September 2009

We are migrating servers on Monday 21st Sept. This may mean some
disruption to both this site and the bookshop site whilst the move is
taking place.

For the capitalists, this Great
Recession could be more or less over, but the level of spare capacity
in industry and construction together with the level of debt still owed
by businesses, government and households alike mean that this recovery
may be stunted. Every major capitalist economy now finds that it has
more than 30% more capacity than it needs to meet demand. That is a
record high of overcapacity in industry.

Here are some pictures from the refuse workers’ picket line in Leeds.

This summer, Alan Woods delivered a speech on the nature of
the present crisis of capitalism, in which he deals with the
relationship between the economic cycle and the class struggle, and
also looks into what kind of recovery we can expect, considering the
enormous contradictions that have accumulated within the system.

Despite a desperate effort from the
Scottish Government, trade unions, the main opposition parties and many
celebrities, Diageo has pressed ahead with plans to cut up to 900 jobs in the
west of Scotland.
The plans will see the closure of the famous Johnnie Walker whisky bottling
plants at Port Dundas in Glasgow and Kilmarnock in Ayrshire.

On Monday 7
September UNISON Branch Secretary, Jim Board was suspended by Doncaster
council for allegedly “failing to follow a reasonable management instruction”
relating to an e mail to all employees not to speak to the media about the
Edlington trial. But support for
Jim came this Saturday as over 300 demonstrated outside the
Mansionhouse in the centre of Doncaster to
protest against his suspension.

Details have just been announced for this years conference of the
Labour Representation Committee (LRC), meeting on London on Saturday
14th November. Socialist Appeal supports the work of the LRC and will be at the conference again this year. Why not come along?

Today is the 11th
day of the teachers’ strike at Tower Hamlets College. It is the
first continuous teachers’ strike, with picket lines every day,
that has been seen in the UK for 12 years and it seems to be picking
up a great momentum. The strike is taking place at all four sites of
the College, that is, at: Arbour Square, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel
and Poplar.

Last Saturday’s special meeting of the United Left – the
broad left grouping in the two-million strong UNITE union – ended in a split
after supporters of left-winger Jerry Hicks were excluded on spurious grounds.
The reason for the meeting was to choose the left’s candidate to run for
General Secretary in 2010.