Solidarity 3/47, 4 March 2004

UNISON Service Group elections Vote United Left!

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The left in UNISON has missed an opportunity to follow the lead of other unions like Amicus and the TGWU when the Service Group Executive Committees are elected next month.

The Service Group Executives are the "industrial" leaderships of the union. Although they lack the profile of the NEC, they have decision-making powers on issues of pay and conditions and negotiations, thus making them just as important as the NEC. Yet the left, traditionally, hasn't contested them. After a better showing two years ago, this seems to be the case again in 2004.

Unions challenge Blair on gay equality

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Trade unions are challenging the Government in court to give full employment rights for their lesbian, gay and bisexual members.

The case begins on 17 March at the High Court in the Strand, against the Government's inadequate implementation of the EU Sexual Orientation Employment regulations, which were brought in on 1 December last year.

RMT tells Network Rail: 'Hands off jobs and pensions!'

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Network Rail is waging a concerted attack on its workforce.

The Government expects our gratitude for getting Network Rail to end contracting-out and bring infrastructure maintenance in-house. Even some union leaders have repeated the spin that this is some form of renationalisation. But the truth is that it falls well short of a genuine return to public ownership, and in no sense means that Network Rail is a 'good employer'.

RMT: Tube workers strike on 12 March

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By a Tubeworker

RMT members employed on track and signal maintenance by Metronet on the London Underground will stage a 24 hour strike from 6 am on Friday 12 March. RMT members employed by Metronet on track and signal maintenance on London Underground voted by 5 to 1 to strike in support of sacked colleagues.

Against the occupation? Yes, but: With the workers, not the "resistance"!

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Whichever precise component of the so-called "resistance" in Iraq which was responsible for the atrocities on 2 March, it reveals the character of this movement. According to Iraqi officials 271 people have been murdered in bomb attacks on participants in a Shi'a religious festival in Baghdad and the holy city of Karbala. Perhaps a million Shi'a had flocked to Karbala, the first time in decades it has been possible for the festival of Ashura to be observed. The attacks were calculated to cause the largest number of civilian casualties.

Post-modern, pre-rational?

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'How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World: a History of Modern Delusions' by Francis Wheen

This book comes with a fluffy duck on the cover and a recommendation from Nick Hornby, so I expected to find it dire. Fortunately my expectation was confounded. This is a sustained political polemic from one of the most talented polemicists alive.

The new economy of terror

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Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks by Loretta Napoleoni

This book looks at the filthy-dirty business of the funding of modern "terror" organisations. If there are differences in the roots of and political outlooks of these groups - between for instance the Tamil Tigers and Islamic Jihad, between the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and al-Qaida, Napoleoni is not much interested in them. She quite explicitly sets out to write an "economic analysis" and to avoid political concepts. This, she says, is a new way of looking at the problem. I don't know about that. I do know that an author who systematically avoids political judgements can be at times very irritating, however interesting and ground-breaking the factual information in her book may be.