Workers Solidarity Movement

Regular readers of Workers Solidarity will have noticed that this issue is quite late in coming out. We are currently dicsussing our publications (Workers Solidarity and Red & Black Revolution) with a view to making changes in the way they are produced and sold.

TWO NEW BUZZWORDS have entered the lexicon of the Department of Justice; "dispersal" and "direct provision". The government's "solution" to the crisis of accommodation for asylum seekers in Dublin, like many State solutions, has served to create more problems than it has solved.

These are the issues of the Irish anarchist paper Workers Solidarity published in the year 2000. Number 59 was the last issue that was sold, 60 was the first issue of the new style free sheet - some half a million individual copies would be produced and distributed over the decade that followed.

As Partnership 2000 nears the end of its three year term, talks are underway by the employers' organisation IBEC, the government and the ICTU to draw up a fifth national 'partnership' agreement.

While the economy is booming and the fear of unemployment has receded in most areas, our unions are not exactly overflowing with militancy. In fact we have seen an offensive by employers. Nobody needs reminding about Ryanair.

AS THIS ARTICLE is being written, George Mitchell has flown in to Belfast and begun a round of meetings with political parties in the North in a supposed "review" of the Good Friday Agreement. Needless to say this "review" is unlikely to address any of the fundamental flaws in that agreement. Nor are we likely to witness an outbreak of concern for the working class people of the 6 Counties from any of the participants in this review.

IRISH WORKERS are undervalued by 50% according to an international study published earlier this year. By comparing wages and productivity in 28 different types of job throughout all 15 European Union countries it found only Portuguese workers did more and received less.

ANARCHISTS ARE NOT against democracy. We are in favour of the idea but we sure as hell disagree with the way it's currently practised. Fine cases in point were the local elections. These were the first local elections in the 26 counties for eight years. Indeed the government decided it might just as well be the wisest thing for all concerned to offer the sitting incumbents up to £20,000 to feck off and retire rather than having to put us all though the process of reminding us how great they were. Thankfully many of them did.

PART 1 - Last year WSM members participated in a number of pickets, organised by the Anti-Racism Campaign, on the constituency clinic of Dublin Fianna Fail TD Ivor Callely. This was in response to comments made by Callely when he criticised the numbers of asylum seekers coming to Ireland. At the time we said that his comments would lead to an increase in racism, and would provide people who have an openly racist agenda with a cover for their activities.

BORD FAILTE, the Irish tourist board, sells an image of Ireland as being a very friendly place to visit, a place where you are guaranteed a huge "Cead Mile Failte" (a hundred thousand welcomes). Tell that to the group of nine Polish tourists whose friendly welcome in mid-June consisted of spending a night in Mountjoy prison before being dispatched back to Poland unceremoniously because "they didn't have enough money". Or to the Japanese academic who wanted to come to Ireland for the Bloomsday celebrations, also in mid-June, but was refused permission to land in the State.

OVER THE SUMMER there were developments in the long struggle over women's rights to control their own bodies. Most of them have not been good. In the North a group known as Precious Life succeeded, following a campaign of intimidation, in closing down the Ulster Pregnancy Advisory Association. The association had been in existence for 20 years. They took the decision to close their doors following picketing of the homes of their councillors, who were all volunteers. Their head office was broken into and a fire was started.