Miliband is no Militant

by David Broder

Yesterday afternoon Ed Miliband loomed large on a TV screen near where I was sitting. The sound was turned off, so there were only subtitles. “Whatever your view on the Iraq war it led to an appalling loss of…” A few seconds before the next word flicked up on the screen. ‘Life’, right? No. “Whatever your view on the Iraq war it led to an appalling loss of trust for us”.

But never fear, Ed, there are many on the left who opposed the war but are now pushing the anti-cuts movement towards Labour. Not just saying we need to pull Labour voters into our struggles, but focussing on the structures of the party and making plaintive appeals for Labour leaders to fight the cuts and fulfil their promises to the Trades Union Congress.

demo in solidarity with UCL cleaners, 28th september

A call-out from activists at University College London. See here for an Evening Standard report on the cleaners.

At UCL most cleaning services and all catering services are outsourced. A number of different contracts currently exist, with varying employment terms for cleaners specifically.

All outsourced cleaning staff, of which we estimate there to be around 180, receive well below the London Living Wage – many are on £6/hour, while others are on the National Minimum Wage of £5.80.

democracy and self-management in cuba

Guillermo Almeyra outlines an alternative to the Cuban government’s plans to slash 20% of the workforce and privatise parts of the economy in order to deal with the crisis.

Predictably, the global crisis – together with the criminal US economic blockade – is now taking an even heavier toll on Cuba, reducing levels of tourism and remittances sent home by Cubans abroad.The growing difficulties of the Venezuelan economy, as well as the aggravation of climactic disasters, are also factors we have to consider when looking at how to save the island from economic abyss.

Cuba is a country which has been in deep crisis for more than 20 years – a whole generation – and which has no real change nor encouraging signs on the horizon, merely a hard struggle for survival, which besides is led by the same system and the same leaders who have helped create the current disastrous situation and do not know how to escape it.

coca-cola: it’s the real sting…

From Practical Solidarity (info@practical-solidarity.org.uk)

Workers at Coca-Cola bottling plant in Edmonton, London N18 came out on strike on 15 & 16 Sept. They have been offered an absurd, below-inflation 2 per cent pay rise, while conditions have generally been eroded in the factory. The pension scheme has also become a lot worse – despite the fact the company made £620m last year! Workers are bitter about the non negotiating management, saying this is a dictatorship.

Coca Cola workers on strike last month in Bremerton, Washington State

On both days there has been a noisy picket with around 35 workers present, one half outside the factory, the other under the flyover opposite. There were flags aplenty and placards too – also saying “Fair play, not foul play for Coca Cola workers”. Chants and shouts echo the site. Section reps and senior stewards were on the picket, with most workers coming off shift onto the line. It’s always a full picket.

resolution on communist recomposition

Recently there have been discussions in an around The Commune about how communists should work together. At our recent conference we passed this motion on principles of communist recomposition.

“Recomposition” is a term used within The Commune to denote an organisational regroupment of existing communists in which we would participate.  Various conceptions have been suggested.  However, we should agree a few basic principles which will guide us as an
organisation:

cuba: the island of happiness ?

“Even Communist Cuba has got with the programme that we need to cut  the budget deficit and actually get spending under control. We’ve got comrade Castro on the same page as the the rest of us.  We’ve just got to get the Labour Party and the trade unions on to that planet at the same time.” – David Cameron at Prime Minister’s Questions, September 15th

This week the state-run Cuban trade union confederation announced government plans to lay off 1 million public sector employees, some 20% of the working population. Half of the cuts will be over the next six months alone, in what marks a stunning retreat for the Communist Party and a sharp attack on working-class living standards. President Raúl Castro has targeted workers’ “dependency” on the public sector: by which he means, the same bureaucratic and management apparatus which closely monitors many aspects of everyday life in the country.

In this article Eduardo Semtei, a former Venezuelan government bureaucrat, describes his impressions of ordinary Cuban citizens’ lives. Although The Commune does not share Semtei’s politics – for instance, he harshly criticises the Venezuelan government for subsidising Cuba – his comments do offer an insight into existing social relations and the warped model of “socialism” on the island.

manchester class struggle forum on the miners’ strike, 22nd september

The next meeting of the Manchester Class Struggle Forum will take place on the subject of The Great Miners’ Strike of 1984-85, a member of the Wildcat and Subversion Council Communist groups shall be providing a short lead-off and there will be plenty of time for discussion. From 7pm on Wednesday 22nd September at Friends Meeting House on Mount Street.

The miners’ strike of 84-85 was the last great example of open class warfare in the United Kingdom, some parts of Yorkshire were turned into a police state, solidarity was sent to the miners from across the world, yet the experience was still a bitter defeat for the working class.

bristol reading group on primitivism and eco-socialism

The next Bristol reading group session will be on Sunday 26th September at 6pm in Café Kino on Ninetree Hill, Stokes Croft, Bristol.

Note that we are back at Café Kino. The session will discuss anarchist primitivism and eco-socialism. Suggested background reading below. All welcome: email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com for more info.

friday 17th: demo in solidarity with berns cleaners

There will be a mass demonstration outside the offices of London & Regional, 55 Baker Street, London W1U 8EW on  Friday 17th September 2010 from 4-6pm.

This follows a very successful mass demonstration on Friday 13th August. Since our action demonstrations in Sweden have gone up to 4 times a week. We want Berns Salonger and their parent company London Regional to know we too are not going away. Please speak to your comrades, colleagues, fellow workers and friends and mark the date in your diary. Let’s all set aside the time to make this an even bigger and more successful demonstration.

letter to the commune – a view from the periphery

A comrade from York writes

I have read recent issues of The Commune with excitement, interest and a degree of scepticism. My comments reflect, on the one hand the continuing influence of ‘Solidarity for Workers’ Power‘ in the 60s on my political ideas and, on the other, my desire to see some vehicle in the here and now through which I might express a sense of class solidarity and purpose.

They also reflect the material position of class struggle in this locality – isolated, defensive, fragmentary and unsure of itself. They express an aspiration for something better, more energising, courageous and collective. They imagine something communist, in the best sense of that word, beyond the present sense of powerlessness and alienation. They represent a rejection of the fossilised remnants of the left and parallel much of what is contained in The Commune’s statement of aims and principles, especially the desire to renew the communist project – as Solidarity sought to do fifty years ago.

marx, bakunin and the question of authoritarianism

David Adam casts doubt on the traditional narrative regarding the question of authoritarianism in the Marx-Bakunin conflict

Historically, Bakunin’s criticism of Marx’s “authoritarian” aims has tended to overshadow Marx’s critique of Bakunin’s “authoritarian” aims. This is in large part due to the fact that mainstream anarchism and Marxism have been polarized over a myth—that of Marx’s authoritarian statism—which they both share.1

Thus, the conflict in the First International is directly identified with a disagreement over anti-authoritarian principles, and Marx’s hostility toward Bakunin is said to stem from his rejection of these principles, his vanguardism, etc. Anarchism, not without justification, posits itself as the “libertarian” alternative to the “authoritarianism” of mainstream Marxism. Because of this, nothing could be easier than to see the famous conflict between the pioneering theorists of these movements—Bakunin and Marx—as a conflict between absolute liberty and authoritarianism. This essay will bring this narrative into question. It will not do this by making grand pronouncements about Anarchism and Marxism in the abstract, but simply by assembling some often neglected evidence. Bakunin’s ideas about revolutionary organization lie at the heart of this investigation.

impressions from the sandwell bin strike – 8 september 2010

by two (wasted?) workers from The Commune

We went to Sandwell near Birmingham for the second of a series of one day strike at the local waste depot. The strike is officially called for by Unite and GMB. Like the bin strike in Leeds this year, it is about the single status policy. Due to loss of bonuses and down-grading a loader with 20 years seniority would have to face a significant wage loss: from £21,000 to £17,900. Looming in the background of the dispute is the fact that the council will outsource the waste collection to the private company Serco in November this year. The take-over in Sandwell – waste management for around 125,000 households – is Serco’s biggest single job in the UK: a £650 million contract, running for 25 years. The company and council officially guarantee 12 months terms and conditions to the council workers. The take-over and single status effects around 130 council bin men.

Since July this year workers had been on work-to-rule. In response the council hired 15 extra trucks and engaged around 100 extra temp workers for clearing up unfinished rounds – before the dispute started temp workers accounted for only 15 per cent of the work-force. Currently the new temp workers work from a different depot in nearby Cradley Heath, around 10 kilometers from Sandwell. In August the work-to-rule has been lifted and a series of one day strikes has been announced. Normally around 35 trucks do the rounds in Sandwell. After the first one-day-strike in the previous week some of the council permanent workers decided not to join the second strike. They and temp workers hired by the council-run temp agency manage to staff 15 trucks. Currently 15 trucks leave the depot in Sandwell and 15 more trucks are run from the depot in nearby Cradley.

“i am not a man or a woman, i am a transexual”

Transcript of a speech given at Hackney Pride 2010. Transman and anarchist communist Jamrat Mason discusses gender, sexuality and sexism and the wider relevance of transgender issues in society. One paragraph that was omitted from the actual speech for reasons of length is included below in italics.

My name is Jamrat Mason and I have a vagina. I’m involved in East London Community Activism but today I’m here to speak “as a trans person” about transgender issues. The term “transgender” is a broad term that refers to to a massive spectrum of people who in some way veer away from the gender written on their birth certificate. So, I cannot, in any way whatsoever, be representative of transgendered people. I can only talk about the world as I see it, from where I’m standing, as a transexual.

women at the cutting edge…

An event hosted by Feminist Fightback. Saturday 30 October 11am – 5pm, QMW Mile End Road, London E1  (provisionally – please check feministfightback.org.uk for confirmation).

Open to people of all genders. Free creche available: please send an email to feminist.fightback@gmail.com to confirm a place.

On 20 October the ConDem government’s “Spending Review” will detail enormous cuts in public services. We are already feeling the impact of earlier cuts, many effected by Labour: nurseries and libraries are closing, jobs are being lost. As the government “austerity drive” steps up, the reality is that cuts will hit the lives of all but the wealthiest. In many cases women will be hit the hardest with recent reports estimating that women will suffer 72% of the tax and benefit cuts.