The Irish Ferries dispute ended with SIPTU claiming that the deal maintains a "threshold of decency".

The deal brokered by the Labour Relations Commission allows Irish Ferries to outsource its crew to an agency; introduces a two-tier workforce with current staff remaining on the same wages and conditions but all new staff will be only paid the minimum wage and will have different working conditions; Irish Ferries will be "allowed" to re-flag its ships; a three year no strike agreement and all disputes to be settled by binding arbitration.

Under this agreement the company will save €11.5 million a year from wage cuts alone. This is a bad deal and claims that it protects a "threshold of decency" are bogus. This agreement leaves the door open for Irish Ferries management to continue its fight for slave wages and conditions onboard its ships.

At the outset the leaders of the Seaman’s Union of Ireland (SUI) recommended that their members accept the company’s redundancy offer. Thus the SUI was accepting that outsourcing would take place and this was an immediate setback for the struggle of the Irish Ferries’ workers. However the action by SIPTU ships’ officers in occupying one ferry and preventing another from sailing, the refusal by SIPTU members in Rosslare to allow the MV Normandy to use their port and the magnificent show of solidarity by over 100,000 workers who demonstrated on 9 December, stopped Irish Ferries from implementing its full agenda.

Prior to the Irish Ferries dispute the Irish capitalist class arrogantly thought that they could introduce their anti-worker agenda unchallenged. They believed that they had the "measure" of the working class, whom they felt were no longer prepared to fight to defend their jobs and conditions. The struggle at Irish Ferries has proved them wrong and opened their eyes to the prospect of more resistance and struggle by workers against their neo-liberal agenda. Because of the stand taken by SIPTU members at Irish Ferries, in Rosslare and the 100,000 who protested, employers will be more cautious in pursuit of this agenda in future.

The courage and fighting spirit of the SIPTU ships’ officers was however not matched by the union’s leadership. Five days after the mass demonstrations in support of the Irish Ferries’ workers, SIPTUs’ leaders backed up by the leadership of the ICTU squandered an important opportunity to drive back the attacks by big business on workers’ rights, pay and conditions. Rather than utilising the power of the working class through a 24-hour general strike and maintaining the industrial action at Irish Ferries in order to defeat the company, the union leaders have done a deal to save "social partnership". Irish Ferries management can now wage a silent war of attrition against their employees and they will attempt to re-introduce their original agenda. The scale of protest on 9 December showed that the demand from the Socialist Party for a 24-hour general strike was not only correct but would have been met with huge support from workers if ICTU had issued the call.

Despite it resulting in a bad deal, the struggle at Irish Ferries has signaled the beginning of a new period of struggle by the Irish working class. The dispute has been a significant development and has had an important impact on the consciousness of the working class. It also illustrates that it is necessary to build campaigns of opposition to the right-wing leaders in all unions in order to replace the current bureaucrats with leaderships that are prepared to defend and fight for workers’ rights.

John Curry is a ship’s engineer with Irish Ferries with 26 years’ service. John, along with Brian Whitfield, Gary Jones and Vincent Hederington occupied the engine room of the Isle of Inishmore passenger ferry.

This courageous occupation and the action taken by the port workers in Rosslare in refusing to handle the MV Normandy were decisive in putting Irish Ferries management under pressure and in securing a partial retreat by the company from its full slave labour strategy. In the aftermath of the struggle, he spoke to Joe Higgins TD for the Socialist.

"I am a bit disappointed with the way things turned out, although the company was forced to back down from its first demands that the 48 workers who refused to apply for redundancy would not have their jobs and conditions red-circled. But I am not happy that we will be working alongside people on reduced wages and conditions.

"In all fairness, I think that our negotiators had a gun to their heads. If there was more solidarity with less people applying for redundancy, we could have achieved much more.

"It’s a shame to see what is the demise of the Irish shipping industry. For an island nation to give complete control of shipping to flagged out private companies is ridiculous.

"I have real fears about what can happen with crews when a majority may not be able to speak English adequately. There are real issues here about communication with passengers in an emergency situation.

"I believe SIPTU is in discussion with Dobson’s, the agency which is supplying Irish Ferries with workers from Latvia and Lithuania. It is very important that these workers are union-ised. If that happens, then they can start a fight for better conditions although they may be afraid of victimisation as contract workers.

"I think the occupation achieved a lot. I am happy that we didn’t go down the road of the xenophobes. What we were fighting for was not to keep migrant workers out, but to have all workers, no matter where they are from, on trade union pay and working conditions."