Support building for Nurses' Protest on November 22nd

national | worker & community struggles and protests | press release Thursday November 02, 2006 20:32 by Paul Kinsella - CPSU Activist And An Post Worker (Strictly Personal Capacity!)! paulkinsella53 at yahoo dot com 53 Lorcan Grove, Santry, Dublin 9, Eire. 0851478100

CPSU to call on all members to support Nurses' Protest

The Executive of my Union, the Civil & Public Service Union (CPSU), at their Monthly Meeting held today, Thursday, November 2nd has fully backed the nurses' rally on 22nd November and are calling on all their members to support this protest. The CPSU will be issuing a Circular to all members in the next few days calling on all CPSU members to take part in the nurses’ protest. However, great as it is that the CPSU are mobilising all their members to support the nurses’ rally on November 22nd, we really need to get the rest of the Trade Union leaders up off their backsides. Now that the CPSU Executive will be officially supporting the nurses’ rally on 22nd November, this will put further pressure on the Executive of the Dublin Council of Trade Unions (DCTU) to officially support the nurses’ rally, and to organise a mass mobilisation of workers, similar to, if not bigger than the Irish Ferries ‘Day of Protest’ last December, and they will get the numbers as health is an emotive issue for many people!

Momentum is building rapidly for the mass rally that Ireland's 40,000 nurses are to hold in Dublin on 22nd November, which is ostensibly about their pay claim, which includes a 35-hour working week, a Dublin weighting allowance and pay anomalies with social care workers, but which is also a reflection of the nurses’ anger over the continuing chronic overcrowding in A&E and the continuing lack of hospital beds. Support is coming not just from the ‘usual suspects’, i.e. the ‘lefties’ and the ‘militants’, but also from much more conservative sections of society. For example, many Fianna Fáil supporters have said they will be joining the nurses’ protest, as have many of the more conservative and right wing elements in the Trade Union movement. This is going to be huge! It will be left to the likes of the DCTU and the other Trades Councils such as the Cork and Limerick Trades Councils, and groups of rank and file workers such as the Busworkers Action Group (BAG) to organise for this protest, as the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), is too wedded to their beloved so-called 'partnership', and have become so close to their true friends, the bosses and the Government that they won't support the nurses' rally on November 22. Indeed, ICTU have done everything to stab the nurses in the back, and to sabotage the Irish Nurses Organisation’s (INO’s) 'Enough Is Enough’ Campaign to end the scandal of people lying on hospital trolleys for days on end! Let’s go all out to support this mass rally in Dublin on Wednesday, November 22nd! This is something that we should rally everyone around, especially workers and the Trade Unions, and get them to support this protest on 22nd November. I think we all have at some stage; either personally or through a family member or relative, witnessed the chronic overcrowding in A&E and people lying on hospital trolleys for days on end. We still have plenty of time to organise properly for this, so I'm repeating my call for all workers to actively persuade their Unions to actively participate in the nurses' rally on 22nd November by getting motions passed by their Branches supporting the nurses' rally on November 22nd, and calling for their members to support this protest, as the CPSU has done.