Solidarity 391, 27 January 2016

When printworkers took on Rupert Murdoch

In 1986, Rupert Murdoch, working closely with the Thatcher government, set out to smash the print unions. Knowing how Murdoch did that is essential to understanding how he became a feared and feted establishment figure. Murdoch began his domination of media business in the UK with the acquisition of the News of the World in 1968, followed by the Sun (1969), then the Times and Sunday Times (1981). Soon after acquiring the Times/Sunday Times, Murdoch pushed through major staffing cuts and a wage freeze. A year later Murdoch went for further redundancies among clerical staff. At that time there...

Expropriate the banks, not go for AES!

Dave Osland ( Solidarity 390) is right that Jeremy Corbyn’s and John McDonnell’s opposition to austerity is to be welcomed, and opens many more exit doors from the Thatcher-Blair-Brown-Cameron neo-liberal consensus than anything previously-established powers of the Labour Party had come up with for decades. He is also right that Corbynomics is far from “Leninism”, “all power to the Soviets”, or even “socialism in the strict sense of the term, namely the dominance of social ownership of the means of production”. However, he indicates that this remoteness from socialism proper, this closeness...

New blow for South Wales steel town

Over 1,000 jobs will be cut at Tata steel sites across the UK, including 750 jobs at one of its largest sites in Port Talbot, South Wales. For the workforce of around 4,000, this is a devastating blow. Port Talbot′s iconic works dominate its coastal landscape. The local economy is dependent on steel production and it is estimated that for every job at Tata, another job in the wider area is supported. There is a gloomy feeling among residents of my hometown. We’re used to bad news; job cuts have become an all-too-frequent occurrence — the works employed 18,000 people in the 1960s. However, such...

Why and how to oppose Prevent

In February 2015 schools, local authorities and colleges in the UK became subject to something called “the Prevent duty”. Under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act, this was a legal duty to “have regard to the need to protect people from being drawn into terrorism”. In this age of high-stakes monitoring and the tyranny of Ofsted, that “duty” led to frequent cases of over-anxious staff reporting perfectly innocent behaviour as if it were dangerous. The Prevent programme itself was introduced by the last Labour government in 2006, in response to the 7/7 London bombing, and driven by the...

Setback for Trade Union Bill

The House of Lords has taken issue with the parts of the Trade Union Bill which relate to party funding and have referred them for closer scrutiny in the committee stages. However the Lords approved key measures which further restrict the right to strike. Overall, the Bill remains a hugh threat to trade union organising. Labour peers put a motion in the Lords which was passed by 327-234, that the bill was “not being conducted in the spirit of a report by the committee on standards in public life’s report, which urged cross-party talks to get a consensus on reforming party funding.” The TUC is...

Tunisia's unemployed rise against poverty

Tunisia has been rocked by a series of major demonstrations by unemployed workers. Protests began in the interior town of Kasserine following the death of 28 year-old Rida Yahyaoui. He was electrocuted after climbing a transmission tower in a protest after he failed to get a government job. Action spread through the heartlands of Gafsa and Sidi Bouzid and on to the capital, Tunis, and other coastal cities. Following Islamist terror attacks against tourist targets last summer the economic situation has worsened. There are now 700,000 unemployed in a country of under 11 million. The union...

Putin: a model of reactionary politics

The report of Britain’s official Owen Inquiry into the 2006 murder of former Russian security service agent Alexander Litvinenko was published on 21 January. It attributed responsibility for the murder to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Putin ruled Russia as its President from 2000 to 2008. Barred by the constitution from seeking a third successive term of office, Putin was nominally Prime Minister between 2008 and 2012. In reality, he remained the ultimate source of authority in Russia. Amid widespread allegations of ballot-rigging, Putin was re-elected President for six years in 2012....

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