THE WORKERS' PARTY OF IRELAND

Finnegan urges rejection of rehashed deal

Package cobbled together to save face for the Labour Party

The President of the Workers’ Party, Michael Finnegan, has called on public sector workers to reject the revised Croke Park package, now renamed the Haddington Road Agreement.

Mr. Finnegan, who described the package as a “barely tweaked facsimile” of the rejected deal, said that it had been cobbled together as a face-saving exercise for the Labour Party and an attempt to pretend that some level of partnership remained in the relationship between the government and unions.

“This package, for it cannot be called a deal, is the same old rehashed document rejected emphatically by workers a few weeks ago.  It is still a bad deal for workers and an attack on pay and conditions, on future employment standards and on jobs.  A fortnight of frenetic discussions and late-night poker games does not change the fundamentals of what was rejected”, said the Workers’ Party President.

Mr. Finnegan said that the new package was not achieved through a spirit of partnership and mutual respect between the government and workers representatives but rather out of an atmosphere of threat and bluster.  “Whatever reality there was behind the so-called Partnership process is long dead.  The big-stick is now the only game in town and the Labour Party have taken it up with gusto on behalf of the Troika.    Workers can either bow down to the threats and be sure of further attacks on pay and conditions or make a stand now and reject this surrender charter.”, he said.

Issued Friday, 24th May 2013

Peace, Work, Democracy & Class Politics