Volatile atmosphere at factory gates

The Beef Plan Movement’s protest is attracting heat.

Let’s not kid ourselves, any form of picket is a potential tinderbox. Emotions are running high enough for people to take direct action and flashpoints have always occurred. This is particularly true in farming, where representative organisations are regarded as associations, not unions. Collective bargaining is possible, and commonplace.

Farmers do not have the right to collectively withdraw their goods and services and take the equivalent of industrial action. This means that to starve the factories of supplies, activists are depending on the support and co-operation of their fellow farmers.

The rules governing associations are also the reason behind why protests at factory gates are carried out by individual farmers supported by one organisation or another. People around during the IFA protest in January 2000 will remember that processors gained an injunction against the IFA. The High Court then imposed a fine of €100,000 per day when farmers refused to leave the factory gates. When that was increased to €500,000 a day, the entire hierarchy of the IFA resigned, including then president Tom Parlon.

Then, as now, a farmer was injured when trying to keep cattle from entering a factory. And previous protests, like those involving boycotts of lime and fertiliser, carried accusations of intimidation of people willing to breach the boycott.

The emergence of social media means that photos and videos from the frontline put the best and worst aspects of the current blockade into the public domain. There is no filter.

The loose command structure of the Beef Plan Movement can be both an advantage and a weakness as this protest plays out. The leadership may feel less responsible for the rougher edges being displayed than the IFA or the ICMSA might do. They can point to the guidelines of behaviour issued by the leadership in advance of the direct action taken this week. However, reports and footage indicate that these guidelines are not being observed as tensions escalate.

Comments on social media are pointing out that for some selling cattle is not a choice, but an absolute economic necessity to pay some bills. Then there are cattle about to go over the 30-month limit for QPS payments, or perhaps the 18-month deadline for premium bull beef price. The partial nature of this protest makes it more volatile than a complete shutdown would be. Let’s all be careful out there.