r/irishpolitics • u/TimesandSundayTimes • 10h ago
Article/Podcast/Video Gary Murphy: Public sector strikes would not have happened under Bertie Ahern
https://www.thetimes.com/world/ireland-world/article/gary-murphy-public-sector-strikes-5q6tr2wsh?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Reddit&utm_content=branded9
u/EmiliaPains- People Before Profit 10h ago
It's curious they're digging up Bertie Ahern, we saw some mention of him last year on the campaign trail, still making a joke of himself. I wonder which backbencher in FF contracted Gary Murphy to write this...
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u/DBrennan13459 10h ago
What is it with the constant boot licking people do when it comes to Bertie?
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u/TimesandSundayTimes 10h ago
In Bertie Ahern’s day as the government’s chief negotiator on public sector wage disputes, the final resolution would be ironed out over a few pints in the far corner of a dark room in some north Dublin pub. Bass for him, Guinness for the union representatives.
The overriding motivation was to avoid at all costs a strike. Some still occurred, including an unofficial one at An Post in late 1993, and the first nurses’ strike in 1999, but they tended to be sector specific and relatively short. Whether he was minister for labour, finance or taoiseach, Ahern was always across the detail of such disputes. The heavy lifting would be done by the underlings before the deal was sealed by the big beasts of industrial relations.
None were bigger than Ahern. He knew that Fianna Fail’s core support was a public sector one. Before the economic crash essentially crushed the party in the 2011 general election, Fianna Fail meant many things to many people, and people voted for it for different reasons.
On the economy, Fianna Fail was a chameleon. Under the leadership of Charles Haughey, Albert Reynolds and Ahern, it offered itself as the party of the developer class; of the ruthless entrepreneurial class on the make; and of the ambitious middle class who saw Dublin as the place to make their fortunes. Yet it also presented itself as the champion of the working classes. It was the real party of labour which represented painters, plumbers, plasterers and all the other trades workers who saw themselves as one of the plain people of Ireland.
But the real backbone of Fianna Fail was the public sector workers. Its voters were clerical civil servants, guards, nurses, teachers and their wider families. Fianna Fail looked after them and in return it hoovered up their votes all across the country, both rural and urban.
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u/CarnivalSorts Communist 10h ago
Get the sense that this was typed out with one hand