Solidarity 032, 12 June 2003

No Sweat in brief

A roundup of news from around the country... Around 20 people attended a session at Edinburgh's radical bookfair, hosted by No Sweat, to discuss Dan La Botz's book Made in Indonesia, and Gregor Galls' book, Union Organising, about the international struggle for trade union recognition. Edinburgh No Sweat held a picket of the Chinese consulate in Edinburgh on the 27 May in support of the two Liaoyang labour leaders, Xiao Yunliang and Yao Fuxin, recently jailed under China's vicious anti-worker laws. Manchester No Sweat are also taking action in support of these Chinese workers, protesting...

No Sweat launches £2,000 appeal: Support Mexican workers' organisation

By Mick Duncan Facing competition from China's new capitalists, the Mexican bosses are driving down wages, imposing ever poorer working conditions and constantly violating labour rights. Workers face long working hours, little or no health or safety guarantees, child labour, no freedom of association, and the violation of company Codes of Conduct. The Mexican workers are fighting back, and we want to help them. No Sweat has launched an appeal for £2,000 to fund two specific projects being undertaken by the CAT workers' organising centre in Puebla, Mexico. £1,700 will be used to pay for 15...

Martin Shaw appeal

On Sunday 1 June Martin Shaw was severely injured as a result of actions by the Swiss traffic police. A 15 person collective was blockading a bridge in Switzerland to prevent G8 delegates passing from Geneva to Lausanne, and Martin was participating in a banner drop with the slogan "G8 Illegal". Martin and another protester were hanging from both ends of the same rope from a 30m high bridge over a small stony river bed, alongside the banner. Two traffic police panicked about the build up of traffic and cut the rope that the two protesters were hanging from despite repeated warnings about the...

Join Mark Thomas at the Independent from America Party

at Menwith Hill Spy Base on 4 July Organised by The Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases (CAAB) Fun starts at midday Menwith Hill is America's leading spy base outside the US and played a crucial role in both Gulf wars. It is also central to plans for the "Star Wars" National Missile Defence programme. Mark Thomas and other speakers plus good tunes and tasty grub The Mark Thomas Comedy Product are organising coaches from London costing roughly £5-£8 a ticket. Send an email to 4thjuly@mtcp.co.uk stating the name of your nearest large town/city, the number of people in your group...

"May 3rd Committee" sets discussions

An ad hoc Committee has been set up by Socialist Alliance (SA) members to press the case for a workers' party. The Committee takes its name and composition from a meeting of SA members held before the 2003 SA conference to discuss the need for a workers' party. The meeting, with representatives from the AWL, CPGB, RDG, Beds SA Democratic and Republican Platform and a number of pro-party SA Independents, was able to produce the following composite motion for conference and organise a meeting after conference to assess what progress had been made. Conference notes the development of parties such...

A "new coalition" behind closed doors

By Martin Thomas What is the "new coalition"? The Socialist Alliance conference on 10 May voted for a motion to "relaunch" the Alliance "as part of a coalition of broader left-wing forces". The first meeting of the new Alliance executive, on 7 June, should have made it clearer whom the "new coalition" might include, and on what political platform. Unfortunately it did not. The exec had a letter from Birmingham Socialist Alliance which asked for some accounting on a rumoured bloc there - to run Salma Yacoub, a prominent Muslim activist, as a "Peace and Justice" candidate for the West Midlands...

UNISON IN CONFERENCE

The huge public services union Unison meets in Brighton from 15 June for its local government sector conference and its general conference. Issues under debate will include pay, privatisation, the Government's plans for schools, and Unison's role in the Labour Party. Adie Kemp and Ed Whitby report. Prentis chides Blair: but will he fight? Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, has called for a trade-union fight to "reclaim the Labour Party". In Unison, the union's Labour Party affairs are regulated by an "Affiliated Political Fund" structure separate from and less democratic than the union...

Israel: chance of a new movement?

By Michel Warshawski The "roadmap" plan for Israel/Palestine has almost no chance of success. There is no point speculating about details, but there is one fundamental reason. Those who drew up the "roadmap" - even George W Bush - understand that peace is impossible without an immediate halt to Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories. But we have an Israeli government dominated by settler interests. One led by Ariel Sharon, who has said that the "priority for the coming years" is to increase settlements. And no previous government, not even those most favourable to peace, has stopped...

Looking at the twentieth century

By Rosalind Robson "Tender cruelty" is how one writer described the work of American photographer Walker Evans. That description is the starting point for the "Cruel and Tender" exhibition now showing at the Tate Modern (until 7 September). The sub-title of the exhibition is "the real in the twentieth century photograph." It is not then an over-view of realism in photography or of twentieth century photography. But it is an exhibition which explores those themes. Evans' subjects included the lives of poor white share-cropper families in Alabama in the 1930s; their faces, their homes, their...

LETTERS: The unions in politics: spread the debate!

A letter from Pete Allen I have followed with interest your debate about trade union political funds/disaffiliation. I believe our central aim is to encourage working people to take an active interest in political debate, confident that if they do so we will be able to attract significant numbers of them to radical/revolutionary socialism. We are anxious to empower them to be involved in decisions that affect them and to encourage them to believe that their actions can make a difference. We want the debate about the future of the trade union political funds to spread beyond the handfuls of...

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