Admin and clerical workers at Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust recently staged five days of strike action against attempts to cut wages and jobs. With action expected to escalate, Mike Black sent in this report from Leeds. To start by backtracking a bit – Unite Leeds Teaching Hospitals Branch invited Dave, a Unison Steward from Mid Yorkshire to […]
The government’s latest changes to workers’ pensions will mean most people will be worst off. It is another attack on the welfare state and one designed to boost the coffers of the City of London, writes Keith Spencer
On Sat 2nd Feb 250 people marched through Halifax town centre demanding an end to the cuts. Local residents are facing the closure of a youth club and an NHS walk-in centre amongst other public services. Beginning at Halifax Town Hall, we marched through the streets chanting “banks get bailed out – we get sold out!” […]
“France represents only humanitarian interests,” insists French president François Hollande. It is a solely a case of the war on terror, an attempt to stop al-Qaeda gaining another Afghanistan or Somalia – a collapsed state from which to mount operations into the “civilised” world of the imperialist powers. It might seem strange that after a […]
Read issue 369 here THE COALITION government is determined to start 2013 as it means to go on: by making workers, benefit claimants, pensioners and young people pay for the ongoing economic crisis. Austerity is now set to last till 2018 at least. A decade of pain. Not for themselves of course. This government has […]
Marcus Halaby and Jeremy Dewar take apart the bosses’ argument that keeping wages down helps preserve jobs. The pressure is mounting on union leaders in the public sector for a coordinated pay campaign. The National Union of Teachers is likely to call a strike in March, the University and College Union could join them and the Public […]
The vicious beating and gang-rape of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi, who died in hospital two weeks later, sparked outrage across India and the world, writes Joy Mcready The brutality and premeditation of the attack – six men conspired to snatch a woman in order to rape and kill her – spawned mass protests […]
Marcus Halaby analyses the great – and as yet uncompleted – Arab revolutions of 2011, debunking a number of myths and proving the relevance of Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution today.
By Bernie McAdam, Sandwell NUT The National Union of Teachers (NUT) is gearing up for a national strike on Wednesday 13 March, possibly coinciding with a European TUC Day of Action against austerity. This is a direct response to Tory Education Secretary Michael Gove’s vicious attack on teachers’ pay. His plans will involve […]
The task of the day is to organise citizens’ defence committees to defend the Short Strand and Catholic communities, says Bernie McAdam. These could then become the basis of a political alternative to the government’s cuts programme and the continuing repression
This is the transcript of an interview conducted by Workers Power with Jerry Hicks. Credit where credit’s due, McCluskey’s speech, his Ralph Miliband lecture, was good – though he lifted most of it out of a speech I made back in 2009 – and he said I was exaggerating then – so he’s three years […]
By Rebecca On 16 January the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) NEC decided to ballot a quarter of a million civil and public servants for strike action over sustained government attacks. Increased pension contributions and four years of pay freezes and caps mean that civil servants will have seen their income cut by 16 per […]
2012 was a year to forget for the Tories. It was, in the main, a year to forget for student activists as well, writes K D Tait. The first year of £9,000 fees saw a 10 per cent drop in student numbers. September saw the government try to deport thousands of overseas students from London […]
The start of 2013 will mean even more cutting back for a lot of families as George Osborne announces further cuts to benefits and working tax credits. Sally Turner reports
By Sally Turner The Tories are planning to pass new laws to stop Travellers setting up sites to live on. This follows the violent eviction of Dale Farm, where an entire community was forced off their land by a militarised police operation. Britain’s Traveller community has been the victim of decades of racist attacks by Labour […]
Finally, Desmond de Silva’s report into the murder of Pat Finucane, the Belfast solicitor, has been released. The Report found that there were ‘shocking levels of state collusion’ in the murder. It told of the ‘wilful and abject failure by successive governments’ to run agents lawfully. It confirmed that Pat Finucane had been murdered by […]
Len McCluskey has called a snap election for the top job in Unite, even though he has over two years left to run in the post. This is outrageous and undemocratic, says Jeremy Dewar
Excerpt from The Degenerated Revolution: The Rise and Fall of the Stalinist States, D. Hughes and P. Main Eds., Prinkipo, 2012 (Revised 2nd edition), 584pp, £10 This article was originally written in 1983. This article from 1991 provides an analysis of the introduction of capitalist market reforms following the dissolution of the USSR, this article from 1997 looks […]
A temporary ceasefire has brought some relief to the besieged and oppressed 1.7 million people crammed into the 140 square miles of the Gaza Strip, where one in five children suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and 58 per cent of young people aged between 20 and 24 are unemployed. David Stockton writes
Two TV programmes: one shown and one not, have plunged the BBC into crisis, with resignations of the director general, accusations of libel, poor editorial standards and staff morale plummeting even further. By Keith Spencer
An evening rally and demo called for solidarity with the 14 November European general strikes – but union leaders expose the gulf between the British movement and that of the mainland, says Jeremy Dewar
On November 21 the National Union of Students (NUS) will march in London under the slogan ‘Educate, Employ, Empower’. The protest is supported by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC), Education Activists Network (EAN) and the UCU. Activists across the country are organising for the biggest possible turnout, but participation seems uneven and […]
Gove’s reactionary policy for schools means… Education for exploitation, argues James Copley
Imperialism in the dock by Marcus Halaby
By Shahzad Arshad On 11 November, the Awami Workers’ Party was founded in Lahore. Initially, this party will organise some 15,000 working class activists, youth and students. This is still far from a mass party in a country of 172 million, but this includes many of the most politically advanced working class fighters, who can […]
By Jeremy Dewar On 25 October, Ford stunned workers at its Southampton transit van and Dagenham stamping plants, announcing 1,400 job cuts and the closure of both sites next year. Unions say job losses could be as high as 2,000. Closure would threaten a further 10,000 jobs in the supply chain. The US car giant […]
By Joy Macready Women council workers in Birmingham, including cooks, cleaners, caterers and care staff, have struck another blow against inequality. On 24 October a Supreme Court ruling upheld 174 city council workers’ rights to compensation over missed bonuses from 2004 to 2010. Male workers on the same grade received extra money that the women […]
It’s no longer a question of if we need a general strike, but how can we get one. As 2012 ends and a new year begins the economic, political and social crisis of capitalism continues and even deepens. Two and a half million people are spending their mid-winter break with little cheer: jobless, broke and […]
By Stu Bates On 15 April 1989, 96 Liverpool supporters attending the FA cup semi-final at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough stadium never returned home. Now, 20 years on, a new independent report has exposed a massive police cover-up. The police and Sheffield Wednesday bosses were to blame for the disaster, not the fans. The stadium failed […]
By Joy Macready, at the Firenze 10+10 conference In November 2002 the first European Social Forum in Florence issued the call for worldwide anti-war demonstrations on February 15, 2003. To mark its tenth anniversary, 1,500 activists gathered there for an event titled Firenze 10+10. The title was meant to indicate the meeting would draw of […]