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.
This Thursday 17th Sept will see a Day Of Action taking place in
support of the sacked Vestas workers. Meetings and rallies will be
taking place all around the country. 600 jobs have been lost at the Vestas
plant on the Isle Of Wight. Workers from the closed factory were at the
TUC in Liverpool this week and got a great reception. The demand
remains: nationalise the factory, keep the jobs.
The coup in Honduras and the stepping
up of a US military presence in Colombia are serious warnings to the
masses of Latin America. On top of this the present world economic
crisis is having an impact on the Venezuelan economy. All this is
posing very sharply the need for a turn to a genuine revolutionary
programme on the part of the Bolivarian movement.
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.
During his election campaign,
President Barack Obama promised to be all things to all people. After
eight years of Bush and Cheney, Americans desperately wanted to believe
that real change was coming. In this statement from the Editorial Board of the US Marxist paper, Socialist Appeal, they ask – what change and who is benefiting?
In Will Hay’s classic farce ‘Oh, Mr Porter!’ the new stationmaster arrives to
be greeted at Buggleskelly ticket office with the words “Next train gone.” For thousands
of travelers on the modern day farce of London Midland network last Sunday it was a case of “No
trains coming.”
As
the consequences of the capitalist crisis continue to unfold before our eyes,
it is becoming clear just how much of an impact this recession is having on
education. The main focus of this article
is on just how much of an impact debt forced on parents is having on their
children’s education and therefore their future.
We are republishing this appeal from
Syrian left-wing activists which has been widely circulated and first
appeared on www.marxist.com. The appeal calls for clarification of the
whereabouts of
several left-wing activists who have disappeared over the last months
and the release of all those imprisoned. We encourage our readers to
support their appeal and write letters of protest.