Workers Solidarity Movement

Luas tram drivers in Dublin have voted by a massive 93% margin for industrial action.  The drivers, members of SIPTU, balloted this week following their rejection of 2 Labour Court recommendations in a dispute about rest days and shift lengths.  (see previous story http://www.wsm.ie/c/dublin-luas-drivers-ballot-industrial-action-sept2012).

Luas Drivers in Dublin are expected to be balloted for Industrial Action this week following an overwhelming rejection of a Labour Court Recommendation. Drivers are seeking parity with other Safety Critical staff who recently received 23 extra rest days and maximum 8 hour shifts. Drivers currently work 9 hour shifts in what is considered an extremely stressful working environment. 

In April this year over 100 bus drivers took successful wildcat action bringing Belfast city centre to a standstill in solidarity with a work colleague who was wrongly suspended by management without using the proper procedures.  Independent Workers Union and WSM member Sean Matthews speaks to one anonymous driver from Translink about the action taken, wider working conditions and the possibility of solidarity and

Something is changing in Spain. On Thursday 19th July, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people took to the streets against the greatest attack on Spain's welfare state in its history, in the form of cutbacks announced by the Partido Popular government. Public servants, trade unions, left wing political parties, worker organisations and unemployed people marched in 83 cities across Spain. A WSM member who returned on a visit to Toledo during Friday's protests reports on the struggle.

Workers’ co-operatives have always been championed by sections of the left and wider labour movement - from their advocacy by 19th century Welsh social reformer and utopian socialist Robert Owens to Proudhon through to their existence in various state capitalist countries today such as Cuba. While workers’ co-operatives can provide a small example of anarchist ideas based on self-management, direct democracy and mutual aid in action, we should not be blinded by their contradictions and should query their effectiveness as a strategy for real revolutionary transformation.

Witness Bahrain Ireland has called a demonstration this Tuesday because two RCSI alumni (who trained in Dublin) will be sentenced this Thursday (14^th June) under scurrilous circumstances.  It is hoped that bearing witness and raising awareness about this issue will prompt the RSCI to use its influence in Bahrain[2] to help persecuted medical workers (some of whom the RSCI employs and have trained).  The two medical workers [due to receive their final sentencing on Thursday 14th] were arrested, tortured and sentenced in a military court for treating peaceful demonstrators who were victims of police brutality.[3] The RSCI response to this should be prompt, vigorous and completely unequivocal. 

Thousands of civil service workers in Northern Ireland have been taking part in a 24-hour UK-wide day of strike action today. Members of Nipsa, Unite, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) and the University and College Union (UCU) are protesting against pension cuts.  Workers have been picketing outside job centres, tax offices, passport offices and other public sector workplaces. Several hundred attended lunchtime rallies in Belfast and Derry.

Tens of thousands of public workers from the North are expected to take part in the UK wide industrial action this Thursday in protest over cuts to pension and attacks on living standards. In the North, civil servants are expected to join immigration officers in the day of action while healthcare workers are taking limited action over lunchtime, involving Nipsa and Unite! members. While this latest strike action is sending out a message that we won’t work longer, pay more into the pension fund and get less, it is significant climb-down from the public sector strike last November which was the largest in decades.

SIPTU issued a press release on 24/4/12 as follows: SIPTU members in the Musgrave Group are continuing their strike action at the company’s warehouse in Cork in a dispute concerning changes to their conditions of employment. The industrial action, which began on 18th April, involves approximately 135 salaried staff members withdrawing their labour at the Cork Chill warehouse.

With the announcement today by the TEEU and Unite that they are urging a No vote in the forthcoming Fiscal Compact Referendum allied to the fact that Mandate announced a similar position yesterday a clear division is emerging between the leading trade unions. SIPTU has basically offer its support for the treaty in return for a funded job creation plan, this is basically the union leadership buying time before it falls in line with Labour and calls for a yes vote.