Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
After a seven-month wait for a Programme of (Mis)Government, the Executive produced vague promises on health and housing, with no specific targets. While easy to criticize the administrative class for incompetence, they are constrained by limited autonomy over fiscal matters, while facing challenges that demand significant investment. A key issue, […]
Trade unions were born out of capitalism and represent the first steps in the organisation of workers as a class. The main power workers have is their numerical strength: unfortunately, this is weakened by division and lack of unity. Some of this division is created by union-busting employers who create […]
The Socialist Voice is a useful medium for critical debate on many issues, for advancing the self-determination of the people of Ireland. It is not for promoting or ignoring British colonialism in Ireland. An article, “Mobilising Northern Workers”, in the May edition completely ignored the savagery and injustice of the […]
This year’s James Connolly festival opens on Thursday 9th May 2024 with a panel discussion titled ‘Land And The People’. We ask the question: what is our relationship to land and resources? We’ll be joined by Sinead Mercier, Patrick Bresnihan, Róisn Ní Chinnéide and Rory Rowan. Friday 10th May will […]
With the developing narrative around the EU directive on adequate minimum wages, workers should not be duped into believing that the EU is some sort of a benign benefactor for workers’ rights. The EU directive on adequate minimum wage claims to be an effort to reduce working poverty and inequality […]
The trade union movement, north and south, is at a significant crossroads where it can choose to struggle, fight, grow and raise the expectations and consciousness of our class and with our class, or it can choose to be further incorporated into the structures of Imperialism. With changing demographics and […]
Socialist Voice articles last month by Jimmy Doran and Niall Cullinane provided the basis of an interesting discussion in the Greater Belfast Branch of the CPI. The articles were about the January 18th “Generalised Strike Action” across the North, directed against the British Tory Secretary of State for withholding funding […]
Fresh off the back of a year of public-private financial blunders, including revelations of Ryan Tubridy’s secret overpayment, UK-based barter account use, undisclosed free-car deals and a Toy Show Musical money-pit scandal, our public-service broadcaster is back with ‘Inside Penneys’. During the summer of 2023, Motive Television / RTÉ production […]
150,000 public sector workers recently undertook a 24-hour strike across the North. The demand was principally in relation to pay. Adding fuel to worker discontent are strained public services, which impact labour effort via intensification but also relativity of pay. Northern Irish workers’ salaries compare unfavourably to equivalents in Britain. […]
On 18th January 2024, 150,000 public sector workers joined together in a wave of strikes across the North. The main reason for this strike was pay. Workers were demanding pay increases that match inflation. Public sector workers’ pay has been falling behind inflation for more than a decade: more than […]
Previous articles in Socialist Voice, as well as our Party Programme, have explained and outlined what is meant by a transformative strategy to build socialism and replace capitalism as the mode of production, means of exchange and political, cultural and social relations of the State in Ireland. In essence it […]
The Mandate trade union has called on the Government to use budgetary surplus to improve public services and housing while replacing the minimum wage with a living wage. Mandate, representing more than 24,000 workers in the retail, bar and administration sectors, is calling on the Government to invest in capital […]
The Industrial Relations Act (1990) was designed to control workers, and it attacked the trade union movement at its very core by making solidarity between workers illegal. This was done by restricting workers taking industrial action together, dividing work-places into separate grades, and banning support strikes. Solidarity is the foundation […]
As the trade union movement gathers in Kilkenny for the ICTU biennial delegate conference, we must take notice of the changing demographics of union membership. The average age of union members is 48. Only about 12 per cent of members are under 30 years of age. Despite the number of […]
The Trade Union Left Forum correctly calls on trade unions to become radical or redundant. This slogan contrasts the pivotal role unions can play, the potential they possess, against their declining power and relevance to many workers. But what is radical? Because as communists, and Leninists in particular, we know […]
Capitalism has survived despite a roller-coaster of crises for over two centuries. It uses many means to survive, but one of its greatest weapons is controlling the narrative and dividing the working class, to divert attention from the cause of all the crises faced by and paid for by the […]