Differences between Irish and Greek protesters?

Cody Pomeray

I don't buy into the notion that there is some submissive Irish gene, nor is our lack of protesting an indicator that we don't have it hard.

I think the reason there are so few protests in Ireland is largely because we are still a relatively rural nation. This cohesion that may come along with that is bolstered by a respectable level of income equality, or at least it's respectable judging by EU norms.

The income equality is self explanatory, but why does it matter than a society is rural?

From the French Revolution to the Arab Spring, protesting is an urban activity. Why? Because in the urban setting, inequality is more obvious, cohesion falls apart, there is anonymity; at times, there is no obvious authority.

Not only do we not have a long history of city living, Irish people missed out on the warfare that jerked the rest of Europe into urban upheaval, that severed their ties to the rural community.

Instead, we all sort of slowly drifted away from the countryside and out of community living, and we are still only slowly drifting away from this today, the artifact of a peasant society remains with us.

Am Chile

Austeritynerd wrote: »

Considering both Ireland and Greece received IMF/ECB/EU bailouts with tough austerity conditions attached, it is easy to understand why people took to the streets in protest.
-> I have examined both bailouts, both were strict, all encompassing and extreme.
What I fail to see is WHY there is such a large difference in protests mobilization in both countries. It seems people protest in Greece, but do not bother in Ireland. I have difficulty finding a reason for such differences.

Greece isnt the only country to of seen protests in the EU -portugal/italy/spain/france have all seen protests.

Three reasons ireland hasnt seen large scale protests like other EU countries so far to date.

(1) lack of leadership by the irish trade union movement-so far the irish trade union movement hasnt done anything that would be signifigant- take november of last year there was a general strike across a few EU countries all except ireland as the irish trade union movement decided to sit on the fence last november-also see a old post of mine on protest in france over the retirement age compared to no response in ireland when the retirement age was raised here.


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=85360089&postcount=16

(2) Lot of apathy among the irish public- the ah what can you do attitude among a lot of irish people.

(3) Emigration of irelands youth is also a factor.

BlatentCheek

Am Chile wrote: »

Greece isnt the only country to of seen protests in the EU -portugal/italy/spain/france have all seen protests.

Three reasons ireland hasnt seen large scale protests like other EU countries so far to date.

(1) lack of leadership by the irish trade union movement-so far the irish trade union movement hasnt done anything that would be signifigant- take november of last year there was a general strike across a few EU countries all except ireland as the irish trade union movement decided to sit on the fence last november-also see a old post of mine on protest in france over the retirement age compared to no response in ireland when the retirement age was raised here.


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=85360089&postcount=16

(2) Lot of apathy among the irish public- the ah what can you do attitude among a lot of irish people.

(3) Emigration of irelands youth is also a factor.

Agree with most of your points. It has to be mentioned that things in Greece are incomparably worse.

I think most protests in general are overwhelmingly composed of young people and PS workers (eg Greek riots); as young people are always more like to protest and not many non PS workers are unionised any more.

In Ireland PS workers enjoy a relatively generous pay and pension regime that has in the main been protected in exchange for service cutbacks, hiring freezes and far worse conditions for new entrants; so they have less to protest about than their Greek counterparts.

Young people meanwhile have been exposed to such poor employment opportunities that many of the most active have emigrated, much of the remainder either feel lucky to have a job in the circumstances or are anesthetised on the (relatively generous) dole; leaving a small number who may protest compared to Greece.

Personally I lost any enthusiasm for joining PS union led anti austerity protests after I had an argument on boards.ie some months back with a PS member who defended PS unions supporting unequal treatment for new entrants in the strongest terms - the scales fell away from my eyes and I saw that all their claims of "solidarity" are horse****.

The PS unions can moan about Irish peoples apathy all they like but they contributed towards it by shackling the anti austerity movement to their own wage and pension lobbying

creedp

BlatentCheek wrote: »

Personally I lost any enthusiasm for joining PS union led anti austerity protests after I had an argument on boards.ie some months back with a PS member who defended PS unions supporting unequal treatment for new entrants in the strongest terms - the scales fell away from my eyes and I saw that all their claims of "solidarity" are horse****.

I know its shocking really, the PS must be held to a much higher standard of social responsibility that your average Joe which is why is it perfectly acceptable for private companies to maintain salaries for existing workers while they haemorage jobs trying to cut their costs and survive.

SpaceTime

robp wrote: »

Most countries had huge catastrophes, and many others were also colonies with mass emigration. This kind of deterministic explanation is non credible. In fact trying to explain the lack of radical politics in Ireland as a result Catholic inheritance is pretty much a complement for the CC. I am chuffed we lack the extremism occurring in Greece right now.

The truth is the Greeks have a far worse situation then Ireland with no light whatsoever on the horizon.

The lack of radical politics in Ireland's very little to do with catholic heritage. Many countries with very large catholic populations are totally politically unstable and prone to radical politics : Italy, parts of Latin America, even Austria has crazy right wing parties.

The main reasons in Ireland are a bit complicated.

1) The PR-STV electoral system is highly unusual and tends to create a lot of political consensus type thinking. Most other systems, including PR systems with lists, tend to result in party politics and ideology being a lot more dominant.

2) Ireland's political parties tend to all be rather more on the centrist-pragmatic line. We have very, very few politicians who you would describe as being driven by pure ideological dogma. Even Sinn Fein is rather centrist and compared to many socialist parties, our Socialist Party's quite moderate and pragmatic and we have never really had anyone on the extreme right.

Look what happened to those politicians who were less than pragmatic on the abortion reform issue? It will be interesting to see what happens to them when elections come about. I have a feeling their stance won't necessarily go down as well as they think it did.

3) Politics in Ireland is very local and accessible and I think people genuinely do take a huge interest in it. It's noticeable when you come back here having been abroad. People are really clued into political debates here and have an opinion on everything and usually quite an educated one too. Where as I find in a lot of countries they tend to take a 'right' or 'left' agenda and relatively few people seem to actually parse the fine detail of what's going on.

4) Social Partnership - For all its flaws, it has kept the lines of communication open between large unions and policy making and we haven't seen the kind of crippling strikes that have happened elsewhere.

5) There's a massive and very effective industrial relations dispute resolution system in Ireland and it works quite well on a lot of issues that would end up in strike action elsewhere.

6) The 2011 elections that decimated Fianna Fail let off a *lot* of steam.

7) I think Ireland is one of the few countries in Europe where nationalism and the national identity is not occupied by right wing nut jobs. We can still wave the flag, be proud to be Irish and paint ourselves green and that isn't seen as a provocative, anti-immigration, xenophobic thing where as in many EU countries the flag's now completely associated with crazy National Front type parties.

I think that extends to the fact that we are still able to pull together in a crisis like this. Yeah, there'll be loads of bitching and moaning and finger pointing, but I think most people still have a notion that we have to get the situation sorted out come hell or high water and people are genuinely willing to work together on that.

It's something I think we vastly underestimate here and it's one of the big positives about Ireland that comes out in attitudes research, sociological research etc.

We are very unlike Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece in many respects and tend to have attitudes closer to somewhere like Denmark or Australia.

So, really, it's quite a complex tapestry of reasons, but I think it's largely down to political culture and a very strong sense of being a community and an ability to still retain that sense of community without making it xenophobic.

You can see that in the attitudes to corruption in the banks too. It's definitely more of a sense of betrayal than a class war type thing which is what you tend to get elsewhere.

It was the same with Fianna Fail in the 2007 elections, I felt it was more like the reaction you get when someone discovers that a family member's a complete crook or something. Sort of disappointment / betrayal rather than "those b**tards! over there! who I always hated"
...

Despite all the economic crap going on here, it's still a rather pleasant place to live in many respects.

I also get the impression that in Ireland there's a genuine sense that when push comes to shove, that every stop will be pulled out to keep a lot of basic things going. That has not been the case in Greece where they didn't think twice about inflicting absolutely horrendous cuts on their own people. To me that shows a fractured society.

The *GREEK* Government decided what to cut and they did that largely based on political lines and ideologies.

The EU only said that we're only prepared to lend you X billion.

Despite everything here, the Irish political system (on all sides) seems to be able to come to a negotiated, usually quite reasonable way of spreading the burden. Yeah, I know it's not fair in many respects and loads of us are annoyed but I think it's been spread a lot more fairly than in Greece where people are literally being left with no ability to survive at all while some other people are still not paying any tax and where there are very harsh attitudes towards other members of society coming from certain elites.

Zubeneschamali

BlatentCheek wrote: »

In Ireland PS workers enjoy a relatively generous pay and pension regime that has in the main been protected in exchange for service cutbacks

Young people meanwhile have been exposed to such poor employment opportunities that many of the most active have emigrated, much of the remainder either feel lucky to have a job in the circumstances or are anesthetised on the (relatively generous) dole;

In other words, the people in Ireland most inclined to protest have nothing to protest about.

Hurray! Good job, Government!

Godge

BlatentCheek wrote: »

.

In Ireland PS workers enjoy a relatively generous pay and pension regime that has in the main been protected in exchange for service cutbacks, hiring freezes and far worse conditions for new entrants; so they have less to protest about than their Greek counterparts.

Ah come on, not this urban myth again after three pay cuts for ps workers and a new cheaper pension scheme.

BlatentCheek

creedp wrote: »

I know its shocking really, the PS must be held to a much higher standard of social responsibility that your average Joe which is why is it perfectly acceptable for private companies to maintain salaries for existing workers while they haemorage jobs trying to cut their costs and survive.

Yes. If they're campaigning involves appeals to non PS workers and the unemployed to join them in opposing austerity then they have to be advocating something better than jam for them at the expense of people depending on public services and also at the expense of new entrants to the PS

creedp

BlatentCheek wrote: »

Yes. If they're campaigning involves appeals to non PS workers and the unemployed to join them in opposing austerity then they have to be advocating something better than jam for them at the expense of people depending on public services and also at the expense of new entrants to the PS

So basically private sector workers have no cause to rise up and complain in Ireland at present and will only support austerity protest orgainsed by others on a grace and favour basis if they see that public servants are taking what they consider to be a sufficiently serious hit to their living standards and if they are being totally socially responsible by ensuring that all PS are hit in the exactly same fashion. Sounds to me like such people are the 'prawn sandwich' of protesters.

BlatentCheek

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

In other words, the people in Ireland most inclined to protest have nothing to protest about.

Hurray! Good job, Government!

I didn't say that. I think that a lot of people in Ireland have a vast amount to protest about, but PS workers have less to protest about than many and this fact both quells the extent of their protesting and isolates them from popular support when they do.
Young people have a lot to protest about but a combination of mass emigration, lowered expectations from the political system forced on them by events and a society that has little time for young peoples interests seems to have neutralised their potential in this regard.

Godge wrote: »

Ah come on, not this urban myth again after three pay cuts for ps workers and a new cheaper pension scheme.

Your response just highlights the point I was making. Even after your three pay cuts and a cheaper pension scheme I know many graduates and post graduates who could only dream of remaining in Ireland and having the standard of living of less highly trained or educated PS workers.
Not only has no one in the trade union movement managed to reconcile worse conditions for new entrants, to keep current PS workers in the style their accustomed to, with the "solidarity" they ostensibly represent; but I haven't even heard any of them attempt to.

The PS unions can aggressively lobby for the pay and conditions of their members who joined before 2008 at the expense of everyone else or they can play a central part in a broad based, popular and credible anti austerity movement; they can't do both.

creedp

BlatentCheek wrote: »

The PS unions can aggressively lobby for the pay and conditions of their members who joined before 2008 at the expense of everyone else or they can play a central part in a broad based and popular anti austerity movement; they can't do both.

That aggressive lobbying has resulted in pay cuts of only 20% for higher paid PS .. imagine what cuts could have been achieved if the unions weren't so god almighty powerful. By the way who is the everyone else to whom you refer .. should unions decide that protecting their members was no longer their primary role and instead agressively seek to protect others who are not members? Its funny how people who are not union members complain when an organisation actually does what its supposed to be doing, except in the case of PS unions its damm hard to argue they've been doing a good job!

If private sectors workers have something to complain about then go ahead and make their voices heard - watch some you tube videos of how the oldies did it when wealthy over 70's were being threatend with removal of their medical cards - and stop using the excuse that the PS are too comfortable to protest so what can we do!

Godge

BlatentCheek wrote: »

Your response just highlights the point I was making. Even after your three pay cuts and a cheaper pension scheme I know many graduates and post graduates who could only dream of remaining in Ireland and having the standard of living of less highly trained or educated PS workers.
Not only has no one in the trade union movement managed to reconcile worse conditions for new entrants, to keep current PS workers in the style their accustomed to, with the "solidarity" they ostensibly represent; but I haven't even heard any of them attempt to.

The PS unions can aggressively lobby for the pay and conditions of their members who joined before 2008 at the expense of everyone else or they can play a central part in a broad based, popular and credible anti austerity movement; they can't do both.

They are not "my" pay cuts - I am not a public servant.

Young graduates with little experience and university-type attitudes that think they know how the world works can't expect to earn as much as a highly-trained nurse with 20 years experience and on-the-job knowledge.

ardmacha

Even after your three pay cuts and a cheaper pension scheme I know many graduates and post graduates who could only dream of remaining in Ireland and having the standard of living of less highly trained or educated PS workers.

Graduates and post-graduates with employment relevant degrees have no problem finding jobs and have little interest in working in the public sector where their careers are dicked about by venal politicians. If there are other graduates then why did they not join the public sector?

Good loser

Godge wrote: »

Ah come on, not this urban myth again after three pay cuts for ps workers and a new cheaper pension scheme.

Three pay cuts could, and does as a comparator, mean nothing.

creedp

Good loser wrote: »

Three pay cuts could, and does as a comparator, mean nothing.

I agree with you because no matter how many cuts or the magnitude of the cuts the people unaffected by them will continue to belly ache about slashing PS pay.

chopper6

Why is almost every thread on this forum allowed to slide into a Public Sector bashing thread?


Why is there a 5 year old wages comparison thread in the stickies?

If that isnt an agenda i dont know what is...

sarumite

chopper6 wrote: »

Why is almost every thread on this forum allowed to slide into a Public Sector bashing thread?
.

Many times when a discussion on the PS is started, it is often labelled a "PS bashing thread" without any real explanation as to why its ps bashing. Personally I think there have been threads that are merely PS bashing, however there have been other more genuine threads that are labelled PS bashing threads without any real justification in order to discredit the thread before it even starts. I have found that when it is just simply PS bashing, using facts is far more productive than whining about it being PS bashing. Looking at some of the posts here, both sides of the discussion are guilty of making exaggerated claims in my opinion.

ardmacha

Why is there a 5 year old wages comparison thread in the stickies?

A new sticky tabulating such things as the 3 PS pay adjustments and the reality about private sector pay would be helpful.

sarumite

ardmacha wrote: »

A new sticky tabulating such things as the 3 PS pay adjustments and the reality about private sector pay would be helpful.

I think removing the stickie completely would be more helpful. What is the point of comparing pay on its own while completely ignoring other important aspect such as pensions, job security, terms and conditions of employment, hours work, annual leave entitlement, annual payrises etc

chopper6

sarumite wrote: »

I think removing the stickie completely would be more helpful. What is the point of comparing pay on its own while completely ignoring other important aspect such as pensions, job security, terms and conditions of employment, hours work, annual leave entitlement, annual payrises etc

What's your point?

Do you only get paid holidays and payrises in the public sector?

what does "hours work" mean?

An hours work per week?...what?


Or "terms and conditons of employment"?

Surely ALL jobs have terms and conditions of employment...

sarumite

chopper6 wrote: »

What's your point?

Do you only get paid holidays and payrises in the public sector?

If I said that, you can quote me on it. If you can't quote me its because I never said that.

what does "hours work" mean?

An hours work per week?...what?

That was a typo. It meant to read 'hours worked'. so looking at if a person works longer hours within a set period of time.

Or "terms and conditons of employment"?

Surely ALL jobs have terms and conditions of employment...

Strange you ask what 'terms and conditions of employment' means and in the next line make a statement which suggests you know what terms and conditions of employment means. very strange.

Anyway, to your point. I think it's a fair assumption that all jobs have T&C's, however not all T&C's are the same.

Good loser

creedp wrote: »

I agree with you because no matter how many cuts or the magnitude of the cuts the people unaffected by them will continue to belly ache about slashing PS pay.

I see where Justice Peter Kelly complains that judges' wages have been reduced by 46% over recent years.

Would you prefer one cut of 46% or three cuts of 2%?

K-9

chopper6 wrote: »

Why is there a 5 year old wages comparison thread in the stickies?

If that isnt an agenda i dont know what is...

ardmacha wrote: »

A new sticky tabulating such things as the 3 PS pay adjustments and the reality about private sector pay would be helpful.

sarumite wrote: »

I think removing the stickie completely would be more helpful. What is the point of comparing pay on its own while completely ignoring other important aspect such as pensions, job security, terms and conditions of employment, hours work, annual leave entitlement, annual payrises etc

Mod post.

All good points, I think this may well have been brought up before and unfortunately went by the the wayside. It is better to pm a mod or report a post to bring it to our attention rather than bringing it up on thread, I could very easily have missed these posts.

Just an aside, that post was stickied when I wasn't a mod, there was a reason the mods agreed to my request as an ordinary user at the time. Obviously it's 5 years later and a lot has changed in that time.

creedp

Good loser wrote: »

I see where Justice Peter Kelly complains that judges' wages have been reduced by 46% over recent years.

Would you prefer one cut of 46% or three cuts of 2%?

That's easy three cuts of 2% .. next Q

Good loser

creedp wrote: »

That's easy three cuts of 2% .. next Q

That figures.

creedp

Good loser wrote: »

That figures.

What point is being made here?