Nov 30: Public sector day of rage
Tomorrow’s Public Sector strike will be easily the biggest
strike day since the General Strike of 1926. In fact far more workers will
participate in the strike than on the first day of the 1926 General Strike.
Schools, Government Departments, Council Depots, Offices and Health Services
will grind to a halt as workers protest about massive increases in contributions
and cuts to their pensions.
Minor Reduction in Fees Signals Government Weakness. No to all Fees!
News last week of 27 higher
education institutions lowering their 2012/2013 tuition fees to £7500
appears to have failed to have had a great impact on students/university
applicants. This could partly be put down to the lower fee still being
of a similar level to those being charged by other universities; many
potential students feel that they are going to be in so much debt when
they leave university that £4500 will not make much difference.
Egypt: SCAF-organised elections will not satisfy aspirations of the masses
On Friday more than a million Egyptian
youth, workers and poor yet again assembled in Tahrir Square. The
masses have once again risen in an attempt to remove the remnants of the
Mubarak regime, which are still in power. Not far from Tahrir, in
Abbassiya Square, not more than a couple of thousand people gathered in a
pathetic demonstration in support of the SCAF. To the sceptics who did
not believe in the revolution, this should be a clear demonstration of
the real balance of forces. But at the same time the revolution clearly
faces obstacles, not from external forces, but in its own internal
contradictions.
Editorial: Fight for a real alternative to capitalism
The 30th November day of action, for all intents and purposes a general
strike of the public sector, is a turning-point in Britain. It
represents a re-awakening of the working class after years of relative
dormancy. Now there is a catching up with the workers in the rest of
Europe, as the Coalition unleashes an austerity regime not seen for
generations. Sections are being drawn into struggle who have never been
involved in action before, such as head teachers – the first time they
have been on strike in their union’s 114-year history.
Where is China going?
After overtaking Japan, this year
China became the second largest economy in the world. Some experts have
even predicted that by the end of this decade China may become the
largest economy bypassing the United States. However, that is based on a
mechanical, empirical approach that sees China maintaining its present
levels of growth uninterruptedly for years to come. In the past Japan
was also supposed to keep on growing, but then its apparent meteoric
rise was cut across by a long period of stagnation.
Spanish elections: Socialist Party trounced – new right wing government faces acute capitalist crisi
The results of the Spanish elections on Sunday November 20
represented a massive defeat for the Socialist Party (PSOE) which had
introduced austerity measures to make the workers pay for the capitalist
crisis, rather than a victory for the right wing Popular Party (PP)
which will now have to introduce even more savage austerity cuts in the
face of the acute crisis of Spanish capitalism.
Egypt – masses rise against the army generals
Events in Egypt are developing at
lightning speed. Similarly to the last days of Mubarak in February this
year, we see daily battles on the streets of Cairo and elsewhere. The
Egyptian masses are determined to see the revolution carried through to
the end. The clash between revolution and counter-revolution is
provoking a crisis inside all political forces, as the rank and file
instinctively move towards revolution and the leaderships vacillate and
try to hold the masses back.
School students support Nov 30th action!
The one-day public sector strike on Nov 30th is not only getting support from the workers themselves but also from other sections of society. Here we publish a letter from a school student showing how they too are behind the strikers and their fight against the Tory attacks.
Marx was right!
The crisis of capitalism is
accompanied by a crisis of bourgeois thought: philosophy, economics,
morality – all are in a state of ferment. In place of the earlier
optimism that stated confidently that capitalism had solved all its
problems, there is an all-pervading mood of gloom. Not so long ago,
Gordon Brown confidently proclaimed “the end of boom and bust”. After
the crash of 2008 he was forced to eat his words.
Nov 30th – Ballot results
The ballot results are now pretty much all in for November 30th - here
is a summary (provided by the PCS union) of the various unions’ ballot
returns. Clearly the mood exists for a mighty struggle, not only on
November 30th but beyond. The TUC needs to take the next step and widemn
this fight out to take in all workers arounfd a 24 hour general strike.
The fight is not just over pensions; it’s jobs, pay and services – this
affects every worker in Britain and everybody must be involved in the
struggle against this government and the rotten system it defends at our
expense.