A strike planned by public sector workers on 12th November will coincide with a previously announced Irish Anti-War Movement demonstration in Dublin city centre at 1pm on the same day.
The strike is part of the public sector unions’ ongoing campaign for pay increases to offset high and persistent inflation that has severely eroded and continues to erode real incomes.
The Irish Anti-War Movement demonstration, backed by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other peace and Palestine solidarity campaigners, will start from the Spire on O’Connell Street at 1pm on Thursday 12th.
Demonstrators will march to the Convention Centre on North Wall Quay to protest at a meeting of 47 European and EU political leaders against the EU’s rapidly escalating militarisation.
People Before Profit’s Richard Boyd Barrett TD said:
“It is appropriate that workers will be striking for cost-of-living pay increases on the same day that anti-war protestors are mobilising against the hundreds of billions of Euros being spent on weapons of death and destruction. The Irish Government and the EU can find the money for vast increases in military spending but not to protect workers incomes. There is a clear connection between these two things.
“Public sector workers are 100 per cent correct to take further strike action in response to the Government’s refusal to give credible pay increases. They are the people who work in our schools, in our hospitals, in further and higher education, and across the public sector to provide the public services upon which we all depend.
“It is shameful that the Government continues to fail to protect them against the severe cost of living crisis. Workers have been left with no choice but to take strike action again to try and restore their real incomes. I will stand with them at their pickets as I did on 14th October.
“The strike expected on Thursday, 12th November will coincide with a previously announced Irish Anti-War Movement demonstration at lunchtime that day.
“Anti-war, pro-Palestine and pro-neutrality demonstrators will gather at 1pm at the Spire on O’Connell Street and will march to the Convention Centre on North Wall Quay to protest at a meeting of European and EU leaders against EU plans to double its military spending to €800 billion by 2030.
“The EU’s ReArm Europe plan, hastily renamed to Readiness 2030, demonstrates the dangerous militarisation agenda that is being pushed forward by the EU, and it is expected to be central to the meeting of European and EU leaders in Dublin.
“The Irish Government has said it will increase spending on weapons and military equipment to €1.7 billion by 2030, a 55% increase on its previous military spending plans. But the same Government won’t give workers a pay increase to compensate for inflation. This demonstrates this Government’s lethal priorities are fully aligned to the EU’s militarisation and war agenda.
“The more we spend on weapons and military equipment, and the more we involve ourselves in the military plans and infrastructure of the EU and NATO, the less we will have for cost-of-living pay increases and the homes and public services we urgently need.
“The war mongering of Trump and Israel, supported by many EU powers, is a key factor in the escalating cost-of-living crisis here and across Europe. EU leaders will go further down this disastrous route if they are not stopped.
“Public sector workers and anti-war demonstrators will have common cause on the streets on 12th November”.