Workers Solidarity Movement

A rather strange figure is moving to centre stage in Irish politics, that of the trade unions - absent from mass struggles until recently and weakened over the decades of social partnership, they are now the only possible source of a movement that can confront attemps to transfer the cost of the recession to working people. This statement does not come with out some qualms. Already this year we’ve seen the union movement back away from its role in galvanizing its members in the run up to planned day of action on March 30th when resistance was taking shape among the public sector unions.

The sequence of tables shows the results of the ballots in the Trade Unions on the 'Croke Park Deal' as of the 24 May.  We will be updating these tables as new results become available. The tables show the number of members in each union, what the executive recommended and how the members voted (where this is known).

Joe Duffy invited two protesters, Holly, and Leah, who were at the protest at the Dáil on Tuesday the 18th of May, on to his Radio show on RTE.  These two protesters were contacted because they had been wearing fake blood, in an attempt to highlight that the Gardaí had taken quite violent action, including bludgeoning protesters with steel batons, against people who were fighting against public service cuts - indeed fighting against the very cuts that the Gardaí themselves will suffer. 

Unfortunately, when making the most recent Radio Solidairity program, we couldn't fit in all the interviews that we did for the show.  In the show we were showing how the Irish Catholic church contolled and dictated Social policy for the most part at the behest of the State itself. 

Brian Mooney used his regular column in the 'Education Today' section of the 'Irish Times  to tell teachers why should vote yes to the public sector agreement.  This is a response to his argument by teacher and WSM member Gregor Kerr submitted as a letter to the irish Times.

The Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU) has voted to reject the Croke Park deal by over 2 to 1.  This is a very significant result as the 13,000 CPSU members are the lowest paid public sector workers in the country, the grades that might have benefited from the supposed role back of the pay cut is savings were delivered.

The result of the CPSU ballot on the Croke Park Draft Agreement was as follows

TASC have released a detailed report called 'Mapping the Golden Circle' that reveals the "network of 39 individuals [who] held powerful positions in 33 of 40 top public organisations and private Irish businesses." Their analysis shows that within this 11 of these people were "very well connected" and that the most tightly interwoven institutions were all banks. This are the gang who now order us to 'share the pain' yet in 2005-7 they awarded themselves 40% pay increases while most workers were getting one quarter of this.

INTO Vote No

Public Sector Deal - 10 Reasons to Vote No

This is the audio of the ad on Radio Solidarity for the 2010 Dublin anarchist bookfair.

Radio Solidarity program no. 3 - focussing on the Church and how it silenced Society - is up on the NearFM podcast site. In this show we tackle the Church and State, their joint complicity in the abuse of children, the subjugation of women and the policing of social norms. This months guests include Dr Helen Keyes, Dairmauid Ferreter, Mags O Brein, Mannix Flynn as well as the usual RS crew