Workers Solidarity Movement

Around 25 activists have set up 2 blockades around the Shell Gas terminal in Bacton, Norfolk, UK in solidarity with Pat O'Donnell & the community in Rossport, Mayo and against the destruction of environment and communities by Shell world-wide.

The left talks a lot about class but in a manner that often confuses more than it clarifies. In this audio recording of a Rethinking revolution seminar at Seomra Spraoi Paul Bowman wonders just how useful the classification obsessed approach of the left actually is.

With the National Executive of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation coming out unanimously against the Public Service deal and the NEC of SIPTU advocating a yes vote, the battle lines are well and truly drawn.  The next few weeks will see an intense debate in the trade union movement on this deal, and the threats of what will happen to us if we don't comply are already coming thick and heavy from government ministers such as Mary Harney and Brian Lenihan.

This text is currently being distributed in leaflet form by the Vote No to the Public Sector Agreement campaign within the Irish National Teachers Organisation. As well as arguing why the agreement is bad for education workers in the public sector it also explains why it is also bad for other public sector workers.  If you want to distribute the leaflet you'll find a link to a PDF of it at the bottom of the text.

This weeks New Scientist carries an editorial calling for "robust public debate on geoengineering". Geoengineering is the idea that if climate change cannot be avoided through a reduction in carbon emissions its worst effects can be avoided through large-scale engineering of our environment. The failure of the Climate Summit in Copenhagen has seen many scientists look to what is perceived as the only possible alternative.

Following the vote by the Central Executive Committee of the country's largest public sector union, IMPACT, that they cannot recommend acceptance of the public sector deal in the forthcoming ballot of members, the deal is under huge pressure.  IMPACT's outgoing general secretary Peter McLoone has been one of the principal advocates of the deal and the failure of his union's executive to back the deal will have serious ramifications not alone within IMPACT but in other public sector unions as well.

James reports from the Workers Party, 32 County Sovereignty Movement, Republican Sinn Fein and Sinn Fein commemorations at the republican plot on Easter Sunday in Cork's St. Finbarrs cemetery.

WSM member and UNITE activist Dermot Sreenan gives his initial opinion on the (Draft) Public Sector Agreement. "We must reject this deal and when we vote for rejecting this deal – we are going back to what we voted for back in October, Strike. If the leadership cannot allow, contemplate or enable us to do that – then we replace them. Our Unions are still ours. It is time to clean house – it is time to get back to injury to one is the concern of all."

Back in 2001 - 2002, bike messengers in Cyclone Couriers in Dublin got a bit bolshie and began to get organised. Always a tricky industry to make headway in, we won a couple of pay rises and fought back the boss's attempt to reduce our working conditions.

Around the time of the visit of Shell’s pipe-laying ship the Solitaire in June it became clear that the Gardai had been told that they could do anything to remove Shell to Sea campaigners from the scene and they would be looked after. Rulings from the district court, in particular the denial of bail to 7 campaigners charged with the most minor of public order offences removed people with vital water skills from the area by interning them in Mountjoy and Castlerea prisons. Local fisherman Pat O’Donnell had one of his boat sunk from underhim when four masked men boarded the boat in the middle of the night and held Pat and the other crew member at gun point while they sabotaged the boat leading to its sinking. When Pat took to sea in another boat as the Solitaire arrived he was arrested under the Public Order Act for loitering and once more sent to prison leaving the way clear for the Solitaire.