Workers' Liberty

By a BECTU member

Outrageous management bullying at Rupert Murdoch's Sky television company has culminated in a vote against union recognition at the firm's Livingston call centre.


Last year, more than 50% of the 466 staff in the Livingston sales centre signed a petition supporting union recognition. By the time a ballot was held more than 100 workers had joined the BECTU union. But, after weeks of intimidation from management, only 47 voted in favour of recognising BECTU, and 277 against.

Southampton District Unison branch held a one-day strike on Wednesday 19 February. Additionally, council workers have withdrawn the use of their cars for council business and are refusing to drive hire cars or council cars-visits to clients' and tenants' homes are by taxi or public transport. They are not covering unfilled posts.

By a north London postal worker

Postal workers in London are gearing up for a fight with Royal Mail over the pitifully low level of their London Weighting allowance.
The campaign was launched formally months ago, when local government workers and teachers took strike action to support their £4k London Weighting claim.

By Maria Exall, CWU executive, personal capacity

Engineers working for BT's Customer Service division have voted 9 to 1 against a contractual, performance related bonus scheme. The consultative ballot had a 72% turnout, and echoed the vote of Communication Workers Union delegates at January's special conference which rejected BT's "Self Motivated Teams" scheme.

Sign the international appeal!

A powerful international labour-based movement for democracy and international solidarity can defeat both George W Bush’s war for oil and Saddam Hussein’s bloody dictatorship. In the immediate term, we want to consolidate a democratic, secular and internationalist pole in the British anti-war movement.

BOOKS

Edward Ellis recommends some reading on Iraq

Saddam Hussein: an American obsession by Patrick and Andrew Cockburn

If you read just one book, it should be this one. A very readable and thorough account of Iraq under Saddam, and the twists and turns of American/CIA policy towards him and the Iraqi and Kurdish opposition. Best account I've read of the 1991 uprising, and of the failed anti-Saddam coups in the mid 90s. Very well informed: they seem to have personally interviewed everybody involved.

America

by Claude McKay

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Times’ unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

Paul Hampton looks at the history of the Workers' Party and the prospects for the future in the light of Sue Branford and Bernardo Kucinski's new book, Politics Transformed: Lula and the Workers' Party in Brazil

• Weapons of mass destruction

• Tony Ceaucescu?
• Burnley council's BNP shame
• In the service of the IMF
• Blowing in the wind

Not in our name

The anti-war demonstrators on 15 February were marching against Bush's and Blair's war plans, but also against the shutting-down of democracy by deception and manipulation, the transformation of politics into a business transacted between think-tanks, advisers, bureaucrats, spin-doctors and the billionaire media.


Tony Blair has refused a parliamentary vote on the war. Last year one Labour MP, Graham Allen, was driven to talk of hiring a hall in Westminster so that MPs could at least meet unofficially to discuss the war.

Journalists strike at greedy Gannett



In brief

• Peugeot Coventry strike

• Train guards’ safety ballot likely

Journalists strike at greedy Gannett

Every single part of Murdoch’s vast empire of papers and media supports Bush and Blair’s drive for war. On one man’s say so, irrespective of what “public opinion” really is, these papers pump out war propaganda. That is why it is so important that the labour movement and socialist groups have their own papers to get their message across. We need papers like Solidarity.

Support Steve Godward!

By Vicki Morris

Firefighter Steve Godward was sacked in early February from the West Midlands Fire Service on trumped up charges relating to the FBU pay dispute.

C-charge must be part of bigger plan

Unlike Jane Sprigg (Solidarity, 6 February) I have never had a car. Having to live on Incapacity Benefit, like the poorest of Londoners I could not afford one. I have to rely on public transport or just not travel. With gridlock meaning a five mile journey taking two hours and having to stand on arthritic legs often my only option is, don't travel.

“On a quiet day I can hear another world breathing”

Prize-winning Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy spoke at the closing session of the World Social Forum on 27 January, held in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

I’ve been asked to speak about “How to confront Empire?” It’s a huge question, and I have no easy answers.

When we speak of confronting “Empire,” we need to identify what “Empire” means. Does it mean the US Government (and its European satellites), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, and multinational corporations? Or is it something more than that?

On International Women’s Day, 8 March, No Sweat will be organising a series of protests against women’s sweatshop labour.


For London, No Sweat has produced a leaflet with a map of “Streets of Shame” on one side and a factsheet on the other.

On the map are the locations of the Disney, Gap, Nike and Puma stores around the Oxford Circus area. We will be protesting outside all these shops from 12-3, ending with a rally at Puma on Carnaby St at 3pm.

Defend asylum seekers!

By Lucy Clement

People applying for asylum in Britain are facing attack from three sides as Tony Blair pledges to cut the number of asylum claimants by half by September.

Don’t be an optimist for Bush

By Martin Thomas

The left is wrong about Iraq

By Eric Lee

The left in Britain, and no doubt around the world, is completely caught up in the excitement of a rapidly-growing anti-war movement.

Gerry Byrne’s ideas about child pornography (Solidarity 3/23) sit unhappily alongside each other.

She says:
1. All child porn is abusive
2. Should people be prosecuted for simply looking at images?
3. Maybe there are images made in which real children are not really abused.
4. All commercial sexual use of children is abuse.
5. Oppose book burning; the way to combat bad ideas is counter-argument.