June 2023
The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, Annual Rally in Sheffield 17th June 2023
By Laurence Humphries, RCIT Britain, 20 June 2023, www.thecommunists.net
On the 17th June 2023, the Orgreave Truth and Justice campaign held their annual rally and demonstration. There were 1,500 people marching for a Public Enquiry into the events at Orgreave, at the height of the Miners’ Strike 39 years ago. Back then, when miners and their families were at Orgreave to picket, the police chased them with dogs and horses provoking a riot.
At the protest this year, there were banners and flags from ASLEF, UCU, NUM and UNITE who had a brass band leading the march. The RCIT attended and engaged in conversation with several members of Unite and other unions.
Joe Rollin, a National Officer with UNITE introduced some of the main speakers before the march walked through the city, led by the Hatfield Main Colliery banner.
Chris Kitchen, General Secretary of the NUM, welcomed everyone to the 38th anniversary of the Battle of Orgreave. He said that Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary in 2016, refused a public enquiry. The trial against the miners was based on falsified police evidence, so Chris Kitchen demanded a public enquiry.
Morag Livingstone, a film director, media journalist and co-author of the Book 'Charged', which details how the police suppressed protest from 1984 onwards, held a speech too. She said that what happened at Orgreave showed the collusion between the police and the Thatcher government. At that time, both the Police and the government denied any involvement. The events at Orgreave however had shown that there was a brutal police manual with operational tactics, with the sole aim to defeat the miners. These tactics included the use of horses and shields to suppress protests. It further included preventing people from moving from county to county as well as the police spying on miners and their communities. It was and still is obvious that Thatcher organised the policing of the strike.
Mark Serwokta, General Secretary of the PCS, and a noted left bureaucrat, showed his reformist outlook by asking Labour politicians to commit to a public enquiry. His reliance on pro-capitalist politicians around Keir Starmer proves again the utter bankruptcy of reformism.
The Miners’ Strike was an important historic event which has proven the willingness of the vanguard of the working class in Britain to fight by all means. At that time, they were supported by miners from Bosnia who donated to the miners’ trade union in Britain. The miners didn’t forget about this act of international solidarity and organized convoys to Bosnia during the war in the 1990s. The RCIT honoured the tradition by organizing solidarity convoys to Ukraine under the same slogan of Workers’ Aid.
It is the fighting spirit and the internationalist outlook of the Miners’ Strike in Britian that needs to be revived and with that it can be honoured properly.
May 2023
The 42nd Annual March and Rally for May Day in Chesterfield
By Laurence Humphries, RCIT Britain, 2 May 2023, www.thecommunists.net
The rally and May Day march of 500-1,000 workers and their families were represented by many trade union supporters including banners from the GMB, NEU, UCU, ASLEF, RMT and other unions. The march weaved itself from Rose Hill to New Square where several speeches were held by various activists. The Ireland Colliery Chesterfield Band was also part of the march, as music is often incorporated in May Day tradition all around the world. The RCIT activists in Britain participated in the March, agitating for revolutionary politics, talking with several activists and supporters of the May Day march.
At New Square there were several speeches from trade union leaders and the Labour MP.
Toby Perkins, a right-wing labour MP, used the occasion as an electioneering event. Many workers barracked, booked, and interrupted him with catcalls and denunciations about the role of Labour. It was good to see the hatred the masses have of this reformist trying to defend the NHS when it was a Labour government under Blair who privatised the NHS. They have created the mess that the NHS is now in. Other reformist speakers were heard but there was one noticeable difference: Sen Senik, from the Kurdish Solidarity Movement. She spoke about the oppression of Kurds living in Turkey and how many had died in the recent earthquake. The regime in Turkey regularly arrests and imprisons Kurdish militants, denying them democratic rights. Aside of her rather vivid speech, the reformist closing event of the May Day march was not reflecting the militant mood of the recent wave of workers strikes in Britain.
February 2023
RCN Nurses continue to Strike in Defence of the NHS
By Laurence Humphries, RCIT Britain, 10 February 2023, www.thecommunists.net
On the 6th and 7th February, the trade unions RCN, GMB and UNITE staged further one day strikes at hospitals and health centres in England in defence of the NHS and for increase pay and conditions.
In Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland there was no action as the Welsh government has offered a new increased pay offer. Such pay offer was not given in England. Steve Barclay, the Health minister of the Sunak government ignores the demands of the RCN and the other workers.
On Tuesday, 7th February, I visited the RCN picket line at Kettering General Hospital where I found 40-59 nurses from the RCN in a very determined mood to win their dispute. There was huge support from the nurses with car drivers hooting their horn in support of the nurses’ action.
I talked to Andy, one of the RCN representatives on the picket line. Andy told me: "Sunak and his government are refusing to go into negotiations with the RCN", he said further: "The NHS is a pinnacle of free health care when anyone can walk into a hospital and have care at no cost for any type of surgery, be it a heart attack or a broken leg." He stressed that the RCN wanted fairer wages for nurses.
The RCIT puts forward the following demands
1) For regular and automatic inflation increases in payment of wages for health workers and others
2) Against all attacks on the NHS! No to privatisation and private health care!
3) Coordinate the ongoing strikes into an indefinite general strike to bring down the reactionary government!
December 2022
Nurses Strike to Defend the NHS, their Pay and Conditions
By Laurence Humphries, RCIT Britain, 18 December 2022, www.thecommunists.net
Nurses from the Royal College of Nursing took industrial action on the 15th December this year. They went on strike in defence of the NHS and to defend their pay and working conditions in the light of raging inflation running at over 14%.
Steve Barclay, the secretary of State for Health had instructed the Pay Review Board not to pay nurses above the 2% already awarded. This was a minimum payment and nurses had no alternative but to take action to defend the NHS, the only free national health service that Britain offers. Dramatically as it is, many nurses have such low income that they use food banks and rarely get by with the increased living costs.
Britain is experiencing massive action by the workers and the oppressed against the crisis of recession, the economic slump peaking since months now.
The British government, having an infatuation with Bonapartism, tries to save its crisis ridden system. Post, railway, port, bus, airport and university staff (likewise other sectors) are taking strike action to defend their pay and working conditions.
I visited the picket line by nurses in Kettering Northamptonshire and found determined workers who value the importance of the health service. They fight to stop the drain of nurses leaving hospitals. Their action continues on the 20th December with other health workers like ambulance drivers also striking in the new year. Unions like Unite, Unison and the GMB will join the action in the new year.
RCIT IN BRITAIN calls for a massive recruitment of doctors and nurses while all wages in the health sector must be increased by far more than the inflation rate! We need all health workers on a fair and wealthy income level, showing respect to their tremendous work if we want to turn NHS into a proper health care system. Furthermore, the strike wave of the various sectors of workers must be united in a general strike movement to bring down the current reactionary government and to replace it by a workers government.
May 2022
Brazil: Public Workers in Diadema Announce an Indefinite Strike
Report by the Revolutionary Communist Current (RCIT Section in Brazil), 22 May 2022
The workers of Diadema, a municipality governed by the Workers' Party-PT, occupied the streets of the city center on Thursday morning, May 19th, in a big one-day strike for the adjustment of wages to inflation and against wage cuts.
The rally with hundreds of municipal civil servants left the headquarters of the Union of Diadema public workers and walked along Antonio Piranga Avenue to the Diadema City Hall. In the afternoon, the whole labor force of Diadema's public sector occupied the City Council to put pressure for the negotiations with the mayor, José de Filippi.
The administration, however, did not signal any willingness to meet the demands of the workers and proposed a new meeting only for May 31. Neither did it make any proposal for the compensation of salary losses.
Inflation during the current municipal govern administration (2021-2022) is 17.69% (inflation from March 2020 to February 2021 was 6.22%) and inflation from March 2021 to February 2022 was 10.8%.
The 2021 Wage Campaign agreement, contrary to what the Municipal Administration has announced, restored only part of the losses due to inflation. In fact, the wage losses until March 2022 did reach 8%. The workers can't give in, even more so in a scenario of the current high inflation.
A workers assembly held at the City Hall on May 19 therefore rejected the proposal of the City Hall to meet the Permanent Negotiating Table only on May 31. Faced with the intransigent opposition of the PT administration, the workers decided to strike indefinitely from the 25th of May.
João Evangelista, a representative of the Revolutionary Communist Current (RCIT Section in Brazil), made a strong and well-received speech at the assembly demanding that the PT administration be consistent with the speeches and the party's program during the 2020 election campaign when, at the time, the candidate Filippi defended the valorization of public workers in the city and the adjustment of wages to the rising inflation, but in practice he has the same traditional policy of rightists parties of lowering wages, privatization and outsourcing.
You can watch the speech of João Evangelista here: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0bwT8MeLaN8pt62dbiT9uwjZhiFdkYAKynhdeob2xDrdySrxS779wM1bGz4f3LH42l&id=100008108617275
Britain: Mass Demonstration for Free Palestine!
Report by the RCIT Britain, 14.5.2022
On Saturday 14th May around 50,000 people marched and demonstrated for a Free Palestine and for the end to Zionist terror against Palestinians. The march was led by Palestinian students organised in the Friends of Al Asqua. The majority of demonstrators were Palestinians and Muslims migrants, supporters of pro-Palestine solidarity group as well as the Stop the War coalition. A group of Antizionist Jews also participated in the demonstration.
There were prominent pictures of Shireen Abu Alkeh – the Palestinian Al-Jazeera journalist recently murdered by the Zionist army without any provocation. There were placards in support of Palestinians fighting for a Free Homeland from the River to the Sea and denunciations of the Apartheid state of Israel. There were chants of “Free Palestine” and “We are all Palestinian's now”.
Comrades of the RCIT Britain participated in the demonstration and sold our journal.
March 2022
Britain: Anti-Racist March in London
Report by the RCIT Britain, 19th March 2022
About 10,000 people demonstrated against racism in London on 19th March. The march started outside the BBC building near Oxford Street and ended at the Parliament Square in Westminster. The demonstration was supported by many organisations including the Stop the War Coalition and Stand Up to Racism. It also had a big contingent from Black Lives Matter. There were delegations from many trade unions including the CWU, UNISON, the RMT, PCS, UNISON and the Education Unions. >>Read the full report here
8M: Defensorías de Géneros in support of Ukrainian Women
Report by Convergencia Socialista (Argentina), 9 March 2022
In a huge rally in Buenos Aires, on the International Day of Struggle of Working Women (an independent women’s organization in close collaboration with Covergencia Socialista, the Argentinean section of the RCIT), the Defensorías de Géneros waved their flags and demands, such as the freedom of Karen Marín and Nancy Montiel. The comrades participated with their flags and banners. >>Read the full report here
February 2022
ANTI FUEL PROTESTS AGAINST INCREASES IN ENERGY COSTS
Report by Laurence Humphries, RCIT Britain, 13 February 2022
The RCIT IN BRITAIN intervened in a large rally outside the Houses of Parliament in London on Saturday, 12th February. Organized by the group Fuel Poverty
Action together with several solidarity organizations and socialist groups, the protest mobilized around 1,500 people. They hold placards calling for a windfall tax to cut energy bills and to
nationalize energy suppliers whose profits are crippling people. Many energy suppliers have increased their profits tenfold while at the same time many people have been driven into extreme
poverty.
Britain: UNITE Retired Members Conference in Birmingham
Report on the conference taking place on 24th November, by Laurence Humphries (RCIT Britain), www.thecommunists.net
I attended this conference as a delegate from the East Midlands region. Motion 10 on the COVID-19 pandemic was a deeply reactionary motion defending the lockdown and the so-called Zero-Covid policy which has been advanced by many trade unions and those on the left. It is a well-known fact that during the lockdown in Britain all trade unions, many socialist tendencies and the social democratic Labour Party supported a nonsensical Zero COVID 19 policy.
The RCIT was one of the few tendencies that opposed the restrictions and lockdowns as a chauvinist Bonapartist policy instigated by the bourgeoisie to stem protests and demonstrations. It was an attack on democratic rights. It is especially irresponsible to lock people up in their own homes without medical supervision during the spread of a new virus. Not to speak about the long-term problems it creates on the long run with all the lifesaving check-ups and surgeries postponed or completely dropped.
The motion itself stated and urged Unite members to continue to use face coverings even with the general trend in society to stop using those. Further, it encourages the use of Lateral-Flow-Tests and applications which are linked to hi-tech surveillance. Especially the face and the eye recognition technology were and are perfected by all the data provided through the testing. This feeds the Bonapartist state apparatus and encourage the development of further restrictions and attacks on democratic rights. The repeated use of vaccinations which are based on new technologies (mRNA vaccines) are praised as well. While those vaccines were clinically approved too fast and therefore remain suspect, they only benefit the rich pharmaceutical companies which maximise their wealth and profits.
I started by saying that the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns were a counter-revolution against workers and their families used by the bourgeoisie to forcibly imprison people in their own homes. Only a few groups resisted the lockdown and continued to demonstrate. Especially BlackLivesMatter and the climate activists from Extinction Rebellion. Most socialist tendencies on the democratic left accepted all these lockdowns and restrictions and served the interests of the bourgeoisie in support of these draconian methods. I insisted in my speech that it was an attack on democratic rights ushering in dictatorship and Bonapartist rule. While the lockdown took place there were more and more deaths taking place. There was no attempt by government to establish more Intensive Care Units or recruit more doctors and nurses.
A group of scientists who signed the ‘Great Barrington Declaration’ have argued early on that lockdowns were not necessary and even harmful. The only country which did not use lockdowns was Sweden. Many delegates listened to my contribution, and I had discussions with several of them. The RCIT was a lone voice against the stream pointing out the dangerous path of supporting this nonsensical Zero-Covid policy. However, now that in China (where barbarity and cruelty are the order of the day) mass opposition is taking place, the sentiment may change in the British left too. Uprisings against the Chinese Imperialist regime are taking place in the major cities in China proving what the masses of workers and oppressed truly think about the Zero-Covid strategy. Future will tell if UNITE has learned its lesson. If anything, the rank-and-file members should take the developments in China as proof of what Zero-COVID would really have looked like. We should take it as proof for how important it is to get rid of the bureaucrats who are a world away of the interests of us workers and poor.
Britain: Anti-Racist March in London
Report by the RCIT Britain, 19th March 2022
About 10,000 people demonstrated against racism in London on 19th March. The march started outside the BBC building near Oxford Street and ended at the Parliament Square in Westminster. The demonstration was supported by many organisations including the Stop the War Coalition and Stand Up to Racism. It also had a big contingent from Black Lives Matter. There were delegations from many trade unions including the CWU, UNISON, the RMT, PCS, UNISON and the Education Unions. There were slogans denouncing the inherent racism in Britain with Slogans like “Scrap the Nationality Bill”, “Migrants and Refugees are Welcome here” or “Fight Racism”.
Comrades of the RCIT Britain intervened in the March and discussed with many about the Sunflower Convoy – a humanitarian aid convoy organised by the RCIT which will start from Vienna and link up with progressive forces in the Ukraine fighting against Russian imperialism.
8M: Defensorías de Géneros in support of Ukrainian Women
Report by Convergencia Socialista (Argentina), 9 March 2022, https://convergenciadecombate.blogspot.com and www.thecommunists.net
In a huge rally in Buenos Aires, on the International Day of Struggle of Working Women (an independent women’s organization in close collaboration with Covergencia Socialista, the Argentinean section of the RCIT), the Defensorías de Géneros waved their flags and demands, such as the freedom of Karen Marín and Nancy Montiel. The comrades participated with their flags and banners. They distributed many leaflets calling, among others, for the freedom of Karen Marín and Nancy Montiel as well as for the punishment of child abusers.
In addition, they supported the struggle of the women of Ukraine against the invasion of the Russian imperialist troops. When the protest came to an end, in front of the Congress square, in an emotional act, in which different comrades who marched with Defensorías spoke, Nina, a militant of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), called for active support of the deed of the Ukrainian comrades.
ANTI FUEL PROTESTS AGAINST INCREASES IN ENERGY COSTS
Report by Laurence Humphries, RCIT Britain, 13 February 2022, www.thecommunists.net
The RCIT IN BRITAIN intervened in a large rally outside the Houses of Parliament in London on Saturday, 12th February. Organized by the group Fuel Poverty Action together with several solidarity organizations and socialist groups, the protest mobilized around 1,500 people. They hold placards calling for a windfall tax to cut energy bills and to nationalize energy suppliers whose profits are crippling people. Many energy suppliers have increased their profits tenfold while at the same time many people have been driven into extreme poverty. There were demands for getting rid of the Tory government and for the fight to bring energy production into public ownership. Many of the speakers including the trade union bureaucracy made reformist demands calling for nationalization and the removal of the Tory government without a perspective on how this will be done. Palestinian Groups and supporters of the Yemini resistance were attending. The Friends of Al-Aqsa called for one Free Palestine from the River to the Sea and for an End to the Apartheid Zionist Regime in Israel. The RCIT IN BRITAIN sold Magazines which were received very positively by several new contacts.
