Workers Solidarity Movement

To take place in the Centre(Warzone) at Little Victoria Street.  Organised by Just Books and Organise! More details to follow

Troops off our campus sends out clear message that British Army recruiters will no longer be able to publicly organise without significant opposition, after the Officer Training Corps were recently forced to cancel their event in the PFC fitness centre in Belfast.

As Cllr Claire Heaney said after an unsuccessful motion proposing to ban British Army recruitment in Queens in November: “This would be a very public demonstration in support of peace. The British Army are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, for extraordinary renditions.' Since than Troops off campus have stepped up their activities and action as only popular pressure will deliver results.

Print workers threatened with redundancy at the Belfast Telegraph have started a campaign to save their jobs and keep the print run of the newspaper in the city beginning with a rally outside its premises on Saturday.

Thousands of people will be forced into poverty and homelessness as Stormont imposes the latest cut backs. Government changes mean young people aged between 24 and 35, who live alone and receive housing benefit face cuts of up to £40 a week, resulting in homelessness or forced into shared housing. These housing cuts are compounded by the lack of social and affordable housing while slum landlords and property developers continue to be subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of millions every year. 

The idea of direct action is sometimes simply understood as meaning anything violent, anything from a brick through a window to a full-scale guerrilla war. Our political opponents and enemies go out of their way to spread confusion because they know that in a “battle of ideas” they would lose. Firstly the fact that we are sitting in this room now having this teach in is a result of direct action being taken, doing it for ourselves and not relying on any politicians or anyone else to sort out homelessness or the building social centres.

Political poet Catherine Brogan returned home last Friday night to a successful event hosted by Occupy Belfast. Local poets, artists and singers performed at the free event in the ‘people bank’ to a receptive and enthusiastic audience eager to listen to poetry with a political message.

Occupy activist and WSM member, Sean Matthews, will be holding a teach-in on the strategy of direct action, the theory behind it and various direct action tactics.

Housing Executive workers held a successful lunchtime protest yesterday outside their offices in Adelaide street in Belfast city centre to demand their bosses keep to their commitment that a £250 payment be given to low-paid workers who earn less than £21,000 per year. 

Since the new year Belfast has been in the midst of a violent spree of car hijackings across the city mainly targeting vulnerable women. Behind the media spotlight and PSNI spin machine is a deeper context, one where where theose if power are quite contented to confine and manage ’crime’ in working class areas as long as it stays there.