A chara, – Mr Michael O’Mara raises many old shibboleths about trade unions – “militant, threats, anarchy” – a cast of the most hackneyed phrases dusted off and presented as fact.
The facts are a deal was made, the employers broke it. They charged their customers using the agreed wage structure, they trousered the money and now won’t pay the workers.
Considering it was the self-same companies who drove us down the tracks to the current disaster we are in (along with the bankers, politicians, etc) it takes some doing to blame the electricians who have had their money filched. – Is mise
Madam, – What is the thinking of the electrical union top brass on this strike? It reminds me of the strike in the radiator factory in Wicklow in the 1980s and the famed Ferenka plant in Limerick.
The nutjobs who directed those strikes, like those in the electrical union now, caused absolute havoc and financial trauma to their own members just to “prove a point”.
Then when the factories closed, leaving hundreds of households without an income, they toddled off to Dublin and their secure jobs, either oblivious to or uncaring about the havoc they had wrought to many hardworking people.
The union organisers are doing the same thing here. If they win, it will be a Pyrrhic victory.
I am not against unions. I am against nutjobs. – Yours, etc,
Madam, –The letter from Mr Ross (July 8th) speaks of the trade union movement being stuck in a 19th Century class warfare time-warp.
Correction Mr Ross, this is 21st Century class warfare. Do please keep up. – Yours, etc,