the rmt’s “no2eu” initiative

by Dave Spencer

With only two and a half months to go to the June 4th 2009 European elections, the RMT leadership have come up with a new party “No2EU – Yes to democracy”. Without a hint of irony (remember “Yes to democracy”) we are told that this “party” is for election purposes only. There will be no membership, therefore no voting for the slate of candidates needed for the election and worse still there will be no continuation of the party after the election. Indeed the whole idea has been cobbled together by the RMT, CPB and SP leaderships and will be run by them – no democratic voting by the members.

Furthermore if any “No2EU” candidate wins the election as an MEP they will not take their seat in Brussels. The voice of the British working class will not be heard in Europe. There will be no speaking tours to make links with European workers in struggle, no greetings brought to mass demonstrations and strikes, no attempt to build a new European-wide workers’ movement. No, the “No2EU” MEPs will stay at home in Britain.

And who will pay for this last minute stunt? It costs £5,000 as a deposit for each slate in each constituency. Then you need to pay for at least a million leaflets in each constituency. Presumably the RMT members are paying for it with the CPB and SP jumping on board for the ride.

the struggle for women’s emancipation today

Liz Leicester, chair of Camden UNISON, spoke to our 9th March London forum on the meaning of International Women’s Day:

First of all, as a socialist I would always say that the struggles of women and the self-activity of women is very much a part of the struggle for the self-emancipation of the whole working class, and I’ve always seen it in that context. That’s where we have to place the issues that are called ‘women’s issues’.

A small quote I think is good, which I think The Commune has published on its website, by Francois Chesnais is “Inequalities and oppression do not exist separately from each other. They translate into concrete realities the way in which this mode of production, capitalism, functions.” For me that’s at the centre of this discussion about women’s issues.

There are some very real and concrete things. There is an estimate, for instance, that women internationally do twice as much unpaid work in the home than they do paid work. That is not unimportant. But women in paid work are still dominated by a patriarchal system as well as class domination, even in countries where some progress has been made, such as this one, in reducing women’s dependence on men.

enfield ford/visteon occupation ends with no conclusion…

Some supporters at the occupation at Enfield Visteon produced this article on the end of the action

The occupation was an inspiration for many – the spirit of the workers who refused to submit to being blatantly robbed by their bosses seemed to be what many had been waiting for, for far too long – the early possible signs of a resurgence of class struggle. Now that the occupation is ended without any clear victory in sight, some reflection is needed on the strengths and weaknesses of what has happened. It is always easy to be wise after the event, and necessary to be careful not to forget who initiated this struggle and took the risks. Any criticisms are as much of ourselves as supporters as of the occupiers. Still, we’ll never get very far in developing our struggles if we don’t reflect on where we went wrong and how we all might do things better next time.

the commune’s 20th april forum ‘euro elections: where should we turn our fire?’

The next of The Commune’s London ‘uncaptive minds’ forums on capitalism and the working class today will be on the subject of ‘European elections: where should we turn our fire?’

The public meeting takes place from 7pm at the Lucas Arms, near King’s Cross on Monday 20th April.

We will be looking at the European Union’s response to the recession and its proposed constitution; whether there is any worth in contesting elections and whether they have any relevance to today’s workplace struggles; and the politics of the No2EU election campaign backed by the RMT, Morning Star and Socialist Party.

Speakers confirmed so far include Mick Dooley (rank-and-file candidate for general secretary of the builders’ union UCATT) and Peter Gowan (Professor of International Relations at London Metropolitan University and a member of the editorial board of New Left Review)

All are welcome. Email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com for further details or to register your interest. See below for map of the venue.

hmrc call centre workers plan strike action

by Steve Ryan

Workers in HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) contact centres have voted massively to take strike action. Interestingly in a time of recession, the strike is not about pay, but conditions. Over the past few years the government policy of handing over public services to private sector managers (usually failed ones ) has led to a deterioration in working conditions, call centres being a prime example.

The centres are desperately understaffed meaning workers are micro-managed to achieve impossible turn-around times. Toilet breaks etc. are strictly monitored and bosses swan around with walkie talkies to chase up workers who appear to have been off line too long. Even so only half of calls are answered and a recent TV programme on HMRC was deeply critical of the service provided.

stop deportations to iraq – defend iraqi and kurdish refugees

INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF IRAQ REFUGEES-IFIR

Human rights campaigners, trade unions and refugee rights organizations across Europe, please join our campaign to defend Iraqi and Kurdish refugees

The American coalition forces attacked Iraq in the name of bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq instead they have brought terror and killing. It has been six years since the American led invasion of Iraq, yet killing, security, poverty, unemployment and lack of basic services continue in Iraq. Yet Iraqi refugees remain the highest percentage of any nationality entering neighbouring countries, Europe, America and worldwide.

“polish jobs for polish workers”?

by Chris Kane

The leaders of global capitalism, gathered at the G20 summit in London, declared: “We have committed ourselves to work together with urgency”, in their response, they espouse unity around “an open world economy based on market principles”.[i]  In contrast global labour is not yet unified in its response to the crisis: our trade unions are organised at the level of the heavily bureaucratised European TUC and IFTU. These have tended to retard rather than unify and advance the militant struggles taking place in separate countries. This lack of effective organisation at an international level has also had a corrosive effect on the principles based on the necessity of solidarity amongst workers of all nationalities to advance our common interests.  Rather than match the unity of global capital we are seeing the labour bureaucrats, yet again, actively fragmenting and undermining the global solidarity necessary to respond to the crisis.

notes from the visteon rally – enfield

By Joe Thorne

At 2pm last Tuesday, 565 workers at three sites of Visteon, a car component manufacturer tied to Ford, were given six minutes notice of redundancy.  They did not get their last week’s pay, though it turned out that the Friday before around four or five hundred quid had been deposited in each of their accounts in place of redundancy pay.  The same night, Belfast workers occupied their factory demanding jobs or proper compensation.  And the next morning,1st April, appropriately just before midday, workers at Enfield standing around outside, waiting to collect their things, decided to seize the moment and take over their site too. A side door was either found open or broken down, and the occupation begun.

voices from the visteon/ford occupation

On Tuesday March 31^st workers at Visteon factories – making car parts for Ford brands – across the UK were told that Visteon Corp could no longer prop up the UK branch, and so they would all lose their jobs with immediate effect. That night a hundred workers at a plant in west Belfast occupied their workplaces, and the next day were followed by their colleagues in Enfield (north London) and Basildon in Essex. We spoke to a number of the workers involved in the sit-in at Enfield, and have gathered some of the occupiers’ comments below.

“I’ve been working here for nineteen years. I’ve always been working for Ford and we were Ford workers, but in 2000 this place was farmed out to Visteon. At the time the union signed a deal with the chairman of Ford Motor Company to guarantee all Ford workers the same terms and conditions under Visteon. We had a contract with Ford. They’ve broken it. It’s disgusting. Can’t they see that we had a contract and we need them to stick to it? It was signed by the union – I was at first in the AEU, but now it’s Unite – and what we’re demanding is that Ford sticks by their side of the agreement. We don’t want any trouble – there’s been lots of redundancies before, down from around 1100 when I started to around 220 today – and it was always voluntary redundancies. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to say yes sir, thank you sir, and lie down and let them walk all over us. We’re staying until they honour their side of the deal”.

blind alleys of the israel-palestinian conflict

by Dan Jakopovich

To understand the real context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict it is necessary to cut through the forest of propaganda, distortion and censorship of the mass media, and through misconceptions, ignorance and indifference of the public. The latest carnage clearly illustrates this. On the one side, hypocritical pro-Israeli positions dominate in the Western countries (particularly in the USA), whereas on the other side the discourse is dominated by the fundamentalist Islamist thought pattern, joined in by some inconsistent leftists, according to which the “enemy of my enemy is – automatically – my friend”. What are the mental pointers for us escapees and renegades from such a brutalising discourse, for those among us who want to establish a humanist basis for facing the challenge of peace in the Middle East?

man dies as police clamp down on london g20 protest: photo-report

by David Broder

Today the capital saw a mass march on the City of London, with contingents from four stations around the Square Mile – representing the four horsemen of the apocalypse threatening the system (war; climate change; job losses and the capitalist crisis; lack of housing) – converging at the Bank of England. The numbers at this demonstration, held to coincide with this week’s G20 summit hosted by Gordon Brown, were far greater than those at the SWP-organised “March on the City” and Chris Knight’s “Dancing on the grave of capitalism” event held last October at the peak of the financial meltdown.

Even the Tory Evening Standard reported that there were 4,000 people at the Bank of England, and certainly the protest’s numbers were large for a weekday. However, the demo, as well as the Climate Camp, were tightly contained by the police via a system of ‘kettles’ with 5,000 police, horses and police vehicles on hand to encircle groups of protestors. All in all there were 63 arrests: and late in the evening we heard that a man had died as the police besieged the demonstrators from all sides.

Much unlike Saturday’s turgid march organised by the otherwise lethargic Trades Union Congress and some liberal NGOs, the protests in the City of London were of an anti-capitalist character, mostly animated by anarchists. However, in the recent furore about today’s “G20 Meltdown” the media has greatly puffed up the importance of Chris Knight, the radical anthropologist suspended from his University of East London post for saying that people were so angry that bankers might be hanged from lamp-posts

Photos and a few comments on the events appear below. Besides the events described and depicted in this article, the day also saw a Stop the War rally from the US embassy to the Excel Centre.

demo for mitie cleaners, friday 3rd april

The next demo in support of the sacked Mitie cleaners will take place in the City of London on the afternoon of Friday 3rd April. It is the latest in a series of actions organised by the migrant workers, who have been kicked out of their jobs working as Mitie cleaners for the Willis insurance group after protesting at being forced to work at night-time rather than during the day.

The struggle is an excelent example of self-organisation, coming up against the resistance of the Unite union bureaucracy and their “Justice for Cleaners” campaign, which seems more a means of recruiting members and taking dues for the union coffers than it does a way of organising successful struggles. As Alberto Einstein Durango – a cleaner activist working at Schroders bank who has been central to the Mitie/Willis campaign – explained at The Commune’s forum on Monday night, the workers will fight based on their own strength and own collective-decision making, with or without the Unite “organisers”.

The demo starts at 1pm outside the Willis building at 51 Lime Street, London EC3M (Bank/Liverpool Street). For more info on the dispute and reports on recent actions, see the page here.

revolutionary history: rosa luxemburg issue

Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Political and Literary Writings
Guest Editor: Mike Jones

Mike Jones has edited August Thalheimer and German communism, and is a frequent contributor to the journal Revolutionary History.

Editorial Committee: Ted Crawford, Paul Flewers, Esther Leslie and John Plant

Rosa Luxemburg, perhaps the most remarkable and original figure among German Marxists thinkers and activists, was one of the earliest victims of fascism, murdered in Berlin, in 1919. This volume presents selected political essays, writings previously unavailable in English.

They reveal Luxemburg’s aversion to splits in the Labour movement, particularly in Germany and Russia, and aspects of her thinking about culture, nationalism and women’s rights. Each essay is annotated, introduced and placed in context.

text of leaflet for 28th march ‘put people first’ demo

The New Labour minister Ed Balls has described the current downturn as the greatest crisis of capitalism “for over a hundred years”, and wage-freezes and mass-lay-offs are biting hard. Unemployment has now surpassed two million, February seeing a further 138,000 people forced onto the dole as a result of the biggest jobs cull since 1971.

The supposedly all-powerful market, whose authority ‘could not’ be challenged, is laid bare, as a fraud: the emperor has no clothes. The corporate press now openly mocks the free-marketeer ideology which was so central to the ruling class’s discourse only a couple of years ago. Presidents and prime ministers, too, say they are breaking with the ‘old ways’ of neo-liberalism: Gordon Brown even told the European Parliament on Tuesday 24th March:

“The problem of unbridled free markets in an unsupervised market place is that they can reduce all relationships to transactions, all motivations to self-interest, all sense of value to consumer choice and all sense of worth to a price tag.”