Solidarity 063, 2 December 2004

Introduction In 1883 the German socialist August Bebel published Woman under Socialism. The book helped spread a socialist message to many thousands of men and women. It was the most-read book in the German socialist movement’s large network of workers’ libraries. By 1895, 25 editions had been printed in Germany alone. Bebel argued that the social emancipation of women is an integral part of transforming social relations and overthrowing capitalism. In this extract he talked about how education in a socialist society will be different to bourgeois society. An enlightened humanist socialist...

The lockout of hotel workers in the US city of San Francisco has come to an end, after unions and management announced a 60-day “cooling off” period. While the union, UNITE HERE Local 2, agreed not to strike for 60 days, it announced it would continue the rest of its effective pressure campaign. After five weeks, the employers finally let the workers return to their jobs, with no agreement on their essential demand that workers give up negotiations on their 2006 contract. And the employers have failed in their attempt to break the union organising drive. For more information, click here

Sacha Ismail reviews The Manchurian candidate In the famous 1960s film of the same name, American soldiers in the Korean war are brainwashed by Chinese Stalinists to carry out assassinations as part of a power struggle with witch-hunting US McCarthyites. A sophisticated satire on the totalitarian symbiosis between the two Cold War camps? Well, as I haven’t actually seen it, I can’t say. In the remake, Denzel Washington plays a grizzled Gulf War veteran whose memories of the night his platoon only just survived an Iraqi attack seem increasingly contradictory and unreal. When he is plagued by...

Fourteen people, including two children, were killed in the Philippines on November 16 when the army dispersed a strike at the Hacienda Luisita Sugar Mill. At least 35 people were reported to have sustained gunshot wounds, 133 were arrested and hundreds were wounded. One of the victims was allegedly strangled after being shot and his dead body hanged by the factory gate. The two children, aged two and five years old who died from suffocation from teargas lobbed by the police and armed forces. The trade unions in the Philippines are calling for a strong international protest, demanding a full...

During the last week of October, a delegation from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) arrived in Zimbabwe for a brief “fact-finding mission”. The COSATU visit was opposed by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. During its first meeting with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), COSATU delegates were detained by police. Within hours, they were dumped at the Zimbabwe-South African border. A war of words broke out between COSATU and its alliance partner, the ruling African National Congress (ANC), over the incident. COSATU was accused of showing “contempt for a head of...

The Brighton and Hove teaching assistants’ strike is caused by the Remodelling Agreement, signed by all the unions involved in education except the National Union of Teachers. Under the guise of “recognising the professional status” of support staff, and of “improving their chances of promotion”, teaching assistants (TAs) and other support workers are being forced to work more for less pay. Unison and the GMB signed the agreement on the understanding that their support staff members would get a clear career structure, training opportunities and better pay and grades. But schools and Local...

A girls’ school in the East End of London recently decided to ban the wearing of the jilbab by students. The jilbab is the long coat or dress, which covers the body from the neck to the feet and is worn over the school uniform. As a result of the ban, three students stayed away from school and those wearers of it that continued to attend set up a petition demanding the right to do so. The school is in Tower Hamlets, which has the largest Bangladeshi population in Britain. The school has a very high proportion of Muslim students on its rolls. Many of the students wear the hijab, the head...