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An overview of the Irish Ferries struggle

category ireland / britain | workplace struggles | feature author Friday January 20, 2006 18:43author by Alan MacSimoin - WSM Report this post to the editors

Late last year Ireland saw ferry ships occupied, port workers turning away a strikebreaking ship, and a half-day solidarity strike by about 150,000 workers. Here we present an overview of what happened along with links to articles published by anarchists in Ireland, before, during and after the struggle.

Irish Ferries, a private company operating ferries to Britain and France announced that it was going to make Irish workers redundant and replace them with East Europeans on much lower wages. The company said it would not even pay the Irish minimum wage (€7.65 per hour), and was going to register its ships in Cyprus in order to evade Irish law.

Late last year Ireland saw ferry ships occupied, port workers turning away a strikebreaking ship, and a half-day solidarity strike by about 150,000 workers. Here we present an overview of what happened along with links to articles published by anarchists in Ireland, before, during and after the struggle.

An overview of the Irish Ferries struggle


Late last year Ireland saw ferry ships occupied, port workers turning away a strikebreaking ship, and a half-day solidarity strike by about 150,000 workers. Here we present an overview of what happened along with links to articles published by anarchists in Ireland, before, during and after the struggle.

Irish Ferries, a private company operating ferries to Britain and France announced that it was going to make Irish workers redundant and replace them with East Europeans on much lower wages. The company said it would not even pay the Irish minimum wage (€7.65 per hour), and was going to register its ships in Cyprus in order to evade Irish law.

The two unions involved were SIPTU, which is a general union and the biggest in Ireland; and the Seamans Union of Ireland, a small conservative union which has a long record of not "causing trouble" for management.

WSM members were active in organising walkouts from their workplaces to join the December 9th solidarity strike. We also covered the story in our paper and produced a national leaflet.

Expanations of some terms used in these articles

Social Partnership means the series of three year long deals with the employers' federation and government, which began in 1987. These give small pay rises in return for a no-strike agreement.
• The 1990 Industrial Relations Act makes solidarity action unlawful.

Irish Ferries Fly The Jolly Roger
Workers Solidarity article from some months brfore the dispute broke out. Agencies like CF Sharp Crew (which was Salvacion's employer by the way) have been used by shipping companies for decades as a device to drive down sailors' pay, and to take the blame or legal responsibility for horror stories like Salvacion's . They operate in countries where labour laws are so unfair and so weakly applied that they facilitate this robbery from labour by ruthless profit-seekers.

Irish Ferries: Time to break the law
Analysis of the causes of the dispute. The dispute at Irish Ferries is about greedy bosses, very greedy bosses who want to replace their staff with modern day galley slaves.

The occupation of the Irish Ferries ships
The Irish Ferries dispute escalated on November 24th when goons from a private security firm brought Eastern European seafarers onto the ships. If the ferries resumed sailing the dispute would be effectively over, with Irish Ferries winning hands down.

The Irish Ferries struggle - leaflet from WSM Delegate Council
This text is a leaflet the WSM distributed on the marches in Dublin and Cork. All of us as trade union members must rally to this cause. We need to seize back control of our unions and we need to make those unions into fighting bodies which will stand up for the vulnerable and exploited and which will show clearly our strength in numbers. [PDF file of leaflet]

Magnificent solidarity in Ireland as 100,000 'walked out'
Most of our unions are run by people who see their role as simply lobbying the government, providing services and dealing with individual members' problems rather than also fighting to improve pay and conditions

Eyewitness - 100, 000 march through out Ireland in defence of workers rights [with photos]
Polish, Lithuanian and Scottish workers joined thousands of Irish, as they marched in Dublin and in towns throughout the country in support of the Irish Ferries workers

Eyewitness - Thousands march in Cork in solidarity with Irish Ferry workers
Workers spilled onto the streets. What traffic there was ground to a halt. In our thousands we fell in behind the banners of our unions. TEEU, SIPTU, IMPACT, IWU, CWU. etc a few Starry Ploughs, Anarchist flags, Socialist party banner, Labour, Shinners.... The speakers on Connolly Hall played Luke Kelly. People shook hands met old friends made new ones.

Analysis of Irish Ferries strike settlement deal
The end of 2005 saw the occupation to two ferry ships to prevent them being taken over by security to facilitate the replacement of the workers on the ships. Over 100,000 workers left work and marched in solidarity with the occupation on a Friday in cities across Ireland. A settlement with the company was reached and the union declared a victory. But was this settlement really a victory?

Labour Party and Union leaders play race car against migrant workers
Following the Irish Ferries dispute Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte and union leader Jack O’Connor have decided to place the blame for driving down wages in Ireland on the migrant workers themselves and not on the bosses. They want us to see our greedy employers as some sort of powerless bystanders, not as the enemy who make these decisions. Rabbitte made a statement that work

Related articles

Irish and foreign workers must stand firmly together
Metro Eireann, a newspaper largely written by and aimed at immigrants in Ireland, pubished the article (written by a WSM member) . It is distirbuted in Dublin at least, and maybe around the country.

Temp workers struggle at TESCOs in Ireland
Polish workers fired for standing up for their rights. In July the giant supermarket corporation TESCO's fired two migrant Polish workers at its depot in Dublin, Ireland. They were demanding an end to the speed up in work rate, equal rates of pay for temp and permanent workers and for contracts for everyone who had worked at the depot three months or more.

Turkish Builders Strike in Ireland
Ireland saw a militant struggle by migrant workers fighting for the same pay and conditions as Irish workers. 900 Turkish workers and 300 Irish workers are employed by Gama. Under the Registered Employment Agreement for the Construction industry no worker can legally be paid less than 12.96 euros per hour. However Gama paid its Turkish workers as little 2.20 per hour

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