Workers' Liberty

By Mark Osborn

John Pilger warns British citizens not to sit by while the government leads us all towards a crisis over Iran (Guardian 13 February also “Iran: a war is coming”, in New Statesman 1 February). In the process he gives us a good example of how the degenerate left gets it all so badly wrong.

Robin Blackburn, author of ‘The overthrow of Colonial Slavery’ (VERSO, 1988) talked to Martin Thomas

Q. About the British abolition of the slave trade in 1807, you wrote: “Britain's rulers were being asked to decide the abolition question at an extraordinary time... Britain’s oligarchy had a world to win if they could pull through — and a kingdom to lose if they could not”.

By Pete Radcliff

The local elections this year, in England at least, are likely to result in further major gains for the British National Party.

On 3 May, when voters in Scotland, Wales and some parts of England go to the polls to elect local councillors and regional assembly members, most will face a very limited choice. In many council seats, the only choice will be between Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems; in only a handful will there be independent working-class or socialist candidates standing.

By Tom Unterrainer
Unions of teachers, health workers, and civil service workers are all moving towards strikes to challenge Gordon Brown’s decree for pay cuts in the public sector.

By Sofie Buckland

After refusing to debate at the Feminist Fightback conference organised by socialist feminist students last year , the feminist anti-porn group Object have continued their campaign of trying to silence anti-censorship feminist voices.

BY Sofie Buckland

ON Monday 16 April a 23-year old South Korean student opened fire at Virginia Tech university, killing 33 and injuring at least 29. The latest in a string of shooting sprees going back as far as 1966, the massacre at Virginia Tech begs the question; why does this keep happening, and why particularly in the USA?

What is the Sadr movement?

By a London Underground worker

The RMT union has called off its scheduled strike action on Metronet, the London Underground maintenance company (or Infraco). This follows what appears to be a full capitulation by management. The union had demanded that the Infraco drop its plan to transfer the employment of 49 Duty Depot Managers to Bombardier, one of the component companies of the Metronet consortium. Metronet has agreed not to go ahead with the transfer.

Members of the civil service union PCS will shortly receive ballot papers for the union’s national executive (NEC) and “group” (sector) executive elections. For the first time, members will have the chance to vote for a clear, class-struggle alternative to the Left Unity leadership in the form of PCS Independent Left.

By a delegate

The big step forward at the annual conference of the National Union of Teachers, in Harrogate at Easter, was the passing of a motion calling for united public-sector strike action on pay.

Chances to push the union leadership into action on other issues were, however, missed.

By Mike Fenwick

Healthworkers from around the country gather in Brighton on 22-24 April for Unison’s Annual Health Conference. After another turbulent year in the NHS it seems likely that the mood will be angry, but the key question remains, how can that anger be turned into action.

By Jean Lane, Tower Hamlets Unison

Support Staff at Central Foundation Girls’ School in East London won a dispute over redundancies just before the Easter holidays began.

by a london underground worker

London Underground have announced the closure of 40 ticket office with the loss of 240 jobs. Although 140 new jobs will be created to form a “special requirements team”, this hardly sweetens the pill of the savage ticket office job cull.

By Joan Trevor

The first round of voting in the French presidential election will be on Sunday 22 April; assuming that no one wins a majority then (and no one will) the second round will be two weeks later on Sunday 6 May.

by Colin Foster

In Iraq the USA is edging towards a war on two fronts. If that happens, the almost certain result will be another big lurch into further sectarian civil war and social chaos.

By Stan Crooke

Last weekend’s police attacks on anti-Putin demonstrators in Moscow and St. Petersburg underlined the extent to which the Kremlin is prepared to go in snuffing out all manifestations of opposition in the run-up to this year’s parliamentary elections and next year’s presidential elections.

Last weekend’s demonstrations in Moscow and St. Petersburg which were attacked by the police had been organised by “The Other Russia” (TOR), initiated by Garry Kasparov in 2005 and formally launched in 2006.

By Sacha Ismail

London and Washington's favourite military dictator, General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, has been in power since 2000 and “constitutional” president of Pakistan since 2002. This year, he plans to have himself re-elected for another five term, and is determined to crush anyone who gets in his way.

As the dust continues to settle on the row over the captured sailors, a much more interesting and potentially earth-shattering story is unfolding in Iran. In Solidarity 3/109 Paul Hampton examined the description of the workers’ movement contained in a new book, Iran on the Brink* by Shora Esmailian and Andreas Malmby. Mick Duncan spoke to these activists and authors, who here expand on some of the themes of their book.

By Paul Hampton

The theocratic regime is stepping up repression in an attempt to quell the burgeoning workers’ movement in Iran.

By John Moeller

A meeting in the Casa, the former headquarters of striking dockworkers in Liverpool. Nowadays it is the usual location for left wing events in town. The hall is so crowded that some listeners have to stay outside in the corridor. It might be triple the size of a normal lefty audience. Who has attracted this many people? It’s Mr David Shayler.

From No One is Illegal

Immigration controls are racist towards all those wanting to come or remain. They are based on the crudest nationalism. They have a particular, and often hidden, effect on disabled people.

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.

By Mike Rowley

State legal aid is a vital lifeline for many people who cannot afford to pay a lawyer, including people with problems with debt, police and this country’s endlessly persecutory immigration authorities. Naturally, therefore, New Labour has decided to “marketise” the legal aid system.

Dan Katz reviews The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen)

In East Germany in 1984, just before Gorbachev and Soviet glasnost, a Stasi (secret police) agent Gerd Wiesler sets up a surveillance operation on playwright Georg Dreyman.

Mike Wood admired Kurt Vonnegut

“The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal.” Kurt Vonnegut’s prediction for the future.

Kurt Vonnegut has died at the age of 84. He was a science fiction author who remained prolific, acerbic, and radically left wing right up until his death.

In 1982, the SWP, still retaining bits of the “Third Camp” (independent working-class) political tradition exemplified by the old slogan “Neither Washington nor Moscow, but international socialism”, took a roughly similar attitude to the British-Argentine war over the Falkland Islands to that of Socialist Organiser, the forerunner of Solidarity/Workers’ Liberty.