Solidarity 304, 20 November 2013

Berlin reverses privatisation

On 3 November, 600,000 Berliners voted in a referendum to take back the local electricity production and supply into public ownership — 83% of those who voted. This is only 150,000 less than the combined vote of the Social Democrat and conservative Christian Democrat parties (who run the federal state of Berlin) in the last regional elections. The referendum was held after around 230,000 signatures had been collected by the “Berliner Energietisch” campaign, calling for democratic control over and public ownership of the energy supply (and of other basic necessities), 100% green energy, any...

The role of leverage

We continue our discussion of the lessons of the Grangemouth defeat. Here, a contribution from Mark Best discusses how Unite’s “Organising and Leverage Department” can help win disputes. Football pundits are fond of pointing out that it is not so much the defeat itself that teaches you anything meaningful about a team, but how they react to it in the matches that follow. Much the same could be said about Unite and the left following Grangemouth. This was a big defeat. Exactly how big remains to be seen, but the workforce at Grangemouth have accepted massive cuts in terms and conditions and the...

Outsourced University of London workers to strike

Outsourced cleaning, catering, and security workers at the University of London will strike on 27 and 28 November. Their strike ballot returned a 97% vote in favour of strikes, on a 70% turnout. The workers, who are employed by agencies such as Balfour Beatty and Aramark, have been fighting for sick pay, holiday, and pensions equality with their directly-employed colleagues through the "Tres Cosas" ("Three Things") campaign. The campaign has organised regular direct actions, often in conjunction with the University of London Union, and has recently been the victim of attempts to university...

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