Solidarity 085, 8 December 2005

Nuclear power, global warming and the energy crisis

By Josh Robinson According to figures from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), mean global temperature has risen by up to 0.6°C since the late nineteenth century. Recent years have been among the hottest since records began. Global sea-level has risen by up to 25 cm since 1900. These trends look set to continue. The best case scenario sees global temperature set to rise by at least 2°C (relative to 1900) before 2100. It could be closer to 4°C. Sea level looks likely to rise by up to a metre. Both droughts and floods will become more severe. There is strong evidence to suggest...

Vive Napoleon? Not this year....

The French establishment was confused on 2 December about how to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s victory at Austerlitz. While we’d have expected to see a commemoration similar to that of Trafalgar in the UK this October, last month’s riots have made the government edgy about offending France’s racial minorities. Historians such as Claude Ribbe have recently attacked the fact that Napoleon remains so revered in France — after all, he gassed rebel slaves in Haiti, forbade “people of colour” to enter France and re-introduced slavery to the Empire in 1802. French politicians have...

Not riots, not yet

by Joan Trevor The French ambassador to the US summed up the French government’s stance on the November riots in a speech: “What France experienced was social unrest, not riots.” He compared events in France to the Los Angeles riots of 1992, in which 54 people died. A little complacent? The “social unrest”, after all, still amounted to: • 10,000 vehicles damaged or destroyed. • 200 public buildings damaged or destroyed. • 130 policemen injured. (No figures for civilians injured by the police.) • Overall cost of £144 million, including £11 million damage to cars. “This unrest was not related to...

Chechnya: the war continues

By Dale Street Parliamentary elections were held in Chechnya on 27 November. 356 candidates representing seven different parties competed for election to 40 seats in the Popular Assembly (the lower house) and 18 seats in the Republic Council (upper house). Clear winners in the elections, with 60% of the vote, were the pro-Putin United Russian Party. The Communist Party came second with 13% of the votes, and the Union of Right Forces came third with nearly 12% of the votes. The elections, said Russian President Vladimir Putin, had “restored constitutional order” to the republic. The European...

Workers' news round-up

Bolivia The Bolivian elections on 18 December are being hailed as the end of 20 years of neoliberalism. Evo Morales, from the Movement to Socialism (MAS) party, who came second in the 2002 presidential election, is the leading candidate in the polls, with over 30% of the vote. The elections were called after the uprising in May-June this year, which forced out sitting president Carlos Mesa. The left in Bolivia do not believe the election or Morales will solve the problems facing Bolivian workers. Oscar Olivera, leader of the Coordinator of the Defence of Water and Life in Bolivia, the...

Thinking globally

By Becky Crocker Around 200 workers, students and activists gathered for the fifth annual No Sweat conference at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London on Saturday 26 November. Speakers covered international and UK-based campaigns, from the Bolivian Solidarity Campaign to a TGWU cleaner activist and a session on the Arcadia Group which runs Top Shop. The sessions shared the theme of exposing global exploitation and building the global fight against it. Opening the day, Columbian Coke Worker Euripredes Yance set the tone of international workers’ solidarity. He gave a worker’s...

The world’s first Starbucks strike

By Dan Nichols At the end of November, New Zealand saw the world's first ever strike at a branch of Starbucks. What started as a small protest outside the Karangahape Road in Auckland snowballed after Starbucks workers heard that managers would be bought in to cover for striking workers. “What began as an event to highlight the poor conditions of low pay and minimum wage workers turned into a show of solidarity and strength between Auckland’s Starbucks workers,” said Simon Oosterman, SuperSizeMyPay.Com campaign coordinator. “More than 30 workers spontaneously walked out from 10 different...

US designer treats workers like dirt

Workers for the Michael Aram Export Company, which manufactures metal artware goods such as cutlery, vases and tableware for such top-end New York department stores as Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s, are demonstrating outside their Okhla, New Delhi workplace against poor conditions and with-held pay. Their work is highly skilled, yet the workers only receive the minimum wage — even though production rates have increased massively since the unit was started in 2001. It is also very dangerous – the debris from steel polishing makes them cough up dark phlegm, as well as rendering them vulnerable to...

The left debates Venezuela

By Visha Gopal In a left-wing culture where the normal method of “debate” is either to slanderously misrepresent your opponent or ignore her existence, the discussion on Venezuela at this year’s No Sweat conference was a welcome change. It provided the 80 or so anti-capitalist activists who came to the session with a chance to consider and discuss clearly distinct assessments of the ongoing struggles in Venezuela, while at the same time raising a number of issues of major importance to Marxist theory. The speakers were Paul Hampton from No Sweat and Rob Sewell from Hands Off Venezuela. Paul...

A new workers’ party?

By Rhodri Evans The Socialist Party has launched a “Campaign for a New Workers’ Party”. It has put out a statement which says many true things about the badness of the Blair-Brown Labour Party and the need to restore an independent workers’ voice in politics ( http://tinyurl.com/btaq9 ). Unfortunately, it is hard to see how this campaign can achieve more than a few extra sympathisers or members for the Socialist Party. It will divert from, rather than contribute to, the necessary battles to mobilise the broad labour movement for the cause of independent working-class political representation...

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