It’s election season again. It’s a time of photo-ops and promises, manifestos and controversies. But behind the endless announcements, allegations and denials, is anything really at stake? After 13 years of Labour government, many people want a change. The economy on which Gordon Brown staked his reputation as Chancellor has nosedived on his watch as Prime Minister.
China is experiencing a rising wave of industrial unrest, as workers increasingly turn to collective action to fight against their exploitation.
Rapid industrialisation over the past few decades has created massive internal migration from the countryside to the cities on an unprecedented scale, dwarfing Britain’s industrial revolution two centuries ago. Now, this new urban working class has begun to flex its muscles, disrupting production in order to assert their demands.
The academics’ union UCU at the University of Sussex cancelled industrial action planned for late June after university bosses declared they were “hopeful” they could avoid any compulsory redundancies.
It soon emerged however that compulsory redundancies had been transformed into ‘voluntary’ ones and the number of job losses remained at over 100, with a similarly severe impact on many courses and workloads expected.
One student mocked the management statement: “We are pleased to announce that the 100 have jumped, and were not pushed. The knives to their backs were unrelated.” A lecturer also commented that “I, among many, have been made ‘voluntarily’ redundant, after being selected for compulsory redundancy. The University seems to have got rid of everyone it wanted by forcing us to accept a ‘voluntary’ settlement.”
A new Education Bill is set to massively extend Labour’s controversial Academies programme.
The Education Secretary Michael Gove has now added Ofsted-graded “outstanding” schools to the hit-list. His plans promise even more Academies; over 150 schools have already applied for Academy status, with hundreds more enquiring for further information or registering an interest. The Academies scheme allows non-state bodies, including religious groups, businesses and voluntary groups to take control of schools in exchange for a nominal amount of funding for new facilities.
The government’s answer to the problem of unemployment during the biggest economic crisis since the 1930s is not to create any new jobs, but to launch a massive attack on our living standards.
The Government’s “tough but fair” budget will hit the poorest the hardest, as well as having a disproportionate impact on women, two reports have found.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) describes the budget as signalling the “longest, deepest, sustained period of cuts to public services spending at least since WWII”. Chancellor George Osborne claims austerity is “unavoidable” in order to reduce Britain’s deficit, and business leaders have sounded their approval for the plans. However, trade unions warned of hundreds of thousands of job losses, accusing the government of “declaring war on public services”.
Three delegates from the Solidarity Federation attended the conference mainly dealing with 'precarity', self-management and co-operatives. The conference was hosted at the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo's IX anarchist camp near León in northern Spain.
There were about 100 people at the camp and 60 participants in the conference. Ten sections were represented: CNT-F (France), FAU (Germany), Priama Akcia (Slovakia), ZSP (Poland), SolFed (Britain), SP (Portugal), USI (Italy), KRAS (Russia), NSF (Norway) and of course the CNT-E (Spain). There were also two guest organisations: MASA from Croatia and two delegates from the Peruvian newspaper La Humanidad, who however arrived several hours after closure of the conference due to immigration/visa problems.
The Summer 2010 edition of our national newspaper is now available. Featuring articles on the emergency budget cuts, analysis of the welfare reforms, know your rights: beating the bailiffs, international news, academy schools, killer cops and much more.
Articles and pdf version are available from here:
http://www.solidarityfederation.org.uk/catalyst/catalyst-24-summer-2010
The second issue of Liverpool Solidarity Federation’s free local newsletter, Wildcat!
Contents:
- Cameron’s “Big Society” Class War
- Spirit of Shankly
- Rembering Liverpool’s Bloody Sunday
- Crosby versus Sainsbury’s
A brief report from the North London locals' co-operation with the London branch of the Anarchist Federation around the Socialist Worker Party's glorified Marxism 2010 event.
NLSF continued its practice of co-operation with London AF by sharing a stall with anarchist literature outside the SWP's Marxism event - a annual excerise in Leninist brainwashing of usually young people and students who show a genuine interest in fighting for socialism.