AWL CONFERENCE 19-20 MAY 2007: SUMMARY OF DECISIONS

Standing orders report - Carried

Election of stewards - Mark S elected chief steward

Assessment and orientation - document 1.0 carried

Public sector alliance - document 1.1 carried

Proposal from outgoing EC to make number of new National Committee 20 - carried narrowly.

Anti-fascism - document 1.2 carried

Amendment on name of the paper (1.3) - procedural motion to refer to incoming National Committee - carried. "That it be referred to the incoming National Committee. The National Committee should consider the whole range of possible responses to the concerns expressed in the motion, and also the costs in confusion and loss of 'name recognition' of a change of name".

Education - document 2.0 carried.

Inside Organising - amendment 6.1 defeated, amendment 6.2 defeated, amendment 6.3 defeated, document 6.0 carried with the addition of the sentence ""The group needs a proper debate on union organising" from amendment 6.3.

Statement from Environment Commission noted without voting. See below.

Iraq - document 4.1 defeated, document 4.0 carried. There was a separate vote on the section between asterisks, "We are against the status quo... democratic and secular country", towards the end of document 4.0; both that section and the rest of the document were carried.

Hustings and election for new National Committee, Control Commission, and Standing Orders Committee (election results available to AWL members here [1]).

Feminism - document 3.0 carried.

Labour Party - document 5.1/5.2 defeated, document 5.0 carried. There was a separate vote on point 14 of document 5.1/5.2, "Add affiliation of the AWL to the LP to 'Where we Stand';" both that point and the rest of the document were defeated. A motion to vote on neither document was defeated.

ENVIRONMENT COMMISSION REPORT

The National Committee voted to create an Environment Commission in January this year. Since then it has held two meetings to establish its remit. There are three broad areas we want to investigate:

• The reality of climate change

  Climate change, caused by human activity is a reality that is already having an effect on global natural and social conditions, and has potentially larger consequences. We need to assess the science of climate change, analyse the consequences and their implications for the political economy of the working class. Other environmental issues such as resource depletion are also urgent.

• Marxism and ecology

  There has been a renewed discussion in recent years on the relationship between Marxism and ecology, sometimes under the banner of eco-socialism. Marx and Engels wrote a great deal about nature, science and the environment. Environmental issues were taken on by the Second and early Third Internationals, and by particular socialists like William Morris. We need to assess the disjuncture of Marxism and ecology, and in particular the role of Stalinism. We need to work out the implications of modern ecology for our distinctive conception of Third Camp Marxism.

• Our programme on the environment

  There is renewed discussion in the labour movement about the environment, with more motions to union conferences as well as a central demand for legal rights for environment reps. We need to evaluate the demands put forward by unions and environment groups and propagate our own programme, for today’s conditions and for a workers’ government. There are also a number of campaigns, such as the Campaign against Climate Change and Stop Climate Chaos, which we need to assess. We also need to work out our relationship to green organisations and whether (and how) to intervene in them.

  The next steps

  We want to open a debate on nuclear power after this conference. The government will announce its plans in the autumn, so it will be a pressing political issue in the coming months. There are differences in the group. We should aim to formulate our view after a full and open discussion. We are also beginning to define other issues, which need more thorough discussion.

  Members of the Commission have begun writing for the paper and reviewing the best available literature on these questions. We plan to hold a day school and other public meetings to clarify our ideas. We plan to produce a document at next year’s conference and a pamphlet.

  We want more input from comrades, by asking questions, writing for the paper and the website, making contacts and reporting on meetings.

  MESSAGE FROM SOLIDARITY-USA

  Dear comrades:

  The U.S. socialist organization Solidarity sends our warm greetings to the Alliance for Workers Liberty on the occasion of your conference. We wish also to congratulate the people of Britain for being finally rid of Tony Blair; here in the USA our luck is not as good.

  The rulers of our two countries share responsibility for the most horrific imperial adventure, or misadventure, of the past half century. Not only have the past four years of war utterly destroyed Iraq; at the same time, Lebanon has been devastated by last year’s U.S.-Israeli war on that country, Afghanistan is locked in a war with no end, the economic quarantine of the Occupied Palestinian Territories has caused a near-complete social collapse and the outbreak of internal civil war, and the Bush administration has approached the brink of a catastrophic war with Iran. The latter war plan has been held in check not only by the extent of the U.S. defeat in Iraq, but also by U.S. military elites who know insanity when they see it.

  The war has also made us countries of torture, secret detention and imprisonment without trial. But imperialist barbarism produces counter-barbarism, as we see in all the above-mentioned places and many others. Democratic and secular values, working people’s rights, and above all the rights of women, are under violent assault. Often, tragically, these assaults are intertangled with resistance to imperialist domination, weakening that resistance and holding workers, women and progressive political movements in a death trap. Worst of all, the defeat of left-wing and national liberation movements opens the door to the influence of the terrorist al-Qaeda network. The Bush-Blair “war on terror” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  Our internationalist responsibilities include material and political solidarity with the forces struggling in Iraq for democratic and pro-labor alternatives. We are helping to build the forthcoming second tour of Iraqi trade unionists, both to support their struggle and to show U.S. working people why the antiwar struggle here can also be a positive contribution to a different and more hopeful future.

  In view of the defeats of revolutionary socialism in the 20th century, this new century must be one of combined revolution – for the sake of the survival of humanity – of the unfinished struggle for working class power together with the economic and social transformations required to avert catastrophic environmental degradation and climate change. We hope our two organizations’ experiences will enrich each other’s understanding and practice in confronting these immense challenges.

  -- Comradely regards from Solidarity (USA)