Lead story

Mass cull of steel jobs

by Caroline Colebrook

UNIONS representing steel workers reacted angrily last Monday to the announcement by Tata Steel that it intends to cut a further 1,050 jobs — 750 at Port Talbot in South Wales and 200 in Trostre, Corby. Almost 5,000 job losses have now been announced in the steel industry since last summer.

Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of the steelworkers union Community, said: “Our immediate thoughts are with all the steelworkers and their families who may be affected by today’s announcement.

“We will be doing all we can in the coming weeks to support our members at this difficult time. We will be vigorously challenging the company’s proposals to ensure they do not further weaken the integrity or capacity of our steel plants.

“Today’s announcement is no reflection of the skills and commitment of the Tata Steel workforce, which has been breaking production records over the past year.

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Mass cull of steel jobs

British and US fast food workers hungry for justice

by New Worker correspondent

DOZENS of fast food workers from both sides of the Atlantic laid siege to the MacDonald’s restaurant at the top end of Whitehall with banners and placards last Wednesday 13th January. Then they charged down Whitehall in a noisy protest to the House of Commons for a meeting in a committee room inside on low pay and zero hours.

The protest and meeting were organised by Fast Food Rights, a group that bridges the Atlantic and in this country is supported by the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) and the GMB general union.

In the United States tens of thousands of fast food workers have led strikes involving low paid workers demanding $15 an hour and union rights.

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British and US fast food workers hungry for justice

Down with the Kiev puppet regime!

by New Worker correspondent

COMRADES and friends braved the freezing cold to picket the Ukrainian embassy in London on Tuesday in protest at outlawing of the communist party by the Kiev regime. Communists and anti- fascists rallied to the call from the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) for a demonstration in support of the Ukrainian communist party, which was banned by the puppet regime last month.

The banning of the Communist Party of Ukraine, which held 32 seats in the Kiev parliament, is the latest in a wave of repression against all left-wing forces that began soon after the fascist-led coup in February 2014. It is now a crime to promote communism or Marxism, or to display any symbols associated with the communist movement. The “decommunisation” legislation passed last year also requires all Ukrainians to show “respect” to the “Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists” (OUN) and other fascists who collaborated with the Nazis during the German occupation during the Second World War.

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Down with the Kiev puppet regime!

Editorial

A principled stand against the EU

THE NEW Communist Party has always opposed Britain being a member of the European Union — right back to the days when it was known as the Common Market. The Treaty of Rome that founded the Common Market was drawn up by capitalists to protect capitalism and to facilitate employers in the original six members — France, Germany, Italy, the Netherland, Belgium and Luxemburg — in collaborating to exploit the working classes to the maximum. It was all about making businesses as profitable as possible.

There were subsidies for businesses and for farmers, with safety-nets to protect them from natural bad weather and so on. These subsides were paid for from the member states contributing to the central Common Market funds — derived mainly from the taxes of workers.

The Schengen and Lisbon treaties, which turned the Common Market into the European Union, took this further, doing away with internal borders to allow the free movement of labour from one country to another. The main purpose of this was to undermine collective bargaining at a national level, allowing bosses to import workers from one country to another in order to break local wage agreements and undermine hard-won national labour protection laws.

The much-vaunted “social contract” was a two-page fig leaf. It only looked good to some naïve trade unionists in Britain because, thanks to the Thatcher government, our labour protection laws were amongst the weakest on the continent.

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A principled stand against the EU