Workers Solidarity Movement

Thirty or so anarchists marched with the WSM and/or Organise! at the Belfast May day march this year. Initially the rally was addressed by trade unionists including John Maguire, Visteon union convenor.

Alan from the WSM described it as "A lovely sunny day with a good anarchist turnout." and reported that "several people I spoke to afterwards thought a minimum of 2,000 people were on the march, the majority of these from the unions with maybe 20% from different left groups"

Today as in the past, May Day means respect for mobilizations throughout the world by workers who suffer, at times even paying with their lives, for the sake of their struggles to improve the condition of men and women who labour under the control of capitalism.

Around 1,000 people attended the 4th annual Dublin Anarchist Bookfair in March for a day of meetings, films, debates and - of course – lots of books. One of the organisers, Colette O’Reilly, felt the “growing interest in anarchist politics is reflected in the larger attendence and bigger book sales than last year”.

At the beginning of April, the G20 group of major world economies met in London. Media attention focused as much on the confrontation between police and demonstrators outside the conference as on what was going on between the suits inside. The London police were their usual charmless selves and even managed to kill an uninvolved man, Ian Tomlinson, on his way home from work.

As part of this year’s activities the Anarchist Communist Discussion Group formed by the WSM, will be hosting a talk on ‘The roots of Mayday and its relevance today.” The talk will take place on Tuesday 5th May at 7pm in the Belfast Unemployment Centre, 45/47 Donegall Street in the city centre.

Mayday is a time of reflecting and renewing the proud tradition of working-class resistance and commitment to social revolution. The spirit of class struggle continues to burn in our class from the Visteon workplace occupations to the school occupations in Glasgow and beyond. As we continue to bear the brunt of job cuts, house evictions and police brutality, the powerful message of direct action and solidarity against the bosses and the state is as relevant and necessary as ever before.

They got us into this mess but now they want us to pay the price for it too!

With the economic crisis now in full swing, anarchists are arguing for fundamental change and an end to capitalism. How can we achieve this and how should the new society be organised?

In 2007/8 WSM member Andrew Flood spent a total of 16 weeks touring North American and Canada, giving talks in 44 cities. The topic was 'Building a popular anarchism in Ireland' which involved a history of anarchist involvement in struggle from around 1997 to 2007. This video is formed from the audio of the talk and images of the anarchist movement in Ireland from the mid 1990's to the present day.

The need to agitate, organise and educate was the key message emerging from the recent Belfast Anarchist ‘Day School’.

March - April 2009 Edition of the Workers Solidarity freesheet.