Workers Solidarity Movement

Fridays shock closure of the iconic Clery’s department store in Dublin shows how the law is set up to favour capital and screw workers. Workers are being told there may be no additional redundancy or owed holiday payments as the company is in debt. But this is only the case because right before the closure the largest asset, the building itself, was separated off from the accumulated debts. This was almost certainly legal under our system but of such obvious dubious morality that the workers could expect massive popular support if they occupied the building on a permanent ongoing basis.

According to SIPTU unions organisers some of the workers are owned “four or five weeks’ wages” and the limited redundancy they will get will come not from the company but from the rest of us via the government’s insolvency and social insurance fund which pays out statutory redundancy when companies declare bankruptcy. In other words all those costs are to paid by us.

Government policy is creating a fresh property boom that is once more driving the most marginalised onto the streets and into insecure accommodation. The deliberate creation of housing scarcity has seen huge numbers being evicted by greedy landlords, normally making use of the rights stripping clause that allows them to claim they are intending to move a family member into the property. Right now in Dublin who doesn’t have friends being evicted under that clause?

The cause is rapidly increasing rents and a wish by some landlords to cash in on rising property prices by selling. Tenants have suddenly found themselves dumped into a market where housing if very scarce, further fuelling the bubble of rent rises. Many landlords are refusing to accept tenants dependent on rent allowance and this along with the rising prices have left many unable to find suitable affordable new accommodation.

'Today 5 activists occupied United Colors of Benetton, St. Stephen's Green [Dublin] asking Benetton to honour their pledge of 5 million dollars to the victims of the Rana Plaza Collapse [deadliest garment factory incident in history] which claimed the lives of 1134 people and left over 2500 casualties.

Within 16 minutes of entering the shop 4 Gardaí arrived and asked the manager to tell us to leave.

The Gardaí then removed us one by one using unnecessary force. The result was the security saying we were now barred from the shopping centre.

In a disgraceful if not unexpected scene the High Court has again taken the side of property speculators and ordered the arrest of the remaining squatters at Grangegorman - 19th May. The judge also imposed a 14-day prison sentence on one of the occupiers who said he had not yet vacated the premises because he wanted time to bring an appeal to the Supreme Court

There were more arrests of water charge campaigners in Dun Laoghaire yesterday (19 May) and two of the four arrested are up in court around now.

Dun Laoghaire court remanded one of the water charge protesters arrested 19th May to Cloverhill prison for a week. An emergency protest called for the 20th blocked the quays and O'Connell St. for an hour in the evening demanding his release.

Stephen Bennett  is a well known water charges activist in Dublin who has been successful in defending himself in numerous cases brought by the Garda. He was remanded after refusing bail conditions that would have denied his freedom to protest in future. These conditions were clearly intended to remove him from the streets.

Taking advantage of the fact that a lot of local water charge groups were not seriously mobilsing for the April 18th march we called a last minute Anarchist Bloc to encourage people to attend via our Dublin radical events from WSM group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/radical.dublin)

The residents of Grangegorman are once more in the High Court this morning (26 March) as what is in effect NAMA attempt to get them thrown out of their homes. NAMA own the loans on the site, their receivers are trying to get procession not in order to build homes or a community centre but in order to be able to sell it. Parts of this particular site have been lying derelict for about 15 years as part of the speculative cycle of the property millionaires. If the residents are evicted who knows how many more years that may continue.

We thought it might be useful to explain why yesterdays ( 27 March ) High Court injunction against the Grangorman residents was seen by them as a victory. After all the NAMA-appointed receiver might have failed on Monday with the sudden attempt to evict the residents with force & fear but on Friday the High Court did grant the injunction compelling them to leave but importantly delayed execution until 4th May.

The simmering student revolt that started this spring in Amsterdam and spread to the LSE in London has now reached Dublin. Austerity has meant the acceleration of the EU neoliberal plan to turn universities into over packed and pressured factories churning out little human units optimised for industry.