1997 Tigermania

As a once famous Irish philosopher said ``What's another year''? So are we learning from our mistakes? Was 1997 any different from other years we have lived and struggled through?

In some ways the answer is yes. We have new masters, new exploiters, new carpet bagging profiteers all ready to take their pound of flesh.

However, as the quotes from Henry Joy McCracken and James Connolly above show, some things have not changed. The rich are still exploiting the poor and Irish workers still have masters both at home and abroad whose overriding interests are simply to take the money and run.

However in the United States the industrial action taken by 185,000 strikers at UPS last August showed that unions still have a dynamic role to play in modern labour markets. To end the strike the company had to commit itself to creating more full-time permanent positions, reversing its previous trend of replacing full-time employees with part-timers.
 The Rich always betray the Poor
Henry Joy McCracken in a letter to his sister, dated 1798.

 
 

In January Korean strikers took to the streets for their rights, while Liverpool dockers spent another 12 months on the picket line. Truck drivers in France brought their country to a standstill in a dispute over low wages, long hours and inadequate pensions.

In Ireland a wide array of differing workers found themselves on the picket line. In January it was CIE workers, albeit in an unofficial one day stoppage, caused by management's determination to proceed with flawed rationalisation plans. In February 26-County nurses pulled off an eleventh hour victory over their rainbow coalition employers. Hospital consultants threatened to go on strike in February but funny enough they didn't have the bottle.

South Dublin refuse collectors did and went on strike in February. They were driven into taking industrial action by a very silly South Dublin County Council even though refuse workers in other Dublin councils had come to an agreement allowing the introduction of new lorries with bin lifting gear.

In April 26-County health workers went on strike for better wages, while in May Belfast workers at Montupet started what became one of the most bitter disputes of the year with management continuing to stonewall workers at the auto components plant and threatening to close the plant down altogether.

Law Society clerks in Dublin went on strike in June, another workforce driven to the picket line by overbearing management.

August witnessed the end of one of Britain's longest industrial disputes, that of the denial of union representation to workers at GCHQ, the British Government's intelligence gathering centre.

However, within weeks there were question marks over whether the New Labour administration would actually deliver on its promises. They were demanding that workers sign a no-strike deal.

Throughout the year there has been a constant struggle between Dunnes workers and a management steadfastly refusing to accept Labour Court agreements. It was only in December that Dunnes management finally offered terms acceptable enough to their workers.

The 1997 awards


Industrial disputes are only one side of the economic equation. There are the bosses, the bosses' salaries, their madcap schemes and often worst of all, the governments who not only back up corrupt and exploitative companies but in many cases are terrible employers themselves. In 1997 the Dublin government has found itself in dispute with nurses, health workers, CIE employees and staff at Aer Lingus and it's soon-to-be privatised maintenance subsidiary Team Aer Lingus.

Rather than let all of this go by in a haze of it-couldn't-really-have-been-that-bad Workers in Struggle presents its second annual awards of the year for the good, the bad and the downright rotten.

Corporate fat cats


Who was at the top of the money tree in 1997? In January the VHI were looking for a new chief executive; the salary for the new boss was at £120,000 almost double that of the previous chief executive.

The directors of agribusiness company IAWS took home an average of £243,000. Irish Life's executive directors got a 21% increase, taking home an average of £261,500 each. AIB executive directors banked an average of £432,000 each. All of this though is a pittance compared to average payout to Ryanair directors of over £928,000 each, who win the 1997 fat cats award.

Most missed revolutionary


Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator and author, died aged 75 on 2 May. Freire's education programmes aided tens of thousands of workers to overcome illiteracy. His efforts helped possibly millions of workers across the globe and echo the writings of Thomas Davis and Pádraig Pearse, who also exposed the use of culture as an instrument of oppression.

Best Strike


This award has to go to the staff of the French bank Credit Foncier de France. On 17 January they occupied the bank's Paris headquarters. They were protesting at plans to break up the bank which provides low cost loans for house buyers. The staff not only occupied the bank's headquarters but also held the Governor Jerome Meyssonier and seven of his directors hostage.

Most silly idea


Recently privatised Great Eastern Railways in Britain won this award with ease. Their plan to recruit passsengers as part-time train guards in return for free travel and £5.25 an hour stole the show. Passenger guards would check the train doors were closed and make announcements. The executive who proposed the idea is now no longer working for Great Eastern.

Most promising newcomers


  It's just a six month postponement...They were very reassuring in that area  
Mary Harney, October 1997 (Seagate announce a postponment of their 1,400 job plant in Cork)

 They also tell me that they can make these products in the Far East for about a third of the cost of making them in Clonmel

Mary Harney, December 1997 (Seagate announce the closure of their Clonmel plant with the loss of 1,400 jobs)

 
This award is for Mary Harney. During her tenure as Enterprise, Trade and Employment minister she has developed an incredible ability to say just the wrong thing.

In August she proclaimed that the Avonmore Waterford merger was in the national interest. How this went down with the 750 Irish workers who lost their jobs in November has not yet been answered.

In October she told journalists asking about Seagate's problems with their planned 1,400 job plant in Cork that ``It's just a six month postponement...They were very reassuring in that area''. Last week she told the media that ``They also tell me that they can make these products in the Far East for about a third of the cost of making them in Clonmel''.

Maybe in 1998 Mary Harney will learn to be just a bit more questioning of multinationals before giving the IDA the green light to splash out the million punt grant packages.