Solidarity 268, 12 December 2012

Marx analysed the problem of a free press thoroughly in two long essays which are to be found in the first volume of the collected edition of his works. For Marx “the right to think and speak the truth” was an elementary human right and freedom of the press — as he said — merely “human freedom in practice”. Marx recognized that human freedom is made up of a complex of interdependent freedoms. “Each form of freedom”, he said, “postulates the other in the same way as one limb of the body postulates another. Whenever one particular freedom is threatened, freedom itself is threatened. Freedom is...

A statement from the civil service union PCS says: “The union’s national executive [NEC] has agreed plans for a determined campaign for fair pay and working conditions, including a ballot for industrial action by more than a quarter of a million civil and public servants.” “The NEC agreed that if employers do not respond satisfactorily to our demands, we will move to a national ballot in the new year for a programme of industrial action.” One of “the demands” is on pay, yet we are still in a pay dispute from 2011! In the ballot that started in May 2011, the NEC said that demand was for “an end...

NHS bosses in Yorkshire have moved to take reprisals against clerical workers involved in a recent strike against downbanding. A worker was summoned to an “investigation” on 10 December to look into “an incident which came to light during the strike”. Management refused to give more details in advance. Talks between management and the unions, which resumed on Wednesday 29 November, have been suspended until management withdraws the threat of victimisation. Clerical workers at hospitals in Wakefield, Dewsbury, and Pontefract struck for three days from 20 November against a plan that could see...

The Executive Council of Unite has backed the proposal from incumbent general secretary Len McCluskey to make constitutional changes to allow for an election for the post to be held “as soon as possible”, rather than in 2015 as planned. A statement from United Left (a political grouping within of which McCluskey is a member and in which Workers’ Liberty is also involved) issued prior to the EC decision salutes McCluskey’s various achievements while in office, including civilising the internal regime of the union and pioneering industrial strategies that have won various disputes. They also...

Steve Charles (NUT rep from Stratford Academy, where teachers have struck for nine days against pay management’s use of pay cuts to intimidate staff out of striking) spoke at the second conference of the Local Associations Network (LAN) in Leicester on 8 December. LAN is a rank-and-file school workers’ caucus based mainly in the National Union of Teachers. Delegates discussed the joint NUT/NASUWT campaign on workload, including how to escalate and spread disputes so individual reps and school groups are not left isolated. The conference also held a Skype link-up with activists from the Caucus...

Tory policy in government has been based on an age-old ruling-class mantra: take care of the rich, squeeze the poor. With a few concessions to the barely-alive social conscience of the Lib Dems, George Osborne’s recent Spending Review was no exception. He helped the rich by cutting corporation tax to 21% — a level lower than even big business claims is necessary to make the British economy “competitive”. He squeezed the poor by fixing annual benefit increases at 1% for the next three years. At two percentage points lower than the Retail Price Index this is a big cut. For the jobless, disabled...

Mike Wood’s very valuable account of the “Third Camp” Trotskyists of the Workers Party in the 1940s (Solidarity 267) misses three points, I think. First, the narrowing of the differences between Max Shachtman’s version of a “bureaucratic collectivist” analysis of Stalinist Russia and Joe Carter’s was not all a matter of Shachtman discarding follies and accepting Carter’s good sense without acknowledgement. It was a virtue of Shachtman’s analysis that it allowed for experience and events to correct it. In a way he corrected too much. Sixty-odd years later, Shachtman’s idea that the Stalinist...

Since the publication on 29 November of the Leveson report on issues raised by the phone-hacking scandal, the big national newspapers have agreed a plan for a new self-regulatory body as Leveson recommended, but without Leveson’s proposal for a legally-empowered body to vet the self-regulatory body. Labour has shifted from backing Leveson’s proposal for Ofcom as the vet to proposing a panel of judges. The debate is narrowing. As Patrick Murphy pointed out (Solidarity 267), “the big question is avoided... ownership and diversity”. Leveson’s report talks about the need for pluralism in the press...

In the course of just a few days, three news stories came across my desk that highlighted one of the problems we face in the British trade union movement. As I write these words, the Israeli nurses’ union is engaged in a major fight with the Netanyahu government. Netanyahu is the health minister (as well as prime minister) and his government stands accused of starving public hospitals, while coming up with millions to construct new illegal settlement housing. The nurses strike deserves the support of unions everywhere, in particular unions which organise nurses. Israel’s public sector unions...

The Northern section of the Amalgamated Workers’ Union (New Zealand) has lent its support to victimised Australian trade unionist Bob Carnegie, and has written to David Saxelby (the boss of Abigroup, the construction company behind the legal case against Bob) to demand it drops its charges. AWUNZ’s support is particularly significant because it represents Lend Lease employees in New Zealand. Lend Lease is Abigroup’s parent company. Secretary Ray Bianchi writes: “On behalf of the union that represents Lend Lease employees in Auckland, New Zealand, we call on you to drop your legal proceedings...