Workers Solidarity Movement

Members of the public service union, NIPSA, were protesting outside the Housing Executive on March 26th. The Union has accused management of sacking over 60 temporary staff in the past few weeks without any consultation, and without any arrangements being made to cover the work. Bosses had previously agreed to take no action until the union had seen new staffing plans, but then went ahead and broke the agreement.

The Assembly plans to charge us for water from next April. Even though the DUP and Sinn Fein said they opposed the water tax when they wanted votes, they don’t regard that as important. They got the votes and now they can ignore the promises.

“Oppose the imposition of water charges and the privatisation of the water service, and any other forms of regressive double-taxation”
(Sinn Féin, 2007 manifesto)

“Other parties are against water charges now but the DUP has been consistently opposed to the scheme”(DUP, 2007 policy document)

Nine people from Derry are facing jail sentences for their part in ‘decommissioning’ weapons of war. The silence from official Ireland is striking. Not a murmer from Nobel Peace Prize winners John Hume and David Trimble, or from Cowan or Paisley, or Adams or Gormley, or Gilmore or Empey. Not even an empty platitude from Bono or Bob Geldof. Nobody was harmed but computers belonging to a multinational arms firm were tossed from windows and destroyed. It seems that the right of arms dealers to make big profits is a lot more important than the right to life of people in the Lebanon.

Welcome to the new era in the north, in which waiting lists for social housing are at their highest in over 30 years, landlords like the local Rooney brothers continue to plunder our communities to make way for ‘yuppie’ flats. Meanwhile, our local politicians are expected to receive a 16% pay increase while we are expected to bend over backwards for the bosses and supposedly wait for the ‘trickle down effect’.

Just Books Collective presents

Ethel MacDonald 'An Anarchist's Story'

This drama-documentary tells the story of Ethel MacDonald a forgotten legend.

Ciaran Murphy is a political singer songwriter based in Belfast who wrote the bulk of his material while a "dissident republican" prisoner between 2003 - 06. Last month an English music label pulled out of an agreed distribution deal with him due to unease at the political slant of his songs and the perceived sympathies of his small fan base. He describes himself as an 'Irish separatist' with libertarian socialist principles. Here Sean Matthews of the WSM puts questions to him on music, gigging and his political outlook. Ciaran is speaking in a personal capacity.

Saturday 23th Febuary, Kelly Cellars (Belfast City Centre)

This is an interview with a member of the TGWU who is attempting to organise a union in a leading Irish Sports Shop in Belfast. It describes the problems facing workers in the retail sector who are exploited by their employers and start organising themselves in their own work-place to improve their conditions. These problems are even more acute when there is no history of unionisation in the workplace and a limited awareness of people's rights as workers.

Due to potential libel action and its consequences for the union we are unable to print the company’s name. 'An Ireland of equals' what rubbish!

On Friday 1st February Shell Oil will announce their profits for the year (last year they announced that they had made £20 billion). To mark this Shell to Sea in Belfast will be holding a candlelit vigil outside Belfast City Hall to remember the victims of Shell's money grabbing and to ask why they can't afford to send their gas refinery in Mayo offshore.

In early December classroom assistants in the North returned to work after a series of strike actions which had gone on since September. This action by the classroom assistants showed in stark form the two faces of the trade union movement. On the one hand there was the tremendous bravery and solidarity shown by the workers themselves in standing up to attempts to bully and harass them back to work. On the other hand was the duplicitousness and skulduggery of some trade union bureaucrats who not alone did their best to undermine the dispute but actively worked with management and politicians to betray the workers.