Fight for The Right to Work: A conference to build the resistance

For too long thousands of jobs have been destroyed without resistance. For too long the issue of unemployment—especially youth unemployment—has been ignored. It is time to organise the fightback.

The occupations and campaigns at Visteon, the occupations at Prisme in Dundee and the occupation at Waterford Crystal have changed the atmosphere inside the working class movement.

We desperately need more resistance.

The economic crisis, internationally and domestically, is leading to soaring unemployment, insecurity and devastation of communities.

UK unemployment is well over 2 million and headed sharply upwards. Young people are particularly badly affected. There are already 820,000 unemployed under the age of 25, and 600,000 people leave school this summer. Many will not find jobs.

The government has found hundreds of billions to bailout banks and financial institutions.

But instead of saving jobs, Gordon Brown is pressing ahead with policies that cut them—from Royal Mail to local government to the civil service to the NHS.

Individual unions and the TUC should be leading the fight against job losses by opposing redundancies, resisting closures and demanding a transformation of government policy.

This is a conference to learn from the experience of resistance, encourage more struggles, and bring together trade unionists, the unemployed, school and college leavers.

It’s a chance to increase the pressure on trade union leaders, develop the networks of resistance, and come up with campaigning ideas over the most crucial issue facing workers today.

Make sure you are there, and get your union branch, stewards’ committee, campaign organisation or student union to send delegates.

Download timetable

French workers capture boss

The chief executive of Sony in France was held overnight by striking workers at the company's factory in Pontoux-sur-l'Adrour in south-west France.

The plant's 311 workers are to be laid off as part of the electronics giant's plans to save Y100bn. The company has so far refused to cover the relocation costs of workers.

Representatives of the CGT union claimed that preventing the men from leaving was the only way to get management to listen to them. "We hope that this time our voices will be heard," says union representative Patrick Achaguer.

The bosses were only allowed to leave the site when the French government stepped in to force management to return to the negotiating table.

And this is not the only expression of the growing desperation and power of workers. Last month two bosses from Michelin, the tyre manufacturer were held for two days by workers trying to stop a factory closure.

British trade unions could learn a great deal from French tactics.

Video of 100,000 marchers in Ireland

Video reporting on the struggle against the Irish governments' proposed pensions levy.

Originally posted on Socialist Aoteroa

Building for protests at the G20

The membership of the G-20 comprises:

• the finance ministers and central bank governors of the G7, 12 other key countries, and the European Union Presidency
  
• the European Central Bank
  
• the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund
  
• the Chairman of the IMF
  
• the President of the World Bank
  
• the Chairman of the Development Committee

These are the people that decide the fate of billions of workers around the world, and they are almost without exception the same people that are responsible for the current crisis.

We know what their response to the crisis will be: more attacks on workers, more assaults on public spending and public services and pouring yet more public money into the coffers of the capitalists who got us here.

It is more important than ever that we build a mass protest movement on the level of the 1999 Seattle protests, to fight for the rights of workers and ordinary people. We are the ones with power in this society, and we can make them pay for the damage that they have done, and intend to do. The only way to do this is to appeal to radical organisations, trade unions and workers both nationally and internationally to come together in a constructive way.

I believe that now is the time to begin thinking about this issue, and coming up with creative ways to engage with people, and move the debate forward.

London wide 'Unity Against the Crisis' meeting this Tuesday‏

This Tuesday there is an important meeting in central London:

We Need Unity Against the Crisis
Tuesday 10th February at 6.30pm
Friends meeting House, 173 Euston Road, London, NW1(opp Euston Station)

In the wake of the debate around the wild cat strikes and the slogan'British jobs for British workers' Mark Serwotka (PCS General Secretary), Jean Yves Lesage (a French printer and member of CGT), a shop steward from the Waterford Glass occupation and Ray Morrell (Editor of the Amicus Unity Gazette and NSSN steering committee)(pc) will be speaking at a meeting on Tuesday in London.

It is very important to stress that this is not just a meeting for trade unionists. The debates and issues go to the heart of the response by the working class to the crisis.

This should be an exciting event and we need to build it as widely aspossible with trade unionists and campaigners, as well as in workplaces, colleges, schools and your local area. Attached is a flyer to advertise the meeting and a broadly-based statement which people can sign, to be used on Saturday sales, industrial sales, and in your workplaces and colleges.

The statement can also be signed online at www.petitiononline.com/jobs0209/