Solidarity 314, 26 February 2014

Tube unions RMT and TSSA suspended a strike planned for 11-13 February after London Underground management retreated slightly from the plans to implement massive job cuts and close every ticket office on the network. A 4-6 February strike rocked bosses and Tory Mayor Boris Johnson, shutting down the vast majority of London Underground services. The strike forced an arrogant management and City Hall regime, which had been referring to the plans as a fait accompli, into a limited but real climb-down. The agreement for which the strike was suspended commits management to a station-by-station...

It is hard to imagine many people being taken in by Tory party chair Grant Shapps saying: “The Conservatives are the workers’ party and we are on your side”. Or by Tory MP Robert Halfon proposing that the Tories change their official name to “The Workers’ Party”. Five of the six people drawing up the 2015 Tory election manifesto went to Eton, and the sixth went to an almost equally posh school, St Paul’s. The Tories have slashed benefits on which many low-paid workers depend. They have pushed down public-sector pay. Having started cuts because, they said, a debt crisis made them necessary, the...

On 24 February, the Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi announced the resignation of the entire cabinet with immediate effect. The announcement followed a wave of strikes in the industrial cities, blackouts, acute shortages in cooking gas and growing public dissatisfaction with the government. Despite the government’s unpopularity, many were surprised at the announcements, including, it seems, some of the cabinet ministers. The surprise resignation may serve two purposes. First it is an attempt to appease popular unrest. The regime, backed heavily by the military, is in a crucial phase...

Recent bloody demonstrations in Venezuela are part of a concerted attempt by the neoliberal right-wing section of the ruling class to destabilise and ultimately replace the chavista government of Nicolás Maduro. The Venezuelanalysis website says at least ten people were killed during the protests and the army are now on the streets. These mobilisations, it must be stressed, are led by reactionaries. In the run up to first anniversary of Chávez’s death, right-wing, free-market capitalist oppositionists have seized on popular discontent against economic shortages, inflation at 50% and crime to...

The final paragraph of the manifesto of Matteo Renzi, read by him to a packed jubilant crowd of supporters in his native city of Florence, summed up the accuracy of the label pinned on the new Prime Minister as Italy's Tony Blair. "The left today is called upon to recognise and embrace the continuous flux of the new social dynamics, against those who vainly wish to appeal to and rely upon no longer existing social blocs. "In Italy, more than anywhere else, the political capacity to identify such dynamics that involve those at the bottom and the marginalised, and to create for them and everyone...

In the recent interventions of three of the most central and media-exposed Syriza members, Giannis Dragasakis (responsible for the Syriza programme), Giorgos Stathakis (Head of Sector for Development) and Giannis Milios (Head of the Department of Economic Affairs), we can see a new “narrative” on key issues: debt, “Marshall Plan”, “primary surplus” and “balanced budget”, banks. It is an attempt to form a “centre-left” (with the emphasis on the centre) quasi-social-democratic narrative, rather than a working-class-biased left narrative. Giannis Milios has said: “We will attempt (if we become...

Twenty-five years ago Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses. Two week later the theocratic ruler of Iran Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa declaring it permissible for Muslims to assassinate Rushdie because of the suposedly “blasphemous” subject of the book. This is how an Iranian comrade of ours defended Rushdie. We defend Salman Rushdie because we've experienced Khomeinism in practice. Many Iranians in Iran and in exile, oppose the “Islamic Republic”, and want a secular Iran. Those of us living in Britain would like also to see a secular Britain, and oppose any religious group...

The 22-23 February Young Labour conference in Bradford delivered a surprise upset for the Labour leadership, as delegates voted 109 to 107 to reject the anti-union Collins Review into Labour Party structures. During an often heated debate, many Young Labour and trade union members criticised the Collins Review for its threat to the unions' collective affiliation. The changes, proposed following the false allegations against UNITE's conduct during the Falkirk West selection, would mean that trade union members would have to “opt-in” to become affiliate members of the Labour Party. In 2019, the...

Trade union campaigners gathered on London's Oxford Street for a tour of fast food restaurants and coffee shops as part of the new "Fast Food Rights" campaign, highlighting low pay and zero-hours contracts in the fast food industry. Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) President Ian Hodson addresses activists outside McDonald's on Oxford Street Backed by the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU), the campaign held flash protests outside Burger King, McDonald's, and Costa Coffee as union organisers went into the stores to speak to staff. The campaign takes inspiration from the...

Cleaning workers at the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS) in central London will strike on 4-5 March. The cleaners, who are employed by ISS, are members of Unison. Their strike ballot returned a 100% yes vote for strikes, on a 62% turnout. The strike aims to win improved sick pay, annual leave, and pension rights for the cleaners, who currently receive only statutory sick pay and annual leave, and, while they can join ISS's pension scheme, are excluded from joining the SOAS scheme alongside their directly-employed colleagues. The union intends to announce strike dates in the coming...