Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
Dear Comrades, May I request a little of your column space to comment on an article in the Socialist dated the 2nd of June 2020 relating to an all-Ireland Health Service. While agreeing that underfunding and privatisation is damaging health services in both parts of our country I have some […]
“Social partnership” is anti-democratic, because a small group of insiders make the deal. This is then packaged and sold to workers as the best deal possible at this time, given the present circumstances. Social partnership comes onto the horizon as a result of political, employment and economic crisis, in order […]
Public health in the global north is being hollowed out, having been underfunded and privatised bit by bit for many years. Twenty years ago in Italy there were almost 6 doctors to every 1,000 people; today there are 4.1. Similar statistics can be found all over Europe as the neoliberal […]
Over the last two decades legislation has been introduced that provides workers with some collective voice or mechanisms for pursuing collective goals. None of these have been collective bargaining or legislation providing for union recognition. Ireland stands out among most countries in still not having union recognition and collective bargaining […]
The interview that Unite conducted with former Keeling’s workers was the first time many media punters and commentators got any form of insight into how agricultural and meat processing actually make a profit in Ireland. The story that propelled this discussion was that of Keeling’s flying in 189 Bulgarian workers […]
The covid-19 crisis and consequent quarantine continue to expose and heighten the contradictions inherent in capitalism. Nowhere are these more acute than in the case of child care in the 26-County state. To analyse the situation and explain the failings of this system we must first set out clearly how […]
UNION LEADERS should be socially and morally distancing their unions and the movement from any deluded notion of returning to social partnership in any of its bastardised forms. “Social partnership” should really be deader than a Star Trek extra beamed down with Captain Kirk.
Unfortunately, the mood music emanating from some union leaders over recent weeks reeks with the stink of social dialogue and partnership.
OVER THE course of the covid-19 thousand jobs. The workers only heard pandemic it has become increasingly clear that workers have borne the brunt of employers’ sharp practices. As they always do, employers, both large and small, have attempted to take maximum advantage of the public.
With workers unable to have recourse to the usual methods of dealing with employers and to defend themselves, the giant Debenham’s retail chain announced that it was
Class solidarity, not social partnership – Jimmy DoranDownload The trade union movement must not compromise on “social partnership” after this pandemic is over. It is not our class that must compromise but the ruling class, as the failure of capitalism has been exposed beyond all doubt as a result of […]
THE TRADE UNION Left Forum launched its Workers’ Rights Campaign in Dublin last month. The campaign is centred on the abolition of the Industrial Relations Act (1990) and all anti-union legislation, to be replaced with a Fair Employment Act that would guarantee— 1 the right to union access
Here is an old adage that if something appears too good to be true, it probably is. Moreover, responsibility goes both ways. Anyone buying something below its obvious market value without checking the origin has to know there is a real probability of illegality or outright criminality being involved.
The common perception is that such shady deals are done by petty crooks working from dark alleyways.
A militant trade union campaign launched A WELL ATTENDED meeting organised by Unite in the Community, in conjunction with Communities Against Low Pay, was held in Dublin recently.
THE CONSTANT NARRATIVE in the Brexit debate, be it in Ireland or Britain, from politicians, especially those elected who are supposedly of a progressive slant, is how they are opposed to Brexit because “the EU protects workers’ rights.” These views are also expressed by leading figures in the NGO sector.
Two bastions of unionist domination of employment in the North, Harland and Wolff and Wrightbus, are threatened with closure. The demise of the shipyard is a direct result of the geopolitical struggle to control the price of oil, in which the present owners, Dolphin Drilling, have been heavily exposed. Workers […]
Supermarkets are steadily installing more and more self-service check-outs (and even boasting about it), at the same time getting rid of workers, or at least not replacing those who leave. In some branches an assistant is given the job of collaring shoppers in the queue for the check-out and persuading […]
The power of workers in society has been declining consistently since the 1970s. Power, measured by various metrics, such as union membership, union density, and days of industrial action, has been on a steady decline, related to and proportionate to the increased wealth of the rich and the transformation of […]