Union-busting tactics 'creeping into Ireland'

American-style union-busting tactics are creeping into Ireland, a leading trade unionist warned today.

Brian McArthur, of the North American United Food and Commercial Workers’ union, said hostile employers were mimicking the actions of big US employers.

He told the Mandate biennial delegate conference in Killarney there was a dangerous race to the bottom in terms of wages and benefits.

Mr McArthur warned that companies in Ireland were adopting the tough anti-union stance as seen in the US. And he pointed to the case of Joanne Delaney, a Dunnes Stores worker who was sacked, and later reinstated, after wearing her Mandate union badge to work

He congratulated Ms Delaney and Mandate on standing up to Dunnes Stores following her sacking for wearing her union badge, and on subsequently being reinstated to her position after demonstrating outside some of the group’s stores.

Mr McArthur said: “Joanne was sacked for insisting that the company respect her fundamental right to freely associate.

"Could you imagine the human outcry if Dunnes Stores sacked Joanne because she was a woman, or because of her race? But somehow, it’s all right for Dunnes to sack Joanne for wearing the symbol of her union on her lapel?”

Ms Delaney also told the conference: “In their attempts to make me remove my union pin, they have only succeeded in establishing my absolute right to wear my pin and from now on, it will never be removed.

“And by attempting to bully and intimidate me and my fellow-workers throughout the Dunnes Stores chain, they have prompted a reaction which shows quite clearly that the Irish shopping public is more than capable of using their spending power to communicate their disgust.”

Ms Delaney said she was proud to wear her union badge and insisted it would never be removed.

“Dunnes Stores can’t take it from me and if the rumours of a Wal-Mart takeover of Dunnes are true, then they too should understand the way it works here in Ireland,” she said.

“This union is not for sale, this shop steward is not for sale and this Mandate pin stays exactly where it is.”

Dunnes Stores were unavailable for comment tonight.