Solidarity 178, 29 July 2010

Banks: neo-liberals beat the regulators

“After the financial crisis”, in 2008, noted John Authers in the Financial Times of 16 July, “it was beyond argument that existing regulations had failed, and would need to be rethought. “Only a few months ago, it looked as though the Great Re-regulation might turn into a Great Revenge, as politicians planned to squeeze the banks”. In the last few months, inertia, the huge political and social power of high finance, the absence of an energetic lobby-group within the wider capitalist class for a definite scheme of “re-regulation”, and the leanings of most political leaders, have won out. The...

Job cuts fight on Underground

The RMT union is currently balloting London Underground workers for industrial action over proposed job cuts. 800 station staff jobs are threatened, which would have an enormous knock-on effect across the entire tube network. Understaffed stations have incredibly dangerous potential consequences for workers and passengers alike, and the measures are a further indication of LUL management’s dedication to cutting any corner possible to save money. LUL also claims to be currently employing 300 more drivers than it needs, and the union has reported a significant increase in sackings for trivial...

London cleaners win living wage

ISS, the last cleaning contractor operating on London Underground to refuse to pay its workers the London Living Wage (£7.85), has finally caved in, meaning that all cleaners on the Underground will now be paid at least that amount. Cleaning workers are amongst the most exploited in the capital, facing not only low pay but constant intimidation and bullying from management, including having their often-precarious immigration statuses used against them to keep them in line. Their years-long struggle has seen them organise and take action in a way that conservative forces in the labour movement...

BA workers reject latest offer

British Airways workers have rejected the latest offer from BA bosses in their long running dispute over pay and work restructuring. Minor concessions on pay were on offer but no significant promises on the original work-related issues of the dispute or the attacks workers have suffered during their campaign. While the deal did promise no victimisation of workers currently involved in disciplinary cases, it only offered a partial reinstatement of the staff travel allowance rescinded during the strike which many workers came to see as the key frontline attack. The press have stated surprise at...

Civil service union gears up for action

On 23 July I attended a PCS anti-cuts campaign briefing meeting. The 35 attending delegates consisted of activists from all of the principal governmental bargaining units, along with their full-time officials. The meeting was held to inform branch officers about key recent recommendations of our National Executive and dates for activities and demonstrations (both PCS and TUC sponsored initiatives). Our Assistant General Secretary Chris Baugh told us that the immediate priority of the union was to get Parliamentary support from an “unholy” combination of nationalist parties, Labour and Lib-Dem...

Ian Tomlinson: another state cover-up

The Crown Prosecution Service has decided that no charge will be brought against the policeman who killed newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson as he was passing by the 2009 protests against a G20 meeting in London. Tomlinson was struck from behind by a riot police officer, and pushed to the ground. Tomlinson was helped to his feet by demonstrators, not by his attackers. He recovered and continued walking, but then collapsed after 100 metres and subsequently died. Though it was the unprovoked assault on him by a policeman that precipitated his death, the British state refuses to accept responsibility...

The cuts are not inevitable!

The Lib/Tory government plans to make many of its cuts by chopping finance for local councils. Local councils, including Labour councils, are now preparing to pass on that cut, axing jobs and services. And committees to fight those cuts and Lib/Tory cuts in welfare are now being set up in areas across Britain. Local Trades Councils are the best bodies to initiate such committees — anti-cuts campaigns need to have the local labour movement at their heart. If committees are initiated outside trade-union structures, for example by community groups, they should move to link up with the labour...

“China is controlled by the capitalists”

“China is basically controlled by the capitalists. All I can do at the moment is speak up for the workers,” declared Qing Tong, formerly one of China’s hundreds of millions of workers who migrate from the countryside to work in big-city factories, but now a writer and able to speak to the 'Financial Times' (17 July). “It seems that the government chooses not to see certain things, so we must keep shouting complaints into their ears non-stop. Only after they hear us will they start seeing.” Qing used to work at Foxconn, the gigantic Taiwanese-owned factory complex with 400,000 workers where...

NHS: sold - to the lowest bidder!

Government proposals in the White Paper, 'Liberating the NHS', will bring the NHS in England much closer to a fully privatised healthcare system. Under this Health Bill, Strategic Health Authorities and Primary Care Trusts will be abolished. PCTs are currently responsible for spending 80% of the NHS budget. GPs themselves will now directly take on that spending role, become commissioners of all healthcare services; Foundation Trusts will be autonomous institutions that will be allowed to provide private care. The NHS will become little more than a fund, overseen by GPs (or more likely private...

Build working-class solidarity to fight the cuts!

Bob Crow, General Secretary RMT, speaking at Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival, July 2010 "We are going to see a massive onslaught on working people to pay for the bankers’ corruption and greed. "If the government gets away it, people are going to have their welfare benefits cut, suffer pay freezes, have their pensions taken away from them, be made to work longer. At a time when we should be getting people off the dole queues and into work. "Over the next 18 months we are going to see a workers’ fightback. People will start to join the trade union movement because they know the only voice that...

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