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With the Tories in crisis...

FRENCH WORKERS SHOW

US HOW TO FIGHT BACK
F

RENCH WORKERS AND

students are showing how to fight
back. The strikes are against
the Work Law proposed by French
Socialist President, Francois Hollande,
which will increase working hours and
will give bosses more power to sack
workers.
The participation in the strikes by oil
refinery workers means that there has been
a major shortage of petrol in France and a
strike by print workers meant LHumanite
was the only daily newspaper to appear on
the shelves last Thursday.
Aviation workers are on strike and the
railworkers unions plan to extend their
strikes to hit Euro 2016 football matches.
The strikes are having a massive impact.
They should inspire us here. It was good to
see a national two-day university strike last
week by lecturers in the UCU union. And
the strikes by junior doctors have forced
Jeremy Hunt to revise his proposed new
contract.
But we need a much wider fightback
and more national strikes if we are going to
throw Tory austerity into reverse gear.
If wed have had a movement here, on
the scale of French resistance to the Work
Law we could have stopped the Tories
pushing through their Trade Union Act
which has further driven back workers
rights to fightback in Britain.
At some point the Tories will use
the laws against a group of workers or
a national union and the trade union
movement will need to rise to the
challenge.

Crisis for the Tories

Now is a good time to fight, the Tories

are extremely weak, they are tearing
themselves apart over the EU referendum.
A vote to leave the EU on 23 June will
massively deepen the crisis for the Tories.
The scale of the divisions already means
that many are predicting that Cameron
wont survive the referendum, whatever the
outcome.
Look at the number of U-turns the Tories
have had to make! Not least on plans to
make every school in Britain an Academy.
A serious campaign by the NUT teachers
union, including an ongoing ballot for
strikes, forced the Tories to back down.
We need to fight for a much higher level
of resistance in order to make the current

Lexit) vote on 23 June is so important.

Hundreds of refugees are drowning on a
weekly basis in the Mediterranean Sea.
The best way to fight austerity and
racism is not to believe that a reformed
Europe will do it for us! Just look at how
Greek workers have been treated by the
institutions of Europe.
We have to build mass movements of
the kind of power and intensity that we
currently see in France and that workers
have consistently participated in in Greece.

Solidarity with the strikes

Lecturers struck for 48 hours
last week (Photo: Neil Terry)

crisis for the Tories one which gets rid of

them.
We also have to be on our guard
against the attempts to whip up racism.
David Cameron is in favour of staying
IN Europe but he wants to shut the
British borders refugees fleeing wars and
persecution.
There are thousands of refugees rotting
in the camps in northern France, we need a
campaign to let them in.

We have to back every strikethe National

Museum of Wales all-out strike, the
Bakers Union (BFAWU) led strikes at
Pennine Foods and RF Brookes, the strikes
to stop office closures in the department
of Business Innovation and Skills, the
strikes by University lecturers, teachers and
doctors.
But every trade unionist needs to push
their own union leaders and the TUC for a
much higher level of fightback.
Together we can win!

Convoy to Calais

Thats why the Convoy to Calais on

Saturday 18 June is so important. Not
just because it will take aid to those who
need it but because it will make a political
statement to the likes of Cameron that
millions of people in Britain, a majority,
support refugees and want to help them.
We have to fight against Fortress
Britain but we also have to fight against
Fortress Europe. Thats why an
internationalist, anti-racist, left-leave (or

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