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Recent articles by Ciarán Ó Muireadhaigh
In Place of Compromise - Why We Need a Rank and File Movement Aug 27 13 Croke Park proposal shows why we have to take our unions back & organi... Mar 22 13 The attacks on the public sector in Ireland ireland / britain |
workplace struggles |
opinion / analysis
 Tuesday July 21, 2009 19:11 by Ciarán Ó Muireadhaigh - WSM - Workers Solidarity 110 wsm_ireland at yahoo dot com
 Surprise, Surprise, More Government Lies From the outset of the financial mess the Irish Government currently find themselves is, they have tried pinning the blame on anyone but themselves and their big business buddies. They have been quite willing to perpetuate lies and untruths in order to deflect public ire away from themselves. One sector of society that has borne the brunt of this is the Public Sector. The media (fed by Government sources) have done their best to paint a picture of all public sector workers as pampered, overpaid and under- worked. The main thrust of the attacks has come from papers owned by the O’Reilly empire, no surprise there; Tony O’Reilly has always been an outspoken adversary of Public Sector workers. His papers set a ludicrous figure for average take home pay for Public Sector workers at €60,000 per annum.
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Around 50 people attended a lunch time vigil today organised by the Belfast Trade and District Council. A range of political organisations and unions attended including the Independent Workers Union, the WSM and Organise! During the rally one speaker from the council also referred to the police being workers too. This will provide little comfort to working people on the receiving end of state violence and terror. As our comrades from the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front note, ‘The role of the police is to repress and silence the working class and poor. This problem cannot be fixed by commissions or enquiries – as some people think. Ask the family of Andries Tatane. It cannot be changed by elections. Remember: Sharpeville 1960, Soweto 1976, Uitenhague 1985, Michael Makhabane in 2000, SAMWU workers in 2009, Andries Tatane in 2011 … Marikana 2012. At least 25 protestors and strikers were killed from 2000, before Marikana.’ With the announcement today by the TEEU and Unite that they are urging a No vote in the forthcoming Fiscal Compact Referendum allied to the fact that Mandate announced a similar position yesterday a clear division is emerging between the leading trade unions. SIPTU has basically offer its support for the treaty in return for a funded job creation plan, this is basically the union leadership buying time before it falls in line with Labour and calls for a yes vote. Workers direct action- An injury to one is an injury to all Ⓐ
WSM members & supporters in northern Ireland will be providing live coverage of the N30 Pension strikes today via our Twitter feed. The strike is part of the UK wide public sector strike against attacks on public sector pensions, attacks similar to those imposed on public sector workers in southern Ireland over the last couple of years. They are part of a Europe wide offensive against the pensions rights of workers. In what is clearly a concerted effort to smash their union organisation, over 170 Aer Lingus cabin crew have been ‘removed from the payroll’ by management in a dispute about rostering arrangements in the Irish airline. Firefighters and ambulance crews are abandoning SIPTU and signing up with the Psychiatric Nurses Association to form a new union.
Since the middle of January civil and public servants have engaged in a work-to-rule in an attempt to force a reversal of the pay cuts announced by the government in the December budget. Across the country workers in government offices, colleges, schools, hospitals etc. are taking action, which they hope will result in a change of government policy. Members of WSM and Organise gathered on a bright afternoon light of a cold Janaury day, in the leafy surburbs of Booterstown, Dublin, outside the German Embassy to protest recent Berlin District Court Decision to stop the Free Workers Union (FAU - Freie Arbeiterinnen- und Arbeiter-Union) from being able to call itself a Union. On the 24th of November something extraordinary happened in Ireland. 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 more >>
We have to ask ourselves how we have found ourselves in unions where the leadership was allowed take such an approach. And we have to work out how we create unions that we control and which will help us organise together to defend our common interests. How has it come to this?
The government says if we Vote no to Croke Park they will impose it anyway. Many of the union leadership try and scare us into voting Yes with this threat and by saying the only alternative is strike action. Both are right. If we just vote no than the government will attack us. And when they do the only way we can win is if we are willing to fight back - that will mean industrial action. It will almost certainly mean at least the credible threat of an indefinite strike.
Irish trade union leadership have agreed an austerity programme for public sector workers. WSM is arguing against this deal. This article gives some of the details and our arguments against this attack on workers. [Italiano] [Français]
Text of a WSM leaflet distributed today in Northern Ireland for the public sector strike.
Many trade union activists have known for years that “social partnership” comes at a huge price for union independence and the ability of trade unions to defend the interest of their members. The myth that government and employers on one side and workers on the other side have some form of common interest has been peddled for over twenty years. This has resulted in a trade union movement whose leadership seems incapable of independent thought and whose membership has been browbeaten into accepting pay cuts, ‘pension levies’ and various attacks on our working conditions and living standards over the past couple of years. more >>
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”.
The Waterford Glass workers have taken a stand. We need to build support and show solidarity ...
The IWW is fighting a major campaign against the centralisation and cuts within England's National Blood service. This release relates the latest phase of the wobbly campaign, which aims to reverse the plans.
"The Couriers are Revolting", Des Patchrider's story of the Despatch Industry Workers Union (1989-92) is now available as online reading in the libcom.org library.
The 3rd conference of the Indepedent Workers Union took place in Dublin this Saturday. The Workers Solidarity Movement extended our solidarity and ongoing support for the work of the IWU. more >> |
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