Solidarity 220, 12 October 2011

6,500 workers on temporary contracts and working in the state-owned petrochemical complexes in Bandar Imam, south Iran, began a strike on 28 September. Other workers on permanent contracts have shown their solidarity. Temporary workers are fighting for the right to collective bargaining and permanent contracts. In April this year workers in the Tabriz petrochemical company also took strike action for the right to collective bargaining. Workers in other sectors and international organisations gave the striking workers necessary strength and confidence. That strike was suspended following...

The Troika (European Union, European Central Bank, and IMF) is now demanding that Greece’s Pasok government cut the national minimum wage of private sector workers! The meagre 760 euros (£660) per month that a private sector worker receives is considered too high, and the Troika suggests that it is reduced to 560 euros per month, in line with Portugal’s minimum wage. The Troika’s argument is predictable: “Reduce the minimum wage further and it will encourage capital investments. Increase the flexibility of working conditions, and that will encourage businessmen to hire workers, and make the...

Over 30 protesters were killed by military police and sectarian thugs in Cairo on Sunday 9 October. The military government, blaming the violence on mysterious foreign agitators, seems to be deliberately boosting Muslim-Christian tension as a “divide-and-rule” ploy. Evan Hill reported on Al Jazeera: “Unidentified gunmen, baton-wielding military police, roving bands of men chanting ‘Christians where are you, Islam is here’... But it was the rampaging armoured personnel carriers that stand as the night’s horrific symbol of military brutality... Video clearly shows the giant, camouflaged vehicles...

The Scottish Campaign Against Fees and Cuts will hold its inaugural conference on the weekend of 15-16 October in Ochil Room, Pleasance, Edinburgh. We aim to unite anti-cuts activists from universities, colleges and schools across Scotland to take the fight for free, fair and funded education to our institutions management, the Scottish government and beyond. English, Welsh and Northern Irish students attending Scottish universities now face a potential fee bill of £45,000 for a five year combined masters at Edinburgh (£36,000 for a standard 4-year undergraduate degree). And that comes before...

The Scottish Labour Party special conference on 29 October will mark the official start of the party’s leadership contest in Scotland. One of the lessons Labour has drawn from the debacle of May’s Holyrood elections is that the party in Scotland needs to be more “Scottish”, i.e. it should have greater control over its affairs than it exercises at present. The 29 October conference will therefore be voting on four packages of rule changes which effectively “devolve” power from the Labour Party at a national level to the Labour Party in Scotland, including the power to elect its own leader and...

A Syrian activist living in the UK spoke to Ed Maltby Organisation began in March when the regime kidnapped some children in Daa’ra and refused to release them. That ignited lots of anger in Daa’ra, and that spirit went over the whole country. People responded in Damascus and all over the country, out of solidarity. But there are no real organizations, just normal people going out to express their anger. There is no ideology, people just want to revolt against the regime and the things it is doing. Every week, a focus or a slogan is decided over the internet. International media is not allowed...

By Emily Muna On Sunday around 2,500 people turned up, enthusiastic and eager, on Westminster Bridge as a part of UK Uncut's "Block the Bridge" action in protest at attacks on the NHS. The bridge is just opposite St Thomas' Hospital, one of the medical institutions threatened by ConDem cuts and privatisation, and looming in view are the Houses of Parliament, where, on 11 September, the House of Lords will vote on the Health and Social Care Bill for the second time. (The bill has already passed the Commons; the measures it contains were not in either the Conservative or Liberal Democrat...

By Bjarke Friborg,a member of the RGA, the SAP (Danish section of the Fourth International) and AWL sympathiser Since 15 September, Denmark is the European country with the strongest and largest socialist representation in parliament. Tripling its votes to 236,000, the Red-Green Alliance (RGA) won a record 12 MPs. Remarkably, the party spokesperson Johanne Schmidt Nielsen received more personal votes than the Labour leader and newly appointed first female PM of Denmark, Helle Thorning Schmidt. RGA is now supporting the incoming minority government of Labour, the Socialist People’s Party and...