Defence Forces refusing to participate in strike-breaking

national | worker & community struggles and protests | other press Thursday February 05, 2009 03:52 by Blacbloc

A lot of people have probably wondered whether the government were planning to strong arm strikers and resort to dirty measures to intimidate workers. Looks like that option may not be available to them. Soldiers are saying they support the opposition to the pension levy.

Report in today's Irish Times that Pdfora are refusing to cooperate with any requests to get involved. It's not clear whether they had been asked or not - Willie O' Dea is equivocal so the answer is probably yes. If the soldiers hold good to their word then the government must surely be forced to reverse their management of the situation. We want to see the people responsible for this bearing the full brunt of it.

“It will be morally wrong for soldiers to be ordered to break strikes arising from the imposition of the pensions levy,” Mr Rooney said. Mr O’Dea described as a “hypothetical situation” the suggestion that soldiers would be used to break strikes. He said he did not comment on such situations.

However, in reply to a written Dáil question yesterday related to the issue, Mr O’Dea said: “As has been done in the past, the Defence Forces may be called on to contribute to maintaining vital services in times of industrial action.”

Mr Rooney said soldiers supported the opposition to the pension levy being expressed across the public sector. The pension levy was unfair and bitterly disappointing for soldiers, sailors and aircrew of the Defence Forces.“These personnel, many of whom have given long and dedicated service both at home and overseas, are now being unfairly used to address mistakes made in the management of the national economy in which they had no role,” Mr Rooney said."

Wonder how long it will take the government to realise that the only place they can look for the solution to this situation is where it lies: the rich. These people own most of the wealth this country possesses, they were the main beneficiaries of the greed years and they MUST now pay back what they wrongly took out of the economy.