6 February 2015 As the US moves to ‘normalise’ relations with Cuba, Jeremy Dewar asks is this the end of the Cuban road to socialism? “These 50 years have shown that isolation has not worked. It’s time for a new approach.” With these words President Barack Obama announced on 17 December the first softening towards […]

5 February 2015 The Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris on 7 January, when two terrorists murdered 12 journalists, a worker and a police officer, shocked the world, as did the subsequent killing of Jewish shoppers two days later. Dave Stockton and Marcus Halaby analyse the events and their aftermath In France, secularism (laicité) and biting […]

By Svenja Spunck, 4 February 2015 On the morning of January 29, in Turkey, 15,000 workers in the metal industry downed tools. The left trade union confederation DISK (Devrimci İşçi Sendikalari Konfederasyonu – Confederation of Revolutionary Workers Unions) had called for a nationwide strike in 40 factories. These include many multinational companies such as Schneider, […]

Editorial, Workers Power No. 381, February 2015 It is a total diversion to call for a vote for capitalist parties like the SNP, or for the middle class Greens, who do not have any historical or organised links to the working class and do not even claim to represent it. We should criticise the pro-capitalist […]

By Rebecca Anderson, 30 January 2015 The National Executive Committee of the Public and Commercial Services union has made the outrageous decision to cancel annual elections for both their own committee and the Group Executive Committees that lead the various departmental unions, like the DWP. Ironically the current leadership of PCS took the leadership of […]

By Darren O’Coghaidhin, 29 January 2015 Hospital A&E units are suffering their worst crisis since the founding of the NHS in 1948. Nurses warn that patient safety is being is increasingly being compromised by growing pressures across the system. Quarterly performance figures from NHS England for the last quarter of 2014 showed that, for the […]

International Secretariat, League for the Fifth International – Wed, 28/01/2015 The elections of 25 January in Greece represent a historic moment in Europe. A left party, which defies the central economic policy not only of its own ruling class but the agreed policy of the rulers of the European Union, has topped the polls, falling […]

Is all criticism equal?

By Tobi Hansen and KD Tait 19 January 2015 A snap general election in Greece looks set to end in victory for radical left wing party Syriza, ending a six-year monopoly of pro-austerity governments across Europe. The prospect of a government that rejects the massive social cuts and privatisation dictated by the European Union institutions […]

By Bernie McAdam On 13 January over 20,000 London striking bus drivers in Unite paralysed services. Pickets were held outside every bus garage in the capital. Boris Johnson’s claim that a third of the service was running is rubbish. Only one in 10 routes were active, if you can call one bus every 20 minutes […]

By Peter Main Despite his characteristic boasting that he would win with ease, Mahinda Rajapaksa was defeated in the Sri Lankan Presidential election by a substantial margin, 51.3 to 47.6. Good, not because his successor is qualitatively better but because the change of government will mean, at least temporarily, a relaxation of the autocratic rule […]

The 7 January attack on the offices of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, in which 12 people were killed, must be condemned without equivocation. It was an attack carried out by advocates of a reactionary political philosophy rejected by the overwhelming majority of France’s Muslims as well by French workers and young people. It […]

By KD Tait Ukraine’s parliament has approved a programme of economic shock therapy described by an MP from the ruling coalition as amounting to “genocide”. The government says these measures are necessary to reform Ukraine’s bankrupt economy. Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk revealed the scale of its ambition: “everything that wasn’t done in the past 23 […]

Chancellor George Osborne’s early Christmas present came in the form of the Autumn Statement, which threatened to cut public spending to levels not seen since the 1930s, writes Jeremy Dewar Despite early attempts by the Tories to spin the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement as a tweaking of their austerity programme, with Prime Minister David Cameron even […]

By Rico Rodriguez On 26 September, a protest by students in Iguala, a city of over 100,000 people, in the state of Guerrero in southwest México, was heavily repressed with police opening fire on the demonstrators. Six people were killed, many more injured and 43 students arrested. Since then none of them have been seen […]

By Marcus Halaby Why hasn’t Richard Brenner answered the AWL broadsheet’s claims (and the comments, above)? Why doesn’t Workers’ Power reply? The fact is: they can’t. They don’t write anything because they know they’ve made a bad mistake. They don’t write anything because they’re not able to admit it. Because they’re a sect, run by […]

UKIP slashed a Labour majority from 5,971 in 2010 to 617 in Heywood and Middleton last month, setting the pundits claiming that UKIP could damage Labour’s vote at the general election. Could UKIP block a Labour majority in 2015? UKIP has made big gains since 2010, with a breakthrough in the May 2014 EU elections […]

By Joy Macready The campaign for a £10 an hour minimum wage is gaining momentum – and it’s about time. Everyone deserves a decent wage. Following a unanimous vote at the TUC’s congress, it is now official trade union policy. Let’s give a huge cheer for the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU), which […]

By Peter Main November is expected to see a Grand Jury decide not to indict Darren Wilson, a white policeman, for the shooting of the unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on 9 August. To undermine the well-known eyewitness accounts that Brown had his hands in the air when shot, highly selective quotes […]

As the fight for a living wage begins to take off here in Britain, Chris Clough takes inspiration from the Fight for $15 campaign in the US Fast food workers are causing a storm at the heart of the world’s most powerful nation. A movement for a $15 an hour minimum wage has spread like […]

Andy Yorke is bemused and disgusted in equal measure by the airspace and column inches afforded to UKIP’s Nigel Farage. Time to unmask the racist party Two by-elections in October saw the anti-EU, anti-immigrant UK Independence Party win its first MP in Clacton, and come a close second to Labour in Heywood and Middleton. Panicked […]

By Marcus Halaby As next year’s general election approaches, working class people across Britain will be thinking about who to vote for, or whether to vote at all. Labour’s abject failure to oppose austerity has allowed capitalist parties like the Scottish National Party and the middle class Greens to pose as a radical alternative to […]

By KD Tait Negotiations to form a government are underway after parliamentary elections held on 26 October delivered an overwhelming majority for pro-EU parties. The widespread boycott of the elections in the Eastern regions resulted in a nationwide turnout of just 51 per cent. The two rebel regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, with 27 seats, […]

The November 2014 issue of Workers Power is out now. [scribd-url pubid=”24852238179500127593153362″ url=”https://workerspower.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/WP380p01-08small.pdf” ]   Click here to read online (pdf) or select an article below Save the NHS – support the healthworkers’ strike No to the bombing of Syria and Iraq – solidarity with Kobane! Vote Labour – and build a socialist alternative UKIP: a racist, […]

As the Autumn’s coordinated strike action stalls, Jeremy Dewar reviews the unions’ record and asks how we can stop the retreat Up to 150,000 marched in London, Glasgow and Belfast in October in response to the TUC’s call, “Britain needs a pay rise”. There was wild applause in Hyde Park for our leaders’ speeches, none […]

The giant metalworkers’ trade union Numsa has been campaigning for the labour movement to break with the ruling ANC and form a new working class party. Now union federation Cosatu is threatening its expulsion. Jeremy Dewar reports As we go to press, the South African labour movement faces a historic crisis. Cosatu, the 2.2 million […]

By Marcus Halaby As the Western powers bomb Iraq and Syria under the pretext of fighting the Islamic State, attention has been drawn to the struggle of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) to defend the Syrian Kurdish enclave of Kobane. On the border with Turkey, Kobane has been besieged by the ultra-reactionary IS for […]

By Bernie McAdam As health unions call a second strike on 24 November, NHS England’s five-year plan demands more funding. But the plan is a trap for staff and patients. NHS England Chief Executive Simon Stevens argues that the NHS needs a further £8 billion by 2020, as limited resources lag behind increasing patient demand. […]

By Christian Gebhardt Podemos, the expression of what has been called “the new politics” in Spain, has just held its first Citizens’ Assembly; the opening of a month long process of deciding on the party’s policies, constitution and candidates for next year’s general and municipal elections. Addressing over 8,000 people in the Palacio de Vistalegre, […]

Union leaders across the public services have called off many of their planned strikes in the run-up to the TUC’s “Britain needs a pay rise” demo. In a matter of just a few days, the union leaders managed to tear up their own flawed battleplan for smashing the pay freeze. First to tear up their […]