Union urges members to join anti-water charges protest
Ireland’s largest craft trade union has joined the anti-water charges movement Right2Water.
The Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU), which represents 40,000 workers, is urging its members to join a national demonstration on Saturday.
Eamon Devoy, general secretary of the union, has also called on the Government to abolish water charges with immediate effect.
“We have decided to join the Right2Water campaign to better highlight the issues of concern to our members,” he said.
“The call for a referendum to secure the consolidation of Irish Water in public ownership will secure the jobs of thousands of workers already providing essential maintenance and repair programmes to Irish Water through service level agreements from local authorities throughout the country.
“By withdrawing the water charge and holding a referendum the Government will clear the way for a considered debate on how best to carry out a badly needed overhaul of water services, while having regard for the environmental issues involved and the EU laws governing the delivery and protection of water as our most precious and essential commodity.”
The TEEU’s executive voted to join Unite, Mandate, the Communications Workers Union, the Civil Public and Services Union and Opatsi, the plasterers’ union, in the Right2Water campaign.
The umbrella group of unions and left-leaning political parties said it expects a large turnout at a demonstration at the GPO on Dublin’s O’Connell Street on Saturday.
However, the organisers of the national demonstration against water charges next weekend is appealing to people ‘who are so angry that they cannot control themselves’ to stay away.
Right2Water said that it expects ‘tens of thousands of people’ to turn up at Saturday's rally in Dublin city centre, which is the first since the March 21.
It is also the first demonstration since it was leaked to the media that charges were being prepared against 20 people involved in last November’s Jobstown protest - which saw the Tánaiste trapped in her car for over 2 hours.
Brendan Ogle says that incident was not a Right2Water protest - he said that Saturday’s demonstration will be peaceful.
"We've had hundreds of thousands of people, protests happened, some people get carried away, and my message is the same as it's always been, if you are so angered by this issue that you can't control yourself, stay away," said Mr Ogle.
