Workers Solidarity Movement

Oh the last day of his brief spell in power the replacement Minister of Energy Pat Carey signed the consents on the final stage of Shell's experimental gas pipeline in Erris despite continued opposition from the local community and people all over the island concerned with both safety and the Great Oil & Gas Giveaway.  It is increasingly clear that the haste on pushing the project thorough is because the Bellanaboy refinery is intended to take not just the relatively small deposits of the Corrib field but also the hundreds of billions of oil and gas found off the atlantic coast.

The attack on workers at the Davenport Hotel in Dublin had highlighted the greed and bullying in the hotel business.  A similar case to that at the Davenport has come to light here in Cork.  But so far fear has ruled the day.

The Clarion describes itself as one of “Cork’s premier 4 Star City Centre Hotels”.  Although it’s well able to charge for its rooms it cannot find its way to granting its workers a 29 cents  per hour pay rise.

No political party would be allowed to take power on a platform of taking their riches from the wealthy 1%.  Their huge wealth gives them political power.  The power and wealth cannot be taken from the elite through the ballot box, it can only happen by a massive social upheaval.

Libyan leader Gaddafi is in the final throes of his dicatatorship as mass demonstrations  take place across the country,as tribal leaders , political allies and army units switch sides.  The courageous actions of the mass of protestors despite brutal murderous attacks by security forces still loyal to the regime, have confounded the dicatorship. Much as in Egypt people have not broken under the attacks but become more enraged. Bahrains monarchy is teetering. Even China is now feeling the effects of this wave of protest and defiance with protests at a number of centres yesterday.

Despite the empty promises of Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan employers have started to try and impose the 1 euro cut in the minimum wage on workers in Dublin.  SIPTU placed pickets on the Davenport Hotel in Dublin after workers were  taken off the roster for refusing to sign new contracts reducing their wage rate by almost €1 an hour. The workers concerned who are all women from Eastern Europe were brought into three meetings by management over the last three weeks and repeatedly told they must sign the new contracts or face being taken off the roster. According to SITPU they were not given a copy of the new contract, either in English or in their own languages. 

The Independent Workers Union (Cork Branch) has launched a series of posters that have been displayed on poles around Cork city. The posters raise five demands from the unions manifesto of resistance.

On Saturday members and supporters of Dublin Shell to Sea gathered the top of Grafton Street to distribute €540 billion ‘commemorative bank notes’ to members of the public, symbolising the cost to the exchequer of the extraordinary giveaway of Ireland’s oil and gas reserves. This was part of a national Shell to Sea day that saw leafletting in 8 other towns and cities around Ireland as well as Dublin.

800 delegates representing Irish National Teachers Organisation members from across the country have voted overwhelmingly to reject a government scheme which would have seen unemployed teachers working for free in our schools.

An Irish general election fever grips this place, where promises flow like water running off a mountain, and where the sun, the moon, and the stars are laid at the feet of the people, all for the sake of a no. 1 on the day itself.   From looking around us now you witness the desperate scramble of prospective candidates to get into power, into the Dáil, to receive their €100,000 PA salary plus expenses.  Jobs and Reform appear to be on top of the agenda, yet no one appears to be responsible for the transgressions of the past. 

Up to 150 students, nurses, college lecturers and activists including WSM braved the wet and dreary conditions to voice their dissatisfaction at the government's proposed pay-cut to student nurse-interns. The protest held at the gate of Mayo General Hospital was organised by the Irish Nurses and Midwives organisation -Ireland's main Nursing union. Whilst good humoured, there was a palpable anger underlying today's protest which was one of many taking part nationwide. The message is clear from the student nurses and their qualified counterparts - NO PAY, NO WAY - NO TO SLAVE LABOUR.