Vietnamese art comes to London

by New Worker correspondent

MODERN Vietnamese art is seldom seen in Britain so it was a pleasant surprise to see works from contemporary Vietnamese painters in a London gallery this week. But though the technique may be modern the theme of this exhibition, Spirit World, was largely traditional.
Works by eight of Hanoi’s most exciting and renowned artists are being displayed by Modern Art Vietnam at the West Eleven gallery in Notting Hill, just a stone’s throw from the Portobello Road, this week. Vietnamese art is little known and seldom understood in Britain and this selection, themed on traditional Daoist and Buddhist concepts, was specifically chosen to appeal to British collectors and the growing Vietnamese community in London.
Modern Art Vietnam is family run company established specifically to promote Vietnamese artists with the help of the Vietnamese Embassy in London, the British Council and the Fine Art Museum in Hanoi. Though the company has only been going for ten months it held its first successful exhibition of Vietnamese art in June and it has already established itself as a leader in what is fast becoming a new focus of interest amongst the Western art world today. Sadly the exhibition closes at the end of this week but Modern Art Vietnam promises to bring even more Vietnamese arts and crafts to London in the near future. Check it out on their website:

http://www.modernartvietnam.co.uk/




Spirit World: Contemporary Vietnamese Art is at the West Eleven Gallery, 5 Blenheim Crescent, Notting Hill, London W11 2EE from 9th – 13th November. 10.00 am to 6.00 pm. Admission free.

Unaffordable London

THE HOUSING charity Shelter last week warned that the Con-Dem Coalition plans to cap housing benefit at £290-a-week for a two-bedroom property or £400-a-week for the largest homes will mean many people on low wages or unemployment benefit or income support will no longer be able to live in London.
Housing benefit is claimed not only by the unemployed, pensioners and the disabled and sick – it is also claimed by thousands of Londoners in low waged jobs. And with benefit capped at £290-a-week most two-bedroom flats in the capital will be unaffordable for them.
Some Tory London councils are already warning councils outside the capital to prepare for a migration of low-income people arriving and seeking affordable accommodation.
Campbell Robb, the head of Shelter, said the cap meant claimants faced getting into debt as they would have to subsidise rents themselves.
The cuts were being done too quickly and could change the “very nature” of London.
Even the Tory Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, accused his own government of risking “Kosovo-style” social cleansing in London.
Ministers say the housing benefit bill has got out of control and people will still be able to claim a maximum of £21,000 a year – which they say is “more than the equivalent of what most working families have to spend on their housing costs”.
That is a lot of money but they forget that the money does not end up in the claimant’s pocket but in the landlord’s. The cause of the high housing benefit bill is greedy landlords who are raking in taxpayers’ money.
The answer is to cap rents, not benefits. Bring back the Rent Act.
Labour says it will force a vote in Parliament on the plans.
Campbell Robb referred to a study on the impact of housing benefit changes on London, commissioned by Shelter from the University of Cambridge.
It examined the impact of the cap, due to come in from April 2011, as well as other changes to the way rates are set.
He said early analysis had confirmed fears many London boroughs would become “largely unaffordable” for people on housing benefit from 2011, and a “significant further amount” would do so by 2016.
The research assumes rents will continue to rise by 3.6 per cent a year – and does not include all proposed changes affecting private tenants on housing benefit.
Robb said: “It is absolutely clear from what they are saying, is that over the next few years a whole swath of London, a whole series of properties – two-bed properties and bigger – will just become more unaffordable for those on housing benefit.
“In effect what will happen is the rents will be higher than the housing benefit that people get, so they would have to find their own money to meet the costs of rent before they have even started thinking about clothes and children and all those kinds of things.”
He said he was concerned the cuts could change “the very nature” of central London, and other cities – and “could mean tens of thousands of households forced from the centre, creating concentrations of poverty and inequality”.
And he said suggestions rents would come down if housing benefit was reduced were an “heroic assumption” when they had steadily risen over the past few decades.
A separate report issued by the TUC and the Fabian Society, based on a YouGov survey showed that more than half of tenants cannot absorb a housing benefit cut.
Forty-nine per cent in private rented housing and 66 per cent in social housing – would face financial difficulties if their income fell, such as through a cut in housing benefit, according to the poll.
While the government is cutting housing benefit and mortgage support, more than half the population want to see greater support from Government for renters and mortgage payers who get into difficulties with housing costs or who face losing their home.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “It is no wonder the housing benefit cuts are causing such difficulties for the Government, even within their own parties.
“Ministers want us to believe that housing benefit is going to what they would call work-shy scroungers, yet in reality only one claimant in eight is unemployed. The rest are mainly low-income working households, pensioners or the disabled.
“Then they tell us that people can absorb a cut in their housing benefit. This poll shows that most cannot. One in three renters already says that the stress of keeping up their rent payments has hit their performance at work.
“Thousands of people will have to uproot and move out of homes where they may have lived for years and have settled lives. Children will have to move schools.
“Lone parents carefully juggling work and child-care will lose support networks and have to give up work.”

Scabs injure FBU pickets

By Daphne Liddle

THREE Fire Brigade Union pickets were injured, two of them seriously, by scabs who deliberately drove vehicles at them at speed while Management is spreading smears to gutter press accusing pickets of intimidation, wanting to “stop firework night” along the usual claims of the high-life for senior FBU officials
The attacks happened last Monday during the second London one-day strike in a dispute over threats to sack more than 5,000 firefighters if they don’t sign a new contract on shift arrangements..
The first incident happened in Croydon fire station when a picket was knocked down and seriously injured by a speeding car driven by a scab.
Fire Brigade Union president Mick Shaw, who was there, described what happened: “A fire engine returned from an incident and drove into the fire station, its crew refusing to wind down their windows and talk to the pickets. But at least it drove slowly, at the brigade maximum of five mph, so that the pickets could get out of the way before they were mown down.
“It was followed by a car driven by the officers, and as the pickets tried to talk to the driver of the car, it accelerated suddenly and one of the striking firefighters was thrown up and into the windscreen, then several feet in front of the car.
“We asked the AssetCo employees who had control of our fire station for the first aid kit and some blankets, but they would not give them to us despite the obviously serious nature of the injuries.
“An ambulance was called at once, and the ambulance crew asked for an air ambulance. Our member was not able to move during the 25 minutes between being hit and being taken away in the ambulance.” The scab, a non-union manager, has been arrested.
The second incident happened in Dagenham when firefighter Graham Beers held his hand up at the side of a road to signal to the crew of a fire engine returning to the fire station that they should stop and speak to him.
“The fire engine swerved towards me and hit my hand” said Beers, who suffered a sprained and badly bruised hand.
In the third incident a fire engine was deliberately driven into the FBU London representative Ian Leahair, at Southwark fire station. This happened more than two hours after the strike ended.
There was a huge police presence at Southwark, and most FBU members were held in a police pen on the opposite side of the road. Just eight pickets were allowed.
When the scab fire engines started to return, the permitted eight pickets, in the midst of dozens of police officers, stood in front and asked the drivers to stop while they spoke to them.
The first two fire engines stopped for a couple of minutes but the third didn’t stop. It just kept coming. As the pickets fled before it, the fire engine actually picked up speed, and hit Ian Leahair and then one of the police officers, before the police finally persuaded the driver to stop.
By then, Ian Leahair’s legs and half his body were underneath the fire engine and he was clearly in pain.
FBU pickets yelled at the driver to reverse, but he would not do so until instructed to do so by the police. The policeman suffered a bruised leg. Ian Leahair has injured ribs. He was pulled out and helped to the side of the road.
After that, the police handled the arrival of the rest of the fire engines very differently. Police officers themselves stopped the fire engines, gave the pickets their couple of minutes, then cleared the way for the engines.
The police, in effect, began to protect the pickets from the strike-breakers.
FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said: “This has been a day of shocking violence directed at London’s firefighters.
“An incredible pattern seems to be emerging. It looks as though the private company hired to do our work has instructed its drivers to drive fast through picket lines. We ended the day in the extraordinary situation where the police had to protect striking firefighters from recklessly speeding vehicles, which were driven by those paid to break the strike.”
The shocking behaviour of the LFB management will only increase the resolve of the firefighters and win them the support of Londoners and all trade unionists throughout the country.

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Don't supersize our councils!

PUBLIC sector unions Unite and Unison both came out firmly against plans to merge three north London boroughs in order to cut administration costs.
The proposal to merge Westminster City Council, Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea was given the go-ahead in response to the deep cuts announced by the Government in
Wednesday’s Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR).
Peter Allenson, Unite national officer for local government, said: "The clue is in the name; local government means close to the local community.
"While the severity and speed of the coalition cuts puts horrific pressure on local authorities to cut services, we urge them not to rush into untested structures which could see service users unsure who to turn to when they need help.
"From cleansing services to child protection to social care, councils have to be close to the needs of their communities and the people who elect them and pay for them – and council workers need to know who is in charge.
"Supersizing the delivery of services like this means local councillors become insignificant and have little influence on the services they provide. Voters will soon become disenfranchised and wonder what they are paying for.
"People know and trust local services and have a sense of ownership. Councils play with this trust at their peril."
Unison is angry that it learnt about the merger green-light, not from the employers, but from the press.
Linda Perks, Unison regional secretary for Greater London, said: “The merger plans are bound to mean that services and standards will fall, as decision making becomes even more removed from local people. In addition, any mergers are bound to lead to significant job losses. This will add more London public sector employees to the dole queues and damage the capital’s already fragile economy.
“This announcement clearly demonstrates that the Government’s CSR really means Cuts Strangle Recovery! Unison demands that these three boroughs stop their political posturing and start to talk to the trade unions who represent some very worried employees across West London”.

London firefighters name new strike days

LONDON firefighters staged a successful strike on Saturday 23rd October in protest at management threats to sack all who refuse to sign up to new working conditions.
They also plan to strike on Monday 1st November and have announced another strike, for 47 hours, from Friday 5th November to Sunday 7th November.
FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said: “Today London’s 5,600 firefighters did the last thing they wanted to do. They went on strike for eight hours, leaving the capital without their expertise.
“It was an orderly, disciplined but solid strike. Eight out of 10 of them voted in the ballot, and of those, eight out of ten voted in favour of the strike. All of them supported it on the day.”
“This wasn’t a fight we sought or wanted. London Fire Brigade wants changes in shift patterns; we are willing to negotiate changes. But we do expect to negotiate them; we won’t have them imposed on us by the threat of sacking all our members. That’s what LFB tried to do.”
But the LFB has so far refused to negotiate and the FBU has named 5th to 7th November as the date for its third strike in this dispute.
In an article in the Guardian, Matt Wrack gave more details on the process that led to the strike and why the union had no choice.
“Our disagreement with the LFB did not arise on 11th August,” he said. “There's a specific background, and a general one. The LFB was acting under section 188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. If, 90 days after the start of this process, we have not reached an agreement which is satisfactory to the employer they have placed themselves in a position where they may legally fire all 5,600, and offer them re-employment on unilaterally imposed contracts.
It is a process which is designed to avoid having to negotiate a settlement. Why negotiate when you can sack everyone and invite them back on new contracts? It is also a process that is spreading; 26,000 workers at Birmingham city council have received similar letters under section 188; so too have 8,500 at Sheffield city council. It is a real return to Victorian values: "Do it our way or clear off!"
In the LFB our negotiations were originally about shift patterns.
“Until 11th August, talks were being conducted in what both sides recognised was a constructive spirit. Currently London firefighters work two day shifts a week of nine hours each, from 9am to 6pm, and two night shifts of 15 hours each, from 6pm to 9am.
“The employer wants a new system of two 12-hour day shifts from 8am to 8pm, and two 12-hour night shifts, from 8pm to 8am.
“We oppose this, for two reasons. First, it is known that the LFB wants to cut down on night-time fire cover, and the Fire Brigades Union believes that this is the LFB's main reason for wanting to change shift patterns.
“Having equal length day and night shifts will make it administratively easier to achieve. The justification for cutting night-time fire cover is that there are fewer fires at night. This is true, but the fires that do occur at night tend to be major ones, and are reported at a later stage. Night time is when most fire deaths occur.
“Cuts in night-time cover will mean some fire stations will close or certain fire engines will be withdrawn from service at night. This will certainly mean that sometime, a life will be lost which would otherwise have been saved.
“Second, the new patterns would make it very hard for firefighters with young families to see much of their children. Because of the physical demands of the job, frontline firefighters tend to be relatively young men and women, and many of them have young families.
“All the same, we've made it clear we are prepared to find a way through, and until 11th August I thought the London Fire Brigade were too.
“Here is what I think has changed. The London fire and emergency planning authority is chaired by Councillor Brian Coleman, a particularly aggressive Tory who seems to take pleasure in sneering at firefighters, and minimising the dangers and difficulties of their work and the skill required to do it. Coleman's most recent contribution to the debate was to confirm that the 11th August letter was ‘as good as’ a letter of dismissal, adding: ‘I'm quite relaxed about that... firefighters who don't sign the new contract won't be re-employed.’
“To get us back to work right now, we only need the dismissal letters withdrawn. But in the long term, an employer who shows some respect for our members' dedication and professionalism would work wonders.”

Free the Miami Five!

By a New Worker correspondent

New Worker supporters and hundreds of other Londoners braved the pouring rain on Tuesday to take part in a candlelit vigil outside the US embassy and demand the release of the Miami Five. TUC leader Brendan Barber, veteran Labour politician Tony Benn and a number of other union leaders joined the daughter of one of the Cuban prisoners in calling for their immediate release during the early evening vigil in Grosvenor Square.
Five Cubans have been unjustly imprisoned in US jails since 1998 for trying to stop terrorist attacks against Cuba. The United Nations, Amnesty International and numerous legal, religious and human rights organisations have questioned the fairness of their trial and long sentences, and condemned the US government’s persistent refusal to grant visas to allow two of their wives to visit.
For more than 40 years, right wing Cuban exile groups based in Miami have killed almost 3,500 people in terrorist attacks against Cuba. To save lives, Cuba sent five men to Miami to infiltrate and monitor the groups. At the request of the US government, this information was passed to the FBI in 1998.But instead of arresting the terrorists, the FBI used the information to identify and arrest the five Cubans on 12th September 1998 in Miami and charged them with spying and conspiracy.
Cuba has acknowledged that the prisoners are intelligence agents, while confirming they were spying on Miami’s Cuban exile community and not the US government.
Two of the prisoners’ wives, Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez, have been refused visas ten times and have not seen their husbands for 10 and 12 years.
Last August, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber wrote to US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to protest about the “cruel punishment” meted out to Gerardo Hernandez, who was placed in a tiny windowless for the third time when seeking to appeal against his conviction.
“Not only is this cruel punishment being imposed without explanation, and preventing Gerardo from seeing his lawyers at a crucial stage in his preparation for Habeas Corpus, but it has also been imposed while Gerardo is experiencing health problems,” Barber said.
Eight Nobel Prize winners as well as 110 British MPs have also taken up their cause, writing to the US Attorney General calling for the immediate release of all five.

No more help for bad blood victims

ANNE MILTON, Public Health Minister in the Con-Dem government, last week ruled out raising compensation levels for the victims of one of the worst scandals of the NHS.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s the NHS purchased blood for transfusion from the United States without checking its origins. Much of it turned out to be contaminated with HIV and with hepatitis C
Almost 5,000 people contracted HIV and Hepatitis C after they were given contaminated blood products, which were given to patients suffering with haemophilia and other bleeding disorders.
An independent public inquiry into the matter was held in 2007, chaired by Labour peer Lord Archer of Sandwell. Lord Archer’s report called it a “horrific human tragedy”.
The independent inquiry was funded with private donations as successive governments rejected demands for a full inquiry.
The current scheme of pay-outs to victims is funded by private donations and charitable organisations.
While campaigners for proper compensation marched and lobbied outside Parliament Anna Milton ruled out a suggestion by a 2007 public inquiry to match those made in the Irish Republic.
Milton said she would look again at people infected with Hepatitis C.
Cardiff Central Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Willott said victims had deserved to have the recommendations “seriously considered”.
Milton was speaking in the first debate on private members’ Bills on a Bill sponsored by Pontypridd MP Owen Smith after the death of one of his constituents, Leigh Sugar.
Sugar, a 44-year-old haemophiliac, died in June of liver cancer caused by Hepatitis C he contracted through contaminated blood in the 1980s.
His family was among the campaigners in Parliament Square.
Milton told the Commons she would review the situation and report back by Christmas. She said she was “acutely aware that campaigners on this issue have been left hanging for far too long”.
Labour MP Geoffrey Robinson, who opened the debate, described Milton’s statement as “useless”.
He urged ministers to meet victims, some of whom were watching the debate from the public gallery, to “see what reaction they get”.
“They want closure on it, they’re fed up with it...,” he said.
“This government had an opportunity to make a new start, to bring closure to this great human tragedy and they have refused to do so,” he said.
Jenny Willott said 1,200 people had been infected with HIV, 4,670 with Hepatitis C and more than 1,800 people had died.
She added: “Since it has taken over 20 years to have an inquiry I think the least the victims deserve is to have the recommendations seriously considered, even those which are expensive.”
Speaking before the debate Owen Smith said he hoped it would be the first step to a full inquiry and a UK government-backed compensation scheme.
Margaret Sugar, who was among the demonstrators outside, said: “As he [Leigh Sugar] got ill, the more sick he became, he said to my daughter-in-law this has got to come out. Nothing will bring my son back but what I want is justice.”
Leigh Sugar’s cousin, David Thomas, 39, was also infected with contaminated blood in the early 1980s and has liver problems caused by contracting Hepatitis C.
He said: “It beggars belief we received this through the NHS. Successive governments for the last 20 years have known about the Hepatitis C virus and its cause through the receipt of contaminated blood products and have dodged the issue but hopefully now it’s getting the airing it deserves.”

London firefighters to strike

FIREFIGHTERS in London voted by 79 per cent in a ballot for strike action against management threats of mass sackings to enforce a change of shift patterns. The first two 24-hour strikes are planned for Saturday 23rd October and Monday 1st November.
The Fire Brigades Union has told London Fire Brigade Commissioner that he can avert the strikes by withdrawing his letter of 11th August, which began the legal process of sacking the capital’s 5557 uniformed and 41 non-operational firefighters.
The majority was 79 per cent and the turnout was 79 per cent.
Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack said: “This is a huge vote for strike action. Firefighters hate going on strike – but they hate being bullied even more. This vote demonstrates that London firefighters will fight these mass sackings every step of the way.
“The London Fire Brigade now needs to lift the sacking notices and start negotiating properly. I hope that even at this late stage, Ron Dobson will do the sensible thing, so that we can get round a table with him and sort out our differences over shift patterns without a gun being held to our heads.”
The union delayed setting strike dates for 24 hours to give Dobson a “last chance to do the sensible thing and withdraw the letters of dismissal so we can return to negotiating on the question of shift patterns” said FBU executive member for London Ian Leahair.
London firefighters have been taking action short of a strike, including an overtime ban and a ban on “acting up”, since Friday 24th September.
Meanwhile Dobson has already started to play dirty by withdrawing 27 fire engines to be hidden away for use by a private strike-breaking company during the strike.
Matt Wrack said last Thursday: “This is nothing but provocation. The result of our strike ballot is not even out yet, but the Chief Fire Officer has taken away 27 fire engines from local stations and local communities, when firefighters are there and ready to use them.
“The Brigade has a duty to consult with staff and public over reductions on fire cover. It failed to do so.”
The FBU acted after reports that: London Fire Brigade had last Thursday morning, unannounced, removed 27 fire appliances from frontline cover.
The appliances are to be used by strikebreaking service (AssetCo) in the event of a strike.
Removed appliances have not been replaced; stations where appliances have been removed have been re-designated as one-appliance rather than two-appliance stations; 27 appliances equates to almost a fifth of London’s entire fleet; staff have not been informed of any new mobilising arrangements. The FBU predicted it will cause huge confusion.

Lobbying against anti-union laws

By a New Worker correspondent

Trade unionists lobbied Parliament last week to persuade MPs to back a Private Members bill that would prevent employers from using technicalities to block industrial action.
John McDonnell MP has introduced the Bill to prevent employers blocking the democratic wishes of trade union members who have voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action. Employers constantly challenge democratic union ballots on minor technical grounds which would have had no affect on the outcome of the ballot. Bosses organisations, and the Mayor of London, are now calling for a complete twisting of the basic rules of democracy to tighten the noose even further around workers necks.
John McDonnell’s Bill is already gaining broad support and to progress to its next stage 100 MPs need to attend Parliament for its Second Reading on Friday 22nd October. McDonnell, the chair of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), is also the Parliamentary Group convenor for the RMT transport union. RMT General Secretary Bob Crow has thrown his weight behind the campaign saying: “We know that there has been a new push from the bosses’ organisations, the Mayor of London and other Tory politicians since the election to try and get the Government to load the law on industrial action even further in their favour. We also know that the Thatcherites driving the ConDem administration are ideologically anti-union.
“With the cuts battle set to intensify this autumn there is no doubt that the Government and the employers will see the anti-union laws as an important weapon in trying to choke off workplace resistance to attacks on jobs and services.
“Now is the time for the trade union movement to rally round and defend the basic right to strike and the right to defend jobs, standards of living and public services. John McDonnell’s Private Members Bill is the focal point for the union fight back against the anti-union laws.”

Solidarity with the Workers Party of Korea

New Worker supporters joined other friends of Democratic Korea in the heart of London last Saturday. Over 30 people from all walks of life including workers, teachers, students and pensioners took part in the celebration of the 65th anniversary of the Workers Party of Korea organised by the UK Korean Friendship Association (UK KFA) and the Juche Idea Study Group and supported by the New Communist Party, Second Wave Publications and the south London Morning Star supporters group.
Dermot Hudson from the UK KFA and Shaun Pickford, the secretary of the Juche Idea Study Group both spoke about Korean-style socialism, the Juche Idea and Songun politics and NCP leader Andy Brooks highlighted the achievements of the Korean revolution as well as the immense contribution that the Workers Party of Korea had made to the world communist movement.
The exhibition, at the Marchmont Centre in central London, contained a large number of books and pamphlets for sale from the DPR Korea introducing the reality of the country and the Juche and Songun idea. Other progressive pamphlets and books were available from the New Worker, Second Wave and Morning Star stalls in the hall while the walls were covered with a collection of pictures of great leader Kim Il Sung and Marshal Kim Jong Il and others showing socialist construction and the unity of the people.

photo: a busy NCP stall

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Solidarity with Democratic Korea!

By a New Worker correspondent
NCP general secretary Andy Brooks joined other communists at a seminar last week to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the Workers Party of Korea (WPK). Chaired by Dermot Hudson, the seminar organised by Friends of Korea (FOK) and held at the London HQ of the RCPB(ML) heard contributions from FOK activists and members of the audience on the achievements of the WPK and its leaders over the years.
The NCP leader praised the feats of the WPK and denounced the hostile propaganda of imperialism against the DPRK in his contribution. Michael Chant of the RCPB (ML) spoke about the importance and significance of the WPK and the great role of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and Dermot Hudson gave a succinct history of the Korean communists’ revolutionary struggle from its earliest days to last week’s historic conference in Pyongyang.
DPRK London diplomat Jang Song Chol told the meeting about the importance of last week’s special WPK conference that re-elected Kim Jong Il to the post of general secretary of the Party, filled a number of other important Party posts and made some amendments to the rule-book.
The meeting concluded with the unanimous agreement to send the following message congratulating Kim Jong Il on his re-election last week.



Message of Congratulations
Adopted at the Seminar organised by Friends of Korea
October 5th 2010 (Juche 99)
London, England

To Comrade Kim Jong Il
General Secretary, Workers’ Party of Korea
Pyongyang


Dear Comrade Kim Jong Il

This Seminar convened to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the foundation of the Workers’ Party of Korea conveys to you its heartiest congratulations on the historic occasion of your re-election as General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, at the Conference of the Workers' Party of Korea on September 28.

Your unanimous re-election as General-Secretary of the WPK is testimony to the resounding confidence of the Korean people in your Songun revolutionary leadership based on the Juche principle, and in building a powerful and prosperous nation and a socialist system of the Korean people’s own choosing.

We also send our congratulations to all members of the WPK on the successful conclusion of the historic conference of the WPK and its important decisions to further strengthen it to fulfil its responsibilities under the national and international circumstances which it faces.

We have the utmost confidence that the conference marks another historic milestone in the forward march of the Korean nation, and that the Workers’ Party of Korea under your leadership is the sure weapon to defend the achievements of the Korean people. The conference has demonstrated that the unity of the Korean people and their leadership is unbreakable.

May we wish you on this occasion good health and long life, and assure you that we stand shoulder to shoulder with you in our common cause of building a new world, the world of peace, independence and socialism.

With warmest fraternal regards

Seminar organised by the Co-ordinating Committee of Friends of Korea

photo: Dermot Hudson and Andy Brooks

Another successful Tube strike

THE LONDON Underground network was thrown into chaos by the second joint union strike against the planned cutting of 800 jobs – mainly ticket office staff. The 24-hour strike began at 18.30 on Sunday evening and lasted through until Monday evening.
Tube bosses claimed they had 40 per cent of trains running – a claim challenged by the unions RMT and TSSA who said the figure was nearer to 30 per cent – but with most stations closed and information confused few people could get on whatever trains were running.
Services on the entire Circle line were suspended. Services on seven other lines were part suspended, with special services on three other Tube lines.
At the same time many services on London Overground were part suspended due to faulty trains and signalling problems.
The strikers received solidarity messages from many other unions, including the TUC, Unite, PCS, FBU, Usdaw, NUT, NASUWT and NUJ.
But Tory London Mayor Boris Johnson, who has consistently refused to meet the unions and was absent at the Tory party conference during the strike, used the disruption caused by the strike to demand even more draconian anti-union laws to prevent strikes in vital services.
He told delegates to the Tory conference: “I want to speak directly to the three million people who use the London Underground network every day, and the first and most important thing is how deeply I regret the inconvenience you are suffering as a result of this strike.
"And I say to the leaders of the unions that this gesture is nakedly and blatantly political; that it has nothing to do with health and safety or improving the terms and conditions of work of your members."
RMT general secretary Bob Crow responded: "The cuts to ticket offices and safety-critical station staffing levels that RMT members are fighting to prevent in the action today are the same cuts that Boris Johnson opposed before he was elected London mayor.
"To attack RMT and TSSA members standing up for Tube safety is hypocrisy of the highest order on the part of the mayor.
"The anger of the mayor's Tube staff at his repeated attacks on them is shown in the rock solid support for today's action and the fact that hundreds of staff have turned back at the picket lines. The mayor's assault has hardened attitudes and reinforced the determination to stop these cuts."
Days before the strike the RMT released pictures of worn-away brake blocks on trains that with finance-driven maintenance changes would be forced into service, a move that the union says demonstrate that financial cuts are ripping to shreds safety and maintenance schedules with lethal consequences for passengers and staff alike.
London Underground have begun trialing a new schedule which will double the period between brake inspections on tube trains from 14 to 28 days – the pictures that RMT released are of brake blocks after 14 days of wear on the tracks and show in the most graphic detail that if the current schedule is extended the brakes will be grinding metal on metal creating the perfect conditions for a major disaster.
Boris Johnson is seeking to ban strikes unless the ballot produces a majority in excess of 50 per cent of all who are entitled to vote – a move that would give a field day to lawyers in disputes over who is entitled to vote. And he has the backing of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).
Bob Crow replied: "The CBI and Boris want to tighten the noose of the anti-union laws around the neck of working people.
"The vast majority of Boris's crew would not be in power had this distorted and bastardised version of democracy been applied to London Assembly members."
London Underground boss Howard Collins claimed that even after the cuts “every station will remain staffed at all times”. Bob Crow said this was “nonsense” because many stations already run unstaffed on a regular basis.
TSSA general secretary Gerry Doherty said: “To use one of Boris’s own phrases – that is a pyramid of piffle.
"We would not have written to the mayor over six months ago asking him to talk to us over his plans to axe 800 ticket office jobs on the Tube if we were playing political games.
"He is a part-time mayor, part-time columnist and part-time game show host and he is not particularly good in any of those roles. Now he is turning a legal strike into a political game show.
"This is not a strike against central government. It is a strike against Boris’s plans to cut over 7,000 hours a week from ticket offices at all 274 stations at LU, purely a local government dispute."
Lianna Etkind from the campaign Transport for All pointed out that the cuts would make it much harder for disabled and older people to use the Tube network.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber also attacked Johnson’s call for more anti-union laws, saying: “The UK has some of the toughest legal restrictions on the right to strike in the advanced world. Already the courts regularly strike down democratic ballots that clearly show majority support for action.
“The CBI proposals are a fundamental attack on basic rights at work that are recognised in every human rights charter, and will be dismissed by any Government with a commitment to civil liberties.”

Tube dispute gathers steam

THE RMT and TSSA unions are stepping up their industrial action on many fronts in their fight to defend safe staffing levels at London Underground stations, after Transport for London (TfL) announced plans to cut 800 staff, whose loss will leave the network less safe.
This involves all sections of tube workers from ticket clerks to maintenance engineers and will involve work to rule, further strikes, the cancellation of weekend engineering works and a refusal to participate in the minimum £5 Oyster card top-up from Sunday 3rd October.
The overtime ban, which is already having a significant impact and causing station closures, remains in force and the staggered 24-hour strikes starting on 3rd October, 2nd November and 28th November are on.
RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: “We have made every effort to resolve this dispute over safe staffing levels through negotiations and continue to pursue a settlement that will protect the safety of both staff and passengers and the quality of service to Tube users at all times and at all locations.
Following talks at Acas yesterday it is now up to London Underground management to come back to us with a positive response.
“Our members have shown their determination to defend the ticket offices, safety-critical station jobs and the whole future of a safe and secure tube network and we have announced the additional action today to push that campaign forwards.
“The Mayor and his transport officials cannot simply wash their hands of this dispute. Boris Johnson has said that he will stand up and fight for London against the Con-Dem government cuts – that’s exactly what RMT and TSSA members are doing on the tube right in the Mayor’s own back yard.
Rather than attacking us the Mayor, as chair of TfL, should instruct his officials to put safety first and withdraw the cuts that they are bulldozing through without agreement and with complete disregard for the consequences.”
Works hit by the overtime ban include major re-railing between White City and Marble Arch, as well as all work on signalling systems.
RMT has calculated that the cost to LU of the cancellations is already at least £15 million, cancelling out the saving the company claims it will make by removing 800 front-line staff.
The union also charged that LUL was running trains that had not been inspected within strict time-limits and was continuing to open under-staffed stations, in breach of safety rules and increasing risk to passengers and Tube staff.
Train brake blocks, cab equipment, chassis brackets and other critical equipment is supposed to be inspected at 14-day intervals, and the union has evidence that trains that have not been inspected for at least 22 days have not been taken out of service, as operating rules require.

GMB protest over hospital cuts

THE GMB general union this Wednesday staged a protest over plans by South London Healthcare NHS Trust to close the maternity and accident-and-emergency departments at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup.
The trust said it had to make the closures over the winter as it could not guarantee to keep the services running because of severe staffing problems.
The protest took place at the South London Healthcare NHS Trust Board meeting held on the 29th September at in Woolwich. The Board meeting will take place at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich in the dining room conference centre.
GMB called on trust staff and members of the public attend this meeting to tell the Trust just what these services mean to the local area.
Frank Macklin GMB officer said: “GMB members are very angry and disappointed with the Trust’s recent announcement to close the departments that provide an essential service to the surrounding areas.
“GMB believe that the decision to close these services is purely a financial one. GMB also has major concerns that the existing A&E department in the Queen Elizabeth hospital will not be able to cope as it is already operating at maximum capacity thereby increasing the risks of attacks on staff from the patients using this department on a daily basis.
“The Trust management has stated that they intend to close the departments temporarily, but GMB believe that these closures will be permanent.
“The news has come as no surprise to the neighbouring trusts which have been waiting for this day to come for a long time. Darrent Valley Hospital has said that as a result of the Queen Mary’s closure it expects to see another 7,000 patients in its A&E department and also it expects to deliver another 1,000 babies.
“It has also said that it has been actively recruiting midwives, consultants and nurses to meet this additional demand.
“Since the new Trust has been formed the emphasis has been on saving as much money as quickly as possible. Nearly every member of staff has seen their terms and conditions attacked as part of the Trust’s drive to make savings. There are currently over a 1,000 admin and clerical posts at risk of redundancy as well.”

Quds Day rally for Palestine

By New Worker correspondent

THOUSANDS of people joined the annual Quds Day Rally and march in London last Saturday, organised by the UK-based Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC).
The march was a peaceful, noisy, colourful affair supported by hundreds of family and community groups and political organisations.
Among the supporting organisations was a group of religious Jews in traditional costume who oppose Zionism as racist and oppose the occupation of Palestinian land. Their leaders walked hand-in-hand with the imams at the head of the march.
But it came under attack from three groups, who worked together as an unlikely alliance that said everything about their political opportunism.
The first was a group of dissident Iranians, claiming to be a Green Party but who were clearly from the American-backed opposition to the Ahmadinejad government. They tried to discourage support for the Palestinian cause on the grounds that it is supported by the Iranian government.
The second was a group of extreme right-wing fundamentalist Zionists, waving Israeli flags.
And the third and largest opposition group was from the English Defence League – a collection of football hooligans and other ill-informed “patriots” directed from the back by hard-core, long-standing neo-Nazis.
Amazingly these three groups were happy to make common cause and support each other, standing together outside the Hilton Hotel and causing the police to re-route the Quds day march as it made its way to Grosvenor Square and the United States Embassy.
Several provocative attempts by EDL supporters to attack the march were thwarted by police and those on the march remained calm and good-humoured and refused to be provoked.
Muslim youths on the march told the New Worker they were well aware of the EDL’s aim to spark a fight that, if they rose to the bait, would get them reported as violent lunatic Islamist fundamentalists in the right-wing tabloid press. They ignored the provocations.
The march passed into Grosvenor Square for a rally with speakers who put the blame for the continuing Middle East turmoil firmly on US imperialism with its massive financial and military backing of Zionist Israel, using the people of Israel as their surrogate military presence in the region.
A few EDL supporters made their way to the perimeter of Grosvenor Square but were kept firmly at the opposite end of the square by police.

Green thoughts in a green shade!

The South London New Worker Supporters Group held its annual fun-raising garden party in Charlton last weekend under the calming influence of shady trees and bird-song accompanied by the sound of fountains. There was also good food, drink and conversation and the event raised just over £18 for the New Worker.

Supporting the Korean revolution!

By New Worker correspondent

Friends of the Korean revolution were out again in London last Tuesday outside the south Korean and American embassies to condemn the latest imperialist war-games on the Korean peninsula.
NCP leader Andy Brooks joined protesters, including some who had come from Oxford and Southampton, in denouncing the US “Ulji Freedom Guardian” exercises of the American army of occupation in south Korea and their puppet auxiliaries. The protest was the latest in a series of afternoon solidarity pickets organised by the UK Korean Friendship Association and supported by the NCP, the For Bolshevism group and a number of other solidarity movements.
After a two hour stint outside the south Korean embassy the protesters moved on to Grosvenor Square to picket the US embassy chanting slogans in support of peace and Korean re-unification and reading out statements from the Democratic Korean media.
Dermot Hudson of the KFA said that the Obama regime had continued with the policy of Bush aimed at stifling the DPR Korea. “Ulji Freedom Guardian” is a rehearsal to invade the DPRK and that Obama is just the trendy face of US
Imperialism, he said. Other speakers also drew attention to the insidious attempt of the US imperialists to extradite Sean Garland, the leader of the Workers Party of Ireland and friend of the DPRK, and alleged computer hacker Gary McKinnon.
Passers-by stopped to chat with the demonstrators and some joined in the protest including a worker from one of the former Soviet Baltic republics and members of London’s Malaysian community.
Afterwards some picketers adjourned for a small social to mark the 50th anniversary of the Songun revolutionary leadership of Korean leader Kim Jong Il and plan for future events and meetings.

Justice demanded for Ian Tomlinson

by a New Worker correspondent

AROUND 200 protesters gathered at the London headquarters of the Crown Prosecution Service on the south bank of the Thames in Southwark last Friday to demand that the police constable responsible for pushing Ian Tomlinson to the ground with such force that he died minutes later should face a criminal prosecution.
The protesters were demanding further action be taken against Pc Stephen Harwood – and the CPS for shielding police officers who assault, injure and kill members of the public from facing criminal charges.
Members of the campaign for justice for the victims of police violence were there in force.
The event was noisy but there were no incidents. After a number of speeches there was a two-minute silence for Ian Tomlinson.
Tomlinson was making his way home from work, walking with his hands in his pockets through an area where riot police were clashing with G20 protesters on 1st April 2009.
Dozens of witnesses saw, and some filmed on their mobile phone cameras, as PC Stephen Harwood gratuitously pushed Tomlinson from behind; since his hand were in his pockets Tomlinson fell heavily and died shortly afterwards.
A week ago the CPS refused to prosecute because, they said, three post mortem examinations had given two different results. This decision was given on 22nd July – exactly five years from the shooting by armed officers of Jean-Charles de Menezes.
Understandably the family of Ian Tomlinson was greatly concerned by the lengthy investigation fearing a cover-up and the impact this whole process has had on their lives.
In April 2010, John McDonnell MP and leading civil liberties campaigners, MEPs and trade unionists wrote a letter to the Guardian to express their “growing concerns” about the investigation.
The Labour Representation Committee expressed outrage at the decision not to prosecute Harwood, Saying: “Today’s announcement illustrates that the police are a law unto themselves. Ian Tomlinson died in an unprovoked savage attack exposed on video yet that is not enough for the CPS to seek prosecution. Where is the justice for Ian Tomlinson’s family – who have described the decision as a “disgrace”?
John McDonnell MP, who chairs the LRC, said: “Given the stark nature of the video evidence it is hard to understand the CPS’s findings. An independent public inquiry is warranted.”

Hiroshima commemoration in Charlton

By New Worker correspondent


AROUND 100 people attended an event last Tuesday in the historic early 17th century Charlton House, south London, to commemorate the dead and injured victims of the atom bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 and to hear survivor Shoso Kawamoto tell his story.
The event was organised by Lewisham and Greenwich CND with Sydenham and Forest Hill CND and Beckenham and Bromley CND, to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The event began with a bring-and-share picnic on the lawn behind Charlton House, after which the Mayor of Greenwich, Councillor Barbara Barwick, welcomed Shoso Kawamoto from the Hiroshima Peace Museum who spoke about his life in Hiroshima as a child in the aftermath of the bombing.
This was followed by a moment of silence in the Charlton House Peace Garden and then music will be provided by the One World Club.

The spirit of Beijing comes to London

By New Worker correspondent


JUST over a year ago the people of Charlton in south east London noticed council workers installing a variety of exercise machines in a corner of Charlton Park, close to the path where hundreds of people every day cut through from various estates to the village shops and bus stops, on their way to work, shopping or whatever.
The council workers also erected a couple of basket ball nets and a five-a-side football sized goal with a small kick-about area and a long wall with irregular hand and footholds for would-be climbers to make their way along.
The equipment was checked and then just left. For anyone and everyone to use, as and when they wanted to. No formalities, no joining a club, no commitments to turn up regularly. Just use as you want to, as the mood takes you.
And it has been a roaring success. It is almost continually in use at all times of day and late into the night. It has its busy times, mostly in the evenings but it is rare to pass it at any time of day and not find at least one or two people using it.
It is used by schoolchildren coming home from school, by young men and women, by early morning joggers, by the middle aged and occasionally the elderly. It is used by all shades and colours of Londoners as well as new arrivals from the Third World and eastern Europe. Women’s fitness clubs turn up to use it regularly, as do budding sports enthusiasts. Small children who cannot reach to use the equipment as intended find ingenious different ways to use it. People who have heard about it come from miles around to use it.
So far there are no reports of anyone being hurt using it, nor any serious arguments developing over it. And it has never been vandalised in any way.
Earlier this year two solid table-tennis tables were added. We thought that the wind would make outdoor ping-pong impossible. We were proved wrong. At first the tables were used mainly by young immigrants from the Far East but their enthusiasm has spread and now locals are taking up ping-pong.
The young men who used to meet regularly at a certain park bench at dusk to talk and trade in small paper packages have moved on – or given up and joined the free gym users. The spot is now much too public for that sort of trade. And the free gym undermines that trade in another way – it needs customers who are truly bored with their lives and there are now fewer of those.
The free gym was put up after a couple of Greenwich councillors who, in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics, went out to Beijing just before the 2008 Olympics to study the way the Chinese authorities prepared there. Apparently they noticed these small free gyms erected in parks throughout the Chinese capital and thought they were a good idea.
Free access to sport for all was a way to get local people interested in the games. But did those councillors realise they were importing dangerous communist ideas?
They decided to try a couple in the London Borough of Greenwich to see how they worked out; they would then roll out the scheme to every park in the borough – and other boroughs might take it up.
Greenwich also pioneered the free swimming for over-60s scheme that the new Con-Dem government has just axed – even though it can hardly have cost the borough anything – a few extra people in the pool at off-peak times cannot have added to the running costs.
Likewise the free gym, once erected it cannot cost the borough much to maintain it.
But there are some in the new government who abhor in principle the idea that anything should ever be free. It is part of their ideology; they will claim it is unfair on the commercial gyms in the area that charge people a fortune so only the well off can afford to use them.
Will the borough continue with the free gym and expand it as planned? Or will the Government squash the whole idea as far too communist? We shall wait and see.

When imperialism was stopped in its tracks!

By a New Worker correspondent
New Worker supporters joined other Korean solidarity campaigners at London’s Conway Hall for a celebration of the 57th anniversary of the Korean people’s victory in the Fatherland Liberation War on Saturday 24th July.
Called by the Juche Idea Study Group of England (JISGE) and the Association for the Study of Songun Politics the meeting opened with a talk by JISGE Chair Dermot Hudson followed by other contributions from Shaun Pickford and Kevin Cain calling for solidarity with the DPR Korea. Following a round-table discussion a message and a solidarity resolution were adopted by all present. Some participants in the meeting then went to south east London to a party to celebrate the Korean people’s defeat of US imperialism and its lackeys in 1953.

Comrades celebrate Party Day!

COMRADES friends joined New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks and Party Chair Alex Kempshall in celebrating the NCP's founding day reception on 10th July at the Party Centre in London. Michael Chant from the RCPB (ML) and Dermot Hudson from the UK Korean Friendship Association spoke of the NCP’s international solidarity and consistent work over the past 33 years in upholding the communist banner in Britain, while solidarity messages included greetings the Workers’ Party of Korea and from an old comrade who now lives in one of the former Soviet republics. No NCP social ends without an appeal for the New Worker and National Treasurer Dolly Shaer’s call raised £652 for the fighting fund!

Remembering the IB prisoners

by a New Worker correspondent


WHEN the Spanish war against fascism ended in 1939, the International Brigaders gathered for a final rally before leaving with their heads held high and the words of Dolores Ibuarri (La Pasionaria) ringing in their ears: “You are history, you are legend”.
But some were left behind; suffering the horrors of incarceration in Franco’s fascist jails and their story is not yet well documented.
And remembering these forgotten heroes was the theme of this year’s memorial event in Jubilee Gardens in south London on Saturday 3rd July.
Scores of people gathered in the baking sun, many of them relatives of those who had volunteered to fight against fascism in Spain in 1936 because they could see that rising fascism threatened to unleash a cataclysm on the human race.
The event, organised by the International Brigade association, began with speeches from Ramon Ganderias, deputy head of mission at the Spanish embassy, and from Sr Miquel Caminal, director of Memorial Democratic de Catalunya.
This was followed by the singing of the song Jarama, a one-minute silence and then the laying of wreaths at the memorial statue.
Dolly West-Shaer, daughter of Brigader Frank West and New Communist Party Treasurer, gave an account of her family’s shock when Frank did not return with the other brigaders and the discovery that he was still held prisoner at a time when Europe was hurtling towards war against fascism.
The Franco regime was engaged in the wholesale slaughter of its prisoners of war but DN Pritt, a Labour Party leading campaigner and barrister, “practically sat on the Foreign Office doorstep in his fight to get the remaining prisoners home and Dad was one of the 11 who were the last prisoners to come home,” Dolly told the crowd.
And he came with a harrowing story of his eight months imprisonment in the derelict monastery, San Pedro de Cardenas. The place contained 700 International Brigaders as well as hundreds of Basque and Spanish prisoners, most of whom were killed.
Prisoners’ health suffered badly from the lack of food and medicine – many of them were wounded. The German Nazis sent SS officers to interrogate the prisoners. German members of the brigade were shipped back to concentration camps where few survived.
Further to this the prisoners suffered continual physical attacks from their sadistic guards.
But their spirits did not succumb. “They set up classes in chess, languages, philosophy, sciences and Marxism; they shared their experiences of life in the international working class,” said Dolly. “And they survived!
“And left us a period of working class history that we can all be proud of.”
Christine Collins gave the crowd in Jubilee Gardens an equally harrowing tale of the experiences of her grandfather as a prisoner of Franco’s forces.
The event finished with the emotional singing of the Internationale.

photo:Dolly Shaer salutes the memory of the Brigaders

Supporting Democratic Korea!

FRIENDS of the Korean people marked the 60th anniversary of the imperialist attack on the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea with pickets outside the south Korean and US embassies last Friday. NCP leader Andy Brooks joined other comrades in the afternoon protests organised by the UK Korea Friendship Association, the Juche Idea Study Group and supporters of the Russian AUCPB communist party, which included the continuous reading out of Democratic Korean statements and solidarity messages outside both embassies by UK KFA organisers Kevin Cain and Dermot Hudson. Then everyone else was invited to take a turn on the megaphone to deliver their own messages of support for the Korean revolution.
Owen Liddle and Juan Zapata from the Metropolitan New Worker Supporters’ Group along with members of the Revolutionary Workers’ Party (Posadist) and the Revolutionary Communist Group helped in giving out leaflets to passers-by in the spirited and cheerful demonstrations which ended in Grosvenor Square with the playing of the DPRK national anthem.

Morning Star conference

Capitalism is the crisis


By New Worker correspondent


“THE GLOBAL financial crisis started in the unregulated finance and banking sector. But now the ruling class is trying to shift the responsibility on to the working class and in particular the public sector,” Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, told the Morning Star conference last Saturday – and his words summed up the theme of the conference.
The conference, at the TUC’s Congress House in London, attracted a wide spectrum of Star readers including union leaders, academics, international guests and activists across the whole spectrum of the labour movement.
Other union leaders who opened discussions included Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT transport union, Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke, National Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers and Megan Dobney of the South-East Region TUC.
Green Party MEP Keith Taylor, Sinn Fein northern Ireland Legislative Assembly Member Billy Leonard and former Respect MP George Galloway took part in wide-ranging debates throughout the day while the international perspective of the struggle was stressed in openings from Panos Rentzelas of the Greek Communist Party (KKE), Venezuelan ambassador Samuel Moncada and Carolina Amador Perez. the Head of International Relations of the Federation of Cuban Women.
The conference opened with a session entitled “Star gazing” – a history of the Morning Star and its predecessor, the Daily Worker and the left-wing press in Britain back to the days of the Chartist movement and it included the showing of a special DVD marking the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Daily Worker.
In the debate on the economy Matt Wrack gave his warning on Prime Minister Cameron’s intentions to lay the blame for the economic crisis on the working class and the public sector in particular, with his misleading talk about “gold-plated public sector pensions”, which in reality rarely amount to more than £4,000 to £5,000 a year.
And he accused the Tories of opportunistically using the economic crisis to carry out swingeing public sector cuts that they had always wanted to do anyway.
Speaking of the £900 billion bail out of the banks, he said: “There has been a massive transfer of wealth from the vast majority of people to the tiny clique who rule this country.”
Panos Rentzelas spoke of the work of the KKE in Greece to build unity throughout the workers to refuse to pay the price of bailing out the bankers. The Greek banks received £20 billion in bail-outs and are now making £200 billion in profits.
Panos reported that, following 10 successive national strikes, recruitment to the militant trade union front Pame is soaring. And in the banner that KKE members draped from the Parthenon in March, they reached out to workers across Europe with their message; “Peoples of Europe rise up!”





Many speakers throughout Saturday’s conference said how this sight had inspired them.
“Stopping the capitalist attack is not enough,” said Panos, “we must counter-attack with class coalitions and alliances and prepare to bring socialism to power.”
And he defined socialism as a state under workers’ control, with a centrally planned economy run for the benefit of the people.
He reported that there are growing threats to outlaw the KKE but the party is not dismayed. Working in conditions of adversity would help the KKE to build the beginnings of the organs of a workers’ state.
Panos finished by repeating the message of the iconic banner: “People of Europe rise up; the future belongs to the workers, not the capitalists!”
The Clarion Singers, members of the Workers’ Music Association, entertained everyone in the main lobby during the lunch break with great renditions of traditional working class songs while others went to fringe meetings on LGBT rights and privatisation.
“Where next for Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Rights” was led by Dr Peter Purton, Deidre Costigan and Thierry Schaffauser and chaired by Anton Johnson and the other was a power point presentation from the civil service union PCS on privatisation.
In the afternoon Professor Keith Ewing, Bob Crow, George Galloway and Tony Burke spoke on “Trade union freedoms/the Labour Party: can you have one without the other?” – followed by discussion from the floor.
Crow argued that the Labour Party was dead while Galloway and Burke argued that is was not, citing the surge of working class vote for Labour on 6th May in the traditional inner city Labour seats.
Professor Ewing warned that changes proposed by the new Con-Dem coalition involve cutting the number of parliamentary seats and redrawing constituency boundaries – not to the advantage of the working class.
He also warned that introducing state funding of political parties would outlaw the funding that Labour now gets from the unions and the representation of the working class in Parliament.
“This is a cynical move,” he said and warned: “there may never be another Labour government elected in Westminster.”
In a later session headed: “Life, the universe and everything: the way forward in fighting capitalism” Sinn Fein Assembly Member Billy Leonard spoke of the very sudden impact of the banking crisis on the Republic of Ireland and the swift departure of the “Celtic Tiger”.
There were many stalls at the conference, including one organised by the Metropolitan New Worker Supporters’ Group, which sparked a lot of interest and discussions with the comrades which included NCP general secretary Andy Brooks along with Daphne Liddle and Robert Laurie from the Central Committee as well as Juan Zapata and other London supporters. Pamphlets on, about or by Stalin proved especially popular and the total sales of papers, pamphlets and books raised £102 for the New Worker fighting fund.

photo 1: thoughtful moments for Billy Leonard and Star Editor Bill Benfield

photo 2: Panos Rentzelas and Andy Brooks swapping stories at the New Worker stall

Solidarity with DPR Korea

Solidarity with the DPR Korea


FRIENDS of the Korean revolution met in London last week to discuss the contribution of Kim Jong Il to the world communist movement and the role of Juche-style Party-building in a seminar to mark the anniversary of Kim Jong Il’s starting work on the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
Meeting at the John Buckle Centre, the RCPB(ML) headquarters in south London, contributions were made by NCP leader Andy Brooks, Michael Chant of the RCPB (ML), Dermot Hudson from the Korea Friendship Society along with Ella Rule and Keith Bennett from the CPGB (ML). They all stressed the important and in some ways unique tactics of the Korean communist movement in building the resistance to Japanese colonialism that led to final liberation and the establishment of a people’s democracy in the north of the country.
The meeting ended with the sending of message of congratulations to Comrade Kim Jong Il which was adopted by everyone in the room.

photo: Dermot Hudson makes his point

Turning 'em red at Turnham Green

COMRADES from Southall New Communist Party ran a stall at the annual Turnham Green Peace Market on Saturday 6th June in very hot weather.
They made a profit of £23.90 selling a mixture of political literature and homemade produce – including their highly reputed marmalade.

London to Colchester peace walk

PEACE campaigners are planning to mark Armed Forces Day on 26th June with a Day of Action in London and the next day begin a five-day peace walk from London to Colchester as an act of solidarity with Joe Glenton, the British soldier who is currently in military prison for refusing to return to Afghanistan, which he describes as “an unjust war”.
The Day of Action in London will include protests outside some of the new army recruitment centres, sometimes called the “Arcades of Death”, which are usually located in shopping centres.
These recruitment centres use computer games and the promise of career prospects to lure young people to enlist in the army.
The activists taking part in the London to Colchester march will stay in Chelmsford overnight on Tuesday 29th June and possibly also on 28th and 30th.
In the evenings they hope to hold public meetings with films and discussions.
The events are being organised jointly by people from Peace News, London Catholic Worker, Justice not Vengeance and CND.
They are asking people to join them in the London protests or by taking part in the walk, offering food/accommodation to walkers and by attending meetings.

Building alliances for a living wage

MATTHEW BOLTON of the public sector union Unison last weekend addressed a rally of the London Citizens’ group – of which he is the lead organiser.
London Citizens is the community organising group which has successfully brought together faith groups, schools, community groups and unions to fight for a living wage for some of London’s lowest paid workers. It is part of Citizens UK, which aims to be the national home of community organising.
“We can and will build powerful alliances,” said Bolton. “Unions and communities can and will build powerful alliances that will not just defend ourselves but shape decision-making”, he told local government delegates.
“We face a difficult five years,” he said, “and it is in all of our interests to face it together.”
Bolton said that in five years of organising, the group has won some £40 million in increased pay and conditions for cleaners and catering staff in London.
“I don’t have to tell you about the cuts,” he said. “Up to 725,000 jobs could go in public services in the next five years and public service workers are facing at best a pay freeze at a time when real inflation is running at five per cent.
“And for my own work, my target is to persuade 15 local councils that the living wage rate should be standard in their procurement of contracts at a time when budgets are being slashed.
“How will we meet these challenges? Unison has a membership of 1.3 million. The problem is not the power of your organisation. We have 160 groups that are part of London Citizens. The problem is how we connect the unions with the communities your members serve.”
He encouraged union branches to look at the groups members are already part of and see each of them as “a little pocket of power that could join together to support your campaign”.
He reminded delegates that London Citizens and Unison had worked together in East London to win a living wage for staff in four hospitals and help to recruit and organise the local Unison branches.
But he warned that community alliances needed to be built on trust and common interests and needed to “bring in the moderates, not just round up the usual suspects”.
Unions needed to understand that while individual casework is important for members, “it is not a great tool to build power – to do that, you need to invest your time in building up alliances.
“We aim to spread across the UK. Could your branch be a founding member of a local alliance? Can you see yourselves not as spectators, but as leading the way?”

Bus sale threatens thousands of jobs

THE GIANT union Unite last week made it clear that the current situation facing the East London Bus Group must not impact detrimentally on its 4,500 members.
The large bus company which runs routes in east London, south east London and central London has announced that it will be selling up, as it is facing huge losses.
Unite is concerned that the proposed sale will mean potential job losses, a reduction in services in the city and could lead to a number of routes lost, affecting the travelling public.
Unite is prepared to listen to the company's plan for moving out of the chaos it finds itself in, but 630 Unite members made clear at a mass meeting that they would not be prepared to accept the significant wage cuts and attacks on terms and conditions that the East London Bus Group is demanding.
Unite regional officer, John Griffiths, said: “This is the result of the mayor's tendering policies in the London bus market which is leading to an accelerated and ugly race to the bottom.
“Our members carry millions of passengers everyday and keep this city moving. Why should they be penalised as a result of this anarchic system, and by an operator that has made a fast buck, and is now bailing out.
“Our huge fear is for the many thousands of loyal workers at the East London Bus Group and Unite is calling for a swift resolution to end the uncertainty that our members face.”
Unite is now seeking urgent meetings with Transport for London to seek assurances that jobs and terms and conditions will be preserved.
The East London Bus Group was acquired from Stagecoach by a consortium led by Australian investment bank Macquarie.

McGuinness goes to Westminster

By Theo Russell

MARTIN McGUINNESS, deputy First Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive, told friends and supporters of Sinn Féin at the House of Commons last week that “the political process and the peace process in my opinion are steadier now than at any time in the past”.
McGuinness was in London for a meeting with David Cameron, Nick Clegg and the first ministers of Scotland and Wales. He pointed out that while abstaining as Westminster MPs, the five Sinn Féin members make a point of visiting England, Scotland and Wales regularly, and meeting MPs and supporters from all parties.
He told the meeting that the message from the Westminster elections was that “politics in the north of Ireland stood firm against what was effectively an attempt return to sectarian community politics”.
In Fermanagh-South Tyrone, where three Unionist parties united behind one candidate: Michelle Guildernew, who won by just four votes, he said: “Voters had looked to the future and not the past,” and that “A section of Unionist voters felt that they couldn’t vote for someone representing the past and a Conservative government which has made its intentions on spending cuts clear.”
But, “The most important outcome was that a very clear message was sent to Jim Allister and the Traditional Unionist Voice (a rejectionist break-away from the DUP) that people were not prepared to return to the past.”
McGuinness said Allister’s campaign was damaged by his TV appearances, including one on Question Time in which “the audience effectively turned against him”.
“The Unionist community has bought into the idea that we have to work together, and it’s clear that they wanted Peter Robinson and I to carry on working together, and that the Good Friday institutions represent the best and only way to move forward,” McGuinness said.
He said it was unfortunate that DUP Peter Robinson had lost his Westminster seat, and encouraged him to continue his work as First Minister, adding: ”Relations between myself and Peter improved dramatically since the Hillsborough agreement.”
He said “Robinson had clearly showed leadership in converting his party from opposing change to supporting change,” to achieve agreement at Hillsborough in February which paved the way for the transfer of policing and justice powers to the Executive, putting the last major element of the Good Friday Agreement in place.
McGuinness welcomed the election of Sylvia Hermon, who he said she was committed to the peace process. Hermon was the UUP’s last remaining MP, but stood as an independent rather than stand under the new UUP-Tory alliance, the UCU-New Force.
McGuinness said: “This alliance has taken place against a backdrop of rumours of secret meetings and attempts to build on the concept of Unionist unity. From our point of view this was an attempt to target constituencies they felt were vulnerable, namely Fermanagh-South Tyrone and South Belfast.”
He said: “After Hillsborough and the setbacks to Unionist rejectionists, the political process and the peace process in my opinion are steadier now than at any time in the past.” He added that the British government was duty bound not to attempt to alter the Good Friday Agreement, and that this had been accepted by Cameron and Clegg.
McGuinness said: “Sinn Féin’s main focus in the Executive is to ensure that the economy is front and centre of our policies, creating jobs and raising living standards for our people, and tackling deprivation in both Unionist and republican areas.
“It’s disappointing for us that we’ve felt the effects of the recession in a society which is still emerging from conflict, and that largely due to the activities of bankers we face punitive times ahead. Our job is to protect the public sector, to protect frontline services and to protect those people who are more socially disadvantaged in society.”
He pointed to a new road from Monaghan to Donegal crossing the north of Ireland, partly financed by Dublin, and planned upgrades to the ports of Belfast and Larne as positive developments.
Rather than cut spending, he said, the British government should look at billions in uncollected taxes, and the costs of the Afghan war and Trident. “I told David Cameron and Nick Clegg that the lives of Nato and British soldiers, and countless number of Afghans were being wasted, and asked them how much was being spent on the war, but received no reply. This is an unwinnable war and money is being poured down a drain.”
He said the new Northern Ireland secretary, Owen Patterson, was prepared to create an enterprise zone in Northern Ireland and was considering reducing corporation tax to match that in the Republic of Ireland, and that an investment conference backed by President Obama would take place in Washington in the autumn.
McGuinness said Sinn Féin remained determined to continue building towards Irish unification. “The path we’re on – the institutions, the north-south and east-west (British-Irish) institutions – is the correct strategy as we move forward.”
Turning to the dissident republican groups, McGuinness said: “They had attempted to convince people in East Tyrone and Mid-Ulster not to vote, but the outcome was that people voted in large numbers and Sinn Féin’s majority went up.”
He pointed to the community outcry against the Real IRA’s execution of Kieran Doherty in Derry, and the defiance of loyalist threats by the Shankill Road community by large numbers of people attending the funeral of Bobby Moffe, as “representing a huge backlash and sending a clear message that people don’t want any more of this”.
Asked about the investigations into collusion by the British government with loyalist paramilitaries, McGuinness said: “There is “a huge challenge to overcome the legacy of actions by the RUC, RUR, British intelligence, the British Army and their collusion with loyalists.”
He recalled that in private talks at Chequers: “Tony Blair admitted that Margaret Thatcher’s approach to Northern Ireland was flawed and that she had turned a blind eye to collusion. But will he ever appear before an international inquiry and say that? Maybe we’ll get a surprise.”

End the siege of Gaza!

by a New Worker correspondent


NEW WORKER supporters joined thousands of protesters who marched through London to the Israeli Embassy to express their anger at the murder of nine activists by Israeli forces who raided a convoy of ships bringing emergency aid to the blockaded people of Gaza.
Demonstrators in Whitehall carried placards demanding “Gaza End the Siege” and “For Freedom We Sail” and chanted “Stop Israeli piracy”.
Some 20,000 turned out to show their solidarity with the Palestinians in the march organised by groups including the Stop the War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, British Muslim Initiative, CND, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Viva Palestina and Palestinian Forum of Britain.
People from all faiths and cultures expressed their anger against the Israel’s attack on the flotilla on Monday. The attack which happened while the ships were sailing in international waters left nine killed and 54 others injured.
At the rally near the Israeli embassy, speakers said the number of people killed in the Israeli raid was more than nine. Six activists, they claimed, were still missing. Ismael Patel of Friends of al-Aqsa group said the attack was wholly “unprovoked.” “No warning was given,” he said demanding an independent international inquiry.
A number of prominent politicians and activists, including witnesses from the Mavi Marmara – the ship on which nine Turkish aid workers were shot dead at close range – demanded the end of the siege and called for the British government to take an active role in condemning Israel.
Veteran Labour politician Tony Benn said: “The recent killing of innocent aid workers is a catastrophe.”
He compared Israel with South African apartheid, saying: “This is not only the struggle of Palestinians but now a struggle for all of us.”
Recently elected Green Party MP Caroline Lucas demanded justice and freedom for Palestinians. She said: “Gaza is the biggest open air prison in the world. We are here to demand the end of the siege of Gaza and to demand the end of the occupation.”
Amid cheers from the crowd she continued: “The UK government has been complicit in these horrors and this must come to an end.”
She asked people to write to their Members of Parliament and demand action.
Novelist and political campaigner Tariq Ali said the British government needs to go one step further to break off all diplomatic and trade relations with Israel.
“I am calling on David Cameron to end the siege now”, he said.
Jews against Zionism speaker John Rose who has given up his right of return to Israel said: “There is no democracy in Israel.”
He said a number of prominent Israelis including academics such as Avi Shlaim have publicly denounced the occupation and asked for people to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
British hip-hop artist Lowkey called for the British and US governments to stop the 62-year occupation of Palestine. He ended his speech with a rendition of his famous rap Long Live Palestine.
“How many more resolutions have to be violated, how many more children have to be annihilated?” he sang.
Louise Thomas, a civil servant from London said: “I think the events of the past few weeks have shown Israel in its true light. For too long the Israel government has been able to get away with violating international laws and it needs to stop now.”
While the demonstration was happening Israeli forces stopped another aid ship, the Rachel Corrie, from proceeding to Gaza with a ship-load of aid.
This time there was no violence but it was still an illegal act of piracy by the Israeli forces designed to prevent any aid of help reaching the people of Gaza.
Since then the Iranian government has offered a protective escort for future aid ships.
Many of those attending last Saturday’s march were from London’s Turkish community, such as 38-year-old Ali Seylan who said his brother had been on board the flotilla.
“Thank God nothing happened to my brother – if anything happened to him I was going to get my revenge myself,” he told reporters.
“Israel made a big mistake, Israel’s government managed to get all Turkish people the enemy of Israel.”
He said many London-based Turks were joining the march, adding: “Religionists are here, socialists are here, even Turkish drunks are here.”