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Workers in Struggle

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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30/03/10

Besiege the Government – Not the Workers

For some time now the Dublin government and its allies in the corporate media have been engaged in a sustained and concerted campaign both to divide workers and to heap the blame for the capitalist recession on the shoulders of those employed in the public sector.

Not only have the lowest paid workers in the public sector suffered cumulative pay cuts of 13 per cent, they have also faced the vitriol of the right-wing press.

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22/03/10

Pay Cuts Stopped at Mount Carmel

Management at the Mount Carmel Hospital Group have agreed to suspend staff pay cuts following a threatened strike by workers.

Strike action was due to begin today (March 22) at Mount Carmel in Dublin and Aut Even in Kilkenny, before management reached an agreement with representatives of SIPTU and the Medical Laboratory Scientists Association.

Pay cuts, which had been imposed from January 1, will now be suspended until an independent financial review of the hospital can be carried out. The review will be chaired by nominees of ICTU and IBEC.

John Kane of MLSA said, “The unions will enter these talks in a positive manner and we expect management will do likewise.”

Teachers’ Pay Talks Resume

Talks resumed today between the Twenty-Six County Department of Education and the four main teachers unions – INTO, TUI, ASTI and IFUT.

A series of talks will take place this week on pay cuts and the transformation of the public service.

Little progress has been made in sectoral meetings so far and teachers have made clear their intention to push for an intensified campaign against cuts at their Easter conferences.

Emergency motions will be forwarded for strike action, as well as withdrawal of co-operation and a ban on non-contractual teaching duties.

NIPSA Reject Civil Servant Management Offer

NIPSA’s Civil Service Group met today to consider the management side’s belayed offer on pay for civil service staff in the Six Counties, and voted to reject the offer.

Brian Campfield, general secretary of NIPSA said that union representatives would now seek an improved offer from management.

He said, “The offer does not come near to meeting the terms of the NIPSA claim which was submitted early in 2009. Specifically it does not provide any increase at the maxima of pay scales nor does it deal with the issue of the improvements we were seeking to annual leave entitlements and therefore represents an unacceptable attempt to place an absolute cap on [the] Civil Service.”

15/03/10

Hospitals on the Brink

Talks between public sector trade unions and the Twenty-Six County government resumed today [Monday] against the backdrop of the planned 48-hour hospital strike in April.

Today’s talks were facilitated by senior officials of the Labour Relations Commission.

Unions are engaged in a six-week dispute over pay cuts introduced in last December’s budget. A series of work stoppages in schools, hospitals and other public services will ensue if workers’ rights are not secured.

Some 4,500 lower-paid staff in seven hospitals, including porters, catering personnel, security, healthcare assistants and supervisors, are to go on strike from 1am on Wednesday, April 7 until 1am on Friday, April 9. The public hospitals to be affected are St James’s, St Vincent’s, Connolly Memorial, Mater, Beaumont, Tallaght and St Colmcille’s in Loughlinstown.

SIPTU health sector organiser Paul Bell said the action would be proceeding. He said hospital management had sought to cancel a meeting planned for this week to discuss the proposed dispute and the union felt the organisation was not taking the strike threat seriously. There would be a “sharp, short withdrawal of labour” in Beaumont hospital as early as the week after next if the organisation did not take it seriously, he said.

Private Sector Joins Action

Staff at Mount Carmel private hospital in Dublin staged a second protest today [Monday] in a dispute over pay cuts.

Impact, SIPTU and the Medical Laboratory Scientists’ Association, which represent the workers, have served strike notice on the hospital for Monday, March 22. It will involve administrators, radiographers, scientific and support grade staff at the hospital.

The unions said the action was as a result of a decision by management to cut pay without consultation or agreement.

The three unions said that, as most of the procedures taking place in the hospital were elective or non-urgent, it was expected industrial action would cause disruption to services at the hospital, including pharmacy and laboratory services.

The hospital provides maternity services, as well as orthopaedic and eye and ear services on a for-profit basis.

Firefighters demand strike

Firefighters in the Twenty-Six Counties have increased the pressure on SIPTU to serve strike notice with immediate effect.

Members have called for a statewide fire brigade and ambulance strike with complete withdrawal of cover.

John Kidd of SIPTU’s full-time fire officers’ committee said firefighters were working in unsafe conditions due to staff cutbacks.

“In addition to the pay cuts, 108 members retired last year, around 30 so far this year, and there have only been no new recruits over the last two years. We cannot continue to provide a service like this.”

Members of the branch met with union officials over the weekend to discuss the demand for a strike.

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