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23 March 2006
Get ready for Red Tuesday
A bulletin for all SWP members
Red Tuesday – 28 March – is set to see the revolt against the free market reach new heights.
In Britain there will be picket lines and strike rallies across the country as one and a half million workers strike for their future and the future of those to come.
Buses in Edinburgh will halt, Manchester and Leeds airports will close, tolls will cease to operate on the Forth Bridge, and educational psychologists will join over 200,000 classroom assistants on strike.
Unions boast that this will be the biggest strike since 1926 and it will see the greatest ever strike by women.
Charles Clarke’s bitter attack on Jack Dromey shows how much the Labour leadership despise the trade unions.
They don’t realise how much ordinary people are angered by the sleazy cash for honours scandal. Blair and co seriously thought they could pocket £14 million and get away with it.
Across the Channel the French trade unions and students have said they will bring France to a halt unless the Villepin government withdraws its new employment law, making it easier to sack young workers.
The outcome of this battle will be decisive for Europe. A victory for the right wing government will accelerate the ‘race to the bottom’ and increase attacks on all our wages and conditions.
A victory for the workers and students will raise the growing resistance to free market Europe on to a much higher level. Every Socialist Workers Party member needs to be involved in the first mass strike Britain has seen in years. Those on strike must be pushing for a big turn out on the picket lines and at strike rallies and marches.
We should also be thinking of how we can get local, spontaneous protests in the centres of towns and cities or feeder marches to strike rallies. In London we do not know for certain whether the 1pm rally at Westminster Central Hall will be preceded by a demo. We should arrange for strikers to meet in a central place in each borough at 11am for now (these can become local protests) and then we can either travel to a demo start place or travel together to the rally.
Those of us not on strike are affected by this – we too face the prospect of working longer, having to take out private pensions and seeing our existing pension schemes wrecked.
In the next five days, everyone not on strike can get their workmates, classmates, friends and families to sign a message of support for the strike and take it to the picket lines on Tuesday.
We need to make sure that we are on the picket lines with Socialist Worker from dawn onwards – many manual workers will be picketing their depots from 6.30am.
We need to get Respect branches and candidates down there to show support.
At lunchtime we want workplace delegations, groups of students, pensioner activists and Respect supporters to join rallies and protests. To achieve this we need to ensure planning meetings take place in every District between now and the weekend.
Above all we want to ensure we have SW sellers at every possible picket line and rally.
Next week's Socialist Worker will be coming out 24 hours later than usual – arriving on Wednesday evening.
This is to allow you to flood in pictures and reports from the strike. Get those to reports@socialistworker.co.uk by 6pm on Tuesday 28 March.
SW needs to be in people’s hands by the time they go to work on Thursday so they can sell to workmates. Workplace sales need to be organised.
Red Tuesday will see France and Britain united in revolt against the free market policies of Villepin and Blair.
It's the sort of day you wait years to see – let's make the most of it!
Martin Smith, National Secretary, SWP
Chris Bambery, editor of Socialist Worker