It has come to something when the right-wing Daily Telegraph starts talking about the possibility that "capitalism is collapsing under the weight of its internal contradictions". But with Lehman Brothers, one of the world’s biggest investment banks going to the wall overnight, and another, Merrill Lynch, disappearing in a rescue takeover on the same day, you can understand the paper’s concerns.
Sunday’s Wall Street crash with its echoes of 1929, followed by a sea of red on the London stock market, is a qualitative turning point in the debt-driven financial crisis which surfaced in the summer of 2007. The US government took the ailing mortgage companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae – both created by Washington in the 1930s – under its a wing only a week ago. Seven days later, the Federal Reserve was not prepared or able to save Lehman Brothers or Merrill Lynch. Instead, America’s central bank is allowing securities firms to swap shares for short-term loans, which sounds like a recipe for further disaster.
With one of the world's biggest insurers, AIG, seeking a $40bn bridging loan after reeling from losses on its exposure to property and financial insurance deals, the global financial system has entered into the unknown. The crisis has developed a momentum all of its own, where state interventions are unable to deal with the outcome of those infernal “internal contradictions” referred to by the Telegraph (which doesn’t, however, acknowledge Karl Marx’s analysis of capitalism as its source).
The Telegraph is unable to explain what these contradictions are, preferring instead to lambast central bankers for keeping interest rates too low as the cause of the crisis. But as A House of Cards explained, the contradictions are more profound. They centre around capital’s need for constant expansion and the spawning of incalculable amounts of corporate, state and personal debt in the process. Converting debts like mortgages into credit seemed an easy way to make money – until the economy went into reverse.
In the end, the Telegraph cannot grapple with the contradiction of being a paper of the big business and the Tory party and insists that “the free market remains our best hope” for coming out of the crisis. This is not such an outrageous view as it first appears. In the absence of a non-capitalist alternative, global capitalism will eventually emerge from the crisis – at a price. This is the crucial lesson of the history of capitalism.
Previous slumps and crisis were “solved” – through the destruction of capital and jobs (25,000 worked for Lehman Brothers and 2,500 the XL holiday company), homelessness and poverty, authoritarian rule, fascism and world wars with their tens of millions of dead and injured. This is how the “free market” sorts out the internal contradictions of capitalism and is a price we cannot afford to pay. The growing political instability in Britain, with New Labour in permanent turmoil, the Lib Dems moving sharply to the right and the ugly face of state-sponsored racism coming to the surface, are intimately connected to the economic and financial crisis.
These are the issues that have to be addressed, for example, by this weekend’s Convention of the Left in Manchester. Building a movement that can mobilise to create not-for-profit, commonly-owned enterprises and banks as an alternative to the capitalist market economy is the priority. This is the focus of A World to Win’s Stand Up for Your Rights festival on October 18 which you are warmly invited to take part in.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
For revolutionary solutions to create a sustainable, not-for-profit economy in place of global capital alongside a real democracy based on People’s Assemblies. Visit our web site at www.aworldtowin.net
Showing posts with label Stand Up for Your Rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stand Up for Your Rights. Show all posts
Monday, September 15, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Winning economic and social rights
The call by a cross-party committee of MPs and peers yesterday for a wide-ranging Bill of Rights that would cover housing, education, standards of living and a healthy environment as well as civil liberties like the right to a jury trial, leaves open as many questions as it answers.
Parliament’s joint committee on human rights report acknowledges that both major parties are lukewarm about the idea, so the chances of the Bill becoming law are tiny. Secondly, the economic and social rights outlined by the committee would not be enforceable in law – they would be a statement of rights and no more.
Both New Labour and the Tories have revealed their hand in relation to the European Union’s social rights chapter. The Tories under Thatcher opted out of its modest provisions, and successive Blair/Brown governments have not only reaffirmed this position but gone further. New Labour has opposed any reference to collective trade union rights in recent EU treaties and secured other opt-outs in relation to the working week. They have, of course, retained Tory anti-union legislation.
Both parties agree with each other that the market, not society, should remain the main determinant when it comes to “rights”, especially in relation to housing and a standard of living. Clearly, on the issue of climate change, there is no way the state is going to acknowledge a social right that might challenge business interests, even if it is non-enforceable.
Economic and social rights were first talked about in the years following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and were conceived of as an antidote, or a rival pole of attraction by some capitalist democracies. The idea was that if workers had these rights, there would be no need for them to follow Russia’s example and overthrow capitalism.
In the decades that followed, these rights remained dead letters. The slump of the 1930s produced mass unemployment and poverty, leading to the destruction and death of World War II. In the Soviet Union, however, economic and social rights were written into the 1936 constitution and were generally applied. At the same time, basic democratic rights were suppressed in the Stalinist terror that was going on at exactly the same time.
After World War II, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) embraced economic and social rights but were non binding. They are still awaiting implementation because the fact is that they are incompatible with capitalism and therefore, by extension, with the capitalist state itself.
When gains have been made in some areas in terms of rights, they are relative and subject to removal at a later stage. The right to housing was established in practice after World War II and most people who wanted council accommodation could get it. Local authorities were encouraged to build affordable homes to national standards. That right has disappeared.
Today there are 1.3 million households on council waiting lists and the total is more or less constant. This is because for over 20 years, councils have been forced to sell off homes or transfer their stock and barred from building new flats and houses. Successive government have encouraged people to become owner-occupiers instead, saddling them with massive debts and standing by as repossessions mount, as they are now doing, when the market slumps.
Recent surveys show that more than 75% of those questioned favoured a Bill of Rights, with massive majorities in favour of the right to privacy, to a fair trial, trade union rights, hospital treatment and housing. The market state that has replaced the parliamentary state has no interest in enshrining these principles, let alone making them enforceable.
Under these conditions, the struggle to establish permanent democratic, social and economic rights can only succeed in the context of a new, democratic state that reflects the aspirations of the presently powerless majority. How to achieve this aim is one of the key themes of our Stand Up for Your Rights festival on October 18.
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
Parliament’s joint committee on human rights report acknowledges that both major parties are lukewarm about the idea, so the chances of the Bill becoming law are tiny. Secondly, the economic and social rights outlined by the committee would not be enforceable in law – they would be a statement of rights and no more.
Both New Labour and the Tories have revealed their hand in relation to the European Union’s social rights chapter. The Tories under Thatcher opted out of its modest provisions, and successive Blair/Brown governments have not only reaffirmed this position but gone further. New Labour has opposed any reference to collective trade union rights in recent EU treaties and secured other opt-outs in relation to the working week. They have, of course, retained Tory anti-union legislation.
Both parties agree with each other that the market, not society, should remain the main determinant when it comes to “rights”, especially in relation to housing and a standard of living. Clearly, on the issue of climate change, there is no way the state is going to acknowledge a social right that might challenge business interests, even if it is non-enforceable.
Economic and social rights were first talked about in the years following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and were conceived of as an antidote, or a rival pole of attraction by some capitalist democracies. The idea was that if workers had these rights, there would be no need for them to follow Russia’s example and overthrow capitalism.
In the decades that followed, these rights remained dead letters. The slump of the 1930s produced mass unemployment and poverty, leading to the destruction and death of World War II. In the Soviet Union, however, economic and social rights were written into the 1936 constitution and were generally applied. At the same time, basic democratic rights were suppressed in the Stalinist terror that was going on at exactly the same time.
After World War II, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) embraced economic and social rights but were non binding. They are still awaiting implementation because the fact is that they are incompatible with capitalism and therefore, by extension, with the capitalist state itself.
When gains have been made in some areas in terms of rights, they are relative and subject to removal at a later stage. The right to housing was established in practice after World War II and most people who wanted council accommodation could get it. Local authorities were encouraged to build affordable homes to national standards. That right has disappeared.
Today there are 1.3 million households on council waiting lists and the total is more or less constant. This is because for over 20 years, councils have been forced to sell off homes or transfer their stock and barred from building new flats and houses. Successive government have encouraged people to become owner-occupiers instead, saddling them with massive debts and standing by as repossessions mount, as they are now doing, when the market slumps.
Recent surveys show that more than 75% of those questioned favoured a Bill of Rights, with massive majorities in favour of the right to privacy, to a fair trial, trade union rights, hospital treatment and housing. The market state that has replaced the parliamentary state has no interest in enshrining these principles, let alone making them enforceable.
Under these conditions, the struggle to establish permanent democratic, social and economic rights can only succeed in the context of a new, democratic state that reflects the aspirations of the presently powerless majority. How to achieve this aim is one of the key themes of our Stand Up for Your Rights festival on October 18.
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
Monday, July 28, 2008
A Convention for democracy
When communities come up against the New Labour steamroller they don’t back off – they get angry. That’s what brought people together on a hot Saturday afternoon to discuss what to do if, as is likely, the government presses ahead with plans to expand Heathrow in the face of the overwhelming case against a third runway.
While the aviation minister Jim Fitzpatrick has announced a delay in the decision, no one should think that this because the government is necessarily looking for a way out. There is the small matter of the Planning Bill, which is on its way to becoming law. Once on the statute book, local concerns could be safely ignored.
A new unelected, unaccountable planning quango is to be set up – the Infrastructure Planning Commission – which could bypass local opposition and fast-track the proposed expansion. The government's plans will mean hundreds of people will lose their homes and tens of thousands more will have their lives blighted by noise and air pollution.
The frustration was clearly felt at the conference in Hayes organised by Hacan-Clear Skies, the No Third Runway Action Group (NoTrag) and the Climate Camp, who pitched their tents at Heathrow last year to bring attention to these ruinous proposals.
John Stewart from Hacan explained how even the business community was retreating from unconditional support for Heathrow expansion. The rail union RMT has published a new study compiled by John Stewart which found that investment in high-speed rail could be a viable alternativeto the expansion of Heathrow. The report, Who Says There Is No Alternative?, also established that tens of thousands of new jobs would be created if planned investment at Heathrow airport was switched to new high speed rail lines.
If rational argument alone could win the day, then New Labour’s plans would have been consigned to the dustbin a long time ago. But ministers are pressing on regardless. As Christine Taylor of NoTrag told the conference, they simply do not care when they are told that thousands of children would have their lessons ruined by expansion. You could go on adding zeros to the numbers affected and it would still make no difference, she said. The conference discussed various forms of direct action and protest activities to keep the campaign in the media spotlight.
Yet there is a common theme that unites Heathrow campaigners with people opposed to new nuclear power stations, privatised polyclinics, hospital closures, so-called “eco-towns”, persecution of migrants, green belt erosion, rail and Tube fair rises and a host of other issues.
What potentially brings these campaigns together is the fact that the government, which has created an undemocratic business state, just dumps decisions on local communities egardless. “Consultation” is a farce because the ultimate decision is always a foregone conclusion. Meanwhile, official propaganda is designed to confuse and divide opponents. The gap between the state, the government and the mass of the people grows on a daily basis. The overwhelming majority in Britain are disenfranchised, their views ignored and their voices silenced.
That is why going beyond direct action to raise the essential questions about democracy and who rules Britain is critical. Community action groups, while maintaining their own campaigns, could come together in a permanent Convention to work on overriding issues of power and democracy.
How do the aspirations of the powerless majority not only get heard but acted upon? As the present political set-up is undemocratic and authoritarian, shouldn’t ordinary people themselves discuss and propose alternatives? A national initiative along the line of a Convention on democracy would be a tremendous step forward.
On October 18, A World to Win is sponsoring the Stand Up for Your Rights festival. We want to reconnect with historic struggles for rights in Britain towards building a movement that can take control of our lives away from New Labour, the state and the corporations. That’s obviously an ambitious goal but one we should start working towards today.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
While the aviation minister Jim Fitzpatrick has announced a delay in the decision, no one should think that this because the government is necessarily looking for a way out. There is the small matter of the Planning Bill, which is on its way to becoming law. Once on the statute book, local concerns could be safely ignored.
A new unelected, unaccountable planning quango is to be set up – the Infrastructure Planning Commission – which could bypass local opposition and fast-track the proposed expansion. The government's plans will mean hundreds of people will lose their homes and tens of thousands more will have their lives blighted by noise and air pollution.
The frustration was clearly felt at the conference in Hayes organised by Hacan-Clear Skies, the No Third Runway Action Group (NoTrag) and the Climate Camp, who pitched their tents at Heathrow last year to bring attention to these ruinous proposals.
John Stewart from Hacan explained how even the business community was retreating from unconditional support for Heathrow expansion. The rail union RMT has published a new study compiled by John Stewart which found that investment in high-speed rail could be a viable alternativeto the expansion of Heathrow. The report, Who Says There Is No Alternative?, also established that tens of thousands of new jobs would be created if planned investment at Heathrow airport was switched to new high speed rail lines.
If rational argument alone could win the day, then New Labour’s plans would have been consigned to the dustbin a long time ago. But ministers are pressing on regardless. As Christine Taylor of NoTrag told the conference, they simply do not care when they are told that thousands of children would have their lessons ruined by expansion. You could go on adding zeros to the numbers affected and it would still make no difference, she said. The conference discussed various forms of direct action and protest activities to keep the campaign in the media spotlight.
Yet there is a common theme that unites Heathrow campaigners with people opposed to new nuclear power stations, privatised polyclinics, hospital closures, so-called “eco-towns”, persecution of migrants, green belt erosion, rail and Tube fair rises and a host of other issues.
What potentially brings these campaigns together is the fact that the government, which has created an undemocratic business state, just dumps decisions on local communities egardless. “Consultation” is a farce because the ultimate decision is always a foregone conclusion. Meanwhile, official propaganda is designed to confuse and divide opponents. The gap between the state, the government and the mass of the people grows on a daily basis. The overwhelming majority in Britain are disenfranchised, their views ignored and their voices silenced.
That is why going beyond direct action to raise the essential questions about democracy and who rules Britain is critical. Community action groups, while maintaining their own campaigns, could come together in a permanent Convention to work on overriding issues of power and democracy.
How do the aspirations of the powerless majority not only get heard but acted upon? As the present political set-up is undemocratic and authoritarian, shouldn’t ordinary people themselves discuss and propose alternatives? A national initiative along the line of a Convention on democracy would be a tremendous step forward.
On October 18, A World to Win is sponsoring the Stand Up for Your Rights festival. We want to reconnect with historic struggles for rights in Britain towards building a movement that can take control of our lives away from New Labour, the state and the corporations. That’s obviously an ambitious goal but one we should start working towards today.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Monday, July 21, 2008
From welfare to warfare
A smiling Gordon Brown pictured sitting in a helicopter gunship at the weekend may have been dreaming about new ways to persuade disillusioned voters to back him or simply how he was taking New Labour further down the road from welfare to warfare. For today, the government declared war on people scraping by on miserly state benefits.
Heavily-trailed proposals will compel the long-term unemployed to clean streets and pick up litter – not for a wage but just to go on claiming their benefits. Those who decline will be left without a penny. Naturally, the Tories are cock-a-hoop because they thought of these ideas first. So naturally they will vote with the government when these plans come before parliament.
Work and pensions secretary James Purnell said that his plans would "transform lives". He is right there, although perhaps he should have said “destroy lives”. And yet people still tell me that however bad this government is, the Tories would be worse! The only people they are fooling are themselves.
Actually, these proposals are no more than the modern version of the Poor Law and the workhouse introduced in 1834 by the newly-enfranchised capitalist class. Relief, as it was called in those days, was conditional on being in a workhouse. The only alternative was starvation, especially in rural areas.
The contrast with how the government treats global economic elites could not be greater. As Purnell was knocking the last nails into the coffin of the welfare state, news was emerging about how the government had caved into caved into business demands over foreign profits taxation. According to the Financial Times: “The concessions mark the latest in a string of climb downs by the chancellor, who has been forced to rewrite large sections of his Budget and pre-Budget report, including proposals on income tax, capital gains tax and fuel duty.”
Proposals to impose a worldwide tax on “passive” income, such as royalties from intellectual property, provoked a backlash from leading transnational corporations. Some decided to relocate their headquarters to Ireland for tax purposes. So this week the Treasury will announce that these anti-avoidance proposals have been axed. “Business felt the changes [to the anti-avoidance] rules were not acceptable or workable and we’re talking with them to resolve those concerns,” a Whitehall official said. So that’s alright then. Business has spoken and, as usual, has got its way. The weak, the poor and those on benefits have no clout and so they get clobbered.
Still the illusions in New Labour persist in some quarters, especially amongst the supine trade union leaders. In exchange for keeping the party afloat financially, this week they will present a shopping list of demands to Brown with the aim of getting him to change course and avoid electoral disaster. They simply don’t get it and never will. New Labour and Brown are not for changing. They are 100% committed to meeting the needs of global capital, insofar as they can, as the climb down on tax confirms.
As the economy goes into freefall, with unemployment climbing rapidly, the attacks on working people will intensify. We will have to defend our interests independently of the state and the weak-kneed union leaders. Our Stand Up for Your Rights festival and rally in October is a contribution towards building such a movement and you should register to join us there.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Heavily-trailed proposals will compel the long-term unemployed to clean streets and pick up litter – not for a wage but just to go on claiming their benefits. Those who decline will be left without a penny. Naturally, the Tories are cock-a-hoop because they thought of these ideas first. So naturally they will vote with the government when these plans come before parliament.
Work and pensions secretary James Purnell said that his plans would "transform lives". He is right there, although perhaps he should have said “destroy lives”. And yet people still tell me that however bad this government is, the Tories would be worse! The only people they are fooling are themselves.
Actually, these proposals are no more than the modern version of the Poor Law and the workhouse introduced in 1834 by the newly-enfranchised capitalist class. Relief, as it was called in those days, was conditional on being in a workhouse. The only alternative was starvation, especially in rural areas.
The contrast with how the government treats global economic elites could not be greater. As Purnell was knocking the last nails into the coffin of the welfare state, news was emerging about how the government had caved into caved into business demands over foreign profits taxation. According to the Financial Times: “The concessions mark the latest in a string of climb downs by the chancellor, who has been forced to rewrite large sections of his Budget and pre-Budget report, including proposals on income tax, capital gains tax and fuel duty.”
Proposals to impose a worldwide tax on “passive” income, such as royalties from intellectual property, provoked a backlash from leading transnational corporations. Some decided to relocate their headquarters to Ireland for tax purposes. So this week the Treasury will announce that these anti-avoidance proposals have been axed. “Business felt the changes [to the anti-avoidance] rules were not acceptable or workable and we’re talking with them to resolve those concerns,” a Whitehall official said. So that’s alright then. Business has spoken and, as usual, has got its way. The weak, the poor and those on benefits have no clout and so they get clobbered.
Still the illusions in New Labour persist in some quarters, especially amongst the supine trade union leaders. In exchange for keeping the party afloat financially, this week they will present a shopping list of demands to Brown with the aim of getting him to change course and avoid electoral disaster. They simply don’t get it and never will. New Labour and Brown are not for changing. They are 100% committed to meeting the needs of global capital, insofar as they can, as the climb down on tax confirms.
As the economy goes into freefall, with unemployment climbing rapidly, the attacks on working people will intensify. We will have to defend our interests independently of the state and the weak-kneed union leaders. Our Stand Up for Your Rights festival and rally in October is a contribution towards building such a movement and you should register to join us there.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Tube cleaners show the way
While Londoners struggle to get about on the Tube system each day, workers who keep the carriages and stations clean are enduring Dickensian conditions and employment practices. An heroic three-day strike by mostly migrant workers belonging to the RMT transport union has exposed how the employers run a brutal hire-and-fire, low-wage system.
At a rally at the House of Commons earlier this week, London Underground cleaners’ leader Clara Osagiede denounced contractors as “feudal lords”. Managers behaved like characters out of Dickens’ Oliver Twist towards their workforce. “While Tubeline and Metronet make record profits and managers earn £600 per day, cleaners work under terrible conditions,” she said. The 700 cleaners voted almost unanimously for a strike in pursuit of a London Living Wage and to end wage rates as low as £5.50 an hour.
The strike, she said, was also about dignity and fairness, as well as improved conditions including free travel. Cleaners needed this especially they were sometimes had to move from one station during their work. The London Underground is one of the most notable transport systems in the modern world, Osagiede said, and yet cleaners were treated as if they were slaves. She herself had been suspended from work a number of times for her trade union activities.
Tube cleaners were bullied, denied sick pay and pension rights and “looked upon like non-entities” until the RMT union came to their rescue and educated them”, she told fellow trade unionists and anti-privatisation campaigners. She thanked activists from Feminist Fightback and others for supporting the cleaners with direct action and on the picket lines. She denounced the leadership of the Unite union which had allowed its members to be used as strike breakers.
At the packed meeting, called by the Labour Representation Committee and sponsored by MPs John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, RMT president John Leach stressed that contractors like ISS, ITX, ICM and GM were not “cowboy outfits”. In reality, the Mayor of London and the government stood behind them. RMT research had revealed that Tubeline was making £1m in profits per week for the three lines it managed.
Yet cleaners not only endured low wages, they did not even have the right to a disciplinary hearing but could be sacked without knowing the reason. Conditions had returned to the days of casual labour, when the first workers to queue up each morning would get a day’s work and the rest dismissed. He believed that the struggle for rights would “get harder before it gets easier”.
Matt Wrack, leader of the Fire Brigades Union, pointed out that bonuses paid in the City of London were higher than the yearly government spending on the fire and emergency services, Wrack spoke of the link between the struggle against racism and for trade union rights. “This year is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, who was supporting a strike of municipal workers in Memphis when he was killed,” the FBU secretary said. “Today, under New Labour, a city-wide strike of workers in solidarity with the cleaners would be illegal.”
The solid support given by cleaners to the RMT’s strike call and their courage in the face of suspensions and racist discrimination proves that even the most downtrodden and vulnerable workers are ready to respond, given leadership. A World to Win salutes their courage. At the same time, as a number of speakers emphasised, they face the full brunt, not only of London Underground but the New Labour government acting on behalf of cleaning companies, many of which are now part of global corporations.
Securing the most fundamental rights today means working for a system in which anti-trade union laws have no place. As other unions get drawn into the struggle against rising prices and sackings in the gathering economic storm, A World to Win calls on all trade unionists to support our festival for rights on October 18.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win Secretary
At a rally at the House of Commons earlier this week, London Underground cleaners’ leader Clara Osagiede denounced contractors as “feudal lords”. Managers behaved like characters out of Dickens’ Oliver Twist towards their workforce. “While Tubeline and Metronet make record profits and managers earn £600 per day, cleaners work under terrible conditions,” she said. The 700 cleaners voted almost unanimously for a strike in pursuit of a London Living Wage and to end wage rates as low as £5.50 an hour.
The strike, she said, was also about dignity and fairness, as well as improved conditions including free travel. Cleaners needed this especially they were sometimes had to move from one station during their work. The London Underground is one of the most notable transport systems in the modern world, Osagiede said, and yet cleaners were treated as if they were slaves. She herself had been suspended from work a number of times for her trade union activities.
Tube cleaners were bullied, denied sick pay and pension rights and “looked upon like non-entities” until the RMT union came to their rescue and educated them”, she told fellow trade unionists and anti-privatisation campaigners. She thanked activists from Feminist Fightback and others for supporting the cleaners with direct action and on the picket lines. She denounced the leadership of the Unite union which had allowed its members to be used as strike breakers.
At the packed meeting, called by the Labour Representation Committee and sponsored by MPs John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, RMT president John Leach stressed that contractors like ISS, ITX, ICM and GM were not “cowboy outfits”. In reality, the Mayor of London and the government stood behind them. RMT research had revealed that Tubeline was making £1m in profits per week for the three lines it managed.
Yet cleaners not only endured low wages, they did not even have the right to a disciplinary hearing but could be sacked without knowing the reason. Conditions had returned to the days of casual labour, when the first workers to queue up each morning would get a day’s work and the rest dismissed. He believed that the struggle for rights would “get harder before it gets easier”.
Matt Wrack, leader of the Fire Brigades Union, pointed out that bonuses paid in the City of London were higher than the yearly government spending on the fire and emergency services, Wrack spoke of the link between the struggle against racism and for trade union rights. “This year is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, who was supporting a strike of municipal workers in Memphis when he was killed,” the FBU secretary said. “Today, under New Labour, a city-wide strike of workers in solidarity with the cleaners would be illegal.”
The solid support given by cleaners to the RMT’s strike call and their courage in the face of suspensions and racist discrimination proves that even the most downtrodden and vulnerable workers are ready to respond, given leadership. A World to Win salutes their courage. At the same time, as a number of speakers emphasised, they face the full brunt, not only of London Underground but the New Labour government acting on behalf of cleaning companies, many of which are now part of global corporations.
Securing the most fundamental rights today means working for a system in which anti-trade union laws have no place. As other unions get drawn into the struggle against rising prices and sackings in the gathering economic storm, A World to Win calls on all trade unionists to support our festival for rights on October 18.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win Secretary
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