Workers Solidarity Movement

Following his announcement that many of his proposed cuts to teacher numbers in schools serving areas of social disadvantage are to be reversed, Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairi Quinn, has admitted that protests work and that he reversed his decisions because of the huge protests faced by himself and his colleagues on the government backbenches.

“…in relation to the area where all the pressure was coming from and all the protests was [sic] coming from …. I reflected on the impact on those schools….and I reversed that decision,” he said. 

Workers Solidarity Movement member Gregor Kerr gave the leadoff at the session dealing with "Organising the Campaign" at the successful National Forum of the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes on Saturday 10th September. What follows is the text of his contribution:

Last Saturday (10th September) over 200 people attended the National Organising Meeting of the Anti-Household & Water Tax Campaign. People from over 16 counties arrived during the first session in the afternoon with more arriving later. The meeting was organised to co-ordinate a mass non-payment campaign against the €100 household charge announced by the government to come into effect on 1st January 2012. The campaign sees this as the “first step in the government’s plans to implement a fully fledged property and water tax by 2014 that could be around €1,200 according to one government economic advisor. “ In the long-term, this paves the way for the privatisation of the water supply, as occurred with refuse collection.

Over the last few years, the Workers Solidarity Movement, the anarchist organisation that publishes this magazine, has grown considerably. We went from being an organisation with only a dozen members or so, to an organisation six times that size. As part of that growth we have had to reassess our internal workings and devise a range of new processes and structures for communicating, coordinating and democratic decision making. This article describes this process of change. It is hoped that it may serve as a useful case-study for other groups facing similar problems and as a small demonstration of the how anarchist organisational principles can be applied in practice.

“Someday Independent” is a 4 page leaflet produced by Dublin Shell to Sea. The design/layout and graphical work is of a very high standard and compares favourably to high cost, professionally produced brochures. The overall colour scheme and design is a pleasing blue “wave” design which is easy on the eye and appropriate to the subject material without drawing too much attention to itself.

On this page we have archived educationals and talks given to WSM meetings dealing with the anarchist movement in general. Specific topics include arguments for political organising, analyses of contemporary prospects for revolution, travellers' accounts of anarchism in Africa and South America and others. Some of the pieces are useful only for historical purposes, but most are still relevant today. We hope you find it useful.

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!

A running theme of this issue of Red & Black Revolution has been the question of how we as anarchists should orientate ourselves towards the non-revolutionary elements of our class and towards non-revolutionary social struggles. We have suggested that we cannot remain peripheral to our class defending the purity of our ideals, rather we, as anarchists, need to be at the centre of working class social struggles. It is only thus that we can create a movement capable of abolishing class society.

The recently launched Scottish platformist group 'Praxis' offers an example of this type of anarchist activism. They have been deeply involved in trying to develop working class community organistions in Glasgow. Here we ask one of their members a few questions about what they are up to.

In the UK union membership has been in steady decline for the past 25 years, not least due to how people are being employed - casualised labour, increased imposition of agency work, temporary, short term contracts & contracts of ‘self-employment’, along with the general lack of confidence in unions after years of complacency, compromises and defeats.

A look at some of the problems faced and mistakes made in the organisation of the Dublin EU Mayday summit protests in 2004.