Northern Ireland risks “full, undiluted Tory austerity” without a devolved government, trade union leader Mick Lynch has warned.
Speaking to Belfast Live ahead of a union rally in Belfast on Saturday, the RMT leader sounded a warning about the potential consequences of a prolonged period of “direct Tory rule” in Northern Ireland.
Mr Lynch, whose quick-witted responses to TV presenters and journalists during railway strikes in Britain have been viewed millions of times in viral videos, is due to give the keynote address to the May Day rally in Belfast on Saturday.
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He said his address will focus on the “traditional stuff about maintaining the values of the trade union movement, unity, and solidarity and social justice - the normal stuff”.
He added: “But that stuff seems to be very relevant at the minute and resonating with a lot of working class people.
“So it'll be normal stuff that we want to build a just society and a bit of fairness and equality in our society, also to support of working people that have taken industrial action all around the country at the minute.”
Asked about the likely impact of the budget announced by Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris earlier this week, with cuts expected to many public services and uncertainty over public sector pay claims from trade unions representing workers here, Mr Lynch said: “We're totally in tune with that. I mean, there have been some settlements over in Great Britain. But there are many workers that are still looking for a settlement. There have been some decent settlements in Scotland, where we have got a devolved government. We've got some decent settlements in Wales, where there's another devolved government, with different political parties.”
He added: “What we're seeing is where you've got Tory direct rule, which does apply in England and over here, in Northern Ireland, you're getting the full, undiluted austerity that they believe in.”
Mr Lynch continued: “And even though we've had a different set of characters running the Tory government, the policies are exactly the same in the sense of what working class people experienced - under Truss and Kwarteng, but even going back to Cameron, and Osborne back when this austerity started back in 2008.
“And if you look at all workers, including the public sector but workers in the private sector as well, have been struggling now against rampant inflation, and against the fact that they, they're not getting a square deal.
“So that's, that's what all the unions are pushing for, including your own Pat Cullen [Royal College of Nursing general secretary, who is originally from Co Tyrone ] over over in Britain at the moment, pushing that angle.
“So my message is that we need to support our trade union movement, we need to support each other, and we need to be independent of any professional politician.
“So no matter what happens over here with the Assembly, and whatever else, and what sort of coalitions they get going forward, all of those professional politicians across the UK and in the Republic must understand that they've got to deliver for working class people.
“Working people deserve a better deal than the one they've got over that period of austerity that we've all been experiencing. But that's happening in Europe as well. We've got strikes in Germany, we've got strikes in France. And I think there's a wave of this stuff happening because workers are just fed up, and they need strong trade unions standing up on their own two feet, supporting them and enabling them to take the action that they want.”
The RMT general secretary said the coronavirus >covid pandemic, when large sections of the population were recognised and celebrated as "essential workers", has been influential in the industrial unrest sweeping Northern Ireland, the UK and Europe.
"I think what's happened is from COVID, people saw the strength of some of these workers. They're actually the ones doing all the work - the bus drivers, the healthcare workers, the janitorial workers, if you want to put it that way. They were the ones out every day, keeping this society going. And if you examine what wealth in a society is, it's created by working people."
He continued: "Something seems to have clicked post COVID where people are saying 'well, I'm just not putting up with this anymore, I've been out here doing my job in retail and all the rest of it, I'm still on minimum wage, I've still got no conditions, no pension, I can't seem to get any decent housing, I can't get out of an in-work poverty trap'.
"And they're turning to the unions to say we need to get organised."
Mr Lynch added: "We've got to show that we're dug in for the long long course."
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