The Government’s apparent decision to prioritise the private sector over people in the budget has left many workers struggling to make ends meet, according to Siptu’s general secretary-elect, John King.
If there is any upside to his generally downbeat assessment of the current landscape, it seems, it is that he believes there is fertile ground in which to grow trade union membership during the six year term he will start in March.
There are many challenges for the movement, he acknowledges, “but I think there are opportunities too for the unions to go out there to say: ‘We are the voice of working people,’ that we are capable of offering a vision of hope for a better Ireland, a better society, for proper pay and proper conditions. I think that’s where the space for us is.”
King has been around long enough to see the unions’ fortunes ebb and flow.
As the son of a lifelong Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) member who worked on the railways and in hotels, and a laundry worker who aged 15 had p
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