For a workers’ government For social ownership of the banks and industry

No 339 8 October 2014 30p/80p www.workersliberty.org Our aim: END LOW PAY

See page 5 Our method: INDUSTRIAL ACTION March with TUC 18 October • Britain needs a pay rise! 2 NEWS What is the Alliance Rousseff wins first round in for Workers’ Liberty? Today one class, the working class, lives by selling its labour power to another, the capitalist class, which owns the means of production. Brazil’s elections Society is shaped by the capitalists’ relentless drive to increase their wealth. Capitalism causes poverty, unemployment, the By Raquel Palmeira as the others”. Many trade blighting of lives by overwork, imperialism, the unions actively campaigned destruction of the environment and much else. In the first round of the Against the accumulated wealth and power of the against Neves, implicitly Brazilian presidential elec - calling for a vote for Rouss - capitalists, the working class has one weapon: tions the incumbent Dilma eff as a less bad option. solidarity. Rousseff (Workers Party) The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty aims to build Rousseff has a history of took 41.1% of the vote solidarity through struggle so that the working class can overthrow ahead of Aecio Neves some dialogue with the capitalism. We want socialist revolution: collective ownership of labour movement. industry and services, workers’ control and a democracy much fuller (pro-business social-dem - ocratic party) on 34.2%. Neves represents a neolib - than the present system, with elected representatives recallable at any eral agenda, and has called time and an end to bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. We fight for the labour movement to break with “social partnership” They will now face each for new laws to curb the and assert working-class interests militantly against the bosses. other in a second round of rights of unions. Our priority is to work in the workplaces and trade unions, voting on 26 October. Neves is anti-choice and supporting workers’ struggles, producing workplace bulletins, helping Socialist Party candidate anti-same-sex marriage. organise rank-and-file groups. Marina Silva got only 21.3%. However, despite Rousseff We are also active among students and in many campaigns and This is surprising, as Silva Most expected a run off between Silva and Rousseff having a history of being alliances. had been favourite to win at more pro-choice and for one point. However it is un - marriage equality, she has We stand for: usual for a candidate to her “new politics”, which maintain votes. Many peo - not taken up these issues Independent working-class representation in politics. come close to challenging ● while having a large green ple demanding political during this election cam - ● A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the labour the two main parties. and anti-corruption element, change ended up being po - paign. movement. Protests in June and July pandered to both left and larised into the usual camps She has stayed quiet in ● A workers’ charter of trade union rights — to organise, to strike, to expressed growing disillu - right. Silva is contradictory, and therefore voting for ei - order to pacify and pander picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. sionment with the main two changing her platform to fit ther Rousseff or Neves. to the church organisa - ● Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, education parties. Many talked about who she’s talking to. That’s Rousseff is regarded by tions backing her candi - and jobs for all. not voting for either. Silva why she found it difficult to many as “bad but not as bad dacy. ● A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. Full gathered supporters with equality for women and social provision to free women from the burden of housework. Free abortion on request. Full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Black and white workers’ unity FREE SHAHROKH ZAMANI against racism. ● Open borders. AND REZA SHAHABI! ● Global solidarity against global capital — workers everywhere have more in common with each other than with their capitalist or Stalinist rulers. ● Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest workplace or community to global social organisation. ● Working-class solidarity in international politics: equal rights for all nations, against imperialists and predators big and small. Jailed for fighting for workers’ rights in Iran. ● Maximum in action, and openness in debate. ● If you agree with us, please take some copies of Solidarity to sell — Trade unionism should not be a crime! and join us! http://chn.ge/1vMfS9F Contact us: ● 020 7394 8923 ● [email protected] The editor (Cathy Nugent), 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Student rent up by 5% Road, , SE1 3DG. ● Printed by Trinity Mirror By Omar Raii rooms in nearby Pentonville Prison are likely to be nicer. At University College Lon - HSBC (not known for its don students face con - caring attitude towards stu - Get Solidarity every week! stant increases in rent. dents) recently accused UCL ● Trial sub, 6 issues £5 of having the priciest halls o The average rise of a basic These homes need people! ● 22 issues (six months). £18 waged in the country, with an aver - o room at UCL accommoda - age room costing £157 a £9 unwaged tion has gone up by 5% Activists from the Focus E15 housing campaign who o week. For comparison, the occupied an empty flat on the have now since last year (higher than ● 44 issues (year). £35 waged o cost of a standard room at ended the occupation. Earlier this week they won a fight inflation!) while student £17 unwaged o nearby King’s College Lon - against forced eviction from the flats. As they left they loans have gone up by a don is £127.50. ● European rate: 28 euros (22 issues) o published photos of the good condition these homes are in. measly 1%. This year however, stu - As social tenants are forcibly moved out of London, these or 50 euros (44 issues) o Though increased mar - dents are organising a fight flats stand empty. The campaign will continue. Tick as appropriate above and send your money to: ketisation of universities back. The first step will be a across the country is ensur - 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, London, SE1 3DG motion to the student union ing university halls are be - General Assembly to de - Tory plan to scrap Human Cheques (£) to “AWL”. coming more and more mand that UCL lower its Or make £ and euro payments at workersliberty.org/sub. expensive everywhere, UCL rents and commit to no seems to have a particular above-inflation rises in rents Rights Act Name ...... problem with giving its stu - year by year. dents decent and affordable If UCL continues to ig - At Tory Party conference which may effect their in - Address ...... rooms to live in. nore students’ welfare then Cameron pledged to repeal tentions to tighten up anti- A year ago, upon its com - activists should argue for the Human Rights Act and terror laws, and to do some change Britain’s relationship political posturing to win ...... pletion, UCL’s newest hall and plan an organised stu - with the European Court of over UKIP voters. (appropriately named New dent rent strike. I enclose £ ...... Students will only be Human Rights. Hall) was voted the worst able to stand these ab - The Tories wish to avoid • Full article: new building in Britain, surd rents for so long. “inconvenient rulings” bit.ly/1EpUbQD with many commenting that 3 NEWS Next steps in Hong Kong

By Chen Ying in Hong water and food to be let nesses, probably eroding the to work. The numbers sur - Kong through the cordon of pro - income of the triads’ protec - rounding the Chief Execu - testers to reach those police tion rackets as well. tive’s office reduced to a The protest movement in officers on duty inside the On 4 October, while the token presence. Talks about Hong Kong has been besieged building. government denied claims talks continued between stu - forced to retreat in the Leung refused to resign, of any collusion with triad dent leaders and govern - face of orchestrated vio - but appointed his deputy to gangs, and while university ment negotiators. Secondary lent attacks by Beijing- meet with student leaders. leaders urged students to schools reopened in the funded triad gangs, with In response, on 3 October, disperse to avoid bloodshed, Central and Wanchai dis - the complicity of the po - Leung and the local pro-Bei - the Federation of Students, tricts. lice force. jing forces counter-attacked. Scholarism and the Occupy The Occupy Central lead - Hordes of burly men Central leaders held a defi - ers’ stance throughout is Pro-China thugs attacked occupiers The gangs began their at - wearing blue ribbons — ant anti-violence rally in Ad - based on the model of non- tack in Mong Kok, a high symbolising support for the miralty, albeit with a much violent mass civil disobedi - place strikes to support Such a campaign should density urban working class police — waded into the smaller crowd of several ence as practised by Gandhi them. fight for; the resignation of district with a high concen - protestors in Mong Kok, thousand. and Martin Luther King. Given the intransigence of the Chief Executive; calling tration of organized crime. with very few police on However the government the government, with clear to account those responsible The spontaneous occupa - duty. Videos widely circu - THUGS has avoided arresting the backing by Beijing, the mass for instigating violent at - tion of Mong Kok on 29 Sep - lated in Hong Kong showed The Federation of Stu - leaders to make them mar - movement is lacking the po - tacks; legislative councillors tember — in response to the police arresting some of the dents, having refused talks tyrs, but outmanoeuvred litical leadership to maintain to vote against the adoption deployment of teargas — thugs but releasing them al - on 3 October, decided to them with greater tactical the pressure to force the of the electoral package pro - was initially hugely success - most as soon as they were meet with government ne - skill. Chief Executive to resign or posed by the HK govern - ful and took the police com - brought back to Mong Kok gotiators on condition that The huge mass of protes - achieve their demands that ment; the Chinese pletely by surprise. police station. the police do not exercise tors in the early days the Chinese Government re - government to review their By 1 October, with the Some reports claim rent-a- force and that triad thugs showed a high level of self- verse their decision on the previous decision; the occu - protest movement highly mob adverts on Facebook are stopped from further organisation and discipline, composition of candidates pation of Admiralty to con - mobilised over two public offer between $500 to $1000 attacks on protestors. but in the end they could for the Chief Executive 2017 tinue until these are holidays, the student leaders (£40 to £80) to thugs to at - not sustain the level of elections. achieved and workplaces in called for the Chief Execu - tack protestors. By 5 October, with the protest in the absence of It is important that ac - Hong Kong to take appro - tive Leung Chun Ying to re - While the Mong Kok oc - threat of the police using clear resolute leadership. tivists and students regroup priate action to support the sign, or else they would force to clear away protes - cupation initially put pres - The bravery of students and seek to establish a camThpea iggonv. ernment re - escalate the action. tors, the movement’s leaders sure on the government and had earned them a huge de - broadly representative cam - mains fragile and unpopu - called for protestors to dis - On 2 October, the govern - forced them to refrain from gree of support from the paign group with a clear lar, and the movement still perse. ment building which accom - further attacks on the occu - public, as well as some one programme and an elected has great reservoirs of On Monday 6 October the modates the Chief piers in Admiralty, the pro - day stoppages in some leadership to rally support support for the key demo - Executive’s office was com - longed blockage of daily life siege of government head - workplaces. However, the and continue the use of civil cratic demands. pleted surrounded. The po - at street level began to affect quarters was partially lifted movement’s leaders did not disobedience. lice had to negotiate for local traffic and small busi - to allow civil servants to go issue a call for further work - Left to stand in Ukraine polls

By Dale Street by the ousted ex-President of Ukraine. been killed and another impact of collapsing indus - separatists and their sup - Yanukovich, has collapsed, The main focus of the 8,500 wounded in the fight - trial output, growing unem - porters. Campaigning is now un - with support standing at fighting has been the ongo - ing. This is likely to be an ployment, cuts in social Igor Strelkov-Girkin, the derway for the Ukrainian just 0.9%. Deprived of its ing offensive by Russian- under-estimate. spending, falling living former commander of the parliamentary elections bedrock support in Crimea backed separatists around Out of the total popula - standards, an ongoing separatist forces, advocates, on 26 October. and south-east Ukraine, Donetsk Airport. At the tion of around five millions slump in foreign exchange as an alternative, rule by a According to a recent in - support for the Ukrainian time of writing, the sepa - in the conflict zone, nearly rates, and disruptions to gas military council, with all terview with Ukrainian Left Communist Party now ratists claim to have seized 400,000 have fled to other supplies. civilian structures subordi - Opposition (LO) activist stands at just 3%. control of the airport, al - parts of Ukraine, and over The separatist forces will nated to the military. Nina Potarskaya, the LO The two political parties though this is denied by the 400,000 to neighbouring then “link up” with this un - In the 2 November elec - will be standing candidates which have been the main Ukrainian authorities. countries, mostly Russia. rest and resume their offen - tions just one candidate has in the elections, to “use the focus of the “anti-fascist” Fighting has also oc - This figure does not include sive, seizing the entire put himself forward for campaign as an instrument propaganda campaign con - curred near the coastal city refugees from Russian-oc - territory of historical President of the Donetsk for mobilising and organis - ducted by the separatists, of Mariupol and the inland cupied Crimea. “Novorossiya” and possibly “People’s Republic”: the in - ing people around us.” the Russian media, and towns of Debaltsevo, Leaving aside those advancing into Kiev itself. cumbent Alexander It seems likely that the their western “left” bag-car - Schastye, Adeyevka and armed units, the so-called An additional factor in the Zacharchenko, who was im - only candidates standing in riers — Svoboda and Right Popasnaya, as the sepa - “Cossacks”, which operate calculations of this faction is posed in place of Alexander the elections on a platform Sector — stand at 3.3% and ratists attempt to push independently of the mili - the difficulties likely to be Borodai just before Russia of working-class unity and 0.9% respectively. westwards and increase the tary command structures, faced by Crimea’s popula - launched its major military mobilisation against oli - But Lyashko’s far-right area under their control. the separatist military com - tion over the winter months offensive in late August. garchic rule and the whip - Ukrainian-chauvinist Radi - manders and their political (unless a land bridge can be But the name of a token ping up of nationalist cal Party currently stands supporters appear to be established between the “competing” candidate may on just over 6% in the polls ACCUSED split three-ways over the peninsula and Russia) and also end up on the ballot antagonisms will be those Separatist forces have ac - put up by the LO. and is expected to win ceasefire. by the populations of the paOpenrly. one candidate has around 10% of the vote. cused the Ukrainian mili - One faction is simply two “People’s Republics”. The latest polls show tary of breaching the so far put in nomination President Poroshenko’s Fascists are becoming in - against it and has de - The parliamentary elec - papers for the position of creasingly active on the ceasefire agreement by nounced it as “treachery”. tions will not be taking “Pyotr Poroshenko Bloc” as continuing to shell towns “head” of the Lugansk the front-runner, on 27%. streets of Ukraine’s cities, A second faction amongst place in the Donetsk and “People’s Republic” — carrying out physical at - and villages near the the separatists seems to Lugansk “People’s Re - Ex-Prime Minister Timo - frontlines, especially vari - not the incumbant Igor shenko’s Fatherland Party tacks on their political op - have accepted it, a third fac - publics”. Instead, elections Plotnitsky but the previ - ponents and anyone ous regions in the city of tion, possibly reflecting the for a “People’s Soviet” and stands at 5.5% and current Donetsk. ously unknown Victor Prime Minster Yatsenyuk’s deemed to be a supporter of majority view, sees it as a a President in each “Peo - Penner, described as a People’s Front at just under the separatists. According to the latest temporary measure. ple’s Republic” are to be graduate in management 4%. Meanwhil e, despite the figures issued by the United The third group believes held on 2 November. and “active for many The once powerful Party ceasefire agreement signed Nations, by the end of Sep - that social unrest will ex - The staging of these elec - years in entrepreneurial of the Regions, formerly led on 5 September, fighting tember 3,627 people had plode in Ukraine during the tions has triggered further activities.” continues in the south-east winter months, under the divisions in the ranks of the 84 CFOEMAMTUENRET FireChat: another spurious techno-panacea

municate over very short distances — up to around 10 me - ters. If you’re using wireless headphones for your phone, Eric Lee you’re probably using Bluetooth. So what FireChat might be good for is sending a text mes - sage to people standing right next to you. Or the people be - Why a democratic Hardly a day doesn’t go by when we don’t hear about hind them. some new “revolutionary” technology that is going to These are the same people you could probably get a mes - make the world a more open, transparent, and better sage to by … talking. federal republic? place. Yes, the technology could be useful in places where talk is There have been a few high profile ones in recent days, in - impossible (e.g., loud concerts). cluding the new social network Ello, which is being pushed But to pitch it as an alternative to the Internet or cellular as the “anti-Facebook” (it’s nothing of the sort). Ello claimed phone networks is absurd. Letter that 30,000 people per hour have been trying to sign up to be And another thing: Governments are able to listen in to users of the beta version of its software. Bluetooth communications in the same way they can listen in to any radio communication. So FireChat by definition is Matt Cooper ( Solidarity 338) objects to our calls for a And the mass street protests in Hong Kong have focussed attention upon an app for smartphones called “FireChat” not secure. democratic federal republic and a constituent assembly Micha Benoliel, whose San Francisco company makes on three grounds: which is, apparently, going to bring an end to totalitarian - ism, create an open and transparent world, and so on. FireChat, admits that his software is not secure, telling the One, that to call for a constituent assembly is “abstract The Guardian’s reporting on FireChat is just a tiny bit over- Guardian that he “recommends people avoid real names; this propaganda”, or would “give those views that dominate cur - excited. is, he says, for information-sharing, not for secrets”. rent political debate... political form”. In an article subheaded “The internet is vulnerable to state So much for FireChat being a way around state snooping. Two, that a federal system is impossible “where one unit intervention, but demonstrators have found a way around This is not to say that “mesh computing”, which is what (England) is far bigger than all the others put together”. it”, journalist Archie Bland concluded: “If the Communist FireChat does, is not interesting. Three, that devolution (the status quo? or Cameron’s in - party isn’t quite reeling, its opponents’ lives have at least got As the Guardian article explains, “Every new participant creased devolution?) is the “good approximate answer”. a little easier.” increases the network’s range and strength.” Imagine people His third point seems to contradict his opening lines, that The BBC begins its report on FireChat by noting passing a message through a crowd; that’s how it works. we were right to “outline what a new democratic settlement that “news about the protests in Hong Kong have been sup - Benoliel put it this way: ‘Usually, the more people there would look like”. If the good approximation is the status quo, pressed in mainland China, where the picture sharing site In - are in the same location, the less connectivity you get. But or the already-promised amendments to it, then there is not stagram has been blocked. Messages posted to Sina Weibo, a with our system, it’s the opposite.” much point Solidarity pursuing the question. Chinese microblogging site similar to Twitter, are being The uses of a tool like FireChat would appear to be limited Our ideas on “a new democratic settlement” are not “real - blocked in far greater numbers than normal. And on Sunday, to a very small area -- for example, groups of people who are istic” in the sense of being what might win consensus in the rumours reportedly circulated that the authorities in Hong already attending a demonstration to communicate with one current balance of forces? But as revolutionary socialists we Kong might shut down the city's cellular networks.” another. also build forces and opinion for the future. In response to this state censorship, hundreds of thousands But it could not be used, as the BBC suggests, to spread A constituent assembly would, of course, be shaped by of people, including many of the demonstrators, have down - word that protests are taking place to people who are not ac - current public opinion. But we seek to transform public opin - loaded FireChat and are using it to communicate, as did pro - tually there. FireChat cannot be used to inform people on ion through opening out democracy, not to sidestep it by testors earlier in the year in Taiwan, Iran and Iraq. They’re the mainland what is happening in Hong Kong. It cannot having arrangements imposed from above. avoiding government censorship, and have no need for wi- even be used to spread the word in Hong Kong beyond the A federal system does not require units roughly equal in fi or even a cellular phone signal. group of people already attending the protest. size. It would be easier that way, but neatness is not indis - So what does this amazing new app do? For that you need a network with a range greater than 10 pensable. Essentially, it allows people to communicate with others meters — a network of real people who use any and every The federal republic which our movement set up in 1922 — using smartphones via Bluetooth. tecUhnnfoolrotguyn atot eslpyr,e tahde rthee a wreo nrdo. technological shortcuts. the USSR of Lenin’s time — had one unit (the RFSFR) bigger Bluetooth, as you may know, is a way for devices to com - than the others combined. With the Stalinist counter-revolu - tion, its democratic provisions soon became null, but until now none of us thought that the federal set-up should have been opposed outright because of the RFSFR being so big. Scotland: time to move on The federal united Ireland which we in AWL have pro - posed since the late 1960s would have one unit much bigger than the other. The Protestant-majority area in the north-east counts only 1.5 million of Ireland’s 6.5 million people if we Left and we can use that to unite us and push for change in Scot - measure it as four counties, and not much over a million if we By Colin Foster land together”. take out the Catholic-majority border areas of south Armagh Absolutely! That is the only basis for real struggle on the and Derry City. social issues. A mindset which identifies Yes (to Scottish sep - Germany’s Weimar Republic came to a bad end, but we’ve After the 18 September referendum in Scotland, the bat - aration) with “left”, and No with “right”, will divide and never thought that was because its federal system was made tles against low pay, inequality, and cuts remain to be cripple the labour movement and the working class. unworkable by one federal unit (Prussia) having over 60% of fought there, pretty much the same as in England. The SNP will want to focus political energy on its efforts to the total population. get as much as it can out of the promises of greater Scottish If one unit is much bigger than the others, then the deci - The issue of NHS cuts in Scotland was raised as a scare just autonomy made by prime minister David Cameron shortly sions of the federal authority will be heavily influenced by before the referendum, but the Institute for Fiscal Studies before 18 September. that unit. That may be difficult. But between England and (conservative, but with no special axe to grind over Scottish Working-class unity on social issues should be the prior - Scotland, long closely integrated, it could be workable. separation) found that spending on the NHS in Scotland ity for socialists. When an important economic centre like Ab - Small areas within a state — like, say, the French-speaking would fall by 1% in real terms, between 2009-10 and 2015-16, erdeen votes 59% No, and 18-24 year olds vote 52% No, it is area and the German-speaking area of Italy — can be accom - and rise by about 4% in real terms in England. nonsense to dismiss No as a right-wing vote. modated by autonomy without federal structures, essentially Overall public budgets in Scotland have been cut a bit less Some on the left in Scotland want to continue to focus on special expanded local government powers. than in England, thanks to the “Barnett formula” for fund - separation. Former leader Tommy Is Scotland small enough, and is the agitation about Scot - ing — about 8% rather than 13% — but SNP rule is no shield Sheridan, has advocated an SNP vote in 2015, and a leader land’s status small enough, for that to be sufficient? I think against cuts. of the current SSP has recommended for 2105 a “Yes Alliance, not. Solidarity and Workers’ Liberty started to revive Engels’s The Scottish government’s own figures show “relative a pro-independence slate of candidates... embracing the three call for a democratic federal republic in Britain 12 or 13 years poverty” as 20% of the urban population, and increasing. The parties that were in Yes Scotland – SNP, SSP and Greens”. ago, when agitation for Scottish independence mounted in Gini coefficient, a summary index of inequality, is a bit lower of 6 October reports with apparent ap - the activist left, notably in the then-strong Scottish Socialist in Scotland than in Britain overall (because of the concentra - proval that “people are determined to continue the Yes cam - Party (bit.ly/ssp-dfr). Now Cameron has been forced to offer tion of the rich around London), but has risen in Scotland just paign by any means necessary” and that “some Yes more radical devolution, and the SNP is well-placed to hold as in England. campaigners want to go further and argue that the main fight Socialist Worker of 27 September quoted a “yes” activist, is to secure a second referendum. Others are demanding a himTh taot iits. bound to open new questions. Caitlin Rennie, as saying that: “The referendum highlighted recIto’us ntitm aned t oa rme coovnev oinnc etod cthlaes vso pteo wlitaics sr.igged”. Martin Thomas, Islington [social] issues that No voters have an interest in changing, 95 WHATF EWAET USARYE The rich up 15%, the rest down 15%

Real wages in the public sector went down 15% be - tween 2008 and 2013. Across the economy real wages have fallen by 8.2%. Across the economy the average wage rise last year, concentrated in manufacturing and financial services, was just 2% in money terms. Price inflation was 2% (CPI) or 2.7% (RPI). Over half of the wage rises were below RPI. In a sample survey of wage settlements for six million workers between August 2013 and August 2014, 13% faced a wage freeze and only 8.3% had a wage rise above 3%. In July this year the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted that Britain will be the fastest growing ad - Strike to end low pay vanced economy in 2014. The Office for National Statis - Public sector workers from health, local government and tics (ONS) declared the economic depression over. This is civil service will strike over pay in the week beginning 13 Unison in Scotland is considering a programme of indus - an economic recovery for the rich. October. trial action to include a day of action and geographical and se - Britain's richest people are wealthier than ever before, lective action. with a combined fortune of almost £520bn for just the top Unison, GMB and Unite local government workers (and A big industrial fight will be needed to win wage increases 1000. According to the Sunday Times Rich List the total some school workers) in England, Wales and Northern Ire - and drive down inequality. wealth of the richest 1000 individuals, couples or families land will strike on 14 October. Political action - organised pressure by the unions within jumped 15% between May 2013 and May 2014. Philip The Local Government Association (representing councils) the Labour Party - and ideological battle against neo-liberal - Beresford, who compiles the list, said he had never before and the unions meet on 8 October, with officials saying “an ism are also necessary, but without industrial action will lack seen such a “phenomenal” rise in personal fortune. offer is expected”. Activists worry that union leaders may call weight. However most people have suffered a significant drop off the strike in return for little. This would undercut the It is good that most public-sector unions are striking in the in living standards. The worst hit have suffered a decline whole fight against low pay. same week, in England at least. Yet communication between in living standards of over 20%. According to the TUC, PCS (the civil service union) are to strike across Britain on unions at the level of rank and file members remains low. full-time UK workers are earning, on average, £2,084 less 15 October. Members of the lecturers’ union UCU in Further Most inter-union communication is between general secre - a year, in real terms, than they were in 2010. That equates Education colleges in England have rejected their 1% pay taries. For a start, there should be a joint meeting of the to 36 shopping trolleys of food, 28 tanks of fuel for the av - offer by 85%. They will strike on 14 October, on the authority unions' elected executive committees to discuss further ac - erage car, or a year's energy bill for the average house - of a previous ballot. tion. hold. RMT members on London Underground will strike over Strike committees within and between unions can involve The Tory government feels under very little pressure to job cuts on 14-16 October. members in persuading others to come out, organising picket raise wages. Instead it intends to improve its image by Health workers in Unison, Unite, and Royal College of lines, challenging bosses who try to open workplaces or use managing low pay with tax cuts. The Tories have prom - Midwives in England (and, for Unite, in Northern Ireland) scabs, and discussing what action the union should take next. ised to raise the personal tax threshold from £10,000 to will strike for four hours on Monday 13 October. A “work to On strike days, strikers' meetings - rather than passive ral - £12,500 per year by 2020. That is a 3.8% per year rise. The rule” will follow. Sadly, no union has given specific instruc - lies with “big name” speakers - can enable members to dis - usual increases in the threshold with inflation (at 2.5%) tions on the “work to rule”, apart from to take the full entitle - cuss strategy. would take it to £11,600. The Tories say that full time ment of breaks. Widely-spaced national one day strikes, by themselves, will workers on today's minimum wage will not pay income Unison's work to rule in England runs to 17 October; not win on pay. Unions should use creative tactics to max - tax in 2020. Unite's, in England and Northern Ireland, to 9 November. imise impact, maximise member involvement, and minimise But a minimum-wage worker on 40 hours per week gets Unite has called an overtime ban in ambulances until 19 Oc - impact on their members' pay. £13,520 already. With just a 3% per year increase in the tober. The uncoordinated nature of this action could leave Selective and rolling action, financed from strike funds, can minimum wage she or he gets £16,144 gross by 2020, and workers divided in their workplaces. incOrergasaen iimsep afcot.r industrial action; organise for union pays lots of tax. The Society of Radiographers announced on 3 October than democracy; end low pay! The lowest paid workers, who are usually part time, are its members have voted 53.3% for strikes. Their leaders will alrTehade yg uonvdeerrn tmhe npte rhsaons aal ltsaox tahnrensohuonldc.e d a two-year decide action on 8 October. freeze on working-age benefits. In Scotland Unison members in local government have • For information on the local government pay proposals see: voted by 53.5% in favour of strikes over a 1% pay offer. bit.ly/1BMUYqJ No Lib Dem-Labour coalition! In the first of the Mr Bean movies, the protagonist acci - dentally sneezes on a priceless painting that will soon votes. On the one hand, they know that they need to distance In the event of another hung parliament, there may be calls be the centrepiece of a grand exhibition. themselves from the right-wing, regressive policies of the for a Labour-Lib Dem coalition. Socialists and trade union - government they have participated. On the other hand, they ists should fight hard against this idea. The Labour Party, Keen to keep the painting clean, he takes a handkerchief have to justify their participation. for all of its many faults, at least has structural and political from his pocket to wipe away the snot. Unfortunately, a pen Danny Alexander decries the “heartless, soulless measures roots in a workers’ movement. The same is not true of the has leaked in his pocket, and the handkerchief inadvertently of “this government” in one breath, and brags about how Lib Dems. They are a thoroughly bourgeois party that is smears blue ink on the portrait. the Liberals “are at the heart” of it in the next. He also criti - committed to anti-working class cuts and privatisations. Ten agonising minutes follow in which each of Mr Bean’s cised excessive austerity while claiming that “Liberal Dem - They would pull a Labour government even further to the efforts to hide the damage makes the situation immeasur - ocratic economic ideas” were “delivering success for all of right. ably worse, and by the time he abandons the effort, the face our people.” The Lib Dem conference is a miserable sight. Hated gov - of the portrait has been bleached white and scrawled over If they hadn’t been in coalition, so the Lib Dem argument ernment ministers deliver half-hearted entreaties to a public with a cartoon smiley face. That's what Liberal Democrat runs, the Tories would be even worse. But if it wasn’t for Lib that isn’t listening and doesn’t care. The Lib Dems have dug party conference has been like: hapless, nonsensical and Dem support, the Tories wouldn’t even have a majority! theAmftseerl vthees ienletoc ati odne,e tph, ed eLeapb ohuolre P. arty must not make the doomed. Rather than acting as a brake on austerity, the Lib Dems are mistake of helping them out of it. There is a howling contradiction in the Lib Dems’ pitch for enabling it. 86-7 FEATURE Talking, Why we should oppose explaining, British exit from EU and telling An abridged version of a document to be discussed at the ing-class forces must resist neoliberal/pro-capitalist aspects AWL’s annual conference on 25-26 October. of the EU; build cross-border links between workers and the truth begin to fight on the European terrain; and campaign for “...The slogan of the United States of Europe will in all cases retain more democracy in the EU. Mick O’Sullivan remembers Tom Cashman, socialist a colossal meaning as the political formula of the struggle of the Eu - To some extent, working-class organisations are already trade unionist and long-time associate of the Alliance for ropean proletariat for power. In this program is expressed the fact forced to do this, whatever their attitude to the EU. Since they Workers’ Liberty, who died in August. that the national state has outlived itself — as a framework for the are not strong enough to stop it happening, they must fight development of the productive forces, as a basis for the class strug - to make the best of it. This parallels the situation of the work - I knew Tom as a friend and comrade since the early gle, and thereby also as a state form of proletarian dictatorship.” ing class at the national level. To the extent that capitalist na - 70s. Trotsky wrote about the United States of Europe in 1915, tion states have been civilised, it has been as a result of the Tom was someone who had a hinterland; his interests refining his ideas in 1917, after the February Russian action of the working class — nothing was given at the start. spanned good whiskey, particle physics, a love of Sean Revolution, in the midst of the First World War. Almost a The prevailing views about Europe on the left are Euro - O’Casey’s plays, modernist architecture, and an ency - century later, a century of war, we are still for the Social - phobic. Left Europhobes oppose capitalism expanding be - clopaedic knowledge of schisms in the Catholic Church, ist United States of Europe (SUSE)! yond national borders because, they say, it will entail us which quite frankly bemused me. Tom was a very rounded “starting again from scratch” on the project of democracy. person and a very humorous one. It was a policy for the socialist movement; Trotsky did not They are mistaken — we are not starting at zero. But I want to say something about Tom the public man. believe that the European ruling classes could unite Europe, We have developed many tools to help us fight on the Eu - Tom was a Marxist, an atheist and trade unionist who ded - although capitalist economic development was clearly out - ropean terrain: icated his life to the working class and had an unwavering growing its national boundaries. That Europe is now belat - • Bourgeois democratic norms (some championed by the conviction that was the only hope of humanity. edly being united piecemeal and bureaucratically by the EU itself, where different bourgeois and even social-demo - Tom’s main arena of activity was within the unions and bourgeoisie, rather than in a democratic, socialist way, is be - cratic views compete — for example, the EU is an important in particular the T&G [later Unite]. cause of the weakness of the socialist movement and its fail - arena in the struggle against discrimination); Although he was active in the 1970s, his misfortune was ure to overthrow the bourgeoisies, to prevent two world • Organisations (trade unions, parties — some with to come of age when the union movement was in decline. wars, and to build the Socialist United States of Europe. strength within EU institutions); That, however, was the movement’s gain. It meant much of The current European integration project, with the Euro - • A rich historic experience of international cooperation his activity was about holding the line; he did this by ex - pean Union (EU) at its core, is a capitalist project, not our against nationalism and war. plaining to those who had forgotten, and those who had project; the capitalists are uniting Europe in their own way for their reasons. We resist the many anti-working class ele - RESULTS never known, what a trade union should do, and how a Concerted effort at a European level has already had re - ments in their project, including its overwhelmingly pro-cap - trade unionist should conduct themselves. sults. For example, between 2005 and 2009, a Europe- italist ideology, bureaucratic structure, and the way the He often made the point to me that there were no short- wide campaign by trade unions and NGOs drew much of ruling class can use it to over-ride democratic and working- cuts, no tricks to this, all we can do is talk and explain. the sting of the so-called Bolkestein directive which class achievements. Nevertheless, it features elements that What I think gave his approach such a sharp edge was his aimed at increasing the marketisation of public services. decision to consistently tell the truth. Now some may say are important for our own project: so what, what’s the big deal about telling the truth? Well, • Development of the economy, thus developing the basis There are many aspects integral to the EU that we can take all I can say is, you try it inside a trade union. for socialism; advantage of, for example, organising together of workers in Talking, explaining and saying what needs to be done • Lowering of barriers of all kinds, development of a multinational companies — just as much as at the national next is what Tom did, and others will testify to his impor - transnational political terrain; level, the capitalist class at the European level creates its own tance within the T&G and its left. • The gradual weakening of nationalism, peace between grave-. However Tom was also vilified for his views. While we European nations; The labour movement and socialists are not making the often joked about this, the wellspring of this enmity to - • Development of the working class across the continent most of the opportunities. In addition, they downplay the wards him arose from what he stood for. and bringing them together, evening out the disparities in enormity of the task of reforming the national states, and If you think about it, there were always going to be those their lifestyle and culture — our task is to fight for levelling often scapegoat the EU as the source and seat of power of ne - who did not like the fact he was principled, that he fought up rather than down. oliberalism. Left Europhobes erroneously characterise the EU against Stalinist influence within the union, that he was in - It will not be possible to reform the EU to such an extent as being little more than a conspiracy to rob the labour move - corruptible; the idea that a trip to Cuba or America would that we can transform it into the SUSE. However, our fight to ment of the gains it has made at each national level. turn his head and him into someone’s creature was never reform it, waged simultaneously with our fight to reform the Of course the bosses will take advantage of any opportu - going to happen, although I have seen people try. On the nation states that compose it, is an important part of our fight nity they get to push back workers’ organisations and take most mundane of levels there were those who resented to create what will replace both: at the national level, the away the gains workers have won through struggle. But the him because he always turned up to meetings have read workers’ government, at the European level, the SUSE. raison d’être of the EU is primarily something else: a reflec - the paperwork, and they had not. The failure of or destruction of the EU before we are in a tion of the capitalist economic system outgrowing the bounds For all these reasons people kicked against Tom, yet in all position to put something better in its place will create a sit - of the nation states. This is not something that workers have the years I knew him I never once heard him get angry uation less favourable for the realisation of socialism. We do an interest in stopping. about such people; his duty was to explain. His political not hope or work for the demise of the EU. A return to a sit - Of the many objections Left Europhobes raise to the EU, enemies and comrades were a different matter. He was al - uation like that before the current epoch of capitalist integra - the most sinister is their hostile attitude toward workers mi - ways ready to have the argument. tion, one of fiercely competing nation states, would be an grating, in search of work and a better life, from poorer areas Of course there are many trade unionists with similar historic setback for the socialist goal, implying renewed pres - of the EU toward richer. qualities. However no-one exhibited these qualities in quite tige for nationalism; hostility between nations and thus be - They echo the far-right, either saying that migrant workers the same way or with quite the same mix as Tom. tween workers of those nations; trade wars; and economic are displacing settled workers — “taking jobs” — or under - In our world where we measure our actions and our vic - regression. mining the gains of British workers by accepting lower wages tories in a lower case, Tom played a huge role in holding Support for European unity does not have to imply back - and conditions — “social dumping”. the movement together and provided real insights in how ing what the dominant capitalists and their servants do, or There is little evidence of migrant workers displacing set - the way that they do it. It does, however, commit us to Euro - weI schaonunlodt r ethbiunikld o itf. anyone who has acquitted them - tled workers but, in any case, our answer to unemployment pean unity and to opposing politically all those who advo - selves in our cause with greater dedication. As for me is the creation of enough jobs for all, through, for example, re - cate the break-up of the EU and the restoration of the old, I have lost a dear friend and the staunchest of com - building public services, paid for by tax on wealth. long-bankrupt, European bourgeois national-state system. It rades. Where bosses attempt to employ migrant workers on does commit us to counterpose working-class measures on a lower wages or conditions, our answer is to organise those European scale to the bourgeois system. Socialists and work - 9 CLASS SFTERAUTUGRGELE

across the bourgeoisie and petit bourgeoisie, are divided between those who believe they For a workers’ can better exploit work - ers outside the EU, and those who believe they can better exploit work - Europe! ers inside the EU. The labour move - • For a republican United States of Europe! Scrap the exist - ment and socialists ing bureaucratic structures and replace them with a sover - should not politically eign elected European Parliament with full control over all side with, or take re - EU affairs. sponsibility for, the pol - • Fight to level up working-class living standards and condi - icy of either bourgeois tions. For a common campaign for a legal 35-hour week. faction. We are not • Fight for a guaranteed decent European minimum wage. “for” the EU any more than we are “for” the • For a Europe-wide emergency programme of public works British state. to tackle unemployment and social exclusion. Workers’ con - However, we recog - trol of the big multinationals, to steer production toward nise that, after decades need and to guarantee every worker the right to a decent of integration (both of job. capital, and, to an ex - • For Europe-wide public ownership of the big banks, and tent, social integration, democratic control of credit and monetary policy. due to the freedom of • For the replacement of the Common Agricultural Policy movement), a UK with - with a plan worked out by workers’ and small farmers’ or - drawal from the EU, ganisations, based on the public ownership of land. Food under pressure from production should be geared to the needs of the world’s the Tory right and hungry people. UKIP, would be reac - • For the abolition of VAT and the financing of public serv - tionary, and would pre - ices by direct taxation. dominantly benefit the far right and racists. • Stop state hand-outs to big business — subsidies, tax In the past, we have concessions, reductions in employers’ contributions for so - raised the idea of an cial security — and use the money to create jobs in public “active abstention” on services. On 14 November 2012 there was a general strike in southern Europe against cuts. More co-ordinated referenda concerning • Prioritise rebuilding good public services, halt all privati - action is needed particular projects sation plans. within the EU frame - • For free abortion facilities, freely available, everywhere. work — the single cur - • For a Europe which respects the environment, putting con - workers and insist that they are paid the same wages and rency, or the European Constitutional Treaty. An “in/out” trols on industries which pollute. For social ownership and enjoy the same conditions as settled workers. referendum on UK membership of the EU is not the same. In workers’ control of the major energy firms; for a rapid tran - We are for freedom of movement and for equality: all this situation, our general stance is to oppose withdrawal. sition away from dependence on fossil-fuel-based energy should have access to jobs and services. If migrants put pres - The UK left is in general Europhobic rather than Europhile, sources, and toward renewable and sustainable sources. sure on public services in some places, the answer is to cam - and we have a particular duty to warn of the dangers of that paign for adequate public services! These are the campaigns prejudice. The road to the SUSE has to be the road of build - • For a Europe open to the world! Free movement of people that the left needs to fight, rather than opposing freedom of ing European working-class unity, the road of class struggle, into the EU; free access for Third World exports to EU mar - movement. the road of fighting one’s own bourgeoisie and one’s own na - kets; a big EU aid programme without strings to the Third We are internationalists; we fight for the interests of the en - tionalism and chauvinism, in the spirit of Karl Liebknecht World. tire working class, not the working class of one or a handful and Rosa Luxemburg, who raised the cry in 1914: “The main • For the right to vote of all residents of EU countries. of countries. We say the British labour movement needs more enemy is at home.” • For the replacement of all of the EU states’ existing mili - migrant workers! It needs to be invigorated by the spirit Socialists that oppose the EU will boost the fortunes of the tary hierarchies by people’s militias. For a Europe free of nu - shown, for example, by the “3 Cosas” workers at the Univer - nationalist right. clear weapons! sity of London, almost all of whom are migrant workers. While it is possible to be organisationally separate from • For a united working class. For Europe-wide shop stew - The left in each country has a responsibility to think criti - Right Europhobes (though Left Europhobes often fail to man - ards’ committee in all of the big multinationals and all of the cally about its own national history and to reflect on the ex - age even that), to the ears of most workers, a “left-wing” “no major industries! tent to which the dominant ideas of its society, which are to the EU” (e.g., No2EU, “Non de gauche” [French far-left those of the ruling class, have infected their own thinking and slogan in the 2005 campaign against the proposed European • Fight to rebuild a European international socialist move - those of the working class. Constitutional Treaty]) sounds no different to a right-wing ment. “no to the EU”. Particularly since the Left Europhobes often • For a Socialist United States of Europe! PHOBIC deploy right-wing arguments, for example, they can be For historic reasons, the British working class tends to found defending “sovereignty”, sowing illusions in the be more eurosceptic/phobic than the working class in British state, or opposing “social dumping”, which some - most other European countries. times amounts to little better than opposing immigration. That is not because they are more social-democratic, on the On the issue of whether we support the holding of a refer - contrary, it more reflects the history of British imperialism. endum at all, we say, while socialists are not in principle We need to be aware of the forces that have influenced think - against a referendum, we see the Tories’ call for a referen - dum for what it is: a ploy to boost their chances in the Gen - ing on the left, including the utopian/dystopian British Com - eral Election. munist Party tradition that advocated “Britain’s Road to We say: In or out, the class fight goes on, but rather EU Socialism”, separate from Europe. We need to warn against membership than withdrawal. chauvinism, and root it out, in whatever guise it hides itself. Our attitude in a referendum would be on the lines of: Running scared from UKIP, the Tories have promised an • Oppose withdrawal from the EU in/out referendum on the EU if they win the general election • Reduce borders, don’t raise them in 2015. Significant sections of the labour movement are • Support free movement across Europe pushing Labour to offer a referendum. • Oppose the present neo-liberal and bureaucratic Reflecting the boost in the fortunes of right-wing populism regime of the EU, support workers’ unity to fight for dem - across Europe, UKIP came first in the British European Par - ocratic reforms, for social levelling-up, and for a social - We need to defend and extend abortion services around Europe liamentary election in 2014, promising to take the UK out of ist Europe. Europe. The Tories and UKIP, reflecting the range of views 8 FEATURE What is Ebola virus, where does it come from?

Science By Les Hearn

From a scary but rare problem, Ebola Virus has exploded into public consciousness as a real disaster in West Africa and a potential threat to anywhere else connected by any means of travel. The problem has been exacerbated by the lack of local health care infrastructure, distrust of aid agencies and lack of help from the richest countries. Where has the virus come from and why is it now such a problem? Back in 1976, a new virus was discovered in a group of vil - lages in the equatorial forests of Zaire (now Democratic Re - public of Congo). Victims suffered fever, pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, and massive internal bleeding (haemorrhage): 70% died. A young Belgian microbiologist, Peter Piot,* examined blood samples from an affected woman, a nun from a mis - imals eaten as bush meat. These healthy carriers would not particles: these are expensive and not widely available in sion, and found large worm-shaped viruses of an unknown carry great numbers of virus so transmission to humans West Africa. Surfaces and instruments need to be sterilised kind. It was similar to Marburg virus (discovered 1967), would normally be rare. and it should go without saying that needles must not be re- which also caused a haemorrhagic fever with high mortality. Outbreaks are in fact rare, with many years free of cases. used. Unfortunately, these precautions are difficult to take in They were both members of the Filoviridae family of the Up to this year, the average number of cases reported per remote areas or in countries with poor health services. order Mononegavirales, most of which cause serious plant year has been 63, with a mortality of two-thirds. Outbreaks Viruses are not affected by antibiotics so most treatment is and animal diseases. have become more frequent since 2000 but the average has palliative or supportive (pain management, anti-nausea Piot went with a team to Zaire to find an epidemic that was still been well under a hundred with a mortality of three- drugs, rehydration). out of control. To stop it, they needed to know how the virus fifths (perhaps reflecting an improvement in supportive Early rehydration may reduce mortality. In a positive ex - was spread. Mapping the distribution of cases implicated the care). ample of military intervention, US and UK armed forces are local hospital: the fact that many victims were women who The recent outbreaks in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia setting up field hospitals in Liberia and Sierra Leone, with had attended the antenatal clinic was even more suspicious. have affected over 6500 people, 100 times the average of all France doing the same in Guinea. In the first instance, they It turned out that they had received routine injections but previous outbreaks and more than ten times the previous will concentrate on treating medical personnel. with re-used needles: the virus thus spread in blood or body worst. The reasons for this are not clear. Population growth, The ideal would be a vaccine and safety tests on candidate fluids. Other cases were among attenders at funerals who with greater overcrowding, has been suggested as a factor, vaccines using healthy volunteers have been accelerated. had taken part in washing or preparing bodies for burial. as has increased consumption of bush meat, but these can - This will not prove that they work since it would be unethi - Stopping transmission of the virus was simply a matter of not have been much different during the previous six years cal to try to infect volunteers with Ebola Virus. However, an - quarantining cases, closing the hospital, and informing peo - when there were 32, 1, 0, 0, 88, and 0 cases, respectively. imal tests are promising. ple of the need to avoid touching victims’ bodies. Piot’s team Victims should be isolated and contacts traced.** This is was near River Ebola, hence the name Ebola Virus. difficult when people flee affected areas. Hygienic practice ANTIBODIES But where had the virus come from? Obviously not the should be enforced and funeral practices modified to avoid The theory is that they would stimulate the immune sys - hospital. It was likely that the normal host was a forest- contact with virus-laden bodies. A large number of cases tem to produce antibodies that would stick to the virus dwelling animal not greatly, if at all, affected by it. In fact, it have been among healthcare staff who need to take special particles and prevent them infecting more cells. Vac - seems to be carried by fruit bats which are eaten as a type of precautions to avoid contact. Researchers have to wear pres - cines have been outstandingly successful, most notably “bush meat”. It’s also found in gorillas and perhaps other an - sure suits to avoid any chance of touching or inhaling virus against smallpox which no longer exists. The experimental antibody treatment ZMapp has been given to Western medical workers and some African doctors, most of whom survived. Unfortunately, supplies of ZMapp have run out. It is not clear that it works in humans though What do viruses do? it is very successful in monkey tests. The theory is that the Viruses have a rather sneaky way of behaving which antibodies, produced in large amounts by immune system makes them very difficult to combat. endothelial cells, which line blood vessels and other tubules cells extracted from mice infected with Ebola virus, will stick (explaining the bleeding that occurs in later stages). to virus particles in the blood, preventing them from infect - They consist of a genome (instructions for making a new One of the most fascinating discoveries from the human ing more cells. This supplements the victim’s immune re - virus) and a protein coat that helps them invade cells which genome studies is that about 8% of our DNA is of viral ori - sponse to the virus. can be plant, animal, fungi or bacteria. They do not contain gin in the form of endogenous viral elements (EVEs). Many Another suggestion is to extract natural antibodies from the other components necessary for life so are often not con - of these are the remains of retroviral DNA that mutated and the blood of survivors (who presumably had a good immune sidered to be living in the normal sense. Instead, they hi - couldn’t replicate any more. Smaller amounts come from response to the infection) and inject them into other victims. jack the host cell’s life support system and use it to many other types of virus, including ancient Filoviridae. It’s It is not clear that this would supply anything like enough reproduce. not clear how this happened but happen it did, probably anAti bfoudrtyh. er development is TKM-Ebola which contains Their genomes can be made of double-stranded DNA some 40 million years ago. For these viral fossils to have “small interfering RNAs”. These are complementary shaped like a spiral ladder (the double helix), like that of survived, it may be that they confer some protection from strands of RNA that would bind to some of the genes on every type of ordinary cell, single-stranded DNA (which filoviruses. the virus’s RNA genome, preventing them from being still contains all the information needed), double-stranded Most of these EVEs probably do no harm or good, though translated into proteins. This would prevent new virus RNA (a related compound) or single-stranded RNA. some may predispose to cancer. However, there is one viral particles being formed. It is not clear if it would work but DNA genomes can be used straightaway to make mes - “fossil” that is a functional gene and plays a crucial role in it is certainly worth a try! senger RNA for each gene, then to make protein using the mammals with a placenta. It produces a protein, syncytin, host cell’s protein-making apparatus. The genome is copied which originally made host cells fuse with each other, help - and the coat proteins wrap themselves round this, making ing viruses spread. In placental mammals, it makes the pla - lots of new virus particles to be released, killing the host centa fuse with the uterus, allowing the foetus to gain more Notes cell. nutrients from the mother and become much more mature * Peter Piot was inspired to go on studying diseases in Africa, re - RNA retroviruses transcribe their RNA into DNA which before being born. By contrast, in marsupials, the young are searching the AIDS epidemic and later becoming the first executive is then incorporated into the host cell DNA. Then it carries born tiny and very immature, while monotremes lay eggs. director of UNAIDS. He is Professor of Global Health at the London on as for DNA viruses, making more virus particles. A very exciting theory (but just a theory) is that the nuclei School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He has recently become The Filoviridae (worm-shaped viruses including Ebola, of protozoa, animals, plants and fungi are descended from involved in the Longitude Project, looking for solutions to the prob - Marburg) and their relatives in the Mononegavirales (in - lem of drug-resistant microbes. a giant virus that took over an ancestral bacterial cell and ** The recent case in Dallas, Texas, appears to have been completely cluding ‘flu, mumps, rabies, distemper, and measles), with never left. Its genome would have captured genes from the mishandled. Thomas Duncan had just arrived from Liberia and went a single strand of RNA, form a matching strand of RNA hoGsti acneltl ,v bireucsoemsi negxi stht en mowai na nsdto hrea voef hseormedei tsairmy iDlaNritAie. s to to hospital when he felt unwell. They failed to realise the significance which is then used to make proteins, as well as copies of the nucleus, including a double membrane and linear of these facts and sent him home with antibiotics (for what they the original RNA strand. New virus particles are formed DNA, unlike the circular bacterial DNA molecule. thought was a virus infection!?). Two days later, he was taken back and released. This kills the host white blood cells (harming to hospital in a serious condition, having potentially infected his fam - the immune system), liver cells (causing liver damage), and ily and the ambulance staff. You couldn’t make it up! 9 FEATURE A political alternative to “the one percent”?

Matt Cooper reviews Inequality and the 1% by Danny Dor - lawyers and senior managers of the corporate world. It is it - class struggle, particularly in the 1980s. ling self highly unequal. At the bottom end the “ordinary rich” The gap in understanding causes problems in the book. The idea of “the one per cent”, the richest one percent - might struggle to pay private school fees but at the top, First, European states with less gross inequality are held who take a grossly unfair share of the income and wealth wealth reaches stratospheric heights. The top five families in up as good examples, yet the working class across Europe in advanced capitalist society, was first popularised by Britain own the same wealth as the poorest 20 per cent (that has faced defeats and been weakened in recent years (al - the 2001 Occupy Wall Street movement. Occupy Wall is, 12 million people). The richest of the rich are the group though perhaps not on the scale that we have seen in the UK). Street declared, “We are the 99 per cent”. Danny Dorling which has become increasingly detached from the rest of the Second, by removing the notion of class, the ”We are the 99 seeks to build on this anger to stoke a mood for redress - society and has driven the rising inequality. per cent” slogan has serious weaknesses. Dorling repeatedly ing that imbalance. Eq uality within the remaining 99 per cent has actually in - suggests that it is middle class opinion that will drive change creased. towards a more equal society. Dorling is well aware that the one per cent is an arbitrary The bulk of the book involves an excellent in-depth de - Lastly, and most importantly, he suggests that what is figure, but believes is a better way of talking about wealth scription of inequality and its consequences in the age of gov - needed is not a political movement but a move in sentiment inequality than statistical constructs such as the Gini co-effi - ernment programmes of austerity. Inequality began to rise towards greater equality. He suggests that has already ar - cient (which represents the income distribution of a particu - significantly in 1978 (interestingly, under a Labour govern - rived with the 2008 crisis. With the banking crisis many peo - lar nation). ment, a year before Thatcher’s Conservatives came to power, ple became more critical of the free market status quo. We To say Britain has a Gini coefficient of 0.45 will create little a point that Dorling does not pursue). In the early 1980s the have a movement, only inchoate, unstable and lacking in the shock. To say that in 2013 the average household income of polarisation of wealth between the one per cent and the rest self-confidence to carve out a political space in society. the one per cent is £368,940, and that is fifteen times the in - began to increase. These differences are now being ratcheted To see the problem, one need only look at the inability of come of the median household in Britain of £24,596, creates up with the coalition’s austerity drive. The spending cuts af - the leadership of the Labour Party to maintain support even a palpable sense of the inequality. fect the poorest. The only groups in society who have bene - for the most timid of proposals, and the success of the Con - In turns out that the one per cent also offers a rough-and- fited are the top 10 per cent. ready dividing line of the rulers and ruled in British society. The book is much weaker when it comes to politics. Dor - servatives conference in rallying support behind a nasty The entry point into the one percent is an income of around ling points out how Britain is more unequal than most other rigDhot-rwliningg d peamckaangdes o tfh baetn wefeit sb ecu atns ganryd, raenddu tcheedr tea xis. plenty £160,000 a year. It is beyond what a senior professional such states in Europe, but has little explanation as to why this is so in his book to encourage this. But anger is not enough. as a doctor or a teacher would earn, unless they are among other than the rich seized control of the political process in We need to rebuild a working-class movement that ar - the small group profiting from the privatisation of public the early 1980s. I would argue that Britain is so much more gues for a coherent alternative to the greed of the one services. unequal than Germany, the Netherlands or Finland because per cent. This group includes the lower echelons of business owners, the British working class faced more serious defeats in the Between art and activism

Other featured projects included the Helsinki based Robin Hood Minor Asset Management Co-op, which speculates in the world of financial capital then distributes the revenue amongst “radical projects” and the co-op’s members. Its in - clusion reflects the sentiment, popular amongst certain sec - tions of the left, that we are in a new age of “informational” or “cognitive” capitalism where the antagonism between Save the People’s labour and capital is no longer the fundamental dynamic which governs social relations. These projects promote the idea that if only financial capitalism can be used in a more History Museum! ethical way, we might be able to redistribute wealth on a When I was a young boy, my grandfather told me a mass scale. They fail to understand the tendencies of capital story of a bus depot, a mass picket line, and a scab bus accumulation. being turned on its side by an angry crowd. Later I re - In their piece “Act of Parliament”, Manchester based inter - alised he was telling me about his highlight of the 1926 ventionists Shift//Delete turned the Gherkin building in the General Strike. City of London into “a 180m high erection for deregulation Luke Neal reviews Politika: Art & the Affairs of the City (Upper Space collective) and global capitalism” projecting lasers on to the tower to A union railwayman all his working life, he never made add further phallic features. They claimed this was in re - it into the history books, nor did his wife’s twin children As the Labour and Conservative parties staged their an - sponse to “Parliament’s failure to criminally prosecute the fi - who, born a year after the strike, died because no doctor nual conferences, an exhibition entitled Politika: Art & the nancial institutions and employees that caused the financial could be afforded. My family’s history is nothing out of the Affairs of the City was staged in a former cotton mill in crisis”. ordinary for working class lives — the sort of lives you can Ancoats, Manchester. While the spectacle is admirable, taking the most reckless see reflected in the halls and archives of the Manchester bankers to court is no solution. Our maladies are systemic, Curated by the “insurgent art activist” collective Upper People’s History museum (www.phm.org.uk). not individual, and necessarily require an equally systemic Space, 20 artists put on a programme of workshops, speakers In a country awash with stately homes, museums cover - response, going beyond a few creative individuals. It requires and activities “to generate starting points for an answer, an - ing everything from pencils to witchcraft, the government an organised revolutionary socialist and labour movement other view, in order to sustain another ideology against con - can no longer find £200,000 to fund the Manchester Peo - In response the corporatisation of public space, there was sumerism and the disempowerment that it represents”. ple’s History museum, one of the few institutions in Britain the Brandalism project, an “unauthorised exhibition” to “fa - Perhaps the best element was Politika’s attempt at engage - dedicated to telling the history of ordinary people’s lives cilitate the reclamation of our right to the city and the unfin - ment with the residents of Ancoats, who have been involved and struggles. ished project of the revolution of everyday life”. Brandalism in a fight to save the Ancoats Dispensary, the only surviving The government has said a number of museums will face reappropriates public space from corporate advertisements. Victorian hospital in the country. Politika worked with them cuts. But the People’s Museum, with its programme of ex - Their approach strikes at authentic concerns: the enclosure to create a banner celebrating the community securing hibitions reflecting the struggles of ordinary people, espe - of public space, mass alienation, the abstracted predicate of £770,000 to regenerate and turn the Dispensary into a com - cially attracted the ire of the Tories. One exhibition, “A modern consumerism — i.e. labour. As Marx long ago said in munity centre. Land Fit for Heroes”, looked at lives in World War One, Capital Volume 1: Most of the artistic content was overtly political and loosely and included pacifism and conscientious objectors. For the “It is now no longer the labourer that employs the means leftist. Tories that is clearly off message when we are expected to of production, but the means of production that employ the Steve Lambert’s towering, illuminated structure bearing be solely reminded of the historic sacrifice of the fallen labourer. Instead of being consumed by him as material ele - the words “capitalism works for me!” featured prominently, dead, and not of those who opposed the barbarous war. ments of his productive activity, they consume him as the each edge adorned with true/false score boxes which the The labour movement needs to fight this cut. If it is not ferment necessary to their own life processes.” viewer was invited to vote on. Lambert says, “we need the This point is useful for considering our own place in possible in the short term to reverse the cut, then the trade courage to begin discussions [of the alternatives to capitalist cultural production and social change. While, advertise - union and labour movement should find extra resources crises] in order to move on to a better vision of the future”. ments, for instance, are a visual embodiment of the to Tsuhpep Poreto tphlee m’su Hseiusmto.ry Museum tells an important He is right, asking these questions is crucial. Yet a recurring hegemony of capital, momentarily reclaiming the space story that of the struggle of ordinary people who have trait of this show was a reluctance to go beyond merely fram - they occupy with our own propaganda treats the symp - fought, lost, and sometimes won, but above all fought. ing the question of an alternative future. It is, however, pos - tom but not the root cause. Paints and lasers alone can - sible to say more about that future without being either not compose the obituary of capitalist society. Mark Catterall prescriptive or utopian. And this requires class politics. • www.phm.org.uk 810 FEATURE Care UK: staying strong against low pay

On Friday 10 October Care UK workers will be striking for the level of care the 81st day in their campaign for a Living Wage. Stewards they receive David Honeybone and Diane Marsden spoke to Solidarity . and are fighting to defend the What led to you taking industrial action? NHS. It started in 2012 when Doncaster Council put our service [supported living for adults with learning disabilities] out to How have you tender. Care UK won the bid and took over in September found the ex - 2013. Under the NHS we were paid a basic rate and an en - perience? hancement for anti-social hours and sleeping over. Care UK In the begin - tried to cut this and vastly reduce sick pay, maternity leave ning it was and annual leave. We rejected this offer and struck for the first mind blowing. time in February this year, taking 13 weeks of action. Care UK People were came up with a settlement offer, which was really just a bribe, asking us to where staff would receive a lump sum amounting to what speak all over they would be losing over a twelve month period. For most the country people this was around £2000-£5000, and many took the everywhere money. from Glasgow Our current strike demands a living wage for new staff and and Brighton to a pay rise for existing staff, to make up for what we have lost. London. We In some cases people have lost up to 40% whilst the managers were even on have seen a £2000 pay rise. Care UK offered a 2% rise for new Norwegian TV staff and nothing for existing staff except a promise to match at the front of any NHS pay rise next year. We have not had a pay rise in the Stand Up to three years and with the cost of living going up all the time UKIP March. this isn’t an acceptable offer. We have gone international week, whether that is visiting another town to speak some - How did you persuade the membership to strike? now. We even met Brian May from Queen, when he drove where or organising leafleting in town. We also hold larger In the first ballot 96.6% voted “yes” to strike action, but now past us protesting outside Bridgepoint (Care UK’s parent meetings for everyone involved in the strike to vote on deci - around half of the workforce have gone back or found other company) head quarters in London. He tweeted his support sions and plan larger events. jobs. In a lot of cases this is due to money. People were forced for us, which got us more publicity. It’s little things like that back to work, or to take other jobs when they couldn’t pay that make a little dispute a big one. What advice would you give to other people thinking of their bills. But there are around 60 workers who are in this to We’ve had a lot of support from Unison as well as other or - taking similar action? the end. We have also seen first hand how when the NHS is ganisations and local activists, we’ve had lots of messages of Stay strong, stay focused and don’t let other people wear you sold off profit comes before care. Care UK is the worst possi - support from around the country and people have had col - down. We have all had down periods, but we pick each other ble name for them, they only care about profits. We work lections for us. That has been brilliant. upI.t feels like we are all one big family now. People have with vulnerable adults and we have been told we don’t care even found love on the picket line. I think it’s important to about the service users if we strike. That is not true. Some How have you organised the strike action? believe in your cause and remember what you are fight - people have worked here for decades and have built really We have a strike committee of around half a dozen people ing for. strong relationships with service users. We want to protect who meet regularly and plan what we will be doing that Ritzy: “I hope our struggle inspires others”

Workers at the Ritzy Picturehouse cinema in Brixton, South the majority would be in favour. In the first vote [a few weeks at the Ritzy, moving at such a pace, it was sometimes hard to London, voted on 12 September by a big majority to end before, prior to Picturehouse management making a slightly remember that. We need to keep going. I think we need to their dispute over the London Living Wage, accepting a improved offer] the majority against was only one. make some direct links with other cinemas, rather than rely - deal that moves them closer but falls short of their goal. A We didn’t win our basic goal of the Living Wage, at least ing on BECTU officials, and now we’ll have more time to do Ritzy worker who was active in the dispute spoke to Soli - not right away, so why did people vote to accept? It’s the ob - that. darity . vious stuff. Lots of workers were tired; it was a demanding Not as many people will be as active now, but that’s in - I had no doubt I’d vote against the deal, but I wasn’t sur - campaign. Lots of people said they wanted to fight on but evitable. A strong core will continue to be very active. prised most of my comrades voted for. couldn’t afford to. In some cases it was a question of priori - BECTU was very supportive of us, and for most of the dis - ties, but some people were genuinely struggling. pute we made our own decisions pretty freely. Towards the From the many conversations I’d had, the opinion against Then management threatened us with “dire consequences” end, however, there was a bit more of a drive coming from seemed stronger than it was in the vote, but I was pretty sure — I’m not joking — including making us deal directly with the union for us to accept. It made very positive public noises Cineworld [the bigger cinema company that now owns the about the offer, and maybe as a result there were stories in Picturehouse chain]. In my view that would have been a the media that we’d accepted. We had to put our own state - good thing, but it made a lot of people feel under pressure. ment out to clarify. I think some of the problems were not to Very possibly if we’d fought on we could have won more. do with BECTU being particularly bad, but just about how But it’s not all bad. We made real progress and we’ll continue unions work at the moment. There’s a need to change unions to organise and campaign. to make them more democratic and member-led, and more We’ll continue to fight for the Living Wage, though not determined to win. having new pay negotiations until 2016 is a problem. While It’s been a pretty intense nine months, and I’m still letting they’re less spectacular than strikes for the Living Wage, things settle and working out what I think about it all. I feel there are plenty of other issues we need to organise around very pleased that we voted to reject the first offer and in our workplace. In the bar, for instance, there’s a crap dish - squeezed out a bit more, if only a bit. When that offer was on washer that breaks down all the time, and they just won’t re - the table, a group of us were getting ready to go and see place it. That’s not a massive thing but it makes life a misery, Pride , and I felt like we’d be letting ourselves down if we ac - and there are loads of things like that. cepted and then went to watch a film about the miners’ During the dispute, our branch meetings were always strike! I’m sorry we voted for the second deal, but I feel like completely taken up by the Living Wage campaign. Now we saved our honour as strikers. When we went to see the we’ll have more time to discuss other things, and I think peo - film we were pretty loud and bolshy! ple will feel confident to challenge management over them The really positive stuff, the dynamics of the struggle, of when we’ve had such a good fight. how our relationships strengthened and changed as we or - For sure we’ll also continue to support other disputes, in - ganised during the strike — all that remains. So do the les - cluding the wider campaign for the Living Wage. A big part soTnsh efo Rr iottzhye’sr wa ovrekrpyl apcaerst.i cular place, but if we can do it, of that will be continuing the work to unionise other Picture - anyone can do it. I hope our struggle inspires other peo - houses and cinemas more generally. Progress has been slow, ple to get organised and fight. but then it usually is when workers start to organise. For us 311 REPNOERWTS Tube strike called for NHS service saved from privatisation Older People’s and Adult 14-16 October Community Services in exercise. Cambridgeshire have A campaign spokesper - By Ollie Moore office on the network is be participating. Drivers’ been awarded to an NHS son said “However, we be - slated for closure, LU plans union ASLEF has not sup - lieve the competitive London Underground bid after a campaign to to only install 150 new auto - ported any RMT strike on prevent them being pri - procurement process was workers will strike on 14, matic ticket machines to re - this issue, although ASLEF both unnecessary and 15, and 16 October. vatised. place them. reps in some locations have higThhley cwaamstpeafuigl.n” is also Tube union RMT is fight - Tube workers struck in respected RMT picket lines. Virgin Care and a con - calling for other services ing to stop management im - February and April against The Tube strike coincides sortium led by Care UK to be brought back in posing massive staffing cuts the cuts, forcing concessions with strikes by workers in both had bids which house and for the CCG and the closure of every from management on issues civil service union PCS on would have seen them in not to open up other ticket office on the network. like salary and location. But the 15 October and forms control of nearly £1 billion services to bidding from the RMT remains opposed part of a week long series of worth of NHS services. The cuts would see a re - London Underground plans to private providers. to the entire cuts plan itself. strikes in the public sector. The campaign collected duction of nearly 1,000 close all ticket offices posts, with some stations set Phil Hufton, London Un - A Tube worker told Soli - signatures from 5,500 and to lose more than 50% of derground’s Chief Operat - darity : “Like the public sec - ests come first, or a system held several demos and their staff. ing Officer, hired tor pay strikes, our strike is where every corner is cut to stunts to raise awareness. specifically to implement about the government’s aus - Despite keeping the Major stations will lose savTeh em roanneky-.”and-file bul - these cuts, is leaving LU for terity project. The Coali - services in NHS hands the significant numbers of Full letin Tubeworker , pro - a job at Network Rail. tion’s 12.5% cut to Transport campaign is still highly Time Equivalent (FTE) posts duced by Workers’ Liberty Labour Greater London As - for London’s central govern - critical of the Clinical from their rosters, with Ox - members who work on sembly members like Val ment funding has been Commissioning Group’s ford Circus set to lose 5.2 London Underground Shawcross have asked ques - passed onto us by our em - (CCG) process. They claim FTE posts, King’s Cross St. along with other socialists tions in the Assembly about ployers. We’re saying: fund over £1 million has been Pancras 7.6, Paddington 8.4, and radicals on the Tube, how staffing cuts will affect public transport properly, wasted on the unnecessary and Victoria 8.2. Barons is pushing for more local communities. don’t cut jobs. Our strike Court, in West London, will strikes to be called to fol - Smaller Tube union TSSA, isn’t just an industrial battle be hardest hit, with a 58% low up the October action. cut to its staffing level. which joined RMT in the between us and our bosses, The cuts will also see lone February strike but which it’s a fight for what kind of working introduced at over has since held back from Tube service we want in •For more information, visit 50% of Tube stations, and al - calling further industrial ac - London – one run where workersliberty.org/twblog though every existing ticket tion, has indicated it will not staff and passengers’ inter -

mental health problems. plans to tax disability bene - The hospitality industry is fits and to pay welfare ben - ISS Disability poorly-unionised and efits not in cash but on kitchens are notoriously smartcards which can only cleaners fightback high-pressure, stressful be spent on certain prod - places to work. ucts. Mental health problems We can not confirm ru - settle By Janine Booth, co- do not just prevent people mours that MPs will have No cuts to Sure Start! chair, TUC Disabled from working, they are their expenses paid on dispute often caused or exacer - smartcards that can not be By Dave Pannett pressure over the nature of Workers’ Committee bated by work. used to pay for unneces - By Jonny West (personal capacity) the consultation process, Tackling workplace bul - sary second homes, duck Tube cleaners em - 100 parents, children and which only asked how to lying and stressful working houses or porn channel ployed by contractor Sure Start workers in cut the £5million rather than MENTAL HEALTH conditions would be a subscriptions. ISS have returned to Newcastle presented a whether to do so. much more effective way Meanwhile, coalition work, after a months- petition of almost 4000 A final decision on carry - PILOTS to address mental health partners the Liberal De - signatures against cuts to Campaigners fear that long lock out. ing out the cuts will be problems than cranking up mocrats voted down an the service. made as part of budget government “pilot the pressure on benefit amendment to a resolution Workers were locked schemes” to “help unem - The proposal sees £5 mil - round in February 2015. claimants. at their party conference out of work without pay Campaigners hope that ployed people with men - that called for the scrap - for refusing to use bio - lion lost from Sure Start tal health problems find DEFEND THE ILF! Labour councillors will take We reported in the last ping of the “bedroom tax”. metric fingerprinting ma - children’s centres and wider work” will lead to people a stand against closing cen - issue of Solidarity that chines. family services in Newcas - being bullied off benefits TUC DEMONSTRATION tres and cutting staff and activists are pursuing a The TUC’s ‘demonstra - ISS, which has a his - tle. and will not address the serIfv tichees . cuts go ahead court case against the tion on 18 October will in - tory of using immigra - The campaign has causes of mental ill- they will be implemented abolition of the Inde - clude facilities and tion law against its brought together trade health. mainly-migrant work - union members from Uni - just a month before a gen - pendent Living Fund arrangements to enable eral election which could (ILF). disabled people to take force, had openly admit - son as well as parents Some Employment and groups. return a Labour govern - Support Allowance (ESA) part. ted that the data collected There will be a vigil in Councillors are under ment. claimants will be offered would be shared with the support of the legal chal - Government austerity employment support and UK Border Agency. lenge outside the court policies are hitting disabled “psychiatric help’. It is The locked-out clean - hearing at the Royal Courts people hard, and employ - Construction workers’ ironic that the government ers have been given a of Justice on the Strand, ment discrimination is wiling to provide such number of options, in - London, on Wednesday 22 against disabled people is help to get people off bene - cluding returning to pay ballot October from 12:30. endemic and widespread. fits while many people It is essential that the work on alternative con - who want and need ther - CONFERENCE CUTS workers’ movement tracts without biometric By Gerry Bates drivers are fed up. They apy have to wait months or Party conference season makes itself accessible finTguebrperwinotrinkge.r called for have endured years of pay has seen the announce - to disabled people, in - a cleaners’ strike, voted UCATT members at crane cuts and seen their pay fall even years on waiting lists. company HTC Plant Ltd The BBC illustrated its ment of more attacks on cluding on major national for by ISS RMT mem - in real terms. The industry disabled people. mobilisations such as bers, to be called at the are being balloted in a dis - is booming but their em - report on these pilot pute over pay. schemes with the case of a this. same time as LU staff ployers are not prepared to The Tories’ Iain Duncan Access details: chef who has been unable struck against cuts and paTyh uep b.” allot closes on 27 Smith heads the pack with bit.ly/ZQ9Itp Steve Murphy, General to work recently because of closures. Secretary of construction October. union UCATT, said: “Crane No 339 8 October Solidarity 2014 30p/80p Syrian Kurds face ISIS massacre

By Simon Nelson with Kobani in order to stop aid, people, and arms Tuesday 7 October: going in both directions. Forces of the “Islamic The Turkish government State” movement (ISIS) of Recep Tayyip Erdogan have entered the Kurdish has ensured that some parts city of Kobani on the Syr - of the border have been per - ian-Turkish border. meable for Syrian opposi - After taking a hill com - tion forces since 2011, but manding the city on 5 Octo - areas directly neighbouring ber, ISIS has now begun to Kurdish controlled territory enter at ground level. have been severely re - Kobani had taken in hun - stricted. dreds of thousands of On Thursday 2 October refugees and was touted at the Turkish parliament one time as a safe haven for voted 298 to 98 to authorise those escaping IS. the Turkish military to enter Previous incursions of IS Syria or Iraq in action members into Kobani had against ISIS, and to allow been quashed by the Kur - foreign troops to launch op - dish People’s Protection erations from Turkey. The Units (YPG), but it looks parliament previously au - like street by street fighting thorised Turkish military will now see the city taken, operations to enter Iraq or leading to a massacre of Syria to attack Kurdish sep - Kurds and other minorities aratists, or to thwart threats who have previously fled from the Syrian regime. the Kurdish representatives ingly fractured Arab-chau - to return to ISIS-held posi - ISIS; the ISIS. Something over But it looks as if Turkish in good faith to ensure the vinist colouration of the op - tions. • Open criticism of the 180,000 have fled onwards military action will come, if ongoing peace process, position, Kurdish groups Turkey maintains it will Turkish government for its into Turkey. at all, only after the Kurds which holds much promise. have refused to do so, and not participate in the US-led repression of its own Kur - ISIS has continued to have been crushed and “As Kurdish political rep - Turkey continues its long airstrikes over Syria or Iraq. dish citizens and Kurdish bombard the area with ar - massacred, leaving Turkey resentatives of Rojava [Syr - held opposition to Kurdish Socialists can have no refugees from Syria; tillery and fire power that is able to control territory it ian Kurdistan] have autonomy. confidence in the US-led • A demand on all coun - way beyond the light arms takes from ISIS without any repeatedly declared, if they Turkey’s intransigence coalition: its bombing in tries in the region that they and machine guns of the Kurdish challenge. are recognised as a legiti - stems from its campaign Afghanistan over nearly 13 allow arms to flow to the YPG and other Kurdish Turkish academics mate authority and pro - against Kurdish rights and years has allowed the Tal - Kurdish fighting forces fighters. protesting against their gov - vided with the needed the Kurdistan Workers iban to rebuild a political (YPG and others); Reports of individual ernment’s stance have writ - weaponry and other sup - Party (PKK). , and in Iraq it inter - • An end to British and bravery from the Kurdish ten: port, they are capable of When 49 Turkish venes on the side of a Shia- Western military alliance forces include Arin Mirkin “In expressing our soli - driving away the threat of hostages were captured by sectarian Baghdad with Turkey unless it allows from the YPG Women’s darity [with Kobani], we ISIS.” ISIS, Turkey entered into government and in league arms and Kurdish fighters Protection Unit, who died need to stress the fact this Erdogan’s Government negotiations for their re - with such powers as Saudi back into Syria to defend in a grenade attack which statement is not a call for has called on the Kurds to lease and reached a bargain Arabia. theTihr ep eUoSp lle dfr oamirs ItSrIikS.es also killed ten IS fighters. any military aggression or join the official Syrian oppo - meaning that ISIS members Campaigners are calling have had little impact Turkey remains a barrier occupation, including that sition to Assad, and sug - held by anti-Assad forces for: against ISIS, which con - to an effective fight against of the Turkish military. We gested that they will get that have a relationship • Solidarity with the tinues also to make ad - ISIS in the region. Troops encourage the Turkish gov - Turkish support if they do with Ankara released their forces in Kobani and Rojava vances in Iraq. have massed on the border ernment to negotiate with that. Because of the increas - prisoners and allowed them (Syrian Kurdistan) against KURDISH SOLIDARITY A Kurdish Solidarity Campaign has been launched in Nottingham. Contact it via Pete Radcliff at [email protected]. The Worker-Communist Party of Iraqi Kurdistan are also campaigning for defence against ISIS, and can be contacted via [email protected]. They demonstrated outside the Turkish Embassy in London on 7 October with the demands “Kobani Must be Free. No to ISIS! No to Islamic Fascism!”