Solidarity 569, 28 October 2020

Tube cuts: prepare for action

Talks between TfL and the government about a further funding bailout are ongoing, with discussions being extend past the 17 October deadline for the expiry of the previous package.

Tory attack lines blame Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan for "bankrupting" TfL. This is a blatant lie. TfL's funding crisis...

Work or full pay for all

The government has scaled back the weakening of its job support schemes — without significant labour movement pressure. If the labour movement fights, we can win more. The original, pre-October furlough and self-employment schemes were stingy enough, and they are still being cut. But the latest changes for after 31 October (increasing the state contribution to employers to keep jobs from 22 to 49%, and reducing the number of hours workers must work; doubling the payment to self-employed people from 20 to 40% of normal income) are real concessions. Neither trade unions nor the Labour Party have...

Biggest rent strike for years

At the start of this week (26 October) around 1,300 students at Bristol University withheld their rent for uni accommodation, amounting to around £2 million. This is the biggest student rent strike for many years. Bristol students, who pay up to £8,000 a year, were promised the “full university experience” only to be locked down for weeks without adequate support. The Bristol strike is more advanced than others that are being planned around the UK. Strikers are demanding the right to end accommodation contracts early and a 30% rebate if they chose to stay. At Durham University 7.5% of students...

"If Trump attempts a coup, all bets are off"

David Van Deusen is president of the Vermont State Labor Council AFL-CIO , the state's union federation. He spoke to Sacha Ismail from Solidarity about how the labour movement can resist a Trump coup. There’s a real possibility that Donald Trump will lose this election, outright, but manipulate the process and use his powers as President to refuse to go. This is not a fringe idea – our United States Senator, Bernie Sanders, is rightly banging the drum about it too. It’s a real possibility, and no joke. There’s various ways it could happen – there could be attempts to discount certain ballots...

Debate: Marxists and Democrats

• See here for other articles debating the US election, Trump, etc . The Sanders movement, the Democratic Socialists of America, the Labor Party USA of 1996, are none of them exactly "in" the Democratic Party. Sanders sits as an Independent Senator. The DSA endorses relatively few Democratic candidates, and in Chicago City Council elections, for example, which are formally non-partisan, it runs candidates against mainstream Democrats. They are in different ways "around" the Democrats. The question is whether that should require Marxists to shun them. The US party system is in many ways more...

Fascism and Trump: theory and history

In the discussion we, Workers' Liberty, had with Neil Faulkner of Mutiny on 18 October, he defined fascism as a bringing-together of all the reactionary crap of bourgeois ideology, deployed in capitalist crisis to divide the working class.

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.