Workers Solidarity Movement

The Workers Solidarity Movement is twenty-five years old this autumn. A quarter of a century ago anarchists in Ireland came together to establish an organisation to promote and fight for our ideas.

The McCarthy or “Bord Snip Nua” report on public spending outlined a range of proposed cuts in government expenditure. Of the €5.3b in possible savings, it can be safely said that at least €4b of this (and probably more) targets the working class. Indeed, a full third of the cuts are aimed at pensioners and unemployed. In the private sector, attacks on our class continue in the form of pay cuts, short time and lay-offs.

A special issue of Workers Solidarity, no 111 is now online. It concentrates on making the argument for a No vote in the second Lisbon referendum as part of the WSM 'No to Lisbon' campaign.

Download Workers Solidarity 111 - No to Lisbon (Southern edition)

Thomas Cooke workers refused to go quietly when they were tossed onto the dole. Cooks had made £400m profit in 2008 and their boss, Manny Fontela-Novoa, took home €7 million. This was not a failing business.

Sunday, August 9th saw over 5,000 demonstrators in Dublin take part in a march in support of equal marriage status for gay couples. The ‘March for Marriage’ was organised by lobby group LGBT Noise, and was supported by the LGBT community, heterosexuals, and political groups, including the Workers Solidarity Movement.

Mayawati, the Prime Minister of India’s Uttar Pradesh province has spent €177 million of taxpayers’ money on massive statues of herself and of her party’s symbol, the elephant. She also spent €11.2 million on a private jet to save her 10 minutes on her visits to New Delhi.

John Fleming, the west Cork businessman who began his career making sheds and ended up owing the banks €1 billion – the tab for which we will be picking up, no doubt – is a great example of how the other half is dealing with the recession. Whereas you and I have to pinch and scrape, John Fleming can still call on plenty of spare coins – despite his massive debt.

The report into the Leas Cross Nursing home scandal was a shocker. Elderly patients were dying in unexplained circumstances; others had open and infected sores which were left untreated; others still were being restrained and held against their wishes. Odd though isn’t it, given the uproar about what went on there, that so little attention was focused on the businessman who ran Leas Cross. There’s a reason for that.

Several hundred protestors chanting ‘Scabs out. Dockers In’ engaged in a mass trespass on the premises of Marine Terminals Ltd. in Dublin’s docklands yesterday morning (24th August).

We are using the WSM twitter account to provide you with live updates from WSM members involved in this struggle and to let you know of developments and new information as soon as we become aware of them.

SIPTU members at the MTL depot in Dublin Port have been on strike since the beginning of July, resisting forced redundancies and pay cuts. The company shipped in scabs from the North and Britain on day one to steal the dockers’ jobs, and also got a High Court injunction preventing effective picketing. We will be using the WSM twitter account to provide live updates from the struggle.