Solidarity 601, 21 July 2021

Bangladesh fire deaths: murder by capitalists

On 9 July a fire at the Shezan Juice food and drink factory outside the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka killed dozens of workers. Initial reports confirmed 52 deaths, but searches were ongoing. 49 died from the fire and three after jumping from third floor windows; dozens were injured in that way. Some of the murdered workers were children. The workers were trapped by an illegally locked door. Yet Abul Hashem, chairman and managing director of Sajeeb Group, which owned the factory, has refused to accept any responsibility and blamed “workers’ carelessness”. For years Bangladesh has seen repeated...

Unlocking land profits, locking out tenants

A review of Estate Regeneration and its Discontents: public housing, place and inequality in London , by Paul Watt . This is a most important book, and a powerful indictment of the Tory and Blairite housing agenda. The objective of council housing was to give everyone a decent place to live, as a right, at a rent they could afford, and with security of tenure irrespective of income. In that it was largely successful. To the Tories and Labour’s hard right housing is a commodity, nothing more, to be used for the maximisation of profit irrespective of the consequences. Regeneration is part of...

Poplar rates rebellion centenary: ten lessons for today

It is the centenary year of the Poplar council rates rebellion, an inspiring victory in London’s east end rich with lessons for today. At the time the rebellion took place, just after the first world war, the London Borough of Poplar comprised the dockland area in the big bend in the River Thames (Poplar) and an area of similar size to its north (Bow). A quarter of its people lived in (official) poverty, 83 of every thousand of its babies died, and over thirty thousand people lived in overcrowded housing. It had a tradition of working-class organisation and action. The east end was the centre...

How to get a democratic, due-process Labour Party

The Labour Party leadership’s new move to ban some groups , following on a new wave of suspensions and exclusions since December 2020, and the previous waves in 2015 and 2016, is built on a rulebook allowing much scope for arbitrary purges. This article, written before the move for new bans, argues for a rulebook providing democracy and due process. The reaction of the Party’s new leadership to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report on antisemitism seems to be to assume that everything they wanted was agreed, and that what they wanted is the answer to the Party’s problems of...

Isolation pay in test centres: plug the loopholes!

Following pressure from Labour MPs, notably Emily Thornberry, and the Safe and Equal campaign last winter, we were told that “the Department of Health and Social Care has approved the payment of occupational sick pay for periods of self-isolation for all workers at Test Centres. This commitment has also been included in the tender specifications for the new Test Centre contract which commences in July 2021.” As Safe and Equal activists have visited Test Centres across the country, we have found that the situation is more complicated. The government has outsourced the Test Centres to G4S, Serco...

Cuba: support the protests, support workers' democracy

• Petition to free arrested Cuban socialists • Summary of Cuban-American socialist Sam Farber’s analysis of the Cuban system Faced by large-scale protests (from 11 July) for the first time in decades, Cuba’s “socialist” government has arrested many dissident socialist activists among others. Many reports say that over a hundred people have been arrested or have disappeared. In the last year, the same government has suppressed LGBT rights and Black Lives Matter-type demonstrations. “Socialist Cuba” is an extremely repressive dictatorship. Despite its achievements in healthcare and other areas...

Starmer's wretched support for NI Unionism

On 10 July, towards the end of a two day visit to Northern Ireland (NI), Labour leader Keir Starmer was asked, in an interview by BBC NI, what he would do in the event of a future border poll on a United Ireland. At first he dodged the question by insisting that such a poll was not an imminent possibility and it would be up to the people of NI to decide. When pressed by the interviewer though, he said that he “believed in the United Kingdom” and would campaign for the union and against a united Ireland. "I personally, as leader of the Labour Party, believe in the United Kingdom strongly”, he...

Kino Eye: Where the power is

The difference between “power” and “elected office” (letter in Solidarity 600 ) is well illustrated by the 1982 TV drama A Very British Coup , based on a novel by former Labour MP Chris Mullin. Harry Perkins (Ray McNally), Labour MP for Sheffield Central and a former steelworker, leads Labour to a landslide victory. The new Prime Minister promises sweeping changes which includes nuclear disarmament and neutrality. The whole British establishment is in shock. Plots against Perkins are set in motion, including fake reports of looming financial disaster, press speculation about his state of...

Diary of a trackworker: Who knows best, workers or managers?

There are times when you feel like shutting down and letting management just completely fuck up as they go in circles trying to obey the latest “drive” for efficiency while not listening to us on the sharp end. One example. We have had a faulty cable for some weeks now which was due to be changed. A team went out, but found that the rules for changing said cable were conflicted, i.e. the tests were described for an old style cable, not for the new “plug and play” connectors. The first team reported this back, saying that they needed a certain bit of kit, and so the job was pushed back. Another...

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