SIPTU members at Shanganagh Waste Water Treatment Plant, Co. Dublin, began strike action today (Tuesday, 21st May) at 6.30 a.m. in response to their employer’s failure to refer a dispute relating to pay and shift premium payments to the Labour Court. read full story / add a comment

Press statement: Joe Higgins TD

Joe Higgins TD seeks topical issue debate tomorrow in Dáil on Bus Eireann strike

Challenge Minister Varadkar on his desire to engineer privatisation of company

Despite possibility of talks there is no basis to call of strike until cuts in pay and conditions are rescinded

Following on from his previous statement of support for the striking Bus Eireann workers and his subsequent visits to the picket lines in Broadstone and Busaras Joe Higgins TD has today submitted a request to the Ceann Comhairle for a topical issue debate to be held in the Dáil tomorrow on the dispute:

"I want an opportunity tomorrow to put directly to Minister Varadkar the points that the workers on the picket line made to me about this dispute. It is undeniable that Minister Varadkar supports the wholesale privatisation of Bus Eireann and is willing to use his position in government to help engineer that end. I want to put to him directly points that were made to me about the levels of six figure executive pay in the firm, recent pay hikes these top brass have obtained and the €70 million that has been banked by CIE. It has been raised with me and party colleagues by some of the workers that the government want the company to financially sink as a prelude to selling it off. read full story / add a comment

And so, today, a group of Irish workers stand firm in front of a vicious right wing government’s bullying, harassment from the state media lie machine, the scandalous complicity of some reactionary Trade Union ‘leaders’ whose only vision is to compromise and collaborate.

Forced to defend their class interests from conscious ruling class attacks, they are the first to step forward on their own terms, in their own time, with their class dignity and power.

In 2013, this is not a defeated rabble!

But their strike action is also a thing in itself, which starkly changes the very balance of class forces in this crippled capitalist state. It is, objectively, a political action, because the Austerity Politics and anti-public service Friedmanite ethos which it confronts, is itself, a conscious politically co-ordinated strategy on the part of the ruling class. read full story / add a comment

9 May 2013

Press statement: Joe Higgins TD

Supreme Court ruling on Registered Employment Agreements poses need for organising drive by union movement as first step in protection of conditions

Commenting on today's Supreme Court ruling that Registered Employment Agreements are unconstitutional Joe Higgins TD said:

"The striking down by the Supreme Court of the REAs will be seen by employers and sub contractors as a signal for a savage attack on the wages and conditions of workers. The trade union movement should immediately declare that any such attacks will be met by all out action and must now go on the offensive to ensure that wages and conditions provided for by the REAs remain intact.

"Today's ruling is further proof that the judiciary in the final analysis contains an inherent bias against the interests of working people. Employers have allies in the top echelons of the state who are prepared to strike down the legal underpining of conditions in the private sector that exceed the statutory minimum wage. read full story / add a comment

It's possible to shift the tax burden from labour to consumption without raising prices or widening after-tax wages relativities. read full story / add a comment

Cheap clothes in Pennys = cheap lives in Bangladesh
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The Bawnogue One has just begun Occupation number two. On this occasion the worker was accompanied by one of the directors of the company he is employed by. Both are determined that this brand new occupation will continue until victory but the support of all trade unionists and community people is needed if victory is to be assured. read full story / add a comment

Hi All:

As of last Thursday ( March 28th 2013 ) FAS funding for the DBD Jobs Club, in Bawnogue ( Clondalkin ) has been withdrawn completely without any satisfactory explanation.

The Jobs Club Leader has been told that he is about to be made redundant and all services from our Jobs Club is to be withdrawn immediately.

Over the last 10 years, The Jobs Club has provided a very valuable service to local jobseekers over and it is unthinkable that, when its needed most, the area will be deprived of this valuable service. read full story / add a comment

We are living in a society where the combination of fractional-reserve banking (lending out multiples of deposits) helped along by quantitative easing (printing almost unlimited quantities of money) based on fiat currencies (money without intrinsic value) has created exponential growth for the world’s financial elites. This led to unprecedented bubbles in the property market as banks made it easy for people to borrow more money than they would have been allowed in the past when a conservative banker guideline for a home buyer was to have a two to two and a half times mortgage-to-salary ratio.
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The Chair of the Grass Roots Left Gerry Downing was summarily dismissed on Tuesday 12th by Metroline Travel at its Cricklewood garage a spurious charge of “inappropriate behaviour towards members of the public whilst driving a route 210”

The dismissal was clearly politically motivated during the election campaign of Jerry Hicks for General Secretary of Unite. It comes on the heel of the libel action taken by Unite against Gerry and the Weekly Worker by Unite’s Regional Industrial Officer Wayne King over an article defending sacked Sovereign buses Convenor Abdul Omer Mohsin on 12 January 2012. This action was initiated by Thompson’s solicitors on 5 December, the day after the snap General Secretary election was called by the Executive Council on 4 December.

His letter to Unite’s General Secretary and Executive Council on 30 December remains unanswered. Gerry has been a thorn in the side of Metroline for over two decades as he says in his submission to the hearing:
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A new nationwide opinion poll in Ireland has shown that people are becoming more and more disillusioned with the political process leading one to wonder if democracy (people rule) has simply become demopsefia (people vote). This type of disillusionment is becoming widespread across Europe in general. While no one is naive enough to believe all the promises of politicians, in recent years the desires of the electorate seem to be ever more blatantly subsumed to the financial interests/problems of recent governments. read full story / add a comment

The recent bonds-for-notes overnight legislation read full story / add a comment

State 'can't afford' disability costs - Irish Times read full story / add a comment

Blacklisting of workers is a `National scandal' and the scandal is that it has gone on for so long and not enough was done by those shouting the loudest now. Millions of people would be forgiven for thinking that the illegal blacklisting of over 3,000 construction workers has suddenly been discovered. Yet it has been the worst kept secret for over two decades that those who spoke up with concerns for Health and Safety on construction sites or defended wages and conditions were punished and denied employment. Brave people paid a heavy price as each year, each month, each day brought more discrimination - more lives were being wrecked, houses lost to repossession, stress induced ill health, heart attacks and even worse. read full story / add a comment

Targeting young families, the elderly and the sick, as the government slashes child benefits, triples prescription charges and rubber-stamps controversial property tax. read full story / add a comment

The key points so far are increases to PRSI working out at about €250 per year per person. Children allowance cut by €10. Property tax set around €500 per year for a Celtic Tiger era house. 10 cents on the pint.

Cuts to electricity allowance and telephone allowance for OAPs. The devil will be in the details. read full story / add a comment

This article looks at the failure of successive governments to make full use of the natural resources of Ireland leading to the current strategy of heaping more and more new taxation upon the Irish people to make up for their loss of income read full story / add a comment

Exports are booming while business and political elites are determined to make ordinary Irish people pay for the financial crisis read full story / add a comment

Address to militant CNT activists and sympathizers.

The CNT came into being in 1946 to fight against the Stalinien stronghold over the worker's movement. Upholding anarchy and revolutionary syndicalism, the CNT engaged to fight for the abolition of capitalism and the installation of libertarian communism. It's objective, past and present, remains the cohesion and organization of a proletarian majority which is considered being the only efficient way to exert pressure in the course of the struggle between classes and enables the CNT to attain the goal it had set at its foundation. read full story / add a comment

SIPTU Press Release: 13th November 2012

New figures from the Department of Social Protection have shown a dramatic fall in the participation rate of lone parents in Community Employment (CE) schemes, according to SIPTU. read full story / add a comment