The Socialist 15 March 2007

£billions for rich... Pennies for us!

Minimum wage insult

UNISON Health group votes for summer demo

Hewitt's 'day of exchange'

Fighting the cuts in Camden

Lambeth council attacks services for vulnerable people

Barking BNP don't oppose council cuts

Lewisham council's outrageous attack

Kurdish asylum seekers living in fear

Northern Ireland Assembly elections: Another sectarian headcount...

We Won't Pay Campaign conference success

Solidarity builds party profile ahead of elections

February revolution 1917 - what lessons for today?

US continues threats over Iran's nuclear ambitions

Iraq war: Convicted Bush official is 'fall guy' over WMD scandal

Celebrating International Women's Day

Tenants vote no to council housing sell-off

Market-driven 'social housing' threatens tenants

Will government plans stop climate change?

Build the campaign to defeat fees

International Socialist Resistance (ISR) and Socialist Students conference

Trade Unions and the Labour Party: CWU branch asks some awkward questions

Campaign for a New Workers' Party conference

Reinstate Dave Condliffe now

UNISON leaders lead members into dead end

SOUTHAMPTON council strike

PCS prepares for more struggles

Right wins lecturers' union leadership - on a 14% turnout

Previous issues, etc

Print this issue




Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/478/2168

Google search the site	Printable version	email to friend

Home | The Socialist 15 March 2007 | Join the Socialist Party

Subscribe | Donate | Bookshop

Scotland

Solidarity builds party profile ahead of elections

TWO HUNDRED members of 'Solidarity - Scotland's Socialist Movement' attended the party's policy conference at the beginning of March. An upbeat conference discussed Solidarity's draft manifesto for the 3 May Scottish parliament elections.

Conference began however, with a minutes silence for the two opencast miners killed a few days earlier in an industrial accident.

PCS union national president Janice Godrich gave a report of the civil service workers' battle against job cuts and privatisation.

Nan Wilson, one of hundreds of workers sacked by Simclar boss Sam Russell expressed her anger at their brutal treatment by Scotland's eighth richest man. 400 workers turned up for their work only to find the gates locked with a note saying their jobs were gone.

MSP Tommy Sheridan also spoke in the morning session outlining Solidarity's commitment to fighting low pay, privatisation and opposing New Labour's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He explained that Solidarity was standing across Scotland on 3 May to offer a principled socialist opposition to the rigged free-market agenda promoted by all the main parties. Polls have indicated that support for Solidarity is growing the more it is understood that it is the party led by Tommy Sheridan and fellow MSP Rosemary Byrne.

International Socialists (the Socialist Party's counterpart in Scotland) member Philip Stott introduced the section of the draft manifesto that deals with the issues that go beyond the current powers of the Scottish parliament.

He pointed out that in a week that saw the five big banks announce record profits of almost £40 billion, a report into low pay and poverty in Scotland found one million people living below the poverty threshold, including 250,000 children.

Solidarity can build support by exposing the scandals of low pay, inequality and capitalist exploitation while standing clearly for socialist policies to solve these problems based on democratic public ownership of the economy.

Over 20 proposals relating to the Scottish parliament were agreed, including free school meals, scrapping of the council tax, nationalisation of the railways and the abolition of the local government housing debt.

Conference ended with an emergency motion on Gordon Brown's proposed pay cut on public-sector workers moved by Alan Manley, an NHS UNISON member, and a member of International Socialists. He condemned this blatant attack on low-paid workers and called for national action to halt the dismantling of the NHS.

With just eight weeks to go until the 3 May Scottish and local government elections Solidarity members face an urgent task in raising the profile of the new party. However, Solidarity's successful intervention in the recent PCS strike, Simclar workers' fight, and the anti-war movement, have all underlined the fact that Solidarity is increasingly seen as the only viable socialist organisation in Scotland.