We now have a right wing National Government in all but name as Fine Gael and the Labour Party gang up with Fianna Fail and the Green Party to hammer the wages of low and middle income public sector workers.

With breathtaking arrogance, all the establishment parties in the Dail have now shifted the burden of the economic crash onto the shoulders of workers while the authors of the crisis slip quietly away or are bailed out.

Fine Gael has been exposed as the twin of Fianna Fail in its reactionary proposal to slash wages over the low threshold of €30,000 per year and take the hatchet to 10,000 jobs.

The Labour noises over the last year trying to pretend to be a voice for workers, have been exposed as cynical posturing as it actually wants to up the ante on cuts.

The entire political establishment is totally united in cynically making working people and the poor pay for this crisis of capitalism.
Workers should revolt

Workers in the public service should not lie down in front of the attack on their living standards nor be cowed by the vicious media onslaught over the past year scapegoating them for the crisis.

Workers in the private sector need to take heed of the ruthless treatment of public workers because they will face further attacks on their living standards also. What is crucial to know is that the policy of slashing wages will only make the economic crisis worse by cutting demand for goods and services in society thus giving rise to further thousands of private sector workers being thrown onto the dole. It must also be remembered that the current proposals are only the first in a series of four years of equally savage cuts.

The official trade union leadership has totally capitulated to the demands that workers must pay for the crisis through pay cuts for private and public sector workers, slashing of public services and job cuts. Trade union members need to repudiate this betrayal and organise at rank and file level to mobilise themselves and resist present and future attacks.

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