Picket on SU Premises?

Unshelved

SIPTU – EDUCATION BRANCH


TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN


Dear Members

As you will be aware there is a redundancy situation in the Students Union. Five of our members are involved in this.

At the LRC last Thursday no progress was made and the issue has now been referred for a full hearing of the Labour Court, which we have a date of 31st August 2006.

Two members notice runs out today (Monday 14th August) and we have requested that our members stay on the payroll until the Labour Court has had an opportunity to investigate the issue. We are still awaiting an official response from the Student Unions President. As of 1pm today I have had no official response to this request

A ‘lock-out’ situation may arise tomorrow (Tuesday 15th August) with two of our members in the Students Union Travel Shop (DUST).

If this turns out to be the situation there will be a picket placed on all Student Union premises inside the campus. We ask that you will support our members.

Thank You

Mary Leahy

Chairperson, SIPTU Section Committee & ICTU/TCD Group of Unions.
1pm, 14th August 2006

Will SU reps pass the picket?

Stargal

So what's happened? Is there a picket? And when it says 'all Student Union premises' - does that mean the shop, office and SU officers rooms in House 6? And the shop in the Hamilton?

Rob or Simon - has a decision been made by the sabbats on whether or not to pass a picket? I'm guessing that it would have to be a group decision, rather than letting each of you make up your own minds?

And last but not least, why had David not responded to the SIPTU request? Has he done so now?

Andrew 83

This is sensational, again does anyone know how many SU members if any have crossed the picket if there is one?

Stargal

Andrew 83 wrote:

This is sensational, again does anyone know how many SU members if any have crossed the picket if there is one?

I think 'sensational' may be too strong a word - there's no need to get all tabloid on us

Chakar

Was there a lockout today by the SU officers?

xeduCat

There wasn't a lockout today, but there are still various issues that have to be dealt with - watch this space. It's a black time for TCDSU.

Stargal

It's a black time for TCDSU.

Again, I think that's a little too dramatic. It's surprising that there was no resolution reached at the arbitration stage - I would have thought that it would have been in both parties interest not to go to the Labour Court. However at the moment it seems to be at a bit of a stand-off - until we see what happens next, it seems a little premature to be predicting such dark days for the Union.

I'm still surprised that David didn't respond to the SIPTU request that the workers involved stayed on the payroll until the matter is resolved though - that smacks of unprofessionalism.

Danger Bob

OK I think we need to take a big deep breath and relax...

1. SIPTU are NOT picketing TCDSU. They asked us to cover wages up as far as the Labour Court date on August 31st and we said yes. The staff were contacted before we had had a chance to even discuss this. It's been cleared up since around 5pm yesterday. I wish Unshelved had checked out the facts before he posted that up. Especially given that those workers started work at 9am this morning and he didn't post til 10:40. As such there was no picket line to cross.

2. Stargal, it was not unprofessional of David. In fairness, he's been incredibly professional throughout what has been a difficult situation. He has been more than accommodating to SIPTU and he did respond within good time. I'm pretty sure SIPTU had barely even contacted him by 1pm yesterday. If there's anything that's unprofessional, it's SIPTU neglecting to follow up their contact to staff with actual clarification of what's going on.

3. Daithi, it's not a 'black day' for TCDSU. C'mon now. It's not the nicest situation to be in but I don't think it's fair that you've equated it with some kind of doo***ay for the union. I'm sure there were bad times and good times while you were an officer too. This isn't even really news. It's just SIPTU overly-sensationalising what should have been a simple process and trying once again to hold TCDSU to ransom.

shay_562

Why is dooms-day blocked out by the swear filter?

Endymion

mcd ***

anyway, yea, a bad day for trinity.

Crash

shay_562 wrote:

Why is dooms-day blocked out by the swear filter?

I guess that Rob misspelt doo***ay

Danger Bob

&#231 wrote: »

I guess that Rob misspelt doo***ay

I beg your pardon! I do not misspell!

Is the word '***' a swear word now?

Crash

hrmm - weird. no idea why MSD is censored.

wheresthebeef

i'd have crossed that picket no problem. SIPTU are trying to ransack the SU like a bunch of pirates.

Endymion

How can the SU expect us to take sides unless they have exact details. I mean, what exactly does siptu want, what will the SU offer, and what are the reasons for rejecting siptu's demands.

It's a bit irish to critise Siptu for leaving it's members in the dark when all the SU can say is "we can't aford to pay it" . Thats bascially all your saying. And you know, its very transparent.

wheresthebeef, do you know more then the rest of us on what siptu are asking?

Crash

I still am of the stance that Jim Larkin would be rolling in his grave half of the time with Irish unions anyhow...

xeduCat

Danger Bob wrote:

3. Daithi, it's not a 'black day' for TCDSU.

I didn't say black day, I said black time. Indeed, probably too dramatic, whatever

But whether you think that SIPTU are angelic or satanic, sacking/laying off/firing/ditching/dispensing with services of (choose your term) five people and having this sort of public mess is a fairly miserable time for all concerned. Hardly fun, whether for officers, for people who have been sacked, or for reputation. I have many things to say about the actual situation (but have no intention of doing so in public at this stage), but even without having an expressed view, surely it's accurate to say that this is pretty bleak, if not necessarily without precedent...

Comhra....

I don't claim to know more than anyone on what is going on with the unions now and I actually haven't made up my mind as to which side I would be on, if I was to take sides.
SIPTU are standing up for their members, trying to get the best deal possible.
TCDSU are looking at their books and making offers according to their financial situation.

SIPTU and TCDSU don't agree with each other. Some times this happens in the real world! Unfortunately it's part of life. I'm not going to condone or criticise either side and I think this is one of those situations where it might be impossible to take sides. A lot of rumours have been going around and I don't think posting private e-mails on boards or maybe sensationalising something in a press release is going to help the situation at all.

At the end of the day if a picket had been put up infront of House 6 yesterday I'm afraid I would have crossed it. Not because I think SIPTU are evil or wrong or that I'm siding with the employer (TCDSU) but because I'm a student and I needed some help and advice from my union. Cathal made a good point, our union is there to help us, just like SIPTU is there to help its members, sometimes there is a conflict of interests and things need to be brought to court. Welcome to the real world.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

If those staff are fired, then surely they will not be allowed to picket inside Trinity as they are no longer staff. Trinity would have to give permission for them to hold a protest in college, surely?

Otherwise, you would just see random marches going through Trinity on their way from the GPO to the Dail.

Worth remembering, that students lose from this financially (in the event of extended redundancy payments coming from SU resources), it would be unfair if they also lost the use of their sabbaticals.

It would be quite odd for 'the management' (as the sabbats are, in this case) to respect the picket imposed by their striking employees! How bizzare!

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

xeduCat wrote:

I didn't say black day, I said black time. Indeed, probably too dramatic, whatever

But whether you think that SIPTU are angelic or satanic, sacking/laying off/firing/ditching/dispensing with services of (choose your term) five people

Maybe you could use the legal term for people losing their jobs, rather than the emotional terms? They tend to make the issue too inflamatory.

I'm not sure of the legal term myself, is it 'being made redundant'? Any legal-trained people out there?

xeduCat

Roundtower2 wrote:

Maybe you could use the legal term for people losing their jobs, rather than the emotional terms? They tend to make the issue too inflamatory.

I'm not sure of the legal term myself, is it 'being made redundant'? Any legal-trained people out there?

I used all the terms I could think of...terminated is the most precise and technical of the legal terms (because losing a job is the termination ahead of time of a contract, in the most traditional sense), but that sounds even nastier than sacked. There are lots of pretty and politically correct phrases out there (downsized being the ickiest).

Anyways, OT.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

my final OT: i agree with you about "downsizing". I would almost group it with "collateral damage" and "friendly fire" in terms of a horrible phrase specifically designed to cover up what is really happening.

Has there actaully been a picket?

cuckoo

The real question is - if there's a picket, will the USI banner be there?

But, seriously, i hope this situation doesn't come to that for anyone's sake. Speaking personally, were i wandering through TCD and was thinking of going into the shop in House 6 to buy something i wouldn't cross the picket. I probably wouldn't cross it to speak to one of the officers about something, but then i'm lucky in that i've never had a pressing, time dependent need to seek their counsel. And, were i in such a state of need - well, i don't think i'd be in the right emotional state to cross a picket anyway.

But....the officers of the Union can't hide behind "we're doing this for our members benefit, the union could be bankrupt!" (liberal paraphrasing there) if they don't follow through on such a laudable devotion to their members by giving them information about what is actually going on.

Andrew 83

Roundtower2 wrote:

my final OT: i agree with you about "downsizing". I would almost group it with "collateral damage" and "friendly fire" in terms of a horrible phrase specifically designed to cover up what is really happening.

'Restructuring', 'Ethnic cleansing', 'Flexibility'...

Budo.Judo.Kev

I don't give two ****s about a picket I need my turkish delight and Im getting it in the su shop.

wheresthebeef

the SU does have finite resources. We're not a charity. There is no such thing as a job for life. If those people wanted the same cushy number until they were 65, they should've gone into the civil service.

At this stage, they have been given an offer which has been described as significantly more than the minimum requirement. At this stage, i'd withdraw that offer, give them the bare minimum and wave goodbye. It's called redudancy for a reason. Those positions are redundant, thats not TCDSU's fault. The positions of Accomodation and Employment Officer are stupid when someone can find these things for themselves online. Maybe SIPTU should take a civil case against the Internet, for making organisations less people dependant.

Andrew 83

wheresthebeef wrote:

At this stage, i'd withdraw that offer, give them the bare minimum and wave goodbye.

I would guess that the Labour Court will rule that the SU up their payment from what's currently on the table (I don't know obviously but that is the way many of these type of cases go) so doing that would just be a further embarrassment and PR disaster.