Why Cutting Public Sector Pay Is Always a Bad Idea

– Robert Nielsen discusses the ongoing dispute over the Croke Park II proposals, and why cutting wages is always a bad idea.

At the moment there is a great deal of controversy over the Croke Park Deal. In essence the government is trying to cut the wages of public sector workers while the public sector unions are opposing this. Regardless of the politics of the agreement, cutting wages is bad economics. It depresses the economy, worsens the recession and doesn’t even achieve its objective of reducing the deficit. The union membership was absolutely right to reject the Croke Park Deal and the government must completely reconsider its plan of action, because the current one isn’t working.

UCD Disaffiliation from the USI: a Mistake

– Alán Camilo Cienfuegos weighs in on the USI Disaffiliation debate, arguing that left-wing students should remain committed to working with and within the USI.

The decision of University College Dublin to disaffiliate from the national Union of Students in Ireland is utterly foolish. In a time when the efficacy of the various organisations of working people and the disaffected in Irish society are being blunted by the ever-useful government tactic of divide-and-conquer (public vs. private sector, etc.), to have one of the largest universities in the country break with their student’s national union and essentially go it alone is nothing but a victory for those whose interests lie in seeing unions in general broken up and emaciated, namely the government and wealthy they serve. That the campaign in favour of disaffiliation was spearheaded by the likes of Young Fine Gael, the lapdogs of their parents in government, should be evidence enough of the motivations for such a move, but to see leftists standing in the same camp as such vermin is, to say the least, surprising.