By James Copley As we go to press, the death toll from the super typhoon Haiyan is rapidly mounting in the Philippines as it smashed through the Pacific nation. Deaths are reported to have topped 10,000, yet the true count is still far from complete. The typhoon has wrought destruction across the islands. […]
By Marcus Halaby A new rank and file grouping in Britain’s largest and most important trade union, Unite, will be founded by a conference to be held in February or March next year. This was decided by a constructive meeting of Unite members in the SWP and the Grassroots Left, with observers from Workers […]
Editorial – Workers Power No.375 / November 2013 By Jeremy Dewar In any period of time – be it the term of a government or a trade union general secretary’s career – a moment comes when, amidst the welter of events, a home truth emerges. At the end of October, Unite leader Len McCluskey […]
By Peter Main There will be no limits on the extravagance of the ceremonies that will greet the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) when they arrive in Sri Lanka. As they are whisked from the airport to their hotels along the newly completed Expressway, built and operated by Chinese capital, they will see […]
Fuelled by racist myths, a new wave of anti-Roma racism is sweeping Europe. KD Tait argues for solidarity In October, Irish police kidnapped two young Roma children from separate Roma families. The parents and children were forced to undergo DNA tests, which proved… they were indeed related. This followed the case of Maria, a Roma […]
Postal workers urgently need to take control of their dispute and strike to win, says a CWU rep Postal workers in the CWU union are stuck in limbo awaiting the outcome of negotiations with Royal Mail bosses. Ten days ago CWU leaders cancelled the first day of strike action scheduled for 4 November in favour […]
By a CWU rep Just as postal workers around the country were gearing up for their first day of strike action this coming Monday, 4 November, leaders in the CWU postal union cancelled the action, supposedly to continue talks. A 30 October joint statement with Royal Mail bosses stated that they had made progress and […]
The row over a royal charter to regulate the press that erupted earlier this year was not about press freedom but about the desire of the billionaire newspaper owners to keep control of their moneymaking machines. Freedom of the press and of speech can only be guaranteed by the mass of people being involved […]
Russia on the eve of 1917 was a country dominated by the Tsar and a feudal aristocracy. In 1914, the Russian empire, allied with France which was its main source of the huge loans keeping its creaking system afloat, entered the First World War against Germany and Austria-Hungary. France had high hopes that the Tsar’s […]
By Jeremy Dewar UNITE, THE biggest union in Britain, which is under the leadership of Len McCluskey, one of the most outspoken left general secretaries, has accepted the most humiliating terms of surrender from Ineos, owners of the Grangemouth refinery and petrochemicals plant. On Friday 25 October the workforce cheered the announcement of a deal […]
Hospital Managers have always regarded On-call fees as expensive, but have never been prepared to take the even more expensive approach of employing enough staff to run a proper round-the-clock service. Consequently the old Out-of-Hours (OOH) question gets hauled out every few years for another fruitless run around the block. However the current attempts to […]
Thousands of teachers thronged Markham Street in Westminster between the Home Office and Department for Education, writes Bernie McAdam, NUT. Some started jumping up and down as loud calls rang out for “Gove to go”. You could feel the frisson in the air as the police did not quite know what was going to happen […]
16 October 2013 – by a CWU postal rep It was announced this afternoon that postal workers have voted four to one for a strike to defend their wages, conditions and jobs in a newly privatised Royal Mail. The postal Communication Workers Union (CWU) has announced the first strike date for the 4 November. The […]
By a CWU postal rep If all the local areas currently on strike and all militants across the union were to walk out, coordinate their actions and appeal for everyone to come out, postal workers could still wreck privatisation and defend jobs and the union. CWU leaders Dave Ward and Billy Hayes would object that […]
By Rebecca Anderson This year’s Tory party conference saw a bonfire of human rights, welfare and hope for an end to austerity. Chancellor George Osborne revised his deficit reduction estimate and announced a further seven years of cuts; Home Secretary Theresa May announced plans to scrap the Human Rights Act; and Prime Minister David Cameron […]
By Bernie McAdam The teachers’ unions NUT and NASUWT called the second and third of their regional strikes this month as they step up their fight against Education Secretary Michael Gove’s attacks on their pay, pensions and workload. Teachers from the Eastern, Midlands and Yorkshire and Humberside areas took one-day strike action on 1 October. […]
By Martin Suchanek, Gruppe Arbeitermacht “A huge victory for the international community” – that is what US President Barack Obama called the 27 September United Nations Security Council Resolution 2118 on chemical weapons in Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also praised the document to the skies, while German Foreign […]
By a CWU postal rep The Coalition have put two fingers up to Royal Mail workers and the great majority of the population who oppose privatisation. They have gone straight for a sell-off, and of all the days they could have picked to announce it, they chose the day the result of the CWU postal […]
By KD Tait The Revolutionary Socialists, formed around a core of former Socialist Worker Student Societies (SWSS) groups, have hit the ground running with successful interventions during Freshers’ Fairs at universities in Leicester, Leeds, Liverpool, London and Sheffield. With meetings of up to 50 students, three local zines launched, and a large presence on […]
By Jeremy Dewar Ed Miliband surprised supporters and opponents at the Labour Party conference this year. If they were expecting a copying of the Coalition’s policies, and defiant rhetoric aimed at the unions, then they were well wide of the mark. The sense that this was a break from Tony Blair’s New […]
By James Copley A crucial victory was won this month in Wigan, with workers in bakers’ union BFAWU forcing bosses at the Hovis factory to employ workers on full time rather than zero-hour contracts, and put an end to the routine use of agency labour. These precarious workers are super-exploited, not knowing from one […]
To the surprise of many, the conservative Greek government has launched a crackdown on the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn. KD Tait looks at the reasons for this and what it means for the working class movement Six MPs and around 30 party activists, including Golden Dawn’s top leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos and his deputy, have been arrested […]
The TUC’s recent call for a mid-week day of action was a response to pressure from the rank and file – and pressure from the rank and file is needed to make it happen. Twelve months ago, the 2012 TUC Congress passed a motion from the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) calling on the unions to […]
As the economy shows signs of growth, the bosses are determined to take the lion’s share George Osborne boasts that Britain’s economy is “turning a corner” and that “those in favour of a Plan B have lost the argument”. This bragging seems to be based on little beyond the latest Gross Domestic Product figures, […]
By Jeremy Dewar The Daily Mail is a rabid, racist and reactionary paper. It has history. So it was no surprise to see it fighting against Labour’s left turn. But even by its standards, its attack on Ed Miliband’s dead father was shocking. In an article titled, “The man who hated Britain”, the Mail quotes […]
By Richard Brenner On 1 February 1960, an impulsive and practically unplanned act of bravery by four black college students sparked the great civil rights’ revolt in the USA. The students went into a Woolworths store in Greensboro, North Carolina and then sat down at a lunch counter that was reserved for whites. A waitress […]
By KD Tait On 7 September, the Metropolitan Police arrested 286 antifascists for venturing away from the police-determined route for a demonstration against the English Defence League in Tower Hamlets. The arrest and detention of the 286 represents a further attack on our already eroded right to protest, and indeed on our human rights. Lawyers […]
Read online (PDF) The October issue featuring coverage of the party conferences, Left Unity, the upcoming postal workers’ strike, antifascism after Tower Hamlets and much more… Time for action Tory Party Conference: seven more years of austerity Labour’s left turn – and what we need to do Recovery […]
Read WP373 online (PDF)
KD Tait reports on how the rise in zero hour contracts exposes the bosses’ latest strategy to beat the crisis – at our expense First published by the Revolutionary Socialists Up to one million workers are employed on zero hour contracts in Britain. These contracts give people no guarantee of work, but force them to […]