Class Follow

The plight of migrant workers, who perform essential work in Britain, but who are treated like second class citizens, could get even worse if the Bolkestein Directive is introduced.

The RMT union has called a conference to discuss working class political representation.

MachucaDirected by Andres Wood

Like most people educated in Britain, I was taught that the Tory ruling class that had opposed votes for women so vehemently nevertheless produced the first woman MP in 1919 — Nancy Astor.

Some 26,000 lecturers in over 220 further education colleges were set to strike on Wednesday of this week in a pay dispute that goes to the heart of the lack of funding for predominantly working class education.

The First World War precipitated an international revolutionary crisis. That the climax had already occurred in the Bolshevik revolution of October 1917 was far from apparent during the immediate post-war years.

The ferocity of the recent loyalist riots in Belfast astounded commentators, but came as no surprise to anyone who lives or works in Protestant working class areas.

The immediate cause of last weekend’s loyalist riots in Northern Ireland was the prevention of an Orange Order march entering a Catholic area. These marches are about upholding sectarianism and reminding Catholics that they are traditionally second class citizens in the Northern Irish state.

Manet painted this picture in Paris in 1882, only a decade after the working class had been battered in the repression which followed the Paris Commune. It was a time when the expansion of capitalism in western Europe meant rapid industrialisation and mechanisation.

Ever Since its launch in July, Linkspartei has been picking up significant support across the German working class. This has predictably led to a concerted smear campaign against Oskar Lafontaine, the party’s best known leader.

With hurricane Katrina, class and race divisions have surfaced in the US for everyone to see. Socialists have known about these for some time, but for many others it was a clear expression of what US capitalism has done to black people and the poor.

The Philippine ruling class is facing a very real problem. Every section of it is hungry for the implementation of savage neo-liberal measures — but nobody is at all sure who can get away with forcing them through.