Workplace News

The Socialist Party TD for Dublin West, Joe Higgins, has called on Element Six, which is a subsidiary of the incredibly wealthy mutlinational De Beers to immediately honour the agreed payments into its Defined Benefit Pension Scheme, after it announced that it is winding up this plan.

Public sector workers have sent a very loud message to the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Conservative/Liberal Democrat government.

Three million workers belonging to twenty eight unions have walked out in defence of their pensions and the public services which all depend upon.In Northern Ireland it is probable that 80,000 workers have come out in a powerful demonstration of the power of the working class. The strike is a hugely important step forward in the campaign to defend our pensions and services.

It was a question of ‘Walk, Walk’’ rather that ‘Talk, Talk’ as the telecoms/internet company of that name brutally consigned its workforce to the scrapheap the day before yesterday.

A High Court decision on 7 July has upheld fast food employers’ claim that legislation relating to the catering Joint Labour Committee is unconstitutional and breaches employers’ property rights. This is a very serious development not only for hundreds of thousands of workers affected by sectoral wage agreements but for workers across all sectors of the economy.

Around 750,000 public sector workers are on strike in Britain today, protesting against attacks on their pension rights. Whilst the Irish media seems intent on demoting the issue, and most definitely will refuse to provide any real insight into why the workers are going on strike, socialistparty.net is bringing you an article written by the national Vice-President of the PCS, one of the main unions on strike today. With workers on strike in Britain and Greece today, the possibility for building a european-wide resistance, and general strike, against austerity can be seen.

For videos and reports from the picket lines check out this article.

An open forum called under the title “Reclaim the unions” attracted  seventy activists from a wide variety of unions. This gathering discussed two key issues facing the trade union movement, the continual sell out by the right wing leaders and the onslaught on workers jobs, wages and conditions.

Wages and conditions for up to 200,000 of the lowest paid and most vulnerable workers in the country are under serious threat.

The ASTI Fightback activist group has been established amidst a backdrop of growing frustration amongst teachers faced with growing attacks from the government. The ASTI has done nothing to stop the education cuts or the attacks on teaching jobs, wages and conditions.

The announcement on Friday by Vodafone that they are to make 139 workers redundant and that their jobs would be shifted east is the latest sickening blow to workers in the telecommunications sector. It comes in the wake of their former parent eircom’s announcement on Thursday that they are to seek yet another 1,000 voluntary redundancies amongst eircom and Meteor employees.

Last Saturday 70 activists from from a range of unions including SIPTU, UNITE, MANDATE, CPSU, PSEU, BATU, TEEU, IMPACT, IWU, TUI, INTO ASTI met at a forum organised under the title 'Reclaim the Unions'.