#OWS MayDay-2012- 15hrs of Consecutive Live Coverage

Peter sez:

Not a story that suggests easy outcomes but one we surely need to reflect upon. As also, to reflect upon the strategy of the ITUC and other Western unions to enter into some kind of dialogue with the State-controlled unions, in the hope of turning them into them into some kind of Chinese equivalent of...err...the AFL-CIO? Cosatu?

Now read on...

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Peter sez:

This item comes from the independent South African left magazine, Amandla, and appeared to be dated August 30. However, the text suggests it comes from May 2012. The Marikana Massacre only adds to the necessity of (re)defining 'socialism', or 'stages on the road to socialism' in such a way that it excludes massacres of the poorest and most-marginalised workers. Alternatively, one could leave the word to the named organisations and states. And…

http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/readerblog/2012/08/28/marikana-time-to-rethink-mining-rights/

Marikana: Time to rethink mining rights?

Peter sez:

This is not an easy read. But it should be even more difficult a read for the National Union of Mineworkers, who whilst questioning police behaviour, have been blaming an opposition union for the massacre, and for all inter/national unions that have simply endorsed what the NUM and Cosatu have been reporting. I would have thought that the report reinforces my previous suggestion that any civil society enquiry should involve international labour…

Peter sez:

If interested, do check this list out. ALAI is a long-standing, Ecuador-Based, radical Latin American information agency. Sally Burch is, as you might have guessed, a native English-speaker. I can't guarantee ALAI as an abundant source of labour news, but one could always ask for more.

Now click on...

Given the renewed interest in the world in what is happening in Latin America, we hope this…

South Africa: Marikana massacre – a turning point?

Peter sez:

This is from a South African website and it is three years old. But it provides some background to the connection of the (Communist) World Federation of Trade Unions and the Cosatu - not to mention the SACP and the ANC, and therefore to the neo-liberal regime in South Africa.

There are so many points in this speech that I wish to challenge that - exceptionally - I will be interspersing the text with my comments (IN BOLD…

OPEN LETTER FROM CHOMSKY, SHIVA, PILGER AND 40 OTHERS

(PLF) Appreciated the COSATU statement on The Tragic Events In Marikana.

United We Rise      Divided We Fall 

on behalf of the Executive Board of Pakistan Labour Federation (PLF) we are appreciating the COSATU statement  to express their shock and dismay on the lost of  many lives. We on behalf of the (PLF)  presented  our heartfelt condolences to the AFamilies perished in the tragic events in Marikana.  On behalf…

Minutes of today’s Skype Call towards Firenze 10+10 (please spread it widely)

Folks--

A good brother, Fred Hirsch, just published this article about a current situation in Colombia:  http://www.zcommunications.org/dark-aftermath-of-the-u-s-colombia-free-trade-agreement-by-fred-hirsch .

Please do whatever you can to lend a hand, and please spread widely!

In solidarity--

Kim Scipes

After capitalism: Holloway on the anti-worlds of struggle | via ROAR

AGORA 99: EURO-MEDITERRANEAN MEETING ON DEBT, RIGHTS AND P2P DEMOCRACY

Peter sez:

This a Google Translation from the site of an affiliate of the (once?) Spanish, once Communist, union confederation, the Comisiones Obreras (CCOO). Whilst it at least condemns primarily the violence of the state, it assumes implicitly, that the much-criticised Cosatu, is part of the solution rather than part of the problem, as well as the possibility of restoring the 'democratic' status quo…

Peter sez:

If you are wondering why the AFL-CIO is getting smaller and smaller, less and less influential, then this inter-active video provides at least part of the answer.

Its notion of work is an entirely liberal-capitalist one that would be objected to by no US banker, industrialist, President (Republican or Democrat). And which suggests sentimentally that work is what unites rather than significantly divides Americans (On request, I can detail…

Peter sez:

The DLF was created 2011 as an attempt to gather social movements and socialist tendencies increasingly critical of the ANC, the SA Communist Party and Cosatu (the Tripartite Alliance that succeeded the Apartheid regime). For more about it see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Left_Front.

Now read on...

DLF Statement…

IU 007/700 and IU 000 message of support to all FWs

Three years after our last message (http://circuit47.com/mediawiki2/index.php?title=TOWARDS_A_INDUSTRIAL_UNION_OF_PSYCHIC_WORKERS_007/700) calling for the formation of an…