Solidarity 111, 3 May 2007

After agreeing to publish an article on TGWU’s position on the McDonnell Leadership issue for a recent edition, the left Labour Party weekly Tribune suddenly pulled apparently whilst at the printers. The article was written by Andy Erlam, who is Chair of TGWU Central London Branch. As a courtesy Tony Woodley was sent a copy of the article. Apparently the General Secretary’s political adviser, a former Tribune writer, demanded that they “spike” the article and the editor folded under pressure. It has subsequently emerged that the TGWU is an important Tribune shareholder and Ray Collins...

by Colin Waugh 674,700 Work-based learning and community education places have been lost through government funding changes in 2005-06. The Government has been warned that “Train to Gain” could become a re-run of the “disastrous demand-led” policies of the 1990s, by creating pressure on colleges to produce for employers as many qualified staff as cheaply as possible. Further, research carried out for the Learning Skills Council on government programmes aimed at getting more adults to return to learning via further education has concluded (January 2007) that: “Few adults without a qualification...

Over 1000 people demonstrated in Hackney in opposition to proposed cuts in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses on April 27th, with marches from Islington, Tower Hamlets and Hackney boroughs converging outside Hackney Town Hall. The government last year cut funding for adult education courses by 3%, with the effect that ESOL courses for over-19s will no longer be free. This despite the fact that they are withdrawing benefit rights for those immigrants who do not speak English. The Education Minister Bill Rammell has commented that the current funding set up is “unsustainable”...

From Cambridge Education Not for Sale 80 students and trade unionists demonstrated outside Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge on May Day in protest at the course and job cuts being proposed by ARU management. Five courses, including politics, modern language, law and 20th century history are being threatened with closure or cut backs, and ARU UCU says that this will mean the loss of 90 teaching jobs. The protesters, who as well as lecturers included other trade unionists and students from ARU, Cambridge university and a number of schools and FE colleges, heard speeches from representatives...

Docklands Light Railway workers In London scored a victory when they forced the reinstatement of a work colleague after threatening to run a strike ballot. Despite an internal appeal upholding the original sacking, workers forced a management climbdown. Management charged that the sacked worker with driving through a work party, even though his duties required him to be at both ends of the train at once. A colleague who also did this did not face disciplinary action. It goes to show that workers’ solidarity and militancy gets results.

RMT activist Janine Booth has set up an online petition against the proposed ticket office closures on London Underground. Please pledge your support at petitions.pm.gov.uk/tubetickets/.

The Offshore Industry Liaison Committee, the union for offshore rig workers, is one step closer to merging with the RMT union after the OILC executive voted to back the merger. The OILC, formed by offshore workers after the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988, has always been denied TUC affiliation because Amicus and its forerunners, have insisted on that claim to representing offshore workers. A merger with the RMT is appropriate and in the best interests of RMT and OILC members, which is why we urge a yes vote at the OILC’s conference in October.

By Mike Fenwick At Unison health conference in Brighton on 22-24 April, the main decision was to reject the 2.5% pay settlement and go for industrial action. Motions were also passed on building for the long awaited national demonstration in defence of the NHS, now due to be held on 13 October. However, motions calling for affiliation to and joint work with the Keep Our NHS Public campaign were ruled out of order on a very thin basis. That was probably as much about attacking left wing candidates for the Unison Executive elections as any hostility to KONP; but the platform said little about...

By Martin Thomas On Sunday 29 April, US troops in Baghdad fought a sizeable battle with Moqtada al-Sdar’s Shia-Islamist Mahdi Army. It was another indication that, as we reported in Solidarity 3/110, the US may be edging towards a “war on two fronts” in Iraq, against both the Sunni sectarian militias and the Mahdi Army. The sequel to the battle, however, suggests very strong pressures on the US to avoid that development. The official US military statement on the battle said that it was aimed at capturing certain individuals, presumably Sadrist commanders, and it failed. Then the next day, in...

By Sean Matgamna “The revolution... made its first steps toward victory under the belly of a Cossack’s horse”, wrote Leon Trotsky, describing the start of the Russian Revolution of February 1917. Women workers persuaded the Tsar’s Cossack soldiers not to fire on the rebellious people on the streets, and in the course of doing it crawled under the bellies of the soldiers’ horses to get to them. The Russian revolution of August 1991 advanced to victory over the Stalinist system not by working class women crawling under the bellies of horses, but by Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian...