Otis Ltd is owned by UTC, an American company with other branches such as Sikorsky ltd, who make and sell BLACK HAWK helicopters, Pratt & Whitney, CHUBB, Air motif and Hamilton Sundstrand to name but a few. UTC has boasted to their shareholders that their profits have jumped by 20% this year while the company let go of 14,000 jobs. With a CEO that made over $20 million in 2008 and $17 million in 2009 and a board of directors which includes Carlos M. Guiterrez (Former US secretary of Congress) and Richard B. Myers (General in the US Air force & former chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff) what can we expect?!

So where does this leave Otis in Ireland? Well, like the parent group Otis has splintered and have several sister companies. Examples would Be: Oakland lifts, Irish lift services, Movement management, and SKG. All of which are very profitable companies.

There is plenty of work to be done in Otis specifically. In Dublin Airport the job is far from done, with each lift having an estimated 50 problems each! And the deadline is November 1st. Monday morning (12/7) the office was inundated with breakdowns. 6o lifts in total in the space of 4 hours had broken down. “We have time limits on installations and get penalized if the job is not complete on time. There could be a delay with getting equipment there or a last minute fault but we’re still held responsible” says one of the strikers. He goes on to say “There is always maintenance or a breakdown to be done but if there’s a breakdown the company tells the client that a full service, including maintenance or an upgrade, is done. This isn’t the case”.

This strike is simple though. Two week ago 17 workers were made redundant, without consultation with the unions. One worker had this to say: “I was on holiday when it happened. I came home and there was a letter from the company saying I was redundant. By the time I had received the letter, I had 3 days left with the company”. There are no lows that this company won’t stoop to. On the 3rd day of the strike, 6 workers were called up and told that they were now redundant. To make matters worse there are 11 workers who are volunteering for redundancy payments!!

IBEC and the bosses in general in this country are determined to use this crisis to destroy all agreements with the working class from declaring Joint Labour Commissions and Regulated Employment Agreements to be too ‘inflexible’ for them to savagely attacking workers rights in general. The devastating budgets we’ve seen are another brutal kick in the teeth for the workers of this country, the targeting of all the services we rely on. But not only that, the cruel cuts against the old, sick and the unemployed are designed to terrorize workers into accepting any pay and conditions rather than end up on the dole.

The crisis is exposing to more and more working class people the unity with which the Political and Economic rulers of this country are acting to undermine our livelihoods and yet we didn’t create this crisis. The Bankers, Developers and Corporate Directors of Ireland, the top 1% who still have €40 Billion in cash, created this mess and they should pay for it!

Three weeks ago Brian Cowan attended a banquette for the bosses. This banquette cost members of IBEC €1300 a table. Cowan’s attendance there was a clear indicator that the state has turned their backs on the workers and is supporting the bosses.

With the top 1% of Ireland’s financial elite in the pockets of the political elite, it is up to the workers of this country to stand together and fight against these cuts. We need to build solidarity for this dispute in the surrounding local communities.

Workers all over this Island are getting organized and standing up for their rights. Last year we saw strike after strike, occupation after occupation. Their refusal to give in until they got justice has shown that militant action is the best way to win.