The Irish seaferry strike
The Irish went on strike against plans to sack the entire Irish Ferries staff and replace them with migrant workers from Eastern Europe, who would be paid less than half Irish minimum wages:
In an awesome display of trade union power, up to 170,000 people left work and took part in marches and rallies in support of Irish Ferries staff and migrant workers on the streets of Ireland on Friday of last week.
Irish Ferries is currently trying to replace its entire seafaring staff with eastern European labourers who will be paid less than half the Irish minimum wage. Workers on the streets, and trade union leaders on the platform, directed their anger as much against the Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern and neo-liberalism as the management of Irish Ferries.
The article makes clear this is a strike against Irish Ferries bosses, not the migrant workers themselves:
One group of builders sang their way along the route stopping only twice. Once to lift their hard hats to salute a statue of the Irish labour leader James Larkin and again when someone shouted from the crowd, ?Irish jobs for Irish workers?. They shouted back, ?No! Decent jobs for every worker.?
It was a message that ran through the march. At the front of the march the ICTU banner read, ?Equal Rights for All Workers?.
David Beggs, the national secretary of the ICTU, said, “We must make the workers strong, we must make the trade unions strong. We must say to every worker, whether they are from Warsaw or Waterford, whether they are from Prague or from Portlaoise, you are welcome in our ranks. And in our ranks you will find comradeship, fraternity and support.”
apologists for globalisation and free labour markets would like to present this sort of actions as somehow selfish or even racist. Does not, so goes the reasoning, a worker in Poland deserve a job just as much as one in Ireland?
Of course, but not at the cost of somebody else. This is a classic race to the bottom, in which workers are pitched against each other: in the long run, no-one profits but the bosses.
Tags: Irish seaferry strike, unions, socialism