Solidarity 247, 23 May 2012

John Palmer, former European editor of the Guardian , spoke to Solidarity about what the current talk among EU leaders about “growth initiatives” is likely to yield. In the polls in Greece, New Democracy are about two or three points ahead of Syriza at this point of time, so it’s by no means certain that the outcome on 17 June will be the Syriza victory which looked likely shortly after 6 May. If Syriza emerges on top, what happens will largely depend on the nature of the agreement which is to be negotiated at the European summit on 23 May. The Syriza leader has been invited to France and...

AWL branches around the country are organising fundraising socials to help our fund drive and argue for our politics. The North East London AWL branch has hired the tenants’ hall on a housing estate and plans a film showing of the Marlon Brando film Burn on Saturday 9 June. The film deals with issues of colonialism, racism and liberation and tells the story of a slave revolt on the island of Guadeloupe. Organising events like this is a good opportunity for Workers’ Liberty members to promote and discuss our politics in a less formal environment, as well as raising some money for our group...

Alexis Tsipras, leader of the Greek left coalition Syriza, visited Paris on 21 May and spoke to a crowd outside the National Assembly. “The war we are fighting in Europe is not between people or nations. It is between the forces of labour and the invisible forces of finance and the banks. “It is difficult to be victorious over an enemy when that enemy has no face, no programme, no political party, yet it governs us. If we perfect our victory in Greece it will sent a great message of hope throughout Europe. “Greece is a link in a chain. If it breaks it is not just the link that is broken but...

As PCS convenes this week (23-24 May) in Brighton for their annual conference, delegates will be be expected to vote on a wide range of issues, including some international ones. Buried deep in the more than 200 pages of conference documents is this sentence: “Conference … instructs the NEC to … [c]all on trade unions around the world to review and sever all ties with the Histadrut.” This the only reference to the Histadrut in the entire document - and there is no explanation to PCS delegates what the Histadrut actually is. Delegates presumably know that the Histadrut is something evil, and...

On 13 May Rebekah Brooks, her husband and five other people were arrested and told that she faced three separate charges (conspiracy to pervert the course of justice) related to hacking into voicemails by the News of the World. Rebekah is angry. In a statement she professed herself baffled by the decision to charge her. Her husband described her as the victim of a witch-hunt. His own arrest was no more, he claimed, than an attempt to ‘ratchet up the pressure’ on her. The most revealing aspect of Rebekah Brooks’ reaction, however, was how upset she was about how “those closest to me… have been...

A new-ish political party is changing German politics. Apparently. A secretive bunch in some ways, who often use “party names” in public and while discussing with other members, yet who at the same time have “transparency” as the main element in their as yet thin political programme. Largely male, the members use antiquated greetings and — for outsiders — an often strange language, impenetrable to those not in the know and those without the technical know-how to take part. After elections the group is now taking its maiden voyage in the Berlin city state parliament, further excursions as the...

The unions in Iraq are continuing our joint campaign against the imposition of a new labour law, and against governmental interference in union elections. The labour code the government is currently proposing represents only the interests of the factory owners and big business. It’s worse than the labour laws of the Saddam era. It guarantees no basic workers’ workers, and prevents freedom of association and strikes. It also relates only to the private sector, as public sector workers are formally considered “public servants” rather than workers. It would institutionalise a 48-hour week, which...

The student movement in Quebec faces an all-out offensive by the government. For more than 90 days, more than 150,000 students in Quebec have been on an all-out indefinite strike against Quebec government plans to cut education funding and raise fees by 75%. Demanding free education funded by taxing the rich, students have mounted mass demonstrations and confronted police violence. The government made a weak offer to representatives of the student protests at the beginning of May — but, following discussion in dozens of mass meetings around the province, students voted to reject it. Now the...

Stroud Against the Cuts (SATC), through their “Keep Gloucestershire’s NHS Public” campaign, have scored a victory against NHS privatisation. Responding to protests and legal action, the Department of Health has told NHS Gloucestershire it can give a non-tendered contract to a local NHS body as one of the options when commissioning the county’s primary health services. Previously DH had ruled out this option. SATC immediately attended the first public meeting of the shadow GPs Clinical Commissioning Group, created by the Health and Social Care Act to take over the role of choosing which...

In 2008 New Labour began to take away unemployed single parents’ entitlement to Income Support (IS) when their youngest child reached a certain age — and the “qualifying age” was gradually reduced. These parents were switched to Job Seekers Allowance and told to find work. The Tories completed the erosion of any “special status” for single parents with the Welfare Reform Act — IS entitlement now stops when the youngest children are 5 or 6. A recent report by Gingerbread, interviewing many single parents, highlights the huge difficulties these changes have brought into the lives of single...