Solidarity 061, 4 November 2004

Industrial News: Round up

The latest news from current workers' struggles. EWS FREIGHT STRIKE by a rail worker 1,300 engineering and groundstaff at rail-freight company EWS (England, Wales, Scotland) are set to strike for 48 hours from Saturday 6 November. The workers’ union, the RMT, is in dispute with the company over jobs, working hours and conditions. The union has already imposed a ban on overtime, rest-day working and higher-grade duties. EWS wants to introduce a new driver restructuring initiative. This will involve drivers taking on rolling stock technicians’ duties and other work. Groundstaff know that this...

Defend democracy in the student movement

The National Union of Students “extraordinary conference” called for Monday 8 November to push through attacks on NUS structures looks set to be even more farcically undemocratic than the gathering which originated these attacks in June. By Alan Clarke, NUS National Executive (personal capacity) and Education Not For Sale Network Back in June, right in the middle of the exam period, less than 350 delegates (compared to 1,000 at a ordinary National Conference) agreed “reforms” including cuts to the size and length of National Conferences, limitation of the right of Liberation Campaigns to send...

Why we publish Solidarity

In order to make clearer the role of Solidarity. What is the role of Solidarity and of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, the organisation that produces the paper? It is twofold. To convince new people of the ideas of socialism and to help those people to become life-long socialists. It is more than that, but that is central. And the world desperately needs new socialists. This is the world whose most powerful man is a right-wing, moral crusading, certifiable idiot. In this world super-exploitation rules, and children in Lesotho and India are forced to break up stones or lay bricks so that...

France's Turkey veto

In the end, despite lobbying by the Polish government and others, the EU constitution signed by 25 member states on 29 October did not contain references to Europe’s “Judaeo-Christian roots” in its preamble. But the question whether the EU should in some senses be a club only for Christians rumbles on, including, strongly, in France. To come into effect, the constitution has to be ratified by the 25 states. Nine are committed to holding referenda on the constitution, allowing their populations as a whole to decide whether they accept the constitution. That will not be easy to achieve. In...

Nigeria on fire

Mark Sandell looks at Nigeria’s wave of general strikes A burnt out skyscraper juts into the skyline of Lagos Island, the commercial heart of Nigeria’s biggest city. It is the remains of the Nigerian oil ministry. This burnt-out building is a fitting monument for today’s Nigeria. In its shadow the workers of Lagos, like other Nigerians suffer, grinding poverty. Forty eight per cent of the population live below the poverty line. Seventy per cent of people live on less than $1 a day. Average life expectancy is 47 for men and 49 for women. The World Bank ranks Nigeria as the 13th poorest country...

100,000 may have been killed

The Lancet’s report that the US and coalition forces (but mainly the US Air Force) could have killed as many as 100,000 Iraqi civilians since the fall of Saddam in April 2003, is based on extrensive household survey research. Previous estimates for civilian deaths since the beginning of the war ranged up to 16,000, with the number of Iraqi troops killed during the war itself put at about 6,000. The figure of 16,000 comes from counting all deaths reported in the Western press, and is known to be an underestimate. The figure of 100,000 is based on statistical extrapolation from a small number...

Letter from America: After the election, where now for the left?

In the 2004 Presidential electoral campaign, just as in the 2002 election, it was predicted that Americans might end up with a President who did not win the most votes. That did not happen. However the result for the campaign was the focusing by both sides on a handful of states, making the intensity of the campaign, the number of visits, media events etc. much greater in the “swing” states than those considered “safe”. The predicted higher than average turn out did happen. Organisations like the Business-Industry Political Action Committee claimed to have registered 800,000 new voters, and...

Letter from America: After the election, where now for the left?

In the 2004 Presidential electoral campaign, just as in the 2002 election, it was predicted that Americans might end up with a President who did not win the most votes. That did not happen. However the result for the campaign was the focusing by both sides on a handful of states, making the intensity of the campaign, the number of visits, media events etc. much greater in the “swing” states than those considered “safe”. The predicted higher than average turn out did happen. Organisations like the Business-Industry Political Action Committee claimed to have registered 800,000 new voters, and...

Workers' News Round-Up

A round-up of international class struggle news China About 3,000 workers protested over wages and conditions outside the Computime factory in Shenzhen last month, blocking traffic for four hours. The workers’ monthly basic pay is around 230 Yuan — well below the 574 Yuan monthly minimum wage set by the Guangdong provincial government. Shenzhen is one of the richest cities on the mainland, and the cost of living there is considerably higher than in the rest of the country. One protester said: “We have to work 14 hours a day, seven days a week. The compensation for overtime is only 2 yuan an...

Can corporations change their ways?

Under the banner of “Corporate Social Responsibility” the big companies and transnationals claim to have changed their ways. BP is now green. Nike promises transparency. Gap spends a packet on rebranding itself as a company that cares about the people who stitch its clothes. They’ve all been green-washed. Everyone is ethical. But all that has happened is that big business — under pressure from campaigners and media scandals — have taken up the demands for Corporate Codes of Conduct and are using ethical-sounding PR as a weapon to fend off scrutiny. Sadly some activists have been taken in by...

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