Archive for the ‘Labour issues’ Category

Eulogy – Dr Anne Boyle

Thursday, February 7th, 2019

We had the memorial service for my mother today - she died Monday, and the Irish tradition is to have a short few days of funereal rituals prior to the burial. In Mom's case - always the non-conformist - she asked for a non-religious service and a cremation, so the ...

Solidarity, unions, and the unemployed

Saturday, January 28th, 2012

This to me is the key section from George Lakey's piece in the Indypendent's blog: The Depression hit bottom in 1931. More people were jobless there than in any other Nordic country. Unlike in the U.S., the Norwegian union movement kept the people thrown out of work as members, even though ...

Marking Bloomsday

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

Two different suggestions today from Labour politicians about appropriate ways to mark Bloomsday. Joe Costello notes that Ireland has one of the lowest numbers of public holidays in Europe (9 per year, only exceeding the 8 of England and Wales) and suggests that making the day a holiday could provide ...

More DoE hypocrisy

Friday, November 26th, 2010

The Irish educational system has some strange features. One is that while school staff have their wages and conditions set - and paid for - by the Department of Education - they are not viewed, in law, as employees of the Department. Historically this has been used as a fudge ...

Communicating in a crisis – what the Irish government did wrong (part 1 of 80-180 billion)

Sunday, November 21st, 2010

When I talk with my students about PR I explain that the first rule of crisis communication is to 'fess up - get out in front of the rumours and claims, admitting the truth (in order that you can have a say in framing that truth). This week the Irish government ...

Lessons from Chile: workers’ rights, safety

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

Posted on the BBC's live coverage of the miners' rescue effort in Chile: Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, a former Ghanian miner and head of a miners' rights lobby group, tells BBC Focus on Africa that African mining could learn valuable lessons from Chile's experience. "It is a wake up call for all of ...

GEO wins tuition waiver security! Pickets suspended!

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

In a successful 2-day strike - the first by a union local at the University of Illinois in 10-years, and one of the largest in the history of graduate unions in the US - the GEO has secured a commitment to retain tuition waivers for graduate employees. The University had ...

Call to action: Call the U of I this Wednesday, and support graduate employees

Monday, November 9th, 2009

This Thursday, the University of Illinois Board of Trustees will meet in Springfield. Members of the GEO will be there to remind them of the urgency of reaching agreement on a fair contract. You may not be able to be in Springfield, but you can play your part in persuading ...

Un(der)employment figures worsen

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

There's something strange in the latest live register figures released today by the CSO. Not the increase of 87.1% in a single year - that, unfortunately, could be predicted. RTÉ's report mentioned that 71% of the increase was among men. [I should note that I'm using two sets of data here ...

Irish economy in crisis

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

It's not wholly surprising, but it seems possible that the meteoric rise of the Celtic Tiger could very soon be eclipsed by the current free-fall of the Irish economy. Following on from news that the economy fell into recession in the second quarter of 2008 (with two consecutive quarters of declining ...