Issue 2371

MARCH ON THE TORIES IN MANCHESTER
Join the TUC demonstration l Sunday 29 September l See advert page 16

1
STAMP ON THE TORIES

STRIKE TO SAVE THE POST
The Tories want to privatise the post. Last week the government announced plans to float Royal Mail on the stock market for an estimated 3 billion. The sell off goes even further than Margaret Thatcher dared to go. It has provoked fury among post workersand beyond. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has called a national strike ballot to fight the Tory plans. Jim Kirwan, CWU London regional secretary, told Socialist Worker, Members are absolutely furious. Were fighting the impact the privatisation will have on jobs, terms and conditions. Ministers say workers will get 2,000 in shares from the sale of the firm. But Andy Hopping from the CWU executive told Socialist Worker, Members arent fooled by the phoney shares scheme. They know theyll lose so much more if theyre privatised. We have to stand up and fight now. The stakes are so high.
Cameron: Lets put the boot in
STOP ROYAL MAIL SELL OFF
| No 2371 | 21 September 2013 | socialistworker.co.uk

Greece
Teachers all out to force back government cuts

High school teachers across Greece began an all-out strike on Monday of this week. The teachers are now part of a growing strike wave against government targets for mass public sector sackings. Now in the middle of a broader strike wave they have every chance of spreading it.
>>Page 8
anti-racism
Victory against racist niqab ban in Birmingham

Student campaigning forced management at Birmingham Metropolitan College to cancel a ban on women wearing the niqab veil. The U-turn came less than a day before a planned mass protest at the city centre campus where thousands signed against a ban.
>>Page 6 Hovis
Strikers escalate against Premier Foods bosses

Striking Hovis workers massively increased pressure on bosses at Premier Foods Wigan Hovis factory by disrupting delivery vans from Monday of this week. In their second week-long strike against zero hours contracts and agencies, solidarity can win.
Gearing up for post fight >>Pages 4&5
>>Page 20
MARCH ON THE TORIES IN MANCHESTER

Join the TUC demonstration l Sunday 29 September l See advert page 16

YES 4
1
| No 2371 | 21 September 2013 | socialistworker.co.uk
to Independence
4Axe the bedroom tax now 4get out of Nato 4Scrap Trident 4Fight for a socialist Scotland

THE THINGS THEY SAY
Social graces can be a casualty
Posho publishing house Debretts asking politely for 1,000to teach young people social skills
Socialist Worker 21 September 2013
the
Troublemaker
An alibi is never perfect
A black teenager was held for fifteen hours on suspicion of robbery despite having a cast-iron alibi. Shakeil Jackson, 19, was inside Thornhill Road police station in north London at the time of a robbery, reporting the theft of his own motorcycle. But he was arrested and locked up overnight. He said: I repeatedly told the police officers to check Thornhill Road CCTV because that would confirm my whereabouts. I was angry, humiliated and confused. He was eventually released without charge.
MPs latest expenses claim scam is strictly a family affair

MPs claimed a record 98.1 million on expenses last year. The inflation-busting 10 percent rise added 9 million to the expenses bill. Thats more than before the 2009 expenses scandal. A quarter of MPs, including four wealthy cabinet ministers, employ members of their family. The practice was supposed to be banned as part of reforms aimed at cleaning up Westminster. But the plans were dropped after whining from politicians. Claims for second homes, travel, food and drink, office and other costs from the 650 MPs were up about 400,000 to 23.8 million. So-called payroll costs that cover staff salaries, taxes and pensions shot up to 74.3 million. That was because staffing allowances were quietly increased from 115,000 a year to 137,200 for MPs outside London and from 115,000 to 144,000 for those in the capital. MPs also doled out 13,163 in bonuses
Chilling
Top troughing
David Cameron claimed a total of 121,872.97 abour leader Ed Miliband L claimed 136,115.71 ib Dem deputy PM L Nick Clegg was the most expensive at 152,553.82. His claims included a 145.50 TV licence MPs claimed almost 10,000 for returning to Westminster to pay tribute to Margaret Thatcher. It also cost 20,000 to reopen parliament for the occasion
Officials working for Tory minister Eric Pickles describing what the effect of agreeing to a Freedom of Information request would be
The interesting thing about the financial crisis is that the problems were staring you in the face
RBS boss Stephen Hester shares his economic wisdom
to 49 staff members last year. The MP who claimed the most was Ian Paisley junior, from the bigoted Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland. His claims totalled 232,042.33including 45,039.08 on travel and food. Some 155 MPs had relatives on the public payroll in the last financial year, up from 145 in the previous 12 months. Justice secretary Chris Grayling and transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin both employ their wives, Susan and Lynn, on between 35,000 and 39,999. Tory Owen Paterson, the environment secretary with a personal fortune of 1.5 million and 134,565 cabinet minister salary, pays his wife Rose 30,000 to 34,999 as a senior parliamentary assistant. Chief whip Sir George Young employs his daughter Camilla on up to 34,999 from a staff budget of 75,966.55. Foreign Office ministers Alistair Burt and Hugo Swire also employ their wives. So does Lib Dem Scotland secretary Michael Moore.
We dont want a new housing bubble

Lib Dem business secretary Vince Cable warns of the dangers of economic recovery
Just 225 to get that worker look. Ben Sherman clothing has launched a new collectionthe Union with clothes that draw inspiration from the miners affected by picketing and pit closures in the 1980s [sic]. The Plectrum Spirit of Union Printed Blazer is perfectly priced at just 225. Apparently its now fashionable to look like a workerjust not to be one.
Were a thousand miles away from a housing bubble in the UK

Lib Dem minister Danny Alexander doesnt
Gods and spirits make bosses rich

Financier David Green has seen the light after a healing experience. Hes now launched his guide to spirituality, The Invisible Hand. Green says business success is a manifestation of spiritual freedom. His number one tip for financial nirvana is the life-enhancing platitude, It is never wrong to take a profit. For Green, his money results from God blessing himnot from any work that his employees might do.
Taxi!
Working class hero es?
Not everyone needs to worry about the retirement age being pushed back. Prince William is retiring from the military at just 31, to focus on royal duties and charity work. But he still wont be a full time royal, whatever that is, for another 12 months. Presumbly some sort of garp yaw.
TOFF OF THE WEEK

Royal corgis Willow and Holly and royal dorgis Candy and Vulcan
lThe Queens dogs are fed a luxury diet of fillet steak lThe carefully prepared meals are then delivered by a footman and covered with gravy which is poured by the monarch lThey do not eat until the Queen herself has given the royal command for them to begin lThey get homeopathic remedies when they are ill
A policemans loot is a mere 824.40

How do you rob the cops and get away with it? By being a cop. DC Tim Hemmings stole 823.40 from Plaistow police station, east London, because he couldnt scrape by on his pay cheque. Hes thought to have been paid at least 30,000 a year and has a house worth half a million in Bishops Stortford. Hes since been sacked. But he avoided jail with a suspended sentence and 160 hours of unpaid work. Samantha Morris, prosecuting, said Hemming was in some difficult financial circumstances when he stole the money. His defence stressed that he always wanted to pay the full amount back. Judge Howard Riddle said, I accept you intended to repay the money. He added that officers who disgraced themselves harmed the credibility of the police in general and that can have serious consequences.
A Boss at Sellafield l operator Nuclear Management Partners
Our little yellow friends may have chickened out

Boris Johnson shares his love of all the Lib Dems
(NMP) claimed 714 for a taxi ride for himself and the cat. NMP paid out 6.6million in bonuses over the last three years. Yet this didnt stop bosses claiming 2,795 for flights to the US Masters golf tournament and 2,316 for a computer. Still theres plenty more where that came fromthe cost of the Sellafield clean up has spiralled to 67 billion.
Zero-hours fire scabs

Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue Service is looking to recruit Emergency Fire Crew. These would potentially provide fire and rescue cover during periods of industrial actionor to put it simply, scab. Scabs can grab 10 an hour for training and 150 for each shift worked. The job ad stresses, There will be no guarantee of future work and this is called a Zero Hours Contract. The ad also makes clear, You may have to cross picket lines if some of our colleagues decide to take industrial action and protest outside our stations.
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news
Protests pile on pressure to scrap the bedroom tax

by Dave sewell
IN BRIEF Sexual health suffers cuts

Cuts to sexual health services will send the number of sexual diseases and unplanned pregnancies soaring according to charities. The Family Planning Association and Brook added that cuts could also add over 136 billion to the public health bill.
politicians in all three parties are struggling under fire to contain the opposition to the bedroom tax. Nick Clegg lost the fight to defend it at the Lib Dem conference, with an overwhelming vote on Monday night of this week. Delegates were sent a strongly worded email telling them not even to call it by nameofficially it is a cut to the spare room subsidy and, underlined, it is not a tax. But even such figures as party grandee Shirley Williams and former leader Charles Kennedy had to say that was a line they could not toe. Hundreds of people had protested against the bedroom tax and other issues outside the conference. Meanwhile Tory chairman Grant Shapps is complaining about a report into the bedroom tax by United Nations special rapporteur on housing Raquel Rolnik. She was visibly shocked by the stories of hurt and despair from tenants at a hearing in Manchester. Yasmin, a tenant from Rochdale said, At last somebody is actually listening. Rolnik concluded that there have been human rights violations in housing. To rapturous applause she said she would recommend that the bedroom tax be abolished.
Ten years jail if you overclaim

People suspected of overclaiming benefits can now be charged under the Fraud Actand face up to ten years in prison. Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer announced the change this week. There was no similar clampdown on rich firms that avoid tax.
Serco guards under fire

Guards from the private security firm Serco that runs the Yarls Wood detention centre near Heathrow airport have been accused of inappropriate sexual contact. The company denies the charges. However, three staff members were sacked for similar charges in 2012.
protesters say evict Lib Dems not tenants outside the Lib Dem conference
Picture: John Green
back story
Abolished
Pressure is mounting on councils after North Lanarkshire and other councils last month agreed a policy of no evictions for rent arrears due to the bedroom tax. Around 100 angry tenants and activists packed into a meeting against evictions in Brixton, south London, last week. Roger Lewis from Disabled People Against Cuts accused councils of doing nothing more to help their tenants than holding their hands and
The bedroom tax was introduced in April and hits the poorest people hardest lCouncils are being put under pressure by mass opposition to the tax lThe biggest council landlord in Scotland, North Lanarkshire, was forced to take a stance of no evictions lSeriously ill people have had to discharge themselves from hospital to attend court over arrears
walking them out of their doors. Councillor Peter Robbins refused to commit to a no eviction policy but agreed to join tenants in a march against the bedroom tax. Alan Strickland, the new head of housing at Haringey Council in north London, also faced a lobby at his ward surgery last Saturday. And Harlow council, in Essex, had to halt its meeting last Thursday to get rid of furious demonstrators. The council had ruled out hundreds of signatures on a petition against evictions on a technicality. The councils dilemma would be much easier if the Labour Party committed to repealing the bedroom tax
if it wins the next general election. And some representatives with poor constituents are itching to do just that as they come under increasing pressure from campaigners. Scottish Labour welfare spokesperson Jackie Baillie even went ahead and made the pledge herself on BBC Radio Scotland, but was later rebuked for going a bit too far. Determined resistance of tenants and those who stand with them has turned the bedroom tax into a political hot potato. That resistance can get rid of the hated policy for good.
Thanks to Stephen Hack, Mark Krantz, Emma Davies and Keith Boyd
Files show MI5 knew of abuse

An evidence dossier which went missing in 1977 has emerged. It shows MI5 covered up the abuse of boys by Lib Dem MP Cyril Smith. The spooks were keen to protect the fragile Liberal-Labour coalition of the time.
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Lib Dems keep on digging

The Liberal Democrats But the party continues to struggled to put a brave face on limp on because both David their ongoing decline at their Cameron and Ed Miliband think annual conference in Glasgow this they might need to keep Clegg on week. as a coalition sidekick after the They just about managed to election. push through their support for So the Lib Dems are falling out cuts and their refusal to over whether to pitch bring back the 50p tax right and win over the rate on the rich. Tories or pitch left to win The Lib Dems have over Labourhaving been all but destroyed in more or less given up on the polls for backing Tory winning over voters. policies. The farce is only given They got themselves meaning by a Labour in a hole by trebling the leadership that would university tuition fees rather be in coalition they had promised to with these yellow Tories scrapand since then than stand up to their Clegg in crisis theyve kept digging. brutal policies.
In this week
Sabra and Shatilla camp massacres

Israeli troops with their fascist Phalangist Lebanese allies surrounded the Sabra and Shatilla Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. They butchered 2,000 people, including small children who had sought shelter there.
1982
news & comment

WHAT WHAT WE WE THINK THINK
Six weeks to stop Tories selling off Royal Mail

Workers are preparing for the fight of their lives over privatisation, say Julie Sherry and Annette Mackin
Postal workers are building for strikes against government plans to sell off Royal Mail. Ministers have announced that it could be privatised in as little as six weeks. The sell-off goes further than even Margaret Thatcher dared. The government wants to float the 500 year old postal service on the stock market for an estimated 3 billion. A massive 96 percent of postal workers said that they were opposed to privatisation, in a consultative ballot by their Communication Workers Union (CWU) in June. It is now holding a ballot for the first national post strike in four years. A lot of workers are describing it as the fight of their lives Dave Fuller, a post worker from Oxford, told Socialist Worker. There are workers who cant afford to strike, but are saying they cant afford not to strike because under privatisation their wages and terms and conditions will be heavily impacted in the future. The ballot opens on Friday of this week and is set to run until 3 October. Workers are pulling out all the stops to build a yes vote, so they can disrupt the sell-off and put an end to the privatisation plans. Around 2,000 furious CWU reps
1.5 million
Boss Moya Greene gets paid handsomely to run Royal Mail down for privatisation
its a womans right to choose what to wear

women who wear the niqab have regularly been a target. Independent columnist Yasmin Alibhai Brown wrote this week that fully veiled women are part of a reactionary mission. A college in Birmingham tried to ban students entering their building if they wore a niqab. But the ban was overturned last Friday after protests (see page 6). This week a judge insisted that a woman lift her veil to give evidence in a London court. This led the Sun newspaper to run its front page with the triumphant headline unveiled in support of the judges decision. The debate about women who wear the veil is steeped in racism yet is sometimes spun as a fight against the oppression of women. But the state or powerful politicians telling women what they can and cannot wear is imposing oppression, not fighting it. Nor can opposing the veil be portrayed as an attempt to encourage integration. What if the minority of women who wear a face veil were banned from wearing it in public? They may then feel unable to take part in life outside the home and retreat into isolation. All women have the right to choose how they live and what they wear. Some people assume that when women wear the hijab or niqab, they must have been forced to by a male relative and they are therefore victims. But this is simply prejudice. And it denies the women any agency of their own. The reality is many women want to proudly identify themselves as Muslims. They want to defy the rise in Islamophobia resulting from the war on terror and a decade of imperialist wars.
We wont be bought
The government claims that the 150,000 Royal Mail staff will receive a 10percent stake in the company under privatisation. It promises up to 2,000 each and around 90 each in dividend payments in the first year. But privatisation will cost workers much more. Workers know the shares are an attempt to try and lure them into accepting desperately needed quick cash at the cost of less terms and conditions under a privatised company, Dave Fuller, a post worker in East Oxford, told Socialist Worker. But workers also know that Royal Mail made 404 million last year and we should get our share of that.
Pictures: Guy Smallman
back story
The government wants to float Royal Mail on the stock market for 3 billion lA whopping 96 percent of postal workers in the CWU union reject the privatisation plan lThey are now preparing to vote in a ballot for a national strike lBosses hope to bribe workers with sharesbut make up for it with worse terms and conditions lPublic service privatisations under Thatcher led to massive job losses and worse services
uslim women who choose to wear the face veil or niqab are facing a new tide of bigotry. Some politicians declare that it should be illegal for Muslim women to cover their faces. Tory MP Philip Hollobone has put forward a private members bill to ban face coverings. He has boasted that he wont meet a constituent if she is wearing a niqab. He said, I would ask her to remove her veil. If she said: No, I would take the view that she could see my face, I could not see hers, I am not able to satisfy myself she is who she says she is. He wants a law such as that imposed in France and Belgium where women wearing the niqab in public places can be fined. Now Liberal Democrat home office minister, Jeremy Browne, has joined the Islamophobic fray. He said there should be a national debate about whether the state should intervene on the issue of young women who he claims feel a compulsion to wear the veil. The small minority of Muslim
The debate about Muslim women who wear the veil is steeped in racism
Postal workers and CWU deputy general secretary Dave Ward on a protest against privatisation in 2011
faced down Royal Mail boss Moya Greene in Birmingham on Thursday of last week. The union had invited Greene to speak at the union meeting, in order to get paid leave for reps to attend.
Enraged
She was heckled and booed when she tried to describe her plans for workers pay as fair. In the end she was forced to take enraged questions from the floor. Later, CWU general secretary Billy Hayes spoke about the dispute. And workers from the floor questioned what kind of industrial
action it would involve. Reps stressed that the government is weak, and that the postal workers beat back attacks from Thatcher. They also stressed the need for serious action. The last dispute was derailed in December 2009, when a solid strike was called off just as it was causing massive disruption to the Christmas post. Many reps expressed concern that many members feel it wasnt enough in 2009, and that members will remember being disappointed when action was called off. Deputy general secretary Dave
Ward assured reps, If we call a 24 hour strike, we want to coincide that with the biggest national demonstration of postal workers since 1971.
Coaches
We want you to come in coaches and we want it to coincide with action by members in Post Office Limited who have been out already 11 times this year. Billy Hayes stressed that If theres a victory for postal workers that will give heart to those in the NHS, to others in this country under attack. Reps were buoyed by the meeting. Paul Garraway, a rep from CWU
South Central Number One branch, told Socialist Worker. Greene convinced nobody. My branch certainly came away feeling that there was a momentum happening in the union to get the strike going. Our office in East Oxford is out on strike for a day on 27 September over the sacking of two workers. The reps meeting has now given us a lift to go out there and get a big yes vote in the strike ballot.
29 Sept demo
Thousands set to march with TUC in Manchester

Momentum is tax and NHS building for the campaigners demonstration and 20 campaign against the Tories stalls. Local in Manchester councillors spoke, next Sunday pledging not to 29 September. evict tenants Transport is over bedroom tax filling up from arrears. across Britain In Glasgow, for the march school student during the Tory Holly told party conference, Socialist Worker, Marching in Manchester in 2011 backed by the Ill be marching TUC. Some 14 coaches are now with the Woodcraft Folk. booked from Sheffield alone. The government spends way Workers from the council, two too much money on things like hospitals and a bus garage are war when it could be spent on filling seven of them. the NHS. The trades council has also Midlothian Against Cuts held booked three coaches and the a meeting on the bedroom tax Unison, Unite, GMB and Napo in Dalkeith, a small town near unions are all mobilising. Edinburgh. Some 13 people, a Some 28 people signed up at third of room, signed up to go on the end of a 300-strong meeting transport to the demo. of Sheffield Peoples Assembly March on the Tory party conference last Saturday. There were Sunday 29 September, Manchester delegations from the CWU and To find transport in your area go to uniteresist.org or see page 16 FBU union, plus anti bedroom
On other pages...
Teachers rally for strikes against Michael Gove>>Page 19
Unite the Resistance conference

Build the protests, build the strikes, build the unions
Privatisation costs jobs and services

The bosses claim that privatisation can help workers and ordinary people. But the reality of sell-offs by the Tory governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major was very different.
hen workers fight back against the Tories and the bosses, they can win. Hovis workers in Wigan have struck against zero hours contracts. Last week a seven-day strike forced bosses to retreat and casual workers won full time permanent contracts. Some 170 post workers at a Peterborough sorting office took part in a four-day wildcat walkout in July over the suspension of a delivery rep. Their refusal to return to work
march for a fightback W

forced bosses to reinstate the suspended rep. Workers have the power to fight the governments plans. When workers strike they also offer an alternative. This autumn Britains two biggest teaching unions, NUT and NASUWT, are set to hold regional and national strikes. The postal workers CWU union is balloting its members in Royal Mail and Parcelforce to strike nationally over privatisation. And the Fire Brigades Union
looks set to strike in England and Wales against Tory attacks on workers pensions. If we are going to beat the Tories we will need resistance right across the whole working class. Mass strikes involving hundreds of thousands of workers can hit them hard and get rid of them. All these fights can be brought together for the mass demonstration at the Torty party conference in Manchester Sunday. Everyone needs to get there.
Organising to win
Saturday 19 October
12 noon-5pm Bloomsbury Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8EP uniteresist.org
British Steel
had cut 20,000 jobs by the time it was privatised in 1988
British Rail
Water
British Telecom
has cut 100,000 jobs since it was privatised in 1984
Since the network was split into competing firms in 1989 prices have risen and profits tooand hosepipe bans come in the same year as floods
Fares have rocketed since privatisation in 1996so much so that in 2011 then transport minister Philip Hammond called rail travel a rich mans toy. There have also been safety failures and several firms have had to be renationalised
British Gas
This month in Socialist Review

islamophobia, repression and resistance Talat Ahmed on the role of the state in fostering Islamophobia and how we can resist it greece: crisis and the left Thanasis Kampagiannis on the situation in Greece, Syriza and workers resistance
Subscribe for just 30 a year (UK) Phone 020 7819 1176 or go to www.socialistreview.org.uk
New pamphlet out now
The selloff in 1986 is often cited as the successful face of privatisation. But British Gas has been split into three parts. One of them is Centrica, which has repeatedly threatened its staff with redundancy and culled 850 jobs in 2011
SCOTLAND
Yes to independence No to nationalism
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news
Labourstill shying from fighting bosses

Labours leaders are worried. Their cunning plan was to sit back and do nothing while the Tories attacked, hoping that the Tories resulting unpopularity would get them back into office. The slim signs of recovery in the housing market have panicked them a little. The shadow cabinet is leaking its rows to the press. But there is still no sign of Labour standing up to the bosses or the Tories over austerity. The Tory press is keen to point out that Labour had an opinion poll lead of around ten points or so for most of 2012 and early 2013. Now Labour leads the Tories by between three and seven percentage points in every poll published in September. And Milibands personal ratings are dire in a world where politics is about personality and the perception of it. His net positive or negative rating now hovers only one point above lows achieved by William Hague between 1997 and 2001, and Iain Duncan Smith between 2001 and 2003. One poll suggested that even 52 percent of Labour voters are dissatisfied with his performance. In contrast, a poll by Tory Lord Ashcroft shows Labour is ahead in enough marginal seats to win the next election. The survey was of 13,000 people in the 40 most marginal seats currently held by Tory MPs. The findings put Labour ahead of the Tories by 43 percent to 29 percent in the 32 seats where Tory MPs have the smallest majorities over Labour. The 14-point advantage is almost treble Labours 5-point lead over the Tories in a similar poll by Lord Ashcroft across the whole of Britain. In part, this is because of a collapse of the Lib Dems and Ukip taking Tory votes. The findings would give Labour a comfortable 60-seat majority. In that context, it takes a rare genius to choose this moment to try and further weaken the link with the unions. The right of the party think it is always useful for a Labour leader to pick a fight with the unions. But the farce over the investigation into the Falkirk candidate selection showed that was a mistake.
Analysis simon basketter
Victory for campaigners as college reverses niqab ban

Muslim and other students got together and forced a college into a U-turn, writes Helen Salmon
Plans to ban the niqab M u s l i m fa ce ve i l a t a Birmingham college are in tatters after student campaigning forced management into a humiliating climbdown. The astonishing U-turn by Birmingham Metropolitan College bosses came last Thursdayless than a day before a planned mass protest at the city centre campus. Hundreds of students, Muslim and non-Muslim, were expected to demonstrate outside the college after a staggering 8,000 signatures against the ban were collected in just 24 hours. After hearing of the retreat, groups of students and supporters gathered outside the college to celebrate their victory. Aliya Abshir, a young woman who wears the niqab, was a health and social care student at the college last year.
Students and supporters celebrate after forcing Pictures: geoff dexter college bosses into a U-turn
Protest
Mistake
Every Labour member recruited by Unite signed affidavits stating theyd freely joined the party. Unites Stevie Deans, chair of the Falkirk party, was threatened with suspension at work. But workers threatened to shut the Grangemouth oil refinery unless the threat was lifted. Even in Labour Party rows the potential for strikes have an effect. Tom Watson MP resigned as the partys campaigns chief over the attack on Unite. He has yet to be replaced. Despite backing down Miliband is still going ahead with a review of the union link. The union bureaucrats are Milibands greatest allies. But he doesnt want them. The risk for Miliband is that a potential 9 million will be lost in union fees and donations. Union leaders are furious with Milibandbut they still want a Labour government. That is why there was slim polite applause for Miliband at the TUC Congress earlier this month. Among all the blather about One Nation, Labour is looking to find unpopular things to get rid of without promising to spend cash. Unfortunately that means it is happy to be part of a racist anti-immigrant consensus. More positively, Miliband is set to announce a rowing back over the bedroom tax at the Labour Party conference this weekend. He will probably do something similar to what he did the TUC over zero hours contracts. There he denounced the widespread use of exploitative contracts without arguing hed outlaw them completely. Its not much. Labour has committed to the Tories spending figures. That guarantees there will be cuts in the first year of any Labour government. The refusal to fight cuts now, or promise to reverse them, is the main reason why not even the staunchest Labour supporters are enthusiastic about Miliband.
Im really happy with this result, she told Socialist Worker. It shows that if we protest we can change things. I cant understand why they tried to ban the niqab. I wore it last year. We have the rightits part of our religion. The niqab doesnt harm anyone. We always wear our ID and people know who we are. She was echoed by Aysha Latifa from the Muslimapride organisation.
security measure. However Muslim women students said they would raise their veils so security guards can check their ID. A ban on the niqab would have stopped many women from attending college.
Children
She said, Were glad they have listened to the students. I think the pressure of the protest and the nationwide media attention has forced the college to back down. We hope this encourages students to mobilise around other issues. Birmingham Metropolitan is the third largest further education college in Britain. It claims the ban was a
Many of the women who would be affected are new to Britain and are often mature students with children. Theyre studying English for Speakers of Other Languages (Esol) and access courses to enable them to get jobs and education in the UK. The ban would have closed the door on their education. College principal Dame Christine Braddock announced she was
abandoning the ban. She has form on making Muslim students feel unwelcome. When the new college was built students were forced to campaign for the inclusion of a prayer room, which she refused. She responded to the campaign by expelling two of the students involved, and described their newsletter as extremist. However the successful campaign in Birmingham should serve as a warning to Braddock and college bosses everywherestudents will not allow Muslims to be scapegoated.
Students are back---and are taking on the Tories

by Raymie Kiernan
Got a story?
Email ideas to reports@ socialistworker.co.uk
Students are returning after the summer and are gearing up to protest against the Tories in Manchester on Sunday 29 September. People are searching for alternatives, said Lorna, a member of Socialist Worker Student Society (SWSS) at Glasgow University. Weve had discussions with freshers about Tory cuts and how useless Labour is, but also Egypt, Syria, Greece, and the
Students in Glasgow against cuts in 2011
Picture: Duncan Brown
bedroom tax. But delays with funding are causing problems for some. Students at Edinburgh College are angry about
late payments. One student told Socialist Worker how hed been left to survive with two 5 gift tokens for a supermarket almost four
miles away after a glitch in the system. And school students are organising too. Tom is a sixth form student in Pontefract, west Yorkshire. He told Socialist Worker, Ive been talking to lots of students in my classes and explaining what the Tory cuts to the NHS mean for us. Some people have been saying theyve heard about what the Tories are doing but theyre not sure what to do. So Ive been telling them they need to come to Manchester and protest.
news
Did cops alter fans statements after Hillsborough disaster?

Fans families fight for justice as new evidence emerges of a police cover-up, writes Sadie Robinson
Police may have altered fans statements in the aftermath of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster according to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). Deborah Glass is deputy chair of the IPCC. She said, Analysis work by staff within the IPCCs major incident room has identified a number of handwritten accounts from supporters which have been converted subsequently into statements as part of the West Midlands Police investigation (set up in the aftermath of the 1989 disaster). However our analysis has uncovered material which would suggest amendments may have been made to this evidence. The IPCC criminal investigation into the deaths from the disaster follows the publication of an independent report last year that exposed a police cover-up. Some 96 Liverpool football fans died in a crush at the Hillsborough football stadium in Sheffield. Police failed to divert fans into empty pens and pushed them back into the crush when they tried to escape.
back story
Ninety-six Liverpool football fans died as a result of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster lPolice let fans go into full pens and pushed them back into the crush as they tried to escape lPolice stopped ambulances reaching dying fans who had been rescued by other fans lPoliticians, led by Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher, covered up police actions lThe Sun led media lies and smears against the fans
Gate
Officers then claimed that Liverpool fans had forced their way into the groundwhen in fact police had ordered a gate to be opened. Last years independent report showed that nearly 200 police statements had been altered in the wake of the disaster. Some 164 of those had been substantially altered. The IPCC last month found evidence that a further 55 police statements had been altered.
It has now uncovered 19 more police statements that were allegedly doctored by superiors. It says that this brings the total South Yorkshire Police statements that were altered to 238 because it is using the panels figure of 164. South Yorkshire Police has also found 90 police pocketbooks that may contain new evidence about the disaster. Sir Norman Bettison, one of the officers at the centre of the scandal, was criticised in the independent report. South Yorkshire Police emailed Bettison key documents relating to the report in December 2011ten months before they were published. The High Court quashed the original verdicts of accidental death last December. Families of the dead are still waiting for new inquests to be heard.
Fans in the stands pulled others to safety from the crush at Sheffields Hillsborough stadium in 1989
Arrested anti-fascists get together to fight back against police intimidation

A meeting for anti-fascists observers were from the Haldane arrested on the day of a Unite Society of Socialist Lawyers, Legal Against Fascism (UAF) protest on Defence and Monitoring Group 7 September in east London was and the Green and Black Cross. set for Wednesday of this week. Stephen Knight organised the The meeting was only open to legal observers for the Haldane the 286 defendants held in two Society. He said, I was at the kettles by police for hours and then kettle in Commercial Road and arrested. saw the last arrest at about 8pm. The arrests are a disgraceful At the anti-BNP attempt by police to block demo in June a large anti-fascists from attending future Haldane legal observing demonstrations. team received repeated Bail conditions included threats of arrest. bans from protests within Police tactics the M25 against racist currently involve groups the English intimidating legal Defence League (EDL), observers, to British National Party discredit us and (BNP) and English stop us from Volunteer Force. doing our job. Five legal Because, if observers were also were all sitting arrested among the in police cells kettled. then we wont Cops arrested hundreds On the day the legal be monitoring the unlawful behaviour of police on protests. Information from legal observers was indispensable when anti-fascists were arrested at a UAF protest against the EDL in Bolton in 2010. Activists formed justice4bolton which led to charges being dropped against 54 of the 55 arrested anti-fascists. Three anti-fascists were also paid five figure compensation each by Greater Manchester Police for their treatment by cops including human rights violations.
Annette Mackin
Arrestees meeting 7pm Wednesday 18 September, Old Limehouse Town Hall, 646 Commercial Rd, E14 7HA
anti-fascism
On other pages...
Hovis strikers escalate pickets to frustrate bosses >>Page 20
Duggan inquest opens

The inquest into the police shooting of Mark Duggan has begun. A jury was selected on Monday of this week and the inquest opened at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London. The coroner, Judge Keith Cutler, told the jury, It may be the case that at the heart of your considerations will be whether Mark Duggan was killed lawfully or unlawfully. Marks family hopes that the inquest puts an end to the idea that Mark was involved in a shootout with the police. His death on 4 August 2011 sparked riots. His mother Pam Duggan said, Since Mark was shot dead over two years ago we have been provided with nothing but lies, misinformation and delay. We hope that the truth will finally come out for the sake of all his family, not least his young children.
lDefend the Right to Protest National Conference, 27 October, University of London Union, Malet St, London WC1E 7HY. defendtherighttoprotest.org
international
IN BRIEF Unprecedented demo in Poland

Up to 200,000 trade unionists marched in Warsaw last Saturday against the governments austerity polices. It was the first time the three major union federations Solidarity, OPZZ and FZZhad held such a huge joint protest. The main issues are the rise in retirement age to 67 and new flexible working which means being at bosses beck and call. It was also a general protest against the governments arrogance, neoliberalism, privatisation, cuts and sackings. Now many workers are calling for a general strike. Andy Zebrowski
Indefinite strikes spread in Greek sackings battle

by dave sewell
Crackdown on teachers camp

Riot police attacked striking teachers in Zocalo, the central square of Mexico city, on Friday of last week. They used tear gas and water cannon to clear a protest camp the strikers had been living in since August. Up to 10,000 teachers occupied the camp the previous week. They are protesting against the imposition of performance evaluations.
Paris march to defend pensions

Some 370,000 people marched in Paris on Tuesday of last week on a day of strikes against plans to make workers pay billions more for their pensions. The Labour-type Socialist Party government wants to increase the time someone must work to get a full state pension from 40.5 to 43 years. Its proposals will be debated in parliament next month. Latest polls show that a majority of people support the strikes. But the CFDT union has committed to talks with the government instead of calling for industrial action.
High school teachers across Greece began an all-out strike on Monday of this week. Almost all schools were shut and over 90 percent of teachers took part. More than 30,000 marched in central Athens. Over 1,000 teachers were fired over summer with thousands more to come. The government has targets for mass public sector sackings. The teachers are part of a growing strike wave against them. Universities failed to open for the new term last week as admin workers also launched an all-out strike, with support from students and lecturers. At least 25 primary school union branches have called on their union to join the all-out strike and some have already walked out. And workers in jobcentres and pension offices walked out indefinitely on Monday too. Some ministries are in a state of almost permanent general assembly, with workers coming together to discuss fighting for their jobs. More strikes have hit the hospitals, and even hospital doctors were set to strike for three days.
part of the 30,000 strong teachers' march through central Athens on Monday
Picture: Workers Solidarity
Spread
The public sector union federation ADEDY called a 48 hour strike on Thursday and Friday. Workers on all-out strike plan to use this to spread the indefinite action. For four hours on Wednesday all of Greece will be striking, as public sector workers are joined by private sector unions. They are under pressure to take action against privatisation. But the governments international creditors have already
given them an extra year to meet privatisation targets in the face of mass opposition. Greece has seen nearly 30 general strikes since the bailouts began. But this new high of workers struggle is being compared to the strike wave of October 2011 that brought down the Papandreou government. The current government is already resigned to an early election. It hopes to hang on until local and European elections next year. First it has to survive the strikes so its propaganda accuses the left of being undemocratic in trying to
overthrow the government before an election. This is an attempt to pressure the leadership of the main opposition party Syriza to restrain its supporters. This strategy succeeded in calling off the teachers plan to start their strike in May. But since then the teachers union conference massively increased the pressure on the leadership, and teachers have used the summer to organise at the rank and file. And now they are in the middle of a much broader strike wave they have every chance of spreading it.
n More than 1,500 people marched on the fascist Golden Dawns Athens headquarters on Friday of last week. A mob of its supporters had violently attacked Communist Party trade unionists at a major workplace. The fascists hope to set up a rival union in coalition with the bosses there to stop strikes. Katerina Thoidou of the Keerfa anti-fascist coalition told Socialist Worker, After this attack it is becoming clear to more and more people that Golden Dawn supports the bosses.
syria
Obamas Syria deal with Russia shows limits of US power

by judith orr
MYTH OF THE WEEK

Pensions are unaffordable for French workers lThe rich in France have, like their counterparts elsewhere, squirreled away billions of euros to avoid paying their tax lThe government says there is a 16.8 billion black hole, so workers need to pay the price l The money is there to fund pensions if they stopped the tax dodgers
US president Barack Obama has stepped back from his threat to bomb Syria. The US and Russia signed an accord in Geneva last Saturday. It commits the Syrian regime to reveal a list of its chemical weapons within a week and allow inspectors access by November. United Nations inspectors reported on Monday that they had found evidence of the use of Sarin gas in Damascus. Obama went all out to win support for an attack on Syria. He put his authority and that of
the US internationally on the line. But it didnt work. Public opinion was against a new war and despite hard campaigning he risked losing a vote in Congress. The last minute deal brokered by the Russians saved Obama. If he had lost the Congress vote and backed off from bombing he would have looked weak. Going ahead without broader backing would have isolated him at home and internationally.
Balked
For months Obama talked tough about intervention in Syriabut he balked at carrying it through. Shoring up the USs imperial
Barack Obamain retreat over Syria
reach was Obamas only political motivation for acting. But there was no guarantee of success. He has continued the verbal threats of a military assault if Syrias president Bashar al-Assad doesnt comply with the new accord saying, If diplomacy fails, the United States remains prepared to act. But the US ruling class showed its divisions and now the immediate threat of a new war has subsided. Any Western attack on Syria would make the situation worse for the millions already suffering under Assads dictatorship. The struggle to bring down the regime has become locked in a bloody stalemate, but western bombs are not the answer.
Letters
Condemn the arrests
The Tower Hamlets anti-EDL demonstration on 7September successfully kept the fascists out of the boroughbut at a heavy cost. The police decision to kettle and mass arrest some 280 anti-EDL protesters is a serious escalation of the states clampdown on the right to protest. Lawyer Matt Foot said on the day, I am struggling to think of the last time 260 people were arrested. Can the Met justify rounding up such a vast number? We are shocked, therefore, at the paltry coverage of these arrests in Socialist Worker (14September). A hundred words tacked on to the end of an article some three days after the event is not acceptable. The paper could not even bring itself to condemn the arrests. What is going on here? Unequivocal solidarity with arrested anti-fascists should be a basic instinct of any serious revolutionary. Socialist Worker stood by anarchist demonstrators at the 1990 Poll Tax Riots when the rest of the left abandoned them. That is the real tradition of this paper. Readers who would like to help the arrested protesters should contact the Green and Black Cross organisation at greenandblackcross.org and the Legal Defence and Monitoring Group at ldmg.org.uk
Email letters@socialistworker.co.uk Post Socialist Worker, PO Box 42184, London SW8 2WD
Just a thought...
Boycott Hovis in solidarity

I empathise with zero hours contract workers, as I found myself in the same position and I was let go. Fight for your jobs. If the zero hours contracts go through, youre as good as gone. And everyone else stop buying Hovis bread to show your disgust. Jacob Nicholls on Facebook
Illustration: Tim Sanders
Yes Scotland wasnt correct

About the article on Scottish Independence, (Socialist Worker, 14September) It is not Yes Scotland who is organising the eventI am. It is the March & Rally for Scottish Independencea collective of Scottish Independence supporters with no specific political affiliation. Jeff Duncan Dundee
Our victories against the bedroom tax in Scotland

I want to let your readers know of a recent victory weve had in Kirkcaldy Axe the Bedroom Tax campaign. We got as many people as possible to send appeals to the council against the bedroom tax with a standard appeal letter. Some of the appeals were immediately accepted. Others we encouraged to take to an independent tribunal. Two weeks ago the first test cases for Scotland were held in Kirkcaldy. Four were successful, of which I was one. We won on the definition of a bedroomwhether it was big enough to meet the criterion in housing legislation for a single adult. One person won their appeal as it is used as a storage room for specialised equipment. I won on the basis that, as I receive housing support, I should be classed as living in supported accommodation. The definition of supported accommodation is very vague. This should make it simpler for others to use this argument. We had to fight to get representation from a local law charity. We had written up our own submissions and were prepared to defend ourselves if need be. The charity wasnt given funding from Fife council to represent us until less than two weeks before the tribunal date. However if this was an attempt by the council to derail our appeal it was unsuccessful. We now have two volunteers in our group committed to helping anyone who comes to us with appeals. But we are also committed to non-payment and offer solidarity by picketing any evictions in our area. If you would like more information on our campaign group you can reach me on louise. mcleary@talktalk.net
Time for a new start

Sure Start centres led to huge improvements in local opportunities for families. A revamped Sure Start could become community beacons and help once again combat child poverty. Helen Ashdon King South London
Anindya Bhattacharyya, Ian Birchall, Matthew Cookson, Sian Ruddick, Viv Smith London
BT Sport not for the people

Has anyone else had problems with BT Sport viewing boxes? And no one answering the phones and calls being passed on? Same old story, a typical capitalist firm run for profit not people. Rob Murray Sunderland
Louise McLeary Fife
The Welsh government Libyan oil workers shut down oil fields must act on health
Its emerged that more than 1,200 patients have waited over a day to be treated by A&E in South Wales. When is the Labour-led Welsh government going to get to grips with the health crisis in our area? Could you imagine being that person sat waiting to be treated? This is distressing news for us all. We need to see more joined up thinking in our Welsh NHS. We need much more support given to all of its staff. The Welsh Government must wake up and stop being in denial. Our NHS is in crisis and urgently needs that pill to make it better. Perhaps, instead of wasting money on useless projects, the First Minister and his New Labour gang should now consider making health better as a priority for Wales. There has been an amazing demonstration of workers power in Libya with armed strikes in the oil fields and export terminals. Oil pumping stations have stopped because there is just no more room in the storage facilities. The protests have also led to a stop on petrol imports from abroad and nationwide power cuts. Disgracefully the Oil Sector Workers Union denounced the strikes and demands the reopening of all the oil terminals and
Libyan oil worker
Richard Bertin Independent councillor Vale of Glamorgan, Wales
production fields. On 3 September the General National Congress formed a crisis committee to deal with the oil disruption. Reuters reported last week that investors are
worried that a strike on Syria by Western forces against the country could spread unrest in the Middle East and disrupt oil supply from the region that pumps a third of the worlds crude oil. We need to give our solidarity to the people in the Middle East. As international socialists we need to also be pushing for the international perspective on the 29 September demonstration in Manchester.
No good intervention
We are not a force for good in the world. We, along with our Nato allies have used depleted uranium shells and white phosphorous. Weve also helped to destroy Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya killing hundreds of thousands and making millions of refugees. This leaves us with zero credibility. Clive Collins South London
Camille Tsang Cheshire
10
feature
11
A year from now people in Scotland will vote on independence. Dave Sherry says a yes vote in the referendum is a chance to put forward a socialist vision that can expose the limitations of nationalism
cotlands referendum next year will decide if people support an independent Scotland. It is a simple Yes or No ballot. Socialist Workers Party members in Scotland will be arguing and campaigning for a yes vote. Socialists in Scotland cant stand back and wait until the vote. We have an opportunity to engage with people looking for something more than the Scottish National Party (SNP) currently offers. The Tories, Labour and Lib Dems are against independence. But there are worries within Labour about what lining up with the Tories will do to its vote in Scotland. Polls have regularly put support for independence at no more than a third and the Yes camp has been unable to shift opinion in their favour. Their failure to offer a strategy to fight austerity and show how a vote for independence will benefit working class people has left many unconvinced, particularly trade unionists. The Scottish Trade Union Congress has no agreed position on the referendum but supports more devolved powers. The SNP and its leader Alex Salmond dominate the Yes campaign and pose as left-leaning nationalists. But Salmond used to be an economist at the Royal Bank of Scotland and is completely committed to capitalism. Not everyone who supports independence shares Salmonds vision of a capitalist Scotland. Pro-independence can be anti-imperialistto support the break up of the United Kingdom, not to line up behind the nationalists. A yes vote in the referendum will weaken the British state and its role as the USs junior partner. Britain is an imperialist power and willing to intervene in Syria and Iran. This is one reason why David Cameron was so desperate to preserve unity. The Save the Union campaign endorses a reactionary idea of Britishness based on imperialism, racism and anti-immigrant hysteria. They will use the First World War centenary and the Commonwealth
Back story
The limited powers of the Scottish parliament have been a bone of contention since it was established lIt was created in 1999 after the Labour government in Westminster passed the Devolution of Scotland Act lThis gave the new parliament limited powers to make its own policies on health, education and social spending. It has some tax raising powers but does not control defence or what happens to the money from North Sea oil lProposals to increase these powers are known as devo max. These wont be on the referendum ballot paperdespite polls showing that they are the preferred option of most voters north of the border lScottish politicians try to use the limits imposed on the Edinburgh parliament by devolution to avoid responsibility for imposing austerity cuts
Games next year for propaganda about a glorious imperial past. It wont be about the unity of the British working class but unity of the British state. For them this will not be about the Chartists, the Suffragettes or the Great Miners Strike. Socialists arguing against independence provide left cover for the pro-union camp. We have to argue for a clear working class, socialist alternative. Otherwise we hand the argument to the unionists and nationalists. Devolution (see box above) has meant delegating responsibility for the cuts. The SNP government
reluctantly accepted the Tories savage cut to its funding from Westminster in 2010. Alex Salmond, Scotlands SNP first minister, then argued his 35 percent cut to the Scottish housing budget was not as bad as the 65 percent cut to housing in England and Wales. He also said an independent Scotland would stay in Nato, the Western military alliance. Leaving Nato had been the partys most popular policy. The fight that erupted around its decision to dump it was a major turning point in the debate on independence. The row brought out the need for a serious, socialist intervention that wont accommodate to nationalism. Under Salmonds leadership, the SNP has sought to position itself as the inheritor of the social democratic tradition to win over disillusioned Labour voters. But the SNP is committed to a pro-business agenda. Salmond was damaged by revelations of his close relationship with Rupert Murdoch. The Sun newspaper had backed him and the SNP. It emerged that he met with Murdoch and, like Tory Cabinet member Jeremy Hunt, promised to back his bid to gain total control over BskyB. The SNPs commitment to a capitalist Scotland was clear from its first budget in late 2007. Money was spent ensuring business rates went down hitting local authority services. Last year, SNP finance minister John Swinney said he was providing all the support we can to the business community, boasting Scotland has the most competitive business rates in the UK. The existence of Scottish nationhood is not in question and there is no reason why Scotland could not become a capitalist nation state like any other. It is hypocrisy to oppose Scottish nationalism and claim that it is reactionary, while remaining silent about British nationalism or even worse, championing it. But we should be under no illusions about what kind of Scotland the SNP has in mind. It wants to retain the royal family, sterling, the Bank of
England and Nato. It is a single issue party, intent on achieving independence and nothing else. Edinburgh-born socialist James Connolly wrote about this very problem in Ireland in 1910. If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the socialist republic, your efforts would be in vain, he wrote. The SNP solution is simpleits called Edinburgh government. There will be no change in the system of government nor the corrupt society the system of government is a part of.
Their argument is like saying Coca Cola rots your teeth when its bottled in London but if you site the bottling plant in Edinburgh then Coca Cola is good for you. An independent Scotland would not be a socialist Scotland. Scots are not more left wing than the English and there can be no Scottish parliamentary road to socialism. If people vote for independence workers will still need unity in struggle against those who rule us. But the break up of Britain would be a small victory for the world working class and that is something to fight for.
Independence vote is against nuclear weapons

The governments commitment to nuclear weapons shows that the attacks on welfare are ideological. There is no austerity for weapons of mass destruction. When Trident missiles become too old, in the next 15 to 20 years, their replacement is likely to cost 100 billion. Thats 25 billion for submarines, 4 to 6 billion for warheads and infrastructure, and 2 billion yearly running costs for up to 30 years. These billions could pay for 120,000 new nurses every year for ten years or 60,000 new teachers for 20 years. Most people in Scotland are opposed to Trident. A poll earlier this year showed 80percent opposed its replacement. The Scottish parliament announced earlier this year its opposition to nuclear weapons and to the presence of Trident in Scotland. A more recent poll has shown the majority in Scotland do not believe nuclear weapons are any kind of practical defence. The same poll showed that people felt Conservative governments were a more significant threat to Scotland than Iran or North Korea. There is nowhere for Trident to go once it is removed from Faslanes deep water port. We can make the world a safer place by voting yes to independence and keeping up the pressure. One of the first decisions of an independent Scotland should be to scrap Trident. Angela McCormick
Angela is an executive member of Scottish CND
We need a radical vision

The Common Weal Project, set up by the left wing Jimmy Reid Foundation thinktank, offers one of the few practical visions of what independence might be like. It calls for a distinctively Scottish version of the type of society that has been achieved in the Nordic area. It is widely supported for instance it was recently unanimously endorsed by SNP councillors. Common Weal is rightly angry at obscene levels of poverty and inequality in Scotland where the top 10percent are 273 times better off than the poorest 10 percent. It argues for a society built on fairness, equality, inclusion and coherence to deliver higher levels of equity, economic development and standards of living. However, it is a very limited strategy for challenging neoliberalism and austerity. Whatever the past strengths of the Nordic welfare states they are not a model for the left today. A recent study of Norways welfare state said it, along with the Nordic countries in general, is maintaining its position on the upper deckbut it is the upper deck of the Titanic! And welfare services in Denmark are only better than Britain if you are white and Danish. It has the harshest asylum seeker laws in Western Europe. These are the product of a capitalist society divided by class and exploitation. Yet Common Weal writers blame them on wrong economic policies and said, All sectors of society need to actcivil society, business and government. But its fantasy to think millionaires such as Brian Souter, owner of Stagecoach, would support policies to pay more tax and share power with workers. It will take different forces to achieve a more equal society and a properly-funded welfare state. It will need those in workplaces and communities that are struggling against low pay, austerity and the bedroom tax.
Iain Ferguson
Its fantasy to think millionaires would willingly pay more tax and share power with workers
Marching against the bedroom tax in Stirling earlier this year
Scotlands elite University of St Andrewswhere the wealthy know theyre better off with the union
12
Whats ON
Worker { Socialist PUBLIC meetings }
Yes to independence no to nationalism Thu 26 Sep, 6pm, Aberdeen Trades Council Office, 22a Adelphi Lane, AB11 5BL
aberdeen
Email your meetings to events@socialistworker.co.uk or phone 020 7819 1170
What we stand for

These are the core politics of the Socialist Workers Party. INDEPENDENT WORKING CLASS ACTION Under capitalism workers labour creates all profit. A socialist society can only be constructed when the working class seizes control of the means of production and d emocratically plans how they are used. REVOLUTION NOT REFORM The present system cannot be patched up or reformed as the established Labour and trade union leaders say. It has to be overthrown. Capitalism systematically degrades the natural world. Ending environmental crisis means creating a new society. THERE IS NO PARLIAMENTARY ROAD The structures of the present parliament, army, police and judiciary cannot be taken over and used by the working class. They grew up under capitalism and are designed to protect the ruling class against the workers. The working class needs an entirely different kind of statea workers state based upon councils of workers delegates and a workers militia. At most parliamentary activity can be used to make propaganda against the present system. Only the mass action of the workers themselves can destroy the system. INTERNATIONALISM The struggle for socialism is part of a worldwide s truggle. We campaign for solidarity with workers in other countries. We oppose everything which turns workers from one country against those from other countries. We oppose racism and imperialism.We oppose all immigration controls. We support the right of black people and other oppressed groups to organise their own defence.We support all genuine national liberation movements. The experience of Russia demonstrates that a socialist revolution cannot survive in isolation in one country. In Russia the result was state capitalism, not socialism. In Eastern Europe and China a similar system was later established by Stalinist parties. We support the struggle of workers in these countries against both private and state capitalism. We are for real social, economic and political equality of women.We are for an end to all forms of discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. We defend the right of believers to practise their religion without state interference. THE REVOLUTIONARY PARTY To achieve socialism the most militant sections of the working class have to be organised into a revolutionary socialist party. Such a party can only be built by activity in the mass organisations of the working class. We have to prove in p ractice to other workers that reformist leaders and reformist ideas are opposed to their own i nterests. We have to build a rank and file movement within the unions. To join us, turn to page 16 or go to www.swp.org.uk or phone 020 7819 1170 for more information
Socialist worker rallies
The Grand Union, 26 Camberwell Grove (off Camberwell Church St), SE5 8RE A tense relationship the Labour Party and the trade unions Wed 25 Sep, 7pm, Oxford House, Derbyshire St (opp Bethnal Green Rd Tesco), E2 6HG Will the unions ever fight back? Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, Quaker Meeting House, 1a Jewel Rd (off Hoe St), E17 4QU Chile 1973revolution, reform and reaction Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, Chorlton Library (side door), Manchester Rd, M21 9PN What makes a revolution? Thu 26 Sep, 6.30pm, Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount St, M2 5NS The German Communist Party in the 1918-1923 Revolution Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, Swad Cafe, 608 Stockport Rd, (next to the Immigration Law Centre), Longsight, M13 0RQ What is class? Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, Trinity House, Grove Close (off Platt Lane), M14 5AA The Labour Party and the trade unions heading for divorce? Thu 26 Sep, 7pm, The Labour Club, 11 Leazes Park Rd, NE1 4PF The Marikana mine massacre and the reality of post apartheid South Africa Thu 26 Sep, 7.30pm, Vauxhall Centre, Johnson Place, NR2 2SA Capitalism in crisiswhat is the socialist alternative? Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, International Community Centre, 61b Mansfield Rd, NG1 3FN 40 years since Pinochets coup in Chilelessons for today Wed 25 Sep, 7pm, Bridge Inn, Greasbrough Rd (near the bus and train stations), S60 1RB A rebels guide to Gramsci Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, Upstairs Trinity Church Hall, 1 Beaconsfield Rd (near St Albans City station), AL1 3RD Education under the Tories Thu 26 Sep, 7.30pm, Burngreave Community Library, 179 Spital Hill, S4 7LF Where next for the Egyptian Revolution? Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, Old Junior School/Sharrow Community Forum, South View Rd (off Sharrow Lane), S7 1DB Turkey, oppression and resistance Wed 25 Aug, 7.30pm, Goblets Wine Bar (upstairs), 184 Above Bar St, SO14 7DW
SOUTHAMPTON SHEFFIELD: SOUTH SHEFFIELD: NORTH ST ALBANS ROTHERHAM NOTTINGHAM NORWICH NEWCASTLE MANCHESTER: RUSHOLME MANCHESTER: LONGSIGHT & LEVENSHULME MANCHESTER CITY CENTRE MANCHESTER: CHORLTON LONDON:WALTHAMSTOW & LEYTONSTONE LONDON:TOWER HAMLETS
Fracking, capitalism and the future of energy Thu 26 Sep, 7.30pm, Brynmill Community Centre, St Albans Rd, SA2 0BP Lessons from the 1913 Dublin lockout Thu 26 Sep, 7.30pm, Grain Store, 2-3 King St,WV1 1ST How can Palestine be free? Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, Sea Horse Hotel, 4 Fawcett St,YO10 4AH
YORK WOLVERHAMPTON
Swansea
Worker { Socialist branch meetings }

Weekly meetings to discuss political issues and our local interventions. All welcome.
BARNSLEY
Picture: John Sturrock
The Labour Party and the trade unions Thu 26 Sep, 7.30pm, YMCA, 1 Blucher St, S70 1AP Syriawhy we oppose Western intervention Wed 25 Sep, 7pm, Laurel Road Community Sports Centre, Laurel Rd, B21 9PB
BIRMINGHAM: HANDSWORTH
Movement events
Strikers at Bulmer and Lumb, Bolton, in 1978
The politics of Islamophobia Thu 26 Sep, 7.30pm, Bader Restaurant, 394 Coventry Rd, B10 0UF Porn and womens oppressionwhat do socialists say? Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, Kings Heath Community Centre, 8 Heathfield Rd, B14 7DB
BOLTON BIRMINGHAM: STIRCHLEY & KINGS HEATH
BIRMINGHAM: SMALL HEATH
Racism, resistance and revolution

BIRMINGHAM With Esme Choonara and Brian Richardson Wed 2 Oct, 7pm, Priory Rooms, 40 Bull St, B4 6AF GLASGOW With Talat Ahmed and Brian Richardson Wed 23 Oct, 7.30pm, Jurys Inn, 80 Jamaica St, G1 4QG London:TOTTENHAM With Weyman Bennett and Gary McFarlane Thu 17 Oct, 7.30pm, North London Community Centre, 22 Moorefield Rd, N17 6PY London: TOWER HAMLETS With Esme Choonara and Weyman Bennett Mon 21 Oct, 6.30pm, Scott Room, Oxford House, Derbyshire St, Bethnal Green, E2 6HG MANCHESTER With Brian Richardson and Talat Ahmed Thu 17 Oct, 7pm, Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount St, M2 5NS
The Happy Lands, a film by Robert Rae Tue 24 Sep, 7pm, The Civic, Hanson St, S70 2HZ. 5/2.50 concessions. Box office 01226 327 000. Organised by Barnsley Trades Council 50th anniversary of the Bristol bus boycott Speakers from Unite the Union, South West TUC and Unite Against Fascism. With film, food and bar Thu 3 Oct, 7.30pm-10.30pm, Malcolm X Centre, 141 City Rd, BS2 8YH The Great Unrest 19101913how could workers have won? Sat 5 Oct, 1.30pm, Colliton Club (opposite County Hall), Colliton Park, Dorchester, DT1 1XJ. Organised by Dorset Socialists 3rd Lewes Festival of Trade Unionism and Socialism 1st May Banner Band Tue 24 Sep, All Saints Centre, Friars Walk, BN7 2LE. Organised by Lewes and District Trades Council Say It Loud! Launch party for new book on Marxism and the fight against racism Sat 21 Sep, 8pm-2am, The Horse Bar, 124 Westminster Bridge Rd, SE1 7RW Admission free. RSVP enquiries@bookmarks.uk.com Organising to winUnite the Resistance conference Sat 19 Oct, 12 noon-5pm, Bloomsbury Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Ave, London,WC2H 8EP. 5/3 To book tickets go to uniteresist.org or email info@uniteresist.org Austerity, Injustice and the Power of Protest Defend the Right to Protest conference Sun 27 Oct, 11am-5.30pm, University of London Union (ULU), Malet St, London,WC1E 7HY. Admission 5/3 unwaged/ 10 solidarity To book tickets go to defendtherighttoprotest.org
National London Lewes Dorset BRISTOL
Barnsley
Egyptrevolution and counter revolution Wed 25 Sep, 6.30pm, Bolton Socialist Club, 16 Wood St (off Bradshawgate), BL1 1DY Do we live in a democracy? Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, Friends Meeting House, Ship St, BN1 1AF How do ideas change? Thu 26 Sep, 7.30pm, 5th Floor, The Canteen, Hamilton House, 80 Stokes Croft, BS1 3QY Chile 1973reform, revolution and reaction Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, YHA, Narrow Quay, BS1 4QA Chile 1973reform, revolution and reaction Thu 26 Sep, 8pm, The Ostrich, 163 Bury Old Rd, Prestwich, M25 1JF The Tories and education their schools and ours Thu 26 Sep, 7.30pm, Shanghai Family Restaurant, 39 Burleigh St, CB1 1DG Terrorismwhat do socialists say? Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, Cathays Community Centre, Cathays Terrace, CF24 4HX Privilege theorywhat do socialists say? Thu 26 Sep, 7.30pm, Chesterfield Library, New Beetwell St, S40 1QN Immigrationthe myths used to divide us Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, Albatta Cafe, 18a Sir Isaacs Walk, CO1 1JJ How can we defend the NHS? Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, Koco Buildings Arches Industrial Estate, Spon End, CV1 3JQ Rosa Luxemburg and the mass strike Thu 26 Sep, 7pm, West End Community Centre, Mackworth Rd (next to Britannia Mill), DE22 3BL
DERBY COVENTRY COLCHESTER CHESTERFIELD CARDIFF CAMBRIDGE BURY AND PRESTWICH BRISTOL: SOUTH BRISTOL: NORTH BRIGHTON
Fracking, capitalism and the future of energy Thu 26 Sep, 8pm, The Duke William, 25 Coventry St, Stourbridge, DY8 1EP Scottish independence what do socialists say? Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, Dundee Voluntary Action, 10 Constitution Rd, DD1 1LL Yes to independence no to nationalism Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, Friends Meeting House, 7 Victoria St, EH1 2JL Chile 1973reform, revolution and reaction Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, CCA Glasgow, 350 Sauciehall St, G2 3JD Yes to independence, no to nationalism Thu 26 Sep, 7.30pm, Govanhill Pool, 99 Calder St, G42 7RA After the TUC votewhat sort of action do we need? Wed 25 Sep, 6.30pm, Brian Jackson House, 2 New North Parade, HD1 5JP The International Socialists tradition Thu 26 Sep, 7pm, Labour Club, 33-35 Silent St, IP1 1TF Rosa Luxemburg and the mass strike Thu 26 Sep, 7pm, Friends Meeting House, Meeting House Lane, LA1 1TX Jim Larkin and the 1913 Dublin lockout Thu 26 Sep, 7pm, Broadcasting Place, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds Met Uni, LS2 9EN
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DUDLEY
Revolutionaries and the united front Wed 25 Sep, 7.15pm, The Roundhay Road Resource Centre, 233-237 Roundhay Rd, LS8 4HS Austerity isnt working how can we beat the Tories? Wed 25 Sep, 7pm, Leicester Adult Education College, 2 Wellington St, LE1 6HL A rebels guide to womens liberation Thu 26 Sep, 7pm, The Black-E, 1 Great George St, L1 5EW Abortionwhy we defend a womans right to choose Thu 26 Sep, 7.30pm, La Maison du Gateau, 367 Harrow Rd, W9 3NA What is fascism and how do we fight it? Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, Vida Walsh Centre, 2b Saltoun Rd (near Effra Rd, facing Windrush Sq), SW2 1EP Crime, class and politics Thu 26 Sep, 7pm, Theatro Technis, 26 Crowndale Rd, NW1 1TT Can there be a revolution in Britain? Thu 26 Sep, 7pm, Matthews Yard, 1 Matthews Yard (off Surrey St), CR0 1FF How can we stop the Tories destroying the NHS? Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, Halkevi Community Centre, 31-33 Dalston Lane (near Dalston Junction), E8 3DF Syriaimperialism and resistance
LONDON: EALING LONDON: DALSTON LONDON: CROYDON LONDON: CAMDEN LONDON: BRIXTON LONDON: BRENT & HARROW LIVERPOOL LEICESTER
LEEDS: HAREHILLS
Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, W3 Gallery, 185 High St, Acton ,W3 8DJ Marxism and religion Wed 25 Sep, 6.30pm, Room B320, 3rd Floor, Brunei Building, Soas, Thornhaugh St, Russell Square,WC1H 0XG How do we fight for womens liberation? Thu 26 Sep, 7.30pm, The Round Chapel, Powerscroft Rd (corner Lower Clapton Rd), E5 0PP The history of the united front Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, The West Indian Culture Centre, 9 Clarendon Rd, N8 0DD Marxism and the new feminism Thu 26 Sep, 7pm, The Old Fire station, 84 Mayton St, N7 6QT Who was Leon Trotsky? Thu 26 Sep, 7.30pm, St Lukes Church, 62A Gibbon Rd, KT2 6AB Can the Labour left revive? Wed 25 Sep, 7.30pm, West Greenwich Community and Arts Centre, 141 Greenwich High Rd, (near Greenwich mainline and DLR Station), SE10 8JA Marxism and the new feminism Wed 25 Sep, 7pm, Stratford Advice Arcade, 107-109 The Grove (next to Morrisons car park), E15 1HP Chile 1973reform, revolution and reaction Thu 26 Sep, 7pm, Snug Room,
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reviews & culture
Socialist Worker
21 September 2013
13
The reality of how teenagers have learned to live online

New documentary InRealLife asks if immersing young people in the internet is a good thing. Ken Olende thinks it raises more questions than it answers
Two teenage boys discuss the pornography they watch on the net, and the view of women and sexuality it promotes. A young woman talks about how she felt so isolated when she lost her Blackberry that she had sex for money to be able to replace it. Beeban Kidrons documentary on teenagers and the internet opens like a warning for parents on the horrors of the web. But it develops into a kaleidoscope of hopes and worries about the potential of the internet, mobiles, games and all the electronic media we engage with. Between the interviews with teenagers that make up most of the film are interviews with experts on various aspects of psychology or the internet. The film raises, but doesnt answer, the question of to what extent young people today are more alienated in their relationships as a result of technological change. Teenage boys objectified women in degrading ways and teenage girls were pressured into sex before the advent of the internet. InRealLife does provide statistics about how much easier it is now to be offensive and bullying on sites like Facebook. and airy, but physical cables and servers, under the control of corporate multinationals. For firms such as Facebook and Google, the point of encouraging people to use their internet services is to gather information that can be sold. As one interviewee said, the firms are engaged in obfuscation of what the exchange is. They appear to offer users something for free when in fact they are offering something for money elsewhere.
Art
Broken Hands: a tribute to Victor Jara Otto Schade Until Sunday 29 September Rough Trade East, Dray Walk, Old Truman Brewery, 91 Brick Lane, London E1 6QL
Folk singer Victor Jara was captured by the Chilean army during the 1973 coup. He was tortured and killed in the concentration camp at the national football stadium. Chilean artist Otto Schade has created this mural as a homage to Jara. He said, I grew up during the dictatorship. Victor Jara was an inspiration to those of us who were trying to understand what was happening.
Freedom
Tom, aged 15, who came out and met his boyfriend online
Abusive
People feel much more confident to make abusive comments online ones they might not say in person. Kidron talks to the parents of a boy who hanged himself after online bullying. Another strand of the film discusses how modern technology emphasises a constant need for new experience,
lamenting the lack of time for quiet reflection. A student who plays X-Box five hours a day dropped out of university after failing his first year. He said he hadnt realised how much work was required for a degree which was true of many students before video games were invented. One theorist talks about how 40 percent of teenagers spend more time with friends online than they do face to face. But its not just internet
addiction that stops young people going out. Another interviewee points out that in his fathers generation young people were allowed to wander through hill and dale. Now although many teenagers would rather meet face to face, they communicate electronically because there is nothing to do or they arent allowed out. The films scariest moments show the reality of the cloud. Its not light
Many ordinary people use the internet to develop relationships and freedoms that otherwise arent possible. But the structure of the web is now controlled by companies using it as a vast experiment in how to extract money from people. In the closing credits the film thanks the many teenagers who agreed to be interviewed, but notes that all the major firms refused to take part. InRealLife probably asks too many questions and raises too many opinions to deal with in the time it has. Its spoken questions tend towards the apocalyptic, but its examples show more positive aspects. It points out that internet users dont just see cyberspace as dark and threateningYoung people try and carve out any space for them to have control. It concludes with the touching story of Tom, a gay teenager, who found it easier to come out online where he also met his boyfriend. The film follows the adventure of their first physical meeting after months of online dating.
InRealLife is directed by Beeban Kidron On release now. inreallifefilm.com
Otto Schades Victor Jara tribute
Theatre
Marx in Soho Directed by Sergio Amigo Every Wednesday to Sunday until 13October, Calder Theatre, 51 The Cut, London SE1 8LF www.calderbookshop.com
Historian Howard Zinns one man play is revived in London, starring Daniel Kelly as Karl Marx. It shows Marx resurrected to attack capitalism and defend communism against the distortions committed in his name.
A stunning showpiece, but still shaped by the cuts

Architecture
Birminghams new tenstorey, 189 million, civic library opened last week. It is an awesome sight, combining open study spaces, stunning views and beautiful roof gardens. The public spaces are created in a three dimensional interlocking design of concentric circles that link multi-level zones. More than 400,000 books are on display, with many more archives and space for up to a million books. It also houses Britains most important Shakespeare collection. It is an odd time to open the biggest public library in Europe when more than 200 local libraries closed in Britain last year. But it reminds us that showpiece architectural projects can be public spaces. It goes against the neoliberal mantra that everything new or revolutionary comes from the private sector or corporate sponsorship. The rich sneer that the poor dont appreciate this sort of thing. But where the public have access to such developmentsfor instance when national museums were made freethey have been both popular and appreciated. But even this library is caught up in the cuts. Trade unionists exposed the tendering document put out by Birminghams Labour council. It said this was a good opportunity to reduce costs of staffing, facilities management and public service overhead. Meanwhile, the council has reduced full time staff from 260 to 161, and cut combined library opening hours by 139 hours a week over the last year. Furthermore, library director Brian Gambles said, We need to find ways to generate commercial income. With 3.5 million visitors expected a year, the opportunities for learning at Birminghams library are great indeed. And so, undoubtedly, is the potential to make profit.
Publicity for Marx in Soho
DVD
Les Invisibles Directed by Sebastian Lifshitz DVD released 23 September by Peccadillo
Birminghams new library
Geoff Dexter
Eleven LGBT people in their 60s and 70s talk about their experience living in France. Some recall life in the less tolerant period between the wars. Others talk about their experience as older LGBT people in youth-obsessed times.
14
history & theory

Placing faith in the ballot box seemed to select a field of combat where working class power was at its weakest. Its potential economic muscle seemed strongest at the point of productionso this was their focus. And syndicalists agreed with the revolutionary Karl Marx that the state was an instrument of class domination that had to be overthrown. Syndicalists were disgusted by the parliamentarianism, opportunism and betrayal of the labour and socialist parties. They rejected the need for a political party altogether. They viewed all political issues as subordinate to industrial organisation and collective trade union struggle that could forge workers unity. necessarily concerned with winning immediate, limited improvements for workers. This leads them to act as reformist bargaining agents and mediators of industrial conflict. Trade unionism expresses the contradiction between capital and labourbut it isnt a means of resolving it. Syndicalist groups found it difficult to combine the dual roles of being both a revolutionary organisation and a trade union. The Bolsheviks also criticised syndicalists subordination of political issues to industrial struggle. They argued that this mirrored reformism, with its separation of politics and economics. It also fails to provide a consistent political alternative to the reformists. Bolshevik leaders criticised the syndicalist conception of the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist state as inadequate. Syndicalists saw this as coming via a general strike without workers seizure of state power or the establishment of a workers state based on workers councils. But this workers state is necessary to overcome the inevitable, violent counter-attack of the capitalists. The Bolsheviks also argued that syndicalists aversion to a political party handicapped their ability to overcome the unevenness in working class organisation and consciousness. It hampered their ability to build permanent organisations that could survive a fall in the level of workers struggle. Syndicalists stressed the leading role that a revolutionary minority could play. The Bolsheviks insisted that this was, in essence, an incomplete theory of a vanguard revolutionary combat party. Lenins party aimed to fuse industrial and political issues together with workers immediate struggles in order to win the long term goal of revolution. Most syndicalists remained aloof. But a number of the movements foremost leaders unceremoniously abandoned their previous strategy and joined the new Communist parties. The debates between the syndicalist and revolutionary Marxist traditions are relevant today, as a pop-up union in Brighton shows.
15
yndicalist u n i o n s emerged in m a ny co u n tries amid an international upsurge in militant strikes during the first two decades of the 20th century. They were committed to destroying capitalism through revolutionary trade union struggle. They rejected parliamentary politics in favour of reliance on workers strength at the point of production. They were also hostile to traditional unions with bureaucratic leaderships. Some existing unions were won over to syndicalist principles. Other workers formed new revolutionary unions and organisations. The Confederation Generale du Travail (CGT) in France was among the largest and most famous unions influenced by syndicalism. There was also the Unione Sindacale Italiana (USI) in Italy, the Confederacion Nacional de Trabajo (CNT) in Spain and the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. They became the majority tendency in the trade union movement in the years running up to the First World War. Elsewhere syndicalism became the rallying point for a significant minority of union activists. This was true of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the US. In Britain syndicalism was represented within the pre-war Industrial Syndicalist Education League. The international syndicalist movement developed rapidly. This reflected growing discontent with the failure of social democratic parties and mainstream unions to deliver real improvements in social and political conditions. Worker-intellectuals led the movement. These included Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurly Flynn in the US, Jim Larkin in Ireland, and Tom Mann and JTMurphy in Britain. An upsurge in workers militancy and growing political radicalisation provided fertile soil for syndicalists to gain a mass hearing. They won leadership of major strikes, such as the 1911 Liverpool Transport Strike, the 1913 Dublin Lockout and 1914 Red Week general strike in Italy. Syndicalisms heyday as a current inside the international trade union movement lasted only 20 years. It came to an end with the ebb of revolutionary workers struggles in the early 1920s. But the seizure of state power by Russian workers in 1917, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, proved the decisive ideological and political challenge. New revolutionary Co mmu n i s t part ies w er e
focus on science
Mars--the latest arena for capitalist competition?

John Parrington is excited by a new plan to send humans to Marsbut warns that our rulers want to use it for their own ends
Fed up with life, job, family and friends? Fancy starting again in a brand new environment? Then consider going somewhere where life will never be the same again. The catch is your new location is 34 million miles away. It will take a sevenmonth journey through space, to arrive at your new home, the planet Mars. Oh, and the trip is one way. When I first heard of the Mars One mission, I thought it was a spoof. The aim is to travel to the red planet on a rocket developed by PayPal founder Elon Musk, funded through a Martian version of Big Brother. It sounded like a plot by a science fiction writer with an over-fertile imagination. Yet the plan is real. And over 200,000 people have applied to be selected as the first colonists. I must admit to a sneaking admiration for them. And I hope that Mars One achieves its goal of landing humans on the planet in 2023. I wonder, though, whether most applicants have an inkling of the possible hazards. Travellers could be exposed to half the recommended lifetime radiation dose for astronauts. And a recent study suggests that the very dust of Mars could be toxic to humans. Thats if the mission ever gets off the ground, which some doubt. It has a shoestring budget compared to Nasa estimates for sending humans to Mars. But this also raises the question of whether the US space agency will ever fund such a mission. As a small child watching enrapt as Neil Armstrong made that first lunar footprint in 1969, I expected to see
R
er during the 1911 Liverpool Workers and supporters gath d a key role in the dispute playe ts transport strike. Syndicalis
can unions bring down the system?

Syndicalist unions committed to revolution flourished during the early 20th century. Ralph Darlington examines what they stood forand their limitations
established in the wake of the r e volu ti on. T he y r a pi d ly superseded most syndicalist organisations. Yet syndicalism made a significant contribution to the explosive wave of working class struggles of the period. It celebrated workers militant action and revolutionary unionism. This meant it made a distinctive ideological and political contribution to debates about how to fundamentally transform society.
The newspaper of the Industrial Workers of the World in the US
Syndicalists celebrated revolutionary unionism and militant action
Syndicalism was a philosophy of class warfare in which only the complete revolutionary overthrow of capitalism could emancipate the working class. The traditional conservative British trade union motto was a fair days wage for a fair days work. But syndicalists wanted the abolition of the wages system altogether. They rejected trying to win reforms under capitalism in favour of revolutionary industrial struggle.
eformist trade unions were condemned for their sectionalism, bureaucracy, re fo r m i s m a n d conservatism. These unions failed to adequately represent rank and file union members or unorganised workers outside their ranks. Syndicalists advocated reconstructing these unions on class-wide and revolutionary lines. In some countries they tried to change the character and goals of the unions. In many others they tried to construct new, revolutionary unions in opposition to the reformist organisations. Syndicalists believed an intensification of militant industrial struggle and direct action tactics had the potential to emancipate the working class. They saw a revolutionary general strike as the logical culmination of this struggle. The victorious Bolshevik revolution inspired leading syndicalists across the world. They took up an invitation to travel to Moscow to participate in debates about strategy and tactics at congresses of the Communist International. Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky acknowledged their revolutionary potential. He described syndicalists as people who not only wish to fight against the bourgeoisie but who, unlike [the reformists], really want to tear its head off. But Bolshevik leaders also saw serious flaws in syndicalist theory and practice and conducted sharp arguments. The Bolsheviks argued that abandoning existing reformist unions to their reactionary leaders isolated syndicalists from the wider working class. They said revolutionaries should instead try to win rank and file workers to their cause. Bolshevik leaders spelt out the paradox of trying to build revolutionary unions committed to workers power. Unions under capitalism are
An artists impression of the Mars One colony
back story
An Industrial Workers of the World poster (top). IWW leaders Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Big Bill Haywood (right) in 1913 (above) and the 1911 Liverpool transport strike (below)
Some workers at Sussex university formed a local, unofficial union earlier this year. They were angry because they felt the established unions werent fighting cuts and privatisation hard enough. This approach has similar problems to syndicalism in that it bypasses the problem of bureaucracy inside the unions. Going elsewhere to try and avoid the union bureaucracy lets bureaucrats off the hook. On top of this it abandons the other workers in those unions and pulls some of the best militants away from the mass of workers. And it downplays the potential for building a rank and file within existing unions.
This article is based on a talk given at Marxism 2013. Hear the full meeting at bit.ly/14Rx6Fp
Mars One aims to establish a permanent human colony on Mars by 2023 lSome 202,586 people have applied to be astronauts on the mission lStichting Mars One, a private Dutch firm, launched the project lThose eventually selected to travel to Mars will be expected to stay there lTheir journey will be filmed and broadcast to raise funds for the project
read more
Radical Unionism the rise and fall of revolutionary syndicalism by Ralph Darlington, 15.99 lA more detailed look at the debates in the early 20th century Available at Bookmarks, the socialist
bookshop. Phone 02076371848 or go to bookmarksbookshop. co.uk bit.ly/Z4IiaO lJames Connolly on industrial unionism bit.ly/16Q0XN5 lJT Murphy on how to build a rank and file
colonies on Mars before I reached adulthood. As the post-war boom crumbled into economic crisis, that dream was quickly dashed. Later, I learned that the moon landings werent driven by a quest for scientific knowledge but by the desire for US military dominance. And yet only three years after the last moon landing in 1972, a ragged guerrilla army drove the worlds greatest power out of Vietnam.
Over 200,000 people have applied to be selected as the first colonists
Recently Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, called for a bolder Nasa attitude to the colonisation of Mars. Aldrin backs an international effort that retains US leadership in space. This would be assisted by Chinese, Indian and other space experts from around the globe. With China pushing its own space programme, such assumptions of US dominance seem premature. And it would be naive to expect any future space race not to be integrally tied to military and economic competition. However, the exact economic and military benefits of a manned mission to Mars remain far from clear. And to complicate matters further, the input of private individuals like Elon Musk into space travel poses an increasing challenge to Nasas dominance. Personally, I still dream of humankind boldly going where no one has been before in the peaceful spirit of scientific discovery. A future socialist society will have many urgent issues to address. They will include the millions of children dying for want of clean water or global warming. But I hope one day there may be colonies on Mars, based not on profit by the few, but on the needs and fulfilment of everyone. Now that truly would be a red planet.
16
INFORMATION
ManchEster march & rally sunday 29 september 2013
Assemble Liverpool Road (M3 4FP) from 11am. Rally in Whitworth Park For more information and transport information contact l yOUR LOCAL UNION OR SHOP STEWARD l THE UNITE THE RESISTANCE ORGANISATION WWW.uniteresist.org l the tuc www.tuc.org.uk
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Socialist Worker
21 September 2013
17
Were working class and we know it, finds survey

Reports of the death of class consciousness have been greatly exaggerated according to the latest British Social Attitudes survey, says Sadie Robinson
We are told that class is outdated and that society has become more individualistic. But the latest British Social Attitudes report contradicts this. The 30th annual survey says not a great deal changed in how people see class between 1984 and 2012. Most people, around 60 percent, describe themselves as working class. Thats the same as in the early 1980s. The survey says, Britain retains an intriguing attachment to a working class identity. But its only intriguing for those whod swallowed the idea that the working class is smaller or less relevant today. Around seven in ten people say class has a big impact on opportunities. Again, thats the same as in the early 1980s. The researchers say their findings suggest a need for caution before accepting some of the more sweeping claims relating to individualisation. 1985. Interestingly much of the change in attitudes took place under Tony Blairs New Labour as the party shifted to the right. It is notable that there was relatively little change in attitudes towards welfare and redistribution before Labour came to power in 1997, the survey report says. And the change of attitude has been most marked among Labour identifiers. Much of the mainstream media seized on the long-term trend of hardening attitudes towards welfare as evidence that people back cuts. But just 6 percent back cuts to spending on health, education and social benefits.
Rich too rich, say the poor

A huge majority more than eight in tensay the income gap between rich and poor is too big. This is up from three quarters in 2010. Some 69percent think its the governments responsibility to reduce this inequality. The number of people who think ordinary people dont get their fair share of the countrys wealth has gone up. And more people agree that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor.
Spending
Collectivist
Indeed, they say the last 30 years have not seen a shift towards a less collectivist Britain. A massive 97 percent think its the governments responsibility to provide health care. And 96 percent think the government should provide a decent standard of living for older people. More than eight in ten said the government should provide decent housing for those who cant afford it. And a 59 percent majority think that the government should make sure that those out of work have a decent standard of living. This figure has dropped dramatically from 81 percent in
And people were more likely to back extra spending on benefits in 2012 than in 2011 34 percent compared to 28 percent. Researchers say this shift is likely to be driven by austerity and the experience of cuts. So 51 percent of people surveyed said unemployment benefits are too higha drop of 11 percent since 2011. And 47 percent agreed that cutting benefits would damage too many peoples lives, up from 42 percent in 2011. The reports authors conclude, Our findings raise doubts about the claim that inexorable long-term social changes are bringing about an unrelenting movement away from support for welfare or a more equal society.
Job losses change minds

The number of people who think those out of work could find a job if they really wanted one has fallen. Just over half those surveyed, 54 percent, agreed with this in 2012down from 68percent in 2008. Researchers say support for this view tends to drop during recessions. And 62 percent said the government should provide a job for everyone who wants oneup 10 percent since 2006.
Yes to unions, no to banks More open attitudes to sex

People are more favourable towards trade unions than they are towards politicians, banks or newspapers. Just 19 percent of people thought banks were well run down from 90 percent in 1983. The survey describes this as probably the most dramatic change of attitude registered in 30 years of British Social Attitudes. And 27 percent think newspapers are well run, compared to double that in 1983. Support for the police is also going going down. Only 18 percent said they trusted governments to put the needs of the nation above the interests of their own political party. The number of people who said they almost never trust governments tripled between 1986 and 2012. Yet two thirds of those surveyed said they had a great deal or quite a lot of interest in politics, doubling the figure in recent years. And fewer people agreed that people like me have no say in what the government does. The report says its a mistake to presume that we have witnessed a generalised loss of confidence in institutions. As we might have anticipated, this is not true of the NHS. More surprisingly perhaps, it is also not true of trade unions. Some 33 percent said trade unions were well runup from 29percent in 1983. Nearly half of those surveyed agreed that homosexuality is not wrong at all compared to just 17percent in 1983. Nine in ten were comfortable with gay people in public life, almost double the figure 30 years ago. But just over half thought gay couples shouldnt be allowed to adopt a baby under the same conditions as other couples. Only 12 percent said they thought sex outside marriage was always or mostly wrong. A record high 65 percent said there was nothing wrong at all in sex outside marriage. Yet 42percent said a couple should marry if they wanted children. Just 13 percent agreed that a womans role is to look after the home and familya huge change from 43 percent in 1984. More than nine in ten said a woman should be allowed an abortion if her health is at risk. And two thirds said she should be able to have an abortion if she doesnt want the child. More than half opposed this in 1983.
More online
read the full British Social Attitudes report at bsa-30.natcen.ac.uk
Mass support for the TUC march in 2011
Picture: Guy Smallman
Politicians fail to inspire us

Some 21 percent didnt identify with any political party. This is the highest the figure has ever been since the survey began in 1983. More than a third, 36 percent, identified with Labour compared to 27 percent with the Tories. The Lib Dems only attracted support from a measly 6 percent.
LGBT Pride protester
18
reports
health whipps cross
In Brief
Bus pickets protest against a pay freeze

Workers picketed the Network Warrington bus depot on Friday of last week, in the first of seven planned strikes against a pay freeze. The workers are members of the Unite union. They were next set to strike on Saturday of this week, and then once a week for a further five weeks. The strike paralysed all but a small number of contract bus services.
Hundreds join health rally

Health workers backed a motion of no confidence in their bosses at a meeting at Whipps Cross Hospital on Thursday of last week. The meeting brought together the RCN, Unison and Unite unions. Only one person voted against the motion. Workers also voted to back industrial action to defend jobs and wages, with two abstentions. Unison is preparing to hold an indicative ballot for strikes this week. Management has targeted Charlotte Monro, longstanding Unison branch chair and health activist. She has been charged with multiple counts of gross misconduct. Around 200 workers protested on Monday of this week at Whipps Cross main gate. A demonstration has also
On the march in Lewisham
Protesting at Whipps Cross been called for Saturday of this week. Hundreds of workers face downbanding wage cuts. Those who agree to be moved to lower grades will keep their current pay for 18 months. This is down from the three years agreed in the national NHS conditions. Bosses have threatened that anyone not agreeing will get their pay cut after only a year. lsaveournhs-el.org.uk
Coach makers are ready for strikes

Some 600 workers were set to strike at Britains biggest bus and coach manufacturer Alexander Dennis on Thursday and Friday of this week. The Unite union members are demanding a better pay rise. They began an overtime ban on 6 September. Alexander Dennis is based in Falkirk, central Scotland. Its profits have soared by more than 50 percentpartly thanks to funding from the Scottish parliament.
Lewisham march to celebrate victory

Up to 1,000 people marched in south east London last Saturday, celebrating a High Court decision overruling plans to slash services at Lewisham hospital. Health minister Jeremy Hunt is appealing the decision. The marchers were jubilant to have won and angry that Hunt still wants to close A&E, maternity and the hospitals specialist childrens A&E services. The campaigns legal team is in court again on 28and 29October to fight the appeal. Many people bought tickets for the Lewisham coaches to the Manchester demonstration on the Tory Party conference on Sunday 29 September. Maggie Palmer, Health Worker, Save Lewisham Hospital Steering Committee
March calls for ban on Arctic drilling

Up to 3,000 people marched to the Shell headquarters in central London last Sunday, demanding a ban on drilling for gas and oil in the Arctic. Greenpeace organised the march as part of a worldwide day of action. A giant puppet polar bear carried the names of more than three million people who have signed up to Greenpeaces Save The Arctic campaign.
FBU union announces strike over pensions

by Annette Mackin
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has called a fourhour strike on Wednesday of next week in England and Wales in protest at attacks on firefighters pensions. Workers will walk out from noon to 4pm. Simon Hickman is an FBU rep at Agecroft Fire Station in Greater Manchester. He told Socialist Worker, The firefighters I spoke to wanted sustained action. If we went out for eight days itll affect most members equally and make it difficult to cover. Its the only way well beat the strike breakers. The union said that Scotland wont be included in the strike. Simon said that is disappointing because the pension attack is a national issue. FBU members voted by 78 percent for strikes at the start of this month. The Tories want to make firefighters work until they are 60and be able to sack them before then if they are no longer fit to work. If a worker is forced out of the job at 55, they could lose around half of their pension. FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said the union had been left with no choice but call periods of strikes. The FBU could later link up with other unions that plan to strike, such as the CWU, NUT and NASUWT. Simon said, If we could link up with other strikers, that would be fantastic. But if not, fire workers are more than prepared to strike on our own.
firefighters
peoples assemblies
Doing nowt isnt an option

Around 500 people attended the North East Peoples Assembly launch in Newcastle last Saturday. People discussed resisting the Tories, racism, rebuilding unions and more. Anyone who argued for more strikes was well received. Beth Farhat from the Northern Region TUC said, If there are any groups of workers that feel the need to take industrial action, we will support them. Craig Johnston from the RMT union recalled the massive public sector pension strikes of 2011. He said, Coordinated strike action forced the government back to the table. I wish we hadnt missed the opportunity to take the action further. Dave Turner from the FBU union said, Doing nowt isnt an option. There will be a follow-up public meeting on Tuesday of next week, 6pm in St Johns Church hall, Newcastle. Nick Clark
Ballot for walkouts at Grangemouth

Workers at the Grangemouth oil refinery near Glasgow are balloting for strikes. The ballot of Unite union members will end on Friday of next week. Workers are in dispute over their terms and conditions, including pensions. Boss Jim Ratcliffe told the media earlier this month that the site was at a crossroads and was losing money.
essex
Up to 50 socialists, trade unionists and activists came to the first meeting of Essex Peoples Assembly last Saturday. People were clearly angry at the Coalitions attack on working class people. The assembly has become involved in organising for the protest at the Tory party conference on 29 September and will meet again. Jon Woollard
obituaries
Scott Williams 1993-2013
Scott Williams has died at the age of 19. Scott joined Barnsley SWP as a result of being involved in the student protests of 2010. He went on all the London protests against the abolition of EMA and hike in tuition fees. He quickly became a valued member, giving an excellent talk on the role of the police in the capitalist state. This flowed directly from his experiences of being kettled on the 9 December protest. Then in the late spring of 2011 he played a central role mobilising his fellow Barnsley demonstrations starting in 2010, including Scotts. My comrades at Barnsley College became my best friends and hanging out became endless jokes about killing the rich and planning the next walkout over the loss of EMA. It was a special and exciting time and I am very grateful to have had such a selfless and endearing comrade like Scott to share it with. Dave Gibson of the Homerton Rubber factory in Treforest during the 1970s. When he joined the International Socialists (IS), several of his workmates followed suit, thus forming the basis of Pontypridd IS. Ken was well aware of the need to expand and he encouraged students to join. He was always active in the Right to Work movement, regularly marching alongside unemployed workers. And he was a lifelong antifascist. Always a good man to have on your side. He is mourned by Mary, his son Stephen and daughter Tracey, Judith, his daughter Ellie and son Huw, six grandchildren and many friends. Julian Goss
Activists gather for Stop the War AGM

Around 150 delegates from around Britain came together for the Stop the War Coalition (StW) AGM last Saturday in London. Guest speakers included Guardian columnist Seumas Milne, who talked about the recent retreat by the Tories on their plan to attack Syria. Alex Kenny from the teachers NUT union emphasised the importance of unions backing the anti-war movement. The AGM applauded the TUCs recent decision to support StW.
Scott Williams (second from left) campaigning in Barnsley College students in support of his lecturers going on strike. First this was against redundancies, and then attacks on their pensions. On 30 June 2011 he was up early in the morning supporting the college picket lines, then on to a Barnsley union protest march, followed by a South Yorkshire one. Before that strike rally had finished he was on the coach to Marxism. In the next year he was badly affected with heart trouble and we saw less of him. But in the words of one his fellow students, We will remember him as a great guy. Ideas were developing for many students during the
Ken Cross 1944-2013

Socialists in South Wales are saddened by the death of Ken Cross, after a long and painful illness. Ken was best known as the indomitable militant convenor
Get your reports and pictures to us by 12 noon on Monday Post PO Box 42184, London SW8 2WD Phone 020 7819 1180 Email reports@socialistworker.co.uk
education workers
Socialist Worker
21 September 2013
19
Teachers are up for action against Gove

by Sadie Robinson
universities
National ballot over pay

The UCU union will ballot its members in universities for strikes over pay. The union served notice on the UCEA employers organisation on Tuesday of this week. The decision followed four regional meetings held to gauge the mood for action. Over 90 branches were represented in these meetings. They gave the union leadership a strong steer for action this year. As one member put it, Years of pay restraint have not delivered less casualisation, less pressure to work long hours or more job security. Delegates also linked the dispute to the fight against austerity. UCU members now have to go all out to win a strong vote for both strikes and action short of a strike. The ballot will open on Wednesday of next week and close on 10 October. Karen Evans, UCU NEC (pc)
Teachers rallied in London and Nottingham last Saturday in the run-up to regional strikes next month to defend pay, pensions, conditions and education. The NUT and NASUWT unions organised the rallies. Around 400 rallied in London and 250 in Nottingham. Teachers were confident about the upcoming walkouts. Karen Russell is a primary school teacher in Hounslow, west London. She told Socialist Worker, Weve got a lot of young teachers at my school and theyre really up for the action. Im surprised because theyve only been teaching for a week and a half. Im optimistic that well have a strong strike. Robert Juritz is a special needs teacher in the NUT. I really hope people will get mobilised, he said. Strikes are the only thing this government will listen to. Teachers havent swallowed the myth that their action is unpopular. Robert said, Some teachers worry that strikes will give them a bad name. But most parents are supportive
council workers
Wildcat walkout in Glasgow spreads across the city

by Raymie Kiernan
Social Workers across Glasgow are on unofficial strike. They held a 60-strong union meeting on Monday of this week and voted unanimously to join colleagues who walked out on Friday of last week. All ten workers in the office walked out last Friday after management suspended one of their colleagues for refusing to cover vacant posts. The Unison union members work in the North and East Community Homelessness Casework Team of Glasgow City Council Social Work Services. The workers are demanding management take action to prevent excessive workloads by agreeing to a cap of 35 cases per worker. The unofficial walkout continued as Socialist Worker went to press. One Glasgow Unison steward told Socialist Worker, Bosses arent recruiting the extra staff we need. This is at a time when more people rely on public services as the effects of Tory austerity kick in. nMembers of the GMB union at Stirling council have voted by 74 percent to strike to join an ongoing dispute with bosses. Unions at the council are promising more coordinated action. Previous strikes have involved the Unison and Unite unions. They are fighting bosses attempts to get staff to work more hours and cut wages by 4.5 percent. IT workers in Unison began a five-day strike on Monday of this week.
Part of the rally in London last Saturday
of teachers taking action to defend education. NASUWT member Antoinette added that there had been tremendous support from parents and governors for previous strikes. Union leaders, councillors, parents and students addressed the rally. Many condemned Tory education secretary Michael Goves attacks on the curriculum. One sixth form student from Tower Hamlets said
higher education was a way out of poverty. But now it seems our dreams are too expensive, she said. Teachers in Yorkshire, the Midlands and Eastern regions will walk out on 1 October. Those in London, the North East, South East and South West will follow on 17 October. Unions also plan a one-day national strike in November. Sally Kincaid, divisional secretary for Wakefield & District NUT, said
preparations for the strikes are well underway. Union reps are organising to leaflet local estates in lots of areas, she said. We are holding a joint public meeting for parents at a primary school next to Wakefield Hospital. The union rep there has agreed to circulate details for Unison members. The strikes will have a big impactand are a chance for other unions in dispute to take action at the same time.
manufacturing workers
brewery workers
Beer and lager delivery drivers working for Kuehne & Nagel Drinks Logistics (KNDL) at Swansea struck on Wednesday of last week. This is part of national action in protest at KNDLs restructuring exercisethe Beethoven Projectwhich breaches conditions and will lead to job losses. The strikers are in the Unite union. Unite officer Gareth Jones said, There will be further stoppages and we will have to up the ante if there is no change. There were about 20 people on the picket line, and spirits were good. One striker said, Hauling heavy beer kegs around is no joke. Trying to keep to impossible journey times is causing serious safety issues. These changes will only make things worse. The strike hit around 30,000 drinking establishments across Britain. Tim Evans
travellers rights
cleaners
Workers have Ardagh Glass bosses on the run

Bosses of multinational bottle company Ardagh Glass have made concessions to stave off strikes for the second time. Workers in the Unite and GMB union there were set to begin a campaign of national strikes on Monday of this week. Workers had rejected a two-year deal that bosses refused to improve on. But now they have offered 2.75 percent backdated to Februaryup from 2 percenta further 1 percent from 1 August and 3 percent for 2014/15, up from 2.5 percent. Workers agreed to suspend strikes while the new offer is voted on. One Unite member at the Barnsley plant told Socialist Worker, Now is a good time to hit the company hard. They have upped two final offers so farwe have them on the run. Dave Gibson nMore than 40 metal treatment workers walked out on Friday of last week and Monday of this week at King and Fowler in Liverpool. The Unite union members are demanding their first pay rise in five years. Workers plan to strike for a day every week and have begun an overtime ban. Send emails of support to Deborah.Titherington@ unitetheunion.org
Cop raids target Travellers

Police launched a series of raids targeting Irish Travellers last week. Veteran campaigner for Travellers rights Grattan Puxon was one of those raided. It was completely out of the blue, he told Socialist Worker. Police turned up at my house at a quarter to six in the morning last Tuesday and just showed me a warrant. Grattan said that around 12 police officers searched his home for over seven hours. He said, It was over the top. They took away three computers and three mobile phones. They took diaries, address books and documents. They also took a small amount of funding that was being used to help homeless Roma. Grattan is a high-profile supporter of Travellers at the Dale Farm site in Basildon, Essex. The council forcibly evicted Travellers there in October 2011. Grattan hasnt been charged with any offence. Weve had messages of support from around the world, he said. People should complain to the Home Office. Police claim that the Operation Elven raids relate to thefts of Chinese artefacts and rhinoceros horn. They also raided the Smithy Fen Traveller site in Cambridge and Dale Farm. Activists from Cambridge Unite Against Fascism monitored the Smithy Fen raid. One said police took everything pictures, furniture, phones, kids phones, bank cards, benefit books.
On strike for wages and conditions

Cleaners on the East Coast Mainline struck on Monday of this week. The RMT union members are employed by ISS. They are campaigning for the Living Wage, and for improvements to pensions and conditions. Strikers and supporters staged protests in London and York.
Walkout hits rich London borough

GMB union members who clean iconic housing blocks in Londons richest borough began a two-day strike on Monday of this week. The cleaners, employed by OCS in Kensington & Chelsea, are demanding the London Living Wage of 8.55 an hour. They are currently paid just 7.18 an hour.
1 No.2371 21 September 2013
bakers rise up to beat bosses

HOVIS Workers in Wigan are on strike to stop Premier Foods bosses using agencies to undermine their contracts
Picture: PA
by SARAH ENSOR in Wigan
Striking Hovis workers have stepped up the pressure on Premier Foods bosses, using mass pickets to disrupt delivery vans in Wigan this week. The 220 machine operatives and cleaners struck for a week earlier this month and won permanent, full time contracts for workers that bosses wanted to bring in on zero hours contracts. They then went out for a second week-long strike to stop bosses using agency workers to drive down pay and conditions. A third strike is planned to start on Wednesday of next week. Management asked us to go back to work and negotiate, said one striker. Were not doing itnot after all the times we asked to talk and they wouldnt. Theyre just bullies. Bosses at Hovis had agreed that agency workers were emergency cover. But in crumpet production 30 percent of staff have been agency workers
since last February. Around 300 s trikers and supporters marched through central Wigan last Saturday. The strikers, who are members of the Bfawu bakers union, were joined by Blackpool UCU, Manchester NUT and Unison, Rochdale Unison, Greater Manchester FBU as well as Unite and Usdaw unions.
refuse delivery. The product will have to come back and be scrapped. Another said, This morning was uplifting. Weve had so much support from other trade unionists whove done this before. Its been an inspiration and education. Police arrested three supporters on the picket line. One striker called the arrests absolutely diabolical, and workers agreed to chip in for their fines totalling 250. Pickets and sup p orters were set to welcome the strikers on their march back into work after the second strike on Wednesday morning. And in the middle of the third strike workers plan to join the march on the Tory party conference in Manchester on Sunday 29 September. They will march in a block with their own T-shirts. Strikers are angry about scabs shipped in from Birmingham who were made redundant from Hovis three months ago. Youd think theyd understand what were going
Diabolical
Blocked
And around 80 strikers and supporters blocked the lane from the factory to the main road in the early hours of Monday morningdespite a heavy police presence. The first van took an hour to get out and then drivers refused to cross the picket line, with one parking his lorry in the road. By 5am managers had only managed to drive four vans out, instead of the usual 15 or 20. They had already missed delivery slots at supermarkets and distribution centres. This was the most effective picket line, said one striker. Any disruption is piling pressure on the directors. If the lorries are late, stores will
Mass pickets stopped lorries on Monday, causing chaos for bosses
Support the strike

end the workers a S solidarity message
at region4@bfawu.org
Raise money for the strike fund

You can download a collection sheet from bit.ly/188royf
nvite them to speak I at your workplace or campaign meeting

Contact geoff. atkinson@bfawu.org
through after it happened to them, said one striker. But the strikers stand against agencies and zero hours contracts has struck a chord with workers across Britain who are sick of seeing their workplace rights eroded away. Sean Vernell, joint secretary of Unite the Resist ance and a member of the UCU union executive, invited strikers to London to speak at colleges. He said, You will get a fantastic response because we understand. In my college 40 percent of the staff are on hourly contracts. A striker said, Were getting loads of support. Weve spoken at hospitals and fire stations in Manchester, and were going to Sheffield and Liverpool. Council worker Dave Lowe told strikers at the rally last Saturday, Care service workers are also fighting zero hour contracts. You have restored our faith in the ability to fight back.
Visit the picket line
Picture: Gary Frodsham
Hovis main gate, Cale Lane, Wigan WN2 1HD
Published weekly except final week of December. Published by Larkham P&P, London SW8 and printed by trade union labour at Trinity Mirror Printing Ltd
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MARCH ON THE TORIES IN MANCHESTER

Join the TUC demonstration l Sunday 29 September l See advert page 16

STAMP ON THE TORIES

STOP ROYAL MAIL SELL OFF

| No 2371 | 21 September 2013 | socialistworker.co.uk

Teachers all out to force back government cuts

Victory against racist niqab ban in Birmingham

Strikers escalate against Premier Foods bosses

Gearing up for post fight >>Pages 4&5

MARCH ON THE TORIES IN MANCHESTER

| No 2371 | 21 September 2013 | socialistworker.co.uk

Socialist Worker 21 September 2013

MPs latest expenses claim scam is strictly a family affair

We dont want a new housing bubble

Were a thousand miles away from a housing bubble in the UK

Gods and spirits make bosses rich

Working class hero es?

TOFF OF THE WEEK

A policemans loot is a mere 824.40

A Boss at Sellafield l operator Nuclear Management Partners

Our little yellow friends may have chickened out

Zero-hours fire scabs

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Socialist Worker 21 September 2013

Protests pile on pressure to scrap the bedroom tax

IN BRIEF Sexual health suffers cuts

Ten years jail if you overclaim

Serco guards under fire

Picture: John Green

Files show MI5 knew of abuse

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Lib Dems keep on digging

Sabra and Shatilla camp massacres

Socialist Worker 21 September 2013

news & comment

Socialist Worker 21 September 2013

Six weeks to stop Tories selling off Royal Mail

its a womans right to choose what to wear

Thousands set to march with TUC in Manchester

Unite the Resistance conference

Privatisation costs jobs and services

march for a fightback W

had cut 20,000 jobs by the time it was privatised in 1988

has cut 100,000 jobs since it was privatised in 1984

This month in Socialist Review

New pamphlet out now

Socialist Worker 21 September 2013

Labourstill shying from fighting bosses

Analysis simon basketter

Victory for campaigners as college reverses niqab ban

Students are back---and are taking on the Tories

Email ideas to reports@ socialistworker.co.uk

Students in Glasgow against cuts in 2011

Picture: Duncan Brown

Socialist Worker 21 September 2013

Did cops alter fans statements after Hillsborough disaster?

Arrested anti-fascists get together to fight back against police intimidation

Hovis strikers escalate pickets to frustrate bosses >>Page 20

Duggan inquest opens

Socialist Worker 21 September 2013

IN BRIEF Unprecedented demo in Poland

Indefinite strikes spread in Greek sackings battle

Socialist Worker 21 September 2013

Socialist Worker 21 September 2013

Mass support for the TUC march in 2011

On the march in Lewisham