Fiscal treaty and unions.

femur61

It seems the unions are urging a no in the fiscal treaty. I know there was one during the week and now Mandate are urging a no in the referendum Fiscal Treaty. http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0422/mandate-union-advises-fiscal-treaty-no-vote.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Are they insane? I knoiw they are using this as bargining tool in order to get more demands above all the demands alreadyin the CPA so they can get something similar. Mandate represents mainly retail sector. Will we scare all these multinationals away. No money to borrow for the PS so wages in all sectors will decrease, which may be a good thing if people want to invest in the country but not good for the Irish as our wages go down.

Are we damed if we do and damed if we don't? The Chineese or the yanks would 't want to invest here if we are too militant.

srsly78

A no vote is a vote to cut off financial aid - which is what currently pays these guys wages. They are only screwing themselves.

Scofflaw

femur61 wrote: »

It seems the unions are urging a no in the fiscal treaty. I know there was one during the week and now Mandate are urging a no in the referendum Fiscal Treaty. http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0422/mandate-union-advises-fiscal-treaty-no-vote.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Are they insane? I knoiw they are using this as bargining tool in order to get more demands above all the demands alreadyin the CPA so they can get something similar. Mandate represents mainly retail sector. Will we scare all these multinationals away. No money to borrow for the PS so wages in all sectors will decrease, which may be a good thing if people want to invest in the country but not good for the Irish as our wages go down.

Are we damed if we do and damed if we don't? The Chineese or the yanks would 't want to invest here if we are too militant.

SIPTU were demanding a €10bn stimulus programme in exchange for supporting a Yes:

SIPTU President Jack O'Connor said Ireland was “between a rock and a hard place”.

He said the treaty would impose an unnecessarily severe debt brake - but if Ireland did not ratify it, the country would not have access to the ESM bailout fund.

However, Mr O’Connor said that if the Government committed to the stimulus plan, SIPTU would go along with the treaty despite their reservations, because it would give the country what he called "a fighting chance of emerging from this nightmare".

PSEU seem uncertain:

Meanwhile, the President of the Public Service Executive Union, Valerie Behan, said that neither a Yes nor a No vote was ideal, but that the continuation of members' very job security was at stake.

She urged members to focus on the core issue and to ignore all the extraneous "noise" that would emanate from both sides.

I suspect that's probably a grudging Yes.

It's no particular surprise that the unions are coming out with at best grudging Yes support, if not outright No calls - the decision to be made is too obviously economic, and the idea of a balanced budget too obviously 'constraining' of the kind of open-ended spending commitments the unions favour for them to adopt any other posture. In particular, it's not hard to predict that wage constraints may be something of a feature of the post-bubble economy, although that's almost certainly going to be the case either way - it's just more difficult for the unions if the government has a treaty agreement it can point to as binding it.

cordially,
Scofflaw