Still not yet Emmet
1997 Tigermania
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``If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag
over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the
Socialist Republic your efforts will be in vain.
``England will still rule you. She would rule you through her
capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers,
through the whole array of commercial and individualist
institutions she has planted in the country.''
James Connolly, 1897
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As a once famous Irish philosopher said ``What's another year''? So
are we learning from our mistakes? Was 1997 any different from
other years we have lived and struggled through?
In some ways the answer is yes. We have new masters, new
exploiters, new carpet bagging profiteers all ready to take their
pound of flesh.
However, as the quotes from Henry Joy McCracken and James
Connolly above show, some things have not changed. The rich are
still exploiting the poor and Irish workers still have masters
both at home and abroad whose overriding interests are simply to
take the money and run.
However in the United States the industrial action taken by
185,000 strikers at UPS last August showed that unions still have
a dynamic role to play in modern labour markets. To end the
strike the company had to commit itself to creating more
full-time permanent positions, reversing its previous trend of
replacing full-time employees with part-timers.
 The Rich always betray the Poor
Henry Joy McCracken in a
letter to his sister, dated 1798.
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In January Korean strikers took to the streets for their rights,
while Liverpool dockers spent another 12 months on the picket
line. Truck drivers in France brought their country to a
standstill in a dispute over low wages, long hours and inadequate
pensions.
In Ireland a wide array of differing workers found themselves on
the picket line. In January it was CIE workers, albeit in an
unofficial one day stoppage, caused by management's determination
to proceed with flawed rationalisation plans. In February
26-County nurses pulled off an eleventh hour victory over their
rainbow coalition employers. Hospital consultants threatened to
go on strike in February but funny enough they didn't have the
bottle.
South Dublin refuse collectors did and went on strike in
February. They were driven into taking industrial action by a
very silly South Dublin County Council even though refuse workers
in other Dublin councils had come to an agreement allowing the
introduction of new lorries with bin lifting gear.
In April 26-County health workers went on strike for better
wages, while in May Belfast workers at Montupet started what
became one of the most bitter disputes of the year with
management continuing to stonewall workers at the auto components
plant and threatening to close the plant down altogether.
Law Society clerks in Dublin went on strike in June, another
workforce driven to the picket line by overbearing management.
August witnessed the end of one of Britain's longest industrial
disputes, that of the denial of union representation to workers
at GCHQ, the British Government's intelligence gathering centre.
However, within weeks there were question marks over whether the
New Labour administration would actually deliver on its promises.
They were demanding that workers sign a no-strike deal.
Throughout the year there has been a constant struggle between
Dunnes workers and a management steadfastly refusing to accept
Labour Court agreements. It was only in December that Dunnes
management finally offered terms acceptable enough to their
workers.
The 1997 awards
Industrial disputes are only one side of the economic equation.
There are the bosses, the bosses' salaries, their madcap schemes
and often worst of all, the governments who not only back up
corrupt and exploitative companies but in many cases are terrible
employers themselves. In 1997 the Dublin government has found
itself in dispute with nurses, health workers, CIE employees and
staff at Aer Lingus and it's soon-to-be privatised maintenance
subsidiary Team Aer Lingus.
Rather than let all of this go by in a haze of
it-couldn't-really-have-been-that-bad Workers in Struggle
presents its second annual awards of the year for the good, the
bad and the downright rotten.
Corporate fat cats
Who was at the top of the money tree in 1997? In January the VHI
were looking for a new chief executive; the salary for the new
boss was at £120,000 almost double that of the previous chief
executive.
The directors of agribusiness company IAWS took home an average
of £243,000. Irish Life's executive directors got a 21% increase,
taking home an average of £261,500 each. AIB executive directors
banked an average of £432,000 each. All of this though is a
pittance compared to average payout to Ryanair directors of over
£928,000 each, who win the 1997 fat cats award.
Most missed revolutionary
Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator and author, died aged 75 on
2 May. Freire's education programmes aided tens of thousands of
workers to overcome illiteracy. His efforts helped possibly
millions of workers across the globe and echo the writings of
Thomas Davis and Pádraig Pearse, who also exposed the use of
culture as an instrument of oppression.
Best Strike
This award has to go to the staff of the French bank Credit
Foncier de France. On 17 January they occupied the bank's Paris
headquarters. They were protesting at plans to break up the bank
which provides low cost loans for house buyers. The staff not
only occupied the bank's headquarters but also held the Governor
Jerome Meyssonier and seven of his directors hostage.
Most silly idea
Recently privatised Great Eastern Railways in Britain won this
award with ease. Their plan to recruit passsengers as part-time
train guards in return for free travel and £5.25 an hour stole
the show. Passenger guards would check the train doors were
closed and make announcements. The executive who proposed the
idea is now no longer working for Great Eastern.
Most promising newcomers
It's just a six month postponement...They were very reassuring
in that area
Mary Harney, October 1997 (Seagate announce a postponment of their 1,400 job
plant in Cork)
They also tell me that they can make these products in the Far
East for about a third of the cost of making them in Clonmel
Mary Harney, December 1997 (Seagate announce the closure of their Clonmel
plant with the loss of 1,400 jobs)
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This award is for Mary Harney. During her tenure as Enterprise,
Trade and Employment minister she has developed an incredible
ability to say just the wrong thing.
In August she proclaimed that the Avonmore Waterford merger was
in the national interest. How this went down with the 750 Irish
workers who lost their jobs in November has not yet been
answered.
In October she told journalists asking about Seagate's problems
with their planned 1,400 job plant in Cork that ``It's just a six
month postponement...They were very reassuring in that area''.
Last week she told the media that ``They also tell me that they
can make these products in the Far East for about a third of the
cost of making them in Clonmel''.
Maybe in 1998 Mary Harney will learn to be just a bit more
questioning of multinationals before giving the IDA the green
light to splash out the million punt grant packages.
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