SIPTU has called for support for its members in Carroll’s Cuisine in Tullamore, County Offaly, who will commence industrial action this week in an attempt to achieve the right to collectively bargain and warned of similar action in all workplaces where employers fail to engage meaningfully with the Union.
Addressing more than 300 delegates at the SIPTU Biennial Delegate Conference in Galway, SIPTU Deputy General Secretary for the Private Sector, Greg Ennis, 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: “We will commence industrial action later this week in an attempt to achieve the right to collectively bargain and 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.
“SIPTU will not hesitate to take strike action in defence of our members jobs within the FAI, should the talks on 19th November not deliver an acceptable outcome.”
He added: “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.”