Archive for July 2002

5 July 2002

Change This Rotten System

Enron, Anderson, WorldCom, Xerox,...: GREED, FRAUD, sleaze - every day the real nature of capitalism is being revealed. WorldCom, the US's second biggest long-distance telephone company, has carried out the biggest corporate fraud in history

5 July 2002

WorldCom fraud: Capitalism Is A Bankrupt System

THE US, the most powerful economy in the world, responsible for a third of world output, is reeling with shock

5 July 2002

New Labour's tax-avoiding friends

A Nice Little Racket: AT THE Wimbledon tennis championships last week KPMG - one of the top accountancy firms suspected of malpractice in the recent big business scandals - had a corporate hospitality marquee

5 July 2002

Making Criminals Out Of Us All

HOME SECRETARY David Blunkett hopes to introduce Identity (ID) Cards which we would have to carry to gain access to public services such as health, benefits and education, writes By John Reid.

5 July 2002

Innocent Afghans Killed By US 'Friendly Fire'

"THE ENEMY doesn't value human life", said George Bush when launching his "war against terrorism"

5 July 2002

Watergate: Rotten Apples In A Mouldy Barrel

THIRTY YEARS ago the 'Watergate' political scandal rocked US capitalism, exposing the corrupt and reactionary intrigues of the Nixon presidency and its spy agencies

5 July 2002

Argentina: New Crisis As Cops Kill Protesters

THOUSANDS OF Argentinians marched on the National Congress building in Buenos Aires on 28 June demanding the resignation of caretaker president Eduardo Duhalde

5 July 2002

Tower Hamlets by-election: Socialist Alliance Provides No Alternative

A SOCIALIST ALLIANCE (SA) candidate polled just nine votes in the Blackwall & Cubitt Town council by-election in East London's Tower Hamlets borough on 27 June, writes Clive Heemskerk.

5 July 2002

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers: Fighting For Real Equality

AS LESBIANS, gay men, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) people hit London's streets on 6 July for Pride, the LGBT communities can see formal equality at least in sight, writes Wayne Lovett, Socialist Party Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgender Group & AMICUS member.

12 July 2002

Summer Of Discontent

What We Say: NEXT WEDNESDAY, 17 July could see the biggest industrial strike in Britain for more than 20 years. Low-paid council workers have voted to reject a 3% wage offer; up to one million are expected to take

12 July 2002

Build The Fight Against Sectarianism

FIGHTING BROKE out at last weekend's annual Orange Order parade at Drumcree. Demonstrators threw missiles at police, resulting in 24 injured as well as two civilians. However, Drumcree is not the issue

12 July 2002

Another Dangerous New Mental Health Bill

NEW LABOUR'S Mental Health Bill includes provision for people with mental illnesses to be committed to long stay accommodation in case they may become a danger to the public (or themselves), writes Clare Wilkins.

12 July 2002

Big Business Scandals - Don't Let Workers Pay The Price

WORLDCOM is the latest American company to rock world stock markets with its false accounting. Apparently at least one of its directors couldn't tell the difference between expenses and profit. This scandal

12 July 2002

How Capitalism Rips Off The Working Class

IN THE third article in our occasional series on Marxist classics, KEN SMITH looks at Karl Marx's pamphlets, Wage Labour and Capital and Wages, Price and Profit

12 July 2002

Potters Bar inquiry: Bring Rail Bosses To Justice

RAIL WORKERS and passengers will be horrified by the findings of the inquiry into the Potters Bar rail crash, which killed seven people in May

12 July 2002

Strike Back Against Low Pay

Council workers say...: THE DECISIVE votes for strike action by members of UNISON, GMB and TGWU working for local councils, reflects their growing anger over low pay, writes Brian Blake, service conditions officer, Ealing UNISON, personal capacity.

12 July 2002

Aids pandemic: Pharmaceutical Giants Obstruct Progress

AS 15,000 delegates attend the International Aids Conference in Barcelona, the United Nations estimates that 68 million people could die of the Aids disease by 2020

19 July 2002

Safety Before Profit!

NEW EVIDENCE of the responsibility of private contractors for the Potters Bar rail crash emerges almost daily, but still tube-workers have to walk out on strike to stop the government handing control of London Underground's tracks to the same firms, writes Bill Johnson, RMT.

19 July 2002

Not So Generous Gordon

Public spending review: What we think: GORDON BROWN, or 'Gorgeous Gordon' as he is now being called by some in the media, has just announced the biggest sustained rise in public spending since the 1970s

19 July 2002

No To Bush's War For Oil Profits

A LEAKED Pentagon paper revealed plans for a massive US-led invasion of Iraq to try to remove Saddam Hussein. This "regime change" could kill more than 10,000 Iraqi civilians, writes Dave Carr.

19 July 2002

Rape: "No" Really Does Mean No

THE TRIAL of top snooker player Quinten Hann for rape, highlighted all the prejudices, backward attitudes and myths which still surround this issue, writes Christine Thomas.

19 July 2002

Behind The Financial Scandals

World Economy: ARE THE colossal financial frauds exposed recently just the swindles of a small minority or a symptom of the collapse of the boom of the 1990s

19 July 2002

Steel Jobs Massacre

TO MARK the end of two centuries of iron and steelmaking at Ebbw Vale in South Wales, BBC Wales started a series Hearts of Steel, dealing with the aftermath of the job cull in the steel industry last year, writes Rob Williams.

19 July 2002

Unite To Defend Public Services

GORDON BROWN'S announcement of extra cash for education will be welcomed by parents and teachers - but many will be wondering why it's taken so long to deliver extra funding when education was meant to be New Labour's top priority! writes Martin Powell-Davies, Lewisham NUT.

19 July 2002

Student funding: New Labour Targets Students - Again

A REPORT by MPs on student funding has tuition fee hikes and high interest loans as its main proposals, writes Kieran Roberts.

26 July 2002

A New Party Is Needed

AS WORKERS are moving into struggle, the union leaders are coming under increasing pressure to review their link with a party that attacks workers through privatisation, low pay and worsening conditions in the workplace

26 July 2002

Mass Action Against Low Pay And Privatisation

THE COUNCIL workers' strike on 17 July was an inspiration. It showed the determination to fight low pay by the people who prop up large parts of the public sector, writes Paul Moorhouse, UNISON steward.

26 July 2002

1972 - The Summer Of Discontent

AFTER THE successes of the council workers' and London tubeworkers' strikes, the media compared them to movements in the 1970s particularly the 'winter of discontent', the dirty jobs strike of 1979 against the Labour government, writes Roger Thomas.

26 July 2002

Simpson Puts Spoke In Right-Wing Machine

LEFT-WINGER Derek Simpson has beaten Tony Blair's union poodle Sir Ken Jackson for the leadership of Amicus-AEEU trade union by 406 votes, writes Mick Cotter, Amicus-MSF National Craft Committee, London Region MM.

26 July 2002

Stock market panic: Make The Bosses Pay!

SHARE PRICES on the world's stock exchanges have fallen by 25% in just two months. Rich 'global investors', panicked by big companies slashing their profit predictions, are fleeing to the 'safe havens'.

26 July 2002

A Turning Point In The Struggle

What We Say: RECENT EVENTS in the trade unions mark a major change in the situation in Britain. The strike of nearly a million council workers on 17 July was an expression of the growing anger of public sector workers

26 July 2002

'We're Striking Against Low Pay'

Council workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have shown they're prepared to fight, not only against low pay but also against New Labour's cuts and privatisation of the public sector, writes Tracy, from Swindon, who works with people with challenging behaviour.