However a breakdown in those cease-fires which do stand is not a welcome development. Local and not so local politicians are again playing with the lives of working class people. The use of parliamentary privilege, by 'Doctor' Ian Paisley, to name people he alleges were involved in republican terrorism in the past, has given loyalist 'dissidents' a ready made hit list at a time when the Orange Volunteers are carrying out a sectarian pipe bombing campaign. Things are not all rosy in the republican camp either, with increasingly violent infighting over missing weapons, coupled with a hardening of attitudes in relation to any future decommissioning. As regards state forces there have been some small, tokenistic, signs of demilitarisation, but, not surprisingly, no indication of moves towards disarmament.
Workers find themselves confronting a bleak future with no credible alternatives on offer.
We need to build those alternatives ourselves, in the workplace and the community, starting by breaking down sectarian barriers and coming together to fight for our interests as workers. They join 400 laid off by F G Wilson, as well as those laid off recently by Shorts and textile workers at Desmonds. These are just some examples what 'loyalty' to the company gets you in the capitalist marketplace, a marketplace which regards its workers as commodities to be bought and sold, hired and fired. The interests of the bosses, and even those who regard themselves as the most 'loyal' of workers, are incompatible. ACE was introduced in the 1980's by the Tories to 'tackle' unemployment, but failed miserably.