True to form, Sinn Féin and the DUP have found themselves at loggerheads in Stormont. This time over SF’s proposed ‘Good Jobs Bill’, which seeks to improve workers’ rights in the North of Ireland. Predictably, the DUP are digging their heels in, cynically claiming the bill “risks costing NI jobs”.
Though the exact legal text of the bill in Stormont is not yet public, according to SF, the bill aims to curtail precarious work by limiting the applicability of zero hours contracts, limit fire and rehire practices, improve paternity leave, prevent bosses from stealing workers’ tips and expand trade union rights – including the right for unions to represent workers in non-unionised workplaces and lowering the threshold for union recognition from 21 workers to ten.
Undoubtedly, the potential for such improvements in workers’ rights is music to the ears of most workers. This is precisely why the DUP, UUP & TUV are doing everything within their power to crush this legislation. DUP leader Gavin Robinson comically claimed the Employment Rights Bill “drives a wedge between employer and employee at the very moment Northern Ireland needs both working together”. In truth, it is the employers that are driving the wedge with their ruthlessly exploitative employment practices!
The cost-of-living crisis is hammering workers and young people struggling to survive while the bosses are laughing their way to the bank! It is no mere accident that around 330,000 people, or 17 percent of the population, live in poverty in the North of Ireland. Meanwhile six individuals and their families are sitting on a vast fortune of nearly £4bn. The wealthy are profiting enormously from the poverty and hardship of the masses.
The Unionists are lying through their teeth to protect the interests and profits of the bosses. These reforms would greatly benefit all workers in the North – Catholic,Protestant or otherwise. Despite their consistently hypocritical claims of fighting to protect Protestant workers, they’re actually decimating their living standards at the behest of the capitalists.
Unfortunately, due to the veto power contained within the power-sharing, the Unionists can and will sweep aside this legislation despite its support. This reality exposes the limitations of SF’s method of trying to work within Stormont to bring about any meaningful change. At best, they will only be able to water this bill down as a ‘practical’ means of pushing it through.
At the same time, Stormont is experiencing a chronic underfunding crisis from Westminster, which pushed SF to implement austerity through rate hikes at the bidding of the British ruling class. Simply put, what is given by one hand through the Good Jobs Bill even if passed, will simply be taken by the other through austerity.
James Connolly described being “practical” in politics as “the cry of humdrum mediocrity, afraid to face the stern necessity for uncompromising action”. No amount of tinkering around the edges will solve the crisis of Northern capitalism or alleviate its worst excesses – which the workers and youth are forced to bear. The only way to end the crisis is by facing the stern necessity for uncompromising action by fighting for the overthrow of capitalism in the struggle for a 32-county Socialist United Ireland and a socialist world.
