Workers Solidarity Movement

SIPTU estimates that almost a third of workers in UCD are ‘fixed term workers’. The university also made a number of them redundant over the summer, including one who had been working for the college since 1981.

Like many other employers UCD has sought to save money in the last couple of decades by refusing to create permanent pensionable posts. Instead, a growing percentage of the workforce have been left on short-term contracts without any pension rights.

Looking around the world today it can be difficult to imagine how the society that we want to see can be created. But rather than sitting back and waiting for capitalism to collapse, or for the revolution to come, we believe in organising in the here and now.

A consortium of Shell, Statoil, and Marathon do a deal with the government allowing them exclusive exploitation rights to the Corrib gas field, off Mayo. Not only that, but they are allowed to write off their costs against taxes, meaning that the whole project is being funded by the PAYE taxpayer, who will receive nothing, not even lower gas prices. It may sound a bit iffy but there is no garda investigation into possible bribery or corruption.

Workers Solidarity 94 is now available online including the PDF file of this issue.

Download the PDF file of WS 94

Among our recent activities was the ‘Change Not Chaos’ mini-festival organised by a Derry WSM member. Saturday September 30th saw the Dunlgoe Bar play host to a day of anarchist talks, films and music. 

After more than a year of searching for a suitable venue, the Seomra Spraoi collective has finally taken possession of a space at 6 Ormond Quay, across the river from Bono’s Clarence Hotel. Despite the long wait, the hard work of the collective seems to have paid off, as the Seomra’s calendar struggles to fit all those who wish to use the space. Every week it hosts meetings for the Revolutionary Anarcha-Feminist Group, Anarchist Prisoner Support, the Revolt Video film collective, as well as the regular Thursday assembly of the Seomra Spraoi collective.

Hearing or reading about ecology or our natural environment isn’t an exciting proposition for most of us. The inevitable emphasis on destruction and likely catastrophe isn’t what we want to face into when our day-to-day lives are already tough enough. Graham Purchase in this book never dwells too long on the possible or likely results of centuries of disregard for ecology in the pursuit of profits, resources and land.

While it can be hard to come across political documents that inspire, entertain and amuse, Ramor Ryan‘s Clandestines succeeds in doing just that. Some may know Ryan from his articles in “We Are Everywhere” and “Confronting Capitalism” but Clandestines is his first published book. It is, for the main part, a travel diary and a readable mixture of personal memoir and political essay written over his many years as an anarchist activist. The book covers his journeys to a broad gamut of societies in struggle, from Berlin to Northern Ireland, Nicaragua to Turkey and many places in between.

The month of October saw the community of Rossport occupied by the Gardai Siochana. This occupation is the State response to a community trying to protect themselves against Shell: a multinational with a track record for maltreating communities which they operate in.