Revitalising Labour

Strike at automotive plant reportedly halts restructuring plans

2012-01-18T08:42:00.000+08:00

China Labor Bulletin
16 January 2012

A three day strike by several thousand workers at an automotive plant in the south-eastern province of Jiangxi has reportedly forced the provincial government to intervene and suspend plans to restructure the company.

China’s fourth largest automotive company, the Chang’an Group, based in Chongqing, had planned to transfer the vehicle production license of its subsidiary Chang He Auto in the Jiangxi city of Jingdezhen to a new joint-venture with Japanese car maker Mazda. However, the plan was not discussed with either the local government in Jingdezhen or the workers’ congress at the plant, and as such it provoked a massive worker protest when it became public knowledge.

Workers feared that the cancellation of the production license at the factory (currently joint-owned by another Japanese company, Suzuki) would lead to job losses and poorer pay and conditions.

After negotiations between Chang’an, Chang He, the provincial and municipal governments, it was agreed that there would be no major changes at Chang He at present. The company would continue to consult with the government and employees, and any major changes would have to be approved by the workers’ congress. The company stressed that if the workers had any other issues, they could communicate them through formal channels.

Some reports claimed the concessions were sufficient to end the protest, while other reports claimed many employees were still on strike.
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India: Call for National General Strike for Febraury 28 by Central Trade Unions

2012-01-16T13:36:00.000+08:00

STATEMENT dated 2.12.2011

CENTRAL TRADE UNIONS DECIDE FOR COUNTRYWIDE GENERAL STRIKE ON 28.02.2012
Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (Indian Workers' Union), Indian National Trade Union Congress, All India Trade Union Congress, Hind Mazdoor Sabha (Workers Assembly of India), Centre of Indian Trade Unions, All India United Trade Union Centre, All India Central Council of Trade Unions, United Trade Union Congress, Trade Union Coordination Committee, Labour Progressive Federation, Self-Employed Women's Association of India

The Central Trade Unions, in a meeting congratulated the mass at the working people for their massive response to the programme of countrywide Jail Bharo (Satyagraha) of 8* November 2011 jointly organized by Central and other Trade Unions of India.

The Central Trade Unions also convey their appreciation to the- independent All India Federations of the employees and workers for their active wholehearted Support to the call of countrywide Satyagraha/Jail Bharo.

The Central Trade Unions noted with serious concern that despite several rounds of united protests by the entire trade union movement of the country, the Govt has remained totally unresponsive to major concerns of the working people Rather anti-people moves are being taken to further aggravate the rise in prices through frequent hike in power tariff, urea etc., besides complete decontrol of petrol prices. Existing labour rights including right to form union are sought to be curbed and social security and pension are under attack through various legislative and administrative moves. Mass scale contractorisation of the regular work Is continuing in all the workplaces inducing in PSUs and Govt. establishments, Contract workers are not being paid in most of the places even the statutory minimum wages Disinvestment of shares of Public Sector Units Is being actively pushed through by the Govt. to facilitate phased privatization of the highly profit-making PSUs .

The Central Trade Unions also expressed serious concern over the flaring up of the rampant corruption all around and huge black-money-generation in the economy resulting In widespread popular discontent and disgust over the Issue of corruption. The CTUOs demand concrete legislative and administrative measures and change in the economic policy regime to eradicate and prevent corruption and bring back the black money stashed abroad.

The Central Trade Unions reiterate the most pressing demands of the workers highlighted by the Jail Bharo/Stayagraha agitation on 8th November 2011:

While reiterating the five point demands formulated jointly by the Central Trade Unions and Federations for

1) concrete measures to contain price rise

2) concrete measures for linkage of employment protection with the concession/incentive package offered to the entrepreneurs,

3) Strict enforcement of all basic labour laws without any exception or exemption and stringent punitive measures for violation of labour laws.

4) universal social security cover for the unorganized sector workers without any restriction and

5)Creation of a National Social Security Fund with adequate resources in line with the recommendation, of NCEUS and Parliamentary Standing Committees on Labour, Stoppage of disinvestment in Central and State PSUs,

The Central Trade Unions also demand immediate action by the Govt. of India to ensure:-

1) No Contractorisatlon of work of permanent/perennial nature and payment of wages and benefits to the contract workers at the same rate as available to the regular workers of the Industry/establishment

2) Amendment of Minimum Wages Act to ensure universal coverage irrespective of the schedules and fixation of statutory minimum wage at not less than Rs 10,000/-,

3) Remove the ceilings on payment and eligibility of Bonus, Provident Fund; Increase the quantum of gratuity.

4) Assured Pension for all.

5) Compulsory registration of trade unions within a period of 45 days and immediate ratification of ILO conventions 67 and 96.

To press for the above demands, the Central Trade Unions decided to observe countrywide genera! strike on 28th February, 2012

The Central Trade Unions also urge upon their state committees and all the trade unions irrespective of affiliations to hold state wise and Industry wise conventions and launch immediately other forms of joint campaigns to make the countrywide general strike on 28th February, 2012 a total success.

The Centraf Trade Unions call upon rnass of toiling people end their organizations irrespective of affiliations to join the call for general strike enmasse throughout the country.

NPA calls for coordinated resistance across Europe

2012-01-02T09:21:00.000+08:00

International Viewpoint
30 November 2011

The French Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) backed the public sector strikers in Britain and called for coordinated resistance across Europe. The NPA participated in organising the Coalition of Resistance‘s Europe Against Austerity Conference last month, which was addressed by Olivier Besancenot on behalf of the NPA.

“The NPA stands in solidarity with striking public sector workers in Britain.

Trade unions have called for strike action today, November 30th. They are opposed to the pension plans of Cameron’s government.

These changes to public sector pensions are part of the destruction of social justice and austerity measures implemented by governments all over Europe.

The changes would see retirement age pushed up to 66 in 2020 and to 68 after that; they would considerably increase pension contributions from 6 to 9%, and would see pension incomes lowered by basing them on average instead of final salary.

The government’s attack on pensions is added to the job and budget cuts which are already hitting the public sector. Thousands of protests are planned and this strike will no doubt be the most significant since 1979, hence why head teachers are on strike for the first time in 114 years.

The NPA is in complete solidarity with British public sector workers.

The politics of mass destruction of welfare and social rights is implemented across the European Union, whatever the type of government in charge; across pensions, incomes, health care and the entirety of fundamental rights.

At the beck and call of the financial markets, governments are endlessly repeating the same old line: working people have to pay for the crisis and make sacrifices.

The countries most affected by the crisis, such as Greece, Spain and Portugal, have already seen plenty of strikes and protests.

It is vital that the fightback is coordinated so we can act together at the same time across Europe.

This is a matter of absolute urgency.”

N30: Unions strike a blow against weak government

2011-12-27T03:25:00.000+08:00

Fred Leplat
International Viewpoint
December 2011

The strike on Wednesday 30th November in Britain in defence of pensions for public sector workers was the largest seen for a generation. Over 29 unions were involved including the three biggest,UNISON, UNITE, and the GMB. All together, over 2.5 million workers were on strike across the National Health Service, local councils and throughout national government departments.

Demonstrations were held in many places, including in small towns which had never seen a protest since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003. Over 50,000 took to the streets in London and 15,000 in Belfast, but there were also 100 in Lerwick in Shetland! For the overwhelming majority of those who took action on 30th November, it was the first time that they were on strike. Two out of three schools were closed, museums and tribunals were closed, and non-emergency operations in many hospitals were cancelled.

The strike was a tremendous success not just because of its size, but because everybody knew that it was not just about pensions, but also about the defence of public services and ultimately, who pays for the crisis. It put the issue of fair pensions for all on the agenda.

The Tory-led government has been arguing that it is not fair that public sector workers get a better pension than those working in the private sector. However, they say nothing about the multi-million yearly earnings that bankers get such as the £7million pocketed by the heads of Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland. There are over 2.5 million pensioners living below the poverty level of £178 a week. Pensioner poverty in Britain is among the worst in Europe – there are only three countries in Europe that have worse pension provision that those in Britain, that is Cyprus, Latvia and Estonia ! France spends twice as much on pensions than does the UK.

The strike was a long time in coming. The Tory led coalition government announced as soon as it was elected that it would unleash war on public services, and the pay and conditions of workers in general. Although the TUC agreed in September 2010 to organise co-ordinated national industrial action against these attacks, it took six months to organise a national demonstration on 26th March of 500,000. Despite this tremendous success, the leadership of the three big unions and the TUC were reluctant to organise action. It was only because of a hugely successful strike on 30th June by the teaching unions UCU, NASWUT and NUT and the PCS civil servants union, that all the other unions and the TUC decided to call on their members to strike.

The leadership of most unions were pushed into organising for the strike because of pressure from their members wanting action and because they had no longer any choice but to do something. The government had been dragging out negotiations since the beginning of the year without any concessions, and had even imposed some unilateral changes to the pension schemes including pushing back the retirement age to 67 for younger workers.

The Tory government is now increasing the attacks on the working class as the recession is now on the verge of turning into a depression: public sector workers already suffering from a two-year pay freeze will see any increase “capped” at 1 per cent. With inflation running at 5.4 per cent, this is effectively a 20 per cent pay cut over four years. The government announced that 710,000 will go, up from the 400,000 announced last year! Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said he would do “whatever it takes” to cut the deficit. This means tax breaks for the rich and corporations funded by taking money from the rest of us.

The strike on 30th November can only be a beginning in the resistance against the Tory-led coalition government. The action needs to be escalated with dates for action set for early next year involving private sector workers. Youth and students need to involved as stopping pushing back the retirement age would immediately deal with youth unemployment now at a record level of over 1 million or 20% of those under 25.

This is not just a crisis of the British economy. It is a crisis of the capitalist system which is attempting to make the working class pay for it. The action in Britain on Wednesday 30th November was followed on Thursday by a one-day general strike in Greece and on Friday by joint-union action in Belgium. The need for a European-wide solidarity and joint action is now more necessary than ever to roll back the neo-liberal assault on all of the post-war gains.

Fred Leplat is a leading member of Socialist Resistance, British section of the Fourth International.

Egypt’s labour movement takes a tumble

2011-12-27T03:20:00.000+08:00

Yassin Gaber
Ahram Online
December 2011

The perceived gains won by the Egyptian workers and independent trade unionists in the wake of the 18-day uprising have given way to stark realities under the military junta’s ’counter-revolutionary’ rule.

After a wave of strikes and workers’ action fuelled and empowered Egypt’s 18-day uprising, the burgeoning labour movement, subsequently empowered, began asserting itself: unilaterally declaring an independent trade union federation to rival its state-run counterpart and undertaking steps to dismantle the power dynamics and structure of the state’s union. Recently, however, Egypt’s workers and unionists have found themselves fighting to maintain their gains.

In March, Egypt’s manpower minister, Ahmed Hassan El-Borai announced the right of Egyptian workers to establish their own labour unions and federations, an action hailed by the International Labour Organisation. But a new trade union law is yet to be passed by Egypt’s military rulers, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).

Following the August enforcement of a 2006 judgement, the state-run Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) board was dissolved. However, these steps have been stymied by the government’s continued reliance on members of the old-guard whenever it comes to implementation. This adds up, in the words of Hisham Fouad, a founding member of the Democratic Workers Party, to a government outlook that is “counter-revolutionary and opposed to workers’ progress.” Added to this, their refusal to consult directly with independent unionists is, for him, proof of a deeper intransigence and indicative of the ruling military council’s desire to quell the movement.

The decision by former prime minister Essam Sharaf to dissolve the ETUF board and freeze the general union’s assets was a high point for independent unionists. But a sobering reality set in in its immediate aftermath. A steering committee consisting of independent, state-affiliated and Muslim Brotherhood unionists was tasked with examining the general union’s financial affairs. This de-facto board began reviewing reports by the Central Auditing Organisation: reports that contain hundreds of infractions and financial remarks linked to the ETUF as well as other organisations under its umbrella.

Unionists found to have illicit financial dealings were supposed to be turned over to the prosecutor-general’s office, but interests got in the way. The committee was paralysed by its multi-factional composition.

A coalition of four general unions – the Union of Petrol Workers, the Union of Flour Mill Workers, the Maritime Transport Workers Union and the Transport Workers Union – went on strike in mid-November, calling for the dissolution of the Cabinet-appointed steering committee. Members of the de-facto board also tried, unsuccessfully, to remove its head, Ahmed Abdel Zahir, a carry-over from the dissolved board and an associate of its former head, Hussein Megawer. The notorious businessman was charged earlier this year for playing a role in the 2 February “Battle of the Camel.”

When El-Borai was unable to put an end to the strike, he dissolved the steering committee and replaced it with another one consisting of figures from the old board – associates of Megawer. “We’ve regressed. The situation now is just like when Hussein Megawer was around,” states Wael Habib, member of the steering committee.

Fouad believes that this move is a response by the ruling SCAF to the wave of strikes that swept Egypt in September. “The SCAF felt more in control and needed to clampdown on the empowered labour movement,” Fouad states.

Following the imposition of a new ETUF committee, El-Borai announced on 28 November that the newly-formed Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) had agreed to join the state-run ETUF, creating much alarm and sending signals that the government no longer valued union pluralism or freedoms. Though confusion and speculation is still rife, it would seem that such a consensus between independent unionists and their state-affiliated counterparts never truly existed.

“We will not get involved with them in any respect. We reject the notion of a state-run trade union,” Fatma Ramadan, a board member of the EFITU and labour activist, stresses.

Ramadan had to withdraw her candidacy in the People’s Assembly (Parliament’s lower house) elections, after administrative courts in the governorates of Giza and Menoufiya (both in the upcoming second round of elections) refused to accept candidates who received their workers’ status from the independent general union. According to Ramadan, the EITUF authorised the candidacy of between 300 and 400 workers for Egypt’s three stage People’s Assembly elections. Of those, around ten unionists, including Ramadan, were denied the right to stand for elections as workers.

In a 20 July decree, the ruling SCAF maintained a 47-year-old quota for representatives of workers and peasants in both the upper and lower houses of Egypt’s Parliament. Unionists are divided on whether this quota should be consigned to the fate of the old-regime or refashioned. “The 50 per cent quota for workers and fellahin is meant to protect these sectors: give them a voice, but when the quota is used to fill parliament with businessmen and technicians who do you think they will defend: themselves or the workers?” asks Ramadan.

Saud Omar, a member of the Suez Canal Authority’s workers union and workers candidate in Suez, believes that the 50 per cent quota should remain but that a new law must be put in place to ensure that elected representatives come from the workers and truly stand for them, preventing misuse of the system. “Parliament does not truly speak for the people. The millions of people heading to the streets proves this and negates the supposed role of parliament, but we still must work through these political avenues.”

While the country’s first post-Mubarak elections promise to bring to power what some observers predict will be the most legitimate parliament since the 1930s, the make-up of the forthcoming parliament will to a varying degree determine the course of the workers’ movement.

First round results reveal strong electoral gains by the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), and the Salafist Nour Party. Even with two rounds left in the People’s Assembly elections, many observers believe an Islamist takeover is now inevitable. Should Islamists come to power, the labour movement can expect to come up against certain obstacles. The FJP has previously condoned the ruling SCAF’s opposition to strikes, going a step further by attempting to force an end to teacher’s strikes in some governorates last September. The Nour Party has also taken an anti-strike line, calling such labour actions, at this point in time, “undesirable.” The only liberal list to make any substantial gains in the first round was the Egyptian Bloc. The Free Egyptians, the Bloc’s leading partner, also has an unfavourable labour stance which it made clear when it quickly declared its support of the ruling military council’s anti-strike law in July.

Nevertheless, some labour activists are resolute: “We are undeterred by parliamentary elections; the battle for parliament is only part of the struggle. The street is where our main fight lies. We demand the right to freely unionise, an end to the law criminalising strikes, a minimum and maximum wage, the restart of stalled factories and the rehiring of their workers, an increase in pensions and adequate health care,” Ramadan states.

According to labour lawyer and Revolutionary Socialists member Haitham Mohamedein, “The true issue lies in the law.” Specifically Law No 35 (1976), which outlined the structural and electoral regulations of the state-run ETUF among other central organisations. The ruling military junta’s decision to shelve the draft legislation, approved by the Manpower Ministry and then by Sharaf’s Cabinet, is the crux of the matter, Mohamedein believes. The legislation would allow, for the first time since the 1950s, trade union pluralism and freedoms for workers and businessmen to form their own unions and syndicates respectively, but strong unions and syndicates would challenge a system that breeds corruption, oligarchy and social inequality.

The Brotherhood has always fought for control of syndicates and unions, states the labour lawyer, and they will approach the ETUF in a similar fashion. “The FJP wants the general union to be under their thumb and they will control the federation through elections: elections framed by Law No 53. It is not in their interest to radically change this law. The workers movement is a source of anxiety for businessmen and the Brotherhood. They could possibly seek to amend the law but would not allow the same freedoms as the shelved legislation.”

Tactics and the port shutdown

2011-12-19T19:46:00.001+08:00

Bay Area activists Ragina Johnson, Alex Schmaus and Dana Blanchard consider some of the political discussions to arise after the West Coast Port Shutdown.
Socialist Worker
December 16, 2011

IN THE aftermath of the West Coast Port Shutdown on December 12, a debate over tactics has emerged in the Occupy movement. The discussion centers on the role of port workers and Occupy activists' relationship to them.

The December 12 actions were an important step for the Occupy movement, especially in connecting to the struggle of workers against some of the richest and most powerful corporations around. But the future of the movement depends on Occupy activists adopting strategies and tactics that treat workers on the docks--and everywhere else in the economy--as allies and potential supporters, not as opponents.

The call for a port shutdown on December 12 produced community pickets at ports up and down the West Coast, from Anchorage to San Diego--and succeeded in stopping operations, partially or entirely, in Oakland, Portland, Longview, Seattle and Vancouver. At the giant Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, activists collaborated with nonunion port truckers to disrupt operations for several hours at SSA Marine, which is half-owned by Goldman Sachs.

In Oakland, our preparations began weeks before December 12, with rank-and-file longshore workers and other unionists working with Occupy Oakland activists to build support for the shutdown, especially among workers at the port. We knew from this organizing work that the criticisms made by some union leaders and even left-wing writers and academics--that the Occupy movement was calling for industrial action without the support of workers--was false.

On December 12, we had a strong turnout despite the rain and cold--more than 500 Occupy supporters met at a nearby public transit hub for a 5 a.m. march to the port to set up community picket lines at three terminals. By the late morning, we got word that ILWU members had been sent home after the port arbitrator ruled on safety concerns. An even larger march on the port that evening caused the evening shift to be closed down as well.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) publicly disavowed the port shutdown call. But ILWU Local 10 in Oakland has a proud history of recognizing community picket lines and calling in a port arbitrator over safety concerns.

With rank-and-file ILWU members taking the lead, the December 12 action was planned in Oakland with this foremost in our minds--and with the goal of building solidarity with workers on the ports as a crucial means of strengthening the Occupy movement.

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THIS APPROACH helped ensure the success of December 12 in Oakland.

Unfortunately, though, that success was jeopardized by the dangerous actions of a minority of demonstrators on the picket line.

The overwhelming majority of Occupy activists and workers worked together--as planned and democratically decided upon--to organize community pickets that were intended to make an appeal to port workers for support, but not blockade them. This was highly effective.

Nevertheless, a small minority took it upon themselves to try to impose their tactics on the rest of us. Within an hour of establishing our early-morning community pickets, a small group of activists at the Hanjin Terminal picket attempted to use their bodies to stop a semi truck from leaving the port. At least two of them sat down in front of the truck, an extremely dangerous act since the driver could not see them. Others screamed at the driver and spat on his windshield.

Naturally, photographers from the mainstream media swooped in to get their photos of the angry truck driver who "didn't support the action that day"--and not pictures of the several hundred people who were holding down an amazing picket 20 feet away. This only gave credence to the false argument spread by the media that we were trying to "impose" a shutdown on workers, rather than seek their solidarity.

The authors of this article attempted to reason with the group of activists sitting in front of the truck. We asked them to move out of the way and allow the truck to leave, explaining that organizers had agreed to allow drivers who had shown up for work to leave--as the point of our action was to build solidarity with workers at the port, not antagonize them. The port action committee had explicitly agreed on the point that the pickets were not to keep workers from leaving, but only to stop them from going in.

At one point, one of us, Ragina, positioned herself between the truck and the group in question to demand that they get out of the way. One person from this group of activists pushed Ragina against the front grill of the truck in an attempt to use her body to get the truck to stop.

Everyone eventually moved out of the way, but the fact is that the lives of several activists were put at risk during this scuffle.

Another dangerous situation occurred at the Hanjin Terminal picket line when a squad car and sheriff's bus, escorted by a line of riot police, attempted to drive through our line.

Throughout the morning, police were being moved around the port in groups in an attempt to intimate protesters. There was a diversity of people on the picket line--old and young, people holding toddlers, union and nonunion workers. Keeping the pickets organized and safe by preventing panic was important to succeeding in our goal.

Only walking picket lines are considered legally protected free speech, but some activists from the same group that blockaded the truck earlier attempted to form an immobile human barricade to stop police from driving through the line. This was another unnecessary risk, since it gave police a possible excuse to use force to break up our pickets.

The same group of picketers then attempted to provoke police who were pointing "non-lethal" assault rifles at the picket. We believe this act played into the hands of at least one provocateur, who said "the cops are going to smash us anyway, so why should we wait for that to happen."

Once again, the authors of this article found ourselves forced into a dangerous situation. We argued that the best way to stop the police was to maintain the walking picket--and that trying to provoke the police endangered not only picketers, but also the truck drivers and ILWU members who were standing by to observe the situation.

We eventually succeeded in breaking up the human barricade and held our ground with a traditional walking picket. The police backed off after about 20 or 30 minutes.

A few minutes after 10 a.m., a port arbitrator ruled that ILWU members would not be expected to cross our community picket lines. This was an important victory because it meant we had shut down the port without forcing unionized workers to lose a day's wages. Port management then has since sent a press release saying workers will not be paid unless the union takes up the issue with an independent arbitrator. This will be a fight for our allies within the ILWU to take up in the coming days.

Thousands marched to the port of Oakland that evening, but the port authority had by that time conceded defeat and didn't even call in the evening shift. Instead of pickets, a General Assembly of more than 2,500 people formed to discuss next steps.

Occupy Oakland had voted weeks ago that in the event of police repression at any of the actions along the coast, the pickets would be extended in defense of the Occupy movement. The original plan of the port action committee of Occupy Oakland was to vote on whether or not to follow through with this, based on the numbers of people who could participate. But there was never a vote.

Dozens of people from the crowd began to signal their frustration with the lack of democracy, but this was ignored. The facilitators told the crowd that anyone who could not stay for the 3 am pickets should stand up and go and those who could should sit down. Thousands of people picked up their things and left the port. Only about 100 to 150 people remained behind for a disorganized picket at 3 a.m. Fortunately, they did not face a police crackdown, which would have undermined the successes of the day.

What happened at the GA was a missed opportunity to get new people who had come out for the port action involved in a conversation about next steps for our work.

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WHY DID a minority of activists act in such an undemocratic and dangerous manner at the morning picket?

To answer this question, we have to look at the different forces involved in the Occupy movement and the December 12 port shutdown.

The December 12 action was a step forward for the movement because it was about taking action at a crucial chokepoint in the economy that affects the flow of commodities and the realization of profits for the 1 percent. The debate that emerged in Oakland was about how to take action at the point of production.

There are two levels to the debate. The first is a strategic argument about the role of workers at the port. Are they central to shutting down it down or not? Do Occupy activists need to build solidarity with port workers or can they take action independently--and against workers if necessary?

The second level is about the tactics that flow from the strategic question. Should we organize for community picket lines that allow for the greatest possible participation and solidarity with port workers? Or should we build barricades to impose a work stoppage?

An article posted on Bay of Rage, an anti-capitalist website in the Bay Area, titled "Blockading the port is only the first of many last resorts", explains the position of activists who advocated taking action "autonomously" of workers. In a section titled "Power to the vagabonds and therefore to no class," the article states:

We need to jettison our ideas about the "proper" subjects of the strike or class struggle. Though it is always preferable and sometimes necessary to gain workers' support in order to shut down a particular workplace, it is not absolutely necessary, and we must admit that ideas about who has the right to strike or blockade a particular workplace are simply extensions of the law of property.

The first point to make about this statement is that its authors are dismissing the actual demands of the port action committee for December 12. These demands were very much about workers on the docks: first, solidarity with ILWU Local 21 members in Longview, Wash., and their battle against EGT; second, solidarity with port truck drivers in their struggle to gain union rights; and third, a coordinated response by Occupy to the police raids of the camps.

These were the three points we used in talking to port workers and other union forces leading up December 12. Linking up these three struggles helped bring together allies in the labor movement with the Occupy community. We were able to connect with radical rank-and-file union members who want to see more action from their unions. By contrast, the Bay of Rage article accepts that the "real" radicals will have to operate in isolation from workers and union members--and sometimes in direct opposition to them.

As for tactics, the Bay of Rage article goes on to argue that the community pickets were unnecessary:

[W]e have been told time and again that in order to blockade the port, we need to go to each and every berth, spreading out thousands of people into several groups over a distance of a few miles. This is because, under the system that ILWU has worked out with the employers' association, only a picket line at the gates to the port itself will allow the local arbitrator to rule conditions at the port unsafe, and therefore provide the workers with legal protection against unpermitted work action.

In such a situation we are not really blockading the port. We are participating in a two-act play, a piece of legal theater, performed for the benefit of the arbitrator.

If this arbitration game is the only way we can avoid violent conflict with the port workers, then perhaps this is the way things have to be for the time being. But we find it more than depressing how little reflection there has been about this strategy, how little criticism of it, and how many people seem to reflexively accept the necessity of going through these motions.

Once again, this statement shows how little respect the writers have for working people and their capacity for action. Anyone familiar with the history of the working-class movement in the U.S. or anywhere in the world knows that picket lines are more than a "piece of legal theater." The labor movement's victories historically have involved mass support from workers, community members, the unemployed and more.

In the specific case of the ports, the role of community pickets is important in building solidarity and involving wider numbers in the struggle. Rather than imagining that we can substitute for such mobilizations through sabotage or physical barricades, we should be looking to more solidarity actions of this kind to support the labor battles that are sure to come.

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ULTIMATELY, THE wrong-headed ideas expressed in the Bay of Rage article share much in common with the claims made in the mainstream media, among conservative labor leaders and even within sections of the left that the action on December 12 was organized from the outside.

This discounts the role that rank-and-file workers, who are part of Occupy Oakland, played in helping to organize the action. There were extensive discussions between Occupy activists and members of the ILWU and Teamsters, as well as with unorganized port truck drivers, both in the lead-up and immediately after the call to shut down the ports.

By reaching out to and including the voices of rank-and-filers and labor activists, we collaborated with them to build the community picket line, rather than scheming in secret about how to blockade them from going to work. As a result, we were able to weather the attacks in the weeks leading up to the action--a barrage that came not only from the 1 percent and the media, but from union leaders who repeatedly tried to stifle participation in December 12.

The port action committee had a well-organized plan in place for December 12. People in the committee organized picket teams, communications and food distribution. There were teams to plan for speakers and rallies, and to make sure signs and banners were printed and brought to the gates. Organizers were also in close communication with port workers about which terminals had ships and which did not, so we knew which gates to picket.

There was also explicit outreach to talk to self-identified anti-capitalist forces who had declared a march at the same time as the port action--to ask them to agree to the tactics decided for the day.

Ultimately, the proof of these preparations lies in the success of the event itself. Hundreds of people showed up before dawn to put up community pickets before the first shift, and even larger numbers came in the evening. No ILWU members crossed picket lines. Teamsters didn't show up that day, and hundreds of non-unionized truckers stayed away. As for truckers who were at the docks, many showed their support in various ways.

None of that could have been accomplished without the support of workers at the Port of Oakland. But unfortunately, a minority believes its adventurist tactics are more radical and politically superior.

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WHAT'S NEXT? We believe the truly radical step following December 12 will be to build on the alliance between Occupy activists and port workers. We shouldn't be satisfied with shutting down the port for a day, but must instead focus on building a working-class movement with power at the point of production--a project that must include union members, Occupy activists and other working people who are sympathetic to the new activism, but who have not yet joined it.

That's why the disorganizing effects of the General Assembly on the evening of the 12th were a disappointment. The GA could have been a space for thousands of people to collectively decide the next steps for building such an alliance.

Such organizing needs to continue--right now. In a matter of a couple weeks, EGT may try to load its first ship at the scab grain terminal in Longview. Labor and community members in solidarity with the ILWU are already planning caravans to support longshore workers in Longview with their struggle. We need to get as many people as we can to join this caravan from all the local Occupy struggles, from the Bay Area to Washington state.

The Longview struggle is just one example of how we can look ahead to the future of the Occupy movement.

The trigger budget cuts in California are devastating public-sector workers and students, especially at the community college level, and this spring will likely be a time of mass actions on campuses and in teachers unions in response to these cuts. There is already a planned occupation of the state capital on March 5, as well as regional actions on March 1 and possible student strikes throughout February.

In addition, immigrant rights activists and workers, both union and nonunion, are making big plans for a militant action on May Day that would shut down production and target the 1 percent, while linking up with struggles for amnesty and human rights.

These are just a few of the ideas that have been put forward for next steps. There will most certainly continue to be struggle on both a local and national level, and some of what it will do has not even been anticipated yet.

With working people under relentless attack, the Occupy movement has an opportunity to broaden its social base. But to reach that potential, we need to learn the lessons--both positive and negative--of what we just accomplished on December 12.

The most important lesson is that Occupy activists and union members share common interests in the struggle against the 1 percent, and the closer that alliance, the more powerful the struggle will be.

The port shutdown on December 12 also showed us that the November 2 general strike call in Oakland was no fluke--and that the Occupy movement can coordinate for picket-line action between different cities and states. This action has truly raised the bar for what is possible in the movement, if we do our work right.

No-Strike Clauses Hold Back Unions

2011-12-19T19:21:00.000+08:00

Stanley Aronowitz
Labor Notes
13 December 2011

When leaders of the Occupy movement’s most reliable labor ally, the Longshore Union (ILWU), declared the union would not participate in Monday’s shutdown of West Coast ports, they illustrated a great weakness plaguing our unions.

Labor is confined by contract unionism, whose core is the no-strike clause.

Recall that during the 1999 mass protests against the World Trade Organization, the ILWU used its power to shut down all West Coast ports for a day, a stroke of exemplary solidarity.

The decision not to support the current call was influenced by the fact that, like almost all unions that sign collective bargaining agreements, the ILWU is bound by a clause barring strikes during the life of the contract. The last time ILWU supported a shutdown of the Oakland port, it suffered a fine of $65,000.

For more than 75 years, the labor movement has been enclosed by law and custom by collective bargaining, whose goal is to achieve a contract that seals in wages, benefits, a grievance procedure, and work rules. In return, workers and their union agree, crucially, to surrender their right to withhold their labor.

The penalties for violation are often severe: stiff fines and imprisonment of union officials. After the three-day walkout by New York City transit workers in 2005, a court order barred check-off of union dues, levied $2.5 million in penalties, and handed the union president a 10-day jail sentence.

Even when unionists and their allies flooded Madison, Wisconsin, last winter with huge protests, there was little debate about the limits of contract unionism.

HOLD US BACK

Why do contracts hold back unions?

1. The contract has the force of law. It is a compromise between labor and the employer, private or public. The workers agree to suspend most of their demands for as long as the contract lasts. In the past decade that period has grown, sometimes to as much as six years. Even if conditions change, the union cannot reopen the contract unless the employer consents.

2. The union is responsible for enforcing the contract, including disciplining the workers. Of course, management regularly bypasses or brazenly violates the contract. To remedy these infractions, the union can grieve and finally arbitrate. Although arbitration is heavily weighted on the employers’ side, workers have no other recourse, under the law of the contract.

If they (rarely, these days) resort to a wildcat walkout or other job action, their union is obliged to renounce the strike and “order” workers back to the job.

3. Under these conditions, the union tends to become conservative, at best, or, at worst, an agent of shop floor workers’ subordination. The weight of the law mostly prevails.

With the employers’ offensive of the last generation, collective bargaining is now mostly a form of collective begging. Yet collective bargaining remains a sacred cow. Few are willing to advocate that, at the minimum, contracts leave the strike weapon unrestricted.

The labor movement has forgotten its own traditions: Until the 1930s, labor contracts were fairly rare. Workers—and not only IWW members—used to fight for their demands continuously and agree to return to work only when they were met.

Skeptics ask why employers should sign contracts if they cannot buy labor peace. But European unions do not, typically, agree to limitations on strikes.

The main factor underlying labor relations is the power of workers and their unions. Until they re-examine the trap of collective bargaining, the downward slide will accelerate.

Stanley Aronowitz teaches sociology at the City University of New York.

ILWU solidarty statement in support of ‘Occupy Wall Street’

2011-12-19T19:16:00.001+08:00

October 5, 2011

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

On behalf of 40,000 members in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), I want to thank you for organizing your “Occupy Wall Street” protest in New York City which is inspiring millions of Americans.

Most of us are tired of seeing a handful of the richest corporations and executives behave as though they’re entitled to live like kings at everyone’s expense:

They aren’t paying their fair share of taxes, so schools are cutting back and colleges are
raising fees – leaving students with obscene debts. It’s time for the millionaires – the richest 1% – to start paying their fair share so we can support education and other vital services.

They’re destroying our democracy and right to a voice in the workplace. By making it almost impossible for workers to form unions and negotiate fair agreements, corporate America is dragging down the living standards for all working families.

They’re threatening to destroy Social Security and Medicare for future generations. We can’t allow corporations to privatize and profit from these programs. Instead, we should close the loopholes so corporations and the rich start paying the same contributions as everyone else.

Your decision to bring these and other issues to corporate America’s doorstep is courageous – and involves some risks. We weren’t surprised that some of you have faced beatings and pepper spray from overzealous police. Your crusade to shine a light on the corruption and injustice that’s infecting Wall Street is bound to ruffle some feathers. We’ve experienced some similar rough treatment in Longview, Washington, where ILWU families are also taking a stand against corporate greed. Our fight there is against EGT, a multi-national corporation that took taxpayer subsidies to build a grain export terminal – then betrayed workers and the community.

Like you, ILWU members in Longview have been arrested, beaten and pepper sprayed. We know that justice won’t be won by asking greedy employers for permission or waiting for politicians to pass laws. That’s why we hope that you’ll stand your ground on Wall Street while we do the same in Longview – because An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!

Robert McEllrath
ILWU International President

Port actions challenge the 1 percent

2011-12-19T19:04:00.000+08:00

Alex Schmaus, Francois Hughes and Lee Sustar look at the port actions shaping up from San Diego to Anchorage and beyond, as Occupy activists target union-busting.
Socialist Worker
December 12, 2011

THE OCCUPY movement will hold coordinated community pickets in every major West Coast port city--San Diego, Los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, Tacoma, Seattle, Vancouver and Anchorage--on Monday, December 12, despite mounting pressure from employers and some union leaders.

The model for the West Coast effort is the mobilization of some 15,000 people to picket the Port of Oakland during a November 2 day of action. That protest came after police violence against Occupy Oakland nearly killed Iraq war vet Scott Olsen, prompting a call for a general strike in the city.

Now, Occupy activists again want to take action--not just in Oakland, but up and down the West Coast.

While the initial focus of Occupy activists was union-busting by the grain terminal operator EGT in Longview, Wash., the planned pickets will confront other actors on the docks--such as SSA Marine, an anti-labor terminal operator owned by Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs, and the anti-union policies of terminal operators who employ truck drivers to move goods from the docks to warehouses and rail links.

In fact, the date for the action was chosen by Los Angeles port drivers. December 12 is the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, an important cultural figure in Mexico, and traditionally a day of protest for the largely immigrant port drivers. The drivers been fighting for years against company policies that treat them as independent contractors rather than employees, a practice that forces drivers to be paid per load rather than per hour, and pay for their own trucks.

As Tara Lohan pointed out on Alternet, 82 percent of the 110,000 port drivers in the U.S. are classified as independent contractors. An additional spur for the drivers' protest in LA was the firing in October of some 26 drivers who work for the Toll Group. The reason: they wore Teamsters t-shirts to work.

Thus, on the eve of the December 12 action, port driver activists and supporters said drivers in LA and Long Beach were prepared to stay away from work, and they were appealing to their counterparts in other cities to act in solidarity.

Teamsters in the port of Oakland were also prepared to stay away from their jobs, said Dana Blanchard, a member of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers who is active in the December 12 effort:

This is a huge contradiction to all the press we are getting. After three organized leafleting shifts at the port, the feeling is also that many of the unorganized port drivers will also not come to work tomorrow. The ILWU has also officially e-mailed its members that they are not going to be escorted in by police, and that many terminals have decided to shut down or have skeleton crews in anticipation of the protests. Overwhelmingly, all of the conversations we have had with port drivers when we flier has been positive.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

PREDICTABLY, SHIPPING bosses denounced the effort in a coordinated advertising campaign in Bay Area newspapers and media outlets.

More surprising has been the response of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). Union president Robert McEllrath issued a statement declaring that the Occupy protest was a third-party action not authorized by the ILWU, which cannot call for a work stoppage without violating its contracts.

However, McEllrath's statement outlined steps that union members could take if they felt that the community picket made it unsafe to work--for example, as the result of a large police presence. In that case, members are entitled to notify employers, who would then call upon an arbitrator to make the decision.

But as December 12 approached, ILWU officials ratcheted up their criticism of the community pickets. In an article in Britain's Guardian newspaper, ILWU spokesperson Craig Merrilees was quoted as describing Occupy protesters as "disrespectful, arrogant and misguided." He added: "This is being promoted by a group of people who apparently think they can call general strikes and workplace shutdowns without talking to workers and without involving the unions."

But according to retired ILWU Local 10 member Jack Heyman, ILWU international officials are reacting to pressure from employers, rather than the sentiment in the union rank-and-file to put the heat on EGT in Longview, where the first ship will call on the company's scab grain operation in the next few weeks. He said:

This call by Occupy Oakland for a West Coast solidarity port shutdown is a build-up to when the first ship comes in next month. If Occupy is successful now, then momentum for a coastwide shutdown by longshore workers is highly likely when the scab ship arrives. However, with hostile statements like those emanating from ILWU spokesman Craig Merrilees and President McEllrath it drives a wedge between the union and its activist supporters.

ILWU has usually honored community picket lines like the one in San Francisco in 1977 against apartheid. And when the ILWU shut down all West Coast ports on May Day 2008 to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it didn't check with other port workers' unions, like the machinists or the Teamsters.

ILWU union tops have thwarted union democracy at every turn in the Longview struggle--preventing a special caucus or an emergency meeting of all rank-and-file longshoremen in the Northwest. Occupy represents a popular outrage against the excesses of capitalism as exemplified by Wall Street. They should be greeted with open arms by the ILWU, not shunned and castigated, if unions are to prevail against attacks from the employing class.

In fact, rank-and-file ILWU members are also involved in organizing support for the pickets. "I am a longshoreman, and I support the December 12 blockade against EGT," said Anthony Leviege, another member of ILWU Local 10. "EGT is a threat to the survival of the ILWU."

"These ports are public," said Clarence Thomas, a former official and veteran activist in Local 10. "People have a right to come to the port and protest. The ILWU has historically honored picket lines at the port."

Dan Coffman, president of ILWU Local 21 in Longview, has publicly thanked the Occupy movement and Occupy Oakland for supporting Local 21's struggle.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

WHILE THE success of each port action is bound to be uneven, the seriousness with which activists are responding to such an audacious call to action is a sign of the Occupy movement's continuing vibrancy.

Occupy movement supporters along the Gulf of Mexico recently announced that they, too, would join the call by blockading the Port of Houston. This is an ambitious task, however, for several reasons. Houston longshore labor is organized by the International Longshoreman's Association, a more conservative union that doesn't share the ILWU's tradition of honoring community pickets. Moreover, the port of Houston stretches for many miles, making it virtually impossible for a community picket to have much of an impact.

Also away from the West Coast, Occupy Denver plans to show solidarity through a blockade of Wal-Mart's Colorado distribution center, and it has called on all landlocked Occupy supporters to take similar action. And in New York City and Chicago, Occupy activists will target Goldman Sachs with protests as well.

While the impact of the protests will vary widely by city, the December 12 action will have an important impact on the Occupy movement as it debates its next steps following the coordinated police shutdowns of encampments.

For example, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), in the wake of its early endorsement of President Barack Obama's reelection, recently concluded its weeklong "Occupy Congress" actions in Washington, D.C. as part of the union's focus on the 2012 elections. A the same time, Adbusters magazine recently proposed that activists "#OccupyXmas" to disrupt consumer culture.

Occupy Oakland is spearheading a different kind of strategy, which is focused on the struggles of workers at the point of production. As one Occupy Oakland activist put it, "If the mayors of the 1 percent are sharing tactics for class war, then why shouldn't we?"

Occupy Oakland was able to shut down the port on November 2 by setting up community pickets with rank-and-file support. It was crucial to maintain mass community pickets long enough to ensure that a port labor arbitrator rules the picket lines have made it impossible to ensure a safe work environment.

Rank-and-file longshore and trucker support was critical for all of the past Oakland port shutdowns and will be critical for the shutdown on December 12. To build these bonds of solidarity, Occupy Oakland and others on the West Coast have not only been distributing leaflets, but talking with port workers about how to fight union-busting on the waterfront and how to build solidarity between the Occupy movement and organized labor.

By building on this kind of community-labor solidarity seen on December 12 and beyond, we can link the Occupy movement with the effort to organize where workers have power--at the point of production.

West Coast Port Shutdown Sparks Heated Debate between Unions, Occupy

2011-12-19T18:50:00.001+08:00

Evan Rohar
Labor Notes
December 12, 2011

For the second time in a month, the Occupy movement called for mass action to shut down port operations. This time, the occupiers targeted the entire West Coast.

The Occupy Oakland General Assembly unanimously adopted a proposal November 18 calling for the “blockade and disruption of the economic apparatus of the 1% with a coordinated shutdown of ports on the entire West Coast on December 12.” (General assemblies are meetings, open to all, that make decisions for Occupy groups, using consensus.)

The motion declares solidarity with Longshore Union (ILWU) members in Longview, Washington, in their struggle against grain terminal operator EGT. The company has refused to hire ILWU members and is now in a drawn-out battle that could shape the future of the 4,000 union members who work the Pacific Northwest’s grain elevators.

Occupiers planned the shutdown without consulting with the union, and the ILWU put out a statement December 6 to its members and supporters disclaiming support for the action and claiming its prerogative in the fight against EGT. “The ILWU has a long history of democracy,” wrote ILWU President Bob McEllrath. “Part of that historic democracy is the hard-won right to chart our own course to victory.”

Members of the Occupy movement interpreted the union’s distancing itself as, at best, a legal safeguard against the fines that could result from a work stoppage that violates the contract’s strike bar. At worst, they saw it as a product of the union movement’s timidity, born of decades of retreat and identification with employer interests.

ILWU members and officials expressed alarm at how the port shutdown was called and questioned why the Occupy movements called for action without consulting the people that action would affect most.

Occupy spokespeople responded that they reached out to union members after the shutdown call was made. Kari Koch of Occupy Portland said they have been flyering at shift changes at the port for a week. “We would not be doing this action if we didn’t have any support from the rank and file,” Koch said.

But occupiers didn’t call ILWU Local 8 there, she said. (They sent an email.) Occupiers were worried the local could be legally liable if it coordinated with protesters.

Huge numbers showed up at the gates this morning in Oakland and shut three port gates. Occupiers, who plan to disrupt the afternoon shift as well, reported no animosity from ILWU members and port truckers.

While it’s certainly the case that the union movement needs a kick in the pants, and the occupiers have done a lot to aim the shoe, ILWU members and officers say democracy in movements—union and Occupy alike—means giving say to the people affected, not assuming their participation or support because an action is just.

But Mike Parker, a retired UAW activist in the Bay Area and co-author of Democracy Is Power, said most strikes are inconvenient for someone, including other workers. Their success relies on all workers affected by an action honoring the line, whether or not they felt appropriately warned.

Other unionists involved in the occupy movement say the ILWU should recognize the need for tactical flexibility.

“The Occupy movement is simply taking from labor history,” said Robbie Donohoe, an Electrical Workers member who has been active in organizing for the shutdown. “We’re making it safer for workers to challenge the boundaries of laws that were created to secure the reins of power firmly in the hands of the 1%.”

HERE WE GO
Regardless of whether ILWU leaders support the shutdown, union and community members have done person-to-person outreach to make it succeed.

The Oakland Education Association’s executive board backed the call; President Betty Olsen Jones has been leaftleting port truckers at 6 a.m. along with occupiers and union activists.

A largely immigrant workforce of “independent contractors” that move cargo in and out of the ports, the truckers are legally prevented from unionizing. Some criticized the November 2 port shutdown in Oakland because the truckers were unprepared for the huge march that succeeded in shutting down the port, which trapped many of them for hours. Lacking a union, they have few structures to appeal to for support.

Anthony Levierge of the Bay Area’s ILWU Local 10 and a half-dozen active rank and filers have been passing out flyers and explaining the rationale for the shutdown to fellow members. “It’s been a mixed bag of attitudes,” he said, adding that he believed members would "honor the history and legacy of social justice unionism that ILWU members have fought hard for.”

The West Coast longshore union has a history of honoring community picket lines for good causes, but the question of how those actions are decided—and actually brought to bear against multinational employers who move billions of dollars of goods through the ports—is a complicated matter.

Samantha Levens, a Bay Area member of the Inland Boatmen’s Union, an ILWU affiliate, said education and preparation among the members should have been a first priority. She noted that some previous shutdowns took months to prepare—like a May Day work stoppage in 2008.

When confronted with a picket line at port gates, ILWU members have the right under their coastwide contract to stop work and call an arbitrator to rule on possible safety threats or the validity of the picket line.

Success in shutting down ports along the coast depends upon presenting a credible safety threat to longshore workers. If emergency vehicles cannot make it into the port, or if the workers feel threatened by mass pickets and police presence, they will call an arbitrator to decide whether the action presents a bona fide risk. The decision to call an arbitrator can delay the beginning of work, and if the workers are sent home they may not be paid, depending on the circumstance.

Port bosses warned the ILWU that the 2008 May Day stoppage against the military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan was “unauthorized” but members went through with it regardless.

“Because the members had discussed and debated it before they voted on it and had been building support amongst the ranks heading towards the vote, the buy-in and ownership of the action was firmly in the hands of the members,” Levens said.
THUMBS UP AND DOWN

The Alameda Central Labor Council had a lively debate December 5 when Port Commissioner Victor Uno, who is also an Electrical Workers (IBEW) business manager, moved that the council “does not endorse a Port Shutdown.”

The council’s executive committee approved the motion, but some delegates argued that the Occupy movement deserved labor’s support, others that it deserved at least neutrality. The ILWU Local 10 president’s motion to table passed overwhelmingly.

Eric Larsen, member relations secretary for AFSCME Local 444 and labor liaison with Occupy Oakland, said council leaders wouldn't let him address the council about the port action.

“I pleaded with them to let me speak,” he said. “They would not.”

He said council leaders claimed the reason for rejecting him, and for their lack of support for the shutdown, came from Occupy’s failure to communicate.

On December 9 the building trades council took a position against the shutdown.

ORIGIN: LOS ANGELES
Originally, the idea of a December 12 protest was initiated by Occupy Los Angeles, to coincide with immigrants’ rights activities around Our Lady of Guadalupe Day.

Sarah Knopp, a 12-year member of the Teachers union (UTLA) in Los Angeles, said occupiers decided to target SSA Marine, a terminal operator owned by Goldman Sachs with container terminals in North and South America and in Vietnam.

SSA Marine is notorious for its environmental, labor, and human rights abuses and its exploitation of port truck drivers paid piece rates to move cargo containers on and off the docks. Occupiers were also motivated by the firing of 27 port truckers who work for a separate firm, Toll Group. Those fired had worn Teamster shirts, part of a long-running campaign to beat the legal prohibitions on organizing.

After Oakland Occupy expanded the call to all ports on the West Coast, Occupy L.A. decided to stay with its original plan—a march from Harry Bridges Park to an SSA terminal, and a community picket to block a gate. The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles take up 25 miles of coastland and handle 85 percent of all traffic on the West Coast, an operation too vast to blockade with the numbers the protesters expected.

Knopp and fellow occupiers stood outside a recent ILWU Local 13 meeting and flyered the workers to build support for the SSA action. They received a “totally friendly reception,” Knopp said. “Everyone thinks it’s a great idea.”

“We’re initiating a process where the Occupy movement can build a base in the labor movement,” said Michael Novick, a UTLA retiree.

Saying that L.A. occupiers recognize the ILWU is not a position to act today (and its leadership was not solicited to participate), Novick added that the port truckers may be better placed to carry out the action in this crucial port. With no union contract, they face no sanction except loss of a day’s pay.

A loose association of port truck organizers who helped to shut the port on May 1, 2006, when immigrants rights protests shook the country, met December 9 to decide whether to attempt a similar action December 12.

Ernesto Nevarez, a port truck organizer, said truckers at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port stayed away for hours Monday morning as nearly 1,000 marchers rallied at port gates.

SPLIT, DEMOCRATICALLY
Every ILWU officer and international staffer reiterates the union’s solidarity with the Occupy movement and its goals. But the December 12 action has annoyed many.

Cameron Williams, president of Local 19 in Seattle, said, “It’s kind of like if I planned a party at your house and didn’t ask about it.” Local officers say occupiers circumvented the union’s democratic process.

“The occupiers have been understandably confused by mixed signals from individuals in the ILWU,” said Craig Merrilees, communications director for the international. He believes some members are speaking to occupiers without the backing of the organization’s internal democratic process.

President Scott Mason of Local 23 in Tacoma, Washington, said he hasn’t “felt much movement either way” from the members.

“Local 8 officers aren’t in support of it,” said Jeff Smith, president of the Portland longshore local. “If it went to a rank-and-file vote I don’t know what would happen.”

Rank and filers won’t get a chance to have their say. Local 8’s next membership meeting is December 14.

Occupiers leafleted the dispatch hall but members say they might have succeeded in convincing more of the Portland rank and file if outreach had started before the action was set.

Levens expressed support for the Occupy movement’s goal—to confront corporate power—but not its approach in this action.

“The lack of communication with the members leaves the Occupy activists and union members without the benefit of sharing our [earlier] Oakland experience with shutting down the port and community pickets,” said Levens, who has been active in Oakland general assemblies.

Parker said the constraints on unions are too great to expect a better process.

“Even if Occupy Oakland were the best, most democratic it could be, there is no way that they could consult with elected leaders of the ILWU,” he said. “Unions are faced with a choice of gambling everything [by openly supporting a strike] or of protecting themselves by disclaiming responsibility and honoring lines by using loopholes.”

It doesn’t help that the institutions assessing liability—right-wing courts—are not on labor’s side.

Parker says the occupiers may have to look for new ways to hit the 1%.

“The continued focus on the docks, because it is easy and takes advantage of the solidarity traditions of the dock workers, makes the dock workers themselves the targets and the targets start resenting it,” Parker said.

SOLIDARITY WITH LONGVIEW
Occupy Oakland said a big part of the reason for today’s action was solidarity with ILWU Local 21 in its struggle against grain shipper EGT. Some in the movement say the ILWU officialdom, which badly needs to beat EGT, is merely covering its legal bases by distancing itself from the action.

But leaders of locals up and down the coast say a coastwide work stoppage for Local 21 could actually harm its struggle, by uniting employers to support EGT.

A more immediate fear could be legal reprisals resulting from an injunction and contempt charges leveled by a federal judge against Local 21 and the international. Fines for the local’s disruptions, blockades, and grain-dumping this summer have already totaled $315,000.

If a federal judge determines that occupiers are acting on the union’s behalf, Mason said, “we can be charged $5,000 for every incident.”

Still, Local 21 President Dan Coffman, who gave a speech about EGT to Occupy Oakland the day after its general assembly adopted the shutdown call, does not conceal his enthusiasm for the movement.

Coffman cited the November 2 port shutdown as an inspiration to his members, who have been on the picket line for six months.

Supporters of Occupy and ILWU Local 21 are preparing for January, when a ship headed for Asia is scheduled to retrieve grain from the disputed elevator in Longview. An independently organized action could allow the ILWU to circumvent the legal minefield set in front of its own membership.

“We’re going to do whatever we can to stop that ship from being loaded,” Coffman vowed.

Correction: The story originally mischaracterized events at the Alameda Central Labor Council.

Eduardo Soriano-Castillo contributed to this story from Oakland.

Organizing for the port shutdown

2011-12-19T16:48:00.002+08:00

Lee Sustar challenges the assertion that the Occupy movement is trying to impose a shutdown of West Coast docks without support from port workers.
Socialist Worker
December 8

THE OCCUPY movement is trying to strong-arm longshore workers and truck drivers into shutting down West Coast ports December 12--or so say critics of the action.

They're wrong.

Those organizing for action on the docks are neither the outside agitators described by employers nor the ultra-left adventurists snubbed by union leaders and their apologists. Rather, they are a grassroots network that includes rank-and-file longshore union members; nonunion port drivers; longstanding labor militants from a variety of unions; and new activists, union and nonunion, who have joined the Occupy movement to try to challenge the country's economic priorities.

Among those new activists is Scott Olsen, who was critically injured in a police attack on Occupy Oakland. In a statement to ILWU members, Olsen wrote: "You do the work--THEY, the global maritime bosses, profit at your expense. Your safety and your jobs are always at stake."

And there's no sharp divide between Occupy activists and ILWU members and other workers who are also organizing to build awareness of the community picket.

"I think people [on the docks] do have sympathy and feel connected with Occupy as a whole," said Anthony Leviege, an ILWU member for 11 years who is active with Occupy Oakland. Working alongside other Occupy activists to leaflet the docks in recent weeks, he estimated that about 50 percent of the workers he's talked to expressed some sympathy for the December 12 action.

Leviege is active in the Occupy movement for the same reason he is active in the ILWU--to improve the lives of working people, he said. "It's because of my background--coming from the ghettos, coming from poverty, seeing young men die early or go to jail," he said.

David Villegas, a member of ILWU Local 13 in Los Angeles and a former truck driver in the port, also reported a sympathetic reception to the flyers for December 12. "Everyone is wondering if they will stand for something, or fall for nothing," he said.

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THE DECEMBER 12 call to action is a grassroots effort to deepen the links between Occupy and longshore labor. Activists are focusing on multiple targets: EGT, the transnational corporation that's trying to eliminate ILWU jobs at a new grain export facility in Longview, Wash.; SSA Marine, the port terminal operator owned by Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs; Toll Group, a trucking employer that fired 26 Los Angeles-Long Beach drivers in October for wearing Teamster t-shirts to work; and port employers generally for their hard-line opposition to truck drivers' union organizing.

Essentially, the call for the December 12 action reflects an effort by the Occupy movement to tap labor's social power at a key node in the capitalist system.

"For the first time in decades in this country, the labor movement is being confronted with a genuine movement from below, a populist movement that is challenging the very fundamentals of our capitalist system," said Jack Heyman, a retired member of ILWU Local 10 who is building support for the December 12 action. "Occupy is resonating very deeply within the ranks of labor."

The potential of this new coalition--which was key to shutting down the Port of Oakland with a community picket of thousands on November 2--has clearly alarmed employers, who have launched an aggressive advertising campaign to denounce the December 12 effort. The Washington Post carried the same line, declaring that workers don't support the plan.

Those views weren't surprising coming from port bosses and the corporate media. But even Cal Winslow, a labor historian and researcher at the University of California-Berkeley, wrote an article claiming that the action is being organized over the heads of ILWU members and other port workers:

I confess to knowing little about the officers of the ILWU, the same for the rank and file. But now, for better or worse, the case is that neither the officers of the ILWU nor any significant section of its members support the December actions planned by Occupy Oakland.

In fact, veteran activists in Local 10, such as Clarence Thomas, have been publicly building support for the community picket line along with Occupy activists.

And if Winslow is correct that labor was united in rejecting the December 12 action, then it should have been easy for the executive committee of the Alameda Labor Council, which includes the Oakland area, to pass a proposed resolution explicitly opposing the protest. At the council delegate's meeting December 5, a motion to disavow the action was presented by Victor Uno, business manager and financial secretary of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 595, who is also a commissioner of the Port of Oakland.

Uno's resolution to oppose the December 12 action reflects the view of trade union leaders who may be sympathetic to Occupy's criticisms, but who are opposed to militant actions that might destabilize labor's relationship with employers and Democratic Party politicians. Given the support of the executive council, Uno may have expected his resolution to pass fairly easily.

Instead, an hour-long debate ensued, in which most delegates thought that a statement of opposition to the December 12 action would send the wrong message, said Jenna Woloshyn, a member of Teamsters Local 70 in Oakland and a driver at UPS, who attended the meeting.

"The executive committee's argument was that all the unions with workers at the port were not endorsing the action," Woloshyn said. "They failed to mention that just because they were not endorsing didn't mean they were coming out with positions against the action, as this resolution would put the council on record for being. The Teamsters are not actively against the shutdown. Local 70 officials spoke against the proposal."

The debate ended when ILWU Local 10 President Richard Mead, rather than support the motion to repudiate the December 12 action, moved to postpone action on the resolution, effectively defeating it.

If labor council delegates were able to defeat Uno's motion, it was because they were responding to activism on the ground in the ports. Those working to build the December 12 action are relating to longstanding organizing efforts by port drivers. They are also building upon a tradition of ILWU Local 10 of respecting community picket lines that have shut down the docks to protest apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s and Israel today, as well as shipments of cargo to support the U.S. war in Iraq.

Local 10 has a history of taking action over political issues, such as initiating a coastwide port shutdown on May Day 2008 in protest of the Iraq war. Earlier this year, Local 10 shut down the docks in the Bay Area April 4 in response to the AFL-CIO's call for a day of action in support of Wisconsin public-sector workers, who lost bargaining rights through anti-union legislation. The employers promptly sued Local 10 for that action.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

WHAT, THEN, is to be made of ILWU President Robert McEllrath's statement disassociating the union from the December 12 call to action? "Only ILWU members or their elected representatives can authorize job actions on behalf of the union, and any decisions made by groups outside of the union's democratic process do not hold water, regardless of the intent," McEllrath wrote.

McEllrath is certainly correct to point out that ILWU members must democratically decide on the actions of their union. And an official ILWU call for a job action on December 12 would invite legal retribution from employers.

But McEllrath, in fact, mischaracterizes the December 12 action. The Occupy movement isn't attempting to "authorize a job action" by the ILWU, but to establish a community picket line and ask ILWU members and other port workers to honor it on the basis of solidarity.

This isn't a far-out idea, given the ILWU tradition of respect for community picket lines and the union's early support for the Occupy movement. In fact, across the bay, the San Francisco Labor Council passed a resolution in October that declared Occupy San Francisco to be a "sanctioned union strike line." In other words, the labor council recognized that Occupy was a workers' movement deserving of union solidarity.

What's more, even ILWU members who sympathize with Occupy's call for a December 12 action must operate under the constraint of a union contract that bans strikes.

As McEllrath's statement explains, if ILWU members stay away from their jobs December 12, it will be the result of a port labor arbitrator's ruling that the picket lines have made it impossible to ensure a safe work environment.

As Villegas of Local 13 explained, "Our contract says we have to work 365 days a year, no matter what"--and an official call to action would violate that. That's why rank-and-file ILWU members who support the community picket are leafleting the ports alongside Occupy activists.

This dynamic--union members expressing sympathy for militant action that labor officials reject--shouldn't be a surprise to Cal Winslow, an editor of the recent book Rebel Rank and File: Labor Militancy and Revolt from Below During the Long 1970s. In his introduction to the book, Winslow describes the spread of wildcat strikes, actions called without the authorization of union leaders, which accounted for one-third of strikes in the late 1960s and early 1970s:

Wildcat strikers were the shock troops of the "rebellions from below," and their strikes became all but routine elements in contractual disputes and grievance negotiations. The strikers were often repudiations of the union leadership and, implicitly, of the entire postwar system of industrial relations.

Somehow, Winslow, who can write at length about rank-and-file activism 40 years ago, doesn't recognize the initial stirrings of similar militancy today.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

IN FACT, the idea for a protest on December 12 originated not with Occupy Oakland, but with immigrant rights and labor activists in Los Angeles who support the organizing efforts of port truck drivers in the LA-Long Beach ports.

When Occupy Los Angeles labor activists held a meeting November 6 to discuss how to broaden the movement, the idea of an action in the ports was natural. Some 26 drivers at the Toll Group had been fired a few days earlier for their efforts to organize with the Teamsters, and December 12 was a traditional day of protests in Southern California among Mexican immigrants, who commemorate Our Lady of Guadalupe on that date.

After discussions with labor activists in the harbor area, the Occupy LA group decided to focus their protest on SSA Marine, a terminal operator owned by Goldman Sachs and known for anti-labor practices towards port truckers and labor worldwide, said Michael Novick, a retired LA teacher who has been active in the harbor community for years.

The protest isn't intended to have the movement substitute itself for the ILWU, Novick said. "We understand they have limits on what actions they can take, and we can take action as community people." He continued: "We can't put ourselves forward as representing them. But we can represent the issues and the interests of the 99 percent."

As in Oakland, Occupy activists in LA and Long Beach have leafleted the docks and ILWU union meetings and gotten a friendly reception, said Sarah Knopp, a member of United Teachers Los Angeles.

A key moment of building solidarity came December 2 during a four-hour strike by clerical workers, Knopp said. "Leah Marinkovich, a striking clerk, told me, 'What you guys are doing in the Occupy Movement is helping us to put pressure on our bosses to settle.'"

Meanwhile, port trucker activists are debating whether to carry out a port shutdown in LA and Long Beach on December 12, said Ernesto Nevarrez, a harbor community activist who helped the drivers organize the total shutdown of the ports in 2004 and 2006.

While the 2006 action was in conjunction with the nationwide protests against anti-immigrant legislation, the drivers have been fighting since the 1980s for the right to organize a union. Employers regard the drivers as independent contractors who can't form a union without violating antitrust laws--laws that originally targeted corporations.

Over the last week, Nevarrez and other activists distributed flyers to 60 to 70 percent of port drivers, he said. As in previous years, the drivers will meet to decide what action to take. "The decision on whether to shut the port down will come this Friday [December 9] when all the drivers will show up at payday at the companies," he said. "Someone at each company will say, 'Let's talk about it,' and some of the discussions will be formal. They will form a collective, and the collective at each company will reach a consensus."

Of course, there's no guarantee that the port actions will be successful up and down the coasts. That depends on the actions of port drivers and whether the community pickets are large enough to convince an port labor arbitrator that it's "unsafe" for ILWU members to cross the picket lines. That's what happened in Oakland November 2, when some 15,000 activists marched to the port during the evening shift change as part of a general strike call in response to police repression that nearly killed Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen several days earlier.

Now, Olsen himself is appealing to ILWU members to respect the community picket line on December 12. His statement reflects the spirit of the alliance between the labor and Occupy movements:

The bosses have been getting away with it for far too long. We can beat them, but we have to work together--unions, rank-and-file workers and Occupy.

I was on my second pump to Iraq when ILWU--when you--led by your Vietnam vets, shut down the West Coast ports on May Day 2008 to stop the war. The best support I could have asked for in Iraq was from you brothers and sisters who wanted us home, alive and well--sooner, not later. I spent two pumps in Iraq looking for our enemies. Only after coming back home did I discover our greatest enemy--that is the enemy we are fighting now.

Where the Oakland action can draw upon ILWU Local 10's traditions of solidarity and respect for community picket lines, and the LA-Long Beach protesters are linking up with the ongoing port drivers' struggle, Occupy activists in other port cities are still making connections with ILWU members and other port workers.

But by focusing on labor's potential power at the point of production, the December 12 actions point the way forward for the Occupy movement. Everyone who wants to see the revival of a fighting labor movement should support these actions.

Round up of the December 12 Port Shutdown

2011-12-19T16:41:00.001+08:00

Links has a round up of coverage of the Shutdown of West Coast Ports on December 12, by the Occupy Groups up the US and Canadian West Coast. I will be posting some important articles regarding the relationship between Occupy and the labour movement.

While any action by Occupy is likely to draw the ire and opposition of more conservative wings of the labour movement, it is also clear that sections of the leadership the historically militant International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), which has given support to the Occupy movement, took a publicly hostile attitude to the shutdown of ports worked by the union's members.

The character of this opposition remains unclear with a number of possible explanations having been raised, hostility by the union to incursions into the ILWU's internal democracy, an effort by the ILWU leadership to separate the union from the action in order to avoid any possible legal action for breaching no strike clauses in the union's contracts, and the development of a more conservative strata within the unions leadership.

In my opinion the lack of clarity of regarding the nature of the engagement or lack of engagement by the ILWU leaderships with the shutdown suggests that a central challenge for progressive movement's such as Occupy, is to build the level of engagement with the labour movement, in order to build real and lasting alliances to empower working people and their communities.

We've got the power to win

2011-12-07T16:51:00.000+08:00

by Sean Vernell, UCU national executive
Socialist Worker
10 December 2011

N30 was a historic day for the trade union movement. It could be a turning point in the fight to defend our pensions and stop the government’s austerity measures.

We are constantly told trade unions are in decline and don’t hold the power they once had. But the 30 November strike gave the lie to this.

It saw the rebirth of trade unions as a united mass movement. Working people saw a glimpse of their power and their ability to change things.

Every mass strike lights up the way forward and shows how change can be won.

Workers often have to put up with bullying managers and stress over workloads. But on the day of the strike these concerns seemed a million miles away.

At work the next day, employers faced workers who are more confident, less compliant and more determined to take control of their lives.

This is what every government and boss fears. And their only response is to whip up fear and division.

The government paraded around the media reminding public– sector workers how lucky they were to have pensions at all because many private workers don’t.

It offered a deal to buy off older workers with a promise that the “reforms” would not affect them.

Recognise
But this attempt to divide workers failed miserably. That’s because ordinary workers recognise that this is not simply a fight for themselves. It is also, crucially, about younger workers’ futures.

The strike was a great success. And it had a deeper impact than protesting or letting off steam.

Public sector workers are in this fight to win. There was a clear consensus among strikers that a one-day strike would not be enough to win.

It is important to push a strategy for all-out action. But the key issue facing us now is how to escalate as soon as possible.

The speed at which we move is important for two reasons.

First, another five month gap before the next strike will allow the government time to get better organised.

Second, any delay in action will send a message that the unions aren’t serious about this fight.

The strategy put forward must match the seriousness of the task. Otherwise workers will simply ask why they are losing pay for a strategy that will not win.

Coordinated

Some unions have already passed motions calling for further nationally coordinated action as soon as possible, including the NUT and the PCS.

Local joint union mobilising committees that were set up for N30 should meet and be part of coordinating the next step.

This should include winning unions that weren’t part of N30 to join future action.

The UCU national executive met on Friday last week. We unanimously passed a motion outlining a possible strategy as a way forward to be proposed to the other unions.

The motion called for another day of nationally coordinated action as early as possible in the spring term.

This would mean from January onwards. This would be followed immediately with coordinated regional action.

The motion calls for “this action to be rolled out across the country creating a Mexican wave effect acting as a bridge to the next day of nationally coordinated strike action” and “this action to end with a 48 hour nationally coordinated strike.”

We need to ensure that this debate is had in every workplace. Don’t delay—hold branch meetings right away to discuss the next steps and pass motions calling for escalation.

Some union leaders are looking for a way out. They need to feel the pressure from below to stop them making a shoddy deal.

A victory on pensions will pave the way for a wider challenge to the brutal austerity programme of this government.

The Red-Green Alliance in Denmark

2011-11-29T21:11:00.002+08:00

Michael Voss
International Viewpoint
October 2011

This contribution outlining the history of the Red-Green Alliance is taken from the book New Parties of the Left - Experiences from Europe published by Socialist Resistance (Britain) and the International Institute for Research and Education (Amsterdam) in July 2011.

Introduction: the present challenge of the Red-Green Alliance

In the coming years The Red-Green Alliance (RGA) of Denmark faces challenges, opportunities and risks that probably are bigger than at any other time since its foundation in 1989. The next elections can be called by the prime minister at any time, but no later than November 2011. According to opinion polls over the last almost two years to January 2011, the present government of the two main bourgeois parties will lose its majority. This will make possible the establishment of a government of two reformist workers parties, needing the support from the RGA and/or a small centre bourgeois party in order to have a majority.

The new situation in parliament, combined with economic crisis, may open a period of increased social and political struggles and political radicalisation. But at the same time the RGA will come under the influence of reformist and populist pressure, externally and internally.

The RGA was probably the first broad and pluralist anticapitalist party in Europe to develop out of the changed political landscape after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It arose organically out of the left wing of the Danish labour movement, merging several established left parties. It has had representation in parliament since 1994.

To understand the nature of the RGA, its development, its positions and the challenges it faces today, it is necessary to make a brief sketch of the Danish labour movement and the Danish left. Social democracy

The Danish Social Democratic Party traces its history back to the 19th century European labour movement, having been part of both the First and the Second International. Its close links to the trade union movement, its reformism and its bureaucratization more or less follows the path of the rest of European social democracy.

Danish social democracy first came into government in the late 1920s and 1930s as part of an alliance with a centre bourgeois party, based on small farmers and city intellectuals, implementing social reform, but always seeking acceptance and alliance with big agriculture and industry.

After World War II, the party was the backbone of building the so called Welfare State, still based on class collaboration and a compromise with the main bourgeois parties and organisations of industry.

During the economic crisis of the 70s the space for class compromise narrowed, and faced with problems of state finances, balance of payment, unemployment and a rising left wing in the trade unions and on the political scene, a Social Democrat-led government gave up power voluntarily in 1982.

Since then, like many other European Social Democratic Parties, the Danish party has developed in a social-liberal direction – outside government (1982–1993; 2001-2011) and as the leading governmental party (1993–2001). Its share of the votes, its standing in opinion polls, and its membership, has all decreased and fierce power struggles have taken place. Trade Union Movement

The development of the Danish trade union movement has been parallel to that of social democracy, the two regarding themselves as being parts of the same movement. In Denmark the trade union movement has always been unitary. Since the 1950s the percentage of organisation has been very high: close to 100% in industry, less in public jobs and service. The official or unofficial closed shop is normal. During the last two or three decades, union membership has declined, though not as dramatically as in many other European countries.

From time to time, left forces have gained influence at shop steward and branch level. But apart from the CP leadership of the sailors union for a couple of decades and the nursery school teachers union for a brief period, the Social Democratic Party has been hegemonic at the national federation level and in the two confederations LO and FTF. At the moment only the national union of public employees is not headed by a Social Democrat. The political left

The Danish Communist Party came out of the historical split in the international workers movement and became Danish section of the Third International. Politically it followed the Moscow party line all the way to the end. It had some influence in the trade union movement in the 1930s, especially among unemployed workers. At that time it gained a small representation in Parliament through proportional representation.

It grew during and after World War II because of its involvement in the underground armed liberation movement against German occupation. For ten years, after the World War, it held on to its positions both in parliament and in trade unions. But after supporting the Soviet occupation of Hungary in 1956, it experienced a serious setback and a split.

Its influence grew again from the beginning of the 70s as part of the overall political radicalization of the period. It gained important influence in the movement against Danish membership of EU, the peace movement, the trade union youth movement and the student movement. At that time it regained parliamentary representation.

The CP almost collapsed with the breakdown of the Soviet Union, both for political and financial reasons, and has split into several small factions. As a result of the Soviet invasion of Hungary and the secret Khrushchev speech in 1956, a split in the CP headed by the then chairman occurred leading to the establishment of the Socialist Peoples’ Party. The party distanced itself from Moscow, and it positioned itself close to, but still to the left of the Social Democratic Party. A part of the trade union activist base of the CP followed the chairman into the Socialist People’s Party, but the party focused almost all its activities on parliamentary work.

In the first election after its establishment (1960), the Socialist People’s Party won 11 Members of Parliament (MPs) (6% of national vote). Its number of MPs has since fluctuated, peaking in 1987 with 27 MPs (15%). In two periods in the 60s and the 70s, the party was part of the parliamentary majority supporting Social Democratic-led governments, but never in government itself. From the late 1987 until 2007, the representation in parliament of Socialist People’s Party gradually declined.

The radicalisation of the 1960s also led to the establishment of the Left Socialist Party, born as a split of the Socialist People’s Party’s in 1967. The split was triggered by the Socialist People’s Party participation in anti-worker legislation. From the beginning the Left Socialist Party was a mixture of all elements of the New Left: hippies, anarchists, Maoists, Trotskyists, other self-declared Leninists, anti-imperialists and many other shades of anti-establishment opposition.

Through most of its existence the Left Socialist Party has had a small parliamentary representation (between two and four percent) until 1987. This representation gave the party a special position on the far left in relation to other groups that either stayed outside or left the Party at different times. Among these were several Maoist groups, several non-Trotskyist, Leninist groups and the Danish section of the Fourth International.

There have always existed one or more Trotskyist groups in Denmark since the 1930s. They have done important political work, especially international solidarity, but never had any real influence in the Danish labour movement. After World War II the Danish section of the Fourth International experienced a period of splits. Some opted for entryism in social democracy, others in the CP. But most of them took part in the establishment of the Socialist People’s Party in 1958.

As in many other European countries the Fourth Internationalists grew as a result of the radicalization of the 1960s.

They took part in the Socialist People’s Party split which established the Left Socialist Party. At the beginning of the 1970s the majority of the Fourth International section left the Left Socialist Party and established its own organisation, which experienced some growth until the mid-1980s. In 1980 it changed its name to the Socialist Workers Party (SAP) and started publishing a weekly paper. It turned its political and organisational focus to industry and the trade unions and collected enough signatures (around 20,000 – out of a population of about 5.1 million) to be able to run national lists for the parliamentary election three times in 80s – all on the basis of a membership of no more than 200. The election results were very modest, around 2,000 votes.

The Red-Green Alliance was established in 1989 on the basis of a written agreement between the CP, Left Socialist Party and SAP – and was soon joined by the remaining fragments of the Maoist Communist Workers Party (KAP).

The social struggles and movements of the late 1970s and 1980s
Established in 1989 the RGA was also a product of the social struggles and movements of the late 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980s – or more precisely a product of the decline of these movements. Grassroots and left activity in the trade union movement grew in these years, sometimes threatening Social Democratic hegemony. Members of left parties and groups built support committees for wildcat strikes and organised left-wing oppositions in trade unions. It never became a unitary left wing, since the strongest left wing force, the CP was keen not to clash fundamentally with the Social Democratic union leadership.

The highpoint of working class struggle was the strike movement of 1985 against the new union contract and against the government which came close to a general strike and almost forced a government, composed of two bourgeois parties, out of office. The strike movement was led by left wing forces together with oppositional Social Democratic Party trade unionists and it actually bypassed the national trade union leadership.

The strike movement neither succeeded in reducing working week, as was its official aim, nor in ousting the government, but it did put a brake on the neoliberal and anti-union offensive of the Danish ruling class. It prevented the ruling class from inflicting defeats on the working class the way they did in the UK and USA.

In the period from 1967 to 1989, several important grassroots and extra-parliamentary movements developed in Denmark. Some of them, consisting of several hundreds of local committees, were supported by important parts of the trade union movement and mobilised up to 100,000 in demonstrations. These movements were a result of, and gave impetus to, political radicalisation. The most important of them were:

• The anti-Vietnam War movement and other anti imperialist movements, primarily among the youth,

• The movement against the introduction of nuclear power plants in Denmark which was a 100 percent successful,

• The movement against the EU, mostly focusing on the succeeding new treaties put up for referendums and on elections to European Parliament. This Danish anti-EU sentiment was – until the mid 90s – represented almost exclusively by left parties and individuals, though with some nationalist tendencies,

• The peace movement which for several years focused on preventing a NATO-plan for new nuclear warheads in Europe and on forcing the government to implement official Danish policy of no nuclear weapons on Danish soil in peace time.

The movement forced the government to insist on Danish minority statements in all NATO decisions on nuclear armament for several years, • The various movements of students against cuts and for democratisation of universities and colleges.

The decline of the late 1980s
At the end of the 1980s these movements declined. The left wing was not able to recover its position in the trade union movement after the apparent defeat of the strike movement of 1985. The neo-liberal offensive was weaker and later than that in the UK and the USA, but nevertheless it took its toll and had its effect. This created a mood on the left that “forces of resistance” had to stick together. And, of course, the collapse of the Soviet Union bloc hit not only the CP, but also the non-Stalinist left wing constituency. In this way Denmark did not differ from many other countries of Europe.

In the general election in 1987 the Left Socialist Party failed to pass the 2% threshold and lost its parliamentary representation. It stood in one more election in 1988 with even worse result. The CP had lost representation earlier, and neither SAP nor KAP came near to the threshold. For one brief election period a populist split from the CP was represented in parliament.

For the first time in decades, no party to the left of the Socialist People’s Party was represented in Parliament. In a few municipalities common left slates were established. Already before the 1988 national elections informal contacts had been made between individual leaders of the CP, the Left Socialist Party and SAP. The latter two made an electoral agreement allowing SAP candidates on the Left Socialist slate. On election night both representatives of SAP and of the Left Socialist Party introduced the idea of some kind of national electoral collaboration between the three parties.

The basic motivation, of course, was the need of a nonreformist representation to the left of the Socialist People’s Party in parliament. At the same time, a maturity had developed in sections of the three parties which wanted to end decades of political infighting on the left.

The CP was also undergoing a decline and fragmentation under the influence of Perestroika in Soviet Union, with people and groupings developing in all kinds of directions.

In the SAP, individual leaders were influenced by the discussions on party building and left alliances taking place within the Fourth International, especially at the IIRE-school in Amsterdam. The Red-Green Alliance established

Negotiations took place over a long period. There was a deep mistrust in the membership of all three parties towards the other parties.

Important political differences existed, especially between SAP/the Left Socialist Party on the one side, and the CP on the other.

Organisationally, the SAP and the CP tended to side together against the deep rooted anti-Leninism in the Left Socialist Party.

Complicating the process was the fragmentation of the CP. One group was rapidly moving to the right, either to social democracy or into business careers. A major group opted for a much broader unity; some kind of peoples’ front on an ill-defined platform and with very vague ideas of its components. Another major current wanted to stick with classical Stalinism.

Another issue was the difference of size. The CP had about 4,000 members, Left Socialist Party between 500 and 600 and the SAP not much more than 100, but with a much higher level of activity.

Should this be reflected in influence on the political program and in the leadership? In the pre-foundation negotiations an understanding was developed that all three parties were needed for a balanced alliance.

In reality the issue was settled at a time when the negotiations were in a stalemate because of the factional struggles in the CP. To speed up the process and to put pressure on the CP, the Left Socialist Party and SAP started to prepare to stand in the next elections. This initiative was legitimised by an endorsement from the CP-chairman, though no formal decision in the party had been taken.

According to Danish election law, a party not already represented in parliament must collect around 20,000 verified signatures in support of their participation, to be allowed to stand in national elections. Practically you need 25,000, because many are not valid.

Left Socialist Party and SAP set a target of 10,000 signatures each, while expecting 5,000 from members of the CP and non-aligned activists. For a party of 100 activists it was a huge target, but with the past experience of successful campaigns of to collect 25,000 signatures three times during the 80s, SAP reached its target before the Left Socialist Party – and established itself in that way as an equal partner in the collaboration.

Finally in 1989 an agreement was established between the parties. At that time supporters of the project had won a majority in the CP, though some of them still had the goal of changing it to a much broader alliance on a less developed and not so leftist political platform. A minority left to establish a new but much smaller traditional Stalinist Communist Party.

In December 1989 a founding National Conference was held to declare the establishment of a new organisation which was to be an alliance and not a party.

The conference adopted a preliminary political platform and a set of organisational rules. A national leadership was appointed by 54 New Parties of the Left each of the three parties and some individuals – but each of the parties could veto any decision.

The name Enhedslisten was chosen. Directly translated it means Unity Slate, stressing the common understanding of the alliance as a corporation for election purposes, while the founding parties continued their separate existence as fractions of the alliance, each with a public face and public activities. Some members preferred the name Red-Green Alliance (RGA). It was incorporated as a “second” name, and soon it was decided to use that outside Denmark, because of the very Danish character of the real name.

The incorporation of “Green” in the party name illustrated that no green party was ever able to establish itself in Denmark. This was partly because the socialist left wing at an early stage manifested itself with a green agenda, beginning with the campaign against nuclear power.

In the next two national conferences the political platform and the organisational rules were developed. The now very small Maoist KAP joined, and the proportion of non-party affiliated members grew, leading to a cancellation of all formal special rights of the founding parties.

Important parts of the political platform which was developed during pre-foundation negotiations and during the first couple of years were: .

• To the left of the Socialist People’s Party

• Anticapitalist and socialist .

• In favour of democratic rights and with an explicit distancing from “experiences of the Soviet bloc” (reflecting real political developments in parts of the CP) .

• Focusing on parliamentary activities, but promoting extraparliamentary mobilisations

• Anti-European Union .

• Ecological .

• Pro-trade union .

The RGA adopted a principle for parliamentary work that originated from the Left Socialist Party which consists of guiding rules for MPs and local councillors. They are expected to: .

• Vote for any law or law amendment if it is even a slight improvement (against sectarianism and ultimatism) .

• Vote against any law or change of law if it contains any cutback or set-back in relation to our political platform (against pragmatism and usual parliamentary behaviour of reformist parties) .

• Vote therefore against parliamentary deals or horse-trading of packages of law amendments, where all participating parties get a little in their favour in exchange for supporting elements, they don’t like (this is a integral part of Danish parliamentary life because of proportional representation, with many parties and none having a majority by itself).

Again in 1990 national elections were called, and for the first time the RGA stood on its own slate. The campaign was not very well prepared: the election manifesto was marked by many compromises, and the majority of the top candidates were “famous” leftist individuals outside the three parties, not all of them very familiar with the RGA-platform and the election manifesto.

The RGA received 1.7% of the votes, below the 2% threshold, and thus won no representation in parliament. Shortly afterwards the ex-CP chairman and a group around him left the RGA and joined the Socialist People’s Party, where today he is the Number Two Man! There was then a period of almost four years until the next election which helped the RGA to mature politically and organisationally. The disappearance of the most right wing CP-group helped in this process. Mutual mistrust diminished, collective experience of political campaigning was gained and a limited political platform on different issues was developed.

Gradually more and more individual members joined the RGA.

It changed from collaboration between three parties to a membership organisation. But the notion of an electoral bloc still existed, mostly in the CP, but also in SAP and less so in the Left Socialist Party. All three parties kept their own organisational structure with offices, meetings and publications though KAP quickly dissolved as did the Left Socialist Party some years later.

The question of the European Community/European Union has been a major issue in Denmark since 1972 when a majority in a referendum voted to join. Most other new treaties have been put up for a referendum. Resistance to the EU has been an issue which is popular, working class and of the left. Even social democracy was strongly divided at one point, and they campaigned for a rejection of the Single Market in 1984.

In 1992 a majority voted against the Maastricht Treaty, creating political chaos in Denmark and to some extent in the EU. But soon afterwards a broad group of political parties, including the Socialist People’s Party, made a so called “national compromise” leading to the Edinburgh agreement and a new referendum in 1993 incorporating four opt-outs for Denmark in the treaty.

To many members and voters of the Socialist People’s Party this was seen as treason, while the RGA was the only left party 56 New Parties of the Left campaigning for a “No” in the second referendum on the Maastricht Treaty which included the Edinburgh agreement.

This was probably the most important single factor behind the 1994 election result of the RGA. Not only did the RGA pass the threshold, but it obtained 3.1% of the votes securing the election of 6 MPs. The group was composed of two members of the Left Socialist Party, two members of the CP, one member of the SAP and one exmember of the KAP.

In many ways this was the second birth of the RGA.

Parliamentary watchdog
Since 1994 the RGA has been represented in parliament, shifting from 6 to 5 to 4 to 6 and then again 4 MPs. Until around 2006-7 this was a period with a modest level of class struggle and social and political movements. Of course this has put its mark on the RGA.

In its written programs and manifestos and whenever asked, the RGA states that it is an extra-parliamentary party supporting the social movements. But in reality the focus has been on parliamentary work, locally and nationally. Though many RGA-members have been active in trade unions, students organisations, tenants organisations, environmental campaigns and social movements, until recently organising the activity of the members in this field has not been regarded as an issue for the RGA-organisation.

RGA has been a radical parliamentary opposition – with some influence from 1994 to 2001 when the Social Democratic party was leading governments. Its brand image has been that of the critical watchdog, getting media coverage for its well-researched single issue campaigns, exposures of big capital, ministers and high-ranking civil servants and the only major party in Denmark with a loosely defined ideal of socialism. Most outstanding have been the campaigns against tax evasion by big multinational corporations.

Politically, the focus has been on the poorest and most marginalised groups in society like immigrants, refugees and people on social benefit and minority groups including youth subcultures and LBGT’s. Less importance has been given to the traditional working class. Also ecological issues have had a high priority. In the 1990s the RGA called for laws favouring and supporting organic production in agriculture. Support for organic production has since been adopted by most of the mainstream parties, but only the RGA is in favour of 100 % organic agriculture.

Membership has steadily increased from a little more than a thousand members, when the RGA had its first parliamentary representation, to more than 5,500 members in January 2011.

Typically membership increased during and immediately after election campaigns illustrating that it is the work of the MPs that attract more members rather than militant activity. A large part of the membership joined to show their support for the parliamentary group in a more visible and material form than just voting, but does not participate in local meetings or other forms of activity.

After several years of preparation in successive working groups, the RGA in 2003 adopted a formal political programme which is both anticapitalist and socialist. It stresses the need to mobilise the working class and allies to overthrow capitalist society. It even mentions the role of independent working class organisation and dual power organs in the revolutionary process and in the socialist society; plus clear cut internationalism.

The programme may have served as a point of reference for leading layers of the party, but it never played any big role in the political life of the RGA. Only a small minority of the membership has read it, and no organised education in the programme takes place in the party.

A large part of the activists and of the leadership will not agree with the most explicit revolutionary elements of the programme of the RGA. One example is a newspaper interview in May 2010 with an MP who is a young woman and the prime political spokesperson of the RGA. When confronted with quotes from the programme, she honestly defended most of it, but when it came to dual power organs she called it “outdated language”.

A democratic and egalitarian culture – with some problems
The internal life of the RGA has for better or worse been marked by the heritage of the left of the 1970s and 1980s with two important elements:

• The RGA is extremely democratic and egalitarian,

• There is no tradition for open confrontation of different strategic perspectives.

An internal democratic life was important for both Left Socialist Party and SAP, but also for the CP-group that entered the RGA as a reaction to their experience with bureaucratic centralism in the CP.

All issues are decided by the elected delegates at the annual National Conference. Written discussion is open to all members. All individual members can present a proposal for the National Conference and all members can speak at the conference, even if they are not elected delegates.

58 New Parties of the Left According to party statutes minorities can withdraw from the general election of the 25 members of the National Leadership and obtain the right to elect their own members proportionally, it they obtain at least four percent of delegates.

Before each National Conference a membership referendum is organised to establish which candidate the members want to head up the election lists. On the basis of the referendum one or more slates, distributing candidates in different constituencies, are presented to the National Conference, which then vote on these slates. In the Danish election system a small party can predict with a high level of certainty who will be elected if it is up to 10 MPs.

It has never been challenged that the elected National Leadership is “above” the RGA’s parliamentary group. The MPs must follow the general political line of the National Conference and of the National Leadership, and the parliamentary group must present important and difficult questions for a decision by the National Leadership or the Executive Committee.

In early 2010 the parliamentary group voted to send a Danish war vessel to combat pirates off the coast of Somalia. RGA members protested against this decision. This matter was brought before the National Leadership which decided against the MPs who in turn accepted that they had been incorrect.

The egalitarian culture is reflected by the rules about staff, National Leadership and MPs.

Members of Parliament and staff members can only be in office in for a limited number of years. The details have changed over time, but the limit is between 7 and 11 years. Both former MPs and staff members can return to office only after two year break in another job.

They receive a salary fixed to the level of a qualified worker. For MPs, that means that they pay to the party the amount that their parliamentary salary exceeds this level.

Traditionally any tendency towards “the cult of the individual” has been opposed. Until recently election posters would not show pictures of the top candidates on the election list. Grassroots democracy sometimes develops into extremes when for example national committees in charge of a certain area of work are not elected or appointed by the leadership but are free-for-all-members.

On the other hand the organisational culture of the RGA is in some ways not that democratic. Even though the membership has the right to vote on all major issues and elect delegates to National Conferences, they are often not presented with real strategic alternatives.

This is to a large degree a reaction to the sectarianism and factionalism of the Left of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The RGA was established with a mood of “no more infighting”. It certainly was necessary to downplay differences in the first years of the existence of RGA to avoid it all blowing up again.

The first group of six MPs took on themselves the responsibility of keeping the RGA together at almost any price. They decided that they would form a united bloc in public whatever their differences.

This was necessary since the media tried to portray the RGA as an unprincipled device to get into Parliament. Journalists looked for any sign of disagreement and predicted a quick dissolution of the RGA.

The consequence of this decision was that the parliamentary group, having a high degree of legitimacy in the party, presented itself as a bloc to the membership. However, this way of acting did reflect a real and deeply felt sentiment in the membership of wanting to avoid splits.

However necessary this was at the beginning, it has created problems. The party never succeeded in overcoming this “together-atany- price” sentiment, even when it was so well established that it could afford discussions and confrontation between different perspectives.

A tradition of open tendencies around issues that divide the membership and the leadership has never been developed. Instead informal cliques and groupings are formed on the basis of individual leaders and/or of former common activity in youth and student movements. At the same time important leaders usually strive to make a compromise between opposing perspectives inside the leadership, rather than bringing differences into an open democratic discussion among the membership.

Nevertheless, on a couple of occasions important debates on issues of principle have taken place in the RGA. In the second half of the 1990s, the parliamentary tactic was put to a test. The Social Democratic Party minority government had two options when they wanted their proposals adopted in Parliament: either make a deal to the right with one or both of the major bourgeois parties or make a deal to the left with the Socialist People’s Party and RGA. The Socialist People’s Party and RGA were invited to negotiate major economic packages. In a couple of instances the MPs from the RGA opted for participation in order to help pass important social measures, despite sections of the working class or the youth losing out. The issue of responsibility for bringing down a left government was raised.

It created some heated debate in and around the RGA, and this put a lot of media focus on the party. It is quite unusual in Denmark for MPs to ask their party leadership for advice. The National Leadership of the RGA vetoed a parliamentary deal which the party’s 60 New Parties of the Left MPs accepted. The MPs returned to the negotiations with the government and had the critical parts of the proposals more or less removed, and a deal was made. The result was that the principle was maintained of voting in parliament for even the slightest progress and against even the least setback.

Over the years, the choice between being a working class party or a party whose purpose is to help the “weak” layers of society has come up several times. This has interrelated with conflicts between sub-cultural layers wanting to realise utopian visions in the here and now, and traditional workers party and trade union layers wanting to promote the struggle on the basis of the material reality and the consciousness of the working class.

For some years this discussion revolved around the proposal of a Citizen’s Wage. The proposal was that all citizens should receive a living wage from the state, regardless of being in a job, being available for a job or not, studying or not, young or old. Besides being criticised for being utopian, opponents argued that it would be impossible to mobilise the working class behind such a demand. It was also argued that with a Citizen’s Wage, workers would have no objective interest in being part of the union run unemployment benefit scheme, and in that way it would undermine the high percentage of union membership in Denmark. In the end the Citizen’s Wage proposal was rejected by the RGA at National Conference in the late 90s.

The fight against the EU has played a major role in the RGA since its beginning. Official policy has been to reject and fight the EU, but the founding parties had very different approaches to the issue.

SAP always tried to fight the EU on a class and internationalist basis, focusing on its pro-capital, pro-neoliberal and anti-democratic character. The CP was central in building and sustaining the crossparty, almost class-collaborationist Peoples Movement against the EU in 1972. In party publications, the CP resorted to very nationalist arguments about Danish self-determination and protecting Denmark against Germany. In the Left Socialist Party internationalist tendencies were in a majority but they co-existed with more nationalist currents on this issue.

In 2002 a formal discussion on these issues was organised because a layer of young activists and party leaders reacted to the self determination line of argument. They argued on the basis of internationalism and wanted to change the party program which includes the demand for a Danish withdrawal from the EU. A part of this layer moved towards a position of reform of the EU, wanting to change the EU into a tool for pan-European decision making.

The result of the debate was basically to maintain opposition to the EU and the demand for Danish withdrawal but with more stress on the character of the EU policies, such as that they are antiecological, anti-social, and anti-worker. This decision has been not seriously been challenged since then, one reason being probably that the Peoples Movement against the EU has moved in that direction, with a member of the RGA and of the Fourth International as an MEP and leading spokesperson.

In 2007 the biggest crisis yet of the RGA erupted when a young Muslim woman, Asmaa Abdol-Hamid, was presented in the internal RGA referendum to be a parliamentary candidate. She wore a religious headscarf (hijab) and she refused to shake hands with men.

Her share of the votes in the internal referendum were so high that she was entitled to a place on the slate, and in case of a successful election result, she could be elected.

This created a huge media interest and protests inside the party. The reasons for this were numerous. A small minority claimed that the RGA is an anti-religious party and that the party should not have candidates that promote their religion visibly. A much larger group reacted because in her statements to the media she was ambiguous on democratic rights, equality of the sexes, the death penalty and Sharia law in general. Furthermore, the opposition against her was due to the fact that she was a fairly new member of the party and her political statements did not go beyond the traditional social attitudes of reformist politicians.

On the other hand a large minority of the party saw the opposition against Asmaa as Islamophobic, which was true for much of the campaign outside the party but not so much inside the RGA.

This minority fiercely defended her, and her position on the slate.

In the end, she obtained a position on the list that made her a substitute for one of the MPs. The candidacy of Asmaa no doubt was one of several reasons for a bad election result, reducing the number of RGA MPs from six down to four. It also left the party in a crisis which was overcome a year later. But it was only in 2010, that support in opinion polls for the RGA recovered and went up from around 2% (4 MPs) to 2.5 and still increasing at the time of writing.

Asmaa has not been a candidate in the internal referendum since, but she is still a member and participated actively in the May 2010 National Conference.

The political change of the late 2000s
Since 2001 Denmark has had a government composed of the two major bourgeois parties with support from a rightwing xenophobic party, the Danish Peoples Party. They have implemented neo-liberal policies without head-on confrontations with the working class and 62 New Parties of the Left the trade unions. They have mostly attacked the marginalised groups.

Their liberalisation has been sneaking, undermining public welfare and obviously favouring the ruling class and the richest layers of society.

In 2006-8 this process provoked local protests and strikes and national demonstrations against the government, but without the characteristics of an organised movement. National demonstrations were called by trade unions, students’ organisations and opposition parties. Related to this movement was a national strike of public sector workers for a better national contract, and some students’ mobilisations against cuts.

With no democratic structure and a very weak left presence in the unions, the Social Democratic Party and the union leadership were able to stop actions when the demands and the demonstrations went beyond their collaborationist policies. At the same time a militant youth movement was very visible in the streets of Copenhagen. This movement sometimes isolated itself from broader layers because of its anarchist methods, violent fights with police, the burning of cars and smashing of shops. On other occasions, they gained very broad sympathy.

In comparison with other countries the anti-war movement was weak in Denmark, though a couple of big demonstrations took place at the beginning of the war in Iraq. Smaller mobilisations against racism and in support of asylum seekers have taken place.

Finally there was the very big December 2009 demonstration at the time of the Copenhagen intergovernmental summit on climate change.

Compared to the previous period there has been a real and manifest growth of mobilisation, though still modest in size in comparison to some other European countries. It has not resulted in more permanent working class or popular organisation, neither is there any organised opposition within the trade unions. A contract negotiation for the private sector in 2010 resulted in setbacks for the workers, but it was not met with any active opposition from the left.

Nevertheless there is an upward trend in mobilisations which is closely interrelated with an important left wing shift in opinion polls.

The Socialist People’s Party grew enormously while the Social Democratic Party and the RGA stagnated or grew a little. Although the growth of the Socialist People’s Party came at a time when the party was moving politically to the right, the overall tendency is markedly to the left in Danish politics. This leftward process had not peaked when elections were called in 2007, so the right wing government survived. Recently (second half of 2010) the Socialist People’s Party have lost momentum and the Social Democratic Party and the RGA have increased their support proportionally.

The economic crisis which has made it impossible for the bourgeois government to implement rightwing liberal policies without attacking the core parts of the working class has also pushed things to the left. The Social Democratic Party and the Socialist People’s Party are openly aiming at taking government after next election, and the majority of the working class is looking forward to a change of government with some expectations of improvement although they are not clearly articulated and vary from one sector to another.

The reaction of the Red-Green Alliance to the new period
The party leadership and parliamentary group have fully supported the movements which have developed during this last period. Lots of RGA members have participated at leadership and grassroots levels.

But the level of party involvement has been marked by a general low level of activism in the party, the low level of political education, the lack of well-founded understanding of, and even conscious hostility to, the party’s role in organised and developing social movements.

Faced with a new period and new challenges to the RGA, the many years without strategic debates and the fear of political conflict have created problems. It has made it difficult for the RGA to adapt to the new situation fully.

On the one hand the crisis and the mobilisations have helped to shift more members in the direction of an organising, interventionist and activist party.

The first visible internal reaction happened in 2008 when a group of activists and leaders from students’, young workers’ and other youth movements tried to initiate a discussion about what kind of party the RGA should be. They contrasted the class party with the party of the minorities and the parliamentary watchdog. To a great extent this was a reaction to the party profile in the 2007 elections – and the poor results achieved.

The criticisms of this group provoked much debate and had a positive effect on party priorities.

The positive effects were partly negated because the group ignored the demands of immigrants, asylum-seekers, LBGT’s and so on and tended to define the working class as all-white-and-male instead of a working class of both sexes and all ethnic backgrounds.

Also they were marked by a very top-down leadership culture in the 64 New Parties of the Left students’ and trade union youth organisations where they gained their political experience.

This informal group helped introduce the idea of organising party members according to workplace, trade unions and branches and have been involved in the slow implementation of this policy.

This is an issue that SAP members promoted for many years. Though the adoption of that line of party building is an important step forward, problems still remain. Among the party members actively building these interventionist structures, approaches differ:

• Is it primarily for RGA members who are shop stewards, elected trade unionists or trade union employees, or is it basically an organisation of all party members in a particular workplace or trade union?

• is the task for these structures only to support traditional trade union activities or are they also structures to organise the dissemination of party policy in work places and trade unions?

• Here, like in other areas, there is an evident gap between adoption of a decision and the implementation of that same decision.

The reason that some narrow conceptions of party work exist in broad layers of the party is because of very limited working class mobilisation over the last 15-20 years. This in turn resulted in no organised left wing activities at a grassroots level in the trade unions.

RGA and other left wing workers were divided into two main groups: the majority who ignored the trade unions as a field of activity and the minority who ended up in elected positions or as employees of the unions. While remaining socialists of conviction they were not free of influence from bureaucratic ways of working. At the same time the layer of young activists wanting to organise trade union activity got most of their experience from organisations of students and young workers where they held leadership responsibility. Another informal group around some party staff members has developed quite another party-building strategy, focusing on a professional communication strategy for the parliamentary work and tending to ignore party members as the most important lever for party decision making, for promoting party policy and for mobilisations. This, too, is a result of decades of left wing activities that are not rooted in mass movements, but focussed on parliamentary activity and media debates.

The first reactions of the RGA to the economic crisis were weak and ambiguous. On the issue of bank saving support packages there was no doubt. The RGA clearly opposed these, and the thrust of the demands was that the rich must bear the burden of the crisis.

On the other hand the RGA explanation of the crisis focussed on greed and a financial sector out of control. Likewise, most of the proposals from MPs for political responses to the crisis were kept inside the framework of a Keynesian understanding.

Left wing forces, among them SAP members, criticized this and succeeded in changing party analysis of the crisis, but are still struggling with the task of developing anticapitalist political answers that can mobilise the working class and its allies.

The most unfortunate result of many years of focusing on parliamentary activity is the development of a right wing tendency in the group of RGA councillors in Copenhagen. The local council system in Copenhagen, capital of Denmark, differs from most other municipal councils in Denmark. In most cities, between 15 and 31 councillors are elected every four years, and they in turn elect one mayor.

In Copenhagen the council elects a kind of “prime mayor” plus 5 or 6 other mayors. Each Copenhagen mayor has special administrative responsibilities: schools, social welfare, environmental issues, etc. They are elected by the council proportionally to the number of councillors from each party. The RGA is the third largest party in Copenhagen and is entitled to one mayor.

Without openly confronting the RGA parliamentary principle of supporting all progressive measures and opposing any drawbacks, the RGA mayor and the group of councillors have defined their task as to have influence and get results, even results in the sense of the lesser evil. They argue that the RGA must show that “we” can manage the Copenhagen economy to the benefit of the people, disregarding the constraints not only of capitalism but also the narrow government limits to local decision making. This parliamentary strategy pushes them towards the lesser-evil policy.

This has led to the RGA supporting cutbacks of municipal administration workers and day care centres with the result that parents and workers demonstrated against a council budget deal that the RGA supported. Fortunately, faced with the demonstrations, the RGA backtracked and pulled out of the political deal a week before local elections. The consequence was that the RGA grew in standing in the opinions polls after losing support for weeks.

The economic crisis and the perspective of a new government
If the Social Democratic Party and the Socialist People’s Party form a coalition government after the next election, as expected, it will be the first time in Danish history (apart from the exceptional post World 66 New Parties of the Left War II circumstances) that a party to the left of social democracy is part of a government.

For a large section of the working class this will raise hopes for changes and improvements in living standards and public services.

But with two reformist parties governing in the middle of a severe economic crisis they are bound to be disappointed by the policies of these two parties if nothing else happens outside parliament.

The tasks of an anticapitalist party in that situation are at least threefold:

• to campaign in trade unions, student organisations, environmental movements, local communities and other movements to place demands on the two parties, to mobilise popular pressure on a new government, behind demands for a policy of social and ecological improvements and of solidarity

• to use the parliamentary platform to transmit this pressure from the working class and its allies and make it difficult for the two reformist parties to collaborate to the right

• to present and make propaganda for those anticapitalist solutions to the economic and ecological crisis that the new government refuse to implement in the name of class collaboration.

These tasks have not been totally clear to the majority of the RGA membership or to the majority of its leadership, and they still are not, though texts that point in this direction were adopted at the latest National Conference.

Tendencies to accommodate to the reformist parties have evolved. Leaders argue that it is paramount that the voters see us as part of the new majority – or else they will not vote for us. Sometimes they argue that we must not be seen as responsible for bringing down a Social Democratic Party/Socialist People’s Party government. In itself this is not wrong, but some leaders have argued against attempts to promote the anticapitalist policies of the RGA, and some leaders have been ambiguous in their defence of the traditional RGA parliamentary principles, focusing instead on the necessity to avoid the fall of reformist party government.

These tendencies in a part of the leadership are also supported by sections of the party youth. This is a generation that has only been politically active under the reign of an openly bourgeois government.

They have never experienced a Social Democratic Party led government. This makes them naiÅNve towards what improvements the reformists will implement by themselves without any extraparliamentary pressure. They tend to focus on the pressure that RGA MPs can bring to bear on a new government by way of clever negotiation techniques and refusal to vote for government proposals.

They don’t realise that a Social Democratic Party/Socialist People’s Party government will have no problems in making parliamentary deals with the right, if the two parties think they can do this without being punished by their members, the trade unions and the voters.

If a Social Democratic Party/Socialist People’s Party government takes power, enormous possibilities will exist for the RGA. We may get the chance of being part of social and political mobilisations in support of demands for a new government. At the same time we will get the opportunity to make the difference between reformism and anti-capitalism visible to new layers of the working class and of the youth. The RGA can help this education process both by being at the forefront of all movements when Social Democratic and Socialist People’s Party-leaders retreat and by presenting an anticapitalist program of action that combines day-to-day demands of the working class with radical reforms that break with the framework of capitalism.

But such a situation also presents dangers. The pressure of adaptation will be great, for example if the RGA wishes to avoid political responsibility for the fall of a Social-Democratic government, no matter what the reasons.

Taking into the consideration the non-militant character of the membership and the lack of political education it would be irresponsible to disregard the risk of adaptation to reformism, like the majority of the Copenhagen local councillors. This would seriously compromise the hitherto parliamentary principle of the RGA making it part of the failure of a reformist government and part of the disappointment and disillusion instead of a pole of attraction for workers and youth who are disappointed by the Social Democratic Party and the Socialist People’s Party.

Debates are going on about these issues. After the May 2010 National Conference the balance is tipping towards the perspective of social mobilisation, against adaptation and for anti-capitalism. The final outcome will depend both of the level of struggles and the political debates inside the RGA.

Evolving SAP perspective for the RGA
The SAP was one of the founding parties of the RGA. SAP members have been actively building the RGA ever since its foundation. In that way SAP has been a part of the life and development of the RGA.

Consequently SAP has developed its analysis of the RGA and its strategy and tactics over the years. This has been done openly in resolutions from National Conferences and the National Leadership 68 New Parties of the Left of the SAP, even in the weekly political statements from the Executive Committee of SAP.

At the time of the creation of the RGA, the SAP supported the model of an electoral collaboration that could also develop common campaign activities and action. We insisted on special rights for the founding parties, and we were reluctant to give these up. We were afraid of losing control and being caught in a right-wing drift of the new organisation. In addition, veto rights for the founding parties could help avoid a split with the CP which felt especially insecure among its new partners.

When the numbers of non-aligned members grew, they naturally insisted in establishing the RGA as an ordinary member-led organisation. They were supported by the Left Socialist Party, and finally the SAP and the CP accepted this.

This development, combined with parliamentary representation, forced the RGA to take positions on more and more issues. The demand for a strategic political program began to appear.

Members of SAP engaged in the debates on what political positions to take – and in the work of developing a strategic program.

But all the time we stressed that the RGA should not adapt strategic positions that might jeopardise the unity of the existing forces. For a long period we worked from the perspective of preserving such a broad unity and at the same time working for a revolutionary regroupment inside the RGA– with parts of the Left Socialist Party in our mind. At the same time we gradually tried to introduce the notion of the RGA as a mobilising force in social struggles and movements.

In 1999 a National Conference of the SAP took stock of the reality that the RGA now was a political party in the ordinary Danish sense of that word. A resolution stated that “Red-Green Alliance is not a revolutionary party in the classical Leninist sense (based on democratic centralism, with a developed program for a socialist revolution, etc.), and we do not consider it desirable to try to enforce a development in this direction. Neither the subjective, nor the objective conditions for such a development are present at the moment.” But signifying a new SAP-perspective we wrote: “At this stage of development of the Red-Green Alliance we can merely note that there is no pre-set limit as to how far the Red-Green Alliance might develop towards an actual revolutionary party. But, on the other hand, the work of SAP inside the Red-Green Alliance has such a policy as its guiding line.” As a consequence of this 1999 analysis we decided to channel future public political activities through the RGA and through the youth organisation collaborating with the RGA. This meant that the SAP from then on has not engaged as a party in organising demonstrations, that we have not organised interventions of the SAP in unions and social movements and that only in exceptional circumstances have we distributed leaflets independently of the RGA.

This kind of work we have done, if at all possible, as members of the RGA.

The SAP, nevertheless, has continued to publish a monthly magazine, to organise our annual public educational seminar and the occasional public meetings.

In 2006 we confirmed and consolidated this perspective for our work in the RGA and even took it a bit further. In a National Conference resolution we wrote: “The RGA can therefore be the necessary organised socialist force in today’s struggles, in tomorrow’s struggles and in the socialist revolution; the organisation that can meet the tasks we have described in this text. This is what we wish to build Enhedslisten as, this is what we want Enhedslisten to become, and this is what we need!” We analysed the weak points of the RGA and the qualities that the SAP can contribute, and we set ourselves the task of introducing “more class, more struggle, more party” into the RGA, that is developing it into a class struggle party.

The fundamental task of the SAP was defined as helping build the RGA (and the youth organisation SUF) in all aspects. The RGA is “our party”, and the SAP is a necessary tool for organising our effort in building the RGA – especially necessary and useful because of our historic tradition, our political and practical experiences and our membership of the Fourth International.

12 January 2011

Michael Voss is a member of the Red-Green Alliance and of the SAP (Socialist Workers’ Party, Danish section of the Fourth International). As a representative of the SAP, he participated in the negotiations that led to the establishment of the RGA. From 1995 to 2006, he worked as a journalist and press officer for the parliamentary group of the RGA. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the SAP.

Denmark : A new period for the Red Green Alliance

2011-10-27T20:57:00.001+08:00

After the Danish elections
Thomas Eisler
International Viewpoint
October 2011

The national elections in Denmark on 15 September marked the end of ten years of the Liberal-Conservative government based on support from the xenophobic populist right Danish Peoples Party (DPP-Dansk Folkeparti). It will be replaced by a centre-left government of the Socialist Peoples Party (SPP-Socialistisk Folkepart), Social Democrats (SD-Socialdemokraterne) and the Social Liberal Party (SLP-Radikale Venstre) supported by the Red Green Alliance (RGA-Enhedslisten). The big winners of the election were the SLP and the RGA, the latter with a tripling of their support. The main losers were the Conservatives (Det Konservative Folkeparti) and Socialist Peoples Party.

Ten years of right government
When the Liberal-Conservative government won a majority with the DPP it was a break with decades of governments based on participation or support from centre parties like the SLP. Though the DPP maintains a profile as the defender of workers and pensioners it has been willing to lend votes to government attacks as long as they were paid off with attacks on immigrants. During the Liberal-Conservative government, mobilisations in defence of workers’ rights, against social cuts and the Iraqi war have been closely linked to the perspective of another government.

The attacks on early retirement
One of the central questions in the Danish political debate during the last 15 years has been the right to early retirement at the age of 60. During the centre-left government in the 90’es the prime minister guaranteed that early retirement was there to stay. When the centre-left government changed the early retirement in 1999 from a general right to an insurance system linked to the unemployment system it lost a lot of trust from the working class and thus paved the way for the right. The Social Democrats and Social Liberals also took part in a political agreement to gradually raise the age where people would entitled to early retirement and pensions by five years. In his new year speech on 1 January 2011 the prime minister came with a proposal to abolish the early retirement entirely. This initiated campaigns by the trade unions in defence of the early retirement scheme and in opinion polls it was close to a left majority without the Social Liberals. The Conservative-Liberal government managed to get an agreement with the Social Liberals and the Danish Peoples Party to advance the cuts on the early retirement.

The Centre-left “alternative”
The central topic in the political debates up to and during the electoral campaigns was how to balance the state budget in 2020. According to some economic forecasts there will be a deficit of 47 billion kroner in 2020 on the public finances and there will be a shortage of labour. The Social Democrats and Socialist Peoples Party basically accept the same economic and demographic assumptions as the right. Their alternative economic plan called “fair solution” is based on increasing working time by 12 minutes per day through agreements with the trade unions and employers’ organisations. They claim that this a necessary measure to keep early retirement and avoid cuts in public welfare. To meet criticism that this is ridiculous while there are 200,000 unemployed they have made the concession that it should not happen before there is full employment. Also the economic plan of the right is based on the assumption that in the long run there will be full employment.

A centre or left government
The trade unions and most of the electoral base of SD and SPP have put hopes in a new left government that would defend the interest of the working class. Nevertheless the leaders of SD and SPP have been more ambiguous, while some have mentioned the importance of reinstating the cooperative parliament that makes agreements across the centre excluding the extreme parties, meaning the RGA and DPP. This was also a clear invitation to the Social Liberals and since the elections the SD-SPP alliance has made an agreement with the Social Liberal Party to form a common government. The government platform includes the agreed attacks on early retirement. There is a majority for the parties which made the agreement. If the SD-SPP had kept the Social Liberals outside the government they could have avoided taking responsibility for the attack. In the Danish political system a government has to follow decisions by a majority of the parliament but can be in minority without having to resign.

The rise and fall of the SPP
This is the first time ever that the Socialist Peoples Party has been in government. It has been a goal of the party for many years and led to making many concessions in order to prove it is a responsible party. One of the first was the acceptance of the Maastricht treaty in 1993. During the last five years it has gone through a dramatic transformation to become more a peoples’ party and less a socialist party. This included a very populist attitude towards immigrants. They gave up the defence for immigrants and asylum seekers rights. The chairman condemned reactionary Muslim groups in a way that it could be understood as being generally against all Muslims. The new populist profile of the party seemed to a great success. From the 2005 to 2007 elections they rose from 6 to 13 %. Later polls gave the party around 20 % though closing in on the Social Democrats to be the main left party. During the last years the Social Democrats and Socialist Peoples Party has formed a very close political alliance. Not only have they developed common political proposals but they have made common advertisements on bill-boards etc.

In autumn 2010 the Liberal-Conservative government presented a plan to put extra criteria for family union with immigrants. This could mean that it would be much more difficult to get a stay-permit for a spouse from a non-European country. The SD and SPP took some time as they considered whether to support this proposal. Finally they decided to present an alternative that still included more strict criteria than the existing though more moderate than the right had proposed. This seemed to the straw that broke the camels back and they started to lose support.

The recent success of the RGA
The RGA first passed the 2% threshold needed for parliamentary representation in 1994, after the SPP accepted the Maastricht treaty. Since then the RGA reached a low point in the elections 2007. On the one hand the RGA was in a difficult situation with internal disagreement and external attacks for choosing a Muslim woman wearing a hijab as a candidate, and on the other the SPP was profiting from a general “cool factor” making it a very popular party in particular among youth. The discontent with the populism of the SPP is the main reason for the possibilities for the RGA. But it is also the general adaptation to the liberal economic policies by the SD-SPP alliance. According to opinion polls the rise in its support began in autumn 2010. Many new members have also joined. When the elections were announced on 26 August support was about 4.5%. During the three weeks of electoral campaign SD-SPP continued to lose support as they did not represent a clear alternative to the right and thus made it possible to undermine their credibility. It was thus only with a small margin that the four parties for a new government got a majority of 50,2% of the vote against the right.

The RGA campaign
The electoral campaign of the RGA beat everything it has done before. There were more militants taking part in the distribution of materials and postering than ever before. Around 1.5 million leaflets and pamphlets were distributed. Furthermore the RGA reached a new audience, breaking through the barrier of being a “strange” party and being taking seriously by a broader part of the population. The RGA became the “cool” party among youth with the charismatic spokesperson Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen in front. The campaign had the slogan: “There is room for welfare”. It was to break with dominating economic agenda and pointed to the taxation of rich, multinationals, speculators and the oil resources. The RGA presented a plan to create 100,000 jobs in public services and to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Defence of asylum-seekers and immigrants as well as unemployed were other central issues.

RGA and the new government
To fight to overthrow the right government and make the populist right lose their dictatorship over immigration policies has been a goal for the RGA ever since the government won the majority with the DPP 10 years ago. RGA gives its unconditional support to the new government. The RGA supports the formation of the government but makes no promises to support the proposals from the government. Decisions will be taken on an issue by issue basis and the RGA will not accept packages that link attacks on some with improvements for others. This will not prevent the RGA being put under pressure from the centre-left government. The government will try to give the RGA the responsibility for forcing the government to make deals with right. The ultimate pressure will be on the approval of the budget because the government will have to resign if it is not able to pass a budget. In its nature the budget is a package that includes all sorts of things including a budget for the military. During the SD-led government 1992-2001 the RGA never voted in favour of the budget though abstained on one occasion.

In order to prepare for this situation the RGA have had several debates on how to deal with the situation under a new government. At the 2010 RGA congress it was concluded that:

“The RGA encourages a new government to make a break that replaces the policies from the previous government with policy that is based on social equality, solidarity and sustainability. A budget that marks such a break will also have our votes. But we will under no circumstances vote in favour of a budget that:

- includes attacks;
- doesn’t include significant improvements;
- is the summary of one year of austerity, done with the parties from the right.”

This formulation was proposed by two SAP members in order to sharpen the original proposal from the leadership of the RGA.

The RGA will put forward demands on the government and work within the movement to build support for the demands to put the strongest possible pressure on the government. The RGA executive committee has made a call to branches, commissions and candidates of the RGA to organise public meetings with invitations to trade unions to debate expectations and demands on the new government.

-Thomas Eisler is a member of the national leadership of SAP - Danish Section of the Fourth International and a former member of the Red-Green Alliance leadership.

It’s enough! The hour of the rising has come!

2011-10-27T20:51:00.000+08:00

Antarsya
International Viewpoint
October 2011

The government has crossed all limits. It’s not enough that the workers, the unemployed, the young people, pensioners and professionals are plunged into misery—Finance Minister Venizelos went so far as to announce in Parliament—we should also be happy to be “under control”! The PASOK government and the interests of capital that it represents, in absolute harmony with the Troika, felt extremely positive shortly before announcing their slaughter package! The humiliation is almost perfect. At the same moment as their policy becomes bankrupt, and as working families are driven into bankruptcy, the holy alliance of government, the EU, and the IMF want to make us believe that there is no other way to save the country from bankruptcy. In reality they are the ones who lead us into bankruptcy under the control, and according to the terms of, the banks and multinational companies, the EU and the Greek industrialists (SEV).

There is another path, the path of the anti-capitalist break with the ruling order, in order to impose the interests of working people: by stopping the payments to the bankers and the cancellation of debt, by withdrawing from the euro zone and leaving the EU, by the nationalization of banks, state-owned enterprises and enterprises of strategic importance under workers’ control and without compensation, through a radical redistribution of wealth, by increasing wages, pensions and public spending in order to cover social needs and to create jobs by an adequate capital tax and the redistribution of profits through the cancellation of bank debts for those without vast fortunes, and for the unemployed.
We wont pay your poll taxes!

We shall bring about your downfall

The unified mass political movement will open the way, an uprising of all workers and of the entire population is needed here and now! With unlimited strikes and a nationwide general strike, with occupations as they have already begun in the ministries, with militant demonstrations, and with the democratic coordination of the branches that started fighting and of the rank and file basic trade union units, things can move beyond the bureaucratic leaderships of GSEE (private sector) and ADEDY (public service). Through the united struggle of student occupations and unlimited strikes we can win! It is time for a popular uprising that will lead to the overthrow of the government of shame, that will unshackle the rule of EU, IMF and capital and that will seal the defeat of the black bloc of PASOK, ND and LAOS. All the forces of the Left and the movement involved in the struggles must contribute through their joint action to an unprecedented revolutionary movement.

ANTARSYA fights for the abolition of capitalist barbarism as a whole and is involved with all its forces in the current conflict.

ANTARSYA, 21 Sep 2011

-ANTARSYA is an alliance of the anti-capitalist revolutionary left in Greece. It includes OKDE-Spartakos, Greek section of the Fourth Inrternational, and SEK, Socialist Workers’ Party, member of the International Socialist Tendency.

Police Attack Occupy Melbourne

2011-10-21T22:50:00.000+08:00

This is the first footage I took on my phone at the Occupy Melbourne Protest. The police are starting to push the protest from the intersection of Swanston and Burke Streets. They would keep pushing until we reached Trades Hall. I will be putting some more footage up from the day soon.

Earlier in the day police had violently attacked the camp in city square a making large number of arrests. The eviction has been justified on the basis of the legality, or lack, of camping in public spaces.

ETA Announces Ceasfire

2011-10-21T19:28:00.000+08:00

[The following statement from Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA - Basque Homeland and Freedom) was made on October 20, 2011, it outlines it reasons for making a definitive ceasefire. Hopefully this action along with the political dynamics that has lead to it will result in a significant growth in the struggle for socilaism, democracy and independence in Euskal Herria].

ETA, socialist revolutionary Basque organisation of national liberation,
desires through this declaration to announce its decision:

ETA considers that the international conference held recently in the
Euskal Herria [Basque Country] is an initiative of great political
transcendence. The agreed resolution brings together the ingredients for
an integrated solution to the conflict and has the support of large
sectors of Basque society and of the international community.

In Euskal Herria, a new political age is opening. We face a historic
opportunity to obtain a just and democratic solution to the age-old
political conflict.

Faced with violence and repression, dialogue and agreement must
characterise the new age. The recognition of Euskal Herria and respect
for popular will must prevail over any imposition. This is the will of
the majority of Basque citizens.

The struggle of many years has created this opportunity. It has not been
an easy road. The rawness of the struggle has claimed many companions
forever. Others are suffering jail or exile. To these our recognition
and heartfelt homage. From here on, the road will not be easy either.
Facing the imposition which still remains, every step, every
achievement, will be fruit of the effort and struggle of Basque
citizens. Throughout the years Euskal Herria has accumulated the
experience and strength necessary to tackle this road and it also has
the determination to do it.

It is time to look to the future with hope, it is also time to act with
responsibility and valour.

Because of all this, Eta has decided on the definitive cessation of its
armed activity. Eta makes a call to the governments of Spain and France
to open a process of direct dialogue which has as its aim the resolution
of the consequences of the conflict and thus the conclusion of the armed
conflict. With this historic declaration, Eta demonstrates its clear,
firm and definitive purpose.

Eta finally calls on Basque society to get involved in this process
until peace and liberty are achieved.

Long live the free Euskal Herria, Long live Basque socialism, no rest
until independence and socialism.

In Euskal Herria, 20 October 2011

Euskadi Ta Askatasuna

ETA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Community Action Against Auctioning People's Property

2011-10-15T12:55:00.001+08:00

This video was posted on Kathleen Hanna's Blog.

Community action against the foreclosure and auctioning of people's property in Brooklyn. Nine activists were arrested as part of the protest

Solidarity from International Council of Car Workers

2011-10-15T12:45:00.000+08:00

Originally Pulbished at International Viewpoint
October 2011

This is a message of solidarity sent by participants in the International Council of Car Workers (CITA) to the European Conference of Workers in the Car Industry, held at the International Institute for Research and Education in Amsterdam on May 28-29, 2011. We have also published Declaration of the European Car Workers’ Conference an overview at Creating cross-border links between militants and Ford Blanquefort, an example from the same event.

Dear colleagues,

As participants in the International Council of Car Workers (CITA), we give greetings and wish you much success for your European meeting of car workers. Thank you for your invitation. Unfortunately, for reasons of timing, we cannot be with you.

At the 6th international Council of Car Workers, in late 2009 in Germany, with 450 participants from 17 countries, we adopted an international program of struggle for car workers. It took into account a comprehensive restructuring of the global industry and the consequences of the battle of mutual destruction of the carmakers for car workers and their families.

In fact, tens of thousands of jobs have been destroyed, wages have been reduced, in particular in the United States, Russia, Spain and Italy, not to mention the closure of the Opel plant in Antwerp. In Europe, Opel has reduced its workforce by 10,000, or 20%. Opel workers in Bochum (Germany) have been informed of massive layoffs of about 1,200 jobs.

The initial impact of the world economic and financial crisis was attenuated by partial unemployment and, often, an increase in compensation. With scrappage schemes and significant discounts an even deeper collapse of production was avoided in many countries. But now, the increase in exploitation, the concentration of car companies and considerable job destruction has become more apparent.

In many companies, daily struggles are on-going against increased exploitation, for higher wages and so on. The huge expansion of production capacities, particularly in the BRICs, is based on each group’s hope of outdoing its competitors. We must therefore expect new restructurings related to closures of factories, massive layoffs and so on.

Against the various attempts at division by management, it is necessary to forge the unity of workers around the whole world!

In the factories, political debate is lively and not only on the immediate issues of work. Because the capitalist system is showing its overall decay, like its inhuman energy policy, indifferent to deaths, like the nuclear disaster in Japan, its economic and financial crises and its wars in Afghanistan, Libya, Ivory Coast and so on.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster brought hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets in Germany. The international working class should get even more involved in the fight for the preservation of the natural environment. Among other things, this question is very important in our activities because the crisis of the environment and the exploitation of workers have the same cause: the pursuit without end of the maximum profit. The fight to save the bases of life for humanity, the struggle for a better future, without exploitation and oppression, requires class awareness and organization. Our Council has always said: we will think beyond the system of capitalist profit and we will discuss a social alternative.

We hope that your meeting will be a success and we want to take this opportunity to invite you also to our 7th Council of Car Workers from May 7-20, 2012 in Munich, Germany (more information can be read on our site: www.automobilarbeiterratschlag ))

Militant greetings and solidarity,

Fritz Hoffman, Ulrich Ittermann, Birgit Schumann

(participants in the International Council of Auto Workers)

Italian unions mobilize against austerity plan

2011-09-01T21:39:00.001+08:00

International Metalworkers' Federation
August 31 2011

The Italian metalworkers’ unions, FIOM, FIM and UILM mobilize against the government’s plans for cuts and retrenchments, that disproportionally hit workers and pensioners, while protecting the wealthy, overpaid politicians and high-ranking state officials. Sit-ins, rallies and a 8 hour general strike are planned for September 1-6.

ITALY: FIM and UILM, and their national centres CISL and UIL, demand the immediate withdrawal of the austerity measures concerning pensions, and will demonstrate in front of the Senate on September 1 against "inadequate measures that hit the usual victims instead of those who created the national debt." They urge the government to withdraw the pension measures, and to concentrate on combating tax evasion, on big fortunes and on the costs of the political system in order to remedy the lack of resources.

FIOM prepares a series of initiatives on September 5 and 6 against the government's plans, the attack on workers and on workers' rights. The national centre CGIL calls for an 8 hour national general strike on September 6 in all sectors to demand changes in the government's austerity plan of August 12. Rallies and demonstrations will be organized in all Italian counties.

The government's austerity plan is considered unequal and ineffective to counter the social, economic and financial crisis affecting Italy.

"The government's measures puts burdens only on workers' and pensioners' shoulders, cutting public sector wages, jobs and services, reducing public funds for municipalities and local authorities and imposing solidarity taxes only on incomes and revenues, preserving private property and wealth."

The government also interferes in industrial relations and divides the social partners, CGIL says, distorting the contents of the agreement on the representativeness recently reached between the main social partners. Without any economic and financial justification, it introduces rules to reduce individuals' protection against indiscriminate firings.

No provision to support growth and employment, particularly for young people, is included in the government package, says CGIL.

Instead of the government's austerity plan, the CGIL proposes several measures designed to boost growth and revenues, such as:

a structural plan to fight tax evasion, amounting to 130 billion euro per year
an extraordinary tax on large real estates, generating 12 billion euro
an ordinary tax on wealth over 800,000 euro, generating income of 15 billion euro
a reduction of the costs of the political system, politicians and public administrators, a wage ceiling for high-ranking state officials and reductions at public local companies that do not produce services - generating cost savings of up to 8.5 billion euro
a "Growth and innovation fund" to invest in the insertion of young people in the labour market
support for incomes, by reducing taxation for workers and pensioners.

Gaddafi falls, let the people decide

2011-08-31T20:12:00.001+08:00

Statement by the NPA, 21 August 2011
Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA)
From International Viewpoint

On February 15 and 16, 2011 after the fall of Ben Ali and Mubarak, it was the turn of Libya to see a popular movement develop against a 42 year old dictatorship. The arrest of a human rights activist in Benghazi led to riots to demand his release, which Gaddafi met with violent repression. This was the opposite effect which happened: resistance, the liberation of Benghazi from the yoke of Gaddafi’s representatives and the extension of the revolt to the neighbouring towns and regions.

The revolutionary processes underway in Tunisia and in Egypt gave courage to resist repression. Over the last six months, the revolt has spread while, one month later, under cover of a resolution from the UN, the member countries of NATO attempted to hijack the process underway by an aerial military intervention. The NPA condemned this intervention. Its objectives were clear: to cover up for their support until the end, past and present, of the dictatorships in place, while getting their hands on a country rich in oil and gas resources.

The fall of the dictator Gaddafi is good news for the peoples. The NPA is entirely in solidarity with the revolutionary process which continues in the Arab region. To finish this process the peoples will need to vanquish the two faces of the counter revolution: that of the dictatorships, starting with that of Bashar al Assad in Syria, and that of the confiscation of their destiny by the imperialist powers.

A new life opens for the Libyan people. Freedom, democratic rights, the use of the wealth originating from natural resources for the satisfaction of the fundamental needs of the people are now on the agenda.

August 21, 2011.

-The Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste was founded in February 2009, on the proposal of the LCR, French section of the Fourth International. As a broad anti-capitalist party it is not itself linked to any international current. The members in France of the Fourth International are in the NPA.

National Conference of the NPA: a campaign faced with the crisis of the system

2011-07-26T21:16:00.000+08:00

Jean-Francois Cabral, Sandra Demarcq
Published in the NPA weekly Tout est a nous (TEAN), 30/06/11.
Republished from International Viewpoint
July 2011

The national conference of the NPA brought together 240 delegates, elected by the 3,100 members who had voted in 92 local aggregate meetings. The purpose of the conference was to decide the NPA’s approach to the upcoming elections, presidential and legislative. The vote of the members gave a majority of 50.4 per cent to Motion A, thus deciding to launch our presidential campaign without putting our candidature in parentheses.

On Saturday, the first debate began around our approach to the elections. The principal divergence between the delegates of Position A and those of Position B (40 per cent of the delegates) related to the strategy of the NPA towards the Left Front. Position C (5.8 per cent of the delegates) considered that the approach proposed by Position A has was not sufficiently revolutionary.
The general profile of the campaign

The discussions on Saturday afternoon centred on the profile and the main lines of our campaign. As a result of these discussions, broad agreement took shape around the idea that our campaign should respond to the crisis of the capitalist system and its consequences for the population and the working class. This crisis, which is at the same time economic, financial, social, environmental, energy and food, has disastrous effects. Faced the with governments of both right and left which orchestrate the austerity plans in the service of the ruling classes, the need to give our social camp the confidence that is necessary to fight back is a common preoccupation. But differences have arisen on the way that this campaign should be conducted. Some comrades of Position B are afraid that there will be a “workerist and sectarian” campaign and the comrades of Position C are worried that there will be a campaign which would not refer sufficiently to measures of a break with capitalism.

On Saturday evening, our comrade Philippe Poutou was designated as presidential candidate of the NPA by 122 For, 50 Against, 11 Abstentions and 47 NPPV (did not take part in the vote). Some comrades in particular were opposed because they considered it regrettable that our candidate is not a woman, in particular one of our two spokespersons. But a majority considered that the social and political profile of Philippe illustrated best the project of our organization during this crisis period of capitalism and made it possible to unite the party.
The launching of the campaign

On Sunday, the discussions in workshops made it possible to deepen the various axes of our campaign : working conditions, sharing out of work, jobs and precarious work, wages, ecology, discriminations, cancellation of the debt, youth… As an anti-capitalist organization, we want to link the defence of the demands that arise in the daily life of the population to the discussion on how to win them, by the mobilization of the working class, in order to organize society according to other interests than those of the capitalists.

At the beginning of the morning session, a discussion also took place on the urgency of succeeding, all together, in overcoming the barrier of 500 sponsorships of elected representatives that the law imposes on us. This is the immediate task, the most urgent thing for everyone. At the conclusion of the national conference, a declaration was adopted, with 62 per cent of delegates voting in favour, in order to unite the organization around its campaign. Position B wished to make a public statement putting forward the basic disagreements and is calling for the constitution of a public current next October.

After this national conference, the challenge is now to put the internal discussions in the background, to unite the NPA and to turn the party outwards, towards struggles and towards the electoral campaign which must give coherence to our interventions, by linking them to our project of society.

Published in the NPA weekly Tout est a nous (TEAN), 30/06/11.

-Jean-Francois Cabral is a member of the leadership of the NPA.

-Sandra Demarcq is a member of the Executive Committee of the New Anti-Capitalist pary (NPA) in France, and a member of the leadership of the Fourth International.

Declaration of the Executive Committee members of the NPA supporting Position B

2011-07-26T20:52:00.000+08:00

Published in the NPA weekly Tout est a nous (TEAN), 30/06/11
Repuplished from International Viewpoint
Anticapitalist, feminist and unitary, for an ecosocialism of the 21st century

At the National Conference of the NPA called to decide on the NPA’s stance in the 2012 presdidential and legislative elections, the supporters of the minority position (known as Position B) made the following statement in the closing of the conference.

1. In line with the positions of a new majority leadership, the National Conference of the NPA has turned its back on the project of bringing together anticapitalists and on any kind of unitary perspective. By doing this, it has gone beyond simply taking a position on the presidential election. It considers that the NPA on its own is capable of responding to the challenges of the period, of contesting, on the basis of an orientation of a break with capitalism, the hegemony of the Socialist Party and of social-liberalism.

The leaders of Position A explain in Tout est a nous that " the idea of regrouping antiliberals and anticapitalists on the electoral terrain and outside it, on the sole basis of non-participation in a government with the SP" is an "obscuring of our project" and that " the central axis of the NPA" must be "the direct dialogue with workers, young people, the unemployed". Never in the short history of the NPA has a majority leadership defended such a strategy: reduced to self-assertion and self-centred construction, breaking with the project of a broad party launched by the LCR. Quite an achievement for a party which wanted to be much broader!

2. This proclaimed and programmed isolation can lead only to a dead end and will deprive the NPA of any ability to influence the debates which will arise from the important developments to come. In a political situation that is rich with potentialities but also full of threats, such a retreat is profoundly worrying. The crisis of capitalism, with its consequences of debt and austerity in Europe, the climatic and environmental threats and the latent food crisis that they involve, the scarcity of resources and the risks of war that they carry, the brutality of the policies followed by the Right and by social democracy, the uprisings and resistances which they provoke, from Greece to Spain, from France to Italy, the rise of the far Right, the Arab spring and the slow and inexorable catastrophe of Fukushima; the situation is new, moving and contradictory. In this context, it is necessary for us to be even more an open party, able to take initiatives, to intervene in an overall way without dissociating the social and ecological needs from politics, the street and the ballot box and thus to carry forward a project of anticapitalist unity independent of the SP, addressing the organizers of the social movement, without circumventing the political forces and currents.

We want the Right and the National Front to be beaten in 2012. It will then be a question of bringing together, in a block of left opposition, the social, ecologist and political forces that will refuse to participate in or support the policies followed by the social liberals. This is a decisive challenge which should be prepared as of now with determination by those who know that such unity is an absolute necessity in order to build an alternative. It is the object of a permanent political battle whose programme consists of a plan for an anticapitalist and ecosocialist break with capitalism, starting from the document adopted at our last Congress: “Our answers to the crisis”.

3. Concerning the possibilities of an electoral agreement with other forces for the 2012 presidential election, we continue to affirm that a single candidature of the forces to the left of the SP was desirable. But for us, any electoral agreement supposes that all the components clearly affirm the impossibility of governing with the SP and of constituting a parliamentary majority with it. We are obliged to recognise that with the Left Front these conditions do not exist.

We think that an active policy on the part of the NPA could have influenced the situation in a positive sense.

We also note that there exist many currents and activists who agree with us, who do not resign themselves to the division which reigns on the left of the Left and who refuse the perspective of a governmental agreement with social-liberalism.

So, as opposed to a counter-productive policy of denunciation and self-assertion, it is necessary to continue political confrontation, to influence the reconstruction and recomposition of the social and political movement (in particular social struggles and the legislative elections).

4. Although we recognize the result of the vote by the members of the NPA, we cannot take responsibility for the consequences of the decisions of this national conference: they express an identity-centred posture of an NPA that no longer has any link with its founding project, which aimed to “represent what is best in the heritage of the socialist, communist, libertarian and revolutionary traditions. ” and to bring together the many who “in and around the parties of the institutional Left, have not given up the aim of radically changing society”.

This project was not to build a party by bringing together “the anonymous" around a core of "genuine anticapitalists”, addressing the masses directly, in an “anti-system” logic. “A party is not an end in itself. It is a tool to bring people together, to gain in effectiveness in the collective struggles” as our founding principles affirmed.

And “to bring together the anticapitalists” involves building initiatives on all terrains in order to create a political alternative which can polarize as broadly as possible anticapitalists of different horizons, traditions, experiences and generations.

The choices that have been made on the programme, the profile of the NPA and the method of designating the candidate are clearly those of a campaign of self-assertion and not of a campaign of uniting anticapitalists. During the national conference almost all the delegates of Position A voted against an amendment which proposed to add to their document a reference to “Our answers to the crisis”, a programmatic document adopted by a majority at the last congress. They also excluded the idea that the NPA should be represented at the presidential election by one of its spokespersons. That will certainly bring reproaches to a feminist organization which finally had the chance to present a woman as candidate. We cannot identify with the launching of this electoral campaign, which does not unite our party. We will continue to play our full role in the party while defending other choices.

5. After this national conference, at which an opposition emerged representing 40 per cent of the membership and of the delegates, we invite the comrades who agree with this orientation for the NPA to organize themselves in an anticapitalist, ecosocialist, feminist and unitary current. We are determined to continue to do everything possible along with all the members of the NPA. And we will also take the necessary measures to maintain the founding project of our party, on which a majority has unfortunately just turned its back. We will organize an assembly to establish this current in October. In the meantime we will discuss how it should function in a collective and democratic way, what means of expression we will have and the type of relations that we will maintain with other political, social and ecologist forces in France and in other countries.

Declaration by the members of the Executive Committee supporting Position B, after a collective discussion between the members of the National Political Committee and the delegates of Position B, who met together on June 26, 2011 during the National Conference of the NPA:

Catherine Faivre d’ Arcier, Coralie Wawrzyniak, Damien Joliton, Emre Cirak, Flavia Verri, Fred Borras, Guillaume Liégard, Helene Adam, Ingrid Hayes, Leonce Aguirre, Marie-Do Bartoli, Monique Migneau, Myriam Martin, Olivier Mollaz, Pierre-François Grond.

The worker Poutou succeeds the postman Besancenot

2011-07-26T20:20:00.000+08:00

Laurie Bosdecher
Originally published by Sud-Ouest, republished from International Viewpoint
July 2011

Philippe Poutou was designated the NPA candidate for the 2012 presidential election at the National Conference held on the 25th and 26th June. Putou is a worker from Ford’s in Bordeaux. This article was published in the regional newspaper Sud-Ouest on Sunday 26th June.

Yesterday evening, the far-left party chose the trade unionist who works at Ford Blanquefort to represent it in 2012. Philippe Poutou was elected with 53 per cent of the votes.

“Calm and a hard worker”
A trade unionist, member of the CGT, this father of two children, who lives in Bordeaux, has been in all the battles to save jobs in his factory, which was due to close and which finally continues to operate. “He is a calm person, a hard worker, who thinks very quickly and thinks his ideas through to the end”, says Gilles Penel, one of his CGT colleagues at Ford. “We have seldom seen him lose heart during these difficult years”, testifies also Francis Wilsius, CFTC activist and representative on the enterprise committee for several years.

“I will not try and be a super-Besancenot. I will be never as good as him. I will really need the help of my colleagues and friends to succeed”, the activist considers. Irony of history, he is the son of a postman, his three brothers and sisters are also postal workers. “As for me, I failed the entrance exam.”

Without any diploma, doing temporary work for ten years in small storage companies, before starting, again on a temporary contract, in the gear-box section of the Ford plant in 1996, Philippe Poutou came in contact with politics at a very young age.

He was born in Seine-Saint-Denis, but arrived in Gironde at the age of seven, and grew up in a family of Mitterrand supporters – something that he questioned as a teenager. He joined the far left when he was

18. For ten years, he was active in Lutte Ouvriere (LO). He read a lot. Marx and Engels, but also Zola, Hugo, Pouillat, Jaurès. “It was the history of human society through novels that interested me the most”, he explains.

He left LO. After a disagreement with Arlette Laguiller, the local branch was expelled from the party. The Bordeaux members then formed “The Workers’ Voice”, before joining the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) in 2000. Within the NPA, some people reproach Philippe Poutou with this too “workerist” approach. “We don’t all have the same way of seeing things. Personalization around the candidate doesn’t go down well in the party. In any case we will run the campaign in a collective way”, he replies.

Philippe Poutou is articulate. And also self-assured. Having got used to dealing with the media in the battle for Ford, he is also used to election campaigns. He has stood several times under the banner of the LCR then the NPA, in municipal legislative and European elections. In March 2010, heading the list for the regional elections in Aquitaine, he got 2.52 per cent of the votes.

Declaration of the National Conference of the NPA on the presidential election

2011-07-26T20:06:00.000+08:00

From International Viewpoint
July 2011

The NPA (New Anti-Capitalist Party, France) held a National Conference on the 25th and 26th June to decide on its stance in the 2012 presidential elections. It adopted the following statement.

In Greece, in Spain and in the whole of the Arab world, millions of demonstrators are opposing the policies of the ruling classes and the states whose aim is to make the workers and the peoples of the region pay for the crisis. In France, the employers, Sarkozy and his government are engaged in violent and reactionary attacks against workers, women, young people and immigrants. Since it was founded, the NPA has consistently advocated the broadest unity in opposition to these attacks, and has initiated and taken part in all the unitary frameworks which make it possible to act effectively in this sense.

On the occasion of the upcoming elections, presidential and legislative, we want to continue these daily battles while making heard the voice of the exploited and oppressed, the working class, immigrants, women, youth, all the victims of the austerity imposed by a state that is subjected to the banks and the employers, and which uses racism and xenophobia to divide us. Starting from the positions discussed and adopted by our party since its foundation, we will defend a programme of breaking with capitalism, for a different distribution of wealth, so that wage-earners and the whole of the population do not pay for the crisis. It is a programme for struggles, for their generalization. It is the only way forward, faced with the social, political and ecological crisis which cannot be solved in the framework of a simple change of government, in a context of respect for state institutions and private property. A programme which could only be implemented by a workers’ government, because only control and direct intervention by workers can overthrow the system and change the world.

In this context, the National Conference of the NPA presents the candidature of Philippe Poutou for the presidential election. He is a member of the NPA, a trade unionist who has for years been organizing the fight against the closure of his enterprise, against one of the world’s leading car companies. He is an anti-capitalist, feminist, ecologist, anti-racist and internationalist candidate.

In these campaigns, the NPA will make a voice heard which unambiguously condemns austerity policies, whether they are carried out by the Right or, as in Greece and Spain, by the Left. This voice will be completely independent of the Socialist Party and its allies. The NPA demands the cancellation of the debt, the expropriation of the banks, their socialization in a single public financial service under the control of the mobilised working class and the population and the defence and the improvement of the public services that are now being attacked under the pretext of the debt.

It wants to make a voice heard which, basing itself on their mobilizations, defends the interests of the workers against lay-offs, for a ban on sackings, for sharing out the work available and for pay rises (an increase of 300 euros a month, net, no wages below 1600 euros net, indexation of wages on prices) and for an end to intolerable working conditions.

A voice which, a few months after the catastrophe of Fukushima, demands an end to nuclear power and the expropriation of EDF, GDF-Suez, Areva, Total… and the creation of a public service making it possible to have energy planning.

A voice for equal rights, for the regularization of all undocumented workers, against all racist laws and discourses, in particular the stigmatization of Rroms and Muslims. A voice which fights the National Front, a party that hides its support for all the capitalist attacks behind a pseudo-social discourse.

A voice which denounces and firmly combats the oppression of women and fights against all the forms of discrimination and violence that they undergo in both the public and private spheres. A voice which fights against the discriminations that lesbians, gays, Bi, transsexual and intersexual people experience.

A voice which refuses the unlimited power of the employers and the banks, which fights for real democracy, as the indignados at Puerta del Sol in Madrid, the Greek demonstrators of Syntagma Square and the revolutionaries of the Arab world demand. A voice which expresses its solidarity with all the struggles of the oppressed, starting with the struggle of the Palestinian people.

A voice to build another Europe, founded not on competition but on solidarity. A Europe of the workers and the peoples. A voice which is opposed to the military and economic interventions of French imperialism.

In the forthcoming electoral campaigns, we will make heard an emergency programme; we will defend a policy that is as faithful to the interests of the workers as the Right and the UMP, currently in government, are to the interests of the rich.

We have before us a difficult battle and we are faced with many obstacles. To start with, we must succeed, all together, in overcoming the barrier of 500 sponsorships of elected officials which the anti-democratic law imposes on us. Differences have been expressed during the preparation of the National Conference and in the conference itself. Our party must now unite around the fundamental demands which we share.

Our campaign will involve a collective leadership and campaign spokespersons, including our two national spokespersons and Olivier Besancenot. It will be based on the whole of the party. We call on all those who so wish to take their place in our collective combat.

Nanterre, June 26, 2011.

Developments in French Left Electoral Politics

2011-07-26T19:55:00.000+08:00

I'm working on a post discussing electoral strategy in the French left, particularly with reference to the Nouveau Parti Anticapitiste (New Anticapitalist Party - NPA). I hope to have it done some time this week. In the mean time I'll be posting some statements and material released by the NPA in the wake of its National Conference, held on June 24 and 25, to determine its stance on the 2012 Presidential Elections.

LoveSong: A Manifesto

2011-07-13T22:04:00.000+08:00

This document was circulated at the Queer Collaborations Conference held at Curtin University July 4-10. The document was drafted by Tim Scriven. Hard copies can be down loaded from Tim's blog lovesongsingers

Preface
This is about the aims, goals and methods of the queer community. Queers, like everyone else, sometimes forget their roots. This manifesto was written because our community sometimes forgets itself; we become lost wanderers moving in anger. Activists are foremost lovers- they are moved and guided by love. Love gives birth to courage, thought, effort and sometimes necessary rage. We need to explain and articulate, within our community and within the larger community that our origins are in an ideology of love. It’s time to get serious about compassion. We are a radical alternative and our community can be frighteningly unfamiliar especially to newcomers. If we want to grow as a community, we need to communicate that we are about love and offer support.

We
We are the protectors, the liberators and the grievers. We are not immoral, amoral or degenerate; in a world of hate and fear, we care. We are political; our anger is made of love and our slogans are love letters to a heartbroken world. We contain the seeds of a better world. We are queer.

Hope
An activist community is a powerful tool. Sadly, one of it’s most exciting features is often overlooked. An activist space can and should be a showcase of a better, kinder world; a visible argument for hope. When we are lovely to one another, it nourishes trust that the world can be lovelier. Please be excellent to one another.

Don’t fear activism, don’t fear politics
Activism is refusing to accept that things are the way they are, and that’s that. Activism is fun and heartbreaking and irritating and elating. Anyone can be an activist ! Everyone craves to give their life some extended meaning. Being an activist is a way to become more, without buying more. Almost everyone thinks that the root of activism is anger, but the real root is love.

Political doesn’t mean bickering. Political doesn’t mean yelling (many of us never yell). Politics isn’t meaningless arguments about language- though sometimes there are important arguments about language. Politics is about trying to change the world you live in, so it better accommodates you and others. That doesn’t always mean arguing with the government, getting one person to change their behaviour can be a political outcome.

Recruiting
As conservatives have long realised, recruiting is part of the queer agenda. They get it wrong though because they assume we want to make people queer: maybe sometimes we do that, but that’s not the main point. Our real goal is to find people who are already queer, and make room for them in our community.

Let’s make our community bigger. Let’s make an effort to let people know we exist, and they can join us. Let’s make sure that engineers are just as welcome as gender studies students. Let’s tell the world that you can be queer without a rad fashion sense. Let’s make literature that explains what we’re about for people without a university education. Let’s invite all in.

P.S Practice radical love (PRL).

CC. Users may reuse and modify this document if 1. This licence remains attached 2.Publishers state the document did not originate with them. 3. Publishers acknowledge that they have made changes (if applicable).

Massive outrage: Notes on the day of 19J in Barcelona

2011-06-30T11:12:00.001+08:00

by Josep María Antentas and Esther Vivas
International Viewpoint
June 2011

The level of outrage has once again exceeded all expectations, taking to the streets en masse, and showing the gap that exists between those who are angry and political institutions. From the 19 May (15M) to the 19 June (19J), forces have come together and unity has been created, not just the local areas (protest camps and neighborhood groups), but broader segments of society who identify with our fierce condemnation of the political class and the financial and banking system which are responsible for this crisis. The slogan "we are not commodities in the hands of politicians and bankers" summarizes both demands.

The indignad@s (indignants) have unambiguously pointed the finger at those who have buckeld under the pressure of the "markets" and who in demanding that others tighten their belts, have not done so themselves. "We want to see politicians earning pitiful salaries of 1,000 euros a month" was one of the enthusiastically applauded slogans at the rally. This democracy has proved increasingly empty of content for a public prepared to take control over their own lives. One vote every four years is not enough for those who argue that politics must involve the daily exercise of their rights, from day to day and from the bottom up.

The attempt by the authorties to contain the movement, following the action at the Catalan Parliament on 15J, has not been able to cope with the collective social outrage that surpasses even that of the men and women who were in the protest camps. Anyone who believes that the movement is merely a passing phase of youthful activists was wrong. So are those who consider it to be simply a problem of public order. The usual suspects have turned into a multitude. Two years and nine months of crisis weighed heavily. The current movement expresses a deep social malaise that has finally emerged into the open and, as usual, without warning and in new ways. We are not part of a cyclical or passing phenomenon, but instead privy to the first stirrings of a new cycle of political activity, of which 15M and the protest camps acted as a springboard.

Over the last month we have regained confidence in collective action. It has gone from skepticism and resignation to "yes we can". The riots in the Arab world, mass demonstrations in Greece and "will not pay for your crisis" of the Icelandic people have weighed heavily on the collective imagination and have given impetus to a restoring of confidence in the "we", the colective political subject. The "globalization of resistance" of that anti-globalization movement, dating back more than ten years, has been revived again in a very different scenario, marked by the crisis.

After a day of 15J, where the movement was engaged in a battle for legitimacy, 19J was presented as a test for the movement to show its strength in the face of the attacks it has received. It needed to translate into action in the street the popular support that it has awakened. And that is exactly what it has achieved. The 19J has shown the expansion of the movement, its ability to mobilise en masse and its explosive expansion in a very short time. Its growth since the 15M is not only quantitative but also qualitative in terms of the diversification of its social base and its generational composition.

Now what? The challenges of moving to strengthen its roots involve strenthening the grassroots, establishing local assemblies and strengthening stable organisational mechanisms. The movement also needs to try to develop links with the working class, sectors in struggle and militant trade unionists, and to keep up the pressure on the main trade unions, who are puzzled by a change in the social and political landscape that they had not anticipated. It is necessary to achieve concrete victories. The prevention of several evictions, although they may be small and very defensive gains, point the way and bring new energy. More generally, the movement faces the challenge of combining its general character, its critique of the current global economic model and the political class, with the strengthening of concrete struggles against the cuts and policies that seek to transfer the cost of the crisis on to those who can least afford it.

The 19J has marked a turning point that ends the first phase which started with the 15M, and prepares the next phase of a movement that has only just begun.

-Josep María Antentas is a member of the editorial board of the magazine Viento Sur, and a professor of sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

-Esther Vivas is a member of the Centre for Studies on Social Movements (CEMS) at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. She is author of the book in Spanish “Stand Up against external debt” and co-coordinator of the books also in Spanish “Supermarkets, No Thanks” and “Where is Fair Trade headed?”. She is also a member of the editorial board of Viento Sur.

Rebellion of the indignant

2011-06-01T19:23:00.000+08:00

Notes from Barcelona’s Tahrir Square
Josep María Antentas, Esther Vivas
International Viewpoint
May 2011

There is no doubt about it. The wind that has electrified the Arab world in recent months, the spirit of the repeated protests in Greece or the student struggles in Britain and Italy, the mobilizations against Sarkozy in France... has come to the Spanish State.

These are not then days of “business as usual”. The comfortable routines of our “market democracy”" and its electoral and media rituals have been abruptly altered by the unforeseen emergence in the street and public space of citizen mobilization. This “rebellion of the indignant” worries the political elites who are always discomfited when the people take democracy seriously... and decide to start practicing it for themselves.

Two years ago, when the crisis which broke out in September 2008 took on historic proportions, the “masters of the world” experienced a brief moment of panic, alarmed by the magnitude of a crisis they had not anticipated, through their lack of theoretical instruments with which to understand it, and feared a strong social reaction. Then came the empty claims of a “refoundation of capitalism” and false mea culpas that little by little evaporated, once the financial system was underpinned and in the absence of a social explosion.

The social reaction has been slow in coming. Since the outbreak of the crisis, social resistance has been weak. There has been a very large gap between the discrediting of the current economic model and its translation into collective action. Several factors explain this, in particular, fear, resignation before the current situation, scepticism with regard to trade unions, the absence of political and social reference points, and the penetration among wage earners of individualistic and consumerist values.

The current outbreak did not, however, start from scratch. Years of work on a small scale of alternative networks and movements, initiatives and resistance of more limited impact had kept the flame of contestation alive in this difficult period. The general strike of September 29m 2010 also opened a first breach, although the subsequent demobilization by the leaderships of the CCOO and UGT and the signing of the social pact closed the path of trade union mobilisation and furthered if possible, the discredit and lack of prestige of the biggest unions among combative youth and those who have launched the camps initiative.

Indignant!

“Indignation” so much the fashion through the pamphlet by Hessel [the former French resistance fighter Stéphane Hessel], is one of the ideas that define the protests which have started. Here there reappears in another form, the "Ya Basta!" of the Zapatistas in their uprising of January 1, 1994, then the first revolt against the "new world order" proclaimed by George Bush senior after the first Gulf War, the disintegration of the USSR and the fall of the Berlin wall.

“Indignation is a start. One is outraged, rises up and then one sees” said Daniel Bensaïd. Gradually, however, we have passed from discomfort to outrage and from that to this mobilization. We have a true “mobilized indignation”. From the earthquake of crisis, the tsunami of social mobilization develops.

To fight more than unease and indignation is required, we must also believe in the usefulness of collective action, that it is possible to overcome and that all that has gone before is not lost. For years the social movements in the Spanish State have essentially known defeats. The lack of victories which show the usefulness of social mobilization and increase the expectations of the possible weighed like a heavy slab on the slow initial reaction to the crisis.

Precisely at this point the great contribution of the revolutions in the Arab world to the ongoing protests has registered. They show that collective action is useful, that “Yes we can”. That is why they, as well as the less covered victory against the bankers and the political class in Iceland, have been a reference point from the beginning for the protesters and activists.

Along with the belief that "this is possible”, that things can be changed, loss of fear, in a time of crisis and difficulties, is another key factor. “Without fear” is precisely one of the slogans most heard these days. Fear still grips a large majority of workers and popular sectors and leads to passivity or xenophobic and unsympathetic reactions. But the 15M mobilization and the camps expanding like an oil slick are a powerful antidote to fear that threatens to dismantle the schemes of a ruling elite at the forefront of an increasingly delegitimized system.

The 15M movement and the camps have an important generational component. Each time a new cycle of struggles breaks out, a new generation of activists emerges, and “youth” as such acquire visibility and prominence. While this generational and youth component is essential, and is also expressed in some of the organized movements that have been visible lately like "Youth without future", it must be noted that the ongoing protest is not a generational movement. It is a movement of criticism of the current economic model and attempts to make workers pay for the crisis which is fundamentally weighted towards youth. The challenge is precisely that, as on so many occasions, the youth protest acts as a triggering factor and catalyst for a broader cycle of social struggles.

The spirit of anti-globalization returns

The dynamism, the spontaneity and the thrust of the current protests are the strongest since the emergence of the anti-globalization movement more than a decade ago. Emerging internationally in November 1999 at the protests in Seattle during the WTO Summit (although its antecedents go back to the Zapatista Chiapas uprising in 1994), the anti-globalization wave quickly came to the Spanish state. The consultation for the abolition of the foreign debt in March 2000 (held the same day as the general elections and banned in several cities by the Electoral Board) and the big mobilization for the summit in Prague in September 2000 against the World Bank and the IMF were the first signs of this, particularly in Catalonia. But the mass movement really arrived with the demonstrations against the World Bank Summit in Barcelona on June 22 and 24, 2001. Just ten years later we are witnessing the birth of a movement whose energy, enthusiasm and collective strength has not been seen since then. It will not, therefore, be a nostalgic tenth anniversary. Quite the contrary. We are going to celebrate it with the birth of a new movement.

The assemblies now in Plaza Catalunya (and, indeed, all the camps around the state beginning with that at Sol in Madrid) have given us priceless moments. The 15M and the camps are authentic "foundational struggles" and clear signs that we are witnessing a change in cycle and that the wind of rebellion is blowing again. Finally. A true “Tahrir generation” emerges, as did before a "Seattle generation” or a “Genoa generation”.

Through the “anti-globalization” impulse across the planet, following the official summits in Washington, Prague, Quebec, Goteborg, Genoa and Barcelona, thousands of people identified with these protests and a wide range of groups from around the globe had the feeling of being part of a movement, of the same "people", the "people of Seattle" or "Genoa", sharing common objectives and feeling part of the same struggle.

The current movement is also inspired by the most recent and important international reference points of struggle and victory. It can be situated in the wake of movements as diverse as the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia and the victory in Iceland, placing their mobilization in a general struggle against global capitalism and the servile political elite. In the Spanish state, the 15 M demonstrations and now the camps, in a simultaneous example of decentralization and coordination, generate a shared identity and symbolic membership of a community.

The anti-globalization movement had ithe international institutions, WTO, World Bank and IMF and multinational companies in its line of fire. Later, with the start of the "global war on terror" proclaimed by Bush junior, criticism of war and imperialist domination acquired centrality. The current movement places as its axis the criticism of a political class, whose complicity and servitude to the economic powers has been more exposed than ever. "We are not goods in the hands of politicians and bankers" read one of the main slogans of 15M. There is criticism of the political class and professional politics and criticism, not always well articulated and consistent, of the current economic model and financial powers. "Capitalism? Game over".

Towards the future

The future of the 15M initiated movement is unpredictable. In the short term the first challenge is to continue to build on the existing camps, set them up in cities where they do not yet exist and ensure they continue at least until Sunday May 22. May 21, the day of reflection, and May 22, election day, will be decisive. In these two days building the camps at a mass level is essential.

It is necessary to also consider new dates for mobilization, in the wake of 15M, to maintain the rhythm. The main challenge is to maintain this simultaneous dynamic of expansion and radicalization of the protest which we have experienced in the last few days. And in the case of Catalonia, look for synergies between the radicalism and desire for a change in the system expressed in 15M and the camps, with struggles against public expenditure cuts, particularly in health and education. The camp in Plaza Catalunya has already become a meeting point, a powerful magnet, for all the more dynamic sectors in struggle. It has become a meeting point for resistance and struggle, for building bridges, facilitating dialogue, and propelling future demonstrations. Establishing alliances between the protests under way among unorganized activists, and the alternative trade unionism, the neighbourhood movement, neighbourhood groups and so on, is the great challenge of the next few days.

“The revolution starts here...” was the claim yesterday at Plaza Catalunya. Well, at least a new cycle of struggles is beginning. So there is no doubt already that, more than a decade after the rise of the anti-globalization movement and two years after the outbreak of the crisis, social protest has come back to stay.

-Josep María Antentas is a member of the editorial board of the magazine Viento Sur, and a professor of sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

-Esther Vivas is a member of the Centre for Studies on Social Movements (CEMS) at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. She is author of the book in Spanish “Stand Up against external debt” and co-coordinator of the books also in Spanish “Supermarkets, No Thanks” and “Where is Fair Trade headed?”. She is also a member of the editorial board of Viento Sur.

Revolutions arrive too late or too early, but always when they’re not expected

2011-05-31T20:04:00.000+08:00

Raul Camargo, Joseba Fernández, Miguel Urban Crespo
International Viewpoint
May 2011

This article will offer some explanations of the success of the movement (and its continuation), the special relevance of casualisation and young people, and the significance of this event-movement as a destabilizing factor in the mobilization against the crisis.

We have no fear
15 May has opened a breach. Of that there is no question. It is a movement that opens new paths and that presupposes, bluntly, an inflection point in the social response to the crisis in Spain. Whoever in the Left can find no reason for celebration and joy, beyond the current uncertainty, has a serious problem. They have been, then, in an offside position.

Antecedents: the breeding ground, the dereliction of duties of some and the impotence of the “alternative”
Expanding once more about the factors that explain the profound deterioration in social, economic, environmental and all of political life in Spain does not make much sense. It’s well known how the capitalist economic crisis smashed into Spain’s growth model and how that has affected millions of people. The model of exit from the crisis has also tailed the elites — a dynamic “class struggle from above” that, dictated by the EU and IMF, has left a trail of victims and created a scene of crushing victory for banks, big capitalists and certain types of speculators.

The balance that has emerged from the break in the Spanish economy is an appalling one. Financialization of the middle classes, the “wealth effect” and the stupefying dream of an “ownership society” and “social ladder” had worked perfectly, as illusory mechanisms for the peaceful evolution of this country’s developmental model. However, the bursting of the various bubbles that gripped the Spanish economy has blown up this scheme of fictitious capitalism. A society partly euphoric at the credo of growth has been transformed into a society without social handles to grip. And, without venturing into psychological holes, it has gone from a citizenship based on networks of trust to a society suspicious of the social and political institutions on which the regime sits.

But this change was rapid. The knockout punch, suffered by the majority of the working classes, was administered and digested through different phases and moments. No one goes from euphoria to fear — and from there to outrage and mobilization — in a short and mechanical sequence. But, clearly, this was the “breeding ground” that would produce the “outbreak” the 15-M movement was constructing, little by little, and covertly. And, in recent months, it was being constructed outside of the channels and structures that were expected to star in any comprehensive opposition to the social emergency and coup being carried out against the lived economy and political sovereignty.

However, a previous breach had opened a few months earlier. It was 29-S [the general strike on 29 September 2010]. That day (and in the weeks of preparation beforehand) the real possibility of extending the framework of resistance and popular responses (from the world of work, and well beyond) was reaffirmed in the call for and fallout of the General Strike. For the social Left and anti-capitalist politics the conditions of continuity of the strike were a given: Neighbourhood platforms, new socialised work initiatives, collective learning for new activists, etc.

The winding up of the unions’ oppositional, conflictual approach and the major unions’ decision to commit to social dialogue and agreement presumed an inability to take advantage of a real political opportunity to intervene from these actors, an inability to follow a different model — the accumulation of forces in a social response to crisis. The damage caused by the pact over pensions to the morale of many activists, and the real (and deserved) delegitimation that the union leaders have suffered as a result explains why they cannot be perceived, at this time, as effective instruments through which the “general malaise” can be interpreted and channelled.

Neither, on balance, has what we call (broadly and diffusely) the alternative and anti-capitalist Left been much better. Obviously it hasn’t played a role of legitimiser or stooge of the farce of social peace. But, yes, at least in its inability to express what could be the alternative in the street. While “resistance-ism” [resistencialismo] has been marked, organizational incapacities, narrow-mindedness, a real disconnection from those who are the core activists or, simply, the use of repertoires of action attractive and appealing for a different public face have led to demonstrations that, while necessary and relatively successful, could not initiate a cycle of mobilisation. Thus, the alternative unions, the more radical and coherent social movements and the radical political Left haven’t been able to break from the circle in which they have moved. While it is true that the Left has expanded in recent months, its role as a catalyst for the battle in the streets has always had a ceiling on it. But it is also true that small initiatives that have been punctuating recent months and years have generated part of the discourse that today is drawing in more sectors of the now-mobilized.

Imitation effect and resistance in the world of the dispossessed
This lack of practical references, symbolic and identity-bound, has held back the possibility of social responses in recent months. Knocking at our door have been other people’s experiences and new forms of self-organisation, in the form of riots, rebellions and revolutions. It was the Portuguese youth in their struggle against the IMF; Italian students against Berlusconi, job insecurity and cuts in education; the Greek trade unionists and youth against debt and EU blackmail; universities occupied and mobilized in the United Kingdom; France rebellious and insubordinate against the loss of social rights. And there have been, like an unexpected miracle, the uprisings for dignity and against tyranny in the Arab nations. The youth of Tunisia and Egypt and many other countries, their social and political organizations, have in recent years heroically resisted economic and political dictatorships and have shown that it is possible to reach heaven by direct struggle, even in the worst conditions. And somehow, it is we who were afraid!

Now the contagion effect that these riots and revolutions have had on the planet can’t be overestimated — how they are helping to transform many things and supposedly unchangeable realities in the management and governance of capitalism and imperialism on a global scale.

It is more difficult to demonstrate how they have specifically impacted on the awakening of instinctual rebellion in Spain. To not only two things: at the level of discourse and of forms of organization (management of social networks and symbolic force and real public space) they seem to have been an authentic inspiration.

Youth: an empty signifier yet full of content
Inigo Errejón said in a recent article in the mobilization of 7 April, “Youth Without Future” the concept of youth had been managed, successfully, as an “empty signifier” which encapsulated much of the social reality and collective imagination able to legitimise a protest of this type. It is an accurate analysis that, as we can see, is still working and will continue to do so.

Again, as already happened in the cycle of 1968 although in a completely different conditions [1], the youth, in various pockets of resistance, are acting as a true “tactical vanguard” in the context of an overall movement. We don’t enter an opinion here on such thorny issues as the concept of “generations” itself or on the available objective and subjective conditions for the mobilization of youth today. We simply assert its importance as an initiator of social antagonisms. And it is very uneven across demographic (Arab v European) and political (policies at movement level) contexts.

However, the focus of discourse and practice that hinges around insecurity is still being shown as an asset when it comes to uniting wills. The accumulation of experiences and counter-hegemonic discourse in universities in recent years is not negligible. The launch of an initiative with so much potential as “Youth Without Future” is just a sign of how sections of student activists have recognized that it is a discourse with the capacity to combine and refine mobilisation practices with a capacity for social impact.

In this sense, one can’t understand 15-M without 7 April. And it may mean a movement in the streets without the special intervention and ownership claims, discourses and practices of groups such as “Youth Without Future.” The alarming statistics of youth unemployment and insecurity were already signs of concern for sociologists linked to the PSOE and José Felix Tezanos or the IMF itself that has, more recently, dared to mention the risk of a “lost generation” in Spain.

The victories of 15-M and its risks: against the dictatorship of the markets, a rising movement
Something has changed since 15-M. In Madrid you can breath the atmosphere of mobilisation. Of what is (or should be) a demonstration: take to the streets, connect with ordinary people, expand the space as you can. Lose the fear. That we were told weeks before on posters of “Youth Without Future” [2]. And it was collectively shouted in the streets of Madrid (and in many other cities): “Without fear”. A fear that only we can shake off from the common, from the community. The great triumph of neoliberal politics has been its penetration into individual problems (in fear of work, of the future, of banks, of social disconnection). Only through collective channels, away from false individual solutions, can fear give way to other states of mind. And part of that fear has shaken us. That is the lesson that, collectively, we have lived. Surely, it has been the experience that many people do not participate in the rituals of protest and various expressions of the Left. And that is a gift to the radical Left: the possibility of politicization of new layers.

The keys to the success of the protest, and its continuation, are circulating, and are starting to be widely recognized. Despite some ambiguous and contradictory statements in the posters that had circulated in the days prior, it was perceived that there was a possibility of widening the social spectrum, to reach so-far demobilized sectors.

The tension between organization and spontaneity is shown, again, insoluble and false. There is no scope for strengthening the mobilization and grounding of organised experiences without a space for spontaneity; but there also isn’t room for it without prior organizational work that is also open to the unexpected.

In Madrid, the work and vision of “Youth Without Future” has allowed this platform to become the essential reference pole right now — for its dynamism, its fighting spirit and its ability to forge alliances. A public and media appearance, tolerated so far, but we fear a change of sign in the short term.

But 15-M has also not been a youth movement or a false signal of intergenerational conflict. It was the coming of what may be a new citizens’ movement — diverse, with apparent contradictions, but with even more possibilities. A movement, even one difficult to characterize, that was necessary and that breaks the inertia of defeat and pessimism that had overtaken the broader social Left.

And if it’s exciting for the number of people who have gathered (the largest demonstrations against crisis since the General Strike), it’s because most of the speeches are typical of words that the Left has been insistently repeating long before the outbreak of the crisis: the dictatorship of the markets and banks, against the social cuts, against this model of “democracy”. And that is a victory: socializing on the street are the flags of the anti-globalization movement, of students, of teachers and health workers in struggle over recent years, of honest and militant unionists.

One might say that the narrative is not finished, is not complete. Of course not. It lacks many things: analyses of environmental destruction, of the energy crisis, of the finitude of the planet. Also of patriarchy and the crisis of care. Or a story on immigration, immigration law or CIEs. That is what is missing. And many other things.

But it is a discourse and practice that must be kept company, which it is possible to construct along the road. The sectors that have built the resistance — from schools, workplaces, from the environmental movement, from feminism — should (and should be able to) fill in the content.

The 15-M movement and the grounded platforms that are emerging are a possibility that the Left and social movements can use to expand the audience for their ideas and practices. Because these movements, fortunately, don’t arise from agreements between apparatuses, they are not experiences for discussion among the most conscious. It is, finally, an ongoing experience for the movement. It is, paraphrasing Brecht in his polemic with the “identities”, an experience that has “legs” and not “roots”. These are the convergences that have a future: those who have “legs” (of marchers) and no “legs” (of a table).

The answer to this phenomenon of institutions and accommodation of the Left is symptomatic of the very success of the movement. [3] The stigmatization of the protests, the labels put on them, their underestimation and repression, are all palpable evidence of the concern they are causing. Some progressive intellectuals’ voices have asked us to be indignant and react. When we do, we should not offer alternatives to anti-systemic violence. It’s always the same story with those stuck in being “politically correct”.

The outlook for what comes after 15-M is uncertain. Of that there is no doubt. We know that more, however, will come on 22-M: more social cuts, less democracy.

We have always maintained that the “class struggle” is a long-winded battle. There are no shortcuts or magic bullets. Even when we know how to change the world. Neither 15-M nor what is happening now is a final lesson. But it has been a small tear in the normality of this democracy that gives a truncheon and anti-social orders under the spurious designs of what they call “market”.

Use this crack, shape spaces of resistance on the ground that don’t abandon the big problems, consolidate the spaces for the practice of resistance and of democracy that are the tasks that allowed us the cry of 15-M.

In mobilizing against the crisis and the fight against this world of looting, a small door has opened in this corner of the planet. Daniel Bensaid said that revolutions “arrive too late or too early, but always when they are not expected.” He also said that revolutions are a miracle, but we even have to prepare miracles. What has erupted in 15-M (if not before, in 7-A) is not a revolution, naturally. But it is a real opportunity to build a strong movement against the effects of the crisis. With intelligence and a good dose of virtue and fortune, you can start changing things.

And as we have seen and experienced in recent years such opportunities are not abundant.

We shouldn’t let it pass us by.

17 May 2011

This article was first translated and posted on this blog.

Raul Camargo is a leading member of Izquierda Anticapitalista in Madrid.

Joseba Fernández is a militant of Izquierda Anti-capitalista.

Miguel Urban is a leading member of Izquierda Anticapitalista in the Spanish state.

NOTES

[1] Such as expressed by Daniel Bensaid, this was a “generation” of young installed in the “getting better” while today we are facing the “getting worse”.

[2] “No home, no jobs, no pension, no fear.”

[3] Just read the statements of political leaders of the “standing” of Jose Blanco and Ángel Pérez on this.

Portugal: IMF-EU imposes austerity, left fires up for fight

2011-05-31T15:29:00.000+08:00

Dick Nichols
Green Left Weekly
May 22, 2011

When the 548 delegates to the Seventh National Convention of Portugal’s Left Bloc came together in a vast sports hall in Lisbon onver May 7-8, they had two big questions to answer.

The first was what alternative should they propose at the June 5 Portuguese elections to the €78 billion (about $103 billion) “rescue package” negotiated between the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund (the “troika”) and the Socialist Party (PS) government of prime minister Jose Socrates?

The second was how to build greater unity among all those forces opposed to austerity — representing millions of Portuguese — so that a government of the left becomes thinkable in a country used to a back-and-forth shuffle of PS and Social Democratic Party (PDS) administrations?

As its convention met, the polls showed the Left Bloc on 7% — behind the Democratic Unity Coalition (CDU), which involves the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) plus Greens. On 7.4%. The conservative Democratic and Social Centre-People's Party (CDS-PP) were on 10.5%, the PS on 34.8% and the PDS on 37%.

But a huge 45.3% of those polled refused to say how they would vote, or were yet to make up their minds.

With the combined Left Bloc and PCP vote over 20% in recent years and PS supporters never so disillusioned, a left government of some kind, while still unlikely, was at least thinkable.

Portugal is torn between resistance and resignation. The resistance has come in the form of a general strike in November and a 300,000-strong Lisbon protest of young people — the self-styled “generation on the scrapheap” — on March 12.

The resignation shows in a 40% abstention in elections and sizeable support for the troika’s package, seen by many as taking the country out of the hands of corrupt and incompetent politicians.

The immediate trigger of the June 5 election and the troika package was the March 23 resignation of the PS minority government. This came after the PDS and CDS-PP finally joined with the Left Bloc and CDU to reject Socrates’ fourth emergency budget in a year.

The right-wing parties had backed the three previous budgets and also abstained on a Left Bloc no-confidence motion in Socrates on March 10.

The budget had aimed to reassure financial markets that Portugal, like neighboring Spain, could get its public sector debt under control through welfare cuts, privatisations and public sector cutbacks.

But, unlike the Spanish government, Socrates found no allies for his brutal plan.

But the interest rate on Portuguese public debt soon surged towards 10%. The caretaker PM, who had earlier said 10 million Portuguese stand between us and the IMF” and had allegedly tried to induce Brazil and Venezuela to buy Portuguese government bonds, finally went cap in hand to Brussels.

The election is a referendum on the troika’s package, which will deepen recession, unemployment and social misery in western Europe’s poorest country. Despite being a rework of Socrates’ rejected budget, the package is supported by the PSD and CDU: their election fight with the PS will be over how the pain of the package is to be spread.

At the Left Bloc convention, debate centred on how to approach the public debt, a growing part of which is due to bailing out the private banks.

Bloc leader Francisco Louca’s opening address was targeted at concerned SP voters, explaining the pain that “the biggest shift to the right in PS history” would bring, and accusing Socrates of irresponsibility.

Louca said: “He didn’t explain where €1.4 billion for the health budget will be found; how €569 million will be cut from education; how, year after year, the sackings of public servants are to be done; how the plan to reduce the number of councils and shires will work; and why €890 million is to be cut from pensions.”

Louca said Socrates had a choice — he should have implemented a review of the debt and demanded its renegotiation, as proposed by economists like Paul Krugman and Nouriel Roubini.

There was no other way to lift growth and employment, defend the welfare state and fund urgently needed investment in environment, agriculture, fishing and regional development.

On public debt, as on other issues, the convention had four positions to choose from, spelled out in resolutions (“motions”) that had been the basis for the election of delegates.

Motion C, led by Portuguese followers of the International Workers' League and representing 11.5% of conference delegates, proposed the immediate suspension of all public debt payment.

Criticising Motion A (representing the positions of the outgoing leadership and 82.5% of delegates), its supporters wrote in the Bloc’s discussion bulletin: “To audit the debt without suspending payment is to cover up the problem: if we want to audit the debt it’s because it is unjust.

“Shall we continue to pay for an injustice? If the answer is yes, then full employment, maintaining public services and ending casualisation will be little more than demagogic catchphrases.”

For Motion A supporters, it was vital that the Bloc’s policy could show that the government’s decision to call in the “troika” was not inevitable.

Any renegotiation of the debt, including any eventual suspension of payments, could be forced on the powers of finance only if it had strong public backing.

That could only be built through a public auditing of all debt — amounting to a mass education campaign — such that the Portuguese people could see where their money was going and for whose benefit they were making sacrifices.

Closely tied to this debate was that over how best to take steps towards the left unity needed to underpin any government of the left.

For Motion C supporters, the core of the issue was an alliance with the PCP — “united the Left Bloc and the PCP could be a governmental alternative”. In debate, its supporters accused the leadership of privileging unity with left SP forces.

This had ended in the “disaster” of the Left Bloc’s support for a “left” PS candidate (Manuel Alegre) in the 2010 presidential poll, who was then supported by the PS itself, putting the Bloc and the PS in the same camp.

Motion B supporters (1.8% of delegates) also backed the Bloc making a unity push towards the PCP, but to create a new left “movement-party” capable of attracting broad layers of those in the struggle — especially the young people of the “generation on the scrapheap”.

Speakers for Motion A replied that the process of left unity would never be achieved by decree or by the single tactic. For example, a Left Bloc-PCP alliance might well attract less support than if the parties ran separately: there were PCP supporters who would never vote Left Bloc and vice versa.

That sentiment was reflected in Motion D (1.6% of delegates). In the words of spokeperson Jorge Ceu, it would “never envisage governmental solutions with the PCP”.

It even arose within Motion A, where an amendment stating that “the PCP does not distance itself from the Chinese CP and Cuban CP regimes and other repressive regimes”, was rejected.

Notwithstanding these tensions, the Left Bloc and the PCP recently held a leadership meeting. Miguel Portas, a Left Bloc deputy in the European Parliament, said: “The PCP and the Left Bloc have everything to gain from normalising their relationship, preventing friction and creating a non-sectarian political atmosphere.”

At this stage, the Bloc’s formula of a “left government” remains unavoidably abstract: it can only take clearer form on the basis of real developments, not least the results of the June 5 election and ongoing struggles against austerity.

The other main focus of debate was over the role of the Bloc’s 16-strong parliamentary fraction, and a supposed lack of internal democracy and involvement by the party’s 10,000 members.

The minority motions all shared this criticism. They say this is evidenced by the fact that important decisions in the life of the party (such as the decision to support Alegre and bring a no-confidence motion against Socrates), had been taken by the 16-person political commission and not the 80-person national board (the leadership elected at national conventions).

Lack of democracy was also said to be the cause of the Bloc's low vote (3.1%) in the 2009 municipal elections.

These differences were laid bare in the session that considered changes to the Bloc’s statutes. Amendments adopted included a provision that at least 50% of the national board be composed of rank-and-file members.

A proposal to limit parliamentarians and elected public officials to two terms in office was put off to a future vote, as was a proposal to limit elected officers in the unions and social movements to three terms.

Other proposals, such as compulsory turnover on leadership bodies and easier conditions for calling special national conventions, were defeated.

When the vote on the motions was taken Motion A had won 80.6% and Motion C 14.3%. Motions B and D and abstentions sharing the rest. The incoming National Board reflects these proportions.

These debates, played out on Portuguese TV and radio and extensively covered in the print media, might suggest a party at war with itself. But that would be mistaken.

The Left Bloc’s seventh national convention was a high-energy engagement with the burning tasks of Portuguese politics, often driven by the younger generations of the party. The debate, conducted with scrupulous democracy, intensified the conviction and commitment of the delegates for the battles ahead.

When Louca delivered the convention’s closing address, a call to arms to the Bloc’s members to make the election campaign a battle of resistance against austerity, the hall shook with their enthusiasm.

[Dick Nichols is Green Left Weekly’s European correspondent. For further coverage of the Left Bloc conference go to www.bloco.org .]

Spain: This is what working class revolt in 2011 looks like

2011-05-26T20:00:00.000+08:00

Alex Snowdon
Counterfire
20 May 2011

Spanish people have taken to the streets in huge numbers, with public squares occupied by protesters opposed to anti-worker austerity measures and calling for real democracy.

Emmanuel Rodriguez and Tomas Herrero wrote from Madrid in a May 19 Counterfire.org article that on May 15, “around 150,000 people took to the streets in 60 Spanish towns and cities to demand 'Real Democracy Now', marching under the slogan 'We are not commodities in the hands of bankers and politicians'”.

“The protest was organised through web-based social networks without the involvement of any major unions or political parties. At the end of the march some people decided to stay the night at the Peurta del Sol in Madrid. They were forcefully evacuated by the police in the early hours of the morning.

“This, in turn, generated a mass call for everyone to occupy his or her local squares that thousands all over Spain took up. As we write, 65 public squares are being occupied ...”

The extraordinary scenes in Madrid can be seem live at SolTV.tv. The mass movement seems to have swelled since its emerged on May 15 in the capital and across Spain.

It is both militant and massive.

A May 18 Euobserver.com article by Gemma Galdon Clavell explained that the protests are “the immediate continuation of the May Day demonstrations that were organized independently of mainstream trade unions and parties and largely ignored by the media”.

The article explained some of the longer-term background, pointing especially to the movement opposed to the “Sinde law” (which clamps down on illegal file-sharing). Galdon Clavell also pointed to the role of a Facebook group (“real Democracy Now”) in catalysing the “May 15 movement”.

The article said the larger context is “skyrocketing unemployment rates (45% registered youth unemployment), generalized cuts in health, education and wages, tax cuts for the rich and widespread political corruption”.

None of this is being discussed or contested in mainstream political debate. There is a profound disconnection between the elite and the street.

The article explained: “Trapped in the tougher-than-you-on-crime race to the bottom, the gap between a population that hardly makes ends meet and sees banks and corporations get away with murder, and a political class that has built a wall of arrogance, incompetence, impunity and empty promises to keep the young, the unemployed and the evicted out has grown to reach seemingly unbridgeable proportions.”

The social democratic, or centre-left, Spanish government has presided over the unemployment, cuts and corruption. The entire political class is therefore the target of people's rage.

It is therefore unsurprising that “anti-politics” sentiment is widespread on the demonstrations, with contempt for all political parties.

Emmanuel Rodriguez and Tomas Herrero said: “It is possible (in fact it is quite probable) that on 22nd May, when local and regional elections take place in Spain, the left will suffer a catastrophic defeat. If that were the case, it would be only be a preamble to what would happen in the general elections.

“What can be said today without hesitation is that the institutional left (parties and major unions) is the target of a generalised political disaffection due to its sheer inability come up with novel solutions to this crisis.”

However, this may not mean an automatic rejection of all things political. Gemma Galdon Clavell noted: “[D]emonstrators have not given up on institutional politics — while the slogan in 2001 in Argentina was ‘que se vayan todos’ (get rid of them all), the #15m movement is giving non-mainstream parties a chance, and while claiming independence and autonomy, seems to be interested in building bridges with some parties.”

There is clearly a huge spontaneous element to the current upheavals, but there's also some background in the anti-Sinde law and May Day protests. Similarly, there's visceral anger with politicans, but that doesn't mean absolutely no co-operation with any kind of political organisation.

What happens next is highly unpredictable.

Social media have played their par and will continue to. But a radical idea only goes viral, and translates into mass protests and occupations, if it connects with large numbers of people's grievances.

In the absence of any lead from established organisations — such as reformist parties or unions — a Facebook page and a Twitter hashtag can become detonators.

This popular working class revolt doesn't look how many would expect it to. The unions appear to be nowhere. At best they are lagging behind the mainly young people taking to the streets; at worst they are neutered by compromise with a failing centre-left government.

It will be tempting for many protesters, and their supporters elsewhere, to conclude that spontaneity is all, organisation is irrelevant, and the unions should be ignored.

But the protesters will need to rapidly construct new, grassrooots, democratic forms of co-ordination and decision-making. They will have to demand the unions, which can still potentially mobilise millions, to get behind them.

The mass protests in Spain are an inspiration to everyone facing austerity and fed up with the hollowing out of democracy. The movement fuses economics and politics, just like in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere.

It takes inspiration from the Arab Spring, while seeing itself as part of Europe-wide resistance to cuts. Spain's young workers, jobless and students are showing us the way.

Olivier Besancenot will not be NPA candidate in 2012

2011-05-22T18:27:00.001+08:00

Olivier Besancenot
International Viewpoint
May 2011

On the 2nd May, the leadership of the New Anti-capitalist Party was informed that Olivier Besancenot, their best-known spokesperson, would not be the party’s candidate in the presidential elections for 2012. It was Olivier’s successful campaigns in 2002 and 2007 for the LCR (Revolutionary Communist League, French section of the Fourth International) that had laid the basis for the creation of the NPA. After a further meeting of the Executive Committee on the 4th of May, Olivier sent this letter to all NPA members.

"Do not forget the men who will serve you best are those who you chose from those among you, living their own lives, suffering the same ills.

Challenge yourselves just as much as the ambitious newcomers, while others who consider only their own interests always end up being regarded as indispensable ...

Choose instead those who do not seek your votes; the most important virtue is modesty and it is for voters to recognise their chosen representatives, and not for them to push themselves forward. "

Appeal of the Central Committee of the National Guard of the Paris Commune, March 25, 1871.

Comrades,

I will not be the candidate of the New Anti-Capitalist Party in the presidential election of 2012. This is a political decision that I have taken. And if I want today to pass the baton to one of our comrades, I am not saying that I no longer wish to be involved in all our struggles; quite the contrary. Rather, I believe that the NPA has an opportunity to establish itself on a new basis, in accordance with the project of emancipation which more than ever motivates me.

Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those in the NPA - and in the LCR before - who have been actively involved in the collaborative work for which I have served as spokesperson these last ten years. To all the comrades of the local branches who put up posters, distributed leaflets, organised rallies (and who have always welcomed us with open arms), to those who gathered signatures for our candidacy in 2002 and again in 2007, and those comrades in the leadership who worked on the arguments, orientation, communications and security, to all of you I want to say thank you. This team has taught me a great deal and contributed a huge amount throughout this funny experience of being a spokesperson.

I have tried, for my part, to do my level best in order to acquaint a broader audience with our ideas and beliefs, and I fully intend to continue to do so in order to communicate our program, promote our actions and to increase our vote. NPA activists and, more generally, all those fighting to change the world can count on my commitment.

This is therefore a political decision, one that should not come as a great surprise. For many months I have been one of those warning our party against the political risks of excessive , exaggerated, personalisation. That ideas are embodied within a specific social and political context, and that it is necessary to delegate the tasks of activists through public representation – for a specific and time-limited mandate – is one thing. It’s quite another to play the media game as a substitute for real grass-roots action in the class struggle.

We organise daily in our workplaces, in struggle, at election time, to defend the prospect of finally ridding society of alienation, exploitation and oppression. Emancipation from contemporary forms of servitude necessarily implies a break with the current system. This rupture presupposes a growing popular engagement with politics. Whenever possible, this break must intervene here and now, without holding back its seething revolutionary promise until tomorrow.

This means that here and now we call, tirelessly and conscientiously, on all those anonymous citizens to take ownership of their destiny. That is why we always exalt the popular classes to burst onto the political scene by breaking the speakers erected by politicians in order to keep us away from the arena where our lives are played out. Wherever we operate, we carry this original and subversive message to housing estates, businesses, schools, the universities, street markets, in protests during the elections. This message is the hallmark of our party, and we must not tarnish it in the name of some electoral reflex.

We created a sensation when the LCR had the audacity to introduce a young worker, a postman, in the 2002 presidential election. Let us once again cause a sensation today with other unknown candidates during the next elections who will highlight all that we really are: a collective tool and a heterogeneous group. To strive to demonstrate that we do not need politicians to express ourselves, to understand and propose solutions, is a progressive act. To reassure themselves by thinking we should "play safe" would yield, on the contrary, to pernicious conservative instincts which should be left to others. However, we do not conceive of political like the other parties do.

Such a move would also, in my view, resolve an untenable contradiction, which sees us denouncing a system where politics has become a form of marketing on the one hand while on the other involuntarily integrating ourselves into the traditional political scene by embedding our movement and ideas in the ritualV debates. That risks eventually transforming us into a caricature of ourselves, even into an alibi for the failures of the system.

Like any of you, this is a prospect which I find personally unbearable. I do not want to feel like I am one of the traditional politicians in the eyes of the general public, something which has influenced our position in recent years. My continuing to work in the post office - an activity that I never let go - is not a long term serum powerful enough to counteract the dynamics continuously imposed on the consensual electoral battlefield and in the media. The young worker who set out to attack party politics in 2002 inevitably became, in 2007, someone who "was playing politics while continuing to work" and probably the person who "does politics tout court" in 2012. I am a militant and an activist and I want to remain so. Releasing me from this contradiction is the best guarantee that I will be able to continue to continue the fight of the NPA in the public arena, but in a different way.

So I ask you to be supportive of my choice, recognising it as a desire that the NPA can finally establish itself. Find yourselves not a familiar name but a reappropriated collective identity which can be deployed on a more conscious and more consistent basis. More aware of the need to carry on a revolutionary, internationalist, lively and open project which is clearly distinct from the present system. More constant in its overall activity in everyday life, intervening constantly in workplaces, housing estates, and among the youth, and leading an active resistant network of social movements - around work, anti-racism, environmentalism, feminism and so on.

The presidential election will take place within a year. This gives us time to prepare and make 2012 a major step in our rebuilding process.

I am prepared to invest myself 100% in our party, the NPA, and to support as best as I can our candidate so that we can intervene effectively in the next presidential election, for we must continue to communicate our message to millions of people instead of shutting ourselves off from the world. The moments of uncertainty which the labor movement in France has been experiencing should not overshadow the unstable political situation largely caused by the global crisis which the capitalist system has faced over the last three years.

The Arab revolutions prove one thing: the winds of history are shifting and can turn quickly.

Revolutionary greetings,

Olivier

-Olivier Besancenot is the best-known spokesperson of the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA), formed in 2009 following a call by the Revolutionary Communist League (Ligue communiste révolutionnaire (LCR), French section of the Fourth International). As candidate for the LCR in the presidential elections in 2002 and 2007, he received 1.2 million votes (4.5%) and 1.5 million votes (4.2%) respectively.

May Day Statement by Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions

2011-05-06T15:21:00.001+08:00

In commemoration of the International Workers’ Day, the Palestinian trade union movement holds its first BDS conference and announces the formation of the:

Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS)*

Statement of Principles & Call for International Trade Union Support for BDS

Occupied Palestine, 4 May 2011 – In commemoration of the first of May - a day of workers struggle and international solidarity – the first Palestinian trade union conference for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel (BDS) was held in Ramallah on 30 April 2011, organized by almost the entirety of the Palestinian trade union movement, including federations, professional unions, and trade union blocks representing the entire spectrum of Palestinian political parties. The conference marked a historic event: the formation of the Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS) as the largest coalition of the Palestinian trade union movement. PTUC-BDS will provide the most representative Palestinian reference for international trade unions, promoting their support for and endorsement of the BDS Call, launched by Palestinian civil society in 2005, guided by the guidelines and principles adopted by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), of which PTUC-BDS has become a key component.

The global trade union movement has always played a key and inspiring role in its courageous commitment to human rights and adoption of concrete, ground-breaking, labor-led sanctions against oppressive regimes in a show of solidarity with oppressed peoples around the world. The trade union boycott of apartheid South Africa stands out as a bright example of this tradition of effective solidarity. Trade unions today are taking the lead in defending the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, justice, freedom, equality and the right of return of our refugees as stipulated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194. Many of them have heeded the call from Palestinian civil society, and its labor movement in particular, to adopt BDS as the most effective form of solidarity with the Palestinians in our struggle to end Israeli occupation and apartheid.

Ending Israel’s multi-tiered system of oppression against the Palestinian people -- comprising occupation, colonialism and apartheid -- has become a test for humanity. For decades, Israel has enjoyed impunity while continuing its gradual ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, particularly in occupied East Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Naqab (Negev) desert; its 44-year-old occupation; its theft of land and natural resources; its colonization and construction of illegal colonial settlements and walls, its siege of Gaza; its relentless denial of refugee rights; its endless wars of aggressions and incarceration of political prisoners; and its wanton killings of civilians and demolition of infrastructure. Israel’s systematic destruction of the Palestinian economy, expropriation of the most fertile agricultural land, as well as humiliation of and racist discrimination against Palestinian workers have all become part of its apartheid reality that should never be tolerated by the world today.

Given the complete failure and unwillingness of hegemonic powers to hold Israel accountable to international law, it is up to people of conscience and international civil society, especially the trade union movement, to take concrete action to end international collusion with decades of violations of international law and human rights by Israel, its institutions and international corporations.

The support of the entirety of the Palestinian trade union movement for a full boycott of Israel,[1] as the most effective form of solidarity with the Palestinian people, was the overarching message of this historic gathering.

The Conference was honored to welcome Joâo Felicio, International Relations Secretary of CUT, the Brazilian trade union representing more than 20 million workers, who expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people and their legitimate rights, and reiterated CUT’s endorsement of BDS. The conference received numerous messages of solidarity from a large number of trade union federations, including the International Federation of Arab Trade Unions, COSATU (South Africa), ICTU (Ireland), and a large number of individual trade unions in Canada, Scotland, Italy, France, Spain, Turkey, Australia, USA and other countries. All major Palestinian political parties also enthusiastically supported the conference and the formation of PTUC-BDS.

The Conference decisively condemned the Histadrut and called on international trade unions to sever all links with it due to its historic and current complicity in Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian rights. The Histadrut has always played a key role in perpetuating Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of racial discrimination by:

1. Publicly supporting Israel’s violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and other tenets of international law
2. Maintaining active commercial interests in Israel's illegal settlement enterprise[2]
3. Allowing Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank to join the organization[3]
4. Supporting Israel’s war of aggression on besieged Gaza in 2008/9;[4] it has later justified Israel’s massacre of humanitarian relief workers and activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla on 31 May 2010[5]
5. Illegally withholding over NIS 8.3 billion (approximately $2.43bn) over decades of occupation from wages earned by Palestinian workers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory,[6] deducted for ‘social and other trade union benefits’ that Palestinian laborers from the OPT have never received.
Recalling the trade union maxim “an injury to one is an injury to all”, and given the global trade union movement’s historic role in effective international solidarity with oppressed peoples around the world, PTUC-BDS:
• Cordially salutes all global trade unions for their solidarity with the Palestinian people, especially those that have endorsed BDS against Israel,
• Calls on trade unions around the world to actively show solidarity with the Palestinian people by implementing creative and context-sensitive BDS campaigns as the most effective way to end Israeli impunity. For example by:
o boycotting Israeli and international companies (such as Elbit, Agrexco, Veolia, Alstom, Caterpillar, Northrop Grumman, etc.) and institutions that are complicit with Israel’s occupation and violations of international law,
o reviewing pension fund investments with the purpose of divesting from Israel Bonds and all Israeli and international companies and institutions complicit in Israel’s occupation, colonization and apartheid,
o pressuring governments to suspend Free Trade Agreements, end arms trade and military relations with Israel with the intention of eventually cutting all diplomatic ties with it,
• Calls on port workers around the world to boycott loading/offloading Israeli ships, similar to the heroic step taken by port workers around the world in suspending maritime trade with South Africa in protest against the apartheid regime, and
• Calls on trade unions around the world to review and sever all ties with the Histadrut.
Such non-violent measures of accountability must continue until Israel fulfils its obligations under international law in acknowledging the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination, and fully complies with international law by:
• Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied since 1967 (including East Jerusalem), as well as dismantling of the illegal wall and colonies,
• Recognizing the fundamental right of the Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equity, as well as ending the system of racial discrimination against them, and
• Respecting, protecting and supporting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UNGA Resolution 194.

* The Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS) is the broadest and most representative body of the Palestinian trade union movement and includes the following organisations: General Union of Palestinian Workers, Federation of Independent Trade Unions (IFU), General Union of Palestinian Women, Union of Palestinian Professional Associations (comprising the professional syndicates of Engineers, Physicians, Pharmacists, Agricultural Engineers, Lawyers, Dentists and Veterinarians), General Union of Palestinian Teachers, General Union of Palestinian Peasants and Co-ops, General Union of Palestinian Writers, Union of Palestinian Farmers, Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE), Union of Public Employees in Palestine-Civil Sector; and all of the trade union blocks that make up the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU): Central Office for the Workers Movement, Progressive Labor Union Front, Workers Unity block, Progressive Workers Block, Workers solidarity organization, Workers Struggle Block, workers resistance block, Workers Liberation Front, Union of Palestinian Workers Struggle Committees, National Initiative (al-Mubadara) Block.

- Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS)
ptuc-bds@bdsmovement.net
http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/ptuc-bds-formed-6912

________________________________________
[1] Despite rumors to the contrary, PGFTU’s recently issued statement explicitly calls for a full boycott of Israel and of all its institutions that are complicit in the occupation: http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/pgftu-clarrification-6559
[2]http://www.whoprofits.org/Company%20Info.php?id=889
[3]http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10379.shtml
[4] http://www.labourstart.org/israel/Histadrut_on_Gaza.pdf
[5] http://www.histadrut.org.il/index.php?page_id=1801
[6] http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/news/2422-israel-owes-over-nis-83-billion-to-palestinian-workers-from-the-occupied-palestinian-territories

Perth Queer Community Organises to Achieve Safer Venues

2011-04-22T14:54:00.002+08:00

Chris Latham

There have been growing concerns within Perth's LGBTI community over the state of the city's two main queer venues. These concerns, which initially emerged as informal grumblings have, during the part of this year, increasingly taken on more concrete forms. First with the creation of a Facebook group “Perth needs a new gay pub ", which had 300 members in its first two days of existence and now has more than 700 members. The establishment of group sparked an article in Out in Perth that
aired some of the issues and gave the owners of both the Court Hotel and Connections a right of reply to the concerns, the Cross Campus Queer Network then initiated a community forum under the title of “Reclaiming Queer Venues” held on March 26.

CCQN in its call and media statements in the lead up to the forum identified four issues regarding venues which had motivated it to call the meeting. These were:

hostile and sometimes violent security;
discrimination against trans people;
indiscriminate and arbitrary bannings and the enabling of sexual assault through the continued admittance of sexual predators

The aim of the meeting would be to generate action that could make Perth’s Queer Venues safer and more inclusive of both the Queer community and the broader Perth community.

The forum, which was chaired by Shamini Joseph, UWA co-Queer Officer, and prominent community member and former co-president of Pride WA, Daniel Smith, attracted more than 80 people. Significantly the meeting attracted three members of the Legislative Council, Greens’ MLCs Giz Watson and Lyn McLaren and ALP MLC Lisa Baker; as well as Connections Nightclub owner Tim Brown, and Grahame Watson, Out in Perth editor.

While the forum provided an important opportunity to allow members of the community to express their concerns and frustrations regarding the character of the Court and Connections, the meeting’s primary focus was on achieving practical action to resolve concerns. The possible actions identified were:

to identify existing venues that could be colonised as Queer friendly venues and to investigate the possibility of establishing a new venue with a range of services and facilities for the queer community
taking direct action to highlight the problems at both the Court and Connections and acting to create safer spaces in the venues through this action formal documentation and lodging of complaints regarding problems
seeking to work with Pride WA to establish a queer accreditation process for venue endorsement

In the wake of the meeting there have been a number of important developments which have strengthened the campaign. This has included the establishment of Reclaiming Queer Venues (RQV) as an independent campaign coalition and a number of WA queer and queer supporting organisations adopting statements around the Court Hotel.

Since being established as coalition RQV has created its own campaign website and Facebook presence as well as a Facebook page QueerCritique Perth. QueerCritique Perth initiative exists to allow members of the queer to rate Perth's bars, clubs and other venues based how queer-friendly they are.

Pride WA, the WA Gender Project and Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) have all made statement raising concerns regarding the Court Hotel. The Pride WA statement, passed at its AGM on March 28, criticised the Court Hotel for not contributing financially to Pride while it holds a Pride After Party that directly competes with Pride WA’s major annual fund raising event. The WA Gender Project has concerns regarding the number of complaints from Perth’s Transgender and Transexual community regarding “a sudden rise in alleged discrimination by Court Hotel Staff”. These
complaints relate to allegations that staff have prevented trans patrons from using the toilet they identify with, and have suggested that they use the disabled toilet if they are unwilling to use the toilet associated with their legal sex. Both the male and female toilets at the Court feature signs stating that patrons of the opposite sex found the toilet will be evicted. In an open letter to the Court PFLAG states that it is “concerned at alleged increases in violence and discrimination towards members of Perth’s lesbian and gay community” and that “as the only gay and lesbian pub in Perth, it is important
that our children and their friends are affirmed and feel safe [there]”.

Under these growing criticisms the ownership of the Court Hotel has been forced to respond, however their responce has thus far failed to satisfy it critics. In response to concerns over safety, Bree Day, the Court’s owner told the March 29 West Australian “Our venue is safer than it has ever been. We welcome all people regardless of their sexual preferences and our patrons enjoy themselves regardless of which way they identify. Thousands of people enjoy the Court every weekend and that’s enough for us to believe they feel accepted”. RQV spokesperson Shamini Joseph rejects this
argument, “More people accessing a space or a pub doesn't make it safer. You need a management
who take drink spiking and claims of violence seriously – which the Court’s management doesn’t appear to be doing. If the Court was serious they would be looking at better training for their security staff, so people feel like are protected”.

On its Facebook page, the Court Hotel has made reference to community concerns about the need to reclaim venues, by implying that the campaign is motivated by hostility to “straight” people and arguing “we think you should reclaim your venue! The more the gay and lesbian and extended community come to the venue the more gay and lesbian the venue will be! It’s that simple!”

Joseph rejects the claim that the campaign is heterophobic, “Wanting to reclaim queer venues isn't anti-hetero. Straight people are welcome in any queer space, as it is queer culture which makes a venue queer. We're not asking for less straight people to come to the Court, we're asking for less homophobia, transphobia and general objectification of gay culture in our own pubs. We're asking for management to understand and promote this culture rather than actively exploiting and
knowingly profiting from its demise.”

The development of Reclaiming Queer Venues is an important development in queer political activity in Perth. Action that has the ability to not only achieve safe and genuinely inclusive venues in Perth, but also to empower the community to act in its own interests.
To get involved in the campaign email info@reclaimingqueervenues.com or visit reclaimingqueervenues.com, if you would like to help rate Perth’s venues go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/QueerCritique-Perth/189801837724177?sk=wall.

Tunisia: A government in continuity… but capable of retaking the initiative

2011-04-14T20:26:00.000+08:00

Ahlem Belhadj
International Viewpoint
April 2011

This interview with Ahlem Belhadj was conducted by Jan Malewski, on March 16th, 2011.

Mobilisations of some hundreds of thousands of people have finally brought down the Ghannouchi government. A new interim government has been formed by Béji Caïd Essebsi. What does this government represent?

The second Ghannouchi government, even if it got rid of some former RCD ministers, kept others. It represented continuity with the old regime. On February 24 there was the movement that we call here “Casbah 2”— there were more than 300,000 people demanding that Ghannouchi go. On February 27 Ghannouchi and the other RCD ministers resigned.

The kasbah, the left, the National Council for the Protection of the Revolution, the regional committees for the defence of the revolution — everybody demanded a “technocratic” government to lead the country “administratively”. But in my opinion the far left committed an error in demanding a “technocratic” government. The January 14th Front made the mistake of not advancing the demand for a workers’ and popular government.

This is a “technocratic” government in appearance only, because it is led by Béji Caïd Essebsi, a former minister under Bourguiba, an ex-diplomat and ex-president of Ben Ali’s parliament, even if it is true that he said “no” to him. Today his government has come to satisfy the popular demand for a Constituent Assembly which breaks with the old regime. He has dissolved the Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique (RCD, the former ruling party). At the same time, it is a government completely in continuity on the economic and social; levels, even more than continuity, because it is still more linked than its predecessors to US and French imperialism. The satisfaction of the popular demands appears then as a gain, but what kind of Constituent Assembly will it be whose election would be supervised by such a government? There lies the whole problem!

The government has also announced the dissolution of the security service, Ben Ali’s political police.

They first announced that this service consisted of 200 persons! Then they understood that this wouldn’t stand, so they came up with other figures. The known figures indicate that the body of the police comprised 120,000 officers, today they tell us it was 50,000, The situation remains fairly opaque at this level, what is it that has been dissolved? What remains? We don’t know!

He also announced the dissolution of Ben Ali’s party, the RCD. What has become of it? What has happened to the many branches of this party which managed the country?

There are many former-RCD branch offices which are used by the popular committees or by the UGTT or by the self management committees or revolutionary committees. Only the central buildings have been taken over by the state. There were also 12,000 full time employees working for the RCD. Some of them have resumed their functions, at least where they have been accepted, because in many places the people have not allowed them. If the RCD has been dissolved, it has now led to the emergence of three parties, around three of its “personalities” who have requested and have obtained the recognition of these “new” parties. It amounts to a continuation of the RCD.

Are the banned political parties now recognised?

There are now 49 parties recognised and the list is going up every day. The Parti communiste des ouvriers de Tunisie (PCOT - Communist Workers’ Party of Tunisia) was recognised two days ago. The Ligue de la gauche ouvrière (LGO – Workers’ Left League) has not yet requested official recognition, but it is on the agenda.

So far as the election of the Constituent Assembly is concerned, what are the discussions inside the left, in particular inside the January 14th Front? Is there a stress on the control of the future elected representatives in this Constituent Assembly by the popular committees, or are we witnessing more an electoralist impulse, with each party trying to have “Its” representatives that is to say bending before a form of institutionalisation?

The two trends exist even if currently there is a push towards institutionalism. At the same time there is the emergence of revolutionary councils in the regions and in the different localities. There are many things being done at the level of self-organisation because the municipalities have been dissolved and the councils, self proclaimed by the people, are in the position of managing local affairs. At the same time, at the central level, to counteract the National Council for the Protection of the Revolution, there has been the creation of the “Higher Committee for the Realisation of the Objectives of the Revolution, for Political Reform and Democratic Transition” — already its name expresses fully the difficulty of attributing a clear mission to it. On this “Higher Committee” 71 persons have been nominated, of which 17 represent associations and 12 political parties, while 42 are individuals.

Is it an attempt at coordination or centralisation of the local revolutionary committees?

Not really because there are very few representatives of these local committees inside it. There are one or two people who are directly linked to such committees and at the same time there is the representation of the different parties recognised until now, there is the UGTT and the associations as well as the individuals who have a certain influence in their neighbourhood.

The left is present on this “Higher Committee” which means that the decision to boycott it or not is more difficult to take, because some think that the left has perhaps the possibility of acting so that this body is not completely institutionalised and cut off from the rank and file, that it could influence this “Higher Committee” so that it has links with the local revolutionary committees. Some people on it are from the left or far left.

The great difficulty also relates to the fact that the parties which make up the January 14th Front did not go collectively — as the Front — to discuss this proposal Some groups, factions or parties agreed to be there independently of others and three parties are represented there officially. The first debates inside this commission concerned the representativeness of its members and the debates are still ongoing.

Are there attempts at a national coordination or a national congress of the local self-organised committees? Or a discussion on this subject?

The National Council for the Protection of the Revolution to some extent plays this role of coordination of the local committees. But it has been weakened by the setting up of the “Higher Committee”, whose creation has to some extent the aim of replacing it. The main constituents of the National Council — the UGTT, the Lawyers and League for Human Rights — have gone over to the “Higher Committee”. Thus, right now, there is no longer a legitimate national leadership of the revolution.

The January 14th Front which met yesterday — even if it was not able to make a clear decision on its presence on the “Higher Council” — adopted a communiqué requesting a meeting of the National Committees so as to decide together, But we know that the leadership of the UGTT has already decided, that the Lawyers and the League for Human Rights will also join this “Higher Committee”. In my opinion the battle for a coordination of the structures of self-organisation will be again perhaps possible at the level of this “Higher Committee” but it is far from being settled, because one senses that the pressure of electoral institutionalism is already strong. In short, it is a time when confusion is great. One is pushed to be part of the “Higher Committee” because the National Council is ceasing to exist.

I think that that in the future it will be necessary to lead a fight both within the “Higher Committee” and outside it and that pretty soon it will become clear that it amounts to an attempt at instrumentalisation, with the aim of counteracting the whole dynamic of the revolution which until now escaped the institutions.

Where did the initiative for the creation of the “Higher Committee” come from?

It came as a response to the request of the National Council which wanted to be recognised by the president and to have the prerogatives of legislating - by agreement with the central leadership of the UGTT, which did not consult the unions on this question. For more than a month that there has been no broad meeting of representatives of the structures of the UGTT, which would have been able to decide on its policy. Thus inside the UGTT there has been no possibility of discussing this orientation.

What should be done now so that the revolutionary committees which exist locally can structure themselves at the regional and national level? What can be done so that at a given time there can be a national meeting, controlled from below, and not a meeting of those who have been named as "leaders"?

That is effectively the difficulty, because the danger is that the many people who take on responsibility for self-organisation at the rank and file level leave the “high politics” to others. With the announcement of elections on July 24 the Constituent Assembly — whether by a majoritarian or proportional mode of election — the dynamic of self management is undermined. Maybe in this intermediary period — between now and July 24 — the committees of self-organisation can play the role of link between this debate which starts “from above” and what the self-organised masses are discussing. In any case that is the current issue.

I am a member of one of these local councils in the governorate where I work. For the moment this debate is very embryonic there. The discussions of the council concern above all immediate questions and there is no discussion on what seems to be too abstract: the Constitution, political life. What interests and motivates people is what they can do. For the moment they are not thinking about how to go from there to the question of coordination of the councils.

Are there forms of workers’ control developing in the factories?

For the moment not really. There are some experiences, in the enterprises belong to families linked to Ben Ali, where the workers have found themselves without any management — they have fled — and have taken responsibility for the management of these enterprises. There have also been quite a few farms which have been taken over by the workers, who have expelled those to whom Ben Ali’s government had given these state properties. Around 80 big farms are involved. By way of example in one of these farms there are some 500 people if you included the employees and the members of their families. So there is a form of collective management of these farms. In the educational structures also, in many places, there has been the election of those who direct them — rather than them being named from above. In public transport there has been a big strike to change the chief executive who was a member of the RCD. But this is not very generalised.

-Ahlem Belhadj is a feminist activist and former chair of the Tunisian’ Association of Democratic Women. She is one of the leaders of the Ligue de la gauche ouvrière (LGO – Workers’ Left League).

The European workers movement: dangers and challenges

2011-04-12T00:15:00.000+08:00

Murray Smith
New Socialist
6 March 2011

With the onset of the world economic crisis, the European workers’ movement finds itself in a new phase, one that is replete with dangers and challenges. It is important to underline that we are in fact in a new situation and not just a continuation of the previous period.

There is nothing new about the fact that the European working class is under attack and on the defensive. There has been since the 1980s a systematic drive, increasingly coordinated by the European Union (EU), to impose neo-liberal policies in Europe. The aims have been to lower the cost of labour (wages, benefits, social programs), to remove limits on capital and to open up new sectors of the economy to private capital. So we have seen deregulation of the economy and of finance in particular, the imposition of "flexible" working practices, an increase in precarious work, privatizations and "reform" of the social state in the sense of undermining universal rights to pensions, unemployment benefits, free healthcare and other programs. Collective bargaining agreements are identified as a structural problem, the weakening of unions defined as an objective (Financial Times editorial, 2010-05-10). Such a weakening has occurred in some countries, but not all. The speed and scale of the attacks has varied across countries, but the direction is unmistakable. The cumulative effects have undermined, but not destroyed the welfare state that developed in large measure during the post-WWII economic boom.

Now ruling classes are stepping up the attacks. To use a military analogy, they are moving from a war of attrition to a war of movement, making a frontal assault on wages, working conditions, the public sector and social programs.

A Frontal Assault
There is no doubt that Europe’s ruling classes, acting through national governments and European institutions, backed by the IMF and the OECD, are quite consciously using the crisis and the deficits to push through a series of measures. They have the immediate problem of reducing deficits which are the product of governments bailing out the banks in 2008 and of the recession. This left several peripheral economies of the eurozone (Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal) with difficulty in borrowing money, with the danger of them defaulting on their debts, which would have serious effects on European banks. At the time of the Greek bail-out, Martin Wolf admitted in the Financial Times (2010-05-05), "It is overtly a rescue of Greece, but covertly a bail-out of banks". That is true not only of Greece. Banks and financial institutions from the big three of the EU — Britain, France and Germany — own more than half the Greek debt, and also more than half of Irish, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian debt. All of that came to a total of over $2 trillion as of December 31, 2009 (figures from the Bank of International Settlements).

The price of bailouts to Greece and Ireland was the imposition of drastic austerity programs. In the spring of 2010 it was the Greek crisis that sounded the signal for a renewed offensive by EU governments. The conditions which were then imposed on the Greek people were draconian: wage reductions of 10 to 15 percent, in a country where the average monthly wage is 1200 euros; drastic reduction of the workforce in the public sector, replacing only one out of every five workers who retire; measures to facilitate sackings in the private sector; cuts in the health and education budget; further privatizations; raising the VAT, an across-the-board tax which hits the poorest hardest, from 19 to 23 percent; reduced pensions; raising the retirement age to 67. With minor variations, these measures have also been imposed on or adopted by Ireland, Portugal and Spain.

The object is in fact to use the crisis to impose harsher measures on the recalcitrant. This is not only to cut deficits and reassure the markets. It is also to accelerate the offensive that aims to make Europe more competitive in the new international context. This is fundamental. The social state, even weakened and under attack over the last thirty years, has lasted because Europe could afford it and because it helped pacify workers. Now the word is that the game’s over. The shift in the balance of economic power, the rise of new non-European economies, is underlining the fact that the standard of living and level of social protection that has characterized Western Europe since 1945 is no longer viable, from the point of view of the ruling class.

In its most drastic form at present, the offensive affects the so-called "peripheral" eurozone economies, and also several countries in Eastern Europe. But it is a Europe-wide assault. We are seeing austerity measures and a major attack on unions in Italy (centred on the FIAT car factories), and in France we saw last year’s counter-reform of pensions.

A case that stands out is Britain, where the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat ("ConDem") coalition that came to power in May 2010 has launched an offensive of breathtaking proportions. Taking the need to reduce the deficit as its theme, it has imposed sweeping cuts in public spending — direct government spending, but also the amount of money allocated by the central government to local authorities. This has led to those authorities closing down public services, cutting subsidies to volunteer groups and laying off tens of thousands of local government workers. Massive increases in student fees have provoked equally massive protests. VAT has gone up from 17 to 20 percent. Real wages today are no higher than they were in 2005 - in effect a six-year wage freeze, something not seen since the 1920s. In a parallel move the government has begun sweeping reforms of the health service which amount to the widespread privatization of services and will lead to large-scale job cuts.

Left Politics in Europe
Faced with this offensive, what has been the reaction of the European workers’ movement? In the first place, resistance has centred on the unions rather than on political parties. This is unsurprising when you look at the situation of the political Left. Without exception, the social democratic parties have rallied to the dominant neo-liberal discourse, enthusiastically or shamefacedly and with varying degrees of speed and internal conflict. This is true not only or even especially in theory, but above all in practice, in government. And they continue to do so today.

Three of the four "peripheral" countries — Greece, Spain, Portugal — are presided over by social democratic governments. If we look a little further back we can see the role played in government by social democracy in Germany between 1997 and 2005, as well as in the UK, France and elsewhere. There are some signs of re-positioning to the left in the French Socialist Party, the British Labour Party and the German SPD. However, these moves remain very timid and it is always necessary to look very critically at the left-wing rhetoric of social democratic parties in opposition — it invariably melts away under the pressure of office. Let us not forget that PASOK won the Greek elections in the autumn of 2009 with a left discourse which was in contrast not only with the preceding right-wing government but also with previous PASOK governments. Now, the PASOK government is doing as the EU and the IMF tell it to. Only three of its MPs refused to vote for the austerity programme last year (they abstained, and were promptly expelled from the PASOK parliamentary group). That does not necessarily exhaust the question of these parties. Under the pressure of the crisis and the scale of the attacks on the working class, cracks may appear. But this is likely to be a slow and uncertain process.

What about the forces to the left of social democracy? First of all there are the Communist parties. Some, while taking a position of opposition to neo-liberalism, operate in a sectarian and divisive way. This is above all the case of the Greek Communist Party. Then there are the Communist parties (in France and Spain, notably) which are part of coalitions/fronts with other forces of the radical Left. Thirdly, there are the traditional far left organizations which in some ways mirror the CPs, ranging from sectarianism to serious involvement in new coalitions and parties. Finally, there are new parties involving forces from different backgrounds (as in Portugal and Germany). In some countries the radical Left, more or less united or divided, has serious weight (Portugal, Germany, Greece and France in particular). But nowhere has it succeeded in supplanting social democracy as the main force on the left.

Unions
For the moment and for some time to come resistance will be centred on the trade unions, which are recognized as representative organizations by workers. The unions can mobilize. When they issue a call to action workers respond, especially if the unions act in a united way. The two big confederations in Greece, GSEE (private sector) and ADEDY (public), organized seven massive one-day general strikes in the course of 2010. The first one of 2011 took place on February 23. In France, in the movement against pension reform that began in the spring of 2010 and reached its high point in the autumn, the trade union confederations were the backbone of the movement. This was structured around a series of one-day national strikes and demonstrations which at their height put 3.5 million people in the street. In Portugal, the Communist Party-led CGTP confederation organized a demonstration of 300 000 people in Lisbon on May 29, 2010. Then on November 24, a general strike, called for the first time since 1988 by both the CGTP and the Socialist-led UGT, was massively supported, with 3 million strikers out of a workforce of 4.7 million. In Spain, a strike called on September 29 by the CCOO and UGT confederations was supported by 70 percent of workers.

But such one-day strikes are really the limit of what the big confederations will do. And governments know it. So it may be inconvenient, but they can stand it. The main union leaderships are conservative. They don’t seek confrontation, they want consultation and conciliation. Their problem is that there is less and less of this to be had, and fewer concessions on offer. So they are pushed into reacting to attacks. Furthermore, many unions are linked to social democracy, formally or informally. So when they are faced with a social democratic government, it is one thing to protest, quite another to engage in an all-out confrontation.

Even quite moderate unions are forced into confrontation by the capitalist offensive. But they are not prepared to fight to the finish, whereas in general the governments and the employers are, making only marginal concessions. Sometimes after protesting the unions can be co-opted into collaborating with the government, as happened catastrophically in January in Spain over pension reform. Nevertheless, to the extent that the main unions do mobilize, they help to open up a space for resistance.

There is a problem of the need for unions to adapt to the new situation, for new leaderships to emerge, at all levels, which are capable of determined resistance to the employers’ and government offensive. This implies a certain degree of political understanding of what is at stake. It also implies a democratization of unions which often function in an extremely bureaucratic way, in order to bring them under the control of the rank-and-file members. Such a reorientation and renewal of trade unionism can happen in two ways, by the appearance of new unions and by evolution within the existing confederations. When we look at the situation in each country there are positive signs. In France there are radical unions like Solidaires and the FSU, but there are also significant left currents within the main confederation, the CGT. In Italy the metalworkers’ federation, FIOM, part of the main CGIL confederation, is spearheading resistance, on a national level and in particular at FIAT. In Spain, in reaction to the sell-out over pensions, independent unions organized strikes and demonstrations at the end of January in Galicia, the Basque Country and Catalonia, and there were manifestations of opposition in the CCOO and the UGT.

Far From Hopeless
There are other encouraging signs. One absolutely key factor is the role of young people. One of the most dynamic elements of the movement in France last autumn was the massive mobilization of school students. In Britain, the attacks of the ConDem government have given rise to what is shaping up to be the biggest movement of university and school students since the 1960s. There are also what can be described as "citizens’ mobilizations," for example the growing and increasingly militant movement against the cuts imposed by the ConDem government in Britain, involving trade unionists, neighbourhood action groups and young people.

In spite of the scale of the challenge, the situation of the workers’ movement in Europe is far from hopeless. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that workers are ready to mobilize if given a lead. Sometimes and in certain countries the offensive by employers and governments has been halted or slowed down. Opposition has been led by the unions, but it has involved students, young people and ad hoc fronts, sometimes including forces from social democracy.

But in spite of partial victories, the neo-liberal steamroller has continued to advance. The first task is to counter the offensive. Just saying no is not a sufficient response, but it is an essential starting point. The first line of defence is to mobilize against the measures. This is not in general very difficult. It is blindingly obvious that ordinary workers, particularly in the public sector which is everywhere under attack, young people and pensioners bear no responsibility for the economic crisis that has unfolded since 2007. The slogan, repeated in almost identical terms all over Europe, that "it’s not up to the workers to pay for the crisis, the bankers and financiers should pay" seems like simple common sense. The anger is there.

A Key Weakness
But there is an ongoing weakness of the workers’ movement, which gives the advantage to governments and the ruling class. The weakness is political. It lies first of all in the inadequate nature of the forces that are leading the struggle. But it also lies in the absence of a credible, visible political alternative to neo-liberalism. Such a political alternative is not a precondition for resisting attacks in the short term, perhaps even winning battles. But at a certain point the absence of a coherent alternative has a demobilizing effect.

One of the brakes on mobilization and resistance to the new offensive is the lack of a political alternative and indeed disillusion with politics, including and even especially with the traditional Left. This places a heavy responsibility on the radical Left. One of the strongest weapons of the ruling class for thirty years has been the claim that "there is no alternative." It has to be shown that there is one, that anti-capitalism can move from protest to developing a program that aims to win majority support. This problem predates the present crisis, but the crisis has made it a much more urgent question.

One response on the left to the tactic of repeated one-day general strikes is to argue for an ongoing general strike. That would certainly be the best way to win. The fact that it has not so far happened anywhere does not mean that it is impossible. But there are obstacles - not only the passivity of union leaderships but many hesitations and doubts within a working class that is much more atomized and insecure than it was thirty or forty years ago. And it does not have to be all or nothing. France last year showed that even short of a full-scale general strike the actions of the most radical sections of workers and the youth mobilization, combined with mass demonstrations, gave extra force to the movement, which came close to winning.

The other lesson to be learned from France is that every time a victory has been won, and indeed whenever there has been a serious battle, the battle of ideas, winning over public opinion, countering the government’s propaganda, has been crucial. On this front, political organizations of the radical Left as well as global justice groups like ATTAC have played a key role.

It is useful to cite some positive examples. If we look at the victorious campaign in France against the European Constitutional Treaty in 2005, it was won by a mass political campaign involving forces from both the political and the trade union wings of the workers’ movement, along with intellectuals, global justice activists and others. When the CPE (a government proposal for a weaker employment contract for young people) was defeated a few months later, it was defeated by what is best described as a social and political front, involving political parties and trade unions and spearheaded by youth and student organizations. And last year’s movement in France saw a similar combination of strikes, street demonstrations and a mass political campaign. These kinds of movements can win, and they are also the crucible in which a renewal of the workers’ movement can take place and new political forces can emerge.

Murray Smith, formerly international organiser for the Scottish Socialist Party, is a member of the anti-capitalist party Dei Lenk (the Left) in Luxemburg.

Mark Serwotka: Unions must step up the fight

2011-03-30T20:59:00.000+08:00

Socialist Worker (Britain)
2 April 2011

PCS civil service workers’ union secretary Mark Serwotka spoke to Socialist Worker after the demonstration last Saturday

‘Saturday was extraordinarily uplifting and inspirational. I marched with the PCS contingent and took two hours to get from Waterloo Bridge to Big Ben.

We think we had about 20,000 PCS members on the march. What was clear to me from the response to my speech at the final rally was that calls for joint action and taxing the rich caught the mood.

Just seeing hundreds of thousands of people cheering action and an alternative to cuts was invigorating.

It took an awful lot of arguing to even get this march, and many of us wanted it earlier. Saturday was proof that people are looking for a lead.

I hope it goes some way to tackling the caution that exists among many on the TUC general council about how far and how quickly you can go.

If the momentum is lost there’s always the fear that the mood can dissipate and that we’ll miss our moment.

We’ve got to move quickly. There will be a meeting of all the public sector unions at the TUC on Wednesday, which in part has been called to discuss coordinated industrial action over pensions.

The PCS will go to that meeting arguing strongly that we need to move to ballots as soon as we can. We are hoping to convince as many unions as possible to go along with that.

But we are also having discussions with some of the teaching unions.

We think that the UCU and the NUT unions especially are up for action along the lines of the timetable we’re envisaging.

That is to get conference mandates in April and May and balloting for action in June.

We have a PCS executive meeting in early April and the recommendations that will go to that are being finalised now.

They will ensure the ballot we propose allows for a variety of different types of action, including national strikes with other unions.

They will also allow us to respond quickly in all of the places our members work.

The ballot we’re planning should combine the questions of pay, pensions and cuts in jobs to get us the maximum flexibility to take action where members support it.

The big picture is that we move swiftly from Saturday to try and engage on major national action.

I believe we should work with all those who want to oppose the cuts but we’ve got to say we oppose them all.

People seem to understand that if you don’t do this then the question becomes: which cuts do you accept.

It was very good that Ed Miliband came to the rally.

But we can’t be sucked into saying that some cuts are acceptable and others aren’t.

I’m hoping in May that the Tories and the Lib Dems get annihilated in the elections.

However, elections are not going to stop the onslaught of cuts.

We’ve got to build an alliance of trade unionists and campaigners that is going to defend all our services.’

Opening the way to a fightback

2011-03-28T23:24:00.000+08:00

Madison resident Marshall Braun reviews the last month of protest in the capital.
Socialist Worker.org
March 16, 2011

IT'S BEEN a month since Gov. Scott Walker introduced his "budget repair bill" and simultaneously kicked a sleeping giant called the labor movement in the face.

Bill details were released on a Friday in February with little to no fanfare. On Sunday, 80 people protested at the governor's mansion. On Monday, February 14, 2,000 people showed up with "Valentine's Day" cards for Walker at the Capitol. On Tuesday, 15,000 folks surrounded the Capitol. Wednesday, 30,000 shut down the streets around the Capitol square. Thursday and Friday saw increased numbers, culminating in 70,000-plus on Saturday the 19th.

The occupation of the Capitol building began that Tuesday and lasted nearly three weeks before severe restrictions on Capitol access, combined with Democratic Party maneuvering, forced the remaining occupiers out. There were 24/7 protests, with numbers in the thousands nearly every day after, and on Saturday, March 12, the largest protests yet drew 185,000 people, according to the Wisconsin AFL-CIO's estimate.

This past month has been the most tremendous and invigorating yet exhausting time of my life. It has been dotted with tremendous high points, like the four-day "sick-out" of thousands of teachers across the state, and devastating setbacks, like the signing of the amended bill that strips most public-sector unions of most of their rights, with the not-so-hidden intent of decertifying as many of them as soon as possible.

There have been small lows, like daily forgetting where I parked and the all too often accompanying ticket--and personal highs, like my 2-year-old son falling asleep in my arms despite following a drum line with helicopters overhead, and being surrounded by 70,000 protesters out-chanting a couple hundred Tea-baggers.

There is a political fire in this town, hard to describe, maybe even harder to quench. It's difficult to leave my apartment without getting into a political conversation. On top of the ever-present pins and T-shirts folks are wearing in solidarity with public workers, many have decided simply to carry around signs.

At first, I thought people were just going to or coming from the Capitol, but I've since realized that getting groceries is the perfect time to carry a placard. While driving, I've gotten so used to seeing joggers with carried or pinned-on signs that I instinctively give them the "This is what democracy looks like" horn beep, which always elicits a raised fist, no matter how tired they may be.

People are taking literally any opportunity to show their union support and contempt for Walker. Because Johnsonville Brats gave a hefty campaign contribution to Walker and are served at the twice-annual world's largest Brat Fest, multiple alternative brat fests are being planned, including a virtual fest that's already up on Facebook, promising a "cyberbrat" in return for a donation to a local food bank.

This spirit isn't confined to Madison. My small hometown nestled in the conservative armpit of Wisconsin known as the Fox Valley has had multiple pro-labor rallies. There have been solidarity rallies in all 50 states. Of course, many other states are now facing the same type of legislation, or even worse, which has prompted massive protests from Indiana to Ohio to New Jersey.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

LAST WEDNESDAY, the state Senate hastily passed the stripped-down union-killing bill. The GOP-controlled Senate had been waiting since February 17 to pass the full bill. On that day, we stopped the vote by blockading the Senate chamber.

People also blockaded several Democratic legislators' offices, preventing the police from taking them to the chamber and allowing at least one senator, Chris Larson, to sneak out a window and join his fellow Democrats in Illinois. The 14 AWOL senators prevented a quorum that was necessary to pass the full bill. Instead, the new bill passed with a smaller quorum. Devoid of any "fiscal" provisions, it laid bare the lie that union-busting had anything to do with balancing the budget.

Within an hour of the bill passing, thousands surrounded the Capitol, while hundreds fortunate enough to be let in earlier protested inside. When I arrived, people were banging on doors at all of the dozens of entrances and chanting "Let us in!" Many people including myself were looking for any way in. A familiar protester whispered to me, "Window open at Wisconsin Street entrance." When I got there, hundreds of completely silent protesters were waiting to stream through a chest-high window.

Dozens got in before extremely angry police officers came and shut it from inside. Immediately, the silent crowd boomed. Some who got in the window broke through the cops and opened the doors. I was among the roughly hundred or so who rushed in before the police regained control of the entrance.

We immediately started planning how to let everyone else in. We found some who were already talking about rushing one entrance as a decoy, and then sending many more to the opposite entrance to try to keep it open. We planned it for 10 minutes out and texted everyone we knew outside to move to the State Street entrance.

The deception worked, as dozens of us flew past a couple cops and opened the State Street doors, allowing thousands to stream in to cheering and high-fives from the jubilant protesters inside. That action broke the cops' resolve, and they retreated to the fourth level.

Hundreds made their way toward the Assembly chamber, where the final vote required to pass the bill was to happen at 11 a.m. the next morning. Many spent the night in a vestibule outside of the chamber, discussing how best to hold their ground. Unfortunately, by morning, the numbers had dwindled. The vote went through, but the demonstrators succeeded in delaying the vote by a couple hours as state troopers had to drag dozens from the hallway.

The "people's mic" that had run continuously for three weeks, except for during sleeping hours, was once again live in the middle of the rotunda with thousands listening to speeches and chanting. Around the mic, I ran into state Sen. Mark Mueller's son, who was trying to convince folks to leave. He was saying that we would look bad if we were arrested and would ruin the efforts of his dad, one of the "Fab 14." I argued that if we held our numbers, no one would be arrested. Following him around for a while, I made that point to everyone he talked to.

I took the microphone and introduced myself as a 20-year Madison resident, worker and a socialist, to hearty applause. The biggest reaction came when I talked about the various aspects of the original bill beyond stripping collective bargaining.

It is obvious that folks sped to the Capitol that night, angry about the loss of collective bargaining, but many were also upset about cuts to wages, state health care plans, transit and other programs for the poor. Walker's new budget released last week has severe cuts across the board.

It's laughable that he advocates the only way to balance the budget is through spending cuts when he just gave a $140 million tax break to corporations a month and a half ago, at a time when half of the corporations in Wisconsin already pay nothing in taxes.

I ended with a plea for people to keep up the protests and for rank-and-file union members to talk to each other, organize and think about job actions. The union leadership is reluctant to even hint at a strike and is seemingly content to focus only on elections and recall efforts for select GOP state senators and Walker. There has been one notable exception. President of the Madison Firefighters Union Joe Conway has advocated for a general strike.

Most people who are jazzed about the recall effort have their heart in the right place. However, it will take a year before we can even start collecting signatures for Walker's recall.

The Democrats are obviously pressuring the unions to convince their members to channel their protest energy into the polling booths and petition drives. Ironically, the recalls and ultimately the bill's overturning will happen only if the political pressure of the type fostered by the protests is maintained on the Democrats.

For example, there is no way that the now famed Fab 14 would have left the state had it not been for thousands of people in the streets.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

WHAT ARE the next steps? Already illegal for public unions to strike, the new bill makes it more difficult by allowing the governor to fire any public employee who misses three days of work without a doctor's note during a "state of emergency."

However, massive job actions make it nearly impossible for firings. The teachers have already shown that. The governor cannot replace most public positions with scab workers because they are specialized jobs. One of my favorite signs at one of the protests was, "Can the National Guard Teach Organic Chem?"

That being said, the union leadership is making a concerted effort to shift energy into electoral strategies and away from strikes. AFSCME Local 60-Council 40 President Don Coyler wrote to members a day after the largest labor protest in memory:

Thanks to everyone who attended Saturday's rally. This enormous show of unity was inspiring. As you talk about this event with family, friends, and co-workers, please encourage them that we need their continued support. The recall effort needs grassroots support. Volunteering to help with gathering signatures or donating money are just two ways to help. Then, there will be campaigning for more enlightened candidates.

This type of rhetoric has been persuasive, judging by people's attitudes.

Now is the time to keep up the protests and civil disobedience. The lesson from Wednesday's reoccupation of the Capitol is that confident steps and a little bit of planning can cascade into victory.

Continued protest can give confidence and organizing space to union members. Civil disobedience is, by nature, illegal, but we must not be afraid of breaking the law. Most of what we've done in the past month has been illegal. The occupation was illegal, especially last Wednesday night's, since a recent court order threatens up to six months in jail for anyone staying past closing time.

Every rally since the first has been held without a permit. How can we expect unions to act illegally if we won't ourselves?

We've come so far. The Teaching Assistants' Association, which during the Valentine's Day rally urged its members to stay on the sidewalk in order to not disrupt traffic, is now having to urge them not to strike.

The Firefighters have moved from symbols of solidarity to leaders in the struggle, disobeying police orders to leave the Capitol two weeks ago. In fact, it was their steadfastness that convinced Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs to disobey his superiors and allow the protesters to stay another night, which led to four more days.

It may take one bold union like the Firefighters Union to show the way and open the doors for others to enter the fray. A victory in Wisconsin could embolden the union movement nationwide.

Even if we lose here, something has fundamentally changed. Masses of workers here understand for the first time in a long time that they are workers, not just consumers. Across the country, many workers are starting to realize that their interests lie primarily with other workers, private or public, Black, Brown or white, male or female, gay or straight.

They realize that the Koch Brothers' interests are not their own. The formerly one-sided class war has met a second side here in Madison, and we have Scott Walker to thank for that.

Libyan Developments

2011-03-21T16:04:00.000+08:00

By Gilbert Achcar
March 19, 2011
Znet
[Gilbert Achcar grew up in Lebanon, and is currently Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of the University of London. His books include The Clash of Barbarisms: The Making of the New World Disorder, published in 13 languages, Perilous Power: The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy, co-authored with Noam Chomsky, and most recently The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives. He was interviewed by Stephen R. Shalom.]

Who is the Libyan opposition? Some have noted the presence of the old monarchist flag in rebel ranks.

This flag is not used as a symbol of the monarchy, but as the flag that the Libyan state adopted after it won independence from Italy. It is used by the uprising in order to reject the Green Flag imposed by Gaddafi along with his Green Book, when he was aping Mao Zedong and his Little Red Book. In no way does the tricolor flag indicate nostalgia for the monarchy. In the most common interpretation, it symbolizes the three historic regions of Libya, and the crescent and star are the same symbols you see on the flags of the Algerian, Tunisian and Turkish republics, not symbols of monarchism.

So who is the opposition? The composition of the opposition is -- as in all the other revolts shaking the region -- very heterogeneous. What unites all the disparate forces is a rejection of the dictatorship and a longing for democracy and human rights. Beyond that, there are many different perspectives. In Libya, more particularly, there is a mixture of human rights activists, democracy advocates, intellectuals, tribal elements, and Islamic forces -- a very broad collection. The most prominent political force in the Libyan uprising is the "Youth of the 17th of February Revolution," which has a democratic platform, calling for the rule of law, political freedoms, and free elections. The Libyan movement also includes sections of the government and the armed forces that have broken away and joined the opposition -- which you didn't have in Tunisia or Egypt.

So the Libyan opposition represents a mixture of forces, and the bottom line is that there is no reason for any different attitude toward them than to any other of the mass uprisings in the region.

Is Gaddafi -- or was Gaddafi -- a progressive figure?

When Gaddafi came to power in 1969 he was a late manifestation of the wave of Arab nationalism that followed World War II and the 1948 Nakba. He tried to imitate Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, who he regarded as his model and inspiration. So he replaced the monarchy with a republic, championed Arab unity, forced the withdrawal of the U.S.'s Wheelus Airbase from Libyan territory, and initiated a program of social change.

Then the regime moved in its own way, along the path of radicalization, inspired by an Islamized Maoism. There were sweeping nationalizations in the late 1970s -- almost everything was nationalized. Gaddafi claimed to have instituted direct democracy -- and formally changed the name of the country from Republic to State of the Masses (Jamahiriya). He pretended that he had turned the country into the fulfillment of socialist utopia with direct democracy, but few were fooled. The "revolutionary committees" were actually acting as a ruling apparatus along with the security services in controlling the country. At the same time, Gaddafi also played an especially reactionary role in reinvigorating tribalism as a tool for his own power. His foreign policy became increasingly foolhardy, and most Arabs came to consider him crazy.

With the Soviet Union in crisis, Gaddafi shifted away from his socialist pretensions and re-opened his economy to Western business. He asserted that his economic liberalization would be accompanied by a political one, aping Gorbachev's perestroika after having aped Mao Zedong's "cultural revolution," but the political claim was an empty one. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 under the pretext of searching for "weapons of mass destruction," Gaddafi, worried that he might be next, implemented a sudden and surprising turnabout in foreign policy, earning himself a spectacular upgrade from the status of "rogue state" to that of close collaborator of Western states. A collaborator in particular of the United States, which he helped in its so-called war on terror, and Italy, for which he did the dirty job of turning back would-be immigrants trying to get from Africa to Europe.

Throughout these metamorphoses, Gaddafi's regime was always a dictatorship. Whatever early progressive measures Gaddafi may have enacted, there was nothing left of progressivism or anti-imperialism in his regime in the last phase. Its dictatorial character showed itself in the way he reacted to the protests: immediately deciding to quell them by force. There was no attempt to offer any kind of democratic outlet for the population. He warned the protesters in a now famous tragic-comic speech: "We will come inch by inch, home by home, alley by alley ... We will find you in your closets. We will have no mercy and no pity." Not a surprise, knowing that Gaddafi was the only Arab ruler who publicly blamed the Tunisian people for having toppled their own dictator Ben Ali, whom he described as the best ruler the Tunisians would find.

Gaddafi resorted to threats and violent repression, claiming that the protesters had been turned into drug addicts by Al Qaeda, who poured hallucinogens in their coffees. Blaming Al Qaeda for the uprising was his way of trying to get the support of the West. Had there been any offer of help from Washington or Rome, you can be sure that Gaddafi would have gladly welcomed it. He actually expressed his bitter disappointment at the attitude of his buddy Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, with whom he enjoyed partying, and complained that his other European "friends" also betrayed him. In the last few years, Gaddafi had indeed become a friend of several Western rulers and other establishment figures who, for a fistful of dollars, have been willing to ridicule themselves exchanging hugs with him. Anthony Giddens himself, the distinguished theoretician of Tony Blair's Third Way, followed in his disciple's steps by paying a visit to Gaddafi in 2007 and writing in the Guardian how Libya was on the path of reform and on its way to becoming the Norway of the Middle East.

What is your assessment of UN Security Council resolution 1973 adopted on March 17?

The resolution itself is phrased in a way that takes into consideration -- and appears to respond to -- the request by the uprising for a no-fly zone. The opposition has indeed explicitly called for a no-fly zone, on the condition that no foreign troops be deployed on Libyan territory. Gaddafi has the bulk of the elite armed forces, with aircraft and tanks, and the no-fly zone would indeed neutralize his main military advantage. This request of the uprising is reflected in the text of the resolution, which authorizes UN member states "to take all necessary measures ... to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory." The resolution establishes "a ban on all flights in the airspace of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya in order to help protect civilians."

Now there are not enough safeguards in the wording of the resolution to bar its use for imperialist purposes. Although the purpose of any action is supposed to be the protection of civilians, and not "regime change," the determination of whether an action meets this purpose or not is left up to the intervening powers and not to the uprising, or even the Security Council. The resolution is amazingly confused. But given the urgency of preventing the massacre that would have inevitably resulted from an assault on Benghazi by Gaddafi's forces, and the absence of any alternative means of achieving the protection goal, no one can reasonably oppose it. One can understand the abstentions; some of the five states who abstained in the UNSC vote wanted to express their defiance and/or unhappiness with the lack of adequate oversight, but without taking the responsibility for an impending massacre.

The Western response, of course, smacks of oil. The West fears a long drawn out conflict. If there is a major massacre, they would have to impose an embargo on Libyan oil, thus keeping oil prices at a high level at a time when, given the current state of the global economy, this would have major adverse consequences. Some countries, including the United States, acted reluctantly. Only France emerged as very much in favor of strong action, which might well be connected to the fact that France -- unlike Germany (which abstained in the UNSC vote), Britain, and, above all, Italy -- does not have a major stake in Libyan oil, and certainly hopes to get a greater share post-Gaddafi.

We all know about the Western powers' pretexts and double standards. For example, their alleged concern about harm to civilians bombarded from the air did not seem to apply in Gaza in 2008-09, when hundreds of noncombatants were being killed by Israeli warplanes in furtherance of an illegal occupation. Or the fact that the US allows its client regime in Bahrain, where it has a major naval base, to violently repress the local uprising, with the help of other regional vassals of Washington.

The fact remains, nevertheless, that if Gaddafi were permitted to continue his military offensive and take Benghazi, there would be a major massacre. Here is a case where a population is truly in danger, and where there is no plausible alternative that could protect it. The attack by Gaddafi's forces was hours or at most days away. You can't in the name of anti-imperialist principles oppose an action that will prevent the massacre of civilians. In the same way, even though we know well the nature and double standards of cops in the bourgeois state, you can't in the name of anti-capitalist principles blame anybody for calling them when someone is on the point of being raped and there is no alternative way of stopping the rapists.

This said, without coming out against the no-fly zone, we must express defiance and advocate full vigilance in monitoring the actions of those states carrying it out, to make sure that they don't go beyond protecting civilians as mandated by the UNSC resolution. In watching on TV the crowds in Benghazi cheering the passage of the resolution, I saw a big billboard in their middle that said in Arabic "No to foreign intervention." People there make a distinction between "foreign intervention" by which they mean troops on the ground, and a protective no-fly zone. They oppose foreign troops. They are aware of the dangers and wisely don't trust Western powers.

So, to sum up, I believe that from an anti-imperialist perspective one cannot and should not oppose the no-fly zone, given that there is no plausible alternative for protecting the endangered population. The Egyptians are reported to be providing weapons to the Libyan opposition -- and that's fine -- but on its own it couldn't have made a difference that would have saved Benghazi in time. But again, one must maintain a very critical attitude toward what the Western powers might do.

What's going to happen now?

It's difficult to tell what will happen now. The UN Security Council resolution did not call for regime change; it's about protecting civilians. The future of the Gaddafi regime is uncertain. The key question is whether we will see the resumption of the uprising in western Libya, including Tripoli, leading to a disintegration of the regime's armed forces. If that occurs, then Gaddafi may be ousted soon. But if the regime manages to remain firmly in control in the west, then there will be a de facto division of the country -- even though the resolution affirms the territorial integrity and national unity of Libya. This may be what the regime has chosen, as it has just announced its compliance with the UN resolution and proclaimed a ceasefire. What we might then have is a prolonged stalemate, with Gaddafi controlling the west and the opposition the east. It will obviously take time before the opposition can incorporate the weapons it is receiving from and through Egypt to the point of becoming able to inflict military defeat on Gaddafi's forces. Given the nature of the Libyan territory, this can only be a regular war rather than a popular one, a war of movement over vast stretches of territory. That's why the outcome is hard to predict. The bottom line here again is that we should support the victory of the Libyan democratic uprising. Its defeat at the hands of Gaddafi would be a severe backlash negatively affecting the revolutionary wave that is currently shaking the Middle East and North Africa.

Do or die in Wisconsin

2011-03-10T19:48:00.000+08:00

Socialist Worker

With Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker poised to sign a bill gutting public-sector union power, organized labor must use its power now, argues Lee Sustar.

March 10, 2011

AFTER THREE weeks of demonstrations and an occupation of the Capitol building, the labor battle in Wisconsin was coming to a head after Gov. Scott Walker's Republican allies suddenly rammed through legislation aimed at gutting the bargaining power of public-sector unions and crippling them financially.

The question now is whether unions will push back with the kind of job actions that launched the biggest labor mobilization in decades--or allow Walker to drive a legislative steamroller over half a century of public-sector unionism in Wisconsin.

The immediate reaction to the legislative sneak attack was furious. Thousands of protestors swarmed into the Capitol building in Madison--six days after an occupation had ended. "General strike!" was among the most popular chants, along with "This is what democracy looks like!"

Asked if he supported the call for a general strike, Joe Conway, president of Madison Local 311 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said, "I'm in total agreement. We should start walking out tomorrow and the next day, and see how long they can last."

Mike Imbrogno, an executive board member of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 171 at the University of Wisconsin (UW), described the scene inside the Capitol:

People keep asking, "When are we going on strike?" There is the broad mix of workers here who have been out for the last three weeks: boilermakers, AFSCME members, teachers, firefighters, graduate employees of the UW Teaching Assistants' Association, lots of building trades people.

Many students and parents are here with their children, too. People got the e-mail that this was happening around 5 p.m., and they immediately rushed here. As the crowd swelled outside, the cops abandoned the doors and let everybody in. This is a turning point. Peoples' anger is overcoming their fear.

While thousands jammed the ground floor, a few dozen protesters, many of them TAA members, made their way into the state Assembly chambers, where they planned to sit in to block that body's vote on the final version of the anti-union bill, scheduled for the morning of March 10.

Even Democratic State Rep. Brett Hulsey, who last week actively urged protesters to abandon the occupation, this time gave up on trying to limit the action. UW graduate student Aongus Ó Murchada said, "I shouted at him, 'You going to lead us out again, Brett? We're not leaving.' He said, 'I don't blame you,' and just walked away."

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THE REPUBLICANS' maneuver comes after a three-week standoff in which state Senate Democrats were able to block the anti-union provisions since they were part of a broader "budget repair bill" that requires a quorum of 20 votes because it concerns fiscal matters. The Republicans have 19 seats in the Senate, which meant that at least one of the 14 Democrat had to be present. By leaving the state, the Democrats stalled action on the bill.

On Wednesday, Walker and his main legislative ally, state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, decided to drop the pretense that their anti-union attack has anything to do with balancing the state budget. They moved the anti-union measures into a separate bill that wasn't about finances, so it didn't require any Democrats to be present for a quorum.

Walker's bill would bar collective bargaining over anything other than wages, which in any case would be limited to the rate of inflation. The automatic deduction of union dues would be barred, which could cripple the unions financially. The unions would further have to hold annual elections to maintain their status as bargaining units. Beyond this, Walker's bill would force state employees pay 12.6 percent of their health insurance and 5.7 percent toward their pensions, resulting in a cut in weekly pay of at least 5 to 7 percent.

If the anti-union legislation passes the Assembly in its final version on Thursday, Walker is expected to sign the bill into law immediately.

So the unions are faced with a do-or-die proposition. The repeated mass mobilizations--which exceeded 100,000 on February 26--have failed to deter Walker. Now labor must go beyond demonstrations to take action that will force Walker and his business backers to retreat. Without such escalation, the public-sector unions in Wisconsin may well cease to exist as effective workers' organizations.

Whether or not the anger of the union rank and file will push union officials into action is unclear. "Right now, what I am seeing from the labor leadership is a lack of response," said J. Eric Cobb, executive director of the Building Trades Council of South Central Wisconsin. Top union leaders have been in a reactive mode, rather than leading, he said.

Cobb pointed out that top union officials have focused only on the attacks on collective bargaining, rather than the economic attacks on workers or the other anti-worker elements of the bill, from cuts in state health care programs to the privatization of the University of Wisconsin. Labor officials, said Cobb, "have always backed off from fighting actively against the aspects of the budget repair bill that are literally devastating."

In recent days, union leaders have shifted their focus further away from mobilizations, and toward the recall of eight Republicans in the state Senate, as well as the campaign for the Wisconsin state Supreme Court. A mass labor rally scheduled for March 12 was intended to give a boost to that effort.

Now it will be test of whether unions will stand up to the challenge of the greatest attack they've faced since President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 striking members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization in 1981.

"When this [anti-union legislative] bomb hit, I called my union leadership," Cobb said. "The best answer I got was to get as many people to the Capitol as possible. But the Capitol is not the prize. The prize is our rights. The prize is not having peoples' back broken by having them pay for this Wall Street greed."

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LABOR HAS already shown it has the power to stop Walker's union-busting. But do union leaders have the will to use it? Following the Senate passage of the union-busting bill, the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) called on members to go to work as usual on Thursday.

Yet the great mobilizations over the last three weeks--and the outpouring of solidarity from across the U.S.--were only possible because teachers in Madison called in sick February 17 to lead a sit-in at the Capitol. Hours later, their parent union, WEAC, urged teachers across the state to skip work the following day and join the protest.

The teachers' job action was the spark for tens of thousands of people to make their way to the Capitol as well. There, they made common cause with the students and workers who occupied the building and turned it into a round-the-clock political speakout and strategy session.

Construction workers in hardhats and firefighters in their gear mingled with state office workers, highway repair crews and health care workers. Nonunion workers rallied in support as well, based on a feeling of solidarity and a recognition that if organized workers could be defeated, they would suffer, too.

The feeling of solidarity--and momentum--for our side grew as Walker's popularity plunged. After a year in which the corporate-funded Tea Party protesters were highlighted in the mass media as the authentic voice of grassroots America, the mass labor mobilization in Wisconsin put working class political struggle back on the political map for the first time in decades.

But once teachers were back at work after three or four days, police gradually reasserted control over the Capitol. Though the union rallies grew larger and larger, labor leaders shifted increasingly toward an electoral strategy of recalling the Republicans.

Certainly, the recall effort is a useful pressure tactic. But in practice, union leaders have counterposed the electoral strategy to further job actions that can put pressure on Walker and his business backers.

Even worse, union leaders have repeatedly offered to accept the concessions on health care and pensions demanded by Walker in exchange for continued collective bargaining rights. WEAC officials have gone so far as to urge affiliate unions to include those same concessions in two-year contract extensions with local school districts.

The apparent aim was to protect the union's status--and its collection of dues--if Walker's bill is passed.

But Walker apparently took all this as a sign of labor's weakness. And no wonder: If union officials are willing to take concessions even as labor shows its power to organize and inspire masses of people, why shouldn't employers try to crush unions once and for all?

The next attack is likely to come on March 13, when Walker has announced that he will no longer honor a contract extension for AFSCME and other state employees.

But if the mood of the Wednesday protests when Republicans rammed the bill through is any indication, Walker has overreached once again. He's made it clear that what's really going on isn't an effort to fix a state budget deficit, but a showdown between capital and labor. Talk of a general strike isn't the product of the anger of the moment, but a conclusion reached after decades of a one-sided class war--and a powerful three-week mobilization that shows the power of workers' collective action.

If union leaders won't move face up to this battle, then the rank and file that has already showed so much strength and determination must take the initiative again. Unions have to respond to Walker by fighting as if their lives depend on it--because they do.

The New American Workers Movement at the Crossroads

2011-03-06T10:47:00.000+08:00

Dan La Botz
International Viewpoint
March 2011

The new American workers movement, which has developed so rapidly in the last couple of months in the struggle against rightwing legislative proposals to abolish public employee unions, suddenly finds itself at a crossroads. Madison, Wisconsin, where rank-and-file workers, community members, and social movement activists converged to create the new movement, remains the center of the struggle. In Ohio, which faces similar legislation, unions have also gone into motion, while working people around the country have been drawn into the fight

In both states, things are coming to a head. In Wisconsin the courts have ordered the capitol building closed and the governor is threatening layoffs to begin next week. In both Wisconsin and Ohio the legislators are threatening to push the bills through one way or another. And now, in the fight to win, the movement has come to a fork in the road.

Two different tendencies in the labor movement point in two quite different directions. The top leaders of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions like SEIU have thrown their weight into the struggle in the only way that they know how. Following the model they use in political campaigns, they have reached out to established organizations to build coalitions. They have sent organizers into take charge and to reach out to communities. Their goal is to rebuild their institutional power and their relationship with the Democratic Party, hoping to turn the upsurge in support for public employees into a political victory.

The Union Leaders’ Approach
In both Wisconsin and Ohio, while not publicly giving up the fight to defeat the anti-union legislation, the top union officials quietly suggest that the bills cannot be stopped in the legislatures. So the unions in Wisconsin and Ohio indicate they will be turning respectively to efforts at recall and referendum. With their usual orientation toward political solutions, the unions’ Central Labor Councils in Ohio return to their reliance on the Democratic Party and prepare for the contest in the coming elections.

The unions’ top leaders at the national level shy away from mobilizing the social and economic power of the unions to win this thing, turning instead to their allies in the Democratic Party. It is not that the union officials don’t want to win in Wisconsin and Ohio, but their notions about how to win and what winning means represent a particular conception of the role of the labor movement. For the AFL-CIO and other major unions, winning means preserving, through political influence, the existing model of collective bargaining—even though we know that under the existing model unions have been losing for the last 40 years.

The Workers Power Tendency
There is, however, another tendency in the new workers’ movement which presents a different alternative. This alternative, which is not so easy to name but which might be called workers’ power tendency, is made up of those rank-and-file workers and their union stewards and local officials, together with the community groups and social movement activists who have rallied to the cause. This group includes the teachers who called in sick and produced a virtual shutdown of the schools in Madison and other parts of Wisconsin. It is made up of firemen, policemen and other public employees who have spent every available minute surrounding the capitol in spirited demonstrations. And it includes the union, community and student activists who have occupied the capitol building and made it the center and the symbol of the new workers’ movement.

This tendency has demonstrated—even it is has not yet worked out an elaborate position on paper or issued some sort of manifesto—that for them winning means using workers’ power to stop the anti-union bills and to stop concessions offered up by some of the union leaders. Some of these workers have been holding on to the capitol risking arrest. Others are considering some form of direct action or civil disobedience.

These are the workers and their supporters who taken seriously the call for a general strike issued by the South Central Federation of Labor. Taking seriously the idea of a general strike of Wisconsin workers doesn’t mean jumping into it. A general strike issue from the ranks isn’t simply called—as some activists have been trying to do. A general strike is mulled over, it is prepared through conversation, discussion and debate. It is organized. And finally (but soon), when the moment is right, it is begun when one crucial group of workers has the courage to make the first move drawing others into the process.

How We Win Makes all the Difference
One might argue that the anti-labor legislation might be stopped either way, either by the union officials’ program of working from the top down to build coalitions and create the alliances that will return the Democrats to power or by the workers’ use of their economic and social power. Through either course, one could argue, the anti-union legislation will be stopped, unions and collective bargaining preserved, and the movement vindicated. But the lessons of the two courses and the results would be quite different.

The lesson of a victory organized by the union officials and won by the Democratic Party in the legislatures would be that workers must rely on the Democratic Party to defend themselves, returning unions and workers to their usual dependence on a political party dominated by big business. We might remember that it was the Democratic Party’s failure in Wisconsin and nationally to defend unions and workers’ interests which has been responsible for getting us here. The result of the top union officials’ strategy would be a return to the situation we were in yesterday, where employers forced the unions into retreat and where workers were losing ground. And so, it being yesterday again, the assault on workers in both the private and the public sector would resume—in truth, it would never have ceased.

The other alternative is that workers in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states engaged in this battle—and almost all of them are—exert their economic and social power, through direct action, civil disobedience, and economic and political strikes, reasserting the power of workers in our society. The lesson of such an experience would be that workers do have power and that workers can lead. Such an upheaval—which would necessarily be met by the employers with resistance and repression and which would entail both defeats and successes—would necessarily lead to new tactics and strategies, to new leaders, to new organizational forms.

We would come out of the experience with a new and revitalized labor movement. Such a new workers’ movement might even create independent political campaigns, and, if it grew in breadth and depth, might even raise the question of a workers’ political party. We would through the experience of fighting and winning this thing on our own, really have a new American workers movement and we would continue the fight on new and higher ground.

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Dan La Botz is the author of several books on Mexican labor unions, social movements and politics. He also edits Mexican Labor News and Analysis, an on-line publication of the United Electrical Workers Union (UE) and the Authentic Labor Front (FAT), at: http://www.ueinternational.org/.

Can we beat racism by suppressing it?

2011-02-27T20:19:00.003+08:00

Chris Latham

In January, Fabien Engelmann, secretary of the Confédération générale du travail's (General Confederation of Labour - CGT) union representing workers in the Nilvange town hall, announced that he would be standing as a candidate of the far-right Front National (National Front-FN). The announcement has rocked not only the CGT but also the far-left parties Lutte Oevriere (Workers Struggle – LO) and the Nouveau parti anticapitaliste (New Anticapitalist Party – NPA), as Engelmann was a former candidate for both parties in the 2007 and 2010 elections.

The CGT responded on January 16, by initiating a vote for a new secretary in the local union, which Engelmann won overwhelming, 20 votes to 3. The CGT then gave the members an ultimatum, remove Engelmann and elect a new Secretary, or they would suspend the local union. In a joint statement, the CGT’s Public Service Federation and the Moselle Department explaining the suspension of Engelmann, these were:
Firstly, that Engelmann as a CGT militant was being a propagandist for ideas that run against the fundamental values and directions of the CGT
Secondly that Engelmann sort to use the CGT political purposes.
In its statement explaining the suspension of the local unions the Departmental Union and Public Sector Federation explained that it would remain suspended until it could be re-established on a basis consistent with the values of the CGT.

Engelmann in his public statements has explained his transition from a militant of the far-left, to a militant of the far right in terms of immigration and defence of secularism. In an interview with the website Reposte Laique (Secular Response) that he left the NPA along with other members in his branch, after the regional elections, as a consequence of the NPA standing a veiled candidate (Former NPA candidate Ilham Moussaid, wore the Hijab). Engelmann has explained his decision to join the FN on the basis that Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is the only one “defending secularism” in France, and that he could not support the lefts support for immigration to France and support for legalisation of workers without papers in a time of high unemployment.

In response to Engelmann’s announcement both LO and the NPA have issued statements. The NPA organisation in Mosselle statement condemned the racism not only of FN, but of President Sarkozy, which legitimises FN’s policies, that “wrongly blames immigration for the majority of society’s ills. The statement also rejected the notion that FN is a defender of secularism, instead stating that the FN only targets the supposed “Islamisation of France”, which “serious studies prove is only a phantasm”, while ignoring the real privileges of other religions, while the FN allows in its organisation self acknowledged Catholic activists who have threatened doctors who provide abortions. Finally the NPA statement explains that the FN economic policies such lower corporate taxes, limiting the right to strike, increasing the defence budget while lowering the education budget, are in contradiction to the demands of the labour movement”. The LO statement described both Le Pens (Marine, and Jean-Marie, Marine’s Father and the founder of the FN) as middle class and their orientation to the working class is to shift workers anger towards immigrants, the poor and the most oppressed and away from the middle class and capitalists who are for the disaster of the crisis and the drama of unemployment”.

FN have indicated that they will launch a case in the European Court of Human Rights to seek his readmission. In 2007, Bredin Prat who was expelled from the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen for member of the British National Party , launched a similar case in the ECHR. In that case the ECHR found under clause 11 of the European Convention to Protect Human Rights, which protects the right of freedom of assembly, that unions have the right to determine who can be a member. Engelmann’s lawyer has indicated that their argument will be focused on clause 9 and 10 which protect freedom of expression.

Irrespective of any court ruling on the legality of Engelmann’s suspension, the FN will attempt to paint Engelmann as a victim, who has had his democratic rights impinged. Their efforts are helped by CGT regional official Denis Pesce’s acknowledgement to Free Actualité, that members of the union had wanted to keep Engelmann as secretary as they felt that he was “doing a good job”. Engelmann has said that in the coming week’s more CGT members will come out as FN members. Given the social crisis in France it is likely that there are a number of members who will at least be FN sympathisers, particularly as Pesce has acknowledged that union has not done in enough to combat racist ideas. While more members coming out will add to the FN publicity, it will create environment in which the ideas can be combated head on through an ideological struggle. Further attempts to win the battle against racism in the CGT via suppression can only drive the ideas underground and risk giving them the ring of truth by making martyrs of its advocates, making it all the more difficult to combat the ideas.

9th Greek general strike will last until “until the government of Papandreou has gone”

2011-02-26T00:02:00.000+08:00

European Left
23 February 2011

The first general strike of this year is happening today with Greek protesters announcing to stay at Syntagma Square “until the government of Papandreou has gone”. However, the Prime Minister is seeing the strike with a certain distance, after meeting in Germany with Merkel’s and other EU leaders.

Transports and public services are apparently almost totally interrupted, whilst the a joint rally organized by the civil servants’ union ADEDY and GSEE, representing the general confederation of trade unions, with more than 250 000 people is taking place in the center of the city. A march has started at 11 a.m. from Pedion tou Areos Park until the Parliament.

The general strike against the imposed austerity measures comes a day after the parliament had pushed through legislation an extensive liberalisation of a number of professions, including lawyers, architects, engineers and notaries, part of legislation demanded by the EU-IMF-ECB troika in exchange for the rescue plan.

With the world’s attention turned to North Africa, the Eurozone keeps analyzing the current economic recovery and the evolution of stock markets, and the lead to threats of looming inflation. Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, visiting Angela Merkel in Berlin this week as part of a pre-summit tour of EU leaders, urged Merkel to consider more flexibility in dealing with the debt crisis and thanked Angela personally “thank you very much for what you have done, your support and your friendship”, he declared yesterday.

Seeming to be very calm, but watchful, before March’s summit, Merkel’s added, in a press conference, that “Ireland's bail-out terms covered a seven-year period, while Greece's was just three. It's one point that's on the table". While admitting that “Greece has started to put its house in order”, she warned that “We have been watching this with satisfaction because we know that this requires political audacity. I believe that there are still some more things for Greece to do and the more decisive that it is in following the necessary policies, the more Germany will believe that it can succeed.", she said.

Class war in Wisconsin

2011-02-23T00:17:00.003+08:00

Lee Sustar reports from Madison on the growing union struggle against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his attempt to crush public-sector unions.
Socialist Worker.org
February 18, 2011

WISCONSIN LABOR was gearing up for its fourth consecutive daily rally--and biggest yet--February 18 after sit-ins by workers and students and stalling tactics by state senate Democrats stopped a vote on devastating anti-union legislation pushed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

It was difficult to estimate the size of the protest on Thursday, February 17, but it was clearly larger than previous protests, which began with a 20,000-person demonstration on Tuesday, and a 30,000-strong protest the following day.

The numbers on Thursday were swelled by thousands of teachers--members of the Wisconsin Education Association Council who followed their union leaders' call to skip work and join the protest. Numerous school districts around the state decided to shut down altogether on February 17 and 18 as a result.

The Wisconsin's teachers' sick-ins are one of the largest union job actions in years--and a long overdue show of labor's muscle. But the unprecedented mobilization is understood everywhere as an appropriate response to Walker's plan to slash state workers' pay and benefits--and bust public-sector unions.

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MUCH OF the media coverage of events on Thursday focused on the boycott of the psenate session by Democrats, which denied Walker and the Republicans the quorum they needed to conduct business. According to news reports, the Democrats traveled out of state so that Wisconsin state troopers couldn't be sent after them to bring them back to the senate chambers and force a vote.

But Democratic state Sen. Chris Larson's exit from the Capitol was assisted by dozens of protesters who blocked his office with a sit-in midday February 17. Earlier, that same group--teachers, students, some building trades workers--scuffled repeatedly with Republican state senators and their staffers for two hours as they tried to reach the senate chambers through a nearby back staircase.

"It was the most militant action I've been involved in for a long time," said Shaun Harkin, a Chicago-based socialist and activist. "The woman leading began chanting, 'This is class war.' The guy next to me said, 'She's a kindergarten teacher.' We locked arms and sang, 'Solidarity Forever.'"

The sit-in outside Larson's office was a preview of a much bigger action a couple hours later outside the senate chambers. Although word had circulated that the Senate Democrats were safely out of state, protesters weren't taking any chances.

Anticipating the possibility that state troopers could seize control of an elevator located near a side entrance to the chamber, hundreds of students from the University of Wisconsin and area high schools and middle schools jammed the area. A large man in a United Steelworkers jacket made a point of putting himself between the elevator and the door--and got a large cheer of appreciation from those nearby.

At the same time, those blocking the main senate chamber entrance led the thousands of people in the Capitol in chants--"This is what democracy looks like!" "People power" and "Union power." With protesters covering the Capitol floor and all three circular balconies, the chants at times made normal conversation impossible.

Unlike the outdoor noon rally organized by union officials, the multi-level indoor occupation and protest had no organized speakers. Nevertheless, the crowd communicated through signs, banners and cheers.

The loudest roar came, like the previous day, when members of the Wisconsin Professional Fire Fighters Association marched through the rotunda. Another big hit was a sign carried by a bearded man in his 20s that read: "I Went to Iraq but I Came Home to Egypt." There were many other signs with the same theme, such as "Walker, Pharaoh of the Midwest," and depictions of Walker alongside ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak.

To sustain the sit-in outside the Senate chambers, building trades workers brought in water, hot dogs, fruit and Oreo cookies, which were a big hit with a group of 14-year-old middle school students who joined the sit-in near an entry hall. "My mom is a teacher, so she really encourages this," said Julian Halsy-Milhaupt, an 8th grader at O'Keeffe Elementary School in Madison.

Those participating in the sit-in were prepared to physically prevent the senate from conducting business. Instead, Democrats members, by denying the senate a quorum and crossing state lines to avoid being forcibly brought to the legislative chambers, prevented Walker from muscling through a "budget repair bill" that would strip public-sector workers of the right to bargain collectively over anything other than wages.

Walker's bill would also end the automatic payment of union dues and compel unions to hold votes each year to recertify their status as bargaining units. The legislation would also force public employees to pay 12.6 percent of their health insurance costs, and contribute 5.8 percent of their paychecks toward their pensions.

That would slash take-home pay, say workers. "It sounds like it will be a minimum of 20 percent of our wages," said Dick Dahnert, a member of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 655 and a worker in the Jefferson County Highway Department.

Dahnert scoffed at Walker's claim--which has become the justification for attacking public-sector workers not only in Wisconsin, but around the country--that they have an easy, and early, retirement at taxpayers' expense. "The reality is that none of us can afford to retire early," Danhert said. "We'd be paying 100 percent of our insurance. Retiring early is not an option."

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THE STAKES in Walker's war on labor are clear to both sides. If he wins, he'll set an example for Republican governors and legislatures out to break public-sector unions in Ohio and Iowa. He'll also make it easier for Democratic governors, like Jerry Brown of California and Andrew Cuomo of New York, to appear more reasonable as they press their own demands that public-sector workers suffer cuts in wages, pensions and jobs.

The difference is that Democrats will leave public-sector unions mostly intact--not because they're pro-worker, but because they want labor's fundraising and get-out-the-vote operations at election time.

Because Walker's plan poses a grave threat to the very existence of public-sector unions, top labor officials are being drawn into the fight.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten met with University of Wisconsin graduate employees who are members of her union the night of February 18. (Ironically, Weingarten came to Wisconsin fresh from a government-sponsored labor-management collaboration conference in Denver, at which she praised recent concessionary contracts as the way forward.) AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was reportedly set to speak at the February 18 rally at the Capitol.

But Trumka and Weingarten aren't coming to Madison to lead the movement so much as to catch up to it. Given the danger to labor posed by Walker's program, international union leaders should have joined their Wisconsin affiliates from the beginning in calling on union members far and wide to converge on the state in a show of solidarity. However, labor's long decline has left union officials with a defeatist mindset, and they were slow to act.

But the dramatic mobilization of rank-and-file union members, students and nonunion working people across Wisconsin has transformed the situation in a matter of days.

Anyone who participates in the rallies is struck by how the unions see themselves as fighting on behalf of the entire working class. And there is a palpable sense from nonunion workers and students that the organized working class has the power to hold the line against employers and politicians who are determined to carry out a permanent and deep cut in the standard of living of working people.

In other words, the one-sided class war is over. Unions in Wisconsin are fighting back--and they're doing so across union lines that have traditionally divided and weakened them. Around the Capitol, it's common to hear conversations from veteran unionists that they'd never seen anything like this from the labor movement--and they couldn't be happier.

But the struggle is far from over--and despite the powerful mobilizations, victory is by no means assured in Wisconsin. Walker has a Republican majority in both houses of the legislature to rely on if he can get a vote. "If this passes, it's going to be nationwide" said Dahnert, the highway worker. "You're going to see the quality of life go way down."

Asked if that means workers have to be prepared to escalate their action, he said: "I believe that's the only choice we have."