Solidarity 455, 24 November 2017

Insect armageddon

The number of insect species known is about a million, and the number of individual insects alive at any one time is a mind boggling 10 billion billion (1019), with about 300 times the mass of the human population; estimates of the total number of insect species waiting to be discovered go up to 30 million. (1,2) It was therefore concerning when recently it was reported that populations of flying insects had declined by between 76 and 82% in Germany over just 27 years (3). The study was carried out in 63 sites in nature reserves between 1989 and 2016. The technique was a simple one: tent traps...

Unions must tackle sexual harassment

Unions need to establish effective policies and procedures on sexual harassment at work, in the first place to respond to the growing demand from women workers as the ripples spread out from the Harvey Weinstein scandal, and also to avoid being bypassed by employers. Five migrant workers won a court case for sexual harassment and discrimination on 10 November against one of France’s largest cleaning companies. They worked at the Gare du Nord in Paris for the contractor H. Reinier. The harassment of four women, by their supervisor, started with kisses and inappropriate touching and got worse:...

Tubeworker: organise against sexual harassment

This month’s edition of Workers’ Liberty’s bulletin Tubeworker has a front page about organising against sexual harassment at work. Tubeworker says “Sexual harassment happens when power hierarchies in the workplace mix with the power imbalance between men and women in society. Men often have power over women at work. MPs and celebrities have recently been exposed for using their power and influence to act inappropriately to subordinates. “In our industry, managers and supervisors are often male. We also work in a male-dominated environment, which gives men a kind of ‘strength in numbers’ and a...

Budget alternatives should focus on control

In a number of speeches in the run-up to the Tory government’s Budget on 22 November, shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has rightly indicted the Tories’ record since George Osborne began their cuts program back in 2010. • A 30% increase in food bank usage in areas where Universal Credit has been rolled out, as the six-week delay in making the payment pushes thousands into destitution. • The NHS so cash-strapped that even its top bosses say it will crumble without a big boost. Cuts in per-student finance for state schools for the first time since the 1990s. • The percentage of children in...

For a workers’ united Europe!

At the meeting of the European Council — the prime ministers or presidents of the EU countries — on 14-15 December, the Tory government hopes to wrap up the preliminaries of Brexit and get agreement to start discussing post-Brexit transitional periods and trade deals with the EU. As we go to press on 23 November, the Tories are reported to have agreed among themselves to double their “divorce payment” offer to the EU to £40 billion so as to improve their chances. Big business is telling them that it needs definite plans for after the Tories’ scheduled Brexit date of March 2019, because two...

Letter: More than sympathetic listening

It is right that Daisy Thomas highlights the mental health epidemic sweeping through the advanced capitalist world, especially among young people ( Solidarity 452). It is also good that she highlights possible social causes for this epidemic and suggests a role for smart phones and social media. However, I think it is important to note Marxists are not technological determinists. We do not think Facebook causes anxiety any more than we think heroin causes heroin addiction. It is our psychologically toxic world, not the communications technologies we use, that cause such harm. Perhaps a more...

Letter: Failed strategy

Sadly Eric Lee’s response to my review of his book on Georgia (Solidarity 454, 15 November) avoids the substance of my critique. Lee’s book argues that the Georgian Menshevik strategy between 1917 and 1921 was better than the Bolsheviks in Russia. Yet in Marxist terms, Bolshevik politics were far superior: The Bolshevik-led Russian workers made a socialist revolution in October 1917; the Georgian Mensheviks did not lead a revolution. The Bolshevik regime that resulted in Russia was a workers’ government; the Georgian Mensheviks led a bourgeois government. The Bolshevik government stopped...

Shut down Yarl’s Wood!

Hundreds attended a demonstration outside Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre on 18 November to show solidarity with the women detainees. Many ex-detainees spoke about their plight, and a PA system was linked to the mobiles of detainees. They were able to speak movingly of their situation, despite obvious intimidation from the guards. Detainees stuck up notices and waved towels and blankets at their windows. The crowd made a thunderous noise, which, I was told, could be heard miles away, as we all repeatedly kicked against the fence . The fence shuddered but unfortunately did not fall. All in all it...

The bankers’ let-out

The big banks — UBS, Royal Bank of Scotland, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Barclays, HSBC, and others — are nearing a deal with the EU over their rigging of foreign-exchange markets. They have already paid American, British and Swiss authorities more than $10 billion for the rigging, and the EU over $2 billion for rigging interest rates. The 2008 crash has been followed by a cascade of investigations and scandals, triggered by resentment built up against the banks by government authorities and non-bank capitalists. The twist, however, is that even when the high powers of bourgeois society are...

Catalonia: for self-determination

The latest opinion polls for the parliamentary election in Catalonia on 21 December suggest an outcome similar to the previous election in 2015: a narrow parliamentary majority for the separatists, but with a minority of the popular vote. A 15 November poll gives the ERC 24%, Puigdemont’s people (running as Junts per Catalunya) 17%, and CUP 6%, in total 47% of the vote but 68-74 seats out of 135. The non-separatist parties — in order of their electoral support, the neoliberal Citizens’ Party, the social-democratic PSC (linked to the PSOE elsewhere in Spain), Catalonia in Common (including...

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