No. 77 - Sept/Oct 2003www.struggle.ws/wsm.htm

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narchist PaperIrish

The service charges that are being brought in northand south of the border are part of a process of furtherincreasing the proportion of tax paid by workers. Thetrend in global capitalism is to replace 'progressive'taxes (like income tax) with flat-rate taxes (like VAT,service charges, etc) to further shift the taxation bur-den from rich to poor. This is the policy advocated bythe world bank, IMF, WTO and virtually all of the insti-tutions of global capitalism.

In the south all through the Celtic Tiger workers’ pay riseswere never much more then the inflation rate. But at the sametime the bosses were making super profits. This could be soldto workers because of cuts in the rates of PAYE tax whichmeant that at the end of the day we ended up with more moneyin our pockets.

The imposition of service charges (e.g. the Bin Tax) will takethis money back. PAYE workers are giving the self employedand corporations tax breaks. And even within the PAYE sec-tor low paid workers end up paying a greater proportion rela-

The service charge con

tive to more highly paid workers. Simply put, the servicecharges are all about shifting the tax burden even more ontothe shoulders of ordinary workers.

Minister Martin Cullen has indicated that he hopes to getthe bin charge up to 700 Euro a year. And we know that theyhope to get other charges up by a couple of hundred as well.The key thing about these charges is that a millonare likeTony O’Reilly pays the same as a cleaner or a bus driver.

Take two households. One has an income of 20,000 the other150,000. For the household earning 20,000 paying out 900euros in service charges is equivalent to an over 5% hike inincome tax! For the one earning 150,000 a service charge billof 900 euros is equivalent to a 0.6% hike in income tax.

So for many workers the introduction of service charges haswiped out years of take home pay gains due to cuts in PAYEtax. The rich have kept the benefits of these percentage cuts,ending up thousands or tens of thousands of euros better off.It’s time to tell them where to get off.

Taking from workers togive to the rich

Taking from workers togive to the rich

WORKERSWORKERSWORKERSWORKERSWORKERSSOLIDARITYSOLIDARITYSOLIDARITYSOLIDARITYSOLIDARITY

Liberia: The myth ofhumanitarian intervention

The cries did not fall on deaf ears. 3 USwarships carrying 2,300 marines anchoredoff the coast and the UN authorised apeacekeeping force to intervene to stabi-lise the country and enforce a ceasefire.On August 11, Liberia’s president CharlesTaylor stepped down, under pressure fromthe US. A peace deal was signed and WestAfrican peacekeeping troops arrived. Li-beria has since disappeared from our TVscreens. It would appear that the crisis isover and the foreign intervention hasworked.

At least that is what you would think ifyou only knew about Liberia from news-papers and television. Unfortunately, thereality of the situation is entirely differ-ent. Unbeknownst to most of those whowere appealing to the US to intervene, theUS government has been actively inter-vening in Liberia for a long time and weredirectly responsible for the most recent hu-manitarian crisis.

Liberia, founded by freed slaves from theUS in the 19th century, has always beena client state of the US. They have inter-vened covertly to replace Liberian govern-ment’s that they didn’t like on a numberof occasions [1]. President Taylor, whomthey initially supported, incurred theirdispleasure in the late 1990’s when hebacked rebel groups in neighbouringGuinea and Sierra Leone, in a bid to seizesome of the extensive diamond depositsof these neighbouring countries. The USthen began a long campaign to oust Taylor.

They funnelled money through their re-gional ally Guinea, to create a proxy army,the LURD, which invaded Liberia. TheLURD campaign was based on terror,reminiscent of previous US proxy armiesin Africa and Latin America. Humanrights reports have documented how theLURD press-ganged children into theirarmy, kept their troops high on drugs,shelled civilian areas, massacred villag-ers and requisitioned their food, therebyensuring a mass exodus into the capital.

The US aggression against Liberia washardly much of a secret for those whocared to look. Ed Royce, the chairman ofthe US house sub-committee on Africa,warned Taylor as far back as 1999 that“[Taylor] should be made to realize thatthe US has the ability and the will to un-dermine his rule.” The Liberian govern-

ment themselves referred to “a policy of‘regime change’ in the form of a proxywar.”[2] After deliberately creating the hu-manitarian crisis, the US cynically usedit to justify the final intervention to re-place Taylor. The Liberian crisis was sud-denly bathed in the full glare of the globalmedia spotlight. We heard liberal mediacommentators appealing to the US to in-tervene on humanitarian grounds. Thismedia focus allowed the US to completethe Liberian regime change, as the UNauthorised an intervention force andTaylor was forced into exile. The world’smedia went home as soon as the US hadachieved their objective, regardless of thefact that the crisis hadn’t been solved atall. A week after the ‘peace deal’ up to a

thousand villagers were massacred byrebel troops in Nimba county [3].

The story is horrific, but sadly typical.This is what intervention and peace-keeping always means. Peacekeeperscan’t be deployed against the wishesof the permanent members of the UNsecurity council, who also happen to bethe big imperialist powers. In general,they are only employed to maintain thestatus quo once it has reached a bal-ance favourable to these big powers.Humanitarian catastrophes are a fa-vourite ploy, not only to justify inter-vention to the world, but to depose an

Every so often the newspapers fill with stories of a crisis in some third worldcountry. We see pictures on our screens of gunmen, starvation and suffering;inevitably we hear calls for humanitarian intervention. Over the summer, wewere told of a crisis in Liberia. A brutal civil war, a corrupt leader, child sol-diers, starving civilians: it seemed that the whole world was crying out forintervention by the US or UN.

unwanted ruler without actually havingto fight against him and to decimate thesociety to such a point that not only willthere be no resistance, but they will bewelcomed with open arms.

When such intervention is being talkedabout in the media, you have to ask, “whythis? why now?” The answer is almost al-ways because it is in the interests of oneof the big powers to intervene, and theywant to enlist the liberal humanitariansas cheerleaders for their invasion. West-ern media is pervaded by a deep-seatedracism which means that they don’t evenbother to try to investigate the backgroundof conflicts in Africa, they just adopt animplicit assumption that this is the typeof things that Africans always do. At thesame time as the Liberia crisis was in theheadlines, the world’s media had beensteadfastly ignoring the much bigger,bloodier and strategically important warin Congo-Zaire, which has caused an esti-mated 3-5 million deaths in the last 5years - so much for humanitarianism.

We live in a world where there is no inter-national force that is capable of interven-ing to prevent humanitarian crises. West-ern governments are continually interven-ing in the third world, but power and greedare their motivations - humanitarianismis simply not a factor. The most importantthing that ordinary people in the West cando to help Africa is to prevent our govern-ments from intervening in any way; theirinterventions are always selfish.

If we think of Africa as a drowning woman,we can best help her by making our gov-ernments take their foot off her head.

Chekov Feeney

1.eg Tubman 1971, Tolbert 19802.http://allafrica.com/stories/200307230997.html3.http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/cover/f226082003.html

Rudolf Rocker is recommended by Chomsky,whose own anarchist thinking is strongly influencedby him, as one of the best writers on anarchism andthis is probably his finest work - a brilliant libertar-ian analysis of the development of power, the cultof the state and their relationship with human lib-erty and culture.

Rocker sees the impulse to power as a vital ele-ment in influencing the type of society we have.Though acknowledging the crucial role economicsplays in the structure of society, he argues that ex-plaining the types of society solely in terms of theirunderlying economic structure is utterly inadequate.

He sees power relationships as a restraining factoron human development because when you’re com-pelled to carry out orders, you become little morethan a machine rather than an individual with a freewill, personal thoughts and feelings.

Rocker argues that brute force is insufficient to com-mand obedience over long spans of time and theruling classes have always sought to implant theidea that their rule is legitimate and inevitable. Thisis why they have supported ideologies as far apartas Christianity and Bolshevism, both of which sup-port a ruling caste and encourage voluntary sub-mission for the masses.

As Alexander Berkman noted, such voluntary be-lief is actually stronger than outright tyranny, forwhen opposition grows, it is flexible enough to sur-vive whereas the dictatorships often snap and comecrashing down.

Rudolf Rocker: Nationalism and Culture(Black Rose Books, 592 pages)

€23.00 inc p&p from the WSM Bookservice

Rocker surveys the development of State powerfrom ancient times, paying particular heed to de-velopments after the Renaissance when nation-states increasingly came to be formed. He also de-votes considerable space to those who set the intel-lectual climate for the triumph such as writers likeRousseau and Fichte and contrasts their deadeningvisions with the value of liberty and free expres-sion for the development of culture.

For Rocker, nationalism was the foremost ideol-ogy - or mythology - which the ruling classes wereusing to bind the working class to them in an evertighter form of voluntary submission.

And they were successful; nationalism became thenew religion of the people. The logical and gro-tesque conclusion of this awe of the nation-statearrived with the Nazis, from whom Rocker fled in1933 just as he was finishing this book. He demol-ishes their ideas of race theory, with their pseudo-scientific babble about the Nordic race with its purelanguage and superior culture. Given the rise ofracism here, these chapters are unfortunately notout of date; readers looking for ammunition to chal-lenge ‘Irish Irelanders’ will find plenty here.

It’s not cheap, but it’s great book, beautifully writ-ten. If you’re interested in history or politics it’s amust read.

James O’Brian

NEFAC web site

Subscribe:Send 10 Euro to WSM, PO Box 1528,Dublin 8 and we will send you the next 9Workers Solidaritys and the next 2 issues ofour magazine Red & Black Revolution

International rates (for 6 WS + 1R&BR), Britain 5 STR, Europe 7 Eurosor equiv, rest of world 10 USD. Sendcash or cheques made out to WSM toWSM, PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland.

The NEFAC web page is to be found at http://nefac.northernhacking.org/ This would bemy first and only major problem - well nig-gle really. Basically its not the most obviousor intuitive address. On the other hand it’sthe first thing that comes up when you put“North East Federation of Anarchist Com-munists” into google. (They are located in theUS and Canad).

This quibble aside the site looks nice with agood overall presentation with no dumb assflash or java scripts to annoy you and yourbrowser. The layout is simple and graphi-cally very easy on the eye with a nice redand black colour scheme that doesn’t lookannoying (believe me this can be hard to do!). The layout is somewhat similar to theapproach of most Indymedia type sites withcoloured bars to break up the text and thehome page is covered with the latest newsand articles. It boasts an excellent search en-gine conveniently located on the side bar. Asearch for Workers Solidarity bought uphundreds of hits including audio and video.They also have a button to churn out a print-able version of any page which is always very,very handy! A small set of links at the topleft guides you through NEFAC’s pages.

There is quite a bit of information on theFederation. There were some excellent arti-cles from their theoretical paper. I’m not sureif they have the entire magazine up in pdf

format yet, but there are hundreds ofarticles from it accessible through thesearch engine. Overall, an excellent, welllaid out, up to date site from NEFAC anda fine addition to anarchism on the “in-ter-web”.

Conor Mc Loughlin

http://nefac.northernhacking.org/

We are an Anarchist organisation inexistence now for nearly twentyyears. In that time we’ve helped to putacross the ideas of anarchism as wor-thy of serious consideration to any-one in the movement against capital-ism.

We produce over 6,000 copies of this pa-per and our message is getting to moreand more people. If you want to live in asociety that is free from the enslavementof the state and where democracy is morethan a nice idea poorly practiced then youhave to be prepared to fight for it.

We are not the sole reason why Anarchismis on the map but the fact that this paperis distributed in Athenry, Belfast,Castledermot, Cork, Drogheda, Derry,Dublin, Fermoy, Galway, Kilcock, Kil-kenny, Lurgan, Manorhamilton,Maynooth, Naas, Oughterard, Sligo andThurles has helped gain acceptance thatanarchism is a real option on this islandfor those wishing to fight for change.

We get involved. This is an important dif-ference between us the and would be lead-ers who sit in towers and contemplate howthe future world should be run but neveractually work towards achieving that.Where there is struggle to oppose the Bin-Tax, to oppose the privatisation of pubictransport, or even against the war you willfind activists from the WSM involved. Wedefend ourselves when we see attacksagainst our class.

We are as involved as we can be in thisgiven our numbers. But there is so muchmore that we can achieve. Whilst many ofthe struggles are defensive, (not payingan unfair double tax, opposing an unjustwar and the occupation of Iraq, opposingthe rampant race towards neo-liberalismand the pursuit of profits above all else)we also continue to get the message out ofwhat the alternative is to this system. Likeall revolutionary groups we need peopleto join so that we benefit from the energyand ideas that people will bring towardsthis task.

We can get the message out that there isa solution to the mess the world is in.Those answers can be found in the idealsof freedom and real democracy where weare free from the treacherous tyranny ofleaders and their plans to further enslaveus; A free society is not something thatothers can win for you, you have to win itfor yourself. Get involved and find outmore about becoming part of the revolu-tionary anarchist movement.

Getting involved

Thinking about AnarchismThinking about Anarchism

The culture of solidarity took a batteringduring the Thatcherite ’80s and booming’90s. An onslaught of right-wing propa-ganda and the attacks on workers’ collec-tive action (e.g. the 1990 Industrial Rela-tions Act) combined to give the impressionthat you could get ahead by focussing onyourself and your career. This has resultedin both collective action and workers or-ganising in unions dropping off dramati-cally.

We constantly hear that competition isgood and efficient, so much so that you’dbe forgiven for thinking that there is noalternative to selfishness and MaryHarney. But the world would be a horri-ble place if everything was based on com-petition where the loser got to starve or todie from not being able to afford propermedical care.

Right-wingers point to nature and theDarwinian survival of the fittest and pro-claim that there is no place for decency inthe real world: what matters is who canwin out.

Anarchists turn this argument around.

Mutual AidMutual Aid is the fuel an anarchist society will run on. It is also what keepscapitalist society going in spite of all the hardship, greed, and exploitationthat exists. Like all good ideas it’s simple to understand. In order to get by ina tough world, it’s necessary to get a bit of help from others. And as well asreceiving help you also give it, not simply because it’s nice to be nice, butbecause you know that sometime in the future you’ll need a bit of it yourself.

Mutual aid is a vital factor in determin-ing who is the fittest. For we cannot pos-sibly survive on our own. We are physi-cally far weaker than many other animalsand nature itself would have us beaten inno time. But by combining with others andusing a bit of intelligence we can outsmartpotential predators and make use of na-ture rather than be overwhelmed by it.

And so it is with bosses. On a one-to-onebasis they too have greater resourcesavailable to them, and it is only by pool-ing our strength and showing solidaritythat workers can resist. This can lead tomutual aid developing out of struggle. Astrike is simply workers acting together,rather than going it alone and cutting in-dividual deals with the boss.

Workers who are involved in a protractedstrike often seek sympathy strikes fromworkers in different industries. Such sec-ondary action makes a big difference inthe amount of pressure put on the bosses.Unfortunately such actions are becomingrarer due in part to the strangling of strug-gle by the trade union bureaucracy as well

Mutual Aidas to the change in wider attitudes as out-lined above.

However, though weakened, the sense ofmutual aid persists. For example the cur-rent bin tax campaign will be won or lostdepending on the degree of mutual aidgiven by people. At the time of writing,campaigners in Fingal have engaged inblockades of Bin Trucks because of theCouncil’s policy of non-collection. This initself is an example as they are showingsolidarity with all of those who have re-fused to pay the double tax.

They have done really good work so far,but it is possible if they remain out on theirown that the pressure will not be enoughto cause the Council to back down. Thehead honchos at the Council - like allbosses - know full well that the bestmethod to defeat people is to divide andconquer. They will implement non-collec-tion first in certain areas where they ex-pect little resistance hoping that no reac-tion will take place. This way they willisolate the other areas and eventuallywear them down.

However, if people in the other Councildistricts could start blockading trucks, ir-respective of whether non-collection hasstarted in their own areas, this wouldcrank up the pressure a lot and hopefullyforce them to back down.

Such actions are good in themselves andhave the added bonus of indicating thefuture of the anarchist society: people act-ing for themselves in solidarity with oth-ers. The alternative is to have leaders per-manently screwing us over.

James O’Brian

In this issue of our magazine, we continue our tradition of dealing with the pressingissues of the day for anarchists and libertarians, and for all who are seriously inter-ested in bringing about a new society. We carry articles by a member of the NorthEastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists in relation to the future of the Black Bloc,and another by a member of Doctors For Choice on abortion rights (or the lack of them!)in Ireland.

We look at one of the most successful periods of anarchist history - the Spanish revolu-tion - and, specifically, at how the workers’ collectives in Spain were organised. Theirsuccess and the success of anarchism at that time remains a beacon of hope for thefuture. Another article argues that, if we want to create socialism it will have to bebased on voluntary co-operation, not State power

One of the consequences of capitalist globalisation and of the ‘War on Terror’ has beena further tightening of border controls as Western governments build more and morebarriers against the free movement of people. While anarchists are obviously opposedto all forms of immigration control, we don’t have all the arguments to answer the fearsand worries of working class people when the right wingers issue their dire warningsabout ‘floods’ and ‘waves’ of immigrants coming to take all our jobs and houses.

Islamic fundamentalism has emerged as the new ‘bogeyman’ and the excuse for theaggression of Western governments in their so called ‘War on Terror’ in the wake of theSeptember 11th attacks on the USA. The response of large parts of the left to thefundamentalists has been to adopt a ‘softly softly’ approach. In an article here, how-ever, we argue that our enemies’ enemy isn’t necessarily our friend. We also take a lookat the Irish anti-war movement during the 2003 gulf war. We carry two articles; oneconcentrates on the direct action movement, while the other looks at the political fail-ure of the leaders of the mainstream anti-war movement.

If you want to create socialism, it mustbe based on freedom.

Direct action against the war in Ireland

The dismal failure of the IAWMleadership

Repressing abortion in Ireland

Industrial collectivisation during theSpanish revolution

The trouble with Islam

Has the black blockreached the end of its

usefulness?

Anti-capitalist protest,global and local

Open borders - thecase against

immigration controls

Red & Black Revolution 7The latest issue of Red and Black Revolution is now out Articles inside:

There are some common lessons fromthese struggles. The government’s con-tinued support for US military refuellingat Shannon even after 100,000 hadmarched on February 15th shows how eas-ily the government can ignore ‘public opin-ion’. The introduction of service chargesacross the country, culminating in theDublin bin tax, is another example of thegovernment ignoring the popular will.The first time in service of imperialism,the second in the service of those who re-ally run the country, the rich and the cor-porations.

The Garda attack on Reclaim the Streetsshowed not only the state’s willingness tosuppress those who move beyond com-plaining but the massive Garda cover upthat followed it shows how even in clearcut cases it is one rule for us and anotherfor them. All the more obvious when youconsider that over 60 people who took partin anti-war protests were arrested; somehave spent weeks in jail and others havebeen fined thousands of euro. Most ofthese arrests were at Shannon airport andover 20 people have been banned from thewhole of County Clare for the next twoyears.

These are the cases everyone knows of, butthere are others. The violent eviction byhired thugs of squatters from a house inParnell Square in July saw the Gardai ar-rest not the thugs but one of the occupants.The massive fines against Cork activistsprotesting at the exclusion of all but thevery rich from the Old Head of Kinsaleshows again that the law is on the side ofthe rich. The examples could go on andon.

These examples show how the odds arestacked against us, but often ordinarypeople stand together and win despite this.We feel confident that the bin charges inDublin will provide one such example of avictory in the coming months.

But the defeat of the bin tax will not meanthe government turns to tax the rich andthe corporations. In the 90’s we defeatedthe Water Charges only to see what is es-sentially the same tax being reintroducedwith a different name. Fighting and win-ning some of the time is not enough. Weneed to also organise to transform societyand to do away with the divisions into richand poor, order givers and order takers.

The organisation which produces this pa-per, the Workers Solidarity Movement, isone of a number of anarchist groups inIreland. We are anarchists because werecognise that as long as we limit our-selves to protesting the worst aspects of

capital -ism we are trying to hold back a flood withwet tissue paper.

For many of our readers the experiencesyou shared with us over the last year dem-onstrate the truth of this far better thenany well crafted words. Now is the timeto do something about it, to organise notjust for the struggles of today but also forthe revolutionary transformation that isrequired tomorrow.

We are not insisting that the only way todo this is to join the WSM. We welcome

Organising forChange

The last year or so has seen a hectic period for activists in Ireland. From theMay 6th Gardai attack on Reclaim the Streets in Dublin, through the anti-warcampaigns, people have been coming into conflict with the state. In Dublin,we are now in the middle of a struggle with local anti-bin tax groups acrossthe city taking action to defeat the councils refusal to collect rubbish.

new members but we recognise not onlyare there already other libertarian groupswho share our broad goal but that thisstruggle does not belong to any organisa-tion; it belongs to all those who are ex-ploited. But we do offer one way to organ-ise in the here and now towards buildinga libertarian movement that will over-throw capitalism.

It is up to each individual to choose whatis the way they wish to go forwards. Butjust as combining against the bin tax oragainst the war makes us stronger so toodoes combining in political organisations.Whether this means joining ones that al-ready exist, or with others creating some-thing new is up to you. But it is in all ourinterests that we start to organise now forthe long term struggle that lies ahead.

Andrew Flood

If you’d like to join the WSM just talk to any of our members, write tous at PO Box 1528, Dublin 8 or email us atwsm_ireland@yahoogroups.com. We’ll tell you what’s involved, youcan also check our website.

Events &Contacts

Contact the WSM

Workers Solidarity Movement, PO Box 1528, Dublin8 or E-mail wsm_ireland@yahoo.com,cork_wsm@yahoo.com Phone/SMS 087-7939931On the web - http://struggle.ws/wsm

Cork meetingsSept 24th (Wed) Anarchism, Technology and theEnvironment @ Venue to be announced 8 pm

Ideas and action - Saturday 18th OctVenue: Joyce Room, Metropole Hotel, McCurtainSt, CorkTime: 1-5pm

1) Direct Action - WSM speaker and CatholicWorker speaker

2) Anarchism or Marxism - WSM speaker andSocialist Party Cork Branch speaker

More information from cork_wsm@yahoo.com Ph:(021) 4503262

Dublin - for details of Dublinmeetings please contact thenational address

That’sCapitalism

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Become a supporter of this paper

“I spent 33 years in theMarines. Most of mytime being a high-classmuscle man for Bigbusiness, for Wall Streetand the bankers. Inshort, I was a racketeerfor capitalism. . . . Ihelped in the rape of halfa dozen Central Ameri-can republics for the ben-efit of Wall Street.”

General Smedley D.Butler, U.S. Marine

Corps

In Britain the ‘Effects of Taxes andBenefits on Household Income’ re-port revealed that, under Thatcher,1979-90, the fifth of the populationwith the lowest incomes had theirshare of post-tax national incomecut from 10% to just 6%. The rich-est fifth increased their share ofpost-tax national income from 37%to 45%.

Things got a little better underMajor. But under Labour to 2001-02 inequality again increased. Theshare of the bottom fifth slippedback to 6%, while the top fifthsshare moved up to 46%. The rich aregetting richer while the poor getpoorer.

While the average-paid have hadincreases of 3-4% in recent years,Britain's highest paid executiveshad salary increases of 21% in 2000,19% in 2001, and 16% in 2002. In-land Revenue statistics show that150,000 highly paid directors andothers with earnings over £50,000a year enjoyed additional fringebenefits worth an average £10,880each. The company car etc benefits,amounts to £7,800 a director on av-erage which is nearly twice what apensioner has to live on.

Seamus Brennan says it will be good fortravelers. The three airports are supposedto compete against each other, and thatwill “benefit passengers”. Are we reallysupposed to believe that people will travelfrom Dublin to Shannon to catch a planefor a weekend break to London or Paris?

To aid this

supposed ‘competition’ all the debts ofCork and Shannon will be transferred toDublin, and from then on those two air-ports are on their own. To service this debt,we suspect that Dublin Airport will haveto sell off the successful Great SouthernHotel group. And rich pals of Brennan andHarney will get their hands on a very prof-itable business.

The debt also means that Dublin Airportwill not have the money to build the sec-ond terminal that has been talked about

Why all the fuss aboutAer Rianta?

The state company which runs Cork, Dublin and Shannon airports is to bebroken up if the government get their way. As it is one of the most profitablestate firms, what is the reason for this privatisation? Is it good for air travelers,for airport staff, for the ordinary taxpayer, or just for a few rich friends of thegovernment?

for years. Instead it will be done by theMcEvaddy Brothers (whose French villaMary Harney and Charlie McCreevy holi-dayed in a couple of years ago), or evenRyanair. This will most likely see a refusalto deal with unions, as happens inRyanair. And they don’t want unions, be-cause they want to pay lower wages andmake staff work in worse conditions.

Two competing terminalsin the same airport willsee even more of an attackon wages in order to be‘competitive’. Each groupof workers will be encour-aged to compete againsteach other, to be cheaper.

In Cork and Shannonworkers are also in for arough time. The Shannonstop-over is finished. Thetwo airports will have tosell themselves as lowcost operations. Much oftheir business may wellbe summer holiday char-ters, meaning that somestaff will only get sea-sonal contracts. Goodbyeto having a job all year.

Whether it is bus, rail or airport workers- the problem is the same. Job security,wage levels, pension entitlements andworking conditions will be sacrificed inorder to fatten the bank accounts ofBertie’s wealthy pals. The way to stop thisis for transport workers to unite in action.Free fare days and strikes are the way togo, anything less just isn’t taken seriouslyby the government

Alan MacSimoin

Our email list Ainriail distributes regular news updates andnotices of events to subscribers. There are 4 - 8 emails aweek. To join the list just visithttp://struggle.ws/mailman/listinfo/ainriailOur web page www.struggle.ws/wsm includes a huge archiveof articles about the history of anarchism and Irish struggles.

NEWS FROM THE WSM VIA THE INTERNET

€25 million worth of“community service”

We are told, usually by the councillors them-selves, that running for election to the local coun-cil is matter of “community service”. They wantto “give something back to the community”. Yetlocal councillors across the 26 counties claimeda total of more than €25m in “expenses and al-lowances” last year.

229 of them collected more than €40,000 each,while 54 collected more than €50,000. The high-est earner was Fianna Fail’s Jimmy Maloney, acouncillor in Mayo, who picked up more than€75,000 in 2002.

The Labour Party’s Paula Desmond, in Cork,received more than €74,600, while Fianna Fail’sFrancis Conaghan, in Donegal, collected€69,255. Kerry councillor Paul O’Donoghue(FF), a brother of Tourism Minister JohnO’Donoghue, also received more than €68,600.

Now that’s a lot of traveling to meetings!

Dublin Bin ChargesBlockade the trucks

Don’t fall for council scamsAs we go to print, the bin charges battle has started in earnest in Dublin with FingalCouncil’s attempt not to collect non-payer’s bins. Trucks have been blockaded acrossFingal forcing the council to cancel all collection services. Elsewhere campaigns aregearing up to blockade trucks in solidarity with Fingal or when the other Dublin coun-cils attempt to implement non-collection. In our next issue we hope to report in full onhow the councils were defeated. In the meantime you can follow events on our webpage. Below we report on South Dublin’s council attempts to con households into pay-ing.

South Dublin County Council – rattled bythe huge levels of non-payment of the bintax – has initiated what it describes as a “PayBy Volume Trial” in 5 selected areas acrossthe County. The Council’s own figures showthat over two-thirds of those eligible to payare boycotting what is widely viewed as anunfair double tax. Now they hope to makethe tax appear more acceptable by makingit a weekly rather than an annual payment.

Residents in the 5 selected trial areas – inWest Tallaght, Rathfarnham, NorthClondalkin, Firhouse/Ballycullen and Lucan– have been receiving trial packs of bin lin-ers from the Council. These have the SouthDublin County Council logo on them andhouseholders are asked to use these linersin their wheelie bins. If the trial is success-ful, the Council intends to use this tactic asa means of identifying who has paid thecharge. Under legislation passed by the Dáilbefore the summer, local authorities nowhave the right to refuse to collect bins frompeople who don’t pay the tax.

The Council is also attempting to sell thisinitiative by claiming that it will be cheaperon the householder. In promotional literature

sent to residents’ associations in the affectedareas, the Council claims “The customer ef-fectively pays for the waste collection on eachoccasion that a bin is presented for collection,as opposed to the standard charge that is lev-ied at present. ”

They don’t of course tell how much they in-tend to charge for the bin liners, or – moreimportantly – how much they will be charg-ing for them in a few years’ time.

The Campaign Against Refuse Charges hasresponded swiftly to the Council’s latest ini-tiative. Before the trial packs of bin liners

To contact the CampaignAgainst Refuse Charges in

South Dublin, ring 087-6996046.

For details of the campaigns inother areas, ring Dermot on 087-

6277606.

were even delivered by the council, all house-holds had received a leaflet from the Cam-paign describing the trial as a con and urg-ing a boycott of it. “They still don’t seem torealise that the reason why the refuse chargeis being resisted by householders is becauseWE’VE ALREADY PAID. ”

It is the strength and solidarity of a unitedcampaign which will put an end to this bintax. Just as the water charges were defeatedfive years ago, this tax too can be beaten.

Gregor Kerr

Anti-wardemonstration

Day of Action Against the Occupationof Iraq and Palestine

Demonstration begins 2pm ParnellSquare Dublin

Organised by Irish Anti-WarMovement, Peace and NeutralityAlliance & NGO Peace Alliance

Have your sayWrite a letter to us at WSM,PO Box 1528, Dublin 8.

Northern Irish homes are to be subjected to a tax onwater, unless enough of us get together to stop the gov-ernment’s plan. Friday 20th June saw the end of the“consulation” period, not that the government was do-ing much “consulting” with us - because they had alreadysaid that the next announcement would be about howto pay this tax! The decision had been made before theypretended to listen to our opinions about whether ornot such a tax should be introduced.

The Government wants us to pay not once but twice. We al-ready pay for domestic water through the rates. If we have topay water charges as well, that’s a double payment.

Unlike in the South, where there was a “waiver” scheme forpensioners and unemployed, there will be no help with pay-ment for those on benefits.

Remember, when they try to scam us with talk of bringing usinto line with the rest of the UK, that people in Northern Ire-land have less income and a higher cost of living than peopleanywhere else in the UK. We pay more for food, fuel andchildcare. Wages are, on average, 20% less. Put all their ex-cuses aside, and you are left with one simple fact - they want toscrew more money out of us.

The passing of the Government deadline was marked in Bel-fast with a bit of direct action at the Water Service Depot onthe Old Westland Road. People from Communities Against the

Fight for a women’s right to chooseBelfast High Court refuses to say

when abortion is legalWe are often told that ignorance of the law is no excuse, butwhat are we to do when nobody will say what the law means?

The High Court in Belfast has said NO to a request that it spellout what is legal and what is not. The Family Planning Asso-ciation had asked it to order the Department of Health to pub-lish guidelines about when abortion is legal in the six counties.

The ruling restates the existing law, that abortion is legal if inthe clinic judgement of a woman’s doctor the physical ormental health of the woman is at serious or grave risk ifshe continues with her pregnancy.

Some doctors would interpret this fairly liberally, thatcompelling a woman to continue an unwanted pregnancycould put her mental health at serious risk. But, as thereare no clear guidelines, those doctors could then be opento legal action from anti-abortion pressure groups.

This legal confusion has meant that the vast majority ofnorthern Irish abortions happen in England. And thisis why Northern women are three times more likely tohave a late abortion. The delay is caused by the timespent having to find in the region of £700 for the clinicand travel costs.

If abortion were freely available on the health servicewhy would any woman choose to have a late abortion?In Britain over 90% of abortions are carried out beforethe 12th week of pregnancy.

Dublin - Alliance for Choice launchedThe 20th anniversary of the anti-choice referendum of 1983saw the launch of a new pro-choice campaign, ‘The Alliance forChoice’ launched in Dublin. Since 1983 over 100,000 Irishwomen have had to travel to England for abortions.

At the launch Cathleen O’Neill, drawing on her experienceover the past 20 years said:

“If I had a pound for every fundraiser I worked on to help work-ing class women go to England for an abortion, I’d be a rich

woman. Taking children into ourhomes for the duration of the visit- pretending that Mammy was goneto a funeral; holding pub quizzes,and running limited draws, as wellas running sales of work and raf-fles under weird and wonderfulnames to preserve anonymity. Al-most every other week. It’s badenough for those who can afford totravel, but for poorer women it’shell. It’s time those who claim torepresent us to get a grip on realityand take steps to end this night-mare.”

The Alliance for Choice can be con-tacted at AfC, PO Box 8852,Phibsboro, Dublin 7 or by email atallianceforchoice@eircom.net

Water Tax (CAWT) picketed the depot at the start of the day’sshift.

Getting the campaign off to a good start,none of the workers crossed the picketline. Water workers are facing up to600 redundancies as part of this‘tax and privatise’ plan. Later thatday there was a protest outsidethe Department of Regional De-velopment offices in Belfast astrade unionists handed in thou-sands of petitions opposing thecharge.

Boycotting the bills is the way to win. We will see politicians,especially those from Sinn Fein and the PUP, stating their op-position to the tax. But talk is cheap. Will Gerry Adams or DavidErvine actually call for non-payment, will their party activistsget involved in the campaign?

If we want to be sure of having a campaign with a real chanceof winning, ordinary householders will have to build it. Thepeople who have formed CAWT want to do just that. A similarcampaign in the mid-1990s defeated the water tax in the south.

We can do the same here. Contact Communities Against theWater Tax, 54 Manor Street, Belfast BT14 6EA.

Joe King

Water tax in Northern IrelandGET YOUR HANDS OUT OF OUR POCKETS