Solidarity 3/53, 10 June 2004
News feature: Ethnic cleansing in Sudan
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 17:11
By Cathy Nugent
Since February 2003 a brutal ethnic cleansing has taken place against some of the peoples of Darfur in western Sudan. It has been perpetrated by the military-Islamist government and the ferocious militia which it supports.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Unions need new direction - Break with Blairism!
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:54
By Gerry Bates
Blairism is the syphilis of the British labour movement! The way the government foments and encourages racism and chauvinism is only the filthiest example of it.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Iraq: more role for the UN. And the workers?
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:52
By Colin Foster
Although Iraq's new prime ministed, Iyad Allawi, was essentially appointed by the USA, his government now owes its authority to a UN Security Council Resolution passed on 8 June after long negotiations between the big powers. That gives it much more potential for autonomy than if its status depended exclusively on the USA's say-so.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Olympics: the dirty games
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:52
By Mick Duncan
The International Olympics Committee (IOC) is turning a blind eye to the super-exploitation of workers producing sportswear marketed around the Athens Olympic Games, and to the mistreatment of workers at the games venues.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Workers of the world Round-up
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:52
By Pablo Velasco
- Colombian oil workers halt privatisation: solidarity works!
- "Massive summer strikes" planned in Korea
- ANC against anti-privatisation activists
- Argentine workers fight for a six-hour day
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Discutez, fêtez chez Lutte Ouvrière
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:52
By Michelle Parker
Some of the work being initiated in Britain by the Iraqi Workers' Solidarity Group is already being done in France by a group called Solidarité Irak.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Their D-Day, our 1945
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:51
“Ernie, when we have done this job for you, are we going back on the dole?”
An unknown British soldier embarking for D-Day, shouting after the then Minister of Labour, Ernest Bevin
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
A student conference... to attack democracy
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:49
By Alan Clarke, National Union of Students Executive, personal capacity
On 17 June, an emergency National Union of Students conference will meet to discuss structural reforms to plug the union's £500,000 a year financial deficit.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
The miners' strike 1984-5
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:49
A look back at the events of May-June and the Battle for Orgreave.
May 29-18 June: Thousands of pickets and police fight battles outside Orgreave coking plant, near Sheffield. Coke runs from Orgreave were suspended on 18 June.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
The writing on the wall
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:48
- Corporate America takes over the airwaves
- Shiny new Corporate America?
- Striking a pose
- Striking it rich?
Corporate America takes over the airwaves
The UK radio market is about to be deregulated, making it ripe for take over by big media corporations. One company that will do well in the UK market is US conglomerate Clear Channel.
CWU to back Labour Representation Committee?
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:48
By a CWU member
At the General Conference of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) (14 June) the European Working Time Directive will be discussed.
At present, different sections of the union have different policies on whether individual opt-outs should continue.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
"Big Four" demands: "confidential" but not confident
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:48
In Solidarity 3/52 we reported how the leaders of Britain's biggest trade unions, Amicus, GMB, TGWU and Unison, had drawn up demands for the manifesto Labour should stand on in the next general election. We now have a copy of that manifesto, although it remains "private and confidential".
It does not include, for example, a promise to repeal the Thatcherite anti-trade union laws that Labour keeps in place in order to cow union members and prevent them taking effective action in pursuit of their goals. The trade union leaders' demands do not include a promise to tax the rich and private enterprise to pay for desperately needed public services. Where they do include good things, the language is vague.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
US left debates Nader
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:36
Inside America by Jim Bywater
I think it was right to support the presidential campaign of veteran anti-corporate campaigner Ralph Nader in 2000, but not this time.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Debate and discussion: Why I’m voting Respect
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:35
I think I will vote Respect in the Euro elections despite taking on board the very real criticisms levelled against them by Workers' Liberty. I don't think that you can ever vote for a party uncritically anyway.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Reagan versus US workers
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:35
Ronald Reagan's death at the age of 93 has prompted a wave of gushing eulogies. The entire US nation, we are informed, is grief stricken. President Reagan restored the US's confidence and single-handedly ended the Cold War So they say.
An open letter to members of the SWP
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:35
Dear comrades,
Over the last couple of months, you and some other socialists have put a big effort into the Respect election campaign. Has it been worth it?
If Respect does get a reasonably big vote, that will not be because of the general leftish talk that it shares with the Greens. It will because of the chosen cutting edges of its campaign.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Good and bad of the IWCA
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:35
The last issue's interview (Solidarity, 3/52) with London Mayor candidate Lorna Reid showed up both strengths and weaknesses in her group, the Independent Working Class Association (IWCA).
Chinese workers rise again - The Tiananmen Square massacre 15 years on
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:35
By Harry Glass
On 4 June 1989 the Chinese Communist Party savagely repressed the Tiananmen Square democracy movement that had grown to threaten its rule over the previous three months. The student-based protest had occupied Tiananmen Square at the heart of Beijing.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
An exchange with Galloway
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:35
The first two letters of this exchange appeared recently in the letters page of the Guardian newspaper. The Guardian has not printed Sacha Ismail's reply to George Galloway's reply. Sacha is a member of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
ESF, London, 14-17 October - Another world is possible
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:35
By Vicki Morris
The European Social Forum in London on 14-17 October will be a great event, be in no doubt. Thousands, hopefully tens of thousands, will come from all over Europe and beyond to discuss all the issues of concern to people who oppose capitalism and people who at least want to reform it.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Marxists and the workers' party. Labour: norm or exception?
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:34
Martin Thomas concludes a series on "Marxists and the workers' party" with a warning against fetishising the trade-union-based forms of "old Labour"
In 1909, Karl Kautsky, then a Marxist, wrote that moves to set up trade-union-based Labour Parties in continental Europe "must be fought with all the means at our disposal" (Neue Zeit, July 1909, Vol.13 no.7, pp.316-28).
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
The background to Lenin's Iskra
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:24
By John O'Mahony
This and subsequent articles are part of the series on 'The Roots of Bolshevism', but they are out of sequence. The articles printed so far in Solidarity have dealt mainly with the populist pre-history of the Russian revolutionary movement.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
REVIEW ARTICLE: Why is the American labour movement so weak?
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:24
Paul Hampton reviews Historical Materialism 11/4 (2003) £10
Why is the American labour movement so weak, given the rapid development of capitalism in the United States over the last 150 years? Why is union density now so low (15%) and why has no workers' party developed in the US? Does this mean socialism has failed, given the Marxist argument that economic development constitutes the basis of politics?
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Reason in revolt: Why we fight capitalism even when it is 'progressive'
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:23
by Sean Matgamna
On D-Day, 6 June 1944, an armada of ships and planes launched British, American and Commonwealth soldiers into a full-scale invasion of Hitler-ruled mainland Europe. The official celebration of the 60th anniversary of that momentous event cannot but arouse mixed feelings in socialists.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
The Grand Old Duke of the RMT
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:23
By a tube worker
The RMT have cancelled strike action on the Underground set for Thursday 10 June. They did this against the wishes of the union's branches, reps and the majority of members.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Leeds schools plan strike action to save jobs
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:23
By Pat Murphy, Secretary Leeds NUT
Some 10,000 school staff in Leeds are to be balloted for strike action in protest at compulsory redundancies in the city. The four main unions organising teachers and support staff, the NUT, NASUWT, GMB and UNISON are involved. If we win the ballot, there is likely to be a one-day strike which will shut down the vast majority of Leeds schools.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Life on Unison fringe
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:23
On the fringes of the annual conference of the public services union Unison (from 22 June in Bournemouth), there will be opportunities for both local government and health activists to get together and debate attitudes to the current pay offers, and a meeting to launch an exciting new campaign to raise support for the newly emerging trade union movement in Iraq.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Unison in Bournemouth
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:23
By Kate Ahrens
A key issue coming up on the agenda of Unison local government conference in Bournemouth on 21 June will be the Workforce Remodelling agreement in schools which Unison and most other education unions signed up to last year, but which the NUT has maintained opposition to.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
FBU: time for rank and file control!
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:23
By Nick Holden
After suspending conference on 11 May the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) exec went into extensive negotiations with the employers over the conditions they wanted to implement in stage two of the 2002 pay award.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Network Rail dispute
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:23
By a RMT member
The RMT is holding talks with bosses at Network Rail in their dispute over pay and the closure of the pension scheme to new workers. Both signal and infrastructure staff. have been offered the reinstatement of their Christmas bonus (£35) which they lost last year, a 25% discount on season tickets for work related travel and a Joint Working Party (talks) on pensions.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version

