Workers Solidarity Movement

The articles published in the Irish Anarchist paper Workers Solidarity in 1993 These issues were in the format of an A4 20 page magazine. Issues from 1995 on are a Tabloid size 12 page newspaper.

PEOPLE HAVE got so used to the health cuts over the last ten years that they just accept them as their lot. The situation on hospital waiting lists for public patients is now so farcical that people are being offered appointments two years away. The waiting list for tonsils operations in Crumlin Children's Hospital is now two years long. Tell them that the child is missing a lot of school because of tonsillitis and produce doctors letters to that effect and you will get an appointment in 15 months!

Over the last year, from Tahrir Square in Cairo to New York, a new movement sprung from the discontent of millions. It brought down a dictatorship in Egypt, re-awakened the libertarian spirit in Spain and affected a sea change in American politics. The Occupy movement, as it has become popularly known in English speaking countries, shook the world in 2011.

If the recent budget highlighted anything, it was the fact that the working class in Ireland is under severe attack.  Services, too numerous to mention here, are being cut or removed entirely, while the real living standards of many of us are being driven down and down.  Meanwhile the banker-thieves and investment-gamblers still live the highlife. 

Issue 125 of Ireland's anarchist paper Workers Solidarity  January / February 2012.

The idea of direct action is sometimes misunderstood as meaning anything violent, anything from a brick through a window to a full-scale guerrilla war. Our political opponents go out of their way to spread confusion because they know that in a “battle of ideas” they would lose. That is why they portray anarchism as a ludicrous system of chaos and disorganiation.

The changes to third-level fees and the maintenance grants system for new postgraduate students in Budget 2012 come as no big shock. The €250 increase in the student contribution charge means students will pay €2,250 from next September, with other increases likely to come in 2013 and 2014. In relation to postgraduates, no maintenance grants will be paid for new entrants from the 2012/13 academic year. These changes come into effect after months of campaigning by the grassroots student campaign group Free Education for Everyone (FEE) and the Union of Students Ireland (USI).

Up to 200,000 public sector workers took part in the largest one-day industrial action in Northern Ireland in decades along with millions across the UK, demonstrating that when we withdraw our labour and stand together in defence of our rights we have real strength. Belfast was a sea of red and colourful rainbow coalition trade union flags for a change, as up to 15,000 workers rallied outside the city hall against the cuts and attacks on pensions. From the early morning, picket lines  involving public sector workers from transport workers to teachers dotted the city’s landscape in a show of unity.

The idea that calling for a referendum is a good strategy for winning significant reforms often crops up in campaigns. It seems logical, as a referendum is a chance for the population to directly make a decision on the issue to hand. But the reality is that the demand for a referendum is seldom, if ever, the best way to build a struggle for a reform. Here are five reasons why:

Mid-December saw the eventual publication of the long-threatened household tax legislation. The first three months of 2012 will present every household in Ireland with a choice: whether to succumb to this new home tax, which along with the proposed water tax will rise to approx €1,200 per annum within a couple of years, or to refuse to register, refuse to pay and make a stand against the costs of bailing out bankers and developers continuing to be hoisted on our shoulders.