Workers Solidarity Movement

With the National Executive of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation coming out unanimously against the Public Service deal and the NEC of SIPTU advocating a yes vote, the battle lines are well and truly drawn.  The next few weeks will see an intense debate in the trade union movement on this deal, and the threats of what will happen to us if we don't comply are already coming thick and heavy from government ministers such as Mary Harney and Brian Lenihan.

This text is currently being distributed in leaflet form by the Vote No to the Public Sector Agreement campaign within the Irish National Teachers Organisation. As well as arguing why the agreement is bad for education workers in the public sector it also explains why it is also bad for other public sector workers.  If you want to distribute the leaflet you'll find a link to a PDF of it at the bottom of the text.

This is the first May Day festival in living memory in the welcoming and historic town of Athy, Co. Kildare. It is taking place at a time of great uncertainty within our country and where a biased media whips up anti-trade union sentiment almost on a daily basis.

On 31 March 2010, workers in the Spanish public railway companies Renfe-Operadora (public transport operator) and ADIF (infrastructure administrator) carried out a 24 hour strike.The strike was organised by the Federal Railway Union of the Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT), a radical anarchist influenced union.

In a major setback for the government the executive of Impact, the country’s largest public sector union has rejected the deal which was negotiated last week.

Following the vote by the Central Executive Committee of the country's largest public sector union, IMPACT, that they cannot recommend acceptance of the public sector deal in the forthcoming ballot of members, the deal is under huge pressure.  IMPACT's outgoing general secretary Peter McLoone has been one of the principal advocates of the deal and the failure of his union's executive to back the deal will have serious ramifications not alone within IMPACT but in other public sector unions as well.

For the second time in six months, workers at Connolly Shoes Dun Laoghaire Co. Dublin, members of the Mandate trade union, have taken to the picket line.  The strike began on Tuesday 6th April following the dismissal of two workers.

The dispute has its origin in attempts by management last September to introduce short-time working. 

The workers on strike are getting great support and solidarity from members of the public.  The leaflet being handed out by the strikers reads as follows:

INTO Conference has again had a narrow vote in relation to the Public Sector deal. After another lively and angry debate, Delegates voted by 306 votes to 248 against a section of a motion which would have had the effect of postponing the ballot on the deal until the full details of any revised teachers contract were made available.

In what is being described by RTE as a blow to the leadership, delegates at the INTO annual Congress in Galway today (Tuesday) passed a motion which declared that the Public Sector Agreement 2010 -2014  is contrary to INTO policy.  After a lively debate, it was agreed to endorse the union leadership's decision to put the deal to a ballot of the membership but the section of the motion which called for a recommendation that members reject the deal in that ballot was defeated by just 4 votes - 308 to 304.

The sacking of Eugene McDonagh by Dublin Bus management and his simultaneous suspension by the National Bus & Rail Union from its national executive shows the true face of ‘social partnership’.  Eugene has been a bus driver for 21 years and has an unblemished work record. The bosses and the senior union bureaucracy have come together to attack effective trade unionism in Harristown garage.