Solidarity 379, 7th October 2015

The Tories have said they will start their own “trade union” — the Conservative Workers and Trade Union Movement. They say this ″union″ will appeal to workers who feel they are not represented by their ″militant left-wing″ trade union leaders. This is an attempt to “recreate” (as its appointed leader Robert Halfon puts it) the “Conservative Trade Unionists” movement which made some splash in the 1970s. CTU now named “Conservatives at Work” stresses that it is open to “employers, managers, and company directors”. The Tories know very well how society works; they are seeking to disguise its...

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey has offered the government a deal on the Trade Union Bill. On 1 October he sent David Cameron a letter offering to accept the 40% and 50% ballot thresholds in return for the introduction of electronic ballots. It is not wrong to seek an alternative to postal balloting, which has been imposed on unions. Postal ballots ensure members vote in isolation in their home; they are plagued with problems such as members moving house or just forgetting to post their ballot paper. Electronic ballots, though they would be better, do not necessarily mean workplace...

Russia has begun bombing Syria, claiming they are targeting Daesh (IS). But the airstrikes are, in effect, a defence of the Assad government, which Russia maintains is the legitimate government of the Syrian people. The Guardian reported that a rebel group trained by the CIA, Liwa Suqour al-Jabal, had its training camp in Idlib struck repeatedly in two separate bombings. Russia has hit a range of targets in both northern and central Syria, affecting the increasingly fragmented rebel groups, including members of the Islamic Front and the Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. One of Russia’s most...

On Friday 2 October a Department of Trade and Industry statement confirmed that the 1,700 workers who have lost their jobs at SSI UK steelworks in Redcar should prepare for even worse news. As SSI’s parent company had filed for insolvency in the Thai courts, the workers’ redundancy payments were under threat. SSI had talked of keeping the plant “mothballed”, with the implication that the plant could re-open and workers be rehired if the price of steel increased to the point were a “healthy profit” could be made. Mothballing would involve keeping the plant’s coke ovens burning — necessary if...

There was a considerable student showing at the 80,000 strong TUC demonstration against austerity outside Tory party conference in Manchester on Sunday 4 October. The student bloc, including groups from Bristol and several Scottish universities, injected some much needed energy into the march and formed one of the liveliest sections of the protest. Local campus group, Free Education Manchester, ran a section in conjunction with the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, which included a high number of first-time demonstrators. Free Education Manchester’s visible contribution was an important...

Afghan and US forces have found themselves under intense criticism after the bombing of a Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) hospital in the city of Kunduz, during an attempted recapture of the city. Kunduz, an ethnically mixed city in the north of the country and close to the border with Tajikistan, has previously been under threat from Taliban forces that have long held sway in provincial areas around the city. Following a planned offensive on 28 September, the Taliban captured most of the city. After being embarrassed by the fact that even now, fourteen years after they were...

Last month Nicola Sturgeon announced the Scottish Government’s 2015-16 programme of government. In it, on the back of an enormous campaigning and lobbying effort by the Living Rent Campaign, was a commitment to introduce provisions for rent controls. Further, the First Minister outlined plans to scrap short-assured tenancies and the no-fault grounds for eviction. These laws, introduced by Thatcher in the eighties, meant tenants in Scotland have some of the worst protections from eviction and least secure leases anywhere in Europe. This is, without a doubt, an enormous victory for the...

If it is news to you that the government has been running a public consultation on the future of the BBC, then don’t panic. It’s already too late to take part. The consultation was quietly announced to start on the 16 July, just five days before the House of Commons broke for summer. Even worse, some of the questions were so strangely phrased that respondents would find it difficult to know what was being asked (How should the relationship between Parliament, Government, Ofcom, the National Audit Office and the BBC work? Very well? Which elements of universality are most important for the BBC...

The touring theatre company, Townsend Productions, are now on the road with their excellent play, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, based on Robert Tressell’s novel, first published in 1914. The play is the latest in a string of politically committed and successful plays, including ‘United We Stand’ (the story of the Shrewsbury pickets), ‘We Will Be Free!’ (the Tolpuddle Martyrs story) and ‘On the Road to Freedom’ (a choir and theatre community project). The cast portray the novel’s central message of the brutality and injustice of capitalism whilst remaining true to the story’s...

An article, signed by “Phil”, on the LibCom website, puts the anarchist case against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. It says that working-class activists should “steer clear” of Labour, and makes five specific arguments: 1. The fight isn’t just against The Tories No-one who has been involved in Corbyn’s campaign, and witnessed the attacks and attempted sabotage by figures on the right of the Labour Party, could believe that the Tories are the only enemy. This is a straw-man argument; only the most credulous and ignorant could imagine that Labour under Corbyn’s leadership will be uniformly...