Have we lost our Patriotism?
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because there were so few opportunities compared to today
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Was there? My old man used to tell me that he could walk out of one job in the morning and into another in the afternoon. I don't accept the "few opportunities" angle, sorry.
While Ireland does go through deep troughs of unemployment at certain times (the 80's in particular), there have been job opportunities around also at other times, and it's not as if Irish people turned their noses up at unskilled jobs and employers were finding it impossible to hire staff for positions in the likes of factories or warehouses, etc.
There may have been a boom during the 90's with the Celtic Tiger and all that jazz, but it's not as if the entire nation was a complete wasteland before that.
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Depends on what you mean by "many". They just need enough to run the business.
If the wages were raised in line with tge absolute normal process of supply and demand, then it would be grand. But instead they increase supply of labour and decrease demand and the job gets done cheaper.
In any case, we're demonstrating that we are willing to do mental gymnastics to avoid paying the poorest people a decent liveable wage. The idea that were wilong to pretend that the totally normal rules of supply and demand has been suspended for poor people's jobs should give pause for thought.
Why are houses so expensive? Supply and demand.
Why are tech jobs well paid? Supply and demand.
Supply and demand is alive and well in middle class affairs. But it's been suspended for the lowest paid. Fishy.
I might be unfashionable for thinking this but I actually give a shyte about Irish people. I think fair play would mean that those who do a weeks work get paid enough to live a decent (if basic) life at the end of the week. Not just people who look and dress and speak like me. Everyone.
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Patriotism…. Defined as… a feeling of attachment and commitment to a country, nation, or political community.
the only attachment I feel is a physical one. I’m here, in it, living in it.
ive no commitment ‘to’ it…. When it stopped prioritising its commitment to its citizens…. That’s when I just said… “ fair enough, I’ve had enough “.. I’ve absolutely no emotional commitment to Ireland whatsoever, it’s a place which I’m not in anyway patriotic towards…. It hasn’t got my back, I don’t have its back. It’s a place. I’m here.
if sports teams, athletes of this country are doing well ? great, if not…. Gone are the days I give a shît because it’s really not worth getting personally invested in a country that don’t offer the same to you.. it’s a place, it’s here… im here. That’s about it.
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You sound v disenfranchised. Not really getting why though - because of immigrants being allowed in, or expensive housing/sub par healthcare etc?
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I think it's our patriotic duty to at least find out what caused those fellow Irish citizens to turn violent. Even if the answers offend my middle class sensibilities.
It doesn’t offend my middle-class sensibilities in the slightest to point out that scumbags be scumbagging. You could of course spend the rest of your time trying to explain why only a tiny handful of people took it upon themselves to attempt to destroy other people’s livelihoods and put other people’s lives in danger and call that patriotism if you like. I wouldn’t though.
There’s a multitude of factors which made the difference between when your grandparents could afford a home (provided you ignore the vast majority of families who couldn’t afford a home then either), and today when the same people can’t afford a home. For one thing it was the fact that Ireland was primarily an agricultural economy and the sons didn’t need a third level education before they inherited the farm because they didn’t have to run it like a going concern, like farmers do nowadays where there are all sorts of regulations in place and quotas they have to meet and the price for their produce is determined by market conditions. The laws of supply and demand haven’t been suspended, it’s simply a fact that it’s almost impossible to get young lads who will pick potatoes for pittance or give a hand on a farm for bed and board. It’s not impossible to get immigrants to do it, because while they’re still paid a pittance, it’s 10 times what they could earn back home, and it means cheaper produce for end consumers.
Without being able to pay immigrants a pittance for their labour, businesses in Ireland can’t sustain themselves, and the local economy loses out, because while immigrants do send their money home (same as the Irish did when we emigrated to other countries), they still generate plenty of money in the economy and that gets spread around, keeping other businesses in operation. Without immigrants we just don’t have the labour required in both unskilled and skilled employment, and employers have a ceiling where they’re not going to go above it because then they can’t afford to stay in business -
There are vastly more opportunities for Irish citizens in education and employment than there were in your grandparents day. The greatest barrier for immigrants in education and employment is the language barrier, not so much of an issue in employment that doesn’t require any skills, experience or qualifications, nothing to prevent Irish citizens from pursuing an education and gaining higher paying employment if they wish to provide for themselves and/or a family at some stage in the future. But rising living standards come with raised expectations, and the scumbags who rioted and looted in the capital simply have no interest in making an effort to advance themselves by legitimate means, through education and employment which is available to them.
They sure as hell aren’t being deprived of it, nor do they have any legitimate right to hold immigrants or Government responsible for their own sheer greed, laziness and lack of any sense of duty to make a positive contribution to Irish society. That’d require a sense of patriotism, as opposed to their own self-centred, misguided, misplaced and misinformed sense of entitlement merely by virtue of the circumstances of their birth.
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Even in 1916 looters turned out in Dublin. Got so bad they had to shoot them.
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'Without being able to pay immigrants a pittance for their labour, businesses in Ireland can’t sustain themselves, and the local economy loses out'
😂😂😂😂😂😂
How can anyone fall for the above, is my question?
There was an exodus of construction workers during Covid as many Eastern Europeans returned to Poland and other places, uncertain of the immediate future with the fear of the disease and lockdowns. It was followed by a mini-boom in wages.
The construction industry did not collapse. Net profits lessened slightly as workers had to be paid more.
Certain businesses like restaurants and cafés would perhaps go to the wall without these indirect subsidies, some of them at least, but you'd need to be crazy to be in the restaurant business in the first place.
Like I said on a different thread, business owners see these discussions as a negotiation and will plead poverty until wages are decimated - regardless of their production costs. They are not giving an honest account: they are taking a position in a negotiation (which is why they feel no twinge of conscience about dishonesy. To them *It's* *Just* *Business*). If you accede to them totally, it is like you failed to show up to the negotiating table.
I honestly don't understand how people can still be hypnotised by the empty abstraction 'economic growth' after the last two decades. Do you not care on whose terms this 'growth' happens? I do. I don't want to sink into poverty while effectively subsidising business owners and tax revenues: the economy grows while my life crashes into the dirt. No thanks.
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Really not comparable, apart from the fact that those who incited the riots didn’t have any popular support among the Irish people either, and at the same time I’d rather not see their modern counterparts portrayed as martyrs.
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I'm not expert but I don't recall Pearse and Connolly looting for their own benefit.
We sat again for an hour and a half discussing maps and figures and always getting back to that most damnable creation of the perverted ingenuity of man - the County of Tyrone.
H. H. Asquith
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Do you not care on whose terms this 'growth' happens?
I do of course, and it really IS just business, or rather the cost of doing business in Ireland, with the cost of labour being one of the most important factors in any business’ ability to sustain itself while also being able to grow. I’m not sympathetic to employers either who want to pay below market value and expect the Government to subsidise their employees incomes, sort of like the way employers in the US pay employees below market value and expect customers to subsidise employees with tips.
The construction industry collapsed long before Eastern European immigrants decided to up sticks and leave - that’s why many of them left, very few of them would ever be able to afford the housing they built, which well-educated Irish employees were able to afford when they returned from abroad.
Government itself simply can’t afford to ruminate over your individual circumstances when they have an economy to run, an economy where there will inevitably be some people who lose out, and some people who’s standard of living increases from the standards of living their parents would have endured. It just so happens that it’s getting more difficult for employers in the services sector to get staff, because the standards of living are increasing in other countries too which would have previously provided cheap labour to support the Irish economy -
https://www.thejournal.ie/housing-ireland-spanish-workers-hostels-5931955-Nov2022/
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The GPO was actually to acquire a large quantity of stamps and a search for footwear in the post.
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They/you are attempting to manipulate the market value of labour by creating a labour glut.
It is not true that most Irish businesses need an artificial low-wage economy just to operate at all (though of course there is some variation by industry and by business).
It is only asset owners (including business owners) who will 'win out' in terms of increased living standards in the long run; whereas many wage labourers will see their life crash.
But that is because the system is now geared towards wealth consolidation for asset owners.
I think the pendulum has swung too far away from trade unions towards insecure conditions for workers generally.
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I think the pendulum has swung too far away from trade unions towards insecure conditions for workers generally.
Funny thing about trade unions is that the reason employees are abandoning them is because union leaders do feckall for them - members are expected to pay their union dues, and to expect nothing in return. This is especially true of temporary employees or employees who don’t have permanent contracts of employment. I’ve had plenty of experience with unions who do feckall for temporary employees, whatever about what little they do in negotiating deals for permanent contract employees - they’re pretty much a bygone relic of the public sector, completely irrelevant in the private sector.
It’s not an attempt to manipulate the market value of labour at all by pointing out that the labour market is much more open than it was in the past, and where there are labour shortages in many employment sectors in the Irish economy - they can be filled with both unskilled and skilled immigrant labour, for far less than the cost of employing Irish people. That’s not arguing that Irish employers need a low-wage economy just to operate, it’s arguing that artificially inflating wages doesn’t do anything to alleviate poverty, it just increases the cost of living, because businesses increase their prices to soak up the increase in incomes. They have to, to be able to meet their costs.
I don’t wish to deprive anyone of welfare benefits, they’re a pittance as far as I’m concerned, but it’s very difficult to get people to see the long-term effects of being unwilling to enter the labour force at the bottom end of the market when the most common refrain they have is “I’d get more on the dole”. It’s true, for now at least, that they do, and they don’t see the long-term implications of being at the mercy of the State some 10, 20 years into their future. It’s simply a fact that you can’t help people who demonstrate no willingness to help themselves, only to help themselves to other people’s assets at the first opportunity, and then crib about how they’re being persecuted and all the rest of it.
It’s only a vanishingly small minority of people who hold that attitude towards other people in Irish society though, and their economic impact is so low as to neither be a positive nor a negative influence on Irish society. The fact that they’re feeling disenfranchised is their own doing, when there are many more opportunities available to them that other people in Irish society simply don’t have. It doesn’t stop those people from making a positive contribution to Irish society and becoming legitimate asset owners, as opposed to the opportunistic thieves who want what they see everyone else has, but don’t want to put in the work it takes to generate, achieve, consolidate and maintain their wealth.
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@One eyed Jack "only to help themselves to other people’s assets at the first opportunity, and then crib about how they’re being persecuted and all the rest of it"
"as opposed to the opportunistic thieves who want what they see everyone else has, but don’t want to put in the work it takes to generate, achieve, consolidate and maintain their wealth"
🤣🤣🤣
I think your posts are incredibly self-serving. You must know that many businesses are not operating at razor-thin margins but in fact posting huge net profits, yet they/you will claim that they cannot pay more than 'a pittance'. This despite a recovery from the immediate post-2008 years when austerity, however controversial, had some justification.
The huge boom in corporate profits since 2020 in particular has been widely reported. It is no secret.
However you are a good negotiator, I suppose. If more people would see these debates not as a frank back-and-forth but as a negotiation in disguise that would be progress.
If E Europeans and others did not take below-market wages many Chamber of Commerce would have no further use for them and they would then be in the held in the same contempt as Irish working-class people.
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It’s a bit much now to be calling my argument self-serving when you’ve previously stated that you wish to prioritise your own interests above the growth of the Irish economy, questioning whether or not I care about on whose terms this growth happens. It’s definitely not happening on your terms, and hasn’t been for at least the past two decades.
Only a small number of businesses are actually posting massive profits, and because of our low corporation tax those businesses decide to continue to operate in Ireland, whereas most businesses are actually operating on razor-thin margins. It’s one of the reasons I wrapped up my business - because it just wasn’t making the kind of profit that I could afford to sustain myself, in order to sustain the business. The long-term outlook was unsustainable, and there was no getting away from that fact. So I decided to go back to PAYE employment which allowed for greater stability, security and predictability.
You can’t blame other Europeans for wanting to make a better life for themselves either, that was the whole point of freedom of movement within the EU, and Irish Chambers of Commerce aren’t going to shoot themselves in the foot by trying to discourage foreigners from coming here to fill gaps in the labour force that simply can’t be filled from the local labour market.
You do remind me of an interesting point though - I asked one of the lads in work would he consider applying for Irish citizenship (it’s one of the carrots offered to immigrants to encourage them to establish roots in Ireland), but he told me that because Ireland doesn’t have a reciprocal citizenship agreement with India, he’d have to relinquish his Indian citizenship, which would mean he wouldn’t be able to purchase property back home. It’s similar to the way in which you have to be an Irish citizen to purchase property in Ireland, it’s one hell of a carrot for foreign investment -
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My point was that this growth is bordering on chimerical if it is so lopsided that people are simultaneously sinking into poverty whilst 'celebrating' that the economy is growing. There is huge trickle-up wealth consolidation in general albeit not evenly spread.
I am sorry to hear that your own business did not succeed.
There is simply no labour protectionism of any kind right now because the whole issue has been completely abrogated by cultural propaganda about any objection to immigration being motivated by racial prejudice. That is a huge boon to medium to large business owners and many of them make out like kings.
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Of course not. Just the opportunistic gurriers of Dublin.
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But Irish society has always been that way? That’s why I pointed out earlier that while the other poster’s grandparents were able to afford property, that ignores the vast majority who weren’t, and that’s still the case today. The difference being that those people living in poverty still have a better standard of living and greater opportunities than people living in poverty in that poster’s grandparents time. Even when labour unions were at their peak in Irish society, they still were more interested in looking after their own than doing what is suggested by the word ‘union’ (it’s why there were so many of them, that then amalgamated, and were still ineffective). Joining the EEC as it was at the time did more for labour laws in Ireland than the unions had ever achieved in all their being beaten down by previous Governments.
The same could easily be said of the points some people are trying to introduce into the immigration discussion - that their opinions ARE based upon festering cultural propaganda, and that’s not any different now than it was in the poster’s grandparents time either with immigrants being castigated as taking all the jobs and screwing over the Irish and all the rest of it. There’s a reason they purposely avoid the democratic process they claim to hold so dear, and resort to scaremongering rhetoric and inciting riots and protests - because their ideas for Irish society just don’t have any real public support, not even among the working class, who they claim to represent.
It’s those people I reserve my contempt for, as opposed to conflating contemptible scumbags with working class or people living in poverty. They’re very different groups with different objectives. Why contemptible scumbags imagine they could do a better job of running the country than the current Government isn’t the least bit surprising - they imagine themselves to be superior in every way to anyone who doesn’t share their views.
The only thing I know for certain is that they can’t be described as racist or nationalist or bigoted or anything else - they’re simply spiteful is all, and like the overgrown children they are, they’ll throw a tantrum when they’re not getting their own way, and to hell with the consequences for everyone else. They’re entitled of course to call themselves true patriots or whatever else they like, I couldn’t care less. It’s only a pity they don’t take a leaf out of the Quakers business model and exercise their rights to freedom of assembly, freedom of association, and freedom of expression, in silence 😒
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Hang on, employees aren't abandoning trade unions at all. They're not even getting the opportunity to join one in the first place. The vast majority of work places don't even allow a union to be formed and I've seen employees frowned upon for even mentioning the proposition of starting one. It's part of the reason why employers can treat staff like shit nowadays.
I don't know what age you are, but there was a time in this country that nearly every type of job had a union, even shop workers, and they were essential for bargaining for the rights of employees, especially during stressful periods like lay offs. But unions have been demonised over a long period by employers and it's got to the point where being in a union is a rare thing these days...and not a good thing either.
As for "temporary employees", it's not the fault of unions that they can't do much for them because what they can do for them is limited. A lot of temporary employees aren't even considered part of the company they're working for. And temporary employees are usually the fault of the employer, not the employee who'd much rather have a permanent position in the vast majority of cases. Nor is it the fault of unions that companies hire people on a temp basis. It suits companies to staff with temps because they can be fucked about easier than permanent staff who'd be subject to more robust rights.
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I guess some people were never patriotic in the slightest. Some are still, the school I went to it was certainly instilled into us, so much so that we ran up the flag every morning and would have seen it as a 'pleasure' to die for Ireland.
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Everyone has the opportunity to join a trade union? There may not be a union in their place of employment, but they can join unions which they believe represent their interests, regardless of their employers views on the matter. As an example, when I worked for Iarnród Éireann over 20 years ago now, one of the conditions of employment was that I had to join one of the unions that represented IE employees. After I left IE, I maintained my membership of SIPTU, when it was no longer necessary. I’m not opposed to the idea of labour unions in principle, it’s just that in practice in modern society, they’re just not effective.
There was a time when unions were effective, but that time has long been superseded by EU employment law which has been far more influential in Irish employment law and employment rights and welfare. It hasn’t been necessary for employers to demonise unions when their raison d’etre was to negotiate a better deal for workers, and it was only when I was asked to be shop steward for the temporary contract workers in the IE sleeper factory, by the shop steward, that it occurred to me to ask the question - if he’s the shop steward, what does a shop steward for temporary workers do?
I was operating under the misguided assumption that the union represents the interests of the workers, and so the conditions of temporary workers would come under their remit in terms of negotiating for permanent contracts for temporary workers instead of accepting that they could be on temporary contracts for 7 years (that was the standard length of time, permanent contract workers had been working there 20 years). The union had a stronger negotiating position in collective bargaining agreements for permanent workers, by claiming the support of temporary contract workers, while imagining they had no responsibility for the welfare of workers. Before I move on from the example, I left when I got wind there were going to be layoffs, I thought best get out before the crowd, and I’d nothing to lose as temporary workers weren’t entitled to redundancy. This was in ‘98, and just when I looked back on it there now (I like to get my ducks in a row, I’m not just pulling opinions out of my arse!), there were layoffs again in ‘09, and they’re talking about more layoffs now -
https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/cie-sell-out-sees-23m-contract-go-to-germany/26533119.html
So while it’s true that unions were more popular and influential in the 60s, 70s and 80s, I don’t think it’s fair to suggest that their decline in popularity lies solely at the foot of employer-led demonisation. Much more of it is simply down to the fact that new inductees to the workforce don’t see how their interests are represented; more often their interests are ignored, but their membership is used to inflate the collective bargaining power of their more established colleagues. Interesting report on it here which points out:
The decline in union density however, goes back many more years, and is clearly evident from the mid 1980s. Back in the early 1980s, now some 40 years ago, around 60% of the workforce were union members. Now it is estimated to be about one in four. Any recorded increase in trade union density over the last four decades has tended to be rare, small and short-lived, such as that which occurred at the time of the Great Recession in 2008. But shortly thereafter, the trend of a decline in union density continued in both the public and private sectors and became markedly steep.
The example which more readily comes to my mind at least, in terms of the effectiveness of unions, isn’t in the private sector at all, but rather in the public sector, and teachers in particular. My mother was a teacher and active member of the INTO for many years, still holds out hope that I would one day become a teacher (something which would require I take leave of my senses, hasn’t happened yet, thankfully!). But for decades I bore witness to how tirelessly and passionately she worked outside of what were scheduled school hours, unpaid labour, but for my mother teaching was truly a vocation, as distinct from a profession. It did however inspire a passion for education and I came to serve on the Board of Management of the local primary school, where I dare say I never heard the end of the term ‘Croke Park Hours’ - essentially the expectation that teachers would complete a weeks worth of work, unpaid (33 hours in the academic year).
I cursed whomever was responsible for agreeing to such an unfavourable agreement, particularly in light of the knowledge that teachers were already putting in an enormous amount of unpaid labour in terms of the amount of work they were willing to do outside of scheduled school hours. Instead of appreciating their unpaid work during a time of austerity, the Department of Education demanded more! And worse - the unions caved to the DES demands, throwing newly qualified teachers under the bus while they were at it. Working conditions have only gotten worse for teachers since then, with union leaders appearing to be incapable of doing anything about it, instead having teachers rely on EU Directives in employment law to have any hope of improving their lot:
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Now, you've implied I think the rioters were patriots. That is either totally missing the point or misrepresenting what I said.
You quoted what I actually said and replied to something totally unrelated.
So while it doesn't offend your middle class sensitivities to call people scumbags (I can't see how that could possibly offend you since you're the one offering offence). I actually suggested I want to know what made them so angry over the years in the first place. And those answers might offend middle class sensitivities.
The rest of your post explains WHY it's necessary to use foreign surplus labour to undercut the locals who would expect a decent wage to do the jobs. It explains WHY it's necessary to squeeze the lowest paid to keep the economy strong and keep things nice and cheap for the rest of us.
I might have misunderstood, but I think you're making the point that I've been making.
Post edited by El_Duderino 09 on1 -
True. 400 other people were found guilty of looting during the rising. Not really the point though, is it?
The people who disagreed with BLM used looting to deligitimise the movement. New Orleans after hurricane Catriona had looting both for survival and some people who just took advantage of the chaos. People who disliked New Orleans (for whatever reason) used it to show they were mindless thugs. Remember the lads in Ukranian tied to lamp posts with their pants around their ankles and their arses reddened? Are all ukrainians arzoles because there was looting? I'd say no.
Sacha Boron Coen's character in Les Miserables was looking forward to the battle to take advantage of the chaos. And some people did loot during the 1916 rising. Some people will take advantage of chaos to loot. The fact that James Connolly didn't loot doesn't mean it didn't happen and the fact that it happened doesn't deligitimise the entire idea of the rebellion.
Some people loot at times of chaos. I don't condone losing, but I also don't selectively allow the fact that some people loot at times of chaos to determine the cause of the chaos.
The looting in the dublin riots was a consequence of the fact that so many people were so angry that they turned up and some turned violent. The question I'm asking is why they were so angry that they showed up and some even turned violent.
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No I think I understood your point perfectly - you consider it our patriotic duty to at least find out what caused those fellow citizens to turn violent. I was making the point that it doesn’t require any kind of intellectual rigour to determine what causes anyone to engage in scumbag behaviour - they’re a scumbag.
They aren’t getting their own way, that’s why when the opportunity arose, they pounced on it, no different than their featherweight forebearers who, while the British Government were distracted with other matters more important than the Irish question, they pounced while the Irish Government was distracted with matters of actual importance, as opposed to engaging with idiots who demanded immigrants and Government out 🙄
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Yes. You've got my point. So I'm left wondering why you implied I suggested the rioters might be patriots?
So you don't even need to ask what made them so angry? You already know them inside-out. Well, 'arrogance' doesn't quite cover it.
One fact I've found in life is that the further removed from a situation a person is, the easier it is for them to generalise and dismiss it. I have humility enough to admit I don't, and never have, lived in a poor part of Ireland where the rioters generally came from. I don't have the lived experience or arrogance to generalise.
On Boards, it's a disadvantage to admit not knowing, and a stenength to pretend to know everything. I dont pretend do know what made them so angry. You must forgive my weakness for wanting to actually know what they think rather than pretending I don't need to ask because I already know.
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You are confusing social justice and economics with patriotism and they are not the same thing at all. We have a lot of people who are happy to present their racism and jingoism as patriotism, but ask them to join a naval party conducting a boarding at sea on a winters night or do ACP on the NI back in the day and you’ll see how little they actually care for the country. Most of them are just a self centered bunch of parasites who think an accident of birth should allow them to live of what society and the country has to offer.
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Yes. You've got my point. So I'm left wondering why you implied I suggested the rioters might be patriots?
Your use of the term ‘fellow citizens’ and your reference to what you consider to be our patriotic duty implies that you consider them to be patriots like yourself, seeing as the term ‘patriot’ itself is derived from the word ‘compatriots’:
The English word "patriot" derived from “compatriot", in the 1590s, from Middle French patriote in the 15th century. The French word's compatriote and patriote originated directly from Late Latin patriota "fellow-countryman" in the 6th century. From Greek patriotes "fellow countryman", from patrios "of one's fathers", patris "fatherland". The term patriot was "applied to barbarians who were perceived to be either uncivilized or primitive and who had only a common Patris or fatherland." The original European meaning of patriots applied to anyone who was a fellow countryman regardless of the socio-economic status.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotism
So you don't even need to ask what made them so angry? You already know them inside-out. Well, 'arrogance' doesn't quite cover it.
Solipsistic musings aside, no, I don’t need to ask what made them so angry. They were quite vocal about what motivated their actions. Arrogance is a good word for it.
Post edited by One eyed Jack on0 -
You are confusing social justice and economics with patriotism and they are not the same thing at all.
No I think you missed the context of the point being made in the post I was responding to. The part I quoted was the more important point, the point about their OH’s grandfathers economic prosperity being of secondary interest -
https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121516781#Comment_121516781
I didn’t want to delve too deeply into the point as it didn’t warrant pointing out that similar arguments to restrict women’s entry into the labour market were made then as the same arguments made against immigrants entering the labour market in Ireland now - that they drive down wages and so on. It wasn’t a credible argument then, any more than such protectionist rhetoric makes any sense now, from an economic standpoint. El_D isn’t convinced, and I’m not interested in convincing them.
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Everyone has the opportunity to join a trade union?
No, they don't.
I’m not opposed to the idea of labour unions in principle, it’s just that in practice in modern society, they’re just not effective.
They're not effective at times, because their efficacy is suppressed. It's no secret that employers dislike unionised labour and actively discourage the idea in "modern society".
I was operating under the misguided assumption that the union represents the interests of the workers
Your misguided assumptions doesn't eliminate their importance or their function. Things may not always work out the way a particular employee wants it to, but employees in unionised labour are in a FAR stronger position than those without, and I say that with experience of both situations.
so the conditions of temporary workers would come under their remit
That depends on the conditions of the contract that temporary workers come under, which is always at the discretion of the employer, not the employee union. You need to adjust your aim on that matter because you're looking in the wrong direction. I've been contract staff in a number of companies and, technically, I wasn't even part of the company even though I was working for them. Temporary workers, in the main, have no real rights. That's why companies like that particular situation. There isn't a doubt in my mind that if employers could just use temp labour in any and all situations, they would.
I don’t think it’s fair to suggest that their decline in popularity lies solely at the foot of employer-led demonisation.
And I don't think it's fair to say that their decline is because employees are "abandoning" them. What IS very clear, however, is that has been a demonisation of unionised labour over the past few decades and an active discouragement against them by employers who certainly don't want to have employee unions getting in the way of their business practices. That's for damn sure.
My mother was a teacher and active member of the INTO for many years, still holds out hope that I would one day become a teacher (something which would require I take leave of my senses, hasn’t happened yet, thankfully!). But for decades I bore witness to how tirelessly and passionately she worked outside of what were scheduled school hours, unpaid labour, but for my mother teaching was truly a vocation, as distinct from a profession. It did however inspire a passion for education and I came to serve on the Board of Management of the local primary school, where I dare say I never heard the end of the term ‘Croke Park Hours’ - essentially the expectation that teachers would complete a weeks worth of work, unpaid (33 hours in the academic year).
I cursed whomever was responsible for agreeing to such an unfavourable agreement, particularly in light of the knowledge that teachers were already putting in an enormous amount of unpaid labour in terms of the amount of work they were willing to do outside of scheduled school hours. Instead of appreciating their unpaid work during a time of austerity, the Department of Education demanded more! And worse - the unions caved to the DES demands, throwing newly qualified teachers under the bus while they were at it. Working conditions have only gotten worse for teachers since then, with union leaders appearing to be incapable of doing anything about it, instead having teachers rely on EU Directives in employment law to have any hope of improving their lot
Why curse the INTO for that? Perhaps it might be better to find out who was on the opposite side of the table in those negotiations and put your curse on them? Into the bargain, if the INTO weren't negotiating on behalf of the teachers, the situation would undoubtedly be much worse. Curing the union because the Dept. of Education are pressing teachers into unpaid hours is completely misguided.
Look, it sounds you you didn't have the greatest experience with a union and your basing everything on that. But it doesn't eliminate their importance or their function. It also doesn't support your idea that employees are "abandoning" them either. The fact is that companies don't want unionised labour in the first place and these days most employees have no experience whatsoever of unions in any case, and accept that they're simply at the whim of the employer, which they basically put up with.
I've been working since the 90's in the private sector and have seen both sides of the situation and I can tell you that employees with a union to back them are in a much better position, on the whole, than employees that are without one. I can also tell you from experience, too, that temporary workers don't amount to shit in the eyes of employers.
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