On Friday March 13th, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has called protest rallies against austerity in the North.
Workers will come out on a one day stoppage after huge votes for strike action occurred amongst teachers, health workers and civil servants.
The Stormont House agreement will bring about the loss of 20,000 jobs, the closure of many hospital units and schools, and eventual privatisation of whole swathes of the public sector.
The two supporters of this agreement are Sinn Fein and the DUP. Both originally agreed to these rounds of cuts so that Stormont can gain more autonomy to cut the taxes on corporations.
Sinn Fein, however, now claim that they are against some of the welfare cuts and accuse the DUP of ‘bad faith’. However, they still appear to be in favour of the rest of the agreement.
The shift in the Sinn Fein position is a reflection of the growing popular opposition to the cuts. It seems to mirror the shift that took place in the party on registering for water charges.
As the ICTU poster puts it, the cuts ‘are all for a Corporation Tax cut for big business with no guarantee of extra jobs’.
The wealthy are increasingly operating on an all—Ireland basis and are setting up a ‘race to the bottom’ between the two parts of the island. They are forcing us to compete against each other on lower wages and tax breaks for big business.
We therefore have to oppose austerity on both sides of the border.
It is no excuse to say –as Gerry Adams does- that the cuts have been ‘forced’ on the Stormont parties by the Tories.
The Irish Labour Party used the exact same excuse when they claimed that the IMF and the ECB ‘forced’ cuts on them and then pretended that the cuts would be even worse if they were not in government.
People Before Profit is organising transport to the March 13th protest. If you want to come to the protests, phone or text 089 2006953.
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