Solidarity 061, 4 November 2004

The Writing on the Wall

Call centres, guns, railway workers and some interesting quotes... FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE CALL CENTRES... “We are trying to move 30% of our clinical trials to low-cost countries”, announced GlaxoSmithKline’s chief executive Jean-Pierre Garnier recently. He promised that health and safety would not be compromised. An income stream for the UK’s impoverished students thus dries up. There can’t be many students, apart from the very richest, who haven’t at some time contemplated donating part of their psyche or physique — if only on loan for a day — to medical science, or, rather, to boost the...

Solidarity Grows

Contemporary accounts of labour movement struggles from the 1830's. The True Sun, 25 March 1834: “A public meeting of the productive classes was held yesterday at the National Institution, Charlotte St [London], to take measures for obtaining the remission of the extraordinary sentences passed at the Dorchester Assizes last week… Mr Robert Owen [socialist pioneer] spoke… He would assert that the working classes of Great Britain and Ireland were in a worse condition than any slaves, in any country, at any period of the world. But that could not continue. The meeting of that day convinced him...

The Tolpuddle Martyrs: "Let the producers of wealth unite."

The story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs is used by the TUC to popularise basic trade unionism. Every summer there is a festival in Tolpuddle to commemorate the group of Dorset agricultural labourers who in 1834 were prosecuted and transported to Australia for trying to organise a union. But the story of the “Tolpuddle Martyrs” is about much more than the need for workers to join a union for the improvement of wages and conditions. It is much more instructive and inspiring than that. Socialists should tell and re-tell the story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. We do that here, using the words of one of the...

The Miners' Strike: Why did Notts scab?

For most miners, the Notts coalfield was synonymous with conservatism and right wing domination. It was the first coalfield to return to work in 1926. The home of “Spencerism” (employer’s union) and the main area of support for the introduction of an incentive scheme in 1977. Conditions in the coalfield — thick straight seams and relatively good wages and conditions — helped. Notts was not the only area with a right wing tradition but, unlike neighbouring Yorkshire (which also was right wing until the 1960s), it had little history of militant rank and file organisation and strikes. The Notts...

Robert Owen: a socialist pioneer

Frederick Engels' description of Robert Owen's life and work. In 1843 Frederick Engels — who had been living abroad and been in contact with a number of socialist thinkers of different persuasions, inclunding Marx — decided to go to England, where he spent 21 months working as a clerk in his father’s large spinning firm in Manchester. Once in England, Engels made contact with trade unionists, Chartists and socialists, including Robert Owen. Robert Owen was a self-made man who bought in 1800 some huge cotton mills in New Lanark in Scotland. There he tried to demonstrate that it was posible to...

Debate: Anti-imperialism, Iraq and the IFTU

We have received a number of comments to our recent material on Iraq, including our Reply to the Stop the War Coalition (see www.workersliberty.org/node/view/3237 and The “reactionary anti-imperialists” (Solidarity 3/60). The Reply to the Stop the War Coalition was a response to a statement put out by STW denouncing the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions and printed in the Morning Star of 11 October 2004. Here are three of the comments. They were all posted anonymously. SUPPORT WHAT IS ON OFFER By the time I got half way down “Reactionary anti-imperialists” (Solidarity 3/60) I was actually...

Debate: Lessons socialists have forgotten

In the last few years there have been a number of instances where conflicts have caused confusion amongst the ranks of the left. Such times are important for the left in reassessing, and regrouping sifting out the healthier elements. Of course that is only true if the right lessons are learned, and the organisations which grow most quickly under such circumstances are in no way guaranteed to be the ones that have learned the correct lessons. One of the reasons the left has struggled is in my opinion that lessons once learned seem to have been forgotten. I am not talking here about the lessons...

Guilty until proven innocent

Once again, New Labour is stepping up its “campaign against crime” and they are proposing the usual mix of vague placebos and attacks on civil liberties. However one proposal stands out as being particularly dangerous, and particularly worth our opposition. David Blunkett wants to abolish, in certain cases, the rule that any previous criminal convictions of a defendant may not be revealed before a verdict is reached. The rule is designed to ensure that no defendant will be prejudged by a jury. In addition the rule is meant to ensure that defendents are tried strictly on the basis of evidence...

We still need a woman's right to choose

The North-West Area of the National Union of Students has written to trade unionists and women's groups in the area about threats to abortion rights. You may be aware of the recent discussions in the media about reducing the time limit for abortion, even down to 12 weeks. David Steel who put down the original act to legalise abortion many years ago, has come out in favour of reducing time limits (to 22 weeks), citing medical advances. The government could take action this autumn. Our campaign is concerned to defend the rights of women to have access to safe contraception and abortion services...

Don't fall for this "Contrick"!

Workers at the King’s Cross Channel Tunnel site have rejected new contracts brought in by their employer, Laing O’Rourke. A revolt over the contract is spreading across the company. Laing O’Rourke wants to start directly employing its workers. At the moment they are self-emplolyed. The change will mean cutting basic pay by a half and introducing a bonus system. 45% of the workers wages will now be conditional on bonuses. Those bonuses will be decided by management. A day off must be planned 40 days in advance and holiday pay could be cut by £20 per day for each worker. Part of the problem has...

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