So& Wloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y Volume 3 No 203 11 May 2011 30p/80p For a workers’ government

London Met Debating Middle East cuts fight page 2 anarchism briefing page 10 page 6-7

Tories answer Tube strike vote with See threat of new page 5 anti-union laws DEMOCRACY MEANS THE RIGHT TO STRIKE NEWS

What is the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty? Midnight raid on uni protest Today one class, the working class, lives by selling its labour power to another, the capitalist class, By Ed Maltby several student support cut-price, business-ori - more pressure to bear. schemes. London Met pro - ented institution. We’ve got a tip-off about which owns the means of production. Society On 9 May university is shaped by the capitalists’ relentless drive to vides courses and support Eshe, a first-year per - the location of the VC management at London to working-class students forming arts student, said: today, so we’re going to increase their wealth. Capitalism causes Metropolitan used police who otherwise would find “Not only did manage - rally round and sing him a poverty, unemployment, the blighting of lives by and private security to it difficult to access higher ment have tens of security song.” overwork, imperialism, the destruction of the evict a peaceful occupa - education. guards and five police offi - Max Watson, secretary environment and much else. tion of the Holloway These cuts will trans - cers, but they acted really of London Met Unison Against the accumulated wealth and power of the Road Graduate centre. form the college into, in aggressively. They told us branch, told Solidarity , capitalists, the working class has one weapon: solidarity. VC Malcolm Gillies’s we had ten minutes to “A midnight raid is a Students at London The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty aims to build solidarity words, a “lean”, “tightly- leave the occupation. It scandal and should be ex - Met’s North Campus through struggle so that the working class can overthrow organised”, “competitive” was like bloodhounds posed as such. The stu - staged the occupation in capitalism. We want socialist revolution: collective ownership institution. Gillies plans to with a fox. They didn’t dents are defending their protest against planned of industry and services, workers’ control and a democracy outsource services and give anyone time to read education and they have cuts of 400 courses and much fuller than the present system, with elected market London Met as a the injunction. It was really shown the way forward: representatives recallable at any time and an end to bad, bullying tactics. They we have to take decisive bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. scared the occupiers out action now to stop the We fight for the labour movement to break with “social with sheer force, ‘pick up cuts. The education sup - partnership” and assert working-class interests militantly The knock on the door your stuff and go go go’ port staff and students are against the bosses. kind of thing.” united: we will not stand The use of police in a for this. We are London Our priority is to work in the workplaces and trade unions, By Padraig O’Brien supporting workers’ struggles, producing workplace bulletins, midnight eviction is a seri - Met not ‘EasyMet’. We will ous escalation in manage - not become a no-frills uni - helping organise rank-and-file groups. At around 9am on 10 May two plainclothes police We are also active among students and in many campaigns ment bullying tactics. Most versity. We pledge to resist officers turned up at University College of London university evictions in re - with every weapon we and alliances. (UCL) Astor halls of residence in Bloomsbury and cent years have been re - have. arrested two known UCL student activists. “We’re already in dis - solved without the pute over job cuts and We stand for: involvement of the police. G Independent working-class representation in politics. As far as UCL anti-cuts activists know at the time of failure to avoid compul - going to press, they have not been charged and as of Other Vice Chancellors sory redundancies. We’re G A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the might now be tempted to labour movement. 3pm (10 May) they are still in custody. working on a timeline for UCL student union office Michael Chessum said: use such tactics. The stu - a strike. It’ll be as soon G A workers’ charter of trade union rights — to organise, to “This shows a clear escalation in the police’s tactics, and dent movement must de - as possible.” strike, to picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. it is being used in order to intimidate known student ac - nounce this attack. Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, G tivists. It is clearly political policing.” Eshe added, “It’s not • The students will education and jobs for all. The Bloomsbury Fightback group will shortly an - over until the fat lady lobby the Board of Gover - G A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. nounce a protest against the police action. Details: sings. People are thinking nors on 11 May calling for Full equality for women and social provision to free women www.anticuts.com about trying to occupy the resignation of Malcolm from the burden of housework. Free abortion on request. Full something else or bring Gillies. equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Black and white workers’ unity against racism. G Open borders. Extra university G Global solidarity against global capital — workers Sacked for eating everywhere have more in common with each other than with their capitalist or Stalinist rulers. G Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest places for the rich? By a healthworker hours with 22% doing so on workplace or community to global social organisation. every shift. Just under 40% At our staff meeting last G Working-class solidarity in international politics: equal said they work through month, our ward manager rights for all nations, against imperialists and predators big By Sacha Ismail their meal time at least warned us that Trust and small. three times a week and management are taking a Maximum left unity in action, and openness in debate. Having floated the idea of only 32% are able to get a G zero tolerance approach If you agree with us, please take some copies of Solidarity universities creating a drink of water when they G to the heinous crime of... to sell — and join us! separate admissions sys - need it. tem for those who pay eating leftover patient This recent crackdown 020 7394 8923 [email protected] above the £9,000 cap on food. must be seen in light of the tuition fees, the govern - 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, We were informed that RCN’s investigation that re - ment has quickly back - vealed Trusts are planning tracked. two members of nursing London, SE1 3DG. staff have already been to cut nursing staff by 12% Universities minister sacked and we could expect by 2015. Management are David Willetts had sug - management spies to jump looking for ways to sack gested that institutions out from the shadows at staff on trumped up GET SOLIDARITY could recruit more British any moment. charges so they can limit students by offering extra No-one in the NHS is the number of costly redun - places to those who pay particularly proud of eating daInncmy pyaTyrouustts,.catching a EVERY WEEK! full-cost fees of up to of leftover patient food. few overworked, under - government’s drive to en - £28,000. He claimed that However, on some shifts it nourished nurses scoffing Special offers courage corporate sponsor - the extra income would free is the only way to grab a down a plate of over - ship of university places. G Trial sub, 6 issues £5 up more places for students quick bite to eat. cooked hospital gruel is  for poor backgrounds. The accountancy corpora - As a recent survey in the seen as a legitimate way In Australia, those who tion KPMG has just un - G 22 issues (six months). £18 waged  £9 unwaged  Nursing Times shows, 95% to make “efficiency sav - pay their tuition fees up - veiled a plan to pay fees for of nurses regularly work in ings”. G 44 issues (year). £35 waged  £17 unwaged  front are offered a lower a set of accounting students excess of their contracted grade for entrance to uni - at universities including G European rate: 28 euros (22 issues)  or 50 euros (44 issues)  versity than those who Durham. have to take a loan to pay In any case, the idea that Reinvigorating the National Tick as appropriate above and send your money to: them. That is evidently the any of this will help most students is the same logic 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, London, SE1 3DG direction the Tories wanted — want — to move in. which says that private Campaign Against Fees and Cuts Cheques (£) to “AWL”. But within 24 hours, schools, private healthcare, Birmingham University, 12-5pm, Saturday 4 June Or make £ and euro payments at workersliberty.org/sub. stung by the obvious voluntary sector provision charge that, at a time when of public services and so on it is cutting 10,000 univer - will free up public services The student anti-cuts groups at Royal Holloway, Birm - Name ...... sity places, the government for the rest of us. In fact ingham and Hull universities, and the student anti- was talking about a special, they are moves to trash cuts network in Merseyside, have called a conference public services. Address ...... much shorter queue for the We need to rearm the on 4 June to revive and develop the National Cam - children of the rich, Willetts student and workers’ paign Against Fees and Cuts. has retreated. Coalition movements to fight all ...... You can read their statement on the NCAFC web - spokespeople now say that fees, and for decent pub - site, www.anticuts.com. only companies and chari - lic funding for universi - Accommodation will be provided and there will be ...... ties will be able to access ties. Killing off Willetts’ a pool fare. For more information ring Royal Holloway extra, higher fee places, not outrageous plans is a SU president-elect Daniel Cooper 07840 136 278 or I enclose £ ...... individuals. necessary start to that email [email protected]. This is still highly objec - fightback. Facebook: “NCAFC Reinvigoration Conference” tionable. It is part of the 2 SOLIDARITY NEWS TUSC Why the Tory vote held up shrivels By Rhodri Evans By Chris Reynolds government, even though in the current Labour it would go on to win the Party spectrum. Instead, The three left-of-Labour The Lib Dems lost heav - 1983 and 1987 elections, the union leaders have sitting councillors up for ily in the local govern - was hugely unpopular a adapted to the pressure to election on 5 May all lost. ment elections on 5 May, year after taking office. be cautious and “realistic” The SWP’s Michael but the Tory vote held And it was, at that point, exerted by the diehard Lavalette was defeated in up. much slower and more Blairites and transmitted cautious about its cuts and Preston after eight years on The Tories gained 86 through Miliband. privatisations than the council; and Ray new council seats in Eng - Then, in turn, those Cameron is. And it faced a Holmes, also an SWP mem - land compared to last time leaders have been under Labour Party deeply dis - ber, in Bolsover after four these seats were contested very little pressure, on the credited by very harsh cuts years. In Walsall Pete Smith — which was in 2007, political issues, from left in 1977-9. This time, more of the Democratic Labour when the Labour govern - caucuses in their unions, by luck than by judge - Party (a local group which ment was very unpopular. or the union membership ment, Labour increased so - was part of the Socialist Al - They control 19 more more broadly. On the con - cial spending seriously liance) lost the seat he had councils than they did be - trary, the leaders have and made fairly few cuts held since 2007. fore 5 May. weighed down on the left before leaving office. The Socialist Party’s Rob The Tory percentage of Osborne and Cameron caucuses and the mem - The Labour leaders’ op - Windsor, in Coventry, the vote was the same as in bers. position to the Tory cuts failed to win back the place 2010. The Tories have lost Beginning from the local can rally a limited con - will seize on the vast dis - Labour leadership. Now on the council which he no share of the vote since anti-cuts committees, and stituency; but it is so much quiet with capitalism cre - he only offers snide jibes held in 2000-4 and 2006-10. the general election, de - the very significant minor - more weak and mumbling ated by the 2008 crash and about George Osborne Jackie Grunsell, a Socialist spite introducing huge and ity of workers who already than even in 1980 that it point it forwards. being “out of his depth”. Party member elected to very unpopular cuts. are up for a fight, activists has no power to grip and Yet Ed Miliband seems The Labour leaders have Kirklees council as “Save In mid-2009 George Os - can make those political win over the perplexed, to have decided that with let the Tories appear to the Huddersfield NHS” in borne, then shadow chan - gears and levers work in the deferential, or the his speech at the October confused and unsure as 2006-10, failed by a large cellor, calculatingly leaked reverse. dispirited, the people who 2010 Labour Party confer - the people who may be distance to win re-election to the press the opinion Meanwhile, we should think that big cuts may be ence disavowing New nasty, but are straightfor - there. that “After three months in face facts about where we “necessary”. Labour he used up his ward about the plight of The “Trade Union and power we [the Tories] will The Blair-Brown regime quota of even vaguely left- capitalism and ready to do are. Things can change Socialist Coalition” (TUSC), be the most unpopular shifted general public wing talk for the year. something to fix it. quickly. In action, confi - a group set up for the 2010 government since the opinion to the right — Since then he has been on Miliband and Balls dence can grow fast. But at general election essentially war”. He was trying to more so, in fact, than the run from the Blairites. move under pressure. present we are on the back by the Socialist Party (but brace his party in advance Thatcher did. That shift Ed Balls, now Shadow They have been under fooDte. magogic appeals to with the SWP also dipping for what history indicated could quickly be reversed Chancellor, was relatively heavy pressure from the the TUC to call a general a toe into it), ran 143 coun - as probable. given a sizeable force in pugnacious against the diehard Blairites in the strike are just escapism. cil candidates across the Margaret Thatcher’s the working class which cuts when running for the Labour Party, who have re - country. 26 other candi - covered their confidence • “Blair’s children”: dates had some sort of link since October 2010. They www.workersliberty.org/ with TUSC but ran under have been under almost no blairchild other labels. pressure from the Labour • The Labour Party has Aside from the candi - SNP out-labours Labour left, or from the Labour-af - put out a new “consulta - dates who’d previously filiated union leaders, al - tion document” on “Re - held council seats, nine most all of whom, on founding Labour”. For other TUSC candidates did paper and in formal poli - respectably (10% or more), By Anne Field comment and suggested filmed about a fortnight jail sentence? Answer: No. cies, should figure as “left” responses, bit.ly/scstf. but the median score was before election day run - So a jail sentence for carry - under 3%. On 5 May the Scottish ning away from half a ing a knife is not going to The candidacies were National Party increased dozen anti-cuts protestors, be mandatory after all? run essentially as “anti- its share of the popular first taking refuge in a fast- Well, errrr... cuts”, not as hardline revo - vote by 13%, increased food take-away, and then Labour also attacked the Unions must stamp lutionary socialist the number of con - being bundled by his min - SNP for its policy of scrap - propaganda exercises. Can - stituency seats it held by ders into a taxi (destina - ping short prison sen - didacies cannot be judged 32, and won an absolute tion unknown), the Labour tences. Indistinguishable successful if the political majority of 69 seats in campaign was probably al - from a true-blue Tory, on Lib-Lab talk demonstration they make the 129-seat Holyrood ready dead in the water. Labour promised that jail is only that very unpopular Parliament. At the last minute, in would mean jail. cuts are opposed... by 3% desperation, Labour re- By Colin Foster • Tying Labour’s future of the voters. Labour’s share of the Labour’s election com - launched its campaign, mitment was that it would politics to what the Lib The poor results cannot constituency vote (31.7%) Labour did poorly — in switching from anti-Tory - not only send more people Dems, the champions of be put down to an unex - was the lowest since 1923. the circumstances — on ism to attacking the SNP to jail but also that it “progressive cuts”, will ac - pectedly vigorous Labour Its share of the list vote 5 May, because its politi - campaign. Far from it. for its support for an inde - would send people to jail cept. (26.3%) was its lowest cal message, against TUSC has shrivelled to a pendent Scotland. Polling for longer. • Signalling that since 1918. It lost 20 con - cuts “too far and too lacklustre SP “front” which carried out over the last Those responsible for Labour’s opposition to stituency seats, leaving it days of the election cam - fast”, was weak and cuts is no more than a even strongly anti-cuts vot - with MSPs in just 15 out of Labour’s debacle must paigning showed that as mumbling. spelled-out version of the ersTsheeeSaPs aitsiedleflsinheo.wed 73 constituencies. now be called to account many as 80,000 Labour reservations and quibbles its lack of confidence in by the party membership Labour leader Ed In Scotland, Labour voters switched at that which Lib-Dem ministers TUSC by running its can - and its trade union affili - Miliband’s response has could not coast to gains on time to voting SNP. express about their own didates in Coventry, its ates. We need a special re - been to shift into even a vague political platform Unwilling to try to com - coalition’s programme, strongest area, not as call Labour Party more weak and mumbling about deploring Tory cuts pete with the SNP seri - and that Labour has noth - TUSC but as “Socialist conference in the autumn, (as too harsh and too fast) ously on “old Labour” mode. ing much distinct to say for Alternative”. and promising to minimise issues, Labour resorted to open to delegations from He has upped his calls itself. their impact — because the CLPs, affiliated unions and for Lib Dem MPs to “come catchpenny populism. • Signalling that Labour Our health service SNP had already claimed Labour promised a affiliated societies. It and work with us. My has already inwardly ac - that political space, and mandatory prison sentence should be a conference, not door is always open”. cepted that it won’t win not for sale — with much more vigour for anyone caught carrying a rally, and debate mo - Obviously Miliband the next general election. and credibility. a knife — as if social prob - tioTnhse. left in the Party — does not expect the Lib • Signalling that Labour March to The SNP fought the elec - lems could be resolved the Labour Representa - Dems suddenly to break works on the assumption tion campaign on the basis simply by sending more tion Committee — their coalition with the To - that the coalition govern - of its record in Holyrood: and more young people to should run its own elec - ries and go for a coalition ment will run its full save the NHS ending prescription government with Labour jail. tion-analysis meetings in coMurislieb,atond20’s15d. rift is bad charges, freezing the coun - (which would, apart from Tuesday 17 May, In any case, the policy the major Scottish cities, enough. Worse is the fact anything else, not even cil tax, scrapping tuition fell apart in a “Newsnight circulating its own analy - that none of the big 5.30pm fees, scrapping bridge Scotland” interview. have a majority in Parlia - sis of the reasons for Labour-affiliated unions Assemble: UCH, Gower tolls, ending council house Would a woman who had Labour’s defeat, and se - ment). have criticised him on Street, WC1 sales, and preserving free used a knife to defend her - lecting a candidate who The cunning scheme this, or even said a word personal care for the eld - self from domestic vio - will run for party leader here is for a Lib-Dem/ to demand that Labour (Euston/Euston Sq/Warren St tube) erly. lence and had then run in Scotland on the basis Labour coalition after a campaign strongly for march to Whitehall When Scottish Labour into the street still carrying of socialist policies. general election in 2015. It against cuts. Party leader Iain Gray was it automatically receive a means: SOLIDARITY 3 REGULARS Don’t follow leaders: Bob Dylan in China and Vietnam

two Dylan songs from his early years that were not per - formed. “The times they are a-changin’” is given as an example of the kind of song Dylan would have sung — if he’d had any courage. Eric Lee But has anyone listened to that song since it was first recorded nearly a half century ago? It’s not about fomenting Bob Dylan recently performed in China and Vietnam for a popular uprising in a totalitarian country like China. It is the very first time, prompting critics to denounce him full of specifically American content, such as a call on Sen - for “selling out” — and not for the first time. ators and Congressmen to heed the voices of protest. To an audience living in a completely unfree society with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd led the charge. no free press, elections or parliament, such a song might In a recent column she denounced the singer, ending with have little impact. these powerful lines: But the more complex, poetic language of songs like “A Maybe the songwriter should reread some of his own hard rain’s a gonna fall” might well resonate. The last stanza lyrics: “I think you will find/When your death takes its of that song contains a powerful celebration of dissent and toll/All the money you made/Will never buy back your protest: soul.” I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it Strong stuff indeed. And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it But of course Bob Dylan wasn’t writing those lines about Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’ “protest singers” who had betrayed their values. But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’ He wrote them about the arms industry, the merchants of To understand why some critics have got it completely death who profit from the world’s wars, in his song “Mas - wrong you don’t really need to know Dylan’s biography. ters of War.” He was never really all that political, as his friends and col - I doubt if anyone seriously believes that Dylan is some - leagues have pointed out. He never wanted to be — and how the moral equivalent of mass killers. probably never really was — the voice of a generation. And did any of the critics bother to check what songs But even if you knew nothing at all about him but his Dylan did choose to perform — songs that he admittedly songs, you’d understand the problem with the critics. submitted to censorship by the Communist regimes? Dylan’s lyrics are often deeply subversive, even when The second song on his Beijing set was “It’s all over now, they don’t seem to be about politics at all. anyone’s neat boxes, and some of his most explicitly politi - baby blue” — widely understood as an anti-Vietnam war And some of his weakest songs are the ones that are most cal songs would actually be an embarrassment to some of song. The tenth was the powerful anti-nuclear war song “A explicitly political. (For example, none of the critics are sug - the liberals who are now criticizing him. hard rain’s a gonna fall”. The set ended with other 1960s- gesting that he sing one of his most political songs — For example, would they want him to sing the bitterly era classics including “Ballad of a Thin Man” with the fa - “George Jackson” — which is regarded as one of the worst ironic 1983 song “Neighborhood Bully” with its explicitly mous refrain, he ever wrote.) pro-Zionist message? Because something is happening here Finally, why do Dylan’s liberal critics assume that any po - Singing that song in Tel-Aviv when he performs there in But you don’t know what it is June will not require much courage. But maybe the real test Do you, Mister Jones? litical message he’ll want to deliver is one they would want would be if Dylan sings it two days earlier, when he per - This is certainly true of the critics who single out one or heard? In a career spanning a half-century, Dylan has not fit into forms in London?

the notion of a class movement is “direct action [as] a tactic 3. Bobi’s argument also blurs out the question of politics, that enables individuals to be at the forefront of their own and the battle of ideas. One example she cites in passing il - movement, to make mass decisions in a safe space...” Class lustrates this. She praises the direct action of the suffragettes and class struggle are blurred out almost completely. (by the way, does this mean that she doesn’t share the usual Letters On the other hand, direct action is only one element of anarchist objection to voting in bourgeois elections?) — but working-class struggle, which takes place on many levels says nothing of the divisions which opened up in the suffra - (direct action, organisation, representation; industrial, po - gette movement immediately before, during and after the litical, ideological). Direct action is not all the labour move - First World War. This split, which led to the expulsion of the ment needs to do to organise workers and fight the bosses working-class suffrage movement of East London, was not There’s more to it effectively. Supporting localised direct action by groups of along the lines of willingness to take direct action or degree workers, as Bobi urges, is far from the be all and end all of of ‘militancy’ (what could be more ‘militant’ than the bour - developing working-class struggle. geois suffragettes’ small-scale terrorism?) It was along the than “direct action” 2. Bobi’s piece reads as if she wants to start a new labour class/political axes of universal suffrage vs votes for rich movement from scratch, instead of transforming the one we women; class politics vs bourgeois feminism; and demo - Much of Bobi Pasquale’s response to our “Open letter have. She does not state clearly whether she rejects com - craPtoiclimticasssmmaotbteilrisa—tiodnirvescatuathcotiroitnarbiaynwehliotimsm, o. rganised to a direct action activist” ( Solidarity 3/202) was made pletely working in bourgeois, bureaucratised trade unions, how and for what goals? up of statements no leftist could object to (workers and but that seems to be implied. Sacha Ismail, south London students in struggle good; the cuts, coppers and Without organising to resist its exploitation at the point Labour careerists bad). of production, the working class would “be degraded to one level mass of broken wretches, past salvation” — and thus Claude Choules and Anzac Day And while the Socialist Party, for instance, believes the “certainly disqualify themselves for the initiating of any police are “workers in uniform”, and has as its “priority” in larger movement” (Marx). Like it or not, this resistance has, Claude Choules, the last man alive to have fought in the labour movement “moving through elected positions” across the world, consistently taken the form of organising World War One — and in fact to have fought in both — these are certainly not accusations you can make at the trade unions. Unions are not the whole working-class move - World Wars — died on 5 May at the age of 2011. AWL. They are not relevant to tthis debate. ment, and Marxists have explained why they cannot, by He lied about his age to join the British navy in 1916. He I’d urge everyone interested in this debate to read “Can themselves, overthrow capitalism (ironically, this is one of settled in Australia, and fought in World War Two as an of - we build a revolutionary workers’ movement?”, published our objections to syndicalism). Their bureaucratisation is not ficer in the Australian navy. in Solidarity in April, which discusses some of these issues at an accident, but an inherent tendency which has to be com - His daughter Daphne Edinger said in 2009: “After my fa - length. If Bobi had read it, she would not necessarily have bated. Nonetheless, they are the core, the bedrock of the ther left the navy, he never went to Anzac Day again. He been persuaded, but she might have engaged with our ac - workers’ movement as it exists, certainly in Britain. Any talk didn’t think we should glorify war.” tual arguments a bit more. of “class struggle” without seeking to transform them is Anzac day (25 April) in Australia is roughly an equiva - What are the real disagreements? playing around with words. lent of Remembrance Day in Britain, but a much bigger 1. Judging by what she writes here, I think Bobi fetishises Leave aside whether most self-defined anarchists take deal. It is a public holiday. Until 1966 all entertainment was direct action as such, essentially detaching it from class part in anything which could meaningfully be called class- banned on the day. There are marches and big ceremonies. struggle. We should certainly support direct action by many struggle activity. Even members of organised anarchist Schoolkids are herded into “Anzac Day parades”. different groups and social forces, but it is not necessarily groups (AFed, SolFed) which define as class-struggle anar - Although the date is chosen as the anniversary of Aus - the same thing as direct action by the working class, at the chist or anarcho-syndicalist are mostly either hostile to tralian troops invading Turkey during World War One, and point of production and beyond that in a class movement working in the unions or do not see transforming them as a Turkey has never threatened Australia, celebrants claim that whose ‘base’ is the organisation of workers in production. strategic task. We do. theIn“Athnez1ac97sp0siritth”eisreabwoeurte“sdiegfnenifdicianngtoaunrtfir-eweadromprso”t. ests The point about a strike is not so much that it is the most ef - Lastly, it is not clear whether Bobi opposes large-scale (na - in Australia on Anzac day, but they have faded away fective way of making bosses lose money; what is crucial is tional, international), structured organisations like unions as since then. Maybe Choules’s memory can be marked the growth of workers’ class organisation, class conscious - such — implied by her apparent hostility to the whole concept by a revival. ness and ability to struggle as part of a class. of “representation”. In which case, how will we have workers’ In her conclusion, what Bobi effectively counterposes to councils, which involve workers electing... representatives? Sid McCullough, Brisbane 4 SOLIDARITY WHAT WE THINK Unions must fight for the right to strike

Tory mayor of London Boris Johnson is campaigning When the coalition government took office, Tory leaders for new laws to make it even more difficult for workers told the press that they had “no plans” for new anti-union to defend our interests by striking. Prime minister David laws. Unsure about what their cuts would provoke, they Cameron has said that he is “open to the idea”. didn’t want to take on another difficult issue at that stage. Tory transport minister Philip Hammond responded to The unions’ docility has made the Tories bolder. More the Tube drivers’ recent vote to strike against victimisation docility will make them even bolder. of union reps by saying (5 May) that “this is only strength - Unless the unions rise up now, they will be forced to ening the hand of those including the Mayor who are call - crouch even lower, with an even heavier weight of law pin - ing for tougher industrial relations laws”. ning us down. Not in the rail union RMT, but elsewhere in the union The first step is simply to start agitating, demonstrating, movement, the word is increasingly heard from officials that and demanding commitments from the Labour Party lead - strikes should be avoided because they will “play into the ers. That can lay the basis for decisive action to push the To - hands of the Tories” and bring on new laws. ries back. Or the officials say that strikes can’t be ruled out, but must The government could give the nod to one employer or be delayed — and delayed again — because someone (the another to seek an injunction against the big public sector officials?) has let the union membership database get out of strike over pensions set for 30 June. The more the union date, and it must be “cleansed” before the ballot to fend off leaders signal that they would then cancel the strike, with court challenges. onTlyhea mfiguhrmt augraoifncsotmthpelacinutt,sthheams otroeglioketloygtehtahteorptwioitnhisa . If you cower, crouched down, long enough, then you end fight for the right to strike. by not being able to stand upright! For workers, the right to strike is the right to stand up - right. Without it, workers are better off than slaves or serfs only to the extent of having the chance to leave one em - ployer and try to find another, which with today’s unem - ployment rates is not much extent. Workers lost large dimensions of our right to strike under Organise for the Thatcher government. Strikes are legal now only on a limited range of issues, only on direct issues and not in sol - Campaigning for new anti-strike laws idarity, only after ballots in prescribed form, only after set delays. The court judgement against BA workers last year shows strike effective, and not a futile gesture. 30 June! that current law can be interpreted by courts to give an in - In a mass meeting those unsure workers decide by look - junction against almost any large strike on grounds of the ing. If there’s a large enough body of workers who put their inevitable minor discrepancies or errors in any large ballot. On Tuesday 17 May members of the National Union of hands up for a strike straight away, then they go for a strike. Left Labour MP John McDonnell brought a Bill to parlia - Teachers will begin balloting on strikes against the gov - If not, not. ment to protect workers’ ballots against being invalidated ernment's plans to increase their pension contributions, With postal ballots, unsure workers tend instead not to by minor errors. The Tories opposed it, and the Labour front raise their pension age, and cut their pensions. vote, and to wait to see what the balance of opinion is bench did not even give the Bill the support it needed to get among workers more sure of themselves. beyond its first stage in Parliament. Union leaders were The government plans affect all public service workers — The outrage against democracy of counting all non-voters silent. in similar though slightly varying ways. They go together as votes against a strike is one option the coalition govern - Boris Johnson’s plan is make strikes illegal unless more with the government's plans to increase the age for the state ment is considering. Another is the Lib-Dem policy — reaf - than 50% of all workers eligible to vote in a ballot — rather pension, and are setting the frame for further trashing of firmed by Vince Cable during the 2010 election campaign than 50% of those voting — go for a strike. what pension provision remains in the private sector. — of giving the government powers to ban strikes in “es - Johnson himself got just 19% of people eligible to vote Another teachers’ union, ATL, will start balloting on 20 sential services”. The “50% of eligible voters” option is the when he won the London mayoral election in 2008... So, 19% May. On 18-20 May the civil service union PCS holds its con - front-runner at present. is enough to put him in office, but everyone who doesn’t ference in Brighton, and is expected to vote to ballot from 23 cast a vote in a strike ballot should be counted as voting RETREAT May. The lecturers’ union UCU already has a ballot mandate to against a strike? Unions have been retreating on this issue for many strike over pensions. NUT, PCS, ATL, and UCU members In the days when strikes were voted in mass meetings, years. From 1906 through to 1971 — with only slight are likely to strike together on 30 June. few people abstained. But usually some people were slower variations, and except during the World Wars, when Unite’s healthworkers' committee voted on 15 April in to put their hands up than others. there were emergency anti-strike regulations, but favour of co-ordinating industrial action with other public Workers do not abstain in strike ballots because they don’t widely defied — the right to strike seemed solid. care about the loss of wages which a strike will bring! They sector unions on 30 June, though it is doubtful whether the abstain because they’re not sure. The Tory government of 1971 brought in an Industrial Re - higher leadership of Unite will go along with this. Anyone who abstains must be at least partly, unsurely, in lations Act, limiting industrial action, At first the unions said Dave Prentis, secretary of Unison, the biggest union in favour of striking — otherwise they would vote no, straight they would defy Thatcher’s anti-union laws. Then in 1983 health and local government, said on 30 April: “Unison will off, because of the loss of wages. the print union NGA was abandoned by the TUC when it ballot one million of its members to strike to protect their But often they feel unsure about whether the union, or the came up against the law. pensions. This will not be a token skirmish, but a prolonged workforce, is strong and determined enough to make the After the miners’ defeat in 1985, union opposition to the and sustained war, because this government has declared laws became a matter of speeches, not of action. The Tories war on a huge proportion of the population”. added more and more restrictions. The union leaders told However, Unison's national executive, with the consent activists that the only answer was to wait and vote in a of some of the left, has voted not to ballot in time for 30 June, Cut the Labour government that would repeal the laws. saying that it hasn’t yet (a year after the government an - Before the 1997 election Tony Blair told the Daily Mail that: nounced its moves on pensions) got its membership data - “Laws banning secondary and flying pickets, on secondary base into good enough shape. action, on ballots before strikes and for union elections – all The National Association of Head Teachers has voted to ultra-rich, not the essential elements of the 1980s laws – will stay... Even ballot, but in the autumn. after the changes the Labour Party is proposing in this area, This action could be the beginning of a serious fightback Britain will remain with the most restrictive trade union against the government. At the National Union of Teachers laws anywhere in the western world”. conference, at Easter, an amendment originating with Work - the poor! The union leaders were silent. They complained slightly ers’ Liberty teachers seeking to commit the union to defi - over the details of the changes in union law which the Blair nite action plans after 30 June was manoeuvred off the On 8 May the Sunday Times reported: “the 1,000 multi - government did introduce — making union recognition conference floor with the complicity of much of the left of millionaires in [its] Rich List are £60.2 billion better off slightly easier — but made no agitation for the wholesale the union. than they were in 2010”. repeal of Tory laws. But confidence will grow with action. Some Trades Coun - cils and anti-cuts committees are already organising to cre - In 2010, they were £77 billion better off than in 2009. Over From around 2001, a new generation of trade-union lead - ers came in, more combative and left-wing in rhetoric. Still ate joint committees of the unions striking on 30 June, open two years since near the lowpoint of the global finance also to observers from other unions. They can build for crash, they have gained £137 billion, a 53% rise in their stash no campaign on the union laws. Formal union policy was for a thorough restoration of the right to strike, but no union meetings and rallies on 30 June which put pressure on the to £396 billion. union leaders. Compare that with the total of £81 billion which the coali - campaigned actively for it. Workers’ Liberty has called a joint meeting of our tion government is cutting from public spending. Despite Blair and Brown’s determination to make New union fractions among teachers, civil service workers, Why not say that the richest one thousand have had Labour a “party of business”, with a effort the unions could local government workers, health workers, and lectur - “too much”, rather than the relatively poor people who have forced the Labour government into at least some loos - ers, for 28 May in London. will lose out from the government’s cuts? ening of the anti-strike laws. They didn’t. • More: www.workersliberty.org/pointers SOLIDARITY 5 IN DEPTH All feathered up: a new defence of anarchism

Martin Thomas reviews Black Flame: The Revolutionary weekly papers as infamous, Schmidt and van der Walt re - proving. But they make little fuss about that issue. Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism , by Michael port on the extensive newspaper-producing and newspa - In one passage they uphold the old anarchist idea of “the Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt (AK Press). per-selling culture of late 19th century anarchists with revolutionary general strike” as the only and more or less Variants of revolutionary syndicalism were major influ - approval and pride. self-sufficient path to socialist revolution. But they make lit - ences in the labour movements of several countries be - They agree that the process of the working class prepar - tle of it, and other passages in the book imply a much less tween the 1890s and World War One. ing itself for revolution must include struggle for reforms. “fetishistic” view of the general strike. They approvingly quote Bakunin’s statement, from the time Their activists reckoned the work of the “political” social - (1867-8) when he was focused on trying to win over the ANTI-MARXISM Their anti-Marxism is built not so much on a defence of ists who spent much time on parliamentary electioneering bourgeois League for Peace and Freedom, that “the most traditional anarchist points as on a skewed presenta - to be deficient or even harmful, and focused effort on build - imperfect republic is a thousand times better than the most tion of Marxism. For them, Marxism from its earliest ing up militant and democratic trade-union movements enlightened monarchy... The democratic regime lifts the days was proto-Stalinism. They construct their picture which they believed could be both the agency to overthrow masses up gradually to participation in public life”. of Marxism by “reading back” from Stalinism. capitalist power and the framework for future working- (Bakunin wrote different things later). class administration of society. Some of them saw them - They emphasise that the value of the struggle for reforms They concede that “in claiming that his theory was scien - selves as anarchists as well as syndicalists — lies in organisation from below in the struggle; but this is tific, Marx was no different from say, Kropotkin or Reclus, “anarcho-syndicalists”. not a point of difference from Marxism. They explicitly dis - who saw their own theories as scientific”. But somehow Schmidt and van der Walt, a journalist and an academic sent from the strands in anarchism which “refuse to deal they also think that Marx’s claim to have worked some from Johannesburg, South Africa, tell us not only about the with reforms, laws, and compromises”. things out and got some things right was more sinister than famous movements of France and Spain, Argentina and Schmidt and van der Walt argue that revolutionary so - the similar claim made by anyone who ventures to trouble Mexico, but also about the less-known ones of China, Japan, cialists should work systematically in trade unions, gener - the public with their writings. and Korea. ally on building sustained and organised rank-and-file “Classical Marxism purported to alone understand the Their book is not primarily a history. The authors recon - movements, and also sometimes contest elections for union movement of history and express the fundamental interests struct what the authors call a “broad anarchist tradition”. office. of the proletariat... When [this] claim to a unique truth was They argued that it includes all of revolutionary syndical - They agree that revolutionary socialists should take up welded to the strategy of the dictatorship of the proletariat... ism, not just the strands which called themselves anarchist. battles for national liberation — “engage seriously with na - the formula for a one-party dictatorship through an author - They present their own variant of “anarchism” as the most tional liberation struggles and [aim] at supplanting nation - itarian state was written”. thorough and “sophisticated” development of the “tradi - alism, radicalising the struggle, and merging the national Marxist theory was also, the authors claim, “teleological”, tion”. and class struggles in one revolutionary movement”. seeing history as progressing mechanically “in a straight Their own version of anarchism is one in which the tradi - They oppose “identity politics” and the “cultural rela - line towards a better future”, through predetermined tional points of dispute with Marxism are thinned down or, tivist” “claim made by some nationalists that certain rights some of them, virtually given up; but it is accompanied by “stages”. Marx (so they allege, on the basis of out-of-con - are alien to their cultures and therefore unimportant or ob - a horror of Marxism. text snippets from his writings on India) “considered colo - jectionable”. Schmidt and van der Walt never say straight out that they nialism to be progressive”. The “two-stage” doctrine On all these points Schmidt and van der Walt have, in ef - agree that a working class overthrowing capitalism must developed for poorer countries by the Stalinists — that organise from among itself a strong revolutionary authority fect, a criticism of most of what calls itself anarchism today workers should first support the “national bourgeoisie” in to combat counter-revolution and consolidate the new different only in shading from what we in Workers’ Liberty “bourgeois-democratic revolution”, and look to socialist order. They never directly disavow the traditional anarchist would say. They are further away from conventional anar - revolution only at a later “stage” — was authentic Marxism, doctrine of the immediate abolition of any form of state. chism than is a group like the avowedly-Marxist Socialist or so Schmidt and van der Walt claim. But they pointedly do not repeat Bakunin’s doctrine that Workers Party today, with its “One Solution, Revolution” They say that Marx had a relatively conservative view of the task of anarchists on the day after any revolution must slogan and its pretence that all “direct action” against the socialist economic organisation: “Marx believed that the law be (through, so Bakunin held, a “secret” network of “invis - established order, even if it be led by Islamist clerical-fas - of value would operate after the ‘abolition of the capitalist ible pilots”) to thwart, divert, disrupt the victorious work - cists, is revolutionary and progressive. mode of production’... the distribution of consumer goods ers in their moves to coordinate their efforts democratically Schmidt and van der Walt seem to stick to the old anar - under socialism would be organised through... markets”. by electing a revolutionary authority. chist dogma of boycotting all electoral politics — “this On that basis they claim the ideal of communist economics would apply regardless of the mandates given... the wages — supersession of the wages system; from each according to JUNTA paid to the parliamentarians, or the existence of other mech - their ability, to each according to their need — as having They agree with “taking power in society” and “creating anisms to keep the parliamentarians accountable to their been pioneered by the anarchist writer Peter Kropotkin. a coordinated system of governance”. They say “state - constituents” — and their account of anarchists in Korea The poor quality of Schmidt’s and van der Walt’s polemic less governance”, but the adjective “stateless”, for who were elected to parliament there in the 1920s is disap - on such points can be judged from their quotations. For ex - them, seems to mean “radically democratic”, “linked through delegates and mandates”. In that sense, the Marxist-envisaged “workers’ state” (or, in Lenin’s term, “semi-state”) is “stateless”. They accept the term “Revolutionary Junta” or “Workers’ Republic” for the new authority. Although in one passage they claim that “class no longer exists” once the workers’ revolution wins, in other passages they concede that barricade is published monthly by young members and friends counter-revolutionary groups will not disappear instantly, and accept the need for the new authority to organise “co - of workers’ liberty. recent issues have featured articles on fight - ordinated military defence” with “the best weaponry” (i.e. not just scattered militia groups with hand-weapons). ing sexism at work, how to get involved with the trade union They agree that revolutionaries must build “a coherent... movement, how to organise picket line solidarity and perspec - organisation, with a common analysis, strategy, and tactics, along with a measure of collective responsibility, expressed tives from the arab revolts. if you dislike capitalism but enjoy in a programme”. They use the term “party” sometimes and fighting bosses (your own or other people’s) then this could be the zine for you. the term “vanguard” often for that. They agree that the party must be disciplined and tight. They quote with approval an account of the Nabat organi - “This publication induces in me feelings of loathing so profound that I can barely begin to express sation led by Nestor Makhno: “The secretariat... was not merely ‘technically’ executive... It was also the movement’s them.” Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup (GCB, AFC, FRAeS, FCMI, RAF) ideological ‘pilot core’... controlling and deploying the movement’s resources and militants”. While many anarchists today see the fact that Marxist or - www.workersliberty.org/barricade • [email protected] ganisations stretch themselves to produce and circulate 6 SOLIDARITY compression of the time frame”. Although Trotsky sketched the permanent revolution the - ory around 1905, before Stalin became prominent in politics and before Mao Zedong was politically active at all, they call permanent revolution an “echo” of “the two-stage for - mulation of Stalin and Mao”. Why? Apparently because Trotsky recognised that issues such as land reform, national independence, and the replacement of autocracy by elected and constitutional government would be central in the first stages of mass mobilisation in capitalistically-undeveloped countries, and could not be “skipped over”. Marxism and Trotskyism are equated to Stalinism by Schmidt and van der Walt in order to clear the way for de - fence of “the broad anarchist tradition”, with the authors’ particular variants presented as the most thorough version of that tradition. The book raises, and offers a distinctive and unusual answer to, the question: what exactly is anar - chism? Its headline argument is that “the anarchist tradition” is in history the libertarian, class-struggle, “from-below” wing of the broad socialist current of thought. The authors have the same scheme of the history of socialism as the Marxist Hal Draper’s famous pamphlet The Two Souls of Socialism — “so - cialism from below” versus “socialism from above” — but for them, unlike Draper, “the broad anarchist tradition” is socialism from below, and Marxism a chief species of social - ism from above. ANARCHISM = UNIONS? Schmidt and van der Walt say that anarchism proper began only with the Bakunin wing of the First Interna - tional, in the early 1870s. It was always a class-struggle movement. Anarcho-syndicalism was not a fringe de - velopment from anarchism. On the contrary, “the most important strand in anarchism has always been syndicalism: the view that unions... are cru - cial levers of revolution, and can even serve as the nucleus of a free socialist order”. The “broad anarchist tradition” is thus for them, so to speak, what the “broad labour movement” is to Marxists. We know that our views are for now in a small minority, and I think Schmidt and van der Walt know that theirs are too. But we see ourselves as immersed in a broader move - ment which — despite all the follies and limitations which affect it now — is constantly pushed by its own activity, by its own logic and fundamentals, in our direction, for now in the shape of local flurries, and in future crises potentially wholesale. For us, that broader movement is the labour movement; for Schmidt and van der Walt, it is the “broad anarchist tra - dition”. Their definition allows them to deal with what they effec - tively admit to be the follies of much anarchism either by In 1886, eight anarchists were tried for murder after a bomb went off during a strike rally in Haymarket Square, Chicago. The defining them out — for them, Max Stirner and Pierre- ensuing gunfire resulted in an unknown number of civilian deaths and the deaths of eight police officers. Four of the anarchists Joseph Proudhon were not anarchists at all — or by seeing were convicted and executed and one committed suicide in prison. The prosecution ultimately conceded that none of the them as vagaries and immaturities which, with good work, defendants had thrown the bomb. The entire labour movement, socialist and anarchist, rallied around the eight men; the creator of will be dispelled by the logic of the movement itself. the above drawing, Walter Crane, was a socialist not an anarchist. It allows them to claim as de facto anarchists many heroes who in life did not consider themselves anarchists at all. ample, they claim that Marx was cool on trade-unions, and be central in working-class emancipation. They claim the whole of the pre-1914 revolutionary syndi - that it was the anarchists who explained and championed Marx’s objection was not to organising in trade unions, calist movement in France, and the whole of the IWW, for the potential of trade-union struggles. but to Bakunin’s claim that the working class should not anarchism, though most of the leaders of the French move - “Marx complained that anarchists contended that work - also “occupy itself with politics” (i.e. struggles for political ment and of the IWW did not see themselves as anarchists, ers ‘must... organise themselves by trades-unions’ to ‘sup - reforms, and electoral activity). and some, like Victor Griffuelhes, secretary of the French plant the existing states’...” Trotsky fought Stalinism to the death. But Schmidt and CGT in its heroic period, were explicitly political socialists. This is the passage from Marx (in a letter to Paul Lafar - van der Walt claim he “envisaged socialism as ‘authoritar - They claim the avowed Marxists Daniel De Leon and gue of April 1870) from which Schmidt and van der Walt ian leadership... centralised distribution of the labour force... James Connolly as “anarchists” because of their syndicalis - quote their snippets: the workers’ state... entitled to send any worker wherever tic views, and seem (though this is not so explicit) also to “Bakunin’s programme [held that] the working class must his labour may be needed’, with dissenters sent to labour claim the “council communists” Herman Görter, Anton not occupy itself with politics. They must only organise camps if necessary”. The footnotes show that the words put Pannekoek, and Otto Rühle, and modern “autonomist themselves by trades-unions. One fine day, by means of the in quote marks by Schmidt and van der Walt, as if they MHaraxvisintsg”,“fsoercthuereirdotwhne.ir flank” polemically by dismiss - International, they will supplant the place of all existing come from Trotsky, are culled not from Trotsky himself but ing Marxism as proto-Stalinism (all but a few Marxists states. You see what a caricature he [Bakunin] has made of from “pages 128, 132” of a book by one Wayne Thorpe. whom they claim as having really been anarchists), and my doctrines! Some of the words may have been taken by Thorpe from by portraying many traditional anarchist dogmas as “As the transformation of the existing States into Associ - one of the polemics in which, in late 1920 — between the mere immature errors of the movement, they free them - ations is our last end, we must allow the governments, those Bolsheviks’ voting-down of Trotsky’s first proposal in Feb - selves to maintain some traditional anarchist tenets at great Trade-Unions of the ruling classes, to do as they like, ruary 1920 of what would become the more liberal “New a more “theoretical” level. because to occupy ourselves with them is to acknowledge Economic Policy” and the adoption of the NEP itself, on them. Why! In the same way the old socialists said: You Lenin’s initiative, in early 1921 — Trotsky sought expedi - must not occupy yourselves with the wages question, be - ents to get the economy of revolutionary Russia into work - This review article will be continued in future issues of Sol - cause you want to abolish wages labour, and to struggle ing order in the midst of civil war. None of the words was idarity . Continuation articles will cover: with the capitalist about the rate of wages is to acknowledge ever written by Trotsky as a statement of his vision of so - • The discrepancy between Schmidt’s and van der Walt’s the wages system! cialism. The quoted string of words was never written as a definition of their politics as “class politics”, and their “The ass has not even seen that every class movement, as whole connected passage by Trotsky anywhere. views that peasantries are as good a basis for socialism as a class movement, is necessarily and was always a political Schmidt and van der Walt claim further that: “The differ - wage-working classes, or better, and that capitalist devel - movement”. ences between [Stalinism and Trotskyism] should not be opment is not a prerequisite for socialism; Marx was not hostile or cool about workers organising in overstated: both embraced classical Marxism and its theo - • Why “socialism from below” is not an adequate polit - trade unions. On the contrary: he was probably (in The ries, both saw the USSR as post-capitalist and progressive, ical definition, and anyway cannot be equated with a Poverty of Philosophy , his polemic against Proudhon in 1846, and both envisaged revolution by stages in less developed “broad anarchist tradition”; at a time when trade unions existed only in infant form) the countries”. A footnote dismisses Trotsky’s theory of perma - • The real history of the separating-out of anarchism and first socialist to argue that trade-union organisation could nent revolution as “no break with stage theory... simply a Marxism as distinct currents in the labour movement after the Paris Commune. SOLIDARITY 7 DEBATE Don’t rule out nuclear power

Les Hearn disputes the left consensus, shared It is notable that the environmentalists seem to have would wreck the countryside. stopped blaming nuclear power stations for clusters of by AWL, to oppose nuclear power. One of the UK’s oldest environmentalist groups, Friends childhood leukaemias (no link with any other form of ill - of the Earth (FoE) consistently opposes nuclear power. Its ness has been found). Such clusters are in fact found in Our society is powered largely by burning fossil fuels. five year-old report, Nuclear power, climate change and the many places where workers and their families have moved This is the equivalent to living on our savings. Fossil Energy Review, raises the following objections. from elsewhere and may be due to lack of resistance to lo - fuels — oil, coal and gas — were laid down over a pe - Nuclear power is error-prone and likely to fail in ways cally occurring viruses. riod of a hundred or so million years and we are using dangerous to lots of people; it assists in the proliferation of If one hoped for an independent voice from the SWP, one about a million years’ worth every year. Even if there nuclear weapons; it is vulnerable to terrorist attack; and that would be disappointed. In a slightly revised update of a were not the risk of climate change, we should be look - it is anyway unnecessary to use nuclear power at all in the 2006 pamphlet, Martin Empson refers blithely to the can - ing for alternatives. complete replacement of fossil fuels in power generation cers and other illnesses coming to the Fukushima clean-up and transport which FoE also calls for. Ultimately, we need to be aiming for complete renewabil - workers “as with the Chernobyl disaster”. He is clearly un - The claim is repeated that, though nuclear power gener - ity, but this will require some massive changes in human so - aware of the massive differences in the two cases and the ates electricity without releasing CO 2, the extraction of ura - cieties, and some enormous leaps forward in technology. absence of evidence of long-term harm in the unfortunate nium and the building of plant result in carbon emissions — Humans have never used any resources renewably (apart but brave Chernobyl workers who survived initial exposure as though this was a significant objection. Every current and from a few insignificant exceptions). to radiation. proposed energy technology will result in carbon emissions The immediate alternatives to fossil fuels include wave, He sets up the straw person who argues that nuclear as the concrete, steel, etc, will have to be made using cur - tide, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, biomass, solar and power is “the only way that we can produce low carbon rent fossil fuel resources. The point is that it will make far nuclear power. All have their up and down sides but all can electricity” and repeats the irrelevant fact that some CO 2 will less overall than the fossil fuel burning it will replace. make some contribution, and it would be foolish to rule any be released in setting up reactors. He insists that The Green Party uses many of the same arguments. out without strong reaons. That is just what many environ - “Fukushima shows that nuclear power is extremely danger - Both the Greens and FoE both give expense as an argu - mentalists do when they rule out nuclear power from the ous”. He doesn’t recognise that the reactors survived one of ment against new nuclear power, and yet the report the future energy mix. Can other sources suffice? the most powerful earthquakes and tsunamis recorded with Greens cite states that the increased nuclear option would be Recently, New Scientist looked at one scientist’s efforts to minimal damage and would have been virtually problem- the cheapest, while the no nuclear/all renewable option “do the math” (2 April). Axel Kleidon, a physicist from the free had a fail-safe cooling system been installed — as would be the most expensive (necessitating energy imports Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Germany, has should and could have happened. as well!). FoE’s own figures show nuclear power’s costs sit - calculated that building enough wind farms to replace fos - He repeats the discredited allegations of clusters of ting right in the middle of all other energy sources. sil fuel-derived energy would actually remove a significant leukaemias around nuclear plants. He rubbishes sugges - amount of energy from the atmosphere and alter rainfall, WASTE tions of as few as 4,000 excess deaths due to Chernobyl turbulence and the amount of solar radiation reaching the Another problem identified is that of disposal of waste, which came from a United Nations report in 2005, prefer - Earth’s surface. including dangerous high-level waste. This has a solu - ring another “independent” report which suggested some Humans at present use some 47 terawatts (TW or trillions tion — burial in geologically stable strata deep under - half a million deaths already (!). He seems unaware of the of watts = joules per second) of energy of which 17 TW ground. The waste has to be inaccessible for about latest UN report which drastically reduces estimates of ill - come from fossil fuels. The rest is made up of renewable 100,000 years, but there are plenty of rock layers where ness and death from Chernobyl. It states that 28 of 134 “liq - sources, mainly harvesting farmed plants. This is only about movements of chemicals is measured in a few metres uidators” died of acute radiation sickness at the time and a one twenty-thousandth of the energy coming from the sun. per million years (for example, the Oklo “natural” reac - further 19 have died but not of radiation-linked diseases. But the useful energy available to us is restricted by the tor). Fifteen of some 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer have died (this laws of thermodynamics to what is termed the “free” en - problem arose only because of the criminal negligence of ergy, the rest being unusable heat. Kleidon calculates that The problem of nuclear accidents was perhaps the most USSR authorities). No other deaths have definitely been at - we are using some 5-10% of the free energy, more than is prominent criticism raised by FoE five years ago, and the tributed to radiation from Chernobyl. Professor Wade Alli - used by all geological processes, such as earthquakes, volca - accident at Fukushima would not diminish the shrillness of son, a radiation expert from Oxford University, argues that noes and tectonic plate movements! If we were to set up their alarms. Nowhere do FoE or the Greens even mention people’s natural defence mechanisms against radiation wind and wave farms with a theoretical output of 17 TW, the possibility of improved safety features in current reactor daTmhaegenhvaivroenbmeeenngtareliasttlsy aunnddetrh-eesStiWmPateadp.pear to be un - we would find, first, that a lot of waste heat would be pro - designs, for instance, ones that rely on gravity to flood over - aware of the fact that fossil fuel extraction and use is duced, contributing to global warming. We would also de - heating reactor cores with water, rather than as at thousands of times more dangerous than nuclear plete the available energy in the atmosphere: Kleidon Fukushima using pumps whose electricity could be cut off power. calculates that this could reduce the energy to be harnessed by an earthquake. from the wind by a factor of 100. Nowhere do they raise the need for new designs using There are other sources of energy but these have their thorium which are “fail safe” and could be adapted to burn Nuclear power, climate change and the Energy Review, Friends drawbacks. Geothermal power stations rely on pumping up the high level waste which is such a problem and has to of the Earth 2005 water into hot rocks fractured by explosions, but experimen - be dealt with whether we have nuclear power or not. And Meeting the UK’s 2020 energy challenge: Do we need new nu - tal plants are losing unacceptable amounts of water under - nuclear reactors even now are burning up “surplus” nuclear clear?, Alan Whitehead MP, SERA January 2008 ground so the outputs are lower than expected. weapons. Climate Change: Why Nuclear Power is Not the Answer, Martin The Labour Party’s “green wing”, the Socialist Environ - Empson, SWP 2006 (“updated” 2011) SOLAR mental and Resources Association (SERA), does not differ Health effects due to radiation from the Chernobyl accident, UN - Solar electricity relies on rare elements such as indium from FoE and the Greens in opposing nuclear power, SCEAR 2011 and tellurium, which are projected to run out within though they concentrate on problems of time and money. Radiation and Reason: The Impact of Science on a Culture of Fear, decades. Cheaper versions of solar cells still require an - They ignore the fact that the delays are due to the politi - Wade Allison (ISBN 0-9562756-1-3, pub. 2009), other rare element, selenium. cal cowardice of Labour governments and refusals to sup - http://www.radiationandreason.com port research into new reactor designs. Solar heating, using large mirrors to focus the Sun’s rays to boil water and drive turbines, is a very promising tech - nology but it is not clear that this could fill more than part of the gap. For one thing, the Sun does not shine so strongly Climate havoc on the way (or at all) on many parts of the Earth or during many times The science of heat absorption by the “greenhouse gases”, CO 2, methane, water vapour and some others, has in the year. been known for over a century. Is it wise to rule out nuclear power? Many eminent envi - ronmentalists are coming round to the view that it isn’t. It is clear that these gases have made the Earth a largely hospitable place for life over the last few billion years. This nat - Mark Lynas, writing in New Statesman shortly after the ural “greenhouse effect” has raised Earth’s average surface temperature by some 30 degrees Celsius and smoothed out disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan (21 March), the drastic day-night oscillation seen for example on the atmosphere-free Moon. Both are needed for the existence of liq - warned that a panicky abandonment of nuclear power uid water without which life would be impossible. would lead to catastrophic global warming, a far greater The science therefore predicts that the rise in CO 2 levels caused by the widespread burning of fossil fuels should, all problem. He argues that renewable sources are not going to other things being equal, cause a rise in average temperatures with some degree of climate change. But how much change? be able to fill the gap in energy for countries like Japan, cer - Trivial or dangerous? tainly in the short to medium term, and they will simply in - A trawl through recent editions of the UK’s premier popular science journal, New Scientist , reveals the following: crease their use of fossil fuels. “Arctic shore is crumbling” (23 April): the permafrost is melting as the Arctic warms and the protective sea ice melts. And long-time environmentalist George Monbiot The battering by waves is resulting in shorelines eroding by an average half a metre a year. Some coastal communities (Guardian , 22 March) called for a sense of perspective over are having to relocate. Fukushima, with no deaths (apart from two killed by the “Building blocks of coral lost to acid” (16 April): as levels of dissolved CO 2 rise in seawater, the concentration of car - tsunami, and over the enormous disruption of the land - bonate ions is falling as it is converted to bicarbonate. Since corals and many shellfish need these to make their skeletons scape which would be necessary if renewables were to sup - or shells, this should ultimately prevent their continued growth. And since the productivity of the sea largely depends ply all of our energy needs. Not only would there be on coral reefs, this could have implications for those who depend on the sea for their food. enormous areas devoted to onshore windfarms, but also in - “Coral reef countdown” (9 April): coral reefs will have to migrate southwards at a rate of 15 km per year to find cooler creased networks of grid connections to get the electricity water as the oceans warm, something that seems to be virtually impossible. We have only 10 years to save the Great Bar - to where it was needed. Pumped storage facilities would be rier Reef. needed to store the energy for when it was needed. “Gulf stream threatened by Arctic flush” (9 April): melting ice is creating a pool of fresh water in the Arctic which could Other options favoured by some involve reversing the flow into the Atlantic, slowing the Gulf Stream and bringing colder winters to Europe. pattern of industrialisation and moving people back into “Contrails heat more than aircraft fuel” (2 April): condensation trails, high clouds left by aircraft, actually contribute rural communities where power could be produced locally. more to global warming than the CO 2 released by aircraft engines. Except, according to Monbiot, it couldn’t. In the UK, he says, “Earth’s melting ice sheets could play havoc with sea levels” (19 March): Greenland and Antarctica are losing ice at an generating solar power involves a “spectacular waste of inc“rGelaosbinagl draetleu.gTeh”is(1in9cMreaarscehs)e:setixmtraetmeseowf seeaathleevreel vriesnetfsrosmeeamn atovebreaginecorfesaosmineg3i9ncfmretqou5e6nccmy.bCyli2m10a0t.e change mod - scarce resources”, while wind power in populated areas is els predict increased water vapour in the atmosphere leading to more intense rainfall. largely worthless, since we build in sheltered spots. And di - rect use of energy by damming rivers or harvesting wood 8 SOLIDARITY FEATURE Mourning bin Laden The American civil war in Britain Left By Matthew Thompson By Alan Gilbert Just off Albert Square in Manchester stands a statue of After 11 September 2001, Socialist Worker notoriously Abraham Lincoln, the inscription expressing gratitude “refused to condemn” the massacre of three thousand to the Lancashire cotton workers for their support of working people in New York by bin Laden’s followers. the Northern Union forces against the Southern Con - federate slaveholders in the American Civil War of 1861- It tried to hold that line of “refusing to condemn” in the 65. The background was told in Radio 4’s “Manchester Stop The War movement, until finally in early 2002 it had to retreat and say “of course” the massacre should be con - and Liverpool: Britain's American Civil War”, presented demned. by TV historian and Labour MP Tristram Hunt. Socialist Worker of 7 May shows the SWP still “refusing to Liverpool and Manchester both had links with the ante - condemn” bin Laden. “Attacks like 9/11”, says SW , “in reality... are a response bellum American South. Manchester and the surrounding to oppression, not an expression of ‘evil’.” Lancashire textile towns imported 80% of their raw cotton The effect of Bin Laden’s death, says SW , will be bad: “A from the Southern plantations through the port of Liver - newly confident US may feel emboldened to wage more pool. Liverpool’s growth as a city in the eighteenth century wars and reassert its power on the international stage”. was as a slave port. Liverpool ships transported a third of a A small article “criticises” bin Laden, but in such a way as million slaves across the Atlantic from West Africa to the extensively to endorse him. “To rid the world of oppression Americas between 1783 and 1793 with the last slave ship and injustice requires not assassinations or blowing people leaving Liverpool in 1807. up, but tearing up the roots of the capitalist system itself. Liverpool played a part in supporting the Confederacy “Faced with the reality of imperialism, some people feel during the American Civil War. A number of Confederate desperate enough to lash out and strike back in any way their behalf. they feel possible. Socialist Worker equates Al Qaeda’s violence against work - warships were built on Merseyside, including the Alabama “Socialists do not deny the working class and the op - ing people — in New York, in Iraq, in the Middle East and at Laird’s shipyard in Birkenhead (after the Civil War, the pressed the right to use violence against their oppressors. North Africa — in the service of Islamist clerical-fascist re - British government paid the United States £3 million com - “We know that the ruling class will not give up all their action, with the Russian populists’ violence against the Tsar pensation for the losses these cruisers inflicted on Northern power, wealth and privileges without a struggle. But that and top officials, in the service (as they hoped) of political shipping). The city’s St George’s Hall also hosted a bazaar to struggle cannot be conducted by individuals or elite groups liberty and socialism. raise money for Confederate prisoners of war. The equation is based only on the military technique — ‘behind the backs of the masses’... Manchester, however, saw an inspiring act of solidarity “The Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky argued that ter - bombs — ignoring the class and political character of the ac - tivity! Bombing workers is the same as bombing Tsars, as with the North occurred. The Northern naval blockade of rorism arose because of the tyranny and oppression of our the Confederacy ended the supply of cotton and left thou - rulers. ‘We understand only too clearly the inevitability of long as it is done by people who dislike the USA... sands of Lancashire textile workers on the brink of starva - such convulsive acts of despair and vengeance’. he wrote. The idea, which in typical weaselling SWP fashion is But ‘individual revenge does not satisfy us’. Moreover, Trot - never stated outright and maybe is never even thought tion. Yet they assembled on 31st December 1862 at sky argued that as a political strategy for change, Marxists through distinctly in their minds, is that the mere fact that Manchester’s Free Trade Hall and sent a letter to Lincoln ex - were ‘irreconcilably opposed’ to terrorism...” bin Laden become hostile to the USA made him progressive. pr“e.s.s.ihnogptheetihr:at every stain on your freedom will shortly Nothing is spelled out clearly in the SW coverage. He was also, and more, hostile to workers, democrats, sec - be removed, and that the erasure of that foul blot on Analyse it, though, and a truly sickening abandonment of ularists, and women seeking equality, wherever he had in - civilisation and Christianity — chattel slavery — during all socialist political or even moral norms, in pursuit of the fluence? The SWP just fades that out. your presidency, will cause the name of Abraham Lin - Socialist Worker “anti-imperialist” bandwagon, is apparent. The front page headline of is: “West’s lead - coln to be honoured and revered by posterity.” Trotsky was criticising Russian populist revolutionaries, ers are bloodyShW ypuosceristens”o. sTuruceh, osftrcoonugrstee,rbmutahsar“dbllyoothdiys who, under a stifling regime which allowed no legal politi - whyepeok’csrnitew” sf.or bin Laden, despite his combination of cal activity, tried to kill the Tsar or top Tsarist officials (and demagogy against oppression with murderous attacks sometimes succeeded), hoping that their actions would dis - on working people. rupt the regime and rouse the cowed masses of the people. Would-be socialists end up like SW , using the USA’s Morally, Trotsky and the Marxists sided with the populist compass in politics but just reading it in reverse — so Songs of Liberty revolutionaries. Only they argued that their methods could that if the USA says no, they say yes — only if they have not succeed. A Tsar or an official would be replaced by an - lost any compass of their own. and Rebellion other. The masses would not be roused by heroes acting on No more auction block for me

This song of African slaves is still performed today. The Class politics now old hat? song is deceptively simple. But the story of oppression it tells is complex — from the deaths of so many on the slave ships bound for America (“many thousand gone”) to a life of unimaginable cruelty and hardship on US southern plan - By Joe Flynn resistance to cuts in Europe, and made disparaging remarks tations. Like all slave songs, this is a work song, but like about how most of the country’s shop stewards are old, tired many it contains a highly political message. It dates from Around 100 people attended the “counterforum” in Lon - anTdrudeo,intghecalsaebwoourrkminostveeamd eonf ftigishtwinegaakn.dBourtgtahneisriengis. no the American Civil War. What is the meaning of “no more don on 7 May called by Counterfire, the SWP splinter short cut around rebuilding and democratising the ex - auction block for me”? An expectation of the ending of slav - group led by John Rees and Lindsey German. isting labour movement. It is only through labour move - ery or a statement of rebellious intention? Although this turnout was smaller than I expected, the ment focused anti-cuts groups drawing in wider forces event was slick and “professional”. I arrived 20 minutes late from other struggles that the working class stands a No more auction block for me, no more, no more, but was greeted by several people before I entered, and chance of defeating the government’s austerity pro - No more auction block for me, many thousand gone. given a glossy leaflet urging me to join Counterfire. gramme. Chris Bambery, not yet a member of Counterfire but bring - No more peck ‘o corn for me, no more no more, ing fraternal greetings from the newly formed ISG, gave the John Carwithin adds: No more peck ‘o corn for me, many thousand gone. most political speech in the opening session, but speaking Counterfire and SWP activists engaged in a furious row as if addressing an internal gathering of ex-SWP people. outside Counterfire’s event. The SWP people were No more driver’s lash for me, no more, no more, He said he wanted an end to “the sectarian party building banned from entering. No more driver’s lash for me, many thousand gone. and syndicalist politics that have harmed our movement”. Bambery said a narrow focus on the labour movement SWP members were indignant about their democratic No more pint of salt for me, no more, no more, should be rejected by socialists in favour of supporting any - rights, saying they’ve “known nothing like this in all their No more pint of salt for me, many thousand gone. one “resisting”; the SWP had been at its best when it did this, years on the left”. “The most we did at ‘Marxism’ [the SWP’s for example supporting national liberation struggles with - summer school] was to discourage the Sparts from attend - No more hundred lash for me, no more, no more, out questioning every dot and comma of the politics in ad - ingT.h”e irony will not be lost on AWL members and other No more hundred lash for me, many thousand gone. vance. Stop the War was a model of every sort of organising socialists who have been physically intimidated, even for more or less every Counterfire speaker throughout the physically assaulted, when trying to speak and distribute No more mistress’ call for me, no more, no more, day. An orientation that will lead them to supporting the leaflets at “Marxism” while Counterfire and the SWP No more mistress’ call for me, many thousand gone. likes of Qaddafi and other tyrants around the world. were one organisation. Bambery played down the importance of 30 June; ques - • More: www.workersliberty.org/node/8900 No more auction block for me, no more, no more, tioned how important workers’ struggles have been in the No more auction block for me, many thousand gone. SOLIDARITY 9 BRIEFING Libya: the Police attack Tunis protests

By Edward Maltby by similar police violence. [Sebsi]'s speech. From the opposing Oussama, an activist in morning there were a lot of In a move not seen since the Tunisian Left Workers' young people who had the fall of dictator Ben League (LGO) reports: gathered around the Av - Ali, police have batoned “There were peaceful enue Bourguiba [the main demonstrators in Tunis demonstrations as usual in thoroughfare in Tunis]. In shore repeatedly since 6 May. front of the National The - the same place there were atre [on the Avenue Bour - a lot of violent provoca - On 5 May Farhat Rajhi, a guiba in Tunis]. The police teurs ["casseurs"] that the judge and briefly interior charged, started beating demonstrators were stop - minister after 14 January, By Martyn Hudson people savagely, with an ping, while the police publicly charged that the excessive and abusive use watched. provisional government The divide between of teargas. We were “The second part came headed by Beji Caid el Qaddafi’s Libya in the demonstrating to say, after the Prime Minister's Sebsi was being directed in west and Free Libya in ‘Who is governing? Is it speech, which people secret by a super-rich the east has continues still the underworld, Ben found very disappointing. clique linked to former even as Nato begins to Ali's mafia?’ “In the evening there President Ben Ali. Beji Caid el Sebsi intensify attacks against “There were journalists, were big movements and The clique is based in the heart of the regime in children, even very small in the Soliman district, in London, around Marouan demonstrated before 14 Tripoli. children beaten. The mes - the southern part of Tunis, Mabrouk. January and we will sage the police wanted to an activist from the Patri - Rajhi also said that the demonstrate now. They It is curiously reminis - send is, ‘we're here — otic Democratic Labour army command was will employ thugs to create cent of Julien Gracq’s The we're back, repression is Party fell, shot dead by po - preparing plans for a coup, panic and create demand Opposing Shore which de - back.’ I was beaten in front lice bullets. to be activated if the Is - for 'the return to normal'. scribed two divided em - of two Italian journalists. “Today, there was a big lamist party Ennahda wins “Everything is fragile. pires across the gulf Sirte The government will say gathering on the Avenue Lord Ahmed upcoming elections or if The counter-revolution is lasting for aeons. that we were rioting and Bourguiba and another in Sebsi's government was coming, and it is being di - This is the fear on all destroying things, but the front of the publishing unable to “maintain rected by those who are in sides — that regime intran - little real interest among video of my beating will house of the newspaper La order”. power right now. The sigence and the inability of European governments to show that we were being Presse , organised by jour - Demonstrators took to mafia runs our country the rebellion to militarily make any significant peaceful. nalists who were express - the streets on 6 May to de - and they are releasing their secure the west could lead moves towards an interna - “They have set a curfew, ing their anger at the mand the truth about who dogs on the people.” to some form of longer tional effort to alleviate the but it's just cinema. They attacks on 14 journalists really runs the government Another LGO activist re - lasting stalemate. The in - distress of these migrants. want to intimidate, to [on 6 May].” and to defend democracy. ports: • Protest at the tensification of Nato at - Thousands of seemingly paralyse the streets and Other demonstrations “The demo yesterday Tunisian tourist office, 77 tacks signal that this is a Somali refugees are being paralyse the people. But have followed, denounc - [Sunday 8 May] was split Wigmore Street, London very real fear. held in concentration camp we came out under Ben ing the repression on 6 into two parts, the first be - W1. 5.30 Friday 13 May. Certainly for the rebel - levels of imprisonment on Ali's police state, we fore the Prime Minister lion it would be highly un - Italian Lampedusa in the May, and have been met satisfactory, leaving the most terrible of conditions. regime untouched in the UN aid chief Valerie west and still in control of Amos has called for some a population of millions form of brief suspension of Iraqi oil workers’ wildcat strike upon which to practice its hostilities in order to offer violations. respite to Misrata but this The rebellion is fighting does not address the cen - back in Misrata, however, tral question of the future By Darren Bedford cused on corruption Daily Star, oil worker the General Federation of and have pushed the pro- of the Libyan people — among company man - Assad Abu Hussein said Workers' Councils and regime forces out of the rather it simply puts a More than 300 Iraqi oil agers. They also de - “If the Southern Oil Com - Unions in Iraq, a split from city. Yet the human cost is sticking plaster on a gap - workers have staged a manded the levelling-up of pany does not give us our the Federation of Workers' huge — many have died ing wound. wildcat strike in Basra their pay and conditions to rights of profits and Councils and Unions in and the city is at starvation More laughably Lord and demonstrated out - the rates of workers em - bonuses, we will stop pro - Iraq (the main left-wing levels. Ahmed of Rotherham, well side the headquarters of ployed by foreign oil com - duction. Just because we unTiohne fIerdaqeriaOtiiolnW).orkers' At this point one Red known for his softsoaping the state-owned South - panies. are poor and our field was Federation, led by Has - on political Islam and his ern Oil Company. Cross tanker has made it Oil bosses used private not developed by a foreign san Juma'a, and the through the blockade to vile anti-semitic slurs, has General Federation of The walkout included security to confront company like the rest of deliver supplies including been over to Libya to hob Iraqi Workers (the most workers from oil fields in demonstrators, and the oil fields, we are being baby foods and medical nob with the regime. “mainstream” of Iraq's Basra; from North and worker activist Sami Has - treated unfairly.” equipment but the situa - Libyan television has been union federations) also san was imprisoned for The Iraqi Freedom Con - tion is clearly desperate. circulating this visit widely South Rumaila, Albirjisya, have bases amongst All in Misrata know what and it is clearly a propa - West of Qurna and Ma - two hours. gress reports that the Basra's oil workers. the consequences will be if ganda coup for Qaddafi. jnoon. Their slogans fo - Quoted in the Lebanese workers were organised by the pro-regime forces and This “peace mission” is a tribes enter the city. way of “reconciling” At the same time the Libya’s people — as refugee situation is devel - Ahmed says, “It is my Egyptian trade unionists speak in Britain oping in tragic directions. wish to try to help the Thousands of mainly sub- brothers who have fallen Saharan African migrants out to become friends Between 18 and 20 May, Egyptian trade unionists Kamal Abbas and Tamer Fathy will be visiting have been fleeing the again.” Britain, hosted by the Egypt Workers’ Solidarity campaign. North African coast in He is currently in Libya barely seaworthy vessels. waiting for other members A ship containing 600 of his mission to arrive in - The Egyptian revolution was prepared by groups of workers struggling to people has broken up out - cluding some Tory MPs build independent trade unions — and, since the fall of Mubarak, union opposed to the miliary, po - side the port of Tripoli — organisation, workers’ protests and strikes have spread like wildfire. reports postulate that there litical, any kind of elimina - are very few survivors. tion of Qaddafi. Another boat drifting in Let the people struggle Kamal and Tamer are organisers for the Centre for Trade Union and Workers’ for democracy in Libya the Mediterranean was re - Services and the new Egyptian Federation for Independent Unions. They will putedly passed by Nato offer an answer to Ahmed carriers. No help was of - and his gangster pals. It is be speaking at the Fire Brigades Union conference in Southport on 19 May, fered and 61 out of the 72 not simply a matter of and at EWS public meetings in Liverpool on 19 May and London on 20 May. bringing “brothers” to - people on board died of gether again. thirst and starvation. Only when Qaddafi and Liverpool: 6pm, Thursday 19 May, Britannia Adelphi Hotel, Ranelagh Place. For more information ring This could be a warning his family clique are re - about the human cost of moved from the face of Elaine on 07733 248 530. promoting vulgar anti-in - history will the rebels terventionism. For all of talk of reconciliation — London: 6.30pm, Friday 20 May, Room G3, School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, the hypocritical talk about with brothers and sis - Russell Square. Ring Mark on 07984 163 770. suspending the Schengen ters, yes. With blood - agreement which allows thirsty tyrants and www.egyptworkersolidarity.org / [email protected] free passage across Eu - torturers never. rope’s borders — there is 10 SOLIDARITY REPORTS Push BP locks out engineering construction workers

Prentis By Darren Bedford members on the protest, or stepping off a curb onto A senior GMB union offi - the road.” cial was arrested on 4 A mass meeting on 21 to ballot! May as police stepped April rejected an offer up their attempts to from Vivergo to compen - break up protests by sate them rather than al - By a Unison activist locked-out workers at lowing them to continue the Saltend biofuels work. Vivergo is essen - “Unison will ballot one plant construction site. tially denying any liability million of its members to to employ the transferred strike to protect their Workers have been workers, despite Redhall’s pensions. This will not be demonstrating since 14 assurances that they a token skirmish, but a March, when their em - would be able to continue prolonged and sustained ployer — Redhall Engi - to work. war, because this gov - neer Solutions — had its Other workers, includ - ernment has declared contract with Vivergo, the Solidarity demonstration in Hull for Saltend workers ing electricians and scaf - war on a huge proportion BP-led consortium build - folders, have refused to of the population”. ing the plant, terminated. cross the Redhall workers’ Although Redhall told Workers employed by the GMB’s national officer “In this dispute, our of - Dave Prentis, general picPkreottse. sts at the plant the workers they should other contractors have for Legal Affairs, said: ficials have been harassed secretary of the big public are continuing, and a turn up for work as nor - been sent home on full “GMB has made every every day by a high vol - services union Unison, national shop stewards’ mal, and that they would pay. effort to organise the ume of police, and new made that declaration on meeting for the engi - be transferred via TUPE Workers have been or - protest in the usual way, conditions about how the 30 April. He did not say neering construction in - into employment by ganising daily pickets and based on our experience protest is conducted. when Unison will ballot. dustry is due to Vivergo or by another protests outside the plant of lawful protest which “Police have threatened Unison officials dismiss and have encountered in - take place around the to arrest our officials on a formulate a plan for de - any possibility of Unison contractor, they found veloping wider solidar - themselves locked-out creasingly heavy-handed country without any ar - daily basis for acts such as balloting to join the likely policing. Maria Ludkin, rests. taking photos of union ity. strike over pensions by and without work. NUT, PCS, ATL, and UCU on 30 June. £17,500 (65% of the coun - Teachers But Prentis said it. Uni - In brief cil’s staff) face a pay cut, New left caucus in Unite son members should pin and 285 jobs axed. him down to a definite By Ira Berkovic GMB members voted by strike to schedule. 91% in March to oppose the plans and the union said it One reason given by Uni - By Bill Davies and activists continue to son leaders for not striking would move to a ballot for strike action. This week, support and identify with save jobs on 30 June is that the mem - Grass Roots Left (GRL), Unison returned a 56% ma - the United Left. Most GRL bership database has to be which emerged from supporters were not keen “cleansed”. This is cover jority in favour of strike ac - By Gemma Short tion. A ballot result from Jerry Hicks’ campaign in to acknowledge this fact for not taking action. the Unite General Secre - (highlighting instead the Unison leaders have a Unite is due soon. It’s 11 days of strike ac - tary election, has offi - more indefensible bureau - tendency to refuse strike tion and counting for Na - POSTAL WORKERS cially launched itself as cratic behaviour of United ballots on the basis that tional Union of Teachers London postal workers an organisation. Left officials) but Jerry management might com - (NUT) members at Raw - will ballot against the clo - Hicks effectively acknowl - plain if membership lists marsh School in Rother - sure of several London A meeting of around 40 edged it in saying how are not up to date. This ham, and they’re showing workplaces. activists on 7 May decided highly he regarded Rob ultra-cautious approach no sign of giving in. that their main focus ini - Williams (despite him sup - has caused anger among COLLEGES These include the south tially would be organising porting McCluskey in the Teachers are fighting members but it has also led Following a successful London Nine Elms office within Unite but that they election). against job losses. Strike ac - to a branch officers strike at Newcastle Col - and the giant Rathbone hoped to help build similar The Grass Roots Left’s tion has already brought “pulling in the horns”. lege in April, two more Place site, the closure of groupings within other strength is in its avowed redundancies down from Organising a strike under further education col - which would result in the unions too. commitment to independ - 25 to two. current law is incredibly leges could see industrial loss of 3,000 jobs. The existing broad left ent rank-and-file organisa - One of the jobs which re - difficult and time consum - action as workers fight The Communication caucus in the the union, tion, union democracy and mains under threat is that ing. If branch officers know back against pay and job Workers’ Union ballot will United Left, is closely of the school’s NUT rep miIltistawnteacktnioens. s may lie in they are going to put them - cuts. run from 13 to 23 May. linked with the dominant (surprise, surprise). NUT selves though hours of Elsewhere in the indus - a reluctance to work with members weren’t about to Up to 200 posts are (now, after the general sec - form filling just for the re - try, postal workers in Liver - others in Unite (particu - give in and let manage - under threat at South Tyne - retary election, more heav - gional office to say no to a pool took wildcat action larly some activists who ment have their final re - side College, where some ily dominant) section of strike, they may save them - after six workers were dis - supported Len Mc - venge, so before Easter lecturers also risk losing up the Unite bureaucracy. selves the bother. missed for following an in - Cluskey) who share a they voted to continue ac - to £11,000 from their However, a large number But some left Unison Na - correct instruction. similar perspective. tion until the rep’s job was salaries. In a poll in the of good rank and file reps tional Executive members safe. local press, 85% of respon - THANET FOODS have voted for the “cleans - Two days of strike action dents said they supported Unite is continuing a ing” on the grounds that last week have so far pro - the workers. Their ballot campaign of demonstra - our membership lists are vided no response from result is expected on Mon - tions against Marks & not up to scratch. They are management; members are day 16 May. Spencer and Tesco, in either being naive — falling We Stand for prepared to continue their Elsewhere, workers at protest at exploitation at for the right wing’s spuri - action if necessary. Sheffield College will strike Thanet Foods, the Kent- ous arguments — or they The action the members on 16 May unless manage - based agricultural pro - have forgotten how impor - Workers’ Liberty: an at Rawmarsh have taken ment withdraws a threat of ducer that supplies them tant it is that the union should be an inspiration to compulsory redundancy. A (along with Sainsbury takes a lead in defence of the labour movement. It six-day rolling strike will and Asda). activist’s guide to low paid workers in the has shown how struggle bring workers at each of public sector. can strengthen the union. “Cleansing” databases the college’s three centres Despite Thanet promis - More important, it has is not the key to effective out on one of the days. 84% ing in 2009 that it would changing the world started to show what sort strike action. Organising of voting members sup - create 500 jobs locally, most of union we need; that in the workplace, building ported strike action when of its workers are agency £2.50/£1 turning individual case - branches, educating reps the University and College staff employed in what work into collective action and recruiting, and giving Union held its ballot at Unite calls “a system of can beat redundancies. political lead in the fight Sheffield College last permanent casualisation.” Key ideas of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty John Dalton, the Divi - against attacks is. month. Due to competition be - tween two employment including “Why the working class is the key” sional Secretary of Rother - SOUTHAMPTON agencies operating in and “What sort of Marxism?” ham NUT said: All three unions organis - Thanet’s pack house, a rota “It is unfair that teachers ing at Southampton City system was scrapped and should lose their jobs and Council could move to workers are forced to Send cheques payable to “AWL” to: pupils’ education should strike action in a battle phone their agency every AWL, 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, suffer because of the fail - against cuts. day to see if there is work ures of those whose job it is available. London SE1 3DG. Or make £ and euro to“mNaUnTagmeethmebsecrhsooalr.e The £25 million cuts Unite demonstrated at fighting for their jobs and passed by the council in the flagship stores of payment at workersliberty.org/pamphlets children’s education — February will see all work - M&S and Tesco in Lon - Dave Prentis the two are inseparable.” ers earning more than don’s West End on 5 May. SOLIDARITY 11 Strike threat forces Tube S&oWloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y bosses to retreat

Victimised Tube driver Syria: the labour and union rep Eamonn Lynch has been rein - stated to a station job with no loss of salary (he can reapply for his dri - ver’s job after two years). He had won his Employ - movement must ment Tribunal. For Arwyn Thomas, the other victimised rep, Lon - don Underground bosses Eamonn Lynch have committed to “legal discussions” with a view I am immensely proud to resolving the case before that my union and the speak out! his Employment Tribunal members have demon - is due to announce its deci - strated such solid support, sion. but it should come as no As Solidarity went to By Rhodri Evans surprise; throughout this combination of fundamen - press on 10 May, the strikes ordeal the members of the talists, extremists, smug - on London Underground RMT have offered great The Assad dictatorship glers, people who are due to begin on Monday in Syria is going for solidarity and shown that ex-convicts and are being 16 May were suspended by they are the best women endgame. It wants to used to make trouble”. a big majority vote of the crush the people’s revolt and men can be. Tanks are in the cities of Train Grades strike com - Every victory against the now, with whatever vio - Baniyas, Homs, and Tafas. mittee. lence that takes. employer should be cele - A human rights advocate 11 brated. This victory is in Homs told the New York Despite some small mu - This represents at least a hugely significant and pos - Times : “They [the regime] tinies, the armed forces are partial victory for the RMT sibly one of the most im - want to finish everything standing with Assad, not and a managed climb- portant judgements from this week”. splitting as in Libya or down on the part of LUL Tribunal in recent history. In those cities and in turning against the dicta - bosses. Equally important is the Damascus too, the army tor as the Egyptian army The decision to suspend victory at Tribunal gives us has raided hundreds of turned against Mubarak the strikes will be re - more confidence in secur - houses over the last few and the Tunisian against viewed on Monday 16 ing a win for Arwyn days. Thousands of people Ben Ali. May and, if Arwyn Thomas at his ET in May. (according to Syrian ex - The big powers, while Thomas has not been rein - Without a shadow of iles), or at least 350 (ac - deploring the repression, stated by that time, strikes doubt, success in this cam - Demonstrating before the crackdown cording to Amnesty are too anxious about their will be put back on. The paign could put manage - International) have been difficulties in Libya to following article was writ - ment on the back foot more the bridge. Suddenly gun - wars in as many years, I’ve rounded up over the last want to get much in - ten before the strikes were generally. We have bought fire rained into the crowd. never seen people march few days in Baniyas, and volved. With most news suspended. the whole region together, The truck drivers dove for directly into a hail of gun - put under guard in a soc - from Syria blocked by the showing the benefits of cover. And, for what fire”. cer field. By Eamonn Lynch regime, media coverage is well-organised and well- seemed like an eternity, I And now the regime Syrian oppositionists low-key. orchestrated disputes. sat there in the car, thinks it can finish off the able to get Internet access With hindsight, escalat - Too much of the left is It is fair to say that fol - stunned and frozen. Peo - revolt. (Or this revolt, at have stated their demands, ing the dispute was the more interested in repeat - lowing the jobs cuts dis - ple were falling on top of least. Whatever Assad reported in the French correct course of action, ing its familiar “NATO but at the time it was a pute, our morale was fairly each other, being cut down does in the next week, the ne“wSstpoappfeiriLnegMonondde:mon - flat and management were out!” slogans about Libya very brave and coura - like weeds in a field by people of Syria will rise strators. Let peaceful exploiting that. The cam - than in any solidarity with what I think must have again, sooner or later). geous decision to take. the people of Syria (or demonstrations take paign for our reinstate - been a mix of both small On Monday 9 May, gov - place. Take down all the ment has demonstrated the Libya). arms fire and machine gun ernment representative Both the Executive mem - The methods of the public portraits of your - ber, Janine Booth and the willingness of the RMT to fire. I saw at least two chil - Bouthaina Shaaban self and your father. Free stand up for their mem - Assad regime have been dren shot. They fell imme - claimed that the regime Regional Organiser Steve described by Cal Perry of all the political prisoners. Hedley must be congratu - bers. LUL would do well to diately. People were had “gained the upper Start a national dialogue. take notice of this. Al Jazeera, reporting on a screaming. Gunfire rattled hand over a seven-week lated for their part in esca - demonstration near Deraa Allow political pluralism, lating across the combine. Boris Johnson’s call for on... uprising”. Echoing and organise free and new anti-union laws is at the end of April: “I “This was unlike any - Qaddafi’s rants against the Historically, taking a dis - could see clearly a crowd democratic elections pute about victimisation deeply hypocritical. Did thing I had ever seen. After revolt in Libya, she de - within six months”. over 50% of Londoners of people marching from covering seven separate monised the rebels as “a from the local area to my left to my right over across the region has never vote for the current been done successfully, but Mayor? 2008 election the determination of our turnout was 45%. activists has delivered the What about the current mandate for strike action. ConDem Government? The importance of this Less than 36% voted for Emergency demonstration decision cannot be under - this shower. At local coun - estimated. LUL [London cil level, the average Underground Limited[ had turnout for elections 35%. previously shown scant re - We should not be sur - against state repression in prised that the ConDems gard for strike action taken on both the Bakerloo and wish to distract attention Northern Lines; we had to away from the swingeing Tunisia send a clear and decisive cuts currently taking effect. message to our bosses that Would this desire to pre - an attack on RMT union vent workers striking be as Friday 13 May, 5.30-8pm reps was not acceptable. a result of workers in gen - Allowing our reps to be eral realising they can sacked without challenge make a difference if they Tunisian national tourist office, 77A would result in a more bel - get organised and mount ligerent and ruthless man - effective fight back cam - Wigmore Street, London W1U 1QF agement structure, with paigns? The anti-cuts workers reluctant to put march and the RMT’s themselves forward to rep - stance on my and Arwyn’s For more information read page 10 or resent union members. cases have shown the way This would undermine the forItw’sarbde.tter to go down call 07775 763 750 years of struggle to build fighting than meekly effective and independent walk away and accept trade unions.