Polish workers lead Dublin wildcat strike

Submitted by Anon on 6 May, 2007 - 5:37

On 27 April a wildcat strike broke out in Musgrave warehouses in Dublin. The whole crew, around 80 people, both immigrant and natives, stopped their work after successive acts of discrimination by the management. Around 50% of the workforce in the warehouse are immigrants, officially employed by work agencies, and face continous discrimination – worse working conditions, lower pay and fewer rights.

On the day of the strike, a new work schedule showed workers’ breaks were cut short, expecting them to work for four hours in a row, in temperatures of around 4 degrees Celsius! At the same time, contract workers kept their right to a break every hour.

The same day, one of the agency workers was fired because he couldn't find a pallet with the article that he was meant to distribute. Although that the mistake, as it was noticed, was made by the manager, he stuck by his decision, and sent the worker home for no reason.

This discrimination was too much for the workers to take. At around 7pm the agency workers stopped working and moved to the canteen. After a few minutes the Irish workers joined them, loudly showing their support for the strike.

All Musgrave's Irish workers are unionised into the SIPTU union, with some Polish agency workers involved in the IWU. Management and the SIPTU rep tried to convince workers to come back to work, threatening them with the illegality of the strike and potential loss of jobs.

The strike ended just after midnight with plans to continue if equal conditions hadn’t been implemented by 1 May.

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