Saturday, November 26, 2005

Irish Ferries

The Irish Ferries controversy has in the last few days has escalated. With Dublin Dock workers saying they are going to turn away the Irish Ferries vessel MV Normandy. Along with reports of the use of tear gas which Irish Ferries deny. All this has hit Irish Ferries hard. This is the kind of publicity they do not want. The majority of people in this country consider it diabolical what Irish Ferries are doing. If this manifests itself in Irish people refusing to travel with Irish Ferries then it might hit the company financially hard. Harder then the losses due to continued employment of Irish workers. This is how Trade unions should tackle the fight. If they go on massive national strikes bringing the country to a halt it will only lose them the support of the country. The better thing to do would be to start a boycott Irish Ferries campaign. I have already posted about why this I believe this has happened about how there is the Other side of the Rip-off. That forced Irish Ferries to take these measures. Some Irish bloggers of note on the subject. iepolitics's Chronicle of a Historic Defeat Foretold tallrite Indymedia I have found fairly few Irish blogs commenting on the issue. Strange that I thought that would be fairly big thing to blog about. Maybe Im looking in the wrong places. Edit: Sorry for leaving the land of Ireland off the list. Irish Ferries — Monkeys Managed By Ignoramuses Also sorry for having iepolitics misspelled

3 comments:

Student said...

Well done bringing up this story. It's tough for the workers who lose their jobs, but I have no sympathy for those who attempted to barricade themselves inside the control rooms. The militant tendency should be rejected. Irish Ferries management have every right to take control of their ships.

Regarding the whole issue of labour, I think Irish Ferries should be celebrated for providing employment opportunities to Latvians and other immigrants. These people should be allowed to make the most of the opportunities they are being given. The clear willingness of immigrants to take on these positions just goes to show how serious they are about improving their situation. Their choice should be respected too.

Particularly disconcerting is the attitude of some on the Left to these workers. See what great minds are lurking at Indymedia:

"They're ***** scabs. Doesn't matter whether their from Latvia or Longford. It's about time people woke up to what the bosses are at and that the left started to oppose unrestricted immigration of cheap labour that is threatening to destroy generations of hard won rights."

The Left would deny these people their choice to work for Irish Ferries. Shame on them.

Simon said...

True have to agree. But Irish Ferries bring security on board was a bit extreme. And I believe that the orginal barricading was due to the fact that they thought they were terrorists and that is the standard operation procedure to do in the event of a hiyjacking of the ship.

The question is would you be so for the rights of forign workers if it was your job you were losing.

Anonymous said...

I've worked on Irish Ferries, so my take on it is quite a personal one.

It's worth noting that internal union personality clashes which led to ratings leaving the SUI and joining the officers' union SIPTU. My impression in this case is that it is officers not ratings who are the prime activists.

http://thelandofireland.blogspot.com/2005/11/irish-ferries-monkeys-managed-by.html