Socialist Worker

Issue: 2247

Dated: 16 Apr 2011

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Coalition in turmoil - Kick 'em while they’re down

The government has had a terrible week.

International Comment Features Reviews What We Think Other

News

May elections: We need councillors who help us fight back

Residents on the Avenham Estate in Preston are preparing for a rent boycott in response to their appalling living conditions.

Vote TUSC in May elections

The Socialist Workers Party is part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). TUSC is standing 154 candidates across more than 50 councils in the upcoming elections on 5 May.

Standing up for ordinary people against the cuts

Socialist Workers Party members are standing in seats in the upcoming council elections in England on 5 May, all supported by TUSC.

Postal workers in Stoke say no to cuts and no to Nazis

The post workers’ CWU union has called a demonstration for jobs and against the British National Party (BNP) in Stoke-on-Trent.

United Left discusses cuts fight

Around 90 members of the Unite union took part in the United Left group’s annual general meeting last Saturday.

Connexions workers set up mass pickets

Workers at the Connexions youth service in Birmingham struck on Wednesday of last week.The half-day strike was to defend the service from attacks by the Tory-Lib Dem council.

Tube flood could have ended in disaster, says union

The RMT transport union last week demanded an urgent review of safety procedures after flooding at London’s Charing Cross station almost ended in disaster.

Left slate to stand in Unison election

Voting has begun in the elections for the Unison union’s national executive council.

Racist EDL attack Brighton UAF meeting

The racist English Defence League attacked a Brighton Unite Against Fascism (UAF) meeting of over 40 people on Tuesday of last week.

London anti-cuts activists discuss the way forward

Activists from 16 London boroughs gathered last Saturday to discuss next steps for the anti-cuts movement.

Round up of action in PCS civil service union

EHRC

Officers join Egypt’s fight for deeper change

Egyptians have witnessed many extraordinary protests in the months since the revolution began on 25 January.

Middle East round-up

Syrian protests face violence The past week has been a bloody one for those resisting the regime in Syria.

Libya: Western-imposed ceasefire would be a disaster for the revolutionary forces

Moves by the African Union (AU) to impose a ceasefire in Libya pose a grave danger that the country’s revolution will be betrayed.

Justice for Smiley Culture: Say no to more police cover-ups

This week is the 30th anniversary of the Brixton riots—when black and white working class people rose up against police violence and racism.

Campaigner: ‘Pressure cuts deaths in custody’

"Smiley’s case should be a spark to help light up the issue of deaths in custody.

Ian Tomlinson inquest: G20 cop goes back on his evidence

PC Simon Harwood, a TSG police officer who pushed Ian Tomlinson at the G20 demonstrations in 2009, gave evidence at the inquest into Ian’s death last week.

Government set targets to drive us off benefits

Job centre workers around the country have been instructed to drive people off benefits, the government has been forced to admit.

Phone hacking is police fiddle

The News of the World admitted that its illegal phone tapping went further than they had previously claimed.

Overnight sit-in at youth centre

A youth centre in Worcestershire was occupied overnight on Thursday of last week to protest its closure.

Student activists take fight to NUS

The National Union of Students’ conference began on Tuesday of this week in Gateshead.

Council says thanks and bye

Some 100 carers and social workers in Staffordshire have been told they will be forced to retire—just a day before a new law would have made it illegal.

Fight to defend Dale Farm steps up

Travellers and other campaigners are stepping up their fight to defend people living at Dale Farm.

Scotland: vote Coalition Against Cuts

Voters in Scotland have an opportunity to make a stand against the agenda of cuts of the four main parties in elections to the Scottish parliament on 5 May.

Minimum wage ‘rise’ is pennies

The Tories added a miserly 15p to the minimum wage this week—and it’s even worse for young people.

Pensioners say no cuts

Pensioners protested in London on Monday of this week as part of a national day of action over pension cuts (see picture).

Unite delays BA strikes—again

The Unite union will not be calling strikes at British Airways this month, it has announced. It has agreed to continue talks with BA bosses instead.

Thousands of health workers could join 30 June strike movement

Thousands of NHS workers in the Unite union could strike alongside teachers, lecturers and civil servants in a fight with the government over public sector pensions.

Call centre workers stand up and fight

Around 7,000 call centre workers are set to strike on Monday of next week against the appalling working conditions they are forced to endure.

Get to the picket lines!

DWP workers will strike at the following offices on Monday 18 April:

Tories health 'reform' would sack one in eight nurses

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has exposed Tory and Lib Dem lies about the NHS.

Construction: we need a national shutdown

Locked out construction workers in Hull staged a sit down at their construction site on Monday.

Olympic protest over blacklisting

Supporters of blacklisted worker Frank Morris stopped traffic going into one of the main entrances to the Olympics site in Hackney, east London, on Thursday of last week.

Build on momentum of successful college strikes

The lecturers’ UCU union will meet this week following recent strikes of more than 100,000 lecturers to defend jobs, pay and pensions.

Fight for jobs spreads across colleges and universities

UCU members at Sheffield College and the University of Stirling have voted to strike against job losses.

Defend sacked teacher Tony Souter

Tony Souter, an NUT union rep at Kingsbury secondary school in Warwickshire, has been charged with gross misconduct and dismissed from his job.

Moreland school victory

The campaign at Moreland School in Islington received a major boost last week.

Time to strike running out at British Airways

The clock is ticking at British Airways. Cabin crew voted overwhelmingly for strikes at the end of March.

Journalists call for a general strike

Delegates to the National Union of Journalists’ annual delegate meeting voted overwhelmingly to back the call for a general strike.

Right to work round-up

Activists gathered in Conway Hall, London, on Tuesday of last week to discuss the next steps in the fightback against the Tory cuts.

British government admits colonial brutality in Kenya

The British government is finally being forced to reveal the true horror of atrocities committed during the Mau Mau war in Kenya in the 1950s.

Repression was resisted

The anti-colonial Mau Mau rebellion broke out in Kenya during 1952.

Mau Mau veteran speaks out: why Britain should pay

"The new documents strengthen our case. How can they say that the Kenyan government is responsible for compensation when they didn’t even hand over the files?

International

West won't help ordinary people in Ivory Coast

Western forces played a key role in the capture of Ivory Coast’s sitting president Laurent Gbagbo in the city of Abidjan on Monday.

Comment

Austerity is back to bite the bosses

Portugal has become the third EU country, after Greece and Ireland, to ask for a European bailout.

Features

Can nuclear power ever be safe?

The disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan has underlined the danger of nuclear power. Authorities in Japan have now officially ranked the crisis on the same level as the Chernobyl disaster.

Chernobyl: The day we almost lost Europe

The world’s worst nuclear disaster took place 25 years ago when a nuclear reactor exploded at Chernobyl, in Ukraine, on

Nuclear radiation: Hazardous for billions of years

Radiation occurs naturally. But nuclear power creates highly concentrated, unnatural, forms of radiation. Radiation is linked to cell damage and cell mutations. Children, foetuses, older people and ill people are more at risk from radiation because their cells are damaged, weak or rapidly growing.

Strike was for pupils, not against them

Teachers at Darwen Vale High School in Lancashire went on strike last week. The media spun the strike as being one against "unruly children".

An antidote to postmodernism

All kinds of cultural expressions have had the term "postmodern" hooked on them—from architecture, literature and art to lifestyle. But postmodernism is also the ideological bedrock central to most universities.

Manning Marable: Challenging racism

When I first came across Manning Marable’s writing around 20 years ago, I had just come badly unstuck addressing a Socialist Workers Party meeting on the US Civil Rights Movement.

A definitive account of Malcolm X

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable reviewed by Yuri Prasad

Reviews

Arts cuts hit small groups that nurture future talent

This term I got my first-year students to create manifestos for the future of the arts.

Buñuel shows age doesn’t matter - unless you’re cheese

The Spanish surrealist film‑maker Luis Buñuel said he made movies "to show that this is not the best of all possible worlds".

Northern Drift & Joe Lives!

Alex Glasgow was a left wing singer-songwriter from Gateshead, who sang the theme to the BBC TV series When The Boat Comes In.

Armadillo, directed by Janus Metz Pedersen

This Danish documentary is about the Armadillo "forward operating base" in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, shared by Danish and British troops.

What We Think

Stop Islamophobic attacks on the veil

Covering your face in public in France is now illegal. Muslim women in France who choose to wear a niqab, or face veil, in public face arrest and a fine of 150 euros.