Bin tax campaign seek union support

TRADE unionists nationwide are being urged to back the anti-bin tax campaign as Dublin prepares for a mass protest today outside Mountjoy Prison where Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins and his colleague, Councillor Clare Daly, are being held.

Both were sent to prison for a month on Friday for defying a High Court injunction, granted to Fingal Co Council, which sought to prohibit them from obstructing refuse collections in North Dublin.

Campaign spokeswoman and SP councillor Ruth Coppinger yesterday renewed her call to the trade union movement, in particular, and union members who were faced with the bin tax, to support the campaign.

“It is also your members’ civil liberties that are under threat, if this is extended to strikes and to other protests in the future,” said Ms Coppinger, who said the campaign would go on.

“Get down off the fence and support Joe and Clare, the abolition of the bin tax, and support this campaign. The idea that whole communities can be arrested and jailed is completely unsustainable.”

Already, one trade union leader, Technical Engineering and Electrical Union’s Eamon Devoy, has warned that industrial action, including a general stoppage across all sectors, could not be ruled out in the fight against the Government’s bin tax. The 37,000-strong TEEU is holding a national meeting of its shop stewards on Wednesday to discuss the issue of work stoppages. Mr Devoy, who is assistant general secretary, said they had committed themselves to opposing bin charges at the union’s annual conference earlier this year.