Workers' Liberty

Several dozen activists in the North East have signed the call issued by Workers’ Liberty for a new Socialist Alliance.

AWL comrades attended a meeting at the SWP’s “Marxism 2009” event (2-6 July) on “Islamism and the new Arab left”, in fact mostly about Egypt.

Martin Donohue recommends Democracy is Power, from the Labor Notes rank-and-file organising project in the US.

Michael Jackson’s life and death raise a number of issues that socialists should be interested in.

US troops, backed up in a small way by British troops, have launched a big offensive in the Helmand district of southern Afghanistan.

Now the street mobilisations in Iran have ended, at least for now, how should socialists assess what happened? Here we print the reflections of an Iranian student activist now living in England.

Victory on cuts

Parents at Brooke Primary School, in Hackney, East London, have won their campaign against cuts at the school.

Another half-day strike is set for the afternoon of Thursday 9 July against the cuts to the teaching of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) in Tower Hamlets, east London.

More redundancies are expected in coming weeks from the big telecommunications equipment manufacturer Nortel.

Over 30 people — mainly local workers but also some school and university students — attended a meeting on 2 July called by the Sheffield Department for Work and Pensions branch of the PCS trade u

Postal workers in the CWU post and telecom union will strike in London on 8-10 July over job cuts.

Rail and transport union RMT held its annual general meeting from 28 June to 2 July, against a backdrop of employers attacking jobs and conditions across the industry.

At 8am on Friday 26 June Unite rep Tony Fields said to the meeting of 400 maintenance engineers at Stanlow oil refinery, “Well, that’s it, lads. It’s done, we’ve won. What do you want to do?

Campaigners in Lewisham, south London, are organising to prevent a planned super-trust involving Deptford Green and Addeys and Standhope schools, Crossways Sixth Form and Goldsmiths University.

According to the Teacher Development Agency (a quango overseeing teacher recruitment and training), over 50% of all newly qualified teachers will have left the job within three years.

Among the Labour government’s new announcements is that it will “enable local authorities to give more priority to local people” on council-house waiting lists.

If Gordon Brown wanted to find measures which would increase Labour support, but would not worsen the Government's huge budget-deficit problems, there are a few obvious ones.

The election of two British National Party fascists to the European Parliament was not just a symbolic victory for reactionary ideas and organisation in this country.

The Peace and Freedom Party of California - which is the only socialist party on the ballot, with 60,000 registered members - has called a conference on 1 August to try to form a new socialist and working-class alternative across the USA in 2010.

On Friday 3 July, Workers’ Climate Action and the Cowes Trades Council held a public meeting attended by around 100 people, to oppose the closure of the Vestas plant, Britain’s only wind turbine factory, on the Isle of Wight.

Postal workers in the CWU post and telecom union will strike in London on 8-10 July over job cuts.