Invasion of the bin snatchers!

by Odd Bin Thu Aug 11, 2005 15:45

Isn't there one in Dundrum. Don't the SP have a branch there? Don't they know all about how to run a successful campaign or are they too busy writing 30,000 word hatchet jobs?

by dave - swp Fri Aug 12, 2005 13:36

Yes there is an active campaign in DLR

WE held a serious of successful activist meetings in late spring early summer in Sallynoggin, St Fintans, Bally Brack, Shankill and Dun Laoghaoire.

The council is operating a 'honeycomb'
startegy rather than going for an all out assault on non-payers.

At the mpoment as well as snatching bins they are leaving behind untagged rubbish in central dun laoghaire

As agreed at the recent activist meetings the local non payers are stacking their untagged bins together at the end of the street.

The council is usually collecting these unmarked stacks after a couple of days.

Nevertherless their is still a build up of rubbish.

Many of the residents of central dun laoghaire are elderly people. So they are an easy target for intimidation. So of course there are some who are caving in and paying. Nevertheless the level of resistance is high as can be judged from a walk around the red- brick streets off Patrick Street.

We knocked on everyone's door in the area on last Wednesday evening advising everyone of their rights regarding the legal right to throw their own rubbish in the back of a moving bin truck.

We also spoke to everyone about the lack of recycling facilities in the area. The council has recently sold an adjacent recycling facility to private developers.

We had feared some backlash from people who had paid over the rubbish piling up in the street, but none was apparent.

Obviously the council would like to see arguments emerging between the locals over the rubbish on the street but none of the locals we spoke to, payers or non payers, took that line. Instead everyone had figured whatt the council was up to and were focusing their anger on them.

next bin collection in central dun laoghaire is monday at 7.30 and we have called a protest and will be encouraging the locals to utilise their legal right to dispose of their rubbish in the bin truck. All welcome to join the protest of course.

by krossie Fri Aug 12, 2005 15:43

Good work

but

whats the story is there a tag system now as well?

krossie

by dave - swp Fri Aug 12, 2005 16:38

yep, tags for areas like central dun laoghaire who haven't received bins

Tags cost 4 euro and must be attached to bags before they are collected

The introduction of the tag system sends out pretty a ambigious message from the council. It is being seen by alot of people in the area as an admittance that they won't be able to collect the money non-payers and partial non-payers owe in arrears. People are reading it as the council saying we'll let u off with the back payment if u buy the tags. But this could also be read as as ign of the councils weakness in implementing the charge anbd non-collection. a lot have peope seem to have become immune to the threatening letters telling peole they will be brought to court etc, sine everyone has ben threatened 5 or 6 times now and no-0one has been brought to court


Also the council seems to have taken the presure of those in arrears since the legal victory of the dublin city campaign. The campigns leafleting network got out about 10000 leaflets in the area advertising the fact that arrears for some years had been deemed illegal and that this was likely to put dlrcc on the back foot in terms of arrears collection

The meetings we held around dun laoghire in april and may were the best attended and liveliest for a couple of years with a lot of new people volunteering to leaflet etc

Since the we've also held a couple of socials as fundraisers for a legal fund in Baker's corner and the Lough inn and these were alsobetter attended than expected

I think there is a lot of life in the campaign yet
and hopefully the protest on monday will have abit of an impact locally.

by Liam Fri Aug 12, 2005 16:56

Any thoughts on the SP 'discussion' document?

by dave - swp Fri Aug 12, 2005 18:23

sorry liam haven't found time to wade through it yet

but i've got the gist of it and been following the thread

It seems that everyone outside the sp sees it as a fairly one sided account.

it would be better if someone involved in the dublin city campign replied to the specific allegations regarding 'phantom campaigns' 'lack of connection to the working class movement' etc etc etc

Of course we are discussing it within the party and will respond in due course.

The other activists who are villainised in the document will also respond when they have time im sure.

From the dl end of things we in the local swp through all of our effiorts into organising the most widespread and militant campaign we could. Dozens of public meetings on the topic , hun dreds of thousands of leaflet distributed. Hundreds of locals involved in mass pickets at the gates of estates. We helped locals to blockade the bin trucks on several occasions. We walked around with locals putting bins into the backs of bin trucks on many a morning. And we worked with activists in sinn fein, sp, etc to blockade the depot in sandyford on two or three occasions.

As a result of all that effort the local council has been unable, after five years of propaganda, threats, and intimidation, to implement either anything like full payment of the bin charges, or to collect the arrears of non payers. It has also thus far failed completely in its objective of privatising the service.

The great strength and legacy of the campaign, here as in other areas, is the involvement of large numbers of local working class people in struggle against the authorities. The fact that workers fought in large numbers in a variety of ways - from just not paying, to leafleting, to become local organisers of pickets and other campaign activities- has laid the basis for a revival of fighting traditions in the local working class.
The bin tax campaign has also pierced any notion of the invincibility of the authorities. The council now has to face almost weekly protests by locals on issues of traffic management, housing, development, etc. Many of the people involved in and some of those leading these struggles were originally drawn into activism during the bin tax struggle. Many now feel that the council is not only unrepresentative and incompetent, but also beatable.

Also as explined above the campaign is not only undefeated but remains in the field of battle with plenty of fight left in it.

Personally I think the bin tax might be the biggest mistake the neo-liberals have made in ireland. Its the chink in the armour we needed to prove the beast was made of flesh and blood after all.


there is plenty more on the bin tax on our website at www.swp.ie