Solidarity 292, 17 July 2013

Solidarity 292

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Hymn of the warmonger

Gun God, we are nearly ready for the sacrifice. How many millions it shall be we do not know: But it shall be considerable. We shall dig them from the cities Ere the grime is from their face Ere the ink is from their fingers You shall have them All the strata in a bundle Slums and all. They're a holocaust for you, Gun God. Do they tremble at the ordeal before them? No, They are preoccupied with trifles. Like young mice they will nibble at our cheese: delicious, intoxicating cheese, having nothing at all to do with traps. A national cheese. You shall have them from the fields, Fresh and brown...

Why the crisis in the SWP begs the question: What is a revolutionary party?

The organisational nature of a Marxist ”revolutionary party” has to be shaped to what the Marxist party exists to do in the outside world. What, fundamentally, irreplaceably, does it do? In the course of its life a Marxist party does many things, from organising strikes, to street-fighting with fascists and racists, to organising insurrections. But fundamentally, through all the phases and varieties of its activity, it works to educates and enlighten the working class so that it can see capitalist class society as a whole; the place of capitalism in history as one exploitative class society in...

Were the University of London outsourced workers right to leave Unison?

This article was written in response to a piece in Socialist Review. The author has also requested that it be published there. We host it in our website in the interests of furthering the debate. The move of Senate House cleaners, other outsourced staff, and their supporters to leave Unison en masse and form a University of London branch of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), after the annulment of their elections, has sparked heated debate within trade union circles, especially among Unison activists. Sandy Nicoll, branch secretary of SOAS Unison, contributed to this debate...

"Boris Bike" workers in 100% strike vote

Workers employed by Serco Barclays on the municipal bike hire scheme in London ("Boris Bikes") have voted unanimously for strikes against the imposition of a new pay deal and shift patterns. The Rail, Maritime, and Transport workers union (RMT) ballot returned a 100% vote in favour of strikes over a range of grievances, including the imposition of a 2% pay deal, shift changes, management bullying and harassment, and management's failure to reach formal agreement on travelling time and travel allowances for workers. RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said: “By voting 100% for strike action RMT...

Ed Miliband uses "Falkirk" to attack Labour's union link

None of the plans for change in Labour Party structures which Ed Miliband announced on 9 July have any relation even to alleged, let alone to proven, misdeeds in Falkirk. It has been known for a while that Ed Miliband wanted at least some curtailing of union clout in the Labour Party. He tried to achieve it through the "Refounding Labour" operation, but was mostly knocked back, and then there seemed to be stalemate. Now Miliband - maybe panicked by the agitation from the right-wing Labour pressure group Progress and the Tory press; more probably seizing on Falkirk to make a push for things he...

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