5 articles ************ STRIKE VICTORY AT DUBLIN STORE from Workers Solidarity No 45 (1995) At a time of increasing attacks on workers' rights and conditions throughout both the public and private sectors, it is refreshing to report a victory for a group of workers who had the guts to stand up to their boss's intimidatory tactics. On Friday February 17th, following a 3-week strike in defence of a colleague who had been unfairly dismissed, eight MANDATE members at Knightingales store in Dublin's ILAC Centre returned to work victorious. With management refusing to even talk to the union at the outset of the strike, the workers faced an uphill battle. However their determination and the tremendous solidarity shown by other shopworkers in the city centre and by the general public forced the re-instatement of the sacked worker. In addition management was forced to concede union recognition and to recognise that issues such as working hours, conditions and low pay need to be addressed. These workers have shown the way in which unscrupulous bosses must be tackled. In the coming weeks and months as they follow up this victory with negotiations to improve their working conditions, they will need the full backing of their union and of fellow trade unionists. The strike at Knightingales has served yet again to highlight the deplorable wages and conditions endured by thousands of workers employed in the services sector. Trade union leaders would be better employed backing their members in a vigorous fight against such exploitation instead of stitching up workers through "rationalisation" plans, redundancy deals, national programmes and the like - all of which are designed to break union organisation and increase exploitation. The Workers Solidarity Movement wish to extend hearty congratulations to the Knightingales strikers. Gregor Kerr ************ Trinity College SIPTU Spy cameras, worthless pensions and censorship SPY CAMERAS and pensions that give you no money were on the agenda when the SIPTU members in Trinity College met for their annual general meeting in March. The college management want to install eight 'security' cameras on the campus, with a possible 24 more to be added in future. Security guards fear that jobs will be replaced by electronic surveillance. Management denials are not believed given that six vacancies have been left unfilled. Just 23 staff are expected to cover the city centre campus around the clock. An additional fear is that staff could be spied upon, as could student protests. The local SIPTU are asking for a detailed statement of who will have the right to monitor the cameras, who will have access to the recordings, and on what terms. They are looking for formal guarantees that the recordings can not be used in any inquiry into staff or student behaviour, where it is not directly concerned with a crime. But, as the union newsletter says, "even with a lot of written guarantees and procedures in place, there is no getting away from the uncomfortable reality that the cameras would mean that 'big brother' is watching you". PENSION ...LESS THAN A PITTANCE Full-time staff get a pension equal to two thirds of salary. Part-time staff get nothing. A claim for the same pension rights in proportion to the hours worked has been on the table for years. Management, in keeping with government policy, want to 'co-ordinate' pensions. This means that the value of the social welfare old age pension is subtracted from the workplace pension. For part-time staff this will mean getting absolutely zero from Trinity after a lifetime of work as a cleaner, secretary or catering assistant. A one-day 'warning strike for part-time pension rights last year was well supported, not only by SIPTU but also by other unions and some non-union staff. If proper pensions are not granted the mood is for a serious fight. NO DEBATE WITHOUT PERMISSION A motion to the meeting condemning the Industrial Relations Act and calling for a campaign to repeal it was proposed by the local union President, Jim Larragy, and seconded by WSM member Alan MacSim—in. While expressing his agreement with the spirit of the motion, Education branch president Jack McGinley quoted rule 62 of SIPTU which prevents a local section from even discussing an issue not directly related to their workplace unless they ask permission first! The meeting was then asked to vote on whether to vote on the motion. Amidst a lot of confusion the meeting narrowly voted to obey the rule book's censorship. When SIPTU was formed through a merger of the ITGWU and the FWUI we were stitched up when we were given a ready made rule book that members had no input into. The only choice we had was to accept it in its entirety or to reject it, which would have made it impossible for the union to function or even legally exist. A rules revision conference is planned for 1997. Oppositionists within the union should start identifying the worst rules and begin encouraging their branches to discuss what rules we want in what is supposed to be our union. ********** SOME PEOPLE ARE DOING ALL RIGHT Bosses Get -> Highest Growth Rate -> Highest Productivity Workers Get -> Shortest Holidays -> Second Longest Working Hours and -> Highest Long Term Unemployment IRISH WORKERS enjoy fewer holidays than anyone else in the European Union, work longer hours than workers anywhere else apart from Britain, and suffer the highest rate of long term unemployment in the countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD). Total Annual & Public Holidays Germany 40 Belgium 38.5 Spain 38 Luxemburg 37 France 36.5 Greece 35 Denmark 35 Portugal 35 Italy 33.5 Netherlands 32.5 Britain 31 Ireland 29 Source: Dept. of Enterprise & Employment, Holiday Legislation Discussion Document Yet we are told that we must keep making sacrifices to become more "competitive". We are expected to put up with wage restraint, redundancies, de-skilling, and worsening conditions. The more we give the bosses the more they demand. Showing weakness only encourages a bully. After all the sacrifices, all the years of wage restraint/no-strike deals (PNR, PESP, PCW), all the "rationalisations", all the cutbacks, the bosses should be happy. Ireland has the fastest growing economy in Europe, productivity shot up by a massive 50% between 1987 and 1993. Ireland broke all previous EU records when industrial output in 1994 increased by 11.2%. Thanks, you're fired! And what about the workers? In payment we got nothing unless you count yet more closures, threats and management aggression like has happened at Silverlea, Sunbeam, TEAM, Dunnes Stores and a multitude of other employments. With 50% of the unemployed out of work for more than one year (the official definition of long term unemployment), Ireland has condemned a higher proportion of its workers to a poverty line existence than any of the other 23 countries in the OECD. At the same time the economy is doing very well for most employers. Cut hours, not jobs In Ireland we work an average 53 hours longer in a year than the EC average. Even if only those extra hours worked by the 200,000 industrial employees were distributed among the unemployed there would be 10,600,000 additional work hours available each year. At the average 1,813 hours worked in the EU this would mean almost 6,000 new jobs. Annual Working Hours Belgium 1,692.26 Italy 1,744.05 Denmark 1,746.00 Germany 1,746.80 Luxemburg 1,770.62 France 1,774.59 Netherlands 1,792.70 Spain 1,802.64 Greece 1,822.50 Portugal 1,858.50 Ireland 1,866.48 Britain 1,987.72 Source: Eurostat 1/95, Working Time in the EU Irish workers produce all the country's wealth. We should seek to win further reductions in the working week, without any loss of pay. Ultimately, however, we will be stuck with the contradiction of a rich economy but a poor workforce until we get rid of the present system and set about reorganising society in the interests of the great majority. Anything less than that combination of socialism, freedom and workers control (what we call anarchism) will leave our living standards at the mercy of employers and state bureaucrats. The reality of capitalism is the best argument for its abolition. ************* Irish Building workers ripped off in Germany Thousands of Irish building workers have gone to work in Germany over the last few years. As European integration proceeds, German contractors are increasingly turning to foreign workers. They want foreign workers because they are cheaper, unorganised and easier to push around. Some are beginning to fight back. Spanish building workers at the 'Bonum-Immobilien' near Berlin worked for several weeks without getting paid before striking on August 3rd of last year. These workers were employed by Levant, a Dutch temporary employment agency, which rented them to contractor Wolfgang Sturm. The workers signed contracts with Levant for DM26 per hour (skilled German building workers average DM65 per hour), which then sold their services for DM40 per hour and kept the difference. Agencies such as this do not pay social insurance or taxes, claiming that the workers are "self-employed". Subbies skip out The strike ended when the company paid a portion of the back wages. It refused to pay the balance on the grounds that the customer was dissatisfied with the work. The Spanish builders were left with just enough money to pay for their digs. Such disputes are becoming more common. The Portuguese firm SOMEC got a contract for the Friedrichstadt-Passagan in Berlin's city centre. 200 Portuguese worked twelve hours a day, six days a week. SOMEC has 12,000 Portuguese workers on sites in Germany. They get DM2500 for a six day week which includes many hours overtime. A worker with a German passport would get up to DM6,000. In September, twenty of these workers went on hunger strike in Leipzig because they had not been paid. They lived in miserable conditions, three to a container. They worked a six day week, fifteen hours a day, for DM20 per hour. Last July, Italian workers blocked a crane in Pankow to demand payment of their wages. Three months later, two more cranes were blocked by English workers demanding payment of their wages. Cowboy agencies There are more than 6,000 Irish and English building workers in Berlin at the moment. Many were hired through Dutch agencies. Workers often are not paid, as subcontractors disappear with their pay packets. The workers thought they would be earning good money but find they have to work 60 or 70 hours a week to get it. The employment agencies charge both the employer who hires workers, and the workers who have to pay part of their hourly wage as commission. Many agencies are not registered and operate illegally or just refuse to pay wages, leaving workers to survive on their own without money. Many workers end up living out of their cars or the so- called "cockroach" hotels. Every month between 100 and 200 Irish and British workers turn up at their consulates without money or a return ticket home. This is what the "free market" means, the bosses are free to do whatever they can get away with. The way to stop them is organisation, joining a trade union and creating building workers' committees to stop the unions backsliding and stop the job where bosses are ripping people off. Sources: Industrial Worker and Building Workers Newsletter ****************************** PART TIME WORKERS IN NORTH SACKED BY TORIES TEMPORARY STAFF working for the Department of Employment throughout the six counties are being thrown out of their jobs. A leaked circular, publicised by Labour MP Richard Burden, tells personnel managers to end workers' contracts just before they qualify for their employment rights. The document, entitled Dept. of Employment ES Personnel Notice 5/95, states "all new temporary appointments in the Employment Service will be limited to 51 weeks to avoid workers qualifying for full employment rights". The document, which was never intended to be made public, goes on to say "if it is not checked, we might later find that the individual has already worked for up to two years and might now be in the position of having enough service to qualify for a wide range of employment rights". The Tories obsession with denying people job security means they will sack good, proven staff rather than allow them basic legal rights. Hurrah for free enterprise! **************************************************** From WS 46 ** WE ALL WANT EARLY RETIREMENT ** ** Teachers claim should be taken up by all! ** ON TUESDAY May 23rd, approximately 15,000 teachers marched through Dublin as part of their campaign for early retirement. The June 1995 issue of Tuarascail (magazine of the Irish National Teachers Organisation - INTO) said that this was "...merely the initiation and not the culmination of a campaign. The outstanding issues must be addressed and resolved. They will not go away. Now is the time to deal with the issues." Rather than pledging further strike action however (INTO members had voted by an 86% majority for limited industrial action), Tuarascail went on to say that the teacher unions "...are ready to re-open negotiations." By 13th July, the unions had called off any threat of further action following agreement with the Department of Education that talks on early retirement would resume in September. The union leaderships have agreed that no more than 300 teachers will be allowed to take early retirement annually and that the overall cost of the early retirement claim will be kept within the terms of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work (PCW). The government agreed to set up a commission to report on public service pensions, examining in particular voluntary early retirement. This commission is not expected to report until 1998. Show of submission Yet again the teachers' union leaders - with the connivance of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) - have managed to turn a show of strength into meek submission. Talks on the teachers' claim have been going on since early 1994. It was launched amid a barrage of statistics from the Departments of Finance and Education which were designed to prove that the productivity of Irish teachers compared unfavourably with the educational systems of other EU countries and that - by extension - the claim could not be afforded. These statistics were blown out of the water however by an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report "Education at a Glance" published in March of this year. Working Conditions This report (based on a survey carried out in 1992) showed that Irish teachers are faced by the largest classes in Europe. Of the countries surveyed, only Turkey with a Pupil-Teacher Ratio (PTR) of 29.3 exceeds the Irish ratio of 25.6. (The average PTR in EU countries was 18.5). Total teaching hours in Irish primary schools (951 per annum) was third highest in the survey, well above the EU average of 882. Finally, the survey showed that the Irish primary education system is grossly underfunded with average spending per pupil of only $1,770 compared to the EU average of $2,902.* The teachers' claim for an early retirement scheme which would help ease some of the stresses caused by having to work in overcrowded and underfunded classrooms, and to deal with the social effects of poverty and unemployment is thus entirely justified. While the final outcome remains unclear, their action has had the effect of placing the issue of early retirement firmly on the agenda. Crazy anomaly It is one of the crazy anomalies in the capitalist system that huge numbers of people (approximately half a million on this small island) are placed under huge stress by being without a job or adequate income while others are stressed out through having to work harder and for longer hours. The average worker spends roughly 90,000 hours of his/her life at work - if he/she is "lucky" enough to have a job. Over a hundred years ago, when the American Federation of Labour issued its call for an eight-hour day (see Anarchist Origins of May Day in Workers Solidarity no.45), workers came together in large numbers to fight for the right to spend more time with their families. Now is the time for the trade union movement to raise the call for shorter working hours, longer holidays and earlier retirement - with of course no loss of pay. Why should we all have to wait until we are too old to enjoy it before being allowed to retire? Why should we be expected to work at least 39 hours per week (plus overtime in may cases) in order to be able to survive? The achievement of early retirement and a shorter working week would have many benefits - reducing stress and pressures in the workplace, giving workers more time for leisure activities and creating work for those who are presently written off by the system. Golden Handshakes Politicians and business leaders have no difficulty funding huge salaries, "golden handshakes" and enhanced pensions for themselves. In 1994, five executives at Allied Irish Bank gave themselves an average wage increase of £162,500 per annum each. When Matt Russell - the legal officer in the Attorney General's office who was responsible for the delay in responding to extradition warrants for child sex abuser Fr. Brendan Smyth - was forced to take early retirement earlier this year he was given a golden handshake of ££138,000. Government ministers can qualify for full pensions after only three years of service. Teachers have nothing to apologise for in looking for early retirement. It is an issue which should be taken up by the trade union movement as a whole. Gregor Kerr * All figures are taken from INTO magazine Tuarascail, April/May 1995 and refer to the 26-County State. ******************************* THERE IS A new mood out there. It is demonstrated by the magnificent support for the Dunnes Stores strike, and the occupations at Sunbeam and the Irish Press. As management push ahead with redundancies, yellow pack jobs, contract working and casualisation, workers are pushing back. When your back is against the wall you have to push back or be squashed. However this should not be confused with a fight for a better life. For many, expectations of job security and a decent standard of living are being shattered. And some are determined not to take it lying down. Not only do we all need to hang on to our jobs, wages, promotional outlets and all the other things that we won over the last twenty five years, we also need to rebuild the solidarity and strength that allowed us to win these things in the first place. Victories achieved in defensive battles will encourage others to resist the bossesÕ offensive. They will also contribute to rebuilding the confidence needed to fight for more of the good things in life. If you can not defend what you already have, it is much harder to believe that you can win improvements. But if you win on one issue, then you are open to the idea that you can win a lot more.