Workers Solidarity No. 42 Irish Anarchist Paper Net addition PCW Singnificant minority say NO to union leaders AS EXPECTED the Irish Congress of Trade Unions Special Conference voted to accept the Programme for Competitiveness and Work, by 256 to 76. Unions opposed included the ATGWU, TEEU, MSF, NUJ and the FUGE which represents low paid messengers and cleaners in the civil service. The vote in favour is a setback for militant trade unionism. The PCW is about pay restraint, job losses and promotion of a fictitious 'partnership' between workers, bosses and government. It is a continuation of the PNR and PESP which hammered the low paid, unemployed and growing numbers of poor. A campaign against the deal was mounted by Trade Union Fightback, an alliance of rank & file shop stewards and activists. Sadly the current level of demoralisation among union members meant that their campaign was a pale shadow of the one waged against the PESP in 1991. TUF has since disbanded. However if there was a drop in the numbers campaigning there was no noticeable drop in the numbers opposed to such deals. Within the largest union, SIPTU, 29,308 (32%) voted against in a turnout of about 50%. In most jobs where even one individual made the arguments for a 'no' vote they were usually successful in winning over the majority. This was done in a situation where the union literature carried only pro-PCW propaganda. In the best tradition of SIPTU style 'democracy' the Branch Secretaries were prohibited by head office from sending out circulars to members notifying them when Branch Committees decided to recommend against but the National Executive was allowed to put their recommendation actually on the ballot paper! In Trinity College the shop stewards, representing 440 manual & clerical staff, countered the Executive by affixing their own "10 reasons to vote no" to each ballot paper. Here the vote against was 5.6:1. Similar tactics were used in several CPSU branches. We have to face the fact that mass unemployment, mounting poverty and over two decades of centralised wage bargaining have left many good union activists demoralised. They are doubtful about the possibility of fighting back against the bosses and bureaucrats. The vote on the PCW hasn't helped. Rather than get depressed at the failure of TUF we should be aware that large rank & file groupings are created when workers are fighting the bosses, are confident, and then find the union officials are trying to sabotage their struggle. The need for independent organisation within the union is then posed. Struggle creates genuine rank & file movements, not the other around. At a time when workers are on the defensive and lacking in confidence any attempt to create such groups will attract only small numbers of activists. This is not to decry such attempts (where they arise from a genuine desire to take on the officials) but to warn against any unrealistic goals at this stage. However all is not bad news. There are activists who want to fight back. Lately we have seen the COLT campaign to get the unions to fight C45s in the construction industry, the anger at threatened pay cuts and redundancies in Irish Rail and the marathon strike at Nolan Transport for union recognition. The struggle is far from over. Don't vote...it only encourages them THERE ARE so many parachutes in the sky we can no longer see the sun. They are dropping 'personalities' into the June Euro-election. All the major parties in the 26 counties have selected 'names' to run for them. Fianna Fail got Olive Braiden from the Rape Crisis Centre; Labour got RTE's Orla Guerin; Fine Gael got the Ranchers' leader, Alan Gillis. None had been members of these parties until literally days before their selection. Olive Braiden had previously been out canvassing for Mary Robinson (an ex-member of Labour) and Frances Fitzgerald of Fine Gael. Now she is going for the hat trick with Albert's gang. Orla Guerin has had no known involvement in party politics. Alan Gillis was too busy pleading for rich farmers to be given yet more EC money to find time to join a party. Yet they all ended up as party candidates. The only reason they were asked to run was that they are well known. Not because their politics are well known, not because they even have any known political commitment - but simply because their names are well known. FORGET THE POLITICS... JUST GET THE IMAGE RIGHT Braiden is supposed to give Fianna Fail a more 'liberal' image in Dublin [while they run Catholic bigots like Eamonn O'Cuiv for a Galway Dail seat]. Lane's job is to hold on to the big farmer vote that Fine Gael has enjoyed since the 1930's. And Guerin is helping Labour to build a new image, the 'modern' party that put Mary Robinson into the Phoenix Park. Democratic Left didn't want to be left out either. They are running Pat 'triple mandate' Rabbitte because their opinion polls suggested he would get a higher vote than sitting MEP Des Geraghty. With all of them it is a case of personality being a damn sight more important than policies. All of this shows the contempt that the parties treat the voters with. There will be little time given over to discussing manifestoes or policies. There will be a lot of time given over to what are no more than personality contests. Maybe the Workers Party should try to recapture a few of their old votes by standing down Tomas McGiolla and getting Bono or Gay Byrne to run instead. Or Sinn Fein could ask one of the Wolfe Tones, and the Progressive Democrats could fly in Clint Eastwood. Anarchists are not taking part in this charade, we are not be calling for a vote for anyone. Not this time, not ever. It is because we are democrats that we do not take part in parliamentary elections. Sounds odd? The key question is what do we mean by democracy? WHO HAS THE POWER? The right to the vote was part of the hard won struggles of workers (and suffragettes!) over the last couple of hundred years. Obviously it is preferable to live in a parliamentary democracy rather than a dictatorship. Even the most flawed democracies are forced to concede rights that dictatorships do not, such as relative independence for trade unions, the right to limited demonstrations, a certain amount of free speech, etc. However the real purpose of parliament is not to ensure the country is run according to the wishes of all the people, cherishing all their views equally. Parliament instead provides a democratic facade beyond which the real business of managing capitalism goes on. A seemingly endless series of business scandals, from BCCI to Goodman, gives us some idea how the real decisions are made in the boardrooms rather than the debating chambers. In the unlikely event of a government getting elected which goes "too far" in the eyes of the bosses they are quick to use any means necessary to remove it. The best known example of this is perhaps the removal of the democratically elected Allende government in Chile in 1970. They had attempted to bring in a limited package of reforms and nationalise some of the larger American industries. The result was a military coup backed by the CIA in 1973. WHO WANTS A BOSS? Anarchists do not believe the sort of change we want can come about through the good actions of a few individuals. We have always argued that the liberation of the working class can only be achieved through the action of the working class. This idea is obviously the complete opposite to the parliamentary idea. We do not seek a few leaders, good, bad or indifferent to sort out the mess that is capitalism. Indeed we argue constantly against any ideas that make it seem such elites are necessary. Voting for rulers (whether you do so "critically" or any other way) is supporting the idea that society should be divided into rulers and ruled. We want to end that division just as much as we want to end the division into bosses and workers. The alternative we support is anarchism, where society is organised to benefit the many and not just the profiteering few. It is an alternative where anyone effected by a decision will be able to have a say in making that decision. Power will come from the bottom up. A system of workplace and community councils, federated nationally and eventually internationally, will ensure that this is done in an organised, efficient and truly democratic way. Alan MacSimoin Letter Dear Comrades, One minute to midnight on Friday 15th April and the rail strike is averted. SIPTU left it to the last minute leaving the company sweating it out. The unions never had problems with negotiations. The strike notice was only served after the company suspended workers for not accepting new training arrangements which they were being forced to take or face being suspended. The company had repeatedly refused to enter negotiations because this productivity deal had been on the table for three years. The mass media could not hide from this one. It was to be the first national rail strike in over 40 years. But they hid the facts about the dispute and concentrated on one single issue - claims that the drivers earn up to #20,000 a year. A similar claim like this was used against workers in the Waterford Glass dispute. It attempted to portray the drivers as privileged workers and thus divert public support from their cause. They failed to mention the 70-80 hours work per week or spending 4-5 hours on a train with no toilet facilities often endured by the drivers. If the productivity deal goes ahead drivers will be asked to operate trains without guards, in other words do two peoples' jobs. The guards will be re-deployed to other depots and most likely do other jobs than their own. Drivers could lose their mileage allowance which they earn for long distance runs and also work a five out of seven day week. Saturday and Sunday would become ordinary days and overtime lost. On Friday at lunch time the company organised, against their will, 17 temporary Draftsmen and Engineers to go down to Rosslare to be used to man the port, tying up boats, erecting the gang plank, and collecting tickets. None of the staff had been trained to do these duties. The company were prepared to put passengers safety at risk in order to maintain profits. Fortunately this did not go ahead. In the short term the workers have won and the company are on the run. Watch this dispute closely. It may develop into massive strike action. TEEU member, Iarnrod Eireann >Since this letter was written there have, of course, been further developments. For the moment the leadership of SIPTU, which went over the heads of the union's own Rail Council, managed to head off strike action. No surprise that Attley, Browne & co. behaved like agents of management! How far rail workers can be pushed before they fight back is the question. Prepare to Sink the service charges THEY WANT us to pay twice! When domestic rates were abolished the government increased PAYE and VAT to make up the difference. Now they are putting the screws on again. They tried it with the water rates but came up against massive resistance. Tens of thousands refused to pay. When peoples water was cut off local campaigns and sympathetic plumbers turned it back on. In Waterford a gang of contractors who were cutting off non-payers were held hostage by residents and Waterford Glass workers in the Fr Paddy Browne Road area. The upshot was that a lot of people never paid a penny and in Limerick, Waterford and Dublin the local authorites had to abolish water rates. Now the politicians have decided to have another go. Each local authority has levied a service charge for this year. The one exception is Dublin Corporation which plans to do it next year. They can be stopped just like happened to the Poll Tax in Britain. See page 10. look at how that tax was defeated. The Poll Tax Rebellion by Danny Burns. AK Press. #4.95 (available from WSM Book Service) IN THE LAST issue of Workers Solidarity we discussed the proposed introduction of service charges in Dublin. We pointed out how they were a grossly unfair form of double taxation on ordinary PAYE workers. How can they be resisted? A refusal to pay campaign in Waterford, Dublin and Limerick beat the water rates in the 1980s we believe a don't pay, don't collect campaign can do so again. Conor Mc Loughlin examines a new book on how the Poll Tax was beaten in the UK. This book was completed by Danny Burns in January 1992. He was secretary of the Avon federation of Anti-Poll Tax Unions and co-ordinated the campaign in the South West. He was also one of the three non-aligned (i.e. non-party members) on the executive of the All Britain Federation. The book is a history of the growth of the non-payment campaign which involved thousands through the Anti-Poll Tax Unions (APTUs). It is a refreshing change from your typical history book in that the events are seen mainly through the eyes of the people directly involved. It is written as a story beginning with the growth of local APTUs and moving on to courthouse disruption, bailiff resistance and leading to the Trafalgar Square riot and the eventual defeat of the Poll Tax. In total 17 million people in Britain did not pay their Poll Tax. Some would argue that this was purely passive and that most of the non-payment was "can't pay" rather then "won't pay." This book clearly illustrates how thousands, perhaps millions were very Actively involved in the fight against the Poll Tax. The tax was first greeted in Scotland then Britain by the formation of local APTUs. By November 1989 there were 1000. Most groups started small but many built up memberships of 500 and more. This was a campaign which drew in thousands who had never been involved in politics before. NEW TACTICS This meant that new tactics and approaches were needed to get people involved. For example in Easton in Bristol the local union was built on a door to door basis. Firstly a group of 5 or 6 friends got together and organised a public meeting to see if there was any interest at all. 50 people turned up and some joined. The next stage was to drop a window poster into around 2000 households. Posters appeared in about 100 windows. These were then approached directly and asked to join the group. They then carried out a local survey. This was not really a scientific poll more of a pretext to sound out local feeling. In the end the union had about 300 members. It attempted to keep people in touch by having street reps and a local news-letter. This was useful as it informed people that they were not alone and that non-payers were all around them. Using these tactics APTUs succeeded in changing non-payment from a passive individual act to an active collective one in many cases. MOTIVATION They also recognised the vital role of confidence building and political motivation. The first priority was to convince people to fight. The second to convince them that they could win. The aim in most APTUs was to make all the members feel that they were an active and important part of what was happening. Networks of kids kept an eye out for bailiffs and sheriffs. Pensioners and parents working at home organised telephone trees and were ready to assemble at a moments notice to defend houses from sheriffs and bailiffs. In fact bailiff busting became a high art. So much so that many debt collecting firms went bust. In Edinburgh a group called scum busters were equiped with squads of cars and CB radios. Several minicab companies in London performed a similar service. Poindings (whereby a sheriff can value and remove goods) were resisted by crowds of hundreds in Scotland (they didn't have the power to do it in Wales and England). Bailiffs' houses were picketed and sheriffs offices occupied. The movement was built from the grass roots up. It was based closely on already existing community networks. Capitalism has broken up many traditional communities and created in their place vast estates. However in some cases this has back-fired on them. For example in Mayfield (sounding not totally unlike it's namesake in Cork); "Our area is mostly made up of housing schemes. There isn't a big shopping area. It was a mining community but then they closed down the pits so there's a high unemployment rate in this area. The centre of Mayfield is the labour club, everything goes on there. It's a built up area there's not a lot of play for the kids. There's a small community centre, nothing else around here. But we pay high bus fares if we go in to town". (Chris Mayers, Mayfield APTU) Necessity had built up community links. People met in shopping centres, outside schools, at laundries, football matches etc. As APTUs worked on new links or tapped into already existing one there were some changes in perception. "The barriers of age, sex and race began to crumble. Ali, the local Asian shopkeeper, allowed us to stick a huge notice board in his shop window. The local launderette took leaflets. Some people became noticeably healthier. Mary Mc Innes, one of the oldest members of the Prestonfield group, who occasionally needed a ventilator to breathe, and at first needed a lift to meetings, literally ran up the street to be at Paul Smarts house before the sheriff officers". (Bob Goupillot, Prestonfield Community Resistance.) Some on the left argued for non-collection of the tax to be fought for within the unions. However NALGO (the local government workers' union) which was won to a non-payment policy refused to lift a finger to implement it. Those union members who tried to organise workplace campaigns met with hostility from the leadership. The book devotes only a mere two pages in a section on wage arrestment (to pay tax arrears) to the idea of non-collection. We believe that non-collection of service charges could and should be fought for within IMPACT and the CPSU - the unions concerned with collection in Ireland. If workers can be won over to this idea then they are making a very fundamental statement against the state's right to collect a new tax. They are questioning who runs society and in whose interests. However given the present state of the unions, the low level of activism on the ground (after years of national wage deals) and the stranglehold of the bureaucracy this won't be an easy battle. In fact the current policy of both IMPACT and the CPSU supports the introduction of a head tax to improve local services and increase employment. They have bought in totally to the "partnership" myth. In 1986/1987 there was a major debate within the LGPSU (now a part of IMPACT ) about hospital charges. The national conference voted for non- collection but the executive found this unacceptable and held several repeat votes until it swung in their favour. This shows that a major union could be won to non-payment but any measure which broke the law would face hostility and non-co-operation from the bureaucracy. THE WORKERS STRIKE BACK The huge anti-Poll Tax demonstrations of 200,000 in London and 50,000 in Glasgow was in many respects the turning point in the Anti-Poll-Tax battle. The rioting which broke out involved thousands in a spontaneous outburst of class anger. 542 police officers were wounded, thousands of demonstrators were injured as police charged with horses and drove vans at demonstrators. The "Militant" dominated national executive of the All British Federation of APTUs proved they were totally out of touch with reality. Tommy Sherridan claimed that those "embroiled in running battles had nothing to do with our protest" (post-march press conference) Steve Nally (on ITN April first) announced "we are going to hold our own internal inquiry which will go public and if necessary name names". However the first opinion poll after the riots showed one third of people felt the fightback against the police was justified. Norman Tebbit (from his own class point of view) proved more perceptive "if you tell people to break the law by not paying the tax, you're not far off telling them to break other laws as well". Within weeks of March 31st the number of APTUs had trebled. Overall a great read. I would only have one or two minor quibbles. At one stage the point is made that the strength of the APTUs was their tactical diversity which is very true. However he continues that firebombing Poll Tax offices could be included in this list claiming "the activities of those who were not prepared to break the law were not undermined by the actions of the few who chose to throw firebombs." This isn't exactly the point though. After all non- payment was breaking the law. The problem with isolated and "glamorous" pieces of action like petrol bombings is that they are entirely individualistic. They tend to alienate many involved in the boring hum-drum activism that adds up to a popular fightback. Sometimes such tactics may be justified in the face of all other avenues of struggle being closed by the state. Here though they served more as a distraction from the real campaign. Another problem is given the secrecy of this type of action it could not be democratically planned and agreed by most of the members of a particular APTU so it is not fair to claim to "represent" anyone in these actions. This aside the book is a well written and highly readable account of the struggle against the Poll Tax. It enscribes the writing in large clear letters on the wall for anyone wishing to fight our own "service charges". The only way to defeat a community based household tax is by mass community and workplace resistance. Find Out More The world's wealth is produced by us - the working class. We ought to enjoy the benefits. The Workers Solidarity Movement is an anarchist organisation that fights for a 32 county Workers' Republic. We stand for a socialism that is based on freedom and real democracy, a society based on workplace and community councils. This kind of socialism has nothing to do with the state capitalism that was practiced in Russia, and still is in China, Cuba and other police states. We oppose coercive authority, and hold that the only limit on freedom of the individual should be that they don't encroach on the freedom of others. ***** As part of our fight for anarchism we are involved in the struggles for higher wages, for trade union democracy, for womens rights, for jobs. We oppose all divisions in the working class. We fight against all attempts to set Protestant against Catholic, men against women, skilled against unskilled, old against young, hetrosexual against homosexual. We are opposed to the British state's presence and to partition. We defend peoples' right to fight back. But we are not nationalists, we do not merely want to get rid of the border. We want to unite our class and create a totally knew Ireland. ***** I want more information about the Workers Solidarity Movement. NAME ADDRESS Return to WSM, P.O. Box 1528, Dublin 8. This is the second part of the latest issue of Workers Solidarity, produced by the Irish anarchist group, the Workers Solidarity Movement. We are changing the format for this posting to two parts consisting of short articles and then posting longer related articles separately. They should arrive on this list/newsgroup over the next few days. Some lists/ newsgroups will only get postings relevant to them. To get other parts reply to this address with a request or watch out for them on alt.society.anarchy between the 13th and 24th of June. The parts and their contents are. Workers Solidarity 42 (Editorial and shorts) 1/6 For starters That's Capitalism Stake your claim to cash PLC students demand grants Telethon - A hypocritical sham If the cops don't like you French show how to fight... and win! Bosnia, Rwanda and UN intervention. Workers Solidarity 42 (More shorts) 2/6 <-This mailing Significant minority say NO to union leaders Don't vote...it only encourages them Letter Prepare to Sink the service charges Find Out More WS 42 Gay Pride 3/6 Loud and Proud The reasons Emmet Stagg should resign WS 42 Ireland, Sinn Fein and the peace talks. 4/6 Yes to peace WS 42 Year of the Family 5/6 Parents, puritans and poverty Gas masks and pantyhose WS 42 Evolution and revolution 6/6 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The Workers Solidarity Movement can be contacted at PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland Some of our material is available via the Spunk press electronic archive by FTP to etext.archive.umich.edu or 141.211.164.18 or by gopher ("gopher etext.archive.umich.edu") in the directory /pub/Politics/Spunk/texts/groups/WSM