As the countdown to the introduction of water charges approaches, the We Won’t Pay Campaign is receiving massive support from across Northern Ireland. Public meetings and activist meetings are happening in local communities and the Campaign is spreading from town to town.
In recent weeks, meetings have taken place right across Belfast. In the New Lodge, residents are going door-to-door selling stickers for people to place on their front windows and are getting an incredible response. Likewise, in Belvoir, Bloomfield, Ballymurphy, Ormeau Road, Finaghy and many other parts of Belfast “We Won’t Pay” stickers are appearing on front windows and support is growing.
The Campaign is spreading to new areas all the time. 20 attended the first meeting of the Campaign in Crumlin and a series of actions to build the Campaign was agreed. One of the people at that meeting is now organising a meeting in Ballyclare.
40 people attended a meeting in Enniskillen and £100 was raised to help the work of the Campaign. A meeting in Newry got excellent coverage in the local paper and as a result people who want to actively build the Campaign have contacted it. The Campaign is now organizing more meetings in Larne, Ballymena, Dungannon and many other areas.
Many people who now contact the campaign are organizing local meetings in their own areas and the Campaign is sending out speakers to discuss how to build non-payment. Over 70,000 people have now signed the non-payment pledge and the Campaign hopes to reach 100,000 signatures by April. Many shopkeepers are asking customers to sign the non-payment pledge on their counters and some are also putting a leaflet of the Campaign into every shopping bag. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. More and more people are now signing the pledge online at the Campaign’s new website www.wewontpaycampaign.com.
The We Won’t Pay Campaign will hold a conference in Belfast on Saturday 10 March to bring together all local groups of the Campaign to discuss and decide how to take the Campaign forward. The conference is open to anybody who wishes to build local democratic membership based, non-payment groups in their communities.
The Campaign has also called a demonstration through the streets of Belfast on Saturday 31 March which will mark the eve of water charges being introduced. Every local community should begin organizing now to build for both the conference and especially the demonstration.
All trade unions and groups which are opposed to water charges should now throw their support behind the We Won’t Pay Campaign. A concrete way of showing this support is by backing the demonstration and actively encouraging people to attend.
What happens when we don’t pay?
The Government has begun it’s campaign to get to people start paying water charges by sending out direct debit forms within a second "information" pack to every house across Northern Ireland.
The so-called "information" pack ignores the fact that householders are already paying for water through the rates, which are to increase again in April. It also fails to inform people that the new water company, Northern Ireland Water Ltd. (NIWL), is set to be fully privatised after its revenue of water charges is secured.
Direct-rule Ministers and the bosses of the new company, which will officially come into existence on April 1, have arrogantly attempted to dismiss the deep-rooted and widespread opposition of people to water charges and privatisation of the water and sewerage service.
But what really worries them is that most people now understand that mass non-payment of water charges cannot be ignored and crucially it can make the new charging system unworkable.
This is confirmed in the Financial and Strategic Review of Water Service published in 2005, where the prospect of non-payment of water charges is acknowledged. NIWL have allowed for 5% non-payment in their budget. But they are massively underestimating the level of non-payment.
The (mis)-information pack is designed to make payment of water charges as simple as possible. Direct debit payments are the most secure and reliable method of payment from NIWL’s point of view. The We Won’t Pay Campaign has called for people to ignore the direct debit forms. There is no obligation to set up a direct debit payment.
The pack also contains misleading information in the event of people not paying. It warns that if people do not pay they will refer your case to Echo (debt recovery company) to recover the costs or issue a court claim, which they claim will add legal costs to your bill and may affect your credit rating.
However, the company cannot simply take people to court if they refuse to pay. NIWL must send a reminder letter to people who have not paid after a minimum of 28 days.
This will most likely be followed by another or several threatening letters demanding that people pay their outstanding bill. These are only threatening letters designed to intimidate people into paying.
Echo can then be asked to contact non-payers, either by telephone, more letters or by visiting people’s homes. However Echo has no legal powers. They are relying on their ability to wear people down and to eventually get people to pay.
NIWL can also attempt to take legal action by dragging non-payers into the Magistrates Courts. However, they have to go through a formal procedure before they can bring anybody to court.
After attempts are made to contact non-payers and a reminder letter has been sent looking for payment, a letter of intent to issue a court order must be sent. This though is not a court order in itself, but only a letter of intent to obtain one.
Non-payment is not a criminal offence, but a civil offence. Non-payers cannot obtain a criminal record for simply not paying water charges.
The only way a criminal act can be made is by refusing to comply with the Magistrates Court. The Magistrates Court has the power to apply to the Enforcement of Judgements Office (EJO) for a Judgement Order to be taken against the non-payer. This allows the EJO to withdraw in installments the amount owed from the non-payers’ wages or benefits directly.
If this is not an option, the Court can seize assets, through bailiffs, worth the amount owed. However, the reality is that the amounts owed in the first year in most cases will be too small to justify the seizure of assets.
Likewise, credit rating is unlikely to be affected in most cases. If there is mass non-payment, the banks and other financial institutions, which make huge profits by extending credit, will not refuse to give credit to the majority of non-payers, especially if the amount involved is relatively small. This was also the case after the Anti-Poll Tax movement and the campaign against water charges in Dublin during the nineties.
It is also probable that NIWL will be reluctant to resort to legal action as it costs the company money for every individual being pursued through the Magistrates Court. It is questionable whether the company will pursue people who owe a relatively small amount given the costs involved, administration costs and the potentially small profit to be made. This does not mean that they will not try and make an example out of some to try and scare the majority of non-payers.
NIWL can only bring each individual non-payer to court, one at a time. If mass non-payment involves hundreds of thousands of people, there is no way the new company would be able to sustain financial independence. It would take many years to get the majority of people through the courts.
In Britain, where there is no mass non-payment campaign, non-payment is a serious issue for the water companies because people simply do not have the money to pay the bills. In the year 2004-2005 alone, a massive £962 million in water charges was unpaid and written off.
As a result, the private water companies are lobbying government for a return to a form of disconnections of water supply for non-payers. At the moment it is illegal to cut off domestic water supplies.
Support for non-payment is widespread across the North. There is no doubt that if the Campaign is built and mass non-payment is sustained, the courts will be completely incapable of defeating non-payment. In these circumstances, the government will be forced to scrap the charges.
The We Won’t Pay Campaign is currently studying legal advice and is in the process of working out potential ways of disrupting the legal efforts of NIWL to slow the process and add to the clogging up of the courts.
But the priority for the Campaign is to sustain mass non-payment into the second year after the increased second round of bills are issued. Success in this can only be guaranteed by organizing in every community local We Won’t Pay groups which can respond quickly to threats with solidarity action.
This type of democratic structure necessary to sustain mass non-payment is only to be found within the We Won’t Pay Campaign. Calls for non-payment from trade unions and other groups are welcome but, on their own, are insufficient to defeat water charges. Non-payment needs to be democratically organised in the communities.
Echo recruitment day spoiled
The We Won’t Pay Campaign has succeeded in disrupting the recruitment campaign of Echo Managed Services, the debt recovery company tasked with pursuing people who don’t pay water charges on behalf of Northern Ireland Water Ltd.
Echo had planned to hold an open recruitment day on 1 February for people interested in working in their new call-centre on Upper Queen St. in Belfast city centre. But they were forced to cancel the event after the We Won’t Pay Campaign called a protest outside the premises on the day.
40 members of the Campaign turned up outside the offices where Echo had placed notices at the entrance stating that the recruitment day had been cancelled due to “unforeseen circumstances”.
Echo is the new name of Crystal Alliance, the consortium of private companies which was awarded a £70 million seven-year contract to harass people into paying the new water charges. This same company was exposed as labelling working class communities as “Rock Bottom” and wealthy householders as “Affluent Achievers”.
The We Won’t Pay Campaign plans to hold many more protests against Echo’s attempts to intimidate people into paying this double-tax.
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