Workers Solidarity Movement

William Slattery, Executive vice-president of financial services company State Street and head of its Irish operation has called for 30,000 public servants to be sacked.  Mr. Slattery made his call at a conference to discuss the implementation of the Croke Park agreement.

This is just the latest salvo in the campaign by financiers and economists (with the tacit approval of government) to portray the Croke Park agreement as having been over-generous to public sector workers and to pave the way for further job and pay cuts in the public sector.

Mr. Slattery has, of course, no concept of what it might be like for civil servants, teachers, nurses or other public servants to lose their jobs and end up on the dole.  Neither has he any concept of the damage getting rid of 10 percent of the public service staff will have on the delivery of public services such as health, social welfare, education or housing. 

In fact he has been in his top job in State Street since 2003.  State Street describes itself as being “at the crossroads of the global markets”.  Among the ‘services’ it provides to its clients are “specialized investment research and trading in foreign exchange, equities, fixed income and derivatives”.  In other words it’s one of the companies which comprises ‘the markets’ whose financial gambling dictates the policies of practically every government in the world., and impacts severely on the lives of ordinary people. 

According to its 2009 Annual Report State Street, in the midst of the financial crisis, “…grew our core asset servicing fee and asset management fee revenues, adding new business of $1.13 trillion in asset servicing and $248 billion in net new business in asset management”[i]

Before taking up his well-paid position in State Street, Mr. Slattery worked for 20 years in the Irish Central Bank.  While there he was responsible for ‘supervising’ the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) from 1987 to 1995 – a period in which the IFSC was seen to be leading the world in the battle for de-regulation of the financial industry.  As such he has direct responsibility for many of the economic policies which have brought about the economic crash.

Neither is this the first time that he has decided to speak from the comfort of his financial ivory tower and tell the rest of us what’s good for us.  Slattery was a member of Colm McCarthy’s ‘An Bord Snip’ which last year produced a report calling for cuts of €5.3 billion and for 17,300 public sector workers to lose their jobs.  The report also called for a 5% cut in social welfare payments.

Mr. Slattery is upfront about how and where the pain of the financial crisis should be felt.  Workers – public and private sector alike, social welfare recipients and users of public services are to suffer.  And as for the financial industry who the rest of us know are responsible for bringing about the crisis, he made his views clear in a ‘Sunday Tribune’ interview in February of this year: "If we end up with regulation that is not accommodating of legitimate business development in accord with the way the market is evolving, and if we respond to new proposals slowly and are very conservative in our decision making – in case someone accuses us with hindsight of making an incorrect decision – there is no doubt that would have a very negative impact …”[ii]

WORDS: Gregor Kerr