Vol. 74/No. 15      April 19, 2010

Davies, a meat factory worker in London, is standing in Hackney South and Shoreditch in the May 6 general elections.

Speaking at a campaign forum here April 2, Davies reported back from his visit to picket lines by striking British Airways (BA) cabin crews. Members of the Unite union have been fighting BA’s attempts to increase workload and cut jobs. “They told me that it was through union action over decades that they’d established the conditions that BA is trying to take away,” Davies said.

He urged supporters to join the effort to distribute widely the new book Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power, by Jack Barnes. So far campaign supporters in Britain have sold 260 copies from street tables, campus sales, at political meetings, and protests against the anti-immigrant group English Defence League.

Davies commented on claims by the Labour government that its cuts are “caring.” He pointed to the government’s drive to push 1 million people off incapacity benefits by 2015. Through appeals to “hard-working families” against the “work shy,” the capitalist parties try to get working people to support cuts in social spending, he said.

The campaign of Caroline Bellamy, the Communist League’s parliamentary candidate from Edinburgh South West in Scotland, was reported in a full-page article in the Edinburgh university newspaper, the Student.

Bellamy, who is a factory sewing machine operator, is standing against Alistair Darling, Labour’s chancellor of the exchequer. Darling delivered the government’s budget last month.

“Darling announced a slight reduction in unemployment,” Bellamy said, “but this masks a significant decline in overall employment, an accompanying rise in long-term unemployment, and a nearly 30 percent jump in part-time employment over the previous year.” The number of people classified as “economically inactive” has risen to a record 8.16 million, more than 20 percent of the workforce, while the number employed has fallen to 72.7 percent of the working-age population.

“Over 54,000 people lost their homes last year through mortgage repossessions, while tens of thousands more were forced out of rented accommodation or to sell their homes and rent them back while they can afford to,” she added.
 
 
Related articles:
UK elections: Bosses want workers to pay for crisis  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home