Workers Solidarity Movement

So building social housing is "not viable" for the profiteers at construction firm Michael McNamara & Co. What they really mean is that they've got themselves in a bit of a sticky situation by riddling the country with overpriced and unsustainable housing developments and the profits from the "Public Private Partnership" aren't sufficient to get them out of it.

While the rest of us are slaving away to make end’s meat and facing the brunt of the ‘credit crunch’. We are continually told by our political rulers to be ‘competitive’ for the bosses waiting for the promised ‘trickle-down effect’ that never arrives. Staggering rises in energy prices above the rate of inflation, imposition of un-wanted water charges while hundreds of people die every year due to ‘fuel poverty’ it seems the North elite rich club have never had it so good according to the latest Sunday Times rich list. There is now a record of 61 people from the north among Ireland’s richest 250 and they are getting richer! Last year their wealth increased to a combined £10.7 billion! On top of the list like every year is Fermanagh’s Sean Quinn worth about £3.7 billion, who does allot of dealing in insurance and property market. Alright for some eh?

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.

It is going to be complicated when you look at the finances of man who had NO bank account from 1986-1993. This was due to the fact that he was going through a divorce and he had a joint bank account with his wife. Being an honorable man he wasn’t going to put his money into that account. He took the decision to not open a bank account at all. In the meantime he managed to save up £50,000 IEP by 1993. This meant he could’ve bought a house for that in pure cash. Didn’t his ‘life partner’ buy a house in the area the following year for just over £40,000 IEP. Who is he? No one other than Patrick Bartholomew "Bertie" Ahern.

Paul McCartney should have brought Bertie in as a consultant on his recent divorce proceedings.

Ciaran Murphy is a political singer songwriter based in Belfast who wrote the bulk of his material while a "dissident republican" prisoner between 2003 - 06. Last month an English music label pulled out of an agreed distribution deal with him due to unease at the political slant of his songs and the perceived sympathies of his small fan base. He describes himself as an 'Irish separatist' with libertarian socialist principles. Here Sean Matthews of the WSM puts questions to him on music, gigging and his political outlook. Ciaran is speaking in a personal capacity.

This is an interview with a member of the TGWU who is attempting to organise a union in a leading Irish Sports Shop in Belfast. It describes the problems facing workers in the retail sector who are exploited by their employers and start organising themselves in their own work-place to improve their conditions. These problems are even more acute when there is no history of unionisation in the workplace and a limited awareness of people's rights as workers.

Due to potential libel action and its consequences for the union we are unable to print the company’s name. 'An Ireland of equals' what rubbish!

“Pacifism simply does not resonate in people’s lives everyday realities, unless those people live in some extravagant bubble of tranquillity from which all forms of civilization’s pandemic reactive violence have been pushed out by the systemic and less violence of police and military forces.”

“Ultimately, nonviolence is created and encouraged by the State, and antithetical to anarchist revolution”

Anarchists believe in equality between all people regardless of where their ancestors may be from, what colour their skin is, or where they were born, as we are all immigrants in one way or the other. Racism is often used by bosses as a tool in dividing the working class and weakening class unity, collective action and class struggle, because this threatens their privilege and authority.

In early December classroom assistants in the North returned to work after a series of strike actions which had gone on since September. This action by the classroom assistants showed in stark form the two faces of the trade union movement.

Friday 9th November saw hundreds of people travel from around Ireland to show solidarity with dozens of local Corrib protesters in the latest 'day of action' against the attempt by Shell to impose a dangerous experimental gas pipeline on the community. WSM members from Dublin and Cork took part in the protests, here we present their account of what happened along with a selection of photographs from indymedia.ie.