Workers Solidarity Movement

· ANARCHISTS DEFEND LOW-PAID WORKERS
· WSM REJECTS ISME DEMANDS FOR WAGE FREEZES/PAY CUTS

Workers Solidarity Movement,
23rd July 2008

On the 5th March 1867, the eve of the Fenian rising in Ireland, this proclamation was delivered to 'The Times' newspaper in London. The rising itself was fairly insignificant, put down by the police, with some sort of action in Co Cork at Knockadown and Ballyknockane, Drogheda, Drumcliffe churchyard in Co Sligo, Ballyhurst in Co Tipperary and Co Limerick at Ardagh and Kilmallock. The largest Fenian turnout was in Tallaght, Co Dublin where a small force of constables dispersed a body of a few hundred Fenians after a brief gun battle. The proclamation is interesting for the elements it contains which were dropped in 1916 including the separation of Church and state, the implied redistribution of land and the anti-capitalist promise to 'secure to all the intrinsic value of their labour'.

The concept of class is fundamental to the anarchist understanding of society. The goal of anarchist communism is to create a classless society where everyone is on an equal footing, where all have equal access to wealth and contribute to society as best they can.

Workers Solidarity Issue 104, July August 2008

• The triumph of greed over need
• Time for profit restraint
• Our bodies, our choice
• Scrap the 11+
• It's official: fighting war criminals not a crime
• Thinking about anarchism: Why class matters
• Solidarity on Cork docks
• HSE Board have vested interest in running down the health service
• Lisbon: A class act

As the morning of Friday 13th of June grew towards midday, the government watched and ... realised with mounting horror that they had not only lost the referendum for the Lisbon treaty, but had lost badly. In the end, with a turnout higher than both Nice referendums and European elections, the Irish electorate had cast more No votes, than the number that elected the FF government last year.

In the USA they sacked a barista active in the IWW Starbucks Workers Union as part of it’s ongoing offensive against employees pushing for a better wage and regular working hours. Cole Dorsey was fired after two years of service, while he was coordinating a union recruitment drive at Starbucks stores in Grand Rapids. In Spain, a barista, Monica, was fired in April from a Starbucks in Seville for her activity on behalf of her union, the National Confederation of Workers (CNT-AIT).

It’s not incompetence, it's sabotage - Would you put people with a financial interest in running down the public health service in charge of our hospitals?

The Health Services Executive in Cork is spending nearly four times as much giving work that used to be done by a HSE employee to private profiteers. A worker in the Environmental Health Unit (which deals with everything from transport to pest control) used to get a maximum of €700 a week until he retired this year. Now the same work is being given to a private firm, who charge €2,625 a week.

The construction industry and the property market have well and truly collapsed. House prices have already fallen by about 20% since 2006 and the fall is set to continue for some years still.

Working people in the Irish Republic have been hearing a lot from the representatives of their exploiters lately about the need for us to exercise ‘pay restraint’ and to ‘moderate our demands’ in these difficult times.