Workers Solidarity Movement

Government efforts to bully public sector workers into accepting further wage cuts and harsher working conditions have been decisively rejected today.  SIPTU, INMO and the INTO all announced that they had rejected the deal in votes today. The rejection by SIPTU members was the final nail in the coffin of the deal, the members voting against it despite the efforts of the leadership to force it through, the margin was narrow only a few percent but the INMO recorded a 95.5% rejection and in the INTO almost 70% voted against the agreement.

Thousands took part in the CAHWT march yesterday on the EU Finance ministers march in Dublin castle.  You can see more photos of the protest in our Facebook  album of march on EU ministers.

Four unions have indicated today (Thursday) that they will not be bound by a majority vote by ICTU affiliated unions in favour of the new Croke Park agreement. The INMO, CPSU, IMO and Unite made this known after a meeting this morning which was also attended by representatives of the TUI, ASTI and AHCPS all of whom are advocating a rejection of the agreement.

On April 5, 2013 Mónica, a 70 year old woman with Alzheimer’s, was scheduled to be evicted from the apartment she has lived in since 1974. In the shadows of Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu Stadium located right around the corner from her apartment building, community members and organizers from the Popular Assembly of Tetuan of the 15M movement (indignados) and the Mortgage Victims Platform (PAH) gathered outside her building at 10AM chanting “This eviction! We’re going to stop it!”

Some great news for International Womens Day. The students of NUI Galway have voted Yes in a pro-choice referendum by close to a massive 70%. The wording (below) was very clear and included a mandate for action. Well done to all who campaigned in this referendum. 

Several hundred people took part in a demonstration in Dublin last night demanding the government legislate for abortion access as laid down in the X-Case judgement over 21 years ago. Government after government have refused to introduce this legislation due to politicians own conservatism and their fear of the huge resources of the US funded anti-choice movement.  But the massive mobilisations that followed news of the death of Savita Halappanavar after she was refused an abortion in a Galway hospital in the Autumn have forced the Labour Party & Fine Gael to finally begin the process of introducing legislation.

Following on from a very large anti-eviction march of 10's of thousands  in Madrid on Saturday today, 22 February, 2013, over 100 neighbors, anti-foreclosure activists, and 15M organizers stood together to prevent Nieves and her children (ages 6 and 9) from being evicted from their apartment. Although they have lived in their apartment for years, Nieves’ ex-husband’s parents are trying to force out their grandchildren so that their son (Nieves’ ex-husband) and his new family can live there. Her ex-husband has faced charges of domestic abuse and there is currently a restraining order against him legally preventing him from having anything to do with his children. He has also failed to pay child support on numerous occasions.

Footage of the Garda attempting to forcibly remove a small group chanting 'Who sold us out, the Unions sold us out' on the Feb 9th 2013 ICTU march against debt driven austerity.

Saturday saw another desperate attempt by the anti-choice coalition to prevent legislation coming to the Dail to allow abortion where a women's life is under threat. Despite months of preparation, a spend that must have ran close to a million euro, and the parish priest at every mass in the country telling catholics they should attend, less than 15,000 turned up. Compared to the 150,000 women who have had to travel to obtain abortions in the last decades this amounts to almost nothing, a handful of bigots bussed in from all over the country.

Last weekend in the largest show of strength in over a decade thousands of anarchist marched to protest against the violent eviction of the squats of Villa Amalias and Skaramagka and Patision Sts in Athens and also the very repressive climate that police and state have created the last months in Greece.

Photo - DZ on Indymedia Athens