A major march in Belfast on Saturday, 18 October, has been organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), demanding fair pay for workers and protesting against the cuts. The march assembles at Writers Square, Donegal Street, Belfast at 12 noon on Saturday. All available Irish Republican Socialists, supporters, their families, friends are asked to attend and are welcomed to march behind our banner! Flags, posters and placards are welcomed. For further details please contact your local IRSP representative or the IRSP’s National Headquarters, Costello House, 392b Falls Road, Belfast (Tel: 028 90321024.)
Unlike one-dimensional nationalists of various hues, we as Republican Socialists view both the class struggle and the struggle for national liberation as symbiotic. As the IRSP’s co-founder, Seamus Costello, stated, we:
“owe our allegiance to the Working Class!”
The realities of the offensive against the Irish working class in the 21st Century are that:
- Wages have not kept pace with prices since the 1970’s
- Falling wages and growing inequality and poverty hits businesses as well as households
- The worst attack on the living standards of workers for nearly a century
- The super- rich continue to see their incomes soar
The ICTU’s minimum demands are:
- An enforced minimum wage
- Commitment to the living wage
- A crackdown on excessive executive pay and bonuses
- A crackdown on tax dodging, evasion and avoidance
One would be forgiven for thinking that little has changed qualitatively for the Irish Working Class since the days of Connolly and Larkin’s championing of the demands of the proletariat over a Century ago. In many cases there has been significant regression, for instance, so-called ‘zero-hour contracts’ are worse in practice than the casual labour schemes faced by the Dockers, Carters and other workers in the early 20th century!
Saoirse go deo!
Alex
