An Irish trade unionist has led calls for the European Union and member states like Ireland to recognise the “elephant in the room” on tackling poverty.
Former Siptu general president Jack O’Connor, who was the European Economic Social Committee’s rapporteur for an opinion on the first EU anti-poverty strategy, has said there needs to be clear targets built into the plan for it to be effective.
“The elephant in the room is that you can’t strategically address the issue of poverty unless you address the issue of grossly inadequate incomes and precarity in people’s working lives,” he said.
He authored an opinion on the strategy and intergenerational poverty for the EU institution, an advisory body of civil society organisations, trade unions and business, which was adopted in Brussels this week.
“We adopted a glass half-full approach because the strategy pragmatically reflects the political realities, because what’s really needed is a plan - as we say in the opinion - for the eradication of poverty in Europe, but what’s missing is the political will. Not so much at the level of the Commission, but certainly in some member states.”
He is among those calling for an implementation plan with a clear timeline of objectives as there are concerns that some EU governments lack the will to take sufficient action otherwise.
“We very firmly reject the assertion that poverty cannot be eradicated. You’ll be familiar with this abstract academic debate which develops around this question because measurements relative, that means you can never achieve total eradication,” said Mr O’Connor.
“That’s generally employed by people who are opposed to doing very much about it, because if you start from the perspective that it can’t be done, or the Biblical, ‘the poor will always be with us’, well then of course you will be applying palliatives and managing the problem, but you won’t be setting out to achieve eradication. We reject that.”
He told the Irish Independent in Brussels this week that there must be steps taken to increase the minimum wage, bringing it up to the standard of the living wage, and to tackle low pay and collective bargaining.
“If work doesn’t pay, if people can’t derive a decent income which at least meets the low pay threshold - we used to have a phrase, ‘the standard of decency’ - if work doesn’t at least guarantee that, you cannot deal with poverty in society. You cannot.”