Socialist Worker 2307, 16 June 2012

starts Highlights

Jean-Luc Melenchon: 'Blame the bankers not the migrants' - in Features

What's the real pensions deal for council workers? - in Background check

Syrian movement unites against Assad's regime - in International

Spain's rushed bank bailout betrays the fear of our rulers - in News

Rochdale: pride and unity in a town ravaged by the recession - in Features

ends highlights

starts section News 

Merseyside workers in 3-day walkout

Julie Sherry

Staff at Merseyside and Halton job centres began a three-day strike yesterday, Wednesday.
 
The workers, from 29 offices, are fighting government plans to make 28 percent of cuts to the centres which are part of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
 
Lisa McManus is branch chair of Merseyside North PCS union. She told Socialist Worker, “Our strike has been really well supported by members, but also by the public. They understand that we need the staff to deliver the services they’re relying on.” 
 
Most offices have offered a very limited service – if any at all – and closed by lunch time.
 
“In Bootle a manager had to announce to people who were waiting that there was a strike because the service was so affected”, Lisa continued. 
 
Around 70 striking PCS members and their supporters rallied in Liverpool city centre on Thursday.
 
Fran Heathcote PCS DWP President pledged support for the strike and said, "It is time DWP Management realised they can not make 28 percent cuts to services and get away with it"
 
Morag Reid from the Unite union’s Wirral Community branch said " We stand side by side with you". 
 
PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka described the strike as being in the best traditions of the trade union movement saying "This is not a selfish strike but a strike on behalf of the people of Merseyside" adding that, "If you win it will give heart to all those fighting the cuts"
 
Speaking about what’s next, Lisa said “We’ll see what management are saying. We’ll take a decision once all four union branches have discussed it together. We shouldn’t be giving up this fight.”
 
The strike is not just about defending jobs, but also about defending the service. 
 
Staff shortages in job centres caused one client to tell Lisa, “Getting an appointment with you is like getting an appointment with the Queen.”
 
“How can we get people off the unemployment register without workers to help them? It’s as though this government are picking on the most vulnerable to pay for the crisis.”

Rush messages of support to strikers through the DWP group office, leeds@pcs.org.uk

ends Merseyside workers in 3-day walkout

NHS mental health workers strike in Birmingham

Pete Jackson

NHS workers in the Unite and Unison unions at Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust struck today, Wednesday. 

They are fighting a management proposal to axe their allowances in a move which most workers see as a prelude to privatisation. 

Their Unite union says it will lead to workers losing an average of £1,400 a year. 

The action saw pickets outside both Reaside and Ardenleigh clinics. 

Strikers at the Reaside clinic, a secure mental health unit which supports vulnerable people with mental health difficulties, spoke to Socialist Worker.

"People are fed up and disillusioned about management's 'agenda for change' and we need to take a stand,” said one. “Otherwise next it will be weekend or night pay that will go." 

"It's been their aim all along to privatise us,” added another picket, "This is like Thatcher under a different name. 

“The government have made U-turns but to win we need to go bigger, we need the whole public sector out."

ends NHS mental health workers strike in Birmingham

Thousands of Tamils march as queen dines with Sri Lankan president

Ken Olende

Thousands of Tamils marched through central London yesterday (Wednesday) to protest at the queen lunching with the Sri Lankan president who presided over war crimes. 

The queen dined with Commonwealth leaders as part of her jubilee celebrations. Among the guests was president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was in office when the Sri Lankan state brutally crushed Tamil resistance in 2009.

Tens of thousands of Tamils were killed. Footage has emerged showing rape and torture by Sri Lankan forces. 

The protesters chanted “Sri Lanka’s president is a war criminal” and shouted at limousines as they took guests in. 

Police asked them to take down Tamil Tiger flags as flying them is “rude” to the queen. But the demonstrators refused. 

Annu is a student who grew up in Britain. She told Socialist Worker, “I’m grateful my family were allowed to flee here. I’ve got nothing against the queen. We don’t want to be rude to her. But she’d being rude to us—inviting a war criminal to dinner.

“I went on all the protests in 2009. I will go on protesting until we get justice.”

Another demonstrator, Raj Kumar, said, “They tell us the war is over. A friend of mine went back from Canada to Parathan in the Jaffna peninsula [the Tamil area in Sri Lanka]. He found part of his home occupied by soldiers.

“He had never been involved in politics and arranged a meeting with the local military commander to ask that the soldiers would leave.

“But the night before the appointment, armed men came to his house and killed and mutilated him. That’s how things are for Tamils in Sri Lanka.”

ends Thousands of Tamils march as queen dines with Sri Lankan president

Outrage at bosses' pay bonanza

Fat cats cash in as workers’ wages cut – join the fightback against austerity

There’s no austerity for the bosses of Britain’s biggest companies. Their pay packets have grown to a typical figure of 139 times average employee earnings, according to a new survey.

Chief executives at FTSE 100 firms pocketed an average of £4.8 million each last year—despite an overall drop in share prices.

The typical rise in chief executive earnings was 12 percent. That compares to a typical 1 percent rise for their employees. More than a quarter of bosses took a rise of over 41 percent.

The fattest of the fat cats were Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays (£21.0 million), Martin Sorrell of WPP (£11.6 million), David Brennan of Astra Zeneca (£11.3 million) and Andrew Witty of Glaxo Smith Kline (£10.8 million).

Sorrell’s greed is too much even for WPP’s shareholders, who were expected to vote down his pay rise at a meeting on Wednesday of this week.

The bulk of the rise in bosses’ pay has come from bonus schemes and incentive awards. Basic salaries typically accounted for less than a fifth.

The pay survey from consultants Manifest and MM&K confirms that Britain’s bosses are cashing in despite the economic crisis of 2007 and the “double dip” recession.

It’s a very different story at the other end of the pay scale. Average private sector pay is rising by just 0.3 percent a year, according to figures from Income Data Services.

That compares to an inflation rate of 3.5 percent. Workers are getting their pay cut in real terms while the obscenely rich get even richer.

ends Outrage at bosses' pay bonanza

Scottish teachers vote for more strikes at EIS union conference

Andrew Fullwood, EIS council member (personal capacity)

Delegates to the EIS teaching union’s annual general meeting in Dundee last weekend voted unanimously to continue the fight for pensions. The motion passed called for further joint action in the campaign.
 
The union pulled out of striking in March, and negotiations with the Scottish National Party (SNP) government are ongoing. 
 
Scottish teachers and lecturers are part of the same pension scheme as teachers in England and Wales. But any changes to the scheme have to be passed through the Scottish parliament.
 
There is a widespread feeling among members that an acceptable deal is unlikely to emerge and that it is necessary to take further strike action. 
 
Treasury secretary Danny Alexander interfered in the talks and tried to limit any variation on changes the government wants to force through.
 
He said increases to retirement age are not negotiable and that higher contributions will come from Scotland’s block grant from the treasury if not from wages.
 
Despite their oppositional rhetoric, the SNP increased contributions in April in line with increases elsewhere. 
 
The newly appointed EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan made it clear that, “If they fail to deliver a fair settlement on pensions here in Scotland, we are prepared to fight them every bit as hard as we will fight the UK coalition government on this issue.” 
 
The motion supported continuing the fight alongside other unions when possible. The recent announcement of joint action by the NUT and NASUWT unions in the autumn was welcomed in that respect. 
 
Autumn 
 
But speakers from the floor made emphasized that they expected the fight to hot back up in the autumn, with other unions if possible but independently if necessary.
 
Activists now need to organise to make sure an autumn strike happens and that another long recess is not allowed to demobilise the resistance.
 
The effects of austerity were a prominent feature of debates throughout the conference in motions ranging from resistance to local authority budget cuts and opposition to changes in employment law. 
 
Delegates discussed a motion on the pay claim for when the current pay freeze ends in April next year. 
 
Steven Caniffi, a delegate from East Renfrewshire called for the claim to be part of a wider campaign with other unions against austerity. 
 
He said that we must make it clear “we reject austerity, we’ve paid enough already and we’re not paying any more”.
 
A key debate of the conference focused on the introduction of new qualifications as part of the “Curriculum for Excellence”. 
 
The implementation of the new curriculum has been particularly controversial in terms of the workload it has generated and the lack of training and resources made available to support it. 
 
The EIS did wring some concessions from the government, such as course materials, development days and funds recently. But many teachers are still angry. 
 
A motion calling for industrial action to delay the new qualifications would have derailed their implementation. Although this was lost by two to one, concerns about the Curriculum for Excellence continue to grow.

ends Scottish teachers vote for more strikes at EIS union conference

Immigration: home secretary wants to change the law and deport more people

The Tories pose as the party of the family. But they are choosy about which families they defend.

Home secretary Theresa May told parliament this week that she will try to stop people fighting for their right to family life. 

The right is enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

The right is breached by deportation.

She said the meaning of Article 8 had been “perverted” and used to prevent the removal of foreign national prisoners and illegal immigrants.

Article 8 angers May and her cronies because, among other things, it says that family life must be respected as a single entity. 

That means that the interests of the people who they share family life with as well as the claimants. 

Article 8 also includes the right people have to a private life.

A person’s private life includes studies, employment, friendships and sexuality. 

A claimant cannot be deported if their right to respect for private life would be denied in their destination country.

May first brought the issue up at last year’s Tory conference claiming, falsely, that a Bolivian man had been allowed to stay because he had a cat.

ends Immigration: home secretary wants to change the law and deport more people

Refugee speaks out: 'Asylum seekers are people too'

Ken Olende

Men, women and children are being forcibly deported by the Tories. This is the reality of the government’s propaganda about immigrants and family life

A refugee, Jemima, who successfully resisted being dragged onto a deportation flight with her children told Socialist Worker her story.

The UK Border Agency (UKBA) raided Jemima’s home in Glasgow at 7am on 15 May. Government officers detained her and her four young children, and drove them to a removal centre near Heathrow airport. 

Jemima told Socialist Worker, “As we were taken onto the tarmac I said if I go back to Nigeria they will kill me, so I am not getting on that plane.

“But they wouldn’t listen. I was handcuffed. I started screaming and they tied my legs together. In the struggle they pulled off my skirt, so they carried me across the tarmac in my knickers.

“This was in front of my crying children. Fifteen people dragged us to the plane. One of them was just filming me half naked.

“They dropped me on my head. The one holding my right arm kept twisting the handcuff until it bit into my wrist. It became really swollen.”

The UKBA staff were trying to get her and her family aboard a commercial passenger flight.

They wanted them to be quiet before other passengers boarded. When they failed, she was taken off the flight.

The border agency is having increasing difficulties with their policy of deportations on commercial flights. Passengers are often shocked by the treatment meted out to deportees and staff on several airlines have refused to take off when deportees are in obvious distress.

Jemima has good reason to fear returning to Nigeria. She said, “My husband was a political activist. I wasn’t involved, but when his opponents came they couldn’t find him so I was on the receiving end of the attack.

“I fled to Britain in August 2002. This is the only country my children know.”

Margaret Woods from the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees, said “Until recently it was normal that if a family had been here for seven years it was accepted that they could stay. But now that has changed.”

Nigeria

Jemima’s husband joined her in Britain. But he returned to Nigeria about seven years ago. 

Jemima said, “I haven’t heard a word from him since he landed. 

“I’ve no idea what happened. This made me more scared to go back, but the home office says he probably just abandoned us.”

She has been given confidence to keep fighting by the campaign to support refugees. 

There will be a solidarity protest on Saturday in Glasgow. She said, “The protest on Saturday is really important. I want people to know that asylum seekers are human beings. 

“We are no different. We want the country to prosper. We are not thieves. We want to contribute. They should allow us to work.”

ends Refugee speaks out: 'Asylum seekers are people too'

Trade union activists gear up for Unite the Resistance conference

A conference in London next Saturday organised by Unite the Resistance aims to forge links between all those fighting back.

Jane Aitchison, PCS president in the Department for Work and Pensions 2004 to 2012, will be speaking at the event. “This Unite the Resistance conference takes place at a critical time,” she told Socialist Worker. “PCS activists like myself will be coming to make strong links with other union activists.

“We need to determine how best to keep the pressure on our union leaderships to conduct the fight we need to win. We must build on the success of 10 May to defend our jobs, our pay and of course our pensions. But more than that we need to radically change the way society is going. 

“There was no expense spared to celebrate the jubilee. Jobs could have been created for some unemployed people stewarding the event—but instead unemployed people were exploited. This encapsulates all that is wrong in Tory Britain. We must unite to fight back. This conference will help us organise that fight.”

Ollie Jones is a Unite shop steward from the Ministry of Defence in Donnington. “I’ve been to Unite the Resistance events before,” he said. “The workshops were really useful. We were able to talk to activists in the other civil service unions about what we all should do.

“A lot of people can feel isolated. If we all get together it makes a lot of difference. We’re the ones who need to come up with a strategy that can win.”

Gavin Reid is UCU national executive member and an original signatory to the open letter that launched Unite the Resistance.

“Lots of people are angry, but there’s no point just being angry—we need to organise,” he said.

“The attacks we face are so general they apply to all groups of workers. The Tories want to destroy our lives to pay for a crisis we didn’t create. That’s why we need a broad-based response. Unite the Resistance tries to help develop that.”

Matt Wells is branch organiser for the PCS union in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

He told Socialist Worker, “The conference will provide a space for rank and file activists to discuss how to develop the fight and build links between workplaces. That can help raise confidence.”

Austerity, resistance and the pensions fight

Unite the Resistance national conference

Saturday 23 June, 11am-4.30pm

Bloomsbury Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 8EP
 
www.uniteresist.org
 
Speakers include:



Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary

John McDonnell MP

Gill George, Unite Health NISC (pc)

Enric Rodrigo, Madrid Indignados movement

Themis Orfanakis,

Doctor from occupied hospital in Greece



ends Trade union activists gear up for Unite the Resistance conference

Defiant lecturers pledge to resist Tory pension attacks

Sadie Robinson reports from the UCU union’s conference in Manchester

Lecturers in the UCU union voted overwhelmingly to continue the fight to defend their pensions at their annual conference in Manchester last weekend.

Delegates defied union officials in a series of votes.

Alan Whitaker, a former president of the union and member of its national executive committee, spoke to Socialist Worker after the votes. 

“The pessimists were trounced and there was quite an optimistic mood in the hall,” he said. “This has been a good day for the left.”

Lecturers in older universities are in the USS pension scheme while those in newer universities and colleges are in the TPS scheme. The government is attacking both.

Workers in the USS scheme passed an amendment instructing the higher education committee to “campaign over the summer for a programme of sustained industrial action in the autumn”. 

It also called on the higher education committee to reinstate work to rule industrial action “with immediate effect”.

Many delegates were angry at UCU general secretary Sally Hunt for failing to lead the fight for their pensions. 

Workers in the USS scheme have not struck over pensions since 30 November last year.

Amy from London’s Institute of Education told Socialist Worker, “Debates were polarised between people who wanted to keep negotiating and those who wanted to resume action.

“People in my union branch voted strongly for action on pensions. 

“We feel that there hasn’t been enough progress in the negotiations. Today was important because it located our dispute within a wider defence of public services.”

Lecturers in the TPS scheme struck in London on 28 March and across Britain on 10 May. 

Sally Hunt argued that the 10 May action was a mistake. She issued a report on the dispute warning against further strikes.

Delegates passed a motion calling on their national executive committee to “to develop and propose to other unions a coordinated programme of escalating strike action in defence of public sector pensions from autumn 2012”.

An amendment calling for UCU to join any public sector industrial action in June was lost. 

But delegates said a significant minority of at least a third of conference supported the call for action in June. 

A late motion was also passed calling on the national executive committee to work with other unions to organise escalating strikes and a national demonstration.

Mark Campbell, a member of the national executive committee said, “Lecturers have resoundingly decided to up the ante and continue the fight on pensions. 

“We want to win the dispute.”

There was a buoyant mood at a 170-strong UCU Left meeting after the votes on Friday evening. 

Left wing Labour MP John McDonnell congratulated workers on their decision to keep fighting the Tory attacks.

He told workers, “The decision you’ve taken today is absolutely critical.”

ends Defiant lecturers pledge to resist Tory pension attacks

Doctors to take action against cuts to pensions

Julie Sherry

Doctors are set to take their first industrial action in four decades on Thursday 21 June to defend pensions. They will refuse all work apart from urgent and emergency procedures.

Unfortunately, other unions will now not strike over pensions in June. But this fight is far from over—up to one million workers could join a mass strike in the autumn.

The backdrop to this is the national demonstration against austerity called by the TUC for 20 October. This protest can be even bigger than the one on 26 March last year that attracted over half million.

The NUT and NASUWT teaching unions have agreed to call a joint national strike in autumn. The EIS and UCU education unions have voted to join the action (see page 6).

And the PCS civil service workers’ union is also set to join this strike. It has passed conference motions to consider escalation to two-day strikes and rolling sectional action alongside national strikes.

A national meeting of the Unite union’s health sector last week rejected calls to join the doctors’ action on 21 June. But Unite health workers are committed to joining the autumn strike.

Meanwhile a strategy document put forward by Unite officials aims to ramp up the union’s organisation of health workers.

Gill George, a lay member on Unite’s national health sector committee, told Socialist Worker, “this document marks a step forwards”.

It means the union is committed to defending its health members even if it has to act independently of other unions in the sector.

Local government workers, however, face a difficult scenario. Union leaders in Unison, GMB and Unite are all putting a deal to their members that will mean working longer to receive less.

Delegates to Unison’s local government conference this weekend have a chance to get the fight back on. They should back emergency motions that call on the union to reject the deal.

Backing off from June strikes was a mistake. Each time trade union leaders delay the action it wastes valuable momentum.

But the autumn strike has the potential to reignite the fight against Tory austerity plans—and the 20 October demonstration can be a springboard into more mass strikes later this year.

ends Doctors to take action against cuts to pensions

Tax credit cut hits workers

Shop workers could be better off on the dole because of tax credit changes brought in by the Tory government.

Couples earning less than £18,000 a year must increase their working hours from a minimum of 16 hours a week to 24 hours. If they don’t they will lose their working tax credit of over £70 a week.

One in five GMB members believed the changes would force them on to the dole because work would not be worthwhile.

ends Tax credit cut hits workers

Workfare boss has shady past

New details have come to light about the boss of the company that made unemployed people work for free during the jubilee. 

Molly Prince, head of Close Protection UK, shopped, wined and dined at luxury venues across Manchester.

One trip saw her splash on a £30,000 Hummer car, with number plate “B055 M0L”.

Prince has a criminal conviction for perverting the course of justice in 1994 after she refused to give evidence in an assault case.

ends Workfare boss has shady past

GMB delegates vent anger at Labour

Simon Basketter

How to resist the Tory attacks was the theme of the GMB Congress in Brighton this week. But the key terrain of that battle for the union is the Labour Party’s conduct in opposition.

GMB general secretary Paul Kenny says the union has refused to give Labour some £500,000 since the party backed a public sector pay freeze.

Apart from the union’s £1.4?million affiliation fees, and the money to campaign at local elections, the “money box was shut and will remain shut until we see major changes”, he added.

“I don’t believe the public will vote for a Tory-lite approach from a Labour government,” said Kenny. “We want Labour to be the party of working people.”

There were numerous motions criticising Labour for “punching below its weight”. Delegates repeatedly spoke of being “saddened” and “angry” at Labour. 

They also complained that Labour hadn’t backed striking public sector workers. Linda Millar said she “expected all Labour representatives to show 100 percent support for workers’ action. We have been loyal and received little in return.”

The reality of how Labour will take the criticism could be seen when shadow chancellor Ed Balls defended the stance on a public sector pay freeze.

Balls received a cool reception to his rather dull speech. When he said “I have to apologise” a heckler shouted, “You’re right, you do.” Balls didn’t.

Lacklustre debate on pensions

The GMB union is recommending the local government pensions deal and intends to ballot in August.

A lacklustre debate at its annual conference saw little enthusiasm for the deal, but only subdued opposition. The union has also accepted the civil service deal.

GMB members in health overwhelmingly rejected the deal, but are unlikely to strike again soon. 

There is already another threat on the horizon for local government workers.

Brian Strutton, GMB’s national secretary for public services, said, “As we move forward from one challenge—pensions—so we face another—national conditions.”

Local government bosses want to scrap the “green book” of terms and conditions that covers 1.6 million local government staff.

Their proposal is to “terminate the current bargaining machinery” and replace it with what they openly describe as a “much reduced” agreement.

ends GMB delegates vent anger at Labour

Spain's rushed bank bailout betrays the fear of our rulers

Joseph Choonara

The government of Spain—the fourth biggest eurozone economy—has turned to the European Union for a bailout estimated at up to £81 billion.

This follows bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal. 

The deal came as the Spanish government finally acknowledged that it could not rescue its troubled banking system without external help. The exorbitant interest rates it must now pay to borrow money effectively shut it out of global financial markets.

The money offered to Spain will do nothing to ease conditions for the country’s 25 percent unemployed people. It won’t help the 

millions who have seen their wages or benefits cut. It is a lifeline for the banks and a means of buying time for the eurozone.

But the problems in Spain and elsewhere will resurface. Last weekend’s emergency deal shows the deep roots of the economic crisis.

In 2008, as the US subprime mortgage crisis spread, Spanish economists and politicians boasted about their banks’ low level of exposure to the bad debts.

The Santander bank even went on a spending spree, taking over some of Britain’s ailing lenders.

But Spanish banks were exposed to a domestic bubble based on construction and property and sustained by cheap credit. This bubble has burst—and left them with bad debt and unsold property.

Credit fuelled much growth across the world in recent decades. 

If the system was booming, profits could be used to repay the resulting debts. But it hasn’t—and the burden of debt has grown.

There is no sign of recovery. The latest jobs figures for the US were much weaker than expected. Growth in China is slowing and Europe remains in the mire.

The global elite fear that the Spanish bank bailout is a prelude to a bailout of the Spanish state.

The bank bailout will be added to the country’s national debt, making this more likely. 

If Spain’s government goes bust, the International Monetary Fund and Europe’s rescue fund won’t have the money to pick up the tab.

The deep-rooted problems have left Europe’s rulers floundering with no clear consensus on what to do. 

The only thing they agree on is the need to attack the public sector and the working class.

Urgency

But even this “policy” is beginning to unravel. Most of the austerity measures favoured by the European elite have already been imposed on Spain. Yet the crisis continues—and austerity is now coming under sustained attack from below.

The urgency with which the Spanish bailout was stitched together reflects our rulers’ fears about Sunday’s Greek elections. 

Politicians who reject the existing bailout there were expected to poll strongly. 

Mass struggles that are driving the election of anti-austerity politicians are now another fear for our rulers.

ends Spain's rushed bank bailout betrays the fear of our rulers

Bigots attack gay marriage plans

Church leaders and Tory MPs have joined a chorus of bigots attacking plans to allow same-sex couples to get married.

Disgraced former minister Liam Fox said gay marriage was only of interest to an obsessed “metropolitan elite”.

Hedge fund manager and Tory donor Michael Farmer is also campaigning against same sex marriage.

ends Bigots attack gay marriage plans

Cops target more black people... but they don't investigate rape

Siân Ruddick

The police are 37 times more likely to stop and search black people than their white counterparts, a new report has found.

The study by the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that between 2008 and 2009 the Metropolitan Police stopped 68 out of every 1,000 black people in their area.

In the West Midlands an officer is 28 times more likely to search a black person than a white person.

Meanwhile it has been revealed that an officer has been charged with 13 counts of misconduct at the Met’s specialist sex crimes department, the Sapphire unit.

Another has been arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice.

Less than three years ago senior cops claimed the unit had been reformed following a series of scandals in which two serial rapists were left at large to rape and abuse hundreds of women.

ends Cops target more black people... but they don't investigate rape

Vigils for victims of deaths in custody

Vigils are planned across Britain on Sunday to remember those who have died in police custody.

They are being held on Father’s Day to draw attention to the enormous impact such deaths have on families.

Sheila Sylvester, mother of Roger Sylvester, said, “Change was supposed to come since Roger’s death, but in 12 years nothing has really changed. The system should be ashamed.”
 
The vigils take place on Sunday 17 June:
 
Justice for Habib ‘Paps’ Ullah: High Wycombe Police Station, Queen Victoria Road, HP111BE 12-3pm
 
Justice for Anthony Grainger: Manchester Piccadilly Gardens, M1 1AF, 12-3pm
 
Justice for Philmore Mills: Slough Police Station, 12-3pm
 
Birmingham West Midlands Police HQ, Lloyd House, Birmingham, B4 6NQ, 12-3pm
 
Azelle Rodney Campaign: 8-10 Broadway, London, SW1H 0BG, 12 midday
 
Ricky Bishop Campaign: Brixton Police Station, London, SW9 12-3pm

Go to uffc-campaigncentral.net

ends Vigils for victims of deaths in custody

Sean Rigg inquest begins

Siân Ruddick

The inquest into the death of Sean Rigg opened on Monday.

Sean, who suffered from schizophrenia, died on 21 August 2008 after being arrested and restrained by police in south London. 

He was then taken to Brixton police station and held in a metal cage in the yard. 

Police claim that the CCTV was not working either in the yard or the police van that carried Sean there.

He was pronounced dead at hospital later that night.

Sean’s sisters, Marcia and Samantha, have campaigned tirelessly to find the truth about their brother’s death.

Go to www.seanriggjusticeandchange.com

ends Sean Rigg inquest begins

Rochdale resists EDL racists

The racist EDL failed to deliver the monster demo they had promised for last Saturday in Rochdale. 

Instead they bussed in 300 racists who chanted drunken abuse outside the Yates’s pub. 

The police arrested 11 of them. Despite this the officer in charge said, “It is testament to the organisers themselves who worked with us to ensure the event passed off as peacefully as possible.”

Local people are determined not to let the racists divide them. A chippy even donated bags of chips to the counter demo against the EDL organised by Unite Against Fascism (UAF) and local anti-racists.

Samaira Anjum is a member of NUS black students campaign and goes to Manchester Metropolitan University. She told Socialist Worker, “The EDL are trying exploit what happened and whip up Islamophobia. They want to criminalise a whole community.

“When I was growing up in Oldham the BNP were organising. When I was ten we got a petrol bomb thrown at our house when I was there. 

“I have had people try and tear off my headscarf. But I’m not scared, I stand tall. It’s important that UAF is standing up to them.”

Labour Party member Peter Corby said, “We’re here to show solidarity and keep this rabble out of Rochdale.”

ends Rochdale resists EDL racists

ends News section

starts section Editorial 

Rich don't need deals

David Cameron is likely to forget more than where he left his daughter this week. The Tory toff is set to give evidence at the Leveson inquiry after Socialist Worker went to press. 

Cameron has already lied, or forgot, about how many times he met Rupert Murdoch and his relatives. 

He has repeatedly insisted over his dealings with Murdoch that, “It would be absolutely wrong for there to be any sort of deal and there wasn’t. There was no grand deal.” 

But he was courting the Murdochs before the election, taking flights with them and visiting them on Murdoch’s yacht. 

The back door of Downing Street was a revolving door to Murdoch. Cameron claims that he can’t remember the details of their conversations—but he does remember that nothing improper was discussed. 

There is of course no need for a deal or contract. This is merely dishonour among the thieves at the top of society. 

The Leveson inquiry was set up to calm the crisis over the phone hacking scandal. 

At one level it is fulfilling its purpose. The polite questioning of the various members of the establishment about a wealth of detail can be as dull as it is complex. But it also keeps the sore of corruption open. 

That’s why Cameron and the rest of the corrupt elite are still worried by the scandal.

ends Rich don't need deals

They will make us pay unless we fight back

Everywhere we look the rich show they are all in it together while they make us pay for their crisis. 

Across Europe bosses and politicians can find untold billions when they need to look after their own.

Yet they say that there is no money for the welfare state or workers’ pensions. 

They are willing to inflict devastation on the lives of workers and the poor if they think it will put their system back in profit. 

There is real anger and bitterness against the politicians, the rich and their austerity. 

In Britain we have seen that workers are prepared to fight. 

There have already been tremendous strikes against the attack on pensions.

Millions of workers have shown the spirit of resistance when they are given a lead.

But the leadership of some of the biggest unions have not been prepared to sustain the fight after the magnificent strike on 

30 November. 

They have let their members down. There was the chance to call another mass strike this month. 

If workers across the public sector had struck on the day doctors take industrial action over their pensions, it would have been be difficult to ignore.

The Tories would have been on the defensive and public opinion would have been with the workers. 

But trade unions leaders stalled, rank and file workers did not have the confidence to defy them and an opportunity was missed. There’s a danger that this can send a signal that the battle is over.

But the autumn is already hotting up to be a battleground over austerity. 

The scandal-plagued Tories look weak. They fear a united militant struggle involving millions of workers. 

Teachers will shortly begin a ballot for a half million strong strike in the autumn. 

If they came out other public sector workers would come in behind them.

In the middle of this, there’s the TUC national demonstration against austerity in London on 20 October. Students are set to march in the same month.

This is a chance to bring new forces into the fight against the government and build workers’ confidence to escalate the strikes. 

Activists must go all out to win the strike ballots and fight for everyone they work with to come to London to march in October. 

Book trains, buses, anything that moves—and get organised. In every town you can hold rallies, cavalcades and leafleting sessions to build for the demo. 

Everyone who hates the Tories and wants to stop the attacks can get stuck in.

ends They will make us pay unless we fight back

ends Editorial section

starts section The Troublemaker 

Play Holocaust victims, Jewish couple are told

They had an unusual way of celebrating the jubilee in Bury. Instead of waving union jacks, they held a festival where people dressed up as Nazis. But things got a lot worse when a Jewish couple was asked to join in—by dressing as Holocaust victims. 

Merton and Barbara Paul say they were even asked to wear a yellow Star of David. Some in the crowd at the “wartime weekend” were dressed in SS uniforms. Merton called it “completely disrespectful”.

ends Play Holocaust victims, Jewish couple are told

Billionaires splash £1 trillion on luxury

The world’s super-rich will spend almost £1 trillion on luxury this year, a report says. They are so rich that they’re looking for new ways to splash their cash—and posh “experiences” instead of things are the newest trend.

Helicopter skiing is particularly popular, it adds. But the most important factor is that it is as exclusive as possible.

Ivan Glasenberg, chief executive of mining firm Glencore, has spoken out to defend fat cat bosses’ pay. In a rare public speech he poured scorn on the executive pay backlash.

He told an industry dinner, “If you want good CEOs, you are going to have to pay.” Glasenberg pocketed £71 million last year from share dividends alone.

Joining the pro-fat cat movement is Sir Martin Sorrell of ad firm WPP. “I find the controversy over my compensation deeply disturbing,” he moaned. He gets £13 million.

“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” So says the King James Bible.

Now children can read all about that thanks to education secretary Michael Gove’s £375,000 vanity project to send one to every school. Each comes with a humble inscription on the spine: “Presented by the Secretary of State for education”.

Adrian Beecroft, the top Tory donor who wants to make it easier to sack you, is in line for a big windfall from his shares in payday loan firm Wonga. The 4,000 percent interest lender is planning to float on the stock market—for £1 billion. So when Wonga takes the poor’s cash, Beecroft can hand it to the Tories.

ends Billionaires splash £1 trillion on luxury

Olympic torch is a rich man's plaything

The 8,000 people who are going to carry the Olympic torch were supposed to be chosen because they were “inspirational”. But the official list shows hundreds of torchbearers were selected just because they are bigwigs at one of the corporate sponsors.

Among them is Lakshmi Mittal—the steel tycoon who is Britain’s richest man. Recruitment firm Adecco has sent its chief executive Patrick De Maeseneire. And Samsung has contributed its director and head of IT marketing, Todd Bouman. Truly inspiring.

Of course, when you’re super-rich, the sky’s the limit. Estimates this week show that 5,000 toffs have dodged tax by buying their homes through offshore companies. 

Around 500 of the houses, worth a total of £1.6 billion, were bought in the last year—despite government claims that they’re getting tough on tax dodgers.

A mystery magnate even bought an entire London street this way. Eight London townhouses were bought by an offshore firm, avoiding £10 million in tax.

ends Olympic torch is a rich man's plaything

Cameron gets in hot water over his cuppa with Rupert

David Cameron’s mantra about the Leveson inquiry is that all politicians “got too close” to Murdoch. But behind that is the truth about how deep he was drawn into the Murdoch web. Again and again he has had to admit more meetings with the Murdochs. 

Rupert Murdoch himself said, “I was invited within days [after the election] to have a cup of tea to be thanked for the support by Mr Cameron.” He used the back door of Number 10.

News International executive Rebekah Brooks is the only person Cameron invited to Chequers twice—and that includes cabinet ministers.

Andy Coulson was appointed Tory spin doctor. The only thing he brought to the job was the fact that he’d worked for Murdoch. He was invited to Chequers months after he quit. And there was the time that James Murdoch, Brooks and Cameron met up for a cosy Christmas dinner.

Much has been made of Cameron not knowing the meaning of “LOL”. He thought he was signing off texts to his horse-riding pal Brooks with “lots of love”. But will Cameron squirm off the hook?

ends Cameron gets in hot water over his cuppa with Rupert

ends The Troublemaker section

starts section Who says? 

Who says?

Quotes from the news this week

‘An unfortunate logistics planning problem’

Molly Prince, boss of workfare firm Close Protection UK, on the job seekers her firm left to sleep under a bridge

‘Thankfully when they phoned the pub she was there safe and well’

Downing Street spokesperson explains how dutiful father David Cameron tracked down his eight year old daughter

‘The thing I am really passionate about is fixing the responsibility deficit’

The same David Cameron justifying his £450 million clampdown on “troubled families”

‘Sarah is one of the most forgiving people and I think she finds good in everyone’

Gordon Brown tells the Leveson inquiry why his wife remained friends with Rebekah Brooks even after the Sun had invaded their child’s privacy

‘Naive, gullible and compromised’

Peter Oborne of the Daily Telegraph delivers a withering verdict on Cameron

ends Who says?

ends Who says? section

starts section International 

Greece: A left election victory can help workers fight the bosses

Panos Garganas in Athens

The Greek election campaign entered its final week with two important events overshadowing the strategies of the old ruling parties. 

The crisis in Spain and popular anger against neo-Nazi attacks have thrown the plans of conservative New Democracy and the New Labour-type party Pasok into turmoil.

The leaders of both these parties placed the dilemma “the euro or the drachma” at the centre of their campaigns. The focus of their electoral propaganda has been to paint the left as “the party of the drachma”—Greece’s former currency before we joined the euro. 

They claim that confronting austerity will lead Greece out of the eurozone. They argue that a return to the drachma will bring about an economic catastrophe worse than anything we have seen so far.

There were problems with these claims right from the start. In Greece the economy has shrunk for five years in a row. Unemployment has increased threefold and wages have been cut between 25 and 35 percent. 

All of this—exactly the definition of economic catastrophe—has happened under the leadership of New Democracy and Pasok governments. So leaders of those parties have promised to renegotiate the terms of the austerity memorandum they signed with the European Union in April.

Antonis Samaras of New Democracy and Evangelos Venizelos of Pasok have stressed a “change of climate” in Europe since the French presidential election. They are trying to give their promises some semblence of credibility.

What with the talk about eurobonds, there is now a window of opportunity to soften the terms of the memorandum. And, Samaras and Venizelos say, that needs skillful and responsible handling, not the confrontational tactics of the left.

Exposed 

But the crisis in Spain has blown this reasoning out of the water. The chances are that the terms of the memorandum for Greece will not be improved but worsened as Spain drags the eurozone deeper into trouble. 

New Democracy leader Samaras is particularly exposed. He had rushed to hail the election of conservative prime minister Mariano Rajoy in Spain last year as evidence that parties of the right can handle the crisis better. 

Now his embrace of Rajoy has become an embarrassment. Samaras tried to deal with this by shifting the emphasis of his campaign to “law and order”. He is desperate to attract votes from the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn by imitating some of their rhetoric against “illegal immigrant criminals”. But this tactic has come up against a wave of anger at neo-Nazi attacks.

The more Golden Dawn is squeezed the more they resort to outrageous attacks.

Last week their spokesman violently attacked two women MPs, Liana Kaneli of the Greek Communist Party and Rena Dourou of the Syriza radical left coalition, live on TV.

It happened on the eve of anti-fascist demonstrations called by Keerfa (United Against Racism and the Fascist Threat) and other anti-racist organisations across Greece. 

The result was that the demonstrations were big and angry, attracting national and international attention. In an election campaign where party political open air rallies have been rare, these protests registered a mass anti-Nazi current.

All these events are keeping up the momentum of radicalisation to the left. 

Workers’ confidence is growing. Hospital workers in central Athens struck to defend jobs and services in the cancer and municipal hospitals. The caretaker government was forced to back down for the moment to avoid an escalation of action during the election campaign.

Opinion polls are banned at this stage of the election in Greece. But from informal leaks we learn that Syriza is leading in the final stretch.

The Greek Socialist Workers Party and the Antarsya anti-capitalist coalition to which it belongs have been central to the struggles feeding this left turn. A strong result for Antarsya in the election will enhance this role. But we understand that many militants who respect Antarsya’s role as organisers in the movement will nevertheless vote for Syriza to stop New Democracy.

We must work with all these activists to make sure that a victory for the left in Sunday’s election translates into victories for workers against the bosses.

ends Greece: A left election victory can help workers fight the bosses

Israeli crackdown on migrants

Siân Ruddick

The Israeli government has begun rounding up migrants in order to forcibly deport them.

Israeli authorities said they had arrested 45 people from South Sudan and several others from Africa and Asia.

A journalist described how migrants had been arrested on the street, at work and in door-to-door searches.

News of the arrests brought hundreds of people onto the streets of the Israeli capital Tel Aviv.

Protesters chanted, “An African is a human being.”

An Israeli court has decided that around 1,500 migrants from South Sudan would no longer be at risk if they return there.

Migrants can be held in Israeli prisons for up to three years without charge.

Israel is also threatening Israelis who house, employ or transport migrants with five-year jail terms.

The government has drawn up draft legislation that is expected to have a preliminary hearing this week.

Meanwhile Palestinian prisoners are continuing their hunger strike in Israeli jails. They demand better conditions and an end to the practice of “administrative detention” without trial.

ends Israeli crackdown on migrants

Australia: biggest ever teachers' strike shakes union-busting premier

Up to 30,000 teachers struck in the Australian state of Victoria on Wednesday of last week in what looks set to be a long-running battle over pay.

When strikers marched into the state capital, Melbourne, a 10,000-seater arena couldn’t fit them all. 

Those who got in voted overwhelmingly for more strikes.

Union-busting state premier, Liberal party member Ted Baillieu had said Victoria’s teachers would be the best paid in Australia. 

This turned out to mean a move towards performance-related pay, with a basic rise of just 2.5 percent.

Teachers’ union president Mary Bluett said “Teachers get the best outcomes when they are working together, not competing against each other.”

It was the biggest teachers’ strike in Victoria’s history.

ends Australia: biggest ever teachers' strike shakes union-busting premier

Egypt: Debates rage on the streets and at the ballot box

Anne Alexander writes on the new wave of protests and what the elections mean for the revolution

Voters in Egypt face a critical choice in the second round of presidential elections on 16 and 17 June. On the ballot paper will be Ahmed Shafiq, candidate of the army and supporters of Hosni Mubarak’s old regime, and Mohamed Mursi, a leading figure of the Muslim Brotherhood. 

Despite revolutionary activists’ anger at the Brotherhood, voting for Mursi and against Shafiq is an important step in building a revolutionary movement beyond the elections. 

There are two main reasons for this. The first is that further demonstrations on their own are very unlikely to force the state to concede. The second reason is that the process of fragmentation in the Brotherhood’s mass base can and must go further. 

Millions of voters, particularly in the main urban centres and working class areas, are disillusioned with the Brotherhood. The two main revolutionary candidates in the first round of the presidential election—Hamdeen Sabahy and Abd-al-Moneim Abou-al-Fotouh—took around 40 percent of the vote. 

The massive votes for Sabahy in Egypt’s main industrial centres and his outright victory in Cairo and Alexandria is stunning confirmation of the shifting mood. Sabahy is a left wing Nasserist—a secular nationalist. Even more importantly, Egyptians have proved once again that they will go into the streets to protect their revolution. 

Sabahy and Abou-al-Fotouh have played a leading role in calling the protests for Shafiq’s exclusion and the retrial of Mubarak and his cronies. This shows it is possible to build a movement which combines the legitimacy of Tahrir with the weight of millions of votes. However, the movement from below is still reacting to attempts by the counter-revolution to assert itself. It is not yet on the offensive.

Question

As the Revolutionary Socialists put it recently, “The question is which of the two would we rather fight? A general who will call in the tanks or an opportunist Muslim Brother who is vacillating under the pressure from below and who can be exposed before his own rank and file and the masses?”

But the scale of the protests last week shows both the need and the potential to build a revolutionary movement which can continue the resistance beyond polling day. 

Such a movement needs roots in every neighbourhood and every workplace. It needs to open out to the Brotherhood’s wavering mass electoral base while consolidating and putting down roots among the activists who delivered the votes for Sabahy and Abou-al-Fotouh. At the same time it must retain the angry street fighters, the youth activists and the football Ultras.

The leaders of the workers’ movement can play a crucial role in this process. Even though they have not yet been able to win the workplaces to strike for the revolution, large numbers of activists leading the independent unions mobilised votes for Sabahy. 

Over 100 leading workers’ movement activists signed a statement, organised by the Revolutionary Socialists. It pledges support for the revolutionary demands of the street protests, adding the social demands which are fuelling the ongoing strike wave. 

Every small action overcoming the gap between the workplaces and the streets matters—the power to break the old regime lies in their alliance.

ends Egypt: Debates rage on the streets and at the ballot box

Nightly protests challenge Quebec's clampdown law

Chantal Sundaram

Students in Quebec, Canada, marched again in defiance of the anti-protest Special Law, following the collapse of new negotiations with the government at the end of May.

Their banner read “This is not a student strike, it’s a society waking up.”

It had a picture of a pot and wooden spoon, referencing “les casseroles”. 

These are the nightly neighbourhood protests where people bang pots and pans outside their homes protesting against the Special Law. 

In early June, neighbourhood assemblies formed across the Montreal.

The casseroles turned around the fear of the Special Law. They were spontaneous, from outside the student movement, and they breathed life back into it. 

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, a student leader, called on Quebec’s unions to join students in a wider movement in the autumn.

He insisted that common demands can unite students and workers. 

The next big protest is on the monthly anniversary of the strike, 22 June, in both Montreal and Quebec City. 

In the meantime, the casseroles are spreading beyond Quebec to cities across Canada on a weekly basis.

ends Nightly protests challenge Quebec's clampdown law

Spanish crisis: cuts for all, except army and royals

Jeremie nestor in Barcelona,

The impact of the crisis in Spain affects all aspects of life for ordinary people.

Every day there are 500 house evictions. People lose their homes—but they still have to pay their mortgages.

Before the crisis the health system was totally free and universal.

But now people have to pay one euro for every prescription.

People in hospitals have to pay between 50 percent and 60 percent of the cost of their medicine. Before the crisis it was 40 percent.

In some cases people have to pay to use an ambulance. And, as many hospital services are closed, some people have to travel for miles to go to get treatment.

Some hospitals are missing some anti-tumor medicines needed for cancer patients. 

And some pharmaceutical firms won’t deliver them anymore.

Migrants without any documentation will have to pay to go to hospital from September.

This will be the same for young people who haven’t worked and aren’t studying.

University fees will go up in September from just over £800 a year to £1,200.

And many students will lose their grants.

The money that the government gave to the Bankia bank recently is three times the education budget.

The government has also cut funding for research.

Public sector workers have had their wages cut by almost 

10 percent since the crisis began.

And many people without permanent contracts face redundancy.

One in four people in Spain are already unemployed. More than half of those are under 

25 years old.

And a new labour law has made it easier for bosses to fire people.

It is also easier for them to avoid paying any redundancy compensation.

The government is presenting this as a way of making it easier to hire people. 

David Cameron has used the same idea to cut workers’ rights in Britain.

But in fact, as we see with the unemployment rate, bosses are using the laws to fire people cheaply.

One charity recently compared poverty levels in Spain today to those that existed following the Second World War.

The government has cut everything except the military budget and money for the royal family.

But the cuts have led to strikes and resistance on the streets.

ends Spanish crisis: cuts for all, except army and royals

Spain: Striking miners fight police

Siân Ruddick

A militant strike by 8,000 coal miners has brought parts of northern Spain to a standstill. They have been on strike for over three weeks against cuts to mining subsidies.

They have burnt barricades, blocked 16 main roads and motorways, stopped trains and fought pitched battles with police. Some 10,000 marched in solidarity with the miners and against the right-wing government in the capital Madrid last Saturday.

The CGT union has called for a general strike in the autumn against the bank bailout, spending cuts and attacks on workers’ rights.

ends Spain: Striking miners fight police

Syrian movement unites against Assad's regime

Simon Assaf

The revolution in Syria is entering a critical phase marked by mutinies, strikes and a growing insurgency—as well as renewed attempts by the West and other outside forces to intervene.

British foreign secretary William Hague has been talking up the dangers of a “sectarian civil war” unless there is some form of foreign intervention.

Western leaders and the United Nations are touting the so-called “Yemeni solution”—removing Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad, but leaving his regime in place.

Russia, the Assad regime’s main supporter, has indicated for the first time that it would sign up to such a deal. This plan is being sold as an “orderly solution” to avert a civil war.

For now, military intervention remains off the table. Any such option would have to be spearheaded by Turkey. But Turkey is unwilling to get embroiled in a war that would stoke tensions among minorities within its own borders.

Meanwhile the pro-intervention sentiments inside the revolution have faded. There is growing faith that the regime can be defeated at the hands of Syrians themselves.

Regime forces still do not have control over Homs, three months on from their assault on the city. The Homs region remains a stronghold for the rebels.

The regime’s position in Homs received a major blow last week with the defection of an elite missile defence base.

The base’s commander allowed home all those who did wish to join the uprising before defecting with troops and ammunition.

He is an Alawi—the religious minority from which the bulk of Assad’s regime is drawn from. This is a further sign of the shrinking support for Assad among Alawis.

The numbers of such defections are increasing across Syria. In many areas soldiers are trapped in their bases and have agreed to a local truce with rebels.

This growing and effective insurgency has reached the costal city of Lattakia, considered secure until recently, as well as into the heart of capital Damascus.

In Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, regime forces have started using artillery against neighborhoods that were holding mass peaceful demonstrations. Both Aleppo and Damascus have seen waves of protest strikes that have drawn new layers of Syrian society into the revolution—including the Damascus merchant class once considered loyal to the regime.

Meanwhile revolutionaries are swelling the ranks of the armed rebels, bringing with them the anti-sectarian politics that lie at the heart of the popular movement.

Pledges to defend the unity of the country are becoming more popular on anti-regime demonstrations and in statements by rebel brigades.

Fear of sectarianism—which remains at the heart of the regime strategy to derail the revolution—has hardened these calls for unity inside the revolution.

ends Syrian movement unites against Assad's regime

ends International section

starts section Features 

Race and the US military

A story of the Red Tails fighter pilots reveals an important truth about racism in the US military, argues Ken Olende

The poster for the new film Red Tails shows Second World War fighter aircraft in combat. It doesn’t show that the pilots are all black. You wouldn’t know that the Red Tails’ greatest achievement was overcoming racism. The 332nd Airborne were the only black fighter pilots in the segregated US Air Force, where racism was deeply entrenched.

The true story of the first black fighter squadron reveals an important truth about the US military. Since its foundation, during the American Independence War of 1775 to 1782, it has been a battleground over race. The first rebel casualty in the war of independence was the black former slave Crispus Attucks, shot down by British redcoats in 1775.

Many other black people flocked to the banner of independence. The rebel leadership’s response was mixed—many were slaveholders who weren’t keen on black people carrying guns. And there were some slaveholders who took a different line—offering slaves freedom if they would fight in their masters’ places.

At least 5,000 black soldiers fought, but their role was not appreciated. After this war a new militia act of 1792 called on “each and every white male citizen” to be ready to fight for the new country. More bluntly the policy of the Marines set out in 1798 said, “No negro, mulatto or Indian shall be enlisted”. This was faithfully maintained until 1942. 

In the 1860s campaigners for the abolition of slavery, such as Frederick Douglass, were determined to get black people to fight in the Union army in the Civil War of 1861 to 1865. For Douglass, allowing black people to join the army and particularly to take part in combat was important—even if it was in segregated units. It meant clawing recognition that African Americans could be adult citizens, not boys who could be given no responsibility. 

Leadership

The Northern leadership in the American Civil War also recognised its need for active black support and black soldiers to win. By the end of the war there were more than 186,000 black combat troops as well as 29,000 sailors in the navy.

The period after the civil war saw a mass radicalisation in US society. Poor blacks and whites were working together to demand more rights in the south.

The government in Washington turned a blind eye to the rise of the racist Ku Klux Klan. And they supported the segregationist Jim Crow laws that were brought in at the end of the 19th century. The civil war was also about enabling the US to expand westwards under a united government. 

There is an irony of history here. In the army during the Civil War, black people were able to participate in their own liberation from slavery. Yet many then stayed in the army as it moved on to subjugate the West and suppress native Americans. The native Americans called them “Buffalo soldiers” for their curly hair. 

The situation for black people in the US worsened in the early 20th century. But the First World War marked a major shift in the position of black people in the US. Many moved to cities and got better jobs in war-related work. Others joined the army and, despite the continuing racism and segregation, built up the confidence to challenge how they were treated. 

In the most extreme example a black unit at fort Sam Houston in Texas refused to put up with Jim Crow laws. They armed themselves and went into town to deal with racists in August 1917. After a night of fighting 15 locals and four soldiers were dead. The army took the strongest action against the troops, court martialling dozens and executing 19.

Backlash

The racist backlash that swept the country after the war was partly intended to wipe out this surge in confidence. But the political struggles of the 1930s led to a massive growth in confidence that the world could be changed. 

The ruling class justified the Second World War as a fight for democracy and against racism. Many black troops demanded to be allowed into areas that were denied to them—deemed to require too much skill. In 1942 the race bar on the Marines was finally removed, although black Marines were still segregated. The Red Tails fighter squadron was formed at about the same time (see below). 

A black tank battalion, the 761st, fought in Europe and took part in the liberation of Dachau concentration camp. The segregation of the military became an international embarrassment through the war.

This intensified as the US sold itself as the home of democracy and the head of the “Free World”. It was finally forced into desegregating its military in 1948. But that didn’t end racism in the US military.

In Vietnam black troops could no longer be ignored. Instead they found themselves pushed to the front as cannon fodder. Though only 10 percent of troops were black, at the peak of the war in 1968 they contributed half the men in front line combat units. In 1965 alone black troops made up almost a quarter of soldiers killed in action.

Despite this, the army was one of the few places where a black man could have a professional career. African Americans re-enlisted at substantially higher rates than whites. In 1964 blacks represented less than 9 percent of all US military. By 1976 this was 15 percent. In the same period the number of black officers doubled, but after centuries of entrenched racism that only took it to a little under 4 percent.

The position of black people in the army has undoubtedly improved. Pressure from the Civil Rights and black power movements have led to a situation where a black officer like Colin Powell can be chief of staff.

But any soldier who does become integrated in the system still faces the same problem as the Buffalo soldiers in the 19th century. They become free to take part in the oppression of others.

Red Tails broke racist stereotypes

Second World War US bomber crews in Italy got used to badly trained fighter support. So they cheered when they saw the disciplined “Red Tail Angels” of the 332nd squadron had been assigned to them. Many were shocked when they found the pilots were black.

Racism was rife in the US military. A secret 1924 War College Report concluded that African Americans were “unfit for leadership roles and incapable of aviation”. As the war started a senior air force commander commented, “The Negro type has not the proper reflexes to make a first-class fighter pilot.”

It took a serious internal struggle to get a programme of training for black pilots at just one airbase—at Tuskegee in Alabama. Most came from northern cities, and were shocked by how they were treated in Alabama. There the apartheid Jim Crow laws still ruled supreme.

The Tuskegee airmen were led by Benjamin Oliver Davis Jr. He was the first black man to graduate from West Point in the 20th century. During his four year course, no one spoke to Davis outside the line of duty. He never had a roommate. He ate alone. Davis recalled “it was like four years of solitary confinement.” 

He graduated in 1936, 35th in a class of 278. He was rejected for the Army Air Corps because there were no black units. But black fighter pilots had one real advantage over their white counterparts. The racist military establishment wouldn’t deploy them for years, so they ended up far better trained than other pilots.

The Tuskegee project began in 1941, but they were not sent into combat in north Africa until 1943. They were supplied with an out of date aircraft and told only to attack ground targets. This was then held against them as they were told they had a dismal record for shooting down enemy aircraft! 

Racists used this as a reason to call for the squadron to be disbanded, and a congressional hearing was held before the flyers were vindicated. Then the 332nd was reassigned to bomber escort. They flew support on 200 raids over Europe and claimed never to have lost one of their charges.

ends Race and the US military

Jean-Luc Melenchon: 'Blame the bankers not the migrants'

The French radical left politician spoke to Jim Wolfreys about France’s parliamentary elections and the fight against the fascist Front National

In France’s presidential elections in April Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the radical left candidate, waged a dynamic campaign and won around four million votes. But at the same time the fascist Front National (FN) leader Marine Le Pen achieved a record 6.4 million votes. 

Parliamentary elections are now taking place across the country. The Front de Gauche’s Mélenchon and Le Pen went head to head in the constituency of Henin Beaumont, in northern France.

Le Pen has built up a significant level of support in the town over the past five years. It is in the Nord Pas de Calais region where the FN presidential vote was up nearly 10 percent on 2007. Mélenchon nevertheless decided that he would stand against her.

Historically this has been a left-wing region, with a long tradition of working class struggle and organisation. Mélenchon tried to draw on this history to undercut the FN.

One in five people are unemployed in Henin Beaumont. Corruption scandals have damaged the local Socialist Party, allowing the FN to pose as a “clean” party.

The fascists have tried to whip up anti-immigrant racism during the campaign, producing a fake Front de Gauche leaflet with “Let’s vote Mélenchon” written in Arabic. Though they printed the Arabic backwards. Another anonymous leaflet depicted him as Hitler in front of Auschwitz.

In response, the Front de Gauche has combined condemnation of the FN’s racism with attempts to encourage ordinary people to feel their collective strength. These campaign methods, Mélenchon argues, are “borrowed from working class trade unionism—the idea that a show of strength is necessary. Strength brings forth strength, liveliness and joy.”

Disorientated

He continued, “When someone is a bit disorientated, a bit lost, they see who is strong, who is joyful, who they want to be with. Today nobody wants to be with the Socialists they see arriving at the market with their suits and waistcoats and haughty and contemptuous ways. 

“Then they see the Front de Gauche turn up with its red flags and street singers, so there’s an atmosphere that’s created, a joie de vivre, that embodies the ideal of the left. We’re not there to be bored or sad.”

This is part of a wider strategy: “We’re carrying out what we call a campaign of popular education. This can’t be something pretentious or arrogant that sounds like we’re giving people lessons. We also need to avoid being suffocated by the past—as if everything was glorious before and it’s all rubbish now. It shouldn’t be dry history either.”

On 3 June the Front de Gauche initiated a march and rally to commemorate Emilienne Mopty. She was the organiser of a 1,500-strong demonstration in 1941 by miners’ wives. They were protesting in solidarity with 100,000 miners from across the region taking part in the first mass strike under the Nazi occupation. Mopty was also a resistance fighter—arrested and tortured by the Nazis and beheaded in Cologne in 1943. 

Several thousand joined the march. At the rally, Mélenchon spoke of the 29 different nationalities that made up the workforce in the mines, listing each one in turn. He told the crowd, “Here, on the land that gave rise to the labour movement and to socialism, we’re supposed to endure the shame of it apparently being the fiefdom of the abject descendents of those who invaded, occupied and betrayed us. We’re going to make them leave, we’re going to hunt them down and politically eradicate them.” 

He explained why he had prioritised the fight against the FN. “The Front National is a threat in France and in Europe. Politicians make use of it. The FN gives the right a pretext to shift their rhetoric in a direction that they think will bring them electoral gains. But the basic function of all this in a period of crisis, when people are uniting together against the power of neoliberalism, is to divide them.

Reality

“This reality exists for capital. So the FN represents a threat to our democratic institutions and also a danger in terms of the possible ways out of the crisis. In the presidential election we set ourselves the aim of finishing as high as possible. At the start our main target wasn’t Marine Le Pen, it was to eliminate the [centre right candidate] François Bayrou so that the Socialists couldn’t make an alliance with him.

“It was only in March that we overtook Bayrou. Then I set the next target—‘We’re going to catch her [Marine Le Pen] and beat her.’ I didn’t beat her in the presidential election so the campaign is still going and I will continue to pursue it until I’ve had the last word. That’s why we’ve come here, where the problem is greatest because she’s here herself.”

Mélenchon sees this as a part of a national fight for political influence. “I’m demonstrating that we are stronger, more numerous, more disciplined and more clear sighted than this band of badly-educated gorillas who’ve been caught in the street handing out fake leaflets like the cretins that they are.

“There were those among us who hesitated about standing, who said, ‘You’re going to narrow down our message’. I said ‘No, it’s you who are reducing the meaning of the FN to a moral question’. The FN question is a social question, it’s an ideological question. Either they win authority over the masses or we do. And the question will be—is it the banker or the immigrant who’s responsible for the crisis? That’s what’s at stake here, in this place—and in the wider world. So the struggle must be implacable and to the end.”

The Front de Gauche is trying to involve and inspire confidence in ordinary people. Mélenchon explained, “My method of intellectual combat is to link three threads all the time. The first thread is the programme. It’s the rational, reasoned way of opening up a debate—there’s a problem, here’s the solution. It’s radical but concrete. We always make sure we show how things are going to be done.”

Strategy

Underpinning his strategy is an attempt to make ideas accessible and inspire a belief that there are practical political answers that can be found to the problems society faces. “In the old far left, or the left of the left, the tradition is to say ‘we just have to…’ or ‘what we must do is…’ without showing how. So concrete radicalism.”

Culture, Mélenchon’s “second thread”, is a highly contested area —and one that ordinary people often feel excluded from. He said, “These values mustn’t be evoked in a metaphysical way. There’s a way of relating them to the means of making them thrive. The culture we draw on is made up of principles and cultural acts, words that don’t need any justification. 

“I read a whole page of Victor Hugo in a mass meeting. There were 10,000 people there. People loved it because they understood what I was doing. I read a poem by Louis Aragon [a Communist poet], everyone was quiet and listened and applauded.”

Finally, there is history, the subject of intense debate in France, particularly over the question of “national identity”. “The battle is profoundly ideological. There are those who talk about roots as something that pre-exist us, that are immobile and that we should try to reproduce in order to live correctly. That’s the classic reactionary obscurantist ideal. They tell people it’s a way of ‘returning to an identity’,” said Mélenchon.

One alternative is to remind people of their radical history, from the French revolution to resistance against the Nazis. He said, “Against their ethnic roots, I counterpose historical roots and proclaim that, ‘we are the inheritors of Maximilien Robespierre and Emilienne Mopty’. 

“This is how the struggle is radically and integrally ideological in character. But it’s the way of doing it that’s the most important thing. It’s Marx who says that hunger satisfied with raw flesh torn off with fingernails is not the same as hunger satisfied with a knife and fork. 

“We have to start with the idea that we are cultured beings. That the working class is not just a stomach, it’s a brain. Of course it’s the stomach that ends up deciding, but the call of the stomach also passes via the brain. “So it’s this vision of political struggle that we take into battle.”

‘Everyone has a role in the Front de Gauche’

Mélenchon’s campaign has mobilised hundreds of thousands of people in demonstrations, rallies and electioneering. He said, “Everyone has a role in the Front de Gauche. Mine is to put words together. Little by little you can hear people talking again about revolution, the red flag, the clenched fist and nobody seems to find it strange any more.”

He sees a thirst for radical politics, arguing, “Even a few years ago if you heard the word capitalism, half the room would faint and the other half would burst out laughing. That’s all finished. Now we can talk about revolution. So I think we’ve won a series of battles through the influence we’ve got over the vocabulary of politics.”

‘A campaign that inspires hope’

Whatever the outcome of the parliamentary election, the Front de Gauche campaign has had a big impact on activists in the area. Antoine is a member of the New Anti-Capitalist Party. He told Socialist Worker, “Mélenchon’s campaign has managed to give hope back to the left and to the working class. That’s a medium term project. 

“It’s about saying ‘No, things don’t always need to be this way. We can get beyond capitalism. There is a collective force that can be mobilised, and no, there’s nothing inevitable about the extreme right gaining an influence in this area.’

“There’s a hope in this campaign that’s inspiring. I’ve lived here for eleven years. We’ve done lots of painstaking anti-fascist activity—it’s been hard sometimes. Now there’s more of a sense of our mass, collective strength.”

First round results favour Hollande

The first round of France’s parliamentary elections confirms the rejection of austerity that led to Nicolas Sarkozy’s defeat in presidential elections last month. The combined left vote was 47 percent. The right won 35 percent.

The fascist Front National’s score of nearly 14 percent has more than tripled since the last parliamentary elections five years ago. The abstention rate of 43 percent is the highest ever.

This indicates that the results reflect a lack of support for the right rather than positive identification with François Hollande’s Socialist Party. He is expected to win a parliamentary majority in the second round on 17 June.

The desire to beat the right also appears to have squeezed the vote for radical left candidates. In the northern town of Henin Beaumont FN leader Marine Le Pen came top with 42 percent of the vote. She now faces a second round run-off against the Socialist Party candidate.

The Front de Gauche’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon was narrowly beaten into third place. The Front de Gauche took its opposition to the FN into workplaces and markets, housing estates and community centres, organising meetings, rallies and a march against fascism and austerity.

Having only announced he would be standing last month, he won 21 percent of the vote and vows to continue the fight in the area.

ends Jean-Luc Melenchon: 'Blame the bankers not the migrants'

Rochdale: pride and unity in a town ravaged by the recession

Judith Orr in Rochdale

The main shopping street in Rochdale is crowded with charity stores, pawn brokers, pound shops and “cash converters”.

The local McDonald’s closed at the end of last year. 

Rochdale is the tenth most deprived borough in England. Unemployment has doubled here in the past four years. Youth unemployment stands at 10.7 percent.

It is a town with a rich industrial past, and the birthplace of the cooperative movement. Its huge Gothic town hall points to the wealth of its heyday. 

“We’re now a manufacturing town without any manufacturing.” said Andy Kelly, who is involved in Back Door Music, a popular project for young people in Rochdale. It shares its premises, a converted Victorian swimming baths, with a circus group.

Nothing

“There is nothing for young people to do in town. At the project they can play and listen to music and interact with people they wouldn’t ordinarily meet.”

The recent case of nine Muslim men convicted of sexual exploitation in Rochdale has dominated the headlines. Local people are worried that racists and fascists are trying to use the situation to stir up divisions.

The private care homes that were caring for the young women are also under the spotlight. One council worker said, “The Green Corns company that ran the home one of the victims lived in charged £250,000 a year for her care. Yet the workers there are sometimes earning under £10 an hour.

“Where is the rest of that money going to? Someone at the top is living in a mansion.”

There is a sense of pride in the town despite its many social problems. Labour councillor Terry Linden took part in last week’s protest against the EDL (see story below).

He told Socialist Worker, “We can’t let the fascists destroy the community cohesion we have built up here over so many years.”

Mohamed is unemployed. He has both Asian and white friends but is worried about the impact the case has had.

“I have suffered racism,” he said. “Out clubbing I’ve had ‘paki’ shouted at me, but it’s not common. Now I worry people will look at me as a Muslim man and be suspicious. The EDL just wants to cause havoc.”

Mark said, “I went to an all white Catholic school. Now my kids go to a mixed school. Rochdale is very mixed, not just the Asian community. We have people from all over Europe and Ireland.”

But the danger of polarisation has not gone away. One Muslim resident of the ward where several of the abusers were based described the pressure on all Muslims to accept responsibility for the crimes of nine men.

“We cannot all be blamed because we are Muslim,” he said, “This was a terrible crime but it has nothing to do with race or religion.”

ends Rochdale: pride and unity in a town ravaged by the recession

ends Features section

starts section Letters 

Government of millionaires targets 'problem' families

David Cameron blames 120,000 “troubled” families for “a large amount of crime” and claims that £75,000 is spent on each family a year. 

Now community secretary Eric Pickles says he’s going to sort them out—and that “Sometimes we’ve run away from laying blame.” 

This will be news to everyone the Tories have attacked since at least 1979. 

Only last month the BBC programme More or Less showed that the Tories are manipulating statistics and that the families described in the government study are extremely deprived. 

These are people battered by unemployment—with shoddy housing and too little money to afford basic necessities. Not surprisingly they often have mental health needs. 

The programme pointed out that there is no evidence that these families are any more disruptive than the rest of us. 

Pickles says that these people are not “victims” and need to take responsibility. 

But the government, which includes more than two dozen millionaires, is scapegoating the very poorest in society whose voices are least likely to be heard. They hope that anyone with a job will turn on the unemployed, poor or disabled. 

There are plenty of scroungers in our society—the royal family and the tax dodging rich to name but a few. 

Maybe we could even include MPs like Pickles who had to repay £300 he’d claimed as parliamentary expenses for cleaning. He says he needs a second home because it’s “no fun’ to commute across London and get in on time as millions of ordinary people do every day. 

What is certain is that the Tory attacks will only get nastier and they’re not going to target rich people who leave their child in the pub.

Sarah Ensor

Hackney
 
 
 
Olympic business

Militarisation is not the only aspect of the Olympics which should alarm us.

Capitalism hasn’t nodded off either. The Olympic site is of course a “business opportunity”. It just so happens that we bought it.

What could have been a fantastic public amenity in the heart of London’s East End is now flogged off to private investors who will create private space for profit.

The class struggle goes on at the point of production but “space” and the “built environment” are places where we win and lose control over our lives too. 

More often than not, councils and other public bodies work hand in glove with the private property companies. This ensures that we have no say in how the places we live, work and play in are created and run.

Michael Rosen

Hackney, east London
 
The Olympic park sculpture is “fundamentally useless”, argues Douglas Murphy (Socialist Worker, 9 June). 

But is it any more useless than, say, Anthony Gormley’s Angel of the North? Perhaps what is fundamentally useless or at least a massive waste of our money is the Olympics itself, which will have cost us £12 billion pounds.

Art may be funded by the super-rich as a trinket to boost their egos. But this does not mean it can’t be interesting, even if we view it with less money in our pockets.

Terry Sullivan

North London
 

 
Socialist reporting is needed more than ever

It’s good to see Laurie Flynn back in Socialist Worker. In the 1970s (from the Pentonville Five to the Anti-Nazi League) he was one of the journalists who made Socialist Worker such an interesting paper to read. 

We had differences—real differences, but not nearly so important as what unites us. And fascinating to hear how the Guardian tried to prevent investigation into the Met. Editor Alan Rusbridger must be hoping for a knighthood. 

Some people still see the Guardian as “progressive” or “left-wing”. 

Its behaviour just proves how much we need an independent socialist press.

Ian Birchall

North London
 
The new layout of Socialist Worker has really helped to bring the politics alive. I must admit I used to find the previous design harder to read, but now I read it cover-to-cover. 

Shanon Rose

Neath
 

 
How can workers control currency?

I have some disagreements with your article on the euro (Socialist Worker 26 May). 

An exit from the euro would only be a practical demand when returning to a national currency would enable measures to improve the condition of ordinary people.

But how would the voluntary exit of Greece from the eurozone affect the balance of class forces throughout the EU?

Is it possible that a Greek exit could limit the political symptoms of the crisis to Greece—particularly in terms of working class militancy—instead of spurring their spread across Europe? 

Even at times of crisis, the economic does not automatically translate into workers’ action.

The proposition “No sacrifices for the Euro”, as put by the Syriza radical left coalition in Greece, is unambiguous enough. 

It allows for the necessary space to strike maximum practical solidarity with workers across the EU and to better hit the enemy.

Of course one could argue that such a space could lead in other, unpleasant directions. 

So there are currently no guarantees anywhere.

John Perentos

University of Cyprus
 

 
Tahrir Square changed me 

Even though I was being pushed and shoved by thousands of other people it was amazing to see the struggle of ordinary people in Egypt first hand. 

I want to see hundreds of thousands of people in the squares of Britain fighting for what’s right and what’s good. 

I want a revolution! And I won’t stop until I have one.

Rosa Kincaid

by email
 
Pride is a protest 

Bravo People on Birmingham Pride! Without protest no rights can be achieved. Great things can be achieved through great sacrifice.

Ziaul Haque Babloo

Dhaka, Bangladesh
 
Queen has superpowers? 

Surely the construction of The Gloriana, the first Royal barge to be built in a 100 years, was an unnecessary extravagance?

If we are to believe the nauseating sycophancy of the British media Queen Elizabeth II was quite capable of making her progress up the Thames last Sunday on foot. 

Sasha Simic

Hackney
 
 Unpaid, but still work

In your article on childcare (Socialist Worker, 2 June), you say that “most women with children work in Denmark”. Wouldn’t it be better to say that “most women with children do paid work in Denmark”?

We should not collude with the government by suggesting that if it’s not being paid it’s no longer work.

Gavin Edwards

Cardiff
 
 Sad to see a comrade go

I was saddened to hear of Phil Cordell’s death. We struck together for eight weeks in 1980. It showed what is possible when people stand up and fight, something I will never forget.

Richard Cleverley

Manchester

ends Government of millionaires targets 'problem' families

ends Letters section

starts section Reviews 

A feast of facts

Sheffield doc/fest

Sheffield, 13-17 June

www.sheffdocfest.com
 
This week will see Britain’s foremost documentary film festival take place in Sheffield.

It’s an opportunity to see thought-provoking new films and to discuss the challenges for film-makers in the context of funding cuts and protests.

Participants include Nick Broomfield, maker of Ghosts and Battle for Haditha. Films will show the brutal expansion of Israeli settlements and go behind the scenes at the CERN particle accelerator.

ends A feast of facts

Damon Albarn's new project

Jonny Jones

Dr Dee 

English National Opera,

London 

25 June to 7 July
 
Damon Albarn’s “Afro-pastoral folk opera” about a 16th century mathematician sees him reunited with Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen, his band mate in The Good, the Bad and the Queen.

The resulting album was compelling if somewhat twee. The live show, a collaboration with acclaimed director Rufus Norris, promises to be quite the spectacle.

ends Damon Albarn's new project

A measure of fun and frustration in Loach heist flick

Alan Thomson

The Angels’ Share

Directed by Ken Loach

on general release
 
The latest from left wing director Ken Loach is a heist movie set among the web of petty and not so petty frustrations of working class life.

Paul Brannigan plays Robbie, a young Glaswegian facing barriers and obstacles no matter which way he tries to turn.

Things change when he meets a selection of similar outcasts on community service. 

They’ve all been passed over by colleges, employers and the rest.

“Even the army wouldn’t touch you,” remarks one to another.

Harry, the caring community service officer played by John Henshaw, introduces them to the aromatic delights of

32 year old whiskies—a new world with a strange new vocabulary.

Inspiration hits Robbie and he uses the skills of his new found friends in a heist to reverse all their misfortunes.

Brannigan’s cute bad boy looks are well cast as Robbie and he’s a picture of defiance in the face of overwhelming odds.

The Angels’ Share isn’t as hard-hitting as Neds from two years ago, nor does it have the same feel that we are products of the society around us.

It’s nevertheless fun to watch, humorous and a vivid portrayal of the fallout when young people are denied opportunities.

ends A measure of fun and frustration in Loach heist flick

China Mieville's darker take on a classic comic crimefighter

Fantasy author China Miéville tells Dave Sewell how he has been busy with a maritime adventure for young adults and a new take on a classic comic

the enthusiasm with which fantasy author China Miéville describes his revival of “goofy old 1960s comic” Dial H for Hero.

“You know when you’re running around in the playground playing superheroes—part of the pleasure was trying to come up with names and powers and all that stuff,” he told Socialist Worker.

“What I’ve always liked about Dial?H is how it celebrates that childlike pleasure of inventing.

“You get to come up with what you think is a really, really cool superhero who might then appear for literally one frame or one panel and then never come back.”

Dial H’s premise is simple. Every time young Robbie Reed dials his magic phone, he generates a new superhero identity for himself. 

At a time when the cinemas are full of familiar costumed characters, it’s a format that makes for a lot of originality—something Miéville clearly relishes.

Animate 

“As a very young reader I fell in love with it a few months in when he becomes something called King Coil, who is a giant animate steel spring and then goes off and fights crime,” he said.

“The Human Starfish was another one. It was all played for a kind of goofy laugh, but even then I felt like this is a much weirder and potentially darker comic than it seems to realise.

“How would that constant change and variation of supernatural identity mess with your head?”

Miéville has been trying to get his hands on Dial H for some time. His version has more overtly psychological themes and a recession setting, but he describes it as fundamentally an “homage” to the genre.

It has been well-received even among notoriously hard to please comic fans. Now he hopes to carry on with it “for as long as they’ll let me”.

“There are two things I’m trying to do,” he said. “I’d like to make it as strange as I can and as kooky as I can. But I want to play it with a completely straight face.”

That combination of playfulness and sincerity is also at the centre of Miéville’s new novel for young adults, Railsea.

“It started with a really silly gag that occurred to me years ago,” he explained, “and I like taking those ideas and being very serious about them to see where they go. It became the kind of story I could imagine telling my own younger self.”

That joke is taking the whale out of Moby Dick and replacing it with a giant mole. A fantastical railway takes the role of the sea. But while the gag runs right through Railsea, the two stories are very different.

As with many of Miéville’s previous books, much of the joy lies in taking the reader through the strange new world he has conjured up.

Adventure 

“It’s intended to read almost like a maritime adventure from the 18th or 19th century,” he said. “Think about things like Darwin’s Beagle manuscripts, where he’s seeing these amazing beasts and sometimes drawing them and writing these beautiful descriptions. 

“It’s that sense of exploration that you get in an early Victorian naturalist’s notebook.”

As always Miéville’s fantasy is full of subtle nods to his Marxist politics, which he thinks of in the same way as the “Easter eggs” that are sometimes hidden in video games.

“It’s supposed to make you smile if you get the reference, but not get in the way if you don’t,” he told me.

“Those who are interested in politics will find a lot of jokes about finance and production and even a very prominent Marx quote. They’ll also find what I hope are some pretty cool mole chases.”

Miéville is keen to emphasise that these are “playful projects”. 

And even for the not so young adult reader, it’s hard not to want to play along with him.

ends China Mieville's darker take on a classic comic crimefighter

ends Reviews section

starts section Background check 

How your pension could be hit

Supporters of the deal claim that career average pensions can be better. But the only way to make that claim is to be very pessimistic about pay.

When Unison was trying to build support for strikes, the pensions calculator it published assumed future pay rises of 2 percent above RPI inflation—that would mean 5.5 percent. But the unions’ and employers’ official examples of how workers would fare under the new scheme all stop at 4 percent.

This graph shows why. If someone keeps more or less the same wage throughout their career then they might do better with a career average. But as annual pay rises go up, a final salary scheme becomes far better.

There is a pay freeze today, but decades of such low pay rises would be historically unprecedented. Even if the pay freeze goes on for a while, workers would still likely be getting incremental rises—and few stay in the same job for decades. 

The vast majority of workers will be on a higher wage at the end of their career than they were at the start of it. That means a pension based on final salary will be much better for them.

As the unions try to move on from the pensions fight, they are already starting to beat the drum over pay. So surely the pay figures used to calculate the pensions deal should not assume that we have already lost that battle.

The graph shows the pension of a worker starting in the new scheme in 2014, currently earning £20,000 a year. They are 40 years old now and would retire at 67. For revaluation we have used the official examples’ assumption of 2.5 percent inflation.

ends How your pension could be hit

What's the real pensions deal for council workers?

Tom Walker finds the devil in the detail of the Tories’ rotten local government pensions offer

Local government workers who have been battling to save their pensions are being offered a deal that means massive cuts.

But some union leaders are trying to sell it as a victory—and using the less than obvious sums of the local government pensions scheme to sow confusion over what has really happened.

A number of attacks are hidden in the detail of the deal. Most significant is the shift from a “final salary” pension scheme to a “career average” scheme.

Final salary pensions are calculated using the wage you are on when you retire. This is multiplied by an “accrual rate”, which is a fraction of your pay—in the case of the old scheme, 1/60th.

Then that is multiplied by how many years you worked for. A career average scheme works differently. You accrue part of your salary each year—in the new scheme it is 1/49th of your pay.

To work out the total, each amount is converted into “today’s money” through revaluation to take account of inflation. In the new scheme this is done with the lower CPI rate of inflation, not the higher RPI.

All this means that estimating what your actual pension will be becomes more complicated than in a final salary scheme, because it relies on future projections of two numbers—the rate of inflation, and your pay rises. Small changes in these numbers can make a surprisingly big difference. And that makes things easier for those who want to make a bad deal look like a good one.

The documentation released with the deal is signed by the Unison, Unite and GMB unions, and the employers’ Local Government Association. It claims that “there is nothing automatically worse about career average schemes” and better accrual rates “could mean many members build up better pensions”.

But this is not true. A career average pension can only ever be “better” if a worker’s wage stagnates or even decreases in real terms (see How your pension could be hit). Today, workers have suffered years of pay freezes. But historically this is very rare. Such a situation has certainly never carried on for decades.

And this change is not the only problem with the deal. It also removes the “normal pension age”, meaning the retirement age will rise as the state pension age does. This is already set to rise to 68 for younger workers—and could yet go much higher into the 70s. Anyone who has the audacity to retire before reaching this unspecified age will be severely penalised.

The mass strike of 30 November was against plans to make workers “work longer, pay more and get less”. The local government unions have held off an increase in contributions, at least for most workers.

But working until 67 or 68 will mean paying those contributions for years longer. And workers will face a double bind over their retirement age—the choice between retiring at 67 or 68 and getting less, or retiring “early” at 65 and getting even less than that.

There’s only one option that’s any good—and that’s to reject the deal and keep fighting.

The new option of poverty

There is an innovation in the new scheme—a “50/50 option” for the low-paid. The idea is that workers can reduce their pension contributions, paying just half the normal amounts.

But in return they will only get half of the normal pension benefits for that period when they retire. The proposal’s advocates say it would help-low paid workers, especially women.

But for women, the average LGPS pension is already just £2,800 a year. The 50/50 scheme could see their payouts go as low as £1,400.

The ill-defined benefit scheme

Much is being made of the fact that the new scheme is still a “defined benefit” scheme. This is better than a “defined contribution” scheme. These take members’ money and gamble with it on the stock markets. But not all defined benefit schemes are equal.

In a career average scheme, benefits are based on your wage in each year you worked. Gaps can hit you hard. But a final salary scheme is designed to protect your current standards of living.

Rate wiped out by inflation

The new scheme’s accrual rate of 1/49th on the face of it looks better than the old one of 1/60th. But it’s not that simple. In a final salary scheme you know that the amount you get is based on today’s money.

But in a career average scheme, you are at the mercy of the inflation measure used to “revalue” your old wages. In the new scheme this is the usually-lower CPI rate.

It doesn’t sound like much. But that one change cuts a huge swathe off the pension—and wipes out the effect of the new accrual rate.

ends What's the real pensions deal for council workers?

ends Background check section

starts section News & Reports 

Teachers set to meet to discuss the pensions fight

Teachers were set to meet in Liverpool this Saturday to discuss the fight to defend their pensions.
 
A number of local associations in the NUT union called the meeting after the union’s leadership called off plans to strike in June.
 
The Local Associations for National Action conference was set to take place on Saturday 16 June,11am to 3.30pm, at the Quaker Meeting House, 22 School Lane, Liverpool L1 3BT.

ends Teachers set to meet to discuss the pensions fight

NASUWT union members ballot for industrial action to oppose academy status

Teachers in the NASUWT union at Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School in Lancashire are balloting for industrial action against plans to turn the school into an academy. 
 
Governors want the school to open as an academy by October.

ends NASUWT union members ballot for industrial action to oppose academy status

UCU union members vote to strike to save jobs at Salford University

Lecturers in the UCU union at Salford University have voted overwhelmingly for strikes to defend jobs.
 
One worker told Socialist Worker, “This is the seventh round of redundancies we’ve had at Salford in the last year. People feel that we’ve been attacked so much that we’ve no option but to fight.”

ends UCU union members vote to strike to save jobs at Salford University

Cuts are to blame for Legionnaires Outbreak

Simon Basketter

Cutbacks in the number of health and safety inspectors and inspections lie behind the outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Edinburgh.
 
There are 87 confirmed or suspected cases of infection in the area and one person has already died.
 
The city council has cut its environmental health officers by 18 percent in the last three years—double the Scottish average cut.
 
There are now just 50 left in the city.
 
And the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has also suffered serious cuts. 
 
According to the Prospect union, which represents HSE inspectors, the number of preventative workplace inspections was slashed last year from 30,000 to 20,000 a year.
 
The cuts were described as “staggering, shocking and savage” by Professor Andrew Watterson, head of the occupational and environment research group at Stirling University.
 
“The crippling impact of cuts is now threatening public health,” he said.
 
“The Legionnaires’ outbreak should be a wake-up call because so-called ‘low-risk’ premises such as offices and large shopping premises have cooling towers that require continuing regular inspection as well as proper maintenance if public health is to be protected.”
 
He said the cuts “could cost lives in the future.”

Simon Hester, chair of the Prospect union’s HSE branch, told Socialist Worker that the outbreak is a “stark reminder” of the severity of the situation.
 
“David Cameron announced that he wanted to kill off the ‘health and safety monster’ for good this year,” he said. 
 
“In reality the government is killing off protection for workers and communities. They must be stopped.”
 
Legionella bacteria is found in sources of water, such as rivers and lakes. The bacteria can end up in air conditioning, water services and cooling towers.
 
Legionnaires’ disease is contracted by breathing in small droplets of contaminated water. 
 
Symptoms are mild headaches, muscle pain, fever, persistent cough and sometimes vomiting and diarrhea.
 
The toll from this outbreak shows cuts put people’s health at risk.

ends Cuts are to blame for Legionnaires Outbreak

Flying pickets return to Yorkshire in council cuts battle

Sadie Robinson in Kirklees

A flying picket of women admin workers in Kirklees brought refuse workers out on unofficial strike on Tuesday of this week.

The women, who work for Kirklees council and are in the Unison union, were beginning a three day strike against compulsory redundancies and attacks on pay.

Sue does database work for the council. She told Socialist Worker, “Up until two years ago I absolutely loved my job. But since then it’s been like having a noose around my neck that keeps getting yanked.

“I’m stressed and demoralised. I’ve got a mortgage and bills to pay—I can’t afford to have my wages cut.”

She said that the workers’ first one day strike earlier this month had been her first time on a picket line. “I was amazed at how much support we got,” she added.

Escalate

Strikers targeted the Vine Road bin depot to get other workers out and escalate the dispute.

Unison steward Theresa Maxon said this week’s strike was “more tactical” than the first one.

“One member said she couldn’t afford to strike. But by the end of the conversation she had changed her mind and today she’s picketing.”

Bin workers arriving at the depot were greeted by pickets waving Unison flags and placards.

Some were uncertain of how to respond. Others were angry because they hadn’t expected the picket and didn’t want to lose a day’s pay.

Yet they voted to refuse to cross the picket line after discussing the dispute in a street meeting—and the vast majority respected the picket line. Many felt that workers should stick together.

Eric Robinson drives refuse vehicles and is a Unite union member.

“If these women’s jobs are being cut it’s wrong,” he said. “The whole public sector is getting battered.”

Trudy Fomes works on the bins too. “I agree with their strike,” she said. “I won’t cross the picket line.”

The strike involved more than 400 workers, 92 percent of whom are women. 

Kirklees Unison branch has requested a ballot of all its members—around 8,500.

Mick Donaghue is a Unison steward in Kirklees. “We need to stick together,” he said, gesturing to the pickets. “It’s them today but it could be us in a few months.

“We’ve got to make a stand.”

Send messages of support and donations to Kirklees Unison, 4 New North Parade, Huddersfield, HD1 5JP 

Phone 01484 511826

ends Flying pickets return to Yorkshire in council cuts battle

Vibrant anti-academy lobby as teachers ballot to strike

Lee Billingham

Around 60 parents, staff, pupils and local people attended a loud and lively lobby of a governors’ meeting at Worthing High School in West Sussex last week.
 
The protest was organised by the Worthing High Academy Action Group, formed in opposition to the school’s intention to convert to academy status. 
 
Protesters chanted continuously for two hours outside the governors’ meeting and drove their cars in and out of the school car park hooting their horns.
 
Parents parked their cars outside the school covered in anti-academy messages. Pupils tied purple ribbons to gates and fences.
 
The school’s head, Alison Beer, has pushed hard to parents and pupils the supposed benefits of conversion in a “consultation” process.
 
Parents say the consultation has been undemocratic and way too short. Parents and teachers haven’t been able to debate the issue or hear an alternative view.
 
The governors voted to push ahead with conversion, but the battle is far from over. 
 
Workers in the NUT union voted by 97 percent in favour of strikes against the move in an indicative ballot and are now formally balloting.
 
Members in the ATL, NASUWT and Unison unions there are expected to ballot too.
 
One teacher said, “The parents’ opposition has inspired us to stand up too”.
 
The Action Group is growing and looking to launch a legal challenge.
 
Parent Corianda Sweetman said, “There are a lot of very frustrated people who feel this has been rushed through. We don’t feel like we are being listened to. They think that this will just go away but it won’t.” 
 
The lesson from successful opposition to academy conversions elsewhere—such as at Varndean School in nearby Brighton—is that a big, vibrant campaign uniting workers, parents and local people can stop the privatisation of our kids’ schools.

ends Vibrant anti-academy lobby as teachers ballot to strike

GMB conference: Blacklisting bosses named and shamed

Simon Basketter

The GMB union threw its weight into the fight against blacklisting at its congress this week.

The union accused multinational outsourcing firm Carillion of blacklisting hundreds of workers. 

The union published a report at its annual conference in Brighton which it said pulled back the “curtain of secrecy” to reveal the way firms like Carillion denied workers their right to employment.

The GMB report estimates that in just one financial quarter Carillion checked 2,776 names with the Consulting Association.

And in the period from October 1999 to April 2004 it estimates that Carillion checked at least 14,724 names.

Of the 3,213 people on the Consulting Association blacklist, 2,863 are still unaware that their details were held.

Steve Kelly, a blacklisted worker and spokesperson for the Blacklist Support Group, said the report “shines a light on the dirty tricks that this multi-national used against workers prepared to stand up for their rights or raise concerns about safety.

"The firm should be removed from any approved contractors list for future publicly funded projects in that area.”

Much of the information in the report comes from evidence submitted in the case blacklisted worker Dave Smith took against Carrllion. On Tuesday Dave gave evidence to an investigation into blacklisting being carried out by the Scottish affairs select committee.

Dave named the following senior managers of blacklisting companies to the committee:

Gerry Harvey—director of Human Resources Balfour Beatty Engineering Services (formerly Balfour Kilpatrick) attended Consulting Association meetings on behalf of both companies.

Elaine Gallagher—human resources manager and “Main Contact” at BBES when contacting Consulting Association

Liz Keates—head of human resources Carillion Health

John Edwards—Carillion invoiced by Consulting Association for attending Consulting Association meetings in May 2008.

John Bull—head of human resources and “Main Contact” at Carillion with Consulting Association

Alf Lucas—industrial relations manager John Mowlem Construction PLC (now Carillion (JM) Ltd)

David Cochrane—head of human resources Sir Robert MacAlpine


Standing ovation for Swindon strikers

Hospital cleaning and catering workers employed by Carillion in the GMB union at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon struck on Monday of this week.

This was their 20th strike day in a long-running fight over management bullying.

A delegation of strikers came to the GMB Congress in Brighton. They received a standing ovation as a motion in their support was passed.

Making it easier to sack people?

The GMB responded to the news that the government is to introduce a no fault dismissal clause in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill.

Paul Kenny, GMB General Secretary said, “This is no fault dismissal by another name. 

“Once again we see this government finding a way to undermine existing employment rights by introducing measures which allow employers to force employees out the door if their face doesn’t fit.

“There is no evidence that these measures encourage growth. In fact they encourage further destabilisation in workplaces and cause unnecessary anxiety to the hard working people of the UK.”

Standing up to scabs

Delegates at the GMB annual congress voted to take action against strike-breakers.

Congress heard that "lots of members and stewards" crossed strike picket lines during the mass walk-out on 30 November.

A motion from Leeds local government staff branch said GMB members who crossed picket lines "should be investigated and appropriate action taken."

It added: "We do have a number of members who use the union for their own ends but when it comes to doing anything in support of the union they are nowhere to be seen."

One delegate Donna Balance said the scabs especially those sitting in the hall should be ashamed. "They're boils on the face of humanity and need lancing."

The congress also passed a motion calling for a public inquiry into police corruption involvement in the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

ends GMB conference: Blacklisting bosses named and shamed

Coryton closure protests

Stuart Curlett

Around 40 workers protested outside Coryton oil refinery in Essex on Monday and Tuesday of this week against the planned closure of the plant—which will see 850 workers sacked. 

The workers had been told the refinery would be bought and would continue as normal. But in the last week the bosses have said it is closing.

Dave, a process operator at plant said, “The arbitrators promised us support but we’ve got nothing.

“They’ve pulled the rug from under our feet.”

Tony has worked at the plant for 21 years. “People are devastated, especially young ones” he said.

“Many working here are in their 20s and 30s with kids and mortgages. They don’t know what to do.”

ends Coryton closure protests

A month of action at the department of transport

Coastguard staff in the PCS union are holding lightning strikes throughout June, as part of a month of action.

Workers in the maritime and coastguard agency are fighting to save nine coastguard stations and over 140 jobs. 

They struck across shifts on 8 and 9 June. 

The action across the Department of Transport also saw 3,200 workers in the Driving Standards Agency strike against job cuts, privatisation and the closure of driving test centres. 

Workers also struck for two hours at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) on 1 June and then 8 June across offices facing closure.

Some 55,000 workers could strike in HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). Over 50 percent voted to strike, with more than 77 percent voting for industrial action short of a strike.

Thanks to John Shemeld and John Appleyard

ends A month of action at the department of transport

Bus drivers vote for Olympic bonus strike

Anindya Bhattacharyya

London bus workers have voted overwhelmingly to strike over Olympic pay—raising the prospect of a bus strike during the games themselves.

The Unite union organised 21 separate ballots at bus companies across the capital. Some 93 percent of workers voted to strike on a turnout of 38 percent.

Unite said it would give bus companies “a final opportunity to consider this landslide result” before announcing strike dates.

The bus workers want a £500 bonus to compensate for hugely increased workload during the Olympic games. Passenger numbers are predicted to rise by 800,000.

Other London transport workers—on the tube, Docklands Light Railway and London Overground services—have already won bonus payments ranging between £500 and £900.

Refused

But bus companies, Transport for London (TfL) and London mayor Boris Johnson have all refused to offer a similar payment for bus workers.

Management will get their bonuses. 

Leon Daniels, the TfL boss in charge of surface transport, attacked bus workers and dismissed their demands as a “multi-million pound burden”.

Yet Daniels will receive an Olympic bonus of around £80,000 on top of his £234,000 a year basic salary, Unite officials reveal.

He is one of seven top TfL managers getting bonuses that total £560,000.

In contrast the average annual wage for a London bus worker is £26,000. 

“This is barefaced hypocrisy of the highest order,” said Peter Kavanagh, Unite’s London regional secretary.

A successful fight over Olympics bonuses could also pave the way for a wider campaign over pay on London buses.

ends Bus drivers vote for Olympic bonus strike

Determination at stewards meeting

The National Shop Stewards Network held its sixth annual conference last Saturday. Speakers included Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, and Kevin Courtney, NUT deputy general secretary. Both spoke about their members’ determination to build further coordinated strikes against the government’s attacks on pensions, and further cuts. 

Dr Jackie Grunskill spoke about the industrial action doctors will take this month.

The conference called for a one day general strike and a lobby of the TUC.

ends Determination at stewards meeting

Solidarity saves steward from sack

John Tipple

Harwich taxi control room staff in Essex are celebrating the reinstatement of their shop steward who was suspended for “insubordination”.

The taxi boss has agreed to recognise the union and withdraw the gross misconduct charge against the rep.

The workers, who have all joined the Unite union, are delighted to have their shop steward reinstated—and aware that they will have to continue to stick together if they are to establish proper working conditions. 

The bosses conceded to the workers’ demand when all they all showed up together to make their point.

ends Solidarity saves steward from sack

Alternative climate summit in London

Activists and academics are preparing for an alternative summit this weekend in advance of the United Nations Rio+20 summit on climate change.

It is organised by the Campaign Against Climate Change and the development studies department at Soas university. It will be held in central London on Saturday and Sunday of this week.

The alternative summit will include 30 workshops and seminars on how we can organise against climate change.

For more information and to register www.campaigncc.org/altsummit

ends Alternative climate summit in London

Metro workers strike in Newcastle

Cleaners in the RMT union at Tyne & Wear Metro struck solidly for 48 hours starting from last Sunday night. They are demanding an end to poverty pay and victimisation of union activists.

The contractor Churchill’s, which employs the cleaners, is trying to impose a pay freeze—despite doling out huge salary increases to directors. The cleaners responded by voting unanimously to strike.

ends Metro workers strike in Newcastle

ends News & Reports section

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