Workers Solidarity Movement

With the European Central Bank in partnership with the IMF taking over the running of Ireland's economic policy and hence social policy for the next few years we thought it timely to revisit the weekend of Mayday 2004 when Dublin saw major protests against the EU summit and the neo-liberal policies that were being adopted. This is not an article about how “right” anarchist were about the EU, but we thought it timely to remind people of the biggest, openly organised weekend of protest against hierarchy, power and capitalism Ireland has so far seen.  It includes a 30 minute documentary that shows the highlights of the weekend that we think has not yet been put online.

You have a gathering of nearly a 100,000 people, many of them active trade union members, and we are supposed to phone up one delusional Green party leader and try to get him to do our bidding. We, as workers and trade Union members are supposed to have that power to change things. We can do so by withdrawing our Labour! We do not do it by putting through phone calls like we are voting in the X-Factor and praying that our voice prevails.

We want to make the 1% rich pay, not the compromise of 'fairer' cuts.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions have called a national demonstration on 27th November in Dublin which will see tens of thousands take to the streets. But many are very unhappy with the ICTU leadership and a march called on the basis of 'fairer' cuts and a return to the disastrous policy of Social Partnership. The 1% Network will be taking part in the demonstration - not to support the demands of the ICTU leadership, but to outline what we see as the alternative. This is not in the expectation that the ICTU leadership can be convinced but because we want to make the argument to the thousands of workers who will take part that it is up to all of us to organise what is needed, a general strike, despite that leadership.

Pat Allen, one of Cork’s most colourful and staunch protestors, died early on Wednesday morning at Marymount Hospice in Cork.  He was suffering from cancer and had fought the illness bravely for the last number of years.  Only last month, Pat attended the Winter Talk on Tadhg Barry at Solidarity Books.  He enjoyed the meeting, he said, but complained that he was very tired and finding it hard to make it through each day.

Countless walking tours make their way around Dublin daily; generally educating the masses of tourists on the lives lived on these streets before us. It was a different kind of walking tour, comprising around 200 people, that hit the streets around Stephen’s Green on October 9th last.

A couple of hundred people took part in the 1% Network's tour of the Golden Circle in Dublin 2 and 4 on Saturday. The tour visited the townhouses of Dermot Desmond, Johnny Ronan & Tony O'Reilly as well as the HQ of IBEC, the new Anglo Irish Bank HQ, the HQ of Treasury Holdings and some of the the private banks and clubs in the area.

Video from the tour is also online

Following on from the successful 1% Network walking tour of the golden circle in Dublin 2 & 4 we are going to have an Open meeting to discuss and plan for the next event which will take place around Halloween. Come along, contribute your ideas on the future development of the Network and help organise the next day out.

The 1% Network has released a video promoting Saturdays tour of the mansions, private banks and clubs of the wealthy 1% in Dublin 2 and 4.

Yesterday’s General Strike in the Spanish state was a massive success. Large areas of Spain came to a complete halt and Barcelona saw 70% of businesses shut for the day. In a sharp contrast to the situation in Ireland workers went out to make the strike effective. Picketing was serious and effective and it was clear that workers were not sitting back at any time. Barcelona was the scene of prolonged clashes between protesters and the police during most of yesterday.

The 1% network has announced details of a ‘political walking tour’ through the affluent districts of Dublin 2 and Dublin 4. The tour, which will bring protesters through the ‘heartland of the Golden Circle’, will stop at a number of locations, including the new headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank on Burlington Road, property developer Johnny Ronan’s property on Burlington Road and IBEC headquarters on Baggot Street. The tour will assemble at the Wolfe Tone Monument on Stephens Green at 1pm on Saturday, October 9th, 2010.