UNION lunacy is quite clearly not something restricted to the areas under the control of the Cyprus Republic. It also thrives in the area north of the dividing line, where today the unions and opposition parties are set to participate in a mass rally in protest against the ‘government’s’ proposed austerity measures.
The rally, the organisers claim, is expected to be the second biggest held in the north. The biggest was the one held for the Annan plan, it was reported.
Public sector workers in the north have not yet been paid the 13th salary they were entitled to at the end of the year, because of a lack of funds. The Kucuk ‘government’ said this would be paid together with the January salary, but union bosses fear that for this to be possible the protocol agreed with Ankara, regarding the economy, would be implemented.
This envisages the privatisation of ‘state’ companies and, inevitably job cuts in the over-bloated public sector.
Turkey’s government, which has been bankrolling the regime ever since the invasion, wants to reduce its budget for the north and had been pressurising the politicians to cut spending. One of the reasons Mehmet Ali Talat lost last year’s elections was because his party, on Ankara’s instructions, was to make big cuts in spending.
Dervis Eroglu won the elections on promises that he would make no cuts, but his ‘prime minister’ Irsen Kucuk soon found out who was calling the shots.
The unions, with their heightened sense of entitlement, believe that Turkey’s government has a legal obligation to pay however much is needed to keep the over-bloated public sector going.
Prime Minister Erdogan, who signs the cheque, obviously does not share this view and is determined to cut the annual amount, estimated to be in the region of $400 million, that his government gives to the north.
Turkish Cypriot unions refuse to accept that the salaries their members are paid – and which are higher than those paid to public servants in Turkey – depend, in effect, on the charity of another country.
They are in no position to make big demands or to complain when the paymaster decides to reduce the annual charity. The head of a teaching union accused the officials in the north of being ‘Turkey’s puppets’.
So deluded are the union bosses they are incapable of understanding a simple truth – that for as long as the Turkish government picks up that tab for the north’s public sector, officials cannot be anything other than Turkey’s puppets. If they ignored Turkey’s instructions and the cash injections stopped, who would pay the salaries of the public sector workers?
