Solidarity 597, 16 June 2021

Electricians win deskilling fight

A campaign of direct action by electricians in the construction industry has scored a major victory. Contractors Balfour Beatty and NG Bailey are “permanently withdrawing” plans to introduce a new grade of electrician with lower training standards at the major Hinckley Point C (HPC) development. A letter announcing the bosses’ climbdown said the plans were scrapped “after Unite [union] raised concerns.” Those “concerns” were expressed in a campaign, taking place over several months, in which workers and their supporters mounted protests, including demonstrations and sit-ins, at sites connected...

Diary of an engineer: "Can't run ethically without that"

The manager, M, steps back from his standing desk towards the whiteboard. He draws a large pipe, with two smaller pipes branching off it. M: “We’re going to put two stab-ins into the chimney stack. These will extract some of the gas — “he draws a tank connecting the smaller pipes “and send it into a centrifuge — “he draws a spiral of air within the tank “which will extract the carbon from the gas.” M grimaces: “But it’s not very efficient or useful. Carbon capture and storage… what’s the point in putting the energy into this process, then burning carbon to transport it, just to put it back in...

Kino Eye: A really bad film

For a change, a really bad film: Mel Gibson’s Braveheart (1995). Usually, I only recommend films that I like and are interesting. Dale Street’s article on a possible second Scottish Referendum prompted me to think of films featuring Scottish nationalism. The one film that outshines all the others, but primarily because of its ignorance and stupidity, is Mel Gibson’s Braveheart . Take the well-known poster of William Wallace (played by Gibson) with blue face-paint and kilt. Scottish warriors stopped wearing blue face-paint many hundred years before and hadn’t yet adopted the kilt. The English...

The threat from the right in Unite: Stop Coyne!

For more debate and discussion about the Unite General Secretary election, see here . Nominations for the Unite the Union General Secretary election closed last week. All four candidates secured enough branch or workplace nominations for a place on the ballot paper. The minimum number needed was 172. Howard Beckett (Head of Unite’s Legal Department) had 328. Gerard Coyne (Unite West Midlands Regional Secretary until his dismissal in 2017) had 196, Sharon Graham (Head of Unite’s Organising Department) 349, and Steve Turner (Unite Assistant General Secretary) 525. Coyne is the candidate of the...

Making some ground (John Moloney's column)

PCS annual delegate conference took place digitally on 13-14 June. Workers’ Liberty activists, as part of the Independent Left network, supported various motions to the conference. A motion on full-time officials’ pay, which talked about exploring ways to bring officers’ pay more closely in line with the average pay of members, was defeated, but by a margin which suggests some ground has been made in this debate since last discussed. Similarly, a proposal for the election of all officials was also defeated, but the motion on union structure that was passed included language about exploring...

Caledonian Sleeper Strikes Again

Workers on the Caledonian Sleeper will stage an eleven-day strike from 15 June against the company's threat to impose a pay freeze. With the employer already showing scant regard for staff welfare, the refusal to increase pay during these difficult times adds insult to injury. It is little wonder...

Covid: campaigning for the long haul

The labour movement’s fight for social measures on Covid is far from over. It is entering a new phase. Four weeks’ delay, to 19 July, will probably not be enough to enable the “complete easing” scheduled for 21 June. The story that some countries have already conquered Covid and “reopened completely” is untrue. By keeping rigid border curbs, some remote islands like New Zealand, and other countries with strong “natural” borders, have been able to ease internal restrictions except for episodic short lockdowns when border quarantine fails. It’s not “all over” even for them. They still have their...

Building our solidarity against their G7

Former Labour leader Gordon Brown cites a figure of $33 billion (£23 billion) urgently needed before the end of 2021 for vaccines, virus-testing, and PPE this year, and maybe the same in 2022. That’s just 0.08% of the yearly total revenues of the G7 rich countries who met in Cornwall on 11-13 June. “Instead”, as Brown says, “they offered up about $7 billion worth of vaccines”, some 870 million doses in place of the 11 billion needed this year. They could donate more doses now through the Covax scheme, and help to build new facilities to produce and roll out vaccines, but they don’t. US...

Lab leak theory very unlikely

Jim Denham makes apt criticisms of the Morning Star in his article in Solidarity 596 , for yet another article that is both demagogic and championing the Chinese ruling class. Yet he is gives too much ground to the continued viability of a lab leak theory of SARS-CoV-2's origins. Contrary to what Jim's article implied, the WHO mission did investigate the possibility of a laboratory leak. They found "direct zoonotic spillover... a possible-to-likely pathway; introduction through an intermediate host... a likely to very likely pathway; introduction through cold/ food chain products… a possible...

“Refounding Momentum”: confusing, trendy, disempowering

But better than nothing! The Momentum leadership has set up a process for re-writing the Momentum constitution. It will revolve around “Momentum Assemblies” filtering and re-writing submissions from members and local groups. That there will be any kind of collective input into the new constitution is a step forward. And the intentions of the leadership are surely good. But the rules for how this system will work are complicated and disempowering, and they replicate the culture of top-down paranoia about local groups that has stymied Momentum organising for years. You can read the rules here...

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