From: "Karl Carlile" <dagda-AT-eircom.net> Subject: Re: Irish Rail Drivers Strike(ILDA) Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2000 11:24:46 +0100 The ILDA Rail Drivers Strike For approximately eight weeks now the ILDA workers have been on strike in defence of their living standards and conditions of work. The ILDA strikers are raildrivers for Iarnrd ireann , a state company. They have had some support from other workers in the transport area. Many transport workers refused to pass the pickets. Consequently there has been severe disruption to the public transport system. Sections of the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie in Ireland have been using the strike as an opportunity to promote privatisation of state owned transport companies and for the introduction of more competition into the transport industry. The ILDA workers have had to face the savage hostility of the management of Iarnrd ireann, the state, the employers, the bourgeois mass media and the official trade union leadership-particularly NBRU and SIPTU. Despite this they have remained steadfast. Many transport workers have shown solidarity by refusing to pass pickets and even in some cases joining the picket line. They have done this against the instructions of their unions-SIPTU and the NBRU. The Dublin Bus Workers Action Group have been a valuable agency in mobilising solidarity around the ILDA strikers. Brendan Ogle, the executive secretary of ILDA, has been demonised by SIPTU, the NBRU leadership and the mass media. Disinformation and confusion has been deployed in the campaign to break the strike. This general attack from the state, the capitalists,the official trade union leadership and the mass media on the ILDA strike has been mounted because this small group of workers by their action are a challenge to both the state and the bourgeois trade union leadership. The state view this tiny union as a challenge to its corporatist strategy in its struggle to keep wages down while worsening conditions of work. Should such a breakaway union be successful it will encourage the growing number of workers unhappy with the current character of the trade union movement to join and even form more militant unions. This will render it more difficult for the state to continue with its very successful current strategy for disimproving wages and working conditions. At the same time the success of the ILDA strike will lead to the undermining of the leadership of the corporatist trade union movement. This can lead to the disintegration of that pro-capitalist leadership and its consequent decreasing influence over the masses of workers. The employers see all of these developments as a threat to their continued intensification of the exploitation of the working class. Consequently the trade union leadership have formed an alliance with both the state and the bourgeoisie to crush ILDA. The President of SIPTU, Des Geraghty, had unsuccessfully urged his members to actively break the strike by doing the work of the striking ILDA workers. Communists must support this strike. They must expose the reactionary role of the corporatist state-the Iarnrod management and the trade union leadership- in seeking to undermine the living standards, conditions of work and organizations of the striking workers. Communists support the struggle by showing the working class in general that the ILDA struggle is their struggle. This is done by revealing the link that exists between this particular struggle and the struggle of the working class in general. Should the ILDA workers loose this struggle then this particular defeat is a defeat for the working class in general. It adds to the confidence of the state, the reactionary trade union leadership and the bourgeoisie itself rendering more prepared to further erode the living standards and working conditions of workers generally. On the other side it increases demoralisation among the working class discouraging workers from mounting opposition to the bourgeoisie and the corporatist state. It leads to a tightening of control by the pro bourgeois trade union bureaucracy over the organised working class rendering spontaneous opposition less possible. Communists must express solidarity with the ILDA striking workers to ensure that their strike is effective and by generalising their strike into general opposition in defence of its living standards and working conditions. Support must be expressed at all levels: There must be support in the form of propaganda; agitation; fund raising; sympatethetic strikes; joining the ILDA picket line and the organising of a defence militia; mass protests and meetings; the organising of solidarity groups in support of a settlement in which the demands of the train drivers are met. This is the only way in which the success of the strike can be both guaranteed and developed into a struggle to advance the class interests of the Irish working class. IlDA demands that the condition for its return to work is on the basis of its former conditions of work. ILDA must demand the democratic right to have a vote on the issue of the any proposals for new conditions of work. ILDA must demand that all three unions concerned jointly organise a ballot of all union rail drivers and that acceptance of the proposals for new conditions of work be accepted or rejected on the basis of majority voting. Before any proposals be put to the workers ILDA, NBRU and SIPTU must jointly form part of the committee appointed to draft new proposals. ILDA must urge NBRU and SIPTU members to call on its leadership to put an end to their alliance with the state and the bosses and to desist immediately from activity that undermines ILDA. It must call on the rank and file of these two unions to condemn the treachery of their leadership towards the ILDA workers. Karl Carlile Be free to check out our Communist Think-Tank web site at http://homepage.eircom.net/~beprepared/ Subscribe to Revcommy Mailing Community at rev-commies-subscribe-AT-eGroups.com --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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