Workers' Liberty

Women’s Fightback is a paper produced by women in the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty. We hope it stimulates debate, but whether you agree or disagree please get in touch, and contribute articles, reviews and letters to this paper. Here is a brief explanation of who we are and what we stand for.

1. The fundamental long-term task of a Marxist organisation is to help the working class educate itself.

Over 60 people attended Workers' Liberty’s “The case for socialist feminism” dayschool in London on Saturday 21 April.

Pre-conference meetings are now underway for the annual conference of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, to be held in London on 19-20 May.

At conference we review our last year's activity, debate our main lines of policy for the coming year, and elect a new committee.

20 young AWL members and sympathisers went to the Reading and Leeds music festivals over the August bank holiday weekend this year...to pull pints.

To perenial fete-goers, the annual fete outside Paris organised by the French Trotskyist group Lutte Ouvrière (LO) on 3-5 June appeared to be larger, younger and more ethnically mixed than previous years.

A new AWL branch organiser wrote in this week: “In addition to the ‘Stop the BNP’ meeting on Tuesday we leafleted rush hour bus users with a Workers’ Liberty leaflet on today’s strike, went down to the picket line this morning and did a paper sale in town.

Four members of the AWL attended this year’s European Social Forum in Athens, held from 3 to 7 May. Although the huge venue made the size of the event difficult to estimate, it seemed smaller than previous Forums. That perhaps reflects the relative cost of getting to Athens, and the size of the Greek left.

From the proposals about trade-union activity to be discussed at the AWL conference this weekend, 29-30 April:

AWLers in the trade unions have to be able to demonstrate that they have the answers to the basic industrial issues confronting union members.

The AWL went to the “SOS NHS” conference on 25 March. In view of the size of the crisis in the NHS, they were a bit disappointed by the attendance — around 250, about the same as the schools conference — and the fact that it was mostly health-service professionals, with few activists from local “save-our-hospital” campaigns.

York AWL has recently recruited two new members. One they met on their regular street paper sale. Another, a local AWLer first came across when he started a conversation with her on seeing her on a train reading Socialist Worker. Today, as I write, York AWLers are about to have a meeting with someone else who met them on a paper sale and said he was interested in getting active.

Short reports from four events on Saturday 25 March in London:

On the Sydney (Australia) demonstration of 18 March, as well as London’s, there was a voice for the Iraqi labour movement. Members of Workers’ Liberty Australia and other supporters of “Aus-Iraq” distributed a leaflet headed: “No to occupation, no to ethnic and sectarian division, yes to the civilising, unifying power of Iraq’s trade unions”.

As well as organising our own meetings, paper sales, discussions with people interested in our ideas and so on, and as well as our work in the trade unions, AWL also helps build campaigns with a more specific focus.

When they finally started to push back the militant trade unionism of
the 1970s, the Tory governments of the 80s tried to screw down the
lid by bringing in laws that fundamentally undermined trade unions'
right to organise and take action.

"The emancipation of the proletariat is not a labour of small account
and of little people: only they who can keep their heart strong and
their will as sharp as a sword when the general disillusionment is at
its worst can be regarded as fighters for the working class or called
revolutionaries"

Antonio Gramsci.

The hope of changing the labour movement lies with its rank-and-file
members. We concentrate our efforts not just on calling for
resolutions to be passed and rule changes to be made, but
fundamentally on helping and encouraging workers to organise, to
stand up for themselves collectively, to develop a collective class
identity, and to fight for control in the workplace. We work to
rebuild the unions from the ground up.

Preparations are getting underway for the annual conference of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, the organisation which publishes Solidarity. The conference will be held on the weekend of 29-30 April, in London.

In the run-up to the 2005 election, AWL formed an alliance — the Socialist Green Unity Coalition — with the Socialist Party, the Alliance for Green Socialism, the remnants of the Socialist Alliance, and the Socialist Unity Network.

The third in the AWL's new series of political day schools is scheduled for 19 November (in London) and 3 December (in Sheffield).

The AWL held the second of our new series of political day schools on 22 October (in London) and 29 October (in Sheffield).

On Saturday 22 October in London, and 29 October in Leeds, members, sympathisers, and friends of the AWL are meeting for the second in our new series of monthly day schools.

The Workers’ Liberty dayschools on “Marxists and the trade unions”, on Saturday 1 October were held simultaneously in Sheffield and London.

On Saturday 1 October the AWL begins a series of nationally-organised political day schools for our members, sympathisers, and friends.

As we go to press, AWL members are working on mailing out invitations to our trade-unionists' day school on 17 September.

On the weekend of 14-16 May, some eleven members and friends of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty will be at the political festival organised by the French Marxist group Lutte Ouvrière in the countryside near Paris.

As part of the discussion leading up to the conference of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty on 21-22 May, Sean Matgamna locates our activity and perspectives in a longer view of history

On the Iraq demonstration on 19 March, AWL members helped Iraq Union Solidarity with a bucket collection to raise money for the new trade unions in Iraq. We also sold our new pamphlet, “Solidarity with Iraqi workers”. (which you can buy online here).

On 26 October, AWL took part in a meeting to plan action against the USA’s projected blitz on Fallujah. Initiatives coming out of the meeting include a demonstration on Sunday 7 November, 2pm at Parliament Square, which we urge all readers to support.