Workers Solidarity Movement

Late last year some younger anarchists in Dublin and Wicklow got together and formed their own organisation. Workers Solidarity asked them why?

It's one of anarchism's fundamental claims that it's possible to organise in an effective manner without submitting to authority. Not only that, but we believe that it's more effective than organising in a hierarchial manner as it makes use of everybody's talents and minimises the alientation that comes with decisions being made over your head. That's why we don't have a leadership - we think it's ineffective.

Ireland now has six euro billionaires, Northern Ireland Assembly has cost taxpayers £78 million, 1,250 barristers and solicitors earn more than €200,000, Bertie Ahern received no less than 5 pay rises in the 6 months

The (Irish Ferries) dispute escalated on November 24th when goons from a private security firm brought Eastern European seafarers onto the ships. If the ferries resumed sailing the dispute would be effectively over, with Irish Ferries winning hands down.

The old union motto "an injury to one is the concern of all" is taken more seriously by ordinary union members than by many of our "leaders". The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, sheltering behind the 1990 Industrial Relations Act which makes strikes in support of other workers unlawful, didn't call for a national walk-out. We knew they wanted us to strike and march but their over-cautious approach didn't exactly inspire workers with particularly aggressive employers.

On December 14th the three week dispute at Irish Ferries came to an end. SIPTU claimed that the deal protects a "threshold of decency". Irish Ferries had offered redundancy to 543 crew members, who were to be replaced with staff employed on wages of just €3.60 an hour - less than half the national minimum wage.

"I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom.

This is the text of the proclamation issued at the start of the second United Irishmen rebellion of 1803. led by Robert Emmet. Its noteworthy that the first act was to declare "church lands are the property of the nation." and point 13 declares "the people elect their officers up to the colonels" even if the introduction reassures "we do not make war on property"

A look at some of the problems faced and mistakes made in the organisation of the Dublin EU Mayday summit protests in 2004.

The experience of May Day brings up us back to some of the perennial questions thrown up by counter-summits protests: how do we broaden our movement and what role do direct action and confrontational tactics have in that process. These are, of course, the issues that have been mainstay of Red and Black Revolution debates over the past few years but have been usually viewed through the prism of events outside of Ireland. The following article is a personal account of the Dublin Grassroots Network's approach to such issues in relation to May Day and goes on to argue for increased tactical flexibility from anarchists within the anti-capitalist movement.