British jobs for British workers?
[WORKERS, DEC 2007]
When Gordon Brown, looking for a good sound bite in the run-up to his "election" as prime minister, came up with "British jobs for British workers" it caused a stir. It's still causing a stir, and in some strange places, too.
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Building the Olympics: where local people come last
[WORKERS, DEC 2007]
In November this year households in east and southeast London received through the letterbox the latest issue of "Your Park", promising latest news from the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA). Under the heading "Job opportunities for local people" we find...not job opportunities, but training being offered.
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Havana and London: solidarity from ambulance workers to ambulance workers
[WORKERS, DEC 2007]
UNISON has a long and proud history of solidarity with other trade unions around the world, particularly when it comes to health. Health should be a universal right for all people, but in some cases that right is denied, either by economic forces, or, as is mainly the case, political forces. Internal political and economic forces are usually seen as the culprit but in the case of Cuba, both these forces are applied vindictively and cynically by a close external superpower.
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The October Revolution – humanity's greatest achievement
[WORKERS, DEC 2007]
The capitalist state of affairs has, since its beginnings, been projected as the natural way, the only way. God-given and reinforced by the church, to break away from it was to invite social disaster and chaos. This prevailing attitude of mind was smugly conveyed by the famous 19th-century hymn, All Things Bright and Beautiful in its now rarely-sung later verse:
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Three books for thinking over Christmas
[WORKERS, DEC 2007]
Settle down over the holiday period for a good read about the scandal of city academies, the wreck of Britain's railways, and the ethics of socialism
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On the rocks: why capitalism isn't stable
[WORKERS, NOV 2007]
The recent volatility in Britain's financial markets was first sighted in May when the debt from the Boots Chemist sale was offered as a yield-bearing product by investment banks. The offer had to be pulled within days, as there were no takers, meaning that the £10 billion debt had to remain on the investment banks' own balance sheets.
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EU Constitution - Brown's shamefaced betrayal of Britain
[WORKERS, NOV 2007]
With his now trademark combination of bluster and bottle, Brown signed the Reform Treaty in Lisbon establishing a conveyor belt to ship power out of Britain and over to Brussels. First the bluster: no need for a referendum, he said. Then the bottle: he stayed away from the champagne celebration that followed, suspecting, rightly, that it wouldn't play well in front of his home crowd.
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Growing up in London – the challenge for children
[WORKERS, NOV 2007]
The United nations recently published its report into children's lives. British children didn't come out too well – at least, their quality of life didn't. The picture corresponds roughly with press reports, and you wonder how much the children asked about their quality of life were influenced by what they had read or heard in the news.
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Smash and grab in Iraq
[WORKERS, NOV 2007]
British military officers are sometimes a source of insight into the failures of US tactics in Iraq. Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, Deputy Commander of the Office of Security Transition in the Coalition Office for Training and Organizing Iraq's Armed Forces, has written in the journal Military Review, "U.S. Army personnel were too inclined to consider offensive operations and destruction of the insurgents as the key to a given situation," without due regard for protecting the population.
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TUC: chasing shadows
[WORKERS, NOV 2007]
So a High Court judge has declared the CWU postal strike illegal (on technicalities). Any union activist who has been involved in organising an industrial action ballot knows that it is now virtually impossible to conduct a legal strike, again on technicalities. Add to this the self inflicted wound in the form of legal advice requested by the Universities and Colleges Union leadership to torpedo a policy that could have led to a boycott of Israel. Getting legal advice on this implies lawyers will decide what we can discuss in union meetings.
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The Act of Union and the birth of Britain
[WORKERS, NOV 2007]
The 1707 Union between England and Scotland was made in a period of state building and wars between rival empires when England was at war with France.
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After the TUC: the referendum debate begins
[WORKERS, OCT 2007]
Two motions calling for a referendum on the EU Constitution brought the TUC to life in September. Although the motions from the GMB and the RMT referred on paper to the "Reform Treaty", Congress was in no doubt that this was indeed the original rejected Constitution in all but name and there was no dispute on that issue. Nor was there any significant disagreement about whether or not to demand the referendum that was promised by all three parties at the general election in 2005 – only a handful of steelworkers and shopworkers supported Gordon Brown's contention that a referendum is not necessary.
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Make your voice heard over the EU constitutional treaties: demand a referendum!
[WORKERS, OCT 2007]
EU chieftains now openly boast that they have a Constitution in the two treaties that replaced it. So cocksure are they that there will be no British referendum, they don't mind contradicting everything Brown's government claims. Does it matter? Of course it does! Brown is about to give away our independence as a country without even letting the issue get outside his tame MPs in parliament.
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Memo to the TUC: the real economics of migration
[WORKERS, OCT 2007]
The TUC report, "The economics of migration: managing the impacts", published in June, claims that immigration benefits Britain. The TUC deserves some credit for joining the debate, but rather less for the anti-working class conclusions it reaches. In this article, we review a plethora of findings, from the TUC's own (albeit ignored) evidence through a number of eminent economic sources, and conclude that immigration is harmful to workers to the same degree as it benefits capitalism – racist as ever, whenever they get the opportunity they pay foreigners even less than they pay the indigenous workforce.
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Che's legacy to the working class
[WORKERS, OCT 2007]
A lot of fiction has been written about Che Guevara, killed forty years ago by a CIA assassin's bullet in Bolivia. In order to discredit his memory, he has been variously described as a "1960's student icon", a "trotskyist", an "adventurist", a Soviet GRU agent, or even a murderer. But he did not suddenly appear as an icon. His background and ideology was a product of the circumstances surrounding his life, and the lives of others of his generation. What are the facts behind the fiction, and what is his legacy to the working class?
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TUC Brighton 2007: time to wake up to the realities of Britain
[WORKERS, SEPT 2007]
What realities is the Trades Union Congress considering in September 2007? What is reality for the delegates, anyway? A fad, the trend of the day or just....treacle?
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The state of Amicus: Conference 2007
[WORKERS, SEPT 2007]
The last Amicus conference as a union distinct from the T&G took place in June. It was a rushed affair, with four days' worth of business crammed into two-and-a-half days. Motions drafted two years ago and debated over a year ago appeared dated, and were, with a few exceptions, rubber-stamped, with conference waiving the right to speak. Seventeen motions out of a total of two hundred (plus NEC statements) went unheard – voted through automatically at the end, by a membership that had lost the will to live.
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A legacy story – booming Britain?
[WORKERS, SEPT 2007]
The idea of a Labour Government, deep in the pockets of the bourgeoisie, claiming to produce more equality at the same time as it is helping to make the conditions for it more and more distant, is nothing short of laughable – if the consequences weren't so tragic. Nonetheless, Labour will keep on trying to fool us, so we will have to keep on pointing out where they have failed, even according to their claims and predictions. These stand in sharp contrast to the reality.
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The future of healthcare for Londoners
[WORKERS, SEPT 2007]
"A Framework for Action" – Professor Ara Darzi's Healthcare for London Report – was publicly launched on 11 July. Professor Darzi has gone from being an internationally renowned surgeon and clinician to a junior minister in Brown's Health team, with a brief that started out as an independent review of London's health service and broadened to review the rest of England's health care provision.
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Blair the groveller
[WORKERS, SEPT 2007]
In this brief and brilliant essay, journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft tells the story of Blair's premiership, focusing on the disastrous alliance with George W. Bush, which he pursued against Britain's interests and the views of the British people.
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Same constitution as before : so we want a referendum, as before
[WORKERS, JULY 2007]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel wanted what she calls a "new foundation treaty" – this is definitely "not the EU Constitution". Now, thanks to Blair, she has it.
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Waiting for a decent train service – and a complete rethink about how rail is run
[WORKERS, JULY 2007]
THIS NOVEMBER will see big changes for Britain's railways. During that month, many passenger franchises will be reorganised under new ownership, and the newly rebuilt and massively extended London St Pancras station will fully open as the final part of the high-speed line from London to the Channel Tunnel.
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Blair's Middle East legacy – destruction
[WORKERS, JULY 2007]
So George Bush and Condoleezza Rice have asked Tony Blair to be the Middle East envoy for the so-called 'Quartet'. Blair's departure from office as Prime Minister is not a voluntary act. It results from the high levels of opposition to the invasion of Iraq, from the evidence given publicly at the inquiries of Hutton and Butler, from the disappearance of any semblance of trust in politicians. He was forced to concede that he would not seek a fourth term in government.
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US takes aim at Syria
[WORKERS, JULY 2007]
As events in the Middle East continue to move at speed, it appears that the US is adding Syria to its list of potential targets to attack. Syria's secular government has long been an example to workers in the region. Unlike its neighbours it has a comprehensive free health, welfare and education system, equal pay and rights for women. It has given full rights to its resident Palestinian refugee population including full access to free health and education, the right to travel, to work, the right to buy property and to take part in the political life of its own community and that of Syria. The only restrictions are that they cannot buy land or vote in elections.
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William Wilberforce: enemy of the working class
[WORKERS, JULY 2007]
Far too much credit for the abolition of slavery is given to William Wilberforce, one of history's biggest hypocrites and reactionaries. It was only by their own action that the slaves were freed.
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Smuggling in the EU constitution
[WORKERS, JUNE 2007]
EU governments are secretly negotiating a new treaty, intended to replace the EU Constitution, which the French and Dutch rejected in 2005. The German government wants the EU to agree the treaty at the 22 June European Council and for all the EU governments to ratify it by the end of 2007.
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The attack on Britain
[WORKERS, JUNE 2007]
Capitalism isn't working. We the British working class can do better. Our problem is that we don't want to. We'd rather leave it up to capitalism than take the responsibility ourselves.
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The Belfast strikes of 1907: unity, not sectarianism
[WORKERS, JUNE 2007]
In Belfast this year the traditional May Day celebrations took the form of commemorating the wave of strikes which swept through Belfast in the summer of 1907. Led by Jim Larkin, the common threads that linked the wave of strikes that summer were the call for union recognition, better pay and conditions and resistance to the employers' attempts to defeat the growing working class unity of the Belfast strikers by provoking sectarian unrest.
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It takes more than unity to create strength
[WORKERS, JUNE 2007]
On 1 May 2007 – six years after the merger of the AEU and MSF – the union Amicus teamed up with the Transport & General Workers' Union to create Britain's biggest union, Unite, with two million members. The new rulebook will be drawn up by November 2008, and may outlaw such agreements as binding arbitration and no-strike deals.
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European Union: The fascist dream of A United Europe resurrected
[WORKERS, MAY 2007]
The European Union celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2007. What is there to celebrate for the British people? Nothing.
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Profit, greed and change in the NHS
[WORKERS, MAY 2007]
Change is constant as they say, and just like the seasons and the rotation of the planets, change is vital to human life. Change within the National Health Service is a good thing. It is not new. It has been going on since its formation in 1948. Improved hospitals, better trained doctors, better trained nurses, modern medicines and continuous research all for the one aim of improving the quality of life for the British people.
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Abolition? What abolition?
[WORKERS, MAY 2007]
The British Empire, still so often praised for its shaping of world history over the last few centuries, was at root a slave empire, held together by slave-trading between slave colonies, a world system mirroring only more grotesquely its domestic system of wage slavery. Between 1660 and 1807, British-owned ships carried 3.5 million Africans, 40,000 a year, across the Atlantic – more than any other country. British property owners were the world's chief slavers.
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Lessons from the referendum on Europe
[WORKERS, MAY 2007]
The 1975 Referendum on Europe. Volume 1: Reflections of the Participants, edited by Mark Baimbridge, paperback, 253 pages, ISBN 1-845400-34-8, Imprint Academic, 2007, £17.95; Volume 2: Current Analysis and Lessons for the Future, by Mark Baimbridge, Philip Whyman and Andrew Mullen; paperback, 222 pages, ISBN 1-845400-35-6, Imprint Academic, 2007, £17.95. These extremely useful books examine the 1975 referendum and look at the EU's economic and political effects. They are not written in EU jargon, unlike most books on the EU, usually semi-official.
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Sold down the river: the attack on skill and standards on the Thames
[WORKERS, APR 2007]
Thames Watermen and Lightermen (now known collectively as boatmasters) are among many groups of workers under attack from the EU Services Directive. In every case the underlying issue is loss of sovereignty. From the surrender by parliament of national control follows loss of local control, jobs, health and safety, qualifications, skills, professionalism, standards and pay.
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'The stars in the sky'
[WORKERS, APR 2007]
It was December 2003 and we had been invited by the Cuban Health Workers Union to travel to Haiti to see the work of the Cuban doctors at work in that country. At that time, Cuba could publicly claim that around 4,000 Cuban doctors and health professionals, all trade union members, were working in 50 poor countries providing free health care. (Privately we were told that there were an additional 12,000 at this time in Venezuela.)
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1857: not a mutiny, but a fight for independence
[WORKERS, APR 2007]
One hundred-and-fifty years ago, the people of India fought for their national sovereignty and for independence from the British Empire.
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No such thing as a free lunch
[WORKERS, APR 2007]
After participating in a Mori survey about NHS services in London, I was a bit surprised to receive a phone call asking me to participate in an all-day all-expenses-paid forum on the same subject, lunch and refreshments included. Having already expressed my views, I was puzzled. The caller explained that the purpose was to further discuss what the future of health services in London should be. It seemed wise to check what they were up to! Maybe I could find out why they were proposing to close or downgrade the local hospital.
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At the crossroads – do we allow Britain to split?
[WORKERS, MAR 2007]
A MAJOR PRIZE FOR THE European Union in its quest to kill nation states and create a Europe of regions would be the first ever secession of a major portion of one of its member states. Yes, it's Britain – on course for this treatment as the Labour "war" Party gives up the ghost and connives with separatists who pledge to ballot for Scottish independence on winning a sufficient mandate at the next Holyrood elections for the devolved Parliament in May 2007.
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Revealed: How the European Union is conspiring with the United States against Cuba
[WORKERS, MAR 2007]
In May 2004 and July 2006, George Bush approved the report of the 'Commission for the Assistance to a Free Cuba', a plan to overthrow the legitimate government of Cuba and to recolonise the country.
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Richard Dawkins and the dangerous delusion of religion
[WORKERS, MAR 2007]
Just how dangerous can religion be in 21st century Britain? Not many years ago you might have thought not very – in this country the "official" religion, the Church of England, is toothless and lame, knocked into submission and put in its place by an advanced, secular working class.
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A strategy to take our NHS away
[WORKERS, MAR 2007]
The TUC currently characterises the constant changes being wrought upon the National Health Service as a "permanent revolution". If the foundation of the NHS after World War 2 was a revolution, then the changes are more like a permanent counter-revolution.
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Steel: slipping out of control
[WORKERS, FEB 2007]
The world steel industry has seen phenomenal changes during the past 6-12 months. Takeovers, mergers and restructurings both in steel production and financial bids are occurring on a scale never seen before.
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The abandonment of Britain
[WORKERS, FEB 2007]
"Britishness" is now to be taught in schools. But the class wielding power in Britain is not a British class any more. It has abandoned Britain, moving its interests offshore, only perhaps for now trading shares or making deals here. It has lost any sense of Britain as its attitudes follow its interests.
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A curriculum for decline: the state of British science education
[WORKERS, FEB 2007]
Science is the bedrock of a modern economy. In itself, that is hardly controversial. Even Blair is on record as telling Britain's premier science institution, the Royal Society, "For Britain, science will be as important to our economic future as stability." His government says the right things. But it is doing the wrong things so consistently that it is hard to believe the mess it has created is an accident.
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Slavery, conspiracy and cover-up: the ethics of empire
[WORKERS, FEB 2007]
Chocolate on Trial: Slavery, Politics and the Ethics of Business, by Lowell J. Satre, paperback, 308 pages, ISBN 0-8214-16626-X, Ohio University Press, 2005, £16.50.
This superb book studies the connection between slavery in West Africa and the British, and Quaker, firm of Cadbury, particularly in the first decade of the twentieth century.
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Time to blow the whistle on takeovers
[WORKERS, JAN 2007]
Of England's elite football clubs a considerable number are now in foreign hands. Chelsea and Portsmouth have Russian owners; Aston Villa and Manchester United are American-owned and a Dubai-based company hopes to grab Liverpool.
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Cuba: independent, and proud of it
[WORKERS, JAN 2007]
The days from 2 December to 10 December this year were a significant time for the working class of Cuba. The first date was the 50th anniversary of the landing of the Granma, the launch containing around one hundred Cuban revolutionaries, to start the armed struggle against the Batista regime. It effectively marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and it was appropriate therefore that the event was marked by military parades and flypasts.
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The corporate state and a united Europe - the line from fascism to Thatcher, and Blair
[WORKERS, JAN 2007]
It is now commonly said that Blair's policies and legislation continue Thatcherism. This is to ignore, at our peril, the much longer and more sinister capitalist tradition in politics which he represents.
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Revolution on the roof of the world
[WORKERS, JAN 2007]
Led by communists, Nepal is taking historic steps to abolish the hated monarchy and set up a republic. At midnight on 21 November an agreement between the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) was signed which will ultimately result in elections to a Constituent Assembly by June 2007 at the latest. It was agreed that the first session of this assembly will then vote, needing just a simple majority, to end the centuries-old monarchy which has strangled the development of the country and acted in collusion with imperialism, and which, under King Gyanendra, has been brutal and murderous towards the people in city and countryside alike.
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