Beggs Admits ICTU/ESRI Were Wrong

[popper]

ICTU General Secretary Beggs has admitted that in advocating support for Nice and enlargment that the trade unions completely underestimated the level of immigration that would follow on from that. He also referred to the ESRI's ludicrous predictions and the growing unease about wage levels and displacement.





http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/irelan ... 08480.html

[meriwether]

Ive always thought it interesting the way the left/right see immigration.

Right wingers tend to be against it, with the more extreme right you go, the more it descends into racism.
The moderate right, usually well-off, tend to see immigration as a threat, that they will 'take our jobs'. What usually happens is the immigrants come in and work for these people, providing cheap labour.

And traditionally, left wingers are more receptive to immigration, the more left you go, the more it descends into mass-immigration acceptability.

But the traditional left, usually working class, Trade Unionists, are most at threat from the influx of foreigners. In essence, when supporting immigration, they are turkeys voting for Christmas.

It always struck me as paradoxical.

[popper]

Working class people are the section of the community which bears the brunt, economic and otherwise, of mass immigration. However, paradoxically as you say, left parties are the leading cheerleaders for the policy even though as you also point out the beneficiaries are those who emply cheap labour.

[freedomlover]

ICTU General Secretary Beggs has admitted that in advocating support for Nice and enlargment that the trade unions completely underestimated the level of immigration that would follow on from that. He also referred to the ESRI's ludicrous predictions and the growing unease about wage levels and displacement.





http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/irelan ... 08480.html

The reason ESRI underestimated the level of immigration was because they underestimated the level of economic growth. Back in 2003 they were predicting economic growth of around 3% between then and 2010. In 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 it was around 6%. If economic growth had indeed been 3%, as ESRI predicted, there would certainly be fewer immigrants in Ireland today, but its debatable whether there might well also be higher unemployment and lower living standards among Irish nationals because of the slower economic growth. ESRI have a tendency to be very pessimistic about economic growth, a fact I've repeatedly pointed out on other threads. Even today they are predicting a very sharp fall in immigration to almost nothing in the next few years based on their predictions of very low economic growth in the next few years. Won't surprise me at all if this turns out be equally wrong.

[LowIQ]

Ive always thought it interesting the way the left/right see immigration.

Right wingers tend to be against it, with the more extreme right you go, the more it descends into racism.
The moderate right, usually well-off, tend to see immigration as a threat, that they will 'take our jobs'. What usually happens is the immigrants come in and work for these people, providing cheap labour.

And traditionally, left wingers are more receptive to immigration, the more left you go, the more it descends into mass-immigration acceptability.

But the traditional left, usually working class, Trade Unionists, are most at threat from the influx of foreigners. In essence, when supporting immigration, they are turkeys voting for Christmas.

It always struck me as paradoxical.

Right wing business types favour immigration because it keeps wages low. You are right about the working class though. They have a lot to loose. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence now about the return of competition to the building industry. I heard one story how Polish builders undercut the Irish competition by €40,000 on a home extension. Granted, these stories are anecdotal but, then again, the spectre of the 'Polish plumber' played a large part in France's rejection of the EU Constitution.

[Thac0man]

Begg & co. were too busy fluffing their own egoes. They did not wake up until the Irish Ferries debacle.

Someone here from within the civil service hit the nail on the head before in a good post. He posted about how under benchmarking, SIPTU and others have essentially become an arm of government. Blaming the ERSI now does not excuse abandoning the workers of this country for plush lunchens and ministers numbers on speed dial.

Its a big admission from Begg, but he should resign rather than make excuses after being involved at every level in the current mess. he has only served big business (who have offices and perks as good as his).

[Johnny]

Its a big admission from Begg, but he should resign rather than make excuses after being involved at every level in the current mess. he has only served big business (who have offices and perks as good as his).

Hear, hear.

[gentleben]

Without serious efforts to maintain good standards in pay and conditions on pan European basis an unseemly race to the bottom will continue as national governments become the stooges of big business or suffer rising unemployment.

The French no voters knew it and were right to tell Brussells to shove their constitution.

[feargach]

And traditionally, left wingers are more receptive to immigration, the more left you go, the more it descends into mass-immigration acceptability.

But the traditional left, usually working class, Trade Unionists, are most at threat from the influx of foreigners. In essence, when supporting immigration, they are turkeys voting for Christmas..

After a few honour killings and 7/7, the Rushdie affair etc it's started to dawn on Western liberals that immigration and progressive values don't always go hand in hand.

Also, it's obvious from the last 100 years of the experience of Ireland and Mexico, that emigration is extremely harmful to the home country involved.

Do you think it's a coincidence that the first sustained drop-off in emigration from Ireland happened at the same time as the first sustained economic expansion?

We see Thai and Filipina faces all over Dublin. Good for those individual nurses, but a disaster for hospitals in Bangkok and Manila. On balance, it increases to total amount of human misery on the planet.

[popper]

Without serious efforts to maintain good standards in pay and conditions on pan European basis an unseemly race to the bottom will continue as national governments become the stooges of big business or suffer rising unemployment.

The French no voters knew it and were right to tell Brussells to shove their constitution.

The whole idea of enlargement was to facilitate the mobility of capital and labour with the obvious consequences. But anyone who pointed out this during the Nice referendum was attacked as a racist - eg. Anthony Coughlan. There were others on the left who opposed Nice but then welcomed the mass immigration that it gave rise to!