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CLERYS WORKERS DEMAND JUSTICE & DIGNITY
Posted on November 13, 2015
Divisional Organiser, SIPTU Services Division
SIPTU's Ethel Buckley on the continuing injustice done to Clerys workers
What are Deirdre Foley, John Skelly and Ronan Daly so afraid of?
They are the directors of Natrium Ltd, the shadowy company that shut Clerys on June 12, resulting in over 400 job losses.
Five months on, not one of the three has agreed to meet with the workers whose livelihoods they so abruptly destroyed.
As Clerys worker and SIPTU shop steward Gerry Markey explained: “We are asking Deirdre Foley and the other new owners to meet us face-to-face. My colleagues and I think that after our many years of loyal service to the company we deserve to be treated with respect.
Permanent link | Categories: Justice for Clerys • Natrium • Siptu
THE HIGH COST OF LOW HOURS WORK
Posted on November 05, 2015
Congress General Secretary
Congress General Secretary Patricia King on the damage done by low hours work practices
Almost as soon as key details from the new study on low hours work found their way onto the front page of the Irish Times, employer and business interests were busy claiming vindication.
No problem with zero hour contracts in Ireland. Case closed, nothing to see here.
In fact, the very morning these details appeared, I attended a gathering at which employer representatives made that very claim.
It was a clever, if somewhat dishonest attempt to obscure a reality that is actually far more troubling and damaging than it may at first appear.
Permanent link | Categories: Low Pay • Low Hours • Zero Hours
TORY AGENDA ON EUROPE THREATENS RIGHTS OF ALL WORKERS
Posted on October 30, 2015
Head of the TUC’s European Union & International Relations Department
By Owen Tudor*
The TUC has long been committed to the model of Social Europe as outlined by Jacques Delors.
The deal he set out is still the only deal in town: a free trade area, but not unfettered free trade In other words:
- Rights at work to counterbalance the right to trade,
- Free movement of labour, goods and capital,
- Decent work with social dialogue, social protection and public services ,
- And a successful, competitive economy in which wealth is shared fairly.
And what we got in the early years was pretty much what Delors promised.
Permanent link | Categories: ETUC • Brexit • European Union • TUC
WHO’S AFRAID OF DENIS O’BRIEN?
Posted on October 02, 2015
NUJ Irish Secretary, Seamus Dooley outside the Charlie Hebdo offices, Paris
NUJ IRISH SECRETARY SEAMUS DOOLEY ASKS WHY THE GOVERNMENT HAS FAILED TO TACKLE MEDIA MONOPOLIES
While it is now Congress policy to support the establishment of a Commission on the Future of the Media in Ireland, I am not naïve enough to believe that it will top the agenda at many union meetings.
This follows the passing of a motion from the NUJ at Biennial Delegate Conference 2015, in July.
Concepts of media diversity and plurality seem removed from the lives of most citizens but the ownership and control of the media - the shaping of news and public opinion - has a very direct impact on all of us.
Permanent link | Categories: media • denis o'brien • monopoly
Indifference and Incompetence behind Irish Pension Crisis
Posted on June 24, 2015
Industrial Officer, Congress
Several hundred thousand people at work in Ireland today will be far worse off in retirement than they had either planned or expected to be. Many will slide in to poverty, others will barely make ends meet.
But this will not happen because they failed to make adequate provision for their retirement.
Instead a perfect storm of official indifference and incompetence in financial institutions have served to ensure that many will now experience unnecessary hardship in their old age.
Over recent years, the Irish funded pension system has been overtaken by a catastrophic crisis. But of more pressing concern is the lack of any official recognition – on the part of government or the Pensions’ Authority - at the scale, extent or even existence of this crisis.
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Categories: Pensions • Defined Contribution • Defined Benefit • Pensions' Authority
Battle for Decent Work at heart of Dunnes Dispute
Posted on March 31, 2015
Congress General Secretary
On Thursday April 2, the battle for Decent Work will spill over onto picket lines the length and breadth of the country.
Unionised workers at Dunnes Stores will strike for 24 hours in a bid to end the precarious work practices of their employer. The stoppages will continue until the practices change.
With 116 outlets and some 10,000 staff, Dunnes is one of the largest employers in the state. It also has some 40 stores across the UK and Spain and enjoys an annual turnover of €3.5 billion (2013). The Mandate trade union - which represents the majority of Dunnes workers – estimates the chain’s annual profits at up to €350 million.
Permanent link | Categories:
Recognition of Palestinian State Good for Peace Process
Posted on March 18, 2015
In the aftermath of the Israeli election - won by the Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party - Sir Vincent Fean argues that official recognition of the Palestinian state will bolster efforts to bring a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Sir Vincent served as British Consul-General in Jerusalem from 2010-14. He writes here in a personal capacity.
Parliaments across Europe – including both Houses of the Irish Parliament – have moved to revive the prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
They have done so by demanding that governments officially recognise Palestine on the 1967 borders with a view to stimulating a negotiated peace deal.
Sweden’s recognition of Palestine last October can be followed across Europe in 2015.
Permanent link | Categories: Palestine • recognition • settlements • Israel
Women's Lives Matter
Posted on March 04, 2015
Eileen Dinning*
If we are over 50% of the population, where are we in the power game ?
Well, not that prominent, if truth be told.
Media wise we see increasingly more women in positions of power. From senior politicians, NHS Chief Executives and Chief Constables, women’s profile is higher than it has ever been.
And yet, there is no significant improvement in women’s lives. If anything the trend is backwards.
Low pay persists and there is no sign of the gender pay gap closing.Women are paying out more on private childcare than on their mortgage payments, while the care system is creaking due to lack of funding and an increase in violence against women and children.
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Categories: Women's Day • STUC • Equality
Decent Work at Heart of Ethical Society
Posted on February 26, 2015
Guy Ryder, Director General of the International Labour Organisation
With 12 million of the more than 23 million unemployed Europeans looking for work for one year or more, many people do not have what some may consider the 'luxury' of a job.
The financial crisis that began in 2008 is still causing pain for many people in the European Union, and its effects have hit the Irish economy and labour market particularly hard.
While Ireland’s GDP is now expected to grow at above the EU average and the situation may be moving in the right direction, the jobless rate in Ireland is still higher than the EU average.
Permanent link | Categories: Guy Ryder • ILO • Ethical Workplace
Inequality a Natural Outcome of Austerity
Posted on February 20, 2015
David Begg, Congress General Secretary
The Yale Professor, Robert Shiller, used his 2013 Nobel Prize in Economics acceptance speech to state that: “The most important problem that we are facing now today, I think, is rising inequality in the United States and elsewhere in the world.”
The truth of this was captured in one statistic from an Oxfam report in January 2015, which revealed that the 85 richest people in the world have as much wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest.
Likewise, finance ministers attending the recent G20 meeting in Istanbul warned for the first time that the widening gap between rich and poor, following the 2008 financial crisis, may threaten economic and political stability.
Permanent link | Categories: