Seafarers fight for their jobs
WORKERS, JAN 2006 ISSUE
Around 80,000 workers marched through the Dublin on Friday 9 December in a day of protest organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in solidarity with Irish Ferries workers, who are threatened with losing their jobs. Protests were held in towns across Ireland. Welsh trade unionists have demonstrated at Pembroke Dock and Holyhead. The TUC sent representatives to the docksides and the Dublin protest.
The dispute began on Friday 25 November, when management attempted to smuggle workers from eastern Europe on board the 34,000-tonne Isle of Inishmore at Pembroke docks in Wales. The military-style operation used security guards disguised as civilians, but they had not reckoned on the quick thinking of the crew on board. When the guards announced over the Tannoy that they were taking over the ship, officers ran to the engine control room and barricaded themselves in. They are still there, with plenty of provisions.
A sister ship, the Ulysses, promptly announced it was also under the control of its Irish crew, and would be staying put until management withdrew the threat to replace 543 workers with migrants from Latvia and other eastern European countries.
Irish Ferries management has declared that Irish workers, many of them on the Irish minimum hourly wage of 7.65 euros (about £5.20), are just too expensive. Obviously so, when the eastern European workers were prepared to work for 3.60 euros! Management were planning to make this change by reflagging the fleet as Cypriot.
Occupying workers were offered a redundancy package, a 50% pay cut, or dismissal. When management's declared deadline passed on 8 December with no response from unions, the threat was withdrawn. As Workers went to press, the ships remain in the hands of the crew and are going nowhere.
Strangely, although there has been widespread denunciation of "a greedy and grubby company intent on maximising profits", there has been no mention of the EU by national trade union bodies, in spite of the fact that this kind of employer action is precisely what the EU is designed to make possible. Now that employers can import the cheapest migrant labour from anywhere within the EU, many industries – for instance, building, decorating and catering – have already seen a similar "race to the bottom" in terms of wages and conditions. This is the "free movement of labour" in action. The difference in the Irish Ferries dispute is that the indigenous workers are organised, and prepared to take action.
Irish and British trade union leaders appear embarrassed by this dispute – falling over themselves to say that the dispute is not against migrant labour. Why not? The migrant workers being used in this dispute must have known they were being used to sack Irish workers. Is a scab any better for being a migrant?