Archive for May 2006
4 May 2006
End of Berlusconi era - clean break needed with neo-liberal policies
Italy: SILVIO BERLUSCONI, the tycoon prime minister of Italy for five years, has finally resigned. The general election of 9-10 April gave the centre-left Unione alliance a paper thin majority in both houses of parliament (See article...
4 May 2006
Germany: WASG national congress - shift to the right
AMID THREATS by part of the national leadership to split away, last weekend's national congress of the WASG* (Election Alternative for Work and Social Justice) agreed to unify with the Linkspartei.PDS (L.PDS, Left Party/PDS - the former East German 'Communists') and to take measures against the Berlin WASG if it went, writes Robert Bechert, CWI, Berlin.
4 May 2006
US students say 'education not war'
THOUSANDS OF students across the US 'Twin Cities' [Minneapolis and St Paul] walked out of class on 28 April to protest against the occupation of Iraq and military recruitment in schools, and demanding money for education and social needs, not war, writes By Socialist Alternative members.
4 May 2006
USA - immigrant workers strike to demand equal rights
USA, MONDAY 1 May: Shops, farms, restaurants, meat processing companies and factories closed; parts of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles and other cities are brought to a standstill; workers, school students, perhaps half-a-million in Chicago alone, join in demonstrations and protest rallies across the country.....
4 May 2006
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4 May 2006
LSC staff say "enough is enough"
"WHEN WILL Mark Haysom stop running the LSC as a PLC - before or after his knighthood?" This was typical of the comments from the Sheffield picket line about the chief executive of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) last Friday, 28 April, writes Marion Lloyd, PCS national executive committee.
4 May 2006
Solidarity on the PCS picket line: ON 2-3 May, Jobcentres, benefit offices, pension centres and the Child Support Agency (CSA) were hit by strike action as 80,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) held a two-day stoppage over worsening service levels and job cuts in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)...
4 May 2006
Socialist Party members’ election successes
Press release Socialist Party members – standing as Socialist Alternative candidates and on behalf of Save Huddersfield’s NHS campaign - scored outstanding successes in the local elections.
4 May 2006
Liberals withdraw Cardiff schools closure plans...
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4 May 2006
Swansea ballot shows depth of support for NHS
SWANSEA SOCIALIST Party members, campaigning against the loss of hospital beds, say the public are on our side after an informal ballot held in the city centre on 29 April...
4 May 2006
THE CAMPAIGN to defend the NHS from government attacks is growing. It has recently been boosted by the decision at UNISON health conference to back industrial action and the magnificent demonstration through Stoke-on-Trent on 29...
11 May 2006
Student union leaders hide truth about lecturers' action
LECTURERS IN the NATFHE and AUT unions are engaged in a marking boycott at universities across the country. They are struggling for the wage increase that university vice-chancellors said was the main reason for charging students, writes Iain Dalton, Huddersfield Socialist Students.
11 May 2006
Postal union rejects pay offer
THE COMMUNICATION Workers' Union (CWU) Postal national executive committee has just overwhelmingly rejected what was termed as Royal Mail's full and final offer and which Royal Mail called "excellent" and "inflation-busting", writes Gary Clark, vice-chair, CWU Scotland No 2 branch.
11 May 2006
The part-nationalisation of Bolivia's gas and oil industry by president Evo Morales, similar to Hugo Chávez's decree in Venezuela earlier this year, is another blow to the 'neo-liberal' agenda of big business and imperialism in Latin America...
11 May 2006
Germany: 'Unity' at the expense of the working class
In recent months political and social activists in Germany have been gripped by the widely publicised open debate in the WASG (Election Alternative for Work and Social Justice, the anti-neo-liberal party that developed in 2004), writes Robert Bechert, cwi, Berlin, Germany.
11 May 2006
Iraq - the nightmare continues
THE SHOOTING down for the first time of a British military helicopter over the southern Iraq city of Basra last week, in which five servicemen were killed, underlines the growing hostility to the occupying forces in the south of the country...
11 May 2006
Venezuela: Fight for socialism
"THE MOST dangerous man in the region" is US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice's description of Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's president who is visiting London this week, writes Karl Debbaut.
11 May 2006
Female factory workers in Russia start hunger strike
Six female workers at the 'Kholodmash' factory in Yaroslavl city, Russia, including the leader of the plant's trade union, Olga Boiko, started an "indefinite hunger strike", on 16 May...
11 May 2006
Dangers in Respect's development
RESPECT STOOD over 150 candidates and got 16 elected: 12 in Tower Hamlets, three in Newham and one in Birmingham. The victories of candidates standing against the Iraq war, privatisation and the other neo-liberal attacks of New...
11 May 2006
Local elections: A death blow for Blair?
THE 2006 council elections in England have increased the pressure on Tony Blair and New Labour. The results show a continuing and increasing disaffection with the establishment parties. Socialist Party candidates scored some important...
11 May 2006
Manchester: JOBS AND services across Greater Manchester NHS trusts are under serious threat. Pennine Acute Trust plans to slash 800 jobs to try to tackle a £21 million deficit. That trust runs four hospitals - North Manchester General, Royal...
11 May 2006
Excellent results for the Socialist Party
THE SOCIALIST Party secured some excellent results in the local elections around the country...
11 May 2006
Stoke - BNP wins close-run election
The BNP unexpectedly won the Abbey Green Ward in Stoke-on-Trent after a very closely fought election. The betrayal of working-class people by New Labour and the lack of a mass alternative has created fertile ground for the growth...
11 May 2006
Increased votes for socialism in Lewisham
THE SOCIALIST PARTY councillors, Ian Page and Chris Flood, were both re-elected with increased votes in Lewisham’s Telegraph Hill ward...
11 May 2006
Third socialist councillor elected in Coventry
After a hard fought battle and nail-biting count, the Socialist Party regained a third councillor in St Michaels ward, Coventry. The Labour Party, which had narrowly won the seat two years ago by 16 votes, was defeated by Rob Windsor...
11 May 2006
Huddersfield: voters choose a socialist and a fighter!
"We’re voting for Jackie – she’s the only one we trust to fight for our services. All the others have promised us everything and delivered nothing"....
11 May 2006
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18 May 2006
LORD JOFFE's Physician Assisted Suicide bill was blocked in the House of Lords on 12 May but he has pledged to reintroduce it at a later date...
18 May 2006
Massive European Social Forum rally in Athens
Socialist policies needed to resist war, cuts and capitalism: ON 6 May, in Athens, up to 100,000 Greek workers and young people including around 9,000 political activisists from the rest of Europe marched against war and capitalist exploitation, writes Andros, Xekinima (CWI, Greece).
18 May 2006
Germany: WASG rebels suspended
IN AN unprecedented but not unexpected act, the national executive of Germany's new left party, WASG (Election alternative - work and social justice), suspended the regional executives in the federal states of Berlin and Mecklenburg Vorpommern, writes Tanja Niemeier, Committee for a Workers' International.
18 May 2006
Ailing German capitalism slashes workers' wages and conditions
WHEN THE Socialist Party's general secretary Peter Taaffe visited Berlin last month to speak at the very successful Socialism Days meeting, he found a marked difference - evident in the conditions of the city's poor in particular - from the situation when he last visited a few years ago...
18 May 2006
Female factory workers in Russia start hunger strike
Six female workers at the 'Kholodmash' factory in Yaroslavl city, Russia, including the leader of the plant's trade union, Olga Boiko, started an "indefinite hunger strike", on 16 May...
18 May 2006
Lecturers continue the fight for decent pay
AUT conference: FROM 10-12 May, higher education union AUT held its last annual council (conference) before its merger with NATFHE to form the University and College Union, UCU, writes Thomas House.
18 May 2006
Northumbria lecturers forced to strike
Northumbria University: "UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT are acting like 19th century industrial capitalists using draconian strike breaking tactics" a geography lecturer at Northumbria University in Newcastle told the socialist...
18 May 2006
Fighting strategy needed to save jobs
WORKERS AT Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port plant are facing massive job cuts. GM Europe want to cut 12,000 jobs as part of its 'restructuring' plans and Ellesmere Port could lose at least 1,000 jobs...
18 May 2006
Privatisation fails workers and customers
COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY NTL have announced over 1,500 job losses. They recently merged with Telewest after both companies ended up in financial difficulties. This highlights the need for a democratically controlled public, writes Bernard Roome, CWU NEC, personal capacity.
18 May 2006
Postal workers prepare for action
AS THE CWU national conference begins, the Communication Workers' Union (CWU) national executive committee has called an industrial action ballot of its postal members against the 2.9% pay rise imposed by Royal Mail, writes Gary Clark, vice-chair, CWU Scotland No 2 Branch.
18 May 2006
Rail unions battle over pensions
THE RAIL network across the whole of Britain looks to be heading for a long hot summer of discontent. The four rail unions, RMT, TSSA, ASLEF and the CSEU have joined forces in an attempt to safeguard their members' pensions, writes Gordon Martin, branch secretary Wishaw and Motherwell RMT, personal capacity.
18 May 2006
Pensions 'crisis' - working class will pay the price
TONY BLAIR, we were told last week, wants to see major reform of Britain's decrepit pensions' system as his 'legacy'. Given the state of some of his previously desired 'legacies' - Iraq, the NHS, education, reform of public services...
18 May 2006
How students and staff saved Chemistry at Sussex
A TWO-month campaign led by students and lecturers has checkmated the University of Sussex's senior management's plan to close down its Chemistry department, writes Richard Mullin Socialist Students, Sussex.
18 May 2006
Solidarity with Venezuelan workers
Caracas, Wednesday 16 May 2006: The Executive Committee of the trade union Suprofrad, which organises the pharmaceutical workers in Caracas, Venezuela denounces the company RACE C.A for its refusal to recognise our trade union...
18 May 2006
The Venezuelan president's 'vision of socialism'
Chávez in London: VISITS BY presidents to other countries are usually met with protests or indifference, but the visit by Hugo Chávez to London on Sunday was met by hundreds of people ready to welcome him to the city and eager to listen to what he had to say, writes Denise Dudley.
18 May 2006
Building on our election successes
Socialist Party National Committee report: FRANCE, GERMANY, Italy... no not the World Cup finals but Europe in revolt against neo-liberal policies - this was the inspiring final discussion at the Socialist Party (SP) national committee meeting on 13-15 May, writes Alistair Tice, Sheffield.
18 May 2006
Join the Campaign for a New Workers' Party
A party for the millions - not the millionaires: AFTER THEIR disastrous showing on 4 May, New Labour now has fewer councillors than at any time since 1973. Tony Blair is clinging to power by a thread - as Labour MPs and councillors realise that their own careers are, writes Hannah Sell, Socialist Party executive committee and assistant secretary CNWP.
18 May 2006
Environment: not safe in their hands
Global warming threat: ACCORDING TO the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report global warming, caused by 'man-made pollution' ie capitalist production, is at a critically dangerous level...
18 May 2006
WHIPPS CROSS hospital Trust in east London recently declared a £24 million deficit. 400 jobs are already under threat as are some elderly care beds. The Trust are cutting overtime and agency staff but 50 compulsory redundancies are predicted.
18 May 2006
Blair's market madness wrecking the NHS
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25 May 2006
Appeal for solidarity with Venezuelan workers
"The Executive Committee of the trade union Suprofard, which organises the pharmaceutical workers in Caracas, Venezuela denounces the company RACE C.A for its refusal to recognise our trade union...
25 May 2006
Brazil: 'War' erupts in São Paulo
Eyewitness report from a city in shock: A WEEK-LONG wave of violence between police and a notorious criminal gang in São Paulo, Brazil, has left over 170 people dead. As TONY SAUNOIS reports from a shocked city this 'war' is rooted in the country's corrupt and brutal...
25 May 2006
NATFHE MEETS this weekend for its final conference. This follows the decision of members of both NATFHE and the AUT to merge into what will be the largest post-school education union in the world - UCU the University and College, writes Andrew Price (NATFHE NEC member Further Education Wales).
25 May 2006
Postal workers call for action
POSTAL WORKERS have delivered a thumping rejection to Royal Mail's plans to impose a 2.9% pay offer and to implement backdoor privatisation of the Post Office...
25 May 2006
Bobby Sands Nothing but an Unfinished Song
Review: Twenty five years ago in May, Bobby Sands, MP, died on hunger strike in the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland. Over the next few months, nine other young republican prisoners followed him, demanding jail reforms...
25 May 2006
Unite against sectarianism in Northern ireland
A FIFTEEN year old Catholic school student, Michael McIlveen, was brutally assaulted in a sectarian attack in Ballymena, County Antrim on 7 May, writes Ciaran Mulholland, Belfast.
25 May 2006
The political landscape in London after the local elections
London: FOLLOWING THE recent London local elections, PAULA MITCHELL examines the new political make-up of the capital and the prospects for working class political action over the burning issues of health, housing, transport and racism...
25 May 2006
Step up the Campaign for a New Workers' Party
THE STEERING committee elected at the Campaign for a New Workers' Party (CNWP) conference in March discussed the campaign's next steps forward at its first meeting on 21 May...
25 May 2006
TONY BLAIR pre-empted his own government's energy review, and announced to his big- business friends in the CBI that he intends to replace Britain's nuclear power stations with new ones...
25 May 2006
MOST TEACHERS want to fight this Education Bill but unfortunately some of our union leaders are against discussing industrial action to oppose it, writes Martin Powell-Davies, Lewisham National Union of Teachers (NUT).
25 May 2006
Education bill - Labour depends on Tory support
THE GOVERNMENT'S controversial Education Bill, which aims to pull the comprehensive system to pieces, is getting its third and fourth readings in the Commons this week...
25 May 2006
Wiltshire NHS: FOLLOWING ON from major cut-backs last year, Kennet/West Wiltshire Primary Care Trust (PCT) have announced the future closures of community hospitals in Trowbridge, Warminster, Devizes and probably Melksham and Marlborough, writes Roger Davey Senior UNISON steward, Swindon & Wiltshire Health Branch (personal capacity).
25 May 2006
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1 June 2006
Tesco goes west - with non-union job ads
TESCO HAS given its chief executive, Sir Terry Leahy, a pay rise of almost 25%. He took away almost £4 million in salary, bonus and other benefits for the year to 25 February, against £3.2 million the year before. Leahy was also...
1 June 2006
South West Trains: TWO HUNDRED train drivers, members of ASLEF based at Waterloo station in London, were on strike on 30 May. This was the first of a series of one-day strikes over the removal of tax benefits in kind by their employer South West, writes Chris Newby.
1 June 2006
PCS conference: The record of a campaigning union
PCS conference: The record of a campaigning union: CIVIL SERVICE union PCS conference takes place from 5 June, with the Left Unity-led national executive (NEC) having increased its majority for the fourth year running, writes Mark Baker, PCS NEC, personal capacity.
1 June 2006
Crisis in the Scottish Socialist Party
THE SCOTTISH Socialist Party (SSP) has been rocked by the release of an open letter by Tommy Sheridan to SSP members which accuses "an unsavoury cabal of comrades at the core of the leadership who are more interested in pursuing personal vendettas, through vile lies and slander, than conducting the class struggle", writes Philip Stott, International Socialists, (CWI Scotland).
1 June 2006
World economy: IN THE second week of May there was a convulsion in the world financial system. Shortly after rising to near-peak levels, shares fell sharply on world stock exchanges, especially in so-called 'emerging markets' like India and Turkey. Lynn Walsh examines these events and exposes the instability of the global capitalist system.
1 June 2006
The socialist review: Neil Cafferky reviews Massaker, a documentary shown at the Palestine Film Festival involving interviews with five of the participants in the destruction of Sabra and Chatila refugee camps during the Lebanese civil war...
1 June 2006
Brazil: Hundreds killed by brutal military police
BRAZIL'S HATED Military Police (PM) had a brutal response to the violence unleashed by the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) in São Paulo on 12 May (see last week's the socialist), writes Tony Saunois, CWI, Brazil.
1 June 2006
Iraq - lame duck leaders have no solution
WHILE ACTING Prime Minister John Prescott was amusing himself on the croquet pitch, the real thing was in Washington D.C. for talks with his partner in crime - the senior partner, that is -George Bush, writes Keith Pattenden.
1 June 2006
A strategy to take on New Labour
An open letter to Respect councillors: TOWER HAMLETS Socialist Party sent the letter below to each of the 12 Respect councillors elected to the local council...
1 June 2006
Can the Tories win the next election?
FOLLOWING LABOUR'S disastrous local election results this is a question that many people are now asking. After years of un-electability, is it possible that under their new leader, David Cameron, they could return to haunt working-class...
1 June 2006
Environment: RECENTLY, PRIME minister Tony Blair told CBI dinner guests that he backed building a new generation of nuclear power stations, saying nuclear power was "back on the agenda with a vengeance"...
1 June 2006
"We're seeing the Americanisation of the NHS"
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1 June 2006
'Stop the NHS cuts, end low pay'
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The hospital Trust is considering axing 400 jobs and closing four wards and two theatres. £15 million could be cut from primary care.


19 Apr Oxfordshire & Aylesbury Socialist Party: Poland under Stalinism
20 Apr Bristol North Socialist Party: Vaccinations, innovation and capitalism
20 Apr Caerphilly & RCT Socialist Party: Election Question Time with candidates from TUSC
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