Ireland: The Importance of Union Membership.

Ok so kind of an important one. Who here is a member of a Trade Union? When was the last time you were approached about joining a Trade Union? And of course the other question, Why should you join a Trade Union?

Well what has prompted this post? Well RTE reports this afternoon that figures just released from the CSO for 2007, show a continued drop in Union membership to just under 30% of employees. This reflects a trend which started in 2003. Now regardless of the ins and outs of the economy and to what extent employers allow unions to flourish within their organisations, I honestly cannot remember when the last time was a Trade union approached me about signing up. This then begs the question, Why should I bother or even worry about the dwindling membership of the trade union movement in this country.

Quiet simply put, Why will I be joining SIPTU or another union properly when I leave college? Because I recognise the importance of being in a Trade Union when I am in the "Real World" for the defence of Worker's rights. Things may have changed alot in the last number of years with the advancement of Employment Equality Legislation, the Equal Status Acts, the Equality Tribunal or the Labour Court or even the Social Partnership process. All well and good but alot of these advances have come partly from ourselves and also from Europe: When we brought in the ESA in 1997, it was the most progressive list of Equality statues, 9, in Europe, which has provided the basis for the most extensive list which now exists in Slovenia.

However, just to refer to something I mentioned above Is it time for Unions to become a little bit more proactive in acquiring new members? Yes fair enough I am sure there are resource issues etc. but surely resources well spent on acquiring new workers dues will help the Union movement in the long run. Actually as I think of it, I can remember the last time I had a Union interaction, however I was not approached personally even though I was available for discussion. That particular interaction left a little bit of a polarised workplace for a couple of weeks which kind of created a definite Manager/Worker role which was quiet sad because a Union in that particular situation would have been quiet handy.

A weak Trade Union movement is bad for all of us. The powers that be, may not necessarily like to have a unionised workforce and it may be that you never need to use your Trade Union for anything in your workplace But in building up a solid Trade Union movement again, we can prevent the slip back and the encroachments of people's employment rights by the powers that be. So the moral of the Story: JOIN A UNION!


Links:

• SIPTU
• UNITE
• IMPACT
• Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) (www.ictu.ie) Note: ICTU is the umbrella organisation for unions operating in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. British unions operate in Northern Ireland, as do some all-Ireland unions, and some Northern Ireland-only unions.
• Wikipedia List of Unions across the World.
  

Ire: Ambulance Service Strikes

Ok, its kinda a big deal. When an integral part of our primary response teams within the Health network decides it is going on strike, you can be guaranteed that there will be a few more unnecessary deaths within the country because they will not be able to get to an appropriate Hospital in time. SIPTU has served strike notice on the HSE this afternoon. According to the RTE report, it "represents 1200 emergency ambulance personnel" but also admits that if this strike action goes ahead "some 999 services may be affected if the action goes ahead.". The dispute is centered around new contracts for three private ambulance services for "non-emergency patients" signed last December. SIPTU claim its part of a further privatization lesson in the Health service.

Now speaking as someone who has had to avail of an Ambulance service on more than one occasion-most notably last year when I was brought out of the car crash on a spinal board, I can honestly say I was very grateful for the oxygen to calm me down before I got the real drugs! The possibility of 1200 Ambulance drivers going on strike across the country is kind of worrying!

Personally whilst I can see both sides of the argument, and I am tending to go down the SIPTU route and believe that overall it this will probably contribute to the further privatization of the Health service. That argument about the use of Public lands for Private Hospitals otherwise known as "Co-Location" is however, for another day. Whilst some public services can be found in the marketplace, the provision of the Ambulance service is not one which I welcome being privatized. We had a very similar Air Ambulance service up until the mid 1990s. We now only have 3-4 major bases which are operated by the Irish Coastguard now. The rest of the stations are manned by Private operators between a specified time.

Despite the HSE's assertations that this is for non-emergency patients, I don't believe them. If they were serious about their patient tactics, they would have not gone behind the backs of Unions in these talks and would have actually dealt with these issues, instead of having a now plausible situation of 1200 Ambulance drivers going on Strike. I hope that I will not need an ambulance over the course of that strike but unfortunately we know that somebody will. Hopefully it won't be too late for them.

• RTE News.