Class Struggle Roundup: 27 September 2021
Pandemic dividends in the RoI, Tesco logistical workers in the North, and more.
This is the free Class Struggle Roundup newsletter from Demands Most Moderate. If you would like to receive this newsletter direct to your inbox, click the button below and subscribe.
Island of Ireland
Tesco workers reject pay offer. Logistics workers at a Tesco distribution centre in Belfast have rejected a “meager” pay offer. They join workers at three other distribution centres across the UK. “Around 3,500 workers employed at four Tesco supermarket distribution centres rejected a 2.5 percent pay offer.” According to Unite, “Tesco’s latest accounts reveal that it made a profit of £3.17 billion last year.”
TSSA-IBB transatlantic merger talks. Major transport union in Ireland and the UK, the TSSA, is set to begin merger talks with American counterpart, the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers (IBB). This has happened before but nothing came of the talks. The unions claim little would change in the running of the unions, but there would be more funds to draw on, BBC News reports.
“Pandemic dividend.” The government in the RoI has been talking about a “pandemic dividend” for workers which could include stuff like including “flexible working, occupational pensions, statutory sick pay and a move to a living wage,” The Irish Times reports. The government has to talk it over with unions first and the right wing propaganda mill is throwing around big price tags to scare people. God forbid the government splash a little cash to actually help workers. Knowing the Irish government, though, anything that happens will likely be half-measures poorly designed.
Healthcare workers demand “special recognition.” From breakingnews.ie:
The director of industrial relations with the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has said healthcare workers deserve “special recognition” for their efforts during the pandemic, as had happened in other jurisdictions.
Healthcare workers were still “running on fumes” due to the intensity and traumatic nature of their work during the pandemic, Tony Fitzpatrick told Newstalk Breakfast.
“We’ve tried to engage with the HSE since last November - they’ve been dilly-dallying.”at
Seems reasonable to give healthcare workers a break, no?
Pandemic fallout continues to disrupt low wage based tourism economy on island. Small business tyrants in the tourism sector are being forced to learn the lesson that their success, prosperity, and power was not down to their phenomenal business acumen or divinely inspired superiority, but exploiting other people by paying them the least amount of money to extract the highest return and avoiding corporate taxes. The Irish Examiner reports the price of crocodile tears of business owners is plummeting due to a glut in the market:
The results of a survey carried out by the national tourism development authority, Fáilte Ireland, showed 20% believed the impact of staff shortages would be the closure of their business.
It also found that seven out of 10 owners have had difficulty in rehiring staff they had let go due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The survey of almost 600 employers, including almost 140 hotels, shows a large majority of businesses in the tourism sector are experiencing major recruitment challenges.
They claim the most significant barrier to hiring staff is the Pandemic Unemployment Payment with two-thirds of employers claiming people were reluctant to return to work and now had higher wage expectations.
Tourism businesses also pointed out that many international workers had left Ireland, while there is also a perception that jobs in the industry are unstable.
Group calls on Minister to widen scheme for undocumented workers. The DoJ in the Republic is looking to “regularise” some undocumented workers. A coalition of organisations including trade unions and the MIgrant Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI) says it will leave some undocumented people out. This will force them to continue to live “in the shadows,” making many workers susceptible further exploitation. From The Irish Times:
A coalition of 25 business, trade union and civil society organisations has written to Minister for Justice Heather Humphreys expressing their “deep concern” that thousands of undocumented workers and their children could be “excluded” from a forthcoming scheme to regularise their status.
Under the plan, due to go to Cabinet in coming weeks and open for applications before Christmas, migrants who have been continuously undocumented for four years – or for three years for those who have children here – will be eligible for regularisation.
Supporting the call for a more flexible, inclusive scheme, Ian Talbot, chief executive of Chambers Ireland, said: “Ireland needs workers right now across a variety of sectors. Here we have a cohort of workers who have continued to work all through the pandemic. It makes no sense to exclude some undocumented people from this scheme and leave them to continue working in the shadows.”
Other stories of interest.
New openings for militant trade unionism. The Socialist Party (UK, CWI) sees an opening for left-wing militant trade unionism and an offensive opportunity against Starmer’s labour after Socialist Party backed Sharon Graham won the Unite general secretary election.
The victory of Sharon Graham as general secretary of Unite, amongst the biggest trade unions in the UK and Ireland and undoubtedly the most influential industrially and politically, has struck the labour movement as a thunderbolt. The Socialist Party and our sister parties in Scotland and Ireland supported Sharon and campaigned for her election. In the midst of the Covid crisis, this can be a pivotal moment for the trade union movement.
International
UK: Unite union calls off Greater Manchester Metrolink strike over pay, via WSWS.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and New Zealand, via WSWS.
Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa, via WSWS:
“Danish nurses continue wildcat stoppages in defiance of unions over pay and lack of staff; teachers across France walk out for 24 hours to demand more staff, better pay and conditions; Sunday pay strikes at ScotRail continue; Nigerian resident doctors on strike for nearly two months over pay arrears.”
Australia: Thousands of NSW rail workers to strike Tuesday, via WSWS.
Check out this week’s class struggle stories from the US in Who Gets the Bird? and Payday Report. Both have updates on the carpenters strike in Washington that has seen socialist Seattle city councilor Kshama Shawant call for and support ongoing wildcat strikes, a move that union leadership is happy about.
Apparently, weekends have been abolished in this auto plant north of Detroit. WSWS reports that Tensions rise as Sterling Heights Assembly Plant workers begin ninety consecutive days at work. The company cites “critical status” as the excuse:
Workers at Stellantis Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP) north of Detroit begin 90 consecutive days of work today, under a “critical plant” status invoked by management. The status is provocatively set to end on December 24, Christmas Eve.
The right by management to invoke “critical status” was part of the 2019 sellout contract negotiated by the United Auto Workers with Stellantis, then known as Fiat Chrysler. Buried in a 500 page supplemental volume of side agreements and “memoranda of understanding” is contract language which allows the company, without even needing the fig leaf of the union's approval, to invoke “critical status” for any reason at any of its facilities, allowing them to ignore restrictions on overtime and force plant workers to work seven days a week.