Solidarity 179, 19 August 2010

Workers of the world

Ukranian mineworkers employed by Ferrexpo PLC, one of the biggest ore mining companies in the world, have struck against changes to their contracts which would, amongst other attacks, increase their retirement age by 5 years and cut 10 days from their holiday entitlement. Ferrexpo is notorious for cutting corners and endangering workers' safety in order to keep profits up; truckers working for the company were told to break the legal speed limit in order to fill quotas on time, and the working day was increased from 8 to 12 hours. The strike's demands include an increase of wages by at least...

French pensions reform: will the fightback start here?

Francois Coustal, from the editorial committee of the New Anticapitalist Party’s newspaper Tout est à nous, spoke to Ed Maltby about the French government’s attempt to simultaneously remove the legal right of French workers to retire at 60, and to force them to pay into their pension funds for a longer period. EM: How is the struggle against the pension reforms going? FC: The next important strike day will be 7 September — a general strike — and we expect it to be well-attended. Everyone is building for it, from the Parti Socialiste (Socialist Party) to the radical left. It is a demonstration...

Palestinian Authority elections cancelled

In June the cabinet of the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, who runs the Palestinian West Bank, cancelled the municipal elections. This was the third scheduled election the PA has annulled in the last year. The cancellation is despite recent polls showing the secular Fatah at 45% and Islamist Hamas 26%. Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas won the January 2005 presidential ballot in the Palestinian Territories with 62% of the vote. In January 2006 Hamas won the Palestinian Legislative Council election, winning 74 of 112 seats. In February 2007, Hamas and Fatah leaders reached an accord which...

The problem with the burqa ban

Much has been said about the proposed law on banning the burqa in France. Partly prepared by a Communist Party MP, André Gérin, who chaired a multi-party parliamentary commission for several months, it will be voted in September. These are some of the explanations: President Sarkozy is dramatically losing ground in the polls; he wants to keep seducing the voters of the National Front; the French economy has serious problems so the UMP (the main governmental party) is looking for a diversion; the government wants to justify French military intervention in Afghanistan; salafists1 are trying to...

The government's "alternative" to locking up children

In a show of acquiescence to the “liberal” spirit of their junior coalition partners, the Tories agreed to end the detention of immigrant children in prison-like centres such as Yarl's Wood. But given that they have no intention of ending the racist immigration policies which see hundreds of desperate asylum seekers snatched from their homes and expelled from the country, they were confronted with a problem: how to maintain their deportation-happy policies now that they can't just cart kids off to jail while they fill the plane with fuel? A leaked briefing paper on “Alternatives to Detention...

"Prisons are for protecting the rich"

With proposed government privatisation within the British prison service, and with prison officers taking illegal strike action in recent years, issues of what attitude socialists should take to incarceration and capitalist “justice” have come to the fore. Daniel Randall discussed some of these issues with Joe Black of the Campaign Against Prison Slavery, an activist group fighting for prisoners’ rights from an “abolitionist” perspective. This is an edited version of the interview. The full version is at www.workersliberty.org/node/14838. DR: What are the aims of your campaign? How do you...

Scotland: no to social partnership, fight the review!

At the end of July the “Independent Budget Review” (IBR) – set up by the SNP minority government as part of its deal with the Scottish Tories to secure their support for this year’s government budget – published its findings. The Review was carried out by Crawford Beveridge (former Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise and also a former Vice-Executive-President of Sun Microsystems), Robert Wilson (a partner in Deloitte Consulting in Edinburgh) and Sir Neil McIntosh (former Chief Executive of Strathclyde Regional Council). Speaking at the launch of the Review, Scottish government Finance...

Anti-cuts round-up: new committees and small victories

Trade union activists have begun building community and workplace opposition to Academies in the borough as part of the Tower Hamlets Anti-Cuts Coalition. Unlike neighbouring borough Hackney, Tower Hamlets has never been receptive to Academies (partially because of the strength of union organisation in the borough’s schools). Now, under the Tory scheme which allows any school to apply for Academy status, some Tower Hamlets heads are seeing pound signs. Old Ford and Mulberry primary schools have both expressed an interest in applying for Academy status. The financial incentives are, however...

Ed Miliband: "escaping the Blairite comfort zone"?

Ed Miliband, writing for a Fabian Society round-table of leadership contenders, has called for Labour to “escape” from the “comfort zone” of Blairism. The motivation for this call comes from Labour’s defeat. Although the core vote held up better than expected — especially in the north of England — the data shows a more detailed and worrying picture. Miliband writes that “Five million votes were lost by Labour between 1997 and 2010, for every one voter that Labour lost from the professional classes ... we lost three voters among the poorest, those on benefits and the low paid ... Add in skilled...

More action in aviation

Over 6,000 aviation workers — including firefighters, security guards and other ground staff — will vote on a 2% pay increase, plus a one-off payment of £500, after resoundingly rejecting the employer's previous, initial pay offer and voting by a big majority to take strike action. The workers' union, Unite, called off scheduled strikes after talks at ACAS and will now recommend that its members vote to accept the new deal. BAA (formerly British Airports Authority until its privatisation in 1986) employees at six major UK airports (Heathrow, Stansted, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and...

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