Solidarity 3/173
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Download pdf (see "attachment").
Solidarity 3/173, 13 May 2010
BA strikes banned again - defend the right to strike! Pass this motion!
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UPDATE
British Airways bosses have once again successfully mobilised the courts against strikers, winning an injunction that bans the action on the basis of a technicality with the balloting process. The judge said that the "balance of convenience" compelled him to ban the strike. More on the BBC website here. Perhaps more shockingly, this ruling now places retrospective illegality on the March strikes meaning that - in theory - Unite could be liable for any costs (which ran into tens, if not hundreds, of millions) and any worker who participated in the strike could - in theory - be dismissed. If BA chooses to act on these theoretical possibilities it would represent one of the most aggressive single offensives in the class war by the bosses since the miners' strike of 1984/5.
The planned critical mass bike ride in solidarity with the BA workers organised by Workers' Climate Action will still go ahead, as a protest in defence of the right to strike. Details here.
The labour movement needs to stop sleepwalking and mobilise a serious fight against the anti-union laws. Below the article from Solidarity are model motions to adapt and use - please pass them through your union branch or other labour movement organisation.
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From Solidarity 3/173 13 May 2010
Following two rounds of industrial action in March, British Airways cabin crew workers have rejected a deal offered by BA management and announced a further 20 days of strikes.
Greece: "We need united working-class action across the continent"
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An interview with Stavros, a militant in the Trotskyist Organisation of Communist Internationalists of Greece (OKDE).
The general strike on 5 May was a huge success. It showed very clearly that there are many tens of thousands of people who are thinking seriously about politics and prepared to take militant action.
My life at work: social work - overspent or underfunded?
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Amanda McKenzie works as a social worker in London.
Stop these executions!
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On Sunday May 9, Farzad Kamangar, a teacher trade union activist from the Kurdish region of Iran, who has been the subject of an international solidarity campaign, was executed.
On human fear
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Christian belief in Jesus relies on the idea that Jesus existed and he was a very special man. That he worked miracles — e.g. whether he cured the sick. That he was the son of God, born to a virgin. If Jesus was not as unique as Christianity tells us he was, then Christianity loses its reason-to-be.
If Virginia Woolf wrote movies...
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Luca Guadagnino’s I Am Love defies expectations. British ice-queen Tilda Swinton shows unprecedented emotional range as Emma Recchi, a working-class Russian woman, married to an Italian entrepreneur.
Phyllis Jacobson: a defector from the consensus
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Barry Finger, a member of the editorial board of the US socialist magazine New Politics, looks at the political life of Phyllis Jacobson, who co-founded and for a long period edited the magazine.
London Underground workers resist jobs massacre
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In February, London Underground announced 800 front-line stations staff job cuts: 450 ticket sellers, around 200 station assistants, and a handful of managers.
Greece into the darkness?
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On May 5 the biggest workers' demonstration since 1976 took place in Athens. All the avenues of the city center were flooded by hundreds of thousands of workers who were protesting against the IMF-EU-Greek government austerity plan.