Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
On Saturday 21 January comrades from around Ireland gathered in Dublin to analyse their involvement in trade unions. The day was an enjoyable one, with a well-arranged programme of events and stimulating talks. Some people ask, “What have the unions done for me?” It is important to list briefly what […]
The Trade Union Left Forum announced on May Day that it is near to completing a draft bill to restore rights lost to workers as a result of anti-union legislation dating from the 1940s. The TULF has been campaigning against the Industrial Relations Act (1990) and also anti-worker legislation in […]
At the recent biennial delegate conference of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions a motion from Dublin Council of Trade Unions was passed to seek alternative legislation to restore all rights lost as a result of the Industrial Relations Act (1990). The 1990 act was a direct result of the […]
As we leave behind 2021 and the continuing pandemic, some green shoots have appeared on the industrial front. Workers at Dunne’s Stores represented by Mandate have received a 10 per cent pay increase, which could only have been dreamed about a couple of years ago. Unite had significant victories, securing […]
The Trade Union Left Forum has been campaigning for the last four years to have the restrictions on workers’ rights contained in the Industrial Relations Act (1990) abolished. At the biennial delegate conference of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in October this campaign took a step closer to achieving […]
Low pay is defined by the OECD as the pay of a full-time worker whose earnings are below two-thirds of a country’s median income. The proportion of workers on low pay ranges from 4 per cent in Belgium to 24 per cent in the United States. The Republic, at 23 […]
As we move out of the period of pandemic, we would all like to establish some form of normality in our lives. But one thing is certain: workers must resist any return to the pre-covid “normal.” That was an economy based on low pay, with precarious employment, precarious shelter, a […]
Bus drivers in London went on strike last month against pay cuts that a number of “private bus operators” tried to impose. However, all is not as it seems. The British government has privatised much of the public transport system as they push ahead with their neoliberal agenda. They followed […]
The 1990 Industrial Relations Act act puts the balance of power firmly on the side of employers and leaves workers powerless during industrial disputes and dependent on the judiciary finding in their favour. Jimmy Doran reports
Covid-19 did not cause the lack of workers’ rights in Ireland, but it most certainly exposed them. The dispute at Debenham’s reveals the lack of workers’ rights, and the lack of actual experience among workers of disputes, struggle, organising and tactics as a result of the decline in union membership […]
The global coronavirus pandemic has exposed the crass nature of the capitalist system. In the early days, the so-called developed world hijacked, stole and diverted entire shipments of personal protective equipment; America purchased the entire global stock of the important covid-19 drug Remdesivir; more than a thousand people on the […]
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
AS WE ENTER a new decade, the real living conditions of working people continue to decline; profits are up, which means exploitation is intensifying; large numbers of working families rely on family income supplement—the state’s subsidy on behalf of low-pay employers—to survive.
Socialist Voice has arguably been the most unwavering of English-language socialist periodicals in its analysis and exposition of the European Union as an inter-state structure of monopoly capital, under German…
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.
It’s no surprise that the largest attendance at a fringe meeting at the ICTU delegate conference last month was the one organised by the Trade Union Left Forum, on the theme “Anti-union legislation and how it affects workers’ rights.”