The Trinity branch of the Postgraduate Workers Organisation (PWO) will hold a demonstration on Front Square tomorrow at 2pm demanding worker recognition status, better conditions, and fair pay. Meeting in Front Square, the PWO will march to the Dáil, centring on the key demand: “Workers not students, don’t lock us out”. In solidarity, the Student Neutrality Front held a teach-in at 12.30pm today in the Arts Block to call for the end of precarious working conditions for postgraduate researchers. Global room staff will also be participating in industrial action on Wednesday.
All College activities will run as normal on Wednesday, with teaching activities slated to continue without interruption, according to a statement released by Chief Operating Officer Noel Gorman.
College has not yet addressed the demonstration or any potential disruptions to tutorials, research, and lab demonstrations by the PWO’s industrial action. The Dean of Graduate Studies and the Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU/AMLCT) have been made aware of the planned demonstration, Trinity PWO President Daniel O’Laocha told the University Times.
Branches were in charge of what kind of industrial action would be taken. “We recognise that our members are precarious workers who survive on thousands of euro less than minimum wage,” PWO President Eden Skehan wrote in a press release. Following a unanimous vote by all members of the PWO University College Dublin (UCD) branch, a twenty-four-hour strike was announced for Wednesday, halting all college activities currently run or powered by postgraduate researchers. UCD announced, however, that college activities and events would run as usual tomorrow.
Currently, postgraduate researchers (including those who work as teaching assistants and lab demonstrators) are not classified by the Irish government as workers. Skehan noted that any deal between the government and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) will ultimately fail to address the organisation’s largest concerns, including “standardisation of work contracts, access to public services, and years of reckonable residence for all graduate researchers”.
UCD PWO wrote in a press statement: “We are not asking for the impossible; we are asking for basic necessities that every other worker in UCD receives, and that the EU Framework of Research Careers states we should receive”.
