Workers Solidarity Movement

The Barricade Inn is up in the High Court today as a legal firm seek to evict one of the most interesting spaces to grace Dublin city centre in the last months. Whether the courts find for a group of people with no funds or a law company will tell you a lot about the sort of country you live in. A country where thousands are homeless while 300,000 homes lie empty.  The video was shot outside yesterday evening as we helped to move materials inside to a secure location ahead of the court hearing.  The statement that follows was released by The Barricade Inn yesterday.

The next water charges march happens in Dublin June 20th. Here are 3 reasons why you should do your best to be on it.

1. Both the government and Irish Water are refusing to release figures about the number of people who have not paid the bills. The reason is clearly that so far this figure is very high - if it wasn’t they would be sure to have it plastered all over every newspaper front page. A large turnout for this demonstration is important so that isolated non-payers do not get a sense that non-payment is not flagging.

2. Meter installation blockades have continued all around the country but for four weeks one well known Dublin protester Steven Bennett has been held on remand in Cloverhill prison because he refused to accept stringent bail conditions that would have prevented him protesting. The government abandoned attempts to intimidate protesters with the court injunction after the jailing of the Edenmore 4 backfired and resulted in mass protests. It’s essential that they continue to understand that repression will lead to protest and that they can’t pick off people they view as uncontrollables.

The National Union Of Journalists (NUJ) has expressed concern over Denis O'Brien silencing of media and the role his control over much of the  media plays in the lack of media opposition.

The NUJ are concerned that the media failure to defend Dáil privilege may shatter public trust. Then more cynical amongst us might think that would be a good thing, for too long media outlets in Ireland have been spoon feeding the population with one side of the news in the service of those with wealth and power. O'Brien is at least doing us the 'favour' of making the control those with power over what can and cannot be reported very obvious.

NUJ Irish secretary Séamus Dooley has warned that faith in the media would be shattered if proprietors and editors did not challenge threats to parliamentary democracy and freedom of expression.

Last Thursday the local branch of Dunnes stores in Gorey Co. Wexford, closed due to an injunction which was brought upon the store by banning the managing agent for the receiver of Gorey shopping center. The injunction was to close the door which leads directly to the car-park. The effect of the door was that customers bypassed the smaller shops in the shopping mall. Dunnes Stores never asked the management for permission to construct the door; it was a clear breach of the lease.
 

We've caught sight (24 March) of the documents for the High Court hearing against the Grangegorman residents tomorrow and we're surprized to see we (ie our new page Solidarity Times) get a prominent mention. It appears the lawyers concerned are so used to a completly compliant media reproducing ruling class ideology that they imagine our stance of solidarity with those they want to evict from their homes must make us the organisers of the resistance!

We thought it might be useful to explain why yesterdays ( 27 March ) High Court injunction against the Grangorman residents was seen by them as a victory. After all the NAMA-appointed receiver might have failed on Monday with the sudden attempt to evict the residents with force & fear but on Friday the High Court did grant the injunction compelling them to leave but importantly delayed execution until 4th May.

A terrible atrocity has been committed. Democracy is under fire. A thuggish mob below common decency have insulted The President. That is, welcome to the Jobstown media-hysteria Mark II.

They can really pump out the moral outrage when it suits them can't they? The more trivial the offence, the more intense their condemnations. 

But it's hard to take this seriously. It is merely another weapon in the arsenal of bankrupt politicians' realpolitik; so clearly sensationalist fodder for the mainstream media. This is a point-scorer for the establishment.

The water meter installation company GMC Sierra  obtained court injunctions that basically banned water charge campaigners from coming within 20m of an installation.  The Edenmore 9 were initally brought to court with this injunction, the case againt 4 of them is detailed below.

Events in the High Court over the course of a week in the middle of March, and the lack of any real response to them, should be of huge concern to all trade unionists here.  Effectively a declaration of war against trade unions and trade union organisers has been made – and the response from the trade union side has been somewhat less than overwhelming.

On Wednesday 12^th March High Court judge Paul Gilligan issued an injunction to the Dublin Airport Authority restraining SIPTU members from holding a 4-hour stoppage which had been planned for Friday morning (14^th March).  The stoppage was planned as part of a campaign by workers in Aer Lingus and the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) to force their employers to deal with a huge deficit in their pension scheme.  80% of SIPTU members in Aer Lingus and 89% of members in the DAA had voted for strike action – a vote that was described by SIPTU as a demonstration that staff are“…angry, disillusioned and frustrated that an acceptable resolution has not been found to the pensions crisis.” 

Saturday night pensioner Francis Morgan began tearing down the wooden boarding at the disused Transport House union building in Belfast city centre to demand rights for homeless people.

'I am a Belfast man born and bred and I want to bring the heart back into the city. I want to open this building as a shelterter for the homeless until the end of March.... this union building belongs to its members and I am calling on them to give this building for the homeless,' he told the Irish News.