Workers Solidarity Movement

ESB today announced a range of price changes that could decrease the average billpayer's costs by up to 17% for electricity per unit and 6% for gas per unit.. However, this will only apply to customers in good standing, i.e. not to the 100,000-plus ESB customers who are having difficulty paying their bills.

On the 1st of April 2011 the government got in on the April Fool's game early, by announcing yet another visit to the trough for the endless bailing out of the country's basket case banks to the tune of 70 billion euros. Anyone remember when Brian Lenihan swore on his life that 40 billion was definitely the last of it? My how we laughed...

This week as Shell prepares to start construction on the final leg of their controversial Corrib gas pipeline & refinery they have faced multiple set backs. In Erris Shell were prevented accessing construction sites by a blockade of protesters on a number of days while in Dublin Shell were forced to pull out of a conference at the RDS. On top of this 22 TD's gathered under a Shell to Sea banner at the Dail demanding that the consents signed by the outgoing Fianna Fail minister on his last day in power be reversed. This public show of support for Shell to Sea by so many elected representatives is a demonstration of how strongly the public have turned against the project and the Great Oil & Gas Giveaway in general. Despite this it is now the Labour Party Minister Pat Rabbitte who is forcing the project through, who this week has refused to reverse the consents. (Photo C. William Hederman)

The Fast Food bosses are attempting to pay their workers less, with a case which has commenced in the High Court today. [16th March 2011].  The poorly paid have often and continue to work in the food service industry.  Low wages are usually the order of the day for those who work for the fast food merchants.  But apparently in these times of austerity the owners of the junk food franchises(Subway, Abrakebabra, Bagel Factory, Burger King, Eddie Rocket’s, Supermac’s)  see an opportunity to turn the screw even further on their workers and it is for that reason that they are in the High Court.

The richest 300 people in Ireland are now worth 57 billion, almost as much as the entire IMF /ECB bailout. What's more, when the rest of us saw our take home pay fall massively in the last year they got 13% or 6.7 billion euro richer. Which hasn't stopped them demanding pay cuts for the rest of us.

Eamonn Ryan was recently on the radio speaking against nuclear power, responding to a pro nuclear expert who had been given airtime to promote it on RTE the previous day. Eamonn was reasoned, logical, persuasive. Then the texts were read out a string of bile aimed at him and his party along the lines of "the people have spoken why are you interviewing this has been" etc. No real reference to the arguments or issues.

Despite appalling weather conditions, members of the 1% Network gathered outside the Central Bank in Dublin’s Dame Street on Thursday evening (10^th March) to highlight the fact that, despite the change in government the wealthy 1% still “pull the strings”.

The evening’s events began with a symbolic sealing off of the Central Bank with crime scene tape.  This was done to highlight the fact that it is “a symbol of no-regulation capitalism and unbridled greed,” said Brian Leeson, 1% Network spokesperson. 

Around 80 people took part in Sunday's annual Feminist Walking Tour to mark International Women's Day. The tour was organised by Choice Ireland, Lashback and RAG and for the first time was confined to the south side of the city, starting at Stephen's Green and ending up in Temple Bar. The audio from the individual stops on the tour is included with this article.

The election campaign and its aftermath have witnessed strident declarations that all has changed, changed utterly. Most prominent is the decimation of support for Fianna Fail, the party that has ruled 60 of the State’s 79 years of existence. Both Fine Gael and Labour have experienced remarkable success in the polls, unparallelled for the latter. These are not insignificant, but the context of continued economic crisis renders the changes in parliament relatively minor. Whatever government is formed, it will share the titanic debt burden of the previous administration. Although Fine Gael made suitably statesman-like noises about ‘renegotiation’ of the interest rate on the ECB bailout, their timid overtures won only tolerant obfuscation from Frankfurt during the campaign and categorical refusals since.

There is an increasing likelihood that the state owned forestry firm, Coillte, will be part of a rushed fire sale of semi-state companies. Last year, the government asked “An Bord Snip Nua” economist Colm McCarthy to head a semi-state privatisation group and produce a new report, which is believed to be almost complete. The original 2009 McCarthy report recommended the selling of Coillte “with a view to realising optimal return through rationalisation, asset disposal and, possibly, privatisation”. Thus, the prospect of a sell-off of Ireland’s entire public forest estate is now on the cards.