"The Organising for Fighting Unions conference this weekend sought to
point the way to building a radical grassroots movement in the unions
and making them capable of acting politically as well as
economically, of combatting the new wave of racism and warmongering,
while trying to build a political alternative to New Labour. It
launched a Workers Charter, calling for a living wage, pay equality,
full union recognition rights as well as international solidarity,
for example with workers in Venezuela. It also supported the RMT's
calls for a Trade Union Freedom Bill. We have to fight on all of
these fronts, concurrently. Unless you are prepared to break with
New Labour, you won't get the reforms you want. But the capitalist
elite won't give an inch either unless workers are organised, united
and militant. And to avoid such militancy and unity, they will prefer
to exacerbate all manner of divisions that are socially catastrophic
for us." - Lenin

FOR MORE INFO.
www.respectcoalition.org

THE WORKERS CHARTER:

*The right to a job that pays a living wage and gives us time with
our families and communities. The automatic right to union
recognition and full employment rights from the first day or work.
*The right to equal pay and conditions for women, ethnic minorities,
youth, migrant and casual workers. The right to a living minimum wage.
*The right to free public healthcare, welfare and education, and to a
liveable pension.
*The right to decent public housing or to private housing without
crippling mortgages and rents.
*The right to public control of all vital public service and
utilities.
*The right to protect our own health and safety and our environment
from corporate greed.
*The right to express our personal identity free from discrimination.
*The right to strike in defence of our interests and to campaign for
the repeal of the Tory anti-union laws, including support for the
defiance of those laws. The right to be able to take secondary,
solidarity strike action without the threat of legal action.
*The right to organise for the transfer of wealth and power from the
haves to the have-nots, partly through severe taxation of
multinational corporations or their dismantling.
*The right to unite with workers worldwide against corporate
globalisation and war.

Our immediate campaigning priorities will be:

*To organise lobbies of MPs in favour of the Trade Union Freedom
Bill. To support any group of workers who take action which is in
defiance of the anti-union laws and call on their trade unions not to
repudiate their action.
*To organise in support of the Public Services not Private Profit
initiative.
*To campaign in defence of the NHS free of private finance
initiatives and contracting out. To demand the TUC name a day for a
national demonstration in defence of the NHS to take place early next
year and, if they fail to do so, to support initiatives for a
national demonstration from grassroots health activists.
*To organise a Trade Union Solidarity delegation to Venezuela