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Undemocratic backroom politics in Momentum

18 May 2020 |

Sacha Ismail

There is a fight about the future of Labour left organisation Momentum. A new grouping, Forward Momentum, is in conflict with those who run the Momentum office (which means, in Momentum as currently constituted, run the organisation). The office people seem to be supporting a counter-initiative,...

Right to protest

18 May 2020

After a leaked Treasury paper suggested a two-year public sector pay freeze, a group of London nurses held a socially distanced protest outside Downing Street, wearing their PPE. This is one of a number of protests health workers have organised around the country. In response NHS England and NHS...

Cleaners in the pandemic: a view from the frontline

17 May 2020 | Tubeworker

A Tube cleaner and RMT activist spoke to Tubeworker about cleaners' struggles in the pandemic. Being a cleaning worker during this period has been tough. We're absolutely on the frontline. As outsourced workers, many of us feel forgotten about, left behind, and ignored. Our employer, ABM, dismisses...

Don't look back, you're not going that way

Going on the offensive

17 May 2020 |

Luke Hardy

The socialist left in Britain, including us, were so invested in the Corbyn project and are still so disoriented from the December 2019 election defeat that we fail to notice what's before our faces. That, for the first time since the Poll Tax revolt, our class is on the offensive.

Labour movement activists on why we must take over the banks

17 May 2020

The 2019 TUC Congress passed a proposal from the Fire Brigades Union for “public ownership of the big banks, which could play a central role in building a sustainable economy, investing in a publicly owned energy sector and creating decent, unionised jobs in the interests of working people”. No one...

Demand the government extends self-employed support too

15 May 2020 |

Ben Laski

Under pressure from extreme circumstances, and from the labour movement, the Tories have backed away from their talk of ending the “Coronavirus job retention” furlough scheme for employed workers or reducing it from 80pc of wages. They have extended the scheme till October. There is (possibly very...

Funding comes with Tory strings

14 May 2020 | Tubeworker

Mayor Khan needs to brush up on his negotiation skills. Mere hours after he announced TfL was on the verge of running out of money, and services may stop running if additional funding wasn't forthcoming, he managed to secure... a package of less money than is needed, with more strings attached than...

Khan on cuts

14 May 2020 | Tubeworker

It might have taken a global pandemic to force it from him, but Mayor Khan has finally admitted that running a major metropolitan transport system on massively reduced funding simply isn't feasible. Khan told the media on 14 May that: "Unless the government today gives us confirmation of the grant...

Should stations reopen?

13 May 2020 | Tubeworker

LU has announced in an employee bulletin that it plans to reopen seven of the 37 stations that have been shut during the pandemic - Mansion House, Pimlico, Blackhorse Road, Bounds Green, Bow Road, Bayswater, and Warwick Avenue. It is suggested that this might help relieve congestion at other...

Bullying bosses threaten cleaners at Paddington

13 May 2020 | Off The Rails

An image is circulating on social media of a notice handed to outsourced cleaners, employed by the contractor Interserve, at Paddington station. It insists that the toilets "always have an attendant in view", and accuses cleaners of "hiding in the room." How are cleaners meant to distance safely if...

Donate to our fund appeal! £10k by 22 November

12 May 2020

Donate to help Workers' Liberty argue, organise and fight in this crisis and beyond. We are aiming to raise £10,000 by 22 November. See this article for an update progress towards that target, and how to donate.

RIP Belly Mujinga - keep frontline workers safe!

12 May 2020 | Off The Rails

We send our condolences and solidarity to the family, friends, and workmates of Belly Mujinga, a station worker from Victoria who has died of Covid-19, after being spat on at work by someone claiming to have the virus. This tragedy highlights the terrible risks to which frontline, public-facing...

Demand councils follow Salford

12 May 2020 |

Mohan Sen

Salford City Unison has won what looks like strong policy for the right of all care workers in their borough to self-isolate on full pay. The policy agreed between the union and the council says: “All providers will be expected to ensure staff who are absent as a result of Government guidance will...

Jeff Bezos: superspreader

12 May 2020

Amazon have done well out of the pandemic. Very well. Over the last few weeks Amazon’s share price has rise by 50%; the personal wealth of its CEO Jeff Bezos (richest man in the world) has risen by $41 billion to $146 billion. Anti-corporate greed blog sumofus.org have calculated that just 1% of...

"You can't have socialism in one country"

12 May 2020 |

Interview with Julie Ward

Julie Ward, former Labour MEP for the North West, spoke to Sacha Ismail. *** What demands should the left and labour movement be raising in the Covid-19 crisis? The crisis is not just a health crisis, but an economic one, and a crisis about Britain’s place in the world. We will be judged in the...

Support Momentum Internationalists!

12 May 2020 |

Lewis Joyes

Forward Momentum — the organisation set up recently to democratise Momentum — will run its “primaries” between 12 and 16 May: a selection contest for the Forward Momentum slate for the elections to the National Coordinating Group of the big Labour left network Momentum. The Momentum election will...

The Morning Star and "patriotism"

12 May 2020 |

Phil Grimm

On 7 May, the Morning Star carried an article with the snazzy headline “Patriotism is good for you.” A better headline would have been “Stalinism turns you into a useless nationalist who can’t pick the right side in an industrial dispute”. Before examining what this Comrade Blimp has to say about...

Not the kitchen, but a teaspoon?

12 May 2020

Labour right-winger Bridget Phillipson, installed by Keir Starmer as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, denounced the 2017 Labour manifesto as “all must have prizes” and “vote Labour and get not the microwave, but the whole kitchen”. Not the 2019 manifesto, even, but the 2017 one. In a leaked...

The job battles to come

12 May 2020 |

Colin Foster

Government figures say 27% of workers went on the official furlough scheme in late March and early April. The government is to cover 80% of their wages, and employer may or may not make up the other 20%. The scheme is due to end on 30 June. The government says it will be “tapered off”, not ended...

Diary of a Tubeworker: "You saw the email about supplies"

12 May 2020 |

Jay Dawkey

The streets are fairly clear at 0410 when I leave the house. I don’t meet anyone else until I get on my first of two night buses. I could get the staff taxis. They’ve changed it to only take one passenger at a time now. But I would be walking in the rain for 15 minutes to pick it up. The bus is not...