Irish Ferries - positive end in sight

RTE story covering the likely end of the dispute between SIPTU and Irish Ferries.

Blogged about this a week or two back, and it looks like the union have secured a deal in this landmark dispute which means that although Irish Ferries will flag its ships in Cyprus, pay and conditions will be underpinned by a binding legal agreement under Irish law. This will mean a massive wage-hike for the migrant workers that the company has hired to crew its services.

Existing Irish Ferries staff will see their pay and conditions maintained, and crew ratios will be set higher than those originally put forward by Irish Ferries.

You can read SIPTU's statement on the agreement here, and a comment from TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber here.

As Brendan Barber points out this dispute was 'more than a local difficulty' - a fact borne out by the support that SIPTU and the Irish Congress have received from around the world, including the UK, and that up to 100,000 people took to the streets of Dublin (as well as up to 75,000 in Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford, Athlone, Sligo and Rosslare Harbour), to show their distaste at a major Irish company trying to get a head start in the 'race to the bottom'.