Solidarity with striking Aslef tube drivers

Firstly merry Christmas to all who read this blog hope you all had a peaceful and restful Christmas. Mine was not great had a rotten cold all day just starting to feel better now. But enough about me today I’d like to send solidarity to striking Aslef tube drivers who are taking strike action today on Boxing Day over a long term dispute which they have been fighting with the boss’s of TFL for ages now. The bile some have been throwing at these workers today has been saddening selfish football fans who cant get to watch Arsenal West ham as they bottled the game and called it off forgetting there is still taxi’s, bus’s and overground rail pretty pathetic really and then there are those going to the sales. Such anger from them too how dare these workers go on strike don’t they know how much of a mess we’re in without going on strike too they tell me. Others tell me how inconvenienced they are and how much hassle these greedy drivers are causing. So greedy drivers is the nub of the issue it seems. Pushing aside the huge salaries the boss’s get into the 100’s of thousands a year plus expenses this miss’s many by. But tube fares go up in January will ordinary tube drivers see this increase put towards their pay? Like hell they will It is a interesting thing that many people would ratehrmoan about tube drivers taking strike action more so than the rising fares which happens every day and yet they still get on with the train system and don’t boycott the tubes at al. It’s an odd sense of workers lack of confidence and a huge lack of solidarity with our fellow workers which ultimately saddens me so often. This is not about greedy drivers this simply wants a decent level of pay for leaving your family at home to work. My view is if they boss’s want a tube service to run they should pay their staff a proper wage to do a job when they’d otherwise be at home enjoying Christmas like the rest of us. Its sheer ignorance to attack tube drivers as greedy when bankers and the likes of the Queen come in for no attacks at all. Tube drivers are skilled workers and go through huge amounts of training before even stepping inside a train and these people who want driver less trains well no thanks I may be a bit old fashioned but I’d rather like someone who knows what they are doing caring about their job and being paid well than a robot with no mind of its own driving the train I’m on. I always support workers entering into struggle as they are standing up for our class against the boss am who else is going to? Solidarity with Aslef workers defends them when you can and remember an injury to one is an injury to us all. Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Solidarity with workers in Europe fighting austerity

As we head out of a relatively quiet summer on the struggles of workers in the main we now enter a hot autumn of struggle this has started in Ernest in Spain tonight as a protest movement has clashed with riot police in Madrid. This blog express’s its solidarity with these protesters and opposes police brutality. Spanish police have fired rubber bullets and baton-charged protesters attending a rally against austerity. The clashes broke out as protesters tried to tear down barriers blocking access to the parliament in Madrid. Spanish media reported that at least 20 people had been arrested and more than a dozen injured. The "Occupy Congress" protest comes as the government prepares to unveil further austerity measures on Thursday in a bid to shrink its budget deficit. Spain is in its second recession in three years and unemployment is near 25%, with youth unemployment far higher. The government will unveil the draft budget for 2013 on Thursday and is expected to present new cost-saving reforms to reassure lenders about the state of the country's public finances. Emergency funds The demonstrators - known as Indignants - say "Occupy Congress" is a protest against the kidnapping of democracy. Thousands of people had massed in Plaza de Neptuno square in central Madrid for the march on parliament. But their route towards the parliament building's main entrance was blocked off by metal railings, police vans and hundreds of Spanish riot police. One of the main protest groups, Coordinadora #25S, said the Indignants only planned to march around parliament Mark Smith, who lives near the site of the protest, said: "I saw riot police with their batons charging at protesters trying to split up the crowd." Tuesday's demonstration was organised via social media sites and many young people turned out, says the BBC's Tom Burridge in Madrid - but the protest's public profile meant the police were ready for them. Spain’s at a position now where a quarter of the population are unemployed and many are now struggling to feed themselves. I read earlier this week that 8000 people a day in Greece go to food banks to get fed. This is modern day Europe everyone. Austerity is biting hard but workers are fighting back. In Greece tomorrow there is another nationwide 24 hour general strike things are starting to hot up. Its essential we show solidarity with our European brothers and sisters from South Africa, Spain to Greece the best thing we can do is demand our TUC name the day for a 24 hour general strike in Britain too. Fight fire with fire. With extracts from the BBC.

The lessons from the Coryton Oil refinery dispute

A few months have passed now since we were heading down to Coryton and Basildon way almost every other day. The National Shops Stewards Network and the Socialist Party played a big role in mobilising quickly and effectively in the last few weeks of the dispute supporting workers but I thought I’d look at the lessons we can all learn from this dispute where ultimately the oil refinery is to close and many will loose their jobs. I feel personally this was not a dispute that was beyond winning. The union involved at the refinery Unite knew about the plans to sell off the refinery and turn it into a terminal way back in January of this year but sadly they sat on this hoping something would come up. This was hugely naive in my view as this Tory government isn’t interested in saving jobs for the economy you just have to look at what they are doing to the public sector at this very moment. Only months after we saw the Sparks successfully push back and defeat the big 6 Besna and JIB contracts wanting to drive down wages in the construction industry we see the Coryton dispute emerge as a chance for workers to again enact a defeat on the boss’s. Sadly it wasn’t to be on this occasion. I think much of the union officials were genuine and did want to win the dispute for the workers but many things stood out for me. I think in a phrase it was too little too late the action. Only in may was a meeting called to discuss what a be done to save the refinery. When the union itself had been sitting on this since January its not well enough frankly. The background to the dispute: Coryton is a major oil refinery on the Thames estuary in Essex. It refines about 20% of the region's fuel, and is a major supplier of aviation fuel for the south of England. The plant's parent company went into receivership in January and has been in the hands of Price Waterhouse Cooper (PWC) ever since. In May it came out that PWC was intending to sell the refinery to a front operation for the Shell Oil Company, whose plan is to dismantle the refinery and set up a terminal for the import and storage of refined fuel on the site. This would mean the end of about a thousand employees' and contractors' jobs. We always thought that to win workers must reach out to other workers at the other refineries around the country this was never successfully linked up. The Union seemed to be more focused on lobbying the department of Energy in London after the public meeting. Ok this was a grand idea to lobby but it didnt get to the heart of the real action needed to win. Another thing stood out to me was the fact that the convener on the site for the union had received his redundancy and had stepped down we found out on the day of the planned blockage of the tankers leaving the refinery. This action had a limited success but to win it needed to be done on a much larger nationwide scale. We as socialists always look to link up struggles and the Coryton wasn’t on its own on this there will be many more Coryton’s to come we felt and the need to link up with other refinery’s in the country was key to winning. Linking disputes and building solidarity is a big part of a Marxist and the NSSN played an important role in this. Coming away from the dispute and listening to the workers now without jobs there was appreciation of the likes of the NSSN and socialists and we were given special thanks for coming to support the workers. There was much criticism of the labour party and the union tops from some workers a sense of frustration with a too little too late strategy were felt. Much can be learnt from this dispute and I hope lessons are learnt for the future. Coryton oil refinery in Essex is closing, which will involve the loss of 800 jobs. This is a profit-making concern which has provided 20% of the supply of petrol and diesel in London and the south east. It is the only refinery in the south east. The government has no interest in this refinery as it is small fry and its decline has been relatively silent. But it accounts for the majority of the employment in Canvey Island and south Essex. It has been brought down by the debt and bankruptcy of its parent company. There are people working there who have lost pensions and are close to retirement age. Many will never find work again. There are also contractors there who are not included in the calculated 800 job losses and have also lost money. The government ignores this and the fact that it could be a profit-making concern again. All in this entire dispute was a quick one with us mobilising quickly and effectively as the NSSN. I think we can be proud of our intervention given our limited resources. We need to use disputes like this to build the NSSN and to build a bigger network of rank-and-file trade unionists willing to go beyond the confines of the law to defend workers in struggle. The thing that gives me confidence is the role the NSSN can play in this. Do check out http://www.shopstewards.net/ And on twitter @NSSN_anticuts for updates on workers in struggle and how to get involved.

The fight for democratic fighting trade unions

As Marxists we are always looking to open up more and more democracy this is no different when it comes to the trade unions. We advocate a democratic fighting union with its member’s interests at heart.
If the whole of the trade union movement, from top to bottom, was to launch a serious struggle against the cuts it would be impossible for the government to implement its programme.
Unfortunately, that has not been the case up until now.
In the coming months hundreds of thousands of workers, perhaps even millions, will be attracted to the trade union movement as they look for a way to fight the cuts.
If they are lucky they will join a trade union whose leadership has a clear and determined strategy to fight every cut. In many cases, this will not be the case.
Over the last twenty years an increased tendency in the leadership of the trade union movement, at national and sometimes at local level, has developed towards accepting the 'logic of the market' - that is, the logic of cutting workers' pay and conditions! Many trade union leaders have become used to administering defeat rather than leading a struggle to defend their members' interests.
This does not mean that workers should turn away from the trade unions. As 30th November 2011 showed, the trade union movement - which organises over six million workers - has enormous potential power when it stands together and gets off its knees.

However, in many cases in order to defeat the cuts it will also mean campaigning to transform the unions into democratic and fighting bodies.
This will mean campaigning to commit the trade union leaders to action, or if that proves impossible to replace them with leaders that will fight in their members' interests.
Other demands that will form an important part of the struggle will be for unions to be democratically controlled by their members and for all full-time officials to be regularly elected and to receive a workers' wage.
The National Shop Stewards Network has an important role to play in bringing together militant trade unionists from different sectors in order to share experiences.
It will also be necessary, however, to building fighting union lefts in every union.


This has started and some success has been made in such unions as the PCS, RMT, and FBU etc who are all fighting left unions with a good recent record of fighting for member’s interests. Workers are always attracted to trade unions and organisations which stand up and fight for them. They will be put off by unions throwing in the towel and acting as a damage limitation exercise and not really believing they can win.
It is key that the trade unions are as open and as democratic as possible shifting unions away from talking shops and a route for labour party careerists to forge a career is important. Union structures need to be as transparent as possible too with regular bullet inn’s branch meetings and a open and clear environment for good comradely but positive debate with the aim to forward workers interests at all times.

Union membership is lower than it’s ever been but this can be changed if unions give a lead. Show that an alternative is possible and begin to put down real markers to fight for such ideas.

It is a disgrace for example when unions such as unison attack its own members for daring to put forward the idea of breaking with new labour and questioning the unions funding to then be attacked and witch hunted through the courts over jumped up claims. This is not on and unions like this should be ashamed and should be fighting the cuts instead of wasting members money on such pointless actions.

Unions and their leadership should always be accountable to teh rank-and-file of its membership as at the end of the day its members money that keeps the union going. Unions have to show some fight to recruit the next layer of workers. But as socialists we advocate going much much further than just recruiting. We need to get organised fight for democracy within our unions and fight for the union we're in to be opposing all cuts and following the lead of such trade unions as PCS, RMT, FBU etc who are some of the best militant unions going.