Solidarity 517, 18 September 2019

Not the “people’s daily”

Some of the best people I have ever encountered in the labour movement — or anywhere else, for that matter — were CPers, that is, Stalinists, in one degree or another. These were people who had dedicated themselves mind and limb to a cause which in its broad points of reference and ultimate goals is our own cause, the cause of socialism, and who had given everything they had to it. They were not “selfless” in any narrow ascetic sense, but people who rejected the values and concerns of the bourgeois world around them with disdain, and who had organised their own lives around the working-class...

Banning hijab in schools

This article was part of a debate we had earlier this year. Our 2020 conference voted to reject this call for the ban on the hijab in schools. Our 2004 policy- to oppose all calls for bans on the hijab - stands. The full debate can be found here. I will be moving a motion for a ban on the hijab in schools up to Key Stage 3 at the Workers’ Liberty conference in December. I want to explain why. The hijab isn’t just a piece of clothing, or even just a piece of religious clothing. It has strong political connotations with religious conservatism. It is closely associated with the notion of modesty...

See you next year!

Janine Booth has written about her experience in her new book The Big J vs The Big C: Issues, Experiences and Poems in the Battle Against Breast Cancer , charting her diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer. One in two people will develop cancer during their lives. The increasing incidence is mainly a result of more people living longer. Cancer was something that people were ashamed to mention, endured by a silent minority in private, but now is more openly talked about. There are many different cancers, some eminently survivable, taking different treatments to cure them or keep them at bay...

Schools dispute shows effect of anti-union laws

What effect have the anti-union laws had on the campaign to boycott high-stakes testing in primary schools? As the mover of the successful motion at National Education Union (NEU) conference which called for the union to ballot for a boycott of high-stakes testing in primary schools, I was invited to the national working group on the indicative ballot. At the first meeting of the working group, we had a session addressed by the union lawyer. She pointed out that we could not ballot our members to boycott the tests on the grounds that they do harm to children. That would make the action...

PCS strikers and climate strike

PCS is supporting the 20 September climate strike. Our members on strike at the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy in London and in HMRC on Merseyside will use their picket lines on that day to raise issues around climate change, and will march from their pickets to city centre mobilisations in support of the climate strike. We’ve encouraging branches to undertake as much activity as possible on the day and there is a wide range of activities planned across the country. We want to organise around climate change as a workplace issue, and are supporting our negotiating reps...

“Worker status” for couriers!

The California state legislature has passed a landmark “AB5” bill to tighten legislation in the so-called “gig economy”, extending basic workers’ rights to many who had been deprived them. In the USA, as in the UK, companies such as Uber or Deliveroo falsely categorise most of their workers as “independent contractors”. This deprives us of basic workers’ rights such as minimum wage, holiday pay, a pension, and collective bargaining rights. The number of workers with such jobs has more than doubled in the last three years, to around one in ten working-age adults. Companies, when attempting to...

Industrial news in brief

Tube vote for action on noise Driver members of the RMT union on London Underground’s Victoria, Central, Jubilee, and Northern Lines have voted to take industrial action short of strikes over excessive noise. Drivers are demanding a permanent engineering solution to the problem of excessive noise in trains. The issue is caused by noise cancelling technology fitted to tracks to avoid excessive noise at street level, which has the effect of forcing the noise into the cabs, where it becomes unbearably loud for both drivers and passengers. The action, which has yet to be formally named by the RMT...

Netanyahu renews West Bank grab threat

In advance of new elections due to take place on 17 September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced new plans for the annexation of Palestinian territory, pledging to annex a big chunk of the West Bank to Israel. Prior to elections in April, he announced plans to formally annex 60% of the land area of “Area C” of the West Bank. The new proposal would cut off the Palestinian Territories’ border with Jordan, and leave cities like Jericho as enclaves entirely surrounded by Israeli territory. Some, including Netanyahu’s main political rival, Benny Gantz, who heads the centre...

French metro workers strike

This report on the Paris metro workers’ strike appeared in the newspaper of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) on 18 September and was translated from the French by Luke Neal.

A strike on RATP (the Paris metro) has got the the ball rolling in the fight against pension reforms in France. After 12...

Sanders, socialists, and US politics

Dan La Botz is a longstanding socialist activist, based in Brooklyn. He is a member of the socialist group Solidarity and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and a co-editor of the independent socialist journal New Politics . He spoke to Daniel Randall about prospects for the socialist left in the USA. DR: How do you think the socialist left should orient to the Bernie Sanders campaign? Dan La Botz: In 2016, after years as a proponent of independent political action to the left of the Democrats, I made the decision to work on the Sanders campaign. I had been a lifelong opponent of the...

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