Emancipation & Liberation » Trade Unionism

Feb 08 2019

A STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF BRIAN HIGGINS, BLACKLISTED BUILDING WORKER

Category: For Emancipation: Struggles against Exploitation,How they are organised,How we organise,Independent class organisations,Trade Unionism — RCN @ 12:57 pm

A STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF BRIAN HIGGINS, BLACKLISTED BUILDING WORKER

Photo showing Brian Higgins on a picket at the furthest left – where else!

Brian Higgins, a militant in the building industry, first in UCATT and later in UNITE, has been taken into hospital. Brian has been the most blacklisted worker in the UK. For many years before he would have retired, he was unable to get work. This put immense pressure both on Brian and his family, particularly his ever-supportive wife, Helen. Following the public exposure of the blacklist in the building industry, Brian found strong evidence of collaboration between the employers and a UCATT official in his blacklisting. That official cited in a redacted document was Jerry Swain. Continue reading “A STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF BRIAN HIGGINS, BLACKLISTED BUILDING WORKER”

Tags: Blacklisting, Building Worker Group, Grassroots Unite, Jerry Swain, Len McCluskey, Scottish federation of Socialist Teachers, Statement by Brian Higgins, UCATT, UNITE

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Feb 04 2019

THE ENIGMATIC GILETS-JAUNES

Category: For Emancipation: Struggles against Exploitation,How they are organised,How we organise,Independent class organisations,Other Economic Struggles,The EU,Trade Unionism — RCN @ 10:01 pm

Mike McNair of the CPGB (Weekly Worker) has written a critical analysis of the Gilets-Jaunes protests in France. He suggests that the politics stemming from this movement could move both Right and Left.

THE ENIGMATIC GILETS-JAUNES

We have just seen the ninth weekend of gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protests in France. Numbers were slightly up compared to previous occasions, with the government claiming 84,000 took to the streets across the country and 8,000 in Paris, while 80,000 police were deployed France-wide. Continue reading “THE ENIGMATIC GILETS-JAUNES”

Tags: 1968, Author: Mike McNair, Debout la France, En Marche, France Insoumise, French Fifth Republic, Frexit, Front National, Gilets-Jaunes, Greens, immigration controls, International Viewpoint, Jean-Luc Melenchon, Law & Justice - Poland, Leon Cremieux, Les Republicans, Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini, Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste, Occupy Mmovement, Orban - Hungary, Parti Communiste ~Francais, Parti Socialiste, Rassemblement National, Socialist Workers Party, Spiked

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Jan 25 2019

REMEMBERING THE WOBBLIES

Category: For Emancipation: Struggles against Exploitation,How they are organised,How we organise,Independent class organisations,Trade Unionism,US imperialism — RCN @ 5:41 pm

Eric Thomas Chester, is author of The Wobblies in Their Heyday (a history of the Industrial Workers of the World during its most vibrant period, the World War I era ) and Yours for Industrial Freedom (an anthology that provides insight into the IWW as it really was based on letters introduced by the prosecution during the 1918 Chicago conspiracy trial). Here he writes on the period of Wobbly actovity during and immediately after the First World War.

REMEMBERING THR WOBBLIES

Mass meeting of IWW members at Bisbee in Arizona in September 1918

A little more than a hundred years ago, in September 1918, more than a hundred leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World were convicted of conspiracy to obstruct World War I. The trial marked a critical turning point for the union and the Left in the United States. In marking this centenary, we remember the Industrial Workers of the World as a grass-roots, militant organisation with a radical vision of an alternative society. Continue reading “REMEMBERING THE WOBBLIES”

Tags: Author: Eric Chester, Bisbee Strike, Democratic Party, IWW, James Rowan, Lumber Workers' Industrial Union, merican Federation fo Labour, President Woodrow Wilson

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Sep 14 2018

FRENCH POSTAL WORKERS INTERNATIONAL STRIKE FUND

Category: For Emancipation: Struggles against Exploitation,How they are organised,How we organise,Independent class organisations,Trade Unionism — RCN @ 8:39 am

French workers remain one of the best organised groups in Europe. This is why Macron has launched attacks on the rail workers (see http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2018/04/14/french-public-sector-workers-under-attack/) and the postal workers. The organised French working class offers the best alternative to the neo-liberalism of Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche and the rampant national chauvinist, racist Right populism of Marine Le Pen’s Fronte National. The post workers have been on strike since March. We are publishing this appeal.

FRENCH POSTAL WORKERS INTERNATIONAL STRIKE FUND

French Postal Workers are locked in a fight to the death against the Macron government, defending wages, conditions and the right to organise as trade unionists. We urge trade unionists to support the fight by contributing to the information strike fund at the link below. Continue reading “FRENCH POSTAL WORKERS INTERNATIONAL STRIKE FUND”

Tags: Emmanuel Macron, En Marche, French Postal Workers International Strike Fund, Fronte National, Gael Quirante, Le Poste, Marine Le Pen, Muriel Penicaud

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Aug 22 2018

STOP UNION BUSTING IN UKRAINE

Category: Capitalism and Communism,For Emancipation: Struggles against Exploitation,Other Economic Struggles,Russia and ex-USSR,Trade Unionism — RCN @ 10:32 am

HOW WORKERS IN UKRAINE’S STEEL INDUSTRY ARE FIGHTING FOR WAGES, RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY

UKRAINIAN UNIONS UNITE IN MAJOR STRUGGLE WITH GLOBAL GIANT ARCELOR MITTAL

Tags: ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine Solidarity Campaign

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Jul 25 2018

LESSONS OF THE RED (REPUBLICAN) STATES TEACHER STRIKES

Category: How they are organised,How we organise,Independent class organisations,Trade Unionism,US imperialism — RCN @ 2:13 pm

Eric Chester has sent in this article form Jack Gerson, a teacher activist on California, about the teacher strikes in

West Virginia, Kentucky and Arizona.

LESSONS OF THE RED (REPUBLICAN) STATES TEACHER STRIKE

Striking teachers in West Virginia

Last Saturday (June 9), I attended the “Lessons of the Red States Teacher Strikes” forum featuring teacher leaders of the mass education strikes in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Arizona. The forum, held in Oakland, California at a local public high school (Oakland Tech) was organized by the Oakland teachers’ union and co-sponsored by the San Francisco, Berkeley and Richmond (California) teachers’ unions. Here are my impressions and observations about this event. Continue reading “LESSONS OF THE RED (REPUBLICAN) STATES TEACHER STRIKES”

Tags: American Federation of Teachers, Arizona, Arne Duncan, Author: Jack Gerson, Bail Out Schools Not Banks, Barack Obama, Bill Gates, California, California Proposition 13, California Teachers Association, charter schools, checkoff system, classwide organisation, Donald Trump, Eli Broad, George Miller, Jerry Brown, John Doerr, Keith Brown, Kentucky, Los Angeles, National Education Association, No Child Left Behind, Oakland, Occupy, Randy Weingarten, Red State Teacher Strikes, Reed Hastings, Ted Kennedy, West Virginia

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Apr 14 2018

FRENCH PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS UNDER ATTACK

Category: Capitalism and Communism,For Emancipation: Struggles against Exploitation,How they are organised,How we organise,Independent class organisations,The EU,Trade Unionism — RCN @ 1:44 pm

We are posting this article from Socialist Democracy (Ireland) about the attacks the French Macron government is launching on French rail workers. As the world retreats behind new national state barriers, France inside the EU seeks to pave the way for private capital to match those already achieved by its major competitor the USA, and a new competitor, soon to be outside the EU, the UK.

FRENCH PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS UNDER ATTACK

French public sector workers on strike on March 22nd

In France the Macron Government has set in motion plans for the destruction of the terms and conditions of approximately 150,000 workers in the national rail network, the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer (SNCF). The level of workers’ anger has produced an impressive response. The major unions involved have been forced into putting forward plans for industrial action and in a show of unity 13 organisations on the left have presented a joint statement of solidarity. Continue reading “FRENCH PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS UNDER ATTACK”

Tags: Bruno Poncet, Emmanuel Macron, EU, France, French rail workers, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, SNCF, Socialist Democracy (Ireland), SUD-Rail union

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Apr 14 2018

UKRAINIAN UNIONS UNITE IN MAJOR STRUGGLE WITH GLOBAL GIANT ARCELOR MITTAL

Category: For Emancipation: Struggles against Exploitation,How they are organised,Russia and ex-USSR,Trade Unionism — RCN @ 1:15 pm

UNIONS UNITE IN MAJOR STRUGGLE WITH GLOBAL GIANT ARCELORMITTAL

APPEAL FOR INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY

A major dispute is developing in the industrial city of Krtviy Rih in south east Ukraine. Trade unions form both the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (KVPU) and also the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine (FPU) have united their demands and held a joint conference to launch the campaign.

Their dispute is with the steel giant Acelormittal, part of the Mittal Steel Company which is a world wide corporation.The workers at Kryviy Riv are calling for international solidarity in their struggle. International support is important and has assisted the Ukrainian unions against the mining company, EVRAZ ,and more recently to defeat the trial of 94 miners for protesting. Ukraine Solidarity Committee will be publicising the campaign and calls for assistance. We publish below a report by the KVPU on the conference to launch the campaign.

REPORT FROM KVPU

Workers at the Arcellormittal plant

On March 27, the Conference of the labor collective of the PJSC “ArcelorMittal Kryviy Rih” that was announced at a rally organized by nine trade-union organizations on 14 March was held in Kryviy Rih. At the Conference, the representatives of the labor collective of the PJSC “ArcelorMittal Kryviy Rih” made requirements to the Chairman and CEO of steel group “ArcelorMittaland” Lakshmi Mittal and to the CEO of PJSC “ArcelorMittal Kryviy Rih” Paramjit Kahlon. Continue reading “UKRAINIAN UNIONS UNITE IN MAJOR STRUGGLE WITH GLOBAL GIANT ARCELOR MITTAL”

Tags: ArcelorMittal, Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine, Elena Pipipenko, EVRAZ, Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine, Iryna Future, Kryviy Rih, Ukraine Solidarity Campaign

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Feb 25 2018

COWIE MINERS, POLMAISE COLLIERY AND THE 1984-85 MINERS’ STRIKE

Category: Capitalism and Communism,For Emancipation: Struggles against Exploitation,How they are organised,How we organise,Independent class organisations,Trade Unionism,UK state/British imperialism — RCN @ 9:44 pm

Dave Douglass reviews Steve McGrail and Vicky Patterson’s Cowie miners, Polmaise colliery and the 1984-85 miners’ strike.

COWIE MINERS, POLMAISE COLLIERY AND THE 1984-85 MINERS’ STRIKE

Great Strike of 1984-85: an unequal battle

Polmaise was at the epicentre of the Scottish miners’ action in 1984. Like Cortonwood it was among ‘the first of the first’ to be threatened and pick up the gauntlet – the ‘single sparks’ that lit that prairie fire.

The struggle at Polmaise had started in February 84, and for those men and their families it ended 13 months later. The new, ‘get tough’ management style introduced into the Scottish and other coalfields prior to the Great Strike was a deliberate policy to prematurely kick-start the all-out action and break our long-term overtime ban strategy, which was relentlessly reducing stocks of coal at pitheads and power stations. There had been controversial closures in 1982 and 83, and half of Scottish mines were already engaged in forms of action around various disputes by February 84. Polmaise itself was out over the threatened closure of the pit. Continue reading “COWIE MINERS, POLMAISE COLLIERY AND THE 1984-85 MINERS’ STRIKE”

Tags: 'Ghost Dancers', Arthur Scargill, Cowie miners Polmaise colliery and the 1984-85 miners' strike, Cowie Stirlingshire, Doncaster, Great Strike 1984-5, National Union of Mineworkers, Northumbria, Nottingham mines, Polmaise colliery, Scotland, South Wales, Steve McGrail and Vicky Patterson, Yorkshire

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Feb 22 2018

MAJOR VICTORY FOR THE 94 UKRAINIAN MINERS FACING COURT FOR PROTESTING

Category: For Emancipation: Struggles against Exploitation,How they are organised,How we organise,Independent class organisations,Russia and ex-USSR,Trade Unionism — RCN @ 12:27 am

In a follow up to an earlier posting, we are pleased to be able to report a victory for Ukrainian miners. This article was first posted at the Ukriainian Solidarity Campaign website at:- https://ukrainesolidaritycampaign.org/2018/02/21/major-victory-for-the-94-ukrainian-miners-facing-court-for-protesting/

MAJOR VICTORY FOR THE 94 UKRAINIAN MINERS FACING COURT FOR PROTESTING

The Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine has secured a major victory for the 94 miner facing court proceedings. The miners at the uranium mine “Ingulska” were facing court after protesting for months of unpaid wages. Continue reading “MAJOR VICTORY FOR THE 94 UKRAINIAN MINERS FACING COURT FOR PROTESTING”

Tags: Clive Lewis MP, Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine, Independent Trade ~Union of Miners of Ukraine, Ingulska Uranium Mine, Jeremy Corbyn, Khalid Mahmood, Kropyvynytski, Ukrainian Solidarity Campaign

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