Des Derwin Steps Up Bid for Vice Presidency of SIPTU

national | politics / elections | press release Monday January 19, 2004 18:31 by Des Derwin dderwin at gofree dot indigo dot ie

Dublin Shop Steward Challenges Union Establishment again.

SIPTU Candidate calls on Union to stop fearing the fight and get fully behind its members in Aer Rianta and CIE.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 19th January 2004

Des Derwin Steps Up Bid for Vice Presidency of SIPTU

Dublin Shop Steward Challenges Union Establishment again.

SIPTU Candidate calls on Union to stop fearing the fight and get fully behind its members in Aer Rianta and CIE.


Des Derwin, President of SIPTU’s Electronics and Engineering Branch, is today stepping up his campaign for election as Vice President of SIPTU. Balloting begins on Monday next, 26th January and continues until 20th February. In challenging the “mainstream” candidate, Dublin Regional Secretary, Brendan Hayes, Derwin says:

“If I was the Vice President of SIPTU I would be on the picket line at Dublin Airport with my members at 8.00 a.m. on Thursday and I’d be addressing the planned General Meeting for Dublin Bus workers at 11.00 that day!”

“All last year the unions shrunk from fighting the government’s plans to split up and ultimately privatise Aer Rianta and parts of CIE. SIPTU needs a strategy that will win, and a clear aim. There should be combined and sustained action by Aer Rianta and CIE members to obtain the withdrawal of the Minister’s plans. Talk of “guarantees” avoids the issue that the true guarantee of jobs, pay, conditions and the public interest is to retain these companies in public ownership. Repeated retreats into yet more talks avoid the inevitable confrontation with, or else surrender to, Seamus Brennan’s determination to proceed. Seamus Brennan is a fighter. We need to fight too.”

“SIPTU has a grave responsibility at this time. The strength of trade unionism in the whole country is at stake. What can the wrath of Bertie Ahern do if SIPTU spoils his EU party? He can’t lock us all up. What is this ‘special relationship’? The Budget attacked the most vulnerable with sixteen cuts in social welfare. IBEC are representing Oxygen which for three months has been engaged in a bitter dispute with SIPTU rather than grant union recognition.”

Derwin considers that the unions should not be in partnership with the rich and powerful. Members need to be able to lodge claims against their own employers when necessary. The unions should reclaim their independence.

Derwin wants to see democratic reform in SIPTU. He wants:

· To restore the members’ vote for the election of the National Executive Council, taken away in 2001.
· To change the Rule Book to allow Branches, and not just a small Rules Revision Committee, to propose amendments to the Rules.

Derwin is confident he will get a respectable vote. He feels his position as a shop floor worker gives him a unique viewpoint:

“I think I am more in touch with the general membership. Every day I work next to them. I hear their concerns, indeed I share most of them, and therefore if elected I shall be best equipped to represent them.”

And he is keen to put this pledge on the record:

“If elected I will accept only the average industrial wage. I am well able to carry out the duties of Vice President and I have demonstrated over the years that I can work with people of differing viewpoints within democratically decided policies and structures.”


For more information contact:
087 6229686 [email protected]

About Des Derwin

Who Is He ?

Des Derwin has been a member of SIPTU and the ITGWU since 1973. He works as an Assembly General Operative at a plastics factory in Finglas, Dublin, where he is a shop steward. He has a wide and varied industrial, negotiating and administrative experience gained from thirty years working in industry and over twenty-five serving on the Committee of the Electronics and Engineering Branch. He is familiar with the inner workings of SIPTU. Des is currently:

· President of the Electronics and Engineering Branch.
· A member of the Dublin Regional Executive Committee of the Union
· On the executive committee of the Dublin Council of Trade Unions.

Derwin has been an active delegate to successive National Conferences. He stood in the 2002 election for SIPTU General Secretary when he received 7% of the poll. He is not a member of any political party.

What Does He Stand For?

· An end to social partnership and a return to trade union independence.

· Democratic control of SIPTU by its members

· No use of Benchmarking to police individual members and groups.

· An end to Greenfield, no-strike deals, such as that recently agreed with the LUAS operator.

· A National Minimum Wage of €8 per hour.

· Action to bridge the gap between the average earnings of women and men.

· Statutory union recognition and a major recruitment drive.

· A strong SIPTU and ICTU campaign for improved health and social services and against health and social welfare cuts and double-taxation service charges.

· An increase in statutory redundancy payments to three weeks per year of service.

· Forceful and clear opposition to privatisation, not just seeking ‘guarantees’ in privatised companies. Combined and determined action in CIE and Aer Rianta until the Minister’s plans to split them up are dropped.

· Union support for bin workers who wish to collect all rubbish bins, including the bins of those protesting against the bin tax.