Solidarity magazine is a publication produced by and for trade union activists in Britain (produced four times a year – 20 pages), campaigning in the unions for:
- A break from the ‘social partnership’ approach which ties the unions to the coat-tails of the employers
- A ‘new unionism’ which opposes subordination to the global market and campaigns for a practical working class internationalism
- Opposition to privatisation, whether outright, or in the form of PFI or PPP, campaigning for social ownership
- A trades unionism which, whilst fighting to improve working conditions and wages, breaks with the narrow workplace concerns of ‘non-political’ trades unionism, and fights for the interests of the working class and oppressed as a whole
- Repeal of all anti-unioni legislation and an end to state interference in the unions
- An end to all bureaucratic privileges and control, and democratisation of the unions under membership control.
The Editorial Board includes:
Glen Burrows (Bristol RMT)
Dave Chapple (Chair Bristol CWU)
Sheila Cohen (NUJ, ex-Editor Trade Union News)
Pete Firmin (CWU )
Gregor Gall (Industrial Relations Hertford University)
Andy Gibbons (Oxford TUC)
Kim Moody (NUJ, ex Director Labor Notes USA)
Clive Norris (Assistant Secretary Nottingham City UNISON)
Terry Pearce (Chair Bracknell UNITE)
Martin Wicks – Editor (Secretary Swindon TUC)
“An end to all bureaucratic privileges and control, and democratisation of the unions under membership control”
Is this a statement about committee members or the mass of people who subscribe to large unions and get a legal minimum ballot paper through their letterbox every few years?
If it’s about real members being told where their money goes, how to stand for elections, where the political fund goes and how to opt-out, then I’d like to see an artical about the candidates in Unite’s General Executive Council elections: how to ask questions, whether candidates are on the net, and whether they approve of more direct elections in future.
If any of the candidates are reading this – why not post?
John,
I’m guessing by you referring to it as Unite’s “General” Executive Council that you’re from the TGWU section?
The TGWU rulebook banned factions, which didn’t mean there weren’t any, just that they couldn’t organise in an open way – making it harder to be democratic and accountable. There’s precious little information on the net about candidates for the 40 TGWU seats.
On the Amicus side there is no such ban on factions, and so the left (Amicus Unity Gazette) organises more openly. Have a look at http://www.unitenecelections.com for example.
Ian Allinson
(elected to the first UNITE Executive Council)
http://www.iansunitesite.org.uk