Socialistparty.net spoke to Laura Waters, a shop steward and Laura Ashley striker who has just joined the Socialist Party

Despite pre-tax profits of £10.5 million in the first half of this year the bosses of the Laura Ashley outlet on Grafton Street abruptly told its 22 predominantly female employees late last month the the shop would be closing because they managed to sell the leasehold on the property to Disney for a lucrative price. The workers were initially given the impression that they would be successfully redeployed within the chain of stores.

A recent Coroner’s Inquest into the circumstances leading to the death of 24 year old Stephen O’Brien from Drogheda in October 2007 when a boiler exploded at the Haribo confectionary factory in Finglas (since closed) might lead to prosecutions for criminal negligence.

At a CPSU consultative conference in July, delegate after delegate raised their continued opposition to the Croke Park deal. There was also major criticism of the role played by Blair Horan, CPSU General Secretary and the assertions in the media that the CPSU now supported the Croke Park deal.

Employment in the Irish Construction Industry is expected to fall to under 120,000 workers by the end of 2010, from a high of more than 270,000 in 2007. The result of such rapid jobs losses has been huge downward pressure on pay and conditions, with many construction workers been paid well below the legal minimum wages rates within the sector.

Even based on the current economic situation and the massive rise in unemployment talk of 2,000 further job losses in Eircom is shattering for the Irish economy and the workers in the former state company.

Workers in Otis Lifts, members of the Technical Engineering Electrical Union, are now into the second week of their strike action. The strike was undertaken as a response to the companies’ refusal to accept a Labour Court recommendation with regard to redundancies within the company. Initially the company sought thirteen redundancies and eleven workers were prepared to volunteer.

The ESB staff pension fund has a €2 billion deficit. In putting forward new pension proposals management and the group of unions (GOU) argue that there are three main factors for the pension deficit. The stock market crash, wage inflation (i.e. pay rises) and because “We are all living much, much longer.”