Workers Solidarity Movement

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The campaign against the bin-tax in Dublin has seen an upsurge of community resistance to the government. The mainstream media is usually hostile to the campaign and doesn't bother reporting many actions. Below is a summary of activity in two areas, activity which is being replicated right across the city.

In Spain there was an old saying to describe the inequity of that society; "some people eat but do not work and most people work but do not eat." It appears that this is the new type of society that the present Government wish to implement in Ireland.

The last months in Dublin have seen the jailing of ordinary working class people for protesting against the bin tax. A tax whose introduction was not only opposed by most people but which tens of thousands are refusing to pay. In the spring of this year more then five people were held in jail for periods because they had protested against the US military using Shannon airport to refuel en route to the Iraq war. Opinion polls at the time showed the vast majority of people opposed this war and this refuelling.

As we go to print, the bin charges battle has started in earnest in Dublin with Fingal Council's attempt not to collect non-payer's bins. Trucks have been blockaded across Fingal forcing the council to cancel all collection services. Elsewhere campaigns are gearing up to blockade trucks in solidarity with Fingal or when the other Dublin councils attempt to implement non-collection. In our next issue we hope to report in full on how the councils were defeated. In the meantime you can follow events on our web page. Below we report on South Dublin's council attempts to con households into paying.

On Sunday 13th July activists of Autonomous Community Spaces (ACS) entered 42 Parnell Square in central Dublin, a building which had been vacant for 11 years. They were violently evicted the following day. The extracts below from one of their press releases details what happened.

It is a testimony to this campaign that the government has changed the law of the land in their latest attempt to defeat it. The authorities, from the bean counters at City Hall to government level, have been twisting and squirming as they look for yet another way to make us pay this double tax. Initially they tried taking us to court. That hasn't worked and logistically it proved to be a nightmare for them. In Cork they tried not collecting rubbish from non-payers, and even jailed some campaigners for dumping rubbish outside City Hall.

The campaign against the bin tax is set to enter a new phase before the summer as the government brings forward new legislation to give the Councils the power to refuse to collect the bins of non-payers. The politicians are obviously rocked by the huge level of opposition to their attempts to impose this double tax - in South Dublin, for example, where the bills for the second year of the tax will arrive through people's letterboxes shortly, up to 70% of households are refusing to be bullied into paying.

Cyclone pushbike couriers gained a small but significant victory last November when they achieved a pay rise in the face of considerable management opposition. Though the pay-rise was only in line with inflation, management had flatly rejected this proposal and so provoked an organised response.

The strike at the Aldi supermarket on Dublin's Parnell Street came to an end on Friday August 18th. It marked the end of a bitter three month struggle for union recognition. There had been mass pickets, sympathy protests at Aldi shops in Letterkenny, Galway and Cork, and generous donations from members of MANDATE and other unions.