SIPTU completed a ballot of its members in Dublin Bus on Tuesday (20th August), with workers in the clerical, craft, operative, engineering supervisor, inspector and executive grades voting to accept Labour Court proposals to change their terms of employment.

SIPTU Dublin Bus drivers voted in a ballot counted on Friday, (16th August), to reject the Labour Court proposals related to their grade’s terms of employment by 72% to 28%.

Dublin Central TDs Joe Costello, Maureen O’Sullivan and Mary Lou McDonald have signed a SIPTU petition calling on the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Phil Hogan, to “respect community sector workers and meet their union”.

Over 1000 people have signed the petition in response to Minister Hogan’s refusal to meet with SIPTU members to discuss their concerns over plans to align Local Development Companies with Local Authorities. This alignment process will have major implications for jobs and services as well as removing control of services from local communities.


Minister Joe Costello signing the Community Petition on Tuesday, (20th August)

The treatment of staff, including the implementation of compulsory redundancies without negotiation, by the new management of the Sunday Business Post has been condemned by SIPTU Organiser, John White.

“The new management of the Sunday Business Post has introduced a culture of intimidation rather than co-operation into the running of the newspaper," he said.

Workers in Crowley’s Pharmacy in Mahon, Co. Cork, conducted a one-day work stoppage on Wednesday, (21st August), to protest at unilateral changes to their terms of employment, illegal deductions from their wages and a management refusal to engage in meaningful dialogue with their union representatives.

The action follows protests by workers in a number of pharmacies run by Uniphar Retail Services (URS) throughout the country in recent months.  

SIPTU members in G4S Cash Solutions Ireland Ltd have voted to accept restructuring proposals aimed at securing the long-term future of the company.

In a ballot counted on Thursday, (8th August), workers voted by 79% to 21% to accept the proposals.

  (L to R) SIPTU Organiser, John Dunne, HR Business Partner Heineken Irl, Seamus Linehan, Lord Mayor of Cork, Catherine Clancy, SIPTU General Secretary, Joe O’Flynn, SIPTU Shop Steward Heineken Ireland, Tony O’Connell and SQ Marketing Director, Fabia Gavin

Supporting Quality, the SIPTU supported consumer campaign aimed at protecting jobs in Ireland and supporting quality Irish products, marked a successful first year in operation with an event in the Heineken (Murphy’s) Brewery in Cork on Tuesday, (30th July). Those addressing the event included Lord Mayor of Cork, Catherine Clancy, and SIPTU General Secretary, Joe O’Flynn.

The use of strike-breakers by the management of Kells Credit Union, County Meath, marks a “new low” in its attempts to deny workers collective bargaining rights, according to SIPTU Insurance and Finance Sector Organiser, Adrian Kane.

On Thursday, (8th August), and Friday, (9th August), credit union workers continued their series of rolling strikes with a 48-hour work stoppage. Management brought in outside staff in an attempt to maintain the operation of the Credit Union.

 
Kells Credit Union workers with supporters and former Lagan Brick employees on Thursday, 8th August

SIPTU supports the maintenance of the free travel scheme for pensioners and other eligible groups utilising public transport.

SIPTU Organiser Paul Cullen said: “SIPTU supports the maintenance of the free travel scheme for eligible people on services provided by the CIE group of companies. Such a scheme is in line with our union’s belief in social solidarity. In comments reported initially on Sunday 4th August, I was quoted as stating that questions had been raised by SIPTU members about the maintenance of the current free travel arrangements.  

SIPTU members have voted unanimously in favour of industrial action in the Marks and Spencer store in Tallaght, Co. Dublin.

The union has issued the company with notice of industrial action to take place on or after Tuesday, 10th September.

This year marks the Centenary of the Dublin Lockout when employers in the city sought to destroy the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, which they saw as a threat to the status quo and their own dominant position within it. Two books launched on Tuesday (30th July), in Liberty Hall, look at the dispute in its historical and current contexts.

The SIPTU Sligo District Committee is hosting a series of events to commemorate the Sligo Dock Strike of 1913 on Thursday, 29th August.

The events begin with the unveiling of a plaque in memory of ITGWU member Patrick Dunbar in the SIPTU Sligo Office in Cleverath at 5.00 p.m. Patrick was killed during a confrontation with strikebreakers in March 1913 and was buried in Sligo Cemetery without a gravestone.  

Four of Ireland’s main charities are coming together for The Gathering Charity Run

Sunday, 1st September, 2013
12.00 p.m.  Leopardstown Racecourse

Distance: 8km      Registration: €22 per runner

(Text of speech by Padraig Yeates at Wreath laying and Poetry Reading in Memory of Francis Ledwidge, Poet and Soldier, National War Memorial Gardens, Islandbridge, Dublin, 4th August, 2013)

4th August, 2013, is 99 years to the day since Britain declared war on Germany in the conflict that became known as the First World War. It would devastate much of France and Belgium, northern Italy, the Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe, as well as destroy the Ottoman Empire, give birth to the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement, and facilitate the rise of the United States to super power status.

Songs written by the Irish revolutionary and visionary, James Connolly, have been brought to life once again. A group of musicians led by Mat Callahan have recorded the songs of Connolly on a recently released CD and collected all his know songs in a newly reprinted book.