Solidarity 099, 28 September 2006

Iraqi workers fight back

By Martin Thomas For the first time since early 2005, there are the beginnings of a workers’ upsurge in Iraq. According to the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions, several groups of workers have taken action in a wave of the successful strikes over wages and conditions by southern oil workers on 22 August. “On Sunday 3 September, hundreds of health sector workers struck in Nasiriyah and Umara city (in the south). They demanded higher average salaries and renewed payment of contagious disease compensation. “The strike continued for three days, but the workers have received nothing but...

End the genocide in Darfur

By Cathy Nugent THE Islamist military dictatorship in Sudan has launched the second stage of the civil war in Darfur. They want to put down the groups which refused to sign a ceasefire and political agreement in May of this year. If they do not stop this assault, thousands of civilians will be persecuted and killed. In mid-September the UN reported government arial bombardments in the north of the region. They expect thousands of people to be displaced. Those people fear the campaign of terror which has always followed such bombardments, when government-backed militia has gone into villages to...

The racism of the anti-EU campaign

By Jim Denham The Morning Star is the daily publication of the British Stalinist “left”. Prior to the collapse of the USSR and the Stalinist empire in 1989/90, it was subsidised by “Moscow gold”. Since then it's been subsidised by the dues of rank-and-file union members, most of whom are completely unaware that their hard-earned wages are being used to finance the last gasp of Stalinism in Britain. The 13 September edition of the Star carried an article on the subject of the European Union and migrant workers, entitled “Don’t be fooled by the EU Trojan horse”, written by one Doug Nicholls,...

NHS Logistics workers: strike against privatisation

By AWL health workers In a magnificent show of defiance over the last two weeks, hundreds of NHS workers in the supply service NHS Logistics have taken the first national strike action in the NHS for 18 years. The one-day strikes mark an end to the “phony war” between the unions and the Government over NHS privatisation, and could spark a national fightback against the selling off of the NHS. NHS Logistics workers are at the sharp end of the Government’s agenda for the NHS, but what is happening to them now could happen to every NHS worker sooner or later. That’s why it is so important that...

Scottish Socialist Party - time to rethink!

By Elaine Jones, Dumfries SSP The SSP is holding its conference on 7-8 October at Glasgow Caledonian University. This is the chance for the SSP to discuss the way forward after the split with Tommy Sheridan and the SWP. There are some important lessons to learn. • Even after the split the same hero-worshipping language is being used to describe Sheridan’s role — the “greatest working class hero we have seen in decades”. They have given him a position that implies he is more important than other party members, more important than organisers and those who develop political theory. They have...

Can the Labour Party be reclaimed?

The Manchester Labour Party conference reveals an entity that goes through the motions of being a political party, that retains the structures of a party, annual conferences for example, but whose structures no longer perform the essential functions which gave rise to them. Up to half the existing Constituency Labour Parties did not bother to send delegates. Those that did, sent them to be the audience in a TV show. They were there to applaud the antics of the great ones, but without any power over them, the conference, or the “Labour” government. Labour in government has been a government...

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