The air traffic controllers are right to stand by their suspended colleagues, and in fact the entire trade union movement needs to respond to Minister Dempseys threat to the right to strike.

The government and Fine Gael grudgingly accept the legal right to strike in the abstract or when an action is not effective. However let’s be clear, when strike action is taken by workers to defend themselves against employers seeking to attack their wages and conditions, they should take action designed to exact maximum pressure on employers.

To say, as Minister Dempsey has, that workers in essential public services should not have the right to strike is a threat to allow further attacks on pay and conditions on workers of all pay grades and at the same time disarm them of the one legal weapon at their disposal to defend themselves.

The establishment media have made a big play of the salaries that the Air Traffic Controllers receive in order to excite public animosity against them. Their decent conditions, which they deserve and which reflect the stress and responsibility of the job, is immaterial to this debate. That the workers were willing to take a hit in pay in order to defend their suspended colleagues is admirable solidarity.

I call on the IAA to lift the suspensions immediately.

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