Irish firefighters announce strikes, threaten all-out strike

Almost 2,000 on-call Irish firefighters embarked on a series of strikes on Tuesday to protest their working conditions, adding that if their demands are not met by 20 June, they will go on an all-out strike and only respond to emergency calls. R

Over the next week, the firefighters will not attend training drills or test life-saving equipment. If talks with local authorities do not succeed, they plan to take matters even further.

“I’m not optimistic there will be any resolution to this before there is a really serious disruption to the service,” said Siptu divisional organiser Karan O’Loughlin, reported The Independent.

Ireland’s unemployment rate is currently at 3.8%, according to figures published by the Central Statistics Office last week – the lowest figure recorded by the Census since it began in 1998. However, these protests shine a light on what these figures hide – Ireland’s increasingly poor working conditions.

“However, if we look under the bonnet, what workers are really facing in this country is a crisis in terms of their real wages, in their terms and conditions of employment, and how far their actual wage packet is going,” Smith said as reported in ie.

Eurostat figures also recently revealed that Ireland is the most expensive country in the EU in terms of living costs, with housing costs 88.5% higher than the EU average, while the same goes for utility bills (88%) , travel (39%), as well as broadband and mobile phone costs (46.5%).

Other public worker sectors are also set to stage strikes to protest their labour rights. Water workers at 30 local authorities plan to strike on Wednesday or Thursday, protesting their terms of employment in case of a transfer to Uisce Eireann (formerly Irish Water).

(Sophie O’Rourke | EURACTIV.com)