the battle for free education begins

by Nathan Coombs

After occupations and sit-ins at the University of California Santa Cruz, Fresno State and an ongoing tussle between students and administrators at the New School, New York, there is now an equally large student occupation movement underway in the University of Fine Arts and the University of Vienna, in Austria.

As can be seen on this YouTube video from inside the occupation, there are hundreds involved. Against the Europe wide, neo-liberal Bologna Process, the unifying demand is for free education; the battle for education as a common good.

community unionism: from the workplace to the streets

by Brian Garvey

“We have been the victims of so many acts of corruption… But the workers have supported us in forming a new trade union, because they want change – a radical change – so that we are the new administration of the collective contract, because the union we have is useless” Luis Flugo, Aseven soft drinks company, Venezuela

“I looked at the Mater hospital – this new, ‘state of the art facility’, and there wasn’t even changing rooms for the domestics. Not even a changing room. And I wondered, how did the unions allow that?” Domestic health worker, Belfast

It is recognised that unions need to change. Union membership in the 26 counties has fallen by 14% (currently 32% of workforce) between 1994-2008. Writing on the situation in UK where membership levels have fallen continuously since 1979 (currently only 28% of workforce) and employers have been ‘emboldened by neoliberal policies’ Jane Willis of University of London writes that ‘trade unions cannot simply wait until economic and political conditions become more favourable’ for their recovery.

a thousand eyes turn to swp no platform debate

by David Broder

The evenings are getting darker, the leaves are falling off the trees, and oppositional texts are appearing in the Socialist Workers Party “discussion bulletin”. Yes, it’s that time of year again: the “pre-conference discussion period”, the three months of the year allotted by the SWP to limited discussion of party strategy, the only time when factions are allowed to exist and express themselves.

Former SWP leader John Rees and his followers have taken the opportunity to declare a ‘Left Faction’ and submitted a motion to the last Party Council advocating ‘No Platform to fascists’ – a resolution remarkably similar in tone to the rival motion submitted by the existing leadership. So is the revolutionary party opening up, or not?

4,000 undocumented migrant workers strike and occupy in paris

by Antoine Boulangé

A new wave of strikes by undocumented migrant workers began on 12th October. The striking workers, greater in number than in April 2008, are determined to win regularisation for all. But to do that, they need solidarity from all workers.

“Colonised yesterday – exploited today  – tomorrow regularised”

That is the slogan of the thousands of undocumented migrant workers who are taking part in the new strike wave, initiated by the unions (CGT, CFDT, SUD, FSU and UNSA) and  associations (Ligue des droits de l’homme, Cimade, RESF [Education Without Borders Network], Femmes Égalité, Autremonde, Droits devant!! etc.) Since 12th October the movement has not stopped growing, from 1,000 on the first day to 3,000 a week later. There has been a qualitative and quantitative leap from the strike wave of April 2008, which involved 600 workers and won 2,000 regularisations.

the shipwrecked (part III): anti-fascist refugees during world war II

“Save one million Jews! And to do what with them? Where will we put them?” Third in a series by João Bernardo: see here for parts one and two.

I mentioned in the previous article that, during the time of the German-Soviet Pact, the Polish Jews that managed to escape from the Nazi-occupied areas of Poland to the areas occupied by the Red Army were deported or put in concentration camps, a sad fate, but at least they were accepted and nobody ever sent them back across the border. Far more sinister was the UK’s and the USA’s attitude.

france and britain send troops to afghanistan – and refugees too

Last week the French and British governments launched a new era of co-operation with a joint flight to deport asylum seekers to Afghanistan. Just weeks after the clearing of 278 people living at the ‘Jungle’ migrant camp in Calais, this was a fresh reactionary step by the French authorities, who had previously said they would not deport people to countries at war. Below appears a statement from Afghan communist women based in France – see here for their previous commentary on the conflict.

We, the organisers of the French section of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, condemn the cowardly and disgraceful expulsion of three Afghans which took place on 20th October.

imperialism and the world today – watch online

Videos of the presentations at our recent London forum on modern imperialism are now available at The Commune’s YouTube channel. The speakers at the event were Latin American solidarity activist Andy Higginbottom and Ukrainian Marxist Marko Bojcun. Click here for other videos by The Commune.

royal mail management strategy for defeating strike

Below appear a series of slides from a Royal Mail management strategy document for dealing with the national strike. These amply display the bosses’ craven lack of ‘good faith’ and feckless disdain their employees and the postal service itself. These slides first appeared in Socialist Worker.

If you cannot read the text of the images properly, download the PDF here.

a letter from a postman

A Royal Mail worker describes the background to the 2009 national strike vote, including details of how managers have been manipulating the figures to justify cuts.

Old people still write letters the old-fashioned way: by hand, with a biro, folding up the letter into an envelope, writing the address on the front before adding the stamp. Mostly they don’t have email, and while they often have a mobile phone – bought by the family ‘just in case’ – they usually have no idea how to send a text. So Peter Mandelson wasn’t referring to them when he went on TV in May to press for the part-privatisation of the Royal Mail, saying that figures were down due to competition from emails and texts.

the shipwrecked (part II): anti-fascist refugees during world war II

Knowing how to fight one enemy means knowing how to fight another: this sentiment underlay the Stalinist politburo’s attitude towards refugees from the fascist countries. Second in  a series by João Bernardo: see here for part one.

Why did those who fled from fascism, only to end up in the democratic countries’ prisons, not seek exile in the Soviet Union? Moreover, what happened to the people who did go to there, the country of the October revolution and the socialist fatherland?

the commune’s youtube channel launched

The Commune has launched a YouTube channel. This will feature videos of our meetings as and when they are recorded, as well as films about the ideas and history of the workers’ movement and video updates on strikes and class struggle: see http://www.youtube.com/user/thecommune1

Footage of our meeting held on International Women’s Day is already on the site, as well as links to a number of other interesting YouTube videos. Videos from the Monday 19th October The Commune forum on ‘Imperialism and the World Today’ are gradually being uploaded.

question time: did the straw man really slay the griffin?

by Adam Ford

Viewers of the BBC’s Question Time were confronted by many truly repellent outbursts from the platform on 22nd October. The screening – which had generated massive controversy due to the debut appearance of British National Party chairman Nick Griffin – often broke out into shouting and boos as the audience expressed their disgust with Griffin’s barely disguised racism and homophobia. But a significant early comment by another panellist went almost unnoticed amidst all the fury: Jack Straw claimed that Labour and the other ‘mainstream’ parties’ have a “moral compass”. In this article I will examine that claim, look at the ideological role of Question Time, and criticise the tactics of Unite Against Fascism and the Socialist Workers Party.

(Photo by Mike Fleming)

Since it began in 1979, Question Time has been a centrepiece of the BBC’s political coverage. During that time, it has played a significant role in framing the national policy debate, in determining which views are (and which are not) acceptable as ‘mainstream’. When the programme began, in the early days of Margaret Thatcher’s first Conservative government, there were four panellists – one each from Conservatives, Labour and the Liberals (as the third party were known at the time). The fourth panellist would be a prominent ‘talking head’, often from the fields of academia, the media or religion. In 1999, the panel was expanded to five guests, and the show experimented with ‘outsider’ figures, such as comedians, but this was quickly ditched.

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‘get this racist jack straw off the bbc’…?

Leaflet for tonight’s demo against Nick Griffin appearing on Question Time

– Labour and Tory anti-fascism is a con
– Support migrant-worker organising: no borders
– For workers’ action against racist propaganda

The recent row over the British National Party’s appearance on BBC Question Time displays the level of anger at the rise of the far-right party. All of us have turned out today because we oppose Nick Griffin’s racist effort to blame immigrants for all of society’s ills, including the economic crisis, and do not want his rubbish to gain more of an audience. But given the level of establishment racism, a campaign to defend immigrants must not stop at mere anti-BNPism, nor can the growth of the far-right be stopped by appealing to the existing authorities to silence them.