Workers Solidarity Movement

Last weekend in the largest show of strength in over a decade thousands of anarchist marched to protest against the violent eviction of the squats of Villa Amalias and Skaramagka and Patision Sts in Athens and also the very repressive climate that police and state have created the last months in Greece.

Photo - DZ on Indymedia Athens

Austerity IS working – it’s working for those at the very top of society. During the last 4 years, while the rest of us have suffered pay cuts, job losses, increased taxes and decimation of our social services, the very wealthy in Irish society have thrived.

On Saturday lunchtime about 3,000 citizens marched through the streets of Cork in support of the continuing boycott of the Household Tax and in protest at the sixth straight austerity budget to be imposed on the Irish working class, which was unveiled this week by the Labour/Fine Gael coalition government.

Roughly 1,000 people protested at the Dail last night as yet another austerity budget was debated. As with previous budgets the new flat rate taxes, PRSI & excise hikes will mean workers & those on low income will be hit hard while the richest 1% will hardly notice any difference.

On Saturday last (24^th November), approximately 15,000 people marched through Dublin to demand an end to austerity.  It was a lively and vociferous march that seemed to herald a renewed sense of militancy among those attending. This militancy was most evident when Eugene McGlone, president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, was roundly booed when he rose to speak.  Despite attempts to claim that this booing was orchestrated by Sinn Fein and the ULA, it was clear that a great many of those booing were doing so spontaneously and were expressing their frustration at the lack of action by the trade union leadership in terms of organising a real fightback over the past few years.

The numbers at Saturday’s anti-austerity march were impressive given the relatively low key build up, but what was more impressive was the militant mood of the protesters. This was exemplified by the booing and heckling of ICTU president Eugene Mc Glone with chants calling for a General Strike. Mc Glone, in the style of a seasoned professional union official managed to pick himself up and give a speech which though cynical in delivery, bore more than a grain of truth that the radical left should not dismiss out of hand.

On Saturday, more than 15,000 people marched through Dublin to demand an end to austerity and to oppose the State’s transferring of the financial crisis on to the shoulders of the working class.  Organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions and the Campaign against the Household and Water Taxes, the march offered people an opportunity to pressure the government prior to the budget and to raise the profile of the CAHWT, already the most popular act of civil disobedience since the foundation of the state.

On Saturday 24th November, thousands of people will march from Parnell Square to the GPO in Dublin behind the slogan “Boycott The Property Tax.  Fight Austerity”.  This protest, jointly organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes, Communities Against Cuts and the Spectacle of Defiance and Hope, will give people the opportunity to show their opposition to the introduction of the property tax and the further entrenchment of the austerity agenda which will come in the budget on 5th December.

We are publishing the following interview with David Harvie of the new English group "Plan C" carried out by Shift Magazine earlier this year. This interview has since been republished on Plan C's new website (www.weareplanc.org) launched this week. But we thought that although the interview is specifically addressed at political actors in England and the UK, the arguments over Austerity (Plan A) and a possible "New New Deal" or neo-Keynesian "Plan B" are also relevant to Ireland, where today organisations like Claiming Our Future are campaigning to build support for an Irish Plan B. We think the following is a useful contribution to that debate. Reprinted with permission from David Harvie.

Madrid saw significant riots on Tuesday as police attacked the tens of thousands of protesters who had surrounded the parliament building to protest the introduction of more severe austerity cuts. A WSM member from the Spanish state explains the context, what happened on Tuesday and the demands of 'En Pie', the movement which called the protest.

The platform “En Pie” (Stand up), composed of a diverse group of left-wing political party members and 15M activists, had called a protest for the Tuesday 25th September at 19.00 in Madrid. The intent was to surround the parliament buildings (Congress) in the centre of Madrid, to show that democracy had been “kidnapped” by inept Spanish politicians, and to demand that all politicians inside resign and re write the Spanish constitution. ¨En Pie, Stand Up¨ is composed by a very diverse group of members of left wing groups and 15M activists.