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Recent articles by Andrew Flood
Successful secondary pickets bring public transport to a halt in Irela... Mar 31 17 Luas Strikes: Rage Against the Regime Media Feb 23 16 Solidarity to LUAS workers fighting to restore their share of the weal... Feb 14 16 Croke Park proposal shows why we have to take our unions back & organise to win ireland / britain |
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opinion / analysis
 Friday March 22, 2013 20:17 by Andrew Flood - Workers Solidarity Movement
 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? Croke Park proposal shows why we have to take our unions back & organise to winIt is quite incredible that the majority of the union leadership had the nerve to stay in the Croke Park talks and return to us, the members, asking us to vote for such a terrible deal. All of the unions should have had a ballot before entering into negotiations and we should have voted to refuse to enter discussions at all as long as a billion euro of cuts was a precondition of talks. Once we entered on that basis, nothing good could come out of talks. And after making the mistake of entering on that condition, all the unions should have had a change of heart and walked out once the reality of what would have to be accepted became clear. 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? We can blame the union "leaders" and there’s no doubt that the fact that politically many of them are tied to Labour (and Fianna Fáil) is relevant. We can blame their lack of ambition, their constant repetition of the mantra of "There Is No Alternative". We can blame the fact that most of the union leaders see their role as being to mediate between the members and government/employers rather than to wholeheartedly represent the members. All that is true but we must not be content to continue to blame "the leaders", the implication of that being that if we could replace the current leadership with a stronger or more left-wing one things would be different. We should recognise that we have failed to engage with our fellow workers and union members and attempt to break that sense of fear, apathy, hopelessness or anger. It is time for every one of us to take responsibility for trying to turn things around. We have to stop referring to "the union" as something outside of ourselves and begin to see that our unions are OURS. We have to stop seeing "head office" and "the officials" as anything other than employees of the union - our employees who should be taking their instruction from us. And we have to convince our fellow workers that there is a benefit to engaging with the union structures and organising to resist. This can be hard. The poor record of the unions' leaders means many members have disengaged from their unions and are even talking about resigning. That anger is understandable but it isn't going to help us resist austerity, in fact it would make our resistance harder. We need to convince fellow workers to not only re-engage with the unions at the local level but to transform the way we view them. In your workplace and in your union, that means you have to take on that responsibility - there’s nobody else to do it for you. By booing Jack O’Connor or any of the rest of the leaders who have stolen our movement from us, we can let off steam. Shouting for a "general strike now" might make us feel more militant. But the reality is that right now the majority (maybe even a large majority) of union members are unlikely to join an effective strike. There is a huge job of work to be done to convince the fearful, the apathetic, the hopeless and the angry that their future lies in standing together in solidarity and that things don’t have to be as they are. For an effective strike to be possible we need to take control of union structures, dump the current leadership and replace them, not with an alternative leadership but with a new type of union which will take control back into the members’ hands. We need to re-create a union movement whose primary function is to resist and obstruct attacks on our wages and conditions. We need to return to the situation where decisions are made at the base of the unions by the mass of members rather than the leaders at the top or even branch committees. If we are to fight effectively then we need all of the membership actively involved in organising that fight. We need local union meetings that are packed out, where there is real debate and where clear decisions are made. We need co-ordination between local sections that is not reliant on full time officials. Where there is more than one union in a workplace we need meetings of all the union members of that workplace to build solidarity so that when one union acts all unions act. In this the year of the anniversary of the 1913 lockout we need once more to build the sort of unions that the government and employers are afraid of. That means unions that are clearly capable of going beyond protest marches or one-day token strikes to conducting the sort of ongoing industrial action that can force defeat on the government. In the public sector, because there are 300,000 of us and the country depends on us to function on a day-to-day basis, if we build that sort of organisation there is no way a strike could last more than a few days. If we build that organisation they will be afraid of the cost of strikes, not us. The point for us is not to strike as an act of protest but to strike in order to win. That’s where you come in as a Union member. So if you wish to boo the leadership, go for it. If you want to shout for a general strike now, go for it. But you know that more is needed. Go back to your branch and look at ways of taking steps that organise our resistance at ground level. Support all those who are resisting cuts.
Let’s begin to show practical pragmatic solidarity with those in struggle. Let’s say No more cuts - anywhere or to any service. Let’s collectively have the confidence to say we’re not taking any more of this. Let’s encourage non-cooperation and support other groups of workers so that they are not victimised for refusing to co-operate with the austerity agenda.
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Inter city bus workers in Ireland launched widespread secondary pickets at 4am this morning. Solidarity from transport workers at the other services picketed meant that most of the country ground to a halt as morning rush hour approached, almost all trains, Dublin bus and light rail services did not operate. The action is a clear demonstration of the power transport workers hold because of their position in economies. Our solidarity today (11/02) to the LUAS workers striking for decent pay rates. The crisis was used by the government and capitalist class to drive down wages and ensure that a bigger share of profits went to shareholders. The LUAS fight is a fight for all of us as a victory should be a green light to all workers to demand pay rises, including the recovery of the money lost in the cuts imposed under the crisis. Across the world the share of income that goes to the richest 1% has soared while that going tooth rest of us has been slashed, we need to fight to reverse this. Friday June 12ths shock closure of the iconic Clery’s department store in Dublin shows how the law is set up to favour capital and screw workers. Workers are being told there may be no additional redundancy or owed holiday payments as the company is in debt. But this is only the case because right before the closure the largest asset, the building itself, was separated off from the accumulated debts. This was almost certainly legal under our system but of such obvious dubious morality that the workers could expect massive popular support if they occupied the building on a permanent ongoing basis. 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. more >>
To all of Ireland’s regime media - just what exactly is your problem with striking Luas workers?
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 >>
Our solidarity today (11/02) to the LUAS workers striking for decent pay rates. The crisis was used by the government and capitalist class to drive down wages and ensure that a bigger share of profits went to shareholders. The LUAS fight is a fight for all of us as a victory should be a green light to all workers to demand pay rises, including the recovery of the money lost in the cuts imposed under the crisis. Across the world the share of income that goes to the richest 1% has soared while that going tooth rest of us has been slashed, we need to fight to reverse this.
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. more >> |
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