Solidarity 155, 9 July 2009

"A military coup by the Republican Guard"

What happened in Iran is a military coup. The coup was made by the Republican Guard with the connivance of the Supreme Leader. It is a war at the top between two very strong factions in an extremely complicated and fluid Iranian political system. Allied with the Republican Guard are the baseej militias. In Iran people tell you they are the “army of 20 million”. They are supposed to be 20 million. That is not true. They are four or five million. But a few months ago a plan was hatched to bring them to the level of 13 million. Every baseeji had to recruit four or five others. In the rural...

Honduran coup

Protests have been organised around the world to demand the reinstatement as president of Honduras of Manuel (Mel) Zelaya, ousted in a coup on 28 June. A protest outside the Honduran embassy in London on 29 June drew about 50, many of them from the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign, and from Unite union’s south-east regional office. Zelaya, although from the neoliberal Liberal Party, has angered the establishment in Honduras by supporting measures to alleviate poverty. Honduras ranks 117th in the world on the Human Development Index (HDI), while, by comparison, Costa Rica ranks 42nd, Mexico 55th...

What happened in Iran?

Now the street mobilisations in Iran have ended, at least for now, how should socialists assess what happened? Here we print the reflections of an Iranian student activist now living in England. People choose from the available alternatives to improve their daily life. For some people Mousavi represents the stream able to attain that. If in Iranian political life a better choice emerges, they might converge on that. The “principlists” [Khomeiny-ite hard-libers] have arrested all the key activists of the reformist movement — their political leaders, strategists, campaigners, journalists and...

Campaigns in brief

Victory on cuts Parents at Brooke Primary School, in Hackney, East London, have won their campaign against cuts at the school. Hackney Learning Trust, the contractor which runs Hackney’s schools, had said that £75,000 must be cut, trashing the school’s Numeracy and Reading Recovery provision. After the campaign, the Learning Trust has “found” some extra money, and the cuts have been stopped. Reoccupied to stop closure On Friday 26 June parents of pupils attending Wyndford Primary School in Glasgow re-occupied the school in protest at Glasgow City Council’s plans to press ahead with its closure...

Tower Hamlets fights ESOL cuts

Another half-day strike is set for the afternoon of Thursday 9 July against the cuts to the teaching of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) in Tower Hamlets, east London. Demonstrators will march to the London Assembly to lobby the London mayor Boris Johnson. The cuts initially proposed by new principal Michael Farley would lead to ESOL teaching being cut in half. 50% of students would lose classes, and up to 60 teachers lose their jobs. The fightback against this so far has been inspiring, involving demos, walkouts, strikes, students and mobilisation of the community. That this is...

Nortel sackings

More redundancies are expected in coming weeks from the big telecommunications equipment manufacturer Nortel. All Nortel workers have been left in a precarious position, unsure whether they will keep their jobs from one day to the next. In early July, redundancies were made in addition to 228 imposed back in March. The company, which filed for “Chapter Eleven” bankruptcy protection from its U.S. creditors in January, says that all company pensions have been lost. The company has sold its assets, in lucrative packages, to the Israeli technology firm Radwar and to Noki Siemens Networks — and yet...

New anti-fascist push in Sheffield

Over 30 people — mainly local workers but also some school and university students — attended a meeting on 2 July called by the Sheffield Department for Work and Pensions branch of the PCS trade union to discuss working-class anti-fascist campaigning. The meeting had the support of individuals in other unions such as Unite, UCU, and GMB, because of the frustration of many of their activists at the failure of mainstream anti-fascism (expressed through campaigns such as UAF and Hope Not Hate/Searchlight) to develop a working-class perspective that can cut the roots of fascism, rather than just...

Posties plan action on 17 July

Postal workers in the CWU post and telecom union will strike in London on 8-10 July over job cuts. CWU says: “Strike action is spread over three days with a rolling 24 hour set of strikes on Wednesday 8, Thursday 9 and Friday 10 July. Delivery workers will be striking on Wednesday, distribution and logistics staff will be out on Thursday, and mail centres will be striking on Friday”. Dave Ward, CWU deputy general secretary, added: “We’ll be holding a national day of action on Friday 17 July which will combine industrial action and demonstrations”. A CWU activist told Solidarity: “Scores of...

Top table wins on all the issues

Rail and transport union RMT held its annual general meeting from 28 June to 2 July, against a backdrop of employers attacking jobs and conditions across the industry. The AGM was unanimously determined to resist these attacks. However, thousands of job cuts are going ahead, several strike ballots have been voted down, and it was not entirely clear how the union plans to turn this situation around. Six years on from its foundation, Network Rail has still failed to harmonise the terms and conditions of workers who came to it from various contractor companies, and RMT members overwhelmingly...

Engineering construction: Solidarity can change the world!

At 8am on Friday 26 June Unite rep Tony Fields said to the meeting of 400 maintenance engineers at Stanlow oil refinery, “Well, that’s it, lads. It’s done, we’ve won. What do you want to do? Go back today or go back on Monday when the Lindsey refinery workers go back?” We’ll go back Monday, they said. And that was it. “That’s what happens when you get solidarity”, one worker said. And indeed it is. Lindsey Oil Refinery construction workers have won their dispute. All the workers’ demands have been met. It is a victory against Total who thought they could sack workers who dared to take...

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