120,000 workers marched against the Pensions Levy and other cuts in Dublin today in a National Demonstration called by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
There were many familiar faces from Finglas and Ballymun and I am sure a lot of people from the area I didn’t recognise. As well as local contingents, there were contingents of bus workers, and workers from Waterford Crystal, who have been mounting an impressive occupation to save their jobs and their industry.
The mood of the march was angry and militant. With the scandal surrounding Cowen’s covering up for the developers who got billions in loans they cannot pay back from Anglo-Irish Bank and the huge bail-out the government is mounting at enormous expense to the financiers, it is no surprise that many, many trade unionists want to see the leaders of the movement turn words into deeds in co-ordinating the action to really put the squeeze on the government.
We in the SWP have been arguing that this march must be the kicking off point for a co-ordinated campaign against the government. We need a one-day national strike to build up the momentum so we can do what they did in Iceland—force the government from office.
Below is the text of the 10,000 leaflets the SWP distributed on the protest.
Let’s follow Iceland
A National One Day Shutdown
Clear out this government
The scandal at Anglo-Irish Bank shows the golden circle that is running this country.
Fianna Fail’s connection with this bank run deep
• Sean Fitzpatrick was a backroom advisor to Fianna Fail
• Fintan Drury, was on the board of Anglo-Irish Bank and only retired after his friend Brian Cowen became Taoiseach.
• Bernard McNamara and many other are FF supporters in the building industry are on Anglo’s loan books.
Despite all their talk about ‘patriotic duty’, Fianna Fail’s main interest lies in protecting their rich friends. And they want us to pay for it.
PENSION LEVY
The pension levy is an outright attack on organised workers. It has been pushed by IBEC, for months through the corporate media.
IBEC backed Irish Ferries when they tried to reduce workers’ wages. Now they want to use the recession to reduce the living standards of ALL Irish workers by about 20%.
If they get away this wage cut, it will set a headline for more to come.
That is why we have to stop them.
BUILD FOR ONE DAY SHUT DOWN
Before this gigantic demonstration, the response of the union leaders was weak. And they still have to be pushed much further from below.
We need emergency union meetings to make our unions speak out with a strong voice. We need one united national shut down.
• Instead of talking just about ‘fairness’, we have to demand the full withdrawal of the levy.
• There should be no ‘solidarity pact’ with this corrupt government and their friends in IBEC
SOLIDARITY
There should be no division between public and private sector workers – it has only been fomented by the employers and their hacks on the corporate media.
When we get the one day strike we should stand shoulder to shoulder and demand BOTH the withdrawal of the pension levy AND the introduction of a pension protection scheme for workers in the private sector.
In Britain, this bond guarantees 90% of entitlements – but for our government ‘it is too costly’. As a result hundreds of workers at Waterford Crystal will retire with no pension – even though they contributed for 40 years.
DRIVE THIS GOVERNMENT FROM OFFICE
There is a whiff of revolution in the air as tens of thousands go on the streets to voice their grievances.
The current government has no mandate to subsidise bankers. They never won any election on the slogan of wage cuts!
In the coming showdown the stakes are high:
Either the pension levy will be withdrawn and Cowen will be driven from office
OR
A huge defeat is imposed on workers that will push us all back for some time.
After this march, we have to rise up and drive out this government –as the people of Iceland did.
If you want to help in this, then join the socialists and prepare for the battles ahead.
In addition PDFORA organised a contingent of soldiers, who themselves face wage cuts through the Pensions Levy and who the government may try to use as strikebreakers in the looming industrial action in the weeks ahead.
Socialist Worker produced a leaflet for the soldiers reproduced here.
Soldiers and Workers Unite
FIGHT THE PENSION LEVY!
Congratulations to PDFORA for taking a stance for the rights of soldiers.
Why should men and women who risk their lives in missions such as in Chad take a pay cut?
Like the public sector generally, we are being singled out as scapegoats for the economic crimes of bankers, speculators and the super-rich.
The people who should pay for this economic crisis – are those who caused it.
During the good times, they never listened to any call to ‘Share the Wealth’.
So why should we take the pain now?
Socialists say: Take the money off the super-rich through nationalisation of their assets and special taxes – and leave soldiers and workers alone.
DON’T BE USED AS STRIKE BREAKERS
The people of Ireland are in revolt against this unjust government who protects its rich friends.
On the 26 February, thousands of low paid civil servants will come out on strike against the levy.
On March 1st, bus workers will strike against lay-offs and cuts in the bus service to working class areas. After that there may be a full scale shut down.
We urge you not to allow yourself be used as strike breakers in these conflicts.
The more we stick together, the more we will defeat this levy and bring some justice to this country.
Interestingly, on the same day that 120,000 trade unionists were on the streets, the Irish Labour Party held a conference in Dublin on the economic crisis. Alan Aherne, from the NUI Galway, told them that it is likely that the crisis will get so bad that the IMF will be called in. The IMF, he said, is likely to demand wage cuts in the public sector of 30-50%. So there is no need to take our word for it, even Labour’s experts are now predicting unprecedented attacks on the working class not seen before in Ireland. And can anyone seriously believe that this crisis will be sorted in a year or eighteen months? We are instead facing a 1930s style world depression which has been unimaginable for generations of people. The class conflict over whether working class people and the poor can be made to pay for it by the visitation of desperate poverty on hundreds of thousands is the scenario for the next decade or more. In the face of that radical measures far beyond what the soothsayers of the newspapers and television are prepared to consider have to be applied. And that means a mass movement of change from below or dire reaction.
One early reflection of this is the growing disillusionment with Fianna Fail, is now more unpopular than it has ever been. The Labour Party leaders, who in the past were quite happy to play the role of junior partners to Fianna Fail in coalition, are now talking left. Of course, they have hardly had a Pauline conversion but they do know where they can get votes. The fact that hundreds of thousands of people are abandoning support for FF and switching to Labour is a welcome development, despite Labour’s appalling record.
This itself shows the huge thirst for radical change and can open up opportunities for those of us who really believe in socialism from below to become a far more serious political force in Ireland. Many of those working class people shifting to the Left under the hammer blows of Cowen’s attacks, are unlikely to remain satisfied with the verbal left shift of Labour and will want to see words translated into deeds. If genuine socialists can organise on a scale that matches the challenges ahead, there is no reason to suppose, ahead of time, that this movement can be confined to the narrow horizons of labour reformism.
Feel free to append a comment at the foot of this article.
Or perhaps you agree with the thrust of this and might be interested in getting involved? Then give us a call to talk it over. 086-3074060 is the number.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Ballymun, Demonstration, Fianna Fail, Finglas, ICTU, Labour Party, PDFORA, Pensions Levy, Socialism, Strike, Trade Union, Waterford Crystal | 1 Comment »
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