January - February 2010 Edition of the Workers Solidarity freesheet.

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PDF of Workers Solidarity 113 Southern Web Edition 2.3 Mb

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Trade Unionists betrayed by leadership

Women and children attacked
Climate change – the business connection
Noam Chomsky visits Ireland
Thinking About Anarchism: Anarchism and Human Nature
A People’s Historian - Howard Zinn
That's Capitalism

This audio interview, conducted by mobile phone on Monday evening, covers the protests at the COP15 summit in Copenhagen.

Ronan who was a member of WSM in Ireland has been living in Denmark for a year and a half and is involved in a new Libertarian Socialist group and the local infoshop in the autonomous Youth House.

Wednesday 9th December saw the greatest budget attack on workers in Ireland in a couple of decades with services and pay being slashed.

Many unions and other organisations called protests outside the Dail from the early morning to the late evening. WSM members took part in these protests throughout the day and provided live updates, photos and video from them via our twitter account.

On the 24th of November something extraordinary happened.

Some 250,000 workers acted together in a day-long strike against the public sector wage cuts planned by the government. The vast majority of these workers had never gone on strike before, yet across almost all workplaces the strike involved 90% or more of those working.

On 24 November 2009 250,000 public sector workers in Ireland took part in a national strike against planned pay cuts.

Many WSM members who work in the public sector played a direct part in the organisation of the strike and student members helped organise solidarity actions at the universities where strikes were happening. They also toured other picket lines to send in reports and photos. Here we present these reports and the reports sent in by members on strike who had access to smart phones with which they sent live news on the day to the WSM twitter feed

WSM press release: Anarchist organisation welcomes public sector strike and calls for further action
Anarchist organisation Workers Solidarity Movement has congratulated public sector workers who took part in today’s 24-hour work stoppage and called for further stoppages “in order to force a change of direction from the government”.

Report from the mass picket of the Department of Education (with text of INTO leaflet)
From before 8a.m. this morning, members of the Irish National Teachers Organisation were on the picket line outside the Department of Education and Science in Dublin’s Marlborough Street, alongside Special Needs Assistant colleagues, members of IMPACT, and workers based in the DES building itself, members of SIPTU, CPSU and PSEU.

Reports from Cork from the General Strike
Strikes took off across Cork city and county this morning as workers took direct action to stop the Government's attack on wages and conditions. We bring brief reports and images from three locations.

Interview with CPSU pickets in Cork
During the 24th November general strike Paul spoke to two of the 15 CPSU members picketing a workplace in Cork about the strike.

"This Is A Statement ..." Kinsale Strike Report
In Kinsale the Further Education College (FEC) and the secondary school were picketed for several hours this morning. I was unpleasantly surprised to find out that the social welfare office is privatised and so was running as normal today.

Maynooth Students come out in support of NUIM staff
Students assembled just before 12pm today in Maynooth to join lecturers and other staff at the National University of Ireland NUI Maynooth on the picket lines for a number of hours.. Solidarity pickets were placed on both North and South campuses of NUI Maynooth.

intoplacards.jpg 0.02 Mb Placards ready for the strike 0.04 Mb Solidarity poster in Maynoot university prior to strike 0.05 Mb IFUT picketeer Maynooth University 0.05 Mb INTO march through Dublin 0.06 Mb Maynooth students support strike 0.06 Mb One of the pickets in UCD 0.04 Mb The rain arrives in Maynooth 0.07 Mb Studnet support in Maynooth 0.05 Mb stuworkerfighmaynooth.jpg 0.06 Mb Someone brought sweets for the pickets in Maynooth 0.05 Mb Picket of the Dail at 7.30pm some pickets went midnight ti midnight 0.04 Mb

November - December 2009 Edition of the Workers Solidarity freesheet.

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PDF of Workers Solidarity 112 Southern Web Edition 2.3 Mb

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There is Another Way : Anarchists find huge hoard of wealth
It's Time to Strike Back
Francisco Ferrer: Murdered By the State
Social Solidarity Network formed
Review of the Someday Independent
Fascists Get the Boot
A veteran anarchist speaks of revolution, war and bad coffee…
Thinking About Anarchism: Workers Have the Power
Review of Black Flame
That's Capitalism

The rich remain rich and the rest of us are supposed to keep them that way. That’s why we get pay cuts, health cuts, education cuts, job cuts. It’s not as if dipping into the pockets of PAYE workers is the only way to foot bills.

A mere 5% of the Irish population own 40% of the wealth. And a tiny 1% own most of it (34%). What pinko fantasist came up with these figures, asks the cynic. Well, it was that well-known radical outfit, the Bank of Ireland (in its Wealth of the Nation report).

This small number of super-wealthy people own assets (that the Revenue Commissioners know of) worth €100billion. 1,500 of them, the ones that didn’t take tax-exile status, declared incomes over €2.3 million last year.