So& Wloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y No 213 3 August 2011 30p/80p For a workers’ government

After the hacking Cuts in the Union organising scandal page 3 USA page 7 in World War One pages 13-14

In East Africa In the USA a 92 million rich minority people consumes struggle to 70 times the survive; tens income of of thousands millions of starve East Africans

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More socialist ideas and news online: www.workersliberty.org NEWS What is the Alliance Labour Party: unions must fight for Workers’ Liberty? Today one class, the working class, lives by selling its labour power to another, the capitalist class, for democratic reform! which owns the means of production. Society is shaped by the capitalists’ relentless drive to increase their wealth. Capitalism causes By Martin Thomas dition to reserve two seats , unemployment, the blighting of lives by for election by members in overwork, imperialism, the destruction of the The “Hain report” on Scotland and Wales respec - environment and much else. Labour Party democracy tively. has been published (or at Against the accumulated wealth and power of the 8. Joint Policy Commit - least a “summary report” capitalists, the working class has one weapon: solidarity. tee. In accordance with has been: it is not clear The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty aims to build solidarity TULO’s recommendation, whether any fuller docu - this powerful body should through struggle so that the working class can overthrow ment will appear later). It either be democratised capitalism. We want socialist revolution: collective ownership is disappointing. Union (with proper representation of industry and services, workers’ control and a democracy and Labour activists for CLPs and affiliates) or much fuller than the present system, with elected need to fight a rearguard abolished. representatives recallable at any time and an end to action to salvage what 9. Leadership elections. bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. can be salvaged at We defend the right of our We fight for the labour movement to break with “social Labour Party conference union’s levy-payers to vote partnership” and assert working-class interests militantly in September 2011. Labour leaders want more of the same. Unions must demand in leadership elections. We against the bosses. 1 democratic change also defend their right to The report has now gone Our priority is to work in the workplaces and trade unions, have a full range of candi - to Labour’s National Exec - supporting workers’ struggles, producing workplace bulletins, dates to consider. We there - utive Committee. Jon Lans - than to dilute the influence numerous motions on is - helping organise rank-and-file groups. fore oppose the current man, joint secretary of the of members by creating a sues of genuine concern ability of MPs to keep off We are also active among students and in many campaigns Labour Party Democracy new category of “registered being simply ruled out of 2 the ballot paper candidates and alliances. Task Force , which has been supporters” who could order. Motions passed at who may have substantial campaigning for the review claim some membership conference should be incor - support in the country at We stand for: to democratise and open rights (e.g. voting in leader - porated within the party’s large. The right to make a G Independent working-class representation in politics. up the party’s conferences ship elections) without policy documents. meaningful nomination G A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the so that Labour becomes “a having any real commit - 4. Leadership responsi - should be extended to labour movement. living, breathing party”, ment to the party, or mak - bility. As the TULO sub - CLPs and affiliates. G A workers’ charter of rights — to organise, to says that the report will ing any financial mission makes clear, “if we 3 10. Parliamentary selec - strike, to picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. “disappoint, big-time” . contribution. are serious about giving tions. A sitting MP is guar - Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, Even worse, the rule We call on our union’s members a voice, then we G anteed a place on the changes which Labour’s representatives to speak need to accept the freely education and jobs for all. shortlist and should have National Executive will put and vote accordingly, and made decisions of confer - G A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. no reason to fear an open to the Labour Party confer - also to defend members’ ence as legitimate party Full equality for women and social provision to free women selection contest. TULO ence this year, following interests in the following policy”. from the burden of housework. Free abortion on request. Full proposes that a sitting MP the report, will not be re - areas: 5. Conference voting. We equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Black and white should in future need, in vealed to union and con - 1. Local organisation. We support the current evenly workers’ unity against racism. order to achieve automatic stituency delegates until a welcome TULO’s recogni - balanced system in which G Open borders. reselection, at least 66% of few days before conference, tion of the need to retain votes are equally divided G Global solidarity against global capital — workers affiliated and branch nomi - or maybe not even until the Labour Party structures (50/50) between CLPs and everywhere have more in common with each other than with 4 nations. This would be an conference itself . that allow meaningful affiliates. their capitalist or Stalinist rulers. improvement on current The unions affiliated to input into the politics and 6. Conference arrange - rules. G Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest the Labour Party, in their policy of the party. We will ments committee. This 5,6 11. Rule changes. Any workplace or community to global social organisation. joint submission to the re - defend the right of local committee should continue proposed rule changes G Working-class solidarity in international politics: equal view (24 June), were also union branches to send del - to consist of representatives should be circulated well in rights for all nations, against imperialists and predators big disappointing in many egates to constituency Gen - of CLPs and affiliates only. advance of conference and and small. ways, but did propose eral Committees. 7. National Executive voted on one by one. G Maximum left unity in action, and openness in debate. some positive measures. 2. Policy documents. Committee. The NEC is the The TULO submission G If you agree with us, please take some copies of Solidarity At its meeting on 23 July, Conference should be party’s governing body be - makes the point that “we to sell — and join us! the Campaign for Labour given options and allowed tween party conferences. It cannot treat our mem - Party Democracy Executive to vote in parts. Affiliates should retain its full re - bers as a force to be 020 7394 8923 [email protected] recommended the follow - and CLPs should be al - sponsibilities. The current tamed or ignored”. We 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, ing motion to trade union lowed to move amend - NEC structure gives under- now call on our union branches and committees: ments. representation to individ - representatives to argue London, SE1 3DG. This .... notes the current 3. Motions to conference. ual members and forcefully for the points ongoing “Refounding We strongly endorse over-representation to MPs. above in order to make Labour” consultation and TULO’s recommendation We support the TULO pro - the Labour Party properly the response already sub - to remove the restrictive posal to increase the num - responsive to our mem - GET SOLIDARITY mitted by the Trade Union “contemporary” criterion ber of CLP seats (elected on bers’ legitimate and vital and Labour Party Liaison which currently leads to a national basis) and in ad - interests. Organisation (TULO). EVERY WEEK! We welcome TULO’s constructive proposals to Links: Special offers increase the number of af - 1. http://labourdemocracy.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/hainreport.pdf filiates and individual 2. http://labourdemocracy.wordpress.com G Trial sub, 6 issues £5  3. http://www.leftfutures.org/2011/07/refounding-labour-attacks-union-influence-and-will-dis - members (e.g. with sub - appoint-members/ G 22 issues (six months). £18 waged  £9 unwaged  scription rates which are 4. http://www.leftfutures.org/2011/07/nec-member-fears-a-pre-conference-fix/ more graduated on the 5. http://labourdemocracy.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/tuloresponse.pdf G 44 issues (year). £35 waged  £17 unwaged  basis of income) rather 6. http://labourdemocracy.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/unions-submission-to-the-hain-review/ G European rate: 28 euros (22 issues) or 50 euros (44 issues)   South Australia’s unions do what Britain’s unions should have done Tick as appropriate above and send your money to: South Australia’s unions 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, London, SE1 3DG tralian Labor Party confer - it back. The unions Rann has made himself have just done what ence to demand Rann re - formed Labor to legislate unpopular with the Cheques (£) to “AWL”. Britain’s unions should sign. for workers”. unions and with the pub - have done before 2003 Or make £ and euro payments at workersliberty.org/sub. “The reason why the Now, with Rann’s opin - lic by budget cuts. at the latest: sacked the Weatherill is from the Labor Party was estab - ion-poll score slumping, right-wing Labor pre - official “Left” faction, lished was because the the Right faction in the Name ...... mier. but that doesn’t mean unions [knew] we needed Parliamentary Labor much in Australian Unions have been cam - to elect our own represen - Party has conceded. Rann Labor politics. To really Address ...... paigning to oust Mike tatives to parliament to has been asked to stand “reshape Labor”, the Rann as Labor leader for make the laws that cared down in favour of Parlia - unions must keep their ...... some time. Wayne Han - for workers and their fam - mentary Left faction independence from son, state secretary of the ilies... leader Jay Weatherill Weatherill and put sharp ...... Australian Workers’ “But in South Australia within the next six weeks. demands on him. Union (AWU), the most today what have we got? If Rann resists, and he I enclose £ ...... conservative of Australia’s The complete opposite. may, it looks likely there • Full text: big unions, moved a mo - “Our Party... belongs to will be a vote among state www.workersliberty.org/ tion at the South Aus - us and we’re going to take Labor MPs. node/17184 2 SOLIDARITY NEWS

“Media workers need a After Murdoch scandal? culture of solidarity”

By Sinead Asch which the News of the World the press. Mike Jempson, the Direc - the one proposed by Clive was being pilloried. The The truth is that sections tor of The MediaWise Soley in his Freedom and Someone once famously Mirror papers, and, it is ru - of the British ruling class Trust and a senior lecturer Responsibility of the Press described the outbreak of moured, the very moral have long regretted, some in journalism at the Uni - Bill in 1992. He proposed a World War One - how the Daily Mail. Most likely oth - of them publicly, letting versity of the West of Eng - body at one remove from powers, one after the ers, too. “foreigners” get a strangle - land spoke to Solidarity . both the industry and par - other, were drawn into it. Then the focus shifted to hold on the British media The Murdoch scandal liament, and underpinned They were, he said, like corrupt relations between and on British public life. confirms what a lot of us by statute. It would have mountaineers, roped to - top police officers and the Privately, the politicians have said for a long time to be part publicly-funded gether. First one fell, then Murdoch press. It had who bowed to Murdoch — that there's a very un - and part industry-funded, another, and soon they caused scarcely a ripple in must have resented the re - healthy relationship be - but would both examine were all falling, pulling public life when, years ago, lationship. This, some of tween people in press misbehaviour and each other into the abyss. Rebekah Brooks admitted, them now think, is the time positions of power, in - also defend press freedom. before a Parliamentary when it may be “practical cluding the police, and Converged technologies The Murdoch press scan - Committee, that payments politics” to do something the media. and ownership means What did she dal in its effects on British had been made to the police about it. broadcast and online public life is a little like for information. Not so in The British press is so Nothing that's emerged media should now be reg - leave us with? that. First came the discov - the new climate. News of the world-class-awful that from the scandal has ulated on the same basis as ery that the phone of the World has closed down. Re - there is plenty of scope for shocked me, with the pos - print. There needs to be murdered schoolgirl Milly By Louise Gold bekah Brooks has been reform. Not any sort of rev - sible exception of the sta - more lay representation Dowler had been hacked, forced to resign, along with olution, but reform. One of tistic that of the and representation for that some messages had Amy Winehouse seemed top police officers. the remarkable things in the Metropolitan Police's 45 working journalists. been deleted, with the effect to walk willingly into the The Murdoch empire is public discussion is the press officers, 10 previ - that the police and her par - DEREGULATION mould of rock’n’roll being scrutinised in the paucity of root-and-branch ously worked for News In - ents thought she was still The roots of this scandal cliché, but what is her USA in the light of the criticism of the system that ternational. alive and using her phone. lie in the Reagan and legacy? British revelations, and may allows Murdoch, in We've been advocating Where before people had Thatcher administra - yet be forcibly broken up. Britain's plutocratic on behalf of the people Her songs were largely not been all that concerned tions’ campaigns for Ed Milliband, after two “democracy”, to control the most affected by unethical self-penned, so credit is with the revelations that deregulation across the decades in which the opinion forming and opin - journalism but the PCC due for that. And having some of the royal wastrels board. Labour Party leadership ion shaping media. has refused to accept that listened back to a few of had had phones hacked, the had publicly licked Mur - Even if they were all lily- practices like phone hack - The right-wing libertar - them in the last week, some Dowler case caused wide - doch's boots, was embold - white slaves to the letter of ing go on, and not just at ian approach which of them are very good; she spread outrage. Suddenly ened to launch a frontal all the laws, such a situa - News International news - equates regulation with a really could sing. But, in the moral ground shifted attack on the Murdoch em - tion would be an outrage papers. Those practices lack of freedom is very the end, is her undeniable under the feet of the arro - pire. Not brave, and very against democracy. Most have been going on for dangerous; you get unsafe talent the thing that al - gant and overconfident late, but nonetheless wel - likely it will continue to be years, most often in pur - products on the market, a lowed her album sales to Murdoch press. Politicians come. an outrage against democ - suit of sensational head - dismissal of consumer con - rocket or her image to sell of the three main parties, Those still clinging to the racy. lines, and very rarely to cern and you remove the magazines? who had continued to court What we need is a pub - mountain rocks feel the investigate serious crimi - possibility of workers hav - No. Winehouse’s assets the likes of Rebekah Brooks licly-owned press with dead weight of those who nal activity or expose ing any meaningful contri - to the industry also in - and the Murdoch family, airtight guarantees of the have fallen into the abyss abuses of power. bution to the industry in cluded a rather shaky sexu - had their self-preservation right of reply and correc - pulling on them. Cameron I’m hopeful that the which they work. Their ality, which strutted instincts aroused. Their tion. That, we will not get may yet be dislodged. A Lord Leveson enquiry and campaign inevitably in - around on spindly legs, dealings with the Murdochs as a result of the present Royal Commission has the submissions made to it volved smashing any sys - and made me feel like a were now being put under crisis. been set up to enquire into will lead to change. The tem of solidarity that mother watching a child the public spotlight. scale of the scandal makes existed amongst workers. tentatively take their first Prime Minister Cameron it practically impossible for Journalists have had a steps before they fall and had hired Coulson, a for - the present system to be long hard struggle to win the inevitable scrapes and mer News of the World edi - sustained. But there are back union recognition bawling ensue; her vulner - tor, as his spin liar-in-chief, dangers in terms of what since the Wapping dispute ability, which I suppose even after it became plain might replace it. and the last miners’ strike. created the slippery slope, that he must have been im - For example, Ed Mil - When I was a young jour - and allowed the paparazzi plicated in illegal phone liband was talking about a nalist, I felt able to stand to take photos of a wander - tapping. People are still system of regulation simi - up to my editor if I was ing Amy at different times asking Cameron why. lar to that in place for doc - being asked to do some - in blood-stained ballet Then it came out that tors or solicitors. That thing I felt was wrong, I pumps and bare-foot wear - other papers too, Mur - would mean licensing jour - knew my colleagues ing a bra; a propensity for doch's competitors, had nalists and that is inimical taking drugs and abusing woTuhladt'bsabckecmaeuusep.a cul - most likely used the illegal to genuine press freedom. alcohol, which allowed her ture of solidarity existed; snooping methods for There are other models story to remain live and her that needs to be rebuilt. worth considering, such as album sales to remain high. Amy Winehouse was, as much as any of us, ex - Is Ireland becoming a proper bourgeois republic? ploited as a commodity. Yet she had her wealth and By Tom Cashman wedlock, runaway domes - gan, called for the expul - cused from reporting con - educational, care and med - success as a musician, and tic servants and young sion of the Papal Nuncio fessed crimes to the Garda. ical institutions to the while death is usually the If you’ve been following girls beyond parental con - and Kenny has not ruled Eamon O Cuiv (Fianna church, which has existed great equaliser, in this case the news from Ireland trol. Notoriously children out closing the Irish Em - Fáil) said that the feeling since the founding of the death has done to her what you will be aware that and young women in all bassy to the Holy See. of anger and disgust was Free State. it can’t do to the rest of us: the 26 counties are these categories in Ireland Labour Party leader and shared by everybody and The immediate task for death will immortalize her throwing off Rome rule were quite often victims of Tánaiste, Eamon Gilmore, that Fianna Fáil would not only socialists but all music and celebrity. But it and becoming a repub - rape by those in authority told the Papal Nuncio that support any initiative to decent people is to make all feels rather cheap. lic, a proper modern over them. These were in - he wants the Vatican to ex - ensure it never happened sure there is not a retreat One positive legacy may capitalist secular repub - stitutions totally under the plain its behaviour, he de - again. when the pressure dies be added pressure for lic. control of religious orders scribed the Vatican’s Mary Lou MacDonald of down. Fine Gael and greater funding and sup - which inmates voluntarily interference in Irish affairs Sinn Fein shared the gen - Labour may be happy to port for rehabilitating drug The latest investigation entered for their protec - as “absolutely unaccept - eral repulsion but empha - push the secular agenda, and alcohol users. The last into child abuse in the tion. But if they left, the able” and “inappropriate”. sised the failure of the although that is far from specialist NHS rehabilita - Cloyne Diocese has re - police arrested and re - He said “ I want to state not the church. guaranteed by their his - tion centre for young peo - vealed that the Vatican has turned them to the know why this state, with There is nothing surpris - tory. Fianna Fáil and Sinn ple closed down last year. been advising the Vicar “homes”. which we have diplomatic ing in the revelations, the Féin will struggle to legis - One can only hope that General of the diocese that The big change is that relations,issued a commu - sexual abuse was never re - late for secularism without the untimely death of a star the joint State-Church the state has gone on the nication,the effect of which ally hidden and the beat - destroying their electoral will create the kind of guidelines on reporting offensive against the ,was that very serious mat - ings and psychological bases. ground swell of support sexual abuse are optional. The Irish Labour move - Church. ters of the abuse of chil - torture were completely needed to see change in This is the third diocese ment and the Irish peo - Fine Gael Taoiseach dren in this country was open and were the de - thiBsuatr,eas. was rather to be exposed for systemic ple as a whole have Enda Kenny said that the not reported to the author - clared policies of the insti - crassly pointed out to me abuse. come a long way since Vatican’s behaviour was ities.” tutions concerned. Many recently, if the many re - The UN initiated an in - the 1948 inter-party gov - disgraceful and that “The Both governing parties religious orders have al - habilitation units needed vestigation into the ernment grovelled at the law of the Land should not are hinting fairly broadly ready withdrawn from were reinstated, Amy “Magdelene Laundries” feet of John Charles Mc - be stopped by a crozier or that the new dispensation their old roles following Winehouse would proba - concentration camps for Quaid and betrayed Noel a collar.” Socialist Party will mark the end of “The other scandals but this bly have rejected their at - girls and young women Browne and the women TDs and the chairman of Seal of the Confession”, could mark the end of the tempts to “cure” her. who had babies out of and children of Ireland. Fine Gael, Charlie Flana - that priests will not be ex - policy of subcontracting SOLIDARITY 3 REGULARS Facebook is Can we talk to the police?

Class divisions are replicated in the state forces, such not an that rank and file operatives — squaddies and PCs — have a working-class experience in relation to their commanders, and are recruited from the working class. Letters They are also treated as expendable pawns by their em - organising tool ployers and they also experience solidarity within their ranks. Although isolated from their communities by their special role, many of them still keep important links with In Solidarity 191 Sofie Buckland asked whether socialists should back police fighting cuts in their service, conclud - friends and family. There is a contradiction in their position. ing we should not (http://alturl.com/nzcz8). A debate on Some are recruited because they already have bullying, this has developed on our website — extracts below. reactionary tendencies, but many join for much more mun - dane or even initially idealistic reasons. [The police] are workers in uniform. To say so is an ob - The hearts and minds of rank and file cops are ground Eric Lee jective statement, not a political position. that we can contend, without compromising our own safety The fact that we can all tell angry stories about how crap or clarity. At present, “they” are not actually one homoge - A decade ago, it was not easy to convince some on the the cops treated us doesn’t alter the currently necessary nous, monolithic entity which we must all fear. left to begin using net-based tools to communicate and work that the police also do every day — roles that will still When two comrades from the Scottish Socialist Party organise. Today, we run the risk of becoming over-re - need to be fulfilled in a society where working-class inter - stood in front of the pushing crowd at the Gleneagles G8 liant on some of those tools, most notably Facebook. ests finally rule. Summit shouting “Leave the police alone! They are workers in uniform!”, I was one of the people pushing. But I also told This is not the first time I (or others) have addressed the “Winning over individual police is a case of persuading them not to be police any more” is just lazy, short-sighted riot cops in quieter moments that when they took our side weaknesses of Facebook. Much of what has been written the rule of the rich parasites they were defending would has described theoretical possibilities of things going wrong. and useless. You want to get any cop who is prepared to dis - cuss socialist ideas seriously with you to leave his job? You end, and I urged them to start organising. For example, Facebook could — in theory — close down Theo any group, page, cause or event you might set up without want to remove a potential ally from the police until you’ve warning or explanation or right of appeal. whittled the service down to just the hard-nut anti-work - The basic demands of the left run in flat contradiction to We had a case a few years ago of Facebook shutting down ing-class Express readers who are its reactionary back-bone? the sort of things rank and file police might well want. a group organising casino workers in one of Canada’s At - It is more intelligent to make any links we can with politi - lantic provinces — simply because the owners of the casino cally progressive cops and encourage them to organise for For example, abolish special police units like the TSG; asked them to. an independent, rank and file union. I don’t mean that we abolish Special Branch; abolish the secret state (MI5, MI6, But those examples were rare, and the risks seemed re - should trust cops or support them when they play an op - etc); disarm the police (take their guns, CG gas, tazers from mote, and increasingly trade unions and campaigning or - pressive role in our communities. them); direct election of boards with operational and budg - ganisations began to use Facebook to organise their events You can also come up with proposals for how working- etary control over police forces; making sacking police and activities. class communities might organise to defend their own guTilhtyatofflaratccisomntorardciocrtriuopntmionusmt uteclhl yeoasuiesro. mething about Recently, I’ve come across two concrete examples in daily homes and businesses against theft and violence in the here the nature of the police. life of the risks we take when we do this. and now. One is a Facebook group I set up for a campaigning or - Theo Mark ganisation. I noticed one day that it was blocking me from Sure if someone nicks my car, I’ll probably phone the adding new posts to the group’s “wall”. A message pops up police. Proving what? Thoughts on left unity headlined “Oops!” and informs me that “Something’s gone wrong. We’re working to get it fixed as soon as we can.” What a worker does, while they are at work, is not of no C S Page — a young, unaffiliated socialist — attended the And it’s been that way for weeks. consequence. The police are used by the ruling class against I wrote to Facebook technical support to report the bug, the working class, not only on our protest marches and dur - SWP’s 2011 Marxism Festival. Here are his impressions. but got no reply at all. ing strikes, but routinely — brutally, often randomly — on A few weeks ago, I attended the Socialist Worker Not only can’t I post any new items to the group, but all the estates and streets. The police understand their social Party’s Marxism Festival. Despite the fact that I dis - the old ones have disappeared. About two years worth of role, and its consequences. agree with some aspects of the SWP’s political pro - weekly archived posts. We don’t want decent young people to join a force that re - gramme and some of their methodology, I approached And if I want to write to all members of the group to tell quires them to be routinely unpleasant and (perhaps) vio - the Festival with an open mind, and mainly as an edu - them that the wall is no longer there, well, that option seems lent towards workers, youth and the poor. We know that cational opportunity. to have disappeared as well. they will either be spat out or, if they stay for any length of So I have a group with a few hundred members that I can time, become corrupted. I enjoyed parts of it. Yet the unifying feature was that as no longer communicate with, and no place to get help. In the normal course of events being a policeman/woman soon as I left each lecture, on my way to the next talk or to The second example is another group, a much larger one is not compatible with membership of our group — it puts Bookmarks bookstore, I’d be stopped by an earnest young with several thousand members. Its wall is functioning well you on the wrong side of the class struggle. person in a yellow t shirt, who would thrust a leaflet at me. — but I can no longer send messages to its members, or It also means that police unions should not be thought of “Join the SWP!” they would say. I would politely decline. even see who they are or how many of them are members. as part of the labour movement. We would oppose POA mo - The fact that the SWP is trying to recruit new members And again, there is no place to go for help — we don’t pay tions for bringing back the death penalty; we would also op - does not bother me. All political organisations want to ex - to use Facebook, and they’re under no obligation to provide pose demands from police unions for better wages. Why? pand, after all. What does get me, though, is that Marxism any kind of support. Because we don’t want to improve the morale of the people 2011, despite its educational veneer, felt like little more than In both cases, I have websites and mailing lists independ - who will line up against us! a SWP recruitment event. ent of Facebook, so I can communicate with most (but not In special circumstances we might change tack. The San - We were given often-fascinating titbits of information, all) of these people. And those websites and mailing lists dinistas supported a pay claim of the vile Nicaraguan police compressed into hour-long sessions. Such brief spells of use open source tools which I can edit and control, and are force in 1979 — not because they had changed their view of learning were completed by the simple message, spoken or backed up regularly by me. the police as torturers and thugs — but because they wanted unspoken, that to learn more, the only thing you needed to Am I suggesting that we stop using Facebook? to split the state, or paralyse part of it. do was join the SWP. Mark Not at all. But we rely on it at our peril. We run the risk of I don’t hold a grudge against the SWP... many of its mem - being cut off from the very people we think we are commu - When I say socialist I mean just a working-class person bers are my firmest and closest comrades. What annoys me nicating with, and not only when some employer gets angry who recognises class society and would prefer a more about “Marxism”, and what eventually drove me away and demands that our groups be shut down. democratic and egalitarian one. from the festival, was a feeling of sectarianism. Sometimes the problem is simply a technical one — This is not a problem unique to the SWP — whilst many I can think of four cops like that who I’ve met. Interested “oops” — but this is just as difficult to deal with. leftist groups claim to be willing to work with other groups, We need to have our own tools, websites, blogs, mailing to know where you draw the line though: soldiers? Court workers? Prison officers? it is striking how often they fall to fighting and petty name- lists, and social networks, which we control and which we calling. [A fact] even more tragic when we consider that can back up. I didn’t say we should support their Police Fed demands That’s the easy part. The hard part is we need to con - or have illusions of any kind about them. But we should en - now is the time when the left is needed the most. vince our audiences to use those tools, and not rely on courage the best elements in the ranks to split from their We face public sector cuts, the opening of the health serv - Facebook as a way of staying in touch with us. bourgeois commanders. ice and education to the free market, and disgraceful meas - Theo ures levelled at the disabled and women. Events in Greece and Spain show us that popular sentiment is swinging In the context of our discussion, it is necessary to ex - against the tired, irrational ways of capitalism. Now is the clude at least two groups from the category of “real time for building a popular movement, and the structure workers”. First, real managers, i.e, people with substan - and skill of the fragments of the left provide a valuable asset tial control over the labour process. for doing so. If only we could resolve our differences… Second, people who are a direct part of the repressive Back to “Marxism 2011”. At such a gathering the frag - functions of the state. Benefits workers, firefighters, MoD mented left might have been able to thrash out their differ - staff etc., are workers; police, army, prison officers, and im - ences, and embark on a discourse aimed at building unity. migration officials who are directly responsible for throwing Such a debate, held before the eyes of those 3,000 or so peo - people out of the country are capitalist cops. ple who attended “Marxism”, would have accomplished Gradations? Yes. Police are the last, often, to break in much more than simply educate — it would have resolved times of big struggle. Conscript armies are weaker than pro - agIen-sotledaddifofefrbeneicnegs.pestered to join the SWP, the masses fessional. And in some countries police are nearer to being could have been inducted into something more than “normal” workers than in the UK (i.e. the norm is shorter that — into a popular left wing movement, a unified left. Facebook closed a Canadian casino workers’ union website stints, less professionalised than UK). Mark • Full text : www.workersliberty.org/node/17166 4 SOLIDARITY WHAT WE SAY Capitalism leaves Somalia: people to starve blighted by Islamists and US meddling

In 2005, the USA scraped together an alliance of war - lords which it hoped would rule Somalia from the capi - tal, Mogadishu. Somalis despised the warlords, and the majority helped the Islamists of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) to oust Somalis fleeing drought and famine them in 2006. The UIC offered peace to Mogadishu for the first time in 15 years, and established its rule in most of The average household of four in the USA’s top one per prices since 2009. The flipside to that price rise is swollen southern Somalia. cent spends $3 million a year on luxuries. An Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, sponsored by the USA, profits for the giant agribusinesses which dominate world began in December 2006. It displaced more than a million food markets, many of them US-based. In famine-stricken Somalia, more than half the population people and killed close to 15,000 civilians. Eventually Among the richest one per cent — in the USA as in other of nine million live on less than $1 a day. Ethiopia was compelled to withdraw the bulk of its troops countries — virtually none does any work producing any - Each one of those rich households in the USA, if it limited from Somalia, but millions were left displaced. thing useful. If they work hard, it is at outsmarting each itself to necessities, could spare enough to double the in - A new civil war then opened between factions of the UIC. other and grabbing bigger shares of the cream. come of almost one million Somalis. One, backed by the African Union and based in Mogadishu, Among the people in east Africa, almost all work hard at The richest one per cent in the USA — three million peo - has focused on maintaining its international backing and producing everyday necessities. ple — consume between them 70 times as much as the en - keeping its privileges in Mogadishu. It has done nothing tire income (consumer spending, public services, They are hindered by the failure of governments to de - about the food problems arising from Somalia’s drought. investment, the lot) of 92 million people in Somalia and velop the wells and irrigation necessary in areas with erratic Another, al-Shabaab — originally the youth wing of the Ethiopia. rainfall, and by the growing annexation of the best land by UIC — has declared its affiliation with al-Qaeda. It preaches The richest one per cent are fighting hard, and almost cash-crop production for export, which enriches only a few, about establishing a strict Islamic state. It has failed to put surely with success, to keep the big tax cuts which president and erratically. in place even the most limited public services in the areas it George W Bush gave them, even at the cost of risking an Just a tiny sliver from the income of the richest one per controls, and has reneged on the permission it briefly gave economic implosion for the USA if the US government goes cent, 1.4%, would double the overall income of Ethiopia and to international aid agencies to deliver food to the starving. over its credit limit. Somalia, and pay for irrigation, communications, and pub - It has stopped the local population from organising mu - Tens of thousands among the 92 million people in east lic services which would revolutionise their economies. An nicipal governments and working with charities to deal Africa are starving. Hundreds of thousands have fled, to even tinier sliver of the income would save thousands from with the drought. Kenya or elsewhere, to try to avoid starvation. starvation now. The African Union, the UN, the EU and the USA, all pre - The richest one per cent reckon their hard stance will per - But the rich few hold on to their loot with a grip of steel; occupied with geo-strategy, continued to describe the suade the US Congress and President Obama to adjust the and they have power, a hundred times more power, than famine as just a drought until 18 July, when it was no longer US budget by cutting social security and Medicare spending the many poor. The rich few run with the grain of the eco - possible to conceal the deaths of almost 80,000 people from for the US poor. The top one per cent already spends 20 nomic system, and the many poor have to fight against it. starvation. times as much on consumer goods and services as the aver - That is capitalism. No system of social and democratic The workers, peasants and nomads of Somalia need age US household — the top 10% does half of all the USA’s control over economic life would ever allow thousands to to create their own democratic government, capable of consumer spending — and thousands of times more than starve to death when just hours away, with modern com - feeding the people and defeating the warlords and Is - lamists. average Somali or Ethiopian households. But it still wants muCnaipcaittaiolinssm, omtheear npseocpolentgrorlgoevoenr leucxounrioems. ic life by the more. priorities of profit, not by any social and human priori - [This article uses information from an article by Abdi Is - People in east Africa have been pushed into starvation not ties. mail Samatar on al-Jazeera.] only by drought, but by a two-thirds rise in world food Popes of the market curse the USA’s poor

Standard and Poor’s, Fitch, and Moody’s have got their though privately everyone knows they are human. way. Three relatively small New York finance companies Like a Pope preaching anathema to infidels after he has have strong-armed the mighty US government into big been found out collaborating with the Nazis or conniving cuts in social spending. in Vatican financial misdeeds, the ratings agencies are Standard and Poor’s, Fitch, and Moody’s are the “ratings revered now only three years after they were shown up in agencies” which had threatened to mark down the US gov - 2008 as having rated lots of bank IOUs good-as-gold when ernment’s IOUs (bonds) to less than 100% good-as-gold. in fact they were dodgy. The agencies’ mistakes were a big Their threat was so powerful that it pulled into line both the factor in the 2008 crash. right-wing “Tea Party” Republicans who wanted a financial The governments agree to treat the ratings agencies as the panic so that they could force even bigger social cuts, and voice of the market god because they think that agreed fic - Obama and the Democrats, who preferred smaller cuts and tion is necessary for “market discipline” to work — just as reversal of the tax cuts for the rich brought in by George W an agreement to hear the Pope as inspired by god is neces - Bush. Tea Party demonstration during the budget talks sary for the Catholic Church to work. The ratings agencies have intervened powerfully in the Actually, over $5 trillion of the US government’s $14.3 tril - eurozone crisis, too. Greek government IOUs (bonds) have sometimes speaks more directly, though just as brutally, as lion IOUs are “I-owe-me”s — debts owed to other bits of had no chance of being rated good-as-gold, but the Euro - the gods of old religions. Sometimes, as when it’s a matter the USA’s public authorities, the Federal Reserve, the USA’s pean Union, the European Central Bank and the eurozone of the trustworthiness of IOUs, the market god needs Popes, social security fund, and so on. There was no real problem governments labourered hard to avoid having the IOUs la - Ayatollahs, Bishops, or High Priests to speak for it. abTohuet indcerbeatsilnimgittheroUwSAg’asvlegatlhdeebrat tlinmgits. agencies the belled “in default” (outright rubbish). For IOUs, the ratings agencies serve as the Popes of the chance to step in as the voice of the market god, and to Why are Standard and Poor’s, Fitch, and Moody’s so market god. As with the Pope in the Catholic Church, so enforce social cuts for the poor in a USA where inequal - powerful? with the ratings agencies in the Market Church (capitalism) ity has already been spiralling for decades. Because, in capitalism, the market is god. The market god there is a public convention to see them as infallible even SOLIDARITY 5 INTERNATIONAL Norwegian massacre: the deadly logic behind Breivik’s race war

By Tom Unterrainer population of 4.9 million, tional flag is joyously and racial preservation. there are 500,000 immi - waved at all opportunities Breivik’s race war is the By bomb and by bullet, grants. Of these 500,000, — a significant right-wing “rational” conclusion of Anders Behring Breivik Pakistanis are the largest political group, the Danish the logic operating at the delivered mass murder non-European minority. It People’s Party has 25 seats heart of wide-spread anti- upon Norway. Breivik’s is the Pakistani, along with in parliament. Muslim racism. This same lawyer says he thinks his Somali and Iraqi, immi - In Norway, the logic operates in the poli - client is probably insane. Silvio Berlusconi and Giulio Tremonti grants that held Breivik’s “Progress Party” came sec - tics of both the BNP and But Breivik’s actions attention. ond in the 2009 parliamen - EDL. were based upon a cool, What concerned Breivik tary elections. This party Whether we can short- considered and in their and motivated his right- calls for greater restrictions circuit this logic (in either Italy: power, own terms “rational” po - wing politics was not the on immigration but is es - its micro or macro forms) litical calculation. state of the Norwegian sentially a social conserva - will be a test of independ - economy. He and other ex - tive grouping. As such, it ent working-class politics On the afternoon of Fri - treme right-wingers could doesn’t offer a political both in Britain and further day 22 July, a car bomb ex - not point to a divided and home for the likes of afield. The fragmentation corruption and ploded in the obviously corrupt govern - Breivik. of the BNP and the ever- governmental heart of ment. They did not and So what do you do if rightward moving trajec - Oslo. Positioned near the cannot pose themselves as you’re convinced that tory of the EDL — its office of the Labour prime substitute leaders and na - Muslims are attempting to fractures, splits and dis - debts minister and the offices of tional saviours of a “colonise” Europe? What putes included — pose the Norwegian Labour wrecked and decaying so - do you do if you believe fundamental challenges. Party, the bomb caused By Hugh Edwards under invesigation, while a cial order. that this “colonisation” Against the Breiviks, the considerable damage. A further nine have had their In the place of appeals to heralds “catastrophic con - Wilders, the Griffins and short time later, reports In last May’s administra - sentencing timed-out. traditional extreme right- sequences” for non-Mus - the Robinsons we pose the emerged of gunfire on the tive elections, and a na - The bulk of the cases in - wing and fascist dogma, lims? What course of real and necessary island of Utoeya, the site of tional referendum that volve fraud, bribery has grown a fixation on action do you take if you prospect of working-class a Labour Party youth followed, tens of millions and/or association with the preservation of “na - are politically margin - anti-racism and anti-fas - camp. of Italians gave an un - one or other of the mafia. tional identity”. These spu - alised and ignored? cism. Dressed as a policeman, equivocal thumbs down The bulk of them belonged rious appeals are set There is only one course Against those who buy Breivik calmly hunted to Silvio Berlusconi. So to the government. Facts against what is portrayed of action open to you: po - even a little of the anti- down and murdered general and widespread further underlined by more as a creeping, institutional litical terror. But this was Muslim racism these char - scores of people on the is - was the feeling of tri - data from the regional as - undermining of the “foun - not political terror as mar - acters thrive upon we pose land. He did so meticu - umph and hope that sembly of Sicily, where one dational structures” of this tyrdom. Breivik’s life was the real history of the lously, selecting a type of many believed an Italian in three of the 95 or so rep - ‘identity’. The basis for this not taken for the “good of world and the real history ammunition designed to “spring” was in the off - resentatives were incrimi - “undermining” is specifi - the cause”. His actions and of our class. explode inside the human ing. nated. cally Muslim immigration, the preservation of his life Against the conspiracies body and putting bullets Right now there are at although more “sophisti - seem deliberate. According and racial hatred, we pose However so far there has through the heads of those least two major criminal in - cated” adherents to this to his manifesto, the mur - the material realities and been only increased misery “playing dead” in the hope viewpoint trace the prob - ders were a “preparation contradictions that govern and a mounting sense of vestigations against mem - of avoiding murder. lem back much further. phase” for “armed strug - and form reality. helpless desperation. This bers of the regime — apart, Breivik was well pre - Against those who de - Aided and abetted by gle” to come. The “armed was magnified dramati - from the three involving pared in other ways. As mand race war, we say “multiculturalists” and struggle” he envisions will cally by the money mar - the boss himself! the massacre commenced, unite as a class and fight “cultural Marxists” in gov - be a race war. A war of the kets’ flight from Italian The links between the he posted a fifteen hun - exploitation and oppres - ernment Muslims (i.e. any - “West” against Muslims. A treasury bonds, revealing business world, public dred page “manifesto” on sion in whatever mani - one from Middle Eastern war to ethnically cleanse the stark truth about the admin, and judiciary in the internet. This docu - festation. or Asian backgrounds) and Europe. A war of national Italian economy and its vast networks of corrupt ment helps to trace their “Islamic” faith are jerry-built financial system. association are redolent of Breivik’s evolution from a slowly but surely taking Under pressure from the both the “bribesville” socially conservative over. This belief motivated Northern League’s Um - scandal of the early 1990s Christian to the radical Breivik’s attack on the rul - berto Bossi and Roberto which brought down the right-wing murderer he ing Labour Party. Maroni to regain lost public Christian Democratic gov - became. support, Berlusconi pro - ernnent and the conspira - CONSPIRACY posed a budget to axe large cies of the powerful NORWAY Norway is a modern, THEORIES swathes of public services, Masonic lodge of P2 in an Western liberal democ - In this world-view there health and education, earlier period. racy. It has an extensive is a highly organised which would cut taxes, Something of the same - welfare state with free conspiracy with hazy protect and favour the sorts of things are going on universal health care, motivations from the top commercial, artisanal and now, underlined by the fact heavily subsidised higher to the bottom of society. professional classes. that the new deal ham - education and a robust Berlusconi’s budget mered out a few weeks ago The reality of the bomb - social security system. sharpened an already in Brussels around Greece’s ing of the World Trade smouldering conflict with debt has failed to reassure In 2010, the country had Centre, the lives murder - “superminister” of the the markets that the Berlus - the highest human devel - ously stolen and the de - economy, Giulio Tremonti, coni regime has a future opment index in the struction wrought upon whose austerity pro - and that the chronically world. The country has an New York breathed life gramme has won him stagnant economy is not estimated GDP per capita into the idea. The existence credit with the national and heading for recession. Now of $53,269 and a 3.6% un - of small but highly organ - international bourgeoisie as another €48 billion worth employment rate, com - ised Islamist clerical-fascist being the only figure reli - of cuts has been announed pared to $35,289 and 7.6% organisations — Al Qaeda able enough to run the — supposedly to restore respectively in the UK. being the most obvious — country. balance to the public fi - Historically dominated and the barbaric atrocities Tremonti faced his boss nances by 2014. by the Labour and Conser - they commit are the “win - down, and from that mo - Meanwhile the interest vative parties, the present ner takes all, we told you ment the credit the money the country is now paying government is a “Red- so” justification for this markets had in the Berlus - on its debt — around 6% — Green” coalition between anti-Muslim racism. coni government slowly instantly puts it in debt by Labour Party, the Socialist In the UK, both the began to dry up. another €20 billion, unsus - Left Party and Centre British National Party and The process was exacer - tainable if it were to con - Party. English Defence League bated by the revelations of tinue for any appeciable As with other Scandina - have used such ideas to several more scandals of lenth of time. vian, and most European mobilise significant sup - widescale corruption in - Now also comes news countries, Norway has an port. volving government fig - that Tremonti is himself at organised extreme right- In the oh-so-liberal ures, judges and the centre of a growing wing and fascist political Netherlands, Geert executives; an official re - scandal involving a fellow scene. Unlike its neigh - Wilders’ port revealed that 89 of the deputy and a business bours, they are tiny mani - was delivered into coali - deputies and senators in company offered favours. festations with no public tion government. The Italian ship is In no-less “liberal” Den - the Italian parliament are heading for the rocks. presence. criminals, on remand or Of Norway’s estimated mark — where the na - 6 SOLIDARITY INTERNATIONAL US budget cuts: the class war is back

On Monday 1 August De - lionaire fractions of the haps elsewhere against mocrat and Republican ruling class like the infa - some of these legislators, members in the US House mous Koch brothers. and that’s entirely to the of Representatives voted Union-busting legislation good. It’s still to be seen through a cuts package of is literally drawn up in the whether these recall drives more than $2 trillion over offices of rightwing think can retain their momen - the next 10 years. The deal tanks funded by these tum and unseat the reac - eneded weeks of wran - super-rich sponsors. tionaries — and if they do, gling that could have re - The [Democrats’] over - whether the next set of sulted in the US riding loyalty is to corpo - elected politicians will ag - defaulting on its debts. rate capital, especially its gressively repeal the But these huge cuts at largest donors from Wall union-busting laws or set the state level follow cuts, Street and the hedge funds about “negotiating” over and attacks on unions at a — and to the capitalist sys - them. federal level. The follow - tem. The higher up the This attack demands ing editorial* from the party leadership, the radical, new independent July-August edition of stronger the discipline im - politics, not a recycling of Against the Current , the posed by capital. the same old lesser-evil journal of US socialist Yet the Democrats can corporate politics. group Solidarity, de - succeed only by delivering Today’s battle isn’t one scribes the political lines benefits to their key voting that the unions can win on of those attacks. base — labor, the African- their own, especially in the The full frontal assault American and other com - shriveled state of organ - on public workers and munities of color, women ised labour. A new, mas - their unions in one state seeking gender equality sive worker-led popular after another — stripping and reproductive rights. movement is the need of collective bargaining There are occasions... the hour. rights and dues check - when Democrats at lower Saving public education, levels act honorably, espe - for example, requires off, slashing wages and ways lose. Obama and the Democ - people — until the attack cially in response to the deeply rooted teacher-par - pensions and health Even while the intensity rats... are getting ready to directly hits them. pressure of mass move - ent-community alliances; it benefits, abolishing sen - and pure viciousness of offer “reforms” that will The right wing offensive ments — and the fact that can’t be done by the iority and tenure for the rightwing assault on further weaken working faces contradictions, how - the destruction of public teacher unions alone. teachers, mandating labor creates almost un - people’s confidence that ever. The Republican sector unions threatens the Where public employ - yearly decertification bearable pressures to back Social Security will be sweep of the House of party’s funding base. The ees’ strikes are met with votes, threatening jail the Democrats as “the only there for them in the long Representatives in Novem - 14 Wisconsin state Senate firings and jail sentences, terms for strikers — is as alternative,” the real-life run. ber, 2010 occurred before Democrats who left the the entire labor movement massive and instanta - need for independent poli - Social Security is neither the party was quite “ready state, blocking the quorum and communities will neous as it was unex - tics is greater than ever. in “crisis” nor the cause of for prime time.” The Tea necessary to pass Gover - need to rally behind them. pected by the labor the deficit. It has produced Party fringe, with its insis - nor Walker’s union-smash - The stark reality is that bureaucracy and many WHAT NEXT? consistent surpluses for tence on lunatic cuts that ing law, showed real the present political and union members. To say The game-of-chicken decades, which are used to even the Republican lead - courage and fighting legal climate — and the “the class war is back” is over a government shut - subsidise US capitalism’s ership knows would be ru - spirit. state of unions themselves an understatement. down around the federal assorted wars, tax reduc - inous, presents a challenge The record of the De - in both public and private budget ended, for the tions for corporations and to party discipline. Some In our home state of mocrats in power, how - sectors — leaves workers moment, with a highly the rich, etc. of these same elements’ fa - Michigan alone, 40 anti- ever, is appalling and with few effective tools to praised “bipartisan com - Far from a “failed gov - natical commitment to cut - labor laws have been en - demoralising to their sup - defeat the rightwing as - promise” that hacks ernment program,” it is ting things like Planned acted or are pending. port base. But the biggest sault. New tools for resist - away billions from med - the most successful one Parenthood and public Those already passed lessons about politics ance will have to be ical programs for chil - ever, and can be funded broadcasting... may gener - through the Republican- [under Obama], of course, creatively forged in the dren and the poor — permanently by lifting the ate a big public backlash. dominated legislature and are EFCA — the Employee midst of struggle itself, al - those who need them artificial ceiling on in - The bigger contradiction signed by governor Rick Free Choice Act, dumped ways a difficult problem most. It’s a taste of comes taxed to finance it is that the savagery of the “smart nerd” Snyder in - in an unmarked grave Millions of people, in - what’s to come in the — which is precisely why state-level assaults on pub - clude “Emergency Man - without even a decent bur - cluding many who actu - next war over raising the it’s now in the reactionar - lic sector workers has ager” statutes giving ial — and Health Care Re - ally voted for these federal debt ceiling. ies’ crosshairs. stirred up, at long last, a state-appointed managers form. Republican governors, The attack on Social Se - massive labor response. license to eliminate union In a period of capitalist Backed by ideological now see through the lying curity is a quite deliberate, contracts and even dis - decline and crisis — as op - centers like the Peterson propaganda of the fanati - frontal assault on the no - THE RESISTANCE solve the elected govern - posed to the boom times of Institute and Cato Insti - cal privateers and budget- tion that society’s mem - The fact is that the new ing bodies of financially growth and prosperity — tute, the right wing is slashing “free-market” bers bear any kind of [anti-union] laws are distressed school districts it’s really true that “you preparing a frontal assault fundamentalists. collective, organised re - now on state statute It’s not just that class and entire municipalities. can’t serve two masters” on Social Security, on the sponsibility for each other. books, aside from the war is back — it’s that The Republicans on the with fundamentally op - pretext that “the next gen - “Your Health Care, Your legal challenge in Wis - more and more people whole serve a single mas - posed class interests, and eration can’t afford the Problem” was a sign seen consin over the blatant can see and feel it. ter — corporate capital. so this is a game that De - burden of Baby Boom re - at Tea Party rallies trash - way the Republicans In some cases, as in the mocrats will usually lose. tirees,” that “only the truly *Abridged. Full text here: ing the health care reform. rammed it through. notorious case of Wiscon - But movements that attach poor really need Social Se - www.solidarity- It’s an ideology with some sin governor Walker, they themselves to the Democ - curity” and all the rest of There are recall initia - us.org/current/node/33080 appeal to relatively better- even work directly for bil - rats at such a time will al - it. tives in Wisconsin and per - off, mostly white working Resisting bosses’ greed in China and South Korea

By Gerry Bates 2011 despite fears that it bezzlement by its financial China’s workers, without Kim Jin-suk, who was panies are allowed to file was not safe. backers. The clear signal is whom projects like the sacked by the company in criminal charges and seek China’s people and its In the immediate after - that, for the Chinese gov - high-speed railway and the 1987, and who is now a imprisonment or damages media have defied state math of the rail crash, the ernment, “development” is Jiaozhou Bay bridge could leader of the Korean Con - claims against individuals censorship to condemn Chinese government ap - not aimed at improving the never have been built in the federation of Trade Unions, and unions taking legiti - the government’s devel - peared unwilling to re - lives of Chinese people but first place, hold the key to has been occupying — 35 mate industrial action. opment drive, which is spond to questions about at improving the finances of overthrowing a state power metres up in a shipyard’s The dispute started in De - coming with a terrible the incident and attempted the country’s super-rich that puts profits and pres - crane since January — to cember, when Hanjin work - cost. to prevent the national and improving the state’s tige first and human life protests against job losses. ers walked out in protest media from probing too position as a major world- second. Arrest warrants for union against the planned layoff After a high-speed rail deeply into what had hap - player in international leaders have been issued of 400 workers. The com - crash on 24 July which In South Korea, Police pened, leading to accusa - trade. and some 50 supporters pany, in turn, closed the killed 39 people, questions used water cannon and tions of a cover-up. The China’s flagship newspa - have been arrested and re - shipyard. are being asked about the tear gas against 10,000 high-speed railway was per, The People’s Daily , (usu - leased. The company is real motivations behind Korean workers and their •See www.labourstart.org also involved in significant ally supportive of the state) suing for 5.3 billion won in projects such as the high- families marching to a for more details and an controversy earlier in the said that China does not damages. Under Korea’s speed railway and the Hanjin Heavy Industries email urgent action ap - year when a state audit re - need economic growth that Penal Code 314, or “Ob - Jiaozhou Bay sea-bridge, shipyard on July 9-10. peal. vealed corruption and em - is smeared in blood. struction of Business”, com - which opened in late June SOLIDARITY 7 MIDDLE EAST BRIEFING Qaddafi must go! : rev By Dan Katz and Libya’s future. On Wednesday 27 July Britain became the latest state By Clive Bradley to recognise the rebel National Transition Council (NTC) This week William Hague suggested Qaddafi may not as the “sole [Libyan] governmental authority”. have to go into exile should he leave power — saying it was a “question for the Libyans”. It is six months since the fall of Egypt’s , 30 countries, including the United States, have now recog - Since it is difficult to see how internal exile could work it and in that time, although intense struggles have contin - nized the NTC. UK Foreign Secretary, William Hague de - seems that the British — and others in Western governments ued throughout the Arab world, especially in Libya and clared, “This decision reflects the National Transitional — are signalling to Qaddafi that the details of his departure Syria (probably the two most repressive Arab states), as Council’s increasing legitimacy, competence and success in are negotiable. yet no other dictators have fallen. reaching out to Libyans across the country.” The West does not want to a rebel victory following fight - Egypt remains, however, central to the future of these rev - In London a Libyan diplomat was summoned to the For - ing on the streets of Tripoli. The Western states want some olutions: it is the most populous Arab country, with the most eign Office to be told all Qaddafi officials must pack their sort of negotiated end – as one diplomat put it, candidly – developed political culture. In the last six months, a whole bags and leave. not a black and white ending, but something “a little grub - range of new political parties have come into being; extremely The NTC had been complaining that many of the financial bier”. sophisticated political and ideological debates have taken promises made to it by foreign governments at the start of The day after Hague recognised the NTC the top rebel place; and the most important, if not the first, genuine work - the civil war had not been met. Recognition allows the military commander, Abdel Fattah Younes was murdered. ers’ movement of the Arab “East” has come into being. British government to unfreeze £91m in assets from a NTC minister Ali Tarhouni claimed he was killed by mem - On 8 July, ’s , symbol of the January rev - Libyan oil company. Austria also plans to free $1.7bn. bers of the Obaida Ibn Jarrah Brigade, an Islamist group. olution, was reoccupied by protestors in a new “day of rage”, Backed by airstrikes, the anti-Qaddafi fighters have been No doubt the British government is both alarmed and em - and many of them are still there. The demands of these new making military progress on three fronts – around Brega, barrassed by the killing. Tory Defence Secretary Liam Fox protests reflect the growing impatience of the mass movement west of Misrata, and south of Tripoli in the Western moun - declared that as Libyan democracy developed the militants with the military government that removed Mubarak. Key tains. The military-diplomatic stranglehold on Qaddafi is would “have to be marginalised”. He spelt it out: “The key revolutionary demands have not been met — most important, producing shortages in Tripoli; for example, residents queu - to the Libyan resolution will be whether or not the close cir - the repeal of the Emergency Laws that have been in place since ing for petrol need to wait a week to fill up. cle around Colonel Qaddafi recognise that he will sooner or Mubarak came to power, in 1981 — or, like the prosecution of Qaddafi’s regime was subjected to extensive sanctions in later have to leave power. When the penny drops that that the Mubarak family and others from the old regime, are pro - the 1990s, and it has now reactivated the old smuggling is inevitable, then you’re likely to see the sort of change in ceeding only very slowly. The Supreme Council of the Armed routes it used then. Much of Qaddafi’s petrol now comes theThpeolsittircuagl mgloemfoerntduemmtohcartawcey’vaectbieveisntsloionkLinibgyfaorw.” ill be Forces (SCAF), which has ruled Egypt since February, has in - through Algeria — although the rebels seem close to cutting to ensure that it is the change they’re looking for — the evitably proved unable to address the profound underlying the road routes being used. complete overthrow and dismantlement of Qaddafi’s economic issues which underlay the revolution. Mass unem - The western powers had been concerned about the relia - regime — that wins out, and not the negotiated escape- ployment continues; workers have very low wages and are bility of the NTC and the possible presence of Islamists route their fairweather “allies” in the British government often not paid at all. among its fighters. They calculate the rebels will win, sooner appear to want to offer the tyrant. The military government, indeed, has introduced new re - or later, and are now manoeuvring to shape the settlement pressive laws — and has continued to arrest activists — some 10,000 — many of whom are tried by military courts even though they are civilians. The abolition of this system is an - Working-class protest other demand of recent protests. But the army’s ability to impose its will is curtailed. New repressive laws were used to arrest workers from the Petrojet company protesting outside the Ministry of Petroleum. The sweeps workers were tried in a military court and found guilty – but only received suspended sentences. CONSTITUTION By Shlomo Anker stration was called in Tel Aviv for 24 June, attracting 20- One issue which was studiously kept out of the July 30,000 people. On that day the protest movement replaced demonstrations, however, was that of the constitution — The last few weeks have seen the most powerful the Israeli-Palestinian war as the main focus of the news. debate about which had dominated national politics for protest movement in Israel’s history on issues not re - The trade unions publicly came out in support of the move - the previous few months. lating to the Arab-Israeli conflict. ment and helped to organise a new series of protests. Most people expected a similar turn out to 24 July, but this time Parliamentary elections had been scheduled for September On 30 July, a series of huge demonstrations took place 150,000 came out – the equivalent of a million demonstra - — though they have now been delayed. The new parliament across the country, involving 150,000 people (Israel’s popu - tors in Britain. The movement has seen protests of 8,000 in will select a 100-member body to draw up a new constitution. lation is slightly over one tenth of the UK’s). The movement Haifa and 10,000 in Jerusalem. In cities like Nazareth, Most of the liberal-left, and more radical forces, have ar - has been so powerful that it has won words of support from protests have involved both Jews and Arabs. gued against this system, insisting instead that the constitu - centrist Kadima party, and even prime minister Benjamin The exact political opinions of those who began the move - tion be written before elections. Their concerns have been Netanyahu has conceded some ground. Kadima, like all lib - ment are unclear, but at this stage there is not an immedi - three-fold: first, to make sure that newer parties have time to erals, love to “vote with the wind.” They jump on the band ately apparent overlap with activists in the anti-Occupation organise properly (especially in local areas) before elections wagon when they see a movement has public support. The movement. However, some members of the Anarchists take place; second, that the new constitution clearly defines fact that such heartless opportunists are supporting the Against the Wall group have taken part in the tent city the army’s role, ensuring that it withdraws from politics; and protests is proof of their power. protests. finally — connected to the first — that the Muslim Brother - It started when a small group set up tents to protest the In the big demonstrations, a number of Israeli revolution - hood, the best-organised political party and likely to be the poor housing situation in Tel Aviv, on the highly expensive ary socialists have come out of the woodwork. A far-left ex - largest in parliament, isn’t able to dictate the new constitution. Rothschild Boulevard. The media, which in Israel tends to ists in Israel (the Committee for a Workers’ International, The Brotherhood, which has been extremely close to the be a little less anti-protest than the British media, quickly re - led by the Socialist Party, has a section there, named military government, eventually decided to support the July ported on these events, and other direct action protests Ma’avak, and other groups also operate) but left groups protests. mushroomed dramatically. Many people who are active in tend to be focused on the Palestinian issue. It is mainly due If one feature of the broad movement now is a growing im - other struggles joined in setting up tents at Rothschild to the role of Hadash, Israel’s largest left-wing organisation patience with the SCAF, the other is growing divisions within Boulevard, to the point where the protest dominated this (at the centre of which is the ex-Stalinist Communist Party), the movement itself. Some of the youth movements which major street in central Tel Aviv. that red flags and other socialist imagery have been seen on emerged during the revolution are suspicious of, or hostile to, Some in the media claimed that the protesters were all the demos. Some of the chants have been revolutionary, and political parties as such. middle class, called them cry babies, spoilt kids, etc. Some a headline in Ha’aretz used the word “revolution” to de - In Tahrir Square, for example, some semi-anarchist groups may be the children of middle-class parents, but privilege scribe the movement. tried to prevent a meeting being held by the Workers Demo - has not necessarily trickled down. In reality these protesters, The Meretz party, (essentially liberal social democrats), cratic Party — on the grounds that political parties are the many of whom work for the or just above, were also present. But the average protester seems to have problem. are very much working class. been the young Israeli who is at best semi-political, not a But this event perhaps underscores another, deeper divi - The focus at this point was on housing. Tel Aviv residents member of any group and shaky on the Palestinian issue. sion — activists’ attitudes to the continuing struggles of the suffer similar problems to those in London, and Netanyahu Whenever the country is attacked by a bomb or missile, they new workers’ movement. is a disciple of Thatcherism. As the movement has grown, tend to get scared and retreat into their right-wing tortoise What tipped the balance in February was escalating na - the focus has broadened to take in other demands around shell, and give at least passive support to the government tional – especially in the Suez canal area, with its education, healthcare and other social services. Activist against the Palestinians. But when the situation is calmer, key economic role. Strikes have continued unabated since; and Daphni Leef said: “We do not want to replace the govern - this mass of the secular Jewish population leans left on this an entire, new labour movement has been born. ment, we want much more than that — to change the rules Perhaps 150 new, independent unions have been created. quHesotwionthtoeoP. alestine issue and the current movement of the game and say loud and clear: Social services are Some of these are relatively small caucuses in huge work - will interrelate remains to be seen. rights, not commodities.” places; but many are mass unions in the most important in - After the first few days of these direct actions, a demon - dustries and workplaces — such as the textile plants in 8 SOLIDARITY Syria: regime volution reignites sinks to new low By Dan Katz

The Syrian state under Bashar al-Assad used tank fire and heavy machine guns on Sunday 31 July as the army overran barricades erected by the citizens of Hama. 500 000 had marched in Hama on Friday 29 demanding “the regime must go!” Shooting wildly, soldiers attacked mainly peaceful demonstrators who — amazingly, bravely — ran into the fir - ing from the ramshackle barriers, demanding the tanks stop. The Syrian National Organisation for Human Rights esti - mates 142 people died on Sunday in Hama and three other Syrian towns. It seems the regime wants to break the protests before the start of the month of Ramadan on 1 August. They fear that Syrians will use daily attendance at Mosques during Ra - madan to step-up protests. The demonstrations have been growing; on each Friday during July one million have marched. HAMA MASSACRE Hama is a conservative Sunni town of 800,000 in the west of Syria. It was the site of a notorious massacre in February 1982 when Assad’s father, Hafez Assad, put down an Islamist rising, killing 20,000 people. According to the campaigning organisation Avaaz, the regime has now butchered 1634 people during the four and a half months of the pro-democracy uprising. Avaaz claims a further 2918 people have disappeared. Thousands have been arrested and many tortured. The regime says “armed gangs”, who have been “vandal - ising public and private property”, are responsible for the violence. In fact the violence is being orchestrated by the mil - itary and secret police, flanked by pro-regime, sectarian gangs called Shabiha (Ghosts). The press attaché at the US embassy in Damascus described the government’s version Army forces attempt to clear out Tahrir Square as Egypt’s protest movement revives in opposition to the military government of events as, “completely delusional. They are making up fanciful stories that no one believes.” Without any sense of irony — given their own poisonous Mehalla al-Kubra north of Cairo and the Suez Canal. Some tice Party; but there are in total five parties which have interventions in the affairs of Lebanon, Palestine and Israel workers who were not even organised by the old state-run emerged from the Brotherhood in the past months (in addi - — the Syrian state has complained about foreign interfer - unions are part of this new movement. tion to the Centre Party — a split in the 1990s). These new ence in its internal affairs. In Sadat City, on the outskirts of Cairo, a largely non- parties seem to be at serious loggerheads with each other, in - Although there have been no major splits in the govern - unionised workforce was one of the lures provided by the dicating, perhaps, a crisis in the movement. ment forces there have been regular, smaller-scale defections state to foreign investors. Now 50,000 workers — in textiles, The most significant of these is the Egyptian Current as troops refuse to fire, or switch sides. To overthrow the iron and steel, and ceramics — are represented by eight new Party, formed by 4,000 (mainly) youth expelled by the central regime a significant rebellion in state forces must take place. unions and a city-wide labour council, which have joined the leadership. These are Brotherhood activists who were in - Although Western governments have condemned the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions. volved, for instance, in protests against Israel’s war in Gaza crackdown in Syria, and imposed sanctions, there have been In the Suez Canal itself an extremely militant strike has and who have been, it seems, influenced by the secular left. They believe in a separation between religion and pol - few protests from Arab states. been going on for six weeks — involving sit-ins and con - itics, which represents an enormous break with the pol - Scores of Syrians protested outside the Arab League office frontations with the army. Workers in subsidiary companies itics of the parent movement. in central Cairo last week demanding the pan-Arab organi - of the Suez Canal Authority have been demanding parity sation oppose the state’s violence. with their public-sector equivalents (a 40% raise), bonuses Slogans included: “We condemn Arab silence at what and better benefits. International unions slam Egypt’s is taking place in Syria.” NATIONAL INTEREST government on workers’ rights The bourgeois parties, and some of the revolutionary On 21 June the International Trade Union Confedera - youth movements, hold that these workers’ demands tion (ITUC) wrote a letter of protest to the acting and struggles are divisive and “sectional”, and should be Egyptian prime minister, , denouncing restrained in the “national interest”. The truth is, for a Decree No. 34 — drafted and approved by the worker who has not been paid in two months, “re - Supreme Council of the Armed Forces — which crim - straint’”is impossible. inalises strikes and protest actions. As yet the new workers’ movement, although it has proven The ITUC describes the Decree as a “backward step,” itself a real force in national politics, has no political voice of that would “lead to legal disaster.”An ITUC report of 28 its own. There are initiatives in that direction, notably the al - July, surveying Egypt’s labour laws, comments: “Exemp - ready-mentioned Workers Democratic Party (whose main ac - tions from certain labour provisions in export processing tivists seem to be from the Revolutionary Socialists group, zones, combined with poor enforcement of the law, have but which does include important workers’ leaders). resulted in rights abuses and poor working conditions Such initiatives are very new, and financially-restrictive there. Furthermore a law passed by the new government laws make it unlikely they will be able to participate in the in March 2011 denies the right to strike.” forthcoming elections. The government that emerged from the Egyptian up - Polls still suggest the will be the rising is opposed to workers’ rights and the workers’ largest group in the parliament — although one poll, at least, movement. The ITUC complain that child labour is wide - indicated the Brotherhood could only rely on 15% of the vote. spread: “There are between 2.7 million and 5.5 million The Brothers — anxious to reassure, in particular, the Obama working children, amounting to 6 -13% of children aged administration, have promised not to field candidates in 5-14, and the worst forms of child labour are com - Activists carry the coffin of, amongst others, Ibrahim more than 50% of seats. (The elections involve an extremely Qashoush, a firefighter from Hama who wrote poetry and moTnh.e”Mgoovreorvnemr,e“nftorhcaesdblaebeonusrlioswa isnerrieoaucstpinrgobtloemca.ses complex system, part of which is PR). songs in support the uprising. His throat was cut out by pro- of forced labour and trafficking.” In practice it’s not clear what this will mean. The Muslim regime forces. Brothers have officially formed a party — the Peace and Jus - SOLIDARITY 9 REVIEW Workers: unite The voice of power to smash EDL Martyn Hudson reviews The Stranger’s Child by Allan cussed sexuality and its moral repercussions in the context Hollinghurst of a thinly disguised Tory grandee family and from the ob - It would be odd if book reviews in socialist newspapers servation point of a young student. It was a masterpiece of spent much time reviewing novels about obscure dead precision and honesty — matched only in these isles by aristocrats. It would look like the usual Independent on Colm Toibin’s similar analysis of homosexuality and the Sunday , Sunday Times or Observer books pages which Irish class system — which is stylistically comparable. The Stranger’s Child is very different to The Line of Beauty are chock full of pastoral, aristocratic, nostalgic publi - in context if not in tone. It recounts the story of a grand aris - cations of dubious literary worth. Left tocrat, Cecil Teucer Valance, who visits the suburban family By Ira Berkovic The ubiquity of this kind of stuff has led to writers like home of his lover George. Over a weekend he writes a long James Kelman largely boycotting literary events and festi - poem about the house called Two Acres . He subsequently dies in the First World War and the poem and the weekend The English Defence League plans to march through vals and the kind of bourgeois literary diet which is the sta - pass into literary legend. Tower Hamlets in East London (an area with a large ple of the assumed reading public in the UK — those who The rest of the novel follows the consequences of that Asian, mostly Muslim, population) on 3 September. As speak “with the accent of the cultural elite in this country, weekend in the respective fates of the families of Cecil and racist violence has been a feature wherever the EDL the middle to upper-middle-class RP voice, the voice of au - George. At points throughout the narrative the lost and hid - has held large mobilisations, working-class activists in thority, the voice of power”. den truths of that weekend reveal themselves. Tower Hamlets and beyond need to organise to con - This reflex has led to new fictional directions, exploring It seems to me that there are three issues of great signifi - front the EDL and prevent them from marching. Unfor - subaltern voices of which the most successful have been cance dealt with here. tunately, that is not the strategy on offer in Tower Kelman himself on the Scottish working class, John Berger First, the attempt to eliminate the historical experience of Hamlets right now. on peasant and migrant voices, and John McGahern on Irish rural labour. Yet these writers have come from the margins, homosexuality in official records of the 20th century. The at - We need a direct-action anti-fascist movement based on the fringes of the British isles. Metropolitan working-class tempt of Queer Theory to readdress that history is largely doomed because of the self-censorship of the historical pro - working-class, socialist politics that can physically confront voices have been paradoxically heard less. tagonists. Linked to this is an attempt by Hollinghurst to the far-right in the streets and provide a political alternative It might be argued that in the metropolitan crime fiction understand the nostalgia that the First World War seems to for disenfranchised workers drawn to the EDL or BNP. of people like David Peace and others the urban working have for novelists. What we have instead from the left in Tower Hamlets is a class experience has found its voice — certainly in the US Second, the book witnesses the historical destruction of second-time-as-farce recapitulation of the Stalinist popular the greatest current exponent of the voice of working-class architectural and literary Victoriana and its accompanying fronts of the 1930s. These were anti-fascist initiatives communities are crime writers like Dennis Lehane and El - launched by Communist Parties across Europe which aimed morality and the class structure that created it. The final vic - more Leonard. tory of the suburban schoolboys in the novel and their pen - to unite workers’ organisations with “progressive sections” Yet we would fall into a trap if we admired only “prole” of the ruling-class — anyone from senior religious figures etration into the secrets of the lordly classes signify a clear fiction and didn’t pay any attention to the best of the kind to eccentric aristocrats to liberal bosses. shift in the class system of Britain in the 20th century — of literature which gives a hearing to the ruling class voices In contrast, Leon Trotsky proposed “united front” tactics bank clerks becoming poets as one character describes it. of the immediate past. This is not about just “understanding — seeking unity only with organisations within the work - Finally, Hollinghurst attempts to address a clear question the enemy”, but to recognise that no part of human experi - ing-class, reformist and revolutionary. Trotsky argued that, — in what sense does the culture of the British ruling class ence is alien to us and in understanding the historical elim - as fascism grew on the despair and misery created by capi - brutalise, cage, and ultimately morally and physically de - talist economic policies, it could not be fought in alliance ination of declining class formations, we more fully stroy its own children? Just because the working class is the with the people responsible for those policies. understand the kind of world that we want to bring into class with radical chains that will destroy capital doesn’t Sadly, even the Socialist Workers’ Party, Britain’s biggest being. mean that the revolution will not bring liberation to all hu - “Trotskyist” group, has forgotten the lessons of that period. Am I pointing to Alan Hollinghurst as some kind of sec - manity. The emotional slavery of the characters in the novel The campaign to build the “No Place for Hate” demonstra - ond rate Nancy Mitford or Waugh style novelist? No. testify to the worth of a liberatory politics of sexuality and Hollinghurst is one of the great stylists of the English novel. tion (a “celebration of diversity” planned for the day of the claSspsewahkiicnhgistrruetlhevtaontptoowaellroisf utsh. e task of emancipatory EDL’s march), led by Unite Against Fascism (which is con - An openly gay writer, he addresses the frictions and fissures politics. Speaking truth about oneself when you are part trolled by the SWP) is courting religious figures and the in homosexual experience as it is filtered through the British of the class that has political and cultural power is local bourgeois political establishment. class system even if most of the time it is as a middle-class something else again. Hollinghurst has made those While it is impressive that the campaign mobilised more observer of the vagaries of ruling class sexual mores. voices live in the very act of their dying. than 500 people for a rally in Whitechapel’s London Muslim His 2004 Booker Prize-winning The Line of Beauty dis - Centre, the list of speakers (bishop after imam, rabbi after bishop...) shows the campaign is not being given working- class or socialist content by its nominally socialist leaders. The campaign needs more democracy: currently there are and Abraham Lincoln no regular, open meetings giving local activists an input into the organisation of the event. There is no space to debate strategy, to question the “celebration of diversity” backed by local religious and political officialdom. No chance to Dan Katz reviews An Unfinished Revolution: Karl Marx the movement. And, on the other hand, recognising the lim - argue for a militant counter-demonstration to stop the EDL and Abraham Lincoln by Robin Blackburn itations of trade unions, Marx urged the unions towards from marching. Meanwhile the other main anti-fascist or - This book is available for a bit more than £8 on Ama - politics. As early as 1853 Draper quotes Marx from the New ganisation — Searchlight/Hope not Hate — are calling for zon, which makes it a bargain. York Tribune expecting unions to carry their work over into a ban on the EDL marching. Bans (by the local council in political action. this case) are not the way to oppose the far right. The author — Robin Blackburn — is a former editor of I think Robin Blackburn is right to criticise Marx and Many people in local Asian communities are religious and New Left Review , and has previously written two good books blame him, to some degree, for the narrowness of his US the mosque will represent a socio-political centre of gravity on slavery ( The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and The Mak - supporters — but not for the lack of a clear idea of the dif - ing of New World Slavery ). for them. But the same was true of the synagogues in the ference between trade union and political action (as Black - 1930s when Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts threatened to Unfinished Revolution is divided into two sections: a 100 burn notes, this was not true in Germany or France, where march through the Jewish East End. Then the Independent page introduction, followed by 150 pages of documents. It Marx discussed the question, with clarity, at length). Labour Party (who, rather than the Stalinist Communist is a long time since I bought a new book which includes a Party, were the real builders of the movement that led to the section of historical writings — in this case from Marx, En - Rather, the criticism should be different. Right the way Battle of Cable Street) related directly to Jewish workers on gels, Lincoln and others. It makes a good change to find a through his writings on the US civil war Marx failed to a class basis and appealed to them to unite with non-Jewish writer who thinks readers should study historical sources. clearly differentiate his supporters, and the workers, from workers to confront the fascists, even if that meant break - Blackburn’s introduction is interesting, but is an odd po - Lincoln’s camp. And the clearest evidence for this is the ing with their conservative religious leaders. litical shape. He starts by contrasting Lincoln with Marx — open letters Marx wrote for the First International to Lin - Predictably, the SWP campaign is attempting to invoke but can’t go too far because Lincoln is assassinated at the coln in January 1865 and to his successor, Andrew Johnson, the spirit of Cable Street in its publicity. But in reality it is end of the civil war, in April 1865 (and the period of post- in May 1865 (both printed in this book). closer to the policy of the Communist Party — which, until war Reconstruction does not end until 1877). The last sec - The letter to Lincoln — a cautious war leader against slav - it was forced by external and internal pressure to u-turn, tion of Blackburn’s essay is a brief overview of the ery and an enthusiastic advocate of capitalism — begins, planned to oppose the fascist threat by holding a popular- development of the working class movement in the wake “We congratulate the American people on your re-election”, frontist rally in Trafalgar Square. of the American North’s victory. and continues, describing Lincoln as the “single-minded Unless similar pressure can be applied in Tower Hamlets, Blackburn makes one claim which seems wrong, and — son of the working class” who had led his country through the “No Place for Hate” event will be the modern echo of more important — fails to make one criticism of Marx which a “matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race.” that rally; a cleric-dominated proclamation of why workers should be made. The two are connected. At this time that Lincoln was battling radicals in his own should line up behind their bosses to resist racism. The false claim is this: party over the rights former slaves should expect in Recon - If the EDL are to be physically confronted on 3 September, “Marx and Engels were often uneasy about the narrow structed southern states. those of us who believe class politics and direct action are mindedness of their American followers, but they were There is not much sense in Marx’s writings of the need needed will have to organise independently. themselves partly responsible for this, since they had not Last August’s rout of the EDL in Bradford, where AWL for differentiation inside the Northern camp. The reason ap - members, anarchists, and other independent anti-fas - yet developed a conception of the different character of trade unions on the one hand and political parties on the pears to be this idea, at the end of Marx’s letter to Lincoln: cists linked up with local Asian youth (defying advice “the American war of Independence initiated a new era of from the mosque and Muslim councillors to limit them - other.” This seems, at the very least, a little harsh; by the late ascendancy for the middle class, so the American anti-slav - selves to “peaceful” — passive — demonstration) to 1860s Marx and Engels had been discussing the question of ery war will do for the working classes.” drive the EDL out of town, showed that working-class trade unionism for more than 20 years. Marx appears to be saying: first the war over slavery, Muslims usually have better instincts than the conser - Marx and Engels had been the first major figures in the then the workers. He would have done better to remem - vative religious and political leaders of their communi - socialist movement “to adopt a position of support to trade ber his own conclusions following the revolutions of ties with whom the SWP insist they must unite. unions and trade unions on principle” (Draper, Karl Marx’s 1848: for working class independence. Theory of Revolution, Vol. 2 ), waging a war on sectarians in 10 SOLIDARITY BACKGROUND The school that practises educational apartheid

By Patrick Yarker setting on exam-results is negligible, if it exists at all. One thing is well-known, though. These grouping-prac - In the early 1980s, Crown Woods School was London’s tices stigmatise, de-motivate entire cohorts of students, and largest comprehensive. It had a thriving Sixth Form. It generate and perpetuate inequities. Hence they have been had a “farm” which students tended, and a Rural Stud - deemed unlawful in, for example, Sweden, and contested ies course. It had a ham radio set-up. Unusually for a in courts in the USA. state school, it even had a boarding wing. Over two The educational outlook materialised in the buildings, or - thousand students were on the school’s roll. They came ganisation, uniform, curriculum offer and pedagogical ap - from a wide area of South-East London, and spoke be - proach at Crown Woods College ignores this wealth of tween them several dozen different languages. But the research. In the words of Michael Murphy, the Headteacher, students of the class of 1981 could have been no more (as reported by the Independent when he took up his post) apprehensive walking through the school’s entrance- the best the College may offer the child is the chance to “ful - foyer to start the school year than I was. Crown Woods fil its potential”. Note the use of the impersonal pronoun. was my first teaching-post. At Crown Woods College, where the child’s potential has been determined before she or he starts, the child is an “it”. The school I knew and worked in for almost twenty years When he first took up his post, Michael Murphy said that: has recently ceased to exist. Its entrance-foyer, classrooms, “Schools are essentially businesses.” Interviewed (in the labs, gyms and workshops will shortly be razed to the Guardian , July 25 2011) about the newly-opened College he ground. In its place, newly-built at a cost of £50 million and had the same outlook. He offered nothing on educational financed by a PFI scheme, Crown Woods College has grounds to justify his segregationist approach. Instead he opened. quoted Margaret Thatcher about the unignorability of the The College is distinguished not only by new modern fa - market. Creating a mini-school exclusively for those cilities, but also by a way of seeing and treating students deemed “very able”, and ensuring they are sealed off from fundamentally hostile to the values of comprehensive edu - contact with their “less able” peers, is supposed to appeal to cation which the school I knew had helped pioneer. The Crown Woods College headteacher Michael Murphy says a certain kind of parent. ethos of Crown Woods College exemplifies instead the val - “Schools are essentially business”. ues of edu-business and the marketisation of organised EDU-BUSINESS learning. It is now a school for our regressive times. the eyes of the College. Colour-coded according to a spe - Businesses have certainly been closely involved in cre - Crown Woods College presents itself as four schools in cious view of their relative educability, students understand ating Crown Woods College. one. Each “mini-school” has a discrete set of buildings, open the hierarchy is at work which imposes itself on every as - spaces, staff hierarchy and organisation, and student popu - pect of their educational experience. The College’s prospec - Balfour Beatty and G4S are partners in the PFI scheme lation. In its publicity the school says this approach is akin tus tells them as much: which financed the new and segregated sets of buildings. to the US system of “schools within schools”. But the guid - Ashdown is a school where… students follow a … curriculum Balfour Beatty was fined £5 million in 2009 for being party, ing principle at Crown Woods College is not to do with the consisting of a… range of both academic and vocational qualifica - along with other firms, to rigging the bidding-process for, creation of smaller, more autonomous learning-communi - tions. At KS3 learning will be skills-based with a…focus on liter - and deceiving local councils over the costs of, public service ties. It has nothing in common with the movement for acy and numeracy… projects. A year earlier, the company was forced by a Serious Human Scale Education, whose hallmarks are democracy, Students at Delamere School will achieve outstanding academic Fraud Office investigation to hand over £2.25 million of “un - fairness and respect. success and develop into highly ambitious, creative, confident and lawful proceeds” gained from irregular payments in rela - Crown Woods College adopts an old strategy, the nub of happy individuals…(Crown Woods College Prospectus) tion to a prestigious construction-project in Egypt. Similar which is academic selection. Cohorts of students are divided Differentiating students at eleven by so-called “ability”, examples of corrupt practices occur regularly through the up on the basis of test-scores achieved at Primary School segregating cohorts of students on this basis, keeping them company’s past. and teacher-predictions about future test-scores. This mech - apart in separate colour-coded buildings and distinguish - G4S is the world’s largest private security firm. In this anism purports to ensure that each mini-school contains stu - ing them by colour-coded uniforms enacts and enforces a country it runs four prisons, three immigration removal cen - dents only of broadly-similar “ability”. There is therefore a despairing approach to human learning. tres, and hundreds of police cells. It was until recently re - mini-school for the “able”, another for the “average”, and a It founds itself on the erroneous notion that each child is sponsible for deporting people whose asylum-applications third for the “less able”. (The fourth mini-school is the Sixth born with a fixed quantum of innate educational “ability” or had been refused. G4S lost this lucrative government con - Form.) “potential” which can never be exceeded. Broadly speak - tract following the death of Mr Jimmy Mubenga, who was Classification and selection continues within each mini- ing, the child is held to be from the start “bright” or “aver - subjected to life-threatening and ultimately fatal restraint school, sub-dividing the already-segregated populations of age” or “less able” in any and all situations, contexts and techniques by three G4S employees as he was being de - each into “ability-streams”. company, and that nothing can be done to alter this. ported. Last year, a record year for complaints against the The College will call this a method of grouping students. The originators of this view disdained euphemism and company, forty-eight claims of assault were lodged against In fact it is how the institution has decided to regard stu - deployed terms such as “defective”, “dull”, “feeble- its employees, of which three were upheld. Two claims of dents, and to make them known to themselves and each minded”, and “backward” to describe those nowadays racism were also upheld. other. It is also a lesson for the students about thow they badged as “less able”. They claimed to know what the cali - In business the bottom line is all. If Crown Woods College should understand the world and what is possible in it. bre of mind of each student might be, and to have devised is, as Michael Murphy urges, essentially a business, exam- the appropriate set of educational experiences for it. results are its bottom-line. The current Head took over KNOW YOUR PLACE Crown Woods School in September 2000. The school had This approach to education is hierarchical, fixed and But their tests, like all such tests, construct what they pur - port only to reveal. In doing so they condemned cohorts of been designated as “failing” by OFSTED and placed in Spe - unchangeable. Know your place and make the best of cial Measures. Crown Woods had been the first school to it. This approach to student-grouping and all it implies students determined to be for ever “low ability” to a much narrower set of educational experiences than their peers mount a successful legal challenge to the results of an ear - re-invents or raises from the dead the discredited no - lier inspection. It had taken OFSTED to the High Court. It tion of “general academic ability” promulgated by cer - were offered. They ensured certain students were taught in less imaginative and creative ways than others, and were also had a member of an OFSTED inspection-team removed tain powerful educational psychologists and members for making a racist remark. In each of the four years prior to of the Eugenics Society in the 1920s and 1930s and prompted to aspire to a more restricted future. Crown Woods College is implementing this view afresh. Mr Murphy’s appointment the school’s headline A*-C used to justify a triple-track system of state education GCSE results outperformed the Local Authority average. In after World War Two. It is precisely what the original RESEARCH IGNORED each bar one of the six years following the appointment of comprehensive school movement stood against and There have been more than fifty years of research into the new Head, the school’s A*-C GCSE results were worse worked to replace. the nature and effects of grouping students according than the Authority average. Even in the single year (2002) to ‘ability’ as constructed by tests and in line with a when these results exceeded the Authority average they Pioneers of comprehensive education exposed in the deficit-model of children, one which would judge them failed to match the best equivalent score from the four years 1950s the way grouping students into “streams” in Primary by what they supposedly cannot do at a given age. The before Mr Murphy took over. OFSTED inspection-reports school for all their lessons prevented many from being fully damage streaming and setting inflict, and the social in the first decade of the new century noted that the school’s educated. At Secondary level the debate tended to centre purposes such grouping-methods serve, have been exam-results were below average, or well below average, less on streaming than on individual subject-setting by so- made very clear. until at least 2006. On the other hand they commended the called “ability” as against “mixed ability” grouping. The lat - Headteacher’s leadership and vision for the school. Michael ter policy was held to create less homogenous classes, with The most impoverished students, and those for whom Murphy has described his management-style as autocratic, educational and social benefits. Changes to student-group - English is not a first language, are over-represented in bot - not consensual (in the Evening Standard , 5 January 2001). He ing required changes to pedagogy, and recognition that tom streams and sets. was reputed to be the highest-paid state school Headteacher teaching, if it is to be effective, cannot be reduced to “deliv - Boys are over-represented in bottom and top streams and when he took up the post at Crown Woods, making £92K in ery”. sets, girls in middle ones. Those at the bottom tend to be his first year there. His current earnings, despite the under - It also required the involvement of teachers in decisions taught by the least experienced staff. Expectations for what whelming record of headline GCSE results, are reported (by about the school’s curriculum-offer. If teaching is not “deliv - these students might achieve are lower than those for mem - the Daily Mail ) to be £171k. This is significantly above the ery”, still less is it “delivery” of content teachers have had bers of middle or top streams or sets. maximum level of £112k an inner-London Headteacher sup - no hand in deciding. The role of students in helping each Girls in top sets or streams put themselves under overly- posedly may earn according to the published pay structure. other learn, the nature and centrality of student-talk (rather intense pressure to achieve highly, sometimes with danger - New Labour praised setting, and the Coalition govern - than teacher-talk) in the classroom, the significance of more ous consequences. ment loudly demand more streaming. A recent Institute of democratic approaches to all aspects of the life of the school: Those in bottom sets and streams, alienated by the admin - Education report found that 17% of Primary students in the movement for comprehensive education would inspire istrative actions of the school, generate their own opposi - England are now streamed. Governments of all stripes and stimulate these and many other new ways of improving tional culture, and often feel themselves to have been deepen social division and waste the talents of generations schools. psychologically imprisoned for life by being labelled “less by adherence to the pernicious doctrine of fixed innate Crown Woods College now sets its face against all this. able”. Movement between streams and sets is minimal, de - “ability”. Students in each mini-school outside the Sixth Form, sorted spite assurances to the contrary. Crown Woods College stands as a monument to an by so-called “ability”, wear distinctly-coloured uniforms The tests by which students are sorted into streams or sets increasingly-divided and unequal society, and one and go through their school-day separated from the rest of are riddled with class, gender and ethnic biases, discrimi - whose state education system is being re-structured to their peers. They do not share lunchtimes. They do not share nating against particular groups. The effect of streaming and intensify those divisions and inequities. educational activities. They do not share futures, at least in SOLIDARITY 11 ARCHIVE How the press moulds “public opinion”

In this 1951 review of John Brooks’ novel, The Big Wheel , on such publications as Present Day , regarded as “probably American Trotskyist James P Cannon discusses the bour - the leading force against communism in this country”, are geois press, the way it shapes public opinion and corrupts graduates of the radical movement which had offered the the writers who churn out its lies and misrepresentations. compensation of working for the truth, but where the pick - What would people think about the larger questions of ings otherwise were slim. general interest and concern if they were free to make “You know,” said [the editor] Masterson — who was an up their own minds; if they got full information and old “ex-radical” himself — “you know we still take some of heard all points of view, and were not pressured, badg - our best men from the little magazines.” Such publications ered, bulldozed and blackjacked into thinking what they as Present Day are crawling with one time radicals and dis - are supposed to think? senters who have “learned their lesson” that opposition to the existing social system is tough going, and now devote If the reference is to the state of affairs in the police-ruled their talents, and the smattering of knowledge on social and regimented domain of Stalinism behind the Iron Cur - questions they picked up in the radical movement, to oppo - tain, it will be recognised at once that this question is in site ends. order. When one source controls all agencies of information I once knew a man, a writer with an exceptional style and and instruction and uses them to serve special interests, it is considerable reputation who was better acquainted with pretty hard to tell what the people really think, or would Marx than most people who think they have “read” him. think if they had access to all the essential facts and had a He knew all the ins and outs of the labor movement, and fair chance to decide for themselves. even wrote understandingly about the Moscow Trials of the But how do things stand with regard to the shaping of Thirties from the revolutionary standpoint of their victims. public opinion in the United States, which according to the It seemed, for a time, that the good cause had found a pow - self-righteous critics of the Stalinist regime, enjoys diamet - erful new champion. He soon tired of that, however — it rically opposite conditions of unrestricted democracy? Just wasn’t getting him anywhere in his profession. When I ar - what does this free and fair democracy, the necessary prem - gued with him that his writings could have a great influ - ise for which is full information and free criticism from all ence on the younger generation, and urged him to write sides, look like in practice in this marvelous country of ours? more on the great theme of — indeed, to devote From a close-up view it doesn’t look so good. People’s his whole talent to revolutionary journalism he answered minds are brutally bludgeoned and one-sidedly manipu - me wearily: “Where am I going to publish it? No magazine lated there, too, as can be demonstrated by an examination or paper of large circulation will take such writings.” of the news and information factories of the country and the Mohammed Mossadegh, Prime Minister of Iran and Time Soon after that conversation, he turned around and began methods by which they mold public opinion. magazine man of the year in 1951. No doubt they managed to to write on the other side of the social question. He had no Convincing testimony on this point is adduced in an im - forget all that when he was overthrown in CIA-sponsored trouble in finding publishers for that kind of stuff. The more portant novel about life and work on the staff of a widely coup in 1953. he prospered the more conservative his writing became. He read national news and picture magazine. The book is The finally ended up as a publicist in the right wing of the Re - Big Wheel by John Brooks, first published in 1949. Mr Brooks publican Party, and died there not long ago. I knew him brings impressive credentials to his task. He has served on “Isn’t that pretty important?” well, and sometimes wondered where he went when he the editorial staffs of several large magazines, including “No. Now about the trouble with Polish visa. Kind of fas - died. Time and the New Yorker , and he knows what he is talking cinating. Got to build it up. Elaborate. Set it off so nobody Renegacy has become a paying profession in the United about. His book radiates authenticity from every page. misses. Add a few sentences there.” States in recent years, especially among the intellectuals. But Taking advantage of the greater freedom offered by the “Military strength in Russia. Build that up. Get stuff out what do they get for it, after all? According to the testimony novel form in these days of increasing censorship and of files here. Stick it in.” of the characters in The Big Wheel , they get bigger apart - witch-hunt suppression, the author brings information and The narrator. who was a green man on the staff, demurred ments than they really need, and more money to spend on depicts reality excluded from expression in other mediums. at this butchery of an objective report, but it didn’t do him other superfluous things which a writer with a “mission” The truth, nowadays, must disguise itself as fiction. You can any good. The editor just grinned and said: “Take it easy, — if he really has a mission — would disdain even if he come closer to getting honest information about contempo - will you? You’re getting all steamed up about nothing. What could afford them. Thoreau did all right in a one-room cabin rary society in fiction than anywhere else. the devil, it’s only another story... Hell, we’re not saints up he built himself. The Big Wheel presents a composite picture of the inner here. We’re in business.” workings of such so-called news magazines as Time and Life Further: “Listen, it’s just routine editing. Mostly cutting SERVING THE RICH and the people who work there. The fictional name of the things out, not much putting anything in. The piece as it In the United States of America, the press is absolutely publication is Present Day , “the bright, four-colour purveyor stands is too long, see? It rambles: it needs tightening up. free. That’s what the Constitution says. But there’s a of a popular culture that had all the answers, and behind It’s not exactly a revolutionary assignment, Dick, asking a catch to it. All the instruments and agencies for the dis - the facade a staff of tortured and doubting men who feel man to do some cutting.” semination of news and opinion — the big magazines that half of what they did was dishonest.” Present Day like That was the way they cut up Struther Carson’s unpreju - and newspapers, the motion-picture companies and all the popular magazines of mass circulation, fat with ad - diced report of what he saw in eastern Europe and made it radio and television stations — are owned and con - vertising and expensive illustrations, is engaged in the busi - fit it’s conception of what he should have seen, trolled by a small minority of the rich and privileged and ness of slanting the news by the omission of some essential Hatchet jobs of this kind on every item and article in every used to serve their special interests. department, fashioned Present Day into a club to beat pub - facts and the exaggeration of others under guise of objec - They differ in their methods and techniques. Some are tive reporting. lic opinion into the desired shape, and gave the editor-in- chief the self-satisfaction of a man of accomplishment, a crude and vulgar; others are slick and subtle. Sometimes The technique of Present Day is somewhat different from they argue and quarrel over secondary issues. But on the that of the press in totalitarian countries, but it is no less ef - man with a mission. “‘It’s a good and important job we’ve got, Dick molding people’s minds, shaking them out of their main questions of social implication they all tell the same fective in poisoning the wells of public information. The story and sing the same song. The world of capitalism is the press behind the Iron Curtain monopolized by the Stalinist ruts and putting them onto the path into the future.” By the “future” the editor meant more of the present: more of “Our best of all possible worlds, sacrosanct and unchangeable. Its party-state lies outright, secure against any contradiction by true name is “Free Enterprise”, the national poetic version anybody. The technique of the so-called free press of demo - Way of Life” extolled by the magazine, a “way” generally recommended by its beneficiaries to its victims. of which is “The American Way of Life”. This way of life has cratic America — in reality the monopoly of a small group the unique distinction of being good for everybody, for the of financial interests — is subtler, trickier and more hypo - THE WORKERS majority of the exploited as well as the minority of the ex - critical. Present Day , as the author depicts, it bludgeons the The Big Wheel does more than describe the mechan - ploiters. minds of people with the systematic misrepresentation of ics of [the] devious enterprise. It is a novel and its major Of course, you are free to dissent if this contention vio - reality, betrays them with half-truths which are the most theme is people. The author introduces us to the liter - lates your sense of logic and knowledge of the history and treacherous of lies. ary craftsmen who work on the assembly line of this prehistory of man, or contradicts your personal interests as One of the central episodes in the book deals with the misinformation factory, and lets them speak for them - one of the exploited. You can even write an article to this ef - “editing” of a series of dispatches from Eastern Europe. selves about the motivations which bind them to their fect if you want to. But you can’t publish it in any of the mo - They were written by Struther Carson, a noted correspon - grimy trade. The dialogue reveals their philosophy of life nopolised publications which reach the millions. That’s the dent who retained the habit of reporting what he saw, while — if you want to call it that. gimmick in the formal, constitutional freedom of the press “avoiding responsibility for what happened to his dis - in the United States as of today. This kind of free press is 99 patches between the time they came over the trans-oceanic They are all conventionally educated men, presumably percent fraud. There is no honest, objective reporting of all cable and the time they appeared on the newsstands” under instructed in the basic precept of the Christian doctrine that the news. It is all one-sided. There is no real free play of his by-line. it’s a sin to tell a lie, and the more cogent Yankee supple - opinion and controversy. No real freedom of choice. Barring this compromise with conscience — a gravely se - ment that honesty is the best policy from a practical stand - In face of all the systematic misinformation and calculated rious one to be sure, but even at that he was 50 percent bet - point. But in their case the instruction didn’t take. The demagogy with which the people are bombarded by the ter than his editors, being, only 50 percent crooked — “the world-weary cynics on Present Day are convinced that the monopoliSed press, how will they ever learn the truth and instincts of a thorough, honest and fair-minded reporter lie runs faster than the truth and pays better, too. find the means to act on it in their own interest? The strug - were still with him”. His report was “calm in tone, but let The staff members couldn’t answer back or dispute the gle between the truth and the lie appears to be an unequal the facts fall where they might; it pandered to nobody’s prej - plain talk they were subjected to. As one of them said to an - one at this stage of the game, and to some it may appear to udices”. But by the time it got into the magazine, it was a other. “You know how easy we all are to replace. They could be a hopeless struggle. But that is not really so. different story altogether. an entire new staff up here by tomorrow morning, and a The truth has great allies. The falsifiers and distorters The device by which the dispatches went into the editorial good one. Ever see the lines waiting down on Thirty-Seven, of social reality overlook one small detail: the reality hopper as one thing and came out something else is related in personnel?” does not therefore cease to be. Sooner or later the con - in the account of the editorial conference on the matter. “It Where do they get the people to man the staffs of the great tradiction between the misrepresentations and the re - needs serious work on it, of course,” says one of the editors magazines where news and culture are processed and ality must lead to an explosion... in charge of fouling things up. “Rambles badly, Dick. Got to squeezed into slick, neat packages for the masses? From • Abridged. Published in four articles in The Militant cut it down. Part about religious freedom in Yugoslavia. Got what ranges and feed lots are the literary cattle rounded up (newspaper of the Socialist Workers’ Party (US)) May-June to go. Dull.” and shipped to the market? Quite a few of them, especially 1951.

12 SOLIDARITY FEATURE The Workers’ Committee

J T (John Thomas) Murphy was a Sheffield metal-worker stimulates 40 per cent to activity must be somewhat defec - and, in 1920, became a founding member of the Commu - tive, and it is our duty to find those defects and remedy nist Party of Great Britain. He was involved in the shop them. stewards’ movement which arose during the First World A ballot is usually taken in the branches, and the meet - War. He went on to be involved in the CP-initiated Na - ings are always summoned meetings, so we will consider tional Minority Movement, one of the most significant now the branch as a unit of the organisation. It is usually mass rank-and-file movements in British labour history. composed of members who live in certain areas, irrespec - Murphy was jailed in 1925 for seditious libel and incite - tive of where they work, and irrespective of the turn on ment to mutiny. From the mid-1920s, when the Stalinist which they work. counter-revolution in Russia began to spread across Eu - These are important factors, and account for a great deal rope’s Communist Parties, Murphy took the wrong side of neglect. Men working together every day become famil - and backed Stalin and his regime against critics such as iar to each other and easily associate, because their interests Leon Trotsky. Murphy himself later fell foul of the Party are common. This makes common expression possible. and was expelled in 1932. They may live, however, in various districts, and belong to In this and our next issue Solidarity will serialise Mur - various branches. Fresh associations have therefore to be phy’s best known work, the pamphlet The Workers’ Com - formed, which at the best are but temporary, because only mittee written in 1917. Although written at a time when revived once a fortnight at the most, and there is thus no di - the shape of British industry and the British working-class rect relationship between the branch group and the work - were both very different from what they are today, we be - shop group. The particular grievances of any workshop are lieve the pamphlet still has a huge amount to teach us. thus fresh to a majority of this members of a branch. The It explains how the conflicts and tensions between persons concerned are unfamiliar persons, the jobs unfamil - grassroots members of a trade union and union official - iar jobs, and the workshop remote; hence the members do dom manifest themselves in day-to-day struggle and how not feel a personal interest in the branch meetings as they they can play out on the shop floor. And it gives guidance would if that business was directly connected with their on what political and organisational forms are necessary every day experience. The consequence is bad attendance to give maximum power and democratic control over J T Murphy at branch meetings and little interest. We are driven, then, to struggle to rank-and-file workers. Murphy’s advice for the conclusion that there must be direct connection between shop stewards is more direct and useful than the “organ - class of people, and breathes a different atmosphere. Those the workshop and the branch in order to obtain the maxi - ising agendas” they will receive from their unions today. things which were once primary are now secondary. He be - mum concentration on business. The workers in one work - In 1917 Murphy was a member of the Socialist Labour comes buried in the constitution, and of necessity looks shop should therefore be members of one branch. Party (some of whose members helped form the British from a new point of view on those things which he has Immediately we contemplate this phase of our difficulties Communist Party). At its inception, in the early 1900s, the ceased to feel acutely. Not that he has ceased to feel inter - we are brought against a further condition of affairs which group was influenced by the ideas of American Marxist ested, not that he has become dishonest, not that he has not shows a dissipation of energy that can only be described as Daniel De Leon. De Leon combined revolutionary social - the interests of labour at heart, but because human nature is appalling. We organise for power and yet we find the work - ist propaganda with syndicalist ideas and asserted that in - what it is, he feels the influence of new factors, and the re - ers in the workshops divided not only amongst a score of dustrial unions could, in and of themselves, organise to sult is a change of outlook. Thus we obtain a contrast be - branches but a score of unions, and in a single district scores become the framework of future working-class rule as tween those who reflect the working-class conditions and of unions, and in the whole of the country eleven hundred well as a source of counter-power within capitalist soci - those who are remote from them. unions. ety. Workers’ Liberty thinks this misunderstands the need Officials have the power to rule whether a strike is consti - Modern methods of production are social in character. We for political organisation. Nonetheless, the syndicalists’ tutional or unconstitutional, and accordingly to pay or with - mean by this statement that workmen of all kinds associate emphasis on industrial, all-grades unions and democratic hold strike pay. [This] allows small groups who are, as we together, and are necessary to each other to produce goods. control of the unions from the shop-floor level up can in - have already shown, remote from actual workshop experi - The interests of one, therefore, are the interests of another. form our fights in trade unions today. ence to govern the mass and involve the mass into working Mechanics cannot get along without labourers or without In a period in which our unions are heavily bureaucra - under conditions which they have had no opportunity of crane drivers; none of these can dispense with the black - tised and undemocratically controlled by people whose considering prior to their inception. The need of the hour is smith, the grinder, the forgemen, etc., yet in spite of this in - lifestyles and material interests are closer to the bosses a drastic revision of this constitutional procedure which de - terdependence, which extends throughout all industry, the than the workers they are supposed to represent, the ques - mands that the function of the rank-and-file shall be simply organisations of the workers are almost anti-social in char - tion of how we can build democratic workers’ organisa - that of obedience. acter. tion is vital if we want our unions to be fit for purpose in This is reflected in all our activities. We expect officials to They keep the workers divided by organising them on the the fights ahead. lead, to shoulder responsibility, to think for us. Hence we basis of their differences instead of their common interests. One of the most noticeable features in recent trade get labour leaders, official and unofficial, the one in office, Born at a period when large scale machine production had union history is the conflict between the rank and file the other out of office, speaking and acting as if the workers not arrived, when skill was at a greater premium than it is of the trade unions and their officials, and it is a feature were pliable goods, to be moulded and formed according today, many have maintained the prejudices which organi - which, if not remedied, will lead us all into muddle and to their desires and judgement. However sincere they may sations naturally cultivate, while during the same period of ultimately disaster. be, and we do not doubt the sincerity of the majority, these growth the changes in methods of production were chang - methods will not do. ing their position in relation to other workers, unperceived We have not time to spend in abuse, our whole attention by them. With the advent of the general labour unions cater - must be given to an attempt to understand why our organ - PARTICIPATION ing for men and women workers the differences became or - Real democratic practice demands that every member isations produce men who think in the terms they do, and ganised differences, and the adjustment of labour of an organisation shall participate actively in the con - why the rank and file in the workshops think differently. organisations to the changes increasingly complex. The duct of the business of the society. A perusal of the history of the labour movement, both in - skilled men resent the encroachments of the unskilled, the dustrial and political, will reveal to the critical eye certain We need, therefore, to reverse the present situation, and unskilled often resent what appears to them the domineer - tendencies and certain features which, when acted upon by instead of leaders and officials being in the forefront of our ing tactics of the skilled, and both resent the encroachments external conditions, will produce the type of persons famil - thoughts the questions of the day which have to be an - of the women workers. An examination of their respective iar to us as trade union officials and labour leaders. swered should occupy that position. It matters little to us positions will reveal the futility of maintaining these sec - Everyone is aware that usually a man gets into office on whether leaders be official or unofficial: so long as they tional prejudices. the strength of revolutionary speeches, which strangely con - sway the mass, little thinking is done by the mass. If one Consider the position of the skilled workers. They have trast with those of a later date after a period in office. This man can sway the crowd in one direction, another man can years of tradition behind them, also five years apprentice - contrast is usually explained away by a dissertation on the move them in the opposite direction. We desire the mass of ship to their particular trade. The serving of an apprentice - difference between propaganda and administration. That men and women to think for themselves. ship is in itself sufficient to form a strong prejudice for their there is a difference between these two functions we readily Thought is revolutionary: it breaks down barriers, trans - position in industry. But whilst the skilled unions have admit, but that the difference sufficiently explains the forms institutions, and leads onward to a larger life. To be maintained the serving of an apprenticeship as a primary change we deny. The social atmosphere in which we move, afraid of thought is to be afraid of life, and to become an in - condition of membership, industrial methods have been the common events of every-day life, the people with whom strument of darkness and oppression. changing until the all-round mechanic, for example, is the we converse, the struggle to make ends meet, the conditions The functions of an Elected Committee, therefore, should exception and not the rule. Specialisation has progressed by of labour, all these determine our outlook on life. be such that instead of arriving at decisions FOR the rank- leaps and bounds. Automatic machine production has Do I feel that the man on the next machine is competing and-file they would provide the means whereby full infor - vastly increased. Apprenticeship in thousands of cases is a for my job? Do I feel that the vast army who have entered mation relative to any question of policy should receive the farce, for even they are kept on repetition work and have into industry will soon be scrambling with me at the works attention and consideration OF the rank-and-file, the results become a species of cheap labour. Increasingly are they set gates for a job in order to obtain the means of a livelihood? to be expressed by ballot. to mate men on piece work jobs, and although producing My attitude towards the dilution of labour will obviously Now we have shown some of the principal deflects in the the same amount of work receive only 50 per cent of the be different to the man who is not likely to be subject to such constitutional procedure, we will show how these defects wages received by the men. It will be thus clearly perceived an experience. have been and are encouraged by defects in the structure. that every simplification in the methods of production, Now compare the outlook of the man in the workshop The ballot box is no new thing, every trade unionist un - every improvement to automatic machine production, and the man as a full time official. As a man in the work - derstands the use of it, yet we find that when there is an every application of machinery in place of hand production, shop he feels every change; the workshop atmosphere is his election of officers, for example, or a ballot on some partic - means that the way becomes easier for others to enter the atmosphere; the conditions under which he labours are pri - ular question, rarely more than 40 per cent vote; that means trades. So we can safely say that as historical development mary; his trade union constitution is secondary, and some - there are 60 per cent who do not trouble. Being vexed with takes away the monopoly position of skilled workers it times even more remote. But let the same man get into the 60 per cent will not help us. An organisation which only office. He is removed out of the workshop, he meets a fresh Continued on page 14 SOLIDARITY 13 FEATURE

J T (John Thomas) Murphy was a Sheffield metal-worker hold strike pay. [This] allows small groups who are, as we and, in 1920, became a founding member of the Commu - have already shown, remote from actual workshop experi - nist Party of Great Britain. He was involved in the shop ence to govern the mass and involve the mass into working stewards’ movement which arose during the First World under conditions which they have had no opportunity of War. He went on to be involved in the CP-initiated Na - considering prior to their inception. The need of the hour is tional Minority Movement, one of the most significant a drastic revision of this constitutional procedure which de - mass rank-and-file movements in British labour history. mands that the function of the rank-and-file shall be simply Murphy was jailed in 1925 for seditious libel and incite - that of obedience. ment to mutiny. From the mid-1920s, when the Stalinist This is reflected in all our activities. We expect officials to counter-revolution in Russia began to spread across Eu - lead, to shoulder responsibility, to think for us. Hence we rope’s Communist Parties, Murphy took the wrong side get labour leaders, official and unofficial, the one in office, and backed Stalin and his regime against critics such as the other out of office, speaking and acting as if the workers Leon Trotsky. Murphy himself later fell foul of the Party were pliable goods, to be moulded and formed according and was expelled in 1932. to their desires and judgement. However sincere they may In this and our next issue Solidarity will serialise Mur - be, and we do not doubt the sincerity of the majority, these phy’s best known work, the pamphlet The Workers’ Com - methods will not do. mittee written in 1917. Although written at a time when the shape of British industry and the British working-class PARTICIPATION were both very different from what they are today, we be - Real democratic practice demands that every member lieve the pamphlet still has a huge amount to teach us. of an organisation shall participate actively in the con - It explains how the conflicts and tensions between duct of the business of the society. grassroots members of a trade union and union official - We need, therefore, to reverse the present situation, and dom manifest themselves in day-to-day struggle and how instead of leaders and officials being in the forefront of our they can play out on the shop floor. And it gives guidance thoughts the questions of the day which have to be an - on what political and organisational forms are necessary swered should occupy that position. It matters little to us to give maximum power and democratic control over whether leaders be official or unofficial: so long as they struggle to rank-and-file workers. Murphy’s advice for sway the mass, little thinking is done by the mass. If one shop stewards is more direct and useful than the “organ - man can sway the crowd in one direction, another man can ising agendas” they will receive from their unions today. Women factory workers in World War One move them in the opposite direction. We desire the mass of In 1917 Murphy was a member of the Socialist Labour men and women to think for themselves. Party (some of whose members helped form the British Thought is revolutionary: it breaks down barriers, trans - Communist Party). At its inception, in the early 1900s, the trast with those of a later date after a period in office. This contrast is usually explained away by a dissertation on the forms institutions, and leads onward to a larger life. To be group was influenced by the ideas of American Marxist afraid of thought is to be afraid of life, and to become an in - Daniel De Leon. De Leon combined revolutionary social - difference between propaganda and administration. That there is a difference between these two functions we readily strument of darkness and oppression. ist propaganda with syndicalist ideas and asserted that in - The functions of an Elected Committee, therefore, should dustrial unions could, in and of themselves, organise to admit, but that the difference sufficiently explains the change we deny. The social atmosphere in which we move, be such that instead of arriving at decisions FOR the rank- become the framework of future working-class rule as and-file they would provide the means whereby full infor - well as a source of counter-power within capitalist soci - the common events of every-day life, the people with whom we converse, the struggle to make ends meet, the conditions mation relative to any question of policy should receive the ety. Workers’ Liberty thinks this misunderstands the need attention and consideration OF the rank-and-file, the results for political organisation. Nonetheless, the syndicalists’ of labour, all these determine our outlook on life. Do I feel that the man on the next machine is competing to be expressed by ballot. emphasis on industrial, all-grades unions and democratic Now we have shown some of the principal deflects in the control of the unions from the shop-floor level up can in - for my job? Do I feel that the vast army who have entered into industry will soon be scrambling with me at the works constitutional procedure, we will show how these defects form our fights in trade unions today. have been and are encouraged by defects in the structure. In a period in which our unions are heavily bureaucra - gates for a job in order to obtain the means of a livelihood? My attitude towards the dilution of labour will obviously The ballot box is no new thing, every trade unionist un - tised and undemocratically controlled by people whose derstands the use of it, yet we find that when there is an lifestyles and material interests are closer to the bosses be different to the man who is not likely to be subject to such an experience. election of officers, for example, or a ballot on some partic - than the workers they are supposed to represent, the ques - ular question, rarely more than 40 per cent vote; that means tion of how we can build democratic workers’ organisa - Now compare the outlook of the man in the workshop and the man as a full time official. As a man in the work - there are 60 per cent who do not trouble. Being vexed with tion is vital if we want our unions to be fit for purpose in the 60 per cent will not help us. An organisation which only the fights ahead. shop he feels every change; the workshop atmosphere is his atmosphere; the conditions under which he labours are pri - stimulates 40 per cent to activity must be somewhat defec - One of the most noticeable features in recent trade mary; his trade union constitution is secondary, and some - tive, and it is our duty to find those defects and remedy union history is the conflict between the rank and file times even more remote. But let the same man get into them. of the trade unions and their officials, and it is a feature office. He is removed out of the workshop, he meets a fresh A ballot is usually taken in the branches, and the meet - which, if not remedied, will lead us all into muddle and class of people, and breathes a different atmosphere. Those ings are always summoned meetings, so we will consider ultimately disaster. things which were once primary are now secondary. He be - now the branch as a unit of the organisation. It is usually comes buried in the constitution, and of necessity looks composed of members who live in certain areas, irrespec - We have not time to spend in abuse, our whole attention tive of where they work, and irrespective of the turn on must be given to an attempt to understand why our organ - from a new point of view on those things which he has ceased to feel acutely. Not that he has ceased to feel inter - which they work. isations produce men who think in the terms they do, and These are important factors, and account for a great deal why the rank and file in the workshops think differently. ested, not that he has become dishonest, not that he has not the interests of labour at heart, but because human nature is of neglect. Men working together every day become famil - A perusal of the history of the labour movement, both in - iar to each other and easily associate, because their interests dustrial and political, will reveal to the critical eye certain what it is, he feels the influence of new factors, and the re - sult is a change of outlook. Thus we obtain a contrast be - are common. This makes common expression possible. tendencies and certain features which, when acted upon by They may live, however, in various districts, and belong to external conditions, will produce the type of persons famil - tween those who reflect the working-class conditions and those who are remote from them. various branches. Fresh associations have therefore to be iar to us as trade union officials and labour leaders. formed, which at the best are but temporary, because only Everyone is aware that usually a man gets into office on Officials have the power to rule whether a strike is consti - tutional or unconstitutional, and accordingly to pay or with - revived once a fortnight at the most, and there is thus no di - the strength of revolutionary speeches, which strangely con - rect relationship between the branch group and the work - shop group. The particular grievances of any workshop are thus fresh to a majority of this members of a branch. The persons concerned are unfamiliar persons, the jobs unfamil - iar jobs, and the workshop remote; hence the members do How the AWL’s democracy works not feel a personal interest in the branch meetings as they would if that business was directly connected with their democracy. every day experience. The consequence is bad attendance Read our constitution at www.workersliberty.org/ at branch meetings and little interest. We are driven, then, to constitution the conclusion that there must be direct connection between The AWL National Committee has agreed five main top - the workshop and the branch in order to obtain the maxi - ics for this year’s conference: general perspectives; branch mum concentration on business. The workers in one work - AWL news activity; trade union work; students; and the revolutions in shop should therefore be members of one branch. North Africa and the Middle East. Any comrade will be able Immediately we contemplate this phase of our difficulties to submit amendments to the documents drafted by the Na - we are brought against a further condition of affairs which By Sacha Ismail tional Committee; submit alternative documents on these shows a dissipation of energy that can only be described as topics; or propose additional topics for debate. appalling. We organise for power and yet we find the work - The AWL’s annual conference takes place on 22-23 Oc - As we put an emphasis on ongoing education, we don’t ers in the workshops divided not only amongst a score of tober. As a relatively small organisation, the conference want people to come to conference and take a snap vote. In branches but a score of unions, and in a single district scores is open to all members; but because we have grown the two months prior to it, there will be a series of regional of unions, and in the whole of the country eleven hundred substantially in the last year, this will be the first con - and local pre-conference discussion meetings at which unions. ference many AWLers attend. members discuss and debate the documents and issues. Modern methods of production are social in character. We mean by this statement that workmen of all kinds associate The way our conference works tells you something about As well as debating and voting on perspectives and pol - icy, the conference will also elect a new National Committee. together, and are necessary to each other to produce goods. the kind of organisation Workers’ Liberty is. We want the The interests of one, therefore, are the interests of another. maximum possible democratic control by an active, alert, The NC meets every five or six weeks; it elects a smaller Ex - ecutive Committee (EC) which meets weekly and takes de - Mechanics cannot get along without labourers or without educated membership. For us democracy is not just a pleas - crane drivers; none of these can dispense with the black - ant notion; it’s the essential condition for an organisation cisions in between NC meetings. Conference is the sovereign body of the AWL, which can over-rule the NC; smith, the grinder, the forgemen, etc., yet in spite of this in - which can debate and hammer out ideas, and orient and re - terdependence, which extends throughout all industry, the orient itself in the class struggle. the NC can over-rule the EC (and elect new people to it at each meeting, just as the conference elects a new NC). organisations of the workers are almost anti-social in char - No constitution or set of written rules can, by itself, guar - At our conference new members will experience both acter. antee democracy. A democratic culture is necessary. our democratic structures and our democratic culture They keep the workers divided by organising them on the Nonetheless, we think written rules are important, both to in action. basis of their differences instead of their common interests. help develop that culture and as a check on violations of 14 SOLIDARITY REPORTS Tower Hamlets cleaners win FBU to ballot

By a Unison rep on pensions? but G4S went ahead and in - went into higher-level ne - go. stalled the machines any - gotiations with G4S bosses. Linking up with the hos - There are 26 PFI (Private way. We held a demonstration pital workers was also ab - Finance Initiative) schools G4S also employ cleaners outside the negotiation solutely key. When you’re By Ira Berkovic pensions, the labour move - in Tower Hamlets. The and porters at Mile End meeting with placards and dealing with outsourcing ment’s fightback on this The Fire Brigades Union cleaning, caretaking and hospital, and throughout chanting. It was a visible you need to relate to work - issue risks slowing down to (FBU) has announced that maintenance services our campaign they tried to challenge and affront to the ers employed by the com - a crawl that will see unions industrial action in the were outsourced many play off the hospital work - G4S bosses. We chanted at pany you’re fighting, more prepared to fight, autumn over reforms to years ago to G4S, the ers against the school work - them as they went in, ask - wherever they work. such as the FBU, left iso - the firefighter pensions huge security corpora - ers. They’ve got the ing them how much they The workers have de - lated. scheme now looks “in - tion. It’s one of the biometric sign-ins there al - earned each month! cided to produce a regular The FBU is necessarily re - creasingly likely”. biggest companies in the ready, and G4S told us that At the meeting, G4S union newsletter for G4S stricted to scheme-specific negotiations as they only world and its Chief Exec - the hospital workers were backed down completely employees locally, mainly Consultation with mem - organise members in fire - utive, Nick Buckles, is happy with the set-up. on the new payroll system focusing on the cleaners, bers is ongoing and the fighter pension schemes. one of the highest-paid They also told us that and suspended the intro - caretakers and maintenance union reports that it is mak - But Unison and GMB, bosses in the country. they’d introduced the new duction of the biometric staff in schools as well as ing “preliminary arrange - payroll system there and machines. They haven’t the Mile End hospital work - which organise members The company wanted to ments” for a strike ballot. It the workers had agreed to dropped the plan entirely ers. That’s their own initia - across a range of different change the method by would be the FBU’s first na - it. But when we visited the but given how determined tive, not something that’s pension schemes (primarily which the workers were tional dispute since the hospital and spoke to the they were to introduce run by union officialdom. the Local Government Pen - paid and the date on which 2002/2003 pay campaign. workers, we found that nei - them (going as far as to in - They realise the solidarity sion Scheme (LGPS) and they received their pay. The The union is opposed to ther claim was true! We also stall the machines in the and unity that won this dis - the NHS pension scheme), effect would’ve been ex - government plans to in - discovered that G4S had workplace), forcing them to pute needs to be main - could throw a large span - tremely drastic in terms of crease employee contribu - been telling the hospital hold off is significant. It tained. ner in the works of the gov - throwing off people’s budg - tions by 3.2%, and increase workers the same lies about gives us time to go on a re - The union has grown as a ernment’s plans by eting and personal finances the pensionable age to 60. the school workers – that newed offensive against the result of the dispute. The demanding central, all- each month. The only out - Statements from union they’d already agreed to the plans. union bureaucracy tells us union negotiations to en - come of the company’s leader Matt Wrack talk of new payroll system. It was we have to focus entirely on sure that workers in one sham consultation was that “when”, rather than if, the classic divide-and-rule from ORGANISATION getting our membership scheme are not used as bar - they offered a bridging loan FBU is going to ballot. the bosses. Reaching out to Organisation made this numbers up and concen - gaining chips against work - for workers in August, but But when the FBU does the hospital workers and victory possible. The trate entirely on recruiting ers in another. the workers were clear that ballot for action, will it building unity with them workers are isolated, rather than building and Activists in Unison and they didn’t want to borrow have to do so alone? was essential to what we working as individuals or winning disputes. But the the GMB must demand that money from their bosses – Despite new government did. in twos in schools that best way to recruit people their leaders withdraw they wanted to be paid! announcements which out - are often miles apart. to the union is to show that from scheme-by-scheme ne - At the same time, G4S line plans to make public ALL-OUT being part of the union is gotiations and negotiate wanted to introduce bio - We fought this isolation sector workers contribute We held a consultative how you can win things centrally for across-the- metric fingerprint machines by making sure reps and or - an extra £1.1 billion to their ballot on the two issues from your bosses. board concessions from to clock people on and off ganisers got round to each We fought to win in pensions from April 2012, and it came back 100% in goTvherenpmeennsti.ons reforms shifts in three of the workplace and maintained Tower Hamlets and we’ve there is little sign of in - favour of all-out, indefi - differ in detail in each schools. Th workers felt it face-to-face contact with all built the union out of that creased combativity from nite strike action. scheme but the funda - was demeaning and members about the dispute, fight. You recruit by or - the biggest unions. With mental drive is the same: showed a complete lack of We began fighting for making sure they were kept gansing, not the other Unison and the GMB, two a ruling-class attack to trust. A sham consultation Unison to hold a full ballot, informed and could have a way around. of the biggest public sector make workers work was held on this issue too and in the meantime we say about where it should unions, now engaged in scheme-by-scheme negotia - longer for less reward. RMT and TSSA to merge? tions over their members’ Thousands march for As two rail unions discuss a merger, AWL members working Social workers join in the railways industry argue for the maximum rank-and- Southampton strikes Bombardier jobs file democracy in any merged union.

http://bit.ly/oILNZd By Darren Bedford fered to some social work - By Stewart Ward ers, intended to offset the Social workers at impact of cuts but which Thousands demonstrated Southampton Council will the workers’ union de - on Saturday 23 July to join local government scribes as “part of the prob - save jobs at the Bom - workers’ indefinite rolling lem, not the solution”. bardier train manufactur - New grassroots fight in strikes on 3 August as the Unison branch secretary ing plant in Derby. Tory-led council contin - Mike Tucker said “The ex - ues to push ahead with tended strike action by so - The demonstration was Sheffield Unison its cuts programme. cial workers demonstrates extremely well supported the depth of the anger over Nearly 500 workers in the locally, and the fact that the Council’s actions. The social care department will thousands were mobilised industrial action will By a Unison activist The petition was handed strike on Wednesday 3 Au - at relatively short notice for spread unless the Council to the branch officers, but a gust, and Unison members a demonstration in a loca - negotiates a fair settlement A promising campaign letter from the “Regional will take a further 6 days’ tion that doesn’t host many with its workforce.” mass demos is an encour - has started in the Manager” informed those action from 4 August. The Strikers and their sup - Grandad needs better than aging indication of the po - Sheffield City (Local Gov - members that there would strike highlights in particu - porters will rally at 11am “British jobs” campaign tential for a real campaign ernment) branch of the be no SGM. They were told lar the insulting £1,400 on Wednesday 3 August to save jobs at the plant. public sector union Uni - that there was nothing “market supplement” of - in Guildhall Square. Some senior union offi - will be fighting the battle son. wrong with branch democ - on the basis of class, not na - racy (even though there has cials from the platform A group of Unison mem - tionality. Other unions been no AGM for two played up the “British jobs” bers, have started the ‘Uni - should follow its lead. years, members never hear BBC strike aspect, and spoke of “work - son Unleashed’ campaign AWL members who at - about when branch meet - ing with” Bombardier man - to address the branch’s tended the demonstration ings are going to be held, By a NUJ member agement (the company’s problems by restoring Clearly BBC management report that, while there was and the meetings are often UK chairman, Colin Wal - democracy and mounting a doesn’t watch the corpora - clear anger about the poten - held in their core working BBC workers took a sec - ton, appeared on the proper fight against the tion’s output very much.” demonstration platform). tial loss of jobs, there was hours). ond day of strike action The BBC’s radio and tele - also a feeling of powerless - cuts. It is a vitally important Socialists involved in the campaign for the future on Monday 1 August in a vision stations were forced ness and a hope that The first step was to battle over job cuts. campaign will need to gather signatures of around of the fight against the to run repeats of old pro - make sure it is fought on demonstrations by them - grammes and, in some 400 branch members on a public service cuts in one National Union of Jour - the class basis of workers selves might make the gov - places, senior managers petition calling for a Special of the UK’s largest cities. nalists General Secretary against bosses, not on the ernment listen or change its were forced to fill in and General Meeting, where Council workers won’t be Michelle Stanistreet said: basis of unity between miSnodc. ialists can give a read the news. members would have the able to fight the cuts if “The NUJ is proud that our British workers and British different kind of hope; a The strike’s demand is opportunity to hold branch they don’t have a union members everywhere in the bosses to take jobs away hope that a labour-move - that management withdraw officers to account. This branch fit for the purpose BBC have recognised this from railworkers in Ger - ment campaign of action, its plan to cut nearly 400 number was well above the — a branch that is truly threat to their colleagues many. The rail union RMT, including industrial action posts across the UK. number required by the democratic and con - [...] The latest ludicrous Messages of support which represents many by Bombardier workers, union’s rulebook (five per - trolled by rank-and-file management ploy is to can be sent to the strik - workers at Bombardier, has can force the government cent of the total member - members, not useless bu - claim that the strike today ers at [email protected] released a statement on the to act. ship) to force this meeting. reaucrats. isn’t having any effect. issue that makes it clear it SOLIDARITY 15 Heading for the double-dip? S&oWloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y By Chris Reynolds the US budget crisis make the prospects poor for ex - On top of the public sec - ports. tor job cuts, private-sec - Expansion is not the first tor industry is cutting priority for the bosses. jobs too. Their first priority is restor - On 27 July the bosses’ as - ing their rate of profit from sociation CBI published the hit it took in 2008-9, survey results showing that and taking advantage of most manufacturing em - the slump to reshape work - ployers plan to cut jobs places, wages, and work - over the next three months. forces so as to allow bigger Until spring this year, profits in a future expan - manufacturing employ - sion. ment was increasing a bit So far, top bosses at the from its slump levels in top 100 companies have 2009. The increase was not seen their median earnings enough to validate the rise 32 per cent last year coalition government’s (Financial Times , 27 July), claim that public sector while workers’ real wages cuts, by holding down pub - have dropped 2.7% ( Daily lic debt levels and so inter - Telegraph , 13 July). est rates, will produce a The financial and insur - counterbalancing private- ance sector paid £14 billion sector boom. But there was in bonuses in the last finan - Lambeth libraries: strong an increase. No longer. cial year ( FT , 19 July) — not Manufacturing bosses as high as the £19 billion in are planning to cut spend - 2007-8, before the crash, ing on new plant and ma - but heading upwards fast. chinery. The Bombardier The rate of profit — the campaigns can save jobs Derby job cuts are not ex - net rate of return for pri - ceptions, but part of a pat - vate non-financial compa - tern. nies — in the UK reached “Management said they By a library worker Unison Assistant Branch the section and every detail If the government re - its peak in the last quarter Secretary said: of the new structure will were concerned that duces its contribution to ef - of 2007. It was 15.1%, the Lambeth Council in south “Lambeth Labour Party need to be agreed by a full rolling over when faced fective demand in the highest figure since consis - London agreed to a deal could learn a lot from these members meeting before with strike action would economy, and households tent statistics began in 1965. which will save all the workers. When they faced Unison will call off the ac - set a precedent. Let’s plagued by debt and re - With the crisis, it jobs in the library service the cuts they fought with tion entirely. hope so!” dundancies do the same, dropped to 10.8% in the following the workers an - every tool they had. Solidarity spoke to some then the whole economy thiSrdinqcueatrhternoift 2h0a0s9.risen Unison Shop Steward nouncing strike action “They campaigned and of the workers involved in must go down unless ex - steadily, to 12.7% in the against libraries cuts. they were willing to strike. the campaign: “Solid trade union mem - ports boom. first quarter of 2011. They faced the cutters with bership, dedicated shop The eurozone crisis and Lambeth council wanted “When [Lambeth Council] their heads high and fought announced the cuts, we stewards and a sustained a staffing restructure in its not just for their jobs or public campaign have libraries which would mas - knew we had two options their colleagues’ jobs, but seen off an attempt by sacre frontline services and —fight or lose. for the right of people of Lambeth council to make leave 40 people at risk of re - Lambeth to have a decent Nearly all of us are in 20 librarians redundant. dundancy. By combining a library service. Unison [there is 90% union high-profile public cam - “This is not the end of density in the sector], we So if you’re not in a trade paign with the threat of our fight, next year the know we’ve got the best union I’d go and get your - strike action, every job in council will try and cut the union reps and we know self a membership form. Up the service has been saved; library service again. They more about libraries than the workers!” reading groups, storytimes will disguise library clo - the people who wrote that Librarian and enquiry services will sures by ‘handing the li - structure. We don’t pay our continue. braries over to the money every month to get “We had a vote of no con - This is a tribute to the community’. cheap car insurance and fidence in our manage - unity and determination of “We think councils then lose our jobs, we want ment and a vote of total trade union members in the should be providing serv - a union that will fight. We confidence in our union libraries, who were ready to ices, like libraries, not look - won because of our union. reps. strike to defend the library ing to cut jobs, cut services I’ve seen it in other depart - The only question was service and protect their and shift responsibility. So ments and other councils, whether we would win be - jobs. next year, we will fight people are losing their job This is a lesson to every again — but this was a and managers just get on fore or after the strike.” other worker — in Lambeth great first step.” with cutting. They had to Customer Service Assistant Council and elsewhere — Strike action due to begin listen to us because we won “When a consultant on that to look after your inter - on Friday 22 July was sus - the strike vote and all the li - £500 a day tells you that ests you have to be pre - pended following manage - braries were going to shut the council can’t afford to John Pearson, chair of the works committee at Bombardier pared to take industrial ment’s offer which secured [on the strike day] unless staff its libraries, some - Derby and Unite member. Job cuts at the Derby factory are action. no compulsory redundan - every job was safe.” thing has gone wrong.” part of a UK-wide pattern Ruth Cashman, Libraries cies in the section. There is Lambeth Librarian Shop Steward and Lambeth still a live strike ballot in Librarian • The mechanics of exploitation: how Workers’ Liberty summer camp, capitalism works • The story and lessons of the miners’ West Yorkshire, 19-21 August strike Height Gate, near Hebden Bridge, West • Organising at work • Why is the left male-dominated, what Yorkshire, OL14 6DL can we do about it? In August, young members and friends of Workers’ Liberty will be throwing a summer • Students and class jamboree in the beautiful hills of West Yorkshire. The event will be a mix of socialism and socialising, with political discussions, activist training, and knocking about in a All this can be yours for the paltry sum of £20, which seasonally-appropriate and outdoorsy fashion. Rumours that we will be re-enacting includes food and crash accommodation. If getting there is a famous pitched battles between striking workers and cops are sadly unfounded. We problem, we can help. Spaces are limited though so book will however be discussing topics including the following: now to avoid disappointment. e: [email protected] t: 07775 763 750