Keep dancing

The social partners may be set to tangle like never before. Yet, what about, really? The clear signal from the failed weekend effort to get some agreement between the unions and the employers' bodies, acceptable also to the government, is that at this stage the issue turns on two days' optional leave.

Is that all there is? Is that all there is?
If that's all there is, my friends,
Then let's keep dancing...
Peggy Lee

To try to break the new deadlock, the Parliamentary Secretary at Finance proposed that vacation leave be reduced by a couple of days. The unions did not accept that. They had formed a rare common front and hammered out a set of proposals that could contribute to a more gentle rise in labour costs.

The employers saw the proposals as a return to the road that failed to lead to a social pact. They insisted on some cut in holidays as a measure of fast relief. The Parliamentary Secretary tried to bridge the persisting gap. To no effect.

At least the three parties did not turn off the music. The unions want further discussions. The employers would attend, provided the issue of public holidays was solved first and served as a basis for further discussion. Their statement indicated that they had accepted the recommendation of the Parliamentary Secretary to unlock the situation.

The government said the unions' proposal was not enough for all sides to reach agreement and to guarantee economic growth. It indicated a readiness for more talks but rustled the whip once more - failing agreement, the government would legislate away public holidays falling on a weekend.

The social economy teeters on the possibility that the early January cold will be followed by a winter of discontent that would cost employers far more than those of them who would benefit from the measure would gain by lopping off some holidays. The position is turning more on what increasingly seems like pique, than substance. That was, anyway, limited from the outset.

Not replacing public and national holidays coinciding with a weekend benefits only employers who have a full order book and need to work overtime. In the second version, it discriminates viciously against employees who at present are entitled to premium rates when they work on a public or national holiday that falls on a weekend.

In its third version - that proposed by the Parliamentary Secretary - it translates into nothing that cannot be gained if workers are motivated to be a little more efficient.

For workers, forfeiting two days holidays out of 38 would not be a great hardship, if that really contributed to marginally lower labour costs or an improvement in the firm's bottom line to help it stay in business.

For employers to insist that, for further discussions to take place, the public and national holidays issue has to be settled, is unnecessary. The gain to them, as indicated above, would be minimal. Having accepted the Parliamentary Secretary's pitch for two days, not four, it would be still less. To continue to egg the government to implement the measure unilaterally could convert into more production losses than any potential gain.

The government's statement talks of guaranteeing economic growth. If anyone believes that reducing the 38 days holiday entitlement by two or four days will "guarantee" economic growth should really go back to basics and brush up the first steps in economic dancing.

Nothing guarantees economic growth. There are conditions that are necessary for it, starting with education, formation and continuous upgrading of a strong human resource base, technological innovation and competitiveness.

The stubborn impasse over a good way towards improving those conditions has built up for various reasons. It starts with entrenched interests. Some are understandable - nobody likes reducing benefits acquired over the years. Some stem from ingrained egoism, put one's net self-interest first without recognising properly one's gross interest as a member of society. Above all, the government has created and persists in fostering a false or confused consciousness.

It continues to claim that things are going swimmingly, while taking or proposing measures that indicate we are drowning. Even people who do recognise the hard reality of our circumstances, and agree that urgent remedial measures are essential, resent arbitrary decisions that, moreover, would not spread the burden fairly, or do so manifestly unfairly.

The social partners should indeed keep dancing together. But to a new tune that sets the situation as it really is so that a proper and fuller understanding can be promoted.