@Brendan McGill: It has always been so. However, those 28% have every right to their opinion and to pass the picket if they choose. You should be celebrating the fact that the over whelming majority of respondents think otherwise. Even the
” don’t knows ” figure is tiny on this one.

Now if 72% of the population understood that voting for FF, FG, Labour or bogus independents is the political equivalent of crossing the picket, we would be well on the way to fundamental change.

Ah of course I know Ig, they have their rights and their opinions, I can’t take that away from them nor would I want to.. I just happen to believe firmly that they’re wrong here.

@Dusty Mooney:

Its lucky that 97% of the voting population realise that voting PBP would be a vote for financial sucide

What the striking workers don’t need is a Senator (Aodhán Ó Ríordáin) who campaigned vigorously to have the Seanad abolished, pontificating how it was undemocratic and “filters democracy”, and yet now sits there feeding off the public pay purse while allying himself with any campaign he thinks will boost his popularity.

Ah Mooney so the majority are wrong. Isn’t it good to live in a democracy

@Nick Allen:
By “financial suicide” do you mean like loading €100+ billion of illegitimate banker debts on to the people’s backs and breaking the country as FF/Greens, FG/Labour and now FG/Bogus Independents have done?

@Dusty Mooney: And stuck with AAA\PFP and all the open borders/ anti country living that that would come with. If you want a fundamental change in Ireland all of those in The Dail and The Senate should be kicked out and banned from back again for life!

@Dusty Mooney:

No, thats not what I mean. I am referring to the lack of sound fiscal policies, the hatred of people making a profit, the idea that you can live life for free on handouts and the complete lack of understanding of financial management with the thought that a country can print money based on their natural resources without any negative implication on their trade agreements with other countries. These failings would make the bailout look like Ireland won the lotto

@Nick Allen:

So you don’t think the “financial suicide” perpetrated on the country by our entire establishment polite class was actually finance suicide? Interesting failure to grasp the facts.

And here’s some economics professors explaining another fact that nations can and do “print” money as they wish. Every day of the week in fact:

“The U.S. government taxes in dollars. It spends in dollars. And it controls its own currency. Why is this important? What are the benefits of issuing your own currency? They are extraordinary…..
The government, when it issues its own currency, and goes into debt in that currency can always pay its debt, can never go broke, can never run out of money. It can afford anything that is for sale in that currency. It doesn’t need to borrow its own currency. And it can set its own interest rate. It does not have to pay what markets want. It does not become a victim to speculation, to bond vigilantes”

http://michael-hudson.com/2012/03/mmt-as-the-austerity-alternative/

@Dusty Mooney:

Suicide results in death. Our economy did not die. We had a torrid time for a number of years but we are getting out of it. But as I said, it would still feel like winning the lotto compared to the PBP alternative

Tell us Nick. How exactly are the children with scoliosis twisted spines waiting in agony “getting out of it”?

Or the families fired on to the streets to enrich the vulture funds?

Or the hundreds of thousands forced to emigrate?

Or the people who actually did die waiting on trolleys is our 3rd world A&Es?

@Dusty Mooney:

Wally, are u just looking for click bait or are u actually trying to make a point ? No better man than u to try and change the subject.

I said earlier that it was lucky that 97% of the population didn’t vote for the PBP. However, that was an insult to the Irish voters. I apologise for saying it was lucky, it is credit to the Irish population that the PSP got less than 3% of the vote

The same people that crossed the picket line are probably public servants that are threatening strike action themselves

@Nick Allen: Spot on, thankfully the electorate are not as stupid as some people think they are or wish they are.

@Nick Allen:
So you accept now that our entire establishment political class wreaked economic suicide on the country while protecting themselves from the consequences of course? While you think that the people who voted for those parties are to be credited?
Cognitive dissonance is the correct term for that kind of contradiction.

@Stuart Keogh:
Tesco in Drumcondra as mentioned in the article is opposite Saint Patricks teaching college.
Enough said

@ Brendan… awful isn’t it… but true

Brendan They are not wrong. They have a different opinion then you.

@Brendan McGill: Well, it depends on what people are striking about. For instance if workers didnt want to work with people of a different creed or religion or race I wouldnt support that strike. This strike is entirely justified. As was the Dunnes one in the 1980s for instance.

@Eoin Hurley:

Have there been any strikes with those sectarian demands?

@Brendan McGill: If I need infant formula for my baby nothing will stop me crossing that line. sorry

Why would you not have enough baby food? Think I’ll report you to TUSLA

@Leitrim303: You do realise that all supermarkets sell baby formula, as do most chemists and garages. You know that you have a choice to shop elsewhere, which is more of a choice than the Tesco workers have. So, now that I’ve cleared that up for you, you wont need to pass the picket, regardless of what you need.

@Ann Reddin: I never really shop in tesco usually Lidl or supervalue. But Just making the point that sometimes Its not always that black and white.

Will you ever stop saying things like “solidarity, neoliberal, left, right, etc” surely you have a better way to articulate yourself!?

@Ben Coughlan:
If you want to express the same view in different language then feel free to knock yourself out Ben.

@Neil Keegan:
I decide my priorities, not you. And not being a scab is top of the list. And the workers are getting strike pay so spare us the dramatics. Nobody is going to starve.
And the only reason that are any decent jobs in existence is because of the many battles fought and won by earlier unions and strikers and those who stood in solidarity with them and refused to pass the picket.
Capital exists to exploit labour in order to maximize profit. And the most easily exploited are the members of the working class who don’t understand this.

Refusal to cross pickets is an easy way to stop the ‘race to the bottom’ the employers have pushed for the last 3 decades. It’s why their share of wealth produced has increased massively while ours has shrunk. It’s also why there is a funding crisis in health, education and public housing as in Ireland they also avoid and evade paying tax.

Its a bad day when people have to strike to protect their existing contracts. Whats the point in a contract if a company can just tear it up when they want? And what precedent does it set in the future? What would be in the point in signing a contract at all? But thats not what the tesco dispute is about right? Its about a few people working a saturday, its not about a corporation making half a billion in profit per annum having the ability to tear up a contract when they like. No its about the working the saturday thing. If you want to cross a picket to stand on these people, then go ahead. But ask yourself why would you? It costs nothing to support a person fighting for a fair and honest standard of living.

Dusty quick question(which I know he’d ignore). Say a child developed a fever at 9 at night and is burning up and crying there’s no calpol in the house and the only open shop in the area was a Tesco. Would you call that parent a scab for doing what’s best for there child…. This is hypothetical just want your honest answer Dusty.

@Dusty Mooney: Solidarity should stretch beyond “classes”. It should be more about human decency.

@Cillian O’Gara:
Capitalism knows no human decency. Everything is a commodity for exploitation and sale. And solidarity is about changing that to a socialist model where we democratically manage our resources to provide for the welfare of all.

@Dusty Mooney: I generally find people who use the word “neoliberal” haven’t a clue what it means.

We have to support these people now! For the people that are against the picket you do know that 60% of jobs across the world are going to be taken by automated robots with the next 20 years right? That probably includes your job too so while we can we must fight corporate greed or at least slow it down because poverty is built upon it. Unfortunately you don’t see the bigger picture that will greatly affect not only your future but the future of your children if we do not stand up against it and act now.

Please run along and play with other scabbies in a Gulag or Siberian salt mine.This sort of drivel was fine in the nineteenth century not the twenty first.

I was brought up not to pass a packet. It’s a value inculcated in me by my parents.

if labour does not cohere in its own self protection, the interests of capital will entirely dominate.

Surely no one rejects Piketty or the others who have empirically and mathematically proven how those who own capital inevitably exploit and disadvantage labour.

@Roy Dowling:

Of course not. The strike won’t be broken by a bottle of Calpol. If I was the parent of the sick child, I would ask for the o.k to cross the picket and would expect no problems. Solidarity works both ways.
Now I have a question for you. If the parent of the sick child couldn’t afford the medicine, do you imagine Tesco would provide it for free?

Dusty your the last man to have an opinion about strikes and pickets. You’ve never been working class for obvious reasons.

Dusty i respect your honesty for once. I know now you not a complete tool. As for would Tesco give the Calpol I genuinely can’t answer for Tesco but I’d like to think they would.

@ Wally Mooney
“The most easily exploited are the members of the working class who don’t understand this”

Yeah, those working class yokels really are thick as shlt.

@Roy Dowling: He ignored your question.

he is probably busy working on his Hedge Funds,

@Wally
Please stop referring to socialism.
You’re a proponent of Communism, pure and simple.
Have the balls to say it outright.

@Neil Keegan: yes let’s all join in a race to the bottom….terns and conditions of pay need to be protected …..

@Roy Dowling:
Though I’ve no doubt that the strikers would have a whip around and collect the money for a bottle of Calpol if asked.

They get enough freebies

Dusty can’t argue with you there

@Dusty Mooney: Get a life ffs, I don’t need trade unions to tell me where to shop. Picket line or no picket line if people can’t be allowed to go about their business without being intimidated then we are no longer a free country.

@Chris Kirk:
We haven’t ever lived in a free country but that’s not the fault of the unions, strikers or the working class.

@Chris Kirk:

And this is the reality of “freedom” under capitalism.

http://www.thejournal.ie/paris-tension-baton-rape-3250427-Feb2017/

@Chris Kirk: “Peaceful Protest” though eh…..

@Chris Kirk: you are a nasty individual, the strike is not unions telling you where to shop it’s telling you these striking workers are been treated badly and asking you to support them by not shopping there, something your selfish self centered snowflake generation don’t seem to get as you all lack principles and back bone. You and your ilk are really a very sad reflection on today’s society.
There is a name for picket breakers SCAB

@Dusty Mooney: Speak for yourself sunshune, I don’t need you to tell me how to run a business or where to shop.

@Chris Kirk:
You clearly need to be told a lot of things and if you keep replying to me, you will be told.

@Jacqueline Kane McManus: “There is a name for picket breakers SCAB” – Did your teachers strike often?? A scab is pathetic word used to intimidate someone that WORKS during a strike, not someone that crosses the strike. Every day is a school day Jacqueline.

“A strikebreaker (sometimes derogatorily called a scab, blackleg, or knobstick) is a person who works despite an ongoing strike. Strikebreakers are usually individuals who are not employed by the company prior to the trade union dispute, but rather hired after or during the strike to keep the organization running.”

@Dusty Mooney: If you don’t like the cooking then get out of the kitchen..

@Neil Keegan: you and your ilk is what wrong with today’s society.

Agree but the time will come when company”s will invoke model used in US called right to work where unions and there bargaining is ignored in order to circumvent the labour laws in order to reduce labour costs, ignore safety issues.

@Chris Kirk:
It’s scab minded myopics like yourself that I don’t like and I’ll be staying right here.

@Dusty Mooney: There are no picket lines here comrade, stay as long as you like and amuse us with your simple minded drivel.

@Chris Kirk:
So you didn’t and won’t cross the Tesco picket then?

@Dusty Mooney What are you on about, there are no picket lines where we live and there are plenty of other choices of places to shop, including ASDA across the border. Tesco workers joining a picket line are playing fast and loose with their own livlihoods as the store loses its customers.

@Chris Kirk:
So you didn’t cross the picket then. So what are you bleating about above?

@Jason Maguire: Neoliberalism is a policy model of social studies and economics that transfers control of economic factors to the private sector from the public sector.
A good example would be water, and the attempted transfer of the resource to the private sector.

The robots are in already with self service tills

I always try to queue at a manned till rather than using those self service ones and doing a person out of a job Thomas

@ Brendan
But what about all of those nice people who work at making those automated checkout machines – why do you think doing them out of a job is better than a check out person losing theirs? Hmmmm?

Because in the long run automation will wipe out 60% of jobs globally within 20 rather than a 100 automation jobs (thats the sweet thing with automation, it doesnt take many jobs either to do it so it usually takes just a couple of people per team to do it).

20 years

@Roy Dowling: i certainly wouldnt cross a picket line..id put the child in a cool bath and ring caredoc ..although in your case id just watch the telly and let you burn up..scab

When you have kids you never run out of Calpol

John if you want the situation where employers can decide that they can cut any workers wages and conditions when they fancy it we are all going to be earning a lot less and working a lot more hours in no time. It’s great that the Tesco workers are fighting back and its in the interest of every worker to support them by not crossing their pickets.

@Séa Graham: Do you work in a Tesco shop or are you just having a rant.

@Link: In the case of Tescco’s most customers have a choice of where they prefer to shop. The losers eventually will be the striking workers when the shop closes and they have no job.

@Link: Hi Zelda!

Well said! If you think the workers are overpaid and acting like spoiled brats then by all means cross the pocket line

@León O’Keeffe: Exactly, if you’d run this poll in the context of the “we want 60k a year to pull a level” Luas strike, I think you’d see a very different result.

Nasty attitude from vile nasty people. Tesco workers are not over paid and this race to the bottom with pay and working conditions that today’s employers are so fond of needs to be stamped out.
Sadly a certain selfish self centered generation don’t get what a strike is about and there was a time not so long ago no one would pass a picket even if they didn’t agree with the strike or it was an u official strike as you would be known as a scab by your community and your family would bear the scab name to. Shame on anyone who passes the Tesco picket as you really are vile people.

@Jacqueline Kane McManus: You don’t understand what scab means.

@John Weldon: John weldon on I most certainly do!! And I do know you and your ilk are vile self centered selfish people, e with no principles

@Jacqueline Kane McManus: You clearly don’t. Twice you have used it to describe consumers. When the definition clearly states that it is a derogatory word to describe people who work during a strike.

Jacqueline my understanding of the poll question is that it related to picket lines in general, not just the Tesco one. I would actually be supportive of the workers there and I would be supportive of workers right to strike in principle, but that doesn’t mean I have to respect every picket line, everywhere, no matter what.

@John Weldon: A scab is anyone who undermines striking workers. Be that by way of crossing a picket line, or doing the job of striking workers.

@David Doyle: Look up the meaning of scab – your definition is wrong

@EvieXVI: There are many definitions. It essentially means the same thing.

Losing money as in not getting paid because being out on strike

Its more than 14 for many……

@Paul: work is work, everyone deserves a decent wage

@Breandán O Conchúir: Not according to the job snobs here.

@John Smith: So what are they worth John?
Sure why not have them all on Zero hour contracts and pay them minimum wage?

The audacity to even think that you have the right to decide how much a person should earn says it. Have a word with yourself and get your delusions of grandure under control. 14 euro ph after 22 years isnt bloody great. Would you let them sleep in the servants quarters master? Get over yourself pal

Sorry but if you’re earning €14 an hour after serving 22 years with one company then it’s nobodies fault but your own. When will people learn to take responsibility for their own lives. Is 29k a year not a decent wage for stacking shelves?

Canuckandgo thats my point, its not grwat. Theyre not looking for a raise or complaining about their wage. Theyre looking to be left alone

@Paul:
Jaysus man thats harsh thay are ordinary people not politicians claiming cash for just showing up to work.

@John Smith: Everyone deserves a decent wage and working conditions and if Tesco gets their way with zero hour minimum wage contracts the state will end up footing the bill to supplement Tesco workers wages. You and your ilk are a sad reflection on society, you are selfish, self centred snowflake with no sense of community or society, you and your ilk are vile.

@canuckandgo:

I agree. These people who worked in the same unskilled job for 22 years earning the same rate made their choice and ignored the warnings in the last two decades of the need to upskill and move up. It is not society’s fault that they kept working there instead of going to uni or find ways to better themselves. They are adults and should know the consequences of such actions.

@Jacqueline Kane McManus:

Love your jab about “snowflakes”.

(1) I like how if the “snowflakes” don’t get a job or dont go to college -> they are lazy & entitled.

(2) but if your “crusty” generation get to sit around & complain until your workplace reopens or your next dole/jobseeker allowance comes in -> that’s called “everyone’s fault but yours”.

summary of your generation: high unemployment, low tertiary education, bankrupted Ireland. Your generation isn’t that shining beacon of example for society either unfortunately.