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 KD Tait Left Unity’s Policy Conference on 15-16 November in London saw members pass a series of policy documents that revealed the party’s strengths and its weaknesses. KD Tait reports Left Unity’s mission statement is to build a ‘broad party of the left’ that can become a serious challenge to Labour. The conditions for […]
By KD Tait The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) has published an appeal for the left to discuss the formation of a united electoral challenge at the 2015 General Election.[1] Our answer is yes – we should present a clear socialist alternative to capitalist austerity in as many constituencies as possible. The entire left, especially Left […]
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 […]
By Bernie McAdam and Darren O’Coghaidhin Ireland is in the midst of a massive revolt against its government’s attempts to slap water charges on the Irish people. On October 11, at least 100,000 marched in Dublin to protest against this regressive tax. On November 1, a total of some 200,000 marched in over one hundred […]
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, […]
By KD Tait The ritual central London march for free education, a staple of the student activist’s Autumn calendar for 15 years, has been called for 19 November by a coalition of student campaigns under the slogan ‘no to debt, no to fees – yes to free education’. The defeat of the 2010 student […]
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 […]
Britain’s public sector unions launched a coordinated strike on 10 July to break the pay freeze. With a further strike due on 14 October and the TUC organising a national demo under the slogan, “Britain needs a pay rise” on the 18th, Jeremy Dewar reports on the tasks facing trade unionists Britain remains in […]