Solidarity 051, 13 May 2004

Debate & discussion: Labour Herald

In his TV review, Jack Cleary gives a rather confused potted history of the Daily Herald (Solidarity, 8 April). You might be interested in a more accurate version from one who was a regular reader of the paper. When it became a daily, it was acquired by Odhams Press, who owned 51% of the shares, while the TUC owned the remaining 49%. Odhams had a tradition for supporting the labour movement, and published books on it. Before being taken over by Murdoch's News International group, Odhams bought the TUC's holding in the Daily Herald, maiking it the sole shareholder. On takeover the Herald was...

Firefighters suspend conference

By Nick Holden The conference of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) was suspended on its first day (11 May), following the collapse of talks between the FBU leadership and the employers over the implementation of the latest stage in the deal which brought the firefighters' strike to an end a year ago. Shortly before the conference the employers announced that they wouldn't be paying the second stage of the agreed pay increase, unless the FBU agreed to end "stand down time" - the practice of allowing crews on night shift to go off active duty in the early hours of the morning. The union leadership...

Organise to stop Agenda for Change!

By a conference delegate Agenda for Change (AFC), the proposed new National Health Service pay system, dominated Unison's health conference, in Glasgow, 26-28 April, although the key decisions were scheduled for a special conference later in the year. Health workers are slowly discovering the scale of the threat represented by AFC, as news from the 12 Early Implementer (EI) sites leaks out. The details are institutionalised low pay, a longer working week for many, and greater management control over pay progression. Unison will be holding a ballot on whether to roll-out the AFC package in...

Blair-Bush-Sharon alliance - The diplomats protest: what will the unions do?

By Kate Ahrens, Unison NEC (personal capacity) Large numbers of both British and US retired diplomats have protested publicly at George Bush's and Tony Blair's support for Ariel Sharon. In April, Sharon announced that his government would unilaterally withdraw Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip (while keeping military outposts there). At the same time he named five West Bank settlements - some of them deep inside Palestinian-inhabited territory - which he would insist on retaining indefinitely. Sharon's formal letter to George Bush announcing his plan spoke only of "limitations on the...

George Galloway.and the Making of a Pseudo-Socialist Hero

by George Galloway. Allen Lane, £10 "By their heroes ye shall know them… for in the individuals whom they exalt and glorify and hold up to the youth as example, every class and every movement unfailingly reveals its standards of worth, its morality, its very soul. Thus, the communist workers of Germany glorified the name of the courageous and incorruptible Liebknecht who sacrificed his life in battle for a great cause. The degenerate Nazis countered with the dedication of their official hymn to Horst Wessel, the pimp who was killed in a brawl." James P Cannon, 1952 By their heroes ye shall...

A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya

by Anna Politkovskaya This is not a weighty political analysis of the conflict in Chechnya, but a collection of newspaper articles by Politkovskaya in which the focus is on the "inhumane empirical detail". Much of the book consists of personal stories. Many of the people of whom those stories are told are no longer alive. Reading it is certainly a depressing experience. The Chechnya described by Politkovskaya and by those who are given a voice in her articles is a physical and moral wasteland, one in which basic human values have been eroded by nearly a decade of bloody conflict. The Russian...

Small, murderous minds

Rosalind Robson reviews Dispatches: Keep Them Out , Channel 4 It is rare to watch a programme that provokes so much incredulity and anger you spend the entire viewing time shouting at the telly. That was the measure of this extremely well-produced programme, which reminded us of the hostility that refugees face and the big job we need to do create a more tolerant society. Film maker David Modell investigated how the residents of Lee-on-the-Solent reacted to the proposal to make nearby disused naval base, HMS Daedalus, into an accommodation centre for asylum seekers. And how did they react...

Service or profit in the Post

Dispatches - Third Class Post, Channel 4 "Third Class Post" promised to be an exposé of everything that is wrong with today's Post Office. We were going to be told just why up to a million letters a month go missing. Much of the real scandal remained unreported. The programme portrayed postal workers as work shy, light-fingered malcontents, too spliff-addled to put the letters in the right holes. The film will come as a gift to all those who wish to accelerate the "liberalisation" of postal services, leading ultimately to the wholesale privatisation of the Post Office. The reporter continually...

Suitcases and Sanctuary

an exhibition at the Museum of Immigration and Diversity Tucked away in Spitalfields, east London, is one of the capital's least known attractions. 19 Princelet Street is an old house which serves as a living monument to London's extraordinary tradition as a destination and sometime haven for refugees. The house was built in 1719 and was originally home to a Huguenot family of silk weavers who had fled persecution in France. Later, other immigrant families from Ireland, and Jewish families from Eastern Europe lived in the house. At some stage the attic rooms were converted to allow more light...

Ian Row 1945 - 2004

Ian Row was a committed fighter for working-class people in Hackney. His sudden death from cancer of the oesophagus has shocked and saddened all those that knew him. Aside from his trade union activity (as a GMB shop steward whilst working for Thames Water in the Tottenham / Walthamstow area and a PCS rep in the Benefits Agency in Hackney), Ian was an active member of the Hackney Tenants' and Residents' Federation since its formation, and was Secretary of the Trelawney Estate Tenants' and Residents' Association. Ian was a Labour Councillor between 1986 - 1990 and was not afraid to take a stand...

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