Europe

A European general strike?

The TUC General Council is supposed to be committed to investigating the practicalities of a general strike. Unite’s general secretary Len McCluskey asked the crowd in Hyde Park on Saturday if they wanted a general strike. and got a resounding yes. The National Shop Stewards Network and the Socialist Party are asking the TUC to name the day. In fact we already have a day: 14 November. As things stand, there are plans for simultaneous general strikes in five countries, three major —Spain, Portugal and Greece — two minor — Cyprus and Malta. Saturday‘s large CGIL rally in Rome heard calls for a...

Dutch elections: disappointment but not surprise

The election in the Netherlands on 12 September produced an increased vote, and victory, for the main right-wing party, VVD. The Socialist Party, a left social-democratic group originating from Maoism, which had led the polls for large parts of 2012, slumped badly in the last weeks before the election and ended up with the same number of seats, and a smaller vote (9.2%) than in 2010. Solidarity asked Peter Drucker, a socialist based in the Netherlands, to explain. On the election result itself, Peter referred us to an article by Alex de Jong . The result, wrote de Jong, "shouldn't come as a...

Les socialistes et l'Europe

Les nations n'ont pas toujours existé. En Europe, la croissance du commerce a créé des unités avec une langue commune, une culture, des lois, un système fiscal et des communications, les États-nations qui se sont développés entre les 16e et 19e siècles. Mais une contradiction s’est ensuite développée. L'économie capitaliste est devenue de plus en plus liée à l'État-nation. Aujourd'hui, même après tous les discours des conservateurs de «faire reculer l'État», l'Etat est toujours un facteur énorme dans l'économie britannique. Plus de 30% du revenu national passe par les mains de l'État. D'un...

"Euro periphery" needs investment

George Irvin is a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and author of Super rich: the rise of inequality in Britain and the United States . He spoke to Solidarity about the new stage of the eurozone crisis created by the jump, from 8 July, in the interest rates that Italy has to pay to sell bonds (IOUs) on world markets. Eurozone politicians have been so slow to react that the bond markets are rightly worried about the poor and inadequate nature of the response. Bond markets a few months ago worried about excessive deficits and high public debt-to-GDP ratios. Now...

Build European workers unity

The bosses and bankers of Europe have been busily discussing a coordinated response to the debt crises that have shaken Ireland, Greece, Portugal and other countries within the “Eurozone.” They are discussing united responses across the continent to defend the interests of their class. Our class needs to do likewise. There have been significant strike movements across Europe recently; the Greek strikes, the recent Portuguese general strike and the French strike wave are the most prominent. But these strikes have all been called on a national basis with little or no attempts at coordination...

France: Repeal the scandalous pensions law, let’s have a real fight!

O is a white-collar worker and a contact in France who spoke to us about the planned general strike there on Tuesday 12 October. --- What is happening right now? We are in the last moments before the big strike on Tuesday; either we succeed in getting a move toward a general strike, or we lose. In Marseille, the strike is on already: in the oil industry, the dockers, the women who make the dinners in school canteens. For six months, the union leaderships have controlled the situation through the so-called “intersyndicale”. This is not the true unity of workers around real demands, but the...

General strikes in France and Spain

Workers in France continued their struggle against the government’s pension reforms, with a general strike on 23 September and a wave of demonstrations on 2 October. On both days, around three million workers took part, with more than 200 local demonstrations on 2 October. The next general strike is due to take place on 12 October but more plans will be announced by union leaderships as Solidarity goes to press. Sarkozy’s government is trying to force workers to contribute more to their pension and retire later. Union leaderships in France are pursuing a strategy that seems designed to wear...

European workers march

Under the slogan “No to austerity. Priority for jobs and growth” 100,000 workers marched through Brussels on 29 September. I traveled as part of the delegation from the rail union RMT. With 200 marchers, we were the largest component of a British contingent that included workers from CWU, FBU, TSSA, Unison and Unite. The RMT leaflet contained the now familiar charge that it is the EU alone that is driving privatisation and austerity, that if only we were free of it “…elected national governments could develop vital public services…” Maybe that’s why the Tory party has such a problem with...

RMT President on the role of the nation state

“United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.” Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto [1] “The aim of socialism is not only to abolish the present division of mankind into small states and all national isolation; not only to bring the nations closer to each other, but also to merge them.” V.I. Lenin, The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination [2] In a recent article RMT president Alex Gordon speaks against those on the left who tell us that “the nation state is...

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