Workers Solidarity Movement

In 2015, 2 years after graduating from an animation school in Paris, I found myself participating for the first time in a struggle as a unionised worker. At the time my interest in the anarchist critique of our current institutions was increasing, but having no first hand experience of class struggle, I couldn’t relate to what anarchism had to say about unions. By telling the story of this fight, I hope to show how much can be learnt from a single campaign and why action is the best way to assimilate theory and perfect it. I also hope that the specifics of this story will be a useful addition to the wealth of past experiences anarchists can learn from.

Note to readers: Passed by National Conference, July 2017. This paper sits under the WSM's Anarchism, Oppression & Exploitation and Class and Exploitation position papers.  It doesn’t repeat the material to be found in those papers.

Work and Workplace Organising

        A Workers Solidarity Movement Position Paper

This is the audio of a talk – Sex Work 101 - given by a member of the Workers Solidarity Movement after a WSM Dublin branch meeting in April 2017.

Welcome to the land of saints and hoarders. The richest 300 people in Ireland have doubled their wealth from €50Bn to €100Bn in the last 7 years. That means the number of people who’d fit in a large pub have enough money to have paid the original bank bailout of €64Bn outright (and still be so rich they wouldn’t have to work a day).

The government plans to force disabled individuals into work. It is set to consider new proposals that would see those receiving Disability Allowance being assessed on their ability to work and forced to work if they are deemed by a government official able to enter full time employment.

This new round of attacks on the most vulnerable in our society have recently been sent to the Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe. The new report which was given to Mr Donohoe last night  (23 May) suggests that disability allowances should be slashed in order to cut down on what they call ''welfare dependency'' - a fancy way of construing that some people, who are extremely vulnerable in our society, simply cannot go into paid employment.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in Basic Income. Basic Income is a payment from the state to every resident on an individual basis, without any means test or work requirement. Is Basic Income a progressive proposal or does it sound too good to be true?

Speaking at the launch of the government’s Low Pay Commission, Kenny said that “It is morally unacceptable for families with people in work to be experiencing poverty”. He did not however announce the abolition of the water charge, the property tax or that the bondholders would not be paid back in order to address this problem. Neither did he, nor Joan Burton, who accompanied him at the launch announce the end of the Jobbridge indentured servitude scheme, where unemployed people get fifty euro for a full week’s work.

One of the key principles underpinning anarchist politics and philosophy is that of self-organisation.  And one of the key principles underpinning self-organisation is the belief that it is by doing that people learn.

Very few people come to radical politics through what they read or through ‘education’ in the traditional sense.  It is usually through becoming involved in a struggle that directly affects themselves and their neighbours/work colleagues that most people come to see the power structures of society and begin a process of analysis of how society operates and how it needs to change if the needs of ordinary people are to be met.