Privatisation and the Cuts!

The public sector faces unprecedented attacks North and South. In the North the tories are forging ahead with plans for the wholesale privatisation of the health, education and housing services. In the 26counties the Coalition threatens to cut £500 million of public spending with next January’s budget.

These savage policies will throw tens of thousands of workers throughout Ireland onto the unemployment _ scrapheap. Bit it won’t just be public sector workers who will be squeezed. In both parts of the country the public sector dominates the country and ag it is slashed the like, Colditz.

escape.

Photo: JOHN HARRIS effects reverberate on the working class as a whole.

This is borne out by the options presently under consideration by the Coalition: scrapping food subsidies, doubling rents closing down semistate industries. These brutal measures will drive down the living standards of all working people.

| But it is not just our living standards which are under attack. What we are facing is a massive crisis of the capitalist system and the politicians are as bankrupt at finding solutions to the crisis as the system That forces the capitalist class, which is a small CONGRATULATIONS!

Peoples Democracy salutes the 38 republican prisoners involved in the ‘meals on wheels’ escape from Long Kesh. Long may enjoy their freedom. Everyone opposed to British rule in Ireland greeted news of their escape with applause but we suffered some _ bellyaches laughing at the antics of the Brits and RUC with their pathetic 24-hour road-blocks One Brit searching his 1,000th black-taxi on the Falls Road was heard to.confess that he didn’t even know what the ex-prisoners The break-out from Britains course in the tradition of Irish prisoners of war. and knocks for 19, Airey Neave’s escape from The ‘meals on wheels’ has earned its place in history alongside the ‘Provie Birdie’ and the great escape from Newry Courthouse in 1974, to where the republican prisoners had been brought to stand trial for minority within society to increasingly rely on repression in order tw make the vast majority accept poverty. The capitalist class starts out by attacking the fighters against British rule in Ireland, minorities such as travelling people, gays and migrant workers. As it succeeds with these attacks, the offensive is broadened to attack the rights of women, the unemployed and the trade unions themselves.

Unfortunately the trade union leaders have in the main been long = on rhetoric and short on action. Activists in the unions must now build pressure to force the leadership into action.

But we can’t afford to -hang about waiting for the leadership to move. We need to start now to build real _ solidarity action for all groups of workers who fight closures and redundancies, strike for a living wage or union rights. Those workers who through the big struggles of the past year have provided leadership and example to all working people should convene a conference to begin building a united fightback.

Support all workers struggles!

For a united, national fightback!

| | looked ‘Alcatraz’ is of attempting to The 26-county Government are anxious to follow the fead of Thatcher in Britain ! and decisively cut pack on the living standards of cronies want to defeat the working class but they hestitate to take the risk of a direct confrontation and instead have gone “tr for a sort of economic guerilla war. Recently John Boland, minister for the Public Service, contributed his own bit of industrial sabotage with an attack on the Civil and Public Services Staff Union (CPSSU): This attack could have serious consequences for Trade Unionists throughout Ireland. Two CPSSU members discuss below the response of their union.

Our union took action in support of a pay claim for clerical assistants by blacking further computerisation of the Civil Service due to be introduced after April this year. In August Boland sent a letter to 1, each member, saying that the union ‘has not followed the normal and’agreed pro«cedure for resolving such ‘claims’ and that the industrial action is ‘hitting the --- under privileged sections of the community’. (In fact no member of the public was deprived of any Social Welfare payments) In retaliation he announced that he was stopping the automatic deduction of unless the union can gear up quickly to collect the dues itself it could become bankrupt and collapse.

Reaction to this move has been mixed. There's a great deal of confusion. Some members are not paying and a few have withdrawn from the union. On the other hand it has led Thatcher vandalises public services. ‘to a higher level of participation by rank and file members. Branches also have more power since they now control the purse strings and are in a better position to influence the leadership.

This is badly needed.

There is a real lack of coherent leadership. They ‘let the initial action drag on without attempting to mobilise or extend it. Now they are having a ballot on a new offer without making any recomniendation! The offer doesn’t even include any money for Clerical assistants, the majority of union members.

They are being asked to vote on whether or not to go to arbitration!

The leaderships autocratic behaviour has left them wide’ open to Boland’s P they have consistently off the ground! ignored the real issues.

What is needed now is a really tight organisation the dues and to organise members around these Pat Corcoran issues.

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Punts - 6 months £10, | year £18 PEC and mailto: 1V, 2 rue Richard Lenoir, 93/08, Montreuil, France, The main issue is that the lower grades of CPSSU _are to bear the brunt of Fitzgerald’s proposed £500 million cuts. Further computerisation will lead’to ~~ massive job losses and have. a savage effect on the prospects of youth unemployment. It will inevitably mean a further cut in services to the poorest sections of our society.

Also this attack by Boland means that the whole principle of a unior'’s right to organise and to take industrial action is under attack. ;

We oppose this so-called pay deal. It should be voted down and members should use the new life at branch level to insist on a real fight against the cuts and a campaign with all other sections of the how to fight back because Trage Union rights getting at branch level to collect Noeleen Ni Dhomaill International es Viewpoint A fortnightly journal of world politics Payment in french francs if possible. Personal cheques to

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drish workers. Fitzgerald and his Labour Party

_union dues from members wages. This meant thag