Solidarity 123, 6 December 2007

Over 100 anti-sweatshop and workers’ rights activists gathered in London on the weekend of 1-2 December for this year’s No Sweat conference. The theme chosen for this year’s conference by the campaign — which works within the anti-capitalist movement to argue for solidarity with workers’ movements at home and abroad — was “Beating Big Brand Exploitation”. Activists from across the UK discussed the campaigns they had been involved in through the past year, and furthermore how our activity might find expression in new arenas and link up with other campaigns. For example, the question of water...

The last few years have seen the British National Party make creeping electoral gains in local government. The foothold they now enjoy in borough, town and parish councils is directly related to two factors: their turn away from confrontational street politics to agitation around community concerns and the inability of existing anti-fascist campaign groups (Searchlight and the SWP-dominated Unite Against Fascism) to counter this new strategy. The situation in Nottinghamshire is a case in point. In May 2007 Sadie Graham, a leading figure in the BNP and arguably a very able political organiser...

Long working hours are on the increase again in the UK, after a gradual ten-year decline in people working more than 48 hours a week, according to new TUC figures. More than one in eight workers now work more than 48 hours each week, with as many as one in six in London putting in more than 48 hours a week. The TUC figures, taken from the Labour Force Survey, show that over three million workers or 13% of the work force now work more than 48 hours a week. The figures probably underestimate the real scale of excessive hours, as migrant workers and others, such as some hotel and care staff, are...

Parables for Socialists 10 Paddy Dollard reported from the 1985 Tory Party conference. [During the great miners strike of 1984-5, the Labour Party leaders threw their weight against the miners. Party leader, Neil Kinnock (who has now, in the natural course of these things, become Lord Kinnock) wind-bagged and waffled platitudes and generalities against violence. He did not denounce the police for breaking miners’ heads or for acting like soldiers of occupation in some of the mining villages. He focused most of his fire against the Labour left. When the Militant Tendency (Now the Socialist...