30 November 2009

Fellow Trade Unionists

http://www.petitiononline.com/MCLSTRKE/ 

This is the URL of a webpage created by the branch at IT Tralee after an emergency meeting today where motions were passed calling for the resignation of Peter McLoone as Chairman of the ICTU Public Services Committee and as a member of the negotiating team with the Government and calling for all out indefinite strike in response to any form of pay/conditions cuts imposed on public servants - see the text of the motions. The branch is appalled by the obvious and immediate danger of a sell out by ICTU in exactly the way were were sold out on the pension levy. We have reached the Rubicon. Either we make a stand now or be walked on for ever. There is no middle ground. If we give one inch, a mile and another mile and many further miles after will be taken. 

The branch resolved that a web-based petition should be mounted to allow all public servants to support our call. We have just managed to set it up in the later afternoon so most of our branch members, whether they attended the meeting or not, will probably not get to sign until tomorrow. There is no time to waste. A sell out deal may come any moment. 

Please click on the connection above and

1. Sign the petition

2. Try to organise to circulate the URL to all your own branch members and encourage them to sign

3. Use every contact you have in every public sector union to publicise the petition and circulate the URL

4. Ask everyone to whom you send the URL to pass it on to his/her contacts

5. Get publicity for this action any way you can

6. Remind everyone who is scared to lose money by striking that they will lose a great deal more by not striking: a 5% pay cut in any form is the equivalent of 18 days on strike, this year and every year until you stop (or your spouse stops) drawing your pension. 

There is no time to lose. It's a once in a lifetime crisis. Act now. A groundswell of resolve from the grassroots is the only way to let those who claim to represent us know what we will and will not stand for. 

Yours sincerely 

Martin O'Grady

TUI  Chair

IT Tralee Branch