Fairness and Decency for Dunnes Workers – Support their Campaign

by pbp Wed Apr 01, 2015 23:03

The strike on Holy Thursday by 6,000 Dunnes Stores workers is extremely important for Irish workers. The stakes are so high that Dunnes Stores management have been trying to intimidate staff for the past few weeks to try and break the strike. They have been calling individual workers into ‘communications meetings’ threatening some with a cut in hours if they go on strike, promising others full-time contract if they don’t.

This strike centres on Dunne’s use of low-hour contracts. Thousands of its staff are guaranteed only 15 hours a week. They might get 30 hours one week, 15 the next. The 15 hours might be spread over two days, or five days. It means the majority of Dunnes workers have no guarantee of a decent weekly wage. It means they can’t get loans, mortgages. If they have only a guarantee of 15 hours, they can’t get social welfare or family income supplement as you have to work a minimum of 19 hours per week to be entitled to these. It means that many Dunnes workers cannot guarantee they can feed themselves or their families each week.

Dunnes Stores has a particularly nasty management and is determined to ignore demands of the union Mandate or to go to the labour court.

This dispute has been a long time coming and the 6,000 workers staging this stoppage on Thursday are bravely facing down threat and intimidation from their bosses.

Pickets will be placed at all 109 Dunnes Stores branches on Thursday. The workers must be supported. We ALL need them to win this.

Over 100,000 workers across Ireland are on zero-hour or low-hour contracts like those used to cow and intimidate Dunnes workers. The Fine Gael-Labour Government allow companies like Dunnes to use these contracts. These contracts must be thrown out of Irish workplaces and this Government must be thrown out of office.

Decency for Dunnes Stores Workers! Decency for all Irish Workers

by anon Thu Apr 02, 2015 13:10

Staff and students from the National University of Ireland Maynooth have visited the local Dunnes Stores workers on strike to show their solidarity. The demontration was organised by SIPTU, IFUT (Irish Federation of University Teachers), and FemSoc. Many passing drivers can be heard honking in agreement.

Our photographer on the scene says they have brought Easter eggs for the striking workers. All such gestures of generosity and support are appreciated.

Approximately 6,000 Dunnes workers are on strike today all across the island fighting for very basic improvements in their standard of living - decent pay, stable hours, better treatment from management. This has been met by the Dunnes management by a refusal to engage with the Mandate trade union and intimidation (including threats of being fired, having hours cut or changed, facing disciplinary action), and misinformation.

by Philip Ferguson Fri Apr 03, 2015 02:43

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/04/03/6000-dunnes-store...land/

by flugelrod Fri Apr 03, 2015 17:26

I worked in dunnes in 2010 i was given on average from 4 -11 hours per week,it would fluctuate to about that,i would be on call,and would have to drop everything literally at the last minute to be at their back and call..

I was harrassed by over zealous managers,i was bullied,overwatched and intimidated,but because i had not being working there a long time,i didnt have a case for unfair dismissal.

Im glad im out of there,and i wouldn't wish dunnes on anyone,free market capitalism is a disease,the constant need to be competitive,and destroying the planet,is not what we need,there has to be a rethink a new ideaology,not communism but not capitalism either..

by jobless Mon Apr 06, 2015 12:15

Think about how many multi millions dunnes sucker up from each community each week,they don't even publish their accounts,citing that it is ''sensitive information''....So we don't even get to see what the big wigs in dunnes earn!

Yet they have lobbyists embedded in government,and cannot even be bothered with all the billions they earn each week to provide a stable income to a dunnes worker,which would in turn give money back to the economy by way of a taxable income job,giving revenue back to our government,to fix roads or provide much needed services in deprived areas and the countryside..

Shame on dunnes stores! I worked there back a few years myself,and they were doing zero hours then too,nobody complained,bullying was commonplace on the job...

Management thought they were the bees knees,they let their status get to their heads,it was really cut-throat to work there..

by sourgrapes Mon Apr 06, 2015 20:35

Just heard on the grapevine and also had this confirmed by reading the sunday business post this week that margaret heffernan,is knocking out three houses to merge into one,she already has an indoor swimming pool and cinema,all courtesy of the government subsidized zero hour contracts that dunnes upper management employs..I hope she enjoys the trappings of her wealth(of course gulit free as she lacks a conscience)off the backs of zero hours workers who will never be able to get a mortgage,consigend to the scrap-heap on the jobs market,and probably a life time of unemployment after the zero hour contracts are done,ie no job in sight,or as promised and waved like a carrot in front of a donkeys nose by dunnes...

by jesus Tue Apr 07, 2015 10:40

This is the modern world of capitalism, where workers get f*ck all and it all gets hoovered up to the top upper management, this is the way most companies under capitalism are structured.

The problem is capitalism, when you look af the fact that the water tables in california are drying up, we have to ask, WHY???

Its literally all down to capitalism, which makes way for industrial farming, all that water in california was re-directed, used to irrigate land with lettuce growing on it, they even sell lettuce in the winter(off season), how crazy is that?

Capitalism is all about sales, in fact its sales on steroids, capitalism does not care about the destruction of the planet or the drying up of water tables.

Look at the deserts created in the middle east and africa, all down to overfarming, driven by greed and overpopulation.

If we are to save the planet and give workers better rights, we need to end capitalism..

by cathal Thu Apr 09, 2015 11:18

never worked in dunnes myself but they seem to have a very nasty psychotic management that doesn't value people yet earn billions each year off the backs of free work slaves.