Solidarity 598, 23 June 2021

Truck kills picket in Italy

Adil Belakhdim, coordinator of the SI Cobas union in Novara, Lombardy, Italy, and a member of the union’s national coordinating body, has been killed. He was hit by a truck driven into a picket line during the national logistics strike on 18 June. SI Cobas says : “It was not an accident — Adil was killed in the name of profit.” It says that the “murder is in fact the culmination of an escalation of organized violence against SI Cobas, which has been ongoing for months and is now without limits”. It cites many other incidents in recent months, arguing that they are “part of a single design...

Pushing back for trans rights

Trans Pride in London is on 26 June (2pm from Wellington Arch, Hyde Park Corner). The organisers are emphasising that it is a protest. There is a lot to protest about. Formally the Equality Act legislates against most forms of discrimination that trans people might face. The Gender Recognition Act (GRA) allows birth certificates to be issued in the acquired gender. The NHS provides hormone treatment, and surgery to help with “gender reassignment”. But in reality trans people face a huge level of persecution even today, even on the streets of London. Public humiliation, harassment, and violence...

Northern Ireland: why Poots fell

On 17 June, after less than three weeks in the role, Edwin Poots stepped down as leader of the main Unionist Party in Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), and requested a new leadership election. Prior to Poots, the DUP had been ruled by only three leaders in its 50-year history and by one leader (Ian Paisley) for the first 37 of those years. The party’s current inability to settle on a leader is a symptom of a much broader failure to come to terms with the changing society in which it operates. The immediate cause of Poots' downfall was his apparent agreement to have an...

Killed for 2011-2 protest

The Saudi Arabian kingdom executed, on Tuesday 15 June, Mustafa bin Hashim bin Isa al-Darwish, who (allegedly) participated in a protests in the Arab spring of 2011-2. The official charge sheet did not specify the dates of the numerous accusations: forming an anti-police terrorist cell, armed rebellion against the ruler, provoking chaos, etc. Al-Darwish was under 18 when the protests for jobs and opportunities and about discrimination against Shia Muslims took place. He has been imprisoned by the Sunni regime since he was 20. The beheading of al-Darwish is probably breaches even the kingdom’s...

The Kurds and the Turkish left in the 1960s

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the "founding father" of the Turkish Republic, who had crushed Kurdish uprisings in the southeast and tried to forcibly assimilate Kurds into the Turkish nation, died in 1938.

Tulsa: the legacy of the massacre

Third of a series of articles. Part one here and part two here . Particularly given who the last US President was, it’s not insignificant that Joe Biden has spoken out very publicly about June 1921, when a racist mob destroyed the black district of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by burning and bombing from the air, and killed hundreds. We told the story in Solidarity 595 and 596 . “This was not a riot”, Biden told a crowd of survivors and their families in Tulsa on 1 June, the anniversary of the bloodshed’s climax. “This was a massacre.” He condemned the effective cover up of the slaughter for...

Unison: challenges after stilted conference

The new National Executive Committee (NEC) of the public service union Unison, with a left majority for the first time in the union’s history, will face an uncooperative staff who will not want to relinquish control of the union just because their lay allies have been defeated. Within the union structures the NEC must prioritise democratising, including rewriting the industrial action handbook so it is no longer a block to lay control of disputes. At a virtual NEC meeting after the Unison conference held online 15-17 June, left-winger Paul Holmes was elected president, with left-wingers also...

Strong left minority at PCS Conference

The National Conference of the civil service workers' union PCS took place virtually on Sunday-Monday 13-14 June. Branches were allowed to submit motions and requests to speak in advance of the conference, with votes taken during the conference based on the strength of branch memberships. There was no ability to submit emergency motions or for branches to appeal to conferences to challenge standing orders. PCS Independent Left comrades on the NEC made proposals for this to happen, but this was voted down by the leadership majority. The conference was split into four sections: Covid-19 and...

UCU congress votes for Uyghur and HK rights

The University and College Union (UCU) held its annual Congress and its Further Education and Higher Education sector conferences (FESC and HESC respectively) on 29 May to 2 June. Given the current state of restrictions, these were all held online. Over 200 delegates were present, 67 motions/rule changes were submitted, and speaking requests for each debate had to be made in advance. I attended both UCU Congress and the HESC as a delegate from Cambridge University UCU, so will only report on those meetings (for which motion results only emerged on 15th June). All motions and results can be...

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