A-Infos (en) Ireland, Dublin, Strike support march shuts down MTL - Show your support for the MTL strikers

Monday August 10th: gather at 10.30am at either Ray's Shop, Sean Moore Road, Ringsend or 
St Joseph's School, East Wall Road ---- We will join up at the East Link bridge and then 
march together to support the strikers at the MTL depot. ---- Organised by the Dublin Port 
Workers Support Group ---- The dispute is over forced redundancies and attempts to make 
SIPTU dockers at Marine Terminals Ltd sign new contracts, which cut their pay by 14%-18& 
and increase the anti-social hours they will have to work. They were told to sign or be 
dismissed. The workers refused to be bullied into submission and pickets have been in 
place since July 3rd. ---- Scabs have been brought in from the North and Scotland. An 
injunction against effective pickets has been imposed by the High Court.

"The Workers Solidarity Movement* (which is part of the Dublin Port Workers Support Group) 
is calling on everyone who is free next Monday to come along and support the strikers. An 
injury to one is the concern of all"

     SIPTU members at the MTL depot in Dublin Port have been on strike since the beginning 
of July, resisting forced redundancies and pay cuts. The company shipped in scabs from the 
North and Britain on day one to steal the dockers? jobs, and also got a High Court 
injunction preventing effective picketing. The Port Workers Support Group (local trade 
union & community activists, including the Workers Solidarity Movement) held its second 
march of solidarity today (Monday August 10th). Joe King reports:

     ?About 150 of us, including many of the Thomas Cooke workers who came with their 
union banner, gathered outside the school on East Wall Road. There were strikers? families 
and neighbours, and supporters from further afield. Another 100 marched from Ringsend, and 
we met up at the East Link bridge. We then marched to the MTL depot and not a single truck 
got in or out for the hour and a half of our protest.

?Outside the depot we heard short speeches by striker John Walsh, Thomas Cooke worker 
Antoinette Shevlin, East Wall community activist Joe Mooney, SIPTU official Oliver 
McDonagh, UNITE?s British dockers? delegate Mike Gibbons, Alan MacSimoin of the WSM, Cllr 
Matthew Waine of the Socialist Party, the Chairperson of the Croke Park Residents? 
Association, People Before Profit?s Cllr Richard Boyd Barrett and Sinn Fein TD Aonghus O 
Snodaigh.

?Alan MacSimoin reminded us that there is a reason why we have ?an injury to one is the 
concern of all? on so many of our union banners. He said it?s ?not just that we are nice 
people ? and we are! ? there is another good reason. If one of the port companies manages 
to impose an 18% wage cut, the other eight firms will have to try the same unless they 
want to be at a competitive disadvantage. We all have a real interest in resisting the 
race to the bottom.

?He went on to point out that ?while the bosses can count on the support of the law, they 
are a small minority. Working people are the great majority and by force of numbers can 
win. That starts with us convincing our families, friends and work colleagues of the 
benefits of solidarity.??

?The only controversial note of the morning was when Sinn Fein displayed a banner 
attacking ?British scabs? and supporting ?Irish workers?. Several of the speakers pointed 
out that there are Irish scabs in MTL too, and that where you are from or what religion 
you have is irrelevant. Going by the applause, just about everyone in the crowd agreed 
that being British is not the problem, being a scab is.?

Jack London, (author of adventure novels like White Fang and Call of the Wild) came up 
with a pretty good description of this creature:

After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful 
substance left with which he made a scab.??

A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a combination backbone 
of jelly and glue.

Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.??

When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the 
devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out.??

-----------------

The Support Group can be contacted at supportportworkers@dublin.ie
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* Anarchist organization
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