Workers Solidarity Movement

Revolt Video is a video activist collective set up to provide footage of political events happening in Ireland and internationally, covering the whole spectrum of social change. The collective works on the same principle as Indymedia, and alongside it will provide footage and less heard voices on issues which other mainstream media outlets ignore, often due to owners vested interests such as advertising and profit.

The PDF file and articles from Workers Solidarity 92 published for June/July 2006.

Download the PDF of Workers Solidarity 92

The June bank holiday saw over half the membership of the WSM travel across Ireland to take part in a weekend of activity organised by the Rossport Solidarity Camp. Rossport is a very isolated village on the Atlantic shore where Shell and Statoil are trying to impose a dangerous gas pipeline on the local population. Last year five local men spent months in prison for defying Shell. We asked one of the RSC organisers to write for our paper about the weekend.

During March and early April a wave of protests and occupations gripped France. On March the 7th over one million people protested against the French government’s attempt to introduce the C.P.E., a new law that reduced the rights of young workers.

At the Dublin May Day rally, the guest speaker from the Belfast & District Council of Trade Unions quoted from an article, Direct Action in Belfast, written by Connolly and published in the Irish Worker, September 16th, 1911.

“We have just had, and taken, the opportunity in Belfast to put into practice a little of what is known on the Continent of Europe as ‘Direct Action’.

“Direct Action consists in ignoring all the legal and parliamentary ways of obtaining redress for the grievances of Labour, and proceeding to rectify these grievances by direct action upon the employer’s most susceptible part – his purse. This is very effective at times, and saves much needless worry, and much needless waste of union funds.

“Direct Action is not liked by lawyers, politicians, or employers. It keeps the two former out of a job, and often leaves the latter out of pocket. But it is useful to Labour, and if not relied upon too exclusively, or used too recklessly, it may yet be made a potent weapon in the armoury of the working class.”

An interesting but deeply flawed book which is worth reading for its powerful deconstruction of the claims of the counterculture to be revolutionary, despite its utter confusion on the significant differences between anarchism and countercultural ideas

Why are anarchists always dragging class into everything? Isn’t class struggle something more at home in a history book than in Celtic Tiger Ireland? After all you don’t see too many downtrodden workers wandering around in donkey jackets, cloth caps and heavy boots.

Indonesian workers employed by global security giant Securicor have been through a lot. Over a year ago, they took the decision to strike – and were promptly (and illegally) sacked by the company. Since then, they have tried to win back their jobs.

The recent spate of unusually destructive hurricanes in the US and the severe floods in Eastern Europe over the last 2 years have seen the climate change issue climbing the headlines once more. A special report in Time magazine acknowledged that the “serious debate” about whether climate is, or is not occuring, has ended. There is now agreement even among skeptics that climate change is real and that human activity is causing it.

A young Israeli anarchist was shot by Israeli forces during a protest against the construction of the the so called ‘Separation Fence’ in Palestine. Matan Cohen, 17, was critically wounded when he was shot in the face with a rubber bullet, after Israeli Border Police opened fire on a group of peaceful demonstrators at Bil’in, in the occupied West Bank.