficit itself. The two are related and stem back to the same root causes.

View

After JO'C's speech, the government can issue protective notice to 20% of the public service. When the Unions scream about it, the government just has to shrug its shoulders and point out, they'd be laying off 50%+ of the public service were the government to follow JO'C's default recommendation.

jimmycrackcorm

Lumbo wrote: »

Aren't most of his comrades made up of members of the Private Sector?

Are there any of them left who aren't on the dole?

WalterMitty

Jack o Connor is a self declared communist so any one who is struggling financially can go to him and im sure he will share his 6 figure salary with them.

Unions would rather let a quarter of staff in public sector go and cut welfare by a quarter than cut pay of all public servants by say 30%. Better to have 225,000 happy fee paying members of your extortionist gang than 300,000 angry ones.

Delancey

If O'Connor advocated tearing up the Croke Park Agreement I for one would take him a little more seriously.

later12

I stopped listening when Jack O Connor called for a democratically accountable ECB and a transfer union for Europe.

I want rainbows and lollipops, said the child.