AWL

At the end of July, local AWL organisers met to discuss remobilising members to respond to the economic and political upheavals that face labour movement activists as the lockdown eases. Our window for that remobilisation may be short if lockdowns are partially or fully reintroduced. As socialist activists whose political bread-and-butter is face-to-face communication and outward-facing activity such as meetings, street protests, and picket lines, we need to learn the lessons of lockdown. Some trade union activity has been possible in some unions, at the local level and among leftists, but...

A “Momentum Against the AWL” twitter campaign have said the Working Group looking into a report of sexual assault taking place in 2005, made public in 2018, was a “whitewash”. This assertion is variously linked to other points including not involving the survivor in their work, and that nobody in the AWL has resigned as a result of its findings. Our response, written in consultation with members of that Working Group, and to correct some of these misrepresentations, is as follows: • The remit of the Working Group, published on our site on 30.1.18 was: to “further investigate individual and...

A donation of £155 from Zack and £50 from Lucy takes us to £3,412, towards our £10,000 target by 22 November. We have seen an increase in sales of our paper and some of our pamphlets at the recent Black Lives Matter demos. All our branches are now thinking of ways to adapt to sales with less cash-handling. You can continue to support us by making donations by bank transfer, by PayPal, or by cheque to our office. (The industrial estate in which our office is sited will soon, we’re told, be open longer hours). We are continuing our programme of online meetings even while the lockdown eases. Zoom...

This week has been a slow one, taking us only from £3,125 to £3,207 towards our target of £10,000 by 22 November. Only a few small donations this week, but several more promised for the next week! As more and more places now become card-only, why not get your change jars paid in and send the money to us? We’ve been selling literature at the Black Lives Matter protests while trying to maintain covid- distancing, collecting cash payments in collection boxes rather than by hand, and using portable contactless card payment machines (until demos get so big they overwhelm the mobile phone networks...

Workplace activists in Workers' Liberty met via Zoom on Saturday 30 May 2020, for a joint meeting of Workers' Liberty's industrial “fractions”, groups of members in particular industries and sectors. Workers' Liberty currently has four industrial fractions – school workers; civil servants; higher education workers; and rail workers – and two cross-industrial union fractions – Unison, covering local government and health; and Unite, covering a range of industries and sectors. The meeting began with a survey of industrial and workplace issues thrown up by the pandemic, and union responses to...