Mass tresspass underway at MTL docks

dublin | worker & community struggles and protests | news report Monday August 24, 2009 12:58 by Andrew - WSM (personal capacity) wsm_ireland at yahoo dot com

The dispute at MTL is escalating with hundreds of people taking part in demonstrations organised by the Port Workers Support Group. SIPTU members at the MTL depot in Dublin Port have been on strike since the beginning of July, resisting forced redundancies and pay cuts. The company shipped in scabs from the North and Britain on day one to steal the dockers’ jobs, and also got a High Court injunction preventing effective picketing. Below are updates coming in from this mornings actions, sent via Twitter by WSM members who are present.

Twitter updates, most recent first, see http://twitter.com/WSMIreland

Mass tresspass underway at MTL dockyards, several hundred involved

Just announced rotterdam has been shut down in solidarity.15 minutes ago from TwitterFon

Docks has been blocked by crowd for last hour as well.

Speeches from Phil Mac Fadden ( chair of dublin council of trade unions), Oliver mac donagh (branch organiser siptu) and ken fleming (international transport workers federation), kevin doherty (belfast trades council), eamon devoy (teeu), frank leahy (antwerp and international dockers), k joe o flynn (siptu), john walsh (siptu shop steward), joe mooney (community), nicola caulfield (striker), peter bunting (ictu)17 minutes ago from TwitterFon

Just arrived at MTL docks - background at http://www.wsm.ie/news_view...about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

Met union members includign dock workers from Belfast and Liverpool and have crossed east link bridge crowd has grown to 300about 1 hour ago from TwitterFon

2 workers have gone into post authority to take action against MTI as they own docks.about 2 hours ago from TwitterFon

Dublin docks protest 200 assembled on east wall road, meetin union delegations at the point another march from ringsend at docks

Follow future updates at http://twitter.com/WSMIreland