Solidarity 161, 22 October 2009

Ron Mendel of Northampton Save Our Public Services (SOPS) spoke to Vicki Morris about their anti-cuts and recent election campaigns. How long has SOPS been going? We became SOPS in April 2009 when we registered with the Electoral Commission, but the predecessor Save Our Services goes back to 2005–6 when we were campaigning against cuts in mental health and disability services within the NHS. In 2007 we decided to run candidates in Northampton borough council elections. We stood in Old Duston ward — Conservative — and Lumbertubs ward — Labour. In Old Duston SOS finished in third place; fourth...

After the tremendous “Yes” vote in the national ballot, there can be no doubting the resolve of the membership to take management on and see the dispute through. The next step is to ensure that the strike is as strong as possible and organised so we can stand up to the tough trials ahead. The way to do that is to keep the membership in the driving seat. A strike is stronger if the members are informed and active, rather than passively waiting on instructions coming from the executive. One reason the 2007 strike ended the way it did was because much of the membership was in the dark about the...

Postal workers organised in the CWU union have voted overwhelmingly (76% on a turnout of nearly 70%) for national strike action against ongoing attacks by Royal Mail management against workers. The first days of strike action are scheduled for Thursday 22 and Friday 23 October. The strike is in response to “modernisation” plans by Royal Mail, which essentially involve making postal workers work harder, longer and for less. There has been an increase in “cross functioning”, whereby managers make workers of one grade do the work of another grade with no increase in pay. Several local offices...

In the face of the mass scabbing operation Royal Mail is attempting to organise under the cover of hiring its Christmas casuals early, the CWU needs to act quickly and decisively, and the labour movement should back it up on the picket lines. Picketing should be stepped up on strike days. Union members should approach casuals and ask them to join the union and not cross picket lines. Membership should be offered free or at greatly reduced rates. It should be made clear to casuals that once they join the CWU they should join the strikes - and they have a right to do so. We should explain that...

Two CWU activists from North East London spoke to Ed Maltby. EM: What’s your attitude to the 30,000 casuals Royal Mail bosses are hiring? V: People are furious. Royal Mail can dress it up all they like, but we know they’re there to break the strike. We’re going to tolerate it; we’re going to take them on in the courts and we’re going to organise against this. We are approaching a few casuals about joining the union. We are appealing to their conscience, but if this doesn’t work we’ll try different tactics. K: Management have been hinting to us that the picketing has been working. For example...

Leeds refuse collection workers have voted to reject an offer by the council and continue their all-out strike, which started on 7 September. The latest offer saw some improvement on future wages, but at the cost of extending the working day by an hour and further changes in conditions. The workers are still calling for no change in working hours and maintaining current pay rates. With strong picket lines and the unions provision of strike pay, a return to work without the desired settlement is unlikely. 1,000 people came to a recent benefit gig — probably the largest demonstration of trade...

On Wednesday 21 October four people were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a university in Islamabad. This attack was the latest in a series on prominent, government, institutional and military “targets” in Pakistan, by jihadists associated with or in support of the Taliban in Pakistan. It was retaliation for the Pakistani military’s incursion, now a ground offensive, in South Waziristan. The Pakistani government, acting under pressure from the US, want to destroy, demobilise or otherwise disorganise the Taliban in this region, which forms part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of...

Around 30 Iraqi asylum seekers whom the government tried to deport to Iraq last week are among a group of 50 hunger strikers at Brook House detention centre in West Sussex. The UK has been deporting “failed” Iraqi asylum seekers back to Iraqi Kurdistan for several years but last week for the first time tried to deport 39 people to Baghdad. In Baghdad, the authorities said they would only let in those who wanted to be let in, and no one should be forced to go back to Iraq against their will. Most on the flight chose to return to the UK. In a statement, the hunger strikers explain: “We have been...

What is at the root of the dispute in Royal Mail? The postal workers and their union the CWU are one of the most important bastions of well-organised workplace trade unionism which remains from the great build-up of trade unionism among blue-collar workers from the 1940s to the 1970s. By applying the basic trade unionist principles of solidarity — the idea that unity is strength and an injury to one is an injury to all — postal workers have protected their pay, their union, and much of their terms and conditions in the face of the global race to the bottom which has afflicted workers in blue...

The internet rumours (reported in Solidarity 3/160) that the Communist Party of Britain (Morning Star) had split were untrue. The rumour now is that the CPB has u-turned again, and is back in on the "son of No2EU" project for an election slate. The split was said to be over whether or not to take part in that slate. The CPB executive did vote to withdraw from the discussions on a slate which have been going on since the June euro-elections among the groups which took part in the No2EU slate then - the CPB, the RMT rail union leadership, the Socialist Party, and the Alliance for Green Socialism...