Solidarity 081, 6 October 2005

A quarter of a century ago, Poland’s Stalinist police-state system was rocked by a massive wave of working-class action. In just six weeks the Polish workers built Solidarnosc (Solidarity), a trade union movement of 10 million workers that had the potential to be much more. The period from August 1980 to December 1981, when the workers’ movement was driven underground by a military coup, is one of the high points of working class history. Amina Saddiq tells the story. “Lodz is a city of women who are exhausted, jaded, ill and prematurely aged, a city of people crippled socially and...

By Daniel Randall, NUS National Executive (personal capacity) The entire National Union of Students has been put to shame by one tiny students’ union, on one tiny site, of one university in Devon. Rolle College in Exmouth — part of the University of Plymouth — is threatened with “relocation.” Rolle is primarily a teacher-training college, and many of its students have family responsibilities and financial restrictions that mean they couldn’t undertake the 55-minute journey necessary to get to Rolle’s proposed new site in Plymouth. So for these students, the “relocation” is, effectively, a...

The Portman Group — a group set up by the brewers to promote “sensible drinking” — has recently produced a report highlighting the high rate of sexual assaults on young women after they get drunk. The report’s conclusion is, not to ask why men continue to sexually assault women, but that women should stop putting themselves at risk. This kind of thinking — “if you have had a few, girls, you are asking to get attacked” continues to be a prevalent one in society. And it explains much of the now very low rate of rape convictions. Sofie Buckland looks at the issues. Rape conviction rates hit an...

By David Broder The recent media furore over the “revelation” that Kate Moss uses cocaine is a cynical bid to undermine the model’s career and a show of totally feigned “moral outrage” at her behaviour. The most alarming element of the media’s violent criticism of Moss is the casual sexism, bolstered by how at odds it is with their attitude towards her boyfriend, Pete Doherty, who has regularly used heroin. Not even the most reactionary of the bourgeois papers will be genuinely shocked by one of the fashion/showbiz elite using class A drugs — such behaviour is only to be expected. But it was...

By Martin Thomas “If you belong to a church, that would help. Or there are private schools, if you can pay…”, said the helpful lady from the Citizens’ Advice Bureau. I was phoning about difficulties getting my daughters into school. Not into a particular school, just into any school at all. I didn’t expect to have the problem. My daughters, Daisy and Molly, now aged 14 and 11, have lived in Australia with their mum since they were pre-school age, but are coming to England next year. I live in Islington. The nearest secondary school is Islington Green, famous not only for the Pink Floyd song...

A letter from Venezuela by Alex hammond Upon arriving in Caracas last month I have found myself encountering many Venezuelan bourgeois who have come across hard times since the rise of the new order. The younger of these people have been educated to expect a lot from life. The older have been used to getting more. One man I have come to know was working a $60,000 a year job with a nice apartment five years ago. Now he makes $2 an hour and sleeps on his friend’s couch. The other bourgeois I have met are in a similar position to him. There are many with MBAs and MAs who work in dirty, poorly...

By harry glass China’s forced-march industrialisation continues apace. The OECD, the rich nations’ think tank, says that by 2010 it will become the fourth largest economy in world — overtaking Britain, France and Italy. China already accounts for 6% of world exports and is expected to reach 10% in the next five years, overtaking Germany and the US to become the world’s biggest exporter. But the real story is the class struggles this industrialisation has generated and the dislocation it has caused. There are many stories now of big riots and clashes with police in both rural and urban areas...

Earlier this year four of the United States’ biggest unions — SEIU service employees, UFCW food and commercial workers, UNITE HERE textile, hospitality and retail workers and the Teamsters — split from the AFL-CIO, the country’s trade union federation. Together with other smaller unions, they have formed a new coalition called “Change to Win”, with a founding conference at the end of September. LabourStart director Eric Lee attended the conference and produced a blog. You can find it here at www.ericlee.me.uk/archive /cat-ctw.html.