Solidarity 133, 5 June 2008

On 2 June, Hassan Juma’a, president of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU), made an appeal for support to the world labour movement. “The Iraqi Oil Minister, Hussein Al-Shahristani, has ordered the transfer of eight Oil Union activists. They used to work at the oil refineries in the south. This act reflects the minister’s anti-union policy, and lack of respect for unions and union activists in the oil sector... “This act is clear evidence that the Iraqi state seeks to liquidate trade unions in this important Iraqi economic sector, oil. It is important to note that the south is the main...

25,000 dockers at all 29 ports across the West Coast of the USA staged an 8-hour strike on 1 May calling for an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq. The action was not only supported by significant demonstrations in the USA but also by a solidarity strike staged by Iraqi port workers in Umm Qasr and Khor Alzubair. When the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) called the strike in February it was widely reported that it was a mere demonstration, and that the union had one day at its disposal each month for its own purposes. In fact the Pacific Maritime Association tried to use...

Two years after the great uprising, in Oaxaca, Mexico, Section 22 of the Sindicato Nacional de los Trabajadores (SNTE) teachers union has mounted a fresh 21 day long strike demanding an end to political repression and the democratisation of their union and local schools. On 22 May 2006 teachers led by Section 22 took strike action demanding increased pay, better conditions and investment into food and uniforms for students. On 14 June Governor Ortiz deployed one thousand state police officers to break up the strike. Two days later tens of thousands of Oaxacans, backed by trade unions and...

Ed Maltby reports from Paris Large numbers of migrant workers who are working illegally in France (known as “sans papiers” — “without documents”) are striking in Paris and elsewhere, to demand their “regularisation” — to have the right to stay in France and the same rights as other workers. On 15 April, a wave of strikes involving around 1,000 migrant workers in different workplaces erupted in Paris. The strikers were supported by the CGT, Solidaires, and the CNT union federations, amongst others. Many of the strikers from the original wave of strikes have now won regularisation. But the 15...

The last issue of Solidarity carried a statement from the International Socialist Organisation of Zimbabwe, a group linked to the SWP (workersliberty.org/node/10590). This statement reiterated the position of critical electoral support for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change which ISO comrade Mike Sambo outlined in an interview in Solidarity 1/131: "The driving force behind our critical support to the MDC remains unchanged: run-away inflation, caused by the ever-declining economy, caused by Mugabe's dictatorship — and affecting working people the worst. That alone necessitates all...

Gemma Short replies to “Innuendo in the contract”, Solidarity 3, 132. We recently faced a dilemma in Sheffield, around how to respond to the possible opening of a restaurant like Hooters. The article in the last Solidarity characterises all the things we might object to in such a work-place, however we must think carefully how we respond — especially given the existing campaign set up by the Sheffield Fems. The fact that the campaign was already in existence complicated the issue. How do you respond both to the exploitation at Hooters and the anti-working class nature of a parallel campaign...

Matt Cooper reviews A Good Soul of Szechuan (at the Young Vic, London, until 28 June) In recent years there has been a renewed interest in works by the German Marxist playwright, Bertolt Brecht. This new translation of his A Good Soul of Szechuan has met with predictable abuse from the right wing press, but it is more surprising to see it attacked in the Observer by Nick Cohen for being Stalinist propaganda, and his plays therefore being of no worth. Nick Cohen is now best known for his assault on the anti-war left, What’s left, which under a veneer of attacking the right target (the SWP...

I’m not old enough to remember Mary Whitehouse’s campaigning years, only the jubilation of my film lecturer informing us she’d kicked the bucket a few years earlier — he filled us in on her puritanical, anti-gay, anti-sex crusades. So watching BBC2’s dramatisation of her life was pretty surprising — no lunatic fundamentalists here, just a story of an ordinary woman fighting the smug liberal establishment. Hugh Greene, Director General of the BBC, was portrayed as a womanising, slightly bonkers, upper-class twit slowly cracking under the pressure of her formidable campaign. Whitehouse, played...

JB Lenoir from the Chicago blues movement in the 1950s recorded several LPs using acoustic guitar, sometimes accompanied by Willie Dixon on the acoustic bass or drums. His songs commented on political issues such as racism and the Vietnam War, which was unusual for this period. His Alabama blues recording had a song that stated: I never will go back to Alabama, that is not the place for me (2x) You know they killed my sister and my brother, And the whole world let them peoples go down there free White audiences’ interest in the blues during the 1960s increased due to the Chicago-based Paul...

In 1968 I was a student at Cambridge university. I had leftish opinions as a result of books I’d read and experiences between leaving school and going to university — but really they didn’t amount to more than a vague blur. The French events of 1968 suddenly snapped issues into focus. To this day I can remember reading a big article in the Observer at the end of May by Patrick Seale and Maureen McConville which explained how the French Communist Party was acting as a conservative force within the strike movement. Even before that, I didn’t like the Communist Party or consider the regimes in...