Solidarity 3/78 is now online
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Solidarity 3/78 is now online. Click here to read it.
Solidarity 3/78, 11 August 2005
South African strike wave
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South Africa is undergoing a strike wave, the second in a matter of months, with miners, municipal workers and civil servants about to take strike action. This follows stoppages in recent weeks by urban workers, grocery clerks and airline workers.
Palestinians under siege
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David Broder interviewed John Strawson about the restrictions on movement and other daily struggles for the Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank. John Strawson is a lecturer at the University of East London and also teaches at Birzeit University in the West Bank.
Debate: Should socialists support gun control?
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The shooting of innocent Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes by the Metropolitan police on 22 July poses issues not just about the arming of the police, but about the broader question of who should have access to guns. Whatever the qualifications introduced by the difficult issue of suicide bombers, I think socialists should continue to oppose the police in general being armed. We do not want a situation like that which exists in the US, where police officers routinely carry guns and wield armed force, often against working-class and in particular black working-class people, with relative impunity. But what do we say about gun control exercised not over the agents of the state but over its citizens?
“The only thing I hate in this world is the police”
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Ricardo, Montevideo, Uraguay
I am 16, but not for much longer. My birthday is soon, although I have never received a birthday present in my life. I’ve been living on the street for the last six years.
Argentinian workers strike for higher pay
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Argentinian rail workers joined health workers, dockers and others in a 24-hour strike on Thursday 28 July, demanding higher pay.
Rail union reps said that after the failure of negotiations for over 100 days they decided to strike. They also warned that if there is no agreement in a week, they will escalate the action to 36 hours, with a 48 hour strike the following week.
Miners demand pension rights
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On 26 July eight thousand miners from Silesia (south-west Poland) demonstrated in front of the parliament building in the Warsaw.
Members of all 13 miners’ trade unions demanded pensions rights for miners after 25 years work, regardless of their age. The miners do not want to accept a normal pension age (65) because it would mean working until their death. (The life expectancy of a Polish miner is 64.)
New Venezuelan socialist party to be formed
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Four hundred people met in the Caracas Venezuela on 9 July to found a new socialist party by January 2006, when the World Social Forum will meet in the city.
The name currently proposed for the party is the PTRS, the Workers Party for the Socialist Revolution.
Starving to save capitalism
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By Ben Davies
Just one month after the leaders of the G8 countries, the world’s richest, gifted the world’s poorest nations a few more crumbs from their table, we see a gut-wrenching example of the true scale of world poverty and inequality — the famine in Niger.
Corporate manslaughter law lets companies off the hook
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By Paul Hampton
Four people died and more than 100 were injured in the rail crash at Hatfield in 17 October 2000. This year Railtrack, the company responsible for the network and Balfour Beatty, responsible for track maintenance and their top executives - have been up in court for corporate manslaughter and other safety breaches. Last month they got off the manslaughter charges.