SPEAKER: Alex Gordon (President, National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers (RMT))
6.00 p. m. , Thursday 9 December 2010
The Main Lecture Theatre, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, Aytoun Street (2 minutes from Piccadilly Railway Station)
The RMT has been prominent among British trade unions calling for ‘generalised action’ to oppose public spending cuts by EU and UK governments and in defence of jobs, living standards and public services. The RMT has urged trade unions to hold a sustained campaign of coordinated strikes across both the public and private sectors, combined with forging direct action alliances with community groups and campaigns, with the aim of mounting the biggest show of united working class resistance to government policies since the success of the anti-poll tax movement.
In the wake of recent strikes on London Underground, Fire Service and BBC, as well as student protests in response to the new austerity measures, Alex Gordon explains why the government’s ideological-driven cuts are not necessary and puts the case for European-style mass protests to turn them back.
Manchester Industrial Relations Society
Secretary: Professor Ralph Darlington, Salford Business School
University of Salford, Salford, M5 4WT. 0161 295 5456 r.r.darlington@salford.ac.uk website: www.business.salford.ac.uk/mirs
Ian Bone on Alex Gordon:
Well congratulations to my old drinking pal in the much lamented FOX in Easton in Bristol ALEX GORDON on being elected President of the RMT. Alex was once a member of DAM the anarcho-syndicalist organisation and hang out with the fearsomely anti-fascist ELDAM ( we could certainly do with their return now!). How much of his syndicalist politics he retains is unclear and many anarchists will not forgive his behaviour at the ESF social forum at Alexandra Palace. However I wish Alex luck in forging a fighting union with Comrade Crow. As I forecast in my last Freedom column Alex will be the first syndicalist to hold a major union office since the days of Tom Mann and AJ Cooke. If he lives up to them or Noah Ablett we might start getting somewhere.
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1 comment:
Those who remember the consequences of the 1930s Cooalition Governnment might disagree that there should be resistance to the cuts.
With the world facing the worst economic catastrophe in history much more has to be done.
The priority problem is to avoid extinction. In the unlikely event that it is not already too late, there must be a huge contraction in the world economy. THe cuts process must be seen to bear equally harshly on everyone.
With Fascists in control of Labour and Lib Dems there is one very narrow political base that might give hope.
There are those in the Tory party who were horrified when Thatcher sold the family silver off cheap to her friends and did not clear the National Debt.
Fortunately the soggy half baked leftists are not calling for a progressive tax on Wealth sufficiently progressive to clear the National Debt. Geniune Conservatives can take it up as the only way to preserve Capitalism.
Doubling the value of money through deflation would leave benefit recipients better off with a thirty percent cut in their benefits!!
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