...because they couldn't possibly reduce the CEO's pay or the shareholder dividend?
That's always a tired argument. There's one CEO and thousands of line-level employees. If you paid the CEO
zero, that might save enough to increase them all from $20.00/hr to $20.10/hr. Whoop-de-doo! (plus you wouldn't have a ceo anymore.... nobody works for free).
As for shareholder dividends, let's see... if you earn some money, and put it in a retirement fund or 401k instead of sending it, you expect a return on it, do you not? Otherwise, you may as well stuff it in your mattress or go out and buy that big-screen TV. If companies didn't pay a fair rate of return on people's money, nobody would invest in companies to begin with and the whole economy would grind to a halt.
Sorry life in Ireland sucks, but pro-union Karl Marx bullshit doesn't square with reality.