man dies as police clamp down on london g20 protest: photo-report

by David Broder

Today the capital saw a mass march on the City of London, with contingents from four stations around the Square Mile – representing the four horsemen of the apocalypse threatening the system (war; climate change; job losses and the capitalist crisis; lack of housing) – converging at the Bank of England. The numbers at this demonstration, held to coincide with this week’s G20 summit hosted by Gordon Brown, were far greater than those at the SWP-organised “March on the City” and Chris Knight’s “Dancing on the grave of capitalism” event held last October at the peak of the financial meltdown.

Even the Tory Evening Standard reported that there were 4,000 people at the Bank of England, and certainly the protest’s numbers were large for a weekday. However, the demo, as well as the Climate Camp, were tightly contained by the police via a system of ‘kettles’ with 5,000 police, horses and police vehicles on hand to encircle groups of protestors. All in all there were 63 arrests: and late in the evening we heard that a man had died as the police besieged the demonstrators from all sides.

Much unlike Saturday’s turgid march organised by the otherwise lethargic Trades Union Congress and some liberal NGOs, the protests in the City of London were of an anti-capitalist character, mostly animated by anarchists. However, in the recent furore about today’s “G20 Meltdown” the media has greatly puffed up the importance of Chris Knight, the radical anthropologist suspended from his University of East London post for saying that people were so angry that bankers might be hanged from lamp-posts

Photos and a few comments on the events appear below. Besides the events described and depicted in this article, the day also saw a Stop the War rally from the US embassy to the Excel Centre.

marxist analysis of ‘the apprentice’ episode one

by Jack Staunton

“the problem of unbridled free markets in an unsupervised market place is that they can reduce all relationships to transactions, all motivations to self-interest, all sense of value to consumer choice and all sense of worth to a price tag.”
Gordon Brown, speech to European Union parliament, 24th March 2009

Readers of the various websites and papers calling themselves ‘communist’ may be aware of the vogue in recent years for reviews of films, novels and TV programmes. These allow the writer not only to connect with ‘the young people’/’real people’, but furthermore to offer a ‘dialectical materialist’ take on the narrative therein and use their training in the works of Lenin and Trotsky to propose what the characters or people involved ought to have done to change the ending. After all, if you think it worthwhile to write a piece on why the workers who established the Paris Commune were defeated (their failure to build a vanguard party…) from the safety of nearly 140 years of history, why not proffer a catch-all solution for how Jack might have survived in Titanic, or how Blofeld might have finished off James Bond?

The best examples of this are the film and video game reviews to be found on the websites of the American groups ‘Monkey Smashes Heaven’ and ‘Maoist Internationalist Movement’, who give timelessly useful analysis such as “The Jokers of the world will never destroy the system. Only communist revolution will destroy Batman and the system he represents once and for all.” or  “Mao taught that the masses make history; the masses are the true heroes. If the oppressed act collectively, they can change the course of history and remake the world. The revolutionary outlook is diametrically opposed to the fatalistic, magical one of Slumdog Millionaire.”

Not to be outdone, The Commune is the first website to feature a properly Marxist analysis of the first episode of the latest series of The Apprentice.

solidarity, power, direction: lessons of france’s 19th march strike

Pete Jones reports from Paris on the 19th March strike day

Three hundred and fifty thousand people (according to organisers) marched on Paris on Thursday March 19th to vent their frustration at Nicolas Sarkozy’s mismanagement of and complicity in the current economic malaise. Paris factory workers also used the day to picket their workplaces, hoping to put further pressure on the government following a month of factory closures thanks to industrial action.

The march from République to Nation in the unseasonably warm sunshine was very pleasant but its final relevance is up for debate. In contrast, the day’s demonstrations finished with limited but significant rioting at Place de la Nation. Following a series of seemingly arbitrary arrests around five or six hundred youths confronted police chanting ‘Release our comrades!’ and throwing bottles and metal grills. The police responded by firing tear gas to clear the packed Place, eventually arresting around 300 people of whom just 49 will be charged.

trades union congress takes decisive action against redundancies

Ed Balls has described the current downturn as the greatest crisis of capitalism “in the last hundred years”, and wage-freezes and mass-lay-offs are biting hard.  Many of the millions of workers who are members of TUC-affiliated unions will be hoping that this august body will be standing up for them at this difficult time, perhaps by co-ordinating some sort of campaign of action to defend jobs. What does this organisation (whose headline slogan is the appalling “Britain at work”) so keen on ‘training’ and ‘advice’ advise that workplace activists do to stop the redundancies?

All is revealed in two new TUC pamphlets, Coping with the economic downturn and Facing redundancy. That’s right, ‘Coping’ and ‘Facing’, not ‘Resisting’ or ‘Stopping’. Indeed, neither publication features a single word on collective organising to stop redundancies, in a fully accurate reflection of the fact that the TUC will not be doing anything to prompt such action. Anyone looking over the TUC website will search in vain for any reference to trade unionism as a useful tool to stop the employers in their tracks.

report of conference ‘on the idea of communism’

by David Broder

This weekend Birkbeck in central London played host to a conference “On the Idea of Communism”, featuring such luminaries of Marxist academia as Slavoj Zizek (the main organiser), Toni Negri, Michael Hardt, Alain Badiou and Terry Eagleton.

The conference attracted nearly a thousand people, reflecting both the notoriety of the speakers and the renewed interest in communism and Marxist philosophy resulting from the economic crisis. There was even a session on ‘communism from below’. And the registration fee for anyone who wanted to discuss the future communist project was a mere… £100.

Strapped for cash, I did seriously consider just buying a ticket for the World Cup final instead.

30th march london forum: what unions do we have, and what do we need?

The next of The Commune’s ‘uncaptive minds‘ forums on “capitalism and the working class today” is on the subject of “what unions do we have, and what do we need?”

The meeting, taking place at the Lucas Arms near London’s King’s Cross from 7pm on Monday 30th, will be looking at the decomposition of the official labour movement in recent decades; the signs of revival of class struggle and the new forms of activism taking place among the casual workforce;  and the dynamics of rank and file and bureaucracy, and how we can empower self-organisation.

The speakers leading off the discussion will be John Moloney, a PCS activist in the Department for Work and Pensions; Fabien Liberski, Convenor and Health & Safety Officer in Southwark Council, who was victimised by his employer with the collusion of UNISON bureaucrats; and Alberto Einstein Durango, a cleaner activist who played an important role in the victory of cleaners at Schroders in the City of London and is now helping with the Mitie/Willis campaign in the face of resistance by the Unite union.

All are welcome to come and take part in the debate. Email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com to register your interest or to find out more information. A map appears below.

photo-report of protest against welfare reform bill

Today a group of protesters staged a demonstration inside a Government building as part of a Week of Action in opposition to controversial welfare reforms.

Dozens of activists stormed into a Department for Work and Pensions building in Westminster, shouting slogans and saying they were going to occupy the offices.

The protesters, from groups including Feminist Fightback and anti-poverty organisations, were dressed as bankers. They described the Government’s planned legislation as the “welfare abolition Bill” and claimed the measures would virtually abolish welfare for single parents and disabled people.

One of the protesters, Anne-Marie O’Reilly, from Feminist Fightback and London Coalition Against Poverty, said: “Everyone knows that the Government’s welfare Bill was designed by ex-banker David Freud.

“Even if it weren’t for the banks’ track records, the fact that he has recently defected to the Tories should make it clear this Bill needs to be thrown out.  They will throw us out of the building today, but we think it’s time they really throw the bankers and their interests out of Whitehall and stop penalising poor people, disabled people and single mothers.”

Another activist, Alice Robson, said: “The Government is bailing out the banks and giving them bonuses whilst cutting welfare benefits for the poor.  This Bill does not make sense – the Government should be targeting the rich not the poor to pay for their crisis.”

On this website recently we have published three articles looking at changes in the welfare system: Joe Thorne’s overview of the Welfare Reform Bill and this week’s Week of Action, Christine Hulme on Jobcentre privatisation and Chris Grover on unemployment under Brown and the recession.

See below for photos of today’s action.

lessons of the oil refinery wildcat strikes

by Professor Gregor Gall, University of Hertfordshire

Introduction

The engineering construction workers’ strike has been the most significant instance of workers’ resistance to the recession and its effects so far. Its significance is not just to be found in that it was a strike taking place in a recession – when conventional wisdom suggest workers do not strike because of their weakened labour market position. Rather, its significance is to also be found in the militant and successful collective action which took place and the dynamics of this which were driven primarily by the grassroots. It threw up critical issues of workers’ collective leverage, how labour markets operate, xenophobia, neo-liberalism and state regulation of labour.

Origins and Background

Redundancy notices were issued in late 2008 at Lindsey oil refinery for Shaws’ workforce after Shaws lost part of a Total contract at the site. Just before Christmas holiday, Shaws’ shop stewards were informed this work had been contracted to IREM, an Italian non-union company. Stewards explained to members that IREM would employ its own core (non-union) Portuguese and Italian workforce so the redundant workers would not be re-employed on the contract. This precipitated meetings with IREM to press the case for re-employment. Stewards were also told that IREM would pay the national rate for the job but this was met with suspicion.  

the political impossibility of class struggle in the mind of the bbc

Joe Thorne looks at the media treatment of the recent engineering construction workers’ strikes.

It is perhaps not surprising that the BBC and other mainstream media represented the Lindsey strikes in terms of nationalism, not class struggle. After all, the Corporation’s recent ‘White Season’ showed that, for the BBC, white British working class people are scared, vulnerable, and not a little xenophobic. The strikes – in overwhelmingly ‘white’ areas of the country, but involving many Irish and Polish workers – were therefore understood by journalists and editors unwilling to get to grips with details, as being simply against “the use of foreign workers” in inspiration.

the commune issue 3 – out now!

The March 2009 issue of The Commune is now on sale. £1 a copy, email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com to order. Click here for pdf.

The new paper features the following articles:

Don’t moan, organise! – editorial on the recession

Factory occupation in Ukraine – by a comrade in Kyiv

Unions and left parties let down Greek youth uprising – by Valia Kaimaki

Lessons of the oil refinery wildcat strikes – by Gregor Gall

The impossibility of class struggle in the mind of the BBC – by Joe Thorne

Occupations for Gaza: activism goes back to university – by Taimour Lay

More arrests in Iran – by Sam Parsa

School students get organised – interview with Tali Janner-Klausner

Lassalle’s state socialism – from Hal Draper’s Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution

Self-management and the environment – by Steve Ryan

protest by bmw/mini workers at cowley

report and photos by David Broder

A picket of the BMW-owned Mini factory in Cowley, near Oxford, was called for six o’clock this morning in response to last week’s sudden laying-off of 850 agency staff. The workers were informed that they had lost their jobs just one hour before the end of their last shift – provoking outrage at both management and the UNITE union, who colluded in keeping the affair a secret for the last three weeks. This sleight of hand was a blatant effort to stop workers effectively reacting to their redundancy, for example by occupying the plant as some workers suggested.

Today’s protest received a small degree of media coverage, after the widespread circulation last week of a video of workers confronting the union officials who had sold them down the river, such as site convenor Bernard Moss who told the Oxford Mail : “The problem we had was that we were under clear instruction we could not give out any information until the company said so. That caused a lot of concern from the workforce over the last couple of weeks. Although we are a trade union, we are employed by the company. If they give out an instruction, it would be a brave person to defy that. These days not many people would support a shop steward if he was sacked.” Clearly Moss has none too great an idea of the word ‘solidarity’ or the actual purpose of a trade union.

the nouveau parti anticapitaliste’s take on the crisis

On the weekend of 7th-8th February a new far-left party was formed in France, as 700 delegates representing 9,100 members held the first congress of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste. It was created at the instigation of the Trotskyist Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire and its semi-autonomous youth wing Jeunesses Communistes Révolutionnaires; the ex-Lutte Ouvrière minority faction l’Étincelle; a few other small groups, and thousands of previously unaffiliated individuals, many of them partisans of the anti-capitalist movements of the last decade. The moves coincide with the 29th January national strike day, and ongoing general strikes in the French-owned islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe.

The new party initiative, coming off the back of the LCR’s 1.5 million votes in the 2007 presidential race, has roused significant interest in the French media, and its election candidate Olivier Besancenot has become somewhat of a celebrity. It might be said that the NPA is the revolutionary group in Europe with the strongest hearing, repeatedly winning double-digit support in the polls, and its increased size, relative internal democracy and ‘openness’ as well as its radicalism and uncompromising hostility towards the idea of coalition government with the Parti Socialiste are to be welcomed.

But this rapid growth and the thrusting of one leading figure into the media spotlight creates significant political concerns as well as the positives of increased publicity. The LCR and its sister organisations around the world only a few years ago advocated ‘broad parties’ refusing to dilineate between reform and revolution, in a few cases disastrously supporting social-democrat governments who sold out their supporters. With Besancenot’s rhetoric about his heroes – from Che Guevara to Leon Trotsky – the mix of state-interventionist ideas and talk of workers’ self-management, and a largely politically ‘new’ membership,  the precise character of the NPA is all to play for, and here we publish the translation of an interesting NPA article responding to critiques by the right-wing weekly Challenges, which highlights some of these contradictions.

like a winter with a thousand decembers

A piece by the Athens-based TPTG/Blaumachen taking a detailed look at the worker and youth protests which swept across Greece in December 2008.

Reflections on the recent unrest in Greece: “The rise of new organisational forms and contents of struggle is being discussed by all the insurgent elements”…

report on oil refinery strikes meeting

by David Broder

On the evening of 13th February the Socialist Party and Respect Renewal held a joint meeting in London on the recent wildcat strikes by construction workers across Britain. Apparently the only significant meeting on the strikes taking place in the capital, the meeting was led off by Lindsey Oil Refinery strike committee member Keith Gibson (SP) and the left candidate for general secretary of the Amicus section of Unite, Jerry Hicks (RR). The meeting was a mix of interesting and informed commentary and sectarian jibes.

Speaking to a sixty-strong audience, Keith Gibson gave an interesting talk on the background to the dispute and how workers had argued that the strike was not a national or race issue, but one of class. The employer had sought to divide the workforce by keeping the Italian migrant workers on barges away from their local counterparts, and the media had played up the significance of nationalist elements, but he had been able to appeal to internationalist sentiment. When some people went to intimidate the Italian workers in the barges, strikers had broken up their demonstrations, while the BNP were chased off picket lines upon their arrival.