Support Workers at Starbucks

The international day of action called in response to Starbucks' victimisation of union activists in the USA and Spain has taken on a whole new significance in the wake of Starbucks' announcement of mass closures. Seen in the light of this, Starbucks' management actions against independent unions and activists were preparation for a massive attack on a large swathe of the workforce.

Support the global day of action on Saturday July 5th!

More info here - http://www.starbucksunion.org/node/2024

Weekly Links - 22/06/2008

UK Politics News Stories
Lots of interesting, if sometimes a little depressing, stuff being reported this week. It seems all the millions spent by the climate change denial industry and the busy beaver efforts of their conspiracist right-wing errand boys on blogs and comments sections have not been in vain as a majority of Brits still "doubt the evidence" on climate change. Semi-reasonable comment (albeit from his establishment viewpoint) from Andrew Rawnsley here, but as usual the cynics, pessimists, liars and fascists are out in force on the comments section.

Meanwhile there is to be a much trumpeted "Green Energy Push" in Britain, but George Monbiot has picked out some of the flaws in the plan and its likely implementation. One thing I picked out was the lack of mention of the potential use of biogas from anaerobic digestion of food waste etc - let us hope that this is not a further signal of government "capture" by the big waste companies eager to incinerate 50% of Britain's waste and call this "sustainable" and "green" energy from waste. These firms have just managed to get the tame elements of the EU to pass legislation favourable to their plans in the face of Green opposition.

UK Royal financial reports are due out in the next few days, with the monarchist spin machine presenting it as "value for money" - the campaign group Republic is ready with the facts and arguments for an end to expensive and undemocratic hereditary offices of state. Republic are also running a campaign to challenge the oath of allegiance to the monarch.

Industrial
It is the British Isles Regional Organising Committee (BIROC) of the Industrial Workers Of the World (IWW) meeting this weekend, with preparations well under way for the international General Assembly of the IWW in London at the end of August. Before then, Wobblies internationally will be involved in a mobilisation to highlight the union-busting tactics of Starbucks. IWW members at Starbucks branches in the US have been under attack and now the IWW is linking up for action with the Spanish CNT union and the international organisation they are affiliated to the IWA/AIT (International Workers' Association) as a CNT member in Sevilla has been fired for union activity. The day of action is scheduled for July 5th.

It was the British public services union, Unison, conference this week and as well as warning the governing Labour Party over local government workers' pay they passed a motion on the situation in Palestine.

The RMT (transport) union has its' conference in Nottingham this week and there is a fringe meeting put together by the Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group at 1.10pm at the Rope Walk Pub on Derby Road.

Green Issues


Despite all the campaigning by green groups over battery recycling the British authorities have failed to act and now face penalties under new EU legislation.

There is impressive mobilising and campaigning going on against incineration in various parts of the world, including the Basque country where 2000 demonstrated on the streets of San Sebastian last week. There was also a protest in Barcelona, Catalonia, where three weeks ago 1,000 people marched against a project from the Lafarge cement plant to burn different types of waste, including sewage sludge, tyres and solvents. The local "platform" against incineration also collected 6,200 signatures against this project.

Human Rights
The campaign for the freeing of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine continues, with a new petition. The speech given by actor Danny Glover at a vigil for the campaigner, and for freedom for Haiti is on You Tube here.

There is a demo supporting the long suffering opposition to the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe in London on Monday 23rd June. More from Action For Southern Africa here.

Blogs

Aled has a blog piece on Paul Mobbs' Energy Beyond Oil.

Derek reports that the Greens are likely to run a candidate in the Howden and Haltemprice by-election to give a voice to all those who support the former MP's stance on 42 days detention but vigourously oppose him on just about everything else and so could not bring themselves to vote for him. By voting Green people will be able to register opposition to the detention without trial moves without allowing a socially reactionary and economically neo-liberal Tory to present his party as the sole guardian of our rights and liberties. Elsewhere, Labour Left Dave Osler has taken Tony Benn to task for backing the Tory campaign.

Jack Ray is following the European football, Liam MacUaid and Dave Osler reflect on the anti-fascist event in London on Saturday, and the Socialist Unity blog reports on a call for the abolition of prescription charges.

Bloated Plutocrats Urge Restraint

Grim economic news in Britain today over soaring food and fuel prices and inflation. The refrain from the media commentators and the politicians is the same as ever - "restraint" in working people's pay claims and the monetarist obsession with controlling inflation by forcing working class people to pay for every market difficulty, failure, crisis and slump.

We shall now see whether Thatcherism and its' Blairite continuation have really achieved a permanent hold on the perception of economic interests amongst working people. It has long been encouraging that whilst the yellow media have a certain hold on perception of some political issues like immigration, they have long failed to hoodwink huge numbers over basic economic interests - witness the failure of the Poll Tax. Some of the media even joins in populist attacks on "fat cats" (particularly politicians) awarding themselves huge increases whilst expecting others to cope with rises that do not match inflation.

The attempt by New Labour to force public sector workers to accept pay deals below the real rate of inflation - in the face of massive increases in food and fuel costs - is an attempt to make workers pay for the crisis. It is imposing pay cuts on hundreds of thousands of low paid workers. The rising costs are also impacting heavily on pensioners and claimants, but the government can only continue wittering about welfare "reform". Anger is rising. The Government are widely despised over a whole range of unpopular policies.

All this is a curtain raiser for a longer term and deeper crisis brought on by climate change, resource scarcity and global conflict. The rich and the ruling class the world over will seek to make the poorest and most vulnerable bear the heaviest burdens in this new era. On our side we must begin to organise and fight back. The demand for a "JUST TRANSITION" (to a lower carbon, lower energy, more sustainable and more localised economy) is beginning to be heard more widely - though like "sustainability" the phrase means different things to different people, and we should not expect too much of the TUC, tied as they are to the same Government that is adamant (even at the beginning of the downturn and first ripples of the economic and social Tsunamis to come) that the TUC's members must pay a disproportionate price. Work can be done inside TUC unions, but the task is larger than getting union bureaucracies to voice some watered down demands.

As ever, working people and communities need also to organise independently of political and economic bureaucracies, use their own tactics and strategies and raise their own demands. The rich history of struggle represented by the likes of the IWW is there to be discovered by a new generation.

Utah Phillips

Sad news that the great IWW activist and songwriter Utah Phillips has died. More from David Rovics Songwriter's Notebook Blog here.



Here is the official family obituary posted on the IWW website.

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.

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!

Weekly Links - 20/04/2008

Blogging
This week Duncan Money reports on the latest inanities of the leadership of the Oxford Union.
Labour Left bloggers continue their fight against the direction of the party that holds them captive, now in the face of the latest 10p Tax row, commented on by Dave Osler. Susan at Grimmer Up North reports from the coal face.
Derek Wall this week blogged on the campaign of Noel Lynch to join the Greens Darren Johnson and Jenny Jones on the London Assembly.
Green From Below commented sensibly on the latest bad news from European Green parties.

British Politics

The British campaign for the abolition of the monarchy, "Republic" held their Spring Conference in Cardiff this weekend and launched their new campaign to Challenge The Oath.
Republic have also launched a new Republic Scotland website.
Left wing Republicanism should perhaps be centre stage in any new vision for these islands - perhaps Paul Kingsnorth could consider this in the light of his interesting article in the New Statesman this week about the Left and an English Civic nationalism similar to those present in Scotland and Wales. This forgotten initiative from a few years ago may contain ideas towards such a vision.

Preparing for May Day
The London May Day March this year assembles at Noon at Clerkenwell Green on May 1st, and veteran socialist Tony Benn is due to speak at the rally in Trafalgar Square.

A lot of "May Day" events elsewhere in Britain actually take place on the weekend following, or on the Bank Holiday Monday. In the West Midlands, however, the local General Membership Branch of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) are holding a May Day event on May Day itself. They are showing films at the Lamp Tavern, Digbeth from 8 'til late, including Chaplin's Modern Times, the film "An Injury To One" about the slaying of union organiser Frank Little in Montana and film from Birmingham Indymedia on recent social and industrial struggle in the West Midlands. More here.

In the East Midlands, meanwhile, the traditional Chesterfield and District TUC May Day march, rally and celebrations in the market place take place on Bank Holiday Monday, 5th May from 10.30am. Nottingham's May Day march is on Saturday 3rd May.


In the USA there will hopefully be workplace action against the continuing war on May Day.

Unions and Work
Here is a report on the National Blood Service Demo I mentioned last week.
Meanwhile the international solidarity action of the South African dock workers was an example for us all this week.

Green Politics
The Biofuels issue is getting more coverage, particularly as the evidence grows for what Greens, Ecosocialists and many other commentators suggested was likely to happen - food prices pushed up and the poorest hit hardest.
South East MEP Caroline Lucas this week slammed the latest "Green" credential claims of David Cameron and his Tories.

Weekly Links - 13/04/2008

Peace Movement
One of the biggest UK news stories this week has been the stunning victory at the High Court of The Corner House and the Campaign Against The Arms Trade against the Government over the dropping of the BAE-Saudi arms deal inquiry. This has excited much comment across the blogosphere and elsewhere, and is now putting pressure on Gordon Brown to answer serious questions.
CAAT have announced a demonstration outside the BAE AGM on 7th May. They also have an online petition to the Prime Minister. Here is how the High Court victory was reported on the CAAT blog.

Meanwhile, in Wales a demonstration is scheduled for Saturday 26th April about the privatised St Athan Military Academy. Assemble at 1.30pm on the lawns opposite Cardiff City Hall for a March at 2pm.

Workers' Struggles
The teacher's strike planned for 24th April is gaining momentum, and Stroppyblog lists some of the marches and rallies planned around the country on the day. The Green Party Trade Union Group blog has a report from the recent NUT conference by Phillipe Harari, which concludes "this was a great Conference, showing the NUT at its best – united in fighting for a fairer education system within a fairer society."

The Blood Service Workers' demo at the NBS HQ in Watford took place on Friday.



Here are photos from other actions during the ongoing campaign.

In Health, there is much disquiet over the behaviour of Unison representatives in the lastest negotiations, particularly New Labour candidate-to-be, Karen Jennings - more from Martin Wicks' blog here, and Gill George (Unite union NEC member) here.

Green Politics
Green Party Mayoral candidate Sian Berry has blogged her reasons for standing on her New Statesman blog. Her percentage in the opinion polls has significantly improved since the start of the campaign.



Rupert Read has recently blogged a summary of the Norwich Green Party manifesto for the local elections there, where the Greens are challenging to become the main opposition Party. The London Greens also launched their manifesto this week.

International
London Green MEP Jean Lambert this week called for action on human rights in Bangladesh to ensure free and fair elections there. Green Human Rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has been speaking out on the situation in Zimbabwe, China and Tibet. Renegade Eye has stimulating posts on Zimbabwe and Lebanon.
Indymedia has a report that armed Canadian coastguards have stormed the Sea Shepherd ship, (in the area to obstruct the seal cull), and arrested the crew. Indymedia also has more news on the repression directed towards Mexico's indiginous community in the Oaxaca area.

April Industrial Worker Highlights Green Unionism

The April issue of the IWW (Industrial Workers of The World) newspaper, the Industrial Worker is now out and highlights green syndicalism/unionism in a centre spread.

Headlines:

* Puerto Rican teachers defy government
* Scottish college sacks Unison steward, cuts jobs
* Maquila workers denounce NAFTA

Featured Articles:

* Metro Lighting a scab business
* Green unionism
* Review: End of America offers no alternatives, ignores unions

Part of the green spread is a Dan Jakopovich article - Dan has had articles published in British IWW publications and the online US Green discussion journal Synthesis/Regeneration.

As part of their campaign against cuts and closures in the Blood Service in Britain, the IWW are supporting a demonstration outside the National Blood Service HQ in Watford on 11th April :

All-out for big demonstration at Blood Service HQ in Watford! IU 610s, other wobblies and supporters will be visiting the offices to cause a fuss and demand that the head honchos revoke their damaging proposals, democratise the service, and are called to account for their shoddy and dangerous policies.

Bring noise-making implements, banners, placards and loads of friends!

There is also an IWW supported public meeting in Leicester this week (9th April) about the campaign to oppose closures and cuts in Adult Education in Leicester which I blogged on a while ago.

It is good to see the rapidly growing British Isles organisation (BIROC) of the IWW getting stuck in with high profile campaigning. BIROC is happy to be hosting the first IWW General Assembly to take place in Europe, in London this summer.

Defend Adult Education in Leicester

The IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) are fighting to defend their members, other workers and service users in Leicester, where the local adult education college, LAEC, is under attack.

Here is a message from the IWW in Leicester -

The Adult Education College on Wellington Street in Leicester is under serious attack. It's a sorry tale of privatisation and the destruction of adult education by stealth. Staff have been treated incredibly badly by management, with no consultation or even basic information, and with some staff being told to pack up and move at a moment's notice. Jobs are under threat.

The LAEC job branch of the IWW's education workers' union is spearheading the defence of the college, together with Leicester IWW, midlands region IWW and UCU members at the college. We call on all members of the public, users and students at the college, staff, all unions and community organisations to get involved with the campaign.

First step, sign the petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/LAEC/

Next step, get involved in the campaign, come to the public meeting, back the workers at LAEC and save the college from further destruction and privatisation. Please forward this to any other lists, websites, newsgroups, etc. Spread the message.

We can win this. The IWW spearheaded the campaign to save Crichton campus and we won that one. We can do it again!

An injury to one is an injury to all!

Rob Blow
IWW Midlands Regional Organiser

Here is the text of a leaflet that has been produced -

SAVE LEICESTER ADULT EDUCATION COLLEGE!

You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that something rotten is going on at Leicester Adult Education College. With job losses; staff being re-located; skilled people disappearing; restructuring, with staff having to do more than one job; people who’ve left not being replaced… it all adds up to one thing - Leicester Adult Education College is being set up to fail.

The Incredible Shrinking College
We’ve seen courses being streamlined, other courses disappearing. We’ve already seen the closure and privatisation of the Creative Writing School. The Art Department is visibly shrinking with the loss of one of its three rooms, and now the loss of yet another.

Saatchi & Saatchi, it isn’t!
Courses are not being advertised well; the website was down for ages and has only recently been working again; students were receiving prospectuses late; people have been turned away from art courses when spaces were available; removal of the art display in reception, with bizarre reasons for this given… the list goes on.

It’s good to talk
Management don’t seem to be particularly hot on their communication skills. But it’s obvious to anyone with an ounce of sense that the College is being wound down and made ready for closure - either that, or we’re witnessing wholesale vandalism on the part of management. But has management actually taken the trouble to inform anyone of what’s happening and why? The answer is a resounding no!

As for public accountability…
Leicester Adult Education College is a public institution and a public building, belonging to Leicester City Council. In other words, it’s partly financed by your Council Tax payments. Because of this, you’d expect a degree of public accountability.

So, just who’s been informed of what’s happening at the college? Has there been any public consultation? No. Have staff been consulted? No. Have those trade unions party to recognition agreements been consulted? No. Have students and college users been consulted? No. In fact, student reps are ignored. Are local councillors aware of what’s happening? If they are, they’ve not said anything. So much for accountability then.

So what’s it all about?
As management are so reluctant to inform anybody about what the hell they’re up to, we can only speculate.

· Why all the secrecy? If it’s for the public good, why isn’t management being more transparent with their plans? Why all the ducking and diving?

· Could it be that the college premises on Wellington Street is worth a load of money to the council, who just want to discretely sell it off with the minimum of public fuss?

· Is adult education being privatised? “Partnership” is being touted as the way forward with other non-adult education agencies now being moved into Wellington Street. We suspect this may be quite a lucrative venture for the council.

· What’s actually going to happen with the building? Will there be any actual adult education courses or will they all be shifted elsewhere?

Talking of being shifted elsewhere, art courses are being relocated to Holy Cross church with a view to eventually moving them to New Walk Museum. This move presents a serious health and safety risk, as the tutors are women on their own who will be working in a building where anybody can just wander in. No security will be provided. No first aider will be present either. Also, there’ll be no disability access. While current learners have been accommodated, it will mean discrimination against new learners, who will have to be turned away.

We have no argument with the new “partners” who are taking over the space, but we realise they are not involved in adult education. Moreover, as they are offering advice services and used to operate from a unit in the shires, they can go anywhere and don't actually need to be in a college, nor do they need as much space.

Stop the rot!
Whatever the reasons for all these changes, it’s clear to us that Leicester Adult Education College is being closed on the quiet. It is our intention to put a stop to this.

The IWW union represents various workers at Leicester Adult Education College, who all say enough is enough. This leaflet is the first step in organising a public campaign to fight the closure of the college. We already have the support of other IWW education branches, the Leicestershire general branch and the wider IWW.

Our union has real experience in saving colleges from closure. The IWW recently spearheaded the fight against the closure of the Crichton Campus in Dumfries… and we won!

We call upon members of other trade unions, students and the general public to back us in saving jobs and saving the college. So get involved, join the campaign!


STOP PRESS… STOP PRESS… STOP PRESS… STOP PRESS… STOP PRESS…

Finally on 17 March, staff receive an email from Head of Adult Skills and Learning, Chris Minter, who is “pleased to announce” certain details of the privatisation of Leicester Adult Education College.

Minter tells us that this is “an exciting new opportunity to diversify the use of the college's facilities and income streams and will provide an excellent resource that fits well with our strategic priorities around employability.” In this new multi-agency initiative, Highcross Development Employment Hub is IN, Art and Design is OUT! Art and Design staff will be moved to inappropriate accommodation, some of these workers may well lose their jobs. So, non-vocational education gets the boot, while the kind of jobs training and advice which can be placed literally anywhere in the city gets prime position at the college.

We repeat, there has been zero consultation on this, and Minter’s email is an announcement of a done deal. In fact, the first some staff heard about this was when they were given two days notice to pack up their things for a move to Holy Cross. Students and college users have still not been informed of these plans either.


PUBLIC MEETING
Save Leicester Adult Education College!
Stop the privatisation of adult education and save jobs!
7.00pm on Wednesday 9th April
at Leicester Secular Hall
75 Humberstone Gate, Leicester LE1
(opposite Sainsbury’s)
EVERYONE WELCOME!

Organised jointly by Industrial Workers of the World LAEC job branch 620, Leicester general members’ branch of the IWW, UCU members and other staff at LAEC.

Contact: IWW, Unit 107, 40 Halford Street, Leicester LE1 1TQ. Tel: 07981 433 637
Email: laec_campaign@iww.org.uk Website: http://www.iww.org.uk

SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION!
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/LAEC/

Weekly Links - 16/03/2008

Peace
Reports on the weekend peace demonstrations in London and Glasgow can be found here , here and here.
There was a good Green presence on the London demo in terms of numbers and propaganda.
More pictures from London here and here. Indymedia has a report of an incident involving a Police Forward Intelligence Team.

Human Rights
In light of recent cases, like the one I blogged on within the last fortnight, where LGBT people are being threatened with deportation from Britain to countries where they face persecution, or even execution, a petition has been started - http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Stopdeportinggay/

London Green MEP Jean Lambert has been speaking out over deportations to Iraq and also raised the case of Mehdi Kazemi who was threatened with deportation to Iran, in the European Parliament.

There was disturbing news this week of further violence and murder directed at trade unionists in Guatemala.

Pollution
Peter Tatchell, (who had a bit of a row this week with George Galloway over Galloway's comments about the Kazemi case) posted an interesting piece on Comment Is Free about pollution and the Beijing Olympics

Workplace Struggle and Climate Change
More has been posted on Notts Indymedia about the Nottingham Library uniforms dispute that I have mentioned before.

Workers' Climate Action this week alerted me to an interesting article from The Nation about US unions and climate change.

Space
On Space issues there is a piece this week on Cedar Lounge Revolution.

Activism
US IWW member and environmental activist Marie Mason has been detained after a raid on her home - more info on Indymedia here and here.

Blogs and Links on Sunday 17/02/08

After being a little late last week due to writing up the Campaign Against Climate Change TU Conference, I am now back to the regular Sunday appearance of my links.

Blogs
Speaking of the CACCTU conference, there are photographs from a Green Party Trade Union Group participant at the Green Party TU Group blog.
A new ecosocialist blogger from Birmingham has also blogged on the conference and I am pleased to add the new blog, redgreen reflection to my links column.

I have also added a couple of other blogs to the links, the quirky and infrequent Durruti Column and Liam Mac Uaid's blog for a view from the left of Respect Renewal.

Meanwhile Green Left supporter Peter Tatchell recently blogged on the situation in Pakistan and the regime's US backed assault on the people of Baluchistan.

Some excellent stuff over at former Green London Assembly member Noel Lynch's blog The Green Room, with posts on the Mayoral hustings, lone parent income support restrictions, "greener" vehicles, and the Green candidate in the 3rd March Highgate by-election in London.

Workplace and Union Struggles
The IWW and various other groups have organised a series of workshops on 22nd March in London on "How To Enforce Your Rights at Work". More info from Hackney Independent and London Coalition Against Poverty here.

Wildcat action secured a quick win and management return to negotiation on the bins in Brighton this week.

Nottingham City Council are trying to force some of their library staff into uniform against their will and at public expense - let them know how you feel (particularly if you are from Nottingham) here.

The RMT have warned of possible action over pensions at Network Rail, in Birmingham the unions have announced 26th February as the next day of action against the actions of the City Council and members of the offshore workers OILC have voted to merge with the RMT.

International
The President of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions is scheduled for a UK speaking tour from the end of the month into March. More info on dates etc here.

6th March 2008 is scheduled as a day of solidarity with jailed and repressed workers in neighbouring Iran, where union organisers Mansour Osanloo and Mahmoud Salehi are imprisoned and in ill health.

In Ireland, Green Party ENVIRONMENT Minister John Gormley faces a potentially embarrassing High Court challenge over a decision made by his predecessor to allow the M3 motorway to be built over an historic site near the Hill of Tara.

A Venezuelan representative addressed the England and Wales Green Party Conference earlier this week about their conflict with US oil giant ExxonMobil - more here.

Green Politics

Derek Wall gave his keynote speech to the Green Party Spring Conference in Reading, by all accounts a stirring one.

By all accounts Sian Berry gave a very good account of herself in the "Green Alliance" hustings for London Mayoral candidates. I particularly liked her introduction -

"First I'll speak for five minutes and tell you about my ideas. You've heard them before, they're the Green policies - things that will build a London that is not only a greener place, but also a better, more affordable place to live.

Then, after me, these men will stand up in their suits and agree with me."

The Lib Dems must be worried as they launched a nasty and inaccurate attack piece through former Clegg adviser Blincoe on Guardian CIF.

Remploy And Blood Service Workers Fight On

The dispute over the closure programme at the Remploy factories (originally set up to provide employment for disabled ex-servicepeople and since providing employment for many disabled people from a range of backgrounds) continues. The disgraced ex-Minister Peter Hain stitched up a so-called compromise deal that was cover for the management to carry on with a slightly adjusted closure programme. Workers from Remploy factories in Aintree and Birkenhead went on strike on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. The workers at these factories will strike again on 13th and 14th February and will be joined by workers from the Remploy factory in York. Official strike ballots are in the pipeline at Hartlepool, St Helens, Treforest, Ystradgynlais near Swansea and Brynammon in South Wales.

The workers are not just striking for themselves, but future workers who may need their jobs - something which bemuses management who witter on about the "generous" terms and redeployments (sometimes to less skilled and less rewarding work) on offer.

More from Unite/Amicus and the GMB Union.

In the Blood Service dispute the picture is becoming clearer after the release of the report on the NBS "restructuring". The radical industrial unionists of the IWW are campaigning hard on this issue alongside the TUC affiliated unions and have an update on their UK website here.

You can also keep up to date at the Save Our Blood Service blog.

The campaigning so far seems to have led to at least some success -

The outcry from hospitals, staff and the public at the dangerous and stupid proposals has meant that in the north and south-east, the board have been forced to scrap the idea of supercentres. One excellent victory that we can claim is that the Newcastle centre is now to remain fully open, and Sheffield also keeps many more functions.But the axe still hangs over essential labs at centres across the country.

So, in short, the struggle continues.

These two groups of workers are fighting vital battles in the contested areas of healthcare, disability and dignity and should have maximum solidarity and support.

Support National Blood Service Workers - Protest This Thursday

There is an opportunity this Thursday in London to protest against the proposed National Blood Service cuts and support the workers involved.

The following is from the IWW who are campaigning strongly on the issue:

10 out of England's 13 blood processing centres are due to be shut if greedy NBS management get their way. The IWW has been campaigning throughout 2007 to prevent a dangerous plan of centralisation, along with local communities and the big unions in the NBS, particularly Unite and Unison. 600 jobs are due to be axed, blood will have to be transported further to get to hospitals, putting patients at risk, and our useless government seem happy to just let NHS bosses reap the benefits of this stupid "cost-saving" plan.

The campaigns around this plan have already forced NBS bosses to reconsider. Thursday will see the results of their review. We are calling people to show their support for NBS workers at this meeting:

NHS Blood and Transplant
Meeting of the Board of Directors

Thursday 10th January 2007
Start time: 9.00am

Venue: Royal College of Gynaecologists, front entrance.
27 Sussex Place, Regent's Park, London NW1 4RG

Map: http://www.rcog.org.uk/index.asp?PageID=18

This is a critical meeting for the NBS staff and our future, as consultancy agency McKinsey & Co. will be reporting back their findings from their review of the centralisation strategy. We want a crowd of angry supporters to greet the director scum as they go in and make sure they are aware their plans are seriously unpopular.

Background information at nbs.iww.org

Equal Pay Fiasco Reveals Choice For Workers

The ongoing process around the implementation of “equal pay for work of equal value” in local government in this part of the world is continuing to cause all sorts of unforeseen problems. Various groups of workers are very disgruntled about the situation, which in many cases around the country is leading to disastrous pay cuts for some and substantial rises for others. What was hailed by management, unions and government as something leading to more equality and as a good example of “partnership unionism” in action is leading to division and anguish on the ground.

In my local area for example, there have been mass resignations from local government Union Unison as low paid women white collar staff face pay cuts that in many cases will mean they cannot afford to stay in their jobs. There is a wave of anger against what is seen as a stitch up between the local authority and the Unions (chiefly Unison and GMB – both Labour Party affiliated and vulnerable to the accusation of yellow unionism when facing Labour local authorities and a Labour government.) I speak as a Unison member myself, albeit not employed in local government at the moment.

This all seems to be a somewhat inevitable result of the established social democratic TUC affiliated unions’ stance and approach. Instead of militant defence of all workers’ interests, (supporting each group of female workers to fight against differentials that could be argued to be gender based and leaving the employers to sort out the financial aspects and take the heat for any negative consequences), the main local government unions have fully cooperated with the process, waving their commitment to “equality” and “feminism” as ideological justification. The unions have gone along with typical management-consultants-style job evaluation exercises and a legalistic approach. Hence, when the Councils say that they are proposing pay cuts as part of the process, and possible job losses, and when the government simply will not pay up, but only allows councils more borrowing to get themselves in more difficulty (and incidentally continue to aid the private sector to get its claws into local government services) the Labour-affiliated unions are tied in and implicated - and left exposed to face the wrath of their members.

With many workers in local government this has been the straw that broke the camel’s back. It is sickening enough to get the likes of “Unison Labour Link” propaganda delivered through your door (unasked for even when you are not a subscriber to the affiliated political fund) at election time - when you face cuts, privatisation and attacks on conditions from administrations led by the very same Labour Party. To then have your union stitch up a deal that leads to victimisation (ironically in some cases of low paid women workers, who we were told that this was all about), division and further cuts leaves many workers in local government angrily demonstrating against their own unions as well as the employers.

It is now time for a return to the kind of workers organisation in the public sector and elsewhere that fights for the interests of all its members, does not depend on legalistic strategies and does not tug the forelock to management or fund their political organisations. It is the time for rank and file organisation in the existing TUs and for building up networks and unions through the IWW (who allow dual card membership to avoid isolation of activists in workplaces organised by TUC unions). We must get together within the existing unions where necessary and outside them where possible. This kind of militant industrial unionism is fortunately also the type of organisation best suited to organise the now largely unorganised part time, casual, migrant and hyper-exploited sectors of the workforce. It was amongst these sections of workers that the original IWW in the USA spread and developed in the days before the cataclysmic wars of the last century.

2008 should see redoubled efforts from syndicalists, industrial unionists and rank and file activists to get their message across and help a new generation of workplace militants organise in Britain. The sell outs and stitch ups by the leaderships of the bureaucratic unions in their last citadels of mass membership (the public sector) should act as a rallying cry for a different and more effective form of organisation across sectors the labourist unions either milk or ignore.

The appeal of radical industrial unionism is growing on a global scale as we see the conditions that existed in America and Europe during the early days of the movement reproduced worldwide by neo-liberal globalisation. It is perhaps significant and appropriate therefore, that IWW members have just voted to hold their first main assembly outside of North America – in London. Hopefully this will provide an opportunity for contact between delegates from many of the exciting new and renewed syndicalist and industrial unionist groupings from around the world.

Internationally society and economies are changing rapidly, and tried and trusted methods and approaches to struggle have renewed relevance in the face of the global challenges faced by working people. In 2008 as before, but with the added urgency of threats from climate change and war, we have a world to win and nothing to lose but our chains.

Wobbly Benefit Gig in Brum

Mission Print Job Branch of the IWW are running an Xmas Benefit Gig for the Fellow Worker Ryan Boudreau Memorial Fund in Birmingham on Thursday 20th December.
Ryan Boudreau was a union cycle courier who was killed on the job. The battle to organise and defend workers in the despatch and courier sector (and all other workers!) continues. An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!

The gig features -

The Dregs
Generation Terrorist
The Fallen Angels

Thursday 20th December 2007, Market Tavern (Corner of Birchall St & Moseley St), Digbeth, Birmingham

Incidentally, the despatch industry in London was the site of a briefly successful union organising drive from 1989-1992, inspired by the industrial unionist IWW and the anarcho-syndicalist IWA/AIT, detailed in the pamphlet The Couriers Are Revolting - hosted online here.
Organising in the despatch industry presents many difficulties, not least the high turnover of workers. Nevertheless, DIWU and the IWW's efforts show that things can be achieved even in difficult circumstances.

Meetings In London And Manchester

In the run up to the Global Climate Change Day of Action on Saturday, the LSE Students' Union is running its' annual Climate Change Action Week. They have a meeting on the socialist approach to the challenge of Climate Change on Wednesday afternoon -

Can capitalism stop ecological meltdown? Can socialism?
What do socialists say about climate change?

1-3pm, Wednesday 5th December
Room S300 (3rd floor, St Clements House, Houghton Street, LSE)

Speakers: Derek Wall (Green Party male principal speaker and Green Left),
Clive Bradley (Workers' Liberty)

We will be discussing the relationship between capitalism, class
exploitation and ecology, whether socialists can develop an effective
programme to save the planet and what force can create an egalitarian,
democratic, sustainable society.

All welcome

Sponsored by LSE Green Party and London Workers' Liberty students

Another interesting meeting at the LSE during the week is on Thursday, with the excellent Donnachadh McCarthy whom I heard speak at a conference earlier in the year -

THURSDAY 6TH DECEMBER: Tomorrow's Buildings - Can Eco-Buildings Become the Affordable Solution?, 2pm, G108
Speakers: Donnachadh McCarthy, author of 'Saving the Planet Without Costing the Earth', environmental auditor at 3 Acorns Environmental Transformations and owner of the first private home in London to export solar electricity to London Electricity!
Wil Anderson, Designer and Builder of 'The Tree House' in Clapham (www.treehouseclapham.org.uk)

IWW Film in Manchester
Meanwhile, in Manchester the IWW Local is having a film night in collaboration with
Manchester Projectile Films on December 11th at the Friends Meeting
House, Mount Street, Manchester M2 at 7.30pm. All Fellow Workers welcome!
They are showing the film "An Injury to One"

Education : Fighting The Neo-Liberal Assault

Workers in France are today stepping up their attempts to defend themselves against the gathering neo-liberal assault of Sarko, whose attacks are being given the full support of the right-wing media apparatus. Students are already in struggle, along with railworkers, joined today by other public sector workers and teachers. Sarkozy's attack on pension rights and the all-too familiar attempts by the media to set private sector workers against public sector ("Why can't they have as crap conditions as we have?")are just the latest stage in the global neo-liberal assault as manifested in Europe.

Meanwhile in Britain the policy auction, whereby the two main neo-liberal parties try to outbid each other in their attempts to break up and privatise the remaining elements of what could be democratically controlled and fairly provided public services continue. The Tories have announced their latest wheeze - a variation on their trojan-horse mutualism/co-operativism that I commented on previously. The Tories want to give "parents" (no prizes for guessing what sort of parents!) the right to set up their own independent schools - funded by the tax payer. New Labour, for their part are quite miffed at this, being as it is an attempt to upstage their own corporatist break-up policy - City Academies - whereby religious evangelicals of various stripes and entrepeneurial "evangelicals" for free market dogma are given the right to get their sticky fingers into local education.

The net effect is of course the same - to impoverish and deprive the remaining locally controlled schools and prepare the way for the final destruction of any potential for locally controlled and fairly resourced education. A small example of this process is the policy on exclusions - City Academies are allowed to break free of the penalties that normal schools now suffer for expelling disruptive pupils and are allowed to expel far more frequently. And where do these disruptive pupils end up? Result - a downward spriral, hardly a "level playing field". Education should not be a field for commercial or religious exploitation or competition, but a field of common endeavour where the interests of young people and their communities should come first.

In a way we should be grateful that this is all so blatant. Both Tories and Labour are now acting quite blatantly in class interests - the interests of the ruling class and their ideological and philosophical props in the churches and "entrepeneurial" communities. The French are showing at least part of the way it can be fought - through militant workplace organisation and action. We should not be afraid to put forward our own demands - we are not in the position of simply defending the current inadequately resourced and over-examined education system in the UK. Education should become more democratic and accountable - with the involvement not of religious zealots, big business and empowered selfish elements of the middle classes - but of pupils, teachers and the whole local community.

For those in East Anglia there might be chance to look at these issues at a meeting organised by Norwich and District Trades Council at 7.30 on Tuesday November 27th. They have Bill Greenshields, Vice President of the teachers union, the NUT, speaking on "The Future of State Education" at the British Legion Club, Aylsham Road, Norwich NR3 2HF.

Elsewhere the opportunity to organise for a more general fightback against neo-liberalism is given by the first Midlands meeting of the new National Shop Stewards Network. (NSSN) This is from 1.30 to 5.30pm on Saturday, November 24th at the Gallery Room, Birmingham and Midlands Institute, Margaret Street, Birmingham 3. (The venue is 10 minutes from Snow Hill and New St Stations.)

Meanwhile, the IWW (Industrial Workers Of The World) are beginning to organise militants in the eduction sector in the UK through their IU 620 organising efforts. They have set up a UK web page here.

Save Our Blood Service Updates

I have had this message from my contact at Save Our Blood Services that I am passing on:

Hi everyone

The Save Our Blood Service blog has some new updates, with more due in the next couple of days.
Please visit it at:

http://nbs-sos.blogspot.com

+ also please forward the link to your contacts to up the traffic.

Signatures on the online petition have unfortunately slowed down a bit, so
we would appreciate if you could also do the same for this - please sign if
you haven't yet done so, + encourage your friends, family + contacts to as
well.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/nbs-sos/

Thanks a lot!
NBS SOS

Saturday 18th August - Starbucks Day of Action

The campaign group, No Sweat, and international union organising amongst coffee shop workers, the IWW, are having a day of action on Starbucks on Saturday 18th August.
More information on the UK IWW site here.
Look out for action at your local coffee shop!