Workers Solidarity Movement

The 1st of May as International Workers’ Day dates back to the struggle for the 8-hour working day in the USA. 
In 1886 the American Federation of Labour declared that after May 1st, “8 hours shall constitute a legal days labour”. Between that declaration and May 1st workers all around the United States went on strike to make their employers agree to a shorter work day.

Imagine that, leaving the pub on Saturday night, you find a fight outside. The Gardai turn up, grab a load of people, including you, and drag you off to the station, and throw in a beating in the back of the van. Next morning you are taken to an interview room and an old garda gives you a cup of tea, apologises for the “mix-up” earlier and says you can go as soon as you’ve signed a 6 page statement he’s prepared for you.

The war may be long over and our political rulers have finally decided to get it together but there has been no ceasefire in the class war against working-class people both locally and globally despite the promises of ‘prosperity’. With the onset of economic ‘recession’, continued decimation of our manufacturing industry and public services, increase in the cost of living (energy costs such as heating and electricity have risen by over 30% since 2006 never mind 1998), lack of affordable housing combined with the lowest wages in the UK and highest level of people on incapacity benefits in the UK, the wee ‘North’ isn’t a bed of roses that our rulers are keen to promote. Sectarian divisions institutionalised under the voting system at Stormont, and racist attacks are more evident and visible now more than ever as the ‘peace-walls’ have got higher and there are more of them.