Irish Ferries: Time To Break The Law?
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worker & community struggles and protests |
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Sunday November 20, 2005 05:34
by eamprn cuubden - strictly in a mash-up cut-up capacity
'Time to plagarise from the French' sez Wag 'Dunno about theorists but workers won't mind'
In 1990 the Industrial Relations Act was passed in this country which brough many of the Thatcherite reforms of trade unions onto our shores. Along with Social Partnership, this has been described by many as a major loss by the trade union movement. The
IWU
classified it as one of those laws : "designed in democratic bourgeois societies like ours to keep the working class in their place". So when Trade Unionists discuss via political articles how to fight Irish Ferries type attacks on workers, the question of the law must come into it.
Of course, we have to remember that other people have been fighting our battles for us already this year.
Our unions have the power to shut down Irish Ferries until they agree to employ all of their staff on trade union rates of pay. However, doing this would bring our unions into conflict with the law. The Industrial Relations Act makes solidarity action unlawful.
This is a big step to take but the choice is simple: break the law or allow the bosses to break our unions. If we let Irish Ferries get away with it, other bosses will, naturally, copy them. Many more jobs will be in danger.
On the other hand, if our unions give Irish Ferries management a bloody nose, other bosses will learn a lesson and back off.
UPDATE: Nov 24thworkers barricade themselves into engine room as company thugs attempt to bring in strike-breaking replacement crew.
The dispute at Irish Ferries is about greedy bosses, very greedy bosses who want to replace their staff with modern day galley slaves.
Eamonn Rothwell, Managing Director of Irish Ferries, plans to get rid of 543 workers and replace them with migrants on €3.50 per hour. Rothwell earned €687,000 last year. That’s €338.00 an hour. But there is no talk about replacing him with a yellow pack boss from Eastern Europe!
Our so-called ‘social partners’, government and IBEC are not complaining about his wages. Yet again it is ordinary workers who are being screwed to boost the profits of big business.
Bertie Ahern pretended to be sympathetic when he said that the company was engaging in “sharp practice”. This is just empty guff designed to stop vote losses. The truth is that Bertie Ahern and his government support what Irish Ferries are doing.
His fellow cabinet member Tom Parlon said that new employees of Irish Ferries would be better off than they would be in their own country because they would be getting €3.50 an hour and their board and lodging!
This government has encouraged migrant workers to come to Ireland not just because there is a labour shortage but also so that business can underpay and use them to drive down wage levels. We have no argument with fellow workers from abroad, we simply want everyone to get the union rate for the job.
SIPTU cannot sort this out with court cases nor with appeals to the government. A strike to shut down Irish Ferries would give Rothwell and his pals something to think about. A commitment by trade unionists in the ports of Ireland, Britain and France to refuse to handle its ships would quickly bring a halt to their gallop.
Our unions have the power to shut down Irish Ferries until they agree to employ all of their staff on trade union rates of pay. However, doing this would bring our unions into conflict with the law. The Industrial Relations Act makes solidarity action unlawful.
This is a big step to take but the choice is simple: break the law or allow the bosses to break our unions. If we let Irish Ferries get away with it, other bosses will, naturally, copy them. Many more jobs will be in danger.
On the other hand, if our unions give Irish Ferries management a bloody nose, other bosses will learn a lesson and back off.
Note: This article has been bare-facedly plagiarised from an article by
Alan MacSimion - (SIPTU member)
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Comments (41 of 41)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41Shut them down.
How exactly does "The Industrial Relations Act makes solidarity action unlawful."??
a worker and his/her union can be sued by an employer who is not their own boss for loss of earnings unless they can show "that employer has directly assisted their employer who is a party to the trade dispute for the purpose of frustrating the strike or other industrial action".
Unless you could show that the port companies, food & fuel suppliers, etc. were supplying their services to Irish Ferries for the deliberate purpose of "frustrating the strike", anyone picketing could be sued. This could mean losing your savings, your home and having a huge debt registered against you.
Of course, if enough people get involved that becomes more difficult. And if enough workers pledge to strike if anyone is brought to court that would make it impossible.
Declare yourself bankrupt BEFORE you engage in any action, if you have no assets they can't get you. There are ways of doing it you know!
bankruptcy?here i don't have any assets myself but seriously though why don't you head down to the ship and tell the lads to declare themselves bankrupt. if they don't bounce your head off the nearest wall, i'm sure their wives will.
They should be stopped from sacking all the Irish workers now. The Irish workers deserve better than to be replaced by foreign workers. They have lost their jobs and this is a disgrace. This would not be tolerated in any other country. Its time the Irish workers blockaded the Irish Ferries from going about their daily routine to make their full voices be heard once and for all.
Somebody's got to take a stand against Ahern's 1990 Industrial Relations Act, and if that means people having to suffer fines and imprisonment, then so be it! I'm quite prepared to do this myself, as for a start, I live in rented accomodation, and don't have asets as such, so all the b****rds can do is to sue me, and I'm not paying any fine, so they'll have to jail me. I know a lot of people in An Post, Dublin Bus, Aer Lingus, Dublin Airport and the ESB, and you'd be surprised at the number of workers, who will refuse to pass solidarity pickets, and who'd take sympathy action/strikes. I know its Saturday, and a lot of people who contribute to Indymedia during the week aren't around, but I'd like to see others here saying they'd refuse to pass solidarity pickets, and that they'd take sympathy action/strikes. Its very easy to say that we'd refuse to pass solidarity pickets, and we'd take sympathy action, but actions speak louder than words! Talk is cheap, action is not!
Regarding the comments from lola - siptuwatchers unite Friday, Nov 18 2005, who said, "we have to remember that there just isn't the solidarity and trade union mindset that there used to be in this country a while back." I understand where you're coming from, but given the chance, and the leadership, workers will take action! Just look at the recent Irish Ferries Protest in Dublin, where, even according to the Gardaí, who usually underestimate numbers on Protests, the Gardaí said that, 10,000 workers took part, which, is a good turnout, given that, (a), it was called at short notice, and (b), the Unions didn't organise a General Work Stoppage. Had it not been for those 2 factors, I suspect that the numbers taking part, would, have been much larger. I hear the words of Peter Finch's Howard Beal's speech from the film "Network - Mind control, screaming loudly in my head": "What I want you to do now, is get up, turn off your TV, go to the window, and shout as loud as you can, "We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore!"
Take for example, An Post, where I work. Apart from the fact, that, the Industrial Relations Act has a whole arsenal of weaponary, to stop workers from going on strike, as it means you have to go through hoops, just to even call a ballot for industrial action, it of course also bans secondary and sympathy picketing and industrial action, which means that An Post workers could be fined and jailed for placing pickets outside bus garages, power stations and train stations, which is the logical thing for us to do, as, apart, from the fact of widening the dispute, and putting more pressure on the Government, it's us today, but it will be CIE and the ESB, and the airports and Aér Lingus tomorrow, if the management of An Post, and their paymaster, the Government are allowed to get away, with, what they've done to us.
Wasn't what ILDA did a few years ago when they picketed the bus garages, and most of the bus workers refused to pass the pickets, and when the bus workers returned the favour, when they were on strike, and they picketed the train stations, and again, most of the train drivers refused to pass the pickets, not also, a slightly less blatant form of what I hope the An Post workers will do in the next few weeks? I recall Bua Atha Cliath (Dublin Bus), Bus Eireánn, and Iarnród Eireánn, all threatening legal action against ILDA for loss of earnings, but nothing ever came of it! How did ILDA get away with it? Maybe, someone could tell us how, either here, or by Email, as it'd be really important to know how.
Like any of those laws that they try to suppress us with, there are always loopholes. It's just a question of us finding out where they are. Someone here does have ideas, just spit them out!
The Miners, when Thatcher tried to seize their funds, under draconian legislation, similar to Ahern's 1990 Industrial Relations Act, as far as I can remember simply transferred their funds over here, to avoid their funds being seized. This has to be an option that unions planning Secondary and/or Sympathy Pickets/Strikes, over Irish Ferries, and elsewhere, are already thinking of using (i.e. transfer your funds to a foreign jurisiction for the duration of the dispute). As I say, I don't know the fine print of the Industrial Relations Act, but I know there are people out there reading this, who do know, so perhaps you could tell us, how, and what loopholes exist in this Act, and how we take advantage of them!
If there was a demonstration of people on the docks in Rosslare, that prevented ships from docking because of health and safety considerations - could those involved in that demonstration be charged under the industrial relations act?
Would it not be the Public Order Act - and is the political climate there to baton charge protestors off the docks in Rosslare?
"They should be stopped from sacking all the Irish workers now. "
I'm not advocating what Irish Ferries are trying to do, but you should be aware that there is a difference between being sacked and being made redundant.
"but you should be aware that there is a difference between being sacked and being made redundant."
Like the difference between lies and mistruths.
You exaggerate your power. You say "Our unions have the power to shut down Irish Ferries until they agree to......". No they don't. They may well have the power to shut down Irish Ferries. Period. They don't have the power to compel Irish Ferries to re-open on terms acceptable to the unions. Once shut down by the unions, Irish Ferries has the option of staying shut and its shareholders the option of investing their money elsewhere. Whether this is a good or bad thing is, of course, a matter of opinion. But, its a fact. Why don't you face it? In this globalised world, the days of unions winning major battles with employers are over. That's why, for all the militant rhetoric on this site and among left-wing parties, the number of days lost to strikes in Ireland is a tiny fraction of what it was in the 70s. Clearly, the workers have more sense and a greater grasp of reality than loony left activists and politicians.
And bring your spamming and trolling of this newswire somewhere else where its more appreciated like IBEC or ISME. You've never once offered any positive contribution on any thread on Indymedia, and whats more, when challenged about any of your trolls, you just run and hide and crawl back under your rock where you come from. No it is you, John dunaree2000, who's in the minority here, with your ultra right wing extremist views. Even the Progressive Democrats, no friends of workers and ordinary people, have come out publicly against what Irish Ferries are doing! Does this now make them dangerous ultra marxist radicals who must be suppressed John dunaree2000? And in case you think that only a small number of ultra leftists care about Irish Ferries John dunaree2000, most people I know are absolutely outraged by what Irish Ferries are doing, and want to know what the unions are doing about this, and they will support any action taken, even if it is supposedly illegal under Ahern's 1990 Industrial Relations Act, and the risks they are taking, and before you, John dunaree2000, accuse them of being dangerous ultra marxist radicals who must be suppressed, many of them are Fianna Fáil and Fine Gáel supporters! So put that in your cigar pipe and smoke it John dunaree2000!
Going back on topic, I have raised some important issues on this site about how do we get around Ahern's 1990 Industrial Relations Act banning Secondary/Sympathy Picketing/Strikes, and how do we actively confront this. Again, I repeat, there are people out there who have ideas, and we would be very grateful if you would share them with us!
"but you should be aware that there is a difference between being sacked and being made redundant."
"Like the difference between lies and mistruths."
Distorting the facts to evoke a stronger emotional response to the plight of Irish Ferries employees is deceptive and unnecessary. What the company is doing is totally unfair, but you have to call it what it is, redundancy.
Because the jobs still exist?
This was why there may be tax implications and the govt. toojk advice on whether it needed to give a rebate on the statutory element of the redundancy since, in their eyes, it was a saking. Not a redundancy.
Or has this been resolved?
We will see how outraged the public are if/when Irish Ferries implements its plan and is able to undercut the fares charged by its rivals. If your view is correct, the public will boycott Irish Ferries and opt to pay higher fares on Stena Sealink. Somehow, I doubt it. I seem to remember the same arguments being applied when privately-owned non-unionised Ryanair was starting off in competition with state-owned highly-unionised Aer Lingus. Today Ryanair is ten times the size of Aer Lingus. So, obviously public outrage didn't hold them back.
who called for capital punishment for the rossport 5
Reports of confrontation on vessel
There are reports of a confrontation at Pembroke Dock in Wales aboard the Irish Ferries vessel, Isle of Inishmore.
According to information from crewmembers, a group of Latvian seafarers have entered the vessel, assisted by security personnel.
The vessel was due to depart at 2.30pm for Rosslare but has not yet left.
http://www.breakingnews.ie/2005/11/24/story231755.html
Irish Ferries ships' officers to strike over lay-off plan
24/11/2005 - 07:54:57
Ships' officers working for Irish Ferrries have reportedly voted to take strike action if the company implements its plans to replace ferry crews with cheaper labour from abroad.
In Light of Recent developments regarding the plight of Workers At irish Ferries , I find myself appalled at irish ferries heavy handed tactics. Following on from this I was wondering if anyone else is considering making this outrge heard at rosslare.
Transport arrangements will be difficult at such short notice. Any ideas ?
Solidarity
Irish ferries' private security
If John honestly thinks that the hiring of modern day galley slaves to replace Irish workers will be reflected in the pricing strategy of "Irish" Ferries, then he should think again. The money saved will be used to line the pockets of the shareholders, as it invariably is in such circumstances.
Having recently had to ask for products in my local shop using Russian, because the Latvian girl behind the counter spoke and understood so little English, I am sure the customer experience of "Irish" Ferries will take a nosedive with the new agency staff.
Irish Ferries is what unrestricted movement of labour is all about. It is the rationale behind mass migration of workers. The left rightly sees the driving down of wages and the destruction of workers organisations as bad, but defends mass immigration. Time to wake up and smell the coffee comrades. No to scab labour.
Its true what you're saying. I don't know how Ireland will cope if this trend will continue. Germany has a system inplemented in its workforce by law called 'protection against foreign workers'. This does not permit managers to sack their fellow German workers to take on cheaper foreign workers without a reasonable explanation and this explanation is thoroughly investigated by the authorities there.
Guys,
I fully sympathise with the situation you find yourselves in. However the Irish ferries union seem to be pretending that this is the first time Irish jobs have been outsourced, and that it will cause huge problems for the Irish economy.
Outsourcing happens all the time. Ask anyone in the software industry. The days of a job for life are gone.
Also the idea that outsourcing will destroy an industry is silly. Look at the software industry where hundreds of jobs have been outsourced to India - It's thriving at the moment and is much stronger than it was a few years ago.
At the end of the day the only way to fight off outsourcing is to be better at the job then the people who will replace you. And no, it's not just to do with price - many call center jobs are moving from India back to europe because customers were unhappy with the service when outsourced.
"At the end of the day the only way to fight off outsourcing is to be better at the job then the people who will replace you. "
Great philosopy, I pity anyone who has you as a friend or colleague.
Bring it on. At the end of the day this is going to affect the middle class most. You know those who vote and actively partake in the electroral system. Revolutionaries can only take solace from the anger this will generate.
"Great philosopy, I pity anyone who has you as a friend or colleague."
Daithi I fail to see how my views would make you pity my friends and collegues.....perhaps you could explain what makes me such a bad person?
Ultra Leftist
"At the end of the day this is going to affect the middle class most."
The Irish Ferries story is generating huge coverage because of the strength of the Unions involved ( which may be one of the causes of the whole issue). The middle class are used to outsourcing.....it has *always* happened and it always will. Because of this I really don't think most of the middle class are that bothered.
So Irish Ferries are opening a new route to India. Must have missed that on the news.
"Daithi I fail to see how my views would make you pity my friends and collegues.....perhaps you could explain what makes me such a bad person?"
Colleague: Damien, word in the office is that they're planning to give us all the sack and move all our jobs to India.
Damien: hey, stop moaning man, shit happens
Colleague: But I've a mortgage to pay and christmas is coming. Fred in accounts reckons we should strike and shut them down to stop it.
Damien: you should have worked harder shouldn't you. If he can do as good a job for less, too bad. The days of a job for life are gone. Besides the middle class aren't bothered.
Colleague: * insert insults / head bouncing here *
Bad man, you know what is the end of that conversation?
Colleague: Yay we shut down the whole company.
Foreign worker: I have a family and a mortgage and bills to pay, and now I've no job either.
If companies that outsource are shutdown, nobody will end up with jobs
but one with a simple-minded understanding of industrial relations too.
The point of a strike is not to close a company but to force the owners to change a decision. If you succeed, nobody loses their jobs. Unless the owners are raving loonies, they always back down long before the survival of the company is endangered.
Pretty much every 'right' that anybody has today is a direct consequence of our parents going out and winning it with strikes and similar means of changing the minds of bosses. We can be happy that the workers of Irish Ferries are both more intelligent and more courageous than the likes of yourself and can see the glaringly obvious reasons for taking action.
Compare and contrast:
Roches Stores staff replaced by cheap labour
By Anthony Hetherington
Roches Stores in Cork made its cleaning and dispatch staff redundant last month to replace them with outside agency workers as part of a national strategy to cut wage costs.
Roches Stores began to wield the axe in Dublin and started to cut through its other stores following hot on the heels of GAMA and Irish Ferries.
And what has been the reaction of SIPTU?
To get the best redundancy deal possible. They have backed away from trying to defend the jobs and conditions for both the previous existing staff and the agency staff.
Staff feared that those two areas would not be the last to be affected. If that's the case, the union's response is more shocking.
Roches Stores "generously" offered to ask the agency to hire the workers into their old jobs - at reduced pay, shorter contracts and fewer rights and entitlements!
The cleaning staff is largely made up of women, the despatch / distribution staff are mainly men, with families. The workers are angry with the company stealing their jobs and giving them to the lowest bidder and at the underhand way Roches have begun to gut the workforce. They are also unhappy with SIPTU's response, seeing much better than SIPTU do, just what the company's agenda is - cheap non-unionised labour.
One worker, who didn't wish to be identified, told The Socialist: "We want to keep our jobs. It's wrong what they're doing. How can they give our jobs to someone else? Our jobs are there - they want contract people to come in to work for less."
Badman :"we should strike and shut them down"
Shutting down a company means everyone loses their jobs.
Because what I'm seeing is a pretty clear argument in favour of workers taking action a la Irish Ferries rather than not taking action a la Roches.
Considering that Damien was apparently trying to make the point that the Irish Ferries workers were just moaners who should just try to be better at their jobs, I'm left with the impression of a very confused man with a similarly confused sock-puppet identity.
"we should strike and shut them down"
I took it that I was dealing with intelligent life and rashly assumed that the inevitable end of the clause "until they give in" would be applied by the reader. I see now that I have to specify it in this case and can't assume that Damien understands the purpose of industrial action, even though this has been a constant in every single industrial action since the pyramids.
On your way out, don't forget to change the position of the switch beside the door. This will turn out the lights.
To Damien and others here whom seem to be of the view that one should work harder, not go on strike because they might lose their jobs; you really ought to consider what this downward spiral means.
If we have a reasonably paid worker, who is then replaced by say a 'legal' EU worker at half the cost, then we can say that now all workers in the equivalent position of the first have been reduced to the standard of living determined by the wages now paid to the cheaper worker.
Now suppose we replace that worker by a 'illegal' immigrant for half again, but in practice it is often not half, but maybe even a quarter, then everyone's living standard is reduced equivalently to that level. And so on to the very edge of slave labour.
Also just as importantly is the loss of rights and other reasonable conditions such as sick pay, limit on the number of works hours, the actual time of the working hours themselves, holiday pay, holidays if any, working bank-holidays and even the right to complain.
We all know in the industrial revolution times of the 18th century, of which Charles Dickens wrote much of the appalling working conditions and poverty in general and I think it is fair to agree that most people think these were terrible conditions and it was good that they improved for most workers -well in the 'West' at least. And these improved conditions were only as already pointed out, by striking workers. At the time the capitalists couldn't easily move industry, so they had to give in. Although now of course they can and that's why they are on the up.
Now the current trends in this country and everywhere else, often referred to as globalisation is rapidly returning us to those appalling conditions.
Damien and others don't seem to either accept this or understand it. Nor do these people seem to understand that if you work for say 1/2 or even 1/4 or less of what you might currently earn that you will become poorer.
Nor do they understand if their work hours increased from say the standard 40 to say 50, they loose any health and pension benefits, have to work bank holidays if asked, have far less holidays if any and can be readily dismissed or fired and of course asked to do night shifts on a whimp, along with the much lower pay as mentioned, that your quality of life and that of your family is going to be lower. Oh and by the way you will be working much harder, whether that answering more calls per minute in the call centre, carrying more loads on a building site or whatever
The long term answer of organise is to totally reorganise society for the benefit of people and not just for a very small percentage of the population who have most of the wealth. But again, I reckon that seems like an alien idea too.
QOUTE: the idea that outsourcing will destroy an industry is silly
The idea that workers should idenfity with "an industry" instead of with a job that secures them the means to eat and pay for medical bills etc is bizarre!
The software industry can be as healthy as it likes, that doesn't mean that it's going to supply resources to Irish workers.
Globalized capital is doing very nicely, we don't need to worry about it, just about what it gives to us and what it tries to get away with.
You guys are missing the point.
1) There is a general trend for unskilled work to be outsourced to foreign economies.
2) This will not be reversed by industial action in developed countries such as Ireland - if anything industrial action will accelerate the trend by making Ireland a less attractive place to do business.
3) The only way to combat these job losses is for us to work in highly skilled jobs which cannot be easily outsourced.
Outsourcing has been going on for years its nothing new.....I cannot understand how this isssue is getting so much press coverage.