En Passant

The support for Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign is a very good sign but British Labour isn’t the answer, argues Charlie Kimber, national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in Socialist Worker UK

The decision by Labor’s National Conference on Saturday not to ban turning back asylum seeker boats has shocked, outraged and upset many members and supporters. And so it should. It puts Labor on the same moral dung heap as the Liberals. I want to work with all those good activists who are or were in or near or supportive of the Labor Party and who are now reviewing their membership or support. Let’s work together in fighting for a better Australia here and now and in doing that learn the lessons flowing from this latest Labor leadership betrayal, not as a one off but as a consistent pattern. I am a member of Solidarity, one of those small revolutionary socialist groups. At least check us out here. Consider coming along to our Keep left Conference in Sydney on the weekend of Saturday 22 August and Sunday 23 August. Click here for details.

Victoria Police should rightfully be condemned for the deployment of chemical weapons, the targeting of medical personnel, casualties and medical treatment spaces with such weapons and, most of all, doing this in order to facilitate a public rally of racists and overt fascists and neo-nazis. Any assessment of the actions of antifascist protesters will conclude that they were inherently defensive: against threats of violence and the use of weapons by fascists and nazis as part of the United Patriots Front, and against the violence of racism and systematic oppression on the parts of Reclaim Australia, the United Patriots Front and Victoria Police.

Lee Sustar writing in Socialist Worker US explains the background to the announcement of a July 5 referendum on austerity measures in Greece – and how it will affect the struggles to come.

The anger provoked by Freddie Gray’s death has been building for years – the result of entrenched racism and economic inequality, not to mention the long history of police brutality and killings, mainly of African American men.

Abbott may be on the ropes, but we need more strikes, protests and grassroots resistance to fight the Liberals’ agenda and finish him off write the Solidarity editors.

The essentially social democratic desires of the majority of the Australian people are in conflict with the needs of capital. At the moment the political consequences of this are what seems like the eternal roundabout of Labor and the Liberals. The Labor Party attacks us for 3 years to be replaced by a Liberal Party that attacks us for 3 years to be followed by a Labor Party that attacks us for 3 years. That at least appears to be the current cycle.

It’s a lockout, a sit in, a picket writes Jerome Small in Red Flag. It’s a rolling conversation. It’s woodsmoke, and chairs that fall apart. It’s the most ordinary thing that could happen, on an ordinary street, in an industrial suburb, in any city you care to name. In an ordinary, everyday way, it has paralysed the Australian operations of one of the biggest corporations on the planet.

It’s a lesson that I never get tired of learning. When workers stop working, it’s the most powerful thing on Earth.

The lockout, sit in and picket continues at International Flavours and Fragrances, 310 Frankston-Dandenong Road, Dandenong South. See Red Flag and the National Union of Workers facebook page for updates.

Is there an alternative to rising unemployment? Because unemployment is built into the capitalist system, we will have to fight the bosses and government to stop it. That means using our industrial muscle to stop the bosses sacking us and forcing them to pay us more than pittance wages.