FRIDAY 16 JUNE 1995
IN YOUR NEW XPRESS TODAY!
Award-winning Sportswriter YVONNE JUDGE on the need for new blood
in international soccer.
More...
Published by The Irish Press NUJ, Liberty Hall. Origination by Malcolm Kindness, Telephone 4962551.
Members of Mandate, the retail and bar workers union, are to place pickets on the company's 62 stores throughout the country on Monday, after finally deciding that strike action was their only hope of gaining the minimum working conditions taken for granted in most other workplaces.
The strike is set to inflict massive damage on the company's profitability and market share, but the management style at Dunnes is the unknown factor in this dispute.
Management of the massive supermarket multiple has always been rigidly controlled by Dunne family members, during both the ill-fated reign of Ben Dunne Jnr. and now, in the wake of their acrimonious split, in the regime of his sister, Margaret Heffernan.
It it this unpredictability of management, and the possibility of the wildcards of pride and vanity also entering the equation, that is most worrying for the workers.
The major issues in dispute are the "zero hour contracts" under which Dunnes workers are employed - allowing management to cut hours at will, and giving staff no security of income - and compulsory Sunday working, Maurice Sheehan, Mandate National Officer, told the XPress.
"The staff have no guaranteed floor of hours from week to week, and that makes people afraid to rock the boat in case their hours are cur," he said.
As a business, Dunnes cannot afford the strike, he said. "But this business is not publicly owned as such. It is controlled by a tightly-knit family unit," he warned.
Dunnes has issued "proposals" directly to the workforce, which are "basically a rehash of the proposals which were already massively rejected by the workers," he said.
Groups of workers, most of whom are young and have no experience in negotiations, have been brought in by management to discuss these proposals, rather than the company negotiating with the union officers the staff pay to represent them, Mr Sheehan pointed out.
The management proposals mean the continuation of zero hours contracts, compulsory Sunday working at the flat rate, new full-time jobs to be spread over seven days at the flat rates, a substandard pension scheme, reduction in Christmas overtime rates, total flexibility on management's terms, and no negotiations with the union.
WOKE up this morning, bad news on the
line...
A friend assumed I'd already heard and so just dropped it casually into the end of a telephone conversation about other more mundane matters. "Terrible about Rory, isn't it?" he said. He didn't need to say any more. Instantly, a beautiful summer's morning seemed to darken. I guess this is what they call the blues...
The loss to the world of music of Rory Gallagher at the age of 47 is considerable. Never the most fashion-conscious of artists, Rory had been sidelined in recent years as the rock industry continued its relentless preoccupation with the latest fad and the search for The Next Big Thing.
But if Rory was out of the headlines, he never lost the respect of his peers and the appreciation of fans who contlnued to recognise the real deal - a master musician steeped in the blues but with a penchant for rocking out that made him one of the great, uninhibited live acts of any era. Those of us who saw his last live appearance in Ireland - a free concert in College Green three years ago - will feel all the more keenly now how privileged we were to have seen him one more time in such incendiary form.
I dropped round to say hello to himself and his brother and manager Donal after that gig, and was pleased to find Rory in equally good form offstage. A superb anecdotalist with a dry sense of humour, Rory could keep you endlessly amused with yarns and opinions on everything from football to politics to rock 'n' roll to his beloved crime novels.
There were other good nights in the company of the Gallaghers down the years when I was working for Hot Press, and it's those memories of their basic decency and generosity as human beings which haunt me most as I contemplate Rory's death.
Thankfully, the music lives on and, as is the way of the rock industry, Rory's immense contribution to the growth of rock in Ireland and his singular talents as a guitarist and songwriter, will probably only be fully recognised posthumously.
But many already know - and have known for many years-that Rory Gallagher was one of the greats.
Up on the boards, hair flying, lumberjack shirt soaked with sweat, duckwalking across the stage and squeezing every last drop of emotion and excite ment out of his Fender Strat-remember him that way.
WE HAD just watched Brazil saunter around Wembley and beat England 3-I in an almost nonchalant style. It was not the only such scoreline I had witnessed that day, so it was vaguely amusing to hear both Messrs Hill and Lineker praising the English display.
Did they not hear what Pele was saying? He told us that only four of that Brazilian lineup had been on the World Cup winning side, and that perhaps only the back four would make it onto the current side.
As for Romario and Bebeto-well, they might make the team, but clearly nothing is guaranteed. And as for the Brazilian side which will play in the South American championship this summer, that will probably be the Olympic team, which means they will all be under 21.
In the light of what we had witnessed from the Republic of Ireland football team in eight short days, these revelations were somewhat depressing.
The fact is that over half of the Irish team have been playing more or less constantly for over seven years. Some have been playing for the entire nine years of Jack Charlton's tenure.
While the best are still there on merit, nevertheless the lack of youth and depth in Irish football is frightening. Sure, we have Babb, Kelly and McAteer, but don't forget that two of them are already twenty-three. New blood is needed and needed fast.
Meanwhile, on the rugby front, I read that Donal Spring is wondering where all the talented schools rugby players go in Ireland.
I would suggest to Donal to take a good long hard look at the situation. Just because the coverage of the sport uses up a few minor rainforests does not mean that it is particularly popular.
Less than 50 schools compete nationally in the A schools rugby competition. And take a look at the list of winners for the last 25 years. Certainly in Leinster alone, the lack of variety is so severe that the Monopolies Commission should be asked to take a look at the situation.
Mr Spring, it is not that the good players from schools level disappear, it is that there are not enough of them, and natural wastage accounts for more; emigration, laziness and other factors apply. And schools sport is just that: schools sport.
It bears little relation to any sport at senior level, and to badly bastardise the poem "full many a flower was born to blush unseen, to waste its sweetness on the desert air."
Nevertheless, I would argue that there is a cause for youth development at least and that means extending the world of rugby beyond Dublin 4, Limerick, Cork, Galway and Belfast. The day that Saint Munchinås play Chriost Ri in a provincial schools rugby final is the day the sport can be said to be developing in Ireland.
PETE ST JOHN reads his copy of the
XPress by the banks of the Liffey
THE following are the words of a song specially written by Pete St. John in support of the 600 Irish Press workers who have been kicked out of their jobs. Pete will shortly be recording this with some celebrity music friends - watch out for its appearance in the record stores.
Now I tell you it's not good enough
This cruel 'Silence of the Lambs'
Of the threatened Fourth Dimension
Business fostered, but now Damns!
Six hundred jobs and families
In a terrible bleeding mess
Don't let's sit here while the gombeen men
Put the mockers on the Press!
CHORUS:
Get emotional! Get subjective!
Get a Life! ... And ask them why
With the workers' 20 million quid
The Irish Press should die?
Get it right! ... and let's get serious
Mortgage bills you can't finesse
There'll be families on the breadline
If we let them kill the Press!!
It's all politics and bluster
Why not call a spade a spade?
With some unaffected bureaucrats
In charge where deals are made
Is it just another paper
That just couldn't pay its way?
I think that's a cowboy story
Told the Beef Tribunal way!
CHORUS:
Strip away the cant and jargon
And Big Business double-talk
Make it jobs against the dole queues
Picket lines are hard to walk!
Somewhere someone knows the answers
In some gombeen's filofax
While our jobs go out the window
And they give the Press the axe.!!
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