Ireland’s emergency service workers abandon SIPTU union - failure to defend members

[Hannah Bell]

Hundreds of emergency service workers in Ireland have left the public service union, SIPTU, because of its refusal to defend its members.

Two organisations, the National Ambulance Service Representation Association (NASRA) and the Irish Fire and Emergency Service Association (IFESA), have been established. They are reported to have received hundreds of application forms.

Moves to break with SIPTU were first reported last year, following SIPTU leader Jack O’Connor’s decision to repudiate strike plans by firefighters at Dublin airport... As with the rest of the public sector, the firefighters had just suffered a 6.5 percent reduction in their wages through the government’s imposition of a hike in workers’ pension contributions.

Workers at Dublin Fire Brigade also raised similar frustrations. A spokesman in 2009 said, “The firefighters feel they have been sacrificed by the union hierarchy and that O’Connor is holding them back in their attempts to resolve their problems.”

In the intervening year, SIPTU, along with the other largest public sector union IMPACT, has accepted and sought to implement the 2010 Croke Park Agreement with government and public sector management.

This includes a pay freeze, a four-year strike ban and major rationalisations in all areas of public services.

In response to the anger building up amongst emergency service workers, a number of shop stewards and a former SIPTU official opened negotiations with the PNA. On November 15, following an 85 percent vote by PNA members in favour of the ambulance workers’ and firefighters’ sections joining the psychiatric nurses’ union, NASRA and IFESA were publicly announced.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/irel-j03.shtml