Trade Union, Campaigning and Other Extra-parliamentary Activities
The Socialist Party is active in the trade union movement, arguing for more militant action in defence of workers’ interests. It also holds influence in the Northern Irish branch of the FBU where its members played a key role in encouraging the FBU's split from the British Labour Party in 2004.
The Socialist Party is also involved in many community campaigns, including the Anti Water Charge campaign in 1996 and the Anti-Bin Tax Campaign in 2003-2004. It has been involved in the movement against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the occupation of Palestine and continues to be active in campaigns against fascism, racism, low pay exploitation and religious sectarianism. They advocate and support rights for workers, women, ethnic minorities and members of the LBGT community.
On 19 September 2003, Joe Higgins and Clare Daly were sent to Mountjoy Prison for a month for refusing to abide by a High Court injunction relating to the blockading of bin lorries. This was part of the Anti-Bin Tax Campaign. Other members (along with people from other parties, and non-aligned activists) also went to prison for varying amounts of time for similar reasons. The campaign however was described by the Phoenix Magazine as "an abject failure" which "left many thousands of families across Dublin in financial and legal difficulty, it proved a useful campaign and publicity tool for SP candidates in a number of constituencies"
In 2005 the Socialist Party and in particular Joe Higgins TD and Mick Murphy were involved in highlighting the exploitation of immigrant Turkish construction workers working for the Turkish multinational GAMA on Irish state projects. Workers were being paid as little as €2.20 an hour (minimum wage in Ireland was €8.65) while being forced to work up to 80 hours per week. This led to a strike by immigrant workers in Ireland. The strike ended, with the workers winning tens of thousand of euros each in unpaid wages and overtime.
Read more about this topic: Militant Labour (Ireland)
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“With respect to a true culture and manhood, we are essentially provincial still, not metropolitan,—mere Jonathans. We are provincial, because we do not find at home our standards; because we do not worship truth, but the reflection of truth; because we are warped and narrowed by an exclusive devotion to trade and commerce and manufacturers and agriculture and the like, which are but means, and not the end.”
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