TEEU strike: a key battle for the Irish working class

The TEEU strike, that started Monday, might well represent a new sharp turn in the course of events. The 10,500 electricians punch well above their weight; they have industrial power beyond their numbers. They can stop constructions sites and factories nationwide. They deserve the full backing of the whole of the Irish labour movement.

Jim Power, Friends First Chief Economist, said recently that, “In the private sector there is no possibility of strikes” (Irish Times, 29^th June). Like many others, he felt confident that private sector workers had been neutralised due to high unemployment, low rates of union density, and the conciliatory attitude of union and labour leaders. They thought that workers would be unable to fight back against cuts in wages and worsening labour standards. The economic and political elite have therefore been concentrating their effort in a combined campaign against the income and working conditions of public sector workers, as we have reported in Fightback. But the most important strike for some years at national level is presently taking place in the private sector, and is rallying wide support in spite of all the misinformation spread in the media by the employers.

10,500 TEEU electricians have been on strike since Monday and are picketing around 240 sites in Ireland. Sources from the industry have confirmed that there is “little or no activity” on several major infrastructure projects (Irish Times, 6 July). The targets of the strike are construction sites and companies using contractors, including the second terminal at Dublin airport, the new stadium at Lansdowne Road, the new development at the Intel plant in Co Kildare, the Corrib gas pipeline in Mayo, an ESB generating station and a new ESB power plant under construction in County Cork.

Jack O’Connor, SIPTU president, has come out in support of the workers on strike. He said:

“The electricians have only served strike notice having exhausted every possible alternative procedure against a background of the declared intention of the employers to implement a pay cut of the order of ten per cent and detrimentally alter other conditions of employment, all of which are in contravention of the Registered Employment Agreement for the industry.

“Ultimately the electricians must be supported by all workers because the employers’ objective of cutting pay and tearing up agreements reflects the primary aim of the wealthy elite in our society, which is, above all else, to preserve their own assets and privileged position. Their shallow analysis of the crisis therefore sees attacks on workers living standards as the best way of repairing the damage done to our economy by the array of speculators, developers and their cronies.” (SIPTU support for electricians in tomorrow’s national strike)

Patricia McKeown, president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), has also expressed her full support for the strike: “I dismiss with contempt the claims that this strike action is damaging the economy - others have done that to stunning affect… the employers have walked off with the money owed to them for the pay and pensions.”

The ICTU conference meeting this week in Tralee has approved the TEUU application for an all-out strike. Other unions in the sector will ballot their members over the next two weeks. Only the leaders of the Labour Party have refused to publicly support the strike. In an intervention at the Dáil, Eamon Gilmore said:

“In this particular case, because of the extent of the dispute, the degree to which it involves employers and contractors directly and the knock-on effect for other employment and the wider economy, it is appropriate that the Government underlines the seriousness with which it takes the dispute and underlines the urgency that the Government should give to having it resolved by using the powers available under the Industrial Relations Act to bring people together.” (Gilmore urges Government to use its powers in electricians' dispute)

William Penrose, Labour Party TD, has even gone further by declaring that, “There are clearly important issues involved in this dispute for both employers and workers, but these differences will have to be resolved at some stage by dialogue and discussion.” (Penrose calls for reopening of talks on electricians dispute) That statement is not even qualified by a support for the workers on strike. This neutral stance completely refuses to see that the TEUU workers had to go on strike because the employers have been using “negotiations” to avoid pay rises due since April 2008.

TEEU General Secretary, Eamon Devoy, has explained why the workers had to go on strike:

“We have tried on no less than four separate occasions to negotiate with the employers on the basis of terms of reference proposed by the Labour Court and we are not prepared to defer any longer. Our members have shown extreme patience in waiting for a pay increase agreed by the main employer bodies in April 2008 and have not received a single penny, although clients of those same companies were being billed on the basis of that increase being applied.” (TEEU will only defer dispute if employers to negotiate settlement before Monday deadline)

The neutrality of Labour’s leaders implicitly takes the position of the bosses and their class interests. It is astonishing how the leaders of the Labour Party constantly deny in deeds what they promise in words. They oppose cutbacks in Dáil speeches, while in practice they support them.

There are three main issues in this strike. For the last three years, the electricians on strike have been paid at 2006 rates, and have been denied an 11 % increase agreed in April last year. At the same time the second employers group, National Electrical Contractors Ireland, is trying to get rid of the Registered Employment Agreement (REA) for the sector. The Electrical Contractors Association, the major employers association on the other hand, is trying to reduce wages by 10%. (Irish Examiner, 6 July).

The challenge to the REA is a frontal and brutal attack to workers incomes and labour standards. As Jack O’Connor has said in RTÉ’s Morning Ireland show, “If this pay-cutting agenda, which is being driven by the kindergarten economics of those who until very recently were cheer-leading the credit-led property boom, establishes itself in this country they will do it to workers right across the country.”

TEEU organiser Tom Gibney considers that their strike has full backing from construction workers because “A lot of the other trades work under agreements and they know that if our agreement is attacked their agreement will be attacked. It is an attack on the construction industry as well as the electrical industry.” Electrician Stephen Homan made the point that, “the only agreement that stands legally is our agreement. The only agreement after that is the minimum wage.” (Irish Times, 7 July)

For years the builders made billions. Now they claim that they cannot even afford current wages, so they demand a cut of 10%. When they made billions there was no question of sharing their profits. They should open their books and their accounts, including those outside the country, and show whether they can pay. If they can’t, their companies should be nationalised under workers’ control. Under public ownership, the construction industry could solve the housing problem in the country, and help industrial development.

Since October last year, the government and the bosses have been applying a brutal economic shock therapy to workers, while the leaders of the labour movement have sought a continuation of “social partnership”, calling off the national one-day strike of the 30^th March and entering negotiations with the government. It was obvious that the bosses’ strategy was designed to gain time and prepare new attacks as we have argued in Fightback.

In the meantime, there have been some important demonstrations of the will of workers to fight back, as the demonstration of February showed. There have been also some important struggles such as Waterford Crystal. But workers’ struggles have not as yet become more generalized.

The TEEU strike might well represent a new sharp turn in the course of events. The 10,500 electricians punch well above their weight; they have industrial power beyond their numbers. They can stop constructions sites and factories nationwide. They have the enthusiastic support of workers in the construction industry, and can become a point of reference for the rest of the workers, particularly those workers on lower wages, in sectors with lower union density, who can be inspired to fight back too. Trotsky once made the point that it is often the least well organised and new layers of the movement who take action first, as they are not held back by bureaucratic structures and leaders. The French bourgeois came to the same conclusion some years ago, when they argued that 8% union density was a bad thing as the trade union leaders wouldn’t be able to police the working class.

Trade Union Councils should mobilise workers and organise support committees to support this struggle. As Paddy Healy, of Dublin Colleges Branch TUI, argued in a letter to the President of the Dublin Council of Trade Unions: “TEEU is the first union to stand up to the attempt by the employers to use the recession to drive down pay and conditions across the economy by mounting an indefinite strike. If the electricians are defeated employers and government will go on to devastate pay and conditions in both public and private sectors. As a first step in support of our colleagues, I believe that all Trades Councils should hold public rallies in support of the strikers in their local areas. Support committees should be set up.” Many of the best activists and trade union members will no doubt agree. It’s time to turn words into action.