london cwu members to vote on labour party affiliation

by Jack Staunton

Thousands of members of the London region of the Communications Workers’ Union are to vote in an ‘indicative ballot’ over affiliation to the Labour Party. The vote comes not only during a round of post strikes as the government makes sharp cuts in Royal Mail, but also at a time when Gordon Brown’s party are increasingly dependent on union funding.

The CWU has furthermore tabled a motion on political representation at this week’s Trades Union Congress in Liverpool; however, such resolutions, and indeed the current ‘indicative ballot’ are non-binding and most of the union leadership have only demanded a few crumbs from Labour in exchange for their millions of pounds of backing. Previous threats against the Labour leadership have rarely been backed up.

14th september reading group: why do workers form trade unions?

Monday 14th from 7pm at the Artillery Arms, 102 Bunhill Row, near Old Street station, London

The Commune’s next course of reading groups is entitled ‘Schools for communism?’ and is on the subject of workplace organising and theories of trade unionism.

Following a recent series on ‘communism from below’, this autumn we will look more closely at how the working class organises and the limitations of different means of struggle.

The first session will be on the themes:

– What relations underlie the exchange between capital and workers?

– What mechanisms do management use to try and get workers to produce more for less money?

– In what different ways have workers organised to resist this? Of what particular importance are trade unions as a means of organising?

the commune issue 7 – out now!

The September issue of our monthly paper The Commune is now available. Click the image below to see the PDF, or see articles as they are posted online in the list below.

To purchase a printed copy for £1 + 50p postage, use the ‘donate’ feature here. You can also subscribe (£12 a year UK/£16 EU/£20 international) or order 5 copies a month to sell (£4) online here. If you want to pay by cheque, contact uncaptiveminds@gmail.com.

troops out of afghanistan! – editorial of The Commune

wildcats show how to fight royal mail bosses – by Paul Haste

government pressure on civil service: crunch time for pcs left – by Steve Ryan

wind turbine occupation ends, but struggle continues – by Gerry Emmett

purnell’s new ‘old labour’ is just new ‘new labour’ – by David Broder

resisting redundancy and recession: reappraising the tactic of occupation – by Gregor Gall

amey struggle: burn your bridges, save your dignity – by Mónica del Pilar Uribe Marin

latin american migrants: organising against racism and exploitation – by an Ecuadorian migrant worker

exposed: soas unison, rmt and unite cleaner activists in the pay of the bosses – by Chris Kane

update on the activities of the commune around britain

afghan women bear brunt of hypocritical ‘war on terror’ – by members of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan

yes, chris ann, obama is punking us – by Ernie Haberkern

beyond props for capital – by Allan Armstrong

liberalism, citizenship and democracy – by Mark Ellingsen

the workers’ self-management alternative – by Chris Kane

review of the july/august left press – by Nathan Coombs

building from below: the case for working in residents’ groups – by Dave Spencer

latin america’s future is being played out in honduras – by Roberto Sáenz

the amey case: burn your bridges, save your dignity

by Mónica del Pilar Uribe Marin

Two of the workers sacked by Amey in September 2008, who had fought for reinstatement and compensation, recently lost their legal battle, which had lasted almost a year. A judge made clear on August 10th that the verdict was final and cannot be appealed: the plaintiffs had defamed the company by handing out leaflets where the names of Amey and its manager Laura Jordan were in bold capital letters, something deemed aggressive and ‘inexcusable’ in the English language.

Julio Mayor and Pedro Rengifo thus lost the case, their jobs and the money they had been offered (an attempt to buy their silence: they refused with – and for the sake of – their dignity).

government pressure on civil service: crunch time for pcs left

by Steve Ryan

The PCS civil service union faces yet another massive challenge.

The government have signalled the intention to alter the Civil Service Compensation Scheme  (CSCS) as it is apparently “too generous “. The effect would be dramatic, halving redundancy payments for example.

The union is getting ready for massive consultation exercise with members, No doubt industrial action will be necessary.

resisting redundancy and recession: appraising the tactic of occupation

by Gregor Gall

In times of recession and restructuring, the occupation or sit-in tactic is potentially a powerful tool when workers are faced with redundancy because it provides leverage that strikes often cannot. Yet, since late 2007 when the global downturn began, we have witnessed very few examples of occupation – certainly far fewer than might have been expected given the depth and extent of recession.

So to date the numerical roll call of occupations has been: Australia (2), Britain (7), Canada (4), Eire (7), France (28) and the US (1). It is worth bearing in mind the relative context of the size of the labour forces of each of these countries. Respectively, these are 11m, 31m, 18m, 2m, 28m, and 153m.

free valentin urusov!

by Simon Pirani

An international campaign has been launched for the release of Valentin Urusov, a Russian miner framed up and imprisoned after recruiting workmates to a union.  

Urusov, an employee of Alrosa, the diamond mining company, is serving six years’ hard labour for an obviously fabricated offence (possession of drugs).  

ssangyong motors strike in south korea ends in defeat and heavy repression

by Loren Goldner

The Ssangyong Motor Company strike and plant occupation in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, ended after 77 days on Aug. 5. For the 976 workers who seized the small auto plant on May 22 and held it against repeated quasi-military assault, the settlement signed by Ssangyong court receivership manager Park Young-tae and local union president Han Sang-kyun represented a near-total defeat. Worse still, the surrender was followed by detention and interrogation of dozens of strikers by police, possibly to be followed by felony charges, as well by a massive ($45 million) lawsuit against the Korean Metal Workers’ Union and probable further lawsuits against individual strikers for damages incurred during the strike. The hard-right Korean government of Lee Myong Bak is signaling with these measures-its latest and most dramatic “take no prisoners” victory over popular protest in the past year and a half– its intention to steamroller any potential future resistance to its unabashed rule on behalf of big capital.

‘schools for communism’? reading group on trade unionism and workplace organising

“The Trade union is not a predetermined phenomenon … ..it becomes a determinate institution , i.e. takes on definite historical form  to the extent that the strength and will of the workers who are its members impress a policy and propose an aim that defines it.” (Antonio Gramsci)

The next of The Commune’s reading group series in London will be on the topic of workplace struggle and the theory of trade unionism. Following our recent series on ‘communism from below’, this series will look more closely at how the working class organises and the strengths and limitations of different means of struggle.

The autumn 2009 sessions’ details appear below – the appropriate texts will be uploaded shortly as well as venue details. We encourage free discussion and do not set down a ‘party line’ – the discussion is roughly based on the given questions and the reading material, but also its practical implications in the context of today. Indeed, the second part of the series, in early 2010, will look at the changed shape of the working class and such themes as casualisation, globalisation, migrant workers, gender division of the workforce and anti-union laws. Email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com for more details.

the unions on new grounds: when the workmate becomes a client

The next of The Commune’s London reading group series is on the subject of “‘Schools for communism?’: workplace organising and theories of trade unionism”. We will be looking at different conceptions of how unions are formed, their role in the structures of capitalism and their limitations, and then studying  more concretely various aspects of organising in the 21st century. A full agenda will be published shortly. This piece from Prol Position is on the reading list, and takes an interesting view of the current brand of organising initiatives.

Militant Research, self-interviews, workers’ centres, campaigning and organizing: currently there is a part of the left that gets enthused by ‘undogmatic approaches’ which tackle the question of resistance within waged work. Study trips to the US, visits at workers’ centres and at organizing campaigns all give the impression that these new instruments of union struggle will shake up the rusty white-dominated union landscape in Germany because the target of these initiatives are principally young immigrant workers, women and employees in the service sector. Is a completely new and different union in the making? Or, to put the question differently: does the crisis of the institution “union” open up spaces for new forms of organising? Does the union apparatus provide help for opening new doors or do lefty activists let themselves be instrumentalised in order to provide the institution with a new and up-to-date outfit?

immigration ‘points system’ plans to stifle migrants’ freedom of speech

by David Broder

On Monday 3rd August the government outlined its new proposals for a ‘points system’ through which immigrants to the United Kingdom can seek citizenship. The ‘points system’ will see migrants ‘earning’ their citizenship in a ‘probation’ period following a five-year stay, as opposed to the current set-up whereby five years of working in the country automatically entitles them to apply.

The system will reward those who can fill in gaps in skilled jobs and who are willing to move to areas with labour shortages – a blatant display of the business imperatives behind the use of immigration controls, shepherding the workforce – as well as extending the usual demands on immigrants to pass an exam on the UK’s history and constitution and the use of the English language (this despite the huge cuts in English for Speakers of Other Languages provision).

One particularly worrying new development, however, is that the new measures will see immigrants subject to state approval of their political activities, with bonus points for “playing a role in the democratic life of the country” via “membership of political parties and trade unions” and minus points for what the government deems “bad behaviour”, which may include even legal protests and activism.

france’s cgt union: doing the immigration police’s dirty work

Winter 1980-81 in France saw the French Communist Party (PCF) use its municipal power to attack immigrants in Paris, with the Vitry-sur-Seine council organising bulldozers to stop the construction of a hostel for 300 workers from Mali (therefore leaving them homeless) and leading member Robert Hue, mayor of Montigny-lès-Cormeilles, leading a march against immigrants he had labelled “drug traffickers”. Now again in 2009 the chauvinism of France’s institutional left has reared its ugly head.

At midday on 24th June, migrant workers without papers were dragged out of the Paris Bourse du Travail, where they had sought sanctuary for the previous 14 months, by fifty of the security guards of the Confédération Générale du Travail, France’s largest trade union federation. This operation by the union occurred on the same day as anti-immigration hardliner Brice Hortefeux became the new Interior Minister, as la Promethée report:

The Paris Bourse du Travail is co-managed by the left-wing mayoralty and the trade unions. With the exception of the Solidaires union, all this “happy family”, relieved by the CGT’s initiative, has chosen to remain silent so that people might forget their failure to act to defend workers without papers. These sans papiers were not occupying the Bourse du Travail in the manner of striking workers occupying their workplace, management offices or a public space. They had found refuge there. It would make sense for such union buildings to protect workers without rights being harassed by the capital’s police, given that the latter would even invade churches to get at them.

vestas – the struggle on the horizon

By Joe Thorne

An important struggle is brewing on the Isle of Wight: we all need to take note, both of what has happened so far (and the lessons we can learn from it); and the possibilities in the coming weeks.

A factory, the only remaining manufacturer of wind-farm turbines in the UK, is due to be closed by its owners, Vestas, who are making all 500 workers redundant.   The company, like so many of those making redundancies at the moment, is using the recession as cover for cuts which are motivated by nothing other than ordinary cost cutting.  Jobs are being moved to the USA.

But this is not only about jobs.   News of the planned closure has also ignited outrage in the movement against climate change.  When we should be converting to an economy based on renewable, low-carbon energy, the closure of the Vestas factory is just what doesn’t need to happen.  So Vestas is not just a class fight – though it is that.  It is a class fight which raises issues of climate change, and the tension between capitalist production, and social production.

Workers are now discussing occupying one of the two sites on the Isle of Wight, and need the support of workers and climate change campaigners everywhere.

update on cleaner activism in london

Alberto Durango’s appeal: A very lively demonstration of trade unionists joined victimised rep Alberto Durango at his appeal with Lancaster Cleaning Company on Friday 3rd July. The demonstration was endorsed by John McDonnell MP and numerous other figures from the labour movement.

The employer was presented with a powerful case for Alberto’s reinstatement and responded saying they are re-investigating as a result of new evidence. In fact the evidence in question was predominantly Lancaster’s own company records, an indictment of their decision to sack Alberto in the first place.

LRC Supports Willis cleaners and Alberto: The National Committee of the Labour Representation Committee has added its voice in support of the Willis cleaners and Alberto.