UCL: reinstate juan carlos, pay the living wage!

On Friday 26th March campus staff, students and activists demonstrated at University College London in solidarity with the cleaners there. The protest demanded a living wage (£7.60 an hour) for the cleaners, and the reinstatement of Juan Carlos Piedra, sacked by cowboy contractor Office and General on account of his trade union organising.

In a lively demonstration, after leafleting in the UCL Quad we made repeated – and ultimately successful – efforts to enter the building in spite of the security guards. We then chanted at delegates at an international academic conference on migration, demanding that the university support migrant workers’ rights rather than just pontificate about migration.

questions of communist recomposition

Ed Griffiths of the Communist Corresponding Society contributes to the debate on communist recomposition today.

"The whole period that began in 1917 is over—and the ‘political traditions’ that emerged from it now belong to history"

At times we are doctrinaire, at times we are frivolous,
Plastering over the cracks…
— Louis MacNeice

obamacare: the nuns strike back

by Ernie Haberkern
Berkeley, California

The Health Care Reform bill has finally made it through the archaic legislative labyrinth our slave-owning founding fathers left us. Our modern corporate capitalists have found this unrepresentative system as useful as the slave owners did. One of features of the system is that it facilitates behind-closed-doors dealing that makes it extremely difficult for the average voter, or even the fairly well-informed voter, to find out what exactly the effect of the legislation will actually be. In fact, the result is usually so complicated that it often has consequences unforeseen and unintended by the authors of the legislation.

So what does this ‘reform’ actually amount to? In the first place, there is no regulation of the cost of drugs. In particular, the current twelve year monopoly granted to companies for brand name drugs remains in effect. This deal was made last August and in return the pharmaceutical industry, which played a major role in the defeat of Bill Clinton’s attempt to pass a health care bill, actively lobbied in favor of Obama’s plan.

the working class and the british nation state: a reply to the morning star

by Chris Ford

The national question continues to be an issue of primary importance to communists and the workers movement as a whole.  The nation-state has not been transcended – transnational corporations remain tied to their home nation-states and capitalists draw on the military and political power of their states to promote their interests.  Our era of global capitalism has further institutionalised the system of national oppression and inequality which is a characteristic of bourgeois society.  How should we respond to this question has been a matter of controversy for generations of communists.

One mistaken response has been to consider globalisation has rendered the nation a superfluous construct; this has fuelled a trend which views struggles, such as against neo-colonialism, as a diversion from the real business of class struggle.  We find this in such views as equating the unity of the UK state with the unity of the working class such as on the Scottish question.  Another trend, prevalent in the UK, has come to adapt itself to the dominant nationalism of the UK state, British nationalism.  This social-patriotism emerged in the working class during the growth of the British Empire in the second half of the 19th century. We find it expressed in some aspects of the anti-European Union current, represented most vocally by the Stalinist Communist Parties.

BA strike: against the race to the bottom

by Gregor Gall
Professor of Industrial Relations, University of Hertfordshire

The BA dispute in shaping up to be the key union battle of 2010, being on a par with strikes in the engineering construction industry and Royal Mail last year in terms of their significance for the wider labour movement. This is maybe a little odd in that a relatively small number of workers are involved compared to those in the engineering construction industry and Royal Mail. This is a dispute about accommodating to or resisting the ‘race to the bottom’ under the neo-liberalism.

That said the dispute with BA as a employer and organisation has a significance way beyond the number of staff employed – the profile of the dispute is based on BA still being seen as the national flag carrier despite privatisation and the union being able to benefit from exerting leverage because travel cannot be physically offshored and strike action has an immediate and demonstrable impact upon the business’ operations.

should communists stand for parliament?

by Mark Harrison

The general election is only weeks away and the Trotskyist newspapers are once again calling for us to “vote Labour without illusions”, unless we can vote for a Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidate. TUSC was effectively borne out of the No2EU left-nationalist alliance between the Socialist Party (England and Wales) and the Communist Party of Britain, although this time round without participation from the soft-Stalinists.

Despite the fact that comrades on the ground may believe that this is a step towards ‘left unity’ and perhaps even the shell from which a new political party akin to the French New Anticapitalist Party could arise, nothing of the sort will happen. Both the CPGB and Workers’ Power, who wanted to join, have been excluded and little in the way of ‘unity’ shall last after the elections.

cheers to bureaucracy: it’s CWU’s round

by Jack Staunton

The well-attended CWU Capital call centre branch meeting on Wednesday evening plumbed the depths of bureaucratic and non-participatory trade unionism. A glorified piss-up, the branch ratified a bewildering array of officers and rules of functioning with no discussion.

Whereas the attendance at the meeting must have reached nearly 100, the meeting lasted a mere 11 minutes and even that was only thanks to two contributions by SWP members demanding that the election for Membership and Recruitment Officer be preceded by a hustings.

civil servants strike on budget day

Striking civil servants have set up pickets in Westminster to embarrass the Government on Budget Day. Steve Ryan reports.

Despite the excellent support for the two day PCS strike on 8th-9th March, it seems the government are refusing to negotiate on the changes to the Civil Service Compensation Scheme.

As such the union’s National Executive have called a further one day strike on 24th March – Budget Day.

workers’ councils: the red mole of revolution

The latest issue of The Commune featured a supplement with an extended piece on workers’ councils by Sheila Cohen. Click image below to see PDF or read full text below.

The red mole may weave unexpected patterns and assume strange disguises; it is digging, digging fast, and moving in roughly the right direction…’

Daniel Singer, The Road to Gdansk.

the cuts consensus and the general election

by Dave Spencer

The 2010 general election will be a watershed for the politics of the British left.  Business as usual will not be an option because of the scale of the attacks on the working class that are coming. No matter which party wins the election or even if there is a hung parliament, it is clear that the ruling class has decided to make the working class pay for the economic crisis and the bailing out of the banks.

The left groups have failed over 14 years to form a united alternative to New Labour. If they use the same methods and politics as in the past, they cannot possibly be up to the tasks ahead.

migrant women on hunger strike at yarl’s wood

by Victoria Thompson

Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre was opened in 2001 and is the main detention centre for families and children. Run by a private firm, Serco Group plc who also manufacture nuclear weaponry, it has 405 bed spaces, and at any time scores of young children are detained within the grey prison walls. Yarl’s Wood has courted controversy since its opening, with hunger strikes, riots and even suicide attempts commonplace amongst the prisoners.

Yarl's Wood in Bedfordshire is a prison for immigrants

Several investigations into the detention centre have concluded that the prison is “not safe” on a basic health and safety level, as well as the site of sexual and racist intimidation and violence.

photo-report of 19th march day of action against UBS

19th March saw an international day of action against Swiss bank UBS, who via its contractor Lancaster has imposed an effective 10.75% pay cut on its cleaners in the City of London, while sacking shop steward Alberto Durango.

The protests were called in solidarity with the cleaners’ demands for stable working conditions, the sacking of the contractor and the reinstatement of Alberto Durango. Demos were held in London, Zurich, Edinburgh, Manchester, New York, Buenos Aires and Stockholm.

sheffield communist discussion group, 14th april: alienation

The next Sheffield Communist Discussion Group meeting will be held at 6:30pm, Wednesday 14th April in The Rutland Arms. The topic of the discussion is “Alienation”.

Below is a reading list to give you a general introduction to the topic, but by all means also look elsewhere for further information to enrich the discussion. All welcome, email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com for more info.

no surprises as rat boards sinking ship

by Chris Ford

There is a long history of British trade union leaders becoming Members of Parliament. This has often represented the next step by individuals whose primary concern is the advancement of a cause very dear to their hearts – their own self-interest.

In some cases however there are those who have genuinely sought to take the workers’ struggle in the industrial front into the political arena: individuals with principle who have sought to maintain a loyalty and commitment to the labour movement, such as John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn. The coming general election should see a new recruit from union ranks – Jack Dromey, the Deputy General Secretary of UNITE.