Workers Solidarity Movement

Workers are continuing their occupation of the Vita Cortex plant in Cork city today.  The workers began their sit in on Friday, the day the doors were due to close.  The workers are protesting over the non-payment of redundancy monies due.  With over 800 years service between them there is an outstanding entitlement to €1.2m in redundancy payments.  The reason given for the non-payment is a stand off between the company and NAMA.  The money is in accounts of a sister firm frozen by NAMA.

Issue 124 of Ireland's anarchist paper Workers Solidarity  November / December 2011.

Across the country, communities have begun to organise to resist the new household tax.  The government have introduced this tax, due to be levied from 1st January, at €100 per year in a bid to sneak in what will within a couple of years amount to a bill of up to €1,300 for every household, combining a property and water tax. 

The temporary release of terminal ill prisoner Brendan Lillis from Maghaberry prison, following a mass support campaign across Ireland, marked an important first step in the battle for prisoner rights. However the wider policy to punish, brutalise and isolate republican prisoners continues. Regular beatings, brutal strip-searching, denial of legal rights and recreational activities constitutes a callous disregard for the lives of political prisoners.

Over the past five months, the Labour/Fine Gael coalition has rolled out its JobBridge internship scheme. This scheme sees thousands of unemployed people taking 6-9 month “work experience placements” in various jobs in exchange for €50 per week in addition to their social welfare payment.

Another budget looms. The Irish public again find themselves with their head under a guillotine looking up at this budget wondering about the weight behind the blade.  We are subjected to daily media leaks of what they are going to do to us in this:  Less dole, more job losses for those who have them, stopping medical cards for a few months, all the wild and fearful possibilities of a worse life for many people are being floated.    What is different this time when you compare it to the previous three or is it four austerity budgets?  We’ve been in crisis for some time now but this time the government is different.

Reports from the first anti-Household tax meetings in Cork, Dublin & Galway.

Irish anarchism is a relatively new movement. We do not yet enjoy the popular understanding of anarchist ideas that can be found among thousands of militants and the wider working class in countries like Spain and Italy and across Latin America. However, this is slowly changing, partly as we begin to uncover forgotten events. This pamphlet provides a small glimpse of the history of Belfast anarchism, an idea that continues to grow, spreading the message of radical working class direct action on the streets of Belfast.

Despite the distraction of the presidential election charade, the past couple of months have been busy ones for WSM members as government spending cuts continue to bite.

Issue of Ireland's anarchist paper Workers Solidarity Issue 123 September October 2011.