Workers Solidarity Movement

SHELL TO SEA protest in Dublin
at the Department of Natural Resources on Friday 12th of October at Lunchtime (12.45-2PM)

 The Autumn 2007 issue of the Irish Anarchist Magazine Red & Black Revolution.
Red & Black 13

• A System in Need of a Cure
• Turkey: Modernisation, Authoritarianism & Political Islam
• Left Communism and its Ideology: Notes towards a critique
• Community Organising in Glasgow: A discussion with Praxis
• Bolivia: Social Movements on Fire

 [PDF file of this issue]

Wage increases were handed to the top-brass while ordinary health workers and the public were faced with cut-backs, lay-offs and recruitment freezes. It's clear that the politicians, the powerful HSE bureaucracy and the hospital consultants will continue to look out for each other while ordinary people suffer.

The September/October 2007 issue of Workers Solidarity is now online and can be downloaded as a PDF file.

Contents

Something Rotten in Store Street
Postman Pat Says 'Stuff Your Pay Cut'
Why Ireland Never Got Nuclear Power
Workers Occupation Pays Off
The Great Gas Robbery
That's Capitalism
Is Equal Pay Possible?
Climate Change; Delusion and Hypocrisy
Anarchism and the WSM
Anarchists Against the Wall

Green Party Minister John Gormley has given the green light for the Irish Coursing Club to capture hares for the coming enclosed hare coursing season. For those of you unfamiliar with coursing it basically consists of releasing two greyhounds to compete in pursuing a hare. Traditionally this was done in open fields with large numbers of men usually forming a human circle to enclose the chase and eventually break the circle to free the hare after a winning dog was chosen. As time went on and the sport became more professionalised enclosed coursing was developed where an enclose space was used to course captured hares.

The Limerick General Strike of 1918 called the Limerick Soviet (workers' council) into being. This was the first incident to draw general attention to the new spirit developing amongst Irish workers. The Limerick General Strike was however a strike against the imposition of British military permits and though it was regarded with distrust in some Nationalist quarters, it was supported by numbers of Limerick employers and shopkeepers. That the Limerick Soviet was used by workers to bring down prices and force up wages was a fact overshadowed by the military permit question.

From June to mid-August, postal workers in the North and in Britain were taking industrial action. Management are on the offensive, and the action was to protect existing conditions.

In a display of cross-border common purpose An Post bosses are also having a go, with conditions under attack as a prelude to selling off parts of the service to private companies. So, An Post workers have a special interest in how the Communications Workers Union dispute progresses

For the past eight years the people of Rossport in North West Mayo have been struggling against an at- tempt by Shell and other companies to build a dangerous and destructive gas processing terminal near to their homes and their community. This development would benefit no-one but wealthy shareholders as the Irish Government handed over the extraction rights to the oil companies in the 1980s and 1990s.

The debate has started. One of the ESB unions, Unite-Amicus, wants the government to build nuclear power stations. We are told that it’s a “clean technology” that will reduce climate change.

The campaign against Shell’s attempts to force a high-powered gas pipeline through the Rossport area of Co. Mayo continues as locals and supporters gather at the site of the proposed refinery at Bellanaboy in the early hours of Friday the 14th.

The morning began with a good turnout – aprox 200 people were outside the gates and blocking trucks by 7.30.