Article from the March 2006 issue of the Socialist
newspaper of the Socialist Party, Irish section of the CWI

Dunnes Stores shop steward re-instated

Joannne Delaney, a Mandate shop steward in Dunnes Stores in Crumlin Dublin has been re-instated.

As reported in last month's Socialist, Joanne was sacked for the trumped up "crime" of wearing a union page. However, the real reason Joanne was sacked was because she was an effective shop steward and union organiser. In the two months prior to her suspension Joanne had recruited 30 new members to the union.

It is clear that the publicity campaign launched in her defence went some way to pressurising Dunnes managment into backing off. A lesson from this dispute is that all Dunnes workers need to be organised in a union to defend their rights and interests. Mandate, the union that organises workers in the retail and bar trade need to take a leaf out of Joanne Delaney's book and launch a recruitment drive to consolidate the work done by Joanne.

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