Workers Solidarity Movement

We carried out an anti-Lisbon campaign involving the distribution of 15,000 copies of a special edition of Workers Solidarity and putting up posters advocating a no-vote. Our activity was designed to begin a discussion about the sort of Ireland and Europe people would like to live in, and was centred on the needs of working people. The vote may have been lost but several thousand people got to hear about the anarchist alternative.

Our members have been active in supporting the MTL dockers during their prolonged strike in Dublin, where several community marches and an occupation of the freight depot were staged. As we got to print talks are still taking place about the details of a return to work, but the company has been defeated in its attempt to break the union.

We were also on the streets, with 15,000 others, in the national march against cuts in the community sector on Sep 30th in Dublin and mobilised for the ICTU regional protests on Nov. 6th. Our message was that ‘marching is not enough – a national strike is needed’.

WSM members have been involved, with others, in the new Social Solidarity Network of workers, unemployed, students and communities who want to resist cutbacks in pay and services.

Members in Belfast, who earlier this year were involved in defending Roma immigrants against racist gangs, supported a picket of the BBC offices there in protest at the neo-nazi British National Party being given a television platform.

We held well-attended public meetings in Cork and Dublin with a guest speaker from the Zabalaza Anarchist-Communist Front, a South African anarchist organisation. You can find out more about Zabalaza at www.zabalaza.net.

Our series of public meetings about the economic crisis and the anarchist alternative continued with one in Navan in early November. WSM members also met with probably the planet’s best-known anarchist, Noam Chomsky, who visited Belfast and Dublin at the end of October.

The WSM held a successful national conference on October 31st, where we discussed the future policies and strategies of the organisation as we head into what might be a period of heightened social struggle. If you are interested in joining us in this struggle, then get in touch!

From Workers Solidarity 112 - Nov / Dec 2009