Extreme weather or extreme capitalist shortsightedness?
Public transport in London, that kept going throughout the blitz, pathetically
came to a halt on Monday February 2nd because of a few inches of
snow – or rather because of cost-cutting by private firms keener to make a fast
buck than to provide a decent service to Londoners. The whole public transport
system, rail and buses alike, is privately owned and run for profit. Staff did
their best to keep the service going, but they weren’t helped by management
cheese-paring. As far as they are concerned, workers are just a cost that needs
cutting back.
Wildcat strikes sweep Britain
In the last week of January 2009,
industrial action began at the Lindsey refinery in Lincolnshire. Swiftly the
strikes spread to Grangemouth in Scotland, Wilton in Cleveland and all over the
country. By Friday January 30th 3,000 skilled workers were out from
11 plants. On Monday February 2nd thousands more joined the action. Sellafield
workers at the nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria, Didcot power station,
Longannet, Staythorpe, Milford Haven, Selby, Warrington and Aberthaw have all
walked out. The Times headlined it as the “Dawn of new age of industrial
unrest.” This is a well-organised, co-ordinated movement, which is unofficial
and completely illegal under UK anti trade union laws.
Cambridge University occupation latest
I
last wrote to you all in the early hours of Tuesday evening when the members
of the Cambridge student occupation were feeling particularly low and
optimism was almost non-existent.On Wednesday morning, however, after a good night’s sleep and a couple of
rousing speeches from the Marxists within the movement, hopes were rejuvenated,
and optimism was reinstalled. This was partly due to hearing that Sussex Uni
had managed to get all their demands met after a week of occupation. This made
us realise that we could not leave after only 5 days, and that we must wait
longer and make harsher demands from the University.
URGENT: Two workers killed in Venezuela, while defending the occupied Mitsubitshi factory
In
the
afternoon of Wednesday, January 29 (Venezuelan time), two workers
were killed by police in the state of Anzoategui, Venezuela. The
workers killed are Pedro Suarez from the Mitsubishi factory and José
Marcano from nearby auto parts factory Macusa. They were killed when
regional police of Anzoategui was attempting evict hundreds of workers
who had been occupying the Mitsubitshi (MMC) factory.
500 jobs to go at London Met?
The newest University in London, London Metropolitan, is in trouble. Earlier
this week, a crowd of over 100 disgruntled teachers, students and staff
gathered outside the Holloway campus to protest against cuts of up to 500 jobs.
It seems the cuts are the result of bad book keeping by management that led to
years of over-reporting of student completion rates to the Met’s funding body
HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England). Now HEFCE is demanding a
repayment of £38 billion and, as usual, the tops intend to produce the bulk of
it in the form of staff cuts.
DLR workers to take action
Members of the RMT rail union working in the control
room of Docklands Light Railway will strike for 24 hours from 13:05 on Monday,
February 2, in a dispute over the imposition of new weekend rosters.
The union suspended an earlier threat of a
work-to-rule held after the company withdrew the disputed roster, but talks
held since have failed to break the deadlock.
No more bail-outs – take over the banks.
In January the Royal Bank of Scotland recorded the biggest loss in British corporate
history – £28bn. Just three months ago New Labour bunged £20bn of our money at RBS
to help prop it up. We have since made a £12.5bn loss on our holding as share
prices headed south. Where did our money go? It seems to have disappeared in a
puff of smoke. So the government has
decided to give them another £5bn of our money. The bank’s worth is
disappearing by the day as its share price evaporates. At the time of writing
the total share price of the 300 year old bank was just £4bn. In 2007 it was
£78bn.
Cambridge University Occupation
I’m writing this inside the Cambridge University Law Faculty at 1am on Wednesday
28th January, after approximately 100 hours of occupation. At the time
of entering the building (last Friday evening) I believe we were the 16th
student university to have been occupied in protest of the Gaza situation.
I have been active in the occupation over the last four days,intervening
in every meeting and trying to ensure that we follow a genuinely Marxist
method in our attempt to have our demands met.
Edinburgh School Students’ Union Report
On
the 21st of January 10 school students from all around Edinburgh
attended the first meeting of the ESSU (Edinburgh School Students’ Union). The
meeting was billed under the title “Why we need a Union” and was attended by
students from three different high schools.
Big business loots carbon trading scheme
The
European Union set up an Emissions Trading Scheme as a market solution to deal
with pollution. Pollution is of course, overwhelmingly generated by big
business (‘market’) activities. Now the scheme has turned around to bite them.As a result
of the crisis, polluting companies have found themselves strapped for cash. So
they’ve cashed in their carbon credits for short term readies.
Baron Snape of Sleaze remembered
As a young militant in the 1980s I met Peter Snape MP (now Lord Snape) at an annual conference of my union, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association. He spoke on transport policy and later in the evening I recognised him in the bar and argued with him about Union and Labour Party policies. I remember saying, emboldened by a couple of pints; “The trouble with Labour MPs is that too many of them are in it for the money, and some of them are actually corrupt. Of course, I don’t mean you personally.” He replied; “The trouble with you is that you are obsessed with betrayal.” In the […]