Workers Solidarity Movement

This weeks leads editorial in the international business magazine 'The Economist' shrugs its shoulders and walks away from the idea of controlling Climate Change. This is very significant for The Economist is not a climate change denial publication, for some time (at least as far back as 2006) it has accepted the scientific consensus that human caused Climate Change is a real process with extremely serious implications.  So it giving up the fight is a very big deal indeed, and one that contains serious lessons for the Climate Change reformists who continue to believe that if enough pressure is put on a deal can somehow be struck at five minutes to midnight.

If you like ‘feel good’ films this is for you.  Leaving a cinema feeling both entertained and optimistic is rare enough, and this film scores highly on both points.

In 1968 there were 55,000 working at Ford’s massive plant in east London. One of them is machinist Rita O’Grady, who makes seat covers with 156 other women at the Dagenham factory. Thinking that women won’t cause trouble, management regrades them as ‘unskilled’.

In July 1914, the Shanghai Association of Anarchist Communist Comrades published its statement of principles, concluding with the resolution that, "the implementation of anarchist communism depends on the strength of our party. If we wish to increase our party's strength, uniting as a whole body and advancing together is our most important task today. Wherever they are, all our comrades should unite with those who share the same purposes and establish groups in free association.” The key member of this group was a Chinese anarchist known as Shifu who was to die a mere nine months later. Although the group carried on after his death, the core concept of this paragraph was never to be implemented.

Saturday the 29^thof May saw the return of the Dublin Anarchist Bookfair to Liberty Hall. It is the 5^th Bookfair to be held in the city (organised by the Workers Solidarity Movement),and from what started out as a small event in a community hall in the Liberties is now one of the landmark events in the calendar of the Irish left.

The book can be read in a number of ways; on one hand it rescues the IWW from Stalinist critics that fashionably flounced after Russian Bolshevism; it gives insight to the politics and personalities of the union itself and rescues Hill the man. But as suggested by the subtitle, it’s Rosemont’s treatment of how the IWW built a counter hegemonic working class culture that is the most interesting facet of this brick thick work.

“Anna Sam”, as you might guess, is a pseudonym, the handle of a French blogger who decided to put her years behind the till to good use on a website describing the day-to-day experience of supermarket workers in all its tedious glory. In a way it’s refreshing to discover that the psychology of the checkout girl / boy appears to be the same wherever you go - my own days at Centra and the like are well imprinted on the brain, but they could have been an atypical reflection of my general misanthropy, grumpiness and ill will towards the rest of the species. But Anna reports more or less the same irritations - the only difference being that, on account of her gender, she must also bat away the sleazy or sheepish advances of French manhood on a daily basis.

Although Faceless Resistance as a concept has been discussed among radical circles in Sweden for several years, it has only recently begun to be noticed in the English speaking world, primarily due to delays in texts being translated. In this article I will look primarily at the work of Kämpa Tillsammans, who developed the core ideas of Faceless Resistance, but I will also situate these ideas in their historical and social context and introduce other tendencies that have been influenced by and adapted some of the theory.

TASC have released a detailed report called 'Mapping the Golden Circle' that reveals the "network of 39 individuals [who] held powerful positions in 33 of 40 top public organisations and private Irish businesses." Their analysis shows that within this 11 of these people were "very well connected" and that the most tightly interwoven institutions were all banks. This are the gang who now order us to 'share the pain' yet in 2005-7 they awarded themselves 40% pay increases while most workers were getting one quarter of this.

This is easily the most comprehensive FAQ on anarchist theory, history and practice available today. The Anarchist FAQ provides the answers to questions as straightforward as “What is Anarchism?” but also responds to inquiries about what an anarchist society would look like. It first appeared online as a rebuttal to claims that “anarcho-capitalism” was a form of anarchism but its scope has since been hugely expanded.

“Someday Independent” is a 4 page leaflet produced by Dublin Shell to Sea. The design/layout and graphical work is of a very high standard and compares favourably to high cost, professionally produced brochures. The overall colour scheme and design is a pleasing blue “wave” design which is easy on the eye and appropriate to the subject material without drawing too much attention to itself.