Save our Ferries!

by New Worker correspondent

Several hundred P&O Ferries workers and supporters held a protest outside DP World’s London offices last week before marching to a rally outside Parliament. The rally was called by the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) following the mass sacking of ferry staff on 17th March by DP World, who are the owners of P&O Ferries.
    DP World, halted all crossing in the four routes it operates: Dover to Calais; Hull to Rotterdam; Liverpool to Dublin; and Cairnryan, Scotland, to Larne, Northern Ireland after some 800 crew members were sacked on the spot to make way for scab labour recruited in Britain, the Philippines and India to do their work on bread-line wages.
    The Rail, Maritime and Transport union, Nautilus International and the Labour Party called the protests held in London and other parts of the country following appeals to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to either force DP World to back off or nationalise the company— something the government, needless to say, has ruled out altogether.
    Now RMT has slammed what it described as a "disgusting statement" from P&O Ferries trying to justify one of the most shameful acts by any employer in recent history
    Sacked seafarers have been basically told that if they don’t sign up to be gagged by a non-disclosure agreement they will not only lose their jobs – they will lose money as well. This is from an organisation which has received millions from the taxpayer to support furlough payments and whose parent company DP World paid out vast sums in dividends last year
    General Secretary Mick Lynch said: "These are the actions of a bully trying to maximise profits by sacking workers and replacing them with agency staff below the minimum wage.
    "The detail of what the company are imposing is not new. The 2.5 weeks is what we have negotiated in the past with P&O.
    "The pay in lieu of notice is not compensation, it is just a payment staff are contractually entitled to as there was no notice given.
    "The way that the package has been structured is pure blackmail and threats– that if staff do not sign up and give away their jobs and their legal right to take the company to an employment tribunal they will receive a fraction of the amount put to them.
    "The actions of P&O demonstrate the weakness of employment law and protections in the UK. P&O have flagrantly breached the law and abandoned any standards of workplace decency. They have ripped away the jobs, careers and pensions of our members and thrown the on the dole with the threat that if they do not sign up and give away their rights they will lose many thousands of pounds in payments.
    "This is totally unacceptable and RMT will continue to campaign for our members to be reinstated at P&O and for better employment laws to protect all British workers.‎"

Spotlight Donbas

the burnt-out shell of Mariupol police station

by Theo Russell

Around 40 activists attended a recent meeting in central London to see UK photographer and journalist Dean O'Brien show his photos of the Donbas, speaking on his experiences there and answering questions. He has recently been interviewed twice on these topics on George Galloway's Mother of all Talk Shows on RT News.
    Dean first visited Kiev in 2008, and even then, six years before the February 2014 Euromaidan coup, he saw neo-Nazi marches with people wearing German WW2 uniforms and waving swastika flags, and Hitler's Mein Kampf and SS books being sold on the city's streets.
    He was in Kiev at the time of the Western-backed coup in February 2014 which installed openly fascist parties and armed groups in the government, police and armed forces.
    "I witnessed how the government in Kiev was illegally overthrown in the so-called ‘Maidan’ revolution, backed by the US to destabilise the whole country, and plunging it into the war we see today. I saw the far-right intimidating Russian speakers.
    In 2018 Dean visited Odessa on May 2, the anniversary of the Trade Unions House Fire in 2014 in which a far-right mob surrounded anti-fascists. Many were burned alive and many trying to escape were murdered. There has never been any investigation, but 50 and 100 are believed to have been killed.
    At the memorial gathering Dean said "the fascists were kicking and spitting on the mothers of those who had died, while the police stood by and did nothing. Later I saw them sharing a beer with the fascists”.
    But in spite of the danger of fascist attacks, in ‘Kiev-controlled’ Ukraine Dean saw many examples of open resistance to the junta and the fascist thugs.
    “On Victory Day (May 9, the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945) all over Ukraine, even in Kiev, citizens still risk fascist attacks by publicly marking the victory over Nazism, including many grandmothers and great grandmothers".
    Dean later visited several majority Russian speaking cities in the East, where positive memories of the Soviet Union are widespread and many are against the illegal government and the fascist gangs it has unleashed.
    "People in Eastern Ukraine don't recognise the current government. and see it as Illegal”. These people who oppose the Kiev junta, along with and the four million living in the rebel republics, are labelled separatists and terrorist supporters by the Kiev regime. And as far as the Western media is concerned, they don’t exist - they’ve been ‘cancelled out’ along with Syrians, Libyans, Palestinians, Venezuelans and Kashmiris.
    In Mariupol Dean visited the police station which sided with the Anti-maidan forces and was destroyed by the Ukraine Army and fascist battalions in heavy fighting in the 2014-15 war. All the police inside were killed.
    “While I was in the east people were telling me to visit ‘the other side’. They had relatives in ‘non-government controlled’ Donbas, and said that I should go and see what the Ukrainian government is doing to them.
    “I’d read so many conflicting articles regarding what was happening there, so the only solution was to go and see for myself.
    "In May 2019 I travelled to the Donbas for the first time. This meant that I could never visit Kiev controlled Ukraine again while the current regime was still in place.
    “I’d heard that there was no food in the shops, that the streets were full of Russian soldiers. I’d been told that the people there were imprisoned and that the streets were dangerous. None of this turned out to be true”.
    Western reporters don’t even bother to visit the ‘rebel’ republics. On UK radio, TV and in the papers they simply report the war from the Ukrainian side of the front line - taking great care to only interview supporters of the Kiev regime.
    “Most western media correspondents are based in Kiev and only report from one side. It’s biased lazy reporting at best” Dean said.
    It comes as no surprise then that Dean found that “people in Donetsk were happy and pleased that I had travelled all the way from the UK to hear their side of the story”.
    "Donetsk City is like any other European city with cafes, restaurants. I felt very safe there, safer than my home town, Coventry, and Donetsk City feels like any other European city.
    “Bars and coffee shops were open, supermarkets all had food. There were no Russian soldiers, only volunteers who were all local men and women. People were going about their daily business, travelling to work etc.
    “In the evening people sat on benches playing chess, teenagers were texting on their phones and listening to music. So life is fairly normal there in the city centre. That is until dusk arrives and you can hear the boom of shelling in the distance. Then you remember where you are.
    “I was most impressed with the cleanliness of the streets. Virtually no graffiti. That although there was a war going on people were happy. They never spoke about revenge, only the desire for peace. One thing they did make clear though was that they were not prepared to give up their new republic and re-integrate back with government controlled Ukraine.
    "The most common phrase I heard being spoken in Donetsk by the inhabitants was "Ya xachoo mira" - "We want peace".
    “I met many members of the People's Militia, the DPR's defence force. I also visited frontline positions at Yasynuvata, and the militia members I spoke to all had a high level of political awareness.
    He pointed out that “During the fighting in 2014-15 there were no Russian regular soldiers, but there were many Russian volunteers.
    “My life was never going to be the same after this visit. It really opened my eyes to how the media controls how and what we think”.
    “Once I’d been to the Donbas I knew that it would never be possible for me to return to government controlled Ukraine”.
    He was recently informed that he had been placed on the ironically named ‘Peacekeeper’ website. This was set up by fascists several years ago and has made public names, contacts and addresses of people who have visited or supported the Donbas, many Donbas, Crimean, Ukrainian and Russian citizens, and Western journalists whose work they see as unacceptable.
    “That confirmed to me that they do not like objective reportage. I’m now on their list with many other photojournalists and correspondents. But in all honesty, it’s a small price to pay to get the truth out there about this conflict.
    “Those that have heard about the conflict believe that Russia has invaded Ukraine, simply because that’s the message the western media is sending out to them.
    "But the media fails to mention the West staging the coup which helped Ukraine fall into a civil war and overthrow the legally elected government. That’s what started all of this, turning Ukraine into the mess of a country that we are witnessing today”.
    Dean is working on a small self-published photo book, Shots From Donbass, which will be a collection of images from his visit to the Donbas in May 2019.
    Since 2019 Dean has not been able to return to the Donbas due to the covid pandemic. Last autumn he travelled to Rostov-on Don, but as the border to the Donetsk was closed he travelled to Crimea where he met volunteer fighters from the Donbass.
   He has continued to actively support and speak out for the people of the Donbas and all Ukrainian anti-fascists, including at the London gathering.

Victory to the Donbas!

by New Worker correspondent

Comrades were back on the streets of London to leaflet the Stop the War march that was part of a national No to War in Ukraine day of action on Sunday. The demonstration in London ended in a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Jeremy Corbyn, Lindsey German and Tariq Ali and other stalwarts from the peace movement. But though the speakers recognised the dangers of a nuclear conflict and understood that NATO’s aggressive expansion over the past 30 years had played a role in sparking the current conflict some also called for an unconditional Russian withdrawal from Ukraine – which is also the demand of US imperialism and their lackeys.
     But the call of the International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity movement in support of the anti-fascist forces of Donbas and their allies went down well with the protesters. Hundreds of copies of the joint statement signed by the New Communist Party together with the Consistent Democrats, Socialist Fight and Posadists Today were given out on the day. The statement was sent out with every copy of last week’s New Worker and now its been endorsed by the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

Reclaim the NHS!

"

Outside the Royal Free

by New Worker correspondent

Londoners were out on the streets last weekend campaigning against NHS privatisation and the Health and Care Bill that is now going through Parliament. In north London demonstrators picketed outside the Royal Free hospital in Camden while others joined the national day of action for a rally organised by SOS NHS, Unite and many other organisations also included veterans who took part in the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign a few years ago. The campaign is calling on the government to invest in a fully publicly owned NHS & guarantee free healthcare for future generations and provide emergency funding of £20 billion to save lives this winter.

    SOS NHS said: "This will be the hardest winter ever in health and social care. We must act to

On the streets of Lewisham

safeguard services for patients and service users, boost staff morale and tackle the mental health crisis among health and care staff. Emergency funds must be secured now to avert disaster. That’s why we called a huge national Day of Action on Saturday 26 February with over 85 events throughout the UK.

"We must repair crumbling hospitals; restore NHS beds, recruit, retain, train and properly pay health and care staff; rebuild un­derfunded public health and GP services struggling to respond effectively to Covid; publicly fund a service for care and inde­pendent living support; and much more. The Health and Care Bill does none of these things. We need new legislation to secure a fully public NHS and end privatisation".

Joint Statement: Victory to the anti-fascist forces of Donbass and their allies!

Victory to the anti-fascist forces of Donbass and their allies! U.S./NATO hands off Russia!

The NATO-funded Ukrainian Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and other far right Ukrainian nationalists have slaughtered many thousands in Donbass in last 8 years.

On February 24, the anti-fascist Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, together with the Russian Federation, launched a military action with the goal of “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine. It is in the interest of poor and working people, anti-war and anti-imperialist forces in the U.S. and other NATO countries, to take an unambiguous position in solidarity with the anti-fascist forces. The real war danger comes from US and NATO forces surrounding Russia. The government in Kiev is their proxy, with no regard for the people of Ukraine.

In March 2014 British foreign secretary William Hague lied to the House of Commons when he said that the removal of Viktor Yanukovych was in accordance with the Ukrainian constitution, saying “It is wrong to question the legitimacy of the new authorities.

In fact, Yanukovych’s removal met none of the Ukrainian constitution’s provisions: there was no special commission of the Rada, no review by the Constitutional Court, and the Rada passed a bill removing Yanukovych from office with a simple majority of 328 votes, 10 short of the two-thirds majority laid out in the Ukrainian constitution. No doubt Hague was “badly advised” by his Foreign Office advisors!

Over the past 8 years Ukrainian military and US-backed fascist battalions incorporated into the National Guard killed 5,059 people in the Donetsk People’s Republic, including 91 children (figures obtained from Donetsk last week), so the figure for both the anti-fascist republics is probably around 8-9,000 people including well over 100 children.

This war began in 2014 when Ukraine launched the “Anti-Terrorist Operation” (ATO), just over a week after the CIA Director John Brennan visited Kiev to meet senior Ukrainian intelligence officials to “foster mutually beneficial security cooperation”. This was an all-out modern military offensive with tanks, artillery, missiles and aircraft. The ATO was still ongoing when the Russian intervention began last week, in fact it was being rapidly stepped up.

Millions of Ukrainians have been driven into political or economic exile since 2014, over two million now living in the Russian Federation alone. Many fled as a result of fascist death threats.

Up to 100 anti-fascists were murdered by fascists and nationalists at the Odessa Trade Union House Fire on May 2, 2014. No-one knows exactly how many, since there has never been any investigation.

Where was the media hysteria, and the calls for peace from the left and the peace movement, when men, women, children and the elderly were being bombed and shot by snipers in the Donbass for the past eight years?

Since November, the U.S. has pushed Kiev to a new murderous invasion of Donbass, while claiming that the real threat was from Russia. The U.S. rejected Moscow’s just demands to guarantee Ukraine’s neutrality. Russia recognized the independence of Lugansk and Donetsk on Feb. 21 –eight years after the people of Donbass overwhelmingly chose independence in a referendum, rejecting the pro-Western/neo-fascist coup government in Ukraine.

Washington and NATO deliberately and methodically pushed the Donbass republics and Russia into a corner, from which there were only two options: submit or fight back.

The People’s Militias of Donetsk and Lugansk are fighting to drive back the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including neo-Nazi battalions armed and trained by the U.S., Canada and NATO, that constantly threaten the lives of their residents. The anti-fascist military action, forced on Donbass and Russia by the Western imperialist powers – principally President Joe Biden and the U.S. government – has exposed confusion and equivocation in the anti-war movement, even among socialists and communists.

Modern capitalist Russia is not an imperialist country. It had no means to become one after the counter-revolution in the USSR. It is a regional power akin to India or Brazil, primarily an exporter of commodities, not capital. To maintain its independence, Russia had to ally with other countries in opposition to imperialism. Ukraine’s coup regime, by contrast, is a pawn of U.S. imperialism that has been waging a brutal war on its neighbours for eight years and offered itself as a base for NATO aggression against Russia.

Our responsibility is to stop U.S. imperialism and its wars in all forms, and to stand in solidarity with those who fight against U.S. domination.

· Victory to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and their allies!

· Justice for those murdered in the Odessa Trade Union House Massacre!

· Solidarity with the anti-fascist underground and exiles of Ukraine!

· U.S./NATO: Hands off Russia! Get out of Ukraine and Eastern Europe!

· Dismantle the imperialist NATO war machine – bring all the troops home now!

This statement is endorsed by: Communist Party of the Donetsk People's Republic, Consistent Democrats, Cumpanis (Italian communist journal), International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity, Movement for People's Democracy (USA) New Communist Party, Party of Communists USA (PCUSA), Posadists Today, Socialist Fight, US Friends of the Soviet People and the Zimbabwe Communist Party. It is adapted from a fine statement by the Socialist Unity Party / Partido de Socialismo Unido (USA).