Our government has become more and more open about their plans for us. Cowan wants to drive down our living standards 12% and has already cut all our wages through the tax levy and slashed the wages of workers in the public sector further through the so called ‘pensions levy’.

He openly talks of “four more years of even steeper cuts”. He is so confident of us taking this lying down that he had the cheek to announce his intention to drive down our living standards at what even RTE referred to as the “Dublin Chamber of Commerce's lavish AGM dinner which cost €160” a head.

Related Links:
• Public Sector worker responds to calls for a pay cut.
• Unions Close Down France: Where Are The Irish Unions?
• Whatever happened to the Celtic Tiger?

At all levels, the education system is under attack from the present government.

The savage cuts already announced at primary and second level appear to be just the first steps in what will be a sustained attack on the public sector in general and education in particular – both from the point of view of the provision of the service and the wages and working conditions of those employed in it.

Meeting Time and Place:
Saturday 28th February at the Teachers' Club, 35 Parnell Square, Dublin 1 at 14:00.

Related Links from Indymedia.ie:
Education on Indymedia.ie - Click Here
Feature: Protesting Against the Education Cuts Click Here
Opinion Piece: If You Think Education is Expensive, Try Ignorance - Click Here
Essay: Against Commercialism in Education - Click Here

Related External Links:
Event Notice: International Week of Action against Fees (etc.) - Click Here
New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCORE) - Click Here
Education for Liberation Movement - Click Here
Free Minds, Free People Conference - Click Here
Essay: Anarchy in the Classroom, by Dr Judith Suissa Click Here
Educators: Want to Help Develop an Irish Database of Free Teaching Resources? - Click Here

Statement about protest held in NUIG on 2nd Feb at FF TD Bertie Ahern's visit.

FEE Needs Your Help Read about it here
November 2008: UL Students Union Orchestrate Pantomime Blockade of Minister .. Demo broken up by Armed Gardai! Read about it here
December 2008: FEE activist 'manhandled' by minister at NUI Galway protest Read about it here
January 2009: Call for International Week of Action Against Commercialism in Education (including the (re)introduction of fees Read about it here
February 2009: Day of Action Against Student Fees, Dublin Read about it here.

A 'tiny ugly world' of greed, speculation, rampant insecurity and the 'disciplining' of workers unites those who occupied 'Republic Windows and Doors' in Chicago and the workers now occupying Waterford 'Crystal'.

Who held the gun to the head of the workers in Waterford? Whose actions called up the 'Starry Plough' ? Was it those of the 'Receiver'? He's the demon bad guy in the news reports. Probably because his surname suited the job!

What about O'Reilly ? An international capitalist widely famed for his obscene wealth. He seems like a candidate. Hiding behind the 'Receiver', shafting the workers whose lives he was willing to take a punt on, happy for the acclaim that came with a national brand. The editor of the Indo during the Lockout , way back when the 'Starry Plough' was a living symbol, most certainly deserved his depiction as an iron-heeled capitalist boot-boy.

Members of the Cork branch of the Workers Solidarity Movement travelled to Waterford today (2nd Feburary) to offer solidarity and support to the workers who are occupying Waterford Crystal. While there we took the opportunity to do an interview with Joe Kelly of the UNITE union and of Waterford Crystal, asking him the kind of questions that fellow workers and readers of Indymedia might be interested in. We also took some photos, included in this article, of an insurgent Waterford twist on 'canteen culture'. You can hear the interview which we recorded at this link.

In the interview Joe calls for solidarity demonstrations, similar to the WCTU (Waterford Council of Trade Unions) demonstration in support of the workers planned for Wedensday 4th Feburary in Waterford, to take place across the country. It is time to support these workers who have been treated appallingly. If they can do it to them, they can do it to us all. Please attend and defend against this attack on Waterford's economy, culture & heritage.

Details of the WCTU Waterford Demonstration: Weds 4th Feb

And what about Bank of America? They got greedy - swallowed Merrill Lynch. Begged for and got massive bailouts from US taxpayers as a result. Withdrew the lines of credit to longstanding industries at the whiff of trouble and destroyed lives and security for working people without a blink and away from the limelight the 'Receiver' now flinches under. Then they planned openly to destroy some more workers rights.

The 'crisis'? An all purpose boogieman. Make everyone so insecure that they'll lie down and happily accept anything short of a disastrous collapse in living standards and security. That's the program in Germany where there is also a Waterford Crystal subsidiary, in the US where events surrounding Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago are but one example of a generalised 'disciplining' of workers, it's the program in France which was shut down by a general strike last week, it's the program in the UK where EU workers are being set at each others throats and it's most definitely the program here. Pretty much the same everywhere. The bet is that people will trample over each other in desperation for 'opportunity' rather than stand together and refuse this 'discipline'.

Neo-liberal Europe is a busted flush. The workers in Waterford have begun something new by turning the tables. If they don't get their pensions and compensation, if they don't get re-employed, they should get the factory with the furnace still burning and the name 'Waterford Glass' still intact. Oh and support from the State.

The State? This is a state which is about to hand over the keys to the safe to those who turned people by the thousands coldly into slaves to debt here in the past number of years by wilfully inflating a property bubble and gambling with their proceeds from the wholesale looting of a generation. Before they pay their friends they should pay those who kept the thing afloat. They're bailing out 'supermen' who slipped right, left and centre and will probably go to court not to pay compensation to shafted workers who their 'friends' are shafting.

Who's advising them? Oh yeah. People from Merrill Lynch who blew their own operation through greed and got taken over by the too greedy 'too big to fail' Bank of America. Remember them? That's right - they withdrew their line of credit from Chicago Windows and Doors and from Waterford, longstanding businesses both, because of a glitch in the money machine - in 'their' money machine. Tiny Ugly World indeed.

We won't pay for their crisis! Better to bust the house!

The Anarchist Bookfair 2009 is being held in Liberty Hall on March 7th. This year, the Workers Solidarity Movement are proud to announce US Anarchist Ashanti Alston will be speaking. Ashanti was a member of the Black Panther Party in the 1960's and early 1970's. As a political prisoner he spent over a decade in US prisons. Ashanti has since become an anarchist while still drawing on many of his experiences and ideas that spurred him on as a Black Panther activist. In this interview Ashanti talks about his past, how he came to join the Panthers, what they achieved and how he views the current struggle. Audio links are highlighted and are bold.

Related Links:
• The Black Panther Party for Self Defence
• Ashanti Alston's Personal Site - AnarchistPanther.net
• Workers Solidarity Movement - an Irish Anarchist Organisation