SIPTU will engage in industrial action whenever and wherever across the private sector in order to secure for workers their right to collectively bargain, SIPTU Deputy General Secretary, Greg Ennis, told the Biennial Delegate Conference.
He said: “Private sector workers pay their taxes, have cost of living, health care, and housing challenges, but do not have the benefit of collective bargaining and are being discriminated against in my opinion. In an Ireland of 2025, this is unacceptable, and it should be a wake-up call for all trade unions.”
Highlighting the dispute at Carroll’s Cuisine in Tullamore, Ennis said: “This will set the tone moving forward, when employers fail to engage meaningfully with SIPTU.”
He said that the crisis-ridden FAI may be the next workplace to face industrial action in light of its management’s threat to implement widespread redundancies.
He added: “SIPTU will not hesitate to take strike action in defence of our members’ jobs within the FAI, should talks not deliver an acceptable outcome.
“In the FAI, the ‘Our Union, Our Team’ campaign, while falling short on securing collective bargaining, had delivered a foothold to influence future decisions within the Association. However, this has since been overtaken by the outsourcing of key strategic decisions, which is designed to give those in the FAI leadership cover for compulsory redundancies.”
Ennis described the recent closure of Football Youth Training Programmes as “wholly unacceptable,” highlighting that members in the sector “will not hesitate” to defend their jobs.
He concluded: “We will continue our campaign to conclude the unfinished business of Connolly and Larkin, as right was, is, and will always be on our side and the side of all working people, organising within their trade unions, across the Island of Ireland.”