Garment production workers at one of the world's most famous clothing manufacturer continue their series of industrial actions, including strikes after bosses rejected their demand for a 2.5% pay increase. 85% of the membership voted for industrial action up to and including strike, work to rule and a refusal to pass on work to sub-contractors for completion.
Council
tenants in Stirling voted by a resounding 68%
against privatising the housing stock in a magnificent victory to keep council
housing out of the hands of profiteers. As this report is compiled,
Renfrewshire tenants have also voted "NO". Council tenants across the country are
sending a strong message to local authorities and the Scottish Executive – NO
TO THE PRIVATISATION OF COUNCIL HOUSING!
In October's Socialist Appeal our Economics Correspondent, Michael Roberts, examines the claims of the Financial Times
(and others) that the British economy is in rude health. In reality, he
argues, Britain’s capitalist survival has increasingly been built on
becoming a
rentier economy, relying on providing financial and ‘professional’
services to other capitalist nations, while the "City of London is a
huge aircraft carrier parked in the Thames,
where world money flows in and out, with little touching the sides,
except fro those working on the carrier and living in London and the
south-east. The rest of Britain is a just a dark shadow to these
people."
The Editorial of October's Socialist Appeal calls for meetings
to be organised to support John McDonnells' bid for the leadership of
the Labour Party as an important opportunity to raise socialist ideas
throughout the labour movement. In preparing for a struggle in the
Labour Party we must learn from the past. The most vital lesson is that
it is not sufficient to tinker with the
capitalist system. We will fight for any reform in the interests of the
working class. The central lesson of the whole of Labour history,
however, must be that not one of those reforms can endure if the
capitalist system remains intact.
John McDonnell, the Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington, has announced
his intention to stand for the leadership of the Labour Party. He is
Chair of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, the Labour Representation Committee,
and the 'Public Services Not Private Profit' anti-privatisation
campaign. He is also the national chair of Hands Off Venezuela and has
been at the forefront of the campaign to defend the Venezuelan
revolution. Socialist Appeal supports John's campaign as a real
opportunity to raise socialist ideas throughout the labour movement. We
asked John to tell us about his campaign and about the need to fight
for socialist policies inside the Labour Party.
Earlier this year we received a letter from a reader of Socialist Appeal who says we put too much importance on one factor that contributes to climate change, human-induced emissions of "greenhouse" gases. In his answer Phil Mitchinson looks at the broader aspects of pollution, climate change and so on and stresses the need for a radical, socialist transformation of society if we are even to begin to tackle these vital problems.
On Thursday, September 14, around 80 people attended a meeting called
by Wandsworth Stop the War Coalition at the Baptist Church in Balham to
which Hands off Venezuela was invited to have a stall. The main
speaker of the evening was John McDonnell MP, who is standing for the
leadership of the Labour
Party once Blair quits. Next week we will be publishing an interview
with John McDonnnell, which features in the October edition of Socialist Appeal.
Twenty five years ago British imperialism demonstrated its cold,
calculating cruelty in the face of Irish Republican prisoners who felt they had no alternative but to make
the ultimate sacrifice in the struggle for political rights, embarking
on a
hunger strike that would tragically end with their deaths.
The Hunger Strikers of 1981 join a hall of many martyrs in the long
struggle to free Ireland, the fight for national liberation and
socalism. Gerry Ruddy of the Irish Republican Socialist Party has sent
us an excellent and intimate analysis of the events, the tactics, and
the politics of Republicanism from the time of the Hunger Strikes in
1981 to the present day, highlighting the need to build a revolutionary
movement based on Marxism and rooted in the working class across all
boundaries.
The Blair era is drawing to close not with a bang but with a great deal
of whimpering. The socialist candidate for the Labour leadership, John
McDonnell MP, compared the intrigues and back-stabbing campaigns of the
past week
to an episode of The Sopranos. Launching his leadership campaign the left-wing MP for Hayes and
Harlington is concentrating on politics, and on policies in the
interests of working class people. What is needed, he argues, is “a
national campaign for a radical break with the failed policies of new
Labour", adding that changing leaders would "not be enough to save
Labour at the next election".
The July 2nd elections in Mexico witnessed massive electoral fraud against PRD candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Since then millions of Mexicans have taken to the streets to protest. Come and show your solidarity with the Mexican people in the struggle against fraud and against repression. Download the PDF flyer here.
We buy 95% of the food we eat in supermarkets. Tesco alone, the market
leader, gets 30% of all food sales. Competition between supermarket
chains is based on a systematic ratcheting down of standards across the
board, forcing down the standard of living of workers and poor farmers;
wrecking the environment and local communities; and poisoning the
consumers.
In the light of recent developments in the Scottish
Socialist Party (SSP) we are publishing a document written by Ted Grant back in
1992 which already outlined the roots of the present crisis in the SSP. Ted
explained that the concessions the leaders of the then SML (later to become
SSP) were making to Scottish nationalism would lead to a disaster. Time has
proven him correct.