Solidarity 272, 30 January 2013

David Cameron has committed to calling a referendum after 2015 on British membership of the European Union. Right-wing pressure, both from within the Tory party and from groups like Ukip, is mounting against British membership, as a conservative, national-chauvinist section of the ruling class seeks to rewind history to an age of nationally walled-off, competing capitalist blocs (rather than the integration the era of relative European unity has meant). Unfortunately, many on the left and in the labour movement chime in with right-wing propaganda against Europe, giving it a “left-wing” veneer...

In the closing weeks of 2012 residents of Bostan al-Qasr, a neighborhood in the Syrian city of Aleppo, were attacked by fighters from the Islamist Jubhat al-Nusra faction of the opposition. As the attack took place, members of the Free Syrian Army stood by watching. Accounts claim that live rounds were fired into the air and that a member of Jubhat al-Nusra attempted to arrest one of the locals. Why were the residents attacked in this way? They had been on the streets of their community chanting the following slogan: “kull jaysh harami, nizami, hurr wa islami”. Translated into English, the...

This week, we raised £141 towards our fund appeal. This includes £41 in donations from our dayschool on Antonio Gramsci in Manchester, £25 from a film showing of Ken Loach’s Land and Freedom organised by AWL North East London branch, and £75 in extra literature on the Save Lewisham Hospital demonstration (most AWL members pay for literature together with membership dues and recoup the money through sales, so the £75 is on top of that). These are modest amounts, but positive nevertheless. AWL North East London’s film-showing was a relatively easy-to-organise event that provided for political...

On 17 January Athens subway workers began a nine-day strike. They were eventually forced back to work when the government used emergency laws to intimidate strikers and sent the riot police into an occupied subway depot. The subway strike was directed at the government’s 2013 budget, which includes a 25% cut in public sector wages (on top of other wage cuts in the last two years) and other austerity measures. This was the biggest labour unrest the current government has faced. December 2012 was marked by occupations, demonstrations and sits ins by council, university and other public sector...

On 25 January, over 60 people took part in an LGBTQ rights protest at Royal Holloway University against Tory Minister for Defence, Philip Hammond, who is also the local MP for Runnymede and Weybridge. Hammond was giving a talk at the the university. He is opposed to same-sex marriage and has voted against gay rights, including the repeal of Section 28. When the planned protest gained momentum, the minister’s aides agreed to meet two students to hear our grievances. I was one, the other was Student Union Chair Joe Rayment. We questioned Hammond about his opposition to the Same-Sex Marriage Bill...

The Central Committee (CC) of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) has changed its line. For the first while after the SWP's unhappy conference on 4-6 January, the CC said that the conference had decided the controversial issues. The case was closed, SWP members were instructed to think and talk about other things, and, as for non-SWPers, it was none of their business. Now it has felt obliged to open a public polemic. Alex Callinicos published a blast against the SWP opposition online on 28 January . It will appear in print in the SWP magazine Socialist Review. Callinicos closes his article by...

8,000 contract construction workers struck in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, on Sunday 27 January. The workers, contracted by the Ministry of Finance and working on building projects including the King Abdullah Financial Centre in Al Aqeeq, were demanding backpay. Some workers said that they were owed wages up to five months in arrears. Strikers held a four-hour sit-down in the Al-Aqeeq district of Riyadh. They were also angry at rumours that their contractors planned to demand the SAR2,400 ($639) “expatriate fee”, which contractors are obliged to pay for every foreign worker they employ...

A strike at the Citroen Aulnay car plant, in France, started on 16 January. Report updated to 30 January. Click here for report updated to 30 January . January 16 Wednesday, January 16, 2013, the Aulnay plant has been paralyzed by a strike of 450 to 500 workers: 236 accounted at 11 o'clock, probably about 250 strikers in the morning shift, and slightly less in the afternoon. It is still a minority but already significantly higher than in the previous walkouts and attempts to strike. Everyone felt that, strikers, non-strikers and management: no chief has tried to take the place of the strikers...

For the last few months, thousands of farm workers in South Africa's Western Cape region have been on strike. Western Cape is one of the most profitable agricultural regions in the world with its wines, grapes, and apples filling supermarket shelves in Britain and around the world as part of £850 million export industry. The around 500,000, mainly black, agricultural workers work in dreadful conditions and for very low pay. The minimum wage is the equivalent of under £5 a day. Workers often are poorly housed as tenants on the farms themselves. Human Rights Watch listed serious problems such as...

The Government has confirmed that closure of five more prisons and the partial closures of two more. In their place a proposed “super prison” in London, Wales or the North West will keep 2000 people locked up, with over 3000 staff working there. The closure of these prisons will not mean increased funding for rehabilitation and non-custodial sentences but will see a new prison with a 2000 inmate capacity built in one area, away from their family and friends to spend their sentences with a shortage of many of the meagre facilities current prisons have. With little access to courses and...