On Thursday 26th was held the second of this week’s demonstrations in the City of London in support of the cleaners working for Willis victimised by Mitie, and twenty people – including cleaner activists and their supporters – turned out and mounted a strong display of solidarity in spite of the Unite union’s failure to do anything to help them. See here for reports on previous protests and posts outlining the dispute.
Category: demonstration
Wednesday 25th saw around 700 students march through London in protest against top-up fees and demanding free university education for all. The demo, predominantly organised by the Socialist Workers’ Party and Education is Not for Sale (involving independent socialists and anarchists but also led to a significant degree by the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty), was the first such demo in the last couple of years, given the National Union of Students’ virtual abandonment of any commitment to free education and its Labourite leaders’ cosying-up to the state bureaucracy, meekly making pleas that the government ought not increase fees beyond £3,000 upon its 2010 review.
Activists from across the country attended the demonstration, but the bulk of those attending were either from Trotskyist groups and their peripheries or a bloc of people with anarchist flags. Although most of the speakers at both the start and end of the protest called for student-worker unity, and many of the slogans advocated support for trade union struggles, in fact there were very few workers on the demo, even from the ranks of the UCU or NUT, since there is in reality little integration between workers’ organisations and the student movement, even its left wing. Nor did working-class students from sixth form/FE colleges attend in strong numbers, although some are building a London School Students’ Union.
Unfortunately, the mobilisation was also weakened somewhat by the fact that there were two separate organising committees (one for each group)… such is sectarianism. Furthermore, the Socialist Party’s shallow front “Campaign to Defeat Fees”, who mobilised several dozen on their contingent but were not really involved in organising the demo itself, voiced the “line” that we ought to use this national demo against fees as a springboard for a… national demo against fees.
Students have of course mobilised en masse in opposition to the Gaza war – 27 faculties having been occupied in the last couple of months – but when asked to protest in defence of specifically university-centred concerns seem to be rather less effective, no doubt in part due to the transitory nature of their spell in higher education and the extreme difficulty of successfully resisting measures such as fees, which cannot be pushed back in any one institution. Of course, more blandly “bread and butter” concerns such as free education should be at the heart of the student movement’s struggles, but it is also the case that so-called “big politics” around such issues as ecology or imperialism are of equal or greater importance for many young people.
Below are some photos and comments on the day: Continue reading “photo report: national student demo against fees”
On Tuesday 24th hundreds of Iranian students at the Polytechnic University (Amirkabir) rallied for the second day in a row in protest at the burial on the campus of the remains of five members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) left from the 1980-88 war with Iraq. At the demonstration students chanted anti-government slogans as they were attacked by the plain-clothes agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and members of the paramilitary Bassij students group dispatched from other Tehran school to help quell the protests, with slogans such as “Death to the dictator” and “We don’t want a fascist regime”.
Twenty-five students were arrested and transferred in police vans to unknown locations despite attempts by their classmates to get them released. This followed ten arrests of student activists in the last two weeks at the orders of the regime’s Ministry of Information. Four of the ten students, all of whom have been denied contact with lawyers or their families, are rumoured to be subject to psychological and physical torture. As this website reports in grim detail, these arrests are just the tip of the iceberg: already in 2009 many dozens of people have been hanged, stoned, lashed or jailed for standing up for the rights of workers, students and national minorities.
But at the same time as repression there are signs of hope, for example the powerful independent workers’ union which arose from last year’s 5000-strong strike at Haft Tapeh sugar and whose leading members are today being persecuted by the regime’s courts. For more information on how we can build solidarity with such movements, see the Hands Off the People of Iran site at www.hopoi.org.
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. Continue reading “protest by bmw/mini workers at cowley”
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”…
This discussion article by Dan Jakopovich puts forward a controversial take on the riots in Greece
On the wings of Seattle, the Zapatista rebellion in the Mexican state of Chiapas and other heights of the so-called “anti-globalisation” (or, more precisely, “alter-globalisation”) movement, by virtue of the failure of the bureaucratic path to socialism, the end of the last century and the beginning of the 21st century witnessed a growth in the popularity of “autonomism”, a more or less crystallised ideology according to which the successful struggle against capitalism presupposes turning one’s back on existing political institutions – the state, parties and elections, as if they will disappear if we ignore them.
Although many of those who participated in the Greek protests and occupations would not identify with this autonomist or anarchist strategy, in the Greek events it is nonetheless possible to clearly observe the autonomist assumptions in the power of “direct action”, independently from the existing balance of political and class forces, independently from the strength of the left-wing parties and independently from their election results.
In other words, many in Greece and the world nurtured the hope that it was possible not only to overthrow the Greek centre-right government, but also to tear down capitalism, although the anti-capitalist Greek parties – the semi-Stalinist Communist Party of Greece and the socialist coalition SYRIZA, despite very significant recent electoral advances – are far too weak to assume governmental power. But the autonomists do not want that since – despite the historical experience – they believe that there is a possibility of circumventing the existing political institutions and electoral strategy in developed multi-party systems. These are well-intentioned illusions. Even on Iceland, where the financial crisis and protests recently led to the downfall of the neo-con government, the power was taken over by the Social Democratic Party and the eco-socialist Left-Green Movement party. Continue reading “riots in greece – the “swan song” of autonomism?”
There is an ‘unofficial’ (so far) cleaners’ demo, tomorrow Thursday 12th February at 13:00 pm outside Willis’s building at 51 Lime Street, London EC3M
This is a result of negotiations breaking down over the reinstatement of six Unite union activists who were made redundant on the spurious grounds that they could not alter their shift hours exactly as Mitie cleaning company demanded. The dispute is detailed here.
Still doesn’t look like Unite will be supporting them. Please bring placards, banners, whistles, megaphones and anything else that makes noise.
The protest is being supported by Schroders bank cleaners.
To confirm you’re coming, text or call Alberto 07803 634 319
by Chris Kane
On 7 February a demonstration was held in Kherson in Ukraine in solidarity with the workers of the engineering plant now under workers occupation. Many workers came from other factories in Kherson and activists from left organisations in Ukraine. The workers occupied the engineering plant in opposition to redundancies and elected a workers council which is now in control of the factory.
Click here for an earlier report outlining the dispute.
Send messages of support for the workers at the factory: solydarity.ksmz@gmail.com
And to the coordinating committee in support of the occupation: rabochiy_komitet@googlegroups.com
More photos below:
Continue reading “demonstration at worker-occupied factory in ukraine”
On Saturday 7th around sixty people marched down London’s Stoke Newington Road to Hackney Town Hall in protest at the council’s neglect of Hackney residents in temporary accommodation, who are subject to very low levels of maintenance and poor hygiene as well as expensive rent. After speeches by residents outside the Alexandra Court Hostel describing the bad conditions (as detailed below), we marched through the streets. The protest was organised by the London Coalition Against Poverty, whose appeal for the protest is reproduced at the bottom of this piece.
by David Broder
Political confusion and London’s most severe snowfall for a decade conspired to undermine a picket of the Unite headquarters called by opponents of the oil refinery strikes. The two people who had organised to counter the picket were the strongest force at the union’s Holborn building throughout most of the evening.
The initiative for the picket came from a prominent member of the Trotskyist group Workers’ Liberty (AWL), who sent out a text and mass email on the evening of Sunday 1st: “Please let me know if you can come tomorrow for an urgent picket of the Unite union office to demand that this wave of nationalist protests stop. Theobalds Road, Holborn. Workers should fight the bosses not migrant workers and demand freedom of movement, equal rights and jobs for all… [details]… Nothing so seriously reactionary has happened in the movement while I’ve been alive…” Continue reading “unite picket: trotskyist snowmen’s protests melt away”
Report and photos by Jack Staunton
On the evening of Thursday 29th January a 100-strong demonstration took place outside a building hosting a meeting addressed by Israeli army (IDF) colonel Geva Rapp. The colonel had planned to come and advertise a pro-war book, tell stories of his military career and preach “unity among Israelis”, but anti-war activists stopped the event going ahead.
The turnout – overwhelmingly young people – was quite impressive given that the protests were organised with just a few hours’ advance notice of the meeting taking place. The IDF propaganda rally had not been publicly advertised, but a leaked circular email explained:
“London Jsocs will be hosting Colonel Geva Rapp, the head of the ground operations in Gaza (Operation Cast Lead)! This talk should be extremely interesting and valuable. However, please do not talk about this event on facebook due to security concerns and current high tension surrounding the conflict.”
True, the organisers were exaggerating somewhat the role of Geva Rapp in the war: but nonetheless succeeded in displaying their enthusiasm for the attack on the Palestinians and furthermore no doubt their “editorialising” helped attract more people to the anti-war demonstration. Some (blurry) photos and comments on the action below: Continue reading “demo stops IDF propaganda meeting in london, 29th january”
URGENT: DEFEND LATIN AMERICAN WORKERS’ RIGHTS
The MERU [Ecuadorians’ movement in the UK] solidarises with our comrades unjustly sacked by Mitie, who include Bolivian, Ecuadorian and Portuguese workers.
This dispute started a few months ago when Mitie, without consulting the workers as it ought to have done, established new contracts with Willis Group forcing workers to work full time at night. A situation which the cleaners could not accept.
This attack was confronted by the workers, but today the struggle is still going on and needs fresh support. So MERU is putting out a call out for a protest against the Mitie company so that the workers are either allowed back to work or re-located.
These sackings are taking place in various workplaces, so we must be on the alert and fight back in unity to guarantee our rights at work.
PROTEST FOR THE DIGNITY OF THE CLEANERS, SO THAT THEY ARE ALLOWED BACK TO WORK, FOR UNITY AND SOLIDARITY WITH CLEANERS
Assemble at the Willis Building, 51 Lime Street London EC3M 7DQ (nr Liverpool St) at 1pm, Friday 30th January.
Contact Edwin Pazmino 07931464890 or Juan Carlos Piedra 07908099375
info@movimientoecuador.co.uk, williscleaners4justice@live.co.uk
A second demonstration in defense of Sodexho cleaners will take place from 2:30pm on Friday 30th outside ING Bank, 60 London Wall.
by David Broder
On Saturday 24th took place the last of the major London demonstrations against the war in Palestine, after almost four weeks of embassy pickets and mass marches. Coming a few days after the end of the war but with a continuing siege of the Palestinians, the protest attracted around 2,500 people. Three people were arrested after clashes with police FIT squads (i.e. cops taking pictures of demonstrators’ faces).
This leaflet was distributed by a network of anti-capitalists who have worked together on Palestine solidarity. Some photos and comments on the day appear below. Continue reading “photo-report of 24th january london gaza demo”
After last week’s massive march to London’s Israeli embassy in opposition to the Israeli state’s attack on the people of Gaza, a much smaller set of regional actions was called for Saturday 17th by the leaders of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War Coalition. In London, a rally in Trafalgar Square was followed by a “women and children only” protest at Downing Street.
However, as an eyewitness who spoke to The Commune reports, not everyone was happy with such conservative ideas of how to protest:
The rally in Trafalgar Square attracted a few thousand people. There were the usual speeches: Tony Benn called for the RAF to drop humanitarian aid over Gaza… When the women and children’s march headed for Downing Street at about 4 o’ clock we tried to go with, but a steward kept repeating “You are neither a woman nor a child!” and held me back. Around one to two thousand people were left in the square.
At the same time, a few dozen people started heading down Cockspur Street, planning to go to the Israeli Embassy in Kensington but the police ‘kettled’ them [ surrounded them] right there and told them they couldn’t leave the square. People from the rally swarmed round them, breaking the police ‘kettle’ and freeing them. There was then a contingent of about 400 people, itself surrounded by police on horseback and with dogs… but this police line was also only one deep, and another group of 200 protesters broke through. Continue reading “report of 17th january palestine demo in london”
