Dublin Corporation workers strike continues with blocked drains and uncollected rubbish.
Over 300 Dublin Corporation workers went on strike over pay. The strike resulted in vast amounts of uncollected rubbish building up on the streets. Heavy rainfall caused flooding in Dublin where drains and gutters backed up as a result of the strike. The floods brought traffic to a virtual standstill as pedestrians stepped their way carefully through the floodwaters.
Strikers picketed many premises in Dublin city to prevent shopowners from freeing the blocked gullies.
Despite the floods, student members of the university branch of the Labour Party joined strikers on the streets of Dublin.
A special meeting of Dublin Corporation was called at City Hall by the Lord Mayor Mr Cluskey TD over a planning application to construct a petrol station in Ranelagh. At the request of Labour councillors, the striking workers did not protest at the meeting.
The strike ended after three weeks with a pay rise for the corporation workers, who then had to do Dublin's biggest clean-up ever.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 19 August 1968. The footage shown here is mute.
