batay ouvriye call for solidarity with workers in haiti

An appeal by Haitian union Batay Ouvriye

Details for sending donations to Batay Ouvriye via UK bank accounts follow

For us, the Haitian people, the earthquake in Port au Prince, on 12 January 2010 hurt deeply. In fact, apart from the destruction of the public buildings most of our neighbourhoods were destroyed. Not surprisingly they are the most fragile and the most unstable: the state never gave them any service, any attention or helped them consolidate. On the contrary, we need to be able to move, so we have neither time nor capacity to be able to consolidate our position from being precarious.

Meanwhile some capitalists are trying to force the workers back to work in damaged factories, owners of large businesses are opposed to distributing their goods and sell them at a high price, the state proves again, as always, by its absence, its incapacity and incompetence (the only thing they do is steal and maneuver, supporting the landlords, the bourgeois and the multinationals), the national police are absent (they only know how to repress the people) and the imperialist forces are clearly taking advantage of the aid they give. They intend to establish a clear and definitive control over factory workers, workers of all kinds and the suffering masses in general, who are extremely dependent, with this disastrous situation.

what the TV doesn’t tell us about haiti

by Claudio Testa
Socialismo o Barbarie

The world’s TV is showing, as we might expect, a false picture of reality. In the case of Haiti, this is all the more outrageous given the circumstances. With barely disguised racism they paint the picture of a people who are suffering but “ignorant” and “barbarous”, incapable of “keeping order” by themselves after the earthquake, necessitating a renewed colonial occupation, with a fresh US invasion.

Of course, no-one mentions the two-hundred-year sentence capitalism and imperialism imposed on the Haitian people for having carried out the only successful slaves’ social revolution in history. Still less do they tell us about recent events, like the significant workers’, students’ and peasants’ struggles against colonial occupation and Preval’s puppet government which developed in 2009.

the rise of the far right and anti-fascism: february 16th, sheffield

The next communist forum in Sheffield will be a discussion on the rise of the far right in Britain today, the character of fascism, and how we should organise against this threat.

The meeting takes place from 7pm on  Tuesday 16th February at The Rutland Arms, 86 Brown Street, Sheffield S1 2BS. Email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com to express your interest or ask for more info – see below for some background reading for the meeting.

on the electoral strategy of the scottish socialist party

Scotland’s Republican Communist Network have produced this document looking at organisational and political aspects of the Scottish Socialist Party’s electoral strategy in the wake of the recent by-election in Glasgow North East.

1. How did the SSP publicly assess the by-election result?

The Republican Communist Network (RCN) welcomes the decision of the SSP Executive Committee (EC) to open up the discussion to members about the lessons we can draw for future electoral work from the Glasgow North East by-election.

the road to oil: hope and fear in congo

War-torn eastern Congo is preparing for another natural resource struggle: this time for two billion barrels of oil at Lake Albert. Controversial British companies are set to play a defining role.

by Taimour Lay
from Democratic Republic of Congo

To travel the warped, pot-holed road east from Bunia, the war-torn capital of Ituri, eastern DRC, to the shores of Lake Albert, is to follow a trail of old enmity and blood. The first town you pass is Bogoro, site of one of the most notorious massacres of the Congolese civil war (1998-2003)  – 200 civilians killed in just a few hours on 24th February 2003, a crime for which militia leader Germain Katanga is now facing trial at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Then the placid coastal village of Tchomia on 31st May: 250 killed. Next the town of Kasenyi: another 100 lives lost.

the state of the struggle: london forum, 2nd february

The next of The Commune’s series of London public forums will explore the themes raised by the coming general election campaign. The first such meeting will review the class struggle in the era of the New Labour government. What were the successes, what opportunities were missed, and how will we resist the post-election ruling class onslaught?

The meeting takes place from 7pm on Tuesday 2nd February at the Artillery Arms, 102 Bunhill Row, near Old Street (map below). Speakers confirmed so far include participants in last year’s Royal Mail, Visteon and Tower Hamlets College strikes.

solidarity with the people of haiti – US troops out!

by Claudio Testa
Socialismo o Barbarie

Much of the media has portrayed Haitians "looting" - the US has intervened to "restore order"

Although UN troops have been occupying the country for six years, the USA has decided to engage in a second invasion of its own, without even going through the farce of “consulting” previous occupiers.

tube pay deal: the wages of disunity?

A member of Finsbury Park RMT looks at the London Underground (LUL) dispute and the role of the unions on the Tube

Once again it is nearly a year since we should have had a pay rise. It has been settled after a protracted campaign led industrially by the RMT while the other unions maintained a deafening silence (apart from a certain union leader who encouraged his members to scab in the summer).

the limitations of corporatism: discussion on 1960s-70s trade unionism

The next of our London reading groups on workplace organising and trade union theory takes place on Monday 25th January. We will be looking at the 1960s-70s upsurge in the labour movement in the UK and the “limitations of corporatism”.

The meeting takes place from 7pm at the Artillery Arms, 102 Bunhill Row, near Old Street. See below for the recommended reading material and the questions for discussion.

anger over obama healthcare bill creates uncertain future

Jane Slaughter looks at the US healthcare debate and the Democrats’ defeat in this week’s Massachusetts senate vote (from Labor Notes)

A Massachusetts local union president called it before the January 19 vote for senator: “I’ve never seen this much anger at the Democrats from union people,” said Jeff Crosby, president of a General Electric factory local near Boston, as he prepared a last-minute leaflet to hand out in the plant. “It’s worse than NAFTA.”

Top union leaders had bargained a compromise slowing down the health care benefits tax President Obama insisted on, but it was not enough to placate union members—and others—infuriated that Obama had broken his campaign promise not to tax benefits.

bristol communist discussion group, this sunday

The first of The Commune’s Bristol reading group sessions will be on Sunday 24th January at 6pm in Cafe Kino on Ninetree Hill, Bristol.

The series of sessions is entitled “Alternatives to capitalism”. The first session is called “Capital and capitalism”. A brief look at the features of capitalism. Capital, wage-labour, profit, capital accumulation and its effect on our lives.This first session sets the scene and will allow us to contast proposed alternatives.

radical education reading group

A small group of us have been meeting once a month to make some time to think about the links between education and social change. Last year we had some really interesting discussions on adult literacy, privatisation, Marxism and education, Freirian pedagogy, and deschooling, but we want to get bigger. If you are someone interested or involved in education and like the sound of manageable amounts of reading, informal conversation, and hopefully some stimulating ideas, come and join us. We meet on the first Thursday of the month between 7-9pm in Bethnal Green.

The next meeting is on Thursday 4th February (use email below for the venue details), and will be a discussion on the ideas of A.S. Neill as embodied in his Free-School, Summerhill.

Email radicaleducationforum@gmail.com for readings and more information. Hope to see you there.

comments on the commune by the communist workers’ organisation

Issue 50 of Revolutionary Perspectives, published by the Communist Workers’ Organisation, carried a critique of The Commune’s politics. Joe Thorne, a member of our network, wrote a response to that article, and here we publish the latest reply from the CWO.

We would like to thank The Commune for their reply to our critique of their group which we published in Revolutionary Perspectives No 50. We will start by clarifying the issue of who we are.

the burj khalifa: capital excess and worker exploitation

by Nancy LaPlante

The Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest building was opened with impressive light and sound shows as well as a breath-taking fireworks demonstration. This structural marvel was renamed the Burj Khalifa for Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed who had provided an $80 billion bailout for Dubai, the United Arab Emirate state which had been heavily in debt. While the current economic crisis stalls the sucking out of any immediate and enormous profits from this tower of capitalist overindulgence, the brutality in its history of construction puts directly side-by-side the lavish gluttony of the bourgeoisie against the expendable lives of the workers who built it. While there are many incredible details about the Burj Khalifa only a few are named here, followed by a brief tip-of-the-iceberg list of the examples of worker exploitation and their attempts to fight back against their severe exploitation.