· Taoiseach on €3,500 a week preaching to the working poor · A Living Wage of €11.45 should be the minimum wage

Government’s whole ‘labour activation’ policy now seriously undermined ·         100% dissatisfaction from those forced onto scheme yet government continue ‘mandatory’ approach ·         44% said that the scheme was being used by employers ‘solely for free labour’ ·         55.7% of interns unaware or unwilling to make complaint Paul Murphy ...

It is now nine weeks since Greyhound workers were treated in the style of William Martin Murphy by their employer, Michael Buckley. They arrived to work – were presented with new contracts, including pay cut of up to 35% and a change to a whole series of other working conditions and were instructed to sign or they were not working. After refusing to sign, they were escorted off the premises by security. Agency workers immediately began doing their jobs. This is 1913 in 2014.

Return the service to the council, guaranteeing jobs and conditions and a superior public service.

Despite the government and media’s attempts to sell the mantra of recovery, the reality is that the living standards of working people continue to be squeezed. I

If this goes unchallenged it represents a reversal for the trade union movement of a principle won in legislation over 100 years ago that unions could not be made liable for bosses loss of income arising from trade disputes.

The manner in which these workers have been robbed of their jobs and their wages going back three months demonstrates a level of employer criminality which the system essentially tolerates.

There's no shortage of work-place horror stories from young employed people in Ireland today. From JobBridge to zero hour contracts, it's clear that young workers are easy pickings for exploitation. In Galway, a recently closed night-club, the Bentley, has been added to this growing list of abuses

CPSU An Post members have voted by a significant majority not to join the CWU but to remain in the CPSU. This decision went against the wishes of the CPSU general secretary, the CWU general secretary and the management of An Post who all encouraged the move.

With the stroke of a pen, the highly profitable ESB tried to change the pensions of its workforce from defined benefits (DB) to defined contributions (DC) and also claim that they had no more responsibility toward the financing of our pensions.