Strikers from Dublin Port, Coca Cola and Green Isle Foods to join TUF NAMA protest

dublin | worker & community struggles and protests | event notice Tuesday September 15, 2009 18:32 by pat c

Leinster House on Wednesday, September 16th at 1pm

Striking workers from Coca Cola, Green Isle Foods and Dublin Port to join TUF protest outside Leinster House .

Coca Cola, Green Isle Food and Marine Terminals strikers are to be among the contingents of workers at the Trade Union Federation (SIPTU & NEETU) protest outside Leinster House on Wednesday, September 16th at 1pm. The workers at Coca Cola HBC Ireland have been on strike for four weeks and have been sacked while out on strike. The Green Isle Food workers have been out for three weeks and the Marine Terminals workers have been on strike for ten weeks. In all these cases strike breakers have been brought in to do their work and court injunctions sought to minimise the effect of pickets.

The protest is over plans by the Government to bail out the banks through the NAMA legislation while doing nothing to defend PAYE workers wages and jobs, even though this sector is expected to bear the brunt of the socialised debt incurred by bankers and developers.

“My members have been on strike at Coca Cola since August 27th, over the company plans to outsource 130 jobs to third party companies”, SIPTU Branch Organiser John Dunne said today. The workers wanted the issues heard in the Labour Relations Commission and we referred all matters in dispute to the LRC as far back as July 8th.

“The company sacked everyone on strike on September 8th. The Labour Court is hearing the case on Friday (September 17th) but we are not even sure if the company will turn up.”

“Members are attending the Dail protest to show how angry they feel regarding the softly softly approach adapted to financial institutions, who are largely to blame for the country’s current economic situation, and the way employers are allowed to ignore basic industrial relations procedures.”

Technical Engineering and Electrical Union General Secretary Designate Eamon Devoy, said the dispute with Green Isle Foods, Naas, was because the company was using workers as scapegoats for management’s failure to secure its IT system. “Our members have been unfairly dismissed and strike breakers introduced.

“So, on the one hand we have big business being bailed out through NAMA and on the other, employers are using the crisis created by financial institutions to attack PAYE workers. It is a ‘lose-lose’ scenario for workers.

Like everyone else our members’ living standards are under attack as their capacity to repay mortgages and pay daily bills is reduced, while employers do what they like. We are demanding an end to double standards.”