Solidarity 290, 21 June 2013

Osborne plans Lloyds and RBS sale

The merry-go-round of high finance stalled in 2007-8, throwing off and injuring millions of people. Chancellor George Osborne is anxious to start it up again, and to stage some privatisations in the run-up to the 2015 general election as distraction from the economic gloom. In 2008 governments across the world, including the most conservative and neo-liberal of them, stepped in to nationalise and bail out banks and financial institutions, and thus to steady the merry-go-round. Then, they talked of neo-liberalism being discredited, and of a new era of social regulation. Once the financiers...

G8 summit: free trade, the NHS and tax dodging

At the G8 summit in Northern Ireland on 17-18 June, a start was announced for talks on a free trade deal between the USA and the European Union. The talks will take two years at least, and may not produce a deal. They were able even to start only because a fudge was devised on France’s demands to have its “cultural exception” (measures which protect, for example, French film production) declared off-limits. Campaigners in Britain have been demanding that the NHS be declared equally off-limits. Otherwise future restoration of public service in health, in place of the market allocation the...

Syria: Dream or nightmare?

In its latest issue, June 2013, the French revolutionary socialist magazine Revue Tout est à Nous , published by the NPA (successor organisation to the LCR), carries a dossier on “self-organisation in the people's revolution in Syria”. The introduction is gushing: "forms of struggle and administration from below are more developed in the Syrian revolution than in any other process in the other countries in the region... This revolution [in Syria] is an authentic people's revolution whose social motor forces and the workers and, more broadly, the urban and rural poor." The documents translated...

Left Unity and the People's Assembly meet

Left Unity held its first National Coordinating Group meeting in Doncaster on Saturday 15 June. The meeting was attended by representatives from 36 local groups, as well as the 10 members who were directly elected at the 11 May national meeting. Much of the agenda was taken up with basic organising of the new coalition and with the timetable for a founding conference set for 23 November. Broader political discussions were had between delegates over lunch. The National Coordinating Group now has the remit to prepare the November conference. Policy Commissions have been set up to draft policy...

Unison backs Councillors Against Cuts

On 17 June, the Local Government sector conference of the public sector union Unison voted to back the Councillors Against Cuts network (CAC). It voted down a wrecking amendment from its Service Group Executive designed to gut the motion of support of its content. The SGE argued that full support for CAC would place the union in legal jeopardy, as it would mean pressuring councils to set illegal budgets. One delegate told Solidarity : “The union leadership wheels this argument out to block any attempt to do anything vaguely militant. But people have had enough of it.” CAC is a group of Labour...

Liverpool University puts "a gun to the head of its workers"; Warwick students occupy against pay hike

Liverpool University has said it will sack 2,800 workers and rehire them on inferior contracts — or sack them if they refuse. Unions representing Liverpool University workers have described this as a “gun to the head”. Jo MacNeill, president-elect of the UCU lecturers’ union at Liverpool University, spoke to Solidarity : Everyone from gardeners to managers is in the firing line — it’s 52% of staff. We think that this attack is a move towards much more of a “business model” for the university, away from it being an academic institution. Industrial relations have broken down. They’re trying to...

Brazil: against power, corruption and cuts

Two hundred thousand people marched in Brazil’s biggest cities on Monday 17 June against rising public transport costs. Further demonstrations are planned on the day we go to press (Thursday 20th). Protests began at the beginning of June after Sao Paulo residents marched against an increase in the price of a single bus fare, from 3 real to 3.2 real. That issue was just a spark, bringing to the fore a number of long-standing grievances. Inflation in Brazil (a capitalist success story) is running at 15%; government corruption is widespread; the government is spending vast sums on the 2014 World...

Hasan Rohani, the rulers' choice

On 15 June many thousands of people were allowed on to the streets of Tehran and other cities to celebrate the “election” of Hassan Rohani as “president” of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Rohani’s “landslide victory” quickly brought about statements from Ali Khamenei, the Leader, and many notable clergy, state institutions and political groupings congratulating him. Even the pasdaran, the so-called “Revolutionary Guards”, were quick to pledge their loyalty. Across the world there has been a sigh of relief: Ahmadinejad will be gone in less than two months and his replacement is said to be a...

Always next year?

Unison members in local government recently voted by 59%, on a low turnout, to accept a 1% pay deal. Although the ballot was already over by the time Unison’s Local Government Sector conference met in Liverpool (16-17 June), many activists felt the union leadership had failed to lead. The Local Government Service Group Executive voted by 14-13 to describe the deal as “the best that can be achieved through negotiation”, a de facto endorsement. At the conference, it justified its stance by saying that members had no appetite for a fight, but that it would build for a fight against next year’s...

Bedroom Tax arrears soar

Non-payment and partial payment of the extra rent social housing tenants have to pay because of the Bedroom Tax is beginning to put pressure on the policy. Leeds City Council has said about 50% of its affected tenants are in arrears and this is expected to rise. Many other local authorities and housing associations have similar levels of arrears. On 7 June 34 Labour local authorities met in Manchester and issued a statement condemning the Bedroom Tax and demanding that it is repealed. This is very welcome; it that puts Labour in local government ahead of the national party which has given no...

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