A-Infos (en) Wildcat #2 - Water Charges - Can't Pay, Won't Pay - (ASF/AF Ireland)

[Al S <klasbatalemo@yahoo.ie>]

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Friday 20th June saw the Government deadline for
‘consultation’ on water charges come and go. This
‘consultation’ is to be followed by an announcement
some time in the late autumn on the Government’s
preferred method of payment. So consultation yer arse.
Not content with lying to us, and attempting to con us
that we don’t pay for our water, the Government is
hell bent on getting us to pay for our water not once
but twice!

The passing of the Government deadline was marked in
Belfast with a bit of early morning direct action at
the Water Service Depot on the Old Westland Road.
People from ‘Communities Against the Water Tax’ (CAWD)
picketed the depot at the start of the day’s shift.
Not surprisingly no workers attempted to cross the
picket line – water service workers are facing up to
600 redundancies as part and parcel of this attack on
working people. Later the same day there was a protest
outside the DRD offices in Belfast as trade unionists
handed in thousands of petitions opposing all the
options proposed for the introduction of water
charges. Manus Maguire, of CAWT, told the press that
morning:

“People need to know the truth. The Government are
saying that people don’t pay for their water and what
we’re here to say today is that that’s a lie. People
pay for their water through their local rates and if
they introduce water charges that’s a form of double
taxation.”

Not only is it double taxation, but ask yourself: how
would you your relatives, friends and neighbours cope
with another bill landing on your doorstep for around
£400.00 a year? There will be no help towards paying
this for those on benefits. Remember when they try to
bully and hoodwink us with talk of ‘bringing us into
line with the rest of the UK’, that people in Northern
Ireland have less income and a higher cost of living
than people anywhere else in the ‘UK’. We pay more for
food, fuel and childcare. The commodification of
water, leading ultimately to privatisation, is unjust
everywhere.

CAWT is seeking to build a mass campaign around
non-payment in opposition to the water charges. A
similar campaign defeated the water tax in the south,
in England the Poll Tax was defeated by a campaign of
mass non-payment and direct action, we can do the same
here. Build the campaign, get involved. Contact
Communities Against the Water Tax, 54 Manor Street,
Belfast BT14 6EA.

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 >From the pages of Wildcat! #2, joint bulletin of the
Anarchist Federation (Ireland) and Anarcho-Syndicalist
Federation. To distribute, contact us at:
afi_asf@yahoo.com

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



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