Solidarity 095, 22 June 2006

DLR workers vote to strike

Workers on the Docklands Light Railway in East London have voted for strike action for the first time in the 19 years since the DLR was established. Serco, which runs the DLR, wants to cut platform staff and station supervisors’ jobs, deskill station assistants by no longer automatically training them to drive trains and cut their pay by £5,000 a year. In response RMT members, the big bulk of Serco’s employees on the DLR, have clearly voted to fight the proposals (111 to 77 to strike, 141 to 48 for action short of a strike). The problem, as always, is that this vote may not translate into...

Don’t let the pensions fight die

By a rail worker The RMT’s Annual General Meeting, meeting in Dublin on 2-7 July, will discuss what the union has described as the “pensions crisis” facing rail workers. Despite a 76% vote for strike action, the executive has decided not to set strike dates and instead accept the employers’ proposal for a “tripartite commission” — one union representative, one employer and an “independent chair” — to find a solution. The union had previously rejected this proposal, and with good reason. ‘Independent’ chairs are typically just bosses’ representatives in disguise, and are unlikely to take the...

Vote against merger

The GMB’s congress has voted overwhelmingly against merger with the TGWU and Amicus to form a new “super union”. Public arguments focused on the loss of the GMB’s independence and political and industrial tradition, as well as the fact that there is no pressing financial need for merger. But there are reports from the conference that the private arguments among delegations, in the bars etc focused more on job losses and changes in conditions for union officials and reps. See next issue of Solidarity for more..

PCS leaders have no strategy

By a PCS Socialist Caucus member The big industrial issues at the PCS civil service union conference were national pay bargaining, pensions and job cuts. Sadly delegates backed an NEC line that has achieved nothing on pay; has seen the introduction of a compulsory pension age of 65 for all new civil servants (leaving current workers open to a future divide-and-rule attack), and has allowed the continuation of a jobs cull. Years of talks with the Cabinet Office have not dented the huge variations in pay rates between civil servants or produced one material gain for PCS members. Yet a motion...

“Civilised humanity” or class struggle?

By Sacha Ismail “For almost forty years we have stressed the class struggle as the immediate driving force of history, and in particular the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat as the great lever of the modern social upheaval; it is therefore impossible for us to ally with people who wish to expunge this class struggle from the movement...We cannot ally with people who say that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must first be freed from above by philanthropic bourgeois and petty bourgeois.” Marx and Engels to August Bebel, Wilhelm Liebknicht and...

No clear politics

Stan Crooke gives an alternative view on the ssp crisis The crisis in the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) dates back to a meeting of the SSP Executive Committee held on 9 November 2004, which voted unanimously to ask Tommy Sheridan to stand down as SSP convenor. “It is believed” — to use the same expression as everyone else — that the Executive Committee was unhappy about how Sheridan intended responding to allegations about his private life which the News of the World was about to publish. The following day Sheridan resigned as SSP convenor, citing family commitments (his wife was pregnant) as...

Is this the voice of the left?

A contested election for the Labour leadership would be “virtually meaningless” as “there's such an overwhelming consensus that Gordon will succeed”. Meanwhile, the post of Labour deputy leader should be abolished: “I’d have the elected leader who becomes Prime Minister — they appoint the deputy that they want and can trust and can work with”. Geoff Hoon? Jack Straw? Some other “Brownite” apparatchik? In fact, these are the words of London mayor Ken Livingstone. In an interview recorded earlier this month, Livingstone told GMTV’s Sunday morning programme that he had “moved on” from his...

Revival in Iraqi Kurdistan?

Nadia Mahmood, a member of the Worker-communist Party of Iraq, was in Iraq in April, in Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Sulaimaniya. She spoke to Martin Thomas. In Baghdad now, it is not safe anywhere. Sadr City is controlled by Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army. Women cannot go on the streets unveiled. Even the Green Zone is not really safe. Some Shia areas, like al-Khadimiya and al-Gazaliya, are not safe for Sunnis; some Sunni areas, like Palestine Street, are not safe for Shias. We are still able to run a weekly literature stall on al-Muttanabi Street, which is a street with lots of bookshops and...

Union funds frozen

According to Naftana, the UK support committee for the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (GUOE), the Iraqi regime has frozen all the bank accounts of the Iraqi oil workers’ union, both abroad and within Iraq. This comes in the wake of a series of anti-union measures, including the disbanding of the council of the lawyers’ union, freezing the writers’ union accounts and the September 2005 decree making all trade union activity illegal. (At the time the government said it would introduce law to ‘regulate’ trade union organisations and their activities). The GUOE organises over 23,000 oil and gas...

Acknowledge Freud’s mistakes

Thomas Carolan is far too generous to Freud (Solidarity 3/93). Freud was insightful, and drew attention to the field of psychology; he had ideas that led others after him to develop theories and methods that have helped people since. Freud’s theories continue to have great influence today. But he got many things wrong. His methodology was also highly suspect. If we are to comment on Freud fairly, we need to make these criticisms, as well as recognising the positive impact he has had. Firstly his methodology. Thomas Carolan excuses him on the basis that there was not the facilities to allow...

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.