Checkout: Life On The Tills

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Graphic for review of Checkout a life on the tills“Anna Sam”, as you might guess, is a pseudonym, the handle of a French blogger who decided to put her years behind the till to good use on a website describing the day-to-day experience of supermarket workers in all its tedious glory. In a way it’s refreshing to discover that the psychology of the checkout girl / boy appears to be the same wherever you go - my own days at Centra and the like are well imprinted on the brain, but they could have been an atypical reflection of my general misanthropy, grumpiness and ill will towards the rest of the species. But Anna reports more or less the same irritations - the only difference being that, on account of her gender, she must also bat away the sleazy or sheepish advances of French manhood on a daily basis.

Mayday had become like a funeral - interview with Alex Foti

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Cleaners looking at Euro Mayday posterIn August of 2008, Italian media activist Alex Foti visited Dublin. In the middle years of this decade, Alex Foti became known across activist circles for involvement in the Euromayday Parades. In a special themed issue of Green Pepper, Foti and the Chain Workers Collective sketched a very attractive understanding of the work discipline of contemporary capitalism. In their understanding, society had found itself in a situation of profound disjuncture with our working pasts - life today was defined by contingent employment rather than the traditional job for life.    

Working through Chainworkers, Foti and others developed the Euro Mayday Parade as an opportunity for this sentiment pool to express itself in European cities, along the way they developed a graphical tool set and pioneered a new vision of a combatative class movement that drew huge attention to the question of workers marginalised from the traditional unions.

Joe Duffy Highlights Makeup at Protest

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Joe Duffy invited two protesters, Holly, and Leah, who were at the protest at the Dáil on Tuesday the 18th of May, on to his Radio show on RTE.  These two protesters were contacted because they had been wearing fake blood, in an attempt to highlight that the Gardaí had taken quite violent action, including bludgeoning protesters with steel batons, against people who were fighting against public service cuts - indeed fighting against the very cuts that the Gardaí themselves will suffer. 

Dub:Protest at Shell HQ to Mark 100 days of Pat being in Prison

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On 21st May next Erris fisherman and Shell to Sea campaigner Pat O’Donnell will be spending his 100th day in prison. Pat’s alleged ‘crime’ was to stand up for the right of his community to live in peace and safety. For this he was sentenced to seven months in prison.

Capitalist crisis and union resistance in Ireland

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Reading a SSN leafelt at the GPOLate 2008 saw the Irish capitalist class wage a major ideological struggle against the Irish working class. They called for workers to bear the brunt of the capitalist crisis. Print media, TV and radio carried segment after segment where well-paid commentators argued that workers, in particular public sector workers, were earning too much, had overly generous pensions and that the public had unrealistic expectations of public services.

Finding all our articles

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If you want to see a full chronological list of articles the WSM published use the All Articles view.  Not everything made it online, in particualr from the pre-internet period but we did get even a lot of that content onto this site.

If you are looking for articles on specific topics the Categories listing to the left will be useful.  For articles from particular Regions use the Regions listing just below this.

We also have a  very comprehensive listing of articles by Subject but unfortuantly not every article on that subject will apppear there as its dependent on the correct tags having being added.

Anti-Capitalist Protest in Dublin - May 18th 2010

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In the context of previously reported Gardai violence against bank bail out protests the WSM decided to mobilise for the Right to Work protest on May 18th and published a call for an "anti-capitalist block" on the demonstration, to assemble on Stephen's Green, a few hundred metres away from the Dail and a half an hour earlier than the scheduled time for the RTW march.  This was done for a couple of reasons - firstly because the announced starting point for the RTW march was the Dail, which was also the march's destination. Thus it seemed that a static rally with speeches from notables was to be the order of the day and these are normally felt to be fairly grim and turgid affairs to anyone who has attended a few.  Secondly because the WSM wanted to differentiate itself from the SWP-controlled RTW event and create an alternative pole of attraction for radicals.

WSM condemn Gardai tactics at May 18 2010 anti-capitalist bloc protest

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As the march moved away from Stephen’s Green, it was met with an aggressive and heavy handed police response. As the three hundred or so demonstators attempted to move onto the road to march to Anglo Irish Bank, Gardai on foot and horses moved in to prevent the march from commencing.

Afternoon of the Anglo Irish Bank protest, after the arrests

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About 100 people were gathered outside this infamous bank, Anglo Irish Bank, on St. Stephens green by the time I'd arrived. I had already been informed of the fact that 7 members of Eirigi had been arrested after occupying the building from early morning. The Gardai had sprung into action and decided to clear out the occupation and they'd done that with the brute force that's become a bit of a speciality over the last few years.

About the Workers Solidarity Movement

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The Workers Solidarity Movement was founded in Dublin, Ireland in 1984 following discussions by a number of local anarchist groups on the need for a national anarchist organisation. At that time with unemployment and inequality on the rise, there seemed every reason to argue for anarchism and for a revolutionary change in Irish society. This has not changed.