for workers' power from below
By Adam Ford
Jubilant ex-Vita Cortex foam packers finally left their factory last Thursday, bringing their marathon five month workplace occupation to an end. The occupiers declared victory when their former employer – entrepreneur Jack Ronan – finally coughed up an undisclosed sum as compensation for the redundancy he had announced before Christmas. Continue reading “lessons to be learned form vita cortex occupation victory”
by Steve Ryan
Workers in 130 offices throughout the UK reacted with anger and dismay yesterday as the closure of their offices was confirmed.
The decision will affect nearly 3000 workers, some half of them being offered voluntary redundancy. Compulsory redundancy looms for those who will not, or cannot, go voluntarily. Others will be transferred to other more “strategic” offices, facing long journeys to work and vastly increased travel costs. Continue reading “pcs in hm revenue and customs redundancies”
editorial of The Commune
The message hammered home at the Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat conferences was clear: ‘we’ have been living beyond our means and now have to accept slashed public spending to steady the ship of state.
While a few months ago even the mainstream press railed against the excesses of the City of London and corrupt MPs, today their fire is directed almost solely against working-class living standards. The only questions on the papers’ and pollsters’ agenda are ‘what should be cut?’ and ‘who do you trust most to make the right cuts?’. Continue reading “we’re not ‘all in it together’: no to austerity britain!”
The October 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.
we’re not ‘all in it together’ – editorial of The Commune
update on the activities of our network
tuc congress: an opportunity wasted? – by Gregor Gall
fragile livelihoods at cowley mini factory – by Brian Rylance
what is the london postal strike really about? – interview of CWU reps by Sheila Cohen
gordon brown’s workhouses for single mothers – by Zoe Smith
‘new’ tactics versus rubbish bosses – by Adam Ford
lessons of the tower hamlets esol strike – interview with two members of teaching staff
how we fought education cuts in tamworth – by Rob Marsden
on the necessity of pluralist communism – by Nathan Coombs
a letter from tegucigalpa: resisting the honduran coup – by a member of Socialismo o Barbarie
political report from the land of the haggis-eating surrender monkeys – by Allan Armstrong
electoral parties: let’s not put old wine in new bottles – by David Broder
a beginners’ guide to cuts – by Robert Kirby
Earlier this year BMW laid off 850 agency workers at their Oxford Cowley factory. There was widespread TV coverage of a video of workers angrily rebuking and pelting the Unite union official who had kept his members in the dark—but a planned mass picket of the factory the following week flopped. Here we report on the situation seven months later.
by Brian Rylance
The Commune’s 23rd February report on the BMW Cowley plant lay-offs has taken a new and unusual twist with the announcement that Mini production is to be increased, ‘safeguarding’ present employment and hinting at new jobs. This news has been greeted with considerable joy by the Oxford Mail. Yet the fact is that the jobs were cut in an unthinking response to the wider economic downturn, and as was reported by The Commune at the time, this was despite the fact that Mini sales were “not falling.” Continue reading “fragile livelihoods at cowley mini factory”
Workers at the Vestas wind turbine blade plant on the Isle of Wight have occupied their factory in Newport in an attempt to prevent its closure, which was scheduled for the end of this month. Their brave fight in is an example of what workers can do when they get together and take militant action to save jobs and sustainable industries.
We call upon everyone around the country to send whatever support they can to the workers at Vestas. We all have an interest in a sustainable future, and we all have a responsibility to show solidarity to workers in struggle.
We have already reported on the significance of this struggle, both in terms of its concrete objectives, and in terms of how it came about. The occupation has occured against a background of non-unionised workers, and activists from Workers’ Climate Action appear to have made a significant contribution to the organisation so far, including introducing the idea of an occupation.
More news will follow when we have it. A list of resources, events, and things you can to do help follows. Continue reading “vestas occupied!”
statement by the Campaign Against Immigration Controls
Following our conference today (Saturday 20th) the Campaign Against Immigration Controls (CAIC) calls for the immediate reinstatement of the workers who were sacked by Total, Jacobs and other subcontractors at the Lindsey Oil refinery in Lincolnshire last Thursday night.
We are calling a solidarity protest at the Total headquarters in Watford on Monday 22nd June, 4-6pm. Continue reading “reinstate the lindsey oil refinery workers!”
Ed Balls has described the current downturn as the greatest crisis of capitalism “in the last hundred years”, and wage-freezes and mass-lay-offs are biting hard. Many of the millions of workers who are members of TUC-affiliated unions will be hoping that this august body will be standing up for them at this difficult time, perhaps by co-ordinating some sort of campaign of action to defend jobs. What does this organisation (whose headline slogan is the appalling “Britain at work”) so keen on ‘training’ and ‘advice’ advise that workplace activists do to stop the redundancies?
All is revealed in two new TUC pamphlets, Coping with the economic downturn and Facing redundancy. That’s right, ‘Coping’ and ‘Facing’, not ‘Resisting’ or ‘Stopping’. Indeed, neither publication features a single word on collective organising to stop redundancies, in a fully accurate reflection of the fact that the TUC will not be doing anything to prompt such action. Anyone looking over the TUC website will search in vain for any reference to trade unionism as a useful tool to stop the employers in their tracks. Continue reading “trades union congress takes decisive action against redundancies”
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”
Three videos on the subject of the week-long occupation of the Republic Windows & Doors factory in Chicago. This won a huge pay-off worth $1.75 million for the workers concerned, who lost their jobs due to the recession.
the commune 