socialist environmental alliance header

Derry Meeting on Irish Ferries Dispute

Thursday 8th December 2005, 7.30 pm, Sandino's Bar, Derry

The meeting, at Sandino's, has been organised by the Socialist Environmental Alliance.

In a statement, the SEA says: "Irish Ferries management wants to sack more than 500 Irish seafarers and replace them with agency workers from Latvia at less than half pay.

"If they get away with this, other employers will follow suit, making the same excuse about 'competitiveness.'

"This being done under a European 'services directive' which allows workers to be employed anywhere in the EU at the wages of the country they have come from. Jobs in factories, offices, building sites etc. are as vulnerable to this as jobs at sea.

"Officers and engineers have taken over two of the Irish Ferries ships after management sent squads of 'security men' armed with batons to force the workers off. The 'security men' boarded the ships in Ireland as passengers and changed into uniforms in the toilets as the vessels approached Pembroke and Holyhead in Wales.

"These are 1913 tactics. The employers are using the threat of organised violence to replace trade unionists with bonded labour.

"There are employers in the North, too, as all over Europe, who'd use the same methods if they thought they'd get away with it.

"The point of Thursday's meeting is to draw out the lessons for local workers. In our view, this issue is more important than some of controversies which other local parties have at the top of their agenda

"The meeting will discuss what solidarity measures can be taken here to show support for the Irish Ferry workers.”

The SEA speaker at the meeting will be local activist Goretti Horgan.





SEA Logo