Solidarity 522, 23 October 2019

Second victory at BEIS

On 21 October our members working for the contractor ISS at BEIS (the Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy) won a complete victory in their dispute. This follows a victory for catering staff at BEIS, employed by another contractor, Aramark, on 4 October. Now porters, security, post room, cleaners and receptionist staff have also won the London Living Wage, improved sick pay, and a number of other conditions. The victories can be put down to one factor: all-out indefinite strike action, which isn’t that common these days. At FCO (the Foreign and Commonwealth Office) we’ve...

Post workers target late November

Postal workers are talking about strikes around the big online shopping days of “Black Friday” (29 November), “Cyber Monday” (2 December), and in the run-up to Christmas. The aim is to time the action for maximum impact. A strike which included 29 November would also have the boost of coinciding with the next big student climate strike, when a number of workplaces will take action too. The talk is not of one-day strikes. A Doncaster postal worker told Solidarity: “The general feeling in my office is we can handle a week or so of lost wages. We’ve had ample notice, and I know a few posties who...

Industrial news in brief

USDAW, the shopworkers union, is facing a financial shortfall due to large numbers of its members being made redundant. This is particularly felt at Tesco, which is the largest employer for the union’s members, but also where the union has refused to put up any resistance to the loss of around 9,000 jobs this last year. Instead of launching a massive recruitment campaign or fighting back against the bosses, the union is instead considering getting rid of the part-time rate for new members, at its next annual conference, presumably a prelude to getting rid of it all together. This would double...

Self-determination for the Kurds!

A temporary ceasefire for five days in Turkey’s invasion of majority-Kurdish areas of Syria was negotiated by the USA on 17 October. The American delegation to Ankara, headed by Vice President Mike Pence, agreed a 120-hour period for the Syrian Democratic Forces (the Kurdish-led forces in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria) to withdraw from a 20-mile deep area which Turkish president Erdoğan has decreed as a “safe zone”. In reality, this is a zone which has been designated for occupation and ethnic cleansing. Even the temporary halt to the violence is good. According to the...

Morning Star admits it backs Johnson's deal

As some of you may know, when I write this column, covering the antics of the Morning Star and its political masters, the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) I generally try to maintain a jocular tone. But it can be difficult: sometimes I'm just too despairing and/or angry. For some time I've been telling people that it's obvious that the Morning Star and CPB supported May's deal and now support Johnson's; if they had MPs that's how they'd be voting. I have cited, for instance, the CPB's general secretary Roger Griffiths, quoted in the Morning Star of October 5-6, thus: "Pro-EU labour MPs who...

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