“Umbrella uprising”

In an age of austerity, even the most basic rights we take for granted are up for grabs.

 
In Ireland, a new “water tax”, which essentially makes the public pay for the element most essential in sustaining human life, was recently introduced by the government.

 
The past month has seen hundreds of thousands of people across the Republic of Ireland take to the streets to protest against the introduction of these water user charges, with the mobilising help of Right2Water – an umbrella group made up of trade unions, political parties, community groups and individual activists, with Unite taking the lead.

 
The two unions originally involved – Unite and the retail workers’ union Mandate – have since been joined by the CPSU, representing low-paid public sector workers, the Communication Workers’ Union and the plasterers’ union, OPATSI.

 
The core premise of the campaign is that water is a human right, and its sole demand is the abolition of water user charges.

 
The first day of action took place in early October and drew tens of thousands of protestors into Dublin. As momentum for the movement grew, a nationwide day of action on November 1, organised largely by grassroots activists, inspired more than 150,000 people to participate in local events throughout the country.

 
These local events were described by one columnist as ‘St Patrick’s Day without the drink’, while torrential rain on the day led another columnist to quip that we were witnessing the ‘Umbrella Uprising’.

 
Unite official Brendan Ogle, the campaign’s lead spokesperson, explained why the union became involved.

 
“We felt that, working with other progressive unions, Unite could bring the structure, organisation and resources needed to campaign on possibly the most important socio-economic debate in recent years,” he said.

 
Many Unite members were among the 150,000-plus people who took to the streets in over 100 suburbs, towns and villages throughout the country, with Unite representatives speaking at many of the events.

 
Speaking in his hometown of Waterford, Unite regional secretary Jimmy Kelly summed up the feelings of the crowd when he said that struggling households simply could not afford extra water charges, adding that the economy could also not afford a measure which would take yet more money out of people’s pockets and the cash registers of local businesses.

 
Unite activist Carol O’Brien said the November day of action was the first time she had witnessed her local suburb of Donnycarney coming together with such unity and strength of purpose.

“The diversity of the crowd highlighted the anger and vulnerability felt by local residents, as well as the lack of trust in the country’s leaders,” she said.

“But something new is happening,” O’Brien added. “People walking away from the protest had a sense of optimism instead of the defeatism that can usually be felt at the end of a protest.”

As the Right2Water campaign prepares for another major event on December 10 – International Human Rights Day – Ogle reflects on the lessons of the campaign for other regions.

 
“Unite needs to connect more closely with our base in the communities,” he said. “Where this base has been abandoned by the political establishment, we need to challenge that establishment – regardless of who is in power.

 
“We need to defend those whom the neo- liberal agenda seeks to alienate and abandon. Otherwise, we will become irrelevant and create a vacuum which could be filled by extreme political elements as we have seen in the UK”.