Gerry Adams has been deepening Sinn Fein's links with the southern Irish party Fianna Fail, currently in power in Dublin. The party is bankrolled by some of the island's most exploitative capitalists. As southern workers radicalise, Sinn Fein may regret its choice of partners. [JD] Ireland has the fastest growing building sector in the European Union. £7 billion was invested in 1997. The industry has trebled in size since 1988, it now employs 100,000. Despite this year's pay rises for skilled workers, the terms and conditions faced by the majority of building workers have actually worsened Britain Health and (for some) Britain's Health and Safety Commission has reported an 18% increase in the number of warnings issued. Shaun Cohen reports that the number of prosecutions initiated by the HSE increased 11% between 1997 and 1998, of which 77% resulted in a conviction. The average fine rose 25% to £3,886 (US$6,225).
The report doesn't say how many of the 29,320 major work place accidents were investigated. The lower the rate of investigation the greater the level of corporate immunity.
In 1996/97 the rate of investigation into major workplace injuries was less than 10%. Only 7 of the 67 blindings, 281 of the 1,006 amputations and 135 of the 622 burns were investigated investigated.
over the period of the boom.
In 1998 alone, 18 workers were killed on the sites, and scores more seriously injured. When a worker dies as a result of a safety lapse, the maximum that can be awarded against a contractor is £1,000.
According to a union representative "It's cheaper for a developer not to put up a proper safety structure and just keep paying f500 or a f1,000 every time someone gets killed, and that's what has been happening." been happening.
In 1997 a high court judge called the biggest developer of luxury departments in the country, Zoe Developments, "a disgrace to the construction industry."
Two building workers were recently sent to prison after a protest against the crudely exploitative contracting-out scheme. This scheme, recently developed by the main building employers, cuts costs by employing workers only indirectly - by small contractors or telephone agents.
Usually the worker starts as an employee of a major contractor, but within a few weeks he is told that if he wants to keep working he should re-register with a sub-contractor or even as self-employed.
Union officials estimate that by reemploying workers as individuals the main employers have cut their wage bills by about 12%. They also avoid paying any PRSI (national insurance), contributions to the industry pension scheme, or any holiday or sick pay.
The two bricklayers were imprisoned on October 21 for picketing the site of O'Connor Construction on the site of the old British embassy after the firm had obtained an court injunction.
The men are part of the rank and file group Building Workers Against the Black Economy, set up in late 199.
The picketing began in late August safety
There are no figures about the number of companies and directors being prosecuted. But data from the West Midlands Health & Safety Advice Centre shows that between 1990 and 1992 only 5% of major injuries resulted in prosecutions.
In 1996-97 only 15% of the 679 deaths led to prosecutions under health and safety legislation. Somewhat disappointing, since even the HSE blames management failure for 70% of workplace deaths.
Of the 1,654 prosecutions initiated by the HSE, only six senior officers were charged. Althoug during the same period it prosecuted 24 workers. * Source: Health and Safety Commission Annual Report, November 1998, as reviewed in Socialist Outlook
after O'Connor's began sub-contracting work to a 'subbie', E. Moran Ltd
For the men's court appearance, hundreds of building workers downed tools at 25 sites across Dublin and converged on the court waving placards like "Free the workers - jail the bankers"
Simultaneous solidarity protests by building workers occurred in Limerick, Waterford, Cork and Kilkenny. All the solidarity action was illegal and went against the advice of the Union leadership, which condemned both the original action and the solidarity activity.
When the men were imprisoned (for contempt of court, hundreds of workers brought traffic on Dublin's O'Connell street to a halt. Later that evening there were clashes with the police outside Mountjoy prison. The two men have served their sentence, but the struggle to end the exploitation on the sites is set to become more intense.
Workers in Dublin are currently picketing three Sisk sites against the victimisation of two shop stewards. A small rank and file group is effectively arguing for action beyond the control of the union bureaucracy. New period seems that a new period deepening class conflict is developing in southern Ireland. A comfy future with the type of social partnership arrangements favoured by the bureaucracy is looking unlikely.
The ideology of the prosperous Celtic Tiger has raised material expectations. Thousands of workers are fed up seeing the bosses getting rich and arrogant on the back of their continual pay restraint and tougher working conditions.
The state is boasting of its biggest-ever current account financial surplus, Unemployment: Europ The Greek committee of the European Marches against Unemployment, Marginalisation and Job Precarity organised the movement's first "International Summer School" in the northern resort of Chalkidiki in September 1998.
The 130 Greek participants included trade unionists, representatives of political parties and leaders and activists in the country's various social movements. The 40 foreign participants included activists from Turkey, Macedonia, Serbia, and across the Balkans, as well as from Western Europe.
The opening press conference testified to the new dynamic created by the unemployed movement: it was attended by representatives of the left-wing of PASOK (the ruling, socialist party) and the
(over £1bn). And at the same time it is cutting back on public spending on health and pubic services. Euro preparations mean cuts
A recent IMF directors' report warned the Irish government not to start dipping into its budget surplus, since the state treasury will need large fiscal reserves to enable it to manoeuvre within the new Euro single currency regime.
Already a major row has broken out at Galway Hospital over the state's refusal to spend any of its surplus to prevent the closure of two vital wards. EuroMarches '99 - Co The European Marches (organiser of the mass demonstration in Amsterdam in '97) is calling another major protest (50,000 or more) in Cologne in June to coincide with the Summit of European Union Heads of Government.
Marchers will set out from every region of Germany and from other European cities including Prague, Luxembourg. and Paris, to converge on Cologne for the demo. There will be a (1,000 strong) march from Brussels to Cologne.