A-Infos (en) Wildcat #2 - Same Old, Same Old - ASF/AF (Ireland)

[Al S <klasbatalemo@yahoo.ie>]

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In the north, as direct rule rumbles on, implementing
the same capitalist agenda as our local
representatives at Stormont before it, things continue
to get worse for working class people. Throughout
Ireland, low pay, job cuts, cut backs and
privatisation continue to be the order of the day.
Low pay, that is, for the likes of ourselves.
Politicians and fat cats continue to rake it in with a
combination of inflation-busting pay awards (to
themselves by themselves), golden handshakes and brown envelopes.

We are now faced with yet another attack with water
charges now firmly on the agenda in the north. Workers
in the north must learn the lessons of the south’s
successful anti-water charges campaign, a campaign
based on direct action and non-payment.  The message
we take to our rulers must be that of the anti-poll
tax campaigners who toppled Thatcher – ‘Can’t Pay
Won’t Pay!’.

No Capitalist, No Statist Solutions

There can be no statist or capitalist solutions to the
plight of the working class, our environment and our
world. The politicians have all shown us what side
their bread’s buttered on when it comes to social and
economic matters -that’s jargon for people like
ourselves getting fucked over by the rich and
powerful, and this should be borne in mind when every
time they come looking your vote.

In the workplace we have seen over the years how
bosses and government have defeated and crushed one
section after another of workers. Some of these
defeats involved often spectacular and drawn out
battles, with great resistance shown by the workers
involved. Such battles have included, the miners
strike, Wapping and the Liverpool Dockers, the Fire
Fighters dispute, locally the Montupet dispute; more
recently the Airport security workers dispute and the
Richardson’s occupation deserve a mention. In the
south we have seen several high profile disputes
carried out by the nurses, the Irish Glass Bottle
workers occupation, and disputes over basic union
recognition in such places as Aer Lingus.

In some disputes some minor concessions were won, but
these were more akin to negotiated surrenders rather
than victories. Wildcat action is increasingly coming
into play in the industrial arena and this is to be
welcomed and encouraged. On its own, however, it is
not enough.

Other disputes have been much less spectacular, or
less ‘media worthy’, but nonetheless have had just as
devastating an outcome for the workers, their families
and the working class communities on the receiving end
of attacks on terms and conditions, job losses, and
loss of services.

If workers are to be more successful in their
struggles the issues and problems raised, and the
building of alternative forms of resistance must be
seriously addressed by the labour movement. We need to
reject social partnership as the con it is. Bosses and
workers do not have the same interests.
We have a world to win, only with solidarity, mutual
aid and the development of a movement which has at its
heart a commitment to workers control of their
industries and communities, to freedom and libertarian
communism, will that world be won.

***

On Tuesday 22nd July a campaign to Boycott Coca Cola
was launched. This is an International campaign to end
the violent treatment of workers and which has seen
the assassination of eight Colombian workers in recent
years. The boycott has been called by the Colombian
Food and Drinks workers union called Sinaltrainal. For
more info, email us at us: afi_asf@yahoo.com

******************************************************

 >From the pages of Wildcat! #2, joint bulletin of the
Anarchist Federation (Ireland) and Anarcho-Syndicalist
Federation


http://www.afireland.org
http://www.oasf.org.uk


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