Cultural Workers Take on Galway Property Tycoon

galway | worker & community struggles and protests | feature

Friday September 28, 2007 00:08

by Tribe 14

Eye Cinema strikers and a youthful supporter

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

Earlier this week: Over a thousand, primarily women, NIPSA members met at Writers Square in Belfast today for a March and Rally to mark the first day of industrial action demanding far pay and conditions for classroom assistants across the North of Ireland. Classroom assistants had voted...see photo report.

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 28 September.

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Comments (6 of 6)

fair play

by ritter

Fri Sep 28, 2007 15:35

Fair play to the workers making a stand. The right to join a union is a proven and well-tested constitutional right. It's great to see the workers taking a stand. Best of luck to all involved.

Cutural Workers?

by mamike - Free Thinking Organisation (me)

Fri Sep 28, 2007 16:09

They work at the local flicks fer petes sake.

Kulture my arse as Jim Royal would put it.

Royle

by The Royle Family

Fri Sep 28, 2007 16:44

I think you'll find its Royle

Indeed Royle it is.

by mamike

Fri Sep 28, 2007 18:31

Still Kulture though.

Fair play

by gosimeon

Sat Sep 29, 2007 00:20

I hate that the people of Galway make a stance by not affording this cinema their custom. Shame on it's owner for behaving this way.

Arts' Anomolies in Galway

by Fred Johnston

Thu Oct 30, 2008 15:52

I understand the Eye Cinema in Galway already provide an 'art-house' cinema: so why have Galway City Council decided to build another one, at great expense no doubt? I sympathise with the workers, of course.

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Cultural Workers Take on Galway Property Tycoon

Comments (6 of 6)