It was billed as a "March and Rally for the Alternative: Jobs,
Growth and Justice". On Sunday, September 18th, over two thousand trade unionists and political activists descended on Birmingham
to march and rally with the aim of trying to bring pressure on the Lib
Dems at their conference in the city to break with the Tory policies of
the Condem government.
It’s official. November 30th is the agreed date
for a national “day of strike action” by public sector unions and others
against the government’s plans over pensions. It is expected that three million
workers could strike in what has been called the “biggest mobilisation in a
generation.” Unison, Unite and the GMB have given notice that they will ballot
their members, joining other public sector unions in what is intended to be the
start of a rolling campaign of action, which will go through the winter and into
2012.
According to press reports the Fine Gael and Labour
parliamentary “think ins” this week were upbeat and confident. Although
the Irish Times reports that both parties were warned “to brace
themselves for the bumpy ride ahead”. There has been talk
about Enda’s “honeymoon period” over the last few months. Although in
large measure the new coalition is benefitting from not being Fianna Fáil or the Green Party, while Enda Kenny is doing well in the polls for being neither Brian Cowen nor Brian Lenihan.
Barnet Council workers are taking action on Tuesday – however the bosses
are attempting to impose a ‘lock out’ to pressurize Unison members
into backing out. This is just the latest in a series of attacks
initiated by Tory-led councils against workers resisting the cuts.
Plymouth has ‘derecognised’ Unison and Soujthampton workers have been
taking action for some weeks now.
On the tenth anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers millions of
people will relive the horrors of that fateful day. The television
screens are filled with shocking images of death and destruction.
As part of our coverage on the 10th anniversary of the "9/11" events, we republish here an interesting article by
Dr Tomasz Pierscionek, first published on the London Progressive
website, which compares the events of 11th September 2001 with that of
the 11th September 1973 – the other 9/11.
It is ten
years today since in 2001 an outrageous attack killed 3000 innocent
people and maimed hundreds of others in New York. This anniversary will
be commemorated at a grand ceremony in New York where the US elite will
gather in an outpouring of more pseudo-patriotism and chauvinism to dupe
the working classes of the mightiest empire in history which is now
plagued with economic disaster and social decay
The world
crisis of capitalism has entered a new stage. Rather than recover,
several countries are showing features of a depression. This is an
unprecedented situation and shows the deep malaise affecting the
capitalist system, still reeling from the slump of 2008-9.
The period between 1918 and 1939 was the most revolutionary in world
history. It was touch and go for the survival of capitalism. A
devastating blow could and should have been inflicted against global
capitalism in China in 1925-7, instead the opportunity was frittered
away.
Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee have issued a report which comes as close as they dare to damning the
Private Finance Initiative (PFI) approach used over the last decade or so to
fund public projects.
Here is a video posted on YouTube by ReelNews of the two demos held in London by protesting site workers. Click here to watch!
The IMT World School that was held in
Italy between 31 July and 5 August was a tremendous success. About 225
comrades from many different countries and continents travelled to the
Italian seaside resort of Marina de Massa in order to attend a week of
intense but enjoyable and educational meetings.