The working class in Britain enters a new year...

As the working class in Britain enters a new year, many fighters for social justice will be confronted with task of how to build resistence to the ConDem government's drive to place the burden of their capitalist crisis onto the backs of ordinary people; from the elderly, the disabled to young people seeking to further their education and job prospects.

The Socialist Party believes that the working class can win, but it will need the power of the Trade Unions and mass action- including generalised strike action- to defeat the ConDem government and its plans to implement deep cuts into the social wage.

But, with many unions under the influence of leaders who have no interests in leading a determined struggle of resistence, and who seem to be more interested in waging the struggle by simply re-electing a Labour government as a "friend of working person", how do activists fight to transform the unions into organisations that will fight?

This question was confronted by working class fighters back in the 1930's when socialist members of the Teamster Union mobilised the rank and file to wrest control from Labour "aristocrats" and made their union into a centre of resistence against the onslaughts of the capitalist class in the United States.

Socialist's confronted these questions, and began to find answers, through fighting for democratic control of the union and allowing ordinary workers have a say in how their union should be organised, demonstrating solidarity with all sectors of the working class, and all those who were victims of capitalist austerity, and ultimately fighting for political independence in waging a fight to create a political party that would represent the interests of all workers.

Many lessons on how socialists, using the methods of democracy, solidarity and independence, fought to bring the power of their union in helping to forge an unbreakable unity in struggle, can be found in the book Teamster Rebellion by Farrell Dobbs.

The book traces the story of how the Teamster's struggle unfolded in the early 1930's in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and how, as stated on the back cover "They showed in life what workers and their allies on the farms and in the cities can achieve when they are able to count on the leadership they deserve."

In a second book of a series of four, called Teamster Power, Dobbs -an active participant in those events- elaborates how the Teamsters went on to use the power they had won to extend union power throughout the mid-west of the United States, and in the process recruiting thousands to a fighting union.

Both books are available from The Bristol Socialist Party.
(contact Martyn454@gmail.com)

13 pounds each!