They got their £3 -- and some

YOU’LL NEVER Get £3 details the successful struggle of home helps in Cork for better pay and conditions.

It’s not that long since home helps earned a paltry IR£1.70 per hour and were not entitled to either paid holidays or sick pay. That they now earn the equivalent of IR£11-- IR£12 per hour and receive a range of benefits is down to the agitation undertaken by the home helps throughout their struggle with the Southern Health Board between 1998 and 2000. Noel Murphy’s 68-page book, illustrated throughout with black and white photographs, tells the story of the home helps’ struggle.

In detailing their campaign for justice Murphy, a prominent trade union activist and executive member of the Communist Party of Ireland, exposes the hypocrisy of those politicians who were members of the health board during this period and documents the inter-union rivalry that threatened to stymie the workers’ efforts.

Copies of You’ll Never Get £3 can be obtained from the Four Provinces Bookshop, 244 Grays Inn Road (tel. 020 7833 3022 to confirm availability) or by writing to Noel Murphy at Trade Union Centre, 55 North Main Street, Cork, Ireland