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By a delegate to Labour Party conference
At this year’s Labour Party conference there were major debates on rail renationalisation and extending council housing. Both arose from “minority reports” coming out of the National Policy Forum (NPF).
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In an interview due to appear in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Friday 8 October, the senior adviser to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has said bluntly that Sharon's plan to withdraw from Gaza — while reinforcing the Israeli presence in the West Bank — is aimed to prevent a Palestinian state.
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The Labour Party conference at Brighton reflected the political state Britain is in now. The question is: did it offer any way forward for the labour movement and the working class?
The simple answer is: no. The longer-term answer is: maybe.
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Congratulations to the sharp-eyed Colin Foster for spotting the existence of the Labour Friends of Iraq (LFIQ) (Solidarity, September). There was indeed a LFIQ website which we withdrew after only a few days. As Colin says, we promise to be back online soon at labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk, and may even be so by the time of your publication. But there Colin’s forensic skills end.
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Former Suharto-era general Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono and former Golkar official Yusuf Kalla have been elected as president and vice-president in the second round of Indonesia’s first direct presidential election. Yudhoyono won 61% of the vote against outgoing President Megawati Sukarnoputri’s 39%.
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By Mike Fenwick
A recent Panorama programme exposed the growing concerns over the procedures by which drugs are licensed for use in Britain.
It has been long known that the pharmaceutical industry and medicine have close links. You can’t go into many GP surgeries without noticing the free stationery, calculators, pens, “educational” posters and leaflets adorned with the logo of a particular drug or company.
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Mark Osborn reviews The Corporation by Joel Bakan
“The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power” is the subtitle of The Corporation, a new film and book, released in the UK at the end of October.
The book’s author points out that corporations have similar legal rights to human beings and asks: if corporations are like people, what sort of people are they? He concludes that, as they are legally obliged to put the interests of shareholders first, and place profits above all else — a pathological compulsion — the corporation is a psychopath!
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Workers’ strikes across Brazil are winning wage rises after years of declining purchasing power.
More than 100,000 metalworkers in ABC, an industrial district in Sao Paulo where major steel, auto and other heavy industry is located, have begun to hold a series of stoppages in companies that refuse to agree to a 9.57% pay rise.
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December 2000 saw the first “hamburgrève” in Paris, when the young, mostly casual workers at the McDo (McDonald’s) restaurant on Boulevard Saint-Germain went on strike. The next fast food chain hit by worker unrest was Pizza Hut. A leading figure in these conflicts was Abdel Mabrouki, now aged 31.
He went to work at Pizza Hut as a motorcycle delivery boy, but got demoted to washer-up because of his poor eyesight. From his corner of the kitchen Abdel plotted the way management dealt with their staff, hassling them to work faster, the corners they cut in health and safety, and hygiene. He collected stories from the staff, dispensed advice and finally agreed to be the CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail) union rep. In 1996 he had the honour, he says, to organise the first strike in his workplace. He has been sacked twice by Pizza Hut and won his job back. He still works there, a veteran in a business where workers “don’t make old bones”.
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Last month veteran workers’ democracy activist Leung Kwok-Hung was elected to Hong Kong’s Legislative Council — the administrative zone’s quasi-parliament.
