Archive for January 2001

5 January 2001

Special Appeal - Fund our campaign

THE SOCIALIST Party has smashed through its quarterly fighting fund target with a few days to go, thanks to the excellent campaigning activity throughout the quarter, despite the appalling weather...

5 January 2001

Nationalise the Railways

Rail Privatisation Bring Chaos: THE RAIL chaos that followed last October's Hatfield disaster has continued into the new year with more cancellations and lengthy delays adding to passengers' misery...

5 January 2001

Strike Shuts Down Hackney

OVER 5,000 Hackney council workers walked out on a 24-hour strike on 20 December. At least 23 schools closed down due to action from UNISON and GMB union members...

5 January 2001

School students join the protest

HACKNEY COUNCIL is making over £22 million of cuts including £650,000 cuts in education services. Worse still it is seriously considering privatising every school, writes Clare James.

5 January 2001

Hackney Workers can win

OVER 5,000 Hackney council workers across dozens of separate workplaces came out on strike on 20 December against draconian cuts to jobs and services, writes Bill Mullins, Socialist Party Industrial Organiser.

5 January 2001

Vauxhall Luton - Angry workers ready for Action

AFTER CAR multinational General Motors (GM) announced it was closing its Vauxhall plant in Luton, angry workers laid siege to the firm's headquarters...

5 January 2001

Socialist Alliances: another step in the wrong direction

THE SOCIALIST Alliances were initiated by the Socialist Party in the early 1990s. Throughout their history they have tried to bring together different Left parties and organisations, writes Hannah Sell.

5 January 2001

2001 - a year of Workers' reawakening

EIGHTEEN MONTHS ago, George W Bush was told by an economic adviser that the USA was heading for a "painful adjustment" (read recession or slump), writes Peter Taaffe, general secretary, Socialist Party.

5 January 2001

Greek general strike against bosses' attacks

ON THE same day that tens of thousands workers and youth were demonstrating on the streets of Nice, (7 December), the Greek working class held a general strike - the second in the last two months, writes Christina Ziaka, Xekinina, Greek section of the CWI.

5 January 2001

Who's Pulling Labour's Strings?

NEW LABOUR started the year showing its willingness to fight the forthcoming general election on behalf of big business by accepting mega bucks from the wealthy...

12 January 2001

Students worse off under Labour

STUDENTS TODAY are well-off. At least that is what Malcolm Wicks, New Labour MP for Croydon North, says, writes Kieran Roberts, Save Free Education and Socialist Students.

12 January 2001

Now the Party's Over

What We Think: THE BELL is tolling for the decade-long US economic boom. With all the US economic indicators showing signs of slowdown, US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's surprise cut in US interest rates...

12 January 2001

Hackney: stand up to these attacks

MAX CALLER, Hackney council's managing director, and Hackney's councillors are giving council workers and residents no New Year's cheer, writes Chris Newby.

12 January 2001

Hackney debate: How to take the dispute forward

We have received a letter from John Page, branch secretary of Hackney Unison, taking up points made by Bill Mullins concerning the role of the negotiating committee of Hackney UNISON in the current dispute...

12 January 2001

Fight for all Vauxhall jobs

JUST BEFORE Christmas it was announced that when production of the Vauxhall Vectra was finished, the replacement model would not be made at the Luton plant, writes David Wevill, Vauxhall Ellesmere Port plant, personal capacity.

12 January 2001

Import controls no solution

THE LUTON factory is surrounded by smaller supplier factories who were told they had to locate nearby or they'd lose their contracts with Vauxhall, writes Bill Mullins.

12 January 2001

He who pays the piper...

NEW LABOUR has reluctantly admitted receiving three individual donations of £2 million each. The three donors - supermarket magnate and government minister Lord Sainsbury, wealthy publisher Lord Hamlyn...

12 January 2001

Thousands rally in support of Czech TV workers

ON THE night of 3 January 100,000 people packed into Wenceslas Square, Prague, the Czech capital, in support of a strike and occupation by national TV journalists against right-wing political interference...

12 January 2001

Exposed: Labour's Election Hype

TONY BLAIR, in best baby-kissing electioneering mode, seems to have changed New Labour's policy on teachers...

19 January 2001

Don't close our schools!

Coventry Council Threatens Education: COVENTRY'S LABOUR-controlled council, backed by the Tories, is rushing through a massive cuts and closures programme, writes Councillor Dave Nellist leader, Socialist group, Coventry city council.

19 January 2001

Coventry Students' expulsion threat over fees

COVENTRY UNIVERSITY management have threatened students that if they don't pay their fees by 1 February they could be excluded from all classes, university computers, libraries etc, writes Tim Lessells, Coventry University Socialist Students.

19 January 2001

Scotland: ISM leaders desert CWI

AT A conference on Sunday 14 January, a majority of our sister organisation in Scotland (International Socialist Movement - ISM) decided to leave our international organisation, the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI), writes Hannah Sell, Socialist Party Executive and CWI international executive committee.

19 January 2001

Mumia Abu Jamal must live

BLACK JOURNALIST and political activist Mumia Abu-jamal has spent nearly 20 years on Pennsylvania's death row for the alleged murder of a Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner, writes Keith Pattenden.

19 January 2001

Socialist election negotiations

THE SOCIALIST Alliance Liaison Committee met on 13 January to push forward with plans to contest the general election, writes Clive Heemskerk.

19 January 2001

Safety goes down the tube

PUBLIC-PRIVATE Partnership (PPP) is the government's preferred mechanism for privatising the infrastructure of London Underground...

19 January 2001

Middle East Crisis: The failure of imperialism

IN THE dying days of his presidency, Bill Clinton tried desperately to achieve agreement on the unresolved issues in the negotiations between Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government of Ehud Barak...

19 January 2001

Stop the bosses' jobs slaughter

Vauxhall Luton...Ford Dagenham...Corus Steel...: "BRITAIN IS working again" says Education and Employment secretary David Blunkett, adding that "jobs are there for the taking"...

26 January 2001

Hackney Council Crisis Workers strike back at jobs threat

HACKNEY COUNCIL workers are holding mass meetings as we go to press to discuss three more days of strike action against council attacks on 29, 30 and 31 January, writes Chris Newby.

26 January 2001

Car workers: Turn pressure into strike action

SATURDAY'S MAGNIFICENT 10,000-strong demo of Luton car workers, their families and other supporters reflected the anger people feel against the multinational companies who threaten to close down whole towns after the first nervous twitch of their shareholders...

26 January 2001

Show of strength from car workers

THE DEMONSTRATION became more upbeat as it went along and felt the support from the Saturday shoppers, many of whom joined the demo...

26 January 2001

Huntingdon Life Sciences: Big Business rescues a friend

ANIMAL TESTING at Huntingdon Life Science (HLS) had gone on for many years before it began attracting attention, writes Ken Smith.

26 January 2001

Scotland - an exchange of letters

LAST WEEK we reported in The Socialist of the International Socialist Movement in Scotland's decision to abandon the Committee for a Workers' International - the international socialist organisation to which the Socialist Party is affiliated...

26 January 2001

10th anniversary of the Gulf War

Much blood for oil: TEN YEARS ago a US-led coalition of military powers went to war with Iraq, marking a new period of instability on a world scale...

26 January 2001

Privatised power blacks out California

FOR THE first time since World War Two the state of California imposed a black out of electricity supplies...

26 January 2001

Put the Fat Cats on Trial

Stop the privatisation disaster: PUT THE privatised rail bosses in the dock! That's the message from The Socialist and one that's coming loud and clear from the travelling public after last October's fatal Hatfield crash...