Workers' Rights Must Be Respected

national | worker & community struggles and protests | press release Friday December 05, 2008 13:02 by éirígí PRO press at eirigi dot org

éirígí chairperson Brian Leeson has called on the management of retail stores Aldi and Lidl to reverse their current policy of non-recognition of trade unions within their workplaces.

The companies are currently expanding in Ireland and have publicly stated their anti-union policies.

Leeson said: “Both government and employers have worked assiduously over the last number of years to promote an unhealthy level of disrespect for trade unions in this country.

“The notion has been deliberately promoted that workers have no need to organise in defence of their interests. However, events have made it quite clear that there is as great a need as ever for people to join trade unions and organise in their work places.

“At present, the Belfast & District Trades Union Council are campaigning for the reinstatement of a young worker who was outrageously sacked on the grounds that she was pregnant. Without the limited protection that unions provide in the context of an unjust economic system, the law of the jungle would surely reign supreme.”

Leeson continued: “This is why it is essential that the Irish employees of both Aldi and Lidl have the right to join a trade union of their choice. No company, whether indigenous or multinational, should be allowed to ride roughshod over the rights of Irish citizens.

“Some unscrupulous employers have calculated that, in the current climate of economic crisis, workers will feel too insecure to demand their entitlements. Pressure should be placed on companies like Aldi and Lidl from a wide range of groups in order to disabuse them of the notion that they can make a profit at any cost.”
ENDS.

Note to editor: éirígí is an Ireland-wide, socialist republican political party, formed in 2006 to provide a vehicle for the national, social and economic liberation of the people of Ireland.