Workers Solidarity Movement

The construction industry and the property market have well and truly collapsed. House prices have already fallen by about 20% since 2006 and the fall is set to continue for some years still.

The ongoing debate about how school pupils should transfer from primary to post-primary school in Northern Ireland raises fundamental questions about the type of society we want to live in.

Working people in the Irish Republic have been hearing a lot from the representatives of their exploiters lately about the need for us to exercise ‘pay restraint’ and to ‘moderate our demands’ in these difficult times.

March 15th saw Dublin’s third annual Anarchist Bookfair. Despite a day-long downpour, over 800 people passed through. Thirteen different meetings were held on topics as varied as the health service, the Lisbon treaty, climate change, feminism and class, and trade union organisation. Interest in finding out more was reflected in the €3,000+ worth of books and pamphlets purchased from stalls operated by Workers Solidarity Movement, CAZ Books, Just Books, Anarchist Federation of Britain, Irish Socialist Network, Oxfam Bookstore and others.

In mid April, Cork dock workers took action in support of the crew of The Defender, a cargo ship owned by Forestry Shipping from Riga, Latvia but registered in Cambodia. The Defender had nine crew on board and was carrying cargo for delivery in the Cork area.

Abortion is a criminal offence in Ireland, even in cases in which a woman is carrying a non-viable foetus, is pregnant as a result of rape or incest or where pregnancy threatens her health. The state has not clarified the circumstances in which abortion to save the life of the women is permissible. The following is an interview with a member of the Cork Women's Right to Choose (CWRTC), an activist group campaigning for abortion rights in Cork (first published in Rebel Worker).

Issue 103 of Workers Solidarity -May-June 2008

Articles in this issue include:

• No to Lisbon
• Water tax is a double tax
• Celebrating May Day
• Nine Derry people face jail for decommissioning weapons
• Thinking about anarchism: why managers mess up
• American Soldiers Speak Out Against The War
• Health March: Enough is Enough
• Review: Flat Earth News
• Housing Executive to cut 400 jobs
• Belfast: Direction action gets the goods!

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.

Following three successful pickets of Delaney’s restaurant in Belfast sacked worker Dasa Kacova has won all her demands and been offered her job back.

This is an extraordinarily detailed exposition of how the modern media functions. The author, veteran Guardian journalist Nick Davies, along with a team of researchers from Cardiff University, spent several years monitoring the British media and tracing the sources of the stories that they carried. The results were pretty shocking, even for somebody who already has a very low opinion of the corporate and state media.