Workers Solidarity Movement

Isn't the Celtic Tiger great! This year's pay increase, under the Programme for Prosperity & Fairness, is 5.5%. As we go to press inflation is 6.2%, and rising. When the economy was in recession we were told to tighten our belts so that the economy could recover. Now that it is booming we are being told to accept what is actually a pay cut, in order to keep it booming.

Dún Laoghaire Rathdown

This Summer 60,000 or so householders in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown received instalment two of their bin bill. Inside in bright red ink it declared "It is intended to replace the traditional refuse collection method with a wheeled bin refuse collection to be introduced on a phased basis from September 2000. Wheeled bins will only be allocated to those householders who have a clear account"

The Workers Solidarity Movement is an anarchist organisation. Anarchism is the idea that we should organise society in a non-hierarchical way without bosses. We don't want to live in a society that is divided into order-givers and order-takers. We stand for a real socialism based on freedom and democracy.

The housing crisis for home buyers and private renters is in part due to the arrival of thousands of people into the country. The vast bulk of these people were born in Ireland but became 'economic' refugees and left for other countries to find work over the last few decades. The lucky ones did so legally but many thousands however were forced to enter the US as 'illegals'.

After six years of massive house price increases it is now almost impossible for the average worker to buy a house in Ireland. Average house prices in Ireland rose from 11.3 times the average income in 1989 to 18.2 times income in 1999. The increases in rent and house prices have, for many workers, completely wiped out any gain made from tax cuts in our take home pay. And for the poorest and most vulnerable sections of the working class the housing crisis is becoming a disaster as the rapidly growing number of young people sleeping on the streets demonstrates.

In December 1996, following a two-and-a-half year long campaign of people power, the then government was forced to abolish water and sewerage charges throughout the State. The principal argument against these charges had been that they were a form of double taxation on ordinary workers, already shouldering an unfair proportion of the tax bill through PAYE income tax and indirect taxation.

AT THE MOMENT there are approximately 236,400 people working in the wholesale and retail trade. Most of us working in this sector are badly paid, as unskilled labour usually is. Recently Roches Stores office workers went out on strike for better pay. Some of them were being paid as little as £4.16 an hour. They were successful and got a 25% pay rise.

THE BATTLE AGAINST the latest "social partnership" deal - The Programme for Prosperity and Fairness - in the teachers' unions has thrown up the best chance for decades for the building of a real rank-and-file oppositional group within the three teacher unions. Activists in all three unions - the INTO, TUI and ASTI - have united in "Teachers Against Partnership" and delivered a strong message to the leadership of the unions that passivity among the rank-and-file is coming to an end.

Conference notes the pay claim lodged by TDs seeking an increase of £250 per week. Therefore conference instructs the incoming Executive Committee to lodge a claim for an across the board increase of £250 per week for all PSEU members. This claim is to be lodged with the Department of Finance by 1st June 2000.

THE WORKERS Solidarity Movement have, since their inception with the Programme for National Recovery in 1987, identified 'social partnership' agreements as a major problem. Not only do they hold down wages while placing no limits on prices or profits; they also massively reduce ordinary members' participation in their unions, erode internal union democracy, and encourage a denial of independent working class interests.