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By John Dunn and Richard Vivian
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Monday, 06 February 2012 |
 With all the hype surrounding the Hollywood version of Margaret Thatcher
as the ‘Iron Lady’ who (supposedly) brought the miners and trade unions
to their knees, there now comes the real story of the Miners Strike of
1984 from Betty Cook and Ann Scargill, two women who not only played
their part during the strike but who now say that the events of that
historic year changed their lives forever. Socialist Appeal put
some questions to the women on the subject of their feelings about the
film and the Miners Strike of 1984 and the lessons to be learned.
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By Richard Vivian (Unite)
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Monday, 06 February 2012 |
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The 250 Unite bus drivers based at Barnsley and Rotherham bus depots are
set to continue their 9 week long dispute with Stagecoach the bus
company owned by multi-millionaire Brian Souter. In the absence of any
realistic offers to the drivers pay claim of around £10.00 per hour by
the management of Stagecoach, the bus drivers, have agreed to continue
their programme of one day strikes with another series of four day
strikes to take place on the 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th of February.
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By Harry Whittaker
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Sunday, 05 February 2012 |
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IRELAND: The nineteenth century was
proving to be another age of poverty, oppression and starvation for the
mostly Catholic tenant farmers. They were still at the mercy of the
landlords who charged increasingly exorbitant rents and would not
hesitate to evict any family who could not pay. Keeping his tenancy was a
matter of life or death to the farmer and his family.
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By Steve Jones
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Thursday, 02 February 2012 |
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When things get bad the ruling class has been known - if all else fails -
to turn on its own "for the greater good." With all the anger
continuing to boil up over the cuts and the role of the bankers, the
government decided it was time for a sacrificial lamb to come forward.
So this week "Fred the Shred" - Fred Goodwin - got his knighthood taken
away from him. The former head of RBS was told that he was being
punished for helping to bring down the world financial markets.
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By Socialist Appeal USA
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Thursday, 02 February 2012 |
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We republish here a graph that was
originally published in the New York Times, based on figures from “The
State of Working America” by the Economic Policy Institute. It covers
the period from 1913 to the present, with a focus on the period after
1947
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By Unite official press release
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Thursday, 02 February 2012 |
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Unite members at Balfour Beatty Engineering Services (BBES) have
voted overwhelmingly for a second time to strike over the
termination of long-held agreements and the de-skilling of
construction workers.
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By Terry McPartlan
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Wednesday, 01 February 2012 |
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Forty years ago this month, the power of the organised working class was
demonstrated outside a West Midlands fuel depot. The lesson was not
lost on both unions and bosses. The example of Saltley Gate remains as
relevant today as ever in the face of renewed attacks by the bosses and
their government on the working class. Terry McPartlan looks back at the
events of February 1972.
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By Jorge Martin
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Wednesday, 01 February 2012 |
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One year after the revolutionary
overthrow of Ben Ali, Tunisia faces a wave of strikes, regional
uprisings, sit-ins and protests of all sorts. For hundreds of thousands
of Tunisian workers and youth who bravely defied the bullets of the
dictatorship to get jobs and dignity nothing has fundamentally changed.
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By Lal Khan
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Wednesday, 01 February 2012 |
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It is not ruled out that if the
democratic facade of imperialism creates a crisis that threatens to
unravel the economic system, the imperialist bosses would not hesitate
to revert back to military dictatorship.
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By Stella Christou, UCL Marxists
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Wednesday, 01 February 2012 |
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Over the last year Greece has rarely
been out of the news across Europe. With headlines such as “Greek
tragedy”, “Corruption in every corner” and “Greece’s lazy workers”, the
capitalist media have painted the Greek people as first amongst the
so-called P.I.G.I.’S. (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Ireland and Spain) of
Europe. It's one-time international image as a sunny, friendly place has
been replaced by one of greed, corruption and chaos. This is part of
the ruling class campaign to blame the crisis of capitalism on the Greek
people, and tells us nothing of the hardships they have to endure
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By Mousa Ladqani
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Monday, 30 January 2012 |
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The Syrian revolution has entered a
higher stage in the last few weeks. The number and size of
demonstrations have reach record numbers, towns are falling under the
control of defecting soldiers- including areas surrounding the
capital of Damascus and embryonic forms of popular power are appearing in the form of popular councils.
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By Harry Whittaker
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Monday, 30 January 2012 |
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William of Orange allied himself to
two popes: Pope Innocent XI (1676/89) and Pope Alexander VIII (1689/91).
These two Popes were more than happy to support William III in his
fight against the Catholic James II, and he was equally happy to support
them in their war against France’s Louis XIV.
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By Harry Whittaker
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Monday, 30 January 2012 |
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When the Irish Catholic priest Fr. Hugh O’Donnell decided it was time to
build a Catholic church in Belfast he had a problem: it costs a lot of
money to build a church. The Catholic population of Belfast was too
small and too poor to provide enough money, so if he had to rely on the
Catholics alone it would take forever. He had to seek help elsewhere. So
he asked the Protestants of Belfast to help him out. As you do.
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By Walter Leon (Unite member)
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Wednesday, 25 January 2012 |
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In what could turn out to be a significant turn of events,
Unite general secretary Len McCluskey fired an angry broadside last week at
Labour leader Ed Miliband, taking issue with Miliband’s recent support for a
public-sector pay-freeze. After twenty years of uncritical support by
trade-union leaders for the right-wing Labour leadership, such a missive is
certainly welcome. It has also helped reopen the debate about the relationship
between the Labour Party and the trade unions.
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Milions of workers came out on strike in defence of their pensions. This was the biggest such action for decades. The fight goes on!
