Left Archive: Working Class Action, Newsletter, October 2002 November 20, 2023
Posted by guestposter in Uncategorized.trackback
Please click here to go the Left Archive.
This is a very welcome addition to the Archive and many thanks to the person who donated this and other materials which will be appearing over coming months. A four page newsletter from October 2002 from Working Class Action in Dublin Central this joins one other piece of WCA material in the Archive, this poster here.
The newsletter takes a very strong line against Fianna Fraud as the front page headline. It notes that in pre-election newsletters WCA warned against that party re-entering government and points to how ‘our communities are beginning to suffer through Fianna Fáil’s hidden strategy of cutbacks to shore up their years of mismanagement and corruption’.
It notes, with some foresight, that:
The decline of the economy, the so-called ‘Celtic Tiger’ which really only benefited the wealthy, will cause untold suffering among ordinary people. The massive cuts in health will see waiting list extend even further and hospital wards will once again be closed.
The document also argues ‘No to Nice’, the EU referendum. Inside the newsletter is a piece on the Bin Charges. It asserts that ‘Tell the government to tax their friends in big business, the ones responsible for over 98% of waste material. Households account for only 1.5% of waste produced. Make the real polluters pay.’
Of particular interest is the centre spread article on drugs which argues that the founding statement of the anti-drugs movement’ isolate the pushers, treat our addicts and educate our kids’ has never been adhered to by the state and state institutions.
The newsletter concludes by noting that Working Class Action is an alliance of socialist, republican and community activists. We have come together to promote our belief in working class independence. We believe this can only be achieved by collective political action by communities themselves.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
were they related to Red Action/IWCA in the UK
LikeLike
Loosely? Similar approach?
LikeLike
Think they were originally known as Red Action here and then changed the name. So originally linked to Red Action in the UK. Wouldn’t be fair to use the franchise word, think the crew here were pretty independent.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Dublin City Councillor Cieran Perry was a Red Action/Working Class Action member afaik. He’s quoted in this article, as it happens.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/20/ireland-palestine-ceasefire-gaza
LikeLiked by 1 person
WCA was a combination of ex-Red Action Ireland members, independent socialists and community activists.
The idea was to build broad campaigns with a left wing perspective within communities that its members lived in and were active in.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks. Purely from an Irish left trainspotting standpoint, did Red Action Ireland continue to exist after WCA was formed? Or, put another way, were there some Red Action Ireland members who stayed RAI as well as the ex-RAI members who were founding members of WCA?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Red Action in Ireland dissolved and many members went on to establish WCA as a new vehicle for political change.
Red Action in Ireland wasn’t , as you mentioned earlier, a franchise of the British group but a sister organisation. We worked closely together on issues of common interests to the WC and came to the same conclusion that real progress could only come from developing community activism led by the WC rather than the usual leftie path of leadership led front campaigns that dissolved as soon as new issues arose.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thanks. Good call on the community activism instead of front campaigns.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Always liked the IWCA in Britain. Agree, avoiding front campaigns very important in terms of working class activists engaging with the working class on equal terms and then getting the credibility to go on to represent where necessary but also to have the space for communities to mobilise themselves.
LikeLiked by 1 person