Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Solidarity was reborn last week and hit Tesco with a vengeance. When Tesco management announced its intention to cut workers' pay and rip up the contracts of people who had worked for it, for three decades in some cases, forcing them out on strike, it assumed it could isolate a small group of workers within the workforce but it seriously underestimated two things. The first is the workers within Tesco - the young and part-time workers who showed massive solidarity and understood that they were next in the firing line. They also underestimated ordinary people. The Irish Timesreports that picketed stores lost sales of 80% but even non-picketed stores lost sales of 30%. This shows the balance of forces in society, that things can be turned around, that the employers and the establishment which have had it their way for a very long time should take note and that the Government should take note of where the sympathies of the public lie in respect of bus workers and the ASTI where the Government is attempting similar union busting tactics.

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