Worse Than Murphy

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Current and former employees of Independent News and Media (INM) and their supporters demonstrating against significant pension cuts at INM in Dublin on Monday

As a great-granddaughter of William Martin Murphy – founder of Independent News & Media (INM) – I and many of his relatives are shocked and disgusted at the behaviour of the board of INM in reference to the pension debacle.

Murphy was a fair and honest man and would never have taken away his workers’ pension rights. As a country we seem to have lost decency in a lot of business behaviour.

Ann Young,
Newcastle,
Co Wicklow.

INM pension scandal (The Irish Times letters page)

Previously: A Curtain Fall

Rollingnews

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28 thoughts on “Worse Than Murphy

  1. Kolmo

    Fish rots from the head.
    This is a paper firmly in the law-of-the jungle ideology when it comes to a society – it is the paper, if not the press office extension of the political party with the same interests and ideologies regarding a society -i.e. F.U. everyone for themselves, jobs for the boys.. and now they are surprised they are getting ridden for their pensions?

  2. Rob_G

    Not that I necessarily disagree with the sentiments of the letter, but it wrecks my head when people channel their dead relatives and speak on their behalf.

    Like when they wheel out Easter Rising descendants for a soundbite; this person’s views are no more or less important than any other private citizen’s.

    /rant

    1. Cheech

      +1916. During the centenary I was wondering why these people were parading around like the dogs bawloks. They weren’t in the GPO, nor in prison. I know they’re keeping the memory of their relation alive, but c’mon

    2. ahjayzis

      Oh so much agreement.

      The irony of a special reserved place for people descended or related to people they never met at a commemoration supposedly about republican values and an end to hereditary privilege was galling.

    3. Turgenev

      The only reason the relatives were involved is that they got pissed off at the plans the government had for commemorating 1916 (invite the Queen of England, coalesce the Rising with the Somme) and so in 2014 formed an association to get a proper commemoration.
      As for the government you elected and its contempt for citizens during the commemoration year, take that up at the ballot box and the canvass.

  3. Pornograffiti

    It’s pretty shocking alright but in relation to point about the journos in fact many of them do an ok job personally and in spite of the overall editorial stance of the paper.

    1. jambon

      It’s a tyrannically-run rag, plain and simple. I’m sure there are good people writing for it, but nothing gets through without being warped to fit the immoral and anti-journalistic agendas of the top brass.

      1. Turgenev

        Mmmnot really. Most, yes, but for instance Colette Browne and Gene Kerrigan are not kowtowing to the bloated capitalists when they write in the IndoGroup papers.

    1. jambon

      Eh, yeah, he would have.

      “At the annual general meeting of the Chamber of Commerce on 30 January 1914, the outgoing president, William Martin Murphy, commented that the whole struggle would have been short-lived were it not for ‘certain leaders of the English Labour party’, who kept it going for five months ‘by doles of money and food’. He concluded by reminding his colleagues that the victory they had won ‘should not absolve employers from the obligation of seeing that their work people receive a wage which will enable them to live in frugal comfort . . .’”

      1. Barry the Hatchet

        Frugal comfort? Dublin was a slum. This quote proves nothing. Martin-Murphy was not a demon, but he was also not a generous employer.

      2. Sheik Yahbouti

        Jeez, that really was big of him – bitching that it took a whole five months to starve the workers out. Wonder who the arbiter of ‘frugal comfort ‘ was going to be.

  4. Mourinho

    Couldn’t someone make the connection between this and the public sectors defined benefit pensions?

    For PR purposes.

    Let’s ban defined benefit pensions for the entire public sector?

    1. Turgenev

      He was, usually – but he was a paternalistic employer, as were the other 400 or so employers who joined him – Shackleton in Lucan being one of the first. He had the terror of ‘atheistic communism’ that continued to torment capitalists and their admirers during most of the 20th century. He was determined to crush the threat of syndicalism posed by the IT&GWU. The 1913 Lockout wasn’t the only one, by the way; there had been others, including an almost equally nasty one in 1911.
      Afaik, the only large employer who behaved with resolute decency during the 1913 Lockout, who joined the Industrial Peace Committee, and who had already set up proper working hours, good wages and excellent conditions for his staff. Lee’s drapery shops were known as the best place to work in Dublin, a place where the employers, management and staff worked in mutual respect and liking.

      1. Turgenev

        Of course I meant that Edward Lee was the only decent large employer; got tangled in my sentence there.

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