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Workers in Struggle

20/07/10

Refuse workers threaten strike

Refuse workers in south County Dublin are threatening strike action in a dispute over outsourcing.

Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council has decided to outsource its bin collection work to a private company from July 26.

Talks have taken place at the Labour Relations Commission, but workers will go on strike on Thursday if the dispute is not settled. The council’s announcement that it is outsourcing its operation goes against a previous LRC decision from June.

SIPTU Branch organiser Ramon O’Reilly said: “Experience throughout the country has shown that where waste collection is privatised, the cost to consumers rapidly increases after initial reductions and householders who live in remote locations or on unprofitable routes are left to dispose of their own refuse. And of course private operators do not provide waivers on charges.”

Neighbouring local authorities in Dublin are also being balloted on strike action.

Workers protest at Merlin Park hospital

Around 100 SITPU members and supporters held a lunchtime protest at Merlin Park hospital in Galway yesterday [Monday, July 19] over proposed ward closures.

The HSE has said it is developing a ‘cost containment plan’ to keep the hospital ‘within budget’.

Paul Hardy, SIPTU’s Health Services Organiser for Galway, said: “Proposals to slash jobs in order to reach an unrealistic and politically-imposed financial target will not only diminish already hard-pressed health services but also add to unemployment and the economic problems of the city and county.

“Our members are willing to talk about how they can work with management to further improve efficiency of services in both Merlin Park and University Hospital Galway, even to but no one can be expected to co-operate with change when the change amounts to having a door slammed in your face.”

Ballymun lifts dispute ends

A six-month strike by TEEU members in Ballymun against redundancy conditions imposed by Pickerings Lifts has ended after independent mediation.

An agreement was reached over the weekend on redundancy packages for lift workers in the Ballymun flats.

Lift workers have also been involved in a dispute with Otis Lifts for two weeks, after the company sacked seventeen engineers on June 26.

The dispute affects in a number of shopping centres, office complexes, and the new T2 terminal at Dublin Airport. The TEEU has said it is considering escalating the strike action.

1300 nursing and care jobs threatened

The Royal College of Nursing has warned that around 1,300 jobs could be lost from the Health and Social Care service across the Six Counties as a result of cuts.

The Stormont Executive imposed a £126 million [€148 million] cut in the HSC budget on top of £700 million [€823 million] in ‘efficiency savings’ that had been announced previously.

These cuts put around 1300 jobs at risk, including 500 nursing posts.

Janice Smyth of the RCN said: “The DHSSPS has already imposed severe restrictions upon the use of overtime, bank and agency staff, and has stated that when posts fall vacant, “they will only be filled if it can be established that they are essential for the purpose of providing priority services”. Service realignments, redeployment and retraining will also impose their own further pressures on a workforce that, as a recent DHSPPS survey reveals, is already functioning under almost unbearable pressure.

“The current financial position of the health and social care service is extremely serious. Any further cuts to funding could mean that the service will become unsustainable and will undoubtedly have severe consequences for frontline patient care.”

05/07/10

éirígí Slam Largo Foods Intimidation of its Workers

éirígí Tír Chonaill spokesperson Micheál Cholm Mac Giolla Easbuig has called on Ray Coyle, the CEO of Largo Foods, to publicly clarify his immediate plans for the company’s operations in Gaoth Dobhair. His concerns come amid suggestions from within the company that they are about to shut down completely in Donegal as workers defied threats of closure to reject pay cuts.

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30/06/10

Nurses protest pay cuts

Around 800 nurses, members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, held a lunchtime protest today [Wednesday] against unilateral cuts in pay.

Protests took place at private Bon Secours hospitals in Dublin, Galway, Cork and Tralee, after management slashed INMO members’ pay by ten per cent without notice the previous week.

INMO Director of Industrial Relations, Phil Ní Sheaghdha said: “By reneging on an agreement made with staff in February, which led to INMO members suspending industrial action, scheduled to commence on February 8th, this employer has created a great deal of anger and disquiet amongst INMO members. Up to last December, this employer enjoyed a good relationship with staff, however by imposing pay cuts without consent, they are destroying the possibility of good will being maintained.”

Workers strike on Inis Meáin

Airport workers have gone on strike on Inis Meáin as part of a pay dispute, leading to flights to and from the island being cancelled.

The island’s airport has been closed since Friday [June 25] as a result of workers not being payed by their employer, Comarchumann Inis Meáin.

Workers at the Inis Meáin desalination plant, which provides the island’s drinking water, have also begun strike action, leading to water having to be shipped in from Galway.

The Comharchumann became inactive because of a failure to elect a new management board for the co-op.

Michael Kilcoyne of SIPTU, which represents the striking workers, has called on Údarás na Gaeltachta agus Twenty-Six County Gaeltacht minister Pat Carey to resolve the problem at the Comharchumann.

Kingspan workers defer strike action

SIPTU’S Strike Committee at Kingspan in Cavan voted on Friday [June 25] to defer an escalation of industrial action.

Management in the plant had planned to lay off all 90 members of the production and engineering staff at the panel-making plant, but agreed to engage in talks following the threat of strike action.

Management had rejected a Labour Court recommendation on a redundancy package for workers who do not wish to remain at the plant following changes in terms and conditions. They also wish to introduce lower rates of pay for new workers.

24/06/10

Austerity for Workers Alone in British Budget

With Britain’s Stormont administration aiming to implement £128 million in cuts following last month’s British government emergency budget, on top of £370 million in cuts agreed in the Six County assembly last September, the budget report on Tuesday by the new Tory-led government was never going to bring much good news.

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14/06/10

Repression Against Trade Unionists on the Rise Internationally

The International Trade Union Confederation [ITUC] released its Annual Survey of Trade Union Rights for 2009 last Wednesday and many of the findings make for disturbing reading.

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08/06/10

Migrant Workers Protest Permits

Over 200 migrant workers took part in a demonstration on Wednesday, June 2, at the office of Twenty-Six County Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Batt O’Keeffe.

The demonstration, organised by Migrant Rights Council Ireland, called for migrant workers employed under the employment permit system to have the right to change employer.

Siobhán O’Donoghue, director of the MRCI, said: “Most workers on permits will only come forward to report exploitation if there is a way out that does not put their legal status at risk. The best way to protect workers and prevent exploitation is by giving the right to change employer, which gives them a fair chance to find an alternative and report exploitation.”

Tension rises in passport offices

The dispute between the Twenty-Six County Department of Foreign Affairs and workers in passport offices has re-emerged just one week after a deal at the Labour Relations Commission between the Department and the CPSU.

The deal included a clause that workers would be allowed to give priority to people who needed passports more quickly, however management has reneged on this and ordered staff to continue with service on a first-come basis.

CPSU general secretary Blair Horan said: “Since the Croke Park negotiations ended, CPSU has made it clear that it had no strategic interest in continuing industrial action in the passport office and we have worked to ensure that all who need a passport for immediate travel can get one. Since CPSU lifted its industrial action, management seems to have gone out of their way to hinder rather than help the travelling public.”

Teva workers vote to strike

Workers at the Teva Pharmaceuticals plant in Waterford city have voted to strike as part of a dispute over redundancy terms.

Workers were informed last September that there were to be 315 redundancies, around half the workforce, as a result of outsourcing to eastern Europe.

In the nine months since that decision, there has been no agreement on the terms of the redundancy package – leading to last week’s strike vote.

28/05/10

The Spectre of Communism: A Latter Day Red Scare

It appears that the growing militancy of working people in the Twenty-Six Counties has thrown the establishment into paroxysms of indignation.

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21/05/10

Liberty Hall Needs the Spirit of James Connolly

In many respects the legacy of 25 years of social partnership has blunted the sharp edge of trade union activism, while draconian legislation such as the Industrial Relations Act has severely restricted the ability of unions to organise. Power has been increasingly transferred from workers and centralised in the hands of the union bureaucracy.

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28/04/10

Government attacks continue: Ó Cuív declares war on the unemployed

The Dublin government’s war on the working class intensified this weekend. Having spent the past year slashing the wages of public sector workers and bizarrely blaming some of the lowest paid workers in the state for the economic crisis, the government now has the unemployed in its sights.

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19/04/10

Leinster House Attacks its Public Servants

The attacks keep coming. First, in 2004, the Twenty-Six County government attacked the most vulnerable of teachers, those newly appointed, and insisted that, in order to obtain their pensions, they would have to work five years extra.

Then, in 2008, the government claimed that teachers were well enough paid and would not be receiving an increase under the benchmarking procedures. The fact that the politicians would be getting pay increases themselves made this all the more laughable.

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