Solidarity 042, 3 December 2003

By Alison Brown 150 anti-sweatshop activists met in Sheffield on 29-30 November to debate, discuss and consider future campaigning priorities. Students and trade unionists listened as Mick Duncan from No Sweat and Neil Kearney, a leader of the international garment workers' union, ITGFWU, opened the event. Mick stressed the need to build campaigning unity between the trade union movement and anti-capitalist youth and students. Mick advocated a sharp, clear focus on working class self-organisation and support for international workers' struggles. Charles Arthur from the Haitian Support Group...

Baghdad today: unchecked gangsterism and crime. Robberies, rapes, kidnapping, abductions. Death on the streets every day. Sixty or 70% unemployment. The electricity now works, on and off, but the phones don't, except for calls within a few particular areas of Baghdad. The schools are falling apart, some of them having three separate shifts of students in the same classroom. No books, no equipment. The pressure is eased only by many students - especially girls, scared by the street violence - not going to school any more. Amidst all this, the American soldiers, scared, nervous, uncomprehending...

Alex Gordon, a member of the executive of the rail union RMT, spoke to Solidarity (This is a longer version of the interview than printed in Solidarity 3/42) I don't claim to be any kind of expert on Iraq. I don't speak Arabic or Kurdish. But five of us from various trade unions - the RMT, the Fire Brigades Union, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, and National Union of Journalists - went to Baghad at the beginning of October for five days. Our contacts were through an organisation called the Workers' Democratic Trade Union Movement of Iraq, which was set up at the end of the 1980s by...

As the original AWL speaker supposed to have said that I am "a little bit Zionist" (the report is 'a little bit inaccurate'), I feel I have to respond to Bruce Robinson's letter (Solidarity, 9 October). Bruce contends that when John O'Mahony writes that he considers the baseline content of the common use of "Zionism" is support for the right of Israel to exist, and in that sense he is a "Zionist", then John is trying to refute the AWL's "universalist" opposition to Israeli nationalism (as to all other nationalism). But if anyone really wants to defend Israeli nationalism, then why not defend...

In the mid 14th century, about 30 or 40 million people died in Europe in the Black Death. That was when most people lived constantly on the edge of hunger; low technology and productivity made it impossible to escape that; and no-one understood how to prevent or cure such diseases. In the 21st century, 28 million people have died so far from AIDS, about 20 million of them in Africa. Over 40 million are living with AIDS, 29 million of them in Africa. Most of those will die of it. This is in a world which produces much more food than it needs (and could easily produce more). Technology and...

Click here for the series on The Roots of Bolshevism of which this article is part By Sean Matgamna The October Revolution of 1917 seemed to many observers to be an attempt to stand Marxism on its head. Those who said that included George Valentinovich Plekhanov and Pavel Borisovich Axelrod, the founders of the Russian Marxist movement, and Karl Kautsky, the most authoritative Marxist of the Second International (1889-1914). To others, who supported it, it seemed to have succeeded in turning on its head the Marxism long dominant in the labour movement. Antonio Gramsci greeted it as "The...

A poll published on 23 November showed 56% of Palestinians and 53% of Israelis in favour of the "two-states" terms of the Geneva Accords. The Geneva plan, published some weeks ago and officially launched on 1 December, proposes an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, with the border roughly along the 1967 lines. It was devised by soft-leftish Israeli politicians and some Palestinian leaders, and has been backed by Palestinian president Yasser Arafat. The US government has "welcomed" it gingerly and agreed to meet with its authors, while not specifically endorsing it. There are some...

London Underground workers are due to take industrial action on 9-10 December over safety on the Tube and privatisation of its infrastructure. The biggest Tube union, the RMT, is demanding 24-hourly inspection of all Tube track; immediate introduction of speed restrictions wherever track defects are discovered; and all track, signalling and rolling-stock maintenance work to be carried out by qualified London Underground employees. On 9-10 December it is calling on drivers to drive at 10mph on all dubious track section, and station staff to close stations whenever they become overcrowded...

By Pablo Velasco Israel: attacks on unions Korean unions defend migrant workers Salonika seven free, for now Israel: attacks on unions The Israeli government is preparing to dock the wages of workers taking industrial action, and introduce anti-union laws. Around 30,000 workers - half of those employed by the government - have been engaged in go-slows and strike action over the last six weeks. Workers are angry about plans to cut the budget and change pension arrangements and government pans for privatisation. The government's 2004 budget, which has to be approved by parliament by the end of...

Nausea #1 Big Con Nausea #2 Ask a stupid question Checkout all-out! Nausea #1 Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian fell for the listening Tony Blair pen-and-notebook-in-hand act. Writing about the first Big Conversation in Newport on Friday 28 November he said: "It is a scene from a daydream. You're having a cup of tea, sounding off about the way the country should be run, when there, suddenly sitting right next to you, is none other than the prime minister." And: "The prime minister did not breeze in and out yesterday, as if for a photo-op. He lingered, way beyond schedule, pen in hand, taking...