Northern Ireland

The meeting took place on Thursday 3rd of April 2008 in the Ulster Peoples College in Belfast and was addressed by Donnacha DeLong (NUJ National Executive Council New Media Rep) Jason Brannigan (Organise!) and Chekov Feeney (WSM).

“Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice
Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality”
Mikhail Bakunin

Socialism can be many, very different, things. For anarchists it must be libertarian, indeed class struggle anarchists often interchangeably describe themselves as libertarian socialists or libertarian communists.

Organise! is a working class organisation. We seek to secure for all workers a full and equal share of the wealth and social benefits created by the combined labour of our class. We aim for the abolition of all hierarchy, and work for the creation of a world–wide classless society: libertarian communism.

Against Capitalism, Exploitation and Oppression

The five day hunger strike by three sacked airport shop stewards, Gordon McNeill, Madan Gupta and Chris Bowyer was suspended at 5.30 this afternoon after the workers received a letter from the union solicitors guaranteeing that their demands would be met.

Just hours after addressing a solidarity rally outside Transport House in Belfast hunger striker Gordon McNeill was rushed to City Hospital for treatment. An ambulance was called to the scene at Transport House due to a deterioration in his condition. Gordon is on his fourth day without food and his second day without water. Also on hunger strike are Madan Gupta and Chris Bowyer.

Nipsa said the axing of 450 jobs by the Housing Executive was just "the tip of the iceberg". Thousands of public sector posts could go due to an efficiency drive aiming to raise £790m. The government say no staff reduction target has been set.

A young Slovakian worker was sacked on the spot from Delaney’s restaurant for asking why she had to remove her jumper at work on a cold January day. Delaney’s owners refused to meet with the worker or with her trade union representative.

Members will take part in industrial action today (Monday), which was voted on at the weekend, however the overall strike will cease from Tuesday.

Three other unions representing assistants have accepted a deal which added an extra £15m to compensate for changes in work conditions. Nipsa represents more than 3,300 classroom assistants in NI.

The Nipsa union's 3,000 members will be out on picket lines two days a week until Christmas, and many special schools will be affected. The union says the action was agreed unanimously at a meeting of its strike committee in Cookstown on Thursday.

Belfast
Postal workers in Belfast have won an important victory against management after unofficial action on Friday of last week. It took the workers just one and a half hours to force down bosses’ attempts to change start times.

Managers insisted that the workforce put forward their start times by two hours.

A confidentiality clause has been agreed by employers and unions meeting at the agency, but it appears there has been little progress.

The dispute involves up to 7,000 classroom assistants and has been dragging on for over 10 years. It centres on salaries and pay grades. Most special schools are expected to be closed by the strike and many other schools are likely to have to send pupils home at lunchtime.

TWENTY YEARS ON A KNIFE EDGE

'... the fate of the province [Northern Ireland] is still, as it has been for so long, poised on a knife- edge between a slow climb back to some form of ordered existence, or a swift plunge into unimaginable anarchy and civil war.'

More than 600 jobs are going at the Belfast aerospace company Shorts, parent company Bombardier has said.

Lecturers in England, Wales and Scotland have equivalent pay to schoolteachers. However due to "government caps on public sector pay", they fall around £2,500/year behind in Northern Ireland. Lecturers are involved in an ongoing work-to-rule and "withdrawal of goodwill" at all 16 Further Education colleges, with Monday's strike action the fourth in recent weeks.

It is important today not only because it is a part of our history that has been denied space in the school books but also because it was a living demonstration that the sectarian barrier can be breached.

This is a victory for workers everywhere facing harassment and intimidation at work. It is a victory that defends and reasserts the right of workers to organise free from bullying, intimidation and harassment.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) authorised a ballot of its members for strike action due to Royal Mail management going back on deals made to end the unofficial stoppage on February 17.