Inside: Trump Threatens Trade War
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& Workers’ Liberty SolFor siociadl ownershaip of the branks aind intdustry y No 464 14 March 2018 50p/£1 Inside: Trump threatens trade war On Monday 12 March Universities UK and the University and Colleges Union (UCU) announced they had reached an ″agreement″ at ACAS in the ongoing dispute over REVOthe USS pensionL scheme. T IN As details of the ″deal″ came to light, UCU members across the country were at first con - fused as to why the UCU would have agreed such a deal, and then angry. Ten days of strikes had forced employers first into negotiations, then into making an offer. But the offer was a bad one. More page 5 Trump’s new tariffs are a boost not to jobs, but to barriers between nations THE See page 5 Tories welcome DEGREE Saudi prince The government has rolled out the red carpet for the Saudi Crown Prince. FACTORIES See page 7 Black Panther: behind the utopian vision Sameem Rahimi reviews ‘Black Pan - ther’ and examines the politics in the film. See page 9 Join Labour! Debate over General Secretary post Pic: twitter.com/EdiSolidarity See page 10 2 NEWS More online at www.workersliberty.org Italian election shows impasse of left bourgeoisie can cudgel out of the and sustains our view that the or - Bernstein put it, “the means are ev - By Hugh Edwards present impasse. dinary citizen ought to become erything, the end nothing”. Italy’s election (4 March) resulted Two graphic examples sum up more independent from politics, to The rulers of the country now in hung parliament, with no party the depth of the danger. Following stand closer to our unions and find themselves in a new stage of a getting enough votes to form a the attempted murder of eight members in disputes and strug - crisis that has its origins in the government. It will take weeks young West Africans by a neo-fas - gles.” demise of the First Republic and and maybe months for a govern - cist thug in Macerata, a magnificent Camusso openly supported the the social, economic and political ment to emerge. march of 20,000 anti-racists defied former PD dissidents huddled to - events that brought it crashing ig - The election highlighted in the a ban by the government. The gether in the pathetic “Free and nominiously to the ground. most dramatic way the politically town’s first citizen, elected in 2015 Equal” outfit of Grasso, D’Alema The Second Republic of the cen - disastrous state of the country’s with nearly 60% of the vote, was a and Bersani. Like her, they were tre-left and centre-right began to trade-union movement. progressive reformer whose ad - complicit in sustaining the Renzi fall apart with the onset of the 2008 The crisis of the reactionary cen - ministration had welcomed mi - government and its austerity mea - financial crash, and fell at last three tre-left government and the ruling grants. sures, which probably accounts for years later with the recession in Matteo Renzi-led Democratic Party The tenor of the anti-fascist their outfit’s disastrous perfor - Italy. Foreground Di Maio, background (PD) has been consummated in an march had seemed to indicate mance: it polled 3.3%. The supersession of Renzi beck - Salvini historic rejection by the mass of the something of that. But in the elec - ons a Third Republic, according to tions the tub-thumping ethnic Salvini and Di Maio, but the politi - Italian people; in a triumph for the POTERE AL POPOLO to the Labour Party/Momentum cleanser Salvini got 22%, cynically The newly-formed Potere al cal pillars on which it might stand two most virulent “anti-system” axis exists beyond the archipelago exploiting the opportunity the ar - Popolo (power to the people) are not yet in place, populist forces, rivals united in of far-left groups. rest of two young Africans re the constituted by an aggregate of a lacking the forces of the right their anti-working class, anti-trade Furthermore, despite the cruel murder of a young women in the Neapolitan Social Centre, Com - around Salvini to form a govern - union and racist beliefs and actions. experience of decades of failure of town a few days before. munist Refoundation, PCI, Eu - ment that could undertake the aus - Matteo Salvini (Northern) Lega similar projects (involving many of The second example is the state - rostop and others had generated terity measures that Italian and (a coalition partner of Berlusconi’s the same people and groups), the ment from the leader of the coun - growing radical enthusiasm in European capital demand. Forza Italia) dominates almost all intent of the new force was, as be - try’s largest trade union, CGIL, large assemblies across the What is obvious is that there of the north, while Di Maio and fore, to create a movement of Susanna Camusso. country. will be no solution to this crisis Grillo’s 5 Star Movement hege - protest, around the most immedi - In a recent interview, she was They said they were modelled on without the re-emergence of monises the south and the islands. ate, minimum demands of the day, asked if the tsunami of support the lessons and experience of Mo - working-class-led struggle with The Italian left occupies a posi - a method summed up by “we don’t from her members for Salvini and mentum. as its cardinal principle the goal tion of political and institutional have to say what we are, we have Di Maio was a vote against trade But the hoped-for electoral of socialism as the means of marginalisation on every front, ex - to do it; we have to stop evoking unionism. She replied, “No, I don’t breakthrough didn’t materialise, putting an end to the nightmare posing the working class and ideals, we have to produce them, see it that way — in fact, it confirms with a dismal 1.12 % score, indicat - of Italian capitalist decline and every progressive cause to the mer - the distinction between reform and our ability to protect our members ing that in Italy no real mass organ - decay. cies of whatever governmental con - revolution happens in practice.” As traption the representatives of the regardless of political alignment … ised social-political terrain similar Will the counter-revolution be tweeted? Bad pay deal for NHS By Martin Thomas Bourgeois newspapers and TV channels falsify mostly by omis - By a health worker been squeezed into crisis. Any False news spreads on Twitter sion, selection, slanting, and twist - pay increase (which this deal much faster than truth. Re - ing, rather than by direct falsehood. doesn’t seem to include), must be Concerned, to some extent or an - Recent press reports have indi - fully funded by the government. searchers at MIT have published cated a possible very bad pay the results of research into other, for reputations which have to Any unfunded increase in pay survive over years, and open to deal arising from talks between will be followed by greater work - 126,000 fact-checkable stories NHS employers and the health tweeted or retweeted between criticism by competitors available load, less support for staff and in the same outlets (sometimes in - unions: a 3% pay rise for this service cuts. 2006 and 2017 (bit.ly/false-t). year, followed by two years of True stories rarely reached more cluding the socialist press), they The shortage of workers, made cannot lie as recklessly as the mali - 1-2%, and losing a day’s annual words by Brexit, is a fundamental than 1000 people through retweet - leave. ing; the top 1% of false-news tweet- cious or easily-swayed tweeter. part of the current NHS crisis. 49% of Republicans reckon it ei - With inflation running at 3% cascades got to 10,000 or more. The decline in newspaper-read - Health Education England figures ther definitely or probably true that we face three years of falling True reports took six times as ing, and the rise in the number of show that the number of staff “leaked email from some of Hillary pay. And the GMB estimates long as falsehoods to reach 15,000 people who get news only or leaving the NHS reached 16% last Clinton’s campaign staffers con - health workers have already had people. Falsehoods were 70% more mainly through social media, cre - year. The NHS is short of tained code words for paedophilia, a real terms pay cut of £2,000 in likely to be retweeted than truths. ates obstacles for democrats and so - 42,000 nurses, midwives, physio - human trafficking and satanic rit - last seven years. The initial reac - This was not because false-news cialists. therapists and occupational ther - ual abuse”. tion from many NHS workers to tweeters were generally more ac - It is not a product of technology apists. 15% of nursing posts in Readers of Solidarity will recog - these reports has been complete tive than truth-tweeters. On the alone. Technology also brings the London and a third of paramedic nise the equivalents, within the ac - disdain. contrary, they were less active, had fact-checking websites used by the posts across the country are va - tivist left, of the malign rumours The deal may also include abo - been on Twitter for less time, and MIT researchers, which enable us cant. there used in competition between lition of Band One (the lowest had fewer followers. to check dubious stories much Health unions may promote bourgeois parties. band on the pay scale). This is The best guess is that falsehoods more readily than people could in this deal as better than we’ve had.