Workers Solidarity Movement

Thousands of protesters converged on Connolly and Heuston stations in Dublin yesterday as part of the 9th national demonstration against the water charges. The demonstration was called by Right2Water, the umbrella group of left wing political parties and trade unions, as part of an effort to pressurise the government to abandon their attempts to implement water charges.

A high court judge yesterday granted an injunction that directs the Home Sweet Home occupiers of Apollo House to vacate the building by noon on January 11th. This means that the occupiers will remain in the building until after Christmas which is some good news but it still means that the State is quite willing to forcibly eject people from safe accommodation back out onto freezing streets or into unsafe, sub standard accommodation.

The nation state backed capitalist system can only offer us increasing surveillance, increasing poverty, increasing social problems and the rise of the national security state which is necessary to protect the tiny minority of people who have stolen so much of the worlds wealth from the rest of us, who generate it.

The government may be considering a new approach to the water charges issue at the moment - 20th November. The brute force approach didn't work against us so now they may be trying to be a little smarter about privatising water services. Combined with advertisements extolling the great work Irish Water is doing and RTE leaks of how 'modest' the charges are planned to be, they are hoping to con us into paying for privatisation.

The Irish government's attempt to introduce domestic water charges in Ireland is not going well. In fact, for them it's been a disaster because it's sparked off a huge upsurge in working class self organisation and direct action. Saturday saw thousands of anti-water charges campaigners flooding the streets of Dublin o to again voice their opposition to Irish Water & water charges and as a show of strength for the movement.

It has been fully understood since the very beginning of this campaign that Irish Water was simply a vehicle to be used for the privatisation of water services and infrastructure in Ireland. The right wing, neo-liberal political establishment wished to gift the most vital of all resources to capitalist interests who would squeeze as much profit out of commodified water as possible, while cutting off the water supply to anyone who couldn't pay their extortionate charges. However, due to a huge effort on the part of working class organisers, the water charges appear on course to be abolished. The significance of this campaign in laying down a milestone for working class self organisation will be felt for years.

Irish billionaire capitalist Michael O'Leary has launched an online petition asking you to back a capitalist and state move against French air traffic control (ATC) unions. It's called 'Keep Europes Skies Open'.

The end goal of such a move would be to outlaw strikes through state legislation, force unions to submit to binding state backed arbitration and promote the use of scab labour to undermine workers striking for better conditions.

Michael the billionaire is hoping working class people like us can be enticed into undermining French ATC unions by encouraging us to put our holiday plans ahead of the livelihoods of French workers.

That's not going to happen Michael.

Since it's such a nice day, the Labour Party have some good news for you. They'd like to give back all the money they took from those who paid their Irish Water bills. That's quite a turnaround for Fine Gael's junior partner but they say it's because they don't want people "feeling mugged".