Thomas Cook Under Worker's Control!

The Thomas Cook offices at grafton st dublin are now under worker's control. Workers occupoed the building after management , who had flown in specially from the UK, announced the closure of the shops on north earl street and grafton st Dublin. The staff at the north earl st shop were told to close the store for an hour and to accompany managers to the grafton st store, they went upstairs and started laying out chairs to line the workers up and dismiss them. One of the workers who sensed what was coming shouted 'Lock In!' and, like electricity, word shot up through the other floors of the building.
The workers took the upper floors leaving management downstairs in the shop. Socialist Worker members arrived and, after speaking to a shop steward inside, we started distributing the worker's flyer about the dispute outside the shop to the public. We started chanting along with the workers who shouted along from the upper story windows 'I dont know what i been told..thomas cook aint got no soul!'. The response from the passers by was amazing, 'this is what this country needs',' they're right fair play to them'. Bin lorry drivers, Buses and Taxis continually beeped their horns and stopped to get more information.
A press photographer arrived and the workers assembled in the shop with management beside them looking uneasy, one of the pregnant workers was having her photo taken when the press officer for thomas cook management tried to block the shot, one of the union members threw the press officer out of the shop, soon to be followed by the other managers, who left in tears. They had never had to deal with workers fighting back. The workers and supporters outside began shouting, 'the workers united will never be defeated!'.
The very people who earlier that day had gathered the workers to dismiss them were left weeping into mobile phones and quietly asking could they have their bags back.
We arranged for the workers inside to exchange phone calls with the occupied vestas wind turbine factory in the isle of wight, with both sets of workers cheering one another on!

Bord Snip and Dr Somers....

“We’ve about €25 billion in cash, instantly available for anything. I think this has given huge confidence also to the markets that no matter what happens we’ve more than enough cash.”

The above quote is from Dr Somers, head of the National Treasury Management Agency, now considering the publication of the infamous Bord Snip 'Nua' report you'd think someone would have taken him aside and told him to lay off the Marie Antoinette-esque 'You lot may be starving but look at the lovely necklace i just bought' talk, but no, the Irish elite are going to kick the most vunerable in society while boasting to the Market. Obviously they think we dont or cant read the business pages.

The Bord Snip (makes it sound so innocent, just a little 'snip') report once more targets the poor of this country with talk of 20% cuts in child benefit, social welfare for under 20s to stay at just €100 a week and for those aged between 20 to 25 to drop from €204 to €150. They want to sack 17,000 Public Sector Employees (even though we're set to reach 16% unemployment by the end of this year) which includes the sacking of Special Needs teachers and a huge increase, in the already high, pupil teacher ratio.

This is Class Warfare. This document was drafted by a CEO of the HSE, a former governor of the Central Bank, the managing director of State Street International and Mary Walsh, a partner in Price Waterhouse Cooper. This gang of upper class thugs have drafted a thouroughly neo liberal assault on the working class of Ireland.

Meanwhile the top 1% still have their untaxed €40 billion in wealth.
But they were never under threat, the Irish ruling class if using the crisis to re structure the country. The electrician's dispute a few weeks ago wasn't just about cash, it was about the employer's desire to destroy Joint Labour Commissions and Regulated Employment Agreements. The minimum wage is IBEC's next target.

In every area we're calling together a broad coalition of forces on the ground who are hit by these cuts, teachers, CE scheme workers, Pensioners etc to build for a demonstration for September.
Contact the SWP for information on your local fighting group.

STRIKES!

The Irish economy is going to ruin fast, with 10% contraction this year and a 15% contraction in GNP in the last quarter. Not only that but unemployment has reached a staggering 500,000 in a country with a population of just over 4 million.
The continuing Bank Bailouts and the government finalising the National Assets Management Agency (which will take on an estimated 90 Billion worth of debts generated by the top 20 property developers) ,alongside vicious cuts in community services, public sector pay, levies on all workers and the slashing of social welfare payments, has set the stage for massive confrontations to develop in irish society.
At the moment the electricians of the TEEU are on strike. Laurence, a worker at Spencer Dock Dublin, explains some of the reasons for their action-

"We're here to fight for the money we were promised in 2007, money that was agreed on but we never got, not only that but they want to cut our wages by 10% bring in unqualified workers and pay them 25% less. They want to cut travel time and make us supply our own power tools (which puts the cost of wear and tear on the backs of the workers).
They want to tear up the agreements on legal rates which would leave us forced back down to the minimum wage as the only gauranteed rate, they want to take us back to the 80s, they want to make us all 'sub contractors' who bid against each other for jobs and the cheapest gets it, it used to be that on each site you'd have 10 but now they want 3 or 4"

Most of the workers on the pickets are young (most are in their 20s and some have just started families etc) and are determined to fight the bosses and win their agreed upon wage increases. The spirit of defiance is remarkable, and with ICTU balloting other trades for all out action, we may soon see an escalation of the strike. Even before the ballot for the other trades on site to come out has taken place in many works others have joined the pickets, most notably at the airport were plumbers joined the electricians.

The employer organisation, IBEC, has stated that they want to see between a 10 and 15% reduction in living standards across the country. They have already announced their intention to brutalise people on the dole to make it so unattractive a prospect that those in employment will accept any wage and the most appaling conditions.

There's another strike, much smaller in scale but indicative of the attitudes of employers right now, happening at the Department of Heritage and Environment which is located in the Custom House.

13 cleaners who had been hired by a company called- Ecosystems cleaning- were told that they were changing hands and that a company called- Schorman- would be taking over. When they were called to a meeting with the Schorman Rep (who would only allow them to address her as 'miss elizabeth'..like something from the days of slavery!) they were given welcome letters and then tole that they would by working for 2.57 hrs a day instead of 4.
Now forgive me for pointing this out but the Custom House as far as i can tell hasn't shrunk by a proportion of 4 to 2.57, and seeing as that hasn't taken place i assume that the same amount of cleaning was expected to be done in half the time for half the wage.
When the women kicked up a fuss they were fired and are now picketing outside.
Apparently the company has employed 6 new cleaners.
I bet at a lower rate and with far less hours.