Workers Solidarity Movement

Workers at the Eye Cinema, Galway, members of SIPTU’s Galway No 1 branch, are in dispute with their employer - local property tycoon Gerry Barrett.Although the dispute concerns bread-and-butter issues relating to pay and working conditions, the owner of the cinema has turned it into a dispute about the right to belong to a union.

Shop stewards have been disciplined for offences as serious as allegedly eating a sweet and taking a ‘unauthorised’ taxi (‘unauthorised’, that is, except for the authorisation of the shop steward’s manager).

The company are claiming in the local press that great progress was made at yesterday’s meeting at the Labour Relations Commission on Wednesday, yet representatives of Gerry Barrett refused to sit in the same room as their employees and would not agree not to victimise strikers for being a member of a trade union, much less agree to negotiate with them.

The Eye Cinema strikers are mostly young people who deserve support for their brave stance. Supporters are invited to join a short protest outside Hotel Meyrick, Eyre Square (formerly the Great Southern) – also owned by Gerry Barrett – between 4pm and 5pm on Friday 28th September.