gmb – the commune

fire brigade: will london burn?

The inside story of what is really happening in the London Fire Brigade, as told to The Commune.

16^th September 2010 and the London left descend on the London Fire Brigade Headquarters to join the mass lobby of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) monthly meeting called by Fire Brigades Union (FBU) and Unison LFEPA Branch.

fbuflag — the FBU are perceived as militant, but we need to break down the division between 'frontline' and 'support' staff

The headlines of the ’left’ press only tell part of the story: ‘FBU up the ante in contract dispute’ (Morning Star 17^th September), ‘London Firefighters ready to strike against dismissal threat’ (Newsline 18^th September), ‘Brutal bosses? Time to fight back!’ (The Socialist 23^rd-29^th September) and ‘The ballot is on to save fire jobs’ (Socialist Worker 25^th September). Continue reading “fire brigade: will london burn?” →

gmb, sheffield, unison, unite

public sector unions face turbulent times

by David Huckerby

According to research by the Independent newspaper, 20,000 council workers throughout England, Scotland and Wales face redundancy as forward planning for drastic government cuts take effect. Whatever the outcome of the general election the public sector will face austerity job cuts, cuts in services and attacks on terms and conditions.

Sheffield Council is one of local authorities identified where jobs are threatened. The director of Sheffield Homes, the council’s housing service has raised the spectre of at least forty job cuts in the financial year 2010/11 with more to follow. Over two hundred jobs have been lost in housing in the last few years. A recruitment freeze has been in place for some time. The council is the largest employer in the city so local unemployment is rising. Continue reading “public sector unions face turbulent times” →

gmb, trade unions, unite

two ‘stars’ of british nationalism

by David Broder

“British workers target Gordon Brown”, screamed the Daily Star on January 19th. One year after Unite leader Derek Simpson posed with two Daily Star ‘glamour models’ holding ‘British jobs for British workers’ placards, the rag promised that thousands of angry construction workers would today “march on London claiming Gordon Brown has failed to honour his “British jobs for British workers” pledge”.

Meanwhile over at the Morning Star, the comrades were fuelling the flames of ‘working-class nationalism’ with a piece on yesterday’s demo over the Kraft-Cadbury deal. In true Communist Party of Britain tradition they almost seemed more concerned about standing up for the “historic British chocolate manufacturer” and “the national interest” than how to effectively resist redundancies.

However, at the construction workers’ demo today, all was not quite as we might have been led to believe… Continue reading “two ‘stars’ of british nationalism” →

education, gmb, organising for class struggle, school, young people

how we fought to defend education in tamworth

by Rob Marsden

Starting out

It is 16 months since Staffordshire County Council announced its plans to restructure education in Tamworth and 14 months since we launched an active and vibrant campaign in opposition to this.

Hands Off Tamworth Schools was born after a wave of outrage swept the town at plans to turn one of our five High Schools into an Academy, close one school completely and remove all Sixth Form provision from the remaining four schools and concentrate it on a single site, entirely in the hands of the Academy. Continue reading “how we fought to defend education in tamworth” →

2008 financial crisis, anti-racism, CWU, education, factory occupation, gmb, iran, labour party, notices, organising for class struggle, social democracy, stalinism, strikes, students, the commune, the left, the us workers' party

the commune issue 6 out now!

The sixth issue of The Commune (July 2009) is now available

The paper is published online, but you can order a printed copy or multiple papers to sell (£1 + postage for one copy, or £4 per 5 issues) by emailing uncaptiveminds@gmail.com

Click the image to see PDF, or see articles as they are posted online below.

editorial – migrants are at the heart of our fightback

Adam Ford reports on the Linamar fight and the state of the car industry

Joe Thorne looks at resistance to primary school cuts in London and Glasgow

Dave Spencer argues that the left has much to learn from the local work of the Northampton Save Our Services campaign

Jack Staunton writes on call centre workers’ organising initiatives

Chris Kane counters the argument that we ought to go back to the Labour Party, and stresses that communists need to organise

Kofi Kyerewaa explains the flaws of calling for the banning of the BNP

Activists participating in the occupation to protest the SOAS immigration raid draw a balance-sheet of the struggle

The story of the victimisation and planned deportation of a Chilean woman who dared to stand up to her employer Fitness First

Alice Robson reports on the campaign against cuts in English classes in Tower Hamlets

Kieran Hunter examines the hostile media and public response to June’s strike on the London Underground

David Broder looks at reactions to the mass movement in Iran against the re-election of Ahmedinejad

Alberto Durango explains how Unite have abandoned cleaner organising

Gregor Gall looks at the victory of the Lindsey oil refinery strikers and its implications for the industry

Joe Thorne looks at resistance to primary

school cuts in London and Glasgow

Dave Spencer argues that the left has much

to learn from the local work of the Northampton

Save Our Services campaign

Jack Staunton writes on call centre workers’

organising initiatives

page 3

Chris Kane counters the argument that we

ought to go back to the Labour Party, and

stresses that communists need to organise

Kofi Kyerewaa explains the flaws of calling

for the banning of the BNP

page 4

Activists participating in the occupation to

protest the SOAS immigration raid draw a

balance-sheet of the struggle

page 5

The story of the victimisation and planned

deportation of a Chilean woman who dared

to stand up to her employer Fitness First

Alice Robson reports on the campaign

against cuts in English classes in Tower

Hamlets

page 6

Kieran Hunter examines the hostile media

and public response to June’s strike on the

London Underground

page 7

Alberto Durango explains how Unite have

abandoned cleaner organising

page 8

Gregor Gall looks at the victory of the

Lindsey oil refinery strikers and its implications

for the industry

2008 financial crisis, gmb, organising for class struggle, strikes, the commune, trade unions, unite

engineering construction strikes: days of defiance

by Gregor Gall, professor of industrial relations, University of Hertfordshire

It’s the dispute that just won’t go away. For the third time this year, thousands of engineering construction workers have gone on unofficial strike, fighting for the right to work. This time round the dispute escalated dramatically unlike before, with the mass sacking of some 647 strike workers by the two of contractors working for Total, the Lindsey refinery operator.

On June 11, some 1200 contractors at Lindsey walked out unofficially after a contractor gave notice of redundancies to 51 workers while another contractor on the same site was looking for 60 workers to fill vacancies. This broke the agreement that settled their earlier strike in February this year which compelled vacant work to be made available to those under threat from redundancy. The contractors and Total stated this was not the case. Continue reading “engineering construction strikes: days of defiance” →

2008 financial crisis, gmb, organising for class struggle, strikes, trade unions, unite

can the oil refinery strikers beat the industry?

An article by Gregor Gall on The Guardian site.

Click here to read Gregor’s analysis of January’s strike wave, which appeared in issue 3 of The Commune, and here to read his recent debate with Chris Kane on the current state of industrial struggle.

These are days of defiance in the engineering construction industry. The employers won’t give in and neither will the striking workers, even though the ante has been continually upped in the last week.

Total, on behalf of its contractors, refused to engage in any talks to settle the dispute while the unofficial strike at the Lindsey oil refinery continues. Last Friday, it spurned the use of the state conciliation service, Acas. It has also robustly supported its two contractors, IREM and Jacobs, who sacked their strikers (647 in all of them) and has made no play of its other seven on-site contractors who have not sacked their 500-odd strikers. For Total, this is a game of hard hardball. Continue reading “can the oil refinery strikers beat the industry?” →