Solidarity 602, 28 July 2021

Covid isn’t over: organise for the long haul

As of 26 July, the Covid case count in England is tentatively turning down. The hospital count, and the death count, will keep going up at least for a while. Google Mobility Trends suggest that for now many people continue to be covid-cautious despite the restrictions-easing on 19 July. Traffic at workplaces and on public transport remains more below norm than, for example, in Germany, which continues legal restrictions. By now vaccination and previous infections must have made individual (relative) immunity widespread, dampening virus-spread. The government’s bluster about “Freedom Day” may...

Vale Rod Webb, 1943-2020

Without Rod Webb, there may not have been a consistent group of supporters of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty in Australia, advocating the ideas and principles of third-camp Trotskyism. It was because of Rod that I became a Trotskyist, and because of people he put me in touch with, even after he became less active himself, that I discovered the literature of the forerunners of the AWL, made contact with Martin Thomas, and helped to establish Socialist Fight, as a group of co-thinkers of the now AWL. This is part obituary, and part story of how Rod’s ideas and connections contributed to the...

An anti-Jewish pogrom by the British police: London, May 1917

This article is taken from Woman’s Dreadnought , paper of the Workers’ Suffrage Federation, 26 May 1917, where it was an editorial under the headline “A pogrom in London”. It describes London’s East End of that era, which also produced the Poplar council revolt four years later (described in Solidarity 601 ); and the big wave of anti-migrant agitation which had already produced the Aliens Act of 1905. Woman’s Dreadnought changed its name to Workers’ Dreadnought in July 1917; the group soon after changed its name to Workers’ Socialist Federation, and in 1921 merged into the then-revolutionary...

Women's Fightback: Calling the military to account

Almost two-thirds of women in the armed forces have experienced bullying, sexual harassment, and discrimination during their career, according to a parliamentary report that says the UK military is “failing to protect” female recruits. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) lifted the legal restrictions that usually prevent serving military from contributing to such inquiries. Around one in ten serving women gave testimony. The report describes “truly shocking evidence” included gang rape and extensive institutionalised sexual harassment. Some women revealed how they were bullied for refusing sexual...

Build from below against NHS pay insult

Following the government's 3% award to NHS workers, all the health unions will be running informal consultations of their members over the next month. The award falls way below the claims of each union, Unison £2,000, RCN 12%, GMB and Unite 15%, and the current RPI rate of inflation, 3.9%, making it yet another real-terms pay cut. The fact that the government has met the Pay Review Body recommendation only shows how inadequate that body is.

New settlement in British Gas

The GMB union’s dispute with British Gas formally ended on 20 July, when the union accepted a new settlement on pay, terms, and conditions. Engineers in GMB had struck for 44 days, but then new contracts were imposed via fire and rehire, with 500 workers leaving the company. The GMB says the company has made concessions on overtime rates, increasing them to “time-and-a-half”, and on unsocial hours payments, as well as agreeing limits on unsocial hours working. The new deal also strengthens the criteria for emergency call-outs, which potentially gives workers greater grounds to refuse being...

Diary of a firefighter: “Smoke issuing, persons reported”

It’s 11.50pm on a Thursday night. We’re getting ready to settle down to bed when the lights come on and the bells go down — we’ve got a shout. I drop my bedding in a heap, run out of the dorm and slide down the pole to the fire engine. You’ve got sixty seconds from the bells going down to the appliance having to be out the bay doors. I step into my fire boots and pull my leggings up by the braces in one movement. The guvnor comes round the corner from the watch room with the tip sheet in his hand. He shouts out to us: “Smoke issuing, persons reported”. My heart rate quickens. Persons reported...

Alliances, democracy and internationalism

Click here for the ongoing debate to which this is a contribution Much of what Andrew Northall argues in his reply to my letter about the "Anti-Monopoly Alliance", no socialist with any sense of the reality of the world we live in would disagree with. He advocates "a comprehensive range of economic, social, political and democratic demands which proceed from what working people actually need and deserve in the here and now, not what capitalism or its media says is 'realistic', 'credible' or 'affordable'. In many cases they proceed from demands made by workers in struggle and by progressive...

Building-wide safety committees (John Moloney's column)

The outsourced workers’ strike at the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) on 19-21 July was totally solid. I had the honour of addressing their picket line, and there was good support from elsewhere in the union and the wider movement too. It was especially good to see young activists from the UK Student Climate Network’s London chapter support the picket line, emphasising climate change as a class issue. BEIS is a key department in terms of climate strategy, so it’s especially important the links are made. The perspective now is to build towards further action in...

No to Fleet Casualisation

Management are showing how they intend to achieve the 'savings' and 'efficiencies' they are desperate to find - by attacking our job security. London Underground Ltd has revealed its plan to extend the use of fixed-term contracts and non-permanent labour (commonly known as temporary workers). LUL...

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