Solidarity 176, 24 June 2010

UNISON Conference: debating the "Swedish model"

Delegates at Unison conference earlier this month voted in favour of the “Swedish model” of criminalising those who purchase sex, and in effect, to put the safety of sex workers in further jeopardy. Typically, debate on the subject was shut down at the conference, leaving the case against the “Swedish model” under-represented. However, a hunger to grapple with the arguments “for and against” was played out in an encouraging and well attended fringe meeting on the issue, sponsored jointly by the Labour Representation Committee and the AWL, before the vote on the motion. Over fifty union members...

UNISON: left must organise beyond conference

With the background of huge cuts in public services around the corner, Unison’s local government and national delegate conferences met last week in Bournemouth. Detailed discussion on the way forward were restricted by the fact that motion deadlines fell before the general election. However, a united emergency motion between the leadership and left-led branches laid out strategy against cuts. The union supported a national ballot if final salary pensions are attacked, campaigns in defence of jobs and services, and organising local demonstrations on September 29 as part of a European-wide day...

Academies and free schools: "we need national action to meet this threat"

The government has announced that all schools will be able to become Academies; schools which have been judged to be “outstanding” by Ofsted will be automatically approved and fast-tracked to that status. The coalition is rushing through legislation to allow schools to make decisions about becoming an Academy before the end of term. And Education Minister Michael Gove has written to all “outstanding” schools inviting them to do this. The Academies programme is also being extended to primary schools. At the moment there are only 203 Academies, but there are 600 “outstanding” secondary schools...

British Telecom: strike for more pay from this big-profit company!

The result of the ballot for strike action over pay in BT will be announced on 5 July. If Communication Workers members vote yes, the first strike under the Lib-Con government could be in the private sector. The current offer from BT bosses is more than 2% less than the current rate of inflation, cuts the link with pensionable pay, and includes a profit related element. The issues are being discussed at a series of union meetings for BT members being held up and down the country. But management are also busy. In call centres, and on repair and maintenance teams, staff (who rarely have team...

30 January 1972: Bloody Sunday, and how it changed Ireland

This article was first published in 2010 On 10 February 1972 thousands of workers, acting in solidarity with the miners who were then on strike, surrounded the coke depot at Saltley in Birmingham. The enormous mass picket stopped all traffic in and out until the bosses gave up and closed the gates of the depot. As well as being the turning point of the strike, which the miners won, Saltley was a great symbol of what working-class solidarity could do. Afterwards, when asked why he had not sent in the army to disperse the workers, Tory prime minister Edward Heath responded (so he wrote somewhere...

Prepare for class war!

The first Budget of the Tory-Liberal government has staked out the ground for an enormous assault on the working class in the period ahead - on our living standards and, maybe, on our remaining trade-union rights. The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) dotted the i here by proposing tighter anti-union laws to quell any working-class revolt. The Budget itself began the assault. More will be spelled out in the autumn. The Budget plan is harsher than the measures of the Thatcher government 30 years ago. £82 billion of cuts in annual public spending. A wage freeze for six million public...

Lenin on the Paris Commune

On 18 March 1871 the workers of Paris took power in their city. For nine weeks, until they were crushed by the French army after 28 May, they formed the world's first workers' government. Karl Marx wrote a pamphlet at the time about the Commune, The Civil War in France . In it he focused on defending the Commune against its enemies. He claimed it showed, for the first time, "the political form under which to work out the economic emancipation of labour". "Its true secret was this. It was essential a working-class government". The standing army had been replaced by the armed people; the...

Financial Times calls Budget "this bloodbath"

The 22 June Budget means public spending cut by 25% almost everywhere except health by 2014-5. The details will not be spelled out until the autumn spending review, but the certainty is (as the Financial Times headline put it): "huge jobs cull looms as services hit". Public sector workers also face a two-year pay freeze (with a tiny exception for some lower-paid) and increased pension contributions, i.e. a cash cut in take-home pay at a time when inflation is running over 5%. VAT will rise from 17.5% to 20% from January 2011, in effect raising the prices of most goods and services by a further...

Europe-wide cuts drive: Europe-wide workers' response needed

The cuts programme is Europe-wide. Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Greece are all making big cuts in social provision. This is a social and political choice by the ruling classes. In the tumult of 2008, many mainstream writers said that neo-liberalism was dead, and capitalist governments would have to seek a new programme, possibly conceding more social provision. Yet the EU governments are gambling on a push for a strongly neo-liberal way forward from the crisis. That means gearing government policy to making the eurozone an attractive site for footloose global...

Vote Abbott, but organise the left on clear policies

Socialists in the Labour Party and the affiliated trade unions should vote for Diane Abbott in the Labour leadership election, while saying that she cannot be trusted and that the leader-election system should be changed to allow a wider choice. Click here to download this article and other text as a pdf leaflet . Over the last 20-odd years Abbott has generally voted and spoken against the Iraq invasion and for trade union rights, for migrant rights, for expanded council housing, for scrapping British nuclear weapons, for fighting cuts, against privatisation, for free higher education, and for...

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