Unions Threaten 'Nation Wide Action'

The government could be facing far-reaching action over their recent money saving policies, according to union leaders today.

In a dramatic speech this afternoon, the leader of one of Ireland's largest Unions, Siptu, said there would be a "national campaign" if the current trend of cuts in employment and workers wages continued.

In an emergency session today, the Union’s General President Jack O’Connor called for The government could be facing far-reaching action over their recent money saving policies, according to union leaders today.

In a dramatic speech this afternoon, the leader of one of Ireland's largest Unions, Siptu, said there would be a "national campaign" if the current trend of cuts in employment and workers wages continued.

In an emergency session today, the Union’s General President Jack O’Connor called for unions to unite for a joint effort to pressure the government into addressing the economy's problems without slashing the pay and conditions of workers.

Mr O’Connor said: “The assault under way is about correcting the problem in the public finances without the wealthy contributing a single cent.

“We should remember that the first initiative in this campaign on behalf of the wealthy was actually launched against private sector workers by the construction industry employers, who profited most during the boom, when declaring their intention to cut building workers pay by ten per cent."

Mr O'Connor added that SIPTU would be proposing a national campaign from which nothing would be excluded at tomorrow's executive meeting of the Irish Congress of Trade Union's.

Meanwhile, the Civil and Public Service Union said yesterday it will ballot its 13,000 members on industrial action, and if they endorse it, the union will mount a one-day strike affecting all Government departments on 26 February.

Yesterday, the Labour Leader Eamon Gilmore called on the government to stop making a "scape goat" of civil service workers.

"There has, I believe been an orgy of scapegoating against workers in the public service over the past number of months which has enabled the Government make the kind of unilateral decisions which were announced last week.

"Setting worker against worker is an old stratagem, used by establishments down the generations and I find it as unacceptable now as I would have when Catholic and Protestant workers were set against each other in Belfast in the 1920s."

(DW)