Over 30 years of anarchist writing from Ireland listed under hundreds of topics
The Reasons to Bin the Water Tax Bill
Date: Mon, 1994-10-03 16:27
- The average PAYE worker pays £3,565 in income tax each year, compared to £2,642 by the self-employed and just £575 by farmers.
- Last year PAYE workers paid £3,030 million - up £243.8 million on 1992 - due directly to the one per cent levy imposed by the same government which promised "tax reform".
- The tax inspectors trade union says that last year £2,500 million was outstanding in taxes, and that with increased staffing much of this could be collected.
- Instead the government gave the rich their second tax amnesty inside five years. While we have to pay 48% they were let off with 15% and no questions asked. Hundreds of millions of pounds were simply written off, over ten times the total service charges levied throughout the 26 counties.
- The government refuses to raise the Rate Support Grant by £35 million, which could see all local charges abolished throughout the country. Yet they had no problem finding£35 million for the beef tribunal, much of which ended up in the pockets of their barrister pals.
Foundations for Anti-water tax campaign laid in Dublin
Date: Mon, 1994-10-03 16:20
Considerable progress has already been made in laying the foundations for a campaign against the service charges. Throughout all three Dublin County Council areas, residents' associations and local action groups have been taking surveys and petitions, collecting bills for return to the Councils, and organising public meetings and protests. All the indications are that these efforts are meeting with a good deal of success. In the Fingal area, for example, figures are showing 77% non-payment up to mid-July. Results of surveys carried out in a number of areas in South Dublin show similar levels of non-cooperation.
Unions must come together to fight job losses
Date: Mon, 1994-10-03 16:16
THE ATTACKS on jobs, wages & working conditions at TEAM and Irish Steel are only the beginning. The government wants to slim down a lot of public sector jobs, with a view to privatising the most profitable sections. They also want to defeat traditionally strong groups of workers. Such a defeats will demoralise a lot of people, and thus lower expectations of secure jobs and good wages.
1500 job losses at TEAM Aer Lingus
Date: Mon, 1994-10-03 16:13
In recent months, over 1,500 workers at TEAM have been made redundant, a mass laying-off that dwarfs those at Digital and Irish Steel. We find out why...
The Heroin menace in Dublin in 1994
Date: Thu, 1994-09-22 13:01
DUBLIN is currently experiencing a heroin epidemic similar to the one that hit the north and south inner-city in the late 1970s. That epidemic left hundreds of young people hooked on heroin and dozens of them have since died of AIDS and AIDS related diseases. Some big criminals made fortunes out of it.
The arguments for drug de-criminalisation
Date: Thu, 1994-09-22 12:58
THE LEGALISATION OF CANNABIS is now being debated openly by sections of the European ruling class. In localised areas like Amsterdam they have been conducting a 20 year experiment into the effects of legalisation. In Switzerland they are experimenting with the de-criminalisation of small quantities of heroin. According to the British Guardian one well-known brewery, Carlsberg-Tetley, has been investigating the hash cafes of Amsterdam with a view to running similar establishments in Britain. In Italy a referendum in March of 1993 ended the obligatory penal sentence for cannabis possession and in Germany earlier this year the Supreme Court suggested personal possession of drugs should not be prosecuted.
Evolution or Revolution?
Date: Sat, 1994-06-25 12:58
THE IDEA OF evolution has always been important to socialists. Except for a handful of utopians most have thought of socialism in terms of human progress and improvment. This idea was given a scientific basis in the nineteenth century by socialists who saw society as evolving through stages towards socialism (not that it would stop here socialism would just be the end of pre-history real history could then begin.) Most socialists believed that the struggle towards socialism was a striving of people to develop and move forward.
Yes to peace but the 'Peace Process' offers little to the working class
Date: Sat, 1994-06-25 12:51
DESPITE ALL THE talk of peace the war continues. The media has as usual focused on the acts of the republicans, particularly around the Heathrow attack in March. However as the following extracts show the British state is also continuing its war effort and continuing to defend its usual mixture of lies and torture while doing so. They are all taken from An Phoblacht/Republican News (Sinn Féin paper) in the closing weeks of March, mostly stories the media did not consider to be worth covering.
Review of The Poll Tax Rebellion by Danny Burns.
Date: Sat, 1994-06-25 12:47
IN THE LAST issue of Workers Solidarity we discussed the proposed introduction of service charges in Dublin. We pointed out how they were a grossly unfair form of double taxation on ordinary PAYE workers. How can they be resisted? A refusal to pay campaign in Waterford, Dublin and Limerick beat the water rates in the 1980s we believe a don't pay, don't collect campaign can do so again. Conor Mc Loughlin examines a new book on how the Poll Tax was beaten in the UK.
The Poll Tax Rebellion by Danny Burns.
AK Press.
£4.95 (available from WSM Book Service)
National rail strike averted
Date: Sat, 1994-06-25 12:43
Letter: Rail strike is averted
Dear Comrades,
One minute to mid-night on Friday 15th April and the rail strike is averted. SIPTU left it to the last minute leaving the company sweating it out. The unions never had problems with negotiations. The strike notice was only served after the company suspended workers for not accepting new training arrangements which they were being forced to take or face being suspended. The company had repeatedly refused to enter negotiations because this productivity deal had been on the table for three years.