Workers' Liberty

UNIR LA GAUCHE POUR AFFRONTER LES NOUVEAUX DEFIS !

Il existe aujourd'hui des ouvertures pour la gauche révolutionnaire telles que nous n'en avons pas connu depuis deux décennies. Le soulévement puissant d'opposition à la guerre de Bush et de Blair contre l'Iraq, avec la montée du mouvement anti-capitaliste et le renouveau encore limité mais vraiment important du véritable syndicalisme en GB, se combinent pour créer cette situation.

There are openings for the growth of the revolutionary left such as we have not had for two decades. The tremendous upsurge of opposition to Bush's and Blair's war on Iraq, together with the rise of the anti-capitalist movements and the as yet limited, but radically important, revival of real trade unionism in Britain, have combined to create this situation.

Daniel Randall, a Nottingham school student, went to the Stop the War Coalition Forum for School Students on 16 March. Here is his report.

At the beginning of March, thousands of school and FE students, denied the vote by the capitalist parliamentary system, "voted with their feet" and walked out against the war. Following these events, a Stop the War Coalition School Student Activists' Forum was organised to help school students and sixth formers "plan action, organise strikes and elect representatives." In a world where no union exists to represent school students, and where young people are almost completely excluded from political life, this forum could play a useful role.

Over the last two weeks many cities in the UK have seen their biggest demonstrations for years, and in some cases ever. Here are some reports.

By Jim Byagua



More than fifty anti-war demonstrators blocked Whitehall on Monday 18 March in a protest outside the emergency meeting of the War Cabinet. The protest brought together higher education students and school students in a three-hour sit-down.

Compiled by Vicki Morris

This newspaper, Solidarity, is in favour of people taking direct action against the war. There has been debate about this in the movement, with, I feel, a false distinction drawn between demonstrations and direct action. Direct action advocates said marches by themselves could mobilise thousands (in the event, many hundreds of thousands!) but would stop little. The Stop the War Coalition said they wanted to mobilise those who would only march as well as those who would do more, and that mobilising many would encourage more of the more effective direct action. I think the STWC position was correct. It's getting harder to see where a demonstration ends and direct action begins. And not everyone turning up to Fairford airbase comes with wire cutters and a pair of running shoes!

By Gerry Byrne

Tony Benn, addressing the 'People's Parliament' on 12 March, said it was an historic event. The school students who addressed the meeting to a standing ovation would look back when they were as old as him and ask: "Were you there that day?"

So what did it feel like to be 'making history'?

• Mobilise the unions

• Stop work to stop war
• Cut the roots of war
• No to war - and no to Saddam
• Solidarity with the peoples of Iraq
• Internationalist, democratic, secular
• No alliance with Islamic fundamentalism
• "Broad" - or effective?

As we go to press the invasion of Iraq is imminent. Millions of people around the world oppose it, but that has not stopped the "leader of the free world", George W Bush, and his loyal toady Tony Blair, from sending in the troops.

The NUJ chapel at Newsquest Bradford began a 10-day strike over pay on 14 March.

The company had failed to improve on their 2% pay offer since the NUJ chapel staged a week-long stoppage in February. Trainees are on as little as £12,000 and qualified senior journalists on just £15,000.

Newsquest workers at Kendal, who had four days on strike in February, took another four days from 18 March.

by John Moloney

Members in the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCSU) have voted to hold annual elections for the National Executive and annual conferences.

This means that there have to be NEC elections this year. The right wing-controlled NEC has refused to appoint election scrutineers as required by the constitution. The general secretary and the president have had to go to the High Court to seek permission to appoint the scrutineers themselves.

by a delegate

The TUC Women's Conference in Liverpool this week kicked off with a motion on the war. Proposed by the Women's Committee, it opposed war on Iraq without a second resolution from the UN. It did not go so far as to condemn war unconditionally, but speakers from the floor did, such as Christine Blower from the NUT. Maria Exall, a member of the CWU executive, called for trade unionists to fight against any US/UK war on Iraq but also called for solidarity with Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam's regime. Delegates challenged guest speaker Patricia Hewitt MP and she left the conference with a resounding message against war. On the final day delegates staged an anti-war protest in the city centre.

by a postal worker

After months of not a lot happening, London Divisional Committee (LDC) of the postal workers' union CWU has launched the campaign to raise the London Weighting for postal workers to £4k. Balloting of all grades within the London Weighting area will happen during March, with the result announced at a rally on 1 May.

by a train driver

RMT traincrew (the vast majority of them senior conductors or guards) at twelve Train Operating Companies have voted for strike action. Strikes will take place on 28 March, 30 March and 17 April.

This is the fourth ballot on the issue of the safety role of the guard since 1995 when changes to the rule book were introduced which virtually wiped out any such role.

by a PCSU member

Following a hearing on 24 and 25 February, an employment tribunal in Manchester has ruled that the dress code imposed on staff in Jobcentre Plus in June 2002 is unlawful under the Sex Discrimination Act. The case was brought by Matthew Thompson, an administration assistant at Stockport social security office, with the backing of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCSU).

Press statement issued on 11 March by the East London branch of the Public and Commercial Services Union in the Department of Work and Pensions

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCSU), which represents workers in Social Security and Jobcentre offices, have been told that they cannot campaign against the Government's war drive against Iraq. Posters advertising the Stop the War Coalition's activities have been forcibly removed by managers from Union notice boards. The Union has also been banned from issuing e-mails to its members on the subject of anti-war campaigning.

On 11 March Goldsmiths College AUT members pledged action against the war, including:

by a CWU member

The re-convened Leicestershire CWU Branch AGM has agreed the following emergency motion to CWU conference:

"Conference agrees that in recognition of the failure of the present government to listen to the views of the public, party members and affiliated unions on major policy issues, the CWU will adopt a policy of no confidence in Tony Blair as leader of the Labour Party."

The motion was passed by 20 votes to 1, with one abstention.

by Angela Paton

First Minister Jack McConnell got a lucky escape on the Iraq vote on 13 March when the Scottish Parliament voted down John McAllion's amendment that "no case for military action against Iraq has been proven" by 62 votes to 57. The Tories voted with New Labour. The SNP and the Lib-Dems voted for McAllion's amendment.

Millions of workers stopped work at midday Friday 14 March in protest against a possible attack on Iraq, following a call from the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). The ETUC called for trade unionists to demonstrate their disagreement by halting work for 15 minutes at noon.

In Germany, where polls show an overwhelming majority of people opposing a war, the strikes briefly halted vehicle production at three Volkswagen factories and a DaimlerChrysler plant. Trams ground to a halt in the eastern city of Halle. Unions said more than 150,000 workers took brief strike action.

by Martin Thomas

The war is a time of ferment on the streets-and also of ferment among left-wing activists. The Labour Party has been thrown into crisis. It is no longer the Blairocracy it was-probably never will be again, even if the war goes "well" for Blair.

Hundreds of disgusted activists are leaving the Labour Party. And, at the same time, opposition within the Labour Party has reached higher levels than for many years.

Jill Mountford spoke to Chris Jones, former chair of Merseyside FBU.

On 19 March, the special conference of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) in Brighton rejected an "improved" offer from the bosses in their long-running pay dispute. Their leaders had been desperate to have a 16%-over-three-years pay offer accepted and had recommended settlement. Just a week earlier the bosses had made a similar offer, and this had been rejected by the leadership!

By Alan Clarke

This year's conference of the National Union of Students (NUS), 31 March to 3 April, takes place against a background of massive student anti-war protests. The issue of the war will certainly dominate the conference. Whether it will make it onto the agenda is another matter.

There are many sorts of pacifist: the recent votes in the Commons on war against Iraq have shown that. Many of those who opposed Blair will now "come on side" and support "our troops" like the Daily Mirror.

In this article from early 1917 Leon Trotsky discussed the nature and limits of 'official pacifism' in the run-up to World War One, and counterposed to it socialist class struggle-the only force on earth with the interest and the strength to stop all war.

By Sean Matgamna

A couple of weeks ago Tony Blair tried to frighten opponents of George W Bush's war on Iraq by conjuring up the ghost of Neville Chamberlain, the pre-World War Two British Tory prime minister and "appeaser" of Hitler.

Those who oppose war now, he said, when it is still possible to "take out" Saddam Hussein with little cost (except to the tens of thousands of Iraqi children and many other innocent Iraqis who will die in the US/British blitz) are in the same position as those who appeased Hitler through most of the 1930s, blundering towards World War 2.

In fact, it is not the opponents of war, but Blair himself who is playing Neville Chamberlain-to George W Bush and the American hyperpower.

School students protests are now taking place every day. As we go to press, we have heard of a protest in Manchester 5,000 strong. Send your reports and pictures to us.

Leicester

On the morning of 7 March schools in Leicester walked out with everyone converging on the city centre. Around 1,000 walked out from maybe 10 schools around the county. About 500 made it to the city centre protests. The event was marred by heavy handed policing. The police declared the protest an "unlawful assembly" and tried to make the students disperse. At this point the police made an arrest.

Thousands of students in Australia abandoned school on 5 March to take to the streets to protest against any war against Iraq.

The biggest crowd - about 10,000! - was in Sydney. Police estimate 7,000 turned out in Adelaide, 1,000 in Canberra and hundreds in Perth, Hobart and Brisbane.

by Dan Katz

Ariel Sharon's right-wing Israeli government seems set to build a massive, 20-metre high security wall, which will encircle a large part of the West Bank. The enclosed area-only a part of the West Bank-could form the basis for a future Palestinian semi-state, although Sharon denies that this is his intention.

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.

In Israel the "war on terror" continues. It will do nothing to eliminate the criminal and condemnable suicide bomb attacks on Israeli citizens, but will likely only increase them.

This "war on terror" now involves permanent curfews, demolition of Palestinian homes, extra-judicial killings of suspected organisers of the suicide bombings, daily Israeli army incursions into Palestinian areas, killings and maimings of Palestinians, including children, strangulation of the Palestinian economy so that there is a huge increase in reliance on aid and malnutrition among Palestinian children.

Israeli and Palestinian peace activists fear worse is to come under the cover of the war on Iraq: there is a real expectation that there will be an ethnic cleansing in the border areas of the West Bank, and that Arafat will be "eliminated".

Emergency Committees to defend the Palestinians from attack have been set up by Palestinians inside the Occupied Territories and by Israelis. The Palestinians have drafted a statement which sets out the dangers to the Palestinian people as they see them. The Israeli left peace group Gush Shalom has supported and circulated this statement. They want activists to set up similar committees in other countries. Here is the text.