SIPTU Deputy General Secretary (DGS), Greg Ennis, has forecast industrial unrest and protest due to the Government’s failure to implement a new EU Directive that should necessitate the introduction of greater protections for trade union activists, at a SIPTU Divisional Conference in Waterford today (Thursday, 21st November).
Addressing nearly 200 delegates at the SIPTU Transport, Energy, Aviation and Construction (TEAC) Division Biennial Delegate Conference, Ennis said: “In my opinion, continued public protest and future industrial unrest across the trade union movement in Ireland is inevitable until fair, proper and ‘fit for purpose’ employment legislation, relating to the rights of workers to organise and so collectively bargain with their employer is on the Irish Statute.”
Commenting on the failure of the Government to implement the EU Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages by 15th November, Ennis said: “The Directive’s purpose is to increase the level of collective bargaining across EU Member States to 80%, in Ireland, we stand at 34% and yet we have a Government and their legal advisers, who believed it was not necessary to underpin this important Directive’s transposition by way of legislative support. We fundamentally disagreed with that advice!
“We have union busting with union activists being penalised, and in some cases, sacked for their trade union activity, which is nothing short of disgraceful, and akin to farm labourers being evicted from their lands and livelihoods in Penal Times. The Government, with their so-called ‘giveaway’ budget gloat on record numbers in employment and a supercharged economy, but it must be an economy to serve the Irish people and not a people to serve the Irish economy.”
He added: “We need protections for our activists at the enterprise level, we need union access, and we need workers to be given a fair and balanced opportunity to bargain on their pay, terms and conditions without fear of being penalised or worse! Comrades, this would be a ‘Fair Deal for Workers’ and an opportunity for ‘Union Renewal’.”
Turning his attention to the recent remarks at a Fine Geal event by Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary, he said: “My son is a teacher and will earn nearly €50,000 in 2024, while it was recently reported that O’Leary will earn 90 times that in 2024. Mr O’Leary would be much better off paying his cabin crew a decent wage, than slating teachers, for the amusement of his long-established friends in Fine Gael! However, if he were in education, he would probably conduct a size check on school bags upon entry to the school and charge the children for their classroom seats.”
The TEAC Biennial Delegate Conference is taking place in the Tower Hotel in Waterford City today and tomorrow. The theme of the Conference is Union Renewal – A Fair Deal for Workers. Among the motions that will be debated at the Conference are a trade union response to the housing crisis, public investment in transport and pension reform.