Solidarity 588, 14 April 2021

How class struggle shaped fossil fuel

See reviews and debate around the book, and Malm's wider politics, here . The devastating and sometimes fatal Texas power outages of February 2021 show “how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America,” so spewed Texan governor Greg Abbot: “It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary.” As eye-popping as this shameless lying may be, Abbot only acts as the personified caricature of the irrationality we see systemically with international capitalism. The urgent necessity to halt climate change is universally accepted by scientists. It is the greatest danger facing...

Vale Peter Simpson, 1963-2020

A tribute to Peter Simpson, lifelong activist with the Electrical Trades Union and Queensland state secretary 2009-2016

Recognising 21st century fascism

During the time when the left protested the Vietnam war the term "fascist" was thrown about with careless abandon.

The Bay of Pigs, 17 April 1961

It is 60 years since right wing Cuban exiles, funded and armed by the US government, attempted to invade Cuba on 17 April 1961. The invasion was a disaster and humiliation for the Americans and their Cuban puppets.

The lessons of "Black Friday", 1921

Long before “Black Friday” became the name for the first day of the Christmas shopping season, it was the name that the labour movement gave to the day on which trade union leaders inflicted a defeat on their own movement. It happened exactly one hundred years ago, on 15 April 1921. Over the previous few decades, unions had worked together more closely, as workers’ organisation evolved through amalgamations and alliances from a patchwork of hundreds of distinct “craft unions” to a smaller number of larger, more powerful industrial unions. It was in this context that the “Triple Alliance”...

Step forward in Deliveroo

On 7 April, couriers working for Deliveroo struck across the UK. They were joined by many couriers working for other food delivery platforms including UberEats and Stuart. The demands of the strike were around pay, safety and employment rights. On pay, the union is demanding guaranteed living wage after vehicle and other costs; an end to unpaid waiting times in restaurants; an end to over-hiring which floods the streets and reduces the work that all couriers can get; and holiday and sick pay. In terms of employment rights the union is calling on Deliveroo and other companies to agree to...

Momentum votes to campaign for public ownership of the banks

Momentum members have voted to prioritise eight motions for the 2021 Labour Party conference (September 25-9, Brighton). The motions prioritised are: “£15 minimum wage”; “Time for proportional representation”; “Green jobs revolution”; “Global climate justice”; “Build council housing and end homelessness”; “Reject integrated care systems, renationalise England’s NHS and social care”; “A four day week for a society in which we work to live, not live to work”; and “Build back fairer: attack poverty and inequality”. Momentum's office says that the Momentum National Coordinating Group will add...

Diary of an engineer: Capping the laughing gas

The apprentices haven’t seen each other since November, and it’s good to work with L. He has a lot of electrical knowledge, works diligently and has a very cool head. We work together installing a fan in the workshop (P’s fan, we call it, as it was his idea). Free of supervision, we can take our time cutting and tapping metal conduit so it fits snugly against the ceiling, running the cable neatly and listening to L’s “classic rock” playlist — now and then L breaks out in songs and head-banging. He’s twenty-one, likes cars, fishing, and scotch whisky. We learn this week about two projects the...

Bus drivers resist fire and rehire

Bus drivers working for Go North West in Manchester are continuing their indefinite strike against “fire and rehire”, which has been ongoing since mid-February. The company wants to change workers terms and conditions, including increasing hours and reducing sick pay entitlement, and plans to dismiss the workforce en masse before re-engaging them on the inferior terms. The strike has now been supported by Manchester's Labour council. The council passed a motion supporting the workers, and exploring cutting council ties with companies who use “fire and rehire” tactics. Andy Burnham, the mayor...

DVLA strike solid

The strike at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) complex in Swansea, from 6-9 April, was very solid. Workers there were striking against having been forced to come into the physical workplace in far greater numbers than necessary. Around 2,000 workers have been made to come in, when during the first lockdown, numbers in the low hundreds were required on site to perform essential and emergency work only. We estimate that, of that 2,000 or so, around 1,400 joined the strike, so that’s a significant number and one that’s had a big impact on the work there. I think the employer was...

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