National News
Transport cuts
by New Worker correspondent
NOW THAT the Continent is cut off from Britain even the long-term existence of transport services is at risk. One of these is the Eurostar rail services, which is presently carrying only five per cent of its normal capacity.
In response to claims that Eurostar will be going bust in the Spring, transport union RMT says that thousands of jobs and £billions in investment are at risk: “Eurostar has not benefited f rom the kind of financial and practical support that has been made available to the airports and ground operations. That needs to be put right as a matter of priority.” Eurostar shareholders will be delighted to have such an ally.
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Pay battles ahead
by New Worker correspondent
IN MANCHESTER, Unite is balloting members at Go North West, the Manchester bus, company in opposition to plan to impose new contracts of employment by firing and rehiring its workforce, resulting in cuts to jobs, pay and conditions.
‘Fire and Rehire’ is very common these days and this is the second attempt by Go North West to impose wage cuts. These were rejected, so strikes by the 500 workers are likely next month. Apart from losing £2,500 of their £24,000 salaries, the sickness policy will be torn up forcing workers to work when they are sick or should be self-isolating during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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No pay jobs
by New Worker correspondent
IT IS NOT only the seven dwarfs who work all day and get no pay. Some such jobs lead on to greater things, such as assistants to MPs being looked on more favourably when it comes to selecting the next generation of parliamentarians.
There are also thousands of healthcare students who carry out unpaid placements in the more important NHS and social care sectors. This is a normal, if deplorable, part professional training.
It has come to light however, that such workers, especially important at this time, are not covered by the £60,000 lump sum life assurance introduced as an emergency measure last year if they succumb to COVID-19. This only applies to paid workers.
Unite national officers for health Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe and Jackie Williams are demanding that the Health Secretary amend the scheme as “a matter of urgency” to include healthcare students undertaking unpaid placements.
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High Street woes
by New Worker correspondent
ANOTHER victim of the COVID-19 crisis is Hays Travel, which is to close 89 as-yet unidentified branches out of its 535 shops. This will see 388 staff (out of 7,700) affected, but they have been offered “alternative work options” to minimise redundancies.
The company took over bankrupt Thomas Cook in 2019, meaning it has “duplicate stores” in many towns as a result.
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Legal Notes
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
THE UNCIVIL war within the SNP between Salmond and Sturgeon has probably reached the point of no return for both parties and for the reputation of the SNP Government – and most SNP members (apart from vocal minorities, mostly on the side of Salmond) seem unmoved by the fact that either their present leader is a liar or, if she is not, the previous leader is much more than a mere cad.
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Expenses Champions
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
The SNP’s contingent at Westminster is not noted for their great oratory nor for asking penetrating questions of ministers, but there is one field where they are undoubted champions. That is at claiming expenses.
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The End of Civilization?
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
The collapse of bourgeois civilisation in Edinburgh was announced on Monday. This was not because of a proletarian uprising but resulted from an announcement from Danish billionaire landlord Anders Holch Povlsen that Jenners, the city’s famous department store, will be closing in early May with the loss of 200 jobs.
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Navalny touted, Assange tortured
by Finian Cunningham
RUSSIAN opposition figure Alexei Navalny was detained on returning to Russia from Germany for good, legal reason. He had made a mockery of his parole license.
Navalny is a convicted felon, found guilty of fraud and embezzlement by a Russian court in 2014. But his jail sentence had been suspended with the condition that he report regularly to Russia’s prison authorities. A normal condition.
For nearly five months, however, he had sojourned out of the country as a de facto guest of German authorities. That’s a brazen breach of his parole conditions. And the Russian prison service was right in issuing him a warning at the end of last month that violation of his suspended jail term risked the sentence being converted into detention behind bars.
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City of London to remove statues of slave traders
Sputnik
STATUES of two historical figures will be removed from the City of London and moved elsewhere because of their links to Britain’s transatlantic slave trade, the city governing body’s Policy and Resources Committee announced last week.
Since the outbreak of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests last year in response to claims of systemic racism and police brutality in the UK, the London authorities have put together a commission to review statues glorifying figures involved in the historical slave trade.
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International News
Biden team holds secret talks with Iran
by Jason Dunn
US PRESIDENT Joe Biden has expressed his support for reversing the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and officials within the new government are reported to already be holding quiet discussions with Iranian representatives.
Diplomats from Tehran have spoken to officials within the Biden administration over resuming talks on Iran’s nuclear programme and have reportedly set out seven preconditions, an unnamed Iranian government source told a Kuwaiti newspaper on Sunday.
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Without Lenin, Russia has no future
IDoC
DESPITE the freezing temperatures, hundreds of Russians, workers, Communist Party members, men and women attended a flower-laying ceremony in Moscow’s Red Square, honouring the 97th anniversary of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s death on 21st January 1924.
Various political parties and organisations were represented, including the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), the Lenin Communist Youth Union, the Children of War social movement, the Union of Soviet Officers, the Left Front and others.
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A return to normalisation with Cuba
by Pedro Martínez Pírez
MAX LESNIK, one of the Cuban-Americans who has remained loyal to our country, has lived in Florida for many years. Today he is the director of Radio Miami Television. He praises the first measures implemented by the new administration of Joe Biden and foresees a new phase in Cuba–US diplomatic relations.
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Paws Vietnam
by Paul Kennedy
AN award-winning English filmmaker has made a documentary highlighting the plight of abused and unwanted animals in Việtnam.
Louis Corallo, 35, has produced Laws for Paws Vietnam, a 30-minute film focusing on the efforts of animal lovers in Ho Chi Minh City and the work they do to save neglected dogs and cats.
The documentary premiered last week during a fundraising event at the Soma Art Centre in Ho Chi Minh City.
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Features
A convicted Nazi in the European Parliament
IDoC
THREE MONTHS after the trial of Golden Dawn in Greece – the largest court hearing of a Nazi group since Nuremberg – two members of its hierarchy remain at large. One of them is Golden Dawn’s founding member Yiannis Lagos who has appealed against the court verdict from the safety of the European Parliament, where he is a member.
Since October, Greek judicial authorities have requested the waiver of his immunity by the European Union Parliament. Despite calls by MEPs, Parties and anti-fascist organisations for Lagos to be “excluded from all democratic processes”, however, he continues to address the EU Parliament’s sessions and provoke through his far-right, racist and nationalist rages in social media.
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General Vlasov: collaborator and traitor
by Andrei Kotz and Andrei Stanavov
“WHEN THE WAR is over, you will receive the pension of a Russian lieutenant-general, but from now on and into the near future – you will continue to enjoy schnapps, cigarettes and women.” Quotation attributed to Reichsführer of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, in a conversation with former Red Army commander-turned-Nazi collaborator Andrei Vlasov.
Andrei Vlasov was the highest-ranking Soviet Red Army officer to agree to collaborate with the Nazis during the Second World War. In the Soviet period, his name became synonymous with ‘traitor’.
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Woody Guthrie: Tragic death of immigrant workers inspires a song of solidarity
by Chris Mahin
THE FIRE began over Los Gatos Canyon. It started in the left engine-driven fuel pump. The plane crashed 20 miles west of Coalinga, California, on 28th January, 1948. It came down into hills that, as one commentator noted, at that time of year are “a beautiful green, splendid with wildflowers … a place of breathtaking beauty”.
Newspaper articles at the time described an accident involving a Douglas DC-3 carrying immigrant workers from Oakland, California to the El Centro, California Deportation Center. Those accounts gave the name of the plane’s pilot (Frank Atkinson) and co-pilot (Marion Ewing). They mentioned the name of the stewardess (Bobbi Atkinson) and the guard (Frank E Chapin). The newspaper stories that reported the crash did not, however, include the names of any of the 27 men or of the one woman who were passengers on that flight, victims who were buried in a mass grave at Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno, California. Those reports simply dismissed them as “deportees”.
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