Workers' Liberty

By Karina Knight

Over 200 delegates attended the TUC Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Conference at Congress House on 24th-25th July, the biggest so far in the short history of the section.

Whatever the detailed results of the enquiry into the death of David Kelly, most people in Britain are sure about one thing: the government lied to us about its reasons for going to war with Iraq.

Who said what and when about the "45 minute" claim-that Saddam could launch weapons of mass destruction with three quarters of an hour's notice-is less important than the simple truth that Blair said that he could, and that he quite patently could not.

Labour, and Blair personally, are very low in the opinion polls right now, trailing behind the Tories. The reason for that is public mistrust. The affair is widely regarded as the biggest challenge faced by the Blair government since it was first elected in 1997-one that, potentially, threatens its survival, and in particular the survival of Blair himself.

By Dale Street

At the time of going to press the jury in the Yarls Wood trial had still to deliver its verdict on the five defendants accused of violent disorder and arson.

Yarls Wood detention centre was opened in late 2001. It was for "end of the road" cases-asylum-seekers who had exhausted the asylum procedure and whose removal from the UK was pending. In February 2002 half of the detention centre was burnt down.

By Sacha Ismail

As the US and Iranian governments wage a war of words, the struggle for democracy in Iran is continuing despite enormous repression.

By Matt Cooper

The international pressure that led to the departure of President Charles Taylor and the arrival of a small West African peace-keeping force, with limited US support, has led some sections of the left to denounce an "imperialist intervention".

Yet what other immediate hope of relief from dreadful suffering do the people of Liberia have. Indeed these efforts to inject some stability into the region could be criticised on the grounds of being too late and too half-hearted.

• People's United Opposition Party launched in Indonesia

• Guatemalaen maquila workers' victory
• Victory in the Hyundai strike
• Sri Lankan trade unionists under attack
• Yao Fuxin and Xio Yunliang moved to labour camp
• Brazil pension reform sparks workers protest

By Pablo Velasco

The Unemployed Union of Iraq (UUI) has organised a series of dramatic protests in the last week, and is already making gains. The union has so far organised more than 100,000 unemployed men and women in the cities of Baghdad, Mosul, Nasiriyah, Kirkuk, and elsewhere, and has organised demonstrations across the country.

• Nike London "fun run"
  
• Robert Newman
  
• No Sweat at the Edinburgh festival
  
• No Sweat training day

By the Centro de Apoyo al Trabajador (CAT - workers' centre)

On 19 July workers at Tarrant Mexico-Ajalpan held a constituent assembly to form an independent union (SUITTAR, or Sindicato Único Independiente de Trabajadores de la Empresa Tarrant México). Seven hundred of the thousand-strong workforce have joined the union.

By Jim Byagua

The United Students Against Sweatshops 2003 conference met in New York on Thursday 7-Sunday 10 August 2003.

This was a conference about building student-worker solidarity. Naturally, the subject of sweated labour in the "third world" was a large part of the conference discussion, but no less significant were the discussions that focused on organising with unions in the US.

• Limits of No Logo

• No choice
• Poor old women?
• NTL Fat Cat League
• Arms sting - dicey
• Arnie terminated
• Dictator-mail

The SWP and some of its allies in the mobilisations for the European Social Forum and elsewhere have taken to portraying the French left as complacent about anti-fascism and anti-racism. This article reminds us of a day 30 years ago when part of that left, militants organised by the French Ligue communiste révolutionnaire (LCR, then the Ligue communiste), fought the police to get at the fascists, and got their organisation banned as a result. Alain Krivine, a leader of the Ligue and now one of their MEPs, was among several imprisoned for a while. This article is by the Ligue's François Duval.

In the aftermath of the war in Iraq, there are the first stirrings of an independent labour movement. Workers are beginning to organise to deal with the problems of unemployment and unpaid wages, war damage and reconstruction. Many bourgeois commentators look back to the post-war reconstruction of Germany and Japan as enlightened alternatives to US policy in Iraq. In this article, Bruce Robinson examines the history of the German labour movement in the immediate post-war period and discusses questions of relevance today in Iraq.

A collection of contributions from members of the Socialist Alliance from all over the country:

• Support this statement and conference!

• What next for left unity?
• The opposition should move together
• Bring the different perspectives together
• "A Titanic looking for an iceberg"
• Don't throw away left unity!
• Stick in there, try to make it work
• We need unity
• We can still be a broad, pluralist socialist party
• Get back to basics

This song was written by Malvina Reynolds - a member of the American CP in the 30s - and Barbara Dane. They wrote it after the 1966 "Freedom Summer" campaign against desegregation in the American south. Megdar, referred to in the song, is Medgar Evan, who was one of a number of people involved in the campaign to be murdered by the police.

It isn't nice to block the doorway, it isn't nice to go to jail,

An electoral coalition with "sections of the middle class, or the petty bourgeoisie, to use the Marxist jargon" would be alright for socialists, writes John Rees in Socialist Worker, 2 August 2003. In his view, only alliances with full-strength capitalist forces are impermissible on principle.

He then proves to his own satisfaction that electoral coalitions by socialists with any "Muslim community" group is alright. There is "a minority inside the Muslim community that is middle class", but apparently no capitalist section worth mentioning; and the middle-class section is in good part "radicalised by the war" and "open to working with the left".

Martin Thomas argues that John Rees, in trying to justify the new turn for the Socialist Alliance, has got his political ideas and principles very mixed up indeed.

The trade unions are not only the bedrock of the labour movement. With the Blairite hijacking of the Labour Party, which had been founded at the beginning of the 20th century by the trade unions and socialist organisations such as Keir Hardie's Independent Labour Party to fight for working class interests, the trade unions are pretty much all that's left of the labour movement. Even though the number of trade unionists has fallen from its peak strength 25 years ago it is still a very powerful movement. There are twice as many trade unionists in Britain now as there were in France in 1968, when the working class seized the factories in a general strike. The work that Solidarity and Workers' Liberty does in the trade unions is the most important work we do.

By Maria Exall

Peter Tatchell's articles in Solidarity (3/34) contain two arguments that are less than helpful in campaigning against homophobia in Britain today.

He attempts to define a new social phenomenon of "heterophobia" to explain why the Government is only proposing civil partnership registration for lesbian and gay couples. The Goverment's decision can however be more easily explained by their prioritising of good old fashioned money and marriage.

• Against the road map

• We can't just denounce it
• Peace but not democracy?

It seems almost flavour of the month. Everyone is declaring for a Workers' Party. But it could have two distinct meanings, and it's important to distinguish the two and work out what is the relation between them.

Sean Matgamna here concludes his article exploring the early 80s' campaign of vilification of Socialist Organiser, forerunner of Workers' Liberty and Solidarity, by the Workers' Revolutionary Party (WRP). The article is a response to the criticism WL has received from the SWP and other parts of the left for refusing to regard Labour MP George Galloway as a respectworthy member of the labour movement.

• Post: Step up the fight on London pay

• ASLEF: Rix didn't organise
• Devon Stagecoach dispute
• Debate on RMT conference: Not fair to blame Crow
• Debate on RMT conference: RMT policy is not duplicitous

Mick Duncan talks to BA workers involved in the dispute at Heathrow and Gatwick airports and to the GMB to get the story behind the "swipe cards dispute".


Workers at Heathrow and Gatwick scored a dramatic, if only partial, victory in the battle to stop the introduction of new work patterns for British Airways staff. An effective truce followed an unofficial walk-out by thousands of mainly women workers in defiance of the anti-union laws. It is a truce because British Airways bosses and the unions have really only got an agreement to talk: a working party to discuss possible changes to hours and shifts. That will report by 17 September.

The Communication Workers Union is now balloting its postal members on industrial action over the Royal Mail pay offer. The pay offer, says the union, threatens thousands of jobs. A postal worker gives an overview of the issues.

The tough stance taken by the CWU Postal Executive is welcome. But rank and file postal workers have been left confused as to what the union's strategy is on the "Major Change" issues attached to the bosses' pay offer, which threaten up to 30,000 jobs.