IWW To Hold Historic Meeting In Notts

The IWW (Industrial Workers Of The World) the member-controlled international radical union organisation is to hold a historic meeting in Nottingham on 21st May with the aim of setting up a new Nottinghamshire General Membership Branch or Group of the Union.

The IWW continues to grow rapidly in Britain and now has over 400 members in this part of the world. These are organisers in workplaces and communities, some holding dual card membership of existing TUC affiliated unions and long histories of activism. The basic idea of the IWW is to organise industrially rather than by craft or trade and to be uncompromising in rejection of business unionism, bureaucracy and sell-outs. As an organisation based on our common class interest as employees rather than the finer points of political programmes the IWW unites workers with a variety of political viewpoints and all workers are welcome provided they agree to the aims and principles and do not seek to use the IWW for the benefit of their own current or party. This is a refreshing atmosphere for those of us used to the sectarian wrangling of much of the British Left. Unity is strength!

Currently the IWW in Britain is heavily involved in the campaign to defend workers and services in the National Blood Service and the campaign to defend Adult Education in Leicester.

Members, rather than officers or full-timers are the backbone of the union. In the current climate, there is a pressing need to organise amongst low paid, exploited and migrant workers as well as to link together the most militant workers in better organised sectors afflicted by unions with a business union or timid Labourist outlook.

The IWW comes with a great history of doing just these things in legendary episodes of North American Labour History, but is now perhaps finally beginning to spread, to fulfill it's early promise to be a truly international "One Big Union" and to rebuild in a globalised and connected world that could make the original vision much more realisable.



Later in the year another historic meeting will take place where the IWW holds a General Assembly outside North America, hosted by the London General Membership Branch. This will hopefully be attended by representatives of various syndicalist, industrial unionist and union base organisations from across Europe and the world. Rampant global neo-liberalism deserves a response on an international level - we need to work towards the building of a counter power to the banks and corporations and their puppet politicians.

The Nottingham meeting is at the Navigation Inn, Wilford St, 7.30pm, Wednesday 21st May. All supporters, members and those interested in building a real alternative and practical suportive network for ourselves are welcome to attend.

Weekly Links 05/05/08

This corner of the blogosphere
Jim at Daily (Maybe) has an excellent round up of green and left responses to this week's election results.

Also on this subject, Septic Isle at Obsolete takes a sober look at why Boris beat Ken.

Meanwhile over at Socialist Unity Blog, Labour left winger Louise looks at the poor Labour performance last week, Phil BC looks at the post-election situation in the Potteries and Andy Newman looks at the relative success of Plaid Cymru.

May Day Events
Lots of May Day events over the last few days. Here is a report and pics from the Nottingham event. West Midlands IWW had a May Day celebration on May Day evening, reported here. There were major confrontations in Istanbul (where the state tried to cruch the demonstrations) and in Hamburg where there was a three cornered fight between fascists, anti-fascists and police. In the US there was a dock strike against the war in the face of legal and bureaucratic opposition.

London Election Results

Congratulations to Sian Berry and the London Greens for fighting a very strong election campaign in difficult circumstances. The result was as follows:


Boris Johnson Conservative Party 1,043,761 42.48% Transfers = 124,977 Final Toatal 1,168,738
Ken Livingstone The Labour Party 893,877 36.38% Transfers = 135,089 Final Total 1,028,966
Brian Paddick Liberal Democrats 236,685 9.63%

Siân Berry Green Party 77,374 3.15%

Richard Barnbrook British National Party 69,710 2.84%

Alan Craig Christian Peoples Alliance and Christian Party 39,249 1.60%

Gerard Batten UK Independence Party 22,422 0.91%

Lindsey German Left List 16,796 0.68%

Matt O'Connor English Democrats 10,695 0.44%

Winston McKenzie Independent 5,389 0.22%

Very good coverage and comment on the London elections from Jim at Daily (Maybe) including breakdowns of the vote.

Greens Advance In Norwich

I will post on the London election results when we have them in full, but the good news is that the Greens in Norwich have achieved their short term goal of becoming the second largest party on the Council there. This bodes particularly well for their dynamic young general election hopeful Adrian Ramsay.

This is a triumph on many levels :

Finishing the night with an increased number of City Council seats from 10 to 13, Norwich Green Party has leapfrogged the Liberal Democrats to become the official opposition on Norwich City Hall, just 2 seats away from the ruling Labour Party. At the same time, the Greens have beaten Labour on local election vote share across the Norwich South Parliamentary constituency by approximately 2000 votes. For the first time, the Norwich Greens also won more votes than Labour across the entire city.

The political make-up of Norwich City Council is now:

Labour: 15 seats. Green Party: 13 seats LibDems: 6 seats Conservatives: 5 seats

Norwich City Council is in no overall control. Labour is expected to continue running a minority administration with the Green Party as the main opposition group.

Congratulations to the Norwich Greens, the Green Party councillors holding their seats and the new Green councillors, Samir Jeraj, Adrian Holmes and Peter Offord.

May Day Greetings, 2008.

May Day greetings to all my readers, particularly those involved in struggle around the world to defend themselves against neo-liberalism, authoritarianism and discrimination.
Solidarity Forever!

Vote Green This Thursday!

Whilst many of us across Britain do not have the opportunity to vote this Thursday, those who can vote in the elections in London and selected Councils in England and Wales have a chance to both improve their local political situation and send a message to the main political parties. This is particularly the case where people have the opportunity to vote Green. London Green Mayoral candidate Sian Berry and the candidates for the London Assembly have been working very hard to get the message across and this has been noticed and commented on in the mainstream media including favourable mentions in the Observer and the Independent.



Of course, now the Greens are steaming ahead, and particularly as they are steaming ahead on a popular left-of-centre agenda combining sustainability and social justice, the slagging and smearing will start in earnest, particularly from the far-from-squeaky clean Lib Dems who see the Greens as a direct threat. (A quick glance around the blogosphere and Internet shows this is already well under way.) However, every attack from the Lib Dems about how "leftist" the Greens are exposes their own unattractive drift to the right under "Cleggeron" and the Orange Bookers. It also gives the Greens the opportunity to set out just how our media-neglected social and economic policy agendas are based around social justice rather than the corporate welfare and schmoozing of the "big three". This will further help the Greens to move into the political space vacated by New Labour and build a stronger new base of support.

Weekly Links 27/04/08

A very busy week this week in the run up to May Day and the elections, but just enough time for a quick run around this corner of the blogosphere......

Plenty of stuff on the coming elections, particularly those in London.

Derek Wall at Another Green World pointed out that the Observer newspaper Leader this weekend, whilst ultimately backing Ken Livingstone, has favourable comment on the Mayoral campaign of Sian Berry and suggests a first preference for her!



Derek also blogged on the record of the Greens on the London Assembly.

Andy Newman at the Socialist Unity Blog has had a post critical of the SWP's Left List leaflet in London and another post praising the strategy of the Greens.

Stroppyblog highlights the News Of The World story on the far right candidate in the London Mayoral elections.

The Lenin's Tomb blog made a relatively rare excursion into environmental topics this week with observations on the implications of the latest news and predictions of Arctic thawing. He then spoils it in the comments by the usual predictable green-slagging, oh well, you can't have everything.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Anton Vowl at Enemies of Reason blog this week reported on the strange tabloid story of the mutant squirrels and the unpleasant undertones in the reporting. Always a pleasure to end, News at Ten style, on a fluffy animal story.....

.