from Jake:
This is to invite you to our next action in support of the five sacked Colombian cleaners working for Amey Plc at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL). (see background story at http://caic.org.uk/node/18)
Year: 2008
Today’s Feminist Fightback action at the Department of Health, demanding the extension of reproductive rights, in particular allowing Northern Irish women to access abortions, was very well attended (about 35-40 people) and lively. A few pictures forwarded by other comrades are below.
A full report on the action is currently available here.
by David Broder
Recently I have engaged in a fair degree of research into working-class resistance during the Second World War, and so at yesterday’s Anarchist Bookfair I was interested to pick up a copy of the Anarchist Federation’s pamphlet ‘Resistance to Nazism’ (subtitle ‘Shattered Armies: How the Working Class Fought Nazism and Fascism 1933-45’), reprinted this May.
The stated aim of the pamphlet is to present an alternative ‘history from below’ discussing the struggles and experiences of working-class people rather than looking at the world through the prism of competing governments and military figures. This is a worthy aim indeed. Continue reading “review of ‘resistance to nazism’”
TAKE ACTION FOR EXTENSION OF ABORTION RIGHTS TO NORTHERN IRELAND, 7.45AM-9AM MON 20TH OCT
On 22nd October, MPs will vote on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. As well as several anti-choice, anti-women amendments, there are real opportunities to extend abortion rights – including access to abortion for women in Northern Ireland, an end to the two doctor rule, increasing the pool of abortion practitioners, allowing more local abortion services and banning misleading advertising.
Feminist Fightback are focusing on the extension of abortion rights to Northern Ireland, where currently it is is illegal to have an abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. Working class women suffer the most. As well as having to fund travel abroad, the procedure is £600, which means some women are forced to bear children against their will. Cathleen O’Neill of Alliance for Choice explains: “If I had a pound for every fundraiser I worked on to help working class women go to England for an abortion, I’d be a rich woman… Almost every other week. It’s bad enough for those who can afford to travel, but for poorer women it’s hell. It’s time those who claim to represent us to get a grip on reality and take steps to end this nightmare”
We will be taking direct action in London at the same time as Alliance for Choice activists in Belfast to heap on pressure to ensure our sisters in Northern Ireland have access to the same abortion rights as women in England, Scotland and Wales.
We want lots of feminists to get involved in non-arrestable (leafleting, legal support, press relations and demonstrating) or arrestable roles. We’re meeting at 7:45am tomorrow, Monday 20th, at the news-stand below the ‘elephant’ at Elephant and Castle (Bakerloo/Northern lines).
Phone 07971 719797 for further info (if you’re coming you may as well write it down in case you can’t find us and need to phone!)
You can also email feminist.fightback@gmail.com
[click here to see the recommended reading for the meeting]
On Monday evening UNISON activist Anton Moctonian gave a talk at our ‘uncaptive minds’ discussion forum about new public sector union organising methods in the 1970s, with particular focus on the growth and decentralisation of NUPE and the development of its shop steward organisation.
NUPE, which organised hundreds of thousands of low-paid local government employees, is now well-known for the strikes which meant “rubbish piling up in the streets” and “unburied dead”, playing an important role the collapse of Jim Callaghan’s 1976-79 Labour government. The union experienced rapid growth in the period under discussion in our forums, with 265,000 members in 1968; 433,000 in 1973; and 712,000 by 1979. Continue reading “meeting on ‘new methods of organising’”
We have published a new pamphlet ‘strategy for industrial struggle’, a reprint of a 1971 solidarity pamphlet with a new introductory essay by Chris Kane.
The solidarity pamphlet explores different forms of working-class action (strikes; occupations and sit ins; sabotage; work-to-rules and go-slows; etc.) and looks at how different tactics used relate to rank-and-file involvement and control over struggles. Similarly, Chris’s introduction examines the lessons and relevance of these ideas for today, and stresses the centrality of self-organisation, democracy, and resistance to the conservatism of the trade union bureaucracies when faced with draconian anti-union laws.
The 24-page pamphlet, the third we have produced, costs £1, or you can click here to download it: industrialstrugglepamphlet.pdf
If you would like to be posted a printed copy of the pamphlet, email us at uncaptiveminds@googlemail.com or write to The Commune, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London EC1V 4PY
by David Broder
Friday 10th saw a demonstration in the City of London called ‘march on the City’. The organisers of the 200-strong protest were the Socialist Workers’ Party, but a number of anarchists participated (no organisations or papers though) as well as two of us and a friend, a few from Workers’ Power and one person from the Socialist Party. The large majority of those in attendance were students.
The protest reprised some of the slogans of the “anti-capitalist movement” which existed around ten years ago, and there was plenty of militancy and activist energy on show. Of course, the real aim of the protest was not to put pressure on the government or banks (to do what?) but rather to give the SWP students “something to do” as part of the organisation’s current turn from East-End electoral work towards anti-fascist and anti-capitalist “activism”.
A rather more worthwhile protest will be the Schroders cleaners’ demonstration at 5pm on Friday 17th (details in Jake’s comment here). The National Shop Stewards Network has organised a further protest on Monday 13th at noon.
Below are some photos and a video. A couple of them are ripped off other websites. Continue reading “photo-report of ‘march on the city’ demo”
We have produced a leaflet on the need for workers’ management and explaining some of our basic political positions.
A pdf file of the 4-page A5 leaflet is below – since it’s landscape you’ll have to print it off, or failing that tilt your head side-on.
why we need workers’ management
We have also produced a pdf file of a leaflet we had earlier produced, the cost of living: it’s time to act
by Jack Staunton
A demonstration has been called for 4pm on Friday 10th October at the Bank of England (Threadneedle St, London EC2, Bank tube) with the slogan “We won’t bail out the bankers”.
Chris Bambery writes in Socialist Worker that “we need to take to the streets to demand, “No bail out for the bankers – we will not pay for their crisis!” From small acts of resistance we can craft a political force that can knock back those running this destructive system.”
Of course, working-class action amidst the financial crisis should not be some instrument for building a party, but rather action which actually helps us weather the storm of the economic situation. While demonstrations mocking bankers like Friday’s may seem attractive, the most pressing matter is not to make shallow propaganda arguing ‘look: capitalism is crumbling’ as if power is about to fall into our lap, but rather for the workers’ movement to organise to defend ourselves from the worst concrete effects of the current economic climate (which is not limited to side-effects of the financial slump). Unemployment and underemployment, casual work with no stability (as experienced by many of the UK’s 750,000 call centre workers) and huge increases in utilities bills are all set to become even more aggravated.
We have produced a leaflet ‘the cost of living: it’s time to act’ about reshaping the workers’ movement for modern realities – the text is below. Continue reading “‘march on the city’”
The Commune has published many reports from Bolivia, mostly translations of articles by the trade union news website Econoticias. We have also established contact with Socialismo o Barbarie, a group who have comrades in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica and Paraguay as well as Bolivia, and so are pleased to publish this translation of a recent SoB report on the social crisis there.
Bolivia on the brink of partition
By José Luis Rojo and Martín Camacho
From Socialismo o Barbarie in La Paz, 17th September
“The fascists shall not pass: the people will crush them”.
La Paz – Once again, events are moving rapidly in Bolivia. After two years of relative “calm” in the class struggle (2006-2007) in recent months the social and political convulsions traversing the country have again become red-hot.
Continue reading “between secession, revolution and suicidal deals”
We have added a new section to the website – videos– in order to advertise films portraying working-class struggles and other videos which may be of interest to our readers.
Currently the ‘videos’ section features links to three films relevant to our discussion series on class struggle in the 1970s, as well as the press conference held by Iranian socialist student activists on September 29th 2008; footage of the massacre of Bolivian peasants in Pando; and a debate with the Communist Party of Great Britain on the lessons of France’s May-June 1968 general strike.
Tom D has written this report of our ‘uncaptive minds‘ forum on ‘the debates on workers’ control’ held on Monday 29th September.
What does it mean for workers to control the institutions that determine the content of their lives? What does it mean for us to control organisations of struggle, factories, workplaces, production, consumption – and, ultimately, all society? This question matters, because it is posed ever more intensely, the higher the pitch of the class struggle, until it becomes the final question of politics. The answer is the difference between victory and defeat, communism and bureaucracy. Continue reading “tom d’s report of workers’ control meeting”
We have added some new articles to the ‘ideas‘ section of the website. Foreword by Chris Kane
The national question remains of particular concern to communists and socialists in the 21st century. One of the principle sources on the national question remains the writings of the Russian communist Lenin. Here is a critical examination of Lenin’s theory of the national question by the Ukrainian Marxist Andrij Karpenko, from the Ukrainian socialist journal META. We have also reproduced a pamphlet by the theorist of the then newly formed and at that time genuine Communist Party of Great Britain, William Paul, on the Irish question and its relationship to the world revolution.
Indeed, since the launching of The Commune many on the traditional left have been searching for ways to categorise us: we have been branded ‘anti-Bolsheviks’ by the Trotskyists and ‘Leninists’ by the anarchists. We recognise Lenin, with other communists of his generation, as an vitally important revolutionary of the 20th century. As critical Marxists, we neither demonise Lenin nor raise him to the figure of a Pope. On The Commune we have published a number of writers who have critically engaged with Lenin’s ideas such as Paul Cardan (Castoriadis). Here we reproduce a defence of Lenin against Cardan by Raya Dunayevskaya, the founder of Marxist-Humanism in the USA. Dunayevskaya was critical of Lenin, in particular his views on the leading role of the vanguard Party, but she was equally critical of anti-Leninists. The Scottish Marxist-Humanist edited by Harry McShane first published this article.
From Jake
The Schroders cleaners’ demo time has changed at the last minute to 1pm; the date is still Friday 17th October… here is their leaflet:
Schroders is a global asset management company with £130.2 billion (EUR 164.4 billion / $259.1 billion) under its management as of 30 June 2008. And it is paying its cleaners only £6 an hour.
The cleaners have been trying to get a pay rise for over 12 months. For all this time our management (Lancaster Cleaning Company) have kept promising an increase, and 3 times have stopped the cleaners demonstrating in front of Schroders Headquarters based on these promises.
We had been congratulated for our good job, but congratulations don’t pay our bills.
Now we have been told that not only will we not receive the London living wage, but also will lose our jobs because Schroders want a night shift to replace our 4 hrs part time shift, and to reduce the staff from 30 workers to 9 workers.
We are appealing to all Londoners to help us stop this injustice by supporting our demonstration in front of Schroders Headquarters: 31 Gresham Street, London EC2V 7QA on Friday 17th October 2008 at 1pm.
You can also send your letter of support to our email: schroderscleaners4justice@live.com
We want to thank you in advance for your support.
Sincerely
Cleaners from Schroders