Solidarity 120, 25 October 2007

Solidarity spoke to Pete Firmin, branch vice-chair and political officer of London West End Amalgamated CWU The deal is a crock of shite, to put it as politely as I can. If you look at it, Royal Mail have got just about everything they wanted. The union is endorsing the new start times and giving the green light to management’s plans to promote “flexible” working, a series of changes that for many postal workers will mean a real terms pay cut. At the same time, if you go beneath the headline figure, the pay deal is actually almost identical to what we were being offered originally. If you...

The civil service union PCS is undertaking a critical national consultative ballot of members to find out whether they support the executive council’s strategy in the national dispute over jobs, pay, privatisation and other issues. In strict legal terms the union does not need the ballot as it secured a legal mandate for discontinuous strike action when it balloted members late last year. Indeed, even if the ballot is lost, that would not nullify the existing legal strike mandate. Nevertheless, it is vital that there is a large turnout for the ballot and that members vote “yes”. Anything less...

The second Feminist Fightback conference took place on Saturday 20 October at the University of East London. Almost 300 people attended and there was a real buzz at this year’s event. It was organised by a group of socialist feminists including those from the Education Not for Sale network. Fightback was a chance for rarely seen debate on the left about socialist feminism, with sessions on women and low pay, eco-feminism, women workers’ struggles in Latin America, sexual liberation and feminism, imperialism and women in the Muslim-majority world. The conference featured speakers from RAG Irish...

Mansour Osanloo, the Iranian bus workers’ leader, has lost the sight in one eye after being denied the urgent medical treatment he needed in prison. Apparently he has now received medical treatment... too late to save his sight. Osanloo, President of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company (Sherkat-e Vahed) has been detained in the brutal Evin prison in Teheran since July this year. His eyes were first injured in May 2005 after he was attacked by government security forces, who also cut his tongue, leaving him with a lisp. Osanloo has been repeatedly harassed by the Iranian...

Two events over the next few weeks could put new impetus into the campaign to defend the NHS. Firstly the release of the film Sicko, by US documentary filmmaker Michael Moore will help demonstrate to a general audience the reality of a privatised healthcare system. In the US the movie has helped generate a new national campaign for socialised healthcare. It is a damming indictment of the inequalities and mistreatment of patients where profit not compassion is the motive. Many local Keep Our NHS Public groups, trade union branches and others are leafleting screenings, block booking seats and...

Around 150 delegates and members turned up to the Scottish Socialist Party’s 2007 annual conference, held in Dundee last Sunday (21 October). Overturning a previous and well-established policy, the conference passed a motion in support of scrapping religious and denominational schools. Underlining its commitment to this policy, the conference also voted to delete a clause in the motion which allowed for “inclusive assemblies which could draw on religious and non-religious traditions.” A motion opposing the abolition of weekly rubbish bin collections proved more controversial (even though large...

Next year is the 60th anniversary of the foundation on the NHS. Two generations of British peoples’ lives have been affected by the NHS in one way or another — as health workers, patients or carers. It’s difficult to imagine a time in the past without it, or a future with it gone. For the labour movements that fought for it, free healthcare for all at the point of demand, expressed an notion of social equality and solidarity. All that is now under threat. The trade union-organised demonstration on 3 November is an opportunity to prepare ourselves for the battle ahead to save the NHS. Before...

The 23 October edition of the Daily Mail featured a rant by the odious High Tory Max Hastings, the boldface of the title screaming “How much longer will we put up with the Scots spending so much of our money?” The basic rationale of his piece is that Scottish people live a life of luxury — yes, not only do they not have to pay tuition fees, but Alex Salmond “plans to abolish” NHS prescription charges — which “the kindly, stupid English” have to shell out for, but do not benefit from themselves. Westminster is paying for the Holyrood government’s “largesse”. The attempt to scapegoat the Scots...

Between fifty and sixty per cent of the population identify as “working class”. Despite the term “working class” vanishing completely from the language of the Labour Party, the proportion claiming this now-unspoken identity has been fairly stable since the 1950s. To be “working-class”, whether you know it or not, is to be at one pole of a pair. The other pole is the capitalist class. The picture is blurred by what Marx called “the constantly growing number of the middle classes, those who stand between the workman on the one hand and the capitalist and landlord on the other. The middle classes...

The final text endorsed by the Postal Executive of the postal workers’ union CWU on 22 October seems to differ from the terms negotiated between CWU leaders Billy Hayes and Dave Ward and Royal Mail bosses on 12 October mainly in added warm words. The core is the same. CWU postal workers will now be balloted on the deal. The timetable for the ballot has not yet been set. A senior reps’ meeting was due to meet on 25 October, the day after Solidarity went to press, but it is unlikely to vote on the deal. The CWU leaders obviously didn’t think the deal was likely to be accepted back on 12 October...