Solidarity 131, 24 April 2008

Unite Australia: "We hit a lot of rock concerts"

Anthony Main is the secretary of Unite Australia, a union for young fast-food and retail workers drawing inspiration from Unite New Zealand but operating in different conditions. Because of the huge distances in Australia, the labour movement there is more decentralised than in Britain. A union can be left-wing in one state, right-wing in another. Unite Australia operates in Melbourne, where the unions are generally stronger, more combative, and more left-wing than elsewhere in Australia (and the political left is stronger than in other cities). Its initiators were the Socialist Party...

Marxists on the capitalist crisis: 3. Leo Panitch - The Crisis Depends on the Fightback

Leo Panitch has been editor of the annual Socialist Register in recent years, during which it has produced issues on "Working Classes, Global Realities" (2001), "The New Imperial Challenge" (2004), and "The Empire Reloaded" (2005). He is also the author of many books and articles, several co-written with Sam Gindin, former research director for the Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW). He is active in the Socialist Project group, http://www.socialistproject.ca/ , and is a professor at York University, Toronto. I don't think that US hegemony has waned, and I don't think it's about to wane in the...

Squeezing the poor: the pips should start squeaking!

For many years now, inequality has soared, but intimidation by employers and foot-dragging by sluggish trade-union leaders have pretty much kept a lid on wage battles. Back in the 1970s, the then Labour chancellor Dennis Healey promised (untruly) that he would "squeeze the rich until the pips squeak". New Labour has been squeezing the poor - and so far the pips haven't squeaked much. But squeak time could be coming soon. * Food prices have gone up 15.5% over the last year. The Tory Daily Mail worked out the figures for its own purposes (18 April), but they're accurate. * Other basic costs are...

Vote left, not Livingstone no.1!

No, readers of Solidarity should not vote no.1 for Ken Livingstone for mayor of London. Despite all the frantic appeals to us to vote for him as a "lesser evil" than Boris Johnson, he deserves no credit or endorsement from working-class people. Because of the vestigial links New Labour may still have with the trade unions, we'll vote Livingstone no.2. But for our no.1 vote we'd rather be with the left-wingers and activists who will vote for the Left List (despite the terrible weakness of that list, on which more later). The same principle holds for the other local government elections on 1 May...

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