Workers Solidarity Movement

We spoke with Vincent O’Malley, a community sector employee who advises and advocates for social welfare applicants and recipients, about the effect the recession is having on the operation of the social welfare system.

Yunus Bakhsh, a psychiatric nurse from the north east of England has won a four year battle against his bosses.  Sadly his union, the public service giant UNISON, was about as much use as a tailor in a nudist camp.  This should be of interest to the 39,000 workers in Northern Ireland who are in Unison.

Yunus had a 23-year spotless record in nursing.  What annoyed his employer, the local NHS trust, was his union activity and radical views.  He was the union branch secretary and also a member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

As this issue of Workers Solidarity goes to print, Brazil is about to elect a new president. After eight years, the Workers’ Party (PT) incumbent, Lula, must step down. His chosen successor, Dilma Roussef, is poised to become Brazil’s first female president, as she holds a 46.9% to 32.6% lead over her closest rival after the first round of voting. Roussef is a former urban guerrilla who was tortured by the western-backed military dictatorship (1964-1985) before throwing her lot in with electoral politics, joining the PT in 2000.

Countless walking tours make their way around Dublin daily; generally educating the masses of tourists on the lives lived on these streets before us. It was a different kind of walking tour, comprising around 200 people, that hit the streets around Stephen’s Green on October 9th last.

If you like ‘feel good’ films this is for you.  Leaving a cinema feeling both entertained and optimistic is rare enough, and this film scores highly on both points.

In 1968 there were 55,000 working at Ford’s massive plant in east London. One of them is machinist Rita O’Grady, who makes seat covers with 156 other women at the Dagenham factory. Thinking that women won’t cause trouble, management regrades them as ‘unskilled’.

Last year the Exchequer lost €7.4bn as a result of the tax break regime, over three times the EU average.  According to the government’s own Economic and Social Research Institute, 80% of the tax relief available on pension contributions goes to the wealthiest 20% of earners.

Leo Varadkar TD an influential Fine Gael politician has called for the implementation of the entire McCarthy report in the coming budget, the introduction of a water tax and the expanding the tax net to take money from low paid workers.

September - October 2010 Edition of the Workers Solidarity freesheet.

PDF of Workers Solidarity 117 Web Edition 1.95 Mb

The earthquake that devastated Haiti and shook the world could have heralded a new start for the perpetually impoverished Caribbean nation. But the reconstruction plans have made it clear that local and global elites wish to continue the policies that lie behind Haiti’s history of violence and deprivation.

This summer’s Belfast riots must have been the most anticipated for some time, being widely predicted throughout politics and the media. The August rioting in Ardoyne (and Short Strand, the Markets, Lower Ormeau, New Lodge, Broadway; and Lurgan, Derry & Armagh) saw three days of trouble, shots fired at police and a landmine attack in South Armagh.