The problems in the country's A&E departments are getting worse with an average of 280 per day on trolleys.

The Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) held a month of lunchtime protests at 18 hospitals in April. The protests initially received a lot of publicity and sparked the now infamous attempt by Joe Duffy and Ben Dunne to provide portakabins for the Mater A&E in Dublin.

While the Socialist Party supported these protests, we pointed out that much more needed to be done if the government was going to be forced to take emergency action.

Harney and the government have repeated their mantra of their tenpoint programme and the HSEs has threatened to withhold a 3.5% pay rise due to nurses from 1 June, with the spurious claim that nurses have not been facilitating "health reforms". The threat was issued on the eve of the INO conference. An emergency motion was passed at conference that stated "the INO will take whatever action deemed necessary to secure its members' pay rise". The concern is that for the leadership of the INO this will mean more lobbying and not real action on pay and the A&E crisis.

The INO should withdraw from the so-called "partnership" process with the HSE, and ballot its members for industrial action, including strike action to force the government to declare a national emergency in the health service. A campaign, not of token lunchtime protests, but of industrial action involving all health workers and mobilising the universal support that exists in the communities would force Harney to act.

The announcement of nearly 500 job losses at Waterford Crystal is a major blow to the people of Dungarvan.

Over 5% of Dungarvan's population work at the plant, and this closure is equivalent to 10,000 job losses in Cork. This is the way hundreds of loyal workers have been repaid for their years of work. The interests of billionaire tax cheat Sir Anthony O'Reilly, chairman of Waterford Wedgewood, are more important than 500 workers and their families who now face a bleak future.

These draconian job cuts are part of a worldwide restructuring programme of 1,800 job losses "so that the company is returned to profitability." While workers have to make do with a paltry redundancy package of six weeks pay for every year worked, capped at 16 years, (some workers have up to 40 years service) management gloated to the financial world that they wanted to become the Ryanair of its sector - a "low-cost operator in the luxury lifestyle sector." It will certainly be a luxury lifestyle for the shareholders, but it will be Ryanair conditions for the workers and their families.

Last year, when the company recorded pre-tax losses of €45 million, Chief Executive John Foley received a €180,000 wage increase, bringing his wages up to €672,000 per annum.

It's not just the current workers who will lose out. Decently paid craft jobs for the youth of the area are being wiped out in a heartless move to shore up the profits of people who are already super rich.

The ATGWU has rejected compulsory redundancies and are arguing for a better redundancy package. The trade union movement needs to get behind these workers and fight a battle to save the jobs and the Durgarvan plant. The company's books should be made public and the board of directors should be sacked with no golden handshakes. If Tony O'Reilly is not prepared to maintain the Durgarvan plant, then the state should take the company into public ownership.

Michael Martin has talked about a task force to help people retrain and attract other employment to the town. Yes - a task force should be established, but it should be made up of the Waterford Crystal workers, the unions and the people of Durgarvan and Waterford city in a campaign to save all these jobs. If such a campaign was established, it could also link up with the 160 workers facing redundancy in Germany, and the 950 workers in Wedgwood and Royal Doulton in Britain in an international fight against Tony O'Reilly's cuts.

A recent presentation at a trade union activists forum by Eddie Conlon of the Teachers' Union of Ireland provided further confirmation of how the life time of social partnership in Ireland has coincided with a transfer of wealth from working people to the rich.

In 1987, 77% of Ireland's national income went to wages, slightly above the EU average. In 2003, despite the workforce almost doubling in size, its share had declined to 55%, compared to an EU average of 68% and a corresponding figure of 66% in the US!

Between 1995 and 2003, profits and self employed income has increased by 189%, whereas wages and pensions have gone up 126%. You can only explain the phenomenon of a bigger workforce getting a smaller share of the wealth they create if you examine their "productivity" - or to put it another way - the rate of exploitation. For example, between 1995 and 2004 unit wage costs in the manufacturing sector have declined by 38% while output has increased by a whopping 142%.

So where does that leave social partnership? Many of our pro-partnership union leaders claim that this arrangement gives them influence over government policy in terms of social spending.

The anecdotal evidence of crowded A & E wards and schools falling to bits and pensioners and social welfare dependants coping with our high prices and stealth taxes is a sufficient answer. Between 1985 and 2003 government spending on services as a percentage of GDP has declined from 45% to 27% compared to an average decline of 45% to 42% in the EU.

Do you ever get the feeling you have been swindled?

This year's Civil, Public and Services Union (CPSU) conference reflected a growing confidence among activists. Conference took place as management in the public service are trying to force through their agenda over the heads of the union branches, by using partnership committees.

Delegates expressed their concerns regarding the direction of "partnership" in the workplace. Far from experiencing "partnership", activists are seeing their voices ignored and management's agenda being the only real agenda implemented on the ground. The reality, as stated by the left in the union, is that "partnership" means pro-business and anti-worker. The withholding of benchmarking payments is threatened if local branches refuse to co-operate with management's plans. Motions were passed criticising "partnership" and calling for a full review of the impact of "partnership" committees on industrial relations.

Conference passed a motion unanimously instructing the Executive Committee and the General Secretary not to enter talks for a new wage deal until the An Post members get paid the present wage deal in full. Also delegates angrily debated the government decision to place mobile phone masts on government buildings.

An emergency motion supporting the GAMA workers was enthusiastically passed by delegates. A fringe meeting on "social partnership" and mobile phone masts was attended by more than 30 delegates.