Workers Solidarity Movement

Last Friday we reported on the mounting crisis of Ireland's sovereign debt bond yields. Particularly how the announcement of Lenihan's "Shock and Awe" 6 bn cuts plan had failed to move the markets.  This week, as bond yields have moved from the business pages onto the front page, the search for an explanation for this failure began. By the middle of the week, the story was set - blame the Germans!

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.

WSM reporters took part in the student march against Garda Brutality in Dublin called by Free Educations for Everyone and the Students in Solidarity networks. Over 600 people took part in the demonstration which marched from the Wolfe Tone statue to Pearse street police station.  It followed on from the previous Wednesdays Garda attacks on students protesting the planned increase in fees. We had provided live coverage from that protest as the Garda attacked the students with horses, dogs, vans and batons and we again provide live coverage from this protest which is archived here.

In an important gesture of solidarity in the face of media attacks on student protesters and the attempts by the USI student union leadership to undermine effective protest university teachers who are members of the National University of Ireland Maynooth IFUT Branch Committee sent the letter below to NUI Maynooth Student Union President congratulating the students on demonstrating in defense of Irish education and expressing grave concern at the Garda attack on the studnents that took place on the Wednesday November the 3rd.

Yunus Bakhsh, a psychiatric nurse from the north east of England has won a four year battle against his bosses.  Sadly his union, the public service giant UNISON, was about as much use as a tailor in a nudist camp.  This should be of interest to the 39,000 workers in Northern Ireland who are in Unison.

Yunus had a 23-year spotless record in nursing.  What annoyed his employer, the local NHS trust, was his union activity and radical views.  He was the union branch secretary and also a member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

Six days after last weeks Garda riot in Dublin the state TV channel was finally forced to broadcast the footage of cops beating students that has been circulating on the internet from the time of the assaults. The RTE 1 TV report referenced the fact that thousands of people were viewing this footage at a couple of points in the report including at one point admitting that 86,000 had viewed one clip.

The WSM has called for support for the Student Protest Against Garda Brutality called by students from the Free Education for Everyone and Students in Solidarity networks. Next month’s budget will see savage attacks on public services and people’s living standards in order to protect the wealthy. A very clear message is now being delivered to the people of this state. The gardaí and their political masters want to frighten people off the streets, they do not want us to exercise our democratic right to protest

As this issue of Workers Solidarity goes to print, Brazil is about to elect a new president. After eight years, the Workers’ Party (PT) incumbent, Lula, must step down. His chosen successor, Dilma Roussef, is poised to become Brazil’s first female president, as she holds a 46.9% to 32.6% lead over her closest rival after the first round of voting. Roussef is a former urban guerrilla who was tortured by the western-backed military dictatorship (1964-1985) before throwing her lot in with electoral politics, joining the PT in 2000.

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.

Last year the Exchequer lost €7.4bn as a result of the tax break regime, over three times the EU average.  According to the government’s own Economic and Social Research Institute, 80% of the tax relief available on pension contributions goes to the wealthiest 20% of earners.