Solidarity 105, 25 January 2007

Why won’t Labour stop corporate murder?

By Gerry Bates Under the Corporate Manslaughter Bill, currently going through the House of Lords, large dangerous organisations that kill will continue to escape prosecution. That is the legal opinion of lawyers working for the Centre for Corporate Accountability. The new corporate manslaughter offence requires that a substantial element of the gross management failure within the organisation that caused the death must be that of senior managers. CCA lawyers Peter Thornton QC and Francis Fitzgibbon say: “It takes no great foresight to see that in a large organisation, such as a train operating...

Prostitution and prejudice

Prostitution and prejudice Steve Cohen looks at the suprising history in Prostitution and Prejudice, The Jewish Fight Against White Slavery 1870-1939 by Edward Bristow, (Clarendon Press) The issue of sex work has recently been dominant in both the popular press and also in feminist and left circles. One reason for this was the murder of five women in Ipswich. Another is because of government legislation introduced to outlaw trafficking generally and trafficking for sexual exploitation in particular. This legislation had received a mixed reception amongst both some feminists and also groups...

Remembering Rosa Luxemburg — standing against the socialist betrayers, by Clara Zetkin

Together with Karl Liebnecht and — a little later Leo Jogiches — Rosa Luxemburg was murdered by right wing reactionaries in January 1919, after the failure of the rising by the Spartacists, the young, small, newly-formed Communist Party of Germany. She had spent the years of the First World War mainly in jail. At the outbreak of that war the leaders of the mass German Social-Democratic Party, the most important socialist party of that time, boke with all Marxist precedent and with previously declared party policy and supported Germany in the war. The event that marked this treason of...

Iran: political crisis and class struggle

By Yasmine Mather, Workers Left Unity Iran Over the last few weeks, as the Islamic regime in Iran tried to come to terms with the consequences of the sanctions imposed on 23 December 2006, and as the country prepared for more severe sanctions called for by the US, Iran’s supreme clerical leader Ayatollah Khamnei has tried to intervene directly in negotiations on the future of Iran’s nuclear programme and its relations with the US. Indirect negotiations with the US (via Saudi Arabia) are part of this policy and it is very likely that both open and secret negotiations will continue. It is a snub...

BP bosses kill workers and pocket millions

By Paolo Ramazini Oil giant BP might see itself as “beyond petroleum” but the only things it is beyond are safety laws and basic justice. The company is another high profile case of a corporate killer getting away with murder while its bosses pocket millions and remain untouched by laws supposed to hold them to account. In March 2005, an explosion at BP's Texas City refinery in the United States killed 15 workers and injured 180. An investigation panel led by former US Secretary of State James Baker published a report on the incident last week. The panel found “instances of a lack of operating...

Call centres - the new sweatshops?

It's the lower end of the call-centre industry I'm working in, here in Brisbane. It's in the lower half of the industry – outbound, rather than the comparatively aristocratic inbound call-centres – and it's a small, low-tech operation within that lower half. We don't have headsets and we don't have automatic dialling (systems which dial the next number on your list as soon as you end the previous call). It's just a room with benches, seats, and 22 phones. There are some skimpy bench-top screens, but it's pretty noisy. Some of the workers prefer it to other call-centres they've worked in...

Industrial News

Striking for jobs and pay By a civil servant Members of the civil service union PCS have voted to strike (61% in favour) on 31 January over jobs cuts and pay. The government, having already cut thousands of jobs in the Department of Work and Pensions, is still set to cut many thousands more. An overtime ban will follow the action on the 31st. In addition PCS members in Revenue and Customs are now balloting over a “work to rule”. What is the way forward? These cuts are entirely politically-driven. That is why a demand for no compulsory redundancy guarantee will not stop the cuts; implicitly it...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.