No
one union alone can successfully fight the present anti-union laws. But imagine
if the TUC were to lead a major protest against the laws in every workplace and
organised on behalf of 7 million union members a direct challenge to those laws
– that would have more effect than any number of seminars and workshops and
would put unions in a stronger position to win.
A leading member of Venezuela’s largest union, the National Workers
Union, UNT, will be present at the TUC, having been invited by the
National Union of Journalists and by Hands Off Venezuela. NATFHE will
move a resolution in support of Venezuela and the progressive policies
of the government of president Hugo Chávez, committing the TUC to work
with solidarity campaigns and to build links with Venezuelan trade
unionists.
The British government and the Metropolitan Police are now trying to
sweep under the carpet the brutal execution of Jean Charles de Menezes
on July 22. We must not allow this to happen. This young, innocent,
Brazilian man – an electrician by trade, just 27 years of age – is the
latest victim of the so-called “war on terror”, but also of the
undermining of civil liberties and the strengthening of the powers of
the capitalist state.
The recent
declaration by the leadership of the Provisional IRA that the armed struggle is
over has been reported in the media as an historic turning point and a
fundamental departure in Irish politics. In spite of the rhetoric, however,
there has not been one single step in the direction of a united Ireland. At least a section of the Provisional Republican
movement will now be feeling demoralised and betrayed. They and many others, especially
the young people who have just started to become involved in politics, will
want to know – what next?
The
dispute that erupted at the Gate Gourmet company in August is symptomatic of
what is really happening in the British labour movement. The strike of the Gate
Gourmet workers received strong support from the workers at British Airways who
paralysed Heathrow Airport and inflicted heavy losses on the company. The
class solidarity expressed in this dispute is an indication of what is to come
throughout the whole of the British labour movement.
Several months ago
there was a report in some British papers of an unusual speech by the Governor
of the Bank of England, Mervyn King. The speech gives a glimpse of a discussion
that must have recently taken place amongst the British capitalists, and which
the Gate Gourmet dispute is a direct consequence of. It is about the use of
cheap immigrant labour to drive down wages and worsen working conditions.
We are publishing here a speech given by Phil Mitchinson at the recent
international Marxist school in Barcelona. Dealing with the history of
the centuries old struggle for freedom in Ireland, and the part played
in that history by republicanism and socialism, as well as the political
developments that have led to the current impasse, this should serve as
an introduction to a major article analysing the recent declaration of
the end of the armed struggle by the Provisional IRA which we will be
publishing later this week.
The debate over global warming and the consequences it may or may not have for planet Earth and humanity has been raging for several decades now. Global warming is an endless source of controversy, but one thing is clear – our climate is changing.
The Houses of Parliament cleaners made history by staging their first
walk-out on the morning of 20th July. At 10 am the strikers assembled
outside St. Stephens’ entrance together with some MPs, parliamentary
staff and the media to publicise their demands. The strikers were
chanting slogans like “Low Pay, No Way” while some of them were
brandishing placards and mops.
Despite clashing with both the RISE festival and the traditional
Tollpuddle Rally, the main hall at the TUC’s Congress House was largely
full for this year’s AGM and rally of the Labour Representation
Committee (LRC), the main new umbrella grouping for Left activists
inside the Labour Party. Amongst others, a number of the platform
speakers from the trade union movement, including Jeremy Dear (NUJ),
Mark Serwotka (PCS) and Paul Mackney (NATFHE) took time to outline the
ongoing process of attacks against the public sector being carried out
by the government.
Radical changes in consciousness often spring from arbitrary collective
experiences. Last week’s bombings in London are no exception. On the
surface, the story being broadcast and repeated by the journalists,
politicians, and purveyors of “objective information” appears to be
true. But there is more to it than that.
Trotsky’s ‘ABC of Materialist Dialectics’ is a brilliant short explanation of Marxist philosophy. It was written as part of a defence of Marxism against a middle-class revisionist tendency in the American Trotskyist movement in the late 1930s, which attempted to challenge its basic principles. As opposed to pragmatism and empiricism, Trotsky defended dialectical materialism as a richer, fuller, more comprehensive view of society and life in general.