Workers Solidarity Movement

Across the country, communities have begun to organise to resist the new household tax.  The government have introduced this tax, due to be levied from 1st January, at €100 per year in a bid to sneak in what will within a couple of years amount to a bill of up to €1,300 for every household, combining a property and water tax. 

Over the past five months, the Labour/Fine Gael coalition has rolled out its JobBridge internship scheme. This scheme sees thousands of unemployed people taking 6-9 month “work experience placements” in various jobs in exchange for €50 per week in addition to their social welfare payment.

Another budget looms. The Irish public again find themselves with their head under a guillotine looking up at this budget wondering about the weight behind the blade.  We are subjected to daily media leaks of what they are going to do to us in this:  Less dole, more job losses for those who have them, stopping medical cards for a few months, all the wild and fearful possibilities of a worse life for many people are being floated.    What is different this time when you compare it to the previous three or is it four austerity budgets?  We’ve been in crisis for some time now but this time the government is different.

Reports from the first anti-Household tax meetings in Cork, Dublin & Galway.

Despite the distraction of the presidential election charade, the past couple of months have been busy ones for WSM members as government spending cuts continue to bite.

Issue of Ireland's anarchist paper Workers Solidarity Issue 123 September October 2011.

Today Irish citizens go to the polls. Some are complaining that the election has been reduced to a glorified X-Factor.  We disagree, X-Factor is clearly better and here is why. People will vote in two referendums which threaten to change a lot and to select between 7 chancers for President who have between them offered much drama and little substance over the last weeks.  

(Image: wikipedia commons)

Workers Solidarity Movement position paper on Queer Liberation as re-written at the October 2011 National Conference. This position paper sits under the Sex, Gender, and Sexuality paper and does not repeat that material here.

Journalist and writer Conor McCabe’s book ‘Sins Of The Father’ attempts, in the author’s own words, “…to shine a light on the reasons why Ireland has the businesses it has, and why banks and speculators yield so much power and influence.”  The book has been acknowledged as a significant contribution to the analysis of the political and economic decisions that have brought the Irish economy to ruin.  James McBarron interviewed McCabe for Irish Anarchist Review  

The last few years have seen a significant growth in the Freeman of the Land movement. Increasingly, its voice is being heard at environmental and other anarchist based protests and events, from the various UK climate camps to Rossport Solidarity Camp.