A report on yesterday's Irish Glass Bottle workers march in Dublin

national | miscellaneous | news report Sunday July 21, 2002 23:02 by An Irish Glass Bottle workers' neighbourhood Ringsend

Yesterday's Dublin IGB workers demo

Below is my report on how yesterday's Irish Glass Bottle workers march in Dublin went. If anybody has anything further to add please post your comments here.

In response to a comment from somebody here yesterday, and also for the benefit of others who couldn't make it to the Irish Glass Bottle workers protest in Dublin yesterday, because of holidays or whatever, here's my report on how yesterday's march went. The marchers assembled outside Liberty Hall from midday onwards and at 12:15 numbering I would say (although I'm not great at estimating numbers) about 500 to 600 people we moved off and marched around the side of the Custom House at Beresford Place, across the Matt Talbot Memorial, down George's Quay past Tara Street DART station, down Burgh Quay, onto D'olier Street, and then following the usual route for marches to the Dail on Kildare Street. At Kildare Street we handed in 2 letters of protest, one to the Dail itself and one to Harney's Department of Trade, Enterprise and Employment. As the Dail wasn't sitting and there was nobody in Harney's Department it was decided not to stay around there so we resumed the march and marched around Stephens Green and onto Cuffe Street and then onto Aungier Street, down Georges Street and onto Dame Street, past the Central Bank and on to Westmoreland Street, across O'Connell Bridge onto O'Connell Street and up to the GPO.

Here (at the GPO) a new and very disturbing set-up awaited us. As you will remember the old set-up was when marchers reached the GPO that the Gardai blocked off that section of O'Connell Street Northbound between Middle Abbey Street and Henry Street and the platform was beside the GPO pillars. This however didn't happen this time. When we got to the GPO the march stewards marshalled us onto the new extended pedestrian island opposite the GPO and the lorry with the platform pulled up beside us on the pedestrian island with the result that the speakers had their backs to the GPO and the cars screaming and roaring behind them. Meantime we were all scrushed and sandwiched together like sardines in a small area.on the island. This is obviously part of the wider Garda campaign to intimidate and harrass protestors.

Despite all of this the speeches were actually for once quite good. The speakers were as far as I can remember: Joe Higgins TD, Socialist Party, John Gormley TD, Green Party, Kevin Humpries, a local councillor from the Ringsend/Irishtown area for the Labour Party, Daithi Doolan, the local Sinn Fein representative for Ringsend/Irishtown, Gerry Lynch, President of the Irish Glass Bottle workers' SIPTU Branch and the IGB workers' spokesperson, and not forgetting the most important people in this dispute - namely the Irish Glass Bottle workers themselves, several of whom spoke at the rally yesterday. Funnily enough the Socialist Workers Party were listed down to speak yesterday but none of them spoke although several of them were spotted on the march yesterday. Some of us would say that was a good thing! Neither did Des Geraghty nor was he even spotted on the demo yesterday despite the fact that he is the leader of SIPTU (for the moment). There were one or two things said yesterday that I didn't agree with. For a start despite all the Garda harrassment the Gardai were actually praised from the platform for their actions yesterday! Also the workers are putting too much faith in their union leadership despite the fact that Des Geraghty didn't even bother to turn up yesterday. Now I hope that I'm proved wrong for the workers' sake. I don't want to see any more workers disappointed and bitter at their trade union leaders' betrayal of them.

I've already dealt with who the speakers yesterday were. Now to the most important people - namely the participant's on the march. The trade union turnout was, surprise, surprise extremely poor. Apart from the main SIPTU banner, the only other trade union banner present was the the TEEU banner (fair play to you TEEU). Of course the IGB workers themselves had their own very well laid out and designed banner. The response from the 'politicos' was a bit better. The Workers Solidarity Movement (who had a banner there yesterday) and various other Anarchists were well represented yesterday. The Socialist Party was also well represented yesterday. In addition there were also reasonably good turnouts from the Worker's Party, the Labour Party (who also had a banner), Sinn Fein, the Socialist Workers Party, the Green Party and various other smaller Left groups such as the Red Banner and Red Action. Also the reaction of the general public was very good overall. The rally finished at 2:30PM long before most marches on a Saturday have even started. There had been talk beforehand that we would march out to the Irish Glass Bottle factory after the rally at the GPO but that came to nought.

That's the way I see how yesterday went. If anybody has anything further to add please post your comments here.