Solidarity 370, 3 July 2015

Both RMT and ASLEF’s tube strike ballots met the arbitrary and hypocritical thresholds the Tories plan to impose: both had turnouts of over 50%, and both had majorities of more than 40% of all those eligible to vote. It is a superb symbolic and rhetorical victory for the RMT, against whom much of the right-wing ire about “disruptive” strikes is focused, that their highest-profile ballots since the new laws were proposed, on Network Rail and now London Underground, have cleared the Tories’ thresholds. It gives an immense democratic mandate to the LU strikes, even on the Tories’ terms. But...

Workers’ Liberty supporter Bob Carnegie has been elected to the Queensland Branch Secretary position of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) in this year’s Quadrennial elections. Bob assumes office for a four year term on 1 July. Bob was one of four challengers for the position vacated by retiring incumbent Mick Carr. Bob was defeated at the last MUA Quadrennial elections of 2011 by Carr by only two votes (504 to 506). This time around, Bob won easily with a margin of fifty votes. The final tally was Bob with 315 votes, former Queensland Deputy Secretary Trevor Munday with 265 votes, seafarer...

Luke Morgans, a student at Hilly Fields school who was involved in the successful anti-academies campaign in Lewisham, spoke to Solidarity . I wasn’t one of the very first students to be involved. I got involved when we started having demonstrations in February and March. I was already broadly left-wing, but I hadn’t done anything with my politics. It was separate from the workers’ campaign. Staff were told they weren’t allowed to talk to us about it. We knew our teachers were sympathetic, but they couldn’t go on our protests. We linked up at the community protests on some Saturdays and on...

The UK’s flailing fracking industry was dealt another blow this week, after Lancashire Council rejected a bid to resume drilling operations in the county. On Monday 29 June, the council denied permission to shale gas firm Cuadrilla to frack at two sites between Preston and Blackpool after a robust campaign by local people and environmentalists. The council opposed the application on the grounds that it would “lead to the industrialisation of the countryside and adversely affect the landscape character”. The result was something of a surprise, as councillors had come under enormous pressure...

RMT members employed by Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac) staged three days of industrial action, including a one-day strike, in the last week of June. A ballot on industrial action held the preceding month had seen a massive majority vote for action: 92% for strike action, and 98% of action short of a strike, on a 60% turnout. The vote was so overwhelming that it passed the requirements of the Tories’ new anti-union legislation. The dispute centres of the threat to jobs, pensions and working conditions resulting from the fact that the Clyde and Hebrides ferry services, currently provided by...

US socialists Ann Coleman, Alan Maass and Nicole Colson report on the US Supreme Court's historic ruling on same-sex marriage. This article was taken from the International Socialist Organization publication website socialistworker.org (no connection to British SWP). The authors welcome the ruling, seeing it as a culmination of many struggles for equality. Some socialists and LGBT activists in US, as in the UK, question the institution of marriage. We invite debate on this question. The US Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling on same-sex marriage (26 June) was a sweeping victory in the decades-long...