NEWTON'S OPTIC:AS AN ordinary citizen, what are your options for a long and sustained campaign of resistance against the public sector unions?
At first sight it might seem that your options are limited. Public sector workers keep their jobs no matter what they do, let alone what you do.
There are laws against refusing to pay taxes and fees, and unlike the laws against gardaí going on strike you cannot get around them by phoning in sick. You are required to deal with the public sector to obtain the various permits, papers and licences which it in turn requires you to hold. Finally, there are certain essential services that only the public sector can provide, such as seaweed harvesting, 2FM and prosecuting sexist golf clubs.
However, there is still one guaranteed means of counterattack. All public sector jobs are subject to Kafkaesque complaints procedures, which pass personal responsibility upwards and outwards until it has been diluted to the point of irrelevance and dispersed to the point of incomprehensibility.
Most people see little point in complaining as a result. But public sector workers still live in constant fear of being caught in these soul-destroying mechanisms, which often take years to grind through the motions. The slightest suggestion of prejudice or discrimination is raked over in excruciating detail and there is never any real comeback for making a complaint later found to be groundless, vexatious or even transparently mendacious.
Using the public sector’s own culture against it brings the fight to the enemy and evens up what has until now been a very uneven score.
Criminals and layabouts have always known this – which is why, after the public sector takes most of your money, the underclass gets the rest. So it is important that ordinary citizens learn how to complain in order to make themselves heard.
Research the relevant complaints procedures online or ask to speak to someone in person. You can complain about them later as well. Is there a dedicated ombudsman, commissioner or regulator whose existence you can help to justify? Is there a rights, equality or campaign group you can involve before they realise a taxpayer is exploiting them for a change?
Find out the current obsession of the institution you are targeting. Is it poverty, social exclusion or just racism as usual? Consider how you might “minoritise” yourself before filing a complaint. Are you on any medication? Can you speak a foreign language? Have you ever considered another religion?
Insist the way you were initially dealt with was “offensive”, especially if you cannot say why. Keep a record of each complaint you have made and make a follow-up phone call every two weeks. Should the opportunity arise, complain about the way your complaint has been handled.
The unions have accused the Government of pursuing a divide-and-conquer strategy by setting public and private sector workers against each other. In this regard they have a point. Only militant public sector workers should be divided from the rest of us and conquered.
Identify the union activists in your local school, hospital, Garda station and social welfare office and subject them to a long and sustained campaign of resistance.
The whole of Ireland is complaining anyway. Make your next complaint official.