Sometime during the second decade of the sorrowful mysteries, I had a sense we were not alone. Martin, Katrina and I were sat alone in a small East London park facing the Excel Centre where the G20 of the most powerful government leaders were gathered to rearrange deckchairs on their sinking ship. Thousands of police had been deployed around the Excel Centre keeping the few hundreds of protesters who gathered a quarter of a mile from the site. A case of overcatering evidently.

Related Links:
The personal blog of Ciaron O'Reilly.
Previous writings of Ciaron O'Reilly on Indymedia.ie.
The website of London Catholic Worker.
G20 Summit Special from The Guardian.

For the third time this week nets at Glengad have been put up by Shell and taken down by local residents. The purpose of the net is to stop sand-martins from nesting in the cliff-face.

What was once thought to be a specially protected priority habitat for birds and wildlife has actually, in effect, become a priority habitat for Shell.

All sorts of chats, communications and rumours abound about the permission for this and the consent for that, the legality of one thing and the illegality of another. But as Kevin Moore, An Bord Pleanala Senior Planning Inspector predicted in 2002, everything about this project is wrong. And it’s the right thing to do to disallow it and to stop it whatever the law says.

Related Links from Indymedia.ie:
Previous Indymedia feature: Scuffles At Mountjoy As Maura Harrington Is Jailed
Indymedia.ie stories about Shell in Mayo from the Indymedia.ie Archives
Other articles by Niall Harnett on Indymedia.ie

Related Links outside of Indymedia.ie
The website of Shell-to-Sea - CorribSOS.com
Feel like doing something? Contact all politicians about this - Contact.ie

The purpose of this article is to challenge the assumption that it is the 'leaders' who sell out rank and file members, and to highlight that 'leaders' reflect the median moderate worker within Trade Unions. It therefore favours a more bottom-up grassroots focused analysis of Trade Union activity over a top down hierarchical 'leadership' focused analysis. It is my argument that constantly talking about the ICTU 'leaders' is disempowering and a more actor-worker-centered focus is better suited to Libertarian politics.

Related Links:
An article by Andrew F. concerning how the Governement attacks workers through hiring freeze in public sector | A second article by Andrew F. telling us Employers retreat but ICTU talks are not a victory| Sean Matthews argues that the "outburst of condemnation" against the bankers is legitimate class anger | Pat C reports on a call for the resignation of David Begg by a teachers' union. | Paddy Hackett does not like the bad leadership at IMPACT

According to many amongst the left In Ireland it is the 'leaders' of ICTU in Ireland that enter national socio-economic pacts, and that this is at odds with what their rank and file members want. However, most evidence indicates the complete opposite. Most empirical research (Bacarro, 2002, Geary, Roche 2005) concludes that rank and file members tend to be more conservative than their Trade Union leaders, and overwhelmingly support 'partnership' or 'dialogue' over militant industrial action. Furthermore, detailed research has found that greater internal trade union democracy actually favours the moderate over the radical. In countries where Trade Unions support national social-pacts (in wage bargaining and other socio-economic policies) there tends to be more democracy within Unions i.e. Ireland and Netherlands. In countries where Unions have been more militant and opposed to social pacts there tends to be less internal democracy within Unions i.e. Korea.

Today (Thursday) there is a vote of students in UL on fees. It arose from a proposal by the chairperson of UL Fianna Fail to make students vote on what kind of fees we want – which would have assisted the Student's Union to 'lobby' for that specific type of fees, instead of fighting to defeat all forms of fees. Student opposition, including from the UL branch of F.E.E. succeeded in getting a ‘no fees’ option 4 included, which reads: “I am opposed to alternatives to exchequer-funded third level tuition fees”,

UL F.E.E. have been the only ones campaigning on the vote, with everyone else focused on the SU officers elections. F.E.E. has been calling for a clear, "No to fees" vote - putting No Fees as your 'number 1' vote and not giving any vote, even a second preference, to the other pro-fees options.

Related Links:
Support the International Global Week of Action Against Fees
Recent Indymedia.ie feature Schools Out! Stop the Commercialisation of Education by Mark Conroy
Conor Murphy of SEED on why Third level fees should be re-introduced
FEE's Website - Free-Education.info

Don't Just Sit There
Contact EVERY TD, Senator, and MEP about this - Contact.ie

That the very threat of a national strike was enough to force government and IBEC to change their position demonstrates the power the working class holds when we threaten to withdraw our labour. For all the media attempts to convince us we are powerless and that class struggle is a thing of the past when faced with the reality of the organised working class standing up both bosses and state were keen to avoid any confrontation that could illustrate and encourage our collective power.

Related Links: Main Indymedia feature on M30 | TUI call for the resignation of David Begg | CPI statement on Labour Party's disengagement from M30

That is the positive side of the story. The negative side is that the union leadership who were in any case largely forced to call the ballot for the national strike through pressure from the grassroots of the union have now called off the strike on the weakest of excuses. Activists within the unions knew all along this was a likelihood, most of the union leadership are almost as afraid as the bosses of workers getting a true sense of our collective power. From the start the ICTU leadership have sought ways to convince workers that we had to pay for the crisis, to share pain in their terms, despite the fact that during the long years of the Celtic Tiger there was no sign of the bankers or property speculators being keen to ensure workers got to share the wealth.