Class struggle roundup: 5 April 2021
Guards assist strike breakers at Debenhams location and other stories.
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Material History
3 April 1846: Legendary Dublin street poet, Michael Moran, aka Zozimus, dies.
18 March 1871: The Paris Commune.
9 April 2020: Management for the department store Debenhams notifies nearly 2000 employees in Ireland their jobs don’t exist anymore, leading to a nearly year-long protest against the company’s decision not to provide their full redundancy pay. The protests became an official industrial action in May and is still ongoing.
Island of Ireland
Gardai involved in strike breaking at Blachardstown Debenhams
Gardai were once again involved in what's being described by former Debenhams workers as a strike-breaking raid as the workers attempted to prevent the removal of stock from the bankrupt company's Blanchardstown store on Thursday. The attack on the picket occurred in the early hours of the morning.
Apparently, KPMG, the firm tasked with liquidating Debenhams, sent agents from the Henderson Group, possibly from Northern Ireland, to remove the stock. This, of course, happened while the country is supposed to be under level five restrictions, as People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett points out when he questioned the Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise Leo Varadkar in the Dail on Thursday. This came as the former Debenhams workers approach the one year anniversary of their strike action.
Former Debenhams workers issued a statement on Twitter describing what took place:
"Just before 5am this morning at Blancharadstown, after a four and a half hour stand-off, the Gardai forcibly removed former Debenhams workers and supporters from the path of trucks that were permitted, under level 5 restrictions, to load up the stock in the store and remove it."
Former TD Ruth Coppinger released a video providing more information about what occurred.
According the Mandate, the trade union that represents the former Debenhams workers, the apparent intention of KPMG was to give them the least amount of time possible to react, the Independent reports.
"The Mandate trade union said it only received formal notice late on Wednesday of the liquidator KPMG‘s intentions to clear stock.
“This notice from the liquidators was issued via an email to Mandate’s solicitors just prior to midnight last night with the obvious intention of keeping the union uninformed of their plans at Blanchardstown,” said general secretary, Gerry Light."
The involvement of the gardai poses worrying, but predicable questions. The state has largely been firmly on the side of the corporate bosses, management, and their friends at KPMG. It's no surprise they would use the violent arm of the state to enforce the power structures of capitalism. That's their function.
It may be a foregone conclusion at this point whether or not the workers will have any of their demands met. The corporation and the state are able to hide behind complex legal protections while ordinary workers have to fight to have their collectively bargained agreement upheld. You really do have to respect the workers in this situation. They have fought for a year and continued to fight as each avenue toward recognition and just compensation has been closed off. We've seen increased militancy, not necessarily out of desperation, but out of the raising of class consciousness.
Ordinary people are examining their experiences of how the structures of an entire economic system and it's political representatives are set up against their interests and have organised themselves and responded with evolving tactics.
Irish Water
Things are getting interesting around Irish Water, again. The government wants to "accelerate" it's integration of local authorities into Irish Water, RTE News reports. Workers are looking to protect their status and have a real say in any changes, threatening industrial action if they’re not taken seriously. SIPTU is looking to make sure water privatisation efforts don't start trickling through the Dail.
Unions have pledged to resist that move amid staff concerns that they would lose their public service status, terms and conditions by moving to the water utility.
In a precautionary ballot, over 90% of SIPTU members backed industrial action if any attempt was made to coerce staff into the transfer.
The Programme for Government includes a commitment to retain Irish Water in public ownership as a national, standalone regulated utility, with further commitments to delivering sufficient funding for the necessary investment in drinking and waste water infrastructure.
However, SIPTU argues that a key part of ensuring that public water services cannot be privatised in the future is a referendum amending the constitution to prohibit privatisation.
"While the issue is referenced in the current Programme for Government, it falls short of a firm commitment to proceed with a referendum within the lifetime of this Administration," it says.
"We are asking all politicians to commit to prohibiting the privatisation of our public water services and to immediately put a referendum on the ownership of our public water services before the citizens of Ireland.”
Delivery workers
The Dublin Inquirer has a story looking into the complicating factors involved with the ongoing efforts to organise delivery workers. Workers for firms like Deliveroo, Just Eat, and Uber Eats have been meeting with the English Language Student Union (ELSU) and representatives from SIPTU. Issues like renting accounts, immigration status, language barriers, bogus self-employment, objectives and tactics are discussed.
What does Britain’s Uber ruling mean for businesses in gig economy here?, from the Business Post.
Labour law
There are a couple of things happening in government that directly relate to labour policy. The government is putting together a “high level” group to examine and review matters such as collective bargaining.
Pay bargaining for the country’s two million workers may be set for a revamp.
The Government is expected to approve the appointment of a new high-level group to examine collective bargaining, and how well the industrial relations landscape is operating.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar is set to announce the new working group following a Cabinet meeting today.
It will review whether the current workplace relations framework is fit for purpose in terms of preserving jobs, pay, and other terms and conditions.
The new group will also consider potential reforms of legally binding wage setting systems that operate in individual sectors.
Its key focus will be collective bargaining rights.
Irish employers are not legally obliged to engage with unions to negotiate pay agreements or other conditions of employment.
Workplace review could compel all employers to talk to unions, via The Irish Times.
Review of industrial relations timely, says Varadkar, via The Irish Times.
Remote working likely a ‘win-win’ for workers and rural areas – unions, from The Irish Times.
ICTU general secretary Patricia King said on Monday the union was “fully committed to ensuring workers’ hard-won rights are preserved when working remotely, that protections are fit for purpose and that the post Covid-19 world of remote working does not lead to greater work precarity and casualisation”.
They’ll also want to have the “right to disconnect.”
Other links
Strikes across all six Northern Ireland colleges over pay row, via The Irish News.
ICTU review says minimum wage should rise by 3% in January 2022, via RTE News.
Calls for teacher vaccines after unions meet NIAC, via RTE News.
Covid-19 in meat plants: SIPTU representative reflects on a ‘frustrating’ year, via Agriland.ie.
Praxis: A New Union for Arts Workers Is Launched in Ireland, via Hot Press.
Northside Today – SIPTU Sector Organiser Jane Boushell joins Joe, via Near FM
Kingspan Ballyclare factory under review putting 23 jobs at risk, via The Belfast Telegraph.
Aer Lingus asking staff to move from Ireland to UK, Dáil told, via The Irish Times.
Does where you work influence your political beliefs?, via RTE News. This article fails to mention that capitalist relations are inherently tyranical.
Trade Union boss rounds on Foster for 'refusing' to meet to discuss workers' issues for four years, via Belfast Telegraph.
It's sick that Ireland doesn't have illness benefit for low-paid workers, via Irish Examiner.
Northside Today: Adrianne Speaks with SIPTU Head of Organising & Campaigns Darragh O’Connor, via Near FM.
State accused of misclassifying thousands of self-employed workers, via RTE News.
International
What’s behind the surge in ‘fire and rehire’ attacks?, via Socialist Worker.
During the pandemic bosses have seized on a way to exploit workers more—the practice of fire and rehire.
It was the chosen tool of British Airways when it tried to force workers to accept contracts that would see them suffer pay cuts of around 25 percent last year.
And British Gas engineers, and bus drivers in Manchester are currently striking to sack them and rehire them on worse contracts.
The problem is widespread. The TUC union federation found that 9 percent of workers have been told to reapply for their jobs on worse terms and conditions since last March.
German union leads 4-day Amazon strike, via Politico.eu.
Italy’s Amazon Strike Shows How Workers Across the Supply Chain Can Unite, via Jacobin.
Amazon Workers Shouldn’t Have to Work This Hard to Win a Union, via Jacobin.
Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa, via WSWS.