Ukraine

Pro-Ukraine activists in the UK seem to have tacked on to the Veolia workers’ pay dispute in Notts the demand for the company to pull out of Russia, as an act of solidarity with Ukraine’s fight against the Russian imperialist invasion. Clearly, as I have already stated, the Veolia workers’ pay dispute should be supported. My objection is that the additional demand is a distraction and wrong. Firstly, because the demand for Veolia to pull out off Russia will have no impact on Putin’s war. If Veolia gave in tomorrow it would not stop a single Russian bullet being fired. Putin’s state (in so far...

An anti-Ukraine, pro-Putin party has won the Slovakian general election, held on Saturday 30 September. Robert Fico’s pseudo-left, populist Smer party won 23.3% of the vote. Progressive Slovakia, a liberal, pro-EU, and pro-Ukrainian party won 17%. The Hlas party, led by a former Smer member and initiated as a breakaway from Smer, came third with 15% of the vote. Hlas could allow Fico to put together a workable coalition. Slovakia is a member of both NATO and the European Union and so has the possibility of helping Putin in his war against Ukraine by obstructing aid for Ukraine. Fico, an...

As I walked around Kyiv last month on a beautiful, sunny morning, I began to notice the scaffolding in the city’s squares. I asked Tristan Masat what was going on. Tristan runs the Solidarity Center office in Kyiv, representing the American trade union movement. He told me that they were statues, covered up to protect them from bomb damage. Later, near Tristan’s offices, I saw an exposed statue with no protection around it. It was the graffiti-covered statue of a Red Army general on a horse. No one I asked could remember his name. Later had lunch with an activist in a small Georgian cafe. We...

Over 50 members of the GMB union at three plants of the multinational Veolia in Notts began a strike for pay rises on Monday 25 September. Despite a half-yearly turnover of £23 billion and huge profits, the company has paid most workers only the national minimum wage over the 13 years of its operation so far. Notts County Council manages a contract involving Veolia and several district and borough councils to process recyclable waste from local authorities in its area. The strikers are picketing in the way it should be done: challenging every lorry that tries to gain entry, successfully...

I thought it was noteworthy, and in need of explanation, that Dan Katz’s report of the resounding vote for solidarity with Ukraine at TUC Congress ( Solidarity 684 ) did not mention the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign (USC). From working with GMB, ASLEF and NUM to ensure pro-Ukraine motions were submitted, to organising or helpful a fight in various unions over the vote, to a high-profile social media campaign generating awareness and pressure, USC’s role was central. In two unions where Workers’ Liberty did, indeed, play a crucial role in winning strong stands (PCS and, in an impressive...

TUC Congress (Liverpool, 10 to 13 September) overwhelmingly passed a pro-Ukraine composite submitted by the GMB, the train drivers’ union Aslef, and the miners’ union, NUM. The motion demanded that the British trade union movement, “send solidarity to all Ukrainian trade unionists who are fighting for workers’ rights and against [Russian] imperialism.” The motion, carried overwhelmingly on a show of hands, advocated, “immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from all Ukrainian territories occupied since 2014.” Disgracefully, two unions opposed the composite: the Bakers’ Union, and the...

Unite’s policy on Ukraine is an EC statement passed at this year's policy conference. It is much better than the only motion submitted to that conference. But it takes a wrong and unclear position on the key issues. It remains unpublicised. It is reproduced below. But, for reasons known only to those who labour in the inner sanctum of Unite’s head office in Holborn, the statement has not yet been made public and released to the union’s own membership.

Yevgeniy Prigozhin, leader of PMC Wagner, former close ally of Vladimir Putin and recent mutineer, has been confirmed dead

Workers’ Liberty members met with members of Sotsialny Rukh (SR — Social Movement) in Lviv and Kyiv during our visit to Ukraine in August 2023. SR emerged from the regrouping of (and splits from) the left which took place around the Maidan Revolution of Dignity in late 2013 and early 2014. It was formally launched in 2015 and now has functioning branches in three Ukrainian cities, plus members in others. SR defines itself as “a Ukrainian political organisation and initiative towards the legal registration of a left political party based on the principles of democratic anti-capitalism, feminism...

Mark Osborn, a teacher from south London, recently met activists from Ukraine’s Free Trade Union of Education and Science Workers (VPONU), an affiliate of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions (KVPU), in Lviv and Kyiv. On 22 August, in western Ukraine, I met the Lviv Committee of VPONU. Nataliia Babych told me that Ukrainian education workers needed solidarity from British unions: “We want to survive. We want to be free and live in an independent Ukraine. We want to live in a democratic state.” Nataliia told me that educators face increased workload and low wages. Despite the fact that...