The Covalen strike in Sandyford, south Dublin last month was diverse, loud and confident. Communication Workers Union (CWU) members who are content moderators have taken action in response to cutbacks and redundancies. The dispute is ongoing.
On the other side of the city, another group of workers – this time home care assistants in Northside Home Care, members of the Independent Workers Union – are striking against low pay and outsourcing. Their pickets and protests have been loud, lively and determined.
Last Autumn saw a nationwide weeklong strike by Fórsa school secretaries and caretakers in pursuit of long-denied pension, pay and leave entitlements. It was significant because it was the first large scale indefinite action of this kind in years.
In the North, Unite workers in the Guinness zero canning site in East Belfast secured a 15% pay rise over 3 years after an 8-day strike before Christmas. This article will focus on developments in the South but this example shows that the signs of increased struggle might well exist on both sides of the border.
In the background, ballots are being held on a regular basis across the public sector in the South. Fórsa in particular has been to the fore in this.
Clinical Measurement Physiologists (HSE): Commenced industrial action (work-to-rule) on Friday, 30th January 2026, regarding service issues.
Local Authority ICT Staff: Action was initiated in early 2026 but paused in February for Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) talks.
RSA Driver Testers: Balloted in late 2025/early 2026 regarding safety and insurance risks, with the ballot concluding on 6th January 2026.
HSE and Local Government: Ongoing, intermittent work-to-rule and ballots over staffing levels (recruitment embargo impacts), outsourcing, and pay, with some actions previously suspended for proposals.
In addition Fórsa is taking a more confrontational approach in advance of public pay negotiations for a new national agreement. They are asking their members to sign a pledge that will in essence mandate the leadership to support a new agreement only if it provides pay increases that address the cost of living, resolution of local bargaining claims, agreed policies on flexible work arrangements, remote working and a shorter working week along with targeted investment in public healthcare and housing.
Fórsa are following a strategy of more pro-active trade union bargaining. In the event of the aforementioned demands not being met, and no agreement being reached, Fórsa have announced that they will call action in different sectors on local issues.
In a slightly different vein, following the UEFA Nations League draw that has pitted Ireland against Israel, SIPTU have called, on behalf of their members, for the FAI to withdraw from the fixture on moral, political and safety grounds.
So what is the significance of all this?
Undoubtedly the shoots of a new turn to action by the union leadership comes with a health warning. Much of the action taken is controlled from the top down and well-choreographed. It is designed to get things back to where the union leadership is most comfortable, hammering out a compromise in a board room or government buildings.
The school secretaries/caretakers strike is a good example. Despite the fact that strikers were growing in confidence, and escalation was happening with other Fórsa members in SNA branches, Fórsa rushed to call it off on the promise of negotiations around a supposed ‘locked in, final’ outcome. No meetings were organised, no ballots were held and now months later, no progress has been made as the substantive issue hangs in the Labour Court for arbitration.
This pattern is repeated in other workplaces and across other unions. So we need to be very clear on the limitations at play and consider how workers can push all these struggles forward, take control of their own disputes and actually win key demands outright.
Undoubtedly part of the reason behind the new sense of activism may be the need by trade union leaders to remind the government of their relevance. In the heyday of social partnership, back in the Bertie Ahern era, union leaders were integral to keeping social peace by pushing poor partnership deals, minimalist pay increases, no strike clauses and cooperation with workplace “reform”.
Workers chomping at the bit to fight back might just be enough to provide a timely reminder to today’s government ministers, even Fine Gael ones, that without finding a place for the union leaders, ready to calm things down, things could get out of hand quickly.
However it would be incorrect not to focus also on the energy and radicalism of the workers mentioned above. Whatever about the trade union leaders’ need to protect and define their role in the system, workers are beginning to fight back. They’ve nothing to lose in a system that can’t even provide them with a stable roof over their head.
Undoubtedly this is reflecting a global shift, where the use of the general strike is becoming more apparent in the face of repression, war, genocide and government attacks on workers rights and living standards.
In Italy there have been four general strikes since last Autumn, three focused on Gaza and the most recent December one incorporating grievances around the government’s budget for 2026. General strikes have taken place in Portugal and Belgium, while French railworkers have taken large scale action. There are waves of protests and general strikes in Morocco. On February 6, dockworkers in more than 20 Mediterranean ports across Italy, Greece, Morocco and Tukiye went on strike against war, militarisation and port privatisation
This month a 24 hour strike has taken place in Argentina, the fourth general strike of President Javier Milei‘s term. There was a huge national strike in Indonesia in December while on February 12, a nationwide general strike took place in India called under the slogan “Bharat Bandh” (Shut Down India). Organised by an alliance of unions, peasant organizations, and grassroots groups it was one of the largest days of protest in India’s recent history
In this context the fight against ICE in Minnesota is also highly significant. Weeks of high level community organising, solidarity and direct confrontation mobilised a population against the forces of terror and repression, but as the violence by the state escalated so did the clarity around the response that was needed- shut it down. In facing down the state, ordinary working Minnesotans became acutely aware of where their power lay. “No work, no school, no shopping” was the slogan and it was coordinated by an alliance of unions, churches and community groups.
It is a reminder of how quickly the ground can shift in struggle. While broad in nature, the political realisation that workers and communities do have the power to take on the state is highly significant and creates the confidence to keep the struggle going.
In a country where union membership is extremely low, it is significant that workplace based fightback is now a central tool in facing down the worst excesses of Trump’s regime. It is important that unions now recruit and build on this.
In this context the lessons for us in Ireland are the same as for every worker across the world.
In a world where ordinary people stand to lose most in the face of neoliberalism, war, racism and repression, we need to fight back.
In the most local sense, we need to get organised, build rank and file groups in our unions and we need to ensure that our struggles are not controlled from above but by workers on the ground. We need to demand democracy at every level in our unions – for a start no more calling off action without consultation
In the wider sense, in confronting our governments whether it’s on pay and conditions or broader political issues, we need to recognise that strike is a powerful weapon. That’s why Thatcher went to such lengths to defeat the miners in Britain in the 1980s. And that’s why we need strikes firmly back on the agenda 40 years later. The ruling trillionaires and billionaires of the world know the deep truth in the slogan “the workers united will never be defeated”, it’s time we actioned it!
Deirdre is a member of the National School Teachers Union, the INTO, and currently chair of Dublin City South West branch. She works in Dublin 8
