Workers' Liberty

Read the articles here.

After an international campaign of solidarity, Iranian trade union activist Borhan Divargar has released from prison (see Solidarity 3/79 for more details).

From Outrage!

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has endorsed a boycott of World Pride, which is due to be held in Jerusalem in 2006 (see the statement by Diane Langford of the PSC on the website www.boycottworldpride.org).

There is a new blog spot on our webiste: www.workersliberty.org/blog. This includes a detailed report and impressions from a first time delegate to TUC conference.

On Saturday 1 October the AWL begins a series of nationally-organised political day schools for our members, sympathisers, and friends.

The GMB have launched an anti-fascist/anti-BNP campaign in the run up to the 2006 elections.

A musicians’ fund has been set up to help New Orleans’ musicians who have lost everything. This is from the person who has set up the fund, Stan King

Solidarity spoke to Joanna Dubinsky, a resident of the 9th Ward in New Orleans and a member of the US socialist organisation Solidarity.

Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky, two paramedics attending a conference, were trapped in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.

by bert russell, leeds university and laura schwartz, university of east london

Around 70 student union officers and student activists attended “Putting political activism back into the student movement”, a one day conference on 3 September to launch Education Not for Sale (ENS) as a fully-fledged activist network.

By Amina Saddiq

The debate over Islamic “extremism” on university campuses took a turn for the bizarre on 21 September, when Middlesex University suspended its student union president, Keith Shilson, from office and escorted him off campus for refusing to cancel a discussion forum with the right-wing Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

By daniel randall, National union of Students executive

In late August, the National Union of Students national executive committee voted to commit the union to organising a national demonstration about education funding at some point during the next academic year.

Maria Exall’s article on religion and secularism in Solidarity 3/76 reflects a broader debate on the left following the growth of fundamentalisms and issues such as faith schools. Maria essentially puts forward an indirect defence of religion against secularism and atheism, presenting it in terms Marx’s ideas on the social roots of religion.

I realise that I’m not in synch with AWL slogans on Iraq. I would call for immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

Last year, prior to the January 2005 election for the Palestinian Authority presidency, the workers began preparations for the establishment of an independent workers' organization [in Gaza, reports the Israeli newspaper Haaretz].

By Cath Fletcher

Italian news has been dominated proposals from Berlusconi’s coalition, the Casa delle Libertà (CdL), to change electoral system. Fearful that they may lose the 2006 election, they have designed a proportional system that gives them all the advantages and the opposition all the disadvantages.

Caribbean

Caribbean banana workers and farmers are campaigning in the UK ahead of new trade rule changes that threaten their livelihoods.

In June mass protests demanding the nationalisation of the energy sector pushed out the president of Bolivia. José Sagaz of the Bolivia Solidarity Campaign spoke to David Broader, giving a personal view.

Alan porter Reviews The Aristocrats

Cathy Nugent reviews Derailed, BBC1, Tuesday 20 September

Dan Katz reviews The Take, a film by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein

Greg Palast Roasts Galloway

The 16 September “grapple in the Big Apple” between George Galloway and born again neocon Christopher Hitchens was predictably frustrating, with both egos sustaining well-deserved bruises but naturally failing to make a positive case for their own position.

The deteriorating situation in Iraq, and the decree of the Baghdad government confiscating the funds of the trade unions, requires of international socialists that we review our politics and our slogans on Iraq. Should the demand be raised for the immediate withdrawal of US and British troops?

By Chris Hickey

TUC congress expressed “profound anger” at the dismissal of Gate Gourmet airline-catering workers at Heathrow Airport, who were sacked by their employers simply in order to replace them all by agency workers on worse pay and conditions.

By Maria Exall

At this year’s Labour Party Conference (25-29 September) the issue of trade union rights will be centre stage for the first time since 1997. And appropriately so. The situation with the Gate Gourmet workers has written large what is wrong with the Blairite commitment to the “flexible labour market”.

Pat Yarker reports on the AWL’s day-school for rank-and-file trade unionists

At the session on partnership Mick Duncan of the T&G described how British bosses today feel they can get away with super-exploitation and this makes the quietism of trade unions today — which goes under the heading of “partnership” so dangerous. USDAW members from Tesco described their experience of “partnership” — it is not good…

By Janine Booth, RMT delegate to TUC Conference

It took several days of headbanging to get the CWU emergency motion on women’s rights in Iraq on the agenda of the TUC Congress (11-15 September). Some TUC bigwigs thought that it wasn’t an emergency because we should have been able to guess that women’s rights would be under attack in the Iraqi constitution!

By Dale Street

The campaign for the reinstatement of victimised Bristol Rolls Royce convenor Jerry Hicks has ended — in defeat.

Members of the PCS civil service union in the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) in London have voted by a majority of 1400 to 500 for “discontinuous” strike action against the Government’s plans for drastic job cuts.