Workers Solidarity Movement

After a month of fooling around, the government has finally declared that they will implement water charges for schools, backdating them to 2007. These charges come as a serious blow to Irish schools, which are already among the worst funded in the OECD. In many schools, funding does not cover basic requirements such as computers or gym equipment, forcing them to fundraise among parents of students.

November saw WSM members gather for their national conference. These take place twice a year and all members can attend, submit motions and vote. The National Secretary reported that membership had increased by 25%. Although we are still a small organisation this was encouraging, as was the increased circulation of Workers Solidarity. A report is available at www. wsm.ie/story/3156.The closing weeks of 2007 saw WSM members who have been working with the Wheelock family’s campaign for an inquiry into the death of Terrence after his arrest by gardai from Dublin’s Store Street station help organise a public meeting, which saw 200 people fill the ballroom of the Royal Dublin Hotel.

November saw WSM public meetings about anarchism in Cork and Dublin, with 40 people at one and about 60 at the other. With the crisis and a growing employers’ offensive on wages there is a greater openness to radical ideas, and we will be holding more meetings around the country over the next couple of months.

Working all your life just to make ends meet; having no say in the decisions that affect you; try to do something about it and they'll lock you up. Yes, that's capitalism!

Over 200 people packed into the Royal Dublin Hotel on Dublin’s O’Connell Street in early December for a public meeting on the topic ‘Democracy and Policing: How accountable are the Gardaí to the Irish people?’

Argos workers throughout the 26 counties are holding another one-day strike on the 18th December.

The self congratulatory waffle of business men, the press and politicians continues even though we are hearing a lot less about the “Celtic Tiger”. After almost fifteen years of economic boom we are able to look around and think about what we are left with. Access to decent and affordable housing, one of the most fundamental issues effecting working class people, is an impossibility for many of us. For most young people growing up in Ireland today the possibility of owning a house is outside our reach and keeps us at the mercy of rack renting landlords.

The 100th issue of the Irish anarchist paper Workers Solidarity for Nov / Dec 2007 

PDF of Workers Solidarity 100

Pity poor Bertie and his cabinet. They worked very hard designing a budget which gives an extra €12 a week to pensioners (though only from next July). What thanks did they get from an ungrateful nation?

On a day when we all desperately needed a change in the weather, people gathered beside the bunker on wood quay which is the Council offices. A man in a Santa clause hat spoke at us like he was hosting a children’s television program and told us we would await the bells to chime at two o’clock from Christchurch before we would move off for the march.