Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

There has been a lot of talk from this Government about rewarding workers and providing them with a better deal after all they did for us during Covid. There are many complexities to that and we expect announcements and so on. One issue the Government could resolve is to give workers the right to be trade unionists and represent other workers in their jobs without suffering victimisation. In that regard, I raise the case of a shop steward working on a site on Cork Street where public housing is being built and on which the contractor is Sisk. He was sacked five days ago simply because he raised issues about overtime being docked from workers on spurious grounds. On his arrival at work the next day, he was told there was no work for him, even though the site is in full swing. This is a public site on which public housing is being built, where a shop steward for the Independent Workers Union was sacked. I ask that Minister look into this case and, more generally, does something to protect trade unionists and shop stewards who are simply acting on behalf of workers.

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