council communism and anarcho-syndicalism: bristol reading group 30th may

The next Bristol reading group session will be on Sunday 30th May at 6pm in Café Kino on Ninetree Hill, Stokes Croft, Bristol.

The session will discuss views of council communism and anarcho-syndicalism. Suggested background reading below. All welcome: email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com for more info.

the heroic origins of may day

by Mark Harrison

On 1st May we celebrate the achievements of organised labour, but how did this tradition start? These origins take us back to America’s revolutionary socialist history and the struggle for the eight hour day.

At the October 1884 convention of the federation of Organised Trades and Labour Unions, a resolution was passed unanimously which stated, “that eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labour from and after May 1, 1886” and called for a general strike to meet these ends. There was great support for the cause and the American working class duly answered the call of the OTLU: more than 300,000 workers downed tools across the country. Chicago was the centre of the movement, 40,000 were out on strike and the city stood still.

nick clegg scared off school visit by strike

From Anti-academies alliance/TMP Online

The overwhelming majority of teaching staff at Crest Boys Academy were on strike to on Wednesday, 21st April. A planned visit to the school by Nick Clegg was cancelled.

The strike was taking place because E-Act (previously Edutrust) are making staff redundant despite recent reports of their Chief Executive, Sir Bruce Liddington, having a salary and bonuses approaching £300,000 per year and also lavish expenditure by top executives on luxury £300+ suites in hotels, mini-bar tabs and £250 pound taxi rides – all at taxpayer’s expense. Lord Bhatia, Chair of Trustees of E-Act, in its previous incarnation as Edutrust, resigned after allegations of financial irregularities.

and the struggle continues: women’s liberation 40 years on

Organised by Feminist Fightback. Sunday 2nd May, 2pm-6pm, Marchmont Community Centre, 62 Marchmont St, London WC1N 1AB

In 1970 hundreds of women gathered for a free conference at Ruskin College that would launch the Second Wave of feminism. As men provided the childcare, women discussed and debated ideas and experiences, and identified what the aims of the Women’s Liberation Movement as they saw it, should be.

Feminist Fightback invite you to an afternoon of film showings and discussions as we think about how far we have come, what feminism looks like today, how the struggle continues, and put the battles women fight today in the context of the history of the Women’s Liberation Movement.

putting the bank managers on the back foot

by Jack Staunton

On Friday 23rd April the traditional St. George’s Day celebrations returned to the City of London after a 425-year gap: but the streets of this capital of capital also witnessed events more internationalist in character.

As many as 100 people turned out for the latest in a series of demonstrations in solidarity with the migrant cleaners at Swiss bank UBS. The widely-supported campaign against an effective 11% pay cut and the victimisation of shop steward Alberto Durango has put management on the back foot (more details soon) and also served as a rallying point for a number of inter-related struggles.

please, stop deceiving our community

Colombian lawyer Miguel Puerto looks at the mainstream parties’ attitude to Latinos in Britain, undocumented immigrants and in particular the Liberal Democrat ‘amnesty’ proposal.

London Citizens and the Lib Dems are for a very restricted 'amnesty'

The electoral campaign in this, our second country, is in full swing and with this comes further deceit, manipulation and taking advantage of our community. It is saddening, sickening, that our community is seen as up for auction to the highest bidder, on offer to the political parties who always combine against the interests of our community, as they have done historically.

These parties – all of them – have passed laws and directives in the House of Commons and European Parliament to hunt down and punish  immigrants ‘without papers’, holding back and closing the door on legal immigration and thus denying the existence of political refugees.

beyond resistance: the commune’s 19th june summer school

A day of communist discussion and debate. From 11am-6pm on Sat 19th June at 96-100 Clifton St, London EC2. Details and ticket purchase information below. Download double-sided A5 leaflet or A3 poster.

The last few years have seen a series of crises for our rulers. Millions of us are angry at the ongoing economic crisis, the scandalous behaviour of ‘our’ MPs and the endless wars in the Middle East.

All of these crises are part and parcel of capitalist rule, but rarely is this system itself challenged. We are constantly told there is no alternative to capitalism. Every day at work and in our communities we live out the same capitalist order, the same hierarchies, the same alienation.

flying the flag for socialism in scotland

Ewan Robertson, Scottish Socialist Party candidate in Aberdeen North, contributes to our ongoing debate on participation in elections

I am a postgraduate student at Aberdeen University (MLitt Latin American Studies), and I am a member of the Scottish Socialist Party and Republican Communist Network, and an active supporter of the Tripping up Trump campaign.

In this short piece I’d like to explain firstly, what the approach of the SSP is to the 2010 General Election and how we have a fundamentally different approach to the election than the other parties, and secondly, why in my view it is useful to stand in elections in general.

3rd may london forum: should we vote?

Our next London public forum will see a debate on whether we should support candidates for Parliament. The meeting takes place three days before the general election, from 7pm on Monday 3rd May at the Artillery Arms, 102 Bunhill Row, near Old Street.

Many on the revolutionary left and labour movement are advocating the re-election of the Labour government. So should we tag along with Gordon Brown, vote for ‘socialist’ candidates, or have nothing to do with electoral politics? Join the debate. The discussion will be led off by Danny Ryan-Smith (The Commune) and Andrew Fisher (LRC).

‘we are fighting for now and for our future’

editorial of issue 13 of The Commune

As The Commune went to press the news media was dominated by coverage of the 6th May General Election. Both in mainstream politics and among the left there is much discussion of the policies of Labour, the Tories and Lib Dems.

Yet in reality there is little choice in the election. Parliament does influence our lives, and yet barely half of registered voters will vote. There is widespread disillusionment but no alternative in the election.

We believe that workers’ self-organisation is a far more important means of changing society. PCS, RMT and Unite members are all organising to stop the cuts planned by all three major parties.

gender, nation, class and the first intifada

by Aitemad Muhannah

Since Hamas was first established as an Islamic political movement within Palestinian society in December 1987 the leftist movement in Palestine has gradually come to be fragmented, and seems to be losing its popular constituency.

My own background as a women’s activist belonging to the PFLP from the 1980s until the mid-1990s leads me to argue that leftist parties and their popular grassroots organisations developed historically from incoherent ideological underpinnings, and that this has critically constrained their influence on Palestinians’ own systems of values and beliefs.

UBS worker detained by UK borders agency

by Chris Kane

We have received shocking news that Lancaster Cleaning Services, a contractor for Union Bank of Switzerland, has once again colluded with the UK Borders Agency against cleaners. On this occasion Lancaster, having taken over the contract at UBS, has provided the Borders Agency with information on one of their workers who had just left their employment.  Acting on this information the worker’s home was raided and he is being held at an as yet unknown location.

The only crime this worker has committed is coming to this country and getting a job!  This is not first time Lancaster and cleaning companies have utilised the Borders Agency to attack migrant workers and attempt to intimidate others from organising to improve their working conditions. Deportations have taken place at SOAS and Willis specifically against union organised workers. UNITE activist Alberto Durango was arrested at the behest of Lancaster Cleaning company. This is however the first time it has been used by Lancaster’s in connection with the contract at UBS contract.

anna walentynowicz: an inspiring class fighter

by Chris Ford

Alongside the Polish elite who died in the Smolensk air crash on 10th April was someone whose passing marks a sad moment in the history of the workers’ movement: Anna Walentynowicz.

Whilst the bourgeois media are marking her death as another opportunity to portray her life as part of the ‘fall of communism’ and a vindication of capitalism, this is not how Walentynowicz should be remembered. She was a true working class heroine: if this class fighter had lived in the West her obituaries would be pure vilification, portraying her  as someone from a bygone age.

a real alternative? the nick clegg phenomenon

by Sebastian Wright

Nick Clegg’s rise from shrinking violet of the political landscape to the ‘new Barack Obama’ (according to a Telegraph headline) can be attributed almost entirely to his performance in the the first British televised general election debate. With a foppish ‘I’m just a regular guy like you’ schtick that we have all been acquainted with since the early Blair,  Clegg’s only distinguishing rhetorical stance (we will get to substance in a minute) was his ‘I’m not like the other two’ line.

That apparently was enough to blow open the entire race. Albeit true that in terms of actual seats even Clegg’s phenomenal performance has not been enough to push the Liberal Democrats hypothetically beyond the 100 mark (compared to Labour who would still take around 280) in itself this has not dispelled the sense that Clegg has ‘shaken up’ the race. But the question is, surely, what and why are the media–and so it seems, the general population–getting so excited about this man?