So& Wloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y Volume 3 No 196 9 March 2011 30p/80p For a workers’ government

Defend Usama Make the unions Remembering Hasan page 3 fight! page 5 Climate Camp page 8

Picture: reportdigital.co.uk/Phil Wolmuth

Doctors’ warning: Tory plan takes healthcare back to 1930s See page 3 Make 26 March springboard for fightback INTERNATIONAL

What is the Alliance Protests AFL-CIO calls action on 4 April for Workers’ Liberty? In Wisconsin, the move - in North ment against the anti- Today one class, the working class, lives by selling its labour union Walker Bill is power to another, the capitalist class, which owns the means Korea entering a new phase. of production. Society is shaped by the capitalists’ relentless Protestors have been drive to increase their wealth. Capitalism causes poverty, By Dan Angell cleared out of the Capi - unemployment, the blighting of lives by overwork, imperialism, tol building, which they had been occupying the destruction of the environment and much else. According to Asian news Against the accumulated wealth and power of the since 15 February. But agencies, small scale trade unions and other capitalists, the working class has one weapon: solidarity. demonstrations have grassroots campaigners The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty aims to build solidarity sprung up in parts of against the bill are still through struggle so that the working class can overthrow North Korea. rallying and organising capitalism. We want socialist revolution: collective ownership Although the details of actions and demonstra - of industry and services, workers’ control and a democracy tions outside the Capitol much fuller than the present system, with elected these protests are not clear and there is little sugges - building; and fourteen representatives recallable at any time and an end to tion that they amount to a Democratic senators are cessful we’ll be able to re - workers’ movement. The bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. determination to fight for still in hiding in Illinois, verse the worst parts of the leadership are looking to - We fight for the labour movement to break with “social immediate regime change, thereby making it consti - bill. And in similar states wards closer links with the partnership” and assert working-class interests militantly they are potentially highly tutionally impossible for like Ohio where similar Democrats and rebuilding against the bosses. signficant. the Wisconsin state sen - anti-collective bargaining their institutional power. Our priority is to work in the workplaces and trade unions, The lack of food, electric - ate to pass the Bill into bills are being passed, we’ll And then there is a very supporting workers’ struggles, producing workplace bulletins, ity and basic utilities are law. Meanwhile, similar deal with that by getting a inspiring level of activity at helping organise rank-and-file groups. the most likely reason for bills are being passed in referendum which we will the rank-and-file level, ex - We are also active among students and in many campaigns the demonstrations. Chal - other states — there are perhaps win. emplified by the call for to and alliances. lenging the regime directly ongoing, large protests It’s an electoralist strat - educate members in Wis - is too dangerous, and most against a Walker-style egy which I think will be consin about the role of a We stand for: North Koreans simply anti-union bill in Ohio, very demoralising and de - general strike. G Independent working-class representation in politics. don’t have enough knowl - and state senators in In - mobilising. • A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the edge on the possible “alter - diana have copied the At the same time there is TWO PATHS Wisconsin 14 and fled The attacks can be labour movement. natives”. lot of activity in Madison. the state. stopped either way but it A workers’ charter of trade union rights — to organise, to It is also unlikely that On 3 March the National G Traven Leyshon, an really matters which way. strike, to picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. these protests have been di - Nurses United union or - rectly influenced by the up - American labour activist, ganised a march against • Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, spoke to Solidarity about The lessons of a victory, if education and jobs for all. risings in North Africa and workers making any con - it’s won by the Democratic the Middle East. The state what’s at stake in this new cessions, with 7,000 people G A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. Party in the legislature with controlled media allows no phase of the fight. on it. On 5 March there Full equality for women and social provision to free women the support of the union of - news from the outside The AFL-CIO union feder - were 50,000 at two rallies from the burden of housework. Free abortion on request. Full ficials, will be that workers world. There simply isn’t ation had a national con - that occurred in the same equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Black and white need to rely on the Demo - enough flow of information ference call on 7 March place. The larger one was cratic Party to defend them - workers’ unity against racism. for citizens to draw influ - with leaders of AFL-CIO organised by a grassroots G Open borders. selves, that is to keep a ence from such events. locals. The attitude dis - coalition in Madison and dependent relationship to a G Global solidarity against global capital — workers Some sources suggest the played was very contra - the smaller was organised political party which is everywhere have more in common with each other than with apparent succession of dictory . by the AFL-CIO national dominated by big business. their capitalist or Stalinist rulers. power from Kim Jong-il to leadership. On the other hand, the AFL-CIO national presi - G Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest his youngest son Kim Jong- The reason that there workers in Ohio and Wis - dent Trumke said: “this is workplace or community to global social organisation. un is unnerving the se - were two rallies was that consin and other states are really our moment right G Working-class solidarity in international politics: equal verely oppressed and the AFL-CIO leadership engaged in a battle the likes now. How do we take the rights for all nations, against imperialists and predators big hungry population. One in - were worried that speakers of which we haven’t seen in momentum and sustain it?” and small. ternet source claims that at the locally-organised 35 years, and if we win He said that events in G Maximum left unity in action, and openness in debate. North Koreans regard Kim grassroots demo would be through our economic and Madison have breathed G If you agree with us, please take some copies of Solidarity Jong-un as “bloodthirsty off-message and too left- workplace power and new life into the labour to sell — and join us! and mad”. wing. But the demonstra - through civil disobedience, movement. Further, “almost every - tion was inspiring. It had a possibly including political That’s true, and it’s not 020 7394 8923 [email protected] one thinks he was behind militant message with a strikes, then the lessons of just in the labour move - the military attacks against good speech by Michael such an experience would 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, ment, people beyond it are ROKS Cheonan and an is - Moore. be that workers do have looking to the trade unions London, SE1 3DG. land under South Korean The Wisconsin AFL-CIO power: it would put us on a – college and high school control, which led to re - has called for a statewide path of political independ - students and progressive strictions on humanitarian mobilisation on 12 March. It ence and rebuilding a organisations are demon - aid from the South. This will not include official working-class movement in strating. The labour move - has further worsened stan - strikes, though there might this country. dards of living in the ment is the centre of be unofficial walkouts, as There are these two al - North. North Koreans are people’s attention right there previously have been ternative paths and the GET SOLIDARITY ready to do just about any - now. with teachers. The feeling reality is of course a hy - brid. There are going to thing to stop the succes - STRATEGY in Madison is still very sion.” strong. be national demonstra - EVERY WEEK! But what’s the strategy to tions called by the na - South Korean activists win? There isn’t a coher - 4 April is the next really are reported to be planning big step in the national tional unions, there is Special offers ent one. The unstated going to be local action the sending of videos of the strategy is an electoralist AFL-CIO campaign, calling G Trial sub, 6 issues £5 revolutions in Egypt and a day of action across the including workplace ac -  strategy – organising for tion in some case sup - Tunisia to North Korean the elections in 2012. country, looking to students G 22 issues (six months). £18 waged  £9 unwaged  citizens. and so on for broad sup - ported by national unions Although an unsuc - and then there’s going to In the interim we’ll be port. 44 issues (year). £35 waged £17 unwaged cessful “propaganda be electoral activity. G   pursuing recalls of eight of I think we are at a cross - war” has existed be - That’s why I think we’re at the Wisconsin Republican roads. There are two differ - G European rate: 28 euros (22 issues)  or 50 euros (44 issues)  tween the two Koreas for a crossroads. several decades, provid - senators and if we are suc - ent tendencies in the Tick as appropriate above and send your money to: ing video evidence of popular uprisings to dis - 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, London, SE1 3DG contented North Koreans Police should have right to strike Cheques (£) to “AWL”. may assist in spreading the notion of democracy. By Colin Foster contributions... police offi - lice strike in 1918-19 when Or make £ and euro payments at workersliberty.org/sub. A government review cers are likely to suffer a the Government sus - has recommended that 15-20% reduction in the pected strikers of sympa - Name ...... police overtime and value of their pay”. thising with other striking other payments above Although last October workers in the left-wing basic wages be cut, and the Government spoke of moTohdeopfotlhiceetiamre. not or - Address ...... that 28,000 jobs be cut giving police the right to dinary workers. But if from police and back-up strike, and in 2008 the Po - they start moving for in - staff...... lice Federation decided by dustrial action, the a large ballot majority to Paul McKeever, chair of labour movement should demand the right to strike, ...... the Police Federation, back them on a demo - at present the cops have reckons that “with the cratic basis as we no such right. I enclose £ ...... two-year pay freeze and a backed the prison offi - Police strikes were likely increase in pension cers’ strikes in 2007. Kim Jong-un banned in 1919, after a po - 2 SOLIDARITY NEWS Imam faces death threats for believing in evolution

By Sacha Ismail ardly and fraudulent cam - communities” (Arun paign spreading lies and Kundnani, Institute of Usama Hasan, an imam slander” and “mediaeval - Race Relations). Organisa - at the Tawhid mosque in ist, hair-splitting theologi - tions have been denied ac - Leyton, East London, has He’s out for their jobs cal and jurisprudential cess to funds unless they been hounded and discussions whilst remain - sign up to the govern - threatened with death for ing silent about... incite - ment’s ‘counter-terrorism stating that he believes ment to murder”. policing agenda’. These in the theory of evolu - Nonetheless, it was clearly criticisms are entirely cor - tion, and that Muslim a retreat under huge pres - NHS: back to 1930s? rect, but in many cases women are not obliged sure. Hasan was quoted in to wear the hijab. the Evening Standard say - they miss another equally ing that Islam is “not important aspect of the In his 20s Hasan, who is ready” for a debate about problem. By Gerry Bates betes and heart problems. March, reflects a wider now 39, was a radical Wah - evolution. He has stopped Under Prevent, Govern - At the other “end of the alarm among doctors. On habi (a follower of the leading prayers and ac - ment support and funding Mark Porter, chair of the market”, the Government’s 17 February, a London branch of Islam which is quired security for his fam - has gone to organisations hospital consultants’ plans will encourage the meeting of the usually very the state religion of the ily home, saying he is which, though they may committee of the British rise of luxury provision for conservative BMA voted to Saudi autocracy), devoted going to “have to live with Medical Association, has rich people who’ll pay end a policy of “critical en - to supporting various in - oppose extreme-Islamist extra cautions for the rest warned that: “Very delib - extra. There will be “Fort - gagement” with the Gov - ternational jihadist causes. violence, are close to radi - of [his] life”. erately, the government num and Mason” health ernment and moved to He later renounced these cal Islamism in their reac - It is obvious why the left wishes to turn back the care for some and “Lidl” outright opposition. views and became an op - tionary politics. As Pragna has remained silent about clock to the 1930s and health care for others. It called for poll of BMA ponent of radical Islamism, Patel of Southall Black Sis - this outrage against free 1940s, when there were The Government says its members on industrial ac - making him a prominent ters puts it: “So called thought and free speech, private, charitable, and plans are about “choice” tion to stop the Govern - Islamist target. moderate religious groups with comment left to ‘lib - cooperative providers of and efficiency. That is a lie. ment’s Health and Social After Islamists disrupted eral’ pro-establishment or - may be moderate when it healthcare. The plans are about profit Care Bill. his prayers and lectures ganisations and blogs like comes to bombing the openings for private health The unions, and espe - and distributed a leaflet “But the system failed to the Quilliam Foundation streets of Britain but they firms, and cutting public cially the unions organising calling for his murder, provide comprehensive and and Harry’s Place. Many are certainly not moderate spending. most health service work - right-wingers on the universal service... That’s socialists bizarrely see Is - when it comes to [for in - Spending on the Health ers, Unison and Unite, mosque’s trustee board at - why health was nation - lamism as progressive and stance] women”. Even in Service, as on all public should catch up with the tempted to suspend alised. But they’re propos - criticism of it as Islamo - ‘moderate’ cases, moderate services, is being cut back BMA. Hasan. A statement from ing to go back to the days phobic. does not equal progressive. to cover the costs of the In the labour movement, the mosque’s secretary, before the NHS”. slump created by the even in activist anti-cuts Mohammad Sethi, claim - The legitimisation of Already the Thatcher and EXTREMISM bankers’ crisis of 2008, and committees, the planned ing Hasan had been sus - broadly Islamist views has Blair governments have The question of how we the huge taxpayer subsidies Health Service cuts and pended was countered by created a climate radical damaged the Health Serv - understand Islamism is a given to banks then to bail changes have been over - an official statement from variants (including violent ice by bringing more and crucial one here. them out and stop the crisis shadowed by the faster and the imam’s father and ones) can flourish and gain more market economics becoming a full-scale col - more straightforward cuts mosque chairman Suhaib Under New Labour, ground, and reactionary into it. This cabinet of mil - lapse. in local government and the Hasan condemning this after 9/11 and 7/7, policy forces can impose their lionaires plans to make a The banks got £11,000 bil - civil service, and the “faction of trustees” and became oriented to driving views as hegemonic. Be - drastic and maybe decisive lion then — £18,000 for changes in public sector those who had disrupted a wedge between terrorists further step: all NHS hospi - hind the local campaign each child, woman, and pensions. his son’s talks and threat - and “non-violent extrem - tals will become units in a against Usama Hasan was man in the UK — in buy- But the health service is, ened his life. The conflict ism”. The Preventing Vio - market economy, compet - a well-organised interna - outs, loans, and guarantees. directly, a matter of life and in the mosque seems to lent Extremism (Prevent) ing with each other and tional network of far-right Now the banks are making death for us all. We all get have ended in a compro - initiative began to distrib - with private companies for Islamist clerics and organi - profits again, and paying old. We all get ill. mise on a “middle” posi - ute large amounts of contracts with GP consortia. At last the unions have sations. With the help of big bonuses, maybe £7 bil - tion — and a worrying money through local au - That disrupts the health begun to move against Saleem Begg, a Wahhabi lion in the current round, to one. thorities to mainly Muslim service because private the cuts, calling a demon - the highest-paid bankers. On 4 March, Usama groups. This is part of a preacher partly based in firms will be able to desta - stration in London on 26 And the Government is Hasan issued a “clarifica - more general shift towards Lewisham, Hasan’s ene - bilise NHS hospitals by out - March. Workers’ Liberty making cuts, huge in rela - tion and retraction” in allowing and funding mies in Leyton elicited and bidding them on and other activists will or - tion to the services being which he stated: specifically ‘faith-based’ used fatwas (religious rul - easy-to-treat conditions, ganise to make 26 March cut, but modest sums in re - “1. I regret and retract organisations to deliver ings) against him from Is - and leave them as a patchy a springboard for indus - lation to the bankers’ some of my statements in services. lamist clerics in Saudi and “increasingly tattered trial action to stop the wealth, to balance the the past about the theory A variety of forces on the Arabia and Pakistan. One safety-net” for patients with cuts, and not just an ex - books. of evolution, especially the left have criticised Prevent of the Saudis, Salih al- difficult, long-term, but ercise in letting off steam. Porter’s warning, on 6 inflammatory ones. for being designed to spy common illnesses like dia - Sadhlan, has been courted “2. I do not believe that on Muslim communities: by the Home Office in the “a major part of the Pre - Adam, peace be upon him, belief that he can aid the vent programme is the em - had parents. fight against terrorism. bedding of counter- Political correctness not to blame “3. I seek Allah’s forgive - We are now in a situa - ness for my mistakes and terrorism police officers tion in which a relatively By Lynne Moffat apologise to others for any within the delivery of should take in considera - matter” as policy (and to conservative religious fig - offence caused.” other local services. The tion a child’s race, ethnic - be clear, only some chil - ure like Usama Hasan can Children’s Minister Tim ity, cultural background. dren matter) they are cut - The statement also at - primary motive for this is be forced into retractions Loughton has started Well, shock horror! ting funding, staff, tacked his attackers’ “cow - to facilitate the gathering talking about “allowing” All statistics show that children’s services, train - of intelligence on Muslim and withdrawal from lead - transracial adoption (he the most important factor ing for foster carers etc. ing prayers for daring to means white parents and in a child’s adoption There used to be volun - contradict the Islamist ul - non-white kids). The un - process is their age. Once a tary schemes which sup - traSse. cularists and social - derlying message is child gets past a certain ported white parents ists in mainly Muslim “right on” social workers age their chances of being adopting non-white chil - communities are, of are keeping non-white adopted diminish. That dren with information, course, in a far worse kids “locked up” in the happens disproportion - training and wider adop - position. care system. ately to children who are tive family networks so from a black, Asian or dual children would have black One recent report said heritage backgrounds. family and role models in that the government wants • The religious lobby and But this is not the only their lives. All this went to change the law that en - women’s rights , by Rahila aspect of the problem long before the current sures children can only be Gupta of Southall Black worth talking about. round of cuts we’re facing. placed with parents of the But none of the above Sisters: bit.ly/ihAoPe Our social services sys - same ethnic background. is the problem appar - • Quilliam Foundation tem is literally cracking But there never was a law. ently. It’s all about social under the strain. At the briefing paper with useful There was only ever gov - workers being too politi - same time as the govern - background information: ernment guidance which cally correct. ment scraps “all children Usama Hasan bit.ly/exmM3I stated that social workers SOLIDARITY 3 REGULARS Murdoch worse, the others bad

Desmond’s United Newspaper Group; one, the Mail, is owned by the Northcliffe Group, and one by the Mirror Group. All companies own local and regional papers and most have huge shares in TV and radio stations too. With Press Watch the occasional exception of the Mirror they are uniformly By Pat Murphy and consistently hostile to unions, socialist ideas of any kind and, above all, strikes. Rupert Murdoch has won his bid to increase News In - When it comes to trade unions and industrial action the ternational’s share of BSkyB from 39% to 61%. An al - more serious broadsheet papers are worse. None of them, liance of media organisations including the Guardian , not the Guardian and not the Independent, troubles its con - Telegraph , Daily Mail , Mirror and BT had demanded the science long before denouncing striking workers. bid be referred to the Competition Commission. Socialists are often accused of moaning and making ex - cuses when we blame the “meejah” for our defeats and fail - Labour had said they wanted that too. As did the ex- ure of our ideas to triumph, but the power this monochrome Media and Culture Secretary, Vince Cable. Even Tory James media control gives to the ruling class and their system is Hunt, who replaced Cable in that post, was promising to immense. We all need a source of news and information to refer the decision right up to the last minute. Uncovering and presenting the whole truth is the only make sense of the world and it takes great determination Despite all this, Hunt permitted the takeover in return for antidote to the likes of Murdoch and political confidence to filter out of that news and infor - a promise by News International to let go of the loss-mak - mation the prejudice and assumptions which are transmit - ing Sky News for at least 10 years. Murdoch gets his own ted by the sources we have to rely on. way — again. petition Commission because “nobody believes these un - Combating this power and influence is an immense job. It Does it matter that Murdoch, as opposed to any other pro- dertakings agreed to by Murdoch will be adhered to in the is one of the reasons socialists are so committed to sustain - corporate billionaire, owns yet another huge media outlet? long term. Many people will think we have reached a new ing our own newspapers, websites and publications. It is Yes. Murdoch will now own 40% of the UK newspaper mar - low in British politics when the Conservative Party is why we give huge importance to political education and in - ket and have around 10 million subscribers to his TV chan - backed by Rupert Murdoch before the election and then de - dependent reading and the habits of debate and criticism. nels in the UK and Ireland. His media networks are livers this deal within months of being elected.” And of course struggle at whatever level can transform consistently right-wing, anti-working class, and anti-labour In fact there is no “new low”. This is just another demon - superficial thinking overnight. Whether it is tabloid homo - movement. stration of the supine nature of the institutions which are phobia, and racism challenged by black and lesbian and gay Whether it is the Sun and News of the World, or the more supposed to protect press freedom and democracy. miners’ support groups in 1984, or the entire city of Liver - upmarket Times and Sunday Times, Murdoch has both ends When Murdoch wanted to buy the Times and Sunday pool turning away from the Sun after the Hillsborough dis - of the market covered, each with their own bespoke mix of Times in 1979, it was also expected to be referred to compe - aster in 1989, the hold of the press on working class celebrity gossip and lefty-bashing. tition bodies. He got out of that by claiming that the two pa - consciousness can be rapidly undermined — but it is still Murdoch’s organisation also represents a particularly ag - pers were not going concerns and delaying his takeover necessary to work hard at drawing out the lessons and gressive model of media ownership born in the Thatcher would risk them going out of business. spreading the message. era, which created the material conditions for his triumph — In 1990, when he proposed to merge his Sky company We cannot hope to compete with the resources and finan - anti-union laws, mass unemployment, deregulation. He is with British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) to create BSkyB, he cial power of multinational capital, but we can develop and now acting as cheerleader-in-chief for the most right-wing used the exact same argument — both were loss-making nourish critical minds and a sceptical, questioning culture. government since the Second World War. companies. Lenin once said of the great liberal paper in Britain, the Key turning points in the struggle between the organised A socialist response should not be to line up with the Guardian , that it “tells the truth 80% of the time all the bet - labour movement and the bosses during that period were other media barons to argue for a “level playing field”. Nor terBteoinlige faosrothceiaolitshtedr o20e%s ”n.ot mean rejecting all informa - marked by the symbiotic relationship between the govern - should we pretend that there is a democratic media equilib - tion in the bourgeois media, but it does mean taking re - ment and News International — the miners’ strike, the Wap - rium which nasty Rupert (often demonised as “foreign”) is sponsibility for thinking, interpreting and making sense ping dispute and the against-the-odds Tory election victory spoiling. With the exception of the unique way in which the of that information — sorting out and explaining what in 1992 (“It was the Sun wot won it”). BBC is run, all the British mass media is in the hands of oli - are the facts as opposed to the lies and half-lies. One of However some of the reaction to Murdoch’s latest expan - garchs or major corporations. the truths we have to communicate, unfortunately, is sion serves only to mislead and miseducate our movement. The political differences between them are marginal in the that we would have a bosses’ press and media with or Left Labour MP John McDonnell, for example, urged Je - great scheme of things. Of the non-Murdoch papers two of without Rupert Murdoch. remy Hunt to go ahead with referring the deal to the Com - the tabloids, Star and Express , are owned by Richard

More broadly, in deciding an attitude towards Berlus - ing. We have since learned that the Lambeth Town Hall oc - coni’s current travails, two comparisons are instructive. cupation was the product of a lot of preparation (see Soli - First, yes, Berlusconi has been thoroughly sexist in his ap - darity 195). In Hackney, and I’m sure elsewhere, there is a proach to ministerial selections. But for many years the feeling that direct action “just happens”, that crowds act British Conservative Party, albeit in a different way, was also completely spontaneously to carry out very radical tactics. Letters notoriously sexist in its selection of MPs (it has better win - This is simply not true. dow-dressing now, but I doubt this has changed things very Security was very tight at the Hackney budget meeting, much). but it was not beyond the capability of the Hackney Alliance Make MPs accountable This was never a major point on which to attack the To - to organise chanting inside that would have halted the ries: by comparison to the impact of their government on meeting a second time. This might have allowed us to at Paul Hampton ( Solidarity 194) seems (it is not totally working-class women it was rather marginal. Berlusconi’s least stage an occupation of the public gallery and offered a clear) to oppose any constituency link when electing behaviour is more outrageous, but I do not think the differ - greater spectacle of resistance to the council and local peo - MPs on the grounds that it produces a result that is not ence is fundamental: in both cases, not surprisingly, right- ple. It could have all gone wrong, of course, but better exactly proportional to the votes cast for each party na - wing parties are sexist in their parliamentary selections. preparation would have given us more chances. tionally. Second, in relation to Berlusconi’s personal life, we might Dan Rawnsley, Hackney consider the sorry case of Tommy Sheridan. That is wrong. Abolition of constituencies would mean When Sheridan was attacked by the right-wing press for that MPs would just be chosen from national party lists, put - going to sex clubs, he might have said “no comment”. Or Free the fascist, grab the Jew? ting more power into the hands of central party bureaucra - he might — better, in my view — have said “yes, and why cies (and we already have some idea of what that means in not?” in a refreshing rejection of sexual convention. But if Last week I was arrested and charged for confronting a the Labour Party!). It also removes any accountability of we reject criticisms of Sheridan on the basis of his private group of people who were sieg-heiling and using racist MPs to their electorate or to local party members. Finally, it life, we must reject similar criticisms of Berlusconi. One language towards a group of friends and anti-cuts stu - robs constituents of anyone who directly represents them in might argue that Berlusconi is alleged to have paid for sex, dents. Their behaviour included telling an Asian and a parliament and who can be put under pressure by cam - Sheridan was not, and therein lies the difference. But that mixed-race woman to “look in the mirror to see how in - paigning. argument stands only if one has a particular objection to sex ferior you are”. In short, it is fundamentally undemocratic. There are for money, an objection that in a money-driven capitalist so - The police turned up at the altercation. They were unin - ways to combine a generally proportional result with a con - ciety cannot be other than moralistic. terested in the racism and abuse, and instead pushed a Jew - stituency system as the recent elections in Ireland show. I agree with Hugh that Italian society is deeply sexist, but ish woman in our group who was remonstrating with the Larger multi-member constituencies is one; combining a to tackle that sexism we need to disentangle the distinct is - police about doing nothing. party list with a constituency system is another. Democracy, sues of sexual morality and gender equality. The man responsible for most of the abuse was told to not pure proportionality, should be our aim in any reform of Cath Fletcher, Florence “move along”. the electoral system. Action doesn’t “just happen” I raised my voice in a futile attempt to make the cops Bruce Robinson, Manchester aware that they had allowed a man to get away with racially On 2 March Hackney council passed its budget. As in abusing Jewish and black people. I was then cuffed and Leave sexual morality out of it other boroughs local activists demonstrated against man-handled to the front of a police van, and my head was the meeting. The road outside the town hall was block - repeatedly hit against the bonnet. I was taken to a police sta - Hugh Edwards ( Solidarity 3-194) criticises Silvio Berlus - aded and activists inside chanted slogans at council - tion overnight and hit with an £80 drunk-and-disorderly coni’s appointment of “prostitutes” to public office. It is lors, disrupting the meeting at one point, before fine in the morning. not a term that I favour: many feminists now prefer to agreeing to let it continue. I was glad to be there. In the words of one of the anti-cuts people: “it’s rare in say “sex workers”, reflecting that the women in ques - western Europe that someone Nazi salutes down a street, tion are workers, and we should relate to them as such. That said, more would have been possible if Hackney Al - and the Jew he was doing it to is the one arrested.” liance activists had developed a plan to disrupt the meet - Chris Marks, Hull

4 SOLIDARITY EDITORIAL Fighting after 26 March

The labour movement is facing the most generalised at - tack on the working class in 20 years. Ministers and of - ficials are routinely monitoring the union response and actively planning to defeat any resistance. If the unions do not respond with deep and extensive industrial ac - tion and a political alternative, then wages will be slashed, and everyone’s “social wage” of public serv - ices and benefits will be hollowed out and recast as a private-sector, parasitic, business opportunity. Without industrial action and a political alternative, hun - dreds of thousands of jobs will be lost. Unions will be hugely weakened. A wave of cutting union facility time or even union derecognition may follow across the public sector. The government also signals that it will meet a half-hearted union response with new anti-strike laws. Union leaders speak vaguely of big mobilisations to come (sometime) whilst signalling their unwillingness to organise their members to fight now. This reinforces the lack of con - fidence which understandably exists in many areas; under - mines the more confident groups of workers; and blocks struggle on issues where it is impossible, or difficult, to fight workplace-by-workplace (pensions, and sometimes jobs too). Ministers have picked up on the underlying message, and so have trade union members and activists — who are left isolated, too often struggling to deal with the onslaught in their workplace through negotiating voluntary redundan - cies rather than through a generalised resistance to job loss, pay cuts, and the slashing of public services. Politically, Unison’s strategy of campaigning to split the coalition government and waiting for a return of a friendly Miliband-led Labour government will not save our jobs and services. We need industrial action to beat back the govern - ment and force the Labour leadership to change course rather than plan their milder version of the cuts. Anti-cuts demonstration at Lambeth Town Hall, 23 February 2011. Picture: Peter Marshall SLOW All the unions have been slow in responding. One of the anti-cuts committees has pushed local government unions out and recruit as a major priority. Force the union leader - major attacks on public sector pensions (indexing pen - into campaigning where otherwise they would have re - ships to launch a mass drive to rebuild. sions to CPI rather than RPI) was legislated almost a sponded to cuts just by quietly negotiating damage-limita - • The foundation-stone of union democracy and union year ago and goes into effect from April 2011; and yet tion. Build towards cross-union action to defeat a mobilisation is timely and honest information. Demand that the union leaders still talk of waiting to see whether cross-union class attack by the Tories. Demand that the union leaders distribute clear information to members they can negotiate something acceptable with the Gov - union leaders plan to win rather than sabre-rattle to win about the bosses’ plans and help union branches to ex - ernment and then considering industrial action as a token concessions. change information between themselves (instead of block - “last resort”. • Place jobs, services, anti-privatisation, at the heart of ac - ing that information-flow between branches, as happens in tion, whilst also resisting attacks on pensions and pay. The Unison). Demand they boost, publicise, and celebrate local The PCS leaders (around the Socialist Party) plans to hook confidence and consciousness of us all, members and reps, disputes. Demand the union leaders give members honest cross-union action on the pensions attack, while simultane - will change in action. Look to the far more dangerous cir - information about what they plan to do, instead of appeal - ously claiming that PCS cannot defeat the Government cumstances of the Middle East and North Africa if you do ing vaguely for them to “support the union campaign” and alone, as if there can be no gain short of full surrender by not believe that resistance breeds resistance: a heroic exam - hinting at action in an indefinite future. the Government. In effect, they are waiting on a Unison ple to us all. • Fight wherever we can, and spread the action! Do not leadership in which they themselves have no confidence. • Do not wait on the “slowest boat.” The fight for gener - use the failure of the national unions to fight as a reason for Meanwhile, they leave the fight on the big and quick job alised action must not be an excuse for failing to mobilise not fighting sectorally or locally. If members feel unable to cuts in the civil service down to workers fighting alone in national unions in defence of members. The Unison leader - resist in isolation, then criticise the national leaderships and isolated pockets - while telling them that on that issue, too, ship will move to the extent that pressure from below builds fight for an alternative leadership, but do not assume that the whole PCS alone could not defeat the Government. The on them — and that pressure will increase enormously if the lack of confidence is fixed in stone. effect can only to push isolated reps into trying to deal with other unions begin to take action. • Fight for an accountable leadership as part of the fight the crisis by negotiating voluntary redundancies. • Campaign for cross-union action, but fight for each to win: The rank and file to be at the heart of the disputes Unison has numerous groups of workers keen to fight on union to take the necessary action to defend its members in and the campaigns. Regular workplace meetings to discuss the job and service cuts they face now. But the union offi - national union action. Even if there is cross-union action that the effects of the attacks and the necessary response. Elect cials are blocking or delaying ballots for them. Where the will need to be supplemented by rolling or continuous ac - strike committees and put decisions in the hands of striking officials concede ballots, they do nothing to boost, publicise, tion in different sectors, and that action will build the con - workers and their delegates. Democratise the unions. Offi - or generalise the local action. fidence and the demand for further coordinated action. cials and branch officers should be accountable to members. On pensions, despite the PCS leaders’ perspective, there • Link our struggles. Unity should not be used as an ex - is no campaign in Unison at all. (A much bigger proportion LEVIES cuse to wait until others take action. Organising solidarity of workers in local government than in the civil service have • Place the unions on a war footing! Collect member - and generalising our struggles will make us stronger. opted out of the pension scheme). ship levies to fund selective action or hardship funds; • Set up democratic anti-cuts committees everywhere, NUT, like PCS, focuses on pensions, but again in a mode plan national action; regional action; rolling strikes; se - with delegates from trade unions, community groups, stu - of waiting for other unions to be ready. The leaders have lective action in areas where it will have most impact dent groups, and local Labour Parties. Get them out on the only just now started talking to their members about action — whatever is right in a particular industry or sector, streets and the doorsteps, building a movement that will beyond “emailing your MP”, and very tentatively. The lead - whatever it takes to win. push the union leaders into action. ership supports local fights for jobs and services, as at Raw - The Government and bosses are planning to win. We • Fight for a labour movement political answer to the cri - marsh School and in Tower Hamlets, but makes no effort to must do likewise. It is good that the UCU has gone ahead sis. Demand that Labour councils defy the Tory/Lib-Dem boost, publicise, and generalise them. and organised for a one-day protest strike in the run-up to cuts, and that Labour councillors support our campaigns and pledge to continue with this after the May local elec - NOW 26 March. But a single one-day strike, or even a sporadic se - ries of one-day strikes, without follow-up, geared only to a tions. Mobilise local unions and working-class communi - Activists across the public-sector unions need to de - ties to demand the restoration of money for local services velop a common and coherent policy, designed to break hope that they will get some negotiations going, is a recipe for demoralisation as the bosses sit the strikes out and pass taken away by central government. Demand the Labour through all the diverse forms of bureaucratic inertia, Party leaders support the resistance. Demand that Labour evasion, or obstruction. on the redundancy notices. • Rebuild the unions! Union density is nowhere near as commit itself to repeal the anti-union laws, and to restore We demand that the unions start the fight back now! high as it needs to be in even the unionised areas. All expe - cuts made by the Tories, when we get this coalition govern - ment out. There are seven million trade unions and many more to re - rience shows that people join unions when they appear rel - Fight for a workers’ government, democratically ac - cruit if the unions show leadership. We can win! evant to their jobs and living standards, not when they offer countable to the labour movement and implementing a • Establish cross-union committees in every town, city the cheapest commercial services. Rank and file commit - workers’ plan for the crisis. and region. In a few cases already, pressure from active local tees, Trades Councils, cross union committees must spread SOLIDARITY 5 MIDDLE EAST BRIEFING “My lifelong dream has come true”

Extracts from an interview with Kamal Abou Aita, Presi - tion that is really capable of quickly bringing together all dent of the Real Estate Tax Authority Union (RETA), the Egyptian workers. Putting together the workers’ unions and first independent union in Egypt, established in 2009* the syndicates that currently represent doctors, lawyers, jour - How did you feel during the initial days of the revolution? nalists, engineers. But we should also open it to the rural workers, the “fellahs”, who have never seen any kind of or - I had a feeling of indescribable joy at seeing my lifelong ganising and yet they represent the heart of Egypt, which is dream coming true. To see Egyptians taking to the streets en traditionally a country of farmers. masse, it was a moment of incredible joy. How are you going to go about this? How do you explain such a massive mobilisation within such a short space of time? The idea is to establish general trade union centres in all the governorates. For example, if a group of agriculture The young people managed to mobilise huge numbers of workers ask to join, they elect a trade union representative, people. At the same time, since 2006, workers had started which will allow them to then affiliate with the federation. strike movements across the country, which prepared the Afterwards, they could also launch sectoral federations. ground for the revolution. It is through these strikes that they What is the position of women in the new independent learnt to confront their fears, to dare to demonstrate in the Kamal Abou Aita trade union movement? streets and to organise themselves. Thirteen out of the 46 members of the RETA Executive What were the main stages in the battle, leading to the thugs on the streets terrorising the population. Committee are women, and our vice president is a woman. formation of RETA? Many workers from all sectors have a great deal of anger They are also well represented at grassroots level. Women against the ETUF. This is why when the university employ - In 1977, from 17 to 19 January, the massive popular upris - played a key role during the strikes, handling a lot of the ees went on strike they abducted the vice president of the ing against the price of bread and other basic staples was a practical organisation of a strike involving as many as 50,000 ETUF, who had come to put an end to it. The same thing hap - key moment. In 1977, only the government-controlled union workers. Twenty five percent of the leaders of the independ - pened at a steel plant. federation ETUF was authorised, and creating a new union ent health technicians’ union are women. Now, we are receiving daily messages from the ETUF, was impossible. which is suddenly saying that it recognises the right to free - What are the main difficulties you now face? In 2007, we took a first step, by organising a group of dom of association and is proposing that we work together. workers and calling a strike. Over 50,000 workers took part. Thanks to the revolution, the threats against our members We set up 29 strike committees in each governorate and a co - Does the new government meet your expectations? and the attacks by security forces and employers have ordinating committee in Cairo. stopped. Our main challenge now is managing to handle the I had a sleepless night after learning from the television We were the first public sector employees in history to huge amount of requests we are receiving for the formation that the new government’s Labour Minister was a member hold a strike outside the workplace, and we marched to the of first-level unions so that they can be established quickly of the ETUF leadership. There was no way we could accept parliament building. The Finance Ministry finally gave in to and in line with the principles of trade union rights and free - it. The deputy prime minister then asked to meet Kamal our demands and we secured pay rises and better promo - doms. Having lived for decades under the single union sys - Abbas of the CTUWS who supports independent unions and tion opportunities. tem, a great deal of work is needed to change people’s offered him the post of Labour Minister. But we recom - We held discussions with the general and local strike com - mindsets, as individuals, as well as to change the trade union mended Ahmed Hassan El Bouray, who has been an ILO ex - mittees, and they all agreed to become trade unions, in all language and habits. Most workers have never been able to pert. the regions. exercise trade union rights. It is going to require a huge ed - To our great surprise, it was the treasurer of the ETUF, who The ETUF, which had called on the Finance Minister to ig - ucational effort. clearly has a hand in all the corruption mechanisms, who nore our demands, went on, in 2009, to file a complaint was appointed. He contacted us, as well as Kamal Abbas of What kind of support are you expecting from the interna - against our union, accusing it of being illegal. Our office was the CTUWS and other independent trade unionists, but we tional trade union movement? closed down and I was arrested. I put up my own defence, refused to see him. for hours, evoking the right guaranteed by the Constitution The ITUC’s support, from our very beginnings, has been With the resignation of the prime minister on 3 March, we to freely establish a union, in compliance with the ILO Con - really important. The ITUC has always remained faithful to hope that he will also be replaced. The candidacy of Ahmed vention on freedom of association ratified by Egypt. The the principle of free trade unionism, refusing to work with Hassan El Bouray, which we support, is still valid. judge dropped the case against me. the ETUF, which has helped a great deal. The ETUF leaders, who are part of the NDP (Mubarak’s On 2 March, the first conference was held of the new Our affiliation to Public Services International (PSI) has party), along with members of parliament, did everything in Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions. How also helped us a lot. their power to force the workers to leave RETA. Some were can it be made into a powerful instrument to defend the We do not want money. A range of experiences has shown transferred, demoted or had their wages cut as a reprisal. The rights of all Egyptian workers? that the influx of money from abroad does not produce good ETUF also set up a competing union in our sector, where it results and leads all too easily to a downward spiral of cor - This first conference on 2 March gave us the opportunity did not have one, in complete breach of the law. In spite of all ruption. Education and training are our priorities. to publicly present our main demands for a minimum wage, We would also like to strengthen our ties with the these difficulties, RETA has 41,000 members across the coun - social protection and respect for freedom of association. trade unions in other North African countries, such as try out of the total workforce of 48,000 employees in the sec - Hundreds of workers are contacting us every day, asking Tunisia and Morocco. These have more experience in tor. It is a very high level of representation. to form unions, in all sectors, public and private alike. We the area of training, for women and young people, for What has been ETUF’s attitude since the revolution? try to advise them and tell them what the procedure is. It’s a example. We have solid experience in the area of strike huge task. action. We could exchange experiences and learn from The ETUF did set up committees to stop any group of one another. workers wanting to go on strike and join the demonstrators. How do you envisage the future development of this new The money the ETUF has accumulated through compulsory federation? • Interview by Natacha David on the ITUC website. union dues and government funding was used to pay the www.ituc-csi.org An idea to develop would be the construction of a federa - Fighting for free trade unions

Tamer Fathy, International Coordinator of the Centre for pendent unions. The workers will be paid for their days on strike, but in - Trade Union and Workers’ Services, spoke to Solidarity . We want a definite timetable for these demands, and for crease productivity to make up for the hours lost. We held the first conference of our independent union the establishment of collective bargaining. Some left activists have set up a new Labour Democratic The strikes which began before Mubarak fell are still Party. I’m not sure how big it is, or who exactly is involved. federation yesterday [2 March]. spreading. Their main focus is the removal of corrupt bosses Some of this party’s activists were at our conference yester - It was attended by hundreds of activists from sectors in - linked to the old regime, plus wage rises and permanent day, and they distributed a leaflet. My own view is that we cluding the retail tax collectors, health technicians, pension - contracts for temporary workers. The army tried to ban need to build a strong union movement before we can form ers, teachers, telecommunications, textile workers, iron and these strikes, but failed completely. Now the authorities are a party. steel, from the industrial regions of Sadat City. engaged in a “cold war” against workers, trying to mobilise At the moment workers’ demands are mainly economic. The 24,000 workers at the Misr Spinning and Weaving public opinion, arguing that this is not the time for strikes, These must be satisfied before they can think about political Company at Mahalla, in the Nile delta, have decided to that we need to build up “our” economy and so on. demands. The key thing now is to build up the trade unions leave the state union federation and join ours. They call our demands “sectional”, but we say they are anUdnaifotenrstihnaot wtheercacnotuanlktraiebsousht oaulaldbomuar kpearstyo. lidarity with social and national demands. We are fighting for the inter - We have two main immediate demands: our demands for the dissolution of the official unions, ests of the working-class majority. 1. That the government dissolves the official union feder - and for their removal from the global union federations. ation, hands over its premises and documents, and recog - In Mahalla, the workers launched an open strike to win a nises our federation. wage rise and remove the General Commissioner of the 2. That all global labour federations end the membership company. They won their demands, and one of the workers’ • For further reports on the conference see the Egypt Work - of the official unions and recognise and support our inde - leaders was appointed as the new General Commissioner. ers Solidarity website: egyptworkersolidarity.org

6 SOLIDARITY Middle East workers’ solidarity A new committee, Egypt Workers Solidarity, focused on supporting the new workers’ movement in Egypt, was launched at a meeting in London on 17 February. Its website is at www.egyptworkersolidarity.org. On that website: a model resolution for unions; a brief - ing on the unions, news of union organising. Also a statement in support of the campaign. Signato - ries include many rank and file activists in the rail work - ers’ union, RMT, members of the national executive of the National Union of Teachers and Matt Wrack (General Sec - retary of the Fire Brigades Union), Len McCluskey (Gen - eral Secretary, Unite), Tony Woodley (former Joint General Secretary, Unite), Paul Kenny (General Secretary, GMB). Please help the campaign by circulating and getting fur - ther support for the statement. Activists from Middle East Workers’ Solidarity helped set up Egypt Workers Solidarity, and MEWS expects to be coTllhabeoMraitdindgleclEoasesltyWwoitrhkethres’nSewoligdraoruitpy. website gives up-to-date information on workers’ activity in the whole region, and many links to background material. • More: middle-east-workers.blogspot.com.

monarchy. But I doubt very much that this is a possibility, unless there’s a total collapse of governance in Libya and Senussi returns on a British warship. After 9/11, Qaddafi immediately seized on the fantasy of al-Qaeda. He gave a speech saying that if Libya falls to Is - lamists, they’ll take over Europe. He’s feeding a fear that al - ready exists. The Muslim Brotherhood has been in Libya for a very long time, but they have been suppressed. There are Brotherhood groups and Islamist intellectuals in many cities and I am sure they are directly involved in this rebellion, but they’re not in the lead. I’m not convinced that the Libyan Islamists who fought and trained in Afghanistan, people like the Islamic Fighting Qaddafi on the way out? Group, have any kind of mass base. It’s true that there were a lot of people at the funeral of [Ibn al-Shaykh] al-Libi [an al- Qaeda trainer who died in jail in Libya in 2009], but there are many reasons why people go to funerals. Islamism is mainly raised as a bogeyman by the regime. One of the main leaders of the Fighting Group, Abu Ab - durrahman Hattab [also known as Salah Fathi Bin Salman] was killed in 1997, and there hasn’t been any major opera - tion since then. The experience of migrant workers in this uprising tells us a lot about the contemporary oil economy. If you go to any oil Libya: “two country you’ll find vast numbers of unregistered workers from other countries. It’s one of the great problems of mod - ern imperialism. They’re super-exploited workers. They often come from countries that don’t even have aircraft to take them home. Britain and America can send aircraft and frigates to rescue fifteen people, but there are 3,000 or 4,000 Bangladeshis and their government doesn’t have the capac - ity to bring them home. dynamics Assessing the possible outcomes of the whole situation is a big question. Military intervention from the United States is not on the table. Gates [US Secretary of Defence] has said that even the imposition of a no-fly zone would be seen as a declaration of war, which I think was a very astute thing to say. NATO has also so far discouraged any talk of intervention. History shows that whenever NATO and the US get involved with a conflict they cannot resist a little bombing. That will from 1989” strengthen Qaddafi, as it did in 1986. There is no role for “lib - eral intervention”. Who makes the decisions about no-fly zones? Who gets to police the world? areas of Tripoli are now outside of Qaddafi’s control. There As a socialist, I obviously want to see socialist revolution. Vijay Prashad is a professor at Trinity College in Hart - were reports of a recent demonstration in a working-class But pragmatically I feel like we are still trying to live up to ford, Connecticut (USA) and the author of books includ - neighbourhood that the troops cleared out. In any revolu - the French Revolution. The Bolshevik revolution is yet to ing The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third tionary situation, all kinds of grievances come to the fore come. In some places you take what you can get, and fight World. He spoke to Solidarity about the social dynamics whenever there is a little opening. the war with the army you have. Working people don’t seem in the Libyan uprising. An unabridged version of this in - If I were a Libyan rebel, I would declare Benghazi the cap - as yet to have the power to escalate to a socialist phase, so terview is available at tinyurl.com/vijayprashad. ital of free eastern Libya and say to the people of Tripoli “free the path will have to run through something else. I’m not a A certain section has certainly benefited from oil rev - yourselves and join us”. stage-ist, but I do think you need a grounding in the reality Qaddafi has very much leaned on older forms of authority enue. A parasitic oil middle class has emerged. It’s not of social consciousness. and rule. Back in 1969 there was a fear that Europe and In these rebellions there are two dynamics from 1989 going the same as the middle class that’s emerged in other gulf America would not tolerate a Nasserite revolution in Libya. states, such as Bahrain, but it exists. on, and neither from Eastern Europe. One 1989 dynamic is Qaddafi wasn’t conducting a genuine socialist revolution; he Tiananmen Square; the rebellions are pro-democracy, and It has great clan features; in Libya there’s very much a re - was conducting a tribal consolidation with a socialist veneer. people want basic freedoms. The other 1989 dynamic is the He did initially pursue policies that were generally seen as gional breakdown, and questions of clan affiliations have VeSnoeztuheelaren’sCatrhaecapzroo,-wdheimchoicnrsatcigyatseideth, eaafnigtih-ItMfForrebvooultr s-. made it hard to topple Qaddafi. He has given a lot of advan - favourable by the population, but that started to undo in the geois freedoms, and these rebellions are also against tages from the oil revenue to the western part of Libya, and 1980s. the east-west divide is quite important. The Senussis [the former royal family] say they want to re - neo-liberalism. One set of coordinates is positive, the There have been reports that some of the working-class turn to Libya on the basis of establishing a constitutional other negative. We don’t yet know what’s possible.

SOLIDARITY 7 OPINION International working women’s day

By Cathy Nugent their power, position and celebrity status to “do for” other tion she got for her work she rejected! In 2002 she refused a women. $50,000 human rights award from Reebok as a protest I had resolved to avoid reading the Guardian on Tues - The list includes far too many women who do charity in against the company’s disregard for workers’ rights. For day 8 March. I knew they would be publishing a “100 Africa (Emma Thompson, etc.) and elsewhere. The African many years she lived where she worked, alongside her com - most inspiring women list” on this, the 100th anniver - women represented are not ordinary women who have or - rades, in the union headquarters in Jakarta. sary of International Women’s Day. And I had no desire ganised in the communities where they live. There are very many women like Dita Sari in the world, to revisit the taste of my breakfast on my way into work. Of course it would be churlish to resent the inclusion of and we value their work because they see themselves as Wangari Maathai in the list. Wangari Maathai won a Nobel part of collective struggles that can change the world. The list had been trailed in the paper some weeks before Prize for her campaigns against environmental destruction Women for whom the idea of doing something for “glory” and promised to include Margaret Thatcher, Oprah Winfrey in Kenya. or individual recognition is a ridiculous waste of life. and Hillary Clinton. Hence the anticipation of nausea. In the But she is unusual. She is university educated (winning a In the last issue of Solidarity Jill Mountford highlighted event, the list was not as bad as I expected, just boring and scholarship to a US university in the 1960s). She is, now, an the life of Ada Nield Chew, who fought for votes for work - predictable. MP. ing-class women in order to give women leverage in society, And the Guardian did not bother to enquire about or ex - And that is what is really wrong with these lists. A little to strengthen the fight to improve their conditions as work - plain the origins of this 100-year-old tradition. That in itself research could have turned up women who have done ers. If she were around today she might approve, with the is galling enough. equally extraordinary things with their lives but have re - Guardian , of Lady Gaga and her flaunting of convention. International Women’s Day — or rather International ceived little or no mainstream recognition for what they do. That’s the kind of woman she was too. Working Women’s Day as it was to be called when estab - And who don’t do what they do “for” other women but as Nonetheless, ultimately, she was more interested in what lished after 1911 — was first formally proposed by Clara part of a wider struggle alongside other women. the exploited, undervalued and unrecognised majority of Zetkin and other socialists (though the idea is said to be Take a woman like Dita Sari, for example. Dita Sari helped women want. older than that). It was not about “celebrating” the lives of And that is what International Working Women’s Day set up and develop an independent left trade union in In - women, as is the modern “spin”. Not even about celebrat - means to me. donesia which organised sweatshop workers. The recogni - ing the lives of extraordinary working-class women — though we can and should do that. That is what Jill Mount - To commemorate international women’s day in Liver - ford does in her column in this paper (“On Whose Shoul - If she were alive today, Mary would be fighting the cuts pool, a statue has been put up on St George’s Plateau ders We Stand”). being brought in by Tories, heckling and protesting against of Mary Bamber. It was about making solidarity with the trade union and Labour councillors for carrying out the Tory cuts! Inter - other class struggles of working-class women. It was about Mary was a supporter of the Russian revolution and a national women’s day is a day when our movement supporting their demands for higher wages, against sweat - founding member of the Communist Party — when it was should defend and fight for political and economic rights shop conditions, for nurseries and for the right to vote. a revolutionary organisation. A socialist, an organiser of for working class women. For many years now the “working-class” has gone out of working-class women, a supporter of the 1911 transport International Women’s Day March International Women’s Day. At best it is a “celebration” of strike, and on the Bloody Sunday march in that dispute. feminist (and not so) feminist women in history, the arts, She was a comrade of Sylvia Pankhurst — who broke with Saturday 12 March, 12.30, St George’s politics and sport. At worst it is a day when local councils the right-wing suffragettes. put on free aromatherapy sessions. Though in these austere Plateau, Liverpool In 1920, she attended the Second Congress of the Third times it’s probably a “how to make a cushion cover out of International in Moscow. She was a local committee mem - Organised by Merseyside Women’s Movement your old frock” session, make-do-and-mend being the latest ber on the National Unemployed Workers Committee and, soft-focus feminist thing among the middle class people with the International Women’s Day Conference in September 1921, was one of those arrested at the occu - who put on these things. pation of the Walker Art Gallery. being held at Bluecoat Chambers So the Guardian list was never going to be about women organising. It was always going to be about women using Climate Camp shuts down... itself

By Bob Sutton sticker, but they also wanted to know what I thought about the world. The Camp for Climate Action, a network of direct-ac - They proposed a form of anti-capitalism which made tion environmentalists, whose main activity has been to sense to me, looking to the working-class, to solidarity, to organise a series of annual protest camps between challenge and overthrow the system and its horrors. 2006-2010, has dissolved itself. I was involved with the It increasingly became clear that most people involved in network for most of that time. Climate Camp saw capitalism as something to pour a bucket of paint over. They conceived of the camp, and other The 2007 Climate Camp at the site of the proposed third “protest movements”, as a ready-made utopia that would runway at Heathrow airport was the first political activity I penetrate and spread over the old rotten order like a virus, got seriously involved in. I already thought of myself as a and create a world in its image. socialist and had read a couple of things. Growing up and Moreover, when “off site” faced with the real world and going to school and college where I did had given me an the questions it poses, the politics drawn upon were basi - embryonic understanding of class, and racism. But it was cally a variant of NGO left-liberalism. The underlying prem - all half-baked. ise of a lot of the “direct action” is that “getting in the The political baggage I had inherited from my parents, media” is the be all and end all — the bourgeois press is the both one-time members of the Revolutionary Communist only conceivable conduit of “revolutionary” politics. Group, meant that I thought the most useful thing for me I became increasingly aware of how this conception of to do was finish my A-levels, then head to Latin America “activists” as the agency for change in the world was a block and put myself at the disposal of either the Cuban or the to those people effectively making solidarity. Relatively few Venezuelan regime. I’m quite lucky I didn’t ever get very “campers” made it down to the Vestas wind turbine factory far. workers’ occupation, while thousands descended on Black - It was through a friend from college that I found out heath in South London to camp “against the city”, largely about the camp. He had been part of the Forest School ignoring the working-class communities in the area. Camps, where a lot of the friendship groups that made up The end of the line for Climate Camp I think the role of the Climate Camp was, following on the core “cadre” of the Camp had originated. from the “conference hopping” protest movements of ear - The camp was not like anything I’d ever seen. 2,000 peo - Through being part of one of these confrontations and lier in the decade, a way for middle-class anti-capitalists to ple in a squatted field in West London living, cooking, some bad luck, I was arrested and falsely charged with as - generate confrontation with the state. It’s a symptom of the washing together. It seemed to be the closest thing to “com - saulting two police officers. This put the trip to Latin Amer - low level of real class-struggle. Therefore it was always munism” going on in that part of the world. I thought it was ica on hold. But I stayed involved, largely getting into a lot characterised by a short attention span and a disregard for great. The process of endless meetings, run according to of the practical skills stuff. patient organisational or educational work. “consensus decision making” struck me as being massively The 2008 camp was at the Kingsnorth coal fired-power Consensus is a form of organising shaped by these poli - wasteful and self-indulgent. The only thing I could counter - station, where I threw myself into chopping wood and re - tics. It militates against scientifically thrashing out ideas, or pose it to in my head was a group of bearded guys in berets sisting the cops. It was here that I first really met members any real notion of commitment to common struggle or ac - giving orders (in Spanish). of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty. They were organising countability — no one is obliged to do anything they don’t I had never planned on getting particularly involved, but the Workers’ Climate Action contingents that were leafleting want to do. I had nothing better to be doing and so stayed around. I was the plant each morning, holding a meeting on women and There is much more to be said about the matter. I do part of something which felt big, fresh, inspiring and youth - the miners’ strike. They got Clara Osagiede, leader of the hope however that the dissolution of the Camp will be ful. It was showing how the world could be different, and London Underground cleaners’ strike, to speak, got Arthur part of a wider process of thrashing these questions out pulling off some very impressive confrontations with the Scargill to come and debate on coal. They took the piss out in the struggle to develop a coherent fight against the police. of me for my Hugo Chavez t-shirt and a boycott Israel cuts.

8 SOLIDARITY DEBATE Anarchism, Marxism, and polemic

By Martin Thomas

The polemicists have invoked the Anarchist Federation as proof that my criticisms of anarchism in Solidarity 3/195 were unjust. Let’s see what the Anarchist Feder - ation says. Its website recommends an interview with an AF member which says: “Too often the anarchist scene is incredibly elitist. There are loads of friendship groups doing things that exclude the participation of working-class people. They have no struc - tures that allow people to join them, no internal democracy that places everyone on an equal footing. No point of con - tact for people new to anarchism. And ultimately no staying power”. This is the AF itself, describing what most anarchist ac - tivity is like. (The AF, whatever its virtues, is a tiny minor - ity among self-described “anarchists”). It’s a harsher description than I made! And I stressed in the article that some anarchists are different. Some anar - chists gear their activity to working-class struggle as Marx - ists do. They cannot justly be condemned “by association” with the other anarchists, and I did not try to condemn them hind their backs” and they conflate “the three distinct roles Others respond in a contrary way, by arguing that Proud - that way. played in a Marxist perspective by three distinct sorts of or - hon, Bakunin, etc. did focus on working-class struggle. One reason for writing the article is that on many issues ganisation — the workers’ political party (or proto-party), Anarchists polemicising with Trotskyists often concern we find some anarchists much closer to us, that is, much the unions, and the workers’ councils”. themselves heavily with history — Trotskyists are damned more oriented to an independent working-class standpoint, There’s been no comment on that criticism of anarcho- because of what Trotsky did about Kronstadt in March 1921, than many would-be Marxists and Trotskyists. We share syndicalism. But some writers denounce my article on the or what he said in the Bolsheviks’ “trade-union debate” in with class-struggle anarchists an emphasis on rank-and-file grounds that there are variants of class-struggle anarchism late 1920 — but plainly many anarchists today think that organising (against an orientation to the “left” bureaucra - other than anarcho-syndicalism. They say my article critical comments on Proudhon or Bakunin are just irrele - cies in the labour movement) and a rejection of the Stali - amounted to smearing non-syndicalist class-struggle anar - vant point-scoring, because “no-one thinks that today”. noid organisational norms still common on the left. chism by lumping it together with liberal or lifestyle-ist or Our view, which we apply to our own tradition as well as Like many class-struggle anarchists, we emphasise the utopian anarchism. to the anarchist tradition, is that everyone’s thought is heav - struggles of those elements of the working class — undoc - They have a fair point against the draft version of my ar - ily shaped by environment and tradition. As Keynes put it: umented and precarious workers, for example — often ig - ticle, which I posted on the web and which attracted the “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt nored by the mainstream labour movement. And on comment. In the final printed version, which I’d worked on from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of international issues, our perspective has more in common more carefully, I wrote: “Some anarchists — primarily the some defunct economist.” with the focus on international working-class solidarity of anarcho-syndicalists, who on this issue have the same idea We can hope to escape being overwhelmed by the ideo - most class-struggle anarchists than it does with the “Trot - as Marxists do — identify with the working class as the logical influences around us — either directly, or indirectly, skyists” who orient to Hamas or Hezbollah or the Muslim force to defeat the capitalist state...” Primarily the anarcho- by forming our ideas by knee-jerk reaction — only by learn - Brotherhood on grounds of supposed “anti-imperialism”. syndicalists; not exclusively the anarcho-syndicalists. I think ing from an independent tradition which we study thor - In my Solidarity 3/195 article I stated that one sort of an - “primarily” is right, and I’ll explain why in the course of oughly and critically. We identify with the “Third Camp” archists — anarcho-syndicalists — “focus on the wage- this response. Trotskyism of the Workers’ Party and the Independent So - working class” and have a “coherent idea of what to do in Toby, writing under the name Dee, asserts that my critical cialist League, and yet we argue that both Shachtman and un-revolutionary times”. They have ongoing, structured or - comments on writers in the historic tradition of anarchism, Draper got some things seriously wrong. ganisation. Proudhon, Bakunin, Bookchin, etc., are malicious and arbi - We call ourselves Trotskyists and we think Trotsky was But, I argued, anarcho-syndicalists’ dogmas constrain trary smears on today’s anarchists, because those writers wrong to hold to the characterisation of the USSR as a “de - them to do their “political activity... with one hand tied be - have “no modern sway”. generated workers’ state” in the 1930s. We call ourselves Marxists, and many of us think Marx was wrong, for exam - ple, on the “tendency of the rate of profit to fall”. chism is class struggle anarchism — hence Proudhon, We pore over the history because we believe, like Isaac Proudhon and Bakunin Bookchin, as well as primitivist, individualist, utopian Newton, that if we can see anything clearly it is because we “anarchists” cannot be considered anarchist. stand on the shoulders of giants. “Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the ‘father of anarchism’, was ISAAC BARROW maligned opposed to unions, strikes, and class struggle”. Right, It’s the same reason why Marx spent so much effort un - given that his ideas on unions, strikes and class struggle “[Proudhon] did not even see industrial capital as ex - picking the ideas of Feuerbach, Proudhon, Ricardo, and (or any of his ridiculous petty-bourgeois mutualist ideas) ploitative. In his view only financial and merchant cap - others, the people who for him were what Isaac Barrow have literally zero sway in contemporary anarchist was for Newton. ital were exploitative”. thought, the relevance of this is...? Not remotely true — Proudhon was quite explicit that For what it’s worth, in anarchist circles I’ve been in - When we discuss other schools of thought — like anar - chism — we have the same approach. We take the ideas se - exploitation was a product of wage-labour, of workers sell - volved with, the only ideas of Proudhon’s given any notice riously. We dig through the history. It is not gratuitous. ing their labour/liberty to a boss, that it happened in pro - are his ideas on surplus value — ideas which Marx (who, It could make sense to use Kropotkin’s term “anarchist duction. Indeed, his theory of why industrial capital is in the opinion of almost every anarchist I’ve met, is an in - communism” for your politics, while criticising Kropotkin exploitative is similar to Marx’s — except that Proudhon finitely better thinker and more useful and closer to our on some issues — say, his support for World War One — argued it first. politics than Proudhon) was massively influenced by. “Bakunin did not see the working class as the central and analysing how your criticisms relate to the core of Only someone utterly ignorant of Proudhon’s ideas Kropotkin’s ideas. But to us it makes no sense to say airily would make such a statement — I guess that they have agent of revolution. He considered peasants and the urban unemployed, beggars, petty criminals, etc. to be much that the whole history of your own tradition is irrelevant be - been spending too much time reading The Poverty of Philos - cause it has “no modern sway”. ophy rather than Proudhon! more potent revolutionary forces.” You’re going for the classic “anarchists only care about Tom Dale and Iain McKay take the contrary tack: they de - And, let us be honest, there are very, very few mutualists fend Proudhon and the rest of the traditional anarchist writ - around — invoking Proudhon is irrelevant because most peasants” line. I didn’t realise that was still used against anarchists for real. You’ve got Bakunin wrong, as it hap - ers as champions of working-class struggle. anarchists are revolutionaries, not reformists! But I guess it That Kropotkin generally sympathised with “the people” sets the tone for what comes next. pens. Having said that, I don’t know a single living anar - chist who bases their ideas on his... and even with “the workers”, I don’t doubt. That “Bakunin “Bakunin did not see the working class as the central Why write a massive load on anarchist politics that supported unions and strikes” I wrote in so many words. agent of revolution. He considered peasants and the urban have no modern sway? In doing so you make anarcho- Proudhon’s statement that “the proletariat must emanci - unemployed, beggars, petty criminals, etc. to be much syndicalism (and all other types of class struggle an - pate itself without the help of the government” I quoted de - more potent revolutionary forces”. archism, which don’t seem to exist for you...) sound liberately, so as to give the strongest evidence for the claim Absolute nonsense... marginal — when actually the vast majority of anar - that Proudhon saw working-class struggle as the lever of Iain McKay chists and anarchist struggles have been class strug - change. gle in nature. You do it to malign anarchism, and that My argument was not that most anarchists fail to see Anarchists are is the purpose of this essay, there is no honest intent working-class struggles as good examples of the “direct ac - to it. tion” by “self-organised groups” against large-scale author - Toby ity which they favour. It was that anarchism, where “the class-struggle people axis is the small local autonomous group (or even individ - uals) against (any) state, rather than workers against capi - Martin Thomas’s article in Solidarity 3-195, “Working- Just as not every self-styled socialist can actually be tal”, is constitutionally less able than Marxism to find a way class struggle and anarchism”, has prompted a long de - considered a socialist — so too it is with anarchism. that “the minority can act today so as best to contribute to bate on our website. We print excerpts from two See for example, “Black Flame: The Revolutionary majority action tomorrow [which can replace capitalism]”. contributions and a reply to the debate by Martin Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism”, which It is logical and a flaw, not an aberration and not a virtue, argues with some evidence that the only type of anar - Thomas. The original article and entire debate can be found at workersliberty.org/anarch1. Continued on page 10 SOLIDARITY 9 DEBATE

Continued from page 9 unions, and on self-education and the education of those the IWW and the Socialist Party but without fully integrat - around us. But that difference in focus is largely what my ing the two dimensions. that most (not all) anarchists prefer “affinity” groups and original article was about. There were similar people in the CGT. Victor Griffuelhes, one-off actions to ongoing organisation structured around The bit of AF activity specifically focused on long-term general secretary of the revolutionary syndicalist CGT in its definite political ideas. working-class organisation (as distinct from more generic great days, was a member of the Socialist Party (of its “Blan - In The Philosophy of Poverty — yes, I have read it, and not “the-people-against-power” stuff) is work in the IWW, a quist” faction). But two of the main writers of the CGT, Fer - just Marx’s polemic against it — Proudhon writes of “lib - syndicalist organisation, suggesting that I wasn’t wrong to nand Pelloutier and Emile Pouget, were anarchists. erty”, “equality”, “association”, “solidarity”, and even of “a identify anarcho-syndicalism as the “primary” form of Pelloutier was also influenced by Marxism, having been an war of labour against capital”. worker-focused anarchism. organised Marxist before he became an anarchist. Proudhon wishes well for the workers, in general. But he The AF’s “Introduction to Anarchist Communism” extolls Some of my critics claim that anarcho-syndicalism can be opposes strikes. His characteristic stance is that of the “man working-class struggle at length. But how does working- sharply differentiated from revolutionary syndicalism; but of science” pointing the way forward to be achieved by peo - class struggle fit into AF strategy? And when the AF extolls historically it usually hasn’t been, and some anarchists claim ple in general understanding his enlightened views. working-class struggle, is that a roundabout way of ex - revolutionary syndicalism as their own. Iain McKay, in his He seems to me to have the not-uncommon disdain of the tolling “direct action” in general, or a focus on the class “Anarchist FAQ”, argues of “Bakunin and Kropotkin... that self-consciously brainy self-educated skilled worker (which character of struggle? That is less clear. many of their ideas were identical to those of revolutionary is what he was, though in later life he owned his own busi - The AF states that the future society will be run by “local syndicalism”. ness and then worked as a manager) for the “average” collectives and councils”. The AF pushes two things as the To the (varying, and never total) extent that it stresses “di - worker. means for those “local collectives” to get strong enough to rect action” above longer-term organising and education “The day labourer has judged himself: he is content, pro - organise society: “direct action” and “self-organisation”, and shies away from “politics”, revolutionary syndicalism vided he has bread, a pallet to sleep on, and plenty of liquor also summed up as “a culture of resistance”. connects to anarchism. But revolutionary syndicalism of any on Sunday. Any other condition would be prejudicial to sort inevitably involves some shift away from “pure” anar - him, and would endanger public order...” REPRESENTATIVE chism. How big that shift can be, and yet you still call your - Dockers he describes as grossly overpaid, “drunken, dis - “Self-organised groups” are defined as those in which self an “anarcho-syndicalist”, depends I think more on solute, brutal, insolent, selfish, and base”. “One of the first “everyone has an equal say and no one is given the right fashion and personal taste than any rigid demarcation. reforms to be effected among the working classes will be the to represent anyone else. This kind of group is capable By crediting anarcho-syndicalism, in my original article, reduction of the wages of some at the same time that we of deciding its own needs and taking direct action to with all the virtues of revolutionary syndicalism, I was giv - raise those of others”. meet them in a way that any hierarchical group based ing anarcho-syndicalism its strongest case, before criticising As for the rank and file in his own trade: “There are few on representatives — like a political party or a trade it. I was doing the very opposite of smearing it by false as - men so weak-minded, so unlettered, as the mass of workers union — cannot”. sociation. who follow the various branches of the typographic indus - try”. (And, for the anti-feminist Proudhon, even worse! No representatives. Not even the most democratically- POLEMICAL “The employment of women has struck this noble industry elected and accountable representatives. So, the groups The experience of Spanish anarcho-syndicalism — and to the heart, and consummated its degradation”). must indeed be “local”. Very local. It is hard to see how on its leaders’ decision to join the bourgeois Republican He explains industrial profit as exclusively what main - the AF’s criteria even the workers of a single large factory governments during the Spanish Civil War — is well- stream economists would later call “pioneer’s profit” and could become a “self-organised group”. Even anarcho-syn - trodden ground in debates between Marxists and anar - “reward for risk”. “The net product belongs to [the man of dicalist unions have not been able to do without elected del - chists. That’s why I essayed a new angle, referring to enterprise] by the most sacred title recognised among men egates, committees, secretaries, stewards, and so on. (The France instead. — labour and intelligence. It is useless to recall the fact that AF praises workers’ councils as they they have existed in the net product is often exaggerated, either by fraudulently history, but makes no comment on the fact that these have But Spain is relevant to the “Isaac Barrow” question. secured reductions of wages or in some other way. These been councils of... representatives). The AF “Introduction” has a page extolling the virtues of are abuses... which remain outside the domain of the the - How will the “local collectives” coordinate — as they the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists in the 1930s. What about ory”. must in any future society unless it is to try to reverse the them joining the Barcelona and Madrid bourgeois govern - development of productive forces within capitalism, which ments? The AF refers to that in passing as a “mistake”. BAKUNIN long ago went long beyond not only the small-workshop Just that — a “mistake”, as if they’d dialled a wrong digit As Daniel Guérin, a sympathetic commentator on scale but even the national scale? Maybe the AF relies on when making a phone call. No discussion of why the “mis - Bakunin, puts it: “It was quite unjustly, reckoned Kropotkin’s argument that a natural human propensity to take” was made and what should be learned from it. Bakunin, that Marx and Engels spoke with the greatest cooperate will solve the problem. I don’t know. Rudolf Rocker wrote a pamphlet about Spain at the time. distrust of the lumpenproletariat, of the slum prole - The anarcho-syndicalists, at the cost of some disrespect to He didn’t comment on the anarchists joining the govern - tariat, ‘for it is in it and in it alone, and not in the bour - anarchist dogma, had an answer to the question of coordi - ment, but focused only on defending them against Stalinist geoisified layers of the worker masses, that the spirit nation. Revolutionary unions — organising, through repre - smears. Murray Bookchin wrote a full-scale article looking and the force of the future revolution resides’.” sentative structures, far wider than locally — would do it. back at Spain. Mainly he tells us that he finds the Spanish Beyond doubt the AF, like Bakunin and Kropotkin, sym - anarchists “admirable”. He, too, suggests that joining the In relation to Bakunin, Toby accuses me of “going for the pathises with the working class and favours biff and strife. bourgeois governments was a mistake, but without conclu - classic ‘anarchists only care about peasants’ line”. Where And, because of anarcho-syndicalist influence I’d guess, it sions. does he get that from? Anarchists, Bakunin included, tend uses the term “working-class struggle” more than Bakunin Where will I find a rigorous anarchist critique of Proud - not to differentiate much between peasants and the urban or Kropotkin. But if you unpick the argument, you see that hon or Bakunin? Bakunin described his ideas as “Proudhon - poor; the Zapatistas (not anarchists, but admired by many biff is valued primarily as “direct”, “self-organised”, and ism, extensively expanded upon and taken to its logical anarchists) are peasant-oriented; so was Makhno; so were “local”, rather than primarily as working-class. consequences”, but quietly dropped Proudhon’s opposition the Russian Bakuninists when Plekhanov was their leading Indeed, Marxists see struggle as “class” in character partly to unions and strikes without any full critique. Kropotkin figure, before he became a Marxist. to the extent that it goes beyond the “local” and the imme - wrote surveys of the evolution of anarchist thought, but pre - But Bakunin saw the urban poor as the people most likely diately “self-organised”. Logically, anarcho-syndicalists senting it as a bland progress, with no real polemic. And so, to organise spectacular, disruptive, localised “direct action” have, or should have, the same perception. I think, it goes on. of the sort he considered most destructive to “authority”. The AF’s strategic focus on working-class struggle is qual - Anarchists do not go much for criticising their comrades Of course! Only, that’s different from having a strategy itatively less clear than that of anarcho-syndicalists. rigorously. They often spray venom at Marxists, from a dis - based on the material tendencies of capitalism and the tance, and they sometimes criticise their own: I’ve quoted specifically working-class struggles generated within it. SYNDICALISM the AF criticising anti-organisation anarchists; Malatesta did When Kropotkin came to write concise expositions of an - The critics accuse me of conflating anarcho-syndical - the same; and Bookchin wrote criticisms of different strands archism, he defined the driving force as the resurgence of a ism and revolutionary syndicalism. of anarchism. But developed polemic is rare. Although, as natural human order blocked only temporarily by the his - far as I can make out, the cult of “consensus decision-mak - torical aberration of the State, and showing itself again in In my article, I argued that anarcho-syndicalism was the most Marxist-influenced strand of anarchism; and, in my ing” comes more from Quakers and capitalist management- the way that “voluntary societies invade everything and are expert advocates of “ringiseido” than from anywhere on the only impeded in their development by the State”. (A sort of view, Trotsky was right to describe revolutionary syndical - ism in its great days as “a remarkable rough draft of revo - left, some anarchists today have adopted it as a point of ho - left-wing version of David Cameron’s “Big Society”). nour. When young people call themselves “anarchist”, often all lutionary communism” (i.e. revolutionary syndicalism also influenced Bolshevik Marxism as it developed after 1917). As the sympathetic Daniel Guérin puts it: “The traits of they mean is that they are left-wing but not yet sufficiently anarchism are difficult to circumscribe. Its masters have al - convinced to commit themselves to regular activity, instead The spectrum of revolutionary syndicalism ranges from variants of anarchism more attentive to working-class strug - most never condensed their thought into systematic trea - preferring to join “actions” from time to time, or to gear tises... Libertarians [are] particularly inclined to swear by their activity into a friendship group rather than a spelled- gle, but still fundamentally geared to a “spontaneous-local- group-versus-structured-central-authority” axis of thinking, ‘anti-dogmatism’... Anarchism is, above all, what you might out strategy. call a gut revolt...” They have not studied Proudhon or Bakunin or through to politics only a shade different from revolutionary Marxism. But “don’t polemicise against those you work with” tends Kropotkin. But those writers’ focus on the small local group to mean also: don’t work with those who polemicise. Even against authority in general, filtered through anarchist cul - Revolutionary syndicalism is, so to speak, a “transitional” political category. I think the history bears out that view. the most considered critic, Toby, declares that he’ll find it ture over the decades, is surely what makes the label “anar - “very difficult to work with AWL members unless they dis - chist” attractive to them. I believe that the term “anarcho-syndicalism” was (like many other labels in politics) first coined as a pejorative avow my article’s criticisms. FEDERATION term by opponents — in France in the early 1920s, by Marx - Trotskyists are often accused of sectarianism and faction - The Anarchist Federation is as critical of that sort of ists (many of them former revolutionary syndicalists who alism. Yet no AWL member would shy away from working loose anarchism as we are. So, what of AF anarchism? had not abjured their past, but had moved on) in their bat - in an anti-cuts committee or a stewards’ committee or a tles against the “pure” revolutionary syndicalists inside the union caucus with SWPers or SPers — or Labour loyalists, The interview quoted above is recommended by the AF CGTU (the more left-wing union federation, formed by ex - or anarchists — on the grounds that those groups make website to the reader who wants “to find out more about pulsion from the reformist-syndicalist CGT). polemics against us much ruder than mine against anar - the kinds of things AF members get up to”. In the great days of revolutionary syndicalism, before chism! “We’re working heavily on the anti-ID campaign... The 1914, in France (the CGT) and the USA (the IWW), there was We take it for granted that political and polemical differ London comrades [do mainly admin and journalistic stuff a range of views. Daniel De Leon was a sort of “Marxist- byAonnalyrcthwisotlsettdeorsn..’.t. That is why the demarcations but] somehow they find time to go on the streets and do sol - syndicalist”. He took up syndicalists’ ideas about transform - among anarchists are chronically unclear (despite Tom idarity actions too! Some of our members are busy setting ing the trade-union movement on the basis of its elemental Dale’s assertion that they are “as clear as in any other up or sustaining social centres. Others are busy in their local struggles but insisted that such activity must be coupled field”). That is why anarchist organising (even for those IWW branches. Then of course there’s asylum-seeker sup - with “political” party activity (so far, so good, I think; but he anarchists who do organise) can never adequately form port...” had not yet worked out how to integrate the two wings of a “memory of the working class” — never adequately All good stuff, and all in broad terms “class struggle” ac - his strategy fully). There were anarchists in the IWW, but and systematically work over the lessons of past strug - tivity. It differs from what the AWL does in its balance — in most leading members were not anarchists. Many had a di - gles to bring ideas from them to new struggles. that we focus mainly on organising in workplaces and luted version of De Leon’s scheme, being members of both 10 SOLIDARITY REPORTS High Street post office workers to strike

By Stewart Ward also refusing to renew a Around 4,000 workers guarantee, valid until are employed by the Postal workers have April 2011, that no further Crown network, which voted by over 90% to branches will be closed. make up the majority of strike in a dispute over Dave Ward, the deputy larger Post Office sites, in - pay and job losses. general secretary of the cluding most high-street Communication Workers’ branches. 66% of CWU The workers, who work Union (CWU), which or - members in the network behind counters at ganises Post Office staff, turned out to vote in the Britain’s 373 “Crown” Post said “Post Office workers ballot, which saw only 172 Offices (larger PO have sent a clear message workers voting against branches), have not been to management in this bal - strike action. balloted since 2007. Post lot that they are not pre - Strikes could begin at Office Ltd, owned by pared to take double the end of March, and Royal Mail, has refused to standards when it comes while they would not ini - consider a pay increase for to pay. However, this bal - tially affect the rest of the quently used Post Offices. and consequent job losses notion of publicly-owned counter staff, despite mak - lot is about more than pay; Post Office network or de - With the Coalition al - is very real indeed. This services in the UK. ing increased profits of £72 Organising active soli - it is the job security of our livery services, they would ready having announced dispute represents a front - million last year, and giv - darity must be an urgent members and the future of effectively close down plans to part-privatise line battle not just for ing managers a 2.25% pay priority for the labour the Crown office network nearly 400 of the UK’s Royal Mail, the threat of postal workers but for the rise and a 21% rise for di - movement. which is also at stake.” busiest and most fre - further Post Office closures entire public sector and the rectors. Management is

small — the main thing is as: students taping their Day of action that we get as much atten - mouths in protest and Cuba and tion as we can! holding hands round the UCU names strike dates for ESOL Ideas for action: college building (thanks to • a demonstration out - students at Greenwich the unions side your college or work - Community College for By a Further place this one) threat to the TPS: retire - By an ESOL teacher • public meetings, in or • community language Education lecturer ment age raised from 60 to By Ira Berkovic outside college premises (if awareness and skill-shar - 65, 50% increase in contri - The Action for ESOL your college is not friendly ing talks and workshops Lecturers at 63 universi - butions, final salary to ca - An article on the front campaign has called a to this, try local commu - ties teaching more than reer average, and national day of action Visit the website: 1,200,000 students will indexation from RPI to the page of the Communica - nity centres) www.actionforesol.org. tion Workers’ Union web - against cuts to ESOL • leafletting, pickets strike against to defend lower CPI are all threat - funding for 24 March. See also NATECLA: their pensions later this ened. site proclaims that it is • pickets www.natecla.org.uk. now “more important • symbolic actions such month. Activists in UCU must Actions can be large or ensure a big turnout and than ever” to make soli - Their union, UCU, has darity with Cuba. yes vote in the current bal - RAWMARSH announced strikes for 17 lots. Coordinated national after workers voted by an March in Scotland, 18 A lengthy piece reporting In brief overwhelming majority to Teachers at Rawmarsh action across FE and HE is on the visit of the new Community School in March in Wales, 21 March the necessary next step. take 48 hours of strike ac - in Northern Ireland and 22 Cuban ambassador to the By Darren Bedford tion in a dispute around Rotherham have sus - Unison and PCS mem - CWU’s National Executive pended their strike after March in England, fol - bers should ask why their the victimisation of trade lowed by a strike across Committee quotes CWU unions reps and what the winning some conces - unions are failing to act leader Billy Hayes in his af - WILDCAT sions from management. the UK on 24 March. against the job slaughter RMT called “a breakdown University employers firmation that “the achieve - A wildcat strike at a BP in industrial relations”. that is imminent. A class- The number of planned want to amend the Univer - ments of Cuba are an plant near Hull has Elsewhere on London wide attack needs a class- redundancies has been re - sities Superannuation inspiration.” forced management to Underground the RMT wide response… and duced from 25 to 7, and a Scheme from 1 April to re - Presumably he means the back down on plans for plan to escalate the ongo - sooner rather than later. nearby school has also duce pension benefits and impressive healthcare sys - unilateral redundancies. ing fight against the sack - backed off from similar increase costs for workers. tem and literacy rates, but ing of Eamonn Lynch and The GMB and Unite plans as a result of the For existing members of Students: one wonders what the Arwyn Thomas, two tube members, opposed at - Rawmarsh strike. Union the scheme, contributions union has to say about drivers victimised for their tempts by Redhall (an en - activists have reaffirmed would go up. New starters Cuba’s less “inspiring” trade union activity. They support your gineering construction their commitment to de - would receive a career av - “achievements” — its one- plan a ballot of all driver contractor operating on the feating redundancies en - erage rather than a final party state, its lack of free members for strike action. site) to impose redundan - tirely and are retaining the salary pension and lose lecturers! press, its ban on independ - Strikes have previously cies that were outside the option to restart their thousands of pound a year. ent workers’ organisation, been limited to drivers on Student walkouts, demos its recent sacking of 500,000 framework of the nation - strike action if necessary. UCU estimates that a lec - ally-bargained collective the Bakerloo and Northern turer who under the cur - and occupations against public sector workers and, lines. fees and cuts were one most recently, its steadfast agreement for the industry. rent system received a 400 workers walked off the Train drivers’ union DEFEND STEVE pension of £22,962 would front in the war to defend support for Colonel ASLEF also won its appeal education. The UCU ac - Qaddafi in his attempt to job and blocked the main HEDLEY get £15,704 under the new road into the site, backing against an injunction ban - RMT London Regional scheme. This is divide and tion is another. massacre his own people. ning strike action by its One might also wonder up rush-hour traffic. Organiser Steve Hedley defeat: the employers have We need unity between The strike marks a fur - members working for Lon - has been fined over £700 made it clear that ulti - why Egypt’s new trade don Midland. students and education unions, or indeed the ther flare in militancy in an after allegedly “assault - mately they want all staff workers if we are going to Libyan uprising itself, are industry that saw enor - ing” a scabbing manager in a career average scheme. stop the government’s at - not given similar attention mous unofficial strikes JOBCENTRE PLUS on a picket line at Mile In separate ballots mem - tacks. We need student when their need for soli - over similar attempts by The PCS union will ballot End station. bers in post ‘92 institutions protests and occupations darity is surely greater. bosses to disregard the its members working in and FE members are also Hedley had been at - aloTnhgesiNdaettihoenaUlCCUamstrpiakieg. n Socialists in the CWU terms of the national Jobcentre Plus call cen - being balloted over the tempting to persuade the Against Fees and Cuts is will feel galled by the fact agreement. The strikes, tres in a “widening” of a Teachers’ Pension Scheme manager to close the sta - launching a campaign to that their leaders are pre - though making necessary dispute that has already and pay. The success of the tion, which was in use de - support the UCU. For de - pared to proclaim the need a political battle against seen 2,000 workers take USS ballot should boost spite not having the tails visit NCAFC website for “solidarity” with “so - chauvinistic hostility to strike action. the other ballots. The other, legally-required numbers www.anticuts.com. cialist Cuba” despite the re - migrant workers which unwelcome, boost is the of trained staff to operate alities of the country’s threatened to poison the Changes in working con - safely. Witnesses say that regime and even while they dispute, succeeded in win - ditions have already seen although the exchange was sit on attempts to build ning significant conces - nearly 20% of the total heated, little or no physical working-class militancy sions from management. workforce leave their jobs Vive La Commune! contact was made. Steve (the raw ingredient of real since April 2010. The union told Solidarity that he An event to mark the 140th anniversay socialism) at home. says this results from a The uncritical support COURT VICTORIES management “obsession” “never expected justice of the Paris Commune of trade union leaders for The RMT has won a with hitting targets at the from the bourgeois courts. Cuba shows the extent to major court victory expense of quality public My case was presided over Friday 18 March, 7pm-late, Lucas Arms, 245a which Stalinism is still in - against injunctions pre - service. Conditions are set by a blue-rinse magistrate Gray’s Inn Rd, London WC1 grained in the political venting a strike on the to worsen as JCP looks to whose eyes glazed over as DNA of the British labour Docklands Light Railway. axe nearly 10,000 staff be - soon as she heard ‘RMT’. I Excepts from Peter Watkins’ film La Commune de movement leadership, was guilty from then on.” Paris 1871 The High Court granted fore April 2012. and how much that lead - Steve plans to appeal Plus speakers, exhibition, food, music the injunction to Serco ership needs changing. against the fine. More information: 07796 690874 Docklands in January 2011 SOLIDARITY 11 Tower Hamlets education S&oWloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y workers to strike against cuts

By a Tower Hamlets teachers. NUT member and a They wring their hands and claim they wish they Tower Hamlets did not have to do it. It’s Unison member not their fault. The govern - ment made them do it. Local government and But they very quickly education workers who fall into justification for are members of Unison their actions. One inde - and the National Union of pendent councillor told the Teachers are likely to council cabinet last month strike together on 30 that the closure of Junior March against education Youth Service after-school cuts planned by Tower clubs to non-working par - “Yes to Libya”, not “no to USA” Hamlets council. ents will give those parents an opportunity to spend The NUT ballot returned quality time with their an 85% vote for discontin - kids! By Chris Reynolds After the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan, and with uous strike action. The Labour councillors show resources stretched by Afghanistan, even the US military Unison ballot is in no sign of standing on In Libya, unlike Tunisia and Egypt, the army has not is unwilling to take on anything open-ended. US Defence progress, after many false principle against the pass - pushed aside the dictator challenged by mass up - Secretary Robert Gates has been arguing strongly against starts due to Unison Re - ing on of the government’s heavals. Qaddafi still controls much of the army. And even a "no-fly zone". gional Office being over attacks to local people ei - so Libya is moving from street uprisings into civil war. Secondly, even if one state or another were confident cautious about the legali - ther. While they debate in and keen about intervening in the abstract, every state ties. the council chamber about People at the chief rebel centre in Benghazi have called knows the risk that intervention would bring a backlash The NUT ballot asked how best to minimise the for military aid from the big powers, through a "no-fly both from neighbouring states in the Middle East and members to vote, first, for effect of the cuts, how to zone" directed against warplanes controlled by Qaddafi. North Africa, from other big powers, and probably from a one-day protest strike, make jobs disappear They oppose any idea of outside troops intervening on the the Libyan people. and, second, for discontin - through natural wastage ground. The US and Britain are considering military gestures be - uous action should it be rather than compulsory re - Socialists should not give a blank cheque to US or cause they know their dealings with Qaddafi will have necessary in months to dundancy, British military intervention. In such matters, positive sup - discredited them in the eyes of the anti-Qaddafi opposi - come. 85% of people voted port for US or British military intervention can only be a tion, and they want to restore credit. yes to the first question, blank cheque: imagining that we could "fine-tune" a mili - Despite our distrust of the US and British states, we and 73% yes in response to tary intervention by pressure of demonstrations or peti - surely do not demand the lifting of the freezes they have the second; overall turnout tions is a fantasy. put on the assets of Qaddafi and his associates. was 39%. Their history and their nature mandates an attitude of Compare the "no-fly zone" operated against Saddam Considering that so far complete distrust to the US and British military. Hussein in the northern (Kurdish) part of Iraq by the US, in Tower Hamlets the cuts But is it our job to try to stop the implementation of a Britain, and France from April 1991, after the Kuwait war. have only hit central serv - no-fly zone, or the delivery of weapons to the anti- That "no-fly zone" provided some protection for the ices, a self-contained unit Qaddafi forces? Should we do as some on the left do, and Kurds. To campaign for its removal would have been to that provides floating sup - hoist "no imperialist intervention" to the top of our slogans campaign for Saddam Hussein to be free to bomb the port for schools, teachers about Libya, downgrading "no to Qaddafi"? No. KuWrdess. hould support the people of Libya - and espe - and pupils, and therefore A military intervention of a sort and on a scale that the vast majority of those would establish US or British control over Libya's oil re - cially any democratic or working-class forces in the anti-Qaddafi movement. We should distrust the US balloted are yet not seeing serves, or put Libya in a condition of semi-colonial subju - any major cutbacks in their gation to the US or Britain, is very unlikely for two government, but not let kneejerk "no to the USA" re - actions dominate our thought. own schools, this is a really reasons. positive outcome. A positive result in the Unison ballot would allow teachers and support staff Canary Wharf can be Pensions: unions must organise industrial action to walk-out side by side — seen through the council an important show of soli - chamber windows where By Rhodri Evans 2011, the yearly inflation- Government like a pris - cent-years recruits to the darity, since it is support bankers discuss how big upgrading of public-sector oner being led to the scaf - civil service already are). staff that are increasingly they can make the bonuses John Hutton, the rene - and state pensions will be fold after trial who is still In principle there are in the most vulnerable po - of their senior directors gade former Labour according to the CPI index asking to have a discus - good arguments for this: sitions. without making life too cabinet minister who is and not the RPI. This sion about what witnesses the “final salary” pegging Tower Hamlets is the difficult for the govern - doing the Tories’ dirty means that the inflation- to call. means that managerial first council where united ment who best represents work on pensions, will upgrading of your pen - If the unions continue in grades, who can expect to union action is a prospect their wishes. publish his final report sion is, on average, about the same way, then the get several promotions against the cuts. It should The workers’ voice must this Thursday, 10 March. 0.8% less each year. After Government is bound to over their lifetime and end be the template for other be heard. On 26 March the 25 years’ retirement, your feel confident about push - It will propose further up on high pay just before areas fighting both the TUC demonstration gives pension is cut by about ing ahead on Hutton’s ad - Con-Dem government’s at - workers the opportunity to worsening of public sector they retire, get much bet - 19%. ditional proposals, which, tacks on public services demand of their leader - pensions on top of the two ter pensions than routine- From April 2012, the according to advance an - and the local councils who ships that they bring all the big attacks which the Gov - grade workers who get Government will be de - nouncements, are: few promotions. are passing them on with - trade unions out against ernment has already put manding an extra 3% of • No NHS staff, civil However, the detail is out a murmur. these attacks in co-ordi - into train. your pay in pension con - servant, or teacher should decisive. “Career average” Lutfur Rahman, the in - nated action across the Hutton’s report should tributions. The extra pay - get their full pension until is a complex thing. Every - dependent Mayor, cam - whole public sector. be a last-minute alarm sig - ment brings no 65 (or, as time goes on, thing depends on how the paigned for the position On 30 March in Tower nal to the unions to start improvement in pensions, even older). In 2005 the “accruals” are worked against Labour on a dis - Hamlets, we can start the fighting on pensions. Al - in fact a worsening. In ef - unions did a deal with the tinctly anti-cuts platform. ball rolling. One day in one out. Given the nature of most a year has passed fect this is a 3% pay cut. Labour government The independent council - borough will not be the government making now since the Govern - The Government is nego - which kept a pension age lors who left Labour with enough, but it could pro - the change, we can be sure ment finalised its first de - tiating only about the de - of 60 for existing staff him in disgust at the way vide a spark to set other cisions, and still the union that the method of calcu - tail of how the total 3% while making it 65 for the Labour Party bureau - baAttldesemofof innsotrtahteironaraeansd . leaders are saying “we’ll will be spread over the new recruits. Now, pre - lation proposed will be cratically removed Rah - have to seek negotiations, one that cuts pensions rally that brings together workforce: will Jack pay dictably, the government man as their candidate also workers, students, par - and if that doesn’t work, overall. 4% extra, and Jill 2%, or will try to increase the Hutton is reported to made a lot of rhetoric op - ents and the community then think about action”. Jack 2% extra and Jill 4%? pension age to 65 (or have rejected the idea of posing the slashing of pub - is being planned. A one- There have been no ne - As far as the Govern - more) for everyone. a “cap” on very high lic services by the day protest strike is a gotiations on anything but ment is concerned, those • Pension schemes pensions, but possibly Government. good start but it won’t the fine detail of one as - attacks were set in stone should be moved from the Government will go But it is they who are in - stop the cuts. The real pect, and there won’t be almost a year ago. The being pegged to “final for that anyway, for troducing cuts of over £70 test will be how we de - any until the unions de - union leaders’ whining salary” to being pegged to demagogic reasons. million, threatening the velop the struggle after cide on action! about seeking negotia - “career average” (as, for jobs of up to 500 local gov - 31 March. From next month, April tions must sound to the example, pensions for re - ernment workers and