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.

Related Links: Sinn Fein Minister to cut pay of classroom assistants | SIPTU Press Release On Eye Cinema | Wildcat strike in Musgrave Warehouse In Dublin | Independent Workers' Union Exposes Abuse Of Migrant Workers | Postman Pat says ‘stuff your pay cut” | Nurses Call For Health System Based On Solidarity | Joanne Delaney Gets Reinstated | Polish Workers Wildcat at Tescos | Indymedia Workers Archive

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.