Longest Labour Occupation in Irish History Ends.
national |
miscellaneous |
news report 
Tuesday March 11, 2003 19:54
by peerless - rugs
After 20 months, one of the longest running occupations in the history of Irish Labour came to an end yesterday, when workers in Peerless Rugs in Athy, Co. Kildare agreed to a settlement with their employer, the Refround Textile group. The deal brokered by the labour court, amounts to the equivilent of €15 per day of the occupation.
The occuaption began over a year ago when the employer refused to pay statutory redundancy to the workers.
The occupiers have made known their sense of betrayl and dissillusionment with the SIPTU hierarchy. Who refused to support the occupation, bound as they are by the legal system.
Interesting to note the absolute lack of comment and support from the left in this, one of the most exciting and spontaneous outbreaks of working class resistance and self organisation in years.
Any thoughts people?
Comments (3 of 3)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3I'm just annoyed that I didn't know about this. How could this be going on for 20 months and have such a low profile?
Congratulations to the workers who held out for so long.
I'm not quite sure who you refer to when you critisise the left for not supporting them. The Socialist Workers party gave regular coverage in our newspaper. We helped them by doing collections,gathering petitions in support. When they came to Cork to try and get support from the workers who had begun doing their work we visited them and tried to drum up support for them.
I can'y comment on what the rest of the left did.
It did receive a bit of coverage in the media, it was on all the main news items when it started and the other day when it finished. the regional papers always made soemthing of it. There was one march in athy in support of the occupation in the summer of 2001. A short lived Globalise Resistance group in carlow did a stall and postered for it, raised a tiny bit of cash too. But after the march the issue of building support just faded away. the peerless workers marched up front at the recent redundancy demonstration in dublin as well, but after that i just don't know.
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