Workers Solidarity Movement

The madness that is Dublin housing bubble being rapidly re-inflated need to be opposed, not celebrated. Unlike estate agents & the media we recognise rising home prices are not good thing. Unaffordable homes are going to make things much harder for those in lower paid employment in particular. And with almost no protection from landlords for tenants and rising rental prices this means many being stuck in insecure poor quality accommodation for years to come.

House prices in Dublin have increased by almost €200 per day every single day for the past year (and by €220 a day in the past month). Figures released by estate agents DNG reveal that the average cost of a home in Dublin is €349,000 – an increase of €71,000 since this time last year.

Even more frighteningly, prices at the lower end of the market (less than €250,000) are increasing at a faster rate than more expensive houses. This clearly affects people in lower paid employment and those struggling to buy a home disproportionately.

Following a succesful day of community action, blockading scab labour operated refuse trucks, in support of locked out Greyhound waste workers, the company sent a hilariously whiny email to customers. In the communication they blamed "certain political organisations" for orchestrating the blockade on social media and claimed the actions put the strike-breakers' health and safety under threat.

It's all the more bizarre given the fact that outrageous violations of health and safety have been logged by scab crews, who have been working outside of the allowable refuse collection times. 

Residents in two neighbouring areas of Dublin took action this morning against the continued activity of scab strike breaking refuse collections in their areas.

A network of people who knew each other from other struggles in the area organised online to leaflet much of Stoneybatter last night with details about the lockout of the Greyhound workers before blockading two trucks in the area this morning.



The workers have been locked out for over a month after refusing to accept 30%+ pay cuts.

Extraordinary stuff. The Party that failed to act for 20 years on the X-case legislation wanted emergency legislation rushed through the Dail in 24 hours to facilitate a Garth Brooks concert. The concerts now appear to be all cancelled following an announcement from the promoters but the entire episode shows how politicians found great urgency to act when it came to a populist money making cause that they could not locate anywhere when women's lives were under threat.

SIPTU members who are locked out of their work at Greyhound Household Ltd will march to Dublin City Hall on Monday, 7th July.

The event will begin with a rally at Liberty Hall at 3.30 p.m., followed by the workers and their supporters marching to City Hall for the start of the Dublin City Council meeting at 5.30 p.m.

Paris Bakery workers ended their sit-in on its 19th day following official confirmation from Revenue that the company will be wound up. This means that the workers can be paid through accessing the Insolvency Fund. The law must be changed to ensure no other group of workers have to go through this to get paid the money they are owed. It's up to all of us through our unions to keep the pressure on for legislative change.

"In the space of 2 weeks a group of EL (English language) teachers joined a trade union, won our pay dispute with the multi-national we work for, and started planning to unionise the EL sector and campaign against zero hours contracts." - We are delighted to bring you this account from Aideen Elliott of her and her colleagues' recent victory against proposed wage cuts at EF Language School in Dublin.

James Davis is visiting Dublin and will be giving a talk for the WSM on the topic of Catastrophism in Seomra Spraoi (10 Belvedere Court) at 20.00 on Weds June 25th.

We live in catastrophic times. The world is reeling from the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression, with the threat of further meltdowns ever-looming. Global warming and myriad dire ecological disasters worsen—with little if any action to halt them—their effects rippling across the planet in the shape of almost Biblical floods, fires, droughts, and hurricanes. Governments warn that there is no alternative to the bitter medicine they prescribe—or risk devastating financial or social collapse. The right, whether religious or secular, views the present as catastrophic and wants to turn the clock back. The left fears for the worst, but hopes some good will emerge from the rubble. Visions of the apocalypse and predictions of impending doom abound. Across the political spectrum, a culture of fear reigns.


Wednesday 21st saw another successful defence against an eviction in Dublin.  This time in the Stoneybatter area.  We put out an alert after we were told that a gang of 3 men with crowbars "came this afternoon and broke in to one of the houses. About 40-50 people showed up outside to show support, then 5 Garda showed up. People inside resisted and argued until the alleged owners and Garda left the house and left the street to a large round of applause.

Everything is cool now. The street was closed off and there was lots of music, food, fun, and we managed to get the support of many parents and school children on the way home from school.

Generally speaking, the Garda didn't know what to do and there was wide public support. Small victory for now"

Over the years, Dublin’s working class has organised to fight landlords, developers and politicians in search of decent housing and well-being for all. This panel at the 9th Dublin anarchist bookfair considered how some of these earlier campaigns and direct actions can inform today’s struggles.

Dublin Housing Action: Past, Present and Future - Anarchist bookfair 2014 audio by Workers Solidarity on Mixcloud