I Support The Dublin Bus Workers

I fully support the Dublin Bus workers in their fight to maintain a decent standard of living for themselves and their families. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but it really is still hard to take the abject whinging and sniping from ordinary people who think collective action in protection of wages and conditions is some kind of outrage against natural justice.

What, you think the IMF wants you to live a long and prosperous life? You think the ECB is on your side? You think the weekend, paid holidays and sick leave are gifts from above, from the likes of Denis O’Brien and Dermot Desmond and John Bruton? You think Leo Varadkar finds it hard to sleep at night because you struggle with your bills?

Things such as weekend, paid holidays and sick leave were fought for and won through long years of struggle on the part of working people. The thrust of public policy in Ireland, as elsewhere, is toward the destruction of the social fabric, in the interests of the wealthiest in society. The goal is to crush the power of organised labour, privatise public services and roll back the social gains that took decades of effort on the part of working people to achieve. This is a pattern we have seen time and again, in the US, in the UK, in Greece, in Spain, and presently, in Ireland.

It takes resolve and determination to stand up to that, and I have nothing but contempt for the sniveling hyenas who think other people’s wages and conditions should be destroyed simply because they themselves have no rights at work and because they think the best way of saving their own hide is to ape their boss.