Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/685/12756
From The Socialist newspaper, 14 September 2011
Bombardier
10,000 marched against job cuts at Bombardier on Saturday 23 July in the biggest demonstration in Derby for decades, backed by the RMT and other trade unions, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)
Derby Socialist Party is continuing to campaign for the nationalisation of Bombardier. We say that the government should take Britain's last remaining train manufacturer into democratic public ownership to save jobs.
Fearing rolling heads at the next election, local Tory MPs have begun to criticise the government's decision to award a £1.4 billion contract to build trains for Thameslink to German company Siemens. It looks likely that Derby city council, currently led by the Tories in coalition with the Liberals, will fund a legal challenge, launched by trade union Unite, against the government's decision.
We support the City Council's decision to back Unite's challenge. But we have no illusions that Cameron and Clegg's local dogsbodies are in any way concerned about saving jobs in Derby, having just made 500 council workers redundant. They are terrified by the prospect of Bombardier workers and local residents organising their own action, and this has forced them to get behind the campaign.
While the key to success in the Bombardier dispute lies in whatever action Bombardier workers themselves, organised in trade unions like RMT, Unite and GMB, decide to take, it is clear that organising a mass campaign of local residents in support of these workers is crucial.
The Socialist Party's campaign to nationalise Bombardier has been immensely popular, with our Saturday stall often swamped with members of the public who agree with us. Many people have expressed an interest in joining the Socialist Party - linking our demand with the need to more fundamentally transform society in the interests of workers, not bosses.
Jethro Waldron
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In The Socialist 14 September 2011:
Socialist Party features
We need a programme of action to fight back!
Austerity policies strangle growth
Socialist Party youth and students
Pampered politicians plan education massacre... STOP THEM!
Low pay and the housing crisis
Youth must join pensions struggle
EMA cuts: doors close on our future
Cuts hit young people hard in Hastings
Stop attacks on pensions
NHS pensions - Pay more, work longer and get less!
Socialist Party workplace news
No to pay cuts in Carmarthenshire
International socialist news and analysis
How can the national rights of Palestinians be achieved?
Socialist Party news and analysis
NSSN calls on TUC to open the floodgates of mass action
Nationalise the banking system!
Childcare costs push parents into hardship
Socialist Party review
Socialist Party reports and campaigns
Bristol: Labour's short-lived valour
Hundreds march against Dale Farm evictions
May Day protest case goes to Strasbourg
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