travellers, the state and the meaning of solidarity

Richard B. argues that traveller support must now become a part of our movement

Only those leftists unable to think anything beyond ‘anti-cuts’ could have missed what has happened in Essex these past couple of months. The few select days of continuous media coverage were of the kind usually reserved for foreign wars and natural disasters.

Despite these momentary manifestations of traveller resistance which flashed across our screens, it is worth noting that the small-scale siege which set alight the largest traveller site in the country is not a new occurrence: a site at Hovefields, just up the road from Crays Hill, was evicted only in February; the residents of Dale Farm itself have been resisting the legislative lunges of Basildon council for six years; settled communities have been defending travellers from eviction since at least the 1970s, and indeed it is arguable that the majority of contemporary traveller culture is a response to the ideologies and developing technologies of governmental attack.

facing hopeless climate macropolitics, it’s time for direct action

a guest article for The Commune by Patrick Bond

In the run-up to the Copenhagen Summit from 7-18 December, the October-November Bangkok and Barcelona negotiations of Kyoto Protocol Conference of Parties functionaries confirmed that Northern states and their corporations won’t get their act together. Nor will Southern elites in high-emitting countries.

The top-down effort to get to 350 CO2 parts per million has conclusively failed. On the right, Barack Obama’s negotiators argue that the 1997 Kyoto Protocol is excessively binding to the North, and leaves out several major polluters of the South, including China, India, Brazil and South Africa. Hence Obama’s early November promise that he would come to Copenhagen to ‘clinch a deal’ is as hollow as the White House’s support for democracy in Honduras.

tribute to ernesto leal… and more attacks on latino workers by unite bureaucrats

collaboratively produced by members of the Latin American Workers’ Association (leerlo en castellano)

October was a sad month for Latin American workers residing in London, for two reasons. First came the death of Ernesto Leal, a Chilean committed to the cause of migrant workers, who was a founding member of the Latin American Workers’ Association. The other reason – shamefully coinciding with this loss – was the decision of the Unite union to kick out that same organisation our comrade Ernesto Leal helped found.

Given his dedication and his experiences it is worth revisiting a little of the history of this class fighter. He was born in far-off Chile in the late 1930s, son to a family devoted to the militant social struggles of the Chilean Communist Party. This political commitment on his parents’ part brought on their heads merciless political persecution, forcing them to live clandestinely and constantly change address.

no postal peace without an all-out strike

by Gregor Gall

Have you noticed your post isn’t arriving as regularly as it usually does? Have you noticed there are many days when you expected to get post but didn’t get a thing?

For a strike involving tens of thousands of workers and affecting millions of householders and businesses, debate about the current postal dispute is worryingly absent from the political arena. Neither Royal Mail nor the government is keen to say anything, whether good, bad or indifferent, about it. There is a wall of almost impenetrable silence. Indeed, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has accused the government of “going on strike” by refusing to do or say anything. The reason, the CWU alleges, is that the government is still smarting from having lost its battle to partially privatise Royal Mail earlier this year after a union-led rebellion.

exposed: soas unison, rmt and unite cleaner activists in the pay of the bosses

by Chris Kane

According to shocking information obtained by The Commune, union activists, with cleaning companies organised with UNISON (SOAS), RMT (LUL) and UNITE (Mitie and Lancaster) – are in the pay of the bosses!

This is of course a pack of lies, nevertheless it is a disgusting lie being officially circulated, in writing by a senior full-time official of UNITE, Jose Vallejo Villa un-elected organiser responsible for cleaners.