Solidarity 091, 6 April 2006

A good local school for every child; and first: A school for every child!

By Martin Thomas Secondary school admissions authorities in London are very pleased with themselves. Only about 5,500 Year Six kids across London have been refused a place at any secondary school they chose; only about 3,000 have no place at all. Hackney is cock-a-hoop because only 234 kids have been told there is no room for them at their local school, at the school they want, or indeed at any school at all. Camden glows with pride because it has only 159 children denied a school place. The number of rejections is lower than in previous years; and, anyway, they say, the rejected kids will all...

Blair abolishes Parliament!

By Richard Denton The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill currently going through Parliament hides an alarming proposal. It gives government ministers power to alter any law passed by Parliament! The only limitations are that new crimes cannot be created if the penalty is greater than two years in prison and that ministers cannot increase taxation. But any other law can be changed, no matter how important. New Labour introduced this bill to “enable ministers to scrap red tape” and help big business. Cambridge University law experts say the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill would give...

RMT backs socialist candidate

In the Hackney Central ward in London the AWL is fielding two "Socialist Unity" candidates on 4 May. Janine Booth is chair of the local Aspland and Marcon Estate Tenants’ and Residents’ Association. Charlie MacDonald works in the Jobcentre the ward. Janine works on the London Underground. On Monday, RMT's national executive voted unanimously to back her candidature for Hackney Council. This is the first time that RMT has backed any non-Labour candidate in England (it has backed the SSP in Scotland, and John Marek and Peter Law in Wales). Campaigners for Janine and Charlie are out on the...

SOS NHS

The AWL went to the “SOS NHS” conference on 25 March. In view of the size of the crisis in the NHS, they were a bit disappointed by the attendance — around 250, about the same as the schools conference — and the fact that it was mostly health-service professionals, with few activists from local “save-our-hospital” campaigns. That conference concluded with a call for the TUC to organise a demonstration against the health service cuts, but it is not clear that anything more will happen about that than the brief protest planned by Unison during its health sector conference in April. However, one...

Paper selling, today and yesterday

York AWL has recently recruited two new members. One they met on their regular street paper sale. Another, a local AWLer first came across when he started a conversation with her on seeing her on a train reading Socialist Worker. Today, as I write, York AWLers are about to have a meeting with someone else who met them on a paper sale and said he was interested in getting active. With political radicalisation among young people diffuse and scattered — not gathered-together in movements like CND or Labour’s youth, as it was in some previous eras — making ourselves visible on the streets is more...

The Phoenix Marxist and Labour Movement Archive

As Leon Trotsky once wrote, the revolutionary party is the memory of the working class. It is, it must be, also the memory of the Marxist movement itself. Documents, newspapers, reminiscences, carbon copies are the repositories of this memory. The AWL has over the years accumulated a considerable amount of such material, and not only of our own tendency, over the last four decades. We have decided to organise and augment this material, and to make it available to scholars of the movement and others. We are setting up a Phoenix Marxist and Labour Movement Archive. We appeal to comrades and...

ENS makes gains despite right-wing conference

By Daniel Randall, NUS NEC The Annual Conference of the National Union of Students began on the same day as two of the most important pieces of industrial action in recent history in Britain and France. Unfortunate coincidence it may have been, but it did serve to nicely highlight how much NUS needs to change. What was NUS doing while the UK local government pension strike and the French struggle against cuts in job security were taking place? It was voting to charge its members £10 for a discount card and, worse, to overturn its committment to universal free education. Conference’s...

All together! General strike!

Nico Dessaux reports from the 1/2 April meeting of the National Co-ordination against the CPE. THE meeting of the National Student Co-ordination against CPE gathered more than 300 delegates from 110 universities and colleges. As a delegate from the “Cross-Struggle General Assembly”, the labour movement liaison committee in Lille, I was allowed to stay as an observer for the whole debate. It began at 2pm and I left at 8am the following morning, at which point there were several votes still to take. Our delegation (from the “Cross-Struggle General Assembly”) met beforehand to prepare our speech...

Students and workers united against neoliberalism

Yves Coleman and Nico Dessaux report on the 28 March day of action against the CPE [Contrat Première Embauche, the French government’s plan to cut job security]. As we go to press, the latest day of action in France against the government’s plans to cut job security for young workers on 4 April has seen an even bigger turnout than the huge protests of 28 March, which saw millions of workers and students demonstrate and take industrial action across the country. Across the country, between 2,500,000 and 3,000,000 workers and students took part in activity on the 28th. As on 18 March, the first...

From the local committees

Declaration of the inter-union committee of Loire-Atlantique (CFDT-CFTC-CGC-CGT-FO-FSU-SOLIDAIRES-UNSA-UNEF-UNL) Following a meeting on 29 March, the regional organisations of eight trade unions and two student organisations celebrate the success of the mobilisation that brought together sixth-formers, students and public and private sector workers in a day of national, cross-sectoral strike action on 28 March. Despite the impact of strikes and demonstrations, Prime Minister de Villepin continues to refuse to withdraw the CPE. In this context, this gathering of union organisations reaffirms...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.