Civil disobedience ‘may well be necessary’ in North’s public sector pay dispute, campaigner says

Civil disobedience “may well be necessary” in the public sector pay dispute in Northern Ireland, the trade unionist and campaigner Eamonn McCann has said.

Calling for preparations to begin immediately, he said “what we should be concentrating on now, if we believe that civil disobedience may well be necessary – I do believe that – then we should organise and start carrying the argument for civil disobedience and not simply expect people to, at a whistle, simply to come out and civilly to disobey.

“I come from a long tradition which involves civil disobedience, in my experience civil disobedience works when the people that you’re calling on to use the strategy, when they’re in favour of it.

“Civil disobedience without a majority of those involved being in favour of it and being committed to it is never going to work. A minority of working-class people cannot organise or take civil disobedience without the support of the broad majority, Mr McCann said.

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The campaigner was speaking as 17 trade unions representing 170,000 public sector workers in the North went on strike on Thursday in what was the largest day of mass industrial action in 50 years.

Public sector unions in Northern Ireland have been involved in a long-running dispute over pay and are campaigning to have their salaries brought into line with those in England, Scotland and Wales, and for proper resourcing of public services.

Money to settle the dispute is included in the financial package offered by the UK government if the North’s devolved government – which has been in limbo for two years due to a DUP boycott – is restored, and the Northern Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, has resisted calls from unions and politicians to release the money immediately.

The strike action meant schools were closed and public transport suspended and there was major disruption to the health service, with only emergency provision available.

Picket lines were in place across Northern Ireland and rallies were held in towns and cities including Belfast, Derry, Omagh and Enniskillen.

Mr McCann, who was the keynote speaker at the rally in Derry’s Guildhall Square, has a long record of protest and as a member of the civil rights movement in Derry from the 1960s was involved in civil disobedience such as blocking roads and occupying buildings.

Speaking to The Irish Times, he said Mr Heaton-Harris should release the funding now, adding that “when we see a crowd like this out in the snow and the wind and the rain, we can see how tough and determined the trade union movement is, and we can see we are the majority.

“It is often forgotten that the trade union movement is bigger than all the political parties and orders, orange and green in Northern Ireland, put together.

“We’ve got 200,000 members, we’ve got 34 registered trade unions, we’re bigger than them, we shouldn’t take anything lying down.

“We have to stay alert, we have to stay organised, because this isn’t the end of it. We should make sure this is the beginning of it, and the beginning of a decisive trade union intervention in the public affairs of Northern Ireland,” he said.

Earlier this week, Patrick Mulholland, the deputy general secretary of the Nipsa union, called for a “campaign of public disobedience and resistance against the dismantling of our public services.”

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