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!

citizens army....

this shot shows the flag, the starry plough, flying over Waterford Glass which was occupied by workers 3 days ago when management tried to shut up shop...workers fought their way past private security goons who had been drafted in from dublin, as locals wouldnt take the job of holding off the employees...workers show no signs of backing down, the visitors centre has slogans of struggle written on all the notice boards 'united we stand divided we fall' and
the starry plough, flag of socialist James Connolly and the Irish Citizens Army, now flies over the workers occupied factory...
this action shows the way forward, we need to resist job losses....
RESIST! OCCUPY!

500 hundred jobs to go at First Active...

and 290 on the buses....here's a flyer for comrades in ireland to distribute....

Redundancy is a shocking experience.
It disrupts your plans and hopes for your future.
Your company is also conveying a message: We do not care about you
– profit is all that counts. Of course, they don’t put it as bluntly as this.
Your CEO or manager will probably appear on the media and
talk about how sad they are but it had to be done for ‘competitiveness’.
But they mean: workers are worth nothing, profit is all that counts.
Our society is experiencing a 1930s style crash and we can no longer accept this.
This is the 21st century and all of us have a Right to Work.
It is time to assert that people and our lives are more important
than a company’s ‘bottom line’
If you are facing redundancy,
socialists advise you to take the following steps:
❶ Call a meeting of your workmates to discuss the
situation.
Elect people to represent you, either by endorsing your existing
shop stewards or electing new representatives. Make sure that the
meeting is conducted properly by asking people to vote for what they
want.
❷ The first thing you need to decide is whether you want to
oppose the redundancies or accept voluntary redundancies.
Your union officials will almost invariably urge you to accept
voluntary redundancies. Socialists, however, urge you to
consider resistance: There is very little work out there and you need a
wage packet now.
❸ Do some research on your company. Find out the following items:
■ Are they making a profit? If they are suffering a temporary loss,
what sort of profits did they make in recent years? How much do they
pay their CEO?
■ How much did your company get in state grants? Have they been
paying proper taxes in this country?
■ Are they re-locating or closing down in order to benefit from
cheap labour? Or are they trying to intensify work for the remaining
staff.
❹ Organise an occupation of your workplace to resist
redundancy. It is the only message that profit
addicts understand. Remember: You
have two great levers that help you.
■ First, the company will want to get hold of the machines, office
space or factory space to sell off or use elsewhere. You should use
these as a bargaining lever to secure concessions.
■ Second, as the government has been bailing out banks, the obvious
question is: why can’t they bail out redundant workers?
❺ You should use the occupation as a base to
launch a major campaign to demand that the government protect
your right to work. Tell them to recover any grants
given to a company that has treated its workers like disposable products
and to use that money to fund alternative employment.
Demand that the government either get you all places on
community employment schemes on Pay Related Benefit or that they take
the company into public ownership to guarantee jobs.
❻ Resistance will bring you some results – acceptance
will give you nothing. Some might argue that this is very ‘radical’. But
we are living in changed times. When a US President like
Barack Obama promises that the US state will help fund the creation of
3 million jobs, you know ‘the times they are a changing’.
We need real, radical change here and that will come through
‘people power’ – not taskforces, committees and crocodile tears.

If you want any further advice on resisting redundancies or want
support for your actions, you can contact the industrial desk
of the Socialist Workers Party on 01 8722682 or simply
text - REDUNDANCY to 086 3074060
and we will ring you back.

Socialist Worker
www.swp.ie