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LUAS workers 'spitting on the constitution says right wing nut
Date: Thu, 2016-03-03 19:01
George Hook doesn't take kindly to workers standing up to a multi-billion euro company for a bigger slice of the astronomical profits that those workers themselves generate.
LUAS workers are currently demanding better pay and conditions in the form of increased leave, overtime pay, increased lump sum payments to family members in case of death at work, pensions and bonuses. The cost of these is estimated to be around €3.5 million over a 5 year contract, which is dwarfed by Transdev's 2014 revenues, coming in at €6.6 billion globally.
That doesn't sound unreasonable considering that these same workers, and the 83,000 other Transdev employees like them around the world are the ones who generate this revenue.
Workers say they plan to strike on a number of days including St. Patrick's Day and during the 1916 Centenary state celebrations which has got George in a huff. He went so far as to say the workers were 'spitting on the constitution' and that they (somehow) 'owed their jobs' to the 1916 rebels.
George recommends a solution. Fire everyone, just like the great right wing icon Ronald Reagan did in 1981 with the PATCO air traffic control workers. That incident was a watershed moment in the class war in the US. According to Alan Greenspan, (Federal Reserve chairman in 2003) employers took it as a signal that they could engage in these aggressive anti-working class tactics too.
Any attempts by the working class to claw back some of the wealth stolen from us by capitalists must be supported. Some anti-striker propaganda seen recently attempts to drive a wedge between these strikers and less well paid workers in a 'you should be happy with what you get', kind of argument but we should reject and counter that propaganda.
During this time of increasing working class militancy, we must ensure that any effort by our class to secure better pay and conditions, emergency housing, better healthcare, etc. must be defended and supported. If we are going to build a better world, we had better remember who our real enemies are, and they aren't the striking LUAS workers.