National News
Changing of the Guard(s)
ON MONDAY, white puffs
of smoke emerged from the
roof of public sector union
Unison HQ on London’s
Euston Road to announce
the election of a new General
Secretary, whose salary
of £138,000 did not receive
any publicity.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Less than United
OVER AT Unite the Union,
the queue for the top
job lengthened with the
announcement that Gerard
Coyne, who came a close second
in the previous contest,
is standing again for the post
of General Secretary.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Party and the Unions
ON THE same day as the
Unison result, the Bakers,
Food and Allied Workers’
Union (BFAWU) said they
would be launching consultation
of its members about
whether it should remain affiliated
to the Labour Party.
The union, which before
the pandemic had been taking
effective action in the fastfood
industry, has expressed
dissatisfaction with the new
leadership of the Labour Party.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Sink or swim
YET ANOTHER example
of bosses using the pandemic
to ditch staff comes
from Greenwich Leisure
Ltd (GLL), the “social enterprise”
which was founded
to run local services in the
London Borough of Greenwich
in 1993 as a “non-profit
distributing co-operative”
and has now expanded to
managing 250 venues.
Unite the union, which
represents many of its employees,
argues that more
than 500 jobs that were cut
since last March are just the
permanent posts and the figure
ignores the 2,000 workers on
zero-hours contracts who have
been told there is no longer
work for them.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Fire and rehire
THE GMB union has announced
that its members
working in British
Gas will be taking five
more days of strike
action starting next
Wednesday for the rest
of the month.
The ongoing dispute
was sparked by British
Gas attempting to fire
all its workers and rehire
them at lower rates, this
not unnaturally persuaded
the 9,000 GMB members
affected to reject the deal
by a massive 89 per cent
vote for strike action.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Stinks to High Heaven
by our Scottish Political correspondent
THE warfare between
former First Minister
Alex Salmond and his
successor is simmering
away nicely, occasionally
threatening to boil over
as details of an alleged
plot to destroy Salmond
are scrutinised by an
unusually determined
Holyrood committee that
has been slowly, in the
face of obstruction from
the SNP Government,
gathered damning evidence
that there was
indeed a plot to see him
behind bars.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
CIVID Complaints
by our Scottish Political correspondent
When it is not busy
with its scandals, how
is the SNP Government
managing to cope with the
pandemic? Not very well,
as one might expect.
According to a report
from Scottish Future,
Scotland’s coronavirus detection
rate is the worst in
the UK. This is based on a
comparison with Office for
National Statistics’ (ONS)
estimates, which suggest
a daily average of around
43,379 people in Scotland
had COVID-19, but at
the same time the testing
programmes picked up an
average of 13,600 cases.
In other words, it means
only 32 per cent of the total
cases are being picked up.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Another New Party
by our Scottish Political correspondent
Monday saw the formation
of yet another political
party to brighten the
Scottish political scene.
It has been something
a fashion to so with the
emergence of the Independence
for Scotland
Party (ISP), which is not
of course founded by the
Scottish Independence
Referendum Party, to say
nothing of the opposing
Alliance4Unity headed by
George Galloway.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
International News
COVID-19 in Africa
Communist Party of Swaziland
JUST ONE example of
the devastating effect of
COVID-19 in exploited
countries comes from
Swaziland in southern
African, which is
ruled by the absolute
monarch Msawti III.
The “incwala” referred
to below is the country’s
annual tribal get
together that marks
the first harvest of the
year at which the King
adds to his collection
of wives.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Vietnam’s workers calls for minimum wage rises
Việt Nam News
THE VIỆTNAM General
Confederation of Labour
(VGCL), the country’s
TUC, is calling on the
country’s Government
to increase the minimum
wage as the country’s
economy begins to show
positive signs of recovery.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Belated justice
Telesur
IN PERU, at long last
the 244,234 Indigenous
women who were
irreversibly sterilised
as part of the former
President (1990–2000)
Alberto Fujimori’s family
planning policies
have the possibility of
justice.
Fujimori launched
his National Population
Programme in 1995,
supported by training
and $36 million from the
US government, the Nippon
Foundation and the
United Nations Population
Fund (UNFPA), and
endorsed by the World
Health Organization
(WHO) for curtailing population
growth, claiming
it would reduce poverty.
Within a few years it
became clear that people
were conned or coerced
into taking part. It was
targeted on poor areas
such as shantytowns and
indigenous peoples who
supported the Maoist
Shining Path guerrillas.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
DPR Korea Party Conference
Edited from the Pyongyang Times
The Eighth Congress
of the Workers’ Party
of Korea (WPK)
concluded last
Tuesday, 12 January
after eight days of
work. The following is
part of the concluding
speech by newly
re-elected General
Secretary
Kim Jong Un.
THE CONGRESS first
undertook a comprehensive
and detailed
review and analysis of
the work of the Seventh
Central Committee of
the WPK. It also undertook
an in-depth
analysis of the line and
strategic and tactical
problems for a new
struggle.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Ireland’s baby homes scandal
Workers Party of Ireland
TUESDAY saw the final
report of a five-year
investigation by the Irish
Government’s Commission
of Investigation into the
running of the country’s
notorious Mother and
Baby homes. These were
run by the Roman Catholic
Church, which was effectively
given a blank cheque
by successive governments
to run them as it chose,
as it did with Ireland’s
schools.
It is only now that the
full horror of these institutions
to which impoverished
unmarried mothers to be
were taken is coming to
light, but in 2014 hundreds
of infant bodies were found
in a disused buried sewage
tank in the grounds of a
former home in Tuam in
County Galway resulting in
the present report.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Vaccine for the rich only
Radio Havana Cuba
TEDROS Adhanom
Ghebreyesus, Director-
General of the
World Health Organization
(WHO), said
on Monday that there
is a “clear problem”
that poorer countries
are not yet receiving
supplies of COVID-19
vaccines and urged
countries to stop
striking bilateral deals
with manufacturers.
“Rich countries have
the majority of the supply”
he said, commenting
on vaccine nationalism
at a Geneva news
briefing. “No country
is exceptional and
should cut the queue
and vaccinate all their
population while some
remain with no supply
of the vaccine.”
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Kiev used phosphorus-incendiary bombs to send New Year ‘greetings’ to Donbas
ON THE eve of the
New Year holidays,
the Ukrainian Armed
Forces (UAF) began
a heavy artillery
bombardment of
the Donbas area,
including the use
of phosphorusincendiary
bombs
that are banned
worldwide. This has
been reported by the
press service of the
People’s Militia of
the Donetsk People’s
Republic (DPR),
but largely ignored
elsewhere.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Features
California’s Proposition 22 and the essence of capitalist exploitation
by Marcello Severo
IN NOVEMBER, voters
cast their ballots in
the most expensive, and
hence most thoroughly
corrupted, election in US
history.
On California’s ballots
were 12 direct initiatives,
ranging from medical regulation
to privacy statutes.
In such a corrupted environment,
it is unsurprising
that the appearance of
direct democracy did not
ensure across-the-board
victories for the working
class. Whilst 59 per cent of
voters passed an initiative
to enfranchise formerly
incarcerated people, on
the other hand 60 per cent
rejected an initiative to
expand subsidised housing,
and 57 per cent voted
to uphold the state ban on
affirmative action.
In the most expensive
campaign amongst these
12 initiatives, and indeed
all initiatives in Californian
history, 59 per cent of voters
passed Proposition 22
(Prop 22), an unprecedented
bill that legally strips
Uber, Lyft and DoorDash
drivers, amongst others, of
their status as employees of
those companies. Analysing
the law, as well as following
the money and tactics
behind the campaign,
illuminates the reasons for,
and the significance of, the
passage of this monumental,
regressive initiative.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
100 years of the Luxembourg Communists
Solidnet
OVER 100 years ago,
on 2nd January 1921,
the Communist Party
of Luxembourg (KPL)
was founded in the
working-class town
of Differdingen in the
south of the country.
Immediately afterwards,
the party took
up the struggle for the
rights of the working
class, especially
amongst the miners
and steelworkers in
Luxembourg where
many KPL members
proved themselves in
demonstrations and
strikes.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
