UNITE Calls for immediate resignation of failed political establishment

national | worker & community struggles and protests | opinion/analysis Saturday November 20, 2010 15:57 by pat c

Union leaders are now calling for the Cowen/Gormley mob to go. Jimmy Kelly kicks the ball rolling with a call to join in ICTUs demo November 27th. But thats hardly enough.Jimmy at the time said that UNITE was forced into the Croke Park deal. The record of te ICTU leadership must be examined. Its their craven policies which gave the Cowen Junta the ability to cut wages even further and to now plan to demolish the Health, Welfare and Education sectors.

Support the ICTU Demo but no illusions in ICTU. We need a new Union leadership. One that fights to make the rich pay for the crisis.

Jimmy Kellys statement is below.

*Go in a week and let the people decide who will negotiate
*People urged to join national protest on November 27th

A leading trade union figure, Jimmy Kelly of UNITE, has called on the people of Ireland to make their views known clearly to those who are presently deciding the economic landscape likely to frame the next decade.

“Our government has finally surrendered control after two years of what can only be described as incompetence and lies,” said UNITE Regional Secretary, Jimmy Kelly. “Yet still they go to cut ribbons and profess anger at being questioned on whether they are ashamed of their performance. They have treated the Irish people like fools and must step down immediately.”

“We have heard that it is the markets fault, that the banks lied to them and that it was somehow our fault for questioning them and undermining confidence.”

“This is the sham politics to which we have descended and the country deserves better.”

“The IMF is now running the rule over figures which the Department of Finance have had from the banks and elsewhere for two years. They will evaluate and plot a course of action that has nothing to do with the future of our country and is only concerned with financial equations.”

“Our politicians could have steered towards a path of growth but they chose instead to bow down before their beloved markets. They were the fool in the room and now families that are struggling to survive will be burdened with debt and a generation lost to emigration.”

“There is no place left at the table for disgraced politicians that have only thought of themselves. They should be forced to step down immediately, relinquishing their fancy cars and crazy expenses and allow the people to decide who it is to negotiate our way out of the mess they have created.”

“If they are not gone within a week then the people of Ireland who are staging a national demonstration on Saturday 27th at the GPO in Dublin, a symbol of what we fought for and have now put at fatal risk, must make them do so.”

END

Further information:

UNITE Regional Secretary Jimmy Kelly 087 9003217 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 087 9003217 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
UNITE (Ireland) Press Office Rob Hartnett 086 3851955 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 086 3851955 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.