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LEFTLEFT TRIBUNETRIBUNE LABOUR’SLABOUR’S ROLEROLE ININ 19161916 www.LabourYouth.ie Joanne Reinstated Neil Ward wrties about the campaign which led to Joanne Delaney being reinstated as a Dunnes Stores employee On February 25th, Joanne Delaney received a letter from Dunnes Stores management, advising her that her situation had been reviewed, and she was being offered her job back. This letter came about as a direct result of a concert- ed effort by the left in Ireland, and provides us with proof (if any were required), that direct action remains a viable tool for delivering radical change. Back on February 2nd, Labour Youth Cllr. Eric Byrne and Pat Rabbitte T.D. protesting with staged the first protest in support of Joanne, outside the George’s Street Joanne outside the Dunnes Stores where she was sacked branch of Dunnes in Dublin. Following on from that action, we proceeded to punish her, reducing her weekly hours including Ciarán McKenna. Almost as a organise further protests outside to just 15 – enough for her to earn just direct result of this single protest, the branches in Ashleaf, North Earl Street, over the amount she was receiving on police force immediately sought to con- Grafton Street, Cork and Maynooth. unemployment benefit. Her unfair dis- sult the community on how the situation Furthermore, with Dermot Looney as missals case continues at the time of could be rectified. To do so, specially- our representative to the Joanne writing, and Joanne has vowed to con- trained liaison officers, are to make Delaney Support Group, we joined tinue with that action until such time as themselves more accessible to the forces with members of other left she is recompensed for her three month community, and thereby better able to groups, Community and Workers Action period of unemployment, and returned adapt to LGBTQ-specific needs. Later Group, MANDATE and independent to the roster on a full-time basis. in 2005, the number of people who took members of the left, to protest outside to the streets in support of Irish Ferries the Ashleaf branch on a weekly basis, In the March edition of GCN, columnist workers demonstrated once again the garnering huge local support for Joanne Stephen Meyler writes: “Public protests power of direct action, as Irish Ferries and her campaign. This campaign has have had their day and it’s about time, management backed down, and came shown that, when inequality is appar- because they are ineffective at produc- to an agreement with the unions. ent, the left can readily move to work ing political change.” He goes further together on a rights based agenda. On with: “Despite the visceral appeal of a For as long as the left has been utilising top of the afore-mentioned protests direct action, in the end everyone goes direct action as a means of seeking Organise! held several protests in home and the system continues on its increased rights, members of the right Belfast. merry way.” That may be the opinion of have been dismissing it as an unneces- a magazine columnist (incidentally, one sary, ineffective tool. Through our It remains a damning indictment of who was appointed to fill a gap left by action in support of Joanne, we have Dunnes’ management behaviour, that it Ivana Bacik), but to my mind, it couldn’t once again proven that to be a fallacy. took this level of national action, before be further from the truth. For as long as successful results can be they gave in and returned Joanne to her achieved through direct action, the left, position. They have yet to compensate On 3rd October of last year, members of and Labour Youth in particular, will con- her for the three month period which Labour LGBT and Labour Youth took to tinue to use this viable form of action to she spent unemployed and fighting for the streets alongside members of USS, its highest degree. Once again, I’d like her right to organise in the workplace. USI, BelongTo and Johnny, as well as to extend my thanks to all the members One victory which Joanne holds dear, is members of the gay community, to and supporters who made this another that she now has permission to wear protest against hate crimes committed successful Labour Youth campaign. her union badge at all times in the work- against members of the community, place. However, Dunnes continue to Labour’s Role in 1916 Conor Tannam writes about the central role of the Labour movement in the 1916 Rising The rebellion of 1916 has too The Irish Citizen Army was formed that year. was only when the Royal Dublin Fusiliers often been associated with the It was a worker’s defence force, and mem- charged the rebels that people began to pay bers drilled with hurley sticks. Described as attention. The day before Connolly had told politics of nationalist parties. the world’s first Red Guard, Connolly said the Citizen Army that they had very little However this is far removed from that “Now, with arms in their hands they pro- chance of a victory stating that “the odds reality, as it was the alliance of pose to steer their own course, to carve their against us are a thousand to one.” As the own future.” fighting raged throughout the week a young Pearse’s nationalism coupled Michael Collins confiscated alcohol from the with Connolly’s idea of a socialist With the outbreak of the World War in men inside the G.P.O. He declared that revolution that formed the loose Europe, Ireland’s yearning for Home Rule “they said we were drunk in 78.There’s no was put on the backburner of Westminster’s way they’ll say that now.” band of insurgents that were politics. Connolly advocated insurrectionary doomed from the outset. activity and was critical of the procrastinat- The actual fighting lasted almost a week. ing Volunteer leadership, describing them as 140 members of the British army were killed “would-be Wolfe Tones who were legally and 64 rebel volunteers lost their lives. A James Larkin’s Irish Transport and seditious and peacefully revolutionary.” His total of 1480 people were interned after the General Workers Union was estab- assertion that Pearse was a “blithering idiot” Rising. Prisoners being sent to internment lished in January 1909. In many ways it related to Pearse’s glorification of battle. The camps in Wales were jeered and spat upon heralded a new beginning in Irish indus- Scots-born socialist began to study guerrilla by angry Dubliners. It was only when the trial relations. The subsequent 1913 tactics and street warfare. He was all too seven signatories were shot by the British aware that any insurgency would stand little army that public opinion began to change. chance against the might of the British Army. James Connelly Labour Party Founder strike saw Larkin, aided by a young The I.R.B. made Connolly a member on the Lenin would later defend Connolly’s alliance James Connolly, take on the employers 22nd January, and elected him to its military with the bourgeois elements; he felt that led by William Martin Murphy. This was council. The rising plans were precise, and Communists would have to unite with other the century when elaborate edifices hid relied on the entire volunteer movement tak- disaffected members of society to overthrow the poverty and filth that permeated ing part. Dublin rebels were to seize key the ruling order. Towards the end of their Dublin. locations in the city while those in the political relationship Pearse had also begun provinces were to seize garrisons. Orders to accept the socialist policies of Connolly. James Connolly had tried to establish a were sent to the volunteers to take part in socialist movement in 1903.His Irish “three days of manoeuvres” over the Easter The founder of the Labour Party’s influence Republican Socialist Party had been Week period. This message was then con- on the wording of the Proclamation is obvi- described as having “more syllables than tradicted in a newspaper which led to confu- ous; seen in the ideas of equal rights for all members.” His writings often made refer- sion as to the exact status of the military its citizens and equality when calling upon ence to the sense of community in Celtic arrangement. Irish women as well as men. It is an indica- Ireland and the equality for all citizens that tor of the man that Connolly was, that 90 was fundamental to Wolfe Tone’s 1798 The Irish proclamation was read out on years after his death his writings and view- rebellion. Easter Monday 1916.It was met with much point still have an influence on Irish politics derision from the onlookers, there was a today. sense that these men had lost their minds. It Iran’s Nuclear Question Eoin Pattison examines the unsettling issue of Iran joining the nuclear weapons club Where does the world stand in instance, has recently asserted that it A note of caution should also be sound- the nuclear stand-off between will develop India’s nuclear technolo- ed lest we make the mistake of over- Iran and the West? It seems gies, despite the fact that India is not stating Iran’s nuclear program. The even a signatory of the Non- IAEA, while it has criticised Iran’s ‘lack that reason and peace are Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Israel and of transparency’ has also stated that it once again consigned to the Pakistan are two further examples of has not discovered "any diversion of roles of dumbstruck states which have developed nuclear nuclear material to nuclear weapons or bystanders.

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