Workers Solidarity Movement

2013 marks the 100th anniversary of what many see as the most significant industrial dispute ever to have taken place in Ireland - the Dublin Lockout. The employers of Dublin, led by William Martin Murphy, locked out over 20,000 workers in an attempt to starve them into submission and to smash the increasingly popular Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU).

An analysis of the voting results on the first Croke Park Agreement shows that the votes of a few hundred union members in a couple of unions could decide the fate of the ‘Croke Park Extension’ deal currently being voted on by union members. Because of the bizarre - and rather anti-democratic - system of voting at the public services committee of the ICTU, a small margin in favour or against the deal in any particular union swings all the votes of that union either for or against. 

It is quite incredible that the majority of the union leadership had the nerve to stay in the Croke Park talks and return to us, the members, asking us to vote for such a terrible deal.  All of the unions should have had a ballot before entering into negotiations and we should have voted to refuse to enter discussions at all as long as a billion euro of cuts was a precondition of talks.  Once we entered on that basis, nothing good could come out of talks.  And after making the mistake of entering on that condition, all the unions should have had a change of heart and walked out once the reality of what would have to be accepted became clear.

We have to ask ourselves how we have found ourselves in unions where the leadership was allowed take such an approach.  And we have to work out how we create unions that we control and which will help us organise together to defend our common interests.

The Campaign Against Household & Water Taxes has produced this useful FAQ on the new Property Tax that answers basic questions about the tax that will be of interest to those determined to resist it.

The Government call it a Property Tax but it’s really a tax on the family home and once they get the foot in the door with this tax it will only rise. Along with the water tax (which comes in next year) households will be hit with bills of 1,000 euro a year and more before too long.

Five years of austerity have hammered ordinary people. No more. The Government must be stopped in their tracks on this one.

Selma James recently came over to Ireland to do a speaking tour in order to launch her most recent book: Sex, Race and Class--the Perspective of Winning: A Selection of Writings 1952–2011.  We took the opportunity of interviewing her, the interview is below, and recorded the talks she gave on  'Defending Caring and Welfare in Careless Times' meeting for the School for Social Justice in UCD and 'How Can Women Defeat Austerity?' at CERSA, NUI Maynooth. 

Selma James founded the Wages for Housework campaign and was the first spokesperson for the English Prostitutes Collective. She has been has involved with anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-imperialist campaigns from a very young age. She was born in Brooklyn, New York and as a young women she worked in factories and was a full time housewife and mother. In 1955 she moved to England, where she married writer and historian CLR James. Since 2000 she has been international co-ordinater of the Global Women's Strike.

The following text was sent to us by a reader who works in a social welfare office. It illustrates just one aspect of the human cost of the Croke Park agreement and of the furhter deterioration that will occur under the "extension", if it is passed. 

Life in a social welfare office can be heartbreaking sometimes. Sitting there, behind the glass, you have a very limited range of available responses available to a broad expanse of problems. As the crisis deepens, people’s problems become more serious and varied and our responses and the time available to respond narrow.  

The Dublin Anarchist Bookfair 2013 is almost upon us, taking place over the first weekend of April, and the schedule of meetings is currently being finalised.  This year’s Bookfair takes as its theme ‘1913-2013: Re-building a movement from below’. 

The Croke Park Extension (CPX) represents an all-out assault on the pay, pensions and conditions of employment of teachers. It is the latest attack on workers whose pay has been cut by 14% - 30% since 2008. CPX reverses many gains made by teachers, that took decades to achieve.

It is no great surprise that the SIPTU NEC have recommended acceptance of Croke Park II. But in their statement they admit far more than the should have and point not only to why it should be rejected but also what is needed to win.  That is the willingness to threaten effective industrial action aimed at bringing down the government if they attempt to impose Croke Park II after we vote no.