Solidarity 186, 2 December 2010

Why we need student-worker unity

In the last weeks students, including many school students, have organised strikes, walk-outs, sit-downs, occupations and mass demonstrations. These protests, the like of which we haven’t seen for many years, have been an inspiration to all of us. The students’ energy and innovation could, if the movement goes on for any length of time, help the labour movement to rediscover tactics and forms of struggle we once knew but have for the most part long since forgotten. In the course of student struggles socialists often raise the slogan “students and workers unite!” But why do we say that? In the...

The financial gangsters have Ireland by the throat

We are so used to taking the operations of bankers and speculators for granted, we are so used to taking markets and their needs as a matter of fact, that we are in danger of not grasping the startling nature of what is happening in Ireland. The people of "independent Ireland" are now in the hands of gangsters who are as merciless as they are greedy and unscrupulous - financial and political gangsters. "Independent Ireland" is discovering that, though it is politically independent of Britain, its old overlord, in economic affairs it is not at all independent. It is entirely in the hands of...

Help us this December!

December will be busy. Despite the snow, students are keeping up a level of activity on the streets not usually seen at this time of year. It will be doubly busy for members and friends of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty. Alongside student and other activity, including in the later part of the month when student activity is likely to subside a bit with the end of term, we have three campaigns which must be completed this month. We have to raise a lot of money to finance moving offices and launching Solidarity on a weekly schedule in place of our present fortnightly routine. Phone-rounds and...

Will Irish crisis break up the eurozone?

Questions and answers on the eurozone crisis. This version of the article is longer than the one in the printed paper Why isn't the EU/ IMF rescue plan for Ireland working? The plan is not to rescue Ireland, but to rescue the banks (German, French, British, etc.) which lent money to Irish banks. Social cuts for the people of Ireland are supposed to allow the Irish government to use resources instead to make good its guarantee (given in 2008) to cover all the debts and deposits of those banks. On condition of harsh cuts, the EU and the IMF provided the Irish government with long-ish-term loans...

Will crisis break up the eurozone?

Questions and answers on the eurozone crisis. Why isn't the EU/ IMF rescue plan for Ireland working? The plan is not to rescue Ireland, but to rescue the banks (German, French, British, etc.) which lent money to Irish banks. Social cuts for the people of Ireland are supposed to allow the Irish government to use resources instead to make good its guarantee (given in 2008) to cover all the debts and deposits of those banks. On condition of harsh cuts, the EU and the IMF provided the Irish government with long-ish-term loans to "increase confidence", and to cut short the process of Irish banks...

The shape of Miliband's Labour

David Osler, author of the 2002 study Labour Party plc , talked to Solidarity about prospects in the Labour Party. Q. According to Ed Miliband on 27 November, 43,000 people have joined (or rejoined) the Labour Party since the general election in May 2010. Do you have any assessment of what this little surge represents, and what its effects are likely to be? A. It’s dangerous to generalise from purely local experience, but the new recruits I have met have tended to be nice concerned thirty-something professionals who have not previously been members of any political party. Superficially they...

These student protests will grow with or without Aaron Porter's support

An average day in the occupation at Newcastle University begins early. First on the agenda of each general meeting are a selection of messages of solidarity. We continue to be inundated with messages from local activists, teachers, parents, school students and academics, offering practical support and sharing advice from previous actions. It was in such a meeting that we heard news of NUS president Aaron Porter's statement of support for the anti-cuts occupations that are ongoing in many of the country's universities and look likely to grow. A ripple of polite applause crept across our lecture...

Jobs are vital too!

In the first half of 2011 we face mass compulsory redundancies. Our union cannot sit through these attacks. Our slogan has to be: defend pensions and employment. It now seems likely that the leadership of the PCS civil service workers' union is gearing itself up for a ballot on pensions in April next year. How that fits in with the plan of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) to have strike action in March 2011 we shall see. It would not be the first time if the two unions failed to co-ordinate action at roughly the same time over the same issue. Assume, though, that NUT and PCS will agree on...

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