Class struggle roundup: 23 January, 2021

Teachers, SNAs, Deliveroo workers, and CETA.

Jan 23, 2021

23 January, 2021.

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Material History

18 January, 1914. The 1913 Dublin lockout ends. Considered one of the most significant events in Irish labour history, the right to unionise and better working conditions were at the heart of this struggle. Prominent socialists and labour organizers like James Larkin and James Connolly played important roles through the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU), a pioneering force for uniting skilled and unskilled workers and sympathy strikes. The lockout also saw the emergence of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA), a labour militia and possibly the first of its kind in Europe.

19 January, 1921: The Boston College/ RTE project Century Ireland “reports” on an open letter from Irish Labour and the Trade Union Congress “to British workers urging them to support Ireland’s right to decide its constitutional future.”

The letter, published in the press yesterday, outlines three possible scenarios for the future political relationship between Ireland and Britain: (1) closer political unity with Britain; (2) unity of consent on the Dominion principle; or (3) an entirely separate political entity free to work out its own destinies.
The letter recalls the objects of the recent war – most notably liberty and justice for the small nations of the world – and, voicing confidence that British workers will be ‘responsive to the cries of the oppressed, and that you will not knowingly assist the tyrant to perpetuate his tyranny, we, representing the organised workers of Ireland, join in the efforts of the British Labour Party to open your eyes to the ‘methods of barbarism’ by which your agents are trying to hold Ireland, willy-nilly, to the British Empire...’

Partition and the end of the War of Independence were a few months off.

Sometime in 1987: Check out this 1987 pamphlet on the need for socialist medicine from The Workers’ Party:

We are therefore suffering the worst of both worlds: a public health service starved of resources and growing poorer, and a private service growing richer and more expensive.

Republic of Ireland

Teachers and SNAs

Teachers, special needs assistants are at the centre of labour debates in Ireland this week. The government wanted to open schools for leaving cert students and special needs students, but teachers and special needs assistants had concerns about safe working environments that the government, specifically the Department of Education minister Norma Foley, could not address.

The week’s events were characterized by “acrimony and rancour”, according to The Irish Times, and even saw Minister of State Josepha Madigan compare, inexplicably, the situation special needs students are currently in (at home with their families), to Mother and Baby homes. She later apologised for the comment.

INTO general secretary John Foley claims the union did not instruct its members to stay home if schools were open and that most would have complied. Education minister Foley characterized this statement as disingenuous. On the other hand, a People Before Profit newsletter reports that 3,000 INTO rank and file members attended a virtual meeting this week to voice opposition to INTO’s desire to reopen schools without proper safety measures in place.

This issue gets to the heart of the inherent conflicts of capital and labour and the notion of “essential.” (Some large construction sites, particularly for tech giants, funded by foreign investment are considered “essential” and have been permitted to remain open during the lockdown.) The government’s primary focus has been on addressing the needs of business over workers, and, while most people, including the teachers themselves, consider their work essential, it’s not hard to consider the reason this government wants children attending schools in person is to make it easier for parents to either go back to work or work from home and provide a false sense of normalcy. Teachers and special needs assistants are essential workers, so their concerns and needs ought to be prioritised and addressed.

This Twitter thread from an apparent special education teachers does a good job explaining how the current crisis exploits divisions within the working class.

Student nurses

Student nurses have been on the front lines against the pandemic, but are horribly mistreated in terms of pay and worker rights. I guess they’re supposed to risk their own health and safety and potentially the health and safety of their friends and family in exchange for the privilege to work for next to nothing. This profile from breakingnews.ie highlights one student nurse’s experience during the pandemic and her response to government attempts to address issues around pay:

“A 21-year-old student nurse says as the Government discusses whether to allocate people in her role a paltry €100 a week allowance she is left with the reality of hoping she can afford to top up her Leapcard in order to get the bus to work.”

Deliveroo strike

As of 6pm on Friday, 22 January, Deliveroo drivers and riders in Dublin have gone on strike over working conditions and pay, reports theJournal.ie. Other issues highlighted by workers on social media include security and delivery fees. The delivery app company works with around 1,000 workers in Dublin, Cork, Galway, and Limerick. Because Deliveroo, like Uber and many other app-based gig-economy forms of labour, hires people as indepenedent contractors, they are not required to provide as many employee protections and benefits. This struggle places workers in Ireland at the forefront of some of global capital’s most insidious methods to completely destroy the efforts of organise labour and class struggle. Last year, gig-economy focused tech companies like Uber spent millions to defeat a measure in California that would require these companies to treat employees like, well, employees. Efforts to defeat the measure have close ties to the new Biden administration, particularly through Kamala Harris’s family. Knowing how much Irish politicians like to simp for whoever occupies the White House, this could be a significant moment for workers in Ireland.

Armed forces

Members of a Permanent Defense Forces representative body, PDForra, seek affiliation in the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU).

“PDForra, which represents enlisted members of the Army, Naval Service and Air Corps, has sought affiliation because its members are the poorest paid of all public servants.”

The United Nations' International Labour Organisation supports the 6,500 member organisation in their effort to affiliate with ICTU and says if the government blocks the move it could constitute a breach of human rights, particularly the rights to freely associate and collectively bargain. While Ireland is not a major military force, the country now has a seat on the UN Security Council (which likely just means they will vote in line with US imperialist policy), giving it an outsized voice on foreign affairs in the near term. Organising within the military could be an essential tactic. A century ago, Socialists in Ireland had their own military forces to combat the duel enemies of Capital and colonialism. Today, it might be necessary to consider how to confront these same enemies in their contemporary iterations in ways that include the defense forces.

EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA)

“Just say no”, suggests Oisin Suttle in the Business Post. Suttle argues there is no actual benefit from allowing the worst aspects of CETA to be imposed. The major sticking point from the working class’s perspective is the ability for cofrporations to sue governments for loss of future (read: imaginary) profits. This has major implications for climate change and other class struggle movements. For a more radical perspecgtive on CETA, here’s a webinar from Slí Eile on that occurred this week.

Other links

Calls for meat processing workers to get priority access to Covid-19 vaccination, Independent.

IRELAND: Digital workers who locked down abroad ordered back to country as tech titans fear tax hit, ifcreview.com.

Employers not facilitating remote working, union says, breakingnews.ie.

Other countries have tried it, so what does the 'right to disconnect' actually mean?, thejournal.ie.

Traveller rights activists blast 'hateful, racist' comments after Covid-19 outbreaks, Irish Examiner

Statement of support from European Organisation of Military Associations and Trade Unions.

Man (30s) dies in workplace accident in Clare, thejournal.ie.

'It's the closure of coastal communities': One in four fishermen will lose their job under this Brexit deal, TDs told, thejournal.ie.

Employees on Debenhams picket warn of possible deaths from homeless sleeping in bins, Western People.

Debenhams protest update, The Niall Boylan Show.

Northern Ireland

Hospital staff are being stretched incredibly thin to deal with the pandemic while grocery store shelves were empty due to Brexit disruptions, but some people see Northern Ireland as a great place to invest for certain aspects of the global capitalist class. Opportunities everywhere.

Other links

Labour to educate members on history of Good Friday agreement, The Guardian.