Report on yesterday's postal worker's March

national | worker & community struggles and protests | news report Thursday December 09, 2004 22:04 by Paul Kinsella - CPSU An Post Branch Committee paulkinsella53 at yahoo dot com 53 Lorcan Grove, Santry, Dublin 9, Eire 085-1478100

What an amazing turnout! No one in their wildest dreams could have foreseen the massive turnout for yesterday's postal workers March organised as part of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) "National Day of Action". Over 8,000 according to this morning's newspapers An Post workers and their families took part in what the Gardaí described as the largest March in Dublin since the Anti war Marches last year. I will try and give as good an account as I can of how yesterday went but ye'll have to forgive me if parts of this are a bit sketchy and patchy as due to the huge crowd I was near the end of the March on Molesworth Street.

I still can't get over yesterday. As arranged members of the Civil & Public Service Union (CPSU) assembled on the island outside the GPO at 12.45pm just as the main March was approaching with Marchers making their voices heard especially when they passed the offices of the Chief Executive of An Post, Donal Curtin, based on the 1st floor of the GPO where the blinds were pulled down and closed as the March approached the GPO. Marchers made their feelings felt loud and clear in no uncertain terms to the An Post management led by Curtin and Larry Donald another hatchet man brought over from the ESB about the disgraceful way that An Post staff have been treated since Curtin and co took over in An Post over such things as the closure of the SDS and the manner in which it was announced, workers heard about it first on the radio, and the nonpayment of the 1st 2 phases of the Sustaining Progress (SSP) pay agreement now worth 5% to any of us, and even more shamefully the nonpayment of the SSP agreements to An Post's pensioners among many other issues. Chants of "What do we want?" "Curtin out!" "When do we want it?" "Now!" and "Dempsey!" "We don't want your Curtin here!" filled the air as well as many whistles. Also passersby were generally supportive of the workers cause and there were many beeps of support from passing traffic such such as cars, buses and taxis. All in all a very colourful and lively and good humoured March. To give you some indication of the size of the March we were still on the island at the GPO at 1pm, a 1/4 hour after the first of the Marchers had passed us by 7 abreast and there was still no sign of the end of the March still 7 abreast so at this stage we joined the March. To give you some more scale of the size of the March as if ye don't ned anymore reminding when we reached the junction of College Green and Westmoreland Street about 10 minutes later we looked back at O'Connell Bridge and there were still banners coming across O'Connell Bridge. We then proceeded on down Nassau Street, up Nassau Street and into Molesworth Street but we actually had difficulty fitting everyone into Molesworth Street due to the sheer size of the crowd. At this stage of number of speakers, both trade union and political addressed the crowd. Again as I say ye'll have to forgive me if parts of this are a bit sketchy and patchy, but due to the sheer volume of the crowd it was very hard to hear who a lot of the speakers were and what they were saying but I'll have a stab at it anyway. Among the speakers (in no particular order) were Steve Fitzpatrick, CWU (definite), Steve McDonagh, CWU (definite), Eoin Ronayne, Deputy General Secretary of the CPSU with specific responsibilty for An Post (definite), Joe Higgins TD, Socialist Party (definite), and also speaking on behalf of the Independent Dáil Deputies Finian McGrath, Tony Gregory, Paudge? Conolly? (Cavan Hospital Campaign) and Séamus Healy, and Jack O'Connor, SIPTU (definite), also Séan Crowe, Sinn Féin (not completely sure about this), Tommy Broughan TD (also not completely sure about this), somebody from the Green Party (sorry couldn't get their name), and possibly David Beggs (not very sure about this) from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU). Sorry I could really hear much of what was being said because we were so far back down Molesworth Street. The rally didn't start winding down till 2.20pm. All in all a great day and it's great to see that we can still get numbers out onto the streets when the union leaders bother their ass and hopefully this will give other groups of workers in CIE, the former Aer Rianta, Aer Lingus and the ESB the courage to force their union leaders to defend their livelihoods from attack. The one great regret was that we couldn't get the Irish Postmasters Union (IPU), representing all the sub post offices to join yesterday's protest due to some bad feeling between the IPU and the CWU arising from industrial action by the CWU earlier this year, which would have made the March much bigger again. Lets be under no illusion, if it were left to the likes of Steve Fitzpatrick and Steve McDonagh and the now disgraced Con Scanlon yesterday would never have happened. Instead the CWU membership would have bribed, cajouled and bullied into accepting some rotten restructuring deal like what they're trying to do in Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann, the ESB and are already starting to implement in the former Aer Rianta. So this just does go to show that pressure from the rank and file grassroots can force union leaders to take a stand to defend their members.