SIPTU joins hotel minimum wage case

SIPTU has been joined as participants in a High Court Case centring on minimum wage rates for 25,000 hotel workers outside of the Dublin, Dún Laoghaire and Cork areas.
The case involves the Irish Hotels Federation and Vaughan Lodge Ltd, Lahinch, County Clare, who want to challenge the constitutionality of the minimum wage. The action has been brought by the hotel interest group against the Hotels Joint Labour Committee, Ireland and the Attorney General.
SIPTU has been granted permission to make submissions to the High Court on the issue as it has previously represented a number of the workers that the case is concerned with. The case is scheduled for hearing on 5 February and the Irish Hotels Federation will object to the Labour Court’s previous ruling that set a minimum rate of pay for hotel workers.

Unions can’t be ‘taken for granted’ on Lisbon Treaty

A REPRESENTATIVE group from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions told an Oireachtas Committee this week that support for ‘the European Project’ should not be “assumed or taken for granted” by the Government.
ICTU General Secretary David Begg said:
“There is a sense that the political centre of gravity has moved, with enlargement, in a neo-liberal direction. The outlook for more social legislation is diminished. Of course, this will suit the EU Commission, which is the most neo-liberal we have ever had.”
The developments are the attempts to push through the original Services Directive, the Irish Government’s consistent failure to agree on a directive protecting the rights of agency workers as a result of pandering to the British, and a recent European Court of Justice judgement which will allow a company based in Sweden to employ Latvian workers at Latvian rates of pay.
ICTU has not approved any official position on the Lisbon Treaty but it is thought that these factors will significantly influence the stance of the unions.
The Irish Business and Employers’ Confederation (IBEC) has unsurprisingly declared its approval for the Lisbon Treaty and said it would mobilise its resources across more than 60 business sectors to campaign for a ‘Yes’ vote. If passed, the Lisbon Treaty will pave the way for deregulation of workers’ rights and privatisation of public services. 

Hundreds of job losses this week

HUNDREDS of workers are facing prospective job losses this week.
Unilever is closing its plant in Inchicore, Dublin, with 125 plant employees losing their jobs, including 55 sales staff. Kilkenny employers SFL Engineering has closed and made around 60 people redundant.
Kingspan Century Homes has made 24 people redundant in Dungarvan, County Waterford. Glenadden Shirts in Derry has announced it will be letting 85 staff go. And Capita in Belfast has announced 41 redundancies.

Nurses receive public support

AN internet poll on irishhealth.com has shown that an overwhelming 73 per cent believe that the nurses were “hard done by” by the report on bench-marking.
The Bench-marking Body that delivered the report only recommended pay increases for a small amount of very senior nurses and nothing for the majority of nurses.
The unions representing the nurses are going to the Labour Court to seek a recommendation that they be given the pay increases that they have previously claimed. In the event that no agreement can be reached, it is possible that the nurses will engage in full strike action or even a mass resignation.