By Richie Venton – SSP national workplace organiser

Two major trade union events in the space of 48 hours demonstrate the seething anger at public sector cuts, the potential for a united resistance across the trade unions, and the potency, increasing popularity and urgent necessity of the Scottish Socialist Party’s alternatives to this assault on jobs, services and conditions.

EIS 10,000 march

On Saturday 6th March, 10,000 teachers, lecturers, nursery staff, parents, pupils and other trade unionists poured out of Glasgow ’s Kelvingrove Park , snaking their way round a mammoth route to the EIS union’s rally in the SECC.

This was the first national demo called by the EIS in decades. The overwhelming majority of the marchers had never been on a demo before. The age profile was a whole cross-section, from toddlers in buggies and primary kids, through trainee and newly qualified teachers, to bearded veterans of the profession – united in their fury at education budget cuts, whilst bankers’ bailouts, renewal of Trident weapons and bloody war cost the public a fortune.

Anger at that obscene contrast was reflected in speeches by the EIS president and others at the rally. They denounced the governments of Westminster and Holyrood for regarding these expenditures as more important than the education of our children, who represent the future, and lambasted the SNP government for now confronting children with the choice of either free school meals or smaller classes, when they had promised both and children deserve both.

SSP on the march

The EIS march is part of a campaign they have entitled “Why must our children pay?”

The SSP was the only party with a leaflet that directly dealt with the issues of the march, demanding “make the rich pay – not our kids; bail out education and all services – not bankers’ profits; 20’s plenty in any class – give our kids a chance.”

People snapped up the leaflets, smiled and murmured their agreement with the headlines, turned and quoted it to their friends as they assembled to march off.

The lively SSP contingent was joined by parents and children who fought the heroic Save Our Schools Campaign in Glasgow last year. As we marched we led the chant “Twenty’s plenty in any class – give our kids a chance”, which caught on with the crowd marching and bystanders on the pavements.

As the 10,000 trod towards the end of their marathon march to the SECC rally, we improvised an SSP “street meeting” on the pavement as they passed us! We belted out our message on a very loud PA system: “The SSP demands that the government tax the rich, to bail out education, not bankers’ profits and bankers’ bonuses.” Several sections of the march shouted back their agreement with us as they marched past, and even more contingents applauded us as they marched past. A sign of how profoundly the bankers’ bailout has changed people’s consciousness, including their open-ness to the SSP’s unashamed socialist demands.

The EIS leadership promised in speeches that this mass demo is just the start of the campaign, which is to be welcomed, and which EIS union activists and members will make sure is the case.

It is absolutely right that as the union representing 60,000 members in education they should take up the cudgels in defence of that service. But what would be tragic, and totally divisive and counter-productive, is if the EIS leadership argued for cuts in other services to save education; unity of opposition to all service cuts, combining the power and scale of members of all public sector unions and the communities they service is what is urgently needed to stop the slaughter.

Biggest civil service strike since 1987

It was therefore encouraging that an EIS representative (as well as speakers from the FBU, UNISON and STUC) addressed the 8th March strike rally in Glasgow, called during the 48-hour stoppage by all civil service workers, members of PCS.

This was the biggest civil service strike since 1987. Across the UK, over 250,000 workers brought services to a halt in tax and customs offices; Job Centres; driving centres; the Courts; the MoD; passport offices; the Scottish parliament (for the first time ever); Westminster … to name but some. 30,000 of these strikers were in Scotland .

They are overwhelmingly low-paid workers, whose partial compensation for low pay has been a modest average pension of £6,500 and a reasonable redundancy scheme – which is now under assault. The government has set in motion the legislation to slash the Civil Service Compensation Scheme, cutting the package that most workers would get on being made redundant by up to one-third, tens of thousands of pounds each. A sure sign that the Labour government (backed up quite openly by the Tories on this) want to slaughter tens of thousands of jobs on the cheap – in addition to the 100,000 already shed in the past 5 years – and usher in privatisation by making the prospect more attractive to the privateers.

The response to the 48-hour strike was absolutely overwhelming – forcing management to stoop to tricks like jetting in a handful of scab managers from Newcastle to open the Glasgow DVLA office.

Socialism in the civil service

Again, not only did SSP members in PCS play an instrumental part in building the strike, but our policies were more widely and eagerly embraced than for a long time: on the picket lines, at the PCS strike rallies in Glasgow and Dundee, and at the SSP public meeting in Glasgow after the union rally. This was a really large meeting, with over half those present attending their first ever SSP meeting. And strikers were enthusiastic in their support for our socialist aims – many commenting wryly that if only we could get a fair hearing in the media, imagine how popular our case would be – as well as our proposals on how to build public sector unity against all cuts in the immediate future.

Unity against the carnage – build 10th April Demo

Alongside a rolling programme of further industrial action by the PCS, railway workers are striking (Scotrail) and balloting for pre-General Election strikes (Network Rail). Numerous anti-cuts campaigns, involving council workers’ unions and communities, are campaigning against the brutal council cuts that loom. Already 5,000 council jobs face the chop, with hair-raising predictions of 32,000 jobs (one in every eight!) being butchered by 2014. And community centres face closure up and down Scotland .

So an immediate opportunity to tie all these strands of struggle into a rope to restrain the axe-wielders presents itself on Saturday 10th April. Scottish UNISON is calling a mass, national demonstration in Glasgow that day, in defence of public services.

SSP members in all the various trade unions – alongside other union members – need to move heaven and earth to make this an almighty display of the power of a united working class on the march, by calling on their unions to mobilise members into an event that dwarfs even the brilliant 10,000 on the EIS march.

As Labour, Tory, Lib Dem and SNP politicians sharpen their knives in a grisly pre-election competition for whose cuts are the deepest, the SSP in contrast will stand up for public sector workers and the communities that depend on public services.

We will build for a united march for public services – not private profit, demanding the governments tax the rich and bail out all public services – not bankers’ and billionaires’ profits.

We will campaign inside the unions for measures that would fund these services, protect and create jobs, and begin to re-distribute wealth from the millionaires to the millions.

Measures such as a 10% tax on every millionaire (to fund 80,000 new jobs in Scotland alone, on £25,000 a year for 3 years!); restoration of income tax on the rich to pre-Thatcher levels (83%) and likewise Corporation Tax on big companies, from the current paltry 28% to the 52% it was at before Thatcher and then New Labour made this country a tax haven for the tax-dodging rich.

A sea-change has begun in the outlook of workers in the frontline of public sector carnage by the parties that back big business and the profit system. Socialist measures – including full-blown public ownership of the entire banking sector, natural wealth, services and big industries, but with democratic control – are increasingly convincing to people whose future is under threat.

The time is ripe for the potential power of a united trade union movement to be mobilised – starting with 10th April – and for socialist demands to be boldly advanced amongst an increasingly receptive crowd of angry workers. The SSP will do its part, emboldened by the events of the past 48 hours.

When Brown heard about a Blairite article which was pro-Tony Blair he is reported to have ranted

This is factionalism! This is Trotskyism! It’s fucking Trotskyism!

So there you have it lefty train-spotters, the definition of Trotskyism is writing an article in a popular newspaper praising the most right wing Prime Minister since Margaret Thatcher.

The SSP are holding a public meeting on the war on Wednesday.

Wednesday at 7pm in the DVA Constitution Road Dundee.

The 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow were boycotted in protest of the Soviet Union’s invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Then–U.S. president Jimmy Carter announced the boycott in February 1980, and Canada and dozens of other countries soon followed suit. In his state of the union address that year, Carter made the case against the Soviet war:

“The vast majority of nations on Earth have condemned this latest Soviet attempt to extend its colonial domination of others and have demanded the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops. The Muslim world is especially and justifiably outraged by this aggression against an Islamic people. No action of a world power has ever been so quickly and so overwhelmingly condemned. But verbal condemnation is not enough. The Soviet Union must pay a concrete price for their aggression.”

Now Canada is part of a coalition occupying Afghanistan whilst hosting the Olympics.

Read the rest of the article at the link for more information.

Dundee SSP are holding a public meeting about the continued war and occupation in Afghanistan on the 24th of February at the DVA.

Don’t forget to commemorate the Dundee volunteers to the International Brigade at Macmanus Galleries this Saturday.

We previously covered the re-dedication of the new plaque

The main speakers will be

• Colin Fox, SSP co-national spokesperson
• John McAllion, former MP and MSP for Dundee East
• Joan Humphreys, Military Families Against War

followed by Q&A and discussion time.

You may have even heard it go one step further and a description of Labour as Blue Labour instead of New Labour.

Well the Lib Dems have went one further and re-branded themselves in blue.

If you’ve been saying for years that Labour, Tories and Lib Dems are all the same – it’s good to see one of those parties agree with you.

The SSP of course are a bit different. We don’t get donations from millionaire businessmen – so aren’t in their pocket. Our elected representatives take a reduced wage and as far as we know none ever had the public purse pay for building work on their castle.

In Dundee West we are of course aware of the cost of a DVD player and that computer desks shouldn’t cost you £800.

At the DVA, Constitution Road, Dundee.

Today, though, the occupation is not one enforced by a conquering imperial army, but consists of refugees fleeing from the occupation of Tibet by the army of the People’s Republic of China.

Mcleod Ganj is a suburb Dharasalam, home of the Tibetan government in exile and of the spiritual leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, since he fled there from his native Tibet in 1959. Many of the Tibetans in exile there have terrible tales to tell of human rights breaches and atrocities committed by the army of the People’s Republic of China.

There is a DVD called Ce Qu’il Reste De Nous (What Remains Of Us). It is the story of a young Tibetan refugee who was born in India but grew up in Montreal, Canada. She returns to Tibet (using her Canadian passport) with a portable DVD player and a message from the Dalai Lama. She also films the reaction of the Tibetans to the video, all, of course, in secret.

As an additional feature on the DVD there are interviews with three Tibetans in exile. Each interview is a personal horror story of torture, exile and human rights abuses committed by the Chinese against the Tibetans.

Dawa Khyzom is now a refugee in India after escaping through the mountains. She spent three years in prison for the horrendous crime of bearing a flag during a peaceful demonstration in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa.

They took us to the prison, legs and hands tied up. I was with two other nuns. The soldiers wouldn’t stop hitting us all night. They would hit us all over. It’s the same in every prison. They kept us starving while in jail. The only food we had was sandy and rotten.

Tenzin Choedak was sent into exile by his mother, who sacrificed all that she had with the hope that her son could freely go to a Tibetan school. He left Tibet, guided by a Sherpa, by way of Nangpa La’s pass, which lies between Mount Everest and Cho Oyu at a height of 5800 metres.

He describes his perilous journey to India through the vicious cold and heavy snow of the high Himalayas, relating how he arrived there with frostbite and having counted five dead bodies frozen in the snow on his journey. Tenzin Choedak was eight years old at the time of his escape from Tibet.

Palden Gyatso is a monk who enraged the Chinese authorities and was imprisoned for 33 years, his “crime” in their eyes being resisting patriotic re-education. After spending all that time in jail he made his escape to India through the mountains. He took with him some of the instruments of torture which he had managed to take from the prison.

On the wall there was all these torture tools. When I asked for my rights a soldier picked up the biggest one and showed me how it worked.. I could see the electricity come out. And then he said, ’Here are your rights.’ He would put it in and out (of his mouth), breaking my teeth. Then he let it in my mouth. The electric shock went through my body and I fainted.

These three people are at least now out of Tibet and the reach of the occupying Chinese forces. But thousands are still imprisoned under this brutal regime for simply demanding their basic human rights and wishing only to be left alone in their own country.. The source of all this misery has its roots sixty years ago.

The People’s Republic of China invaded Tibet in 1950, and though life in much of Tibet continued as normal, an uprising in 1959 was brutally put down and the Dalai Lama was spirited away to begin a lifetime of exile from his native land.

Though the accepted mythology has it that there was no resistance to the Chinese invasion, there was, in fact, a fair amount of armed resistance, as Tibetans, backed by the American CIA, fought back. It should not be thought that the Americans were extremely concerned about Tibetan independence, it was just that, as one CIA man put it, one more opportunity to create a running sore for the reds .

This resistance went on for nearly twenty years, but times change, and when US president Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, the writing was on the wall for the CIA sponsored Tibetan resistance movement, leading to the eventual closing down of the operation.

In 1971 the seat of China at the United Nations was taken over from the Republic of China, situated in Taiwan, by the People’s Republic of China. The PRC, as permanent members of the security council, had the right of veto, making it virtually impossible to debate the fate of Tibet at the UN. (Which says much about the democratic structures of that organisation.)

With the lack of any meaningful debate on the question of Tibet at the United Nations, the occupation by the People’s Republic of China has become an almost forgotten occupation. While we have in recent years heard much about the military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Chinese occupation of Tibet rarely makes the headlines in the world press.

The United States and China drew ever closer, till in the year 2000, normal trade relations became permanent between them. All of this, it should be noted, against a background of brutal repression by the PRC in Tibet.

But now, the United States and the West had access to the world’s biggest supply of cheap labour and a gigantic new market for their exports.

Yet though the partners changed, for the Tibetan people the tune remained the same, and their slow dance of death continued seamlessly, uninterrupted.

With this change of partners, however, one of capitalism’s most enduring truths was revealed, namely, that for capitalist elites, the making of millions will always be more important than the lives of millions.

And how those millions and the very land of Tibet itself have suffered at the hands of the Chinese military occupiers!

Since the Chinese invasion over 1.2 million Tibetans have disappeared in labour camps and prisons, been executed, died of starvation or been tortured to death (1 in 5 of the population). With spies and informers everywhere it has been likened to the old Stasi of East Germany. It is very dangerous for Tibetans to talk politics publicly, leading to an almost permanent air of mistrust.

Apart from this racial genocide there is also a parallel cultural genocide taking place simultaneously. Over ten million Han Chinese have immigrated to Tibet, making the Tibetans the minority population in their own land. The very Tibetan language is under threat. In a scene from Ce Qu’il Reste De Nous (What Remains Of Us) a group of university students open up after viewing the secret film.

We’re university students, but since childhood we have studied in Chinese. It has become almost useless to learn our language. People of my generation already have difficulty speaking Tibetan. Imagine how hard it is for those younger than us. I worry about our future.

When a student is asked whether any one of them had ever thought about leaving Tibet he replies that everyone present would very much like to go to India.

Beijing has changed the names of rivers and mountains, and for the last three generations Tibet, in tour books and schools, is a suburb of the motherland.

As a further attack on Tibetan culture between 1959 and 1977 the Chinese invaders looted, burned and demolished over 6000 monasteries, leaving only twelve undamaged.

In March 2008, the Channel 4 series, Dispatches, screened an episode entitled, Dispatches: Undercover In Tibet. They discovered a horrific situation, including the forced sterilisation of Tibetan women. This is despite Tibetan women supposedly having exemption from China’s strictly enforced laws concerning birth control.

Forced abortions and sterilisations are commonplace if women cannot afford the fine (the equivalent of £70) for having more than one child.

In the programme, one woman, a married farmer, tells her horrific story.

I was forcibly taken away against my will. I was feeling sick and giddy and couldn’t look up. Apparently, they cut the fallopian tubes and stitched them up. It was agonisingly painful. They didn’t use anaesthetic. They just smeared something on my stomach and carried out the sterilisation.

Apart from aspirin for the pain there were no other drugs. I was so frightened, I can’t even remember how I felt. Some people were even physically damaged by the operation. They have limps and have to drag their hips.

Environmentally, too, the Chinese invasion has been a catastrophe for Tibet. Since 1950’s invasion 68% of the forests have been felled. Many rare animals unique to Tibet such as the snow leopard and the wild blue Tibetan sheep are now rarely, if ever, seen. And to add to this woeful tale, China is using Tibet as a dump for its nuclear waste and a store for its nuclear weapons.

Tibet is a land rich in natural resources. Gold, silver, some of the largest reserves of uranium in the world and even some oil have been discovered. But like some colonialist power of old the PRC plunder another’s land to enrich themselves.

But even with all the brutality, oppression, imprisonment without trial, torture and attempts at humiliating the Tibetan people, the spirit of resistance remains, the flame of freedom still burns. In 1989 and again in 2008 the people rose and were brutally and lethally put down by the Chinese military.

The whereabouts of many of those arrested two years ago in 2008 are still unknown but their fate is very unlikely to be a happy one.

Sixty years on from China’s original invasion of Tibet, and fifty years on from the Dalai Lama’s flight into exile, the Dalai Lama now adopts the approach that he would settle for Tibet to be an autonomous region within China, much like Hong Kong is, but the Chinese refuse to negotiate even with this concession. Some more radical elements within Tibet maintain that only independence should be considered if Tibet is to be truly free.

In the third century BC the Chinese began building the Great Wall of China. In the sixty years since the People’s Republic of China invaded Tibet they have been trying as far as possible to build a great wall of silence. Taking over the chair from The Republic of China at the United Nations has been a great help to them in this.

And they are not slow themselves when it comes to imposing censorship. When the uprising of 1989 took place foreign journalists and observers were quickly expelled, allowing China’s human rights violations and violent response to the uprising to go largely unreported in the west.

In the uprising of March 2008, by the seventeenth of the month, all foreigners and journalists had been expelled from Tibet, again making the reporting after that date of Chinese brutality in the repression of the uprising extremely difficult.

But the keystone in this great wall of silence is the complicity of the so-called free world, the west, whatever you wish to call it. As a major trading partner and source of cheap and plentiful labour China must not be offended at any cost. Why should the suffering of a small population at the roof of the world matter when placed against the vast profits to be made for the capitalists by simply ignoring the situation.

As socialists we side with the oppressed against the oppressor, we defend the small and the weak against the big and the powerful.

The Scottish Socialist Party has a great record when it comes to opposing military adventures and occupations. We have opposed the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but this opposition did not mean that by implication that we supported Saddam Hussein or the Taliban.

Our stance was that if change was to come in those countries it had to come from within, from the Iraqi and Afghan peoples themselves.

So, it should follow from this stance that while we should support the Tibetan people in their struggle against brutal repression and occupation, some may not wish to see a free Tibet under the Dalai Lama, though some may.

What we should, however, look for is a free Tibet with the people of Tibet themselves deciding how their country should be run, and not having tyranny and terror forced upon them by an invading army every bit as brutal as anything that the old British or the new American empires ever came up with.

Editors Note: Last night the Dundee East branch of the Scottish Socialist Party passed a motion about the Chinese occupation of Tibet. This will be heard at the party’s conference in March.

The SSPs annual educational weekend is taking place soon.

Friday night will have a rally with international speakers, expected guests include members of Frances NPA, Portugals Left Bloc and Denmarks Red-Green Alliance.

Saturday will have workshops and educationals on a variety of subjects

More details posted soon, or keep checking the SSP site

The chilly blast of austerity will be felt by us all in the shape of cuts to public services and wage freezes.

However, the Scottish Socialist Party believes there could and should be some more welcome cuts made, including:

• Nationalisation of all banks, bringing the obscene bonus culture to an end.
• All MP’s and MSP’s to be paid an average skilled worker’s wage.
• Withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. These campaigns currently cost billions each year, and that’s without counting the appalling loss of life.

If you live in the Aberdeenshire area there is a new Aberdeen branch.

East Lothian has also been formed.

Congratulations and welcome to these groups of activists are due.

Wednesday 3 February 2010 – Politics of Protest
Wednesday 17 February 2010 – Palestine
Wednesday 3 March 2010 – IWD: A Woman’s Right to Choose
Wednesday 17 March 2010 – Danish Resistance – A Model for All?

Lilya 4 Ever free showing.

Date: 1st December 2009, 6pm.

The film will be followed by a period of discussion about the issues around trafficking and violence against women.

Details of how to book can be found here

This post is as good as any to also promote the White Ribbon Campaign and to encourage all men to join it.

When the press are telling us daily about the damage posties are doing to the service they are attempting to defend it’s worth remembering who the privatising parasites really are who are gutting the service by both tiny attacks and huge.

We wrote about the sham consultation at the time.

Bus from Dundee :-

Bus – 33 Seater booked – spaces still available, If you would like to book a seat please get in touch as soon as possible

To reserve seat contact: Karen Grogan, karen1grogan@hotmail.com.

Bus leaves Meadowside, opposite Post Office, at 8.30 a.m.

Returns to Dundee by 5.00 p.m.

£10 per seat (£5 concessions).

Assemble 10.30am East Market Street, Edinburgh, leaving at 11am

Troops Out of Afghanistan Now / No to NATO / Scrap Trident

The NATO defence ministers are meeting at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre the weekend of the 14th. The war in Afghanistan is waged under the NATO banner. Opinion polls make it clear that a big majority want the troops home now.

Joan Humphries, whose grandson Kevin Elliott was killed while on foot patrol in the southern Afghan province of Helmand on 31 August, will be speaking at the end of the march and there will be music from David Ferrard

Called by Stop the War Scotland, supported by STW UK, CND, SCNDSACC

To join the SSP go to the site and fill out a form, email, phone etc.

The Scottish Socialist Party offers unqualified support to CWU members forced to strike against bully-boy bosses and their Labour government backers. They are out to crush the union, crucify jobs and rights at work – in the hope they can sell off Royal Mail to greedy profiteers at Jumble Sale prices.

Every worker, trade unionist and community needs to stand by their posties in a potentially vicious battle to defend the very survival of a public service under assault from Royal Mail bosses, the Labour government and large sections of the media.

Over-paid butchers knife jobs, services and rights

Over-paid Royal Mail bosses, with absolutely no history in the postal service, have prepared for this showdown since the 2007 strike settlement. The key phrase in the Pay & Modernisation Agreement was change will be introduced by agreement. The exact opposite has happened. Bullying, intimidation, threats of disciplinary action, workers taken off pay, have become the standard methods of imposing new conditions that have meant catastrophic job losses and unbearable workloads.

With this reign of terror, Royal Mail bosses have slashed 60,000 jobs since 2003 – and they aim to shed another 60,000 in the next 2 years. Record profits (£900,000 a day last year!) have resulted from vastly increased productivity and heavier workloads from drastically fewer workers. The workers’ reward? Zero pay rise; abolition of the Final Salary Pension Scheme; ‘absorption’ of extra work into existing workloads with no extra pay; not a penny reward for increased productivity … and 60,000 job losses!

Crozier’s 35,000 scabs

Crozier and his cronies are hiring 30,000 temps as an army of scabs – recruited from people desperate for a few weeks’ work in the midst of recession – in addition to 5,000 Royal Mail managers being deployed to scab on the actual strike days. Royal Mail bosses are spending a fortune (of the public’s money) to break the strike, break the union, break the backs of the workforce, to usher in later privatisation.

They have no interest in reaching a resolution that protects workers’ conditions and jobs whilst improving the public service. They only belatedly offer to go to ACAS to get the pre-Xmas strikes cancelled, so as to come back with a vengeance in January. They must not succeed!

Bosses launch war

Instead, they have prepared for war. The secret document, exposed by BBC Newsnight, shows they plan to remove union facilities to help prosecute their war on postal workers. That is already the local experience in many areas. And they are in collusion with the Labour government on this! Lord Mandelson, whose scheme to privatise Royal Mail was shelved in the face of public uproar and the threat of strikes, is out for revenge. He has publicly denounced strikes – legally balloted for according to his Labour government’s vicious anti-union laws – as suicidal.

Interviewed on TV, he showed an incriminatingly detailed knowledge of the secret Royal Mail document, homing in on how much union facility time costs Royal Mail, which suggests he either wrote it – or at the very least has been in cahoots with Crozier and his crew.

Labour government collusion

Labour government ministers have been quoted saying this could be our miners’ strike. They egg on Royal Mail bosses to confront the union, to casualise the workforce with floods of part-timers, in their anti-working class mission to create armies of cheap labour in a de-regulated labour market that maximises profits.

As sole shareholder in Royal Mail, the Labour government have the power to settle this dispute in defence of workers and the public, but instead they encourage vicious hysteria in the press against the CWU – such as reports of riot cops preparing for battles between strikers and scabs. They let Royal Mail bosses enjoy a 13-year pension fund holiday, creating a record pension fund deficit, which workers are being punished for.

Don’t feed the hand that bites you!

New Labour has never been innocent by-standers in this long-running conflict, contrary to their protestations – and in stark contrast to the mind-boggling continuation of funding of New Labour by the CWU. Last year alone the CWU gave their arch enemies over £1million.

The national union should unreservedly declare an end to this crazy support for the party that is butchering CWU members, as one strand to the current war for survival. As we first wrote in SSP workplace bulletins in January 1999: make the break from New Labour’s New Tories – don’t feed the hand that bites you!

Members of the Scottish Socialist Party inside the CWU played their full part in winning the landslide majority for unified national strikes. The SSP does not hesitate in giving full-blooded support to CWU members on strike. We will build public support, until you win a deal that defends jobs, services, conditions and workplace rights.

UNITE – stop scabs!

SSP members in UNITE will press the UNITE leadership to call on their members not to be used as organised scabs. Royal Mail regularly jets managers into local offices on strike, taking care to deploy them from far-flung places, to reduce the likelihood of them taking sympathy action with CWU members they already know.

Leaders of UNITE should instruct their members to do their normal duties, not other people’s jobs, and not to manage Crozier’s scabs – and start a campaign for a strike ballot of their members in Royal Mail – whose jobs are on an extremely shaky nail.

Other unions, and the TUC/STUC, should call and build mass solidarity marches – and appeal to the unemployed not to scab.

If Royal Mail and the Labour government raise the stakes even higher, for example by taking court action against the CWU, other unions should call members out in defiant days of solidarity strike action to help win this critical battle.

• No suspension of strikes – pre-Xmas is the best time to hammer
• Royal Mail bosses – it makes up two-thirds of their annual profits.
• Stand firm and united – victory to the CWU!

Dundee East and West branches of the Scottish Socialist party organised a public meeting in the city’s Queens Hotel on the evening of Wednesday, September 23, to protest at the continuing war in Afghanistan, and calling for the troops to be brought home.

It was a particularly poignant time to hold this meeting in Dundee, as two young soldiers from the area, one from Dundee itself and the other from nearby Monifieth, had lost their lives in the fighting in Afghanistan during the previous three weeks, in this pointless and senseless war.

Street stalls were held on the five days leading up to the meeting and the reaction from the public was overwhelmingly against the war and agreeing with the SSP’s position.

Many of those signing our petitions and pledging support for our stance told us that they were either family or friends of service personnel currently on duty in Afghanistan.

In the two days leading up to the meeting, Dundee West member Angela Gorrie was interviewed on the two local radio stations, Radio Tay and Wave 102, giving her the opportunity to state the Scottish Socialist Party’s case against the continuation of the war in Afghanistan.

The meeting itself was well attended with around thirty members of the pbulic turning out to show their anger at Britain’s continuing involvement in the war in Afghanistan.

Speakers at the meeting were Colin Fox, national spokesperson of the Scottish Socialist Party; former MP and MSP and Scottish Socialist Party member John McAllion; and Mohammad Asif, of the Scottish Afghan Society.

First to speak was John McAllion, who highlighted the enormity of the lies and deceptions surrounding the war, while the next speaker, Mohammad Asif, told of the countless unnamed Afghan casualties who never seem to rate a mention as victims of a war being fought on their own soil.

In the final speech of the evening Colin Fox stated that on the run-up to next year’s general election the war in Afghanistan and the ongoing crisis of captitalism would be the main issues on which the election would be fought.

Following their speeches, the speakers then answered various questions from the floor of the meeting.

As regards further anti-war activity, it was agreed that we should use the time between now and the anti-war demonstration in Edinburgh on November 14 to build for the demo, and we should attempt to get the maximum number of people from Dundee through to Edinburgh for the event in order to keep up the pressure on the government.

Neoliberalism As Water Balloon

Royal Mail workers have voted by a record-breaking majority to take national strike action against the concerted assault on their jobs, pay, workloads, the service they deliver to the public – and the attempts to smash the Communication Workers’ Union as a national union.

They voted by over 3:1 for national strikes – a 76.24 per cent Yes vote in an extremely high turnout of 67 per cent. 61,623 voted Yes, 19,207 No.

This is a mass rejection of the bully-boy rule of Royal Mail bosses – egged on in their reign of terror by the job-cutting, privatising New Labour government, headed up in their crusade against CWU members by Lord Mandelson.

It is a mass mandate for effective, united and immediate strike action, at a time of year when the volume of mail rockets, workloads rise, and the value of our posties is even more recognised by the public.

Royal Mail spin-doctors are trying to whip up public fury at these workers daring to ‘disrupt Christmas’ – the same bosses who have ‘disrupted’ the lives of 60,000 workers (and their families) who have lost their jobs with Royal Mail in the last 5 years.

Willie Marshall, secretary of the Scotland no2 branch of the CWU, told me what he thinks of the vote.

This is a bigger majority even than the 74 per cent YES vote in 2007, the last time we had a national strike. I wasn’t surprised at the massive turnout, when you look at the level of anger amongst members.

It proves members are ready for the fight. And this is not about pay; it’s about the survival of Royal Mail.

Members want the strike action within 7 days after the national meeting of regional secretaries and divisional reps on 12th October. We want the action as soon as possible, and for at least the first strikes to involve the entire workforce, all out together, to show our unity and solidarity.

Members of the Scottish Socialist Party inside the CWU played their full part in winning this landslide for unified national strike action. The SSP does not hesitate in giving full-blooded support to CWU members forced to strike against the decimation of jobs, public services, pay, pensions and union rights. We will do all we can to build public support for their strike action, until they win a decent deal that defends jobs, services, conditions and workplace rights.

And we will do what we can to press the leadership of UNITE to call on their members not to be used as organised scabs during strikes.

Royal Mail managers used to be in a union called CMA, which has now merged into UNITE. Top dogs in Royal Mail have prayed in vain for a No vote, or at least a poor turnout in the strike ballot, but lost no time in organising for managers to be deployed as scabs to sustain the pretence of a postal service just in case CWU members had the audacity to vote Yes!

They have regularly jetted managers into local offices on strike, usually taking care to deploy them from far-flung places, to reduce the likelihood of them taking sympathy action with CWU members they already know.

Willie Marshall commented to me, The excuse they used for doing striking CWU members’ work during local strikes is that nobody informed them! That is nonsense, but they can’t use that excuse this time.

Leaders of UNITE should instruct their members to do their normal duties, not other people’s jobs, and start a campaign for a strike ballot of their own members in Royal Mail – many of whose jobs are also on an extremely shaky nail.

The national CWU leadership have been handed a massive mandate to forge ahead with national strikes, to keep up the momentum, and they should immediately approach UNITE to organise solidarity with their battle for the survival of Royal Mail as a public service – rather than stand silent as UNITE members are organised by top management as a battalion of scabs.

Stand by your posties – victory to the CWU!

Several developments on the provision of schools and education in recent weeks have exposed the rotten stench of New Labour’s hypocrisy, the backsliding of the SNP in the face of the recession, and the truth of the predictions and policies of the Glasgow Save Our Schools Campaign, consistently championed during our mass struggle against school closures since January.

At the heart of the matter is the key issue of class sizes.

In ferociously fighting 25 primary and nursery closures by the Labour-run Glasgow City Council, we countered their excuses about falling school rolls dictating closures by demanding cuts to classes of 20 maximum, for all age groups – as a means of protecting and creating teachers’ jobs, improving the attention given to individual children and therefore the quality of their education.

We coined the slogan Twenty’s Plenty in any class, popularising the policy of the teachers’ union, EIS, and the Scottish Socialist Party.

We welcomed the pledge of the incoming SNP government to reduce classes to 18 in Primary1-3, as a radical step in the right direction. In the SOS Campaign’s official meeting with SNP Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop in June, I argued the case that her government’s reliance on the ‘Concordat’ between Holyrood and local authorities – whereby they appealed to councils to retain teaching staff levels whilst school rolls fell as a means of implementing P1-3 classes of 18 – was being ripped to shreds, incapable of achieving its own goals, and that surely the government should pass legislation to enforce smaller classes. That point was repeated in writing to her. No reply was forthcoming, oral or written.

Campaigning works!

However, the pressure of our campaign has played some part in two important recent steps in the parliament. The Public Petitions Committee recently agreed to seek the written responses of the government and several councils to the issues raised in our petition to the parliament, in which we demanded a public inquiry into the effect of school closures on class sizes, educational standards, jobs and other social impacts.

And now, under the pressure of parents and campaigners in revolt against school closures, plus legal cases enforcing larger class sizes in popular schools through placement requests, Fiona Hyslop has announced plans to legislate to enforce maximum classes of 25 in P1.

New Labour has unleashed the dogs of war against Hyslop, barking out accusations of betrayal, of desertion of the pledge of 18 maximum for a cap of 25.

Labour gives hypocrisy a bad name

Such accusations from New Labour stink to the high heavens. They give hypocrisy a bad name! This is the same New Labour who openly, publicly denounced smaller class sizes as unworkable in Glasgow – and whose Labour Lord Provost accused me of a middle class agenda(!?) for promoting classes of 20 maximum at public consultation meetings, telling me with a perfectly straight face that smaller classes don’t work for working class kids!

It’s the same New Labour whose Glasgow city council arrogantly dismissed our repeated arguments that the school population was set to rise again, with a 4 per cent growth in live births in recent years, and our dire warnings that their closures would lead to bigger classes and worse education – as well as job losses.
Well who was right and who was wrong? Average classes of 21 in the schools closed have leapt up to classes of 25 and more in the schools the kids have been shunted into this term. Only one in seven qualified teachers have got a full-time teaching job. Over 200 Glasgow teachers only heard which school they were working in the day before term started! And in an incredible, but shameless admission last week, Glasgow city council leaders conceded that actually there are more children in Glasgow than we had been expecting. In an ominous threat of further cuts and closures, they whined that this meant £2m less in savings through closures than projected.

So criticism of the SNP government from New Labour holds absolutely no water; and Labour pointedly says not a word about what they would do about cutting class sizes!

SNP backsliders

However, severe criticism of the SNP is richly deserved. They are backsliding on their election promises, whilst trying to disguise their cowardly retreat with headlines, smoke and mirrors. Alongside this miserably small step on reducing class sizes, they are slashing the intake to teacher training, as a perverse solution to the lack of permanent jobs for newly qualified teachers.

Of course any parent or teacher will welcome the legal limitation of P1 classes to 25 next year, in place of the current legal limit of 30, introduced in 1999. Of course if that was extended to P2 and P3 in later years it would be a painfully slow, gradual step in the right direction. And those of us who have fought a high profile battle for smaller class sizes, demanding legal measures to enforce them, as opposed to relying on the (non-existent) goodwill of councils, can celebrate making some impact on government policies.

But a ceiling of 25 for P1 is pathetic compared to the SNP manifesto pledges, and would only have a paltry impact in real life. Just 6 per cent of kids in Scotland in P1 are in classes above 25! So for 94 per cent of them, this has no effect – apart from the welcome protection against future increases as Labour, Lib Dem, Tory and SNP councils pass on cuts.

Twenty’s Plenty

And why restrict it to the first year of school? At present, P4-7 and the first two years of secondary school are only restricted to a maximum of 33, with a limit of 30 for the final four years at secondary.

And as any teacher at primary or secondary schools will testify, even a cap of 25 would still present them with the task of crowd control in many classes, rather than being able to devote time to the individual needs of kids’ learning.

The demand for no more than 20 in any class, right throughout school years, is justified, proven to be right by numerous academic studies, would transform kids’ learning experience and secure jobs for new generations of teachers, reducing the stress of the job in the process.

The Scottish Socialist Party will persist with this demand, alongside other parents and teachers, whereas the mainstream parties put cash before kids, whether in periods of recession and/or rampant profiteering for the few.

SSP Public meeting on Afghanistan – Aberdeen

Wednesday 28th November in Aberdeen Trades Council Social Club, 13 Adelphi, off Union Street

Speakers
Colin Fox, SSP joint national spokesman
John McAllion, Former MP and MSP
Mohammad Asif, Chairman Scottish Afghan Society

To read about the campaign go to the blog. To get involved by either donating money or donating time please contact the SSP using the contact details on the campaign blog.

Wednesday 23rd September, 7.30pm, Queen’s Hotel.

Confirmed speakers include Colin Fox and John McAllion

Afghanistan Public Meeting Leaflet

The Diageo bosses have booted their workforces at Kilmarnock and Glasgow right in the teeth. These profit-hungry capitalists have spat in the face of mass public opinion – expressed through 20,000 marching in Kilmarnock, and 500,000 email protests to Diageo shareholders – by confirming closure of the 200-year-old plants. And they didn’t even pretend to consult; they announced this on day 71 of a 90-day consultation period.

The Scottish Socialist Party has from day one warned that multi-nationals like Diageo have only one care in the world: profit! They don’t give a toss about chucking 900 workers and their families on the scrapheap, virtually closing down the town of Kilmarnock in the process. And we have equally warned that any belief that such greedy profiteers can be persuaded by arguments into saving the plants was dangerously delusional – that the only language they will listen to is decisive action that wallops their wallets.

With this callous, arrogant announcement that they are forging ahead regardless, the time is rotten ripe for the unions to lead workers in a campaign of industrial action, to hit Diageo’s profit margins.

This could be accompanied by a truly international appeal for a mass consumer boycott, which would potentially have a devastating impact on a company that relies overwhelmingly on overseas markets, and its overseas image.

Already the campaign of protest emails and online petitions has garnered widespread support in the likes of the USA, one of Diageo’s prime markets, and the Teamsters’ Union has offered to support action by UNITE the union.

A tremendous publicity campaign has been conducted over the summer, on the streets, at football matches, and at golf and other sporting events sponsored by the world’s biggest drinks company. But unless the national union leaderships give confidence to workers to hit back with action that damages the production of profits for Paul Walsh and his cronies in the boardroom, there will soon be nothing left to fight back with.

Diageo’s chief executive Paul Walsh has just had another obscene boost to his wealth, at precisely the time he struts the world stage handing out redundancy notices to families who face a future of not knowing where the next meal will come from.

His ‘wage’ actually went down last year compared to 2008 – when he took home £5.1m. That previous income should help cushion him from having to exist on £3.5m in the year up to 30 June 2009 … the very day before the closure announcements!

That means a ‘salary’ of £67,300 a week! And if that is not vomit-inducing enough, his pension pot more than compensated for the fall in salary: it rose by £3.4m to £11.7m during the past year. So if this arrogant prat decides to retire, he stands to draw a pension of £637,000.

Walsh assured the SNP government-led Task Force – in an interview on BBC Scotland – that, I will be very open-minded when I look at the content of their alternative business plan. But in real life he didn’t wait even the derisory six days that elapsed between receiving the governments’ proposals and publicly shattering the fate of these workers who have given a lifetime to creating his obnoxious levels of wealth.

Within a couple of hours of declaring his open mind, Walsh was in the midst of a conference call to his cohorts in the USA, where he boasted:

A lot of the restructuring we’ve announced over time will help gross margin. They may invoke some letters to our shareholders, as we close plants in Scotland. But it’s the right thing to do for the future, and we have firmly grasped that nettle in order that we do not see gross margin slippage.

This arrogant contempt buries all the hopes of the SNP government, Ayrshire and Glasgow councils, and some in the leadership of the unions that – as Alex Salmond put it – we are looking for something that reconciles Diageo’s financial objectives with Scotland’s social objectives.

They are irreconcilable! Diageo has just announced another 4 per cent rise in their profits, to £2.6billion. But that is still not enough for these greedy parasites, so they want to cut back from three to two bottling and packaging plants in Scotland, chucking 900 families into despair, to save themselves £42m a year.

And if they get away with this butchery without a real shot being fired, how long will it be before they try to ship whisky across the high seas to be bottled in India or China by slave labour, closer to one of their huge markets?

Whilst the unions need to build members’ confidence for swift industrial action, and appeal for supportive consumer boycotts internationally, the government should drop it’s grovelling pleas for Diageo to accept public money and save maybe half of the 900 jobs; it’s not going to happen! Instead, they should seize the assets that have been built up by two centuries of workers’ skills and labour, supplemented by public subsidies to Diageo in the past, and turn them into public property, sustaining all jobs, embracing the know-how of workers in creating a genuine alternative plan for a publicly-owned drinks and food industry.

The time for action has arrived. Vast public support exists for the Diageo workforce in their plight. That could easily be channelled into a movement to halt the closures, with calls on the governments of Edinburgh and London to step in and bail out these workers, the way they were both so keen to do for the bankers who wrecked the economy in the first place.

6th August 2009

One of the most perverse contradictions in a system riddled with cruel absurdities is that of the working week.
Whilst unemployment leaps upwards, with a scourge of redundancies and closures, the length of the working week for vast hordes of workers increases.

Whilst employers lay off workers, cutting their hours and pay, others demand overtime of their workers – and obscene proportions of this is unpaid overtime.

Long Hours Culture

The UK suffers a notorious ‘Long Hours Culture’. And after a few years of decline (in the years 1998-2006), the hours worked is rising rapidly again.

Figures from December 2008 show that full-time workers in the UK put in an average of 42.1 hours a week – although that is acknowledged to be an under-estimate, not including undeclared hours on second jobs.

Beneath this average lies appalling levels of drudgery for a big minority: one in eight works over 48 hours a week!

And for male workers, the figure is 19.7 per cent exceeding the 48 hour week.

Put another way, in Scotland alone, 260,000 workers are on over 48 hours; 3.3 million across the UK. The latter figure is an increase of 180,000 compared with 2007.
A breath-taking 460,000 workers clock up over 60 hours work a week (54,000 of these in Scotland) – leaving little else time for family or social life after travel to work time and sleep is accounted for!

Long hours at work lead to increased illness, including stress.

It also lowers productivity levels, and reduces Health and Safety for the workforce, as tired people are a risk to others as well as themselves in many jobs.

21st Century Drudgery

So why do workers in Scotland and the UK put in such back-breaking, mind-boggling hours at work in the 21st century?

One of the most obvious causes is low hourly rates of pay. This country is one of the lowest-waged economies in the advanced world. Workers are frequently compelled to clock up the hours to get a half-decent income for themselves and their families – through hours that lead to neglect of family life and increased family break-ups.

But there is also a more naked form of exploitation that explains the Long Hours Culture: unpaid overtime. An absolute majority of the workers on long hours get no extra pay for their overtime.  Last year, 5.24 million workers in the UK (425,000 in Scotland) worked unpaid overtime, to a total value of £27billion.

That is the highest toll of unpaid labour since records began in 1992.

It is the equivalent of working for absolutely nothing from 1st January to 27th February last year.
It means these workers gave their bosses an average of £5,139 worth of work without getting a single penny in pay.

Unpaid Labour

As socialists as far back as Karl Marx in the 1840s have explained, profit is the unpaid labour of the working class.

Two of the several means by which the capitalist class boost their profits are by intensifying the amount of production a worker provides during the hours of work, and by lengthening the working week.

Certainly in recent decades bosses have extracted more work out of fewer workers as a means of piling up their profits. But the growing trend of unpaid overtime is one of the most glaring forms of profiteering. And it is likely to rise, as the recession bites deeper; fear of being made unemployed gives the employers a powerful weapon to pressure people into unpaid hours of extra work.

All this, whilst the number of people with no hours of work – the unemployed – rockets to levels not seen in years.

And meantime many employers – including in sectors as varied as the car industry, steel, the finance sector – are putting workers on reduced hours with equivalent cuts in pay; prolonged shut-downs with savage pay cuts; ‘sabbaticals’ as an alternative to outright redundancies – all to preserve profit margins at cost to workers’ pay packets.

Open Secret Company Accounts

Instead of feeding the philosophy that there is nothing can be done about all this – and specifically about job losses – it is high time the leaderships of the trade union movement spearheaded an aggressive campaign to ‘cut hours – not jobs’, to ‘cut hours – not pay’.

Every time some employer demands layoffs, redundancies or outright closures, the first demands of the trade union movement and its allies should be for public inspection of all the secret company accounts, to expose where all the profits have gone – and in many cases where all the public grants and subsidies have gone. And this should not just look at the current year’s accounts, where bosses may be able to demonstrate loss-making during the recession – but also the accounts for previous years of piling up profits.

Such an exercise would provide plenty of ammunition to challenge the employers’ ‘justification’ for job losses or closures.

Cut Hours – not Jobs or Pay

But regardless of whether companies and public sector employers are announcing job losses, they should be challenged by a generalised campaign for a shorter working week – without a penny being lost in pay.

As an immediate initial step, the battle-cry for a 35 hour maximum working week across the board, but crucially without loss of earnings, would rally workers and their families around an eminently rational measure in this crazed, profit-motivated system.

Such a shorter working week would vastly reduce stress levels and other illnesses, help improve health and safety at work, and actually boost productivity from less tired, more motivated workers.

It would greatly improve the family and social lives of working people – a real measure to enhance the much talked about ‘work/life balance’.

And crucially, it would create at least a couple of million jobs across the UK!

Challenging the Profit System

The demands to ‘cut hours – not jobs’ and ‘cut hours – not pay’ would of course challenge the central motive of capitalist employers: profit.

They impose long hours; unpaid overtime; pay cuts through prolonged shut-downs and reduced hours; closures and redundancies…. all to secure the maximum profit levels at the expense of workers’ lives being made a misery.

By cutting the working week, but protecting the level of income of workers, a greater share of national wealth would be distributed in wages, a lesser percentage in profit.

This fight to share out the work, without loss of earnings, needs to run in tandem with the campaign for a living minimum wage, a safety net of at least £8 to £9 an hour, based on the formula of two-thirds median male earnings.

Many who work day and night at risk to their own health are on dirt cheap wages – a system encouraged rather than eliminated by the pathetic level of Labour’s current minimum wages.

There are alternatives to long hours of work alongside no work for millions, a rational alternative to the slaughter of jobs in pursuit of profit margins.

The potential power of the unions and the communities they are rooted in needs to be combined with the sharp weapon of fighting demands that would share out the work rather than share out the misery.

6th August 2009

A rash of factory and workplace occupations is spreading across the globe as workers defy the brutal consequences of the recession.

Instead of surrendering to mass redundancies and outright closures – sometimes at a few minutes’ notice, often without even redundancy packages – workers are occupying their workplaces as a central method of struggling for justice.

Every example that wins concessions is boosting the belief of other workforces that there is an alternative to just resigning to the butchery in the boardrooms – that belligerent, militant class action can win at least something where workers have nothing to lose.

Socialists have a duty to assist fellow-workers in deploying the best methods of struggle to save jobs – as well as uniting workers around fighting socialist policies that would challenge and eliminate the need for redundancies.

Victory to Vestas

The sit-in at Vestas wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight has created a storm of international publicity and sympathy for the 600 workers who face the dole, at the very time the Labour government pledges to create 400,000 new green jobs over 5 years.

The 25 Vestas workers who staged this factory occupation, supported by a mass rally outside every night, displayed tremendous courage in the face of numerous attempts by the bully-boy, anti-union Vestas bosses to evict them.

They tried to starve them out, blocking food supplies being sent in by supporters. They threatened the sack and removal of redundancy payments from the workers staging the sit-in. They took out an injunction to gain re-possession of the factory – in order to close it and move production to the USA and China!

Vestas had no union recognition. Some workers joined a union and started organizing others. A group of them established a campaign committee and organised the sit-in from 20th July. This bold action won the active support of hundreds others – Vestas workers, other trade unionists, environmentalists, the local community – on an island where there are no other jobs to go to.

Vestas workers have gone further than any of the other recent factory sit-ins in terms of the demands they are making from their ‘campaign headquarters’ inside the factory: “Gordon Brown – Nationalise this!” declared the banner from day one.

A statement from the workers’ occupation declared, If the government can spend billions bailing out the banks – and even nationalize them – then surely they can do the same at Vestas.

Every victory encourages action

As well as organizing solidarity for these heroic fighters for jobs and the protection of the environment, we have a duty to learn from workers’ experiences of sit-ins as a method of struggle, particularly as redundancies and closures sweep the land like a pandemic.

Vestas is only the latest in a series of workplace occupations in the UK. And Thomas Cook workers in Dublin, members of the TSSA union, on 31st July occupied in defiance of closure of 100 offices.

The recent outbreak of factory take-overs in Britain and Ireland began with Waterford Glass workers occupying the plant on 30th January, when the employers announced an immediate end to production and 480 job losses.
After 8 weeks’ struggle, they reluctantly accepted a deal that saved 176 of the 480 jobs.

Visteon occupations

But their example fed the appetite of other workers facing savage closures under brutal terms and conditions. On 31st March, over 600 workers at three Visteon (ex Fords) plants in Belfast, Enfield and Basildon occupied and picketed when they were declared redundant at a few minutes’ notice, without any redundancy pay and with their pensions frozen.

A month later, appropriately on May Day, the workers won enhanced redundancy terms, payments in lieu of notice, and holiday pay.

As Kevin Nolan, UNITE union convener at the Enfield factory put it,

People ended up with a year and a half’s worth of salary. That’s a victory when you consider Visteon were hiding behind the recession as a way of completely abandoning all responsibility for 600 UK workers and just dumping them.

Prior to that high-profile sit-in, a small group of non-unionised workers at Prisme in Dundee occupied their workplace, encouraged by Waterford Glass workers, (who subsequently visited the Dundee sit-in). They had been sacked without notice and without any redundancy pay Fifty-one days later, the sit-in beat off the redundancies by establishing a cooperative.

Vital part of history

Workplace occupations are not a new form of struggle, of course, but this new wave of sit-ins follows many years of the method receding into the background.

Italian car workers seized their factories in northern Italy in the 1920s. What were dubbed ‘sit-won strikes’ swept countries like France and the USA in the mid-1930s. Closer to home and to the present, the most famous workplace occupation was the 1971-2 Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (UCS) ‘work-in’ – in reply to the Tory government’s closure of the yards with at least 6,000 redundancies. This triggered a mass movement, saved many of the jobs after the Tories were forced into a U-turn, and was the impetus to at least 200 sit-ins across the UK in the first half of the 1970s.

For a time such audacious actions receded, although Lee Jeans (mostly women) workers in Greenock occupied in 1981; Caterpillar workers in Uddingston in 1986; and Glacier Metal workers in Glasgow won an outright victory after their seven-week occupation in November-December 1996.

Now, as the global capitalist crisis bites, with even more catastrophic closures and cut-backs on jobs looming, this form of struggle could come back into its own.

Powerful weapons of struggle

Sit-ins are a powerful weapon, paralysing production; psychologically bringing the battle into the bosses’ ‘own territory’; preventing them from stripping the factory of machinery and equipment that they may want to shift to other production sites, including abroad, in their hunt for subsidies and cheaper labour; preventing bosses from bussing in scabs past picket lines that are hamstrung by anti-union laws and deployment of the police (as seen, for example, at Timex in 1993).

But a sit-in ‘with folded arms’ can still be defeated, or at best win shoddy concessions far short of the potential victories on the agenda, if workers’ occupations are not accompanied by concerted campaigning outside the sit-in.

When workers facing closures consider a sit-in they should also try to prepare for a campaign of seeking solidarity from fellow workers and local communities – or at least put that into action as soon as they occupy. Such outgoing, concerted campaigning is critical, firstly to help prevent employers evicting them, secondly to enhance the prospects of outright victory for their demands. That was the advice we put into action from day one of the Glacier Metal occupation in 1996. It is clearly what the Vestas workers are ably applying.

Touring other workplaces; taking to the streets with leaflets, bucket collections and megaphones to explain the case behind the sit-ins; organizing solidarity mass pickets, rallies and demonstrations – all this and more was done in conquering outright victory for the 1996 Glacier Metal workers sit-in, and is the method being applied at other recent occupations to one extent or another.

Demands from the sit-ins

The other key question that remains is: what do workers demand whilst they occupy their workplace?

Of course that depends on what they are fighting against! In the case of Glacier Metal it was mass dismissal of the entire workforce in the drive to smash the union and rip up hard-won conditions. Full re-instatement of every worker, with continuity of terms and conditions, and continued union recognition, were the demands of the sit-in. And that was what was won!

In the case of Visteon, workers occupied to win redundancy payments and protection of their pensions. They won substantial concessions, though they still lost their jobs.

Vestas workers have made the most far-reaching demands – and absolutely appropriate ones to the situation, occupying in support of nationalization of the factory. With the need to save jobs and simultaneously save the planet from catastrophic climate change, the best route is public ownership of the UK’s only wind turbine factory, as part of the call for public ownership of the energy industry as a means of democratically planning clean, green energy production.

Most occupations arise from closures or mass redundancies. So defence of every job is the starting point. And instead of pouring a fortune from the public purse down the throats of profiteering bosses who are hell-bent on racing across the globe in pursuit of super-profits, workers and their unions should champion the demand for public ownership of the assets, under democratic working class control, to sustain jobs.

Alternative plans of production

In situations where a workers’ inspection of the company accounts and the industry concludes that continued production of their pervious products are either unviable or undesirable, alternative plans of socially useful and environmentally friendly output comes into its own.

Way back in the 1970s, workers at Lucas aerospace plants constructed such workers’ alternative plans of production. In subsequent years, several other examples were produced by workers in struggle, with the help of sympathetic experts. And the unions and peace movement have published well-researched proposals for jobs diversification in the defence industry that would actually increase employment.

In the 21st century, this is especially important, with vast scope for job protection and job creation to match the need for green social production, such as energy-efficient housing, a vastly expanded, integrated public transport network, and production and distribution of clean green energy. 

Reverse the tide of closures

Workplace occupations are not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ method of struggle, applicable on every single occasion.

They should not be turned into a fetish. But they are an enormously powerful weapon of struggle that should be utilized far more widely in the teeth of closures and mass redundancies, and in the vast majority of cases have won huge concessions or outright victories.

Strikes are another indispensable means of fighting to defend jobs. Often they are the most viable method of resistance in workforces spread around scattered workplaces – as in the Royal Mail currently, the civil service – and places that provide services rather than being centres of industrial production. On the other hand, in some conditions, strikes against closures can sometimes allow the employers to just walk away, leaving whole communities wrecked. Strikes can sometimes be more akin to a boss’s lock-out, and less effective in stopping asset-stripping by employers shifting production to richer pastures for profiteering.

In stark contrast to both, appeals to the employers’ good nature to ‘change their minds’ about closures are a pitifully weak response to the boardroom boot-boys, who will only ever ‘change their minds’ when they know the alternative is carnage for their reputation and profit levels.

Many workers will increasingly see they have nothing to lose in the teeth of mass redundancies, and a lot to win by taking up the cudgels. As Visteon’s UNITE convener Kevin Nolan recently told Labour Research magazine,

We just thought: ‘What do we have to lose?’ So we just went for it. If anyone else is in the same position I’d say weigh everything up and if you think there’s a chance of winning something back or improving your situation by occupying the place, then go for it.

By seizing control of the company assets, including valuable machinery, plus halting production, whilst using the workplace as a huge campaign headquarters, occupations provide workers with an unprecedented platform to take on the bosses who want to heap the crisis they have created on the shoulders of working people.

We have a duty to concretely assist every group of workers who take such action; every victory won is a boost to the generalized struggle to save jobs, not profits, to reverse the tide of closures and cut-backs endured for far too long. The national unions, TUC and STUC should urgently call rallies and demonstrations in solidarity with all who have the courage to stand up for jobs, and give courage to those cowed by the Juggernaut of closures and redundancies.

Wednesday, September 23rd, 7.30 p.m.

Queens Hotel, Dundee

Confirmed Speakers—

Colin Fox,
John McAllion

This Saturday, 22nd August, assemble 12 noon George Square, march to Kelvingrove Park.

Midlothian Branch of the SSP, invites all Socialists to join a Socialist picnic from 3pm on the last Sunday in August near to the Golf Tavern on the Meadows Edinburgh (South West Corner between Tollcross and Bruntsfield.

Please bring enough food and drink for yourselves and if possible a socialist symbol, e.g. red flag.

See you there
Regards
Bob Goupillot
Midlothian Branch

by Richie Venton – 16th July 2009

It’s a classic case of the greedy rich sacrificing human beings to amass even more profit.

The announcement by the world’s biggest drinks company, Diageo, that they will shut the giant bottling plant in Kilmarnock, plus the distillery and cooperage in Glasgow, have provoked a wave of justified rage.

The whisky firm has been in Kilmarnock since 1820, the Glasgow cooperage since 1810. After two centuries of workers’ skills, hard graft and sacrifice helping the owners stack up billions in profits, these ruthless exploiters have declared war on whole communities.

They want the ‘Striding Man’ to walk away from Ayrshire. It would mean the direct loss of 700 jobs in Kilmarnock (making it one of the worst unemployment blackspots in the whole of Scotland) and another 140 in Glasgow. And that’s not taking any account of the knock-on effects, with shops, haulage firms and others facing devastation from the decisions of remote boardroom bosses who put profit first, second and always.

And they can’t even trot out the lame excuse that “it’s the recession”! It is not due to plummeting sales. This is the world’s biggest drinks firm. In just the last 6 months of 2008 – yes, half the year – Diageo piled up £1.63billion in profit!

But their top bosses have blurted out the real reason for the threatened closures: We want to protect future profit levels.

Nor can they claim they are cutting back on all expenditure to save the company. They have just forked out to get the Johnnie Walker logo on Lewis Hamilton’s helmet at Grand Prix races. This is part of a £90 million leap in advertising expenditure – from £643m in the first half of 2008 to £732m in the second half.

The top dogs in Diageo will certainly not suffer. Chief Executive Paul Walsh last year ‘earned’ £2.3million! A million of that was his ‘basic’ salary; £1.19m a ‘performance bonus’; £39,000 in other benefits. And that takes no account of his 720,000 shares in Diageo, worth about £6m – or his pension pot of £8.26m, which makes the much maligned Sir Fred Goodwin look like a pensioner pauper!

These criminals have the cheek to make speeches about the social responsibility of corporations, and then announce annihilation for whole communities. Paul Walsh is European chairman of an outfit called the International Business Leaders’ Forum, which tries to promote big business as a way to build sustainable and equitable societies!

That’s a sick joke for starters: big business exists to make profits, not to help people, and builds a gaping chasm of inequality into society.

But if you think the idea of money-grabbing capitalists being the source of sustainable and equitable societies is monstrous, it gets worse. Paul Walsh told the International Business Leaders Forum conference

Above all, I want Diageo to become a byword for integrity, social responsibility and commitment to the communities in which it operates. I want business with soul!

The people of Kilmarnock and Glasgow are up in arms at this betrayal for profit. Window posters, petitions, summits with councils and government ministers, and a rally in Kilmarnock are all part of the resistance.

To add insult to injury, Diageo bosses try to say there is an option for the workers facing devastation: there are 400 jobs being created at a bottling plant in Leven, Fife!

Who the hell do they think is going to commute from Ayrshire or Glasgow to Fife to work? And why should families be uprooted for the sake of protecting future profit levels?

Big business is out for one thing only: profit. The only way to resist their butchery is through decisive action, people uniting in their unions and communities, marching, protesting, looking at industrial action to hit the profiteers where it hurts – their wallets.

The governments of Westminster and Edinburgh should not offer to subsidise these corporate gangsters’ profits from public funds; they should demand Diageo drop all redundancy and closure plans, and if they refuse to bow to public outrage, step in and take over their assets, to sustain the jobs.

As one Kilmarnock man put it: “What would the farm born grocer [Johnnie Walker] say? Shame on you Diageo, 189 years of tradition sacrificed for some fat cat’s wallet!”

The SSP will fight all the way alongside workers and their communities, united to fight the closures, putting people before profit – a real version of social responsibility.

The Scottish Socialist Party is in full support of the thousands of postal workers who are staging strike action and other protests on Friday 17th July, in anger at arbitrary cuts to staffing levels and service levels to the public.

These cuts are being imposed by Royal Mail bosses in flagrant breach of the 2007 Pay and Modernisation Agreement, signed after strike action that year.

Delivery Ofices and Mail Centres in Edinburgh and East/Central Scotland will walk out, as will Irvine posties the next day. This is part of a growing groundswell of strikes across the UK , with 400 other offices requesting ballots for strike action.

High-and-mighty Royal Mail bosses are imposing cuts to staff and services; managers are using bully-boy tactics to impose the cuts, and ever-increasing workloads are being heaped on the shoulders of a shrinking workforce. Pressure and stress is at breaking point for postal workers, who are hitting back with escalating strike action.

John Brown, Scottish Regional Secretary of the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU) told me what lies behind the rolling anger and action by posties.

Royal Mail is trying to impose cuts way beyond levels acceptable to either staff or the public who rely on the service we deliver. They are totally intransigent, refusing to negotiate and abide by the 2007 Pay and Modernisation Agreement, which stated that the union would be fully involved at all levels at all stages of modernization.

They want 10 per cent savings across the board and insist that this must mean 10 per cuts to duties. There are not compulsory job losses as such, but they are sneaking through job losses. For instance, Royal Mail are forcing people to leave the industry; alongside their ‘savings’, a redundancy package is on offer, so when people who are fed up and want to get out of the job leave, they are not being replaced.

The press is trying to play up the idea this strike action is about pay. Well, in reducing the numbers in Delivery Offices, Royal Mail is offering full-time workers part-time jobs – which obviously involve big pay cuts.

But this is primarily strike action against the attack on the public service provided through arbitrary reductions in staffing levels.

And these are not cuts due to the introduction of new machinery. The national Agreement means any new technology can only be introduced with the full agreement of the union and its members. So far only 4 or 5 pilot offices have had the new machinery tried out, and as we expected, they have not led to the savings Royal Mail predicted.

But the cuts members are striking against are before the job cuts that new machinery will involve. By striking, members are effectively saying we cannot provide the level of service to the public expected of us because of the arbitrary cuts being imposed through executive action by the employers.

There have been little or no local negotiations. Senior management of Royal Mail has failed to even turn up to the previous talks with the national union. Today (15th July), they are supposed to meet the union in London . Maybe the strike action in London will have concentrated the minds of the Neanderthal men in senior management and force them to make concessions!

With the Royal Mail making £900,000 a day in profits, there is even less excuse for these cuts to jobs and services.

The New Labour government has been dealt a bloody nose on their plans to part-privatise Royal Mail. Now is the time for this wounded beast to be pursued through united, national strike action against their cuts.

These attacks are partly motivated by a desire for revenge for the defeat of privatisation on the part of Royal Mail bosses and Lord Mandelson, the Prince of Darkness and Dirty Deeds, who has announced his desire to accustom workers to a full decade of austerity, so as to enrich his friends in industry and the banks.

The growing revolt, through spreading strikes, could now be escalated into national strikes – accompanied by withdrawal of funding of New Labour by the CWU – which is an increasingly abusive relationship, akin to voluntary payouts to an arsonist to buy the fuel to torch your home!

The SSP stands unashamedly on the side of workers striking to preserve a vital public service.

Assemble 8.15 p.m. march off 8.30 p.m.

Speakers: John McAllion (confirmed) others yet to confirm.

Bring candles, hand lights, banners, etc.

Also, to commemorate the bombing of Nagasaki, please join Erik Cramb on Sunday, 9th August, at 11.01 a.m. at top of Law.

In order to answer these questions I’ll begin with a brief chronology of the events which led to Manuel Zelaya being deposed as democratically elected president of Honduras. After that I’ll briefly touch on Zelaya’s politics over the last 4 years, his relation with the so-called Bolivarian revolutions, and the relation of forces within Honduras. Finally I’ll explore those aspects of the crisis which are of greater interest to Socialists: The reshaping of power relations in the region, both with regards to the US, and the efforts for greater regional integration.

José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, to give his full name, is a most unlikely left-wing politician. So unlikely in fact, as to be almost unique. Manuel Zelaya, or “Mel”, as he is known in his country, was sworn president in 2006 following his electoral victory the previous year as the candidate for the centre-right Liberal Party of Honduras. By 2007, however, Zelaya seemed to have completely transformed his political outlook. From the mainstream politician with a privileged background pandering to law and order rhetoric, and wedded to neoliberal orthodoxy, he went on to join ALBA (the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas), the Chavez and Castro inspired alternative to the US led Free Trade Treaty. This move made him a dead man walking in the view of his own class. When asked recently about his conversion he replied, half-jokingly:

I tried to make changes within the constraints imposed by neoliberalism. However, the rich never give up anything, not a penny. They want everything to themselves. The consequence that follows is that in order to change things you need to incorporate the people into the process.

It’s not our business as Socialists to examine the state of his conscience as he made this statement, but it’ll suffice to say that his actions have brought him in an open collision course with the Honduran traditional establishment, and made him what some call the ‘oligarch oligarchs hate’.

Joining ALBA meant access to cheap oil, and the possibility of financing social programs. Nevertheless, given his background, he was unable to create an independent and organised political base. He has, however, gained the conditional support of the pre-existent popular movements and its most politically advanced expression, the Popular Bloc.

Earlier this year, on the back of these modest but undeniable achievements Zelaya proposed holding a non-binding referendum on June 28 on whether to call a National Assembly to change the constitution, to take place concurrently with that day’s election, a proposal that had obtained the support of 400,000 signatories. This was keeping with the wind of constitutional change sweeping other Latin American countries ruled by progressive governments. However, the international press, and the opposition, also in keeping with their habits, tried to present the plebiscite as a populist move towards ‘re-election’. A possibility granted to politicians in practically all Western democracies.

The intended referendum was immediately opposed by the country’s Congress and judicial organs and even declared illegal by the Supreme Electoral Court, which incidentally, the international press keeps referring to as ‘Supreme Court’, as to give gravitas to what’s no more than a Congress designated body.

The Congress, having failed to stop the referendum from being called, tried to get Zelaya impeached, but they lacked the legal instruments to do so.

The crisis came to a head when Zelaya sacked army chief general Vázquez Velázquez, a graduate of the infamous School of the Americas, after refusing to distribute the ballots for the coming referendum. The dismissal was declared illegal by the Congress. On June 28, as the referendum was about to be held, the army deposed Zelaya, held him for a few hours and eventually flew him to Costa Rica. Later that day he flew, this time by his own will, to Nicaragua to join an urgent meeting called by ALBA.

Despite the curfew ordered by acting president, Roberto Micheletti, the next two days were marked by increasingly vociferous protests. Two protesters were reportedly killed at the hands of soldiers. The new government has also shut down a number of TV and radio stations, and those that remained on air limited their schedule to broadcasting tropical music and soaps.

You may know from the papers that Zelaya announced his intention to return to Honduras on July 2, after meeting president Obama and the UN in New York. In an unprecedented move, the presidents of Argentina and Ecuador, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Rafael Correa, have agreed to accompany him to Tegucigalpa (the country’s capital). In response Micheletti has announced that Zelaya will be arrested on arrival.

Very much unlike the attempted coup against Chavez in 2,002, the international chorus of disapproval has been practically unanimous. It is too early to assess the full significance of Obama’s and Hilary Clinton’s apparent condemnation of the coup. But it is undeniable that the increasing collective strength and independence of Latin American acquired partly through integration in organisation such as ALBA and UNASUR (the Union of South American countries), whose effort was instrumental in thwarting the recent attempted coup in Bolivia, has played a strong part. These organisations are not ostensibly Socialist, but their general aims – independence from the US and integration between equals – and the ideological banner under which these aims are addressed – ambitious social programs and furthering of democracy – are undeniably progressive and as such worthy of our support.

It may well be the case that Zelaya’s conversion was nothing but a strategic gambit upon the assumption of a shifting of power relations. But even this most cynical interpretation of his ultimate intentions pays tribute to the newly found confidence among left-wing democracies in Latin America.

What do you think of transport in the city? Is your street clogged up with cars? Does your bus take forever and not stop near your house? Quicker walking home after work than being stuck in a queue? Fancy riding a bike to work but not back up that hill again afterwards?

Feel free to comment below with your thoughts on transport.

The Scottish Socialist Party has selected Kevin McVey as candidate for the Glasgow North East by-election.
A civil service trade union representative for 20 years, Kevin was brought up in the constituency, in Ruchazie.
Kevin joined the Labour Party Young Socialists in 1984 and was expelled from the Labour party 5 years later for being a socialist.

Kevin has a long track record of fighting the poll tax, against school closures, and for taxation of the rich to improve public services.

Kevin McVey said this evening:

At a time of daily news bulletins on the stench of corruption arising from Westminster, I am proud to publicly pledge that I will reject the £64,000 MP’s salary and live instead on the average skilled worker’s wage – not a penny more.

After the mainstream parties have been caught fiddling expenses for food, furniture, second homes, and Michael Martin was booted out for trying to cover up these crimes against people struggling to pay the bills, Labour now wants him promoted to the unelected, undemocratic House of Lords.

That’s an insult to ordinary hardworking people. Where I have worked you would be sacked for doctoring expenses or for failing to act against fiddles if you were in a manager’s post!

The people of Glasgow North East deserve a socialist MP who will fight for them, not another chancer who pockets the obscene salary and then grabs even more in expenses.

SSP Glasgow Regional Secretary Richie Venton said today:

We are proud to put up a candidate with such a long and principled history of fighting for the working class.

The SSP has been at the heart of fighting to save several local schools and nurseries from Labour’s butchery. We have helped stop the ambitious councillor Gordon Matheson becoming the Labour candidate, because even the out-of-touch Labour hierarchy knew he would be a complete liability in an area blitzed by school closures, which he was at the heart of. The SSP will make Save Our Schools a major issue in the by-election, demanding class sizes of 20 or less for all kids, to give them a decent start in life and to hire more teachers and nursery staff.

From Richie Venton, Glasgow Save our Schools Campaign organiser

Please take 2 minutes to sign the e-petition for the Scottish Parliament; help fight for smaller class sizes and greater democracy in decision-making.

Dear friends and fighters,

We have been fighting the Glasgow Labour council’s closure of 25 primaries and nurseries since January. We have built a mass movement, using every conceivable method of struggle.

Now we have taken the battle to the Scottish parliament and the Scottish government, demanding they take a clear stance in opposition to the closures and their consequences – especially the regressive increase in class sizes.

Our massive efforts saved 3 of the 25, but the rest are now closed, with horrendous consequences for kids, families and communities.

The Labour Council cynically calculated that since there will be no Council elections until 2012, they would ride the storm, hope people forget, and save themselves £3.7m a year at terrible cost to communities in working class areas of the city. We are determined to make them pay for these crimes – and in the process, stop the threat of 34 further potential closures!

If you want more background information, just go to the Glasgow Save Our Schools website

At the heart of our battle now is that for smaller class sizes. Our Campaign has persistently demanded cuts to class sizes of 20 maximum for all ages. That would improve education and protect and create teachers’ jobs.

That is also the official policy of the teachers’ unions. And the Scottish government claims to aim at 18 maximum in Primary 1-3.

As one important strand of our ongoing campaign, we have lodged this petition in the Scottish parliament Public Petitions system.

In case you are not aware, the Scottish parliament allows the public to submit petitions to a committee of MSPs to consider, with the option of inviting representatives to address this Public Petitions Committee to justify the case, and the power to then lodge the issue as a matter for debate in the full parliament and its sub-committees.

So we need vast numbers to add their names to this petition online, to add pressure to the MSPs in favour of inviting us to address them when they meet again in September. We have a limited few weeks to maximise the numbers signing the petition online.

It is straightforward – just click here to sign the e-petition for the Scottish Parliament.

And you have the option of adding a comment on the discussion board to help add weight to the debate; but at least please add your name to the list of signatures today.

And when you’ve done that, get others in your family to do it; and others in your trade union or community group. Then forward this email to everyone on your list of email addresses, to encourage them to sign up as well.

Thanks for your help – sign up and spread the word!

Yours in struggle and unity,

Richie Venton

Parents have occupied Wyndford primary school in Maryhill since Friday 26th June, as the doors were slammed shut by Glasgow Labour council at the end of the school year.

This audacious action has thrown the arrogant council leader, Steven Purcell, who expected all to go quiet over the summer holidays, hoping that by the time of the next council elections in 2012, everyone would have forgotten about their dirty deeds against kids and communities across the city.

The council has made no pretence of negotiations with the sit-in. They have just fired out statements that the sit-in is pointless, the school is shut, end of story.

Yet despite all their arrogant strutting, the same council has thrown sops towards the local community in the form of proposals for a new Family and Recreation Centre, based in the neighbouring school (also shut), St Gregory’s.

This is a crude attempt to buy off the anger in the community, generated by their brutal closures, which leaves the Wyndford estate a desert in terms of facilities. None of this would have happened without the ferocious battle mounted by local people, through the Save Our Schools Campaign. And it is too little, too late.

I spoke to several of the parents staging the occupation, inside the school, about their aims and feelings.

I would appeal to everyone reading their comments below to:

• (a) contact them with messages of support on 0778 350 8740
• (b) try to visit the sit-in at Glenfinan Drive , near Tescos in Maryhill Rd – if possible with supplies of food and water
• (c) build attendance of adults and kids at the sit-in’s Water Festival, Thursday 2nd July at 1pm – in response to the council’s dirty tricks department – who today (Tuesday) cut off drinking water supplies under the disguise of checking an imaginary gas leak.

Bring the kids, bring water pistols, bring supplies.

Tell the Council that the school occupation won’t get dirty like the Glasgow Labour Council!!

What the occupiers say:

We want a school in the community. We have nothing. We are waiting for a Judicial Review on the issue of nursery parents not being consulted on the closure of the primary.

We don’t want a school – we need a school in this community!

The other schools offered by the council are too far away, along dangerous routes.

On 23rd June the council put a proposal to make St Gregory’s primary into a Family Centre, and to turn the existing Recreation Centre into a power station for the Wyndford estate.

So if St Gregory’s is good enough for a Family Centre, it’s good enough for a school. All we are asking for is one school in the estate, we’re not even being greedy, asking to keep both St Gregory’s and Wyndford primary.

Family Centres can be built anywhere, so why compromise a school for it? And the Glasgow council are only offering this because right throughout the campaign we shouted that we have nothing, no facilities, from one end of Maryhill to the other.

Our fear is that the council want to demolish the school building – possibly to use the ground for a part of the Family and Recreation Centre. CMI, a demolition firm, has already been in twice to inspect the building, for asbestos before demolition. That’s another reason we’re holding the sit-in, to stop demolition.

Since we occupied the school last Friday afternoon we’ve not seen the Council. No talks or negotiations. Then today (Tuesday) they sent along a council worker pretending to be looking for a gas leak, cutting off the water to the school. And it seems it’s just the drinking water they’ve cut off. Well that won’t shift us either.

In reply we are organising a Water Festival on Thursday (2nd July) at 1pm – a bit of fun for the kids, with paddling pools and water pistols. Our message is ‘join us – don’t let the school occupiers become as dirty as Glasgow city council!’

The community is still united. St Gregory’s parents have been in to help us occupy Wyndford, and they have helped stage the barricades on the gates to stop the Council getting equipment out of the building.

On Saturday they sent in 30 vans. They loaded up with school furniture and equipment. But because parents, kids and supporters refused to budge on the gates, we forced them to unload again and have the vans inspected by us before they went away!

On Monday they sent two vans to pick up the safe and photocopiers, but pickets on the gates appealed to them, sat down on the road, and the drivers turned away empty-handed.

We’re appealing for support and supplies – including food and water – from the local community and people from other areas and schools. We’ve had parents and grandparents from as far away as Barmulloch, St Gilbert’s and St Agnes schools here supporting us.

As Barmulloch parents we think it is great what Wyndford are doing. We are happy to help in any way we can.

We’re not moving until they give us a school; they can turn off whatever they want. Our message to the council is ‘you’ve shut our schools, but we’re still here, we’re still in your face’.

By an Iranian exile in Scotland – 22nd June 2009

Iran is experiencing the most significant popular uprising since the1979 revolution.

The angry people came to streets after the 10th presidential election result was announced on 13th June. Two weeks of colourful street festivals, where young people were exceptionally allowed to let off steam dance and chant Ahmadinejad bye bye ended up in bloodshed.

Fraudulent elections are not new in Iran, but the recent colossal “polls engineering” has astonished even the most pessimist observers. While millions of change supporting youth prepared themselves to celebrate a landslide victory over Ahmadinejad, Iran’s ministry of interior declared him as the winner, having two times more votes over his main rival, Moussavi.

Three candidates could get the official approval to compete with Ahmadinejad. Amongst them Mir-Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karrubi were considered as reformists and the third one was a former commander of the revolutionary guard.

Moussavi, an architect and the ex-prime minister in the 80’s , entered into the contest after twenty years of political silence. He was strongly supported by many reformists, such as ex-president Khatami and Rafsanjani, the powerful head of the “Council of Expediency”. Moussavi, known for his clean economic record and his efficient management of the wartime economy, could specially gain a massive support among all the strata of the society, and turn out to be the first chance of winning the election.

He openly criticized Ahmadinejad’s term as wasting of oil revenues, unjustified social repressions and confrontational foreign policy.

Both reformist candidates pledged to relieve social repressions and limit censorship, curb 24 percent inflation, and rebuild foreign relation with the West.

On the other hand, Ahmadinejad, who is strongly backed by the revolutionary guard (RG) defended his achievement on earth and the sky and claimed that he had revived the dignity of the Islamic regime by taking the aggressive stance towards the West.

The televised debates between candidates, a new phenomenon in Iran’s narrow political scene, broke many taboos and exposed a long-lasting power struggle at the top between the Supreme Leader, and his so-called barrack party on one hand and the moderate Rafsanjani on the other.

Rasanjani’s wealthy men have financed Moussavi’s massive campaign. Ahmadinejad condemned all his precedent governments, including Rafsanjani’s, for cowardice and corruption. The others openly called Ahmadinejad an extravagant liar.

While reformists did not pose major critiques of Iran’s nuclear program, one noticeable shift from previous elections was that social movement’s demands found more vocal voice within the reformist agenda.

Both reformists published their charters of Human Right, pledging to sign the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and to relax state censorship and suppression, and to give more rights to ethnic and religious minorities.

Karrubi, a former head of the Parliament, backed by an important student organisation and more radical figures of reformist intellectuals, even went so far to ask for revising the regime’s Constitution. This was an ostensible breach from the official discourse, since the constitution was regarded as the most sacred asset of the revolution.

These debates raised hope among young people desperate for change.

The growing consensus to participate in the election eventually marginalised the opposition political parties, notably leftist in exile, who pointed to so-called reformist government of Khatami’s presidency as a proof of impossibility of reform from inside the regime.

The leftists called for their traditional policy of boycotting the so-called elections.
The turn out to the polls however was estimated to be over 85% which is a record since Khatami’s election in 1997. The reformists observers of the polls claimed that they got 30 million votes out of the 42 million polls. Based on these, Moussavi declared his victory at the night of vote counting, while complaining about widespread manipulations and bias.

However, at the night of 12th June the ministry of interior turned the tables and declared Ahmadinejad as the new president, obtaining an improbable 24 million votes, two times more than Moussavi.

The two reformist candidates called the result as dangerous charade and imaginary and absurd. People soon called the move a political coup by the Supreme Leader in order to keep the “barrack party” (i.e the Revolutionary Guard and its militia Basij) in power.

Thousands of people who invested their hopes for change in Moussavi and Karrubi, immediately came streets shouting Down with dictator and Moussavi, take back my vote for me. On the same night, the regime’s Basij, well equipped with all the light weaponry but in plain cloths, attacked university dormitories in major cities, beating and injuring hundreds of students, while there are unconfirmed reports of 5 being killed in the attack to Tehran University dormitory.

In a national-wide demonstration on Tuesday, which was banned by the ministry of interior, hundreds of thousands of protesters turned out. Moussavi and Karrubi came to the crowd and stressed that they will not surrender.

The riot police and notorious Basij dispersed protesters using electric batons, pepper sprays, tear gas and, in some instances, shooting at the people. At least 8 people where killed and dozens injured in Tehran. They suppressed people more brutally outside the capital. The supreme leader who was the first to congratulate Ahmadinejad took one step back and vaguely ordered to review the results. However, people are highly suspicious that this was just a trick to calm down the people.

On 19th June, when some were still hopeful that these widespread protests would soften the ruling hardliners, the supreme leader declared threateningly at the Friday Prayer that the loser should respect the law otherwise they are responsible for the human suffering in the street clashes.

This final word of the ultimate authority was regarded as showing the green light to security forces to escalate hostilities. Angry people who were not frightened by the threats came to streets on the day after, which turned out to be the most hideous day since the disputed election.

In Tehran, alone at least 19 people were shot dead by Basij agents and hundreds injured, among them the tragic death scene of young girl called Neda who has now become iconic. She had came with his father to participate in peaceful protest but get shot in the heart, her last seconds were filmed by a pedestrian, spread virally on Internet and shocked the world.

In response to these brutalities, a national strike is been called as we go to press. The call for national strike first announced by an officially banned leftist group called Sacrifice of the People. Local workers strikes in objection to the rigged election have already been held at some instances, notably in the country’s main car manufacturing complex, Iran Khodro.

At present, all the reformist websites are blocked, mobile communications are restricted and almost all of the foreign correspondents, even the BBC reporters which was traditionally among the most gentle ones, have been asked to quit the country.

To circumvent censorship people have extensively used creative ways, for example they widely use social networks like Facebook and Twitter to organise themselves and to let the external world to know what is happening in the country. On the other hand, a series of distributed Internet attacks by Iranian diaspora brought down some of the regime’s official websites.

Almost all of the reformist leaders, critics, prominent journalists, student activists, and ordinary protesters are being jailed.

Even aged reformist figures in their 80’s where not immune to the mass-arrests. Dr. Yazdi, for example, an 80 year old ex-foreign minister , has been taken to jail straight form the hospital bed, where he was being treated for cancer. Moussavi and Karrubi are still free and continue reclaiming for re-election. Perhaps because the ruling class fears that their arrest will put more oil into people’s fire.

Outside the country, Iranians are mostly surprised by the election results, and shocked by the regime’s brutalities, are protesting at Iranian embassies and urging Iranian leaders to respect their votes – Moussavi’s average vote outside the country, where it were closely observed and thus difficult to forge, was over 80%.

So not surprisingly almost all expatriates are urging their respective governments to not legitimise Ahmadinjad as Iran’s president and many are asking to cut all ties with the mullahs’ regime.

Given the lack of any established resistance organisation and regarding the iron-fist policy of the government the future of the movement remains to be seen.

Something that seems clear is that the political cost of the election for the regime was huge and particularly the legitimacy lost by of the supreme leader was irreversible. It is rather soon to say that history is repeating but I think it would be fair to say that Iran have definitely entered into a new political era.

The unsettling fact is that the ruling class have shown that they are not worried about the death tolls, as far as their power is at the stake.

You can find out more about Ian Saville, the Socialist magician at his website.

I can just imagine the puns he can have during his show – sawing organisations in half, not just destroying one ten quid note, making Westminster disappear etc.

We would like to thank all those in Dundee and beyond who voted for a campaigning Socialist Party.

We saw a modest rise in our percentage both in Dundee and nationally. Clearly it was not as high as we would have hoped but it has been steadily rising in the city for the past 2 years and it is a start of the rebuilding process after the low of the 2007 results.

Unlike most other parties you didn’t only see us on the streets in the run up to the election and we won’t disappear immediately after it. Although at this election the other parties were seen even more rarely than usual. They wouldn’t have something to be embarrassed about would they?

Wherever you are in Scotland you can vote for the SSP by marking one cross next to us on the ballot paper.

We have managed to dish out thousands of leaflets to passers by to let them know two things that not only are we standing in the European elections but that we are active in the area.

Today was glorious sunshine in Montrose surrounded by the excellent background music of the festival going on behind us. We look forward to our semi regular stalls in Arbroath and Montrose – the SSP, not just on the streets at an election.

Extract:

For many socialists in Europe we have been inspired by those recent struggles in France – what is happening at the moment?

Sarkosy came to power partly because opposition to him was so poor. With all the parties pretty much offering the same policies Sarkosy may have appeared decisive and in control and someone who could sort problems out. Particularly with the economic crisis people now just see his government as arrogant and only interested in representing the rich. Worse than that this government is aggressive particularly against young people and is reacting to the increased conflict and tension brought about by increased class conflict by unleashing the police and stepping up surveillance, something I know is happening in Britain too.

From January to March this year there was massive protests across the country and a general strike was a possibility. Partly because of the role of trade union leaders this did not happen and this has meant that perhaps things are bit quieter just now. However I do not believe this will last and more struggle will take place only this time even stronger than before.

These include:

• seriously consider[ing] the possibility of fixed-term parliaments
• reducing the number of MPs by 10%
• Text alerts on progression of Bills.
• More publication of expenses
• possible curbs on the whipping of votes
• backbenchers would get powers to choose the chairmen and members of select committees

These, he claims, will transfer power from the state to the people. Sounds good, unless you realise this is a man who voted for people to be detained by the state without charge for 28 days.

So lets look at the list:

seriously consider[ing] the possibility of fixed-term parliaments.

Not only is it a pitiful reform but it is surrounded by two weasily non-commital caveats. Why not fixed numbers of terms for MPs if you want to fix terms? (The SSP voted for 2 terms at our conference a number of years back)

reducing the number of MPs by 10%

In a parliament which is a representative type this makes the body less accountable, not more.

Text alerts on progression of Bills.

Post a reply if you can name one Bill currently going through parliament.

Yep, thought not.

The bills are available here if you wish to see.

More publication of expenses

Long overdue, but whilst MPs make the rules they then defend themselves by not breaking it is toothless and purely populist.

possible curbs on the whipping of votes

How exactly would this be enforceable? Notice again the weasely caveat.

backbenchers would get powers to choose the chairmen and members of select committees

Well hold me back, that is exactly the demand being made by everyone on a daily basis, the problem with parliament being the backbenchers don’t get to choose chairmen of talking shops. Sounds more like throwing a bone to get the support from backbenchers though.

Reforms which were noticeable by their absence included

• Reducing pay of MPs or linking to some measure of wages/income. Might we suggest a maximum of 5 times the state pension? Then there might be some action on pensioner poverty.
• Abolition of the unelected and undemocratic House of Lords
• Abolition of the unelected and undemocratic Privy Council
• Recallability of MPs – by petition of a percentage of constituents or triggered by voting against election promises or by changing their political affiliation
• Proportional Representation – deliberately excluded by Cameron
• Extending the franchise
• Overhauling voter registration to remove the current ease to commit fraud with postal vote registration.

None of these are revolutionary demands. They are basic reforms which are far more radical than anything Cameron has just dreamed up. Of course further reforms would be a real democracy, with the parliament chosen by lot, rather than the oligarchy we have now.

The actor is of course Tam Dean Burn

Glasgow: Tuesday 26th May, 7.30pm, Piper In The Square, George Square

Dundee: Wednesday 27th May, 7.30pm, Queens Hotel, 160 Nethergate

Edinburgh: Thursday 28th May, 7.30pm, The Melting Pot, 5 Rose Street

Speakers in Dundee will be Angela Gorrie (SSP candidate), John McAllion and the visitor from the NPA.

We will also be showing our latest broadcast and various other bits and bobs.

Come along.

Instead he repeated the SSP policy that anybody elected for the party will live on a skilled worker’s wage.

Former MSP Fox is top of the SSP candidate’s list for the European elections on June 4th.

He said:

The Scottish Socialist Party is entitled to have voters reminded that each and every one of their candidates is pledged to refuse the highly inflated salary of an MP/MSP/MEP and live instead on the average wage of the people whose interests they seek to represent.

And since promises in politics today are seen to be usually worthless it is important to remind voters that the SSP MSPs honoured that promise for the entire time they were at Holyrood between 1999 and 2007.

Each one of us lived on the average wage in line with party policy.

In the forthcoming European elections in June we will once again pledge to live in a skilled worker’s wage and shun the millionaire lifestyle beloved of MPs which has rightly outraged the public.

The entire sleazy episode nullifies any credibility ‘career politicians’ have about their motives for going into politics. It’s a funny way to ’serve the public’ stealing from the public purse and the SSP will have none of it.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/16/scottish-socialists-election-guarantee-we-won%e2%80%99t-play-the-expenses-lottery/feed/ 2 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/14/ssp-meetings-speaker-from-npa/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/14/ssp-meetings-speaker-from-npa/#comments Thu, 14 May 2009 19:02:52 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=772 A wee reminder about meetings.

This Saturday we have an open meeting with Raphie de Santos leading us off on the crisis of capitalism, the recession, the credit crunch and economics.

In two weeks time we will be having a meeting as part of the election campaign. Speakers to be confirmed but we will have a candidate over from Frances new NPA – the New Anti-Capitalist Party. It will be at the DVA, 10 Constitution Road Queens Hotel on Wednesday 27th May at 7:30.

More details will be posted once confirmed..

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/14/ssp-meetings-speaker-from-npa/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/14/interview-with-colin-fox/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/14/interview-with-colin-fox/#comments Thu, 14 May 2009 18:57:57 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=769 The Daily (Maybe) has posted an interview with Colin Fox.

They discuss the SSP campaign for the European Elections on June 4th.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/14/interview-with-colin-fox/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/14/conference-and-demo/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/14/conference-and-demo/#comments Thu, 14 May 2009 18:26:12 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=765 Letter from Alan Mackinnon, Chair, Scottish CND

Dear Colleague,

I write to advise you of 2 important forthcoming events for peace movement in Scotland. I wonder if you would send this letter and the attachments on to your usual contacts.

1. A joint STUC/Scottish CND Conference entitled ‘Trident, Jobs and Scotland’s Economy’ to be held on Saturday 6th June at the STUC, 333 Woodlands Road, Glasgow from 10.30am to 1.30pm. The speakers will include Jeremy Corbyn MP, Bill Kidd MSP, Lynn Henderson, Jackson Cullinane(TGWU/Unite), and Dave Moxham STUC. Among other things the Conference will mark the launch of a new STUC/CND research report providing up to date figures on the job losses associated with the Trident programme. Contrary to other claims, Trident renewal is actually costing Scotland vital jobs now and cancelling it could release resources for new productive investment in its economy. Attached is a leaflet in PDF format. I would be grateful if you could circulate your contacts to inform them of this important event.

2. A march and rally in Glasgow entitled ‘Crunch Time for Trident’ on Saturday 20th June – assemble George Square 11am, march to Kelvingrove Park for a rally. There will be keynote speakers and songs specially commissioned for the event. The event is organised by Scotland’s for Peace. Again, I would be grateful if you could circulate your contacts and encourage them to bring banners etc to the event. I attach a copy of a leaflet to advertise the event. If you would like to receive copies of the leaflets for either event or posters for the latter event, please contact the Scottish CND office at 15 Barrland Street, Glasgow G41 1QH – tel 0141 433 2821.

Yours in Peace

Alan Mackinnon
Chair, Scottish CND

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/14/conference-and-demo/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/14/peoples-charter-launched/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/14/peoples-charter-launched/#comments Thu, 14 May 2009 18:19:49 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=762 We have previously posted about the Peoples Charter.

It has now officially launched and has an aim to get 1 million signatures, only 2% of the population and less than marched against the Iraq war.

Sign up and pass it on.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/14/peoples-charter-launched/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/13/interviews-with-ssp-candidates-3-johanna-dind/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/13/interviews-with-ssp-candidates-3-johanna-dind/#comments Wed, 13 May 2009 20:37:52 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=739 Johanna Dind is our third candidate for the SSP list for the European elections on June 4th 2009.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/13/interviews-with-ssp-candidates-3-johanna-dind/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/13/interviews-with-ssp-candidates-4-nick-mckerrell/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/13/interviews-with-ssp-candidates-4-nick-mckerrell/#comments Wed, 13 May 2009 17:27:07 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=741 Nick McKerrell is number 4 on the SSP list for the European elections on June 4th 2009.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/13/interviews-with-ssp-candidates-4-nick-mckerrell/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/12/snouts-in-the-trough/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/12/snouts-in-the-trough/#comments Tue, 12 May 2009 18:54:45 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=753 The media for a week has been full of stories of the outrageous expenses claims by MPs.

From tampons (for a man) to moat cleaning there is seemingly no receipt these parasites will not claim for at taxpayers expense.

This is not democracy.

David Cameron: Quick, someone grab a receipt, the peasents can pay for this meal

Democracy is not just crossing a box once every four years, it is also about transparency and accountability.

If the police won't get involved we'll have to catch the leaker ourselves.

The Scottish Socialist Party has a policy we call the Workers Wage. Our elected representatives take home no more than an amount linked to the average wage of working people. This helps keep your elected representatives linked to the life you lead – they know how much a council tax rise affects you because it affects them too.

There is no chance of any of our elected representatives having you pay for their chandeliers or moat cleaning and most don’t own their first home never mind second, third or gated estate.

Come June the 4th vote for a representative who will be representative of the lives of most people in Scotland – vote Scottish Socialist Party.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/12/snouts-in-the-trough/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/12/interviews-with-ssp-candidates-2-angela-gorrie/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/12/interviews-with-ssp-candidates-2-angela-gorrie/#comments Tue, 12 May 2009 17:22:49 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=737 Angela Gorrie from Dundee SSP is number 2 on the SSP list for the European elections on June 4th 2009.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/12/interviews-with-ssp-candidates-2-angela-gorrie/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/11/on-policing/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/11/on-policing/#comments Mon, 11 May 2009 18:36:38 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=748 The constant stream of revelations about the political and repressive role of the police has meant we have fallen behind on reporting some analysis of some of it.

Liam Macuaid has posted an excellent and informative piece on the revelation that the police run state agents in protest groups.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/11/on-policing/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/11/interviews-with-ssp-candidates-5-raphie-de-santos/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/11/interviews-with-ssp-candidates-5-raphie-de-santos/#comments Mon, 11 May 2009 17:30:57 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=744 Raphie de Santos is number 5 on the SSP list for the European elections on June 4th 2009.

Raphie is leading a discussion in Dundee on the economy on Saturday – come along!

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/11/interviews-with-ssp-candidates-5-raphie-de-santos/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/11/interviews-with-ssp-candidates-1-colin-fox/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/11/interviews-with-ssp-candidates-1-colin-fox/#comments Mon, 11 May 2009 17:22:27 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=733 SSP Co-National Spokesperson is number 1 on the SSP list for the European elections on 4th June 2009.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/11/interviews-with-ssp-candidates-1-colin-fox/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/06/more-from-the-delusional-labour-party/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/06/more-from-the-delusional-labour-party/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 18:35:55 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=722 Having signed a petition regarding Israels nuclear arsenal the governments reply is mind boggling.

The UK would like to see a world free from nuclear weapons.

By renewing Trident…

We are aware of the widespread assumption that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, but note that the Israeli Government has refused to confirm it.

Are the government seriously suggesting that Israel does not have nuclear weapons?

Perhaps it explains their inaction over the imprisonment of Mordechai Vanunu.

Lets use Occam’s Razor for a second.
Mordechai Vanunu has been imprisoned for being a traitor and a spy. His crime was to tell the world about Israel’s nukes. If he was lying, why would he be imprisoned for being a traitor and a spy?

If someone were to claim that the UK had a unit of sharks with frikkin lasers, would that make them a whistle-blower given that there is no such unit? Only if the UK did have one would they be a whistle-blower, the same with Mordechai Vanunu.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/06/more-from-the-delusional-labour-party/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/06/open-meeting-16th-may/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/06/open-meeting-16th-may/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 18:02:18 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=719 Scottish Socialist Party Open Meeting

Capitalism in crisis and the socialist alternative

Speaker: Raphie de Santos

12.00 Saturday 16th May

Abertay University
Kydd Building
Bell Street
Dundee

Respected economist and writer, Raphie de Santos was an advisor on derivatives and financial markets to several financial institutions including the Bank of England, the London Stock Exchange and the Italian Ministry of Finance.

He has been a guest lecturer on derivatives and financial markets at Harvard and New York universities and the London School of Economics and has spoken at the annual Nobel Foundation conference in Stockholm.

Raphie is co-author of recently published Socialists and the Capitalist Recession which will be available at the meeting. He is also a committed socialist and a member of the SSP and is a candidate in the European elections in June.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/06/open-meeting-16th-may/feed/ 2 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/03/wwwmakegreedhistoryorg-launched/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/03/wwwmakegreedhistoryorg-launched/#comments Sun, 03 May 2009 21:38:35 +0000 agorrie http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/03/wwwmakegreedhistoryorg-launched/ Please visit our Euro Elections campaign site, www.makegreedhistory.org, and sign our petition to tax Europe’s ‘High Net Worth’ individuals.

We, the undersigned, support the call by the Make Greed History campaign for a one-off, 10 per cent wealth tax on every millionaire across the EU to create jobs and end recession.

According to the World Wealth Report 2008, Europe’s ‘High Net Worth Individuals’ (those with at least 1 million in cash assets) last year owned a total of trillion. Last year, a ten per cent levy would have raised 1 trillion dollars.

Even allowing for reductions in personal wealth of up to one third as a result of the global financial crash, a ten per cent wealth tax on the rich could create at least 5 million new jobs. That in turn would boost the wider economy and lift Europe out of recession without any extra government debt or spending cuts.

Big problems need big solutions. A European-wide wealth tax is a big idea whose time is long overdue.

Sign online at http://www.makegreedhistory.org/sign-our-petition/

Facebook

MySpace

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/05/03/wwwmakegreedhistoryorg-launched/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/30/police-pay-copensation-to-demonstrators-they-assaulted/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/30/police-pay-copensation-to-demonstrators-they-assaulted/#comments Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:06:29 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=711 No, not from the G20, but another demonstration where obviously the increasingly more common bad apples again behaved as thugs.

Details

The demonstration in question was in 2006 outside the Mexican embassy where the protesters were concerned at the killing of Indymedia journalist Bradley Will in Oaxaca City. They were assaulted and then falsely imprisoned by police officers.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/30/police-pay-copensation-to-demonstrators-they-assaulted/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/28/outrage-as-ssp-councillor-suspended/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/28/outrage-as-ssp-councillor-suspended/#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:40:25 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=708 Jim Bollan has been suspended from Council Meetings for nine months.

Read more about it on his blog.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/28/outrage-as-ssp-councillor-suspended/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/27/ssp-announce-european-candidates/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/27/ssp-announce-european-candidates/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:39:34 +0000 agorrie http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/27/ssp-announce-european-candidates/ SSP co-national spokesperson Colin Fox will head the party’s list for the European elections on June 4th closely followed by Dundee SSP member Angela Gorrie.

• 1. Colin Fox (Edinburgh South)
• 2. Angela Gorrie (Dundee West)
• 3. Johanna Dind (Edinburgh South)
• 4. Nick McKerrell (Glasgow Shettleston)
• 5. Raphie de Santos (Edinburgh North)
• 6. Felicity Garvie (Central Fife)

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/27/ssp-announce-european-candidates/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/27/european-anti-capitalist-left/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/27/european-anti-capitalist-left/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:14:06 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=701 The Scottish Socialist Party have signed up to a joint European wide declaration for the European elections on the 4th of June.

Read the statement here. Parties signed up so far are from Belgium, France, Germany : England, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spanish State, Sweden and Switzerland.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/27/european-anti-capitalist-left/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/25/ssp-to-stand-in-european-elections/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/25/ssp-to-stand-in-european-elections/#comments Sat, 25 Apr 2009 20:36:33 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=696 Originally from SSP website

The Scottish Socialist Party is to take the message that the answer to the gathering crisis is to work for an alternative socialist society into the European elections in June.

The party took its decision at its annual conference in Arran at the end of March.

Amidst growing concern at the gathering economic crisis, rising unemployment economic insecurity and concerns over climate change delegates gave a firm yes to the need to put socialist solutions to voters.

As in Scotland with New Labour, former mass socialist parties in the EU are now involved with saving the existing order with, for example German social democrats in coalition with right wing Chancellor Angela Merkel and most others adopting a pro capitalist line.

In opposition to this a range of new formations such as Das Link in Germany and the New Anti Capitalist Party in France are staking out the ground for socialist ideas and policies which also draw on the growing concerns on environmental questions.

The SSP also rejected a call for a withdrawal from the EU at its conference and will aim to campaign for radical change on a socialist programme and will co-operate with comrades across the EU sharing that view.

Delegates clearly believed that an approach of fighting with other left forces for demands across Europe such as a European minimum wage was the way ahead.

The fact that a large number of the voices calling for EU withdrawal come from right wing forces such as UKIP, the BNP and far right Tories clearly further made the demand unattractive to delegates.

The party now faces a major battle to raise the resources including a deposit of £5,000 which are needed to fight an all Scotland election and are a major barrier to smaller parties putting their case.

Massive demonstrations in France, riots in Greece and unrest and questioning across the EU grows daily as factories close, dole queues grow and threats of wage and benefit cuts loom.

For the first time in many years the elections to what many see as a toothless European parliament will have a sharp relevance for voters who see the illusion of market capitalist prosperity evaporate like the mirage it was.

In such a situation there is a vital need to put the alternative of a socialist society based on need and not profit to voters.

Alongside comrades and allies in Europe the Scottish Socialist Party will ensure hat case is put to Scottish voters.

SSP co-spokesperson Colin Fox said;

The Scottish Socialist Party will contest the European elections on our unique anti-capitalist programme, as we have done in all elections in the 10 years of our existence.

The SSP looks forward to our part in a European wide protest by the left, socialist and anti capitalist parties at the terrible consequences for working class people of the financial catastrophe that the banks and big business have brought upon us.

In the forthcoming European elections the SSP will be once again ask voters to mark their cross beside the SSP, for socialism, independence and internationalism.

Victories for left candidates and parties would indeed be a spectre to haunt the cosy coterie of capitalist politicians facing the crisis.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/25/ssp-to-stand-in-european-elections/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/25/letter-from-olivier-besancenot-npa/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/25/letter-from-olivier-besancenot-npa/#comments Sat, 25 Apr 2009 20:30:03 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=693 From Colin Fox’s blog

Dear comrades,

What is happening in Scotland confirms the fact that in all countries in Europe workers are suffering under the same blows from the bourgeoisie. The attacks against public services as a whole in a view to their privatization are just an example among many. The project to privatise the Royal Mail,which is taking place at the same time as that of privatising La Poste in France, proves it. We are, therefore, in complete solidarity with the struggle you are carrying out to prevent it.

In France, resistance to this privatisation plan has been organised around a large front of trade union, political and social organisations. Such a gathering of forces, which is absolutely exceptional, has resulted in the creation of local or regional committees around the country.

The purpose of these committees is to carry out an information campaign to mobilise the whole of the population, not just the workers of La Poste. We will not hide from you the difficulties we have encountered. As the government is for ever setting back the date to concretes this project, many people are under the impression that the privatisation of La Poste is something to happen sometime in the far future.

However, we all know how important it is to start the mobilisation from now, and not to wait.

At the same time, the series of wild strikes that have been taking place at La Poste show that the mood might change very quickly. I have myself taken part in a strike which lasted several weeks in my section. We demanded better pay and better working conditions. This is but one concrete way of fighting against privatisation!

So, comrades, we all wish you good luck in your struggle: when faced with a world economic crisis without precedent, it is urgent for all workers to unite and resist together.Long life to a Europe in which workers fight back together!Brotherly anti-capitalist greetings,

Olivier Besancenot

Postier Porte parole du NPA

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/25/letter-from-olivier-besancenot-npa/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/23/paris-commune-photos/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/23/paris-commune-photos/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:08:55 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=690 Pete the Radical Poet has found some photos of the Paris Commune

These fascinating photos are all the more remarkable given they were taken in 1871.

For a brief overview of this landmark in working class history see the Wikipedia article on the Paris Commune.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/23/paris-commune-photos/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/23/prisme-workers-win/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/23/prisme-workers-win/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:33:19 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=688 The Prisme workers look to have won in their struggle. If you are free why not pop along on Friday to greet them as they leave?

Prisme Packaging Occupation

Statement by the occupying workforce.

After 51 days in occupation the Dundee Prisme workers have decided to end their occupation. The reason we have taken this decision is that it looks like we have secured funding to take our co-op venture forward and save the jobs that we thought had gone.

Our occupation began to secure our redundancy payments and other monies that were denied to us by our employer when we were sacked. However, during the occupation we also decided to fight to safeguard our jobs because we believed there was a viable business, even if our predecessors did not. It looks like we have achieved this aim. A new company Discovery Packaging and Design Ltd is going to be launched on 1st May 2009.

This victory would not have been possible if it had not been for the support we have had from the general public, trade unionists, socialists and many others. This support and solidarity has been overwhelming and has helped give us the energy and determination to carry on for more than 7 weeks.

We said at the beginning of this that we were little people who had refused to be little anymore. We are proud of what we have achieved and our dignity is intact. We showed we would not be walked over by an uncaring employer.

We want to thank all those who have supported our struggle over the last 51 days, your support has been invaluable. Thanks once again to you all.

The Prisme workers will be leaving the factory together and united at 5pm on Friday 24th April.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/23/prisme-workers-win/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/22/the-passing-of-jack-jones/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/22/the-passing-of-jack-jones/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:03:51 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=685 Jack Jones died today. Dundonians may most recently remember him from his attendance at the International Brigade Memorial Trust events in the city late last year.

A short piece detailing his politics is on Socialist Unity.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/22/the-passing-of-jack-jones/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/20/police-brutality-more-step-forward/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/20/police-brutality-more-step-forward/#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:11:57 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=682 In the past week a number of others victims of assaults by police officers have come forward and more footage has emerged. Some of the footage which has appeared in the press has been cut and other more damning footage has been ignored.

Fitwatch have been helping to identify some of the bad apples who perpetuated these crimes.

There are a number of serious questions about events at the G20 which still need to be answered.

A. We will take as a premise the claims that the police officers involved in these incidents were bad apples and that the majority of police don’t condone or cover up these actions.

• 1. Why did it take until after footage of these incidents became available for police officers involved to come forward as witnesses if A is true?
• 2. Why did the media not follow up the lies about there being no CCTV in the areas of the incidents.
• 3. Why did the first coroner think that Ian Tomlinson died of a heart attack? Was it because the police claimed before hand they suspected this to be the case so they did not investigate further for the cause of death?
• 4. Why did the police in almost all footage of the events have their badges covered?
• 5. Will the police who seized peoples cameras and phones and deleted footage and photographs be charged with conspiracy to destroy evidence?

Additionally there are also concerns over any investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The police are investigating the police. That is not independence by any stretch of the imagination. It would be like having the investigation into the second homes scandal being carried out by the partner of the accused. What chance is there that those being investigated will be found guilty.

What has been surprising is the high level of critical media coverage of the police during the events. After the execution of Jean Charles de Menezes the majority of the coverage was doubting the claims of witnesses and backing the police story, especially in the immediate aftermath. It is clear the broadsheets smell Browns blood and want to put as much pressure as possible on the government.

Those who have watched the film Injustice will know these were just the latest in a long line of people killed by police or who have died in police custody whos families have had no justice.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/20/police-brutality-more-step-forward/feed/ 2 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/20/link-tay-coast-ssp/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/20/link-tay-coast-ssp/#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:46:16 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=679 A new blog has been launched by the Tay Coast SSP branch.

The Tay Coast branch covers North East Fife including Cupar and St. Andrews.

Go to taycoastssp.blogspot.com/ for more info.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/20/link-tay-coast-ssp/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/19/working-class-history-tolpuddle-martyrs/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/19/working-class-history-tolpuddle-martyrs/#comments Sun, 19 Apr 2009 14:26:57 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=674 The recent long awaited showing of Comrades on Film4 comes at an anniversary of the movement.

It is 175 years since the protest march demanded their pardon and freedom.

A blog has been set up detailing events surrounding the anniversary of this extremely important movement.

Got to tolpuddlekx.wordpress.com/ for more information.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/19/working-class-history-tolpuddle-martyrs/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/18/labour-tamper-with-ballot-boxes/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/18/labour-tamper-with-ballot-boxes/#comments Sat, 18 Apr 2009 08:18:17 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=671 If they can’t even be trusted to not tamper with the boxes in their own internal elections how can we trust them not to do the same with ballot boxes at local and national level?

SSP members are reminded that the elections for the European candidate list will be taking place over the next week or so. The regional hustings in Dundee and Edinburgh are taking place this Sunday – contact your branch or branch secretary if you have not received details.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/18/labour-tamper-with-ballot-boxes/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/15/open-branch-meeting-saturday-16th-may/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/15/open-branch-meeting-saturday-16th-may/#comments Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:32:04 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=667 Saturday 16 May 2009, 12noon-3 at Abertay Uni, room to be confirmed. Raphae de Santos speaking on the economic situation plus European Election Candidates (To be confirmed).

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/15/open-branch-meeting-saturday-16th-may/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/14/public-lecture/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/14/public-lecture/#comments Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:46:55 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=662 Public lecture

How can we stop Israeli human right violations

By: Manawel Abdelal
Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions

Wednesday 22 April 2009 @ 7:00pm
Main Lecture Theatre, Tower Building
Dundee University

Event Organised by: Dundee Trades Council, Dundee University Islamic Society and Tayside for Justice in Palestine

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/14/public-lecture/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/07/rural-pamphlet-now-available-online/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/07/rural-pamphlet-now-available-online/#comments Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:12:22 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=659 Rural Scotland and socialism in the 21st century is now available online at the SSP website.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/07/rural-pamphlet-now-available-online/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/07/wyndford-primary-and-st-gregorys-primary-schools-occupations/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/07/wyndford-primary-and-st-gregorys-primary-schools-occupations/#comments Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:00:33 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=655 Local people, activists from other schools fighting closure, socialists and trade unionists marched on Saturday in support of the continuing occupations of Wyndford Primary and St Gregorys schools in Glasgow.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/07/wyndford-primary-and-st-gregorys-primary-schools-occupations/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/07/footage-of-police-assault-on-ian-tomlinson/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/07/footage-of-police-assault-on-ian-tomlinson/#comments Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:57:39 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=652 Footage obtained by the Guardian show Ian Tomlinson being attacked by a police officer shortly before he died of natural causes

No doubt it was just a bad apple in the barrel and one of the other decent human beings who make up the majority of the police force will be able to identify the person who has probably committed manslaughter. If not, the CCTV footage from the area may help. Or the footage the police took. Or the other footage the protesters took (which the police were forcing people to delete).

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/07/footage-of-police-assault-on-ian-tomlinson/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/04/glasgow-save-our-schools/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/04/glasgow-save-our-schools/#comments Sat, 04 Apr 2009 11:12:24 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=649 Occupation

Save Our Schools parents and education workers are occupying Wyndford Primary and St Gregorys in Maryhill. People living near by are asked to go to the school with food supplies and messages of support. Text messages of support to:

Wyndford: 07894 123721

St. Gregory’s: 07776 396152

Demonstration in support of schools occupations today (Saturday 4th April) at 12 Midday

The Glasgow-wide Save Our Schools Campaign is appealing to people from the local community and across Glasgow to join a demonstration in support of parents occupying Wyndford and St Gregory’s primary schools today at 12 noon.

The support event is at Wyndford and St Gregory’s schools, Glenfinnan Drive, at the back of Maryhill Rd Tescos.

SSP on the Save our Schools campaign

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/04/glasgow-save-our-schools/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/03/police-tactics-cause-violence-at-demo-again/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/03/police-tactics-cause-violence-at-demo-again/#comments Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:48:23 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=646 Indymedia has an excellent video up of the police tactics at the peaceful climate camp.

The tactics used elsewhere were reportedly worse, and they wonder why people fight back. A few people go for the set up of an open bank and it grabs the headlines whilst more police attacks on peaceful protesters goes unreported.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/03/police-tactics-cause-violence-at-demo-again/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/03/forthcoming-meetings/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/03/forthcoming-meetings/#comments Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:32:28 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=643 Next meetings:

• Wednesday 15 April 2009 – guest speaker Ken Ferguson, editor of the Scottish Socialist Voice
• Wednesday 29 April 2009 – no main topic decided yet
• Wednesday 13 May 2009, guest speaker Gerry from the SSP Cuba Delegation

If you would like to come along, please contact us

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/03/forthcoming-meetings/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/03/boycott-the-sunday-mail/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/03/boycott-the-sunday-mail/#comments Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:10:46 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=638 From Socialist Unity:

NUJ Industrial Action at Trinity Mirror – Boycott of the Sunday Mail

On Saturday 4 April, journalists working at Trinity Mirror newspapers (Scottish Daily Record and Sunday Mail) will take strike action over management’s decision to cut 70 jobs. The edition of the Sunday Mail which appears on Sunday 5 April will be produced by non-union labour using copy from agencies. It would be of tremendous benefit to the NUJ and striking workers if the sales collapsed as a result.

Therefore, the STUC is calling on all its affiliated organisations and their members to boycott the Sunday Mail this weekend.

Stephen Boyd

Assistant Secretary

Scottish Trades Union Congress

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/03/boycott-the-sunday-mail/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/02/visteon-car-workers-in-belfast-occupy-against-cuts/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/02/visteon-car-workers-in-belfast-occupy-against-cuts/#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:56:30 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=629 We need to rush now to get messages of support / offers of help to John Maguire, Belfast Unite Convenor – 07816590380, dmcmurray@unitetheunion.com

by Simon Basketter

Some 200 workers have occupied the Visteon car parts plant in Belfast, Northern Ireland, against job cuts.

The workers went into occupation on Tuesday after the bosses summarily announced the closure of the plant with the loss of all jobs.

Davy MacMurray, from the Unite union, said the way the job cuts were announced was brutal. He said, The administrator came in, held a meeting and told the workforce their employment was terminated. These people were going to be put out on the street tonight.

Visteon took over the plant from Ford in 2000. All the parts the plant makes were for Ford.
One occupying worker told Socialist Worker, Ford have a commitment and agreement with the unions that there would never be compulsory redundancies. At the very least we should get the same redundancy package as Ford workers.

In the early evening the 200-strong workforce was holding protests both inside and outside the plant. Supporters were bringing supplies and sleeping bags. The furious workers are fighting to be treated with decency by the company and the administrators. They are planning protests tomorrow at Ford dealerships across the city.

Jon Macquire the Unite union convenor at the plant, spoke to Socialist Worker from the occupation. Ford and Visteon have manipulated this situation together, he said.

We have been treated disgracefully. We are occupying the factory to save our jobs. There was no consultation whatsoever – they simply announced the closure.

They have put the pension scheme into administration. To make it clear – we are in for the long haul and are committed to get proper redundancy packages and pensions.

We are determined to continue our occupation and we appeal on workers throughout Ireland, Britain and internationally to support our fight to defend jobs.

Visteon has also announced the closure of is plants in Basildon and Enfield – threatening another 400 jobs.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/02/visteon-car-workers-in-belfast-occupy-against-cuts/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/01/dundee-ssp-photos-online/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/01/dundee-ssp-photos-online/#comments Wed, 01 Apr 2009 23:10:40 +0000 agorrie http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/01/dundee-ssp-photos-online/ To see some photos of us out and about over the past few years click here.

More to come soon…

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/01/dundee-ssp-photos-online/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/01/follow-us-on-twitter/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/01/follow-us-on-twitter/#comments Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:45:57 +0000 agorrie http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/01/follow-us-on-twitter/ We’ve just created an account on Twitter, with the intention of following live events as they happen. Please follow us
here

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/04/01/follow-us-on-twitter/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/31/happy-birthday-to-the-minimum-wage-or-a-decade-of-inequality/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/31/happy-birthday-to-the-minimum-wage-or-a-decade-of-inequality/#comments Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:40:56 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=611 Despite marking its tenth anniversary tomorrow, the National Minimum Wage Act continues to discriminate against young workers.

While workers aged 22 or over can expect to receive a minimum of £5.73, those aged 18-21 are guaranteed just £4.77. Workers over compulsory school age but younger than 18 are entitled to a mere £3.53. Those under this age, such as school pupils who deliver papers, are not covered by the legislation at all. In reality this often encourages the practice of employers hiring younger staff at lower wage levels, then finding ways to dismiss them as they age and their wage increases.

Britain is not the only country to have different rates for different people however, of around fifty nations who currently enforce minimum wage levels, only four (Israel, Chile, Belgium and Luxembourg) explicitly discriminate due to age. Other nations categorise based on skill level (Pakistan); industry (Cuba); whether or not the position is in the public or private sector (Bahamas); geographical considerations (Mexico); or how long an employee has been in their role (Canada).

Regardless of whether or not you believe that the minimum wage should exist, the inbuilt age inequality is surely indefensible. Can anyone give a valid explanation as to why the government feel I’ll automatically be worth an extra 97p per hour by the middle of next month, after my 22nd birthday?

Many make the argument that a 22 year old will have more experience, and is less likely to live at home with their parents, so does not require as much money. This opinion is based purely on often wrong assumptions and would have little credibility in a pub debate, let alone as a central part of a so called ‘progressive’ policy.

While the wage paid varies depending on age, the cost of living does not. I’ve yet to walk into a shop and see products priced on a sliding scale according to the customer’s age! Similarly, the income tax levels paid by those either side of the divide are identical.

Although some unions have continued to call for improvements to the minimum wage, such as paying the adult rate at 18, it is clear that these demands are not enough. The Scottish Socialist Party continues to call for a single, £8 per hour guarantee, regardless of the workers age.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/31/happy-birthday-to-the-minimum-wage-or-a-decade-of-inequality/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/scottish-socialist-voice/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/scottish-socialist-voice/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:09:15 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=607 The SSP produce a fortnightly paper titled Scottish Socialist Voice which has been published in various frequencies over the past 10 years.

The current issues has all of page two and half of page three written by people from Dundee or about events in Dundee.

The forthcoming issue has had two articles about Dundee submitted to it.

As well as reading the Dundee SSP site why not purchase an issue of the Scottish Socialist Voice or consider taking out a subscription?

You can post here to discuss political issues but the Scottish Socialist Voice also has a letters page – write into it and have your say.

The current Scottish Socialist Voice is out of date and various options on updating it are under way but priorities for the paper are with producing and printing the paper itself.

As the big business papers face plummeting sales why not try the newspaper which dares to be different?

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/scottish-socialist-voice/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/drama-in-dundee-city-council/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/drama-in-dundee-city-council/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:42:19 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=584 Following the Maryfield by election the make-up of Dundee City Council changed. Made up of 29 councillors, the SNP now had 14, one short of a majority and with an even stronger democratic mandate to take power. One independent councillor, Depute Lord Provost Ian Borthwick had previously stated that it was undemocratic for Labour (now 9) the Lib Dems (2) and Tories (3) to exclude the SNP from the convenership roles and being in charge.

The rumour mill was in full force and all eyes were on Borthwick to see if he would walk the walk having talked the talk. Distracted Dundonians didn’t expect the resignation of Lord Provost John Letford from the Labour councillors group and the party. This reduced the Labour group of councillors to 8 causing their spokesmen to go into a mud slinging rage.

According to Jim McGovern, Letford has overnight lost all his principles. Ironically he mocks him for previously stating what was at his core – Labour and the Trade Union Movement. He falsely concludes that because he left Labour this can no longer be true. It may be no longer true, but it is also possible that if he still has this at his core that’s the very reason he can no longer stay in the Labour Party. Twenty Four hours later his vitriolic attack had changed into the Labour losing an argument position of Draw the line under it and move on

Kevin Keenan, leader of the Labour group of councillors flip flopped all week long. From publicly requesting Letfords return to the Labour group (now unprincipled or not) to in desperation trying to hold an olive branch to the SNP by pledging to support one of their councillors to be made Lord Provost. Whether both these plans could be carried out at the same time was irrelevant, they were pure spin from the Labour group.

Other local Labour members from former councillors Jill Shimi, Chic Farquhar and former rent a quote MP Ernie Ross were wheeled out to sling mud too.

What’s interesting about those slinging the mud is only one of them is a Labour councillor. The other seven councillors have been strangely silent on the proposed change in administration.

The last twist in the saga before the council meeting to redraw up power was some claims about an OBE. Letford insists Kevin Keenan had urged him to stand down and he would arrange for him to have an OBE. A series of denials from those involved make it unclear what actually happened, but this would have been a large carrot to someone Keenan described as the biggest unionist I know. That Letford sees his best chance to be the Queens representative in the city has more chance by supporting the SNP than it does Labour says something about both of those parties. For Labour it is the final signpost in their demise in the city. For the SNP it shows how their politics lie on both independence and republicanism if they are making deals with the biggest unionist known to the leader of the Labour Party in order to keep the chains of office.

Ernie Ross had also made the bizarre claim that Labour are a democratic socialist party. Wrong on both counts Mr Ross! Why are the Labour Party fighting over the chains of office rather than trying to break them when in power if either of these propositions were true?

The two independents, Borthwick and Letford were expected to vote with the SNP, keeping their Depute/Lord Provost roles.

At the council meeting Ian Borthwick proposed to delay the meeting to try and have a majority administration of everyone. Apparently the recession means this is necessary. The issue that flagged up this change was not the economy going in to recession but the Lord Provost resigning from his former party. Seconded by the Tories it was lost to the votes of the SNP and John Letford.

The SNP had put forward this idea in 2003 and 2007, as had John Letford in private. Now it looked like the SNP would be in power, the undemocratic coalition who had kept them out of power and looked like losing it suddenly warmed to the idea.

The SNP then proposed John Letford and Ian Borthwick for Lord Provost and Depute as expected. Labour countered with a proposal for one of their councillors to be Lord Provost. Their third preference for the position in a week.

The SNP proposal won through with the support on John Letford with The Tories and Ian Borthwick abstaining.

Immediately all the Labour councillors raised their dissent at the decision. They subsequently opposed the decision to label committees as X Opposition instead of Labour, Lib Democrat etc. It should be pointed out that 20 minutes previously they had demanded the council choose from across the board for the best people for positions but were having trouble with doing that amongst the opposition – showing how unworkable their proposal was in the first place.

What does this mean for the people of Dundee. Well we have finally removed Labour from office, although at what cost? Look next door to Angus to see the actions of the SNP in power. They were one of the longest to hold out to the Nursery Nurses and gave one of the worst offers.

More recently they are attempting to claw back half a days wages from teachers. These teachers left school on an in service day due to the heavy snow. Buses were stopping and schools were closing across Dundee and the surrounding area. People were being advised left and right to get home safely whilst they could. The Council were holding a meeting in Forfar and decided to abandon it and go home as it was too dangerous for them to stay in the town. The teachers in Forfar apparently were in no danger of being stranded and should not have. (see comment below)

Or in other words, as happened in transition nationally between Tories and Labour in 1997, expect no noticeable positive difference.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/drama-in-dundee-city-council/feed/ 3 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/snp-now-run-dundee-city-council/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/snp-now-run-dundee-city-council/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:45:58 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=593 Beating both the BBC and SNP to the news – the Lord Provost and Depute Lord Provost are staying as John Letford and Ian Borthwick. Borthwick did not vote for himself as Depute!

The proposal from SNP for Borthwick and Letford to stay in their roles and the SNP to take convenership roles won 15 votes, the SNP and John Letford. The Labour proposal with Richard McCready as Lord Provost won 10 votes, Labour and The Liberal Democrats. The Tories and Ian Borthwick abstained.

The people of Dundee can now look forward to an even more anti-trade union administration than the discredited former regime.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/snp-now-run-dundee-city-council/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/travel-dundee-staff-vote-to-strike/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/travel-dundee-staff-vote-to-strike/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:43:04 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=587 The staff of Travel Dundee have voted 3 weeks of work to rule action, followed by a one day strike on 24th April.

The reasons for the strike are a pitiful pay offer and the workers bearing the brunt of commuters anger and frustration of cuts and changes to the services. This anger should of course be directed towards Travel Dundee management.

The line from the company and the media is of course appalling. Part of the work to rule action is that drivers, mechanics and others will no longer work through breaks to make up delays caused by faults and poor traffic due to the huge number of roadworks going on in the city recently. Their line is that this will bring disruption to customers and services are set to suffer.

The flip side of this is that the services are returning to their normal state. If not for drivers sacrificing break times to catch up we would see the real state of the services being provided – and that is what is set to happen from Friday April.

The reality of it is the services have only not been suffering because of workers sacrificing their own time. Managements contempt for workers both through their wages and time are the reason there will be disruption and why services suffer.

The power of workers collective action is shown in the statement by Travel Dundee boss Lawrence Davie when acknowledging that there would be no buses running on the strike day.

As the business is fully unionised, the proposed strike action on April 24 will result in a complete suspension of services for our customers he conceded.

We wish the workers every success in their struggle and would urge all those affected during the next three weeks to review the SSP policy on public transport.

Whether you are on strike, or the strike has affected you by showing how much the staff sacrifice to ensure your bus home arrives on time you should find it illuminating.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/travel-dundee-staff-vote-to-strike/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/mark-thomas-on-labour/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/mark-thomas-on-labour/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:44:22 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=581 At the G20 protests in London Mark Thomas gave a rousing speech denouncing Labour and the politics they represent.

In it he points out some of the policies we should be demanding now that we own the banks.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/mark-thomas-on-labour/feed/ 1 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/behind-the-rural-idyll/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/behind-the-rural-idyll/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:55:40 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=578 The SSP have published a new pamphlet titled Rural Scotland and socialism in the 21st century.

Rural Pamphlet Cover

It is available for £2.

To see a sample of the content read the article by Colin Turbett on the SSP website.

Behind the rural idyll

Scotland’s countryside may be an ideal holiday destination or second home location, but behind the glorious scenery is a story of inglorious poverty and despair.

For the people who live there, rural life can be rife with problems, from scant housing to social alienation, dying communities to disappearing amenities.

Official figures reveal that hits rock bottom in picture-postcard Dumfries and Galloway, and that other indicators of poverty and inequality feature commonly in rural areas: low income and chronic ill-health for pensioners, and mortality rates for under-65s.

The Highlands have been described as the suicide capital of Europe.

The population is ageing, a trend likely to increase with the onset of recession and the hemorrhaging of younger people to the cities, and health and social services for older people are being slashed because of never-ending rounds of public spending cuts.

Continues on SSP website.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/behind-the-rural-idyll/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/ssp-conference-2009/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/ssp-conference-2009/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:50:10 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=574 Last weekend saw the SSP annual conference. For the first time we held it in the South West of Scotland on beautiful Arran. Great turnout and debate and some additions to SSP party policy.

We had 3 visitors address conference:

Luis Marron

The first was Luis Marron from the Cuban Embassy in London. He addressed conference on changes happening in Cuba. A recent official delegation from the SSP visited and gave reports previously on some of the political and social changes that have been taking place over the past 10 years or so. We hope to have one of the delegation come to speak at a meeting in Dundee.

The second was from the NPA in France inviting conference to participate in the European wide developments taking place in the left influenced by moves from socialists in France to set up a new mass party which has had a phenomenal start. (can’t remember speakers name, will edit should I find out).

The third was Seamus, a Scottish Gypsy Traveller campaigner who highlighted the institutional racism directed at Scotland’s oldest ethnic minority.

Conference decided that we should stand in the European Elections. We also launched a new pamphlet focusing on and pulling together some of the issues affecting rural communities.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/30/ssp-conference-2009/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/25/caltongate-saved/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/25/caltongate-saved/#comments Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:02:43 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=571 The Independent Republic of the Caltongate is reporting the demise of property developers who were intent on ripping the heart out of the community.

Pundits, sycophants and supporters of this Toy Town scheme mocked all of those who raised questions about the financial logic of this development based on ever increasing land prices and free and easy credit from the banking system, once those two things crashed the project was doomed. Caltongate was based on artists impressions of a architect’s dystopian fantasy and those architects names must be etched on the tomb of Edinburgh’s real disgrace – such as Richard Murphy, Allan Murray and Malcolm Fraser. Hopefully this Shakespearean tragedy will not be replayed over and over again.

The council used public money and council taxes to facilitate a big business plan for yet another Old Town development without looking at the needs and desires of the community.

The protesters and campaigners have been called liars and trouble makers for genuinely raising our concerns about lack of sustainable development and ignoring the community! More links here

It is quite ironic that the council ignored the objections based on the ludicrous financial model of the development only for the proposed proponents of the blight of the Old Town to go bust due to their ludicrous financial model.

One to celebrate throughout Scotland. Next we need the Tram Vanity project to get binned and the people of Edinburgh can live in their area instead of existing in the background of consumerism.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/25/caltongate-saved/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/23/there-is-an-alternative/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/23/there-is-an-alternative/#comments Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:27:18 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=567 It’s amazing how they all blend into one, seeing as they have near identical politics – Thatcher, Cameron, Brown, Blair, Mandelson et al.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/23/there-is-an-alternative/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/21/working-class-history-diggers/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/21/working-class-history-diggers/#comments Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:24:51 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=564 One of the the things we have been rarely writing on is the history of the working class.

The first historical group we will post about is the Diggers.

A 17th Century radical group they were agrarian communists who fought against the parasitic ruling class.

They are probably most well known today due to the song The World Turned Upside Down. This was based on an earlier song The Diggers’ Song

Original Version by Leon Rosselson

Version by Billy Bragg which will be most well known

Version by Dick Gaughan

See this site for lyrics to both the original and modern version..

We work, we eat together
We need no swords
We will not bow to masters
Or pay rent to the lords
We are free men
Though we are poor
You Diggers all stand up for glory

Stand up now
From the men of property
The orders came
They sent the hired men and troopers
To wipe out the Diggers’ claim
Tear down their cottages
Destroy their corn
They were dispersed -
Only the vision lingers on

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/21/working-class-history-diggers/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/19/phorm-cook-up-a-storm/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/19/phorm-cook-up-a-storm/#comments Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:20:39 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.wordpress.com/?p=49 A member of Dundee SSP submitted the following complaint to the Information Commissioner in relation to the story about BT appearing to infringe the privacy of their customers in June 2008.

Having followed the recent articles about Phorm (nee 121Media) in the press I was extremely distressed to see the latest news from today about BT running a secret trial

BBC story about Phorm

Details some of this, of which i am sure you are aware.

I refer you to the articles on the ICO site:

Guidelines regarding processing data

Information Commissioners power

It would appear that BT are in breach of at least these two.

A second related issue around the Phorm advertising is a possible breach of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. If BT have replaced the adverts on a site, or injected an advert into a site before presenting it to a user via their browser it may fall foul of the act by modifying the website without permission of the copyright holder.

A short reply was received stating that they were monitoring it closely. He intends to contact the Information Commissioner to see what monitoring has taken place over the course of the last year.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/19/phorm-cook-up-a-storm/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/16/ncr-people-not-profit/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/16/ncr-people-not-profit/#comments Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:40:08 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=476 For the past few years the SSP has run a campaign called People not Profit. The meaning of this is shown clearly at NCR.

Bill Nuti, the Chief Executive of NCR has been awarded a bonus of £5.6 million. A month later he axes manufacturing at NCR in Dundee throwing 252 workers on the dole. They are not the only ones to lose out. Bill Nuti is feeling the pinch too – he has downsized from a private jet to a private helicopter. That’s spreading the cuts in the language of the head parasites of global corporations.

How many other workers around the country are being asked to take pay cuts or wage freezes for the good of the company? There is no good of the company – only good of the shareholders. The worst part of these cuts is not that the factory is not profitable but is not profitable enough.

It is not enough that the factory is not making a loss and that it makes money to these people. They don’t value the skills and experience of the workers – the ones who create the profit in the first place. They only value their own dividends and the madness that is demanding increase upon increase in their return year upon year. This not only leads to the decisions such as these but also the short term view of the company. Who cares if the decisions taken by chief executives mean a company will survive for the next 10 years, getting a massive increase in profit in the next quarter guarantees them big bonuses then. They then have the cheek to talk about the good of the company.

The workers of Prisme have shown the way, not intent on taking a P45 and no redundancy from their boss they, are starting up without the boss.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/16/ncr-people-not-profit/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/14/the-islands-of-palestine/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/14/the-islands-of-palestine/#comments Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:58:30 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=473 One of the most fascinating sites on the internet is Strange Maps. From old countries that no longer exist to re-imaginings of the world as it is, it always makes you think and remember that the world is forever changing. Countries and borders even more so – being the creation of the political will and power of man and not nature.

Their latest update is a superb view of Palestine. It perfectly illustrates the reality for Palestinians. When people speak about Israel and Palestine they are not two landmasses who neighbour each other. Israel is a landmass which contains broken and separate chunks of Palestine. Thanks to roadblocks and checkpoints the Palestinians would probably find it easier to move around a series of islands on boats than Palestine on foot.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/14/the-islands-of-palestine/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/14/readers-polls-and-feedback/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/14/readers-polls-and-feedback/#comments Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:31:44 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=470 You’re asking me to vote – again!
Yes, but not in a by-election this time.

We have been running this site for two years and it’s time for our first reader survey.

At the left hand side there are two polls, one asking why you visited the site and the other asking how you found us.

We would also like to know a bit about the direction our readers and supporters want the site to go. What do you think about the level of coverage of what we write about:

• Dundee SSP
• SSP nationally
• SSP in other areas
• local news
• national news
• international news

Do you want to see anything we are missing, should we have interviews? Do you want to send us readers letters about politics.

So far the use of the site has been pretty one way, we have posted stuff and loads of you have read it. Is there a reason barely anyone comments? Is the comment system hard to use (in which case contact us another way!)? is it because we are always right (unlikely)? Is it because you found us searching for some random phrase? We would like to know as we would prefer this to be a two way communication tool – that’s why we chose a blog for our site and unlike other local political parties, have left the comments open.

Please use the comments to let us know what you think. We have a couple of ideas for things to do already but want to get some reader feedback first before we decide what direction to go with them.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/14/readers-polls-and-feedback/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/14/14th-march-roundup/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/14/14th-march-roundup/#comments Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:55:14 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=464 A number of important event have happened locally yesterday.

On Friday it was announced that manufacturing was to close down at NCR. This will also lead to a number of job losses at related companies including Taylor Group Diecastings Limited.

Texol also announced their closure.

The Evening Telegraph has a depressing list of the major job losses which have hit Dundee in the last two years: 1539 jobs in total. This does not include the recent announcements just in time for the end of the financial year and the big bonus payments to the bosses.

It is yet to be seen if these workers will fight back having seen the Prisme workers do so.

There is now a Prisme workers fund, send cheques with payment to: TUC Lobby Fund, to
Prisme Workers Solidarity,
c/o Mike Arnott,
Dundee TUC,
141 Yarrow Terrace,
Menzieshill,
Dundee,
DD2 4DY.

The other event overshadowed by these depressing reports was the election results in the Maryfield by election. As expected the SNP walked it, although surprisingly not in the first round. The SSP had a disappointing result but it was as we expected. In a two horse race like a by election the votes get squeezed for smaller parties. It is unknown how many second votes were given to the SSP after giving a first vote to Labour or the SNP. In a normal council election with multiple councillors being elected these may be passed to us, in this case there was no chance of them ever being passed to us.

The people of Dundee have resoundingly said they want an SNP council. They were the largest party returned at the council elections and at the two subsequent by elections won them both comfortably. It is yet to be seen if the anti-democratic coalition of Labour/Tories/Liberal Democrats. Ian Borthwick got off the fence last time and sided with the will of the voters in Dundee, it is to be seen if he will do so again.

Not that an SNP council will be an improvement for the working class of Dundee. Just ask teachers or nursery nurses in nearby Angus Council how an SNP council treats it’s employees.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/14/14th-march-roundup/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/11/man%e2%80%99s-best-friend/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/11/man%e2%80%99s-best-friend/#comments Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:08:21 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=461 Given the near end of the Maryfield by election we reproduce here a poem written by Rod MacGregor on an experience in the Lochee by election. We are sure activists of every persuasion can relate to the tale.

---

This experience comes from leafleting during a council by-election in the Lochee ward in Dundee, but I imagine that what is described in this little ditty is transferable to anywhere that dogs lurk unseen, waiting to give their canine judgement on political activists of any persuasion.

For we, who politics inspire,
There is a time when we’re on fire.
Elections, they are always busy,
So much goes on we end up dizzy.
Hustings, meetings, stalls—all vital
But there’s a task which every night’ll
Turn each of us into a drudge,
Aye, leafleting’s a weary trudge!

There’s letter boxes, sharp it seems
As any shiny guillotine.
There’s stairs to climb that take your breath,
You puff, you pant, feel near to death.
Blasted by wind and soaked by rain,
You think to yourself, Never again!
But the biggest danger in the end
Comes always from a man’s best friend.

Some dogs keenly vent their wrath
The second that you’re on the path
That leads from garden gate to door,
They bark, they growl, they howl, they roar.
And from the noise they make you know
If up that path you should dare go.
Does it sound big? Does it sound small?
It’s up to you—your judgment call.

But there again, there is the hound
Which doesn’t make a single sound.
Behind the door he’ll silent sit,
Waiting for some dim half-wit
To put his hand through the front door.
What savage dog could ask for more?
He loves a fool who careless lingers,
And doesn’t, quick, withdraw his fingers.

The first you know’s when something slams
Against the door, it seems the jambs
Themselves, they must be near collapse
As Fido, furious, rabid, snaps
At your fingers, teeth bare, flashing,
To the bone incisors slashing.
And then, the bit that really narks,
The damage done it’s then he barks!

Your curses make the air turn blue,
It’s A & E next stop for you
As there you stand, your fingers bleeding,
An anti-tet and stitches needing.
Now here’s the thing that’s to be learned,
Like all good lessons it’s hard earned.
Leafleting that’s swift and brief
Keeps human flesh from canine teeth!

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/11/man%e2%80%99s-best-friend/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/11/12th-march-vote-ssp-1-in-maryfield-by-election/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/11/12th-march-vote-ssp-1-in-maryfield-by-election/#comments Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:43:12 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=458 Tomorrow is the day of the by election. The last leaflet group have just returned from pounding the pavements of Maryfield having covered around 90% of the ward. Around 10 stalls have been held in the outlying areas of the ward (we have a stall in the city centre almost every weekend and 1 in the outlying areas once every few weeks).

Last night was the one and only hustings – see the report in the Courier, where a number of people congratulated Angela Gorrie as being an excellent candidate. The Lib Dem Candidate also showed support for the SSP’s ground breaking Free Public Transport policy, which was surprising and welcome. This was in answer to a question about the best way to get people out of their cars.

So tomorrow if you would have normally supported someone who won’t win or will win by a landslide, consider giving the SSP your first vote. You will increase our vote and if and when we are eliminated, your vote carries to your second choice – it isn’t wasted!

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/11/12th-march-vote-ssp-1-in-maryfield-by-election/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/10/maryfield-by-election/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/10/maryfield-by-election/#comments Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:46:44 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=454 It’s been a frantic few weeks of campaigning in the Maryfield by election and the result will be known on Friday. Before you cast your vote remember this is an election using a Transferable Vote, not just a cross in a box.

You can vote SSP 1, Labour 2 or SNP 1, SSP 2 or whatever way you want. You can’t waste your vote. Vote in order of your preference.

You can still vote tactically.

If you normally vote Labour but want them to care more about working class people then mark SSP 1 and Labour 2. Labour will then get transferred the vote if and when the SSP are eliminated. It sends a message to them about what their voters other priorities are. If one party sees their votes coming to them as a second choice behind the SSP it sends them a clear message that their supporters think they are too right wing or authoritarian.

Vote for what you want not against what you don’t want.

See where you are politically at the Political Compass. For reference the SSP would be left wing and liberal (the same square as Gandhi). Labour would be right wing and authoritarian (the same square as the Tories and the Italian Fascists). You can also see the drift to be both right wing and authoritarian by Labour.

Unfortunately there is no Scotland wide table. On this graphic the SSP would be about the same place as the Greens, with the SNP being a bit to the left of the Liberal Democrats.

Take the test, see where you are and vote for the party or parties who most match your views.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/10/maryfield-by-election/feed/ 1 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/09/hustings-tuesday-10th-march/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/09/hustings-tuesday-10th-march/#comments Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:50:48 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=451 The Stobswell Forum are hosting a hustings meeting on Tuesday 10th March at 7pm in the Boomerang Hall (110 Albert Street).

This is the first and only hustings to have taken place in the by-election. If you live in the ward pop along to quiz the candidates.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/09/hustings-tuesday-10th-march/feed/ 1 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/08/1984-85-miners%e2%80%99-strike-%e2%80%93-a-personal-recollection/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/08/1984-85-miners%e2%80%99-strike-%e2%80%93-a-personal-recollection/#comments Sun, 08 Mar 2009 19:18:30 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=449 There is an excellent and detailed post on SafeSpace about the Miners Strike. If you are too young to remember, or have only heard the medias accounts, it is well worth reading. Even if you are neither of these it should be read, as you will probably relate to the take by having heard hundreds like it.

The personal recollections of one woman’s memories of it, how it affected her family and how they viewed the portrayal in the media. It should be a real eye opener for those who dismiss the lefts and working classes hatred sheer hatred of Thatcher. The Tory policies destroyed families and communities and they should never and will never be forgiven for it. It is also why the attacks on New Labour for having the same policies as the Tories are pretty much the worst insult you can throw at them.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/08/1984-85-miners%e2%80%99-strike-%e2%80%93-a-personal-recollection/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/08/outrage-as-police-threaten-to-confiscate-strike-fund/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/08/outrage-as-police-threaten-to-confiscate-strike-fund/#comments Sun, 08 Mar 2009 18:00:20 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=444 Outside the Labour Party conference there were a number of protests about the organisation’s presence in the city, from those dressed as fat cats objecting to billions being given to the bunch of bankers, to Palestine Solidarity stalls.

Among them were members of the SSP and of Solidarity working together to highlight the Prisme occupation and raise funds for them.

The police, prompted by a complaint by a member of the public (most likely some Labour Party loyalist, approached each of these in turn to threaten them with further action should they not desist from their activities. The Palestine Solidarity Stall were spoken to for a while. The fatcat banker was warned over his possession of clearly fake money – something companies and churches use all the time for advertising and prosthletising respectively.

Most outrageously was the police action over the solidarity with Prisme workers. Those collecting were told that they must immediately stop collecting money. Their names, addresses and work details were taken. They were further informed that if they continued to collect money in a bucket they would be charged and that the money would be seized.

The rest is nonsense and worth fighting for a day in court, but the threat to seize donations raised for workers in struggle was believed to be most serious. The SSP unreservedly condemn the police decision in this case. Surely for one Tayside Police have better things to do such as continually and habitually break the speed limit without penalty, such as their 140MPH+ chief constable. Secondly the money is being raised for workers who have been treated appallingly by their employer.

We will continue to work with the striking workers and to raise money for them. Currently they have no mechanism for receiving donations other than directly in cash, so we will publicise any other ways to do so if and when they are available.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/08/outrage-as-police-threaten-to-confiscate-strike-fund/feed/ 1 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/06/prisme-workers-photos/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/06/prisme-workers-photos/#comments Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:11:41 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=441 Pictures from the occupation at Prisme. Due to technical difficulties, i.e. e-mails going AWOL, they are slightly delayed.

Group with banner

Group with banner

Group

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/06/prisme-workers-photos/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/06/rally-tomorrow-to-support-prisme-workers/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/06/rally-tomorrow-to-support-prisme-workers/#comments Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:26:59 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=437 The Facebook group is reporting two rallies happening tomorrow in support of the workers.

Rally Saturday 7 March 10am City Square, Dundee (5 minutes from train station), outside Labour Party Conference

12pm at Prisme Factory, Tannadice Street (next to stadium, across from Jerry Kerr stand, 20 minutes from city centre)

Also from group an interview with Matthew, one of the workers

On Monday we came into work as normal and the Managing Director came in and gave his letter of resignation. So we phoned the company secretary who was actually on holiday. We were told to speak to a guy called Alan Dand. On Tuesday he called us and an administrator came to look at the accounts. Then the company told us that they didn’t have enough assets to pay for the administrator and said ‘Looks like we’re just going to shut the door’.

We were told that the director and a legal representative were coming to tell us our rights but in fact the legal representative was for the director and wouldn’t tell us anything. They won’t even tell us who owns the company! We demanded that we be given a letter how much we were entitled to in redundancy payments, our P45’s and statutory redundancy forms. When we received the letter it stated how much our statutory redundancy payments were and that we were entitled to wages, pay in lieu of notice and accrued holiday pay. Then the next sentence of the letter said ‘Unfortunately, we do not have any money to make these payments to you’.

They said there were other routes we could take to get our redundancy payments but all they have suggested is speaking to the Citizens Advice Bureau.

After receiving these letters we were told to leave and come back at half nine in the morning but we decided we’re not leaving until we receive what we’re entitled to. We’re not giving them the opportunity to lock the doors while we’re out so we end up with nothing.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/06/rally-tomorrow-to-support-prisme-workers/feed/ 2 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/06/colin-fox-on-visit-to-prisme-workers/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/06/colin-fox-on-visit-to-prisme-workers/#comments Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:23:09 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=434 Colin Fox on the visit

Prisme Packaging Workers Occupy Factory

Thirteen people at Prisme Packaging in Dundee lost their jobs on Wednesday the latest victims of an increasingly brutal recession. Their firm, which manufactures cardboard boxes, lost its biggest customer on Monday and has subsequently gone bust.

But this non union workforce found to their cost that they are more vulnerable with the treatment they received as the firms owners announced they were all sacked with immediate effect and would not receive any redundancy pay or even their wages for March.

They were each handed a letter telling them they would not get a penny piece even though some of them had worked there for 14 years and were legally entitled to severance pay as the firm had gone bust. Their response was immediate and unanimous, they occupied the factory and took control of the assets.

Since I happened to be up in Dundee on Thursday, campaigning for SSP candidate Angela Gorrie in next weeks Maryfield by election, I went along to offer my support to the occupation.

I was delighted to meet Matthew, Christine, David and the others and find them in such good spirits considering what had happened to them. I recounted my experience in the Caterpillar occupation of 1988 and pledged support from the SSP in helping them save their jobs or at least secure the redundancy monies they are entitled to.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/06/colin-fox-on-visit-to-prisme-workers/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/05/oor-workers-your-workers-abodys-workers/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/05/oor-workers-your-workers-abodys-workers/#comments Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:36:37 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=425 Report from STV about workers occupation of factory in Dundee

Workers occupy Prisme video report

Courier report

Facebook Group

Indymedia report

A number of SSP members including Colin Fox, former MSP and Angela Gorrie, Maryfield by election candidate visited the workers today to show their support. Pictures and report to follow.

Messages of support can be sent to christinaf1956@hotmail.com [Appears to no longer work] , prismeworkerssolidarity@googlemail.com, or by text/phone to 07882804212.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/05/oor-workers-your-workers-abodys-workers/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/04/viva-la-revolution-st-andrews/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/04/viva-la-revolution-st-andrews/#comments Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:39:46 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=419 Below is a short article written by Colin Fox about the occupation of St Andrews Uni. Come along to our open branch meeting tomorrow night to hear Colin Fox speaking about the Council Tax and Angela Gorrie speak about the Maryfield by election. (see meetings page for details)

Viva La Revolution St Andrews

Students at St Andrews University were in the headlines last week for occupying their College Halls in support of the Gaza Palestinians and in particular against the University’s links with Israeli defence contractors. Last Wednesday as their week long occupation drew to a successful conclusion they asked me to come up and address them. Many of the 200 or so protesters had organised my election campaign to become Rector of the University last October.

These are my remarks to them

I am very proud indeed to be back here at St Andrews tonight. I am especially proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with you at the end of this remarkable occupation. I am proud to see so many of the students who led the campaign ‘Fox for Rector’ in October involved in furthering the cause of the Palestinian people.

I am sure Kevin Dunnion [the successful Rector candidate] is delighted to see you take this action and demonstrate the strength of feeling on campus. – Kevin Dunion was, unbeknown to me, sitting in the meeting as I spoke!

I wish to congratulate you all on behalf of the people of Scotland and indeed the vast majority of the peoples of the world who like you share the view that a terrible injustice has befallen the people of Gaza in recent weeks. You have done both them and yourselves immense credit by the principled and dignified way you have conducted your protest.

You are a credit indeed to us all, to the people who have gone before you at this University and the spirit of learning which this place exists to promote. You have learned that it is right to stand up to tyranny and abuse. It is right to resist injustice and to rebel against exploitation. Read Shelley, read Oscar Wilde, read Malcolm X.

In my experience over 30 years now as an active participant in the international class struggle your actions do matter, they do affect change, you will give huge encouragement to the Palestinian people by this action this past week. News of your protest will have given great encouragement to hundreds of millions of people throughout the world who support the Palestinian cause.

Furthermore your action will have severely irked those who wish you hadn’t done it; the UK Government, the US Government and of course the warmongering Israeli propaganda machine.

They would have rather you hadn’t had this occupation. They would rather you had stayed in the bar drinking and mind your own business or stayed in your halls with a joint getting stoned. In fact they would have far rather you were protesting on their side in favour of BAe’s links to the Israeli military.

I see the Palestinians in 2009 as the black South Africans of the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s – facing down the barrel of a gun and overwhelming military intimidation for their basic democratic and human rights.

The struggle for justice for the Palestinians today is every bit as important as the anti Apartheid campaign. The treatment of Palestinians is no less brutal that that meted out to the black majority in South Africa. The injustice is rife, the military odds stacked against them virtually insurmountable. Yet the international support is as it was for Nelson Mandela and the ANC.

And lets not forget they won and so will the Palestinains.

Your occupation this week has played its small part in bringing the day the Palestinians achieve the rights the rest of us already take for granted that bit closer. I salute you , you should be proud of yourselves and each other. Thank you.’

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/04/viva-la-revolution-st-andrews/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/04/labour-support-torture/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/04/labour-support-torture/#comments Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:36:32 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=415 The revelations about Labour supporting the torture of people came so long ago that they are as easily forgotten as they were ignored by the press.

Craig Murray has posted an excellent piece detailing how Harriet Harman is lying for claiming the British Government never knew it gained intelligence from torture and explains how Jack Straw and others justified it at the time.

An exert

---

• In October/November 2002 and January/Februray 2003 I sent two Top Secret telegrams to London specifically on the subject of our receipt of intelligence gained under torture. I argued this was illegal, immoral and impractical. The telegrams were specifically marked for the Secretary of State.
• I was formally summoned back to the FCO for a meeting held on 7 or 8 March 2003 specifically and solely on the subject of intelligence gained under torture. Present were Linda Duffield, Director Wider Europe, FCO, Sir Michael Wood, Chief Legal Adviser, FCO, and Matthew Kydd, Head of Permanent Under-Secretary’s Department, FCO.
• This meeting was minuted. I have seen the record, which is classified Top Secret and was sent to Jack Straw. On the top copy are extensive hand-written marginalia giving Jack Straw’s views.
• I was told at this meeting that it is not illegal for us to obtain intelligence gained by torture, provided that we did not do the torture ourselves. I was told that it had been decided that as a matter of War on Terror policy we should now obtain intelligence from torture, following discussion between Jack Straw and Richard Dearlove. I was told that we could not exclude receipt of specific material from the CIA without driving a coach and horses through the universality principle of the UK/US intelligence sharing agreement, which would be detrimental to UK interests.

---

Looks like they are trying to win the hearts and minds one dissected and boiled set of genitalia at a time.

Help Craig Murray be heard by the committee by e-mailing them following the details on a later post.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/04/labour-support-torture/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/03/compass-group-say-case-not-made-for-royal-mail-sell-off/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/03/compass-group-say-case-not-made-for-royal-mail-sell-off/#comments Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:54:58 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=412 The Compass Group have published a report on the proposed sell off of large chunks of Royal Mail.

This report demolishes the case for privatisation put forward by the Thatcherite Labour party.

In this major report they argue that Hooper:

• Fails to make the case that Royal Mail is any less efficient than its European counterparts
• It fails to take into account the key differences between postal operators in Europe and the UK market
• It confuses profits with efficiency and fails to recognise that prices in all EU countries are more expensive than the UK
• It fails to understand the problems of the incumbent operator compared to new entrants in a liberalised market – especially when the government has agreed to write off the pension deficit

The case for Royal Mail privatisation is that it is not profitable (enough). The reason the are not profitable (enough) is that Labour have deregulated their most profitable areas and put price controls on the areas they can profit from.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/03/03/compass-group-say-case-not-made-for-royal-mail-sell-off/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/28/lib-dem-right-hand-doesnt-know-what-left-hand-is-doing/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/28/lib-dem-right-hand-doesnt-know-what-left-hand-is-doing/#comments Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:36:22 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=404 According to the Herald the Lib Dems have failed to meet the deadline for a commission at Holyrood.

Fair enough you might think.

Except it was a commission they were architects of.

The excuse is of course that they need some more time to think of what to submit.

The topic of the commission is a federal UK, which the Liberal Democrats have been in favour of for decades!

So they set up a commission to investigate of of their flagship policies but haven’t thought about it enough to submit something to the group.

No wonder they do things like claim they support scrapping the Council Tax, then vote against SSP bills to scrap the council tax.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/28/lib-dem-right-hand-doesnt-know-what-left-hand-is-doing/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/27/scrap-the-unfair-council-tax/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/27/scrap-the-unfair-council-tax/#comments Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:47:14 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=397 The Scottish Socialist Party has for years campaigned to abolish the council tax, which hits the poorest hardest, and replace it with the Scottish Service Tax, which is based on income and ability to pay.

Open Branch Meeting
All welcome
DVA,
10 Constitution Road
Thursday 5 MARCH, 7.30 p.m.
Speakers—Colin Fox, SSP Co-Convenor,
Angela Gorrie, SSP candidate for the Maryfield by-election

Come along to the meeting and find out about the radical alternative to the council tax.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/27/scrap-the-unfair-council-tax/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/24/labour-government-show-hypocrisy-over-royal-mail/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/24/labour-government-show-hypocrisy-over-royal-mail/#comments Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:34:52 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=384 Recently, if you have been watching the news or reading any newspaper you will have noticed the complete failure of whole sections of the private sector. Basing their business plans on profits they were expecting to make, the profits never arrived, but massive debts and write offs came instead. You will also have noticed that Labour threw hundreds of billions of pounds at the failed companies, some of which is being syphoned off by their greedy directors as bonuses, clearly not related to performance.

Now the Labour Party are planning to privatise 30% of Royal Mail. Twice disgraced Business Secretary Peter Mandelson claims that Royal Mail is in danger of running out of money and that the taxpayer could not be expected to fund potential liabilities in the region of £8bn in the companies pension fund. Part of the reason the pension fund is in deficit is that the return on the investment for them is based on Labours glorious Free Market which has just failed, spectacularly, again. The main part though, and this is good, is because Labour allowed the bosses to take a pension holiday for thirteen years!

They encouraged the bosses to not pay money into the pension fund, then use the fact it’s now, obviously, in deficit to attack the service.

Billy Hayes, leader of the Communication Workers’ Union hit the nail on the head:

The government is saying they want a foreign company to run the post office, which is ridiculous. We could be faced with a situation where the Royal Bank of Scotland is nationalised and the Royal Mail is privatised.

This is not an isolated incident, Labour and the Tories freed up the most profitable parts of the Royal Mail to competition, and more recently Labour have been attacking whole swathes of the service. This included disgracefully closing four post offices in Dundee, one of which was in the area they are now trying to convince voters to elect them in. Dundee SSP were out campaigning constantly getting people to sign petitions and write letters objecting to the closures and taking part in the Consultation.

The outcome of privatising the most profitable parts of the service is that Labours demands that the company turn a larger profit is harder than ever, because of Labour gutting the service in the first place.

New Labour for consultation is clearly English for proclamation and farce. The objections of hundreds were ignored. A handful of Post Offices have been saved from closure, only for others to take their place. Showing clearly they were not closing based on popularity or local need but purely because they wanted to close X number. The act of removing one from that list resulted in the adding of another.

There are two petitions on the issue, and the least you can do is sign them. After that write to your MP. There will no doubt be other protests and actions taking place over this issue so pledge to take part in any that do.

CWU petition

Petition on Number 10 site

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/24/labour-government-show-hypocrisy-over-royal-mail/feed/ 1 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/24/dundee-maryfield-by-election/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/24/dundee-maryfield-by-election/#comments Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:16:33 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=379 Short article by Dundee SSP candidate in the Maryfield by election, Angela Gorrie also on the SSP site

Dundee SSP announced our candidate in the Maryfield by election Angela Gorrie.

The by-election in the Maryfield ward of Dundee City Council, scheduled for Thursday March 12th, will be the first local authority contest since the SNP’s u-turn on Council Tax. In an area where Council Tax rates are among the highest in Scotland, this will not go unnoticed.

Although a win in the poll, triggered by the resignation of Labour’s Joe Morrow, will not be enough to give the SNP a majority, it will leave them just one seat away. The 29 member council is currently finely balanced with 13 SNP members, 10 Labour; 3 Conservatives; 2 Liberals and an Independent.

The ward, one of the largest within Dundee, ranges from the docks of the Tay, through the City Centre to the north edge of the City.

Unusually, it also straddles the boundaries of the Dundee East/West Scottish and Westminster parliamentary seats. Unfortunately for activists however, much of the area lies on a steep slope!
The SSP have consistently held stalls in this area over the past few years, something which many passers by certainly seem to appreciate.

Along with weekly City Centre stalls we try to hold earlier activities in the outlying areas of the city. Stobswell Junction, which sits at the top end of the ward, has always been a popular location.

While the early days of the campaign have so far focused on the SSP’s commitment to replace the hated Council Tax with our Scottish Service Tax, based on income and ability to pay, our other policies have also been well received.

The area has a large student population, so our message of abolish all fees and loans; bring back grants has been well received. Due to the location there are also a high number of council workers in the area. Dundee SSP members were highly active around the last Local Authority workers’ strikes last year, spending many mornings, before and after, leafleting workplaces and showing solidarity with workers.

This has not been forgotten, and we have received many positive comments on the streets about our support.

While the ward boasts enviable public transport links – Dundee Bus Station is within the area, and the Railway Station is just to the West – the costs continue to rise. When I first moved to Dundee four years ago, the standard fare was £1.10. This has now spiralled to £1.45. The cheapest fare increased to 80p earlier this year.

At a time when many local facilities are closing, this has put additional financial pressure on many who live in the area. The SSP’s Free Public Transport policy is recognised as a way to combat this, while going some way to save the environment at the same time.

Dundee, as a city twinned with Nablus, has always taken the fight of the Palestinian people to its heart. This was clear at the recent demonstration, one of the largest the City has witnessed in recent years. Dundee SSP is proud to be a part of this movement.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/24/dundee-maryfield-by-election/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/23/scottish-peoples-charter/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/23/scottish-peoples-charter/#comments Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:36:01 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=376 The Scottish Peoples Charter is being launched this weeked

Scottish Peoples Charter

We need Change. We need Hope.

We need a fair Scotland and a [fair] Britain.

A fair economy for a fairer society

Progressive taxes without loopholes or tax havens. We must own and control the main banks. Guarantee all pensions, mortgages and savings. Tie pensions and benefits to wages. Give pensioners free transport and heating. Increase the minimum wage.

More and better jobs:

Defend and improve employment. Make a massive investment in new jobs particularly in green technology for our childrens’ sake.

Decent homes for all:

Create 250,000 new publicly owned homes in Scotland over the next five years. Stop the repossessions. Control rents.

Save and improve our services:

Energy, Telecommunications, Water and Transport to be owned by all of us. Remove profit making from the NHS. Support our public service staff.

For fairness and justice:

Equality for all. Together against all racism and discrimination. Equal pay for women. End child poverty. Give young people a future. Free child and youth facilities, education and training for all. Repeal the anti-trade union laws to fight poverty and inequality.

A better future starts now:

No more blood and money for war. Bring the troops home. No more £billions for nuclear weapons. No replacement for Trident. We want massive investment for a greener, safer world. Get rid of the debt economy in Britain and cancel the debts of the poor of the planet.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/23/scottish-peoples-charter/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/22/petition-for-same-sex-marriage/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/22/petition-for-same-sex-marriage/#comments Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:46:28 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=372 A petition has been launched for the right for Same Sex Marriages.

[blockquote]Petition by Nick Henderson, on behalf of LGBT Network, calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to amend the Marriage (Scotland) Act 1977 to allow two persons of the same sex to register a civil marriage and a religious marriage if the relevant religious body consents.[/blockquote]

More information can be found here

European and Scottish political leaders, international marriage equality groups and church leaders all back same sex marriage petition.

West Midlands Labour MEP Michael Cashman today signed the petition in the Scottish Parliament calling for same sex couples to have the right to register a civil marriage, or a religious marriage should the relevant religious institution consents.

His support comes as the petition gathers momentum, attracting support from Scottish Labour MEP Catherine Stihler, London Green MEP Jean Lambert, Scottish Labour MSP George Foulkes, and the leader of the Labour Group in the European Parliament, Glenis Willmott MEP.

Support from across the world has been pouring in, as groups such as Australian Marriage Equality, Marriage Equality Ireland, and the US movement Blue4Equality all back and publicise the campaign.

Equal Marriage Rights, the group set up by Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger, litigants in the High Court same sex marriage case Wilkinson v. Kitzinger, and Peter Tatchell’s OutRage! have also publicised and supported the petition.

The Reverend John Penman, from Christ Church Falkirk, and the Reverend Ruth Innes from St Marks Portobello have added their names to the petition.

The Very Reverend Kelvin Holdsworth, provost of St Marys Episcopal Church in Glasgow said:

This is something which directly affects my ministry. The existence of Civil Partnerships has been a big step forward. They have given a whole new set of images to society of what gay people are like and that has been great.

However, Civil Partnership is not Marriage and that inequality is discrimination. This is important – I’ve had people approach me asking me whether I can do a legal ceremony for them and I’ve had to say that though I’d like to, the law doesn’t allow me to do so. Indeed, the current law specifically forbids people from registering Civil Partnerships in church or using any religious expression in their legal ceremony. What that does, is imply that gay people can never be as holy as straight people. And the ugly consequences of that kind of prejudice are visible in all kinds of places, not least in the suicide statistics of young men.

The LGBT Network will be visiting the LGBT group of St Marys church on Monday and speaking to the LGBT Society of St Andrews University to promote grassroots support of the petition.

To find out the latest on the campaign, keep checking out our website; lgbtnetwork.eu or follow our updates on Twitter; twitter.com/LGBTNetwork

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/22/petition-for-same-sex-marriage/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/21/save-our-schools-in-glasgow/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/21/save-our-schools-in-glasgow/#comments Sat, 21 Feb 2009 07:50:42 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=365 We like to occasionally report on activity going on around the country.

In Glasgow the Scottish Socialist Party have been involved in a campaign to save a series of schools from closure and merger.

Photos from the Save our Schools Glasgow demo.

A report on the campaign Save Our Schools work can be found here

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/21/save-our-schools-in-glasgow/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/20/democracy-2/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/20/democracy-2/#comments Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:56:19 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=333 Democracy isn’t just putting a cross or some numbers on a bit of paper every four years, no matter how much the pro-capitalist parties would have you believe. There are other essential parts such as recallability and accountability. One way of holding elected representatives to account is to challenge them when they stray from their manifesto promises, for example the SNP abandoning pledges to scrap council tax and student fees.

A website has been set up called VoteWise, it’s purpose is to allow a space for people to publicly challenge candidates up for election.

Maryfield by-election page has been set up. So send your questions to the candidate and whoever wins, make sure the stick to what they claim they will do and will not do on it and their leaflets etc.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/20/democracy-2/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/18/support-st-andrews-university-students-in-occupation/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/18/support-st-andrews-university-students-in-occupation/#comments Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:36:21 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=329 Please send your messages of support to the students at St Andrews University who have just began their occupation in protest at the University’s complicity in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people: campaign@scottishpsc.org.uk

The students have now set up a blog

Student are also asking for anyone living or working in the area to visit them – show your support!

Having presented the petition, already signed by over 30 academics and 700 students, to the Principal of the University around 50 people have occupied Lower College Hall in protest at the University’s complicity in the Israeli occupation.

———-

We, the concerned students of the University of St. Andrews demand that the university condemns the illegal bombing and genocide in Gaza and Israel’s indiscriminate targeting of civilians. In particular, as an educational establishment we urge that it shows practical solidarity with the Islamic university of Gaza and other schools and colleges damaged during the bombing.

We believe that now is the time for the university to firmly and unilaterally cut all financial and commercial ties with any companies that in any way supports the apartheid state of Israel. The university has led the way in adopting a policy of ethical investment. Now is the time for students, staff and management to show that we do not lack the courage to condemn crimes against humanity, nor the generosity to help those who are in such desperate need. Specifically we demand that the university:

1. Immediately suspends and pledges not to renew its contract with Eden Springs, the Israeli water company which illegally steals water from the Golan Heights. It is not enough that this contract run out this year, it must be canceled now.
2. Investigates its million pound research contracts with defense companies and the ministry of defense. Centrally, that the university sets up a review seeking to find replacement funding for the research contracts with BAE systems and its extensive links to Accenture. Both have close ties with the apartheid regime of Israel.
3. Sets up a scholarship program for Palestinian Students and commits to a minimum of 10 scholarships. This would send out an important symbolic message that we will not turn a blind eye to the Palestinian students who are unable to study because of the attacks on educational infrastructure and constant state of terror which prevents students from attending university.
4. Organizes a collection on campus, including a broadcasting of the DEC appeal, for aid for Gaza, makes available non-monetary aid such as course books, desks etc. and also establishes links with the Islamic University of Gaza in order to find out how it might aid with reconstruction.
5. Following the letter signed by fifty medical students, that Bute medical school provides medical aid for Palestine in the form of medical equipment and drugs and through supporting organizations such as medical aid for Palestine (supported by Medsin)

In all of these measure the university might link up with other Scottish and English universities who are also adopting similar policies in order to develop a common, humanitarian and equitable approach to Israeli companies and those linked to its war machine and to the Palestinian people and its ravaged educational infrastructure.

Many thanks,
St Andrews Univeresity Student Occupation

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/18/support-st-andrews-university-students-in-occupation/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/17/capitalism-in-crisis/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/17/capitalism-in-crisis/#comments Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:07:18 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=325 No doubt you have heard the constant press stories about the latest bust cycle in capitalism.

East Dumbartonshire SSP hosted a discussion on the crisis.

The lengthy video of the discussion is below.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/17/capitalism-in-crisis/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/17/scrap-the-council-tax/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/17/scrap-the-council-tax/#comments Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:02:23 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=320 Unlike the SNP and Lib Dems the Scottish Socialist Party say we are against the Council Tax and do something about it. We launched two bills in Holyrood to scrap the unfair tax.

More details on our proposals to scrap the council tax are here

If you have the inclination the full paper explaining our proposed replacement is here

Reprinted below is an article from 2003 giving a brief explanation of the proposed replacement. If you want to express your anger at the Lib Dem and SNP u-turn over scrapping the despised tax you have the opportunity to vote SSP on March the 12th in Maryfield in Dundee.

Scrap the unfair Council Tax

This week the Scottish Socialist Party launched its campaign for the 2003 Scottish Parliament elections, with the fight to scrap the cruelly unfair Council Tax at the heart of its manifesto.

Countless numbers of ordinary Scots get into huge debts every year as they struggle to pay enormous Council Tax bills. Here Alan McCombes looks at how the SSP’s proposed new Scottish Service Tax would shift the burden of local taxation onto the shoulders of the rich rather than Scotland’s lowest paid workers.

Why the Council Tax is unfair

John and Anne live in a modest semi-detached home in Glasgow with their three young children.

Anne stays at home to look after their three-month-old son. John works as a porter in a local hospital where he is paid £5 an hour.

John has to work for six weeks to pay his annual Council Tax bill of £1,141.

Jack and Bridget live in a detached home with their two children. Bridget is a high-flying council executive earning £90,000 a year. Jack is the First Minister of the Scottish Parliament with a salary of £118,000 a year.

Jack has to work five days to pay his Council Tax bill of £1,545.

Then there is Ian who lives in a mansion in Aberdeenshire. Ian – or Sir Ian as he is now known – was Scotland’s top earner last year, raking in £600 million in salary, bonuses and stock market wheeling and dealing.

Ian has to work for 50 seconds to pay his Council Tax bill of £1,838.

The Council Tax is a blatantly unfair Tory tax, which reinforces Scotland’s grotesque divide between rich and poor.

It was concocted by the last Tory government as a fallback for the hated Poll Tax, which was destroyed by people power in the early 1990s.

It was like mugging an old woman, then giving her back a few coins for her bus fare home. Under the Council Tax, the maximum differential is three to one.

Someone living in a mansion in Pollokshields or Murrayfield will pay just three times more than someone living in a rundown flat in Possil or Craigmillar.

Beaufort Castle near Inverness is one of the most lavish private homes in Europe. Set in 180 acres of beautiful countryside, the 24-bedroom baronial castle is stuffed full of priceless paintings, ornate furniture and exquisite tapestries.

The castle used to be the family seat of one of Scotland’s most powerful clans, the Frasers. Now it is owned by Scotland’s richest woman, Ann Gloag, whose personal wealth runs to hundreds of millions of pounds.

In 1995, Ann Gloag bought Beaufort for £1.5 million. Today, it’s valued at £3 million.

Ann Gloag’s total Council Tax bill is £1,878.

It’s hard to imagine a more startling contrast between Beaufort Castle and the Scaraway flats in Glasgow. Here hundreds of families are packed into a few tower blocks.

Helena Duffy lives in the flats with her teenage daughter, who is a student. Helena earns £170 a week for 45 weeks as an ancillary worker in Stobhill Hospital. For her two-bedroom flat, 14 floors up, Helena pays £761 a year in Council Tax.

Ann Gloag’s home is worth 150 times more than Helena Duffy’s home. Ann Gloag earns 100 times more than Helena Duffy. Yet Ann Gloag pays just two and a half times more in Council Tax.

As well as discriminating directly against the poor, the Council Tax also discriminates against people who live in the poorest towns and cities.

For example, Council Tax for a Band D property in Glasgow is £1,141. In prosperous Wandsworth Council in London, Council Tax for a Band D property is just £402.

That means that a Glasgow family living in identical accommodation are forced to pay almost £15 a week more.

Even within Scotland, there are variations. People in the poorest urban areas such as Glasgow, Dundee, Inverclyde and West Dunbartonshire can pay hundreds of pounds a year more than those living in similar properties in more prosperous rural areas.

These variations lead to some extraordinary absurdities. For example, even though the Council Tax is supposed to be based on property values, some three-bedroom semi-detached homes in Glasgow are liable for higher Council Tax than the 100 apartment Balmoral Castle, set in 50,000 acres of prime land.

A radical alternative

The Scottish Socialist Party has launched a radical new alternative to the Council Tax.

The Scottish Service tax developed by Paisley University economists, Geoff Whittam and Mike Danson would be based on income.

It would redistribute wealth from high income households to low and average income households.

The Scottish Service Tax would be set at a uniform rate across Scotland, with the revenues allocated to local councils on the basis of need.

Over 77 per cent of Scottish homes would be better off. Many low income households would stand to save between £20 and £30 a week from the change.

At the other end of the scale, the wealthiest 16 per cent of households would pay more.

Many of these households have benefited from a cash windfall totalling tens of thousands per household since the abolition of the old rates system.

The bill for that windfall was picked up by low paid workers.

There are a a small number of households – around 7 per cent – who would neither gain nor lose from the Scottish Service Tax.

There are six compelling arguments for replacing the Council Tax with the Scottish Service Tax.

• It would redistribute wealth and income by shifting tens of millions of pounds from the rich to the poor.
• It would automatically exempt the lowest income households without a degrading and complicated means test.
• It would generate some extra, desperately needed cash to improve local services.
• It would be uniform throughout Scotland, which means that people who earn the same would pay the same, irrespective of where they live.
• It would be easy to collect and administer, in contrast to the bureaucratic minefield of the Council Tax.
• It is based on income rather than property, which means it does not discriminate against larger families.

How the Scottish Service Tax would work

The Scottish Service Tax would be levied on individuals according to their income. Each individual in the household would be assessed.

There would be five ascending rates of SST based on income.

• Rate 1) Nil. All income under £10,000 is exempt from Scottish Service Tax.
• Rate 2) 4.5 per cent. All income between £10,000 and £30,000 will be taxed at a rate of 4.5 per cent.
• Rate 3) 15 per cent. All income between £;30,000 and £50,000 will be taxed at a rate of 15 per cent.
• Rate 4) l8 per cent. All income between £50,000 and £90,000 will be taxed at a rate of 18 per cent.
• Rate 5) 20 per cent. All income above £90,000 will be taxed at a rate of 20 per cent.

To calculate your – or anyone else’s – Scottish Service Tax:

• Step 1: deduct the first £10,000 of income. (If you earn below £10,000 you will be automatically exempt without having to deal with complicated red tape or form filling.) If you are on £10,000 you will pay NIL.
• Step 2: divide all additional income from £10,000 to £30,000 by 100 and multiply by 4.5. Thus, if you are on £15,000 you will pay £225 (4.5 per cent of £5,000 = £225). If you are on £30,000 you will pay £900.
• Step 3: divide all further income from £30,000 to £50,000 by 100 then multiply by 15. Add on £900, the amount you will pay up to £30,000. Thus, if you are on £50,000 you will pay £3,900 (£900 plus 15 per cent of £20,000).
• Step 4: divide all income from £50,000 to £90,000 by 100 then multiply by 18. Add on £3,900, the amount you pay up to £50,000. Thus, if you are on £90,000 you will pay £11,100 (£3,900 plus 18 per cent of £40,000).
• Step 5: divide all income over £90,000 by 100 then multiply by 20. Add on £11,100, the amount you pay up to £90,000. Thus, if you are on £120,000 you will pay £17,100 (£11,100 plus 20 per cent of £30,000).

Scottish Service Tax as a proportion of total income

Percentage of income paid in Service Tax within each income range. (The figures are an average within each range. Those at the lower end of each range will pay less; those at the higher end will pay more; those in the middle will pay the figure cited.)

• Under £10,000: 0.0%
• £10,000-£15,000: 0.9%
• £15,000-£20,000: 1.9%
• £20,000-£30,000: 2.6%
• £30,000-£40,000: 4.4%
• £40,000-£45,000: 6.6%
• £45,000-£50,000: 7.2%
• £50,000-£70,000: 9.2%
• £70,000-£90,000: 11.8%
• Over £90,000: 16.1%

Winners and losers

Those who would gain:

Laurie, a self-employed actor, lives with her teenage son in a Band C tenement property in Edinburgh. Last year, she earned just under £10,000. Her Council Tax bill, including a 25 per cent single person’s discount is £667.50. Under the Scottish Service Tax she would pay NOTHING.
Saving: £55 a month.

Sarah and Ken live in an owner-occupied Band E property in Glasgow. Sarah earns £15,000 and Ken earns £17,000. Their Council Tax bill is £1,395. Under the Scottish Service Tax they would pay £540.
Saving: £71 a month.

Wullie is a call centre worker in Glasgow who earns £11,000 a year. His partner Jackie earns £8,000 a year. They live in a Band B flat and currently pay £887 a year in Council Tax. Under the Scottish Service Tax, they would pay £45.
Saving: £70 a month.

Dave is a firefighter in Dundee who lives in a Band D property with his partner Angela and their three children. Dave earns £21,500 and the household Council Tax bill is £1,079. Under the Scottish Service Tax they would pay £517.50.
Saving: £47 a month.

Those who would lose:

John and Fiona live in a Band G property in the Highlands. John is a GP who earns £62,000. Fiona is a part-time teacher who earns £13,000 a year. Their Council Tax bill is £1,565. Under the Scottish Service Tax they would pay £6,195.
Loss: £386 a month.

Nicola is a high-flying lawyer who lives on her own in a Band H property in Edinburgh. Last year she earned £143,000. Her Council Tax bill, including single person’s discount came to £1,500. Under the Scottish Service Tax she would pay £21,700. Loss: £1,683 a month.

Frederick is one of Scotland highest paid chief executives, earning £1,200,000 last year. He lives in a Band H property in Edinburgh with his partner and their children. Their current Council Tax bill is £2,002. Under the Scottish Service Tax they would pay £233,100 a year.
Loss: £19,258 a month.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/17/scrap-the-council-tax/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/16/try-the-war-criminals/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/16/try-the-war-criminals/#comments Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:11:58 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=316 A new campaign has been launched to indict Tony Blair in the Hague as a war criminal.

The petition text is below, follow the link to sign it.

To: President of the United Nations General Assembly and the UK Attorney General

BWCF – THE BLAIR WAR CRIMES FOUNDATION

To The President of The United Nations General Assembly, H.E. Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, and The Attorney General of the United Kingdom, and their successors in office.

RE ANTHONY CHARLES LYNTON BLAIR

We, the citizens of the United Kingdom and other countries listed, wish to uphold The United Nations Charter, The 1998 Rome Statute of The International Criminal Court, The Hague and Geneva Conventions and the Rule of International Law, especially in respect of:-

1. 1949 Geneva Convention IV: Article 146
   The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the grave breaches of the present Convention.
2. 1907 Hague Convention IV: Article 3
   A belligerent party which violates the provisions of the said regulations shall, if the case demands, be liable to pay compensation. It shall be responsible for all the acts committed by persons forming part of its armed forces.

We therefore call on you to indict Anthony Charles Lynton Blair in his capacity as recent Prime Minister of the UK, so long as he is able to answer for his actions and however long it takes, in respect of our sample complaints relating to the 2003 Iraq War waged by the UK as ally to the United States of America.

We are concerned that without justice and respect for the rule of law, the future for us and our progeny in a lawless world is bleak, as revealed by recent US declarations about the use of torture and the events of December 2008 in Gaza show.

The following are our sample complaints relating to the Iraq War 2003-2009:

1. Deceit and conspiracy for war, and providing false news to incite passions for war, causing in the order of one million deaths, 4 million refugees, countless maimings and traumas.
2. Employing radioactive ammunition causing long-term destruction of the planetary habitat.
3. Causing the breakdown of civil administration, with consequent lawlessness, especially looting, kidnapping, and violence, and consequent breakdown of womens’ rights, of religious freedom, and child and adult education.
4. Failing to maintain the medical needs of the populace.
5. Despoliation of the cultural heritage of the country.
6. Supporting an ally that employs ‘waterboarding’ and other tortures.
7. Seizing the assets of Iraq.
8. Using inhumane restraints on prisoners, including dogs, hoods, and cable ties.
9. Using Aggressive Patrolling indiscriminately, traumatising women and children and wrecking homes and property.
10. Marking bodies of prisoners with numbers, writing, faeces and other degrading treatment.
11. The use of cluster bombs and other indiscriminate weapons including white phosphorous on shake and bake missions.
12. Supporting indiscriminate rocket attacks from F16 fighter planes on women and children in Fallujah in Nov 2004
13. Supporting the shooting up of ambulances and medical personnel in Fallujah in Nov 2004
14. Supporting the expulsion of the entire population of Fallujah save for young men of military age, for a reprisal attack on that city in Nov 2004.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/16/try-the-war-criminals/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/16/maryfield-by-election-2009-leaflet/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/16/maryfield-by-election-2009-leaflet/#comments Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:44:25 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=309 Dundee SSP announced our candidate in the Maryfield by election Angela Gorrie.

The Maryfield by-election leaflet is now produced, the text is below with links to images of the leaflets. If you would like to help in the campaign by leafleting, canvassing or making a financial donation to help then get in contact with us. Unlike the SNP, Labour or Tories, we don’t have multi millionaire backers so anyway to help out would be appreciated.

Vote for the SSP

Leaflet front

Vote for the SSP the campaigning party

The Scottish Socialist Party campaigns on the streets of Dundee every week, not just during elections.

• The City of Dundee has one of the highest council tax rates in Scotland. The SSP has for years campaigned for it to be replaced by a tax based on income and ability to pay.
• Dundee has a student population of 17,000. The SSP says, Abolish all fees and loans. Bring back grants.
• The Scottish Socialist Party supports workers in struggle and during the local authority dispute last year stood firmly behind the council workers.
• When Post Office closures were announced in Dundee last year, the SSP mounted a campaign against the cuts.
• The Dundee SSP has taken direct action against the parking charges at Ninewells Hospital, with stalls both on the street and within the car park at Ninewells Hospital itself.
• The Scottish Socialist Party is the party committed to campaigning on behalf of working class communities.

To join the Scottish Socialist Party, or for more information, contact us at
PO BOX 6773
DUNDEE, DD1 1YL
or online at www.dundeessp.org

Leaflet back

Capitalism in crisis – Who pays?

The Scottish Socialist Party is an anti-capitalist party. We believe in people, not profit. As socialists, we fight for a different type of system where the needs of the many are put before the greed of the bosses. The current economic crisis is a result of the insatiable drive for profits of capitalism. While the bankers get obscene bonuses, we face redundancies, home repossessions and cuts in services. We believe it does not have to be this way:

• End the fat cat bonuses
• Stop all home repossessions
• Fully nationalise the banks under workers’ control

Wars and the attack on Gaza

The city of Dundee is twinned with the Palestinian town of Nablus, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967. During the recent Israeli attacks on Gaza, the SSP has helped to organise demonstrations in solidarity with the people of Gaza, medical aid and the boycott of Israeli goods. We oppose all imperialist wars and play an important role in the anti-war movement in Scotland.

For free public transport

The Scottish Socialist Party believes that free and efficient public transport would benefit both the people and the planet.

As the world’s climate heats up it makes sense to reduce our oil dependency and get cars off the road. We should also be investing in research and development of alternative sources of energy for the future.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/16/maryfield-by-election-2009-leaflet/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/11/dundee-ssp-maryfield-by-election-media-release/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/11/dundee-ssp-maryfield-by-election-media-release/#comments Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:58:20 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=306 At a time when the economy is being shaken to its foundations, retention of this vile tax will condemn those households most under pressure to face a tightening budget for years to come.

The effects will also be strongly felt throughout the public services where so called efficiency savings will increase.

Since it’s inception the SSP has fought to replace the hated Council Tax with the Scottish Service Tax, a system where the rich would be forced to pay their fair share.

While others have made promises, the SSP remains the only party to have put an alternative before the Scottish Parliament.

It is now clearer than ever that the SNP’s priorities lie with big business, not the voters of Maryfield.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/11/dundee-ssp-maryfield-by-election-media-release/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/11/ssp-salmond%e2%80%99s-cowardly-manifesto-u-turn/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/11/ssp-salmond%e2%80%99s-cowardly-manifesto-u-turn/#comments Wed, 11 Feb 2009 19:43:31 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=298 The Scottish Socialist Party today accused the SNP government of a cowardly manifesto u-turn, abandoning pensioners and low paid workers in favour of the rich and business interests who bankroll their party after Finance Secretary John Swinney told MSPs that legislation to introduce a local income tax would not be introduced in the current parliament.

This is not the first time the SNP has abandoned opposition to the Council tax and watched hundreds of thousands of pensioners and low paid workers who stood to benefit most from abolition of the Council tax lose out.

SSP national co-spokesperson Colin Fox said today;

The SNP’ cowardly manifesto u-turn means that the super rich businessmen like Brian Souter who bankroll the SNP with their bonuses will continue to benefit while pensioners, low paid workers and millions of those worst affected by the current economic recession, like the thousands of sacked Woolworths workers who would have at least enjoyed some financial relief with the reduction in their Council tax bills, will continue to be hammered by this unfair Tory tax

The SNP has again failed to capitalise on the majority support across Scotland for abolishing the Council tax. They have now given up the idea without a fight or even a vote in Parliament.

How different their approach to that of the Scottish Socialist Party on this issue.

The SSP, with just 6 MSP’s, were able to make far greater headway. Our Bill to abolish the Council tax, a bill which incidentally the SNP voted down [on Feb 1st 2006] attracted considerable support across civic Scotland.

The SNP’s subsequent local income tax plan with its regressive 3p across the board charge attracted much less enthusiasm. Our local income tax replacement by contrast was graduated to ensure the better off paid more as their income went up and the poorer were exempt.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/11/ssp-salmond%e2%80%99s-cowardly-manifesto-u-turn/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/10/dundee-ssp-announce-maryfield-by-election-candidate/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/10/dundee-ssp-announce-maryfield-by-election-candidate/#comments Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:23:50 +0000 agorrie http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=276

Angela Gorrie - SSP Candidate for the Maryfield By-Election

Dundee SSP have today announced Angela Gorrie, 21, as their candidate for the forthcoming Maryfield by-election.

Angela initially moved to the city to study at Dundee University, and now works in Customer Services.

While at university, she was highly involved in the successful campaign to remove Special Branch from campus, and was active in the fight to prevent cuts to university departments.

In the wider community, she has taken up issues from public service closures and the need to implement a free public transport system to calling for an end to the slaughter in Gaza.

Outside of politics, Angela is a keen musician and enjoys walking and watching football.

Angela is a member of the Scottish Socialist Party because she believes in People not Profit – whether that’s fighting for local services, supporting striking workers or resisting the SNP’s big business agenda.

For more information on the campaign please contact dundeessp@inbox.com

Promoted by Roderick MacGregor, on behalf of the Scottish Socialist Party, Suite 308/310, 4th Floor Central Chambers, 93 Hope Street Glasgow, G2 6LD

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/10/dundee-ssp-announce-maryfield-by-election-candidate/feed/ 2 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/10/fighting-back-against-redundancies/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/10/fighting-back-against-redundancies/#comments Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:42:49 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=272 By Richie Venton, SSP national workplace organiser

Hardly a day passes without new announcements of devastating job losses, sometimes outright company closures, at levels not seen since at least the 1980 recession.

Workers’ lives are being made misery after years of being told by those in charge of the boardrooms and the Labour Cabinet that all was for the best in the best of all possible systems.
Household names like Woolworths has shut up shop with 27,000 redundancies – on bare minimum state redundancy packages of a few hundred pounds.

MFI, Adams, Arran Aromatics, Findus Foods … the food and retail sector is in meltdown, with forecasts of one in ten shops being empty by the end of the year.

That spells disaster for tens of thousands eking out a living on wages mere pennies above the minimum wage.

Bankers – and bank workers

The finance sector has been bludgeoned by the chaos caused by irresponsible, profit-crazed bankers, who made incomprehensible fortunes by gambling on the capitalist markets. The government’s bailout of the bankers has prevented complete collapse, but has not eased up credit nor boosted the spending power of the working and middle classes.

So now taxpayers’ money is to be raided further for a second, even bigger bailout. But this does little to protect finance workers’ jobs; 47,000 have already been lost, with another 10,000 redundancies expected in the next three months.

A familiar scene over the years when companies go into administration or liquidation is the intervention of financial services giant KPMG. Now this outfit is ‘offering’ its 11,000 staff the glorious ‘choice’ of three months ‘sabbatical’ on 30 per cent pay, or a 4-day week, with accompanying pay cuts.

As the bottom falls out of the housing market, construction workers face mass layoffs. We have the obscene contradiction of a Scottish building worker joining the ranks of the homeless on the eve of Christmas because he lost his job and couldn’t keep up the mortgage!

Car industry crisis

Another major sector facing the worst crisis in at least 30 years is the car industry. With a slump in sales and production, car workers are made to pay the price through a cocktail of pay cuts and job losses.

Honda has just extended its two-month shutdown by a further two months: the Swindon plant won’t re-open for production until June! The 4,200 workers in the factory are to survive on 50 per cent wages for those four months.

In Sunderland, Nissan is chopping 1,200 of its 5,000 workforce. The same outfit recently got £6.2m of government funding for production of a new model; they have shifted production of the Micra to slave-labour India.

Manufacturing industry is in freefall. Factory output collapsed at an annual rate of 22 per cent in November. And there is little prospect of rapid recovery. For instance, the collapse over 2008 in the value of the pound against the Euro (down 30%) and the US$ (down 27%) will not on this occasion lead to an export-led recovery in the UK, because recession is blighting the USA, Japan and the whole of Europe.

Public sector slaughter

Right now the private sector is in the front line of job losses. But on top of the tens of thousands of jobs already lost in the public sector in recent years, a devastating new round of Thatcher-like cuts confront the NHS, local authorities and civil service in the next year or so. As the Scotland on Sunday recently reported:

UK Ministers have already warned that the tax cuts and fiscal stimulus plans being put into place to offset the worst of the downturn will have to be paid for – and soon. The pain will begin, say many, at the end of the next financial year, in April 2010.

SNP Ministers fear that as the Treasury starts to rein in spending, its budget will drop by £500m a year. Scotland’s NHS and councils are heading for a repeat of the 1980s cuts enforced by Thatcher.

Leadership needed

In the face of these devastating blows to entire communities, cities and regions, one of the most disappointing features is the lack of decisive, coordinated calls for action from the leadership of the trade union movement – through the likes of the TUC and STUC.

It is hardly surprising that many of the workers facing the scrap heap are initially shocked and stunned, rather than confident of taking action to save their jobs and livelihoods. But to change that and turn shock into anger and action requires leadership.

Too many of the union leaders are like rabbits mesmerised by the headlights of a lorry bearing down on them. Too often they merely echo the employers’ fatalistic words about the global crisis, without offering any radical alternative that would save and create jobs. In the case of a regional official of UNITE who organises the Nissan car workers facing 1,200 job losses, he stated “One firm can’t ask for a bailout; every firm would want one”!

Instead of portraying themselves as powerless in the teeth of the capitalist crisis, union leaders need to rally their members with events and arguments that give individual groups of workers some confidence that they are not on their own, that there is a point in fighting back.

Union rallies

In 1980, within months of Maggie Thatcher’s axe-wielding government being elected, the unions and Labour Party mobilised some of the biggest demos in the UK’s modern history, against unemployment. Hundreds of thousands marched, and this gave a boost to the fighting spirits of individual workforces facing mass redundancies.

As a minimum first step, the STUC, TUC and national unions should call national demos and rallies against unemployment; in defence of jobs; for a 35 hour week without loss of pay to create jobs; and for an increased minimum wage.

The combination of big united rallies, and fighting policies that point to a different alternative, would begin to turn the tide against the working class being made to pay for the capitalists’ crisis.

It would give courage to workers to use every means possible to save their jobs for future generations of workers – including workplace occupations to combat asset-stripping by bosses who often shift production to slave labour economies abroad – after getting £millions in grants off the government to set up shop in the first place.

Socialist alternatives

Socialist measures are not a luxury for May Day speeches; they are an indispensable weapon that should be wielded by the unions to mobilise their millions of members and their communities, and to answer people’s widespread fear that there is no alternative to mass redundancies.

For example, there is a drastic need for public sector house-building and renovation – and for universal home insulation to cut fuel bills and help combat climate chaos. Tens of thousands of jobs could thus be created, if the governments of Westminster or Holyrood had the political will. To carry out such a plan of public sector housing, the unions should argue for public ownership and democratic control of the construction industry.

If there is a glut in the car market that causes shutdowns and lay-offs, the unions need to fight for socially useful alternative production. For example, the developing world needs agricultural machinery that car plants could build. Closer to home, a vastly expanded free public transport system would create tens of thousands of transport workers’ jobs and cut poverty in the communities, as well as helping the environment. But it would also require building fleets of buses, trams, ferries and trains – a source of jobs for many facing a shaky future right now.

The bankers have been bailed out to save their skins – and those of their pals in the wider system. So the unions rightly call for investment to shore up the car industry. But why not call for public ownership and democratic control, instead of for subsidies to the bosses’ profits and debts?

The unions need to call public rallies that rouse the confidence of workers to fight back, but equally they need to expound measures that go beyond the straitjacket of capitalist production for profit. Public ownership of the banks, big retailers, energy, oil, transport, construction and manufacturing would be a means to plan the production of goods and services for public need.

Struggle – or starve!

Scotland faces an exponential growth of unemployment, with the Centre for Economic and Business Research predicting an 88 per cent rise in the numbers unemployed this year – from 121,000 to 227,000.

The Scottish economy is plunging towards its worst contraction since 1931. The rich elite who rule and ruin our lives are determined to make the working class pay for the crisis, driving us back to the 1930s if needs be.

The time is rotten-ripe for the unions and socialists to champion a different future, where work is shared out under a shorter working week, but without loss of pay; where the assets of companies that have been built up through generations of workers’ labour and taxpayers’ subsidies are taken into public ownership – but with democratic control.

A future where real jobs and training are restored, with new environmentally-friendly manufacturing a part of the answer. A socialist future where democratic needs and wishes are paramount, instead of millions being tossed in the dustbin for the protection of profits.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/10/fighting-back-against-redundancies/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/10/challenges-facing-the-unions-in-2009/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/10/challenges-facing-the-unions-in-2009/#comments Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:35:05 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=268 by Richie Venton, SSP national workplace organiser

Over the past few weeks, working people are as likely to have been wringing their hands in anxiety at job losses as listening to the ringing of jingle bells.

Daily news reports and pundits’ commentaries harshly confirm two central truths: capitalism doesn’t work, and the working class are being pounded with the devastating consequences, to make us pay for the crisis created by the capitalist elite.

For years we were told – by New Labour politicians in particular – that the days of boom and bust were over; that the government’s fiscal ingenuity, extended credit and the inherent glories of the market system would guarantee a rosy future.

Now economists are competing for who can come up with the gloomiest forecasts for 2009 and beyond.

Typical headlines and predictions are: 600,000 jobs to go in 2009 – 1,600 a day; 100,000 Scots to lose their jobs; Worst level of redundancies in 30 years; Employers hold back on redundancies until after Xmas…

The Scottish Council for Development and Industry has just predicted the first year of ‘negative economic growth’ in Scotland since 1980.

Closures

Recent weeks have seen closure of the iconic Woolies stores on every High St, with 27,000 workers thrown on the scrapheap after a century of trading.

Other household names in retail, the finance sector and the car industry have seen equivalent levels of job decimation and threats to workers’ futures.

The merger of HBoS with Lloyds threatens up to 40,000 finance workers’ jobs.

The retail sector is poised on the brink of a slaughter: Experian forecast 1,600 retailers will be driven out of business this year, leaving one in ten shops empty.

Yet that was precisely one of the areas that mopped up previous mass unemployment, replacing it with mass low pay for hundreds of thousands of retail workers struggling to survive on pay just pennies above the pathetic minimum wage. Now it’s back to mass unemployment.

In the car industry, workers suffer mass lay-offs, job cuts and enforced down time. Toyota, Honda and Nissan have shut down production for two months. Vauxhalls have ‘offered’ their 2,200 Ellesmere Port workers a 9-month ‘sabbatical’ – on 30 per cent pay!

Pay Cuts

The other favoured trick of employers being deployed is pay cuts. In JCB, for example, they told the workforce in November that unless they took a 10 per cent pay cut there would be further redundancies – on top of the 600 since August 2008. The GMB union lay down and accepted this demand, which cut pay by £50 a week through reduced hours… and then JCB bosses proceeded to impose another fresh bout of 400 redundancies, plus announcements of zero pay rise for 2009, and removal of the profit-related Xmas bonus (which was £1,000 in 2007). A classic proof that weakness invites aggression, as the bosses pile the crisis of their own creation onto the backs of workers.

Public Sector

The private sector may be first in line for the wave of closures and job losses, but the public sector faces the same future. Behind all the hype around the government’s November pre-Budget, they kept hidden their plans to cut public expenditure by £5billion a year from 2011. That spells a devastating assault on public sector jobs and the services they provide – and will be even more deep-cutting given that public spending on unemployment benefits is set to rocket meantime.

The trade unions and socialists face their biggest challenges for decades, in the face of the destruction of communities, workers’ lives and living standards through capitalist crisis. In fighting mass redundancies and closures, there are never any cast-iron guarantees of victory. But one thing is certain: weak-kneed acceptance of the bosses’ demands guarantees terrible defeats for workers and their families. Talk in some union circles about a Social Contract between unions, employers and the government is a cruel road to ruin, which has been travelled before, particularly in the 1970s.

Class divide

Instead of pretending that workers and their bosses have a common interest that should be turned into some kind of ‘Spirit of Dunkirk’, we need to expose the gulf dividing the interests of these two classes. For example, the top seven directors in Fords last year had salaries and pensions totalling £100million – whilst they refused to invest that same amount in their Southampton plant to build the new Transit van.

Low-paid workers would spend the extra money gained if the minimum wage was boosted to two-thirds male median earnings – that would be a minimum of between £8.50 and £9 an hour currently – whereas the same bosses who echo Gordon Brown’s talk of setting aside ‘prudence’ and spending our way out of the recession are also calling for a freeze on the derisory £5.80 minimum wage.

Pay cuts at JCB did nothing to stop further redundancies – but boosted the employers’ profit margins.

Instead of covering up the truth behind the recession, the mighty potential power of the organised working class in the unions should be mobilised around a massive campaign to halt mass redundancies. They need to fashion an armoury of fighting demands that could rally workers in united action for an alternative to job losses and pay cuts.

35 hour week – without loss of earnings

Instead of pay cuts through lay-offs, they should demand the work be shared out without loss of earnings.

The unions should resist the calls from Brown and Cameron to allow the UK continued opt-out from the European Working Time Directives, which is only a mild-mannered protection from being compelled to work more than an average 48-hour week (workers can still waive this right and work it ‘voluntarily’ under the opt-out clause). And instead put on a ‘drive for 35’ – a united union fight for a maximum 35 hour working week, which would create vast numbers of jobs … but critically demand this be without any pay cuts.

This would raise the whole issue: where have all the profits gone… and where have all the state subsidies gone? Companies have been bailed out with taxpayers’ money, development grants etc, but now want to protect their profit margins at workers’ expense (as NCR did in Dundee last year).

The unions should demand open, public scrutiny of the accounts of any company threatening job losses – to expose the fact many of them have enjoyed an orgy of profiteering for years, dividends to the big shareholders and obscene bonuses to the top bosses – whilst leaving thousands who created that wealth without a source of income.

Seize company assets

The unions should also demand that the government seize the assets of companies threatening closures, to stop corporate asset strippers, many of whom shift their production to slave-wage economies abroad. By taking over their assets the government could then employ the skills of workers to produce for social need.

Production for social need

Back in the 1970s many fighting union leaderships – particularly at shopfloor level – devised alternative schemes of useful production for their workplaces. In the 21st century this becomes even more vital as one of the fighting weapons against mass unemployment: the skills and machinery are often there, available for adaptation to socially useful and environmentally sustainable production.

For example, rather than rely on the bubble of crazy credit and artificially created consumer spending – both of which are now in freefall – the unions could advance a programme of useful public works and green production around public transport, social housing, universal insulation of homes, alternative sources of energy, etc.

Public ownership – not bailouts of profit

The government has bailed out the bankers. Demands are growing for government investment in the ailing car industry. But instead of subsidising the profits of the capitalist gangsters who have ruined people’s lives, the unions should campaign for public ownership of the machinery, buildings, production and distribution, under democratic control.

Such a socialist alternative, combined with militant forms of struggle, would encourage workers that there is something can be done in the face of the capitalist recession.

There is no one-size-fits-all method of struggle, but workplace occupations may arise again as a viable way of halting closures, provided union leaderships encourage a fight rather than whip up surrender. Otherwise the danger is that many will be overwhelmed, feeling that they are being devoured by a Juggernaut that cannot be halted as it closes down workplaces and smashes jobs.

The recession throws down the challenges: socialists in workplaces and unions need to encourage a vision of ways of halting the slaughter of livelihoods and shaping a socialist future in the process.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/10/challenges-facing-the-unions-in-2009/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/08/militant-trade-unionism-an-inspiration/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/08/militant-trade-unionism-an-inspiration/#comments Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:27:04 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=262 by Richie Venton & Eddie Truman

On Wednesday 28th January 2009 workers for Shaw’s construction contractors at Lindsey Oil Refinery in North Lincolnshire were told by their shop stewards that the new contractor, IREM, an Italian company that a part of the contract on LOR’s HDS3 plant had been awarded to, was refusing to employ UK labour.

IREM planned to house hundreds of Italian and Portuguese workers in accommodation barges in Grimsby harbour, bussing them to and from the plant every day. They were explicit in their policy of not hiring any UK workers as contractors.

This was particularly offensive to local skilled workers against the background of Shaw’s having issued 90-day redundancy notices in mid-November, meaning that they would become redundant mid-February, whilst IREM was herding Italian workers like cattle on a boat (rumoured to be a prison ship), keeping them well away from trade-unionised UK workers.

The entire LOR workforce, from all subcontracting companies, met and voted unanimously to take immediate strike action.

The following day over a thousand construction workers from LOR, Conoco and Easington sites descended outside Lindsey Oil Refinery’s gate to picket and protest.

Thus began one of the most remarkable episodes of industrial action in the UK since the uprising in the North Sea in the late 1990’s.

Workers the length of the UK began a series of unofficial and therefore illegal actions from Grangemouth oil refinery and Longannet power station in Scotland, Sellafield and Heysham nuclear plants, Fiddlers Ferry in Widnes to the Drax power station in Yorkshire.

In just 3 or 4 days the UK’s anti-trade union laws, some of the most oppressive in Europe, were swept aside by workers in key industrial facilities; power generation and oil refining.

Workers ignored and defied anti-union laws on balloting procedures, solidarity strikes and mass picketing, exploding the myth – perpetrated by far too many union leaders for decades – that the anti-union laws invented by the Tories and retained by New Labour are insurmountable.

The industrial action was not taking place in isolation. Across Europe workers have started to take action against the impact of the economic recession that threatens their jobs and wages and conditions.

For the left the strikes brought complications in the form of the slogan British Jobs For British Workers which although was never raised officially by the Lindsey workers became prominent from the beginning of the dispute.

Socialists have absolutely no truck with such slogans which promote division and can and have been used by the far right to promote their racist poison.

When Gordon Brown first used this phrase in November 2007 the SSP was unequivocal in condemning him for playing into the hands of the BNP and fuelling racism and xenophobia.

When the strikers used this slogan initially there is no doubt that there was a large element of throwing the slogan back in Gordon Brown’s face. Here was a situation in which UK workers were specifically being excluded from UK jobs.

But the slogan very quickly backfired; it was a gift to the BNP who had in fact been using it for a number of years and it allowed the media to deliberately and dishonestly portray the strike as overtly xenophobic and racist.

An interview conducted by Paul Mason which was used on Newsnight showed a striker making the point that “we can’t work beside them, they are coming in full companies”, referring to the segregated accommodation of the new contractors.

The BBC’s 10 o’clock news carried a story about the strike in which Government ministers accuse the strikers of xenophobia, the Newsnight clip is cut to the striker saying we can’t work beside them.

But the strikers themselves agreed demands at their mass meetings which never gained the oxygen of media coverage, but which cut across entirely the vicious distortions of their portrayal in the press. They demanded union rights for all workers, including immigrant labour; for union facilities for the Italian workers to make them an integral part of the trade union movement here; and for the implementation of the national construction and engineering industry agreement on the rate for the job, hours of work, breaks and conditions for all working in the UK – including the Italians.

Numerous first-hand accounts showed pickets giving short shrift to the unwelcome attentions of the fascist BNP – who after all sided with the Tories against the miners’ strike, and didn’t even think fire-fighters should have the right to strike.

Strikers demonstrated a core internationalism and solidarity with fellow-workers that bodes well for the future of this movement.

Union spokespersons repeatedly stated that this strike was not about race or nationality, not against Italian or Portugese workers, but against the Italian company that was excluding local, skilled workers from even getting an interview for jobs.

Strikers rightly saw this as an attempt by EU companies to exploit EU directives and court rulings on ‘posted workers’ to undermine and break hard-won national agreements and trade union organization.

Far from being instinctively against migrant workers from Italy or Portugal, many of the strikers are themselves ‘migrants’ – forced to uproot themselves to find work in other regions of the UK or even across the EU. So they will have felt particularly bitter towards Labour’s Lord Mandelson who in effect told them to get on their bikes and trek across Europe for work – because after all the EU regulations are for the workers’ benefit!!

Seumas Milne in The Guardian called it exactly right when he described the strike as a fight for jobs in the middle of a deepening recession and a backlash against the deregulated, race-to-the-bottom neo-liberal model backed by Brown for more than a decade which produced it.

In the Glasgow Herald Professor Gregor Gall described the strike as essentially being about the underlying issues of the race to the bottom under capitalism, the drive to neo-liberalism and the European Union’s deregulatory preference.

The specific European Union legislation and court rulings that were inevitably going to ignite labour disputes at some point is the EU Posted Workers Directive and the judgements by the European Court in cases including Viking, Laval and Ruffert.

The judgements have had the effect of undermining union negotiated collective agreements which are not recognised as `universally applicable’ in the UK.

For trade unionists this strike was waiting to happen and the response of workers across the UK has been inspirational.

Linda Somerville, formerly a member of the Unite National Executive, says that there were three things that stood out;

Firstly that the strike took place in the first place she says.

We have been told repeatedly that workers in the UK are no longer interested in militant trade union action. That clearly is not the case.

Secondly, the strength and depth of the secondary, solidarity, action was immense.

Workers in key industrial locations across the UK held mass meetings and took action.

Thirdly, the strikes were all against UK trade union law which is amongst the most oppressive in Europe. The legal tools were there for employers to launch a major assault on trade unions involved in the action but the sheer size of the strikes, protests and walk outs rendered the laws impotent.

Workers at Grangemouth refinery who were very quick to come out in support of the strike have been emboldened by recently winning their pension dispute with INEOS which saw them take strike action in April 2008.

For socialists and trade unionists this dispute has been an important test, with many more to come.

The SSP has repeatedly said that the economic recession and world wide crisis of capitalism will inevitably mean that workers will be pushed into struggle.

But these struggles will be complex and contradictory with the enemies of the working class seeking to muddy the waters and cause confusion.

For that reason it is vital that we take a sober and detailed analysis of the situation and in particular understand that in Europe it is the rabidly neo liberal and pro big business measures of the European Union that seeks to drive down wages and terms and conditions across the board that organized workers are now resisting.

We need to see the essence of the issues, even when accidental slogans cloud the image. Instead of ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ the SSP from the outset of this strike wave supported the strikers in demanding the right to work, the right to an equal chance of being employed, and for defence of the wages, conditions and union rights won by hard struggle in this harsh, dangerous industry.

The SSP from day one of this strike movement called on unions in the UK to urgently seek active links with unions in Italy, Portugal and the EU, to unite in action against attempts to divide and conquer, against the use of cheaper labour and worse conditions in the bosses’ race to the bottom.

We also need to raise demands such as trade union registers of unemployed workers in the industry as the pool for employment when jobs are on offer – at least a small step forward to the days when unions had elements of control over hiring and firing in a few of the better-organised industries, such as printing. That would help counter the conscious ‘race to the bottom’ of conditions by companies at home and abroad, by use of cheap, disorganized workers to undermine the rights won by unionised workforces.

This dispute highlights the broader issue of ownership of the power and energy industry, where multi-nationals seize advantage of the de-regulated, cheap-labour EU market – championed by Blair and Brown – to maximize profits – and the SSP’s counter-proposal of public ownership and democratic control of the industry, where workers’ elected representatives would have a direct input to all aspects of employment, production and planning.

The wave of tremendously courageous strike action seems, at time of writing, to have won a major climb-down from IREM, with UK workers to get 50 per cent of the jobs, but with no lay-offs for the Italian workers, and for all to get the nationally agreed wages, hours and conditions.

This example of militant trade unionism, in defiance of the laws, will inspire others to similar defences of their jobs and right to work – starting with others in the same industry.
The job of socialists and good trade unionists is to match the courage of these strikers and seek to influence the slogans and demands of their movement in a fashion that reduces confusion, limits the opportunities for the media and reactionaries to distort workers’ aims, and to consolidate the powerful elements of workers’ unity and internationalism already on show in this current powerful movement.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/08/militant-trade-unionism-an-inspiration/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/04/256/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/04/256/#comments Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:50:59 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=256 Students are currently occupying a building at Strathclyde uni over the war on Gaza. They have issued a list of demands and are holding a rally tomorrow. Their message follows after the address of their blog

Strathclyde University Occupation

50 Students are currently occupying srathclyde uni mccance building. a delegation is meeting the principal andrew hamnett to present the following demands :

1. cancel SU’s contract with eden springs
2. refuse investment from arms manufactyrer BAe systems and find alternative funding for the engineering dept.
3. fund and facilitate 50 scholarships for Palestinian students
4. solidarity with Gaza’s Islamic university – send a letter of support, twin SU with the Islamic uni and aid the rebuilding
5. condem the BBC’s refusal to show the DEC appeal, show the appeal in lecture theatre’s and hold a fundraising day on campus
6. stop Israeli academics promoting military research at SU the students of the occupation are appealing for solidarity , come down and support us! we will be here until our uni commits to supporting the Palestinians.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/04/256/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/03/by-election-in-dundee/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/03/by-election-in-dundee/#comments Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:15:28 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=254 Due to the resignation of a Labour councillor in Dundee for the Maryfield ward a by-election has been triggered. The BBC are reporting this as being held on the 12th March.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/03/by-election-in-dundee/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/01/peoples-charter/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/01/peoples-charter/#comments Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:48:04 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=251 In 1838 the Peoples Charter was published
It stipulated 6 demands:

• Suffrage for all men age 21 and over (not to be confused with Universal Suffrage)
• Equal-sized electoral districts
• Voting by secret ballot
• An end to the need for a property qualification for Parliament
• Pay for Members of Parliament
• Annual election of Parliament

Recently representatives of various left organisations in Britain have been meeting to discuss a new Peoples Charter. The latest version of it is below. Once finalised and agreed there will be a campaign to gain support for these basic aims. What do you think – when published will you sign it? Discuss below.

The People’s Charter – A Charter for Change

Britain is in the grip of an economic crisis. So is the world.
Every time there is a slump the politicians and financiers seem mystified as to how the system has failed. But boom and bust is the way it works. It’s not stable.

When the economy grows, banks, corporations and speculators, driven only by greed, gamble other people’s money in their global casino. When they lose ‘confidence’ in their profit making schemes and panic, the bubble bursts and we pay the price.

Redundancies throw hundreds of thousands on to the dole. Savings are lost. Homes are repossessed. Pensions lose value. Workers are put on short time. Wages and conditions are cut. Public services are slashed.

Government is spending billions of pounds of our money bailing the banks and big business out of their crisis.
Its not right and we didn’t vote for it.

Those £billions are our money. And our children’s. We want that money better spent.
We have launched a People’s Charter. It sets out what must be done to get out of this crisis and put the people first, before the interests of bankers and speculators.
We need one million signatures to show we mean business. So sign and support the Charter – on line, at work, in your community.

Together we can get the changes we need. Can we do it? Yes we can!

A fair economy for a fairer Britain. Take the leading banking, insurance and mortgage industries fully into democratic public ownership run for the benefit of all. Regain control of the Bank of England and keep interest rates low. Tightly regulate the City markets to facilitate lending and to stop speculation and takeovers against the public interest. Ban hedge funds, raids on pension funds, asset-stripping and corporate tax loopholes. Restructure the tax system so big business and the wealthy pay more and ordinary people pay less.

More and better jobs. Existing jobs must be protected. Public and private investment must create new jobs paying decent money. In particular in manufacturing, construction and green technology. More jobs mean more spending power to stimulate the economy, increased tax revenue and fewer people on benefit. Build full employment. Reduce hours, not pay, to create more jobs. Raise the minimum wage to half national median earnings and end the lower rate for young workers.

Decent homes for all. Stop the repossessions and keep people in their homes. Offer ‘no interest’ loans. Control rents. We need 3 million new homes. Give local government the power and money to build and renovate affordable quality homes and buy empty ones, ending the housing shortage, and creating jobs.

Protect and improve our public services – no cuts. Save public money: bring energy, transport, water, post and telecommunications back into public ownership. End corporate profiteering in health, education, social and other public services. Stop the EU privatisation Directives.

Fairness and Justice. Free heating and transport for every pensioner. Link state pensions and benefits to average earnings. Protect pension schemes and restore the lost value of private pensions. End child poverty by increasing child benefits and tax credits and providing free nurseries and crèches. Enforce equal pay for women. End racism and discrimination in all its forms. No scapegoating of migrant workers.

Invest in young people and give them a real stake in the future. Provide youth, community, arts and cultural centres, sports facilities, and clubs for all. Guarantee training, apprenticeships and education with grants for everyone and no fees.

Restore union rights to allow them the freedom to fight the crisis and to protect workers.
Build a secure and sustainable future for all.

End the cost of war in blood and money. Bring our troops home. Don’t waste £billions on a new generation of nuclear weapons. And beyond the current economic disaster, climate change threatens us all. Our future must be based on massive investment for a greener, safer world now. Debt is crushing millions of people forcing them to move and producing war, famine and misery. Get rid of the debt economy in Britain and cancel the debts of the poor of the planet.

A better future for all the people of the world.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/02/01/peoples-charter/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/31/glasgow-community-service-workers-strike-enters-fourth-week/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/31/glasgow-community-service-workers-strike-enters-fourth-week/#comments Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:42:00 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=247 They may be small in number, but the strike by 21 Glasgow council Community Service Workers has brought the service to a halt.

They have resorted to indefinite strike action since 6 January after months of fighting the council’s review of their jobs, which proposes increased hours of work, vastly increased responsibilities, but a pay cut of over £1,000 for many of them!

These workers deal with offenders in groups of five, carrying out community services as an alternative to prison. After the first week of their strike, the Labour council – which refuses to even speak to them let alone protect their pay through proper grading – has been forced to shut down the service to offenders for at least two weeks.

The strikers have toured round major council buildings, picketing them, winning warm moral and financial support from fellow-UNISON members, and they have lobbied the Labour councillors’ meetings. They have been boosted by support from other UNISON branches in Scotland, as well as the PCS civil service union national leadership.

Donald McNaughton, Community Service Superviser, told me the background and the strikers’ modest demands:

It goes back to the Council’s Pay & Benefits Review, where they promised that anyone losing out financially would get training and be promoted, that there’d be a Review and nobody would lose money.

UNISON and Community Service Workers fully participated in this Review, only to be told before Xmas that we would have an increased working week, with compulsory Sundays, and increased duties and responsibilities.

Up to now we worked four days over seven, a 32 hour week; got enhancements for working Saturdays and Sundays; and got £1,400 for driving council vehicles.

Now they want us to drive as part of our normal duties (without the payment), work compulsory Sundays, find placements for offenders, train them, assess their employability – all on top of our normal duties. For that we are to go on Grade PCS4, which still leaves us in detriment on pay.

For months we protested by sticking to our job roles, refusing to drive council vehicles or train offenders. The council hired black hackneys to ship the boys round the city, and simply refused to negotiate with us. So we had no alternative but to withdraw our labour.

We’re disgusted at the council, and its leader Stephen Purcell, for breaking their promises, and refusing to talk to us, when there are only 21 of us.

We work with squads of offenders. The separate workers who deal with individual placements of offenders have been upgraded to PCS5. That’s all we are asking for, the same grade 5 to prevent pay cuts.

We demand that the Council recognise we do a decent job, to respect us and talk to us. It’s not asking much for them to come and explain why they have broken their written promises to the unions in 2007.

An un-named council spokesman has said we are getting paid for what we do. That’s an insult.

They’re finding all this money for the Commonwealth Games. They are asking us to help clean up the city to make it attractive to tourists, yet they won’t pay us a fair rate or even negotiate.

We’re getting great support from colleagues in UNISON and other unions, moral and financial, and want to thank them for their support.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/31/glasgow-community-service-workers-strike-enters-fourth-week/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/31/ssp-statement-on-power-station-strikes/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/31/ssp-statement-on-power-station-strikes/#comments Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:20:43 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=243 The SSP fully supports all those workers in the construction and engineering sectors taking strike action in defence of their jobs and those of future generations. This dispute is not directed, as suggested by the media, against foreign workers but rather against anti union employers and their refusal to employ UK labour for sub contracted work.

The SSP supports the free movement of Labour and vehemently opposes racist immigration controls introduced by New Labour. At the same time however we unequivocally support the demand that UK workers should enjoy equal consideration for work on these contracts. We reject efforts by organisations such as the BNP to divide workers up on the basis of race or nationality.

This is fundamentally a dispute to defend jobs, wages and working conditions and it requires the unity of all workers, of all nationalities, in rejecting multi national employers’ attempts to slash jobs, wages and conditions and trades union rights.

We urge UK unions to support those defending their right to work and to urgently meet with unions in Italy and Portugal to build a unified approach capable of halting employers efforts to divide and exploit workers across Europe.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/31/ssp-statement-on-power-station-strikes/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/28/mark-steel-on-the-bbc-gaza-decision/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/28/mark-steel-on-the-bbc-gaza-decision/#comments Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:07:02 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=238 Mark Steel on the BBC Gaza appeal

The BBC are right. If they broadcast that appeal for food and medicine to be sent to Gaza it would be taking sides. The Israeli Defence force could legitimately say “We’ve gone to enormous lengths here to kill people, then you go and help to keep them alive. How do you square that with your remit to be neutral?”

So the BBC needs to look at other areas in which its ‘impartiality’ could be called into question. To start with they’ll have to scrap Crimewatch, which clearly takes the side of the murdered against the interests of murderers. Maybe they could get round this by having a new balanced Crimewatch, in which the police plea for witnesses to a crime, but then the presenter says “Next tonight – have you seen this man? Because Big Teddy and his gang are desperate to track him down and do him in for ringing us up earlier. So if you have any information please call us, where Nobby the Knife is ready to talk to you in complete confidence.”

Please donate something to the Disaster Emergency Appeal and while you are at it complain to the BBC about their deplorable decision to not screen the appeal.

The appeal in question

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/28/mark-steel-on-the-bbc-gaza-decision/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/25/raffle-has-been-drawn/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/25/raffle-has-been-drawn/#comments Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:11:23 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=236 The SSP raffle has been drawn and yet again a winner was from a Dundee ticket. Many thanks to everyone local who helped raise some funds.

1st prize-Acoustic 26 ins HD LDC TV
Winner R Reid – Glasgow

2nd prize-Samsung mini DVD camcorder
Winner K. Mc Nulty – East Kilbride

3rd prize- Bush desktop micro hi fi
Winner Ml Deighan – Paisley

4th prize- Prize –I pod shuffle
Winner N .Watson – Lasswade

5th prize – Acoustic DVD Player
Winner J Connor – Dundee

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/25/raffle-has-been-drawn/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/23/tayside-for-justice-in-palestine/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/23/tayside-for-justice-in-palestine/#comments Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:20:49 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=231 A number of people have found our blog looking for information on Tayside for Justice in Palestine.

If you wish to contact Tayside for Justice in Palestine, the details are:

Email: taysideforjusticeinpalestine@gmail.com
Phone or Text: 07803 052239

Alternatively you can post here and we can pass on to the organisation.

The text from their latest leaflet is below. Several members of Dundee Scottish Socialist Party are involved in the organisation.

The Killing has stopped but the fight goes on

As predicted, the slaughter has stopped in time for the inauguration of President Obama. Now, when the children of Gaza ask their parents when they are going to die, they can be given a little reassurance. But this is only a ceasefire. Over 1,000 have died including 400 children, thousands of lives have been destroyed, Gaza lies in ruins, and the Israeli army could strike again at any time. Moreover, beyond the immediate horror, the political oppression, of which this war was a particularly bloody part, still continues. Israel has strangled the Gaza economy and sealed its borders so that it cannot even receive essential medical supplies; they show no signs of lifting their embargo. Meanwhile, on the Palestinian West Bank, Israel continues to take the best Palestinian land for Israeli settlements and to seal the Palestinians behind a concrete apartheid wall. Our campaign must go on to end the illegal occupation of Palestine and force Israel to withdraw to its 1967 borders, as ordered by UN resolutions. We cannot forget the Palestinians just because Gaza no longer dominates our TV screens.

What can we do?

Boycott Israeli Goods

Stop buying produce from Israel or from the West Bank (which means the illegal Israeli settlements). Check the label, especially when buying citrus fruits and fresh herbs. This boycott is an international movement and it is growing. Wear one of our stickers to show what you are doing. See Big Campaign

Write to your MP and MSP and MEP asking them to put pressure on Israel to open Gaza’s border and withdraw from the occupied territories. Government action should include ending the export of arms to Israel; ensuring an immediate end to the favourable status awarded to Israel in the EU; and firm diplomatic pressure on the United States, which effectively underwrites the Israeli state.

Sign our petition

Contribute money for medical aid to Gaza. See Medical Aid For Palestine

Find out more about what is going on and play a part in counteracting Israeli propaganda

Some useful websites

Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Scottish Jews for a Just Peace

Jews for Justice for Palestine

Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Palestinian Mothers

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe

Leave a contact email so we can alert you to further actions

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/23/tayside-for-justice-in-palestine/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/22/another-attack-on-democracy/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/22/another-attack-on-democracy/#comments Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:10:08 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=225 The following is a statement released by Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!

Public report of police harassment and charging of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! street protest. Dundee, Saturday 17th January 2009.

The day had started very well with a militant, angry and noisy protest march against Israel’s attack on Gaza going into Dundee’s city centre. After the rally, activists from Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism, one of whom had spoken at the event, set up a protest stall in the Murraygate to continue building support for the people of Gaza and Palestine.

Once again the city centre ambassadors demanded we remove our stall as we did not have permission or insurance. Once again we told them no! The police were called this time and proceeded to threaten the comrades with Breach of the Peace or causing alarm. It was suggested they go and consult their law books and superior officers as we were not backing down to such contrived charges. They appeared to accept this but returned an hour later with a van and told those present that this time they had come up with obstruction as a charge.

Third time lucky for them maybe but the comrades then began speaking to the gathering crowds explaining what the police were doing and asking them to stay around as witnesses, sign the petitions and support political rights. People were told to check out the YouTube videos about the cops in Liverpool trying to close down protest there and to check out Dundee Arrest on YouTube where a comrade was violently assaulted and arrested by Tayside police for handing out leaflets about Cuba. Speakers explained that when people start to protest here about unemployment, low wages and rent rises that the same cops would be out attacking their rights too. We were speaking out for the people of Gaza who were dying at that moment and we would not allow the police to silence us.

Talk about obstruction! – by now there was 1 police van and 100 people prepared to listen to speeches and chants about free speech. Comrades from the Socialist Workers Party joined the protest having been harassed for doing political work for Gaza that week.

By now the police action was a very public affair and they were not looking so comfortable. They charged Michael with obstruction under Section 53 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982. As Michael explained to the youth present this was one of the hated Margaret Thatcher’s laws and it was no surprise that her favourite bobbies were digging it up now!

53. Obstruction by pedestrians.
Any person who, being on foot in any public place—

• (a) obstructs, along with another or others, the lawful passage of any other person and fails to desist on being required to do so by a constable in uniform, or
• (b) wilfully obstructs the lawful passage of any other person shall be guilty of an offence and liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding £500

Michael was threatened with arrest if the stall was not immediately removed and after consulting with the comrades and the crowds it was decided to call a rally in the Murraygate at 12 the following Saturday to protest the harassment and charges.

We call on everyone to openly and publicly challenge this attack on democratic and political rights. Get up! Stand Up! Stand Up For Your Rights!

Defend Democratic Rights!

no to Police interference!

Rally at Murraygate. 12 Noon, Dundee, Saturday 24 January 2009.

Contact the campaign on frfiscotland@yahoo.co.uk

Venceremos!

We Shall Win! Shall Win!

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/22/another-attack-on-democracy/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/20/bbc-coverage-of-dundee-solidarity-action-with-gaza/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/20/bbc-coverage-of-dundee-solidarity-action-with-gaza/#comments Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:15:54 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=222 The BBC had a short article about the demo in Dundee. There was apparantly good coverage in the Sunday Post too. See Previous article Dundee shows solidarity with Gaza

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/20/bbc-coverage-of-dundee-solidarity-action-with-gaza/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/19/any-more-blank-cheques/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/19/any-more-blank-cheques/#comments Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:43:29 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=217 Before the Iraq War, Brown famously said that the money was available no matter what. This was just after giving a tiny increase to the state pension claiming the money wasn’t there.

In parliament and elections the SSP made a number of small demands, £50million for universal Free School Meals for example. We were voted against as the money wasn’t there.

After the £50billion bailout Darling has just given a blank cheque for more bailouts!

Where is all this money when people demand a pension where they don’t have to choose between heating and food? Where is the it all when the Unions demand a living minimum wage? Where is it when women demand a wage equal to men from their employers (several councils still haven’t implemented this policy made law 30 years ago)? Where is it when Post Offices like the ones in Lochee and Nethergate are closed?

The money has always been there, but successive Tory governments, both Conservative and New Labour have not had the inclination to spend it in tackling poverty.

We call shenanigans! Get involved in fighting for money to bail out your community, your school, your student debt. Get involved in the Scottish Socialist Party.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/19/any-more-blank-cheques/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/19/dundee-ssp-branch-meeting-on-palestine/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/19/dundee-ssp-branch-meeting-on-palestine/#comments Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:01:42 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=213 Our branch meetings are generally open for friends and supporters and people who want to find out more. This week’s branch we are having a political discussion on the situation in Palestine led off by John McAllion. The meeting is at the DVA on Constitution Road from 7:30, but please contact us if you wish to attend, space is limited due to room size.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/19/dundee-ssp-branch-meeting-on-palestine/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/18/ssp-leftbanker/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/18/ssp-leftbanker/#comments Sun, 18 Jan 2009 16:14:09 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=210 Quietly bubbling away for a couple of months has been the SSP LeftBanker site. An analysis of the credit crunch and the various effects on the economic system is gradually being added to it as time goes on. According to the Left Banker, we are now entering the second wave of the crisis.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/18/ssp-leftbanker/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/17/dundee-demonstration-about-gaza/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/17/dundee-demonstration-about-gaza/#comments Sat, 17 Jan 2009 17:28:11 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=201 Around 800 people turned out today for a demonstration in solidarity with the people of Gaza. The demo was probably the largest local one since the Labour warmongers came to town for their annual conference. To keep updated about local events keep checking this site and sign up for the Tayside For Justice In Palestine list.

Moving towards Overgate

Dundee SSP Banner

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/17/dundee-demonstration-about-gaza/feed/ 5 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/15/more-info-on-demo-in-dundee/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/15/more-info-on-demo-in-dundee/#comments Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:46:41 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=196 The March is this Saturday (17th) gathering outside the new university building (the big white one) at the corner of Hunter Street and Old Hawkhill at 11.30 and marching to a rally in the city square.

Press Release from Tayside for Justice in Palestine

This Saturday, 17th January, the people of Dundee will be marching to show their support for the one and a half million people of Gaza, and their condemnation of Israel’s brutal war and policy of oppression. Even before the military attacks, the Israeli blockade had turned Gaza into an open prison. Now it is at the mercy of one of the world’s most well equipped armies, and its people have nowhere to hide. Over 1,000 Palestinians have died, thousands more are seriously wounded and the psychological damage is immeasurable. At the same time, while any death is too many, the total of 13 Israeli dead has been fewer than those killed on Israeli roads, and cannot even begin to justify what is happening.

This is an opportunity for Dundee to demonstrate the importance of its well-established links with Palestine, and the march follows on from two weeks of vigils and meetings in response to the current crisis.

The march will assemble at the New University Building at the corner of Hunter Street and Old Hawkhill at 11.30 a.m. and terminate in a rally at the City Square.
Speakers to be confirmed.

Poster for Dundee demo

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/15/more-info-on-demo-in-dundee/feed/ 1 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/14/dundee-demonstration-on-saturday/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/14/dundee-demonstration-on-saturday/#comments Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:32:46 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=193 Demonstration in Dundee against the massacre in Gaza.

Assemble 11.30am Saturday 17th January,

New Teaching Block, Old Hawkhill, (Dundee University)

March to City Square

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/14/dundee-demonstration-on-saturday/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/12/democracy/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/12/democracy/#comments Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:55:39 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=189 One of the most repeated claims by the pro-Zionist lobby to justify the oppression of the Palestinian people is that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.

Israel disqualifies Arab parties

Israel’s election authorities have voted to ban two of the three main Arab political parties from running in next month’s general elections.

One Arab committee member said it best

They are accusing us of supporting the terror while they are killing children in Gaza

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/12/democracy/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/12/new-book-by-dundee-uni-rector-craig-murray/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/12/new-book-by-dundee-uni-rector-craig-murray/#comments Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:34:54 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=186 After his spineless publishers gave in to legal threats from mercenary Tim Spicer, Craig Murray has pushed his latest book online for free.

The Catholic Orangemen of Togo and Other Conflicts I Have Known is his autobiography from 1998 to 2002. It is also available to buy online through links on his site.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/12/new-book-by-dundee-uni-rector-craig-murray/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/11/scottish-socialist-youth-blog/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/11/scottish-socialist-youth-blog/#comments Sun, 11 Jan 2009 16:40:14 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=183 The Scottish Socialist Youth have created a new blog at ssyleftfield.blogspot.com/.

SSY fights alongside the SSP, Scotland’s Socialist Party to build a movement that will defend young people and create a future for them worth fighting for. If you agree with what we’ve said – or even just most of it! – then join SSY and help us fight against poverty and war, or leave the blog a few comments/give us love on bebo

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/11/scottish-socialist-youth-blog/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/11/stop-the-war-meeting-in-dundee/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/11/stop-the-war-meeting-in-dundee/#comments Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:20:57 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=180 Stop the War Coalition have organised a rally/public meeting in Dundee for next week. We got full details yesterday, so please try to attend if free.

Tuesday 13th January, 7:30PM, Queens Hotel, Dundee

Chair: Mike Arnott (Dundee Trades Council)
Speakers:

• Keir McKenchnie (Chair, Stop the War Scotland)
• Nadia El-Nakla (Tayside Justice for Palestine)
• Louise Whiteside (Student Activist)

This meeting is to organise support for the Palestinians and get people active in the movement against it.

The following week Dundee SSP will be having an open branch meeting on the situation to discuss the politics behind the situation. Supporters and friends of the SSP are welcome to attend, more details will follow once confirmed.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/11/stop-the-war-meeting-in-dundee/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/11/how-israel-brought-gaza-to-the-brink-of-humanitarian-catastrophe/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/11/how-israel-brought-gaza-to-the-brink-of-humanitarian-catastrophe/#comments Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:11:42 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=175 Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim describes the situation in Gaza and the political conclusions it made him draw.

The only way to make sense of Israel’s senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders”. I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel’s vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration’s complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.

I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the Green Line. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the June 1967 war had very little to do with security and everything to do with territorial expansionism. The aim was to establish Greater Israel through permanent political, economic and military control over the Palestinian territories. And the result has been one of the most prolonged and brutal military occupations of modern times.

This article has been circulating around left e-mail lists and discussion boards but really should be read more widely.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/11/how-israel-brought-gaza-to-the-brink-of-humanitarian-catastrophe/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/11/i-accuse/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/11/i-accuse/#comments Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:06:59 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=171 There is an excellent article on the situation in Gaza at the SSP Renfrewshire blog

The full story of Israel and Palestine has very little to do with Qassam Rockets fired from Gaza into Sderot as the Cartoon Papers would have us believe. The current crisis, does not have its roots in the election of Hamas in the Municipal Elections of 2005 as some of the so-called Quality Press would have us believe, certainly not in the conflict between Hamas and Fatah. This current crisis is the latest stage in an old conflict, a conflict that reaches way back, passed the Second Intifada and the First Intifada in the eighties, passed the Yom Kippur War in the 70’s, passed the six-day war in 1967 and the infamous United Nations Resolution 242. It reaches passed the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, passed the incompetent and disastrous Post WW1 British Mandate, destructive as it was. The roots of this conflict, this death and this destruction, including the bombing today of a UN run school only today, stretch way back before any of us were even born, right back to an idea that festered in the latter half of a 19th Century Europe plagued by an unspeakable anti-semitism.

Follow the link to read the entire article.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/11/i-accuse/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/08/we-are-all-gazans/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/08/we-are-all-gazans/#comments Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:19:03 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=166 A message from The Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions

Sisters and Brothers:

The PGFTU has been working at all levels in Palestine and in its international relations to mobilize international support for peace in the region. This is the ultimate goal for our working families in Palestine, who labored in every way possible to bring about an end to the Israeli occupation of all Palestinian territories. This occupation is the longest and worst in the modern history.

Over the years and even at this moment, these efforts have been met only with terrorism against our people by the Israeli army of occupation which has indiscriminately destroyed homes and worksites, slaughtered our people, confiscated our land, established and expanded illegal settlements, and limited the movement of workers who are only trying to feed their families. These measures have affected every member of Palestinian society.

The recent construction of the Apartheid Wall stands as a symbol of the extent of Israel’s brutal aggression against the Palestinian people and denial of their legitimate rights, dignity and human needs.

We call upon all peace-loving people in the world:

You are now witness to the criminal aggression by the Israeli army in its offensive in the Gaza Strip, bringing a new wave of killings and massacres against the Palestinian people by Israel as the occupying state. These are war crimes according to international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions.

As our families in Gaza (the poorest in the Middle East) are being slaughtered nonstop for a week now, many of us are reliving what occurred in the summer of 2006 during the Israeli aggression against the people of Lebanon.

We witnessed then as we experience now waves of support and solidarity and similar anger and energy against this brutal injustice. We cannot afford to let this surge of support pass us by without utilizing the moment to build our movement to face future challenges. The most important thing is to be aware and equipped.

We urgently ask you and your sister labor organizations to help us spread the message that

WE ARE ALL GAZA – that this war is against all poor workers and families of the world. These are not just crimes against the people of Palestine. They are crimes against humanity.

• Help us create a strong voice for the working families of Gaza by building coalitions with unions, faith groups, antiwar movements and all social justice organizations.
• We join you in the hope that in the election of Barack Obama, he will fulfill his reputation as a pro-union antiwar candidate, and that he understands that the CHANGE he spoke about during the campaign must include a fundamental change in U.S foreign policy so that FREE GAZA. …FREE PALESTINE becomes more than just a slogan.
• We support and encourage your Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) efforts against Israel around the world, but especially in Europe and most particularly in the United States as a response to the harsh economic conditions, violations of labor and human rights, and other forms of oppression imposed by the illegal and immoral Israeli Apartheid occupation.
• We ask you to stop US aid to Israel. This becomes not only necessary but also a duty of international solidarity among labor unions around the world. It is US government aid that provides Israel with the weapons of oppression and US government support that enables them to use those weapons against our people.
• We ask you to be an active player in raising funds to meet the bare necessities of food, medicine and medical supplies for the people of Gaza.

[See below for information on how to send financial contributions to the PGFTU for Gaza Aid]

With your solidarity with our struggle for human rights and justice, we can transform this moment of crisis into a turning point for an end to the brutal occupation and a step toward the liberation of the people of Palestine.

With the will and determination of all the people, we can say FREE PALESTINE … YES WE CAN.

Manawell Abdel Al, Executive Committee Member
Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU)

Al- Rahbat Street
PO Box 1216
Nablus- Palestine

Website: www.pgftu.org, website in English
E-mail: mailto:pgftu@pgftu.org

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/08/we-are-all-gazans/feed/ 1 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/08/perth-meeting-on-palestine/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/08/perth-meeting-on-palestine/#comments Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:12:31 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=163 Gaza Emergency Mobilisation in Perth
 
Thursday, 15th Jan, 7.15 to 9.15 

Chapterhouse, St Ninian’s Cathedral, Perth (entry via courtyard to the North, reached through small lane off Atholl St, near Dunkeld Rd traffic lights)
 
Chair: Bishop Michael Hare Duke
 
Speaker: from Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign
 
Aim of Meeting: to create a context for concerned people in Perth to consider ways we can work together to ’raise our game’ in response to this ratcheting tragedy.

Among responses we will be discussing together are:

• self- and other-education
• writing to public officials and organisations
• soliciting humanitarian donations
• encouraging solidarity actions such as consumer boycotts (NB helped change the other Apartheid).

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/08/perth-meeting-on-palestine/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/08/bravery/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/08/bravery/#comments Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:33:41 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=160 This amazing video shows a Palestinian woman using non violent direct action techniques to prevent an Israeli soldier shooting at kids. A small reminder that he isn’t shooting at targets but human beings.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/08/bravery/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/05/demo-in-edinburgh-saturday-19th-january/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/05/demo-in-edinburgh-saturday-19th-january/#comments Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:43:32 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=150 A Scotland wide demo on Gaza has been called for Saturday 10th in Edinburgh.
We need to have as many comrades on it as possible.

Stop Israel’s crime against humanity

Scotland-wide Demonstration

Edinburgh

Saturday 10 January 2009

Assemble 12:30pm East Market Street (behind Edinburgh Waverley Train Station)

March through the city centre and to the US Consulate.

Bring in-date medicine for Gaza, and spare shoes.

Supported by Stop the War Scotland, Glasgow and Edinburgh, Pauline McNeil MSP, Sandra White MSP, Muslim Association of Britain, Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Glasgow Palestine Human Rights Campaign, Lebanese Community Scotland, Scottish Afghan Society, Scottish Islamic Foundation, Scottish Friends of Palestine, and others to be confirmed.

Coaches departing Glasgow, George Square, Saturday 10 January 10:30am. To reserve seats call: 0791 2348 366 or email: glasgowstopwar@gmail.com

For details on transport to Edinburgh from other parts of Scotland, please contact 07840101589.

—-

In Dundee:

At a meeting today at Brown Street Mosque, a few important decisions were taken:
Activists’ meeting, Wed, 7th Jan, 6.30 p.m. at YY centre (across from the Mosque, Brown St.)
Saturday, 10th Jan, March to Dundee City Square, 12 noon. More info re starting point etc. to follow.
This has been postponed and a vigil is being held in Dundee City Centre on Friday 2:30pm-6pm instead.

Also decided at meeting, to name campaigning organisation: Tayside for Justice in Palestine. Also, 26 people from Tayside travelled on hired bus to demo in Edinburgh on Sat. (Many more made their own way). Excellent response. We’ll keep up the pressure.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/05/demo-in-edinburgh-saturday-19th-january/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/01/ssp-delegation-to-cuba/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/01/ssp-delegation-to-cuba/#comments Thu, 01 Jan 2009 12:42:16 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=144 A few months back the SSP were invited to send a delegation to visit Cuba and have decided to do so in February.

A number of people opted to go and they have set up a blog detailing the arrangement of the trip, and I imagine afterwards details of what they did.

They are planning on taking across a number of items as gift packs for people/groups they meet about the SSP and Scotland. One item that was sought after was some Burns poems in Spanish. Eventually Gerry managed to track down To a Mouse and A red red rose.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2009/01/01/ssp-delegation-to-cuba/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2008/12/31/courier-report-on-dundee-demo/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2008/12/31/courier-report-on-dundee-demo/#comments Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:11:20 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=141 The Courier carries a report today on the vigil in the city square.

Edith Constable

We demand an immediate ceasefire, the lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza, an increase in the flow of humanitarian aid, the re-opening of negotiations, an end to the expansion of Israeli settlements, the withdrawal by Israel to 1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Nadia El-Nakla

The vigil is not intended to debate politics. The aim is to highlight the recent inhumane abuse of power, violence and excessive force along with the humanitarian crisis that faces 1.4 million people in the Gaza Strip.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2008/12/31/courier-report-on-dundee-demo/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2008/12/31/bus-to-demo-on-saturday/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2008/12/31/bus-to-demo-on-saturday/#comments Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:06:38 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=139 Show solidarity with people of Gaza.

Bus leaves Discovery Point (opposite Rail station) 10.30 a.m. Saturday. Leaves Edinburgh 3 p.m. arrive back in Dundee 4.30 p.m. £10 waged, £6 concession.

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2008/12/31/bus-to-demo-on-saturday/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2008/12/30/vigil-in-dundee/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2008/12/30/vigil-in-dundee/#comments Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:27:46 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=135 Around 300 turned out to a vigil in the city square today called at 24 hours notice.

Group in City Square

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2008/12/30/vigil-in-dundee/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2008/11/16/ssp-winter-raffle-2008/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2008/11/16/ssp-winter-raffle-2008/#comments Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:56:02 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=129 The Dundee Branches now have tickets for the SSP’s Winter Raffle.

As usual the prizes are excellent:

1st prize: Acoustic 26 inch LCD HD ready TV
2nd prize: Samsung Mini DV Camera
3rd prize: Bush Desktop micro hi-fi
4th prize: iPod Shuffle
5th prize: Acoustic DVD player

Tickets are £1 each, available from SSP stalls or members, contact us if you would like some.

Two years ago 2 of the 3 prizes went to Dundee ticket books and last year one ticket went to a Dundee book. Can we make it prizes three years in a row?

]]> http://dundeessp.org/blog/2008/11/16/ssp-winter-raffle-2008/feed/ 0 http://dundeessp.org/blog/2008/11/13/a-message-from-the-fat-cats-protection-league/ http://dundeessp.org/blog/2008/11/13/a-message-from-the-fat-cats-protection-league/#comments Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:23:19 +0000 alangdundee http://dundeessp.org/blog/?p=126

We all know that it is so easy for hard times to suddenly transform our lives for the worse in an amazingly short period of time.

It is so easy to go from well-being to poverty in the blink of an eye.

That is why I can justify you all giving so generously to the Fat Cats Protection League.

Download the parody advert here

Assemble at Balmossie at 11.00 a.m.

Public Rally at St. Aidan’s Hall.

Speakers: Matt Wrack, Fire Brigade Union general secretary and Ken Ross, Scottish secretary.

The fire service wants to remove a night-time shift at the station and replace it with a retained crew as part of a structural overhaul that would see new appliances stationed in Perth and Forfar.

Final Result:
Kevin Dunion: 941
Colin Fox: 515
Sir Chay Blyth: 401

The contest was by Single Transferable Vote, but could not find teh full result anywhere, assume that Kevin Dunion won on the first round.

Article in Courier

Colin is the joint national spokesperson for the SSP and one of our former MSPs.

According to the Courier the other nominees are:

Sir Charles Blyth: the first person to sail non-stop westwards around the world in 1971.

Kevin Dunion: the first Scottish Information Commissioner, who is based in St Andrews.

St. Andrews university site article

Colin Fox Campaign site

There is an article focusing on the SSP in today’s Courier

And a Profile on the SSP website

The election is due to take place on the 6th November so that Labour getting kicked out again can be buried by the news of the American Presidential election.

The parade was attended by about 200. Banners included the local FBU and PCS banners as well as SSP, Solidarity and CPB. Jack Jones, the 95 year old former leader of the TGWU, who fought in Spain, unveiled the new plaque.

This ceremony was followed by a public meeting where former Fire Brigades Union leader Ken Cameron spoke along with the Spanish Consul and a librarian from the National Library of Scotland who maintains the Spanish Civil War collection.

An exhibition entitled Dundee and the Spanish Civil War will be running in Dundee’s Wellgate Library from October 7th – 25th.

The two plaques

March moving up Reform Street

Jack Jones during rededication ceremony

Some of Dundee SSP waiting on the march to start

Sunday 12 October:
10.00; Showing of BBC documentary, The Guernica Children, Cinema 1, Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre (DCA), 152 Nethergate,

13.00; Unveiling of Basque Children’s Colony plaque, 17 Mall Park Road, Montrose (a bus to Montrose leaves from the rear of DCA at 11.20)

14:30 Bus back to Dundee.

The events today were terrific, a good turn out of over 200 for the march and rededication and 100+ for the public meeting in the Steps Theatre.

There is an exhibition at Dundee Library on Dundees contribution to the International Brigade which will run for a wee while.

There was a range of merchandise available including the excellent t-shirts and the Trades Council publication on Dundees International Brigadiers. T-shirts were £6 and the publication was £3. If you would like any of these let us know and we will pass on Mike Arnotts contact details for you.

Credit Crunch Blues

Christmas time is coming,
It’s just around the bend,
This year it will be different,
So listen well, my friend.
I’m wearing dirty trousers,
I’m wearing leaky shoes,
Ain’t had a wash in three days
Nor a shave in twenty-two.
The good times they are over,
It’s been in all the news.
I’m just another victim,
A victim of the credit crunch blues.

Once I was so well-off,
I wanted not a thing,
Had a great job in the city,
Silk shirts and loadsa bling.
Had a Porsche in the car park,
A four by four for fun,
King’s ransom for a mortgage,
Hey! Didn’t everyone?
Six-figure bonuses,
How could I refuse?
Never seen it coming,
Never seen the credit crunch blues.

The boss, he called me in this day,
Said, Son, please take a seat,
But don’t you get too comfy,
Then he turned up the heat.
Told me we’re downsizing,
Our office has to shrink.
The economy, surprising,
Was teetering on the brink.
Head office says one of us
Must go, I gotta choose.
Guess which one it was that went,
Which one is suffering the credit crunch blues.

Well, the good times they were over,
And so much had to go!
The holiday home in Tuscany
(That really was a blow).
The kids’ private education—
I couldn’t pay the bill.
My personal private healthcare plan
For if I should fall ill.
My whole world has exploded,
And greed, it lit the fuse.
Blown my world to kingdom come,
Blown up by the credit crunch blues.

I came home one evening,
On the table in the hall
A note addressed to me
Was sitting there, I recall.
Said, Honey, I am leaving you.
Was paralysed, like polio.
Her note told me she’d left me
For a bigger portfolio.
They say size, it doesn’t matter
But my wife had other views.
She left me for a bigger man,
She left me with the credit crunch blues.

By now my head was spinning,
I really couldn’t think,
Had a load of worthless shares,
No money, turned to drink.
I couldn’t pay the mortgage,
Was turfed out of my home.
The kids went to their mother,
The dog left with his bone.
From being such a winner
I had to learn how to lose,
No pity from ex-colleagues, friends,
No mercy from the credit crunch blues.

So here I am now livin’
In the shady part of town.
We all travel the same direction
That direction, it is down.
Here, people see no future,
It’s drink and drugs and fights.
There ain’t too much respect around
For anyone’s human rights.
They fire-bomb police cars,
Stone fire-fightin’ crews.
It’s a whole new style of living
But I’m living with the credit crunch blues.

Christmas time was comin’,
I didn’t have no dough.
I got a job as Santa Claus
But the store said I had to go.
Gave this kid a present, said,
Some day they’ll want that back.
The kid burst into tears
And this Santa got the sack.
Was only tryin’ to tell him
Nothing’s free and bills come due.
He’ll learn that for himself some day,
Me? I learned it from the credit crunch blues.

My power has been cut off,
I’m in the dark and cold,
Just sittin’ here and thinkin’
‘Bout the shit that I was told.
They told me life, it was a race,
Where you watch for number one.
And the devil takes the hindmost
Right from that starting gun.
Don’t get left there standin’,
All alone and all confused.
But that’s exactly where I am now,
Brought on by the credit crunch blues.

My thoughts they turn bitterly
To the people I once knew.
How they controlled the many
Although they were so few.
Now the house of cards they built
Has come crashing down so fast.
No house without foundations
Can ever hope to last.
But till the many take the power
(And this is now my view),
We’re doomed to keep repeating,
Repeating those credit crunch blues.

2000
Brown gives 75p rise to pensions at the time claiming we couldn’t afford more.

2001
MPs award themselves £2000 pay rise months later.

2003
War given blank cheque as Brown pledges as much money as it takes for the slaughter in Iraq.

Chancellor Gordon Brown says the UK will spend what it takes to tackle Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Money well spent then seeing as they didn’t exist. In 2001 the Ministry of Defence put the costs so far at £3.1 billion.

Estimated cost of Free School Meals rejected by Holyrood: £100million per year.

2008

Labour agitate for £20billion to pay for replacement for the Nuclear weapons at Faslane.
The poorest have their Income Tax bill increased to pay for a cut for the middle class.

2008 October 4

Labour councils claim there’s no money for free school meals

2008 October 8

Brown gives £500billion to bail out banks.

At every step money is found to pay for weapons and wars and pay rises for MPs. Low paid council workers are told there’s no money to even give them a pay freeze at inflation, never mind a rise, there’s no money for school meals for children but £16,000 from every person in the UK is found to bail out banks.

This after years of being told the bankers bonuses were justified because of the risks they take with their capital. Of being told privatisation is the only game in town and nationalisation is some bizarre old idea.

Recent events show these words to be as hollow as we have being saying they are for a decade. Money is there. Those in power lack the political will to help the poorest in society.

This project automates the process of writing Freedom of Information Act requests by:

• Detailing bodies you can make request from
• Showing what requests have been made to bodies
• Showing the responses from those bodies if there is one
• Automates the process of complaining to the Information Commissioner if they have not replied

Go nuts!

There is a picket of the Edinburgh U.S. Consulate (Regents Terrace) for Thursday October 9th from 4pm to 6pm. This has been called by the Scottish Cuba Solidarity Campaign.

This is timed to follow the visit of Olga Salanueva and Adriana Perez (wives of two of the Cuban Five) to Holyrood. They will attend the picket and speak. Both have been denied visa’s to visit their husbands in jail.

On the tenth anniversary of their arrest progress has been made in the UK in breaking the silence on the Five. See the links following for reports on their visits to the TUC and Labour Party Conference:

Miami Five and Cuba50 get union and TUC backing

TUC delegates pack Cuba fringe meeting

Miami Five wives at Labour Conference

Unions fight for justice for Miami Five on 10th anniversary of imprisonment

This picket is an opportunity to broaden the numbers in action who defend the five, which ultimately will be the key to securing their freedom.

Please forward this to all others you can : union/political/campaign/ organisation lists, newspapers, etc and urge a large attendance. Please also take any steps you can to get labour movement banners to this too.

regards
Peter Clifford

SACC initiated a Petition against this and issued a statement which CACI International Inc, have taken offence to.

CACI are the organisation who ran Abu Ghraib, the prison in Iraq where torture images were proven to originate from.

According to SACC they have bullied the media in the United States into silence over their involvement and they are now doing the same here after two articles were published in the Sunday Herald

Scottish Government hires firm accused of torture in Iraq and SNP face backlash for hiring firm accused of Iraq torture.

Millions of people stand to lose their jobs, homes and their livelihood because of the economic crisis. If you’re worried, come and take your chance to put your questions about the economy to a leading socialist economist.

Speakers: Raphie de Santos, formerly head of equity derivatives research and strategy at Goldman Sachs, advisor to Bank of England and Italian Ministry of Finance
Frances Curran, co-convenor Scottish Socialist Party
Jack Ferguson, Scottish Socialist Youth

Thursday 9th October, 7:15pm.

Renfield St Stephens Church, 260 Bath Street, Glasgow

This economic crisis, in which millions will suffer, is a direct result of the economic policies of Labour, but pioneered before them by Margaret Thatcher’s Tory Party.

We were told that industries like shipbuilding and steel were old fashioned, obsolete.

Replacing them would be new industries; the bankers would build call centres and everyone would own shares.

The Tories and Labour deregulated the financial markets and allowed them to build mountains of debt into a casino economy while they paid themselves multi million pound bonuses.

But they bet everything on black and now it’s come up red… and they want the tax payers to bail them out!

We are urged to hand over billions of tax payers money, without any analysis of whether this will work, or how exactly it will help ordinary people.

Politicians are not being asked about specific help for ordinary people, like guaranteeing the value of pensions or re-scheduling mortgages so people can stay in their homes.

Public meeting

For 30 years socialists have struggled to resist public assets being plundered.

We said bankers are playing roulette with workers’ pension funds, insurance funds and privatisation.

We’re fed news stories where we’re urged to view protection of the rich as in our own interest. Just like when they claimed Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction.The media have failed us. This time we won’t be fooled again.

Real economic solutions the government should use now:

• Take HBOS and other banks into common ownership with no redundancies. Use them to create a social bank providing social loans and mortgages.
• Provide affordable social housing for rent. The £110 billion that was spent on Northern Rock would pay for 2 million homes!
• Freeze food and heating prices.

As welcome as it is, it doesn’t mention the role played by the SSP for years initiating this policy. The policy which was voted down by the majority of the SNP and Labour MSPs at the time, with a few honourable exceptions.

David Osler helps redress this oversight.

Special thanks go to Fix Garvie, who the North East region selected as our top regional candidate in 2007 for her role in the campaign, as well as the others in the SSP and elsewhere for making this policy real.

I’m writing to request a big turn-out from Trade Unionists, especially with banners, for the parade up Reform Street from City Square to Albert Square at 11am on Saturday 11th October (assemble 10.45am). The event is to mark the rededication of the City’s Memorial to those who died in the Spanish Civil War, and the unveiling of a new plaque.

It is hoped that Jack Jones, the 95 year old former leader of the TGWU, and who fought in Spain, will be present.

The ceremony will be followed by a public meeting in the Wellgate Steps Theatre where former FBU leader Ken Cameron will be speaking, along with the Spanish Consul.

Tickets for the evening social, in the Apex Hotel City Quay suite are also available at £5 each, as are commemorative t-shirts at £6.

An exhibition entitled Dundee and the Spanish Civil War will be running in the Wellgate Library from Oct 7th – 25th.

Banners are important seeing as Dundee Trades Council banner was seized by Police whilst on an anti-G8 march.

Public sector Unions, Rally City Square, tomorrow.
Assemble: Hilltown Park, 11.00 a.m. march to City Square.

Raphie De Santos

Raphie De Santos of the Scottish Socialist Party has written a series of articles about the current economic crisis. He has also written a pamphlet which is now going for it’s second printing. If you would like a copy, then contact us, the last run were £2.50 each so it should be around that amount. We will have copies on our stalls very soon.

Raphie was head of Equity Derivatives Research and Strategy at Goldman Sachs International. He was an advisor on derivatives and financial markets to the Bank of England, London Stock Exchange, London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange and the Italian Ministry of Finance.

Raphie has been a guest lecturer on derivatives and financial markets at Harvard and New York universities and the London School of Economics and has spoken at the annual Nobel Foundation conference in Stockholm.

Articles on the Economic Crisis

Aldermaston Big Blockade – Monday, October 27 2008

Help disrupt illegal work on WMD at Britain’s nuclear bomb factory

In 2006/7, Faslane 365 saw well over 1000 arrests during a year-long blockade of the Trident submarine base in Scotland. Last Easter, AWE Aldermaston saw its biggest demonstration in two decades as 5000 people surrounded the base to mark the 50th anniversary of the first Aldermaston march. Trident Ploughshares now invite you to a major blockade of the Berkshire nuke factory, where billions of pounds are currently being spent developing new warhead facilities that will scupper nuclear disarmament for another 50 years. Help us uphold international law by blockading this factory of death in what promises to be a colourful celebration of life and people power. There is a role for everyone. This event is supported by CND.

For further details, see: Block AWE and Trident Ploughshares.org

Trident Ploughshares is a campaign to disarm the UK Trident nuclear weapons system in a non-violent, open, peaceful and fully accountable manner. There will be a mini-bus(at least) going from Glasgow. If you want to join them e-mail Jane or phone 0845 4588 367

Scottish CND

This message has been sent to you by Scottish CND on behalf of Trident Ploughshares

If you with to change the types of messages you receive from Scottish CND, please visit Their site

Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
15 Barrland St,
Glasgow,
G41 1QH,

0141 423 1222

Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

IBMT T-shirt design

IBMT website

Saturday 27th September – 6pm

Drinks reception to follow

When Cuba lost access to Soviet oil, fertilizers, and export trade market in the early 1990s, the country faced virtual overnight economic collapse and an immediate crisis – feeding the population.

The story of how Cuba successfully developed permaculture in response to this crisis will be outlined in a thought-provoking lecture by renowned Cuban permaculturalist Roberto Perez in a major lecture at the University of Dundee.

Cuba has in the past 18 years transformed its food production using organic agriculture and Havana produces over 60% of its food requirements from within the city limits. The Cuban people’s hardship, ingenuity, and triumph over sudden adversity, through cooperation, conservation, and community, to create a low energy society is a truly inspirational story as evidenced in the documentary, The Power of Community in which Roberto features.

This lecture is being held in celebration of the University of Dundee being awarded Fair Trade Status earlier this summer.

The lecture is free and tickets can be obtained from the Tower Building Reception, or from the online store at: or by emailing: events@dundee.ac.uk events@dundee.ac.uk

Socialist Unity have an article about his tour which also links to some articles he has written.

Saturday, 25th October, 12 noon,

George Square, Glasgow.

How would you spend £20 billion of public money in the next 5 years?

Speakers: Bruce Kent, Judith Robertson, Oxfam; Matt Smith (Unison); Dave Gibb (music) and others. Stalls/Food. Anyone interested? Enough interest to organise transport from Dundee or at least help with expenses those wishing to participate.

One of the Post Offices being closed following the consultation was in Lochee Road and customers were told it was all ok because they could just walk up the steep hill to the stacks or pay for a bus to get there. Now even that won’t be an option.

Evening Telegraph article on closure

This highlights not only the fragility of the current Post Office network following the closure of branches but the short-sightedness of locating Post Office branches inside supermarkets and inside the premises of other private businesses.

Seeing a friend or relative in hospital can be stressful enough without this unfair
added burden says local activist Helen Fortune.

These charges are a galling example of
profit being put before people when the sick, their visitors and staff have what is in
effect an extra tax placed on them. This situation, brought about purely by private
involvement in public services, clearly shows the lack of control the Holyrood government
have when they enter into such partnerships.

Dundee SSP Members Outside Ninewells Hospital

Banners read (left to right)

• Abolish all car parking charges at Ninewells
• Parking Charges: If you want them oot then give us a toot!
• Abolish all car parking charges at Ninewells
• Parking Charges: If you want them oot then give us a toot!

Saturday 18th October (11-5.30)
Sun 19th October (11-2)

Edinburgh Students Union, Teviot Building

For all who want action not just targets

Key speakers:

• Sian Berry London Mayoral candidate, Green Party
• John MacAllion, Scottish Socialist Party

Workshop Strands will include:

• 1. WHAT are the causes of climate chaos?
• 2. HOW can we reduce carbon emissions fast?
• 3. WHO can change Policy not just light bulbs?

While the Arctic is set to be ice free and absorbing rather than reflecting heat by 2013, scientists argue that this could be just the start of the feedback loops which will drive temperatures higher and potentially drive us to extinction.

People from a range of environmental and political groups (and from none) are meeting to ask: how we can work together to challenge this system of insatiable economic growth that drives greenhouse gas emissions up daily?

If governments won’t act to tackle the causes of climate chaos, then how can we create a community based, nationally effective, internationally connected political movement to deal with peak oil and avoid climate chaos?

Come along, learn and share views on the issues that need to be addressed and the action that can be taken.

Organised by activists from Democratic Left Scotland, from the Scottish Green Party and from the Scottish Socialist Party

contact: justinkenrick@yahoo.co.uk

Evening Telegraph

Their sham consultation resulted in no change of mind in Dundee, and they disgracefully boasted of the number of public meetings their representatives attended, whilst not organising any themselves in the areas affected.

From partial privatisation to massive bonuses for their bosses whilst attacking their workers pay & conditions the Post Office bosses have shown themselves to have no regard for anything but their own pay packets.

Do they not realise the Post Office network is a public service, run for the public, not them?

Press release to follow.

This is absolutely abhorrent.

Contact your MSPs to object to this, particularly SNP MSPs

General Leaflet

Leaflet used on polling day

In Glasgow East the SSP used some nice leaflets. Here is the text from the first

Stop the Gravy Train says Frances Curran

No to the political fatcats who line their own pockets

THE socialist candidate in Glasgow East has vowed to launch a crusade against greedy politicians who plunder the public purse to make themselves rich.

Winning a seat in parliament these days is like winning the lottery, says Frances Curran.

MPs have a pay package worth quarter of a million pounds. On top of that, they can rake in a fortune from second homes and first class travel expenses.

Many put their relatives on the payroll to send their household income soaring into the stratosphere.

According to press reports, the last Labour MP for Glasgow East paid his wife and daughter half a million pounds to work from home.

Workers wage

As an MSP in the last Scottish Parliament, Frances spurned the lavish Holyrood lifestyle to stay in touch with ordinary people. She donated tens of thousands of pounds – half her total salary – to the socialist movement. She published every penny of her expenses.

I lived as a workers MSP on a workers wage, like my other Scottish Socialist Party colleagues, says Frances.

If elected as the MP for Glasgow East I’ll do exactly the same again. I believe in improving life for the whole of the East End – and not just for the chosen few who get themselves elected, says Frances.

After 30 years in socialist politics Frances Curran has no expensive possessions. She doesn’t own a house, but lives in a top-floor rented housing association tenement.

She has no car, no expensive furniture, no loot stashed away in a personal bank account.

You may not agree with everything Frances Curran says. But even her opponents admit she’s one of that rare breed of politicians who has never been seduced by glitz, wealth and celebrity.

In The Hot Seat:

Frances Curran takes your questions

Over the last few weeks, Scottish Socialist candidate Frances Curran has been listening to people across the East End to find out what they think. She’s also been asked a whole range of questions about her background, her politics and her ability to do the job.

Here we carry a selection of questions and answers.

George, Shettleston:

Frances, what connections do you have with the East End?

Frances Curran:

My Mum and Dad were both from big extended East End families – the Burns from Barrowfield, and the Currans from the Calton.

I was brought up in Barlanark. Three generations of my family lived there. My grandparents were the first family to move into the scheme when it was first built.

I went to St Andrew’s Secondary School in the 1970s.

In 1979, while still in my teens, I joined Easterhouse Labour Party Young Socialists to fight against Thatcherism which was destroying the East End at the time.

Margaret, Parkhead:

What qualifications and experience do you have?

Frances Curran:

I don’t have a university degree. My Mum wanted me to go to university, but my Dad – a shipyard worker – died in my last year of school. That meant I had to leave school to become the family breadwinner.

But what I lack in academic qualifications, I make up for in experience of real life.

I’ve also been involved in politics at the highest levels. I used to do battle with Gordon Brown on the Scottish Executive of the Labour Party before he was even an MP.

I was then on the National Executive of the Labour Party along with the likes of Tony Benn and Denis Healey.

I worked with people like Paul Weller and Billy Bragg to mobilise the youth vote against Thatcher.

And from 2003 to 2007 I was an MSP at Holyrood.

Anne, Tollcross:

What have you done on the ground, at grassroots and community level?

Frances Curran:

I’ve been involved in grassroots campaigning since the 1980s, when I organised youth strikes against the Tories’ slave labour schemes – YTS and the like.

In the 1990s I was heavily involved in the Easterhouse Community Centre occupation, sleeping over in the centre for nights on end. We succeeded in keeping the community centre open for an extra two years, after the Labour council tried to close it down.

I was also involved in the sit-in to save St Leonard’s – though unfortunately we didn’t win that battle. And I’ve been involved in local campaigns to get heroin and crack out of the East End.

As an MSP I helped to stop a hospital closure in the area I represented. I also occupied an elderly care home until it was reprieved.

In the Scottish Parliament I brought in the Free School Meals Bill, and built a massive nationwide campaign in support of the bill.

It led to every schoolchild from Primary 1 to Primary 3 in Glasgow receiving free school meals every day.

It didn’t go far enough for me – I wanted to extend free school meals to every school student. But still, it was a partial victory.

John, Baillieston:

Why did you leave the Labour Party?

Frances Curran:

The party today is not the party I joined back in the 1970s. It’s now a big business party, a party of the wellheeled suburbs.

Even before Tony Blair and New Labour, I had become fed up with Labour. I was involved in organising the first ever anti-Poll Tax march back in 1989, when 20,000 people marched from Glasgow Green to Alexandra Park.

Labour to its shame refused to back the anti-Poll Tax campaign – and ended up on the side of Thatcher. For me,
that was the final straw.

Michelle, Garrowhill:

Do you support independence for Scotland?

Frances Curran:

Yes, I do, totally. I don’t believe Scotland is too weak, too small or too poor to go it alone. Exactly the opposite. We have oil reserves in the North Sea worth half a million pounds for every man, woman and child in Scotland.

Where I disagree with the SNP is that I believe in a socialist Scotland, where the gap between rich and poor is massively reduced. And where our oil wealth is publicly owned for the benefit of the people in Scotland.

Most oil-producing countries have nationalised their oil wealth. That means the profits are used to boost pensions, wages and benefits.

With a publicly-owned oil industry we could make all public transport free, slash fuel bills, and raise pensions, wages and benefits by a minimum of £50 a week.

Denise, Springboig:

What do you think are the big problems facing the East End?

Frances Curran:

I do resent the way the East End is often portrayed. Here we have some of the most friendly, generous people you’ll find anywhere.

Many people in the East End are involved in voluntary organisations and community groups, and are out night after night working to improve our communities.

Of course we have our share of problems – crime, ill health, drug and alcohol abuse.

The average life expectancy in parts of the East End is 63, which is shocking. Neither of my own parents even reached that age.

Anyone who says these kind of problems are not linked to poverty doesn’t live in the real world.

People in the prosperous suburbs can expect to live 20 years longer. They have access to better quality food, they are under less psychological pressure, they never have to work in dirty, dangerous conditions.

Ryan, Easterhouse:

Do you agree with the SNP government’s clampdown on alcohol abuse?

Frances Curran:

I agree we have to tackle the booze and blades culture and the binge-drinking which destroys people’s health.

I don’t believe that increasing the price of drink is the right way forward. It’s a blanket approach that clobbers everybody for the behaviour of a few.

It especially affects people on low incomes who just want to relax over a few cans of lager or a bottle of wine.

When I was in the Scottish Parliament there was free booze laid on for MSPs almost every night at various receptions and functions.

Westminster is notorious for the amount of drink consumed in the bars by politicians.

I believe the SNP are going down the wrong road by putting up the price of drink. In other countries, it’s far cheaper – but there is very little binge-drinking.

It’s a cultural problem we need to tackle – not an economic problem that can be solved by hiking up prices.

Eddie, Cranhill:

Do you think the Commonwealth Games will benefit the East End?

Frances Curran:

The danger is it becomes a road show that moves in and then out again. The construction companies and property developers will make lucrative profits and there’ll be plenty of supervisors jobs and project managers jobs.

Hundreds of millions of pounds’ profit will be piled up from advertising, sponsorship, TV rights, merchandise and the like.

But I want to make sure the people of the East End benefit. I believe there should be a special windfall tax on the profits from the Commonwealth Games – and that these should be ring-fenced to improve the East End.

I will also fight for local groups to be co-opted onto the organising committee to have a direct input and a direct say on behalf of the East End.

Davy, Barlanark:

Why is the socialist vote split?

Frances Curran:

It’s a tragedy that it is. I spent 10 years and more trying to create a single united socialist party. Unfortunately a minority walked out in the huff.

The other party, the Solidarity splinter group, is now on its last legs. Five of its leaders have been charged with perjury. Its only councillor has defected to New Labour. By this time next year, it won’t even exist.

Unfortunately, even socialists can be seduced by celebrity glitz. I was friendly with Tommy Sheridan for a long time. We fought together against the Poll Tax and in other campaigns.

The Scottish Socialist Party has stayed true to its working class roots. We’re not interested in being champagne celebrities.

We live in the housing schemes and the tenements and live on low incomes like most people in the East End.

Karen, Baillieston:

Do you have any chance of winning?

Frances Curran:

I believe, with all due respect to the other candidates, that I’m the most high profile and experienced challenger to New Labour.

In a by-election anything can happen – in a recent byelection in England, Labour came fifth.

We won’t get the same media coverage as the big two parties. But one advantage of voting for the SSP is you can protest against Labour – and at the same time pile the pressure on the SNP government in Holyrood to stand up for working people in areas like the East End of Glasgow.

If you want a small change for the East End, stick with the SNP. But if you want a big change vote SSP.

Labour legend John backs Frances Curran’s campaign

Westminster MP, and then a Holyrood MSP he was widely respected even by his political opponents.

John knows both Frances Curran of the SSP and Margaret Curran of Labour.

He has no doubt which of the two would make the best MP for Glasgow East:

Frances Curran stands in the best socialist traditions of the East End of Glasgow represented in the past by people like John Wheatley and Jimmy Maxton.

For 30 years Frances has been involved in frontline socialist politics and has never sold out her principles for a pot of gold.

Frances Curran best for East End

- Ex-Baillieston Labour councillor

Jim McVicar was a Labour councillor for Baillieston from 1984 until he was expelled from the party for refusing to hand over constituents’ housing benefit records to the Poll Tax debt collectors.

In the next election, he stood against his old party as an Independent Labour candidate – and won a resounding victory. He says:

I’ve known Frances Curran for decades. I’ve never met a more honest, dedicated, principled person in politics.

Frances would make a superb MP for the East End of Glasgow. Her campaigning skills are formidable.

And unlike so many out of touch politicians, she’s always kept her feet firmly on the ground.

Commonwealth for the Common People!

In the next few years, we’re going to hear lots of talk about the Commonwealth Games.

But what we won’t hear from our political and our business leaders is any talk of sharing out our common wealth.

Scotland is a fabulously rich country, with oil, gas, land, forestry, fish, coal, thousands of miles of coastline, wind and tidal power.

Yet too many of our people are living on low pay and poverty benefits. Too many of our pensioners can’t afford to heat their homes. Too many of our families are struggling to pay the basic household bills.

• The rich will pay higher taxes
• Our public services, including oil, fuel and transport, will be publicly owned
• Our minimum wage will be £8 an hour
• Wages, benefits and pensions will rise by £50 a week, across the board
• All our school children will get nutritious free school meals
• Supermarket prices will be frozen
• Women will get equal pay for equal work
• Young people will get the same national minimum wage as everyone else
• Nuclear weapons will be banned from Scottish territory
• The council tax will be scrapped in favour of a local tax where the rich pay their fair share
• Free public transport will be brought in to ease congestion, pollution and global warming
• Our young troops will be brought home from the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

- Frances Curran

Some SSP activists during election

What a phenomenal result on two parallel levels: the earth-shattering defeat of Labour in Red Clydesider John Wheatley’s seat, Labour’s 3rd safest seat in Scotland, held by them since 1922; and the tremendous achievement for the SSP in winning 5th place, the highest position for any of the smaller parties, despite all the apparently insurmountable obstacles we faced.

If we compare the votes with those of the 2005 Westminster election in the identical Glasgow East seat, Labour has gone into free-fall from 18,775 to 10,912; the SNP rocketed from 5,268 to 11,277 – in a turnout down from 48.2% in 2005 to 42.1% this time.

Thousands of Labour voters simply stayed at home in disgust with their record on food and fuel prices; failure to tackle poverty and inequality; assaults on the sick and disabled, and their wholesale neglect of the working class. Others did a straight swap to the SNP, as punishment for New Labour in an area they have treated with decades of contempt, stepping on people’s heads en route to grossly overpaid political careers.

The disgust at Labour politicians, and indeed politicians in the mainstream parties in general, was palpable on the streets, people spitting out angry words about them, responding warmly to the SSP’s policy of A workers’ MP on a worker’s wage.

Class differentials

There seems to have been a significant class differential in the turnout, with higher voting in the more affluent parts, such as Garrowhill, parts of Baillieston, Mt Vernon – which would be to the SNP’s advantage, because John Mason has been councillor for Garrowhill/Baillieston since 1998. The most deprived districts had generally far lower turnouts, to Labour’s further disadvantage.

The squeeze between the two political Juggernauts that we predicted, whilst agreeing we should stand an SSP candidate, took place with a vice-like vengeance. For example, 85% of those who voted went to either the SNP or Labour. In 2005 the equivalent figure was 77%.

My first impression of the voting figures is that the SNP upsurge was also substantially boosted by defection to them from both the Lib Dems (who plummeted from 3,665 votes three years ago to 915) and even some Tories (who fell from 2,135 to 1,639). In both cases, defecting voters judged that the best way to boot Brown and New Labour was to vote SNP.

This is an unqualified catastrophe for Labour and Gordon Brown. Labour activists were devastated, with talk of the need for a lurch to the left amongst a couple of the most unlikely Labour hacks I spoke to at the count.

The national question

There was not widespread, overt, explicit talk on the streets of this being a vote on independence. But it clearly is a clash of contrasting opinions on the Westminster Labour government compared to the Holyrood SNP government – and is a massive impetus towards independence … which will be exponentially added to when Labour’s thrashing in Glasgow East adds to the Labour crisis and therefore increases the likelihood of a Cameron government in Westminster.

All of which positions the Scottish Socialist Party well over the next couple of years, with our pro-independence but unashamedly socialist vision for Scotland, in contrast to the pro-big business agenda of the SNP.

The SNP are riding high in the opinion polls right now, and will be an even more rampant force in the aftermath of Glasgow East, but the contradictions in their all-things-to-all-classes approach are beginning to be revealed to more far-sighted sections of the working class. They face strikes by civil servants against their imposition of a 2% pay ceiling; anger from council workers facing cuts where the SNP are in control or coalition, and growing questions over why they dumped their previous commitment to bus re-regulation in the wake of SNP party funding by multi-millionaire bus tycoon Brian Souter.

SSP: the biggest small party

Given the monumental squeeze on all the smaller parties – and even the Lib Dems – the Scottish Socialist Party scored a fantastic achievement, winning 5th place with 555 votes – ahead of the Solidarity vote of 512, and with a crushing lead over the Greens (despite them having 2 MSPs) who could only muster 232 votes.

Of course we need a sense of proportion. Our 555 compares to 1,096 in the 2005 general election, before the split in the SSP. But what is quite remarkable is that the combined left vote held up so well (1,067 – almost literally identical to that of 2005). And in fact the combined share of the vote rose from 3.5% in 2005 to a combined 4.1% this time!

Given the far tighter squeeze in the focussed intensity of this by-election, the prevailing objective conditions that nurtured that dog-fight between SNP and Labour, and the serious, deep damage done to the credibility of the left through the split, it is remarkable that this was achieved, that the left vote held up so well.

This also serves to underline the destructive, reckless consequences for the socialist left caused by the small minority, led by Tommy Sheridan, who split off from the SSP two years ago. If they had instead accepted the decisions of the majority of members in the SSP and kept a united party intact, the combined vote of 1,067 would have put us in 4th place, above the Lib Dems – and that is taking no account of the huge additional vote a single, united SSP would have won.

In the tragic circumstances of a divided left, which the SSP was founded precisely to overcome in 1998, there is a profound significance in the relative votes of the SSP and Solidarity. Obviously we can’t compare figures with 2005 on this as we had one party then. The nearest comparator is the 2007 Scottish election results for Baillieston (which makes up roughly two-thirds of Glasgow east) and Shettleston (the other third).

A mere 12 months ago Solidarity got 5 times and over 4 times the SSP vote in these two seats respectively. In Glasgow East, the SSP got 53% of the total left vote!

Solidarity boasted about their 5:1 vote advantage in the by-election campaign, including at press conferences. Tommy Sheridan contacted journalists declaring the SSP was as dead as a Dodo, repeating the 5:1 differential of last year to try and convince people there was only one party of the left – his.

Solidarity will have got a very substantial family and friends vote for their candidate, and some votes from the family and friends of the child killed by an air gun in Easterhouse.

On top of that they crudely attempted to confuse people into thinking Tommy Sheridan was the candidate, with their one and only leaflet taking the format of a message from him, and the party name on the ballot forms being Solidarity – Tommy Sheridan … not even the softer option of co-convener Tommy Sheridan which they could have legally used.

Given all this, it is a signpost to the future when the SSP not only closed down the 5:1 differential but actually won the biggest vote for a left party in horrendously difficult circumstances.

For the broad mass the headline is Labour’s slaughter, the SNP’s victory. But for an astute and observant minority the SSP/Solidarity result helps explode Solidarity’s false claims to be Scotland’s foremost socialist party.

A conscious socialist vote

Considering the weight of the aforementioned squeeze on us, every vote for the SSP was an extremely conscious vote for socialism, for the rich traditions of Glasgow’s east end, in the full knowledge we were not going to win, but that our undiluted socialist message deserved support. A very courageous, conscious, socialist vote.

Some parties and journalists are trotting out claims that the good SSP vote was due to confusion over the two Currans – Frances for the SSP, Margaret for Labour. That is arrogant, patronising nonsense. Labour put out tens of thousands of leaflets explaining which Curran to vote for. So did we, with the theme that there’s only one socialist Curran in this election – Frances Curran. We spelt out the two opposing worlds these two candidates represented.

The visibility, colour, dynamism and élan of the SSP’s campaign on the streets left nobody in any doubt about what or who they were voting for. We never held back on our socialist message, in leaflets, a newspaper delivered to 45,000 homes, giant banners, through street meetings, and in media appearances. The quality of our campaign – which started out with literally no money or material exactly three weeks before polling day at the meeting of members where we selected Frances Curran as our candidate – was praised by the Greens, SNP, Lib Dems and letter writers to the Herald.

SSP pivotal to the future of socialism

We shouldn’t exaggerate what this result for the SSP signifies, given the very modest votes involved at this stage. But we have to feel vastly proud and confident that the SSP is pivotal to the medium-term unification and growth of a united socialist party in Scotland. It is a time to be proud of the principled socialism the SSP stands for; a time to join us and give renewed impetus to the rehabilitation of the socialist traditions of Red Clydeside in one of its historic strongholds.

Hurray for Glasgow East

Apparently some commenter objected to his personal attack on Margaret Curran. He then responds explaining why he gave up civility on party politics, particularly in relation to the Labour Party. Why Margaret Curran is the cheerleader for a party which supports torture.

Margaret Curran is a lot better off than thousands of very real women, who were just as human as her, and whose lives the illegal wars of New Labour have destroyed.

It is worth remembering that Labours appalling policies haven’t just attacked the poorest members of society in Glasgow East or Dundee East, but throughout the world too, mainly in the name of “The War On Terror”.

Fingers crossed that they have changed their mind.

During the six weeks of the campaign thousands of people expressed their opposition to the closures and we know of hundreds who sent off letters or signed petitions.

On Wednesday we will find out if it was enough.

Submission to Post Office Limited regarding proposed Post Office closures in Dundee from Scottish Socialist Party – Dundee branches

We believe that the Post Office network across the UK should not just be viewed as a chain of branches of a standard business, assessed solely on its ability to make a profit.

The nationwide network of Post Office branches is a valuable public asset that provides a vital social service in both rural and urban communities across Scotland. As a public service, Post Offices should be viewed and assessed on the wider role and benefits they provide to communities, not on the profit (or loss) they provide to Post Office Limited.

In light of the government’s recent £50 billion bail out of Northern Rock, Post Office Limited have strong grounds for going back to the government and asking for an increase in subsidy to protect the Post Office branch network, thus maintaining its positive role in communities.

It is also deeply insensitive to these communities, who are having to fight for their local Post Office service, that Royal Mail’s Chief Executive, Adam Crozier, earned £633,000 basic salary, topped up with a £3 million bonus in 2007/08!! How many Post Offices could have been saved with that £3 million?

In March 2007, Adam Crozier was appointed Chairman of the EFD.

At the time he stated

“I am extremely pleased to have been invited to take on this role. Ensuring equal opportunity for all is hugely important to us at Royal Mail and I look forward to helping to promote and develop the terrific work which Employers’ Forum for Disability does with employers throughout the UK.”
Source

On its website EFD states EFD has worked closely with government and other stakeholders, sharing best practice to make it easier to employ disabled people and serve disabled customers.

One has to question Mr Crozier’s commitment to EFD’s stated aims as the closure of Post Offices around the country is hardly going to improve Post Office Limited’s service to its disabled customers. It is going to make accessing post office services more inconvenient, more time consuming and more costly (public transport, taxis).

The recurring objections that have been raised by the hundreds of customers of the four Post Offices threatened with closure in Dundee to whom we have spoken over the last few weeks while campaigning, are:

Accessibility to the next nearest Post Office and the ‘fitness of purpose’ of those alternative Post Offices.

Lochee Road Post Office:

If this branch closes then the nearest Post Offices will be Ward Road, Tescos in the Stack, Brantwood or Blackness Road.

If walking, all of these alternatives involve either an uphill journey there and a downhill journey back, or vice versa. The bus services to both Blackness and Brantwood branches are infrequent. Any bus journey would involve added expense (For example, 2 visits per week to the Ward Road branch would incur a cost of £4.40).

This added expense would have a profound effect on those many Post Office customers who are on very low incomes and benefits. Many of those who use Lochee Road Post Office are elderly or disabled and/or on low income.

Although the public transport into the City Centre (Ward Road) is more frequent the extra expense is still incurred. The service at the Ward Road Post Office is already poor because of the lack of staff, resulting in long queues and standing time. At busy times, it is not uncommon for customers to have to queue for 10 – 15 minutes before being served. This adds to pressure and stress on staff and customers alike and can lead to a hostile atmosphere. Also some of the transactions carried out at Ward Road are the more complicated ones such as passports and car tax, which obviously increase waiting time.

Broughty Ferry Road Post Office:

Like Lochee Road, this branch serves a high proportion of elderly and disabled customers, who will find it extremely difficult to access other branches if Broughty Ferry Road closes.

Their alternative options are Ward Road branch (see above for comments); Maryfield branch or Arbroath Road. Both these branches involve a lengthy uphill walk and bus services in the area have recently been cut. Of course, the use of public transport will mean additional costs to those who can least afford it.

Nethergate Post Office:

The two alternatives for Nethgergate customers are:

• Ward Road branch (see above) and it involves crossing 2 busy main roads to access it;
• Perth Road branch, which is already extremely busy, often experiences lengthy queues in quite a small premise. So again there will be increased waiting times and queues, literally, out the door.

The Nethergate Post Office is also the nearest branch to the University of Dundee which is attended by thousands of students and hundreds of staff. The University has also recently built new premises in the Hawkhill area which might put even more pressure on Ward Road branch.

There are also many businesses in this area, such as Bank of Scotland, DVLA, HMRC and the new Alliance Trust offices being built just around the corner.

Fairmuir Post Office:

Again, there is an elderly population in the area of Fairmuir Post Office. An adjacent branch is the one in Arkley Street, which provides an excellent service, but the premises are very small. Under present circumstances, it can become overcrowded with four people waiting to be served. If it has to absorb Fairmuir’s customers then the service provided will decline. Elderly customers could be queued out into the street. This is surely not an image that Post Office Limited would want to be associated with, particularly during cold or wet weather.

All four branches are surrounded by independent, local shops or small businesses. Those shops we have canvassed have expressed their concern that the closure of the neighbouring Post Office will have a significant impact on their ability to survive. This is at time when they are already under pressure from the supermarket chains such as Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s.

Another factor that should be considered is that a significant proportion of Dundee’s population is on lower than average income and in receipt of social security benefits. Dundee also has one of the highest child poverty rates in Scotland.

Our extensive research and discussion with residents in all four areas leads us to conclude that none of the Post Offices in Dundee targeted for closure should be closed. We have found support for the retention of these four branches to be overwhelming among their local communities.

July 2008

It can be found on the SSP site here

DVA 10 Constitution Road
Dundee

Tuesday 1st July, 2008. 7pm.

Please sign the petition

Some articles from the local press on the issue

Saturday 14th June
Family face being torn apart after visa mix-up

Monday 16th June
MP fights visa case with Home Office

Tuesday 17th June
Community rallies round to keep Josie in Scotland

Tonight’s Eveneing Telegraph contained an article about the activity in Dundee

For more information on the issue visit www.freepublictransport.org/

When the policy was introduced in Hasselt in Belgium there was a massive uptake in the use of public transport. Massive numbers of people started cycling after encouragement from the local council (contrast with Dundee where the Council stopped a local bike recycling charityselling their cheap affordable bikes in the city centre!).

If you would like some stickers, posters or leaflets about the campaign, contact us.

LEGALISE IT – 2008 – MARCH TO LEGALISE CANNABIS

GLASGOW – SATURDAY JULY 26th

ASSEMBLE 11.30am – George Square, Glasgow

March to Kelvingrove Park for bands, DJs and more!

FEATURING:

ARGONAUT SOUNDS, THE BEING, LOKI, RESPEK-DA, MARRICK LAYDEN DEFT, TAZ BUCKFASTER, HENDY RUNS TINGS, PHILLYBLUNTZ, DARYL and more!

*terrorists not being the dictionary definition of course, but New Labours makey upey definition.

A local political activist, Alan Hinnrichs had submitted a request to every Scottish Council about their use of the “Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act” to spy on members of the public and has compiled his results. These have now been printed today by the Sunday Herald today.

SACC article detailing his investigation

Sunday Herald Article detailing his investigation

SACC claims councils are abusing the civil liberties of the Scottish public and says civil servants and bureaucrats should not have such wide-ranging powers. The watchdog believes that spying on ordinary citizens should only be a power granted to the police or the security and intelligence services in cases of extreme danger such as threats to national security or to prevent major crime.

Of the councils which replied to the FoI requests, Edinburgh was found to be using the Ripa laws the most excessively, authorising spying actions 1252 times.

There is a website with all the details here.

In the Belgian city of Hasselt, which covers an area double the size of Dundee, congestion was eliminated in the late 1980s after the introduction of a totally free public transport system.

How It worked in Belgium

The site also contains details of how the policy would be funded and the wide ranging benefits it provides in the other places it has been implemented.

Article in the Courier Urging people to lodge objections to the closures

Article in the Courier About a Post Office moving in Broughty Ferry

Letter in the Evening Telegraph Defending the closures

Saturday 7th June

Article in the Courier about Glamis Post Office

According to the article about Glamis Post Office, the Post Office are only considering a petition to be equal to one letter of objection. This is absurd and shows how detached from reality the high heid yins at the Post Office are. Remember these are the same people that wasted millions rebranding the Post Office as Consignia whilst attacking their employees working conditions. It also shows the importance of lodging letters of complaint. Signing petitions is fine and can help publicise the quantity of local objections but letters detailing objections are extremely important.

The contact details to object, as posted previously are:

Sally Buchanan
Network Development Manager
C/o National Consultation Team
FREEPOST CONSULTATION TEAM
Email: consultation@postoffice.co.uk
Customer Helpline: 08457 22 33 44

On the 30th May there was a Letter in the Courier from an independent councillor in Angus detailling what a Post Office closure means to a rural village. Because of the isolation and lack of transport the effect of a closure or service reduction is far greater than in a city.

Aberdeen City Council

Aberdeenshire Council

Angus Council

Clackmannanshire Council

Dundee City Council

Fife Council