M30: Make Indymedia The Source For Struggle

Your Reports, Your Pickets, Your Photos, Your Media.

Potentially, thousands of workers will take to the streets of the country next Monday. Indymedia and DCTV are pooling resources to cover the day and are calling for you, the readership, to contribute your reports, photographs and videos to compile an accurate grassroots account of what could be a significant date in this latest round of the struggle for workers’ rights and social justice.

March 30, next Monday, has been named by ICTU as the day the public sector unions will close up shop and shut the country down, in protest against the imposition of the ‘pensions levy’ and the failure to honour recent pay agreements. However, private sector workers are also looking for an occasion to vent their anger and it is likely that the one-day shut down will receive some significant support from this quarter too.

Several affiliated unions have successfully balloted their members to support a walk out; the country's largest craft union the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union is to serve notice to the government and employers today. Meanwhile IMPACT, Ireland's largest public-sector trade union, has voted not to take part in M30. Sixty-five per cent of the membership voted to take part in the demonstration, however a 66% majority is needed to carry industrial action. The union's executive will meet tomorrow to consider the options.

Indymedia’s coverage of the run-up to the day begins with a feature article on this morning’s front page, focusing on the rejection by Dublin Bus workers of the Labour Relation Commission’s proposals. As the week unfolds, Indymedia and DCTV will be reporting it on the web and on Channel 802 on the Digital NTL network.

As well as looking for your contributions, we’ll be interviewing TU activists through the week and featurising a contribution by economist Michael Taft on tactics. To encourage debate, we’ll be inviting specific contributions from organisations such as WSM, People Before Profit, Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party, Sinn Féin, Irish Socialist Network and the Labour Party before the end of the week. More importantly, we’ll be providing space to air discussions on tactics as they stand and ways in which the struggle can be brought forward. We’re inviting all workers, Trade Unionists and anyone pissed off or affected by cuts in our Public Services to get involved in this debate and to tell everyone how they are resisting the levy. We’re relaxing some of our editorial guidelines to permit the airing of more robust opinions. We will continue to deny space for fascist, sexist or racist opinions and will hide posts which descend to personal abuse.

Related Links: The initial call out | Gilmore engages in the withdrawal technique | Dublin Bus Workers reject LRC recommendations | Support Industrial Action by the Bus Workers by WSM | CPI statement on Gilmore's bizarre intervention | More comment on the LP's response to M30 at the Cedar Lounge

On M30 itself members of the editorial collective will compile reports from around the country as they come in, providing both a valuable archive and the necessary space denied by the mainstream media to discuss the way this crisis is developing on national and international fronts. This cannot be done without your enthusiasm and your willingness to get your point across.

So, what can I do?
Well, you can tell us who's coming out on M30? | And let us know what's happening in your workplace?

We’re calling out for reports from around the country on the day itself in any form and will have a dedicated army of editorial daleks taking your texts, emails, posts to the newswire and video footage.

In addition, we’re inviting interested parties to get in touch with the collective and volunteer editorial or other skills to the melting pot.

So, don’t hate the media, be the media!

Time for a general strike?