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on 23rd March 2010 at 20:27, Marie Lynam said:

The GMB is in contact with a Trade Union in Belize through the International TUC.

I quote the GMB: “GMB are asking Lord Ashcroft and David Cameron to come clean and say how much of the 6 million pounds has been sucked out of Belize. GMB agrees with the Belize workers who say that the money made in Belize should be reinvested there, as the economy needs all the .. investment it can get”.

Well done GMB. If Labour were doing its Labour work, it would be campaigning just as GMB is doing.

In this example, the conduct of GMB is in defense of the working class, and not just of the British one. GMB is helping to represent the world working class through this Belize example.

This is the task of the political leadership. Where is the political leadership of the working class? We are on the edge of war, the war of the bosses to make the workers pay for the crisis. Where is the political leadership of the working class?

Congratulations to the Unions, to GMB, to Unite, PCS, CWU, who intervene on political matters such as Ashcroft ‘bankrolling’ the Tory Party campaign. Where is the Labour political leadership to do that?

It is not there. It is on the other side. It is busy condemning the BA strike, or it keeps a low profile waiting for the workers to sort themselves out all by themselves, without any captain or generals in this war which is already upon us.

Well done the GMB British gas.

1. There is need to unite politically all the struggles. Using the Trades Councils, the TUC, the International TUC - and where is the European Confederation? There are strikes all over Europe. Unite all the struggles to defeat the anti Union laws, and make international strikes against the European and world’s bosses’ united front.

2. Lets use the Peoples Charter, organising Charter committees at the heart of each action, strike or demonstration. Giving life to the Charter so that it goes around to the population and say to the mass of the population: The RMT defends your safety in the trains, the CWS defends your right to receive mail, GMB fights against the finance sharks and usurers who turn the lives of the poor into nightmares, GMB cares for what the people pay for their gas bills. The working class is the class that represents the collective interest. It can organise society differently. To do this, it needs the support of the broad masses. All this is possible. It has never been so badly needed. It has been done in other places, and even in Britain, partially, when Labour was worth its salt.

Let us, in the LRC, have a proper Trade Union functioning. Meetings between ourselves, between Unions, to discuss these topics, start campaigns, get the Trades Councils, the Shop Stewards, the People Charters cracking. Down with the anti Union laws. Help join up all the strikes. Democracy in the Unions. Union leaders to be elected and recalled at mass meetings. The actual functioning of the TUC to be investigated, and new ways found to get the thing to work as a TUC should.
As for Labour, why not the LRC try to be the face of Labour that deserves the name? It would only have to follow the lead of GMB about Belize, about the gas workers, and about linking with the population.

If all that the electorate hears of Labour is Brown denouncing the BA cabin workers, who is going to vote Labour but the blacklegs and their masters?

Marie Lynam 0770 993 2267

on 23rd March 2010 at 20:35, Marie Lynam said:

Hello again
I expect that there are already meetings in the LRC along the lines which I mention.
Andrew, tell me when and where the next one is. No, not a meeting where some experts are talking to us, but a meeting of the LRC base, to discuss specifically the situation in the Unions. It must be meetings with the idea of producing leaflets, even simple ones, on cheap paper. Why all the glossy stuff? Things that the membership learns to write, under the guidance and political leadership of the LRC executive. And if nothing is written, the need is there for a political life of those in the LRC who are in Unions. Particularly those on strike.
Marie

on 25th March 2010 at 09:56, Andrew Fisher said:

Hi Marie,

These meetings are already taking place among LRC members locally, see report of recent Cambridge LRC meeting.

The Greater London LRC has its next meeting on Saturday 17th April at 12pm. Contact the Secretary for more details. We should certainly, as London-based LRC members, discuss these issues there.

on 29th March 2010 at 10:33, Marie Lynam said:

Hello Andrew
Many thanks
You are right, and I accept there are the meetings that you say in the LRC. I was referring to extra ones, without chair/minutes/secretaries and etc. Just getting heads together.
And most particularly, I was referring to the Trade Union section of the LRC.
I would suggest that 2 such meetings are needed pronto:
1. An informal meeting of all the LRC members in London, where the LRC leadership sends a representation, for the SOLE purpose of studying the new LRC people programme, and make proposals for its modification, as John Mc is proposing.
2. An informal meeting of all the LRC Union Members in London, where the LRC leadership sends a representation, for the SOLE purpose of creating an LRC leaflet directed at all the workers in struggle, indicating to them
a) that the TUC needs to be impelled into giving them unification and overt support
b) that the LRC exists as the representation of Labour, and that there hope to building their genuine political representation
c) that Charter (or Peoples’) committees need to be created at the core of every strike, along with Charter (or Peoples’) committees to link all the strikes together - as long as the TUC is neither giving a lead, nor presenting the case to the general public and the population.

Andrew, thanks for having answered. It helps.
Marie Lynam