Solidarity with Lonmin’s miners - South African police massacres striking workers at Marikana

From: http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/5894

At least 46 workers were shot dead, and many more injured, on August 16 as a massive police assault was launched to crush a strike by thousands of workers at platinum miner Lonmin’s shafts in Marikana outside Rustenburg, in addition to at least six mine workers who were killed in clashes earlier on in the strike which began August 10. Two policemen and two mine security guards were also killed in the near-civil-war-like conditions. It is clear that the Lonmin bosses, backed by the entire big business elite and its servants in the ANC government, the police and army are hellbent on restoring order at any cost. The Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM - CWI in South Africa) appeals for socialists and trade unionists internationally to protest against the massacre that is now being set in motion.




The background is that thousands of workers at Lonmin, the world’s third largest platinum producer, went on strike in demand of an increase from their current R4000 poverty wages to a R12500 living wage on August 10. The strike was initiated by workers belonging to AMCU, a break-away union from the dominant National Union of Mine workers (NUM). It appears the strike, which grew in numbers to involve tens of thousands of workers, was attacked not only by the infamously brutal mine security but also by the NUM, which attempted to force workers to break the strike. This provoked mistaken retaliations such as the torching of a car which led to the death of the two security guards on Saturday and the killing of two police officers on Monday. This has given the government an excuse to restore “law and order”, and Lonmin’s rapidly falling share price, through what is nothing less than an orchestrated massacre.

The area is under siege, with the battle clearly being prepared for in the last couple of days. Lonmin withdrew from negotiations which had been agreed for August 15 stating that the matter would now be “in the hands of the police”. No longer able to rely on containing the workers through the NUM leaders, the bosses have now resorted to brute force. By drowning this uprising in blood, the bosses may win a battle but not the war which has been brewing on Rustenburg’s platinum mines for years now. As a result of the global economic crisis, the platinum price has fallen drastically and the bosses are desperate to make the workers pay.That is why they are resolved, with the backing of the entire ruling class, not to give an inch to the bold strike launched by the Lonmin workers.



The Rustenburg region is the world’s largest platinum ore deposit and the recent closure of shafts by some mines have alerted its tens of thousands of workers to the urgent need to fight back. In doing so, increasing numbers are turning their backs on the NUM –once one of the proudest, most militant trade unions in SA but now, through backdoor deals with the bosses, investment companies and an alliance with the capitalist African National Congress-government, it is so discredited that its leaders only dare to address workers protected by guns, life guards and police armoured vehicles. Seeking a way forward, many workers have gone into AMCU, and with the NUM, backed by management, defending its turf, a tense stalemate has been established this year.



The DSM is calling on workers in both unions to demand united solidarity action, beginning with a local general strike, involving all the platinum shafts and the bitterly poor local working class communities. We also call for a national general strike to end the shooting of striking workers, and for a campaign of rolling mass action for the nationalisation of the mines under workers control and management.

Urgent: Defend Vik Chechi - Unison branch secretary at Queen Mary University

Circulated by National Shop Stewards Network, please act on this if you can.

Vik Chechi, the Unison Branch Secretary of Queen Mary University in east London has this afternoon been suspended by his employer. We suspect that this is with a clear view to sack him because management wants to weaken the union and the anti-cuts campaign in the University which has united staff and students. They have been alarmed because Vik and other union activists have managed to reinvigorate the Unison branch. This is a classic attempt to smash a fighting union branch to allow management to drive through significant cuts including over 100 redundancies at the same as students face a tripling of tuition fees. By disarming the union, this would be just the start of the attacks on staff and students alike.

 

This is also an attack on Unison in particular and trade unions in general, just as we build up towards the massive pension strike on November 30th. Plymouth City Council has recently attempted to de-recognise Unison and many employers in both the public and private sector are looking to cut back on union facilities. Workers cannot afford to see their union strength weakened at this critical time when jobs, terms & conditions and pensions are on the line.

 

Please protest immediately to Vik's employers demanding his immediate reinstatement - Queen Mary University c.pearson@qmul.ac.uk and 'Centre of the Cell' f.balkwill@qmul.ac.uk. Send copies to info@shopstewards.net

Germany: Solidarity with hospital workers

Support the striking workers of the Charité Facility Management company (CFM) in Berlin!

By Anna Shadrova, SAV, Sozialistische Alternative (CWI in Germany), Berlin

98.6 % of the unionised Charité Facility Management (CFM) workers in Germany’s capital Berlin have voted in an official ballot for a strike, with the main demand of winning a collective bargaining agreement, which will start on Monday, September 12.

The CFM is an outsourced and half-privatised, profit-oriented company at Europe’s largest university hospital, the Charité in Berlin. The Charité has been outsourcing next to all services that are not of a primary nursing or medical character into the CFM since 2006, including maintenance, sterilisation, call centre, security, kitchen and cleaning staff. Scandalously this policy was carried out by the so-called “red-red”, SPD-Left party, run Berlin city government which owns the hospital and which faces regional elections on September 17.

Workers there have no collective bargaining agreement. The trade union ver.di has been demanding such an agreement for years now but this has not been concluded up to now. For many of the roughly 2,600 workers this means wages of around 7 euro an hour leaving them with about 900 euro a month for a full-time job. The CFM-workers went on strike along with the Charité nurses in May this year. Their two-week-strike forced management to start collective bargaining negotiations but after three months of talks and a ridiculous offer by the CFM-bosses that did not include all groups of workers and for most did not mean any improvement, an overwhelming majority of workers have now voted for strike.

Since the main demand is a collective bargaining agreement with adequate wages, this struggle is a very important step in the fight against the advance of precarious working conditions and also the profit margins that lie in the privatisation of health care services. Already, the CFM is used as a role-model for privatisation in the sector.

Trade unionists from the Charité clinic along with other workers, SAV (Sozialistische Alternative – CWI in Germany) members and supporters of other organisations have organised a solidarity committee which actively supports the strikers wherever possible.

The struggling workers need all the solidarity they can get. Please send messages to cfm_solikomitee@yahoo.de and mail@cfm-charite.de

http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/5278

CWU: Appeal for Union member affected by riots

The Communication Workers Union are backing calls from London members to help a postman who was burned out of his home during the disturbances in the area earlier this month. Read about their campaign here: http://www.cwu.org/news/archive/appeal-for-postman-riot-victim.html

Solidarity Scotland statement on NOTW

Statement Regarding Developments With The NOTW - http://www.new.solidarityscotland.org/

Solidarity, Scotland’s Socialist Movement adds our voice to those of Aamer Anwar and Tom Watson MP calling for an investigation into evidence given by officials from News International during the Tommy Sheridan perjury trial. The Solidarity Co-Convenor was jailed for 3 years after a trial and police investigation that cost millions of pounds of public money and tens of thousands of hours of police time. The jury in the perjury case reached its decision by the narrowest of margins after hearing evidence from staff at News of the World claiming that there was no culture of phone hacking at the paper and no payments were made to police officers. The evidence passed to Strathclyde Police today suggests that at least some of those News International witnesses now have significant and difficult questions to answer. The police now have a duty to inform those in Scotland whose phones may have been hacked at the earliest opportunity. The Scottish Parliament also needs to discuss the behaviour of News International as a matter of urgency.

Tommy Sheridan was a target for News International due to the outstanding role he played in the socialist movement in Scotland including helping to defeat Thatcher’s hated Poll Tax and his bill in the Scottish Parliament to abolish warrant sales. During his trial, the former editor of the News of the World and then head of communications at Downing Street, Andy Coulson denied that there had been a culture of phone hacking at the News of the World. He denied any knowledge of payments made to police officers and described Tommy’s assertion that he was the victim of hacking as “true only in “the parallel universe that exists only in your mind.” Yet recent emails have emerged showing that Mr Coulson may be given another opportunity to return to the High Court in Glasgow. Presumably he will not be winking from the witness box as he tries to explain his comments that hacking and other surveillance operations were not pervasive at the paper under his watch.

Recent revelations in regards to the News of the World and the parent company News International make clear that this invidious organisation will stop at nothing to secure what they consider to be a “story”, stooping to unprecedented levels of depravity including allegedly hacking the phones of murdered children, their parents and victims of the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London.

In what we consider a cynical and cost cutting move, the Murdoch family have today announced that the News of the World will cease trading following their publication this Sunday. We shed no tears at the demise of the right wing, reactionary, misogynist anti-trade union rag. However, it is typical of the culture of News International that ordinary workers and journalists, the vast majority of whom will have had nothing to do with the sordid, illegal practices recently exposed, will lose their jobs in a bid to preserve the reputations of the owners and senior executives. Whilst the name might disappear from newsstands, you can be sure that Murdoch will ensure that a new title will emerge to carry on where the odious News of the World left off.

Solidarity congratulates the MP for West Bromwich East, Tom Watson for his courageous and determined campaign to expose the News of the World and hold it to account. Whilst the majority of the political class at Westminster and Holyrood have cowered before the might of News International, Watson has dared to raise his head above the parapet and challenge Rupert Murdoch and his empire. With the decision to be made on the future of BSkyB it is vital that more elected representatives acquire the backbone required to ensure that News Internationals tentacles are not allowed to extend further into control of this country’s media. It is also vital that a full and open public enquiry is held into the actions of senior police officers who have disgracefully been in possession of the facts showing the extent of the hacking scandal for over five years. The relationship between News International and senior police officers in Scotland and England, as well as with the judiciary, politicians and governments in both countries need to be subject to the closest public scrutiny.

Solidarity, Scotland’s Socialist Movement stands shoulder to shoulder with our Co-Convenor Tommy Sheridan, his family and supporters in his battles still to come against News International. We will also continue to promote the politics of socialism, justice and equality that are so abhorrent to the owners and senior executives of Murdoch’s loathsome media empire. Finally, we call on all socialists in Scotland to join us, and the vast majority of working class people in unequivocally condemning News International and its despicable behaviour.

Solidarity with Spain; we won't be a lost generation!

Taken from: http://www.youthfightforjobs.com/article/7159

Youth Fight for Jobs sends its solidarity and support to the struggles of workers and young people in Spain. Internationally young people are forced to fight for a future, and from Iran to Spain are taking to the streets by the million.

A movement of millions has built up over the last few months in response to devastating cuts and the conditions facing Spanish people. Now young people have come to the fore, fighting against conditions that threaten to make them the 'ni ni' generation, no job, no house. For Spanish youth, almost half are unemployed. Devastating cuts are planned and are already being implemented. Politicians are more concerned with bailing out their big business mates than the lives of the majority of the population.

Many young people in Britain will recognise this as similar to those we face. If the politicians are allowed to get away with their brutal attacks, we will find ourselves in similar conditions. But the one thing that can stop them is by young people and workers taking the road of Spain and others, to fight back in our masses and say no to all cuts, no to mass unemployment, and for the right to determine our own future.

If there are Spanish people involved in the struggle in Britain or Spain who would like to discuss with us, or have suggestions for how we can support your movement, contact us on youthfightforjobs@gmail.com

The crisis that you face is the crisis that we face, an international crisis of capitalism. It is vital that we stand together across borders and fight for a future for all. We say "we won't be a lost generation! Fight for jobs and education!"