Updated on 25/2/22

We oppose the Russian state’s invasion of Ukraine. We oppose Russia’s war and demand Russian troops leave Ukraine.

Ukraine has the right to self-determination and the right to defend itself.

We oppose any attempts by Russia to force Ukraine to sign political agreements which would undermine Ukraine’s right to govern itself.

We oppose NATO. But this war is not being waged by NATO. The war is being waged by Russian imperialists. Putin’s regime is responsible for this war.

We support the anti-war left in Russia, defend those arrested in Russia for taking action against the war, and support Ukrainian internationalists.

We agree to affiliate to the Ukrainian Solidarity Campaign.

Fourth in our series of “linking up the campaigns” meetings, with Rhian Keyse from the Free Our Unions campaign.

Zoom https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89823368115

Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pushing-workers-rights-up-the-agenda-tickets-266747166957

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/events/418773346723528

Unite, RMT, CWU, and the TUC passed resolutions in 2021 calling for a joint union demonstration for workers’ and union rights in spring 2022. Since then NHS workers, local government workers, and teachers have all run up against the impositions of the Trade Union Act 2016 when pushing for industrial action on pay. Labour has repeatedly-reaffirmed conference policy to repeal all anti-union laws, including the Thatcher-era ones, but failed to include that even in the 2019 manifesto. In 2021 Labour published a “Green Paper”, “New Deal for Working People”, http://bit.ly/amc-nd, focused on reinstating collective bargaining with unions across the economy and including many important demands, but Keir Starmer has been quiet about that too. We’ll discuss how Labour and union activists can work together to push workers’ rights up the agenda.

With speaker from the Free Our Unions campaign.

After many months of delay, and after an announced 17 January 2022 schedule passed with event, at last a word from the Momentum office (1/2/22):

“The proposals are coming back for further discussion at February’s NCG meeting… In the coming months and before the NCG election, you will have the opportunity to vote on a final set of proposals that will determine the organisation’s future. More information about how this process will work will be published soon”.

No information on what “the proposals” are, and we’re worried that it looks like we may get only a take-it-or-leave-it vote on the eventual scheme.

Way back when all this started, we made two proposals:

• Democratic regional structures for Momentum

• A decision-making conference for Momentum

We could also do with the National Coordinating Group being majority elected by the Momentum membership, and publishing timely and informative minutes. (In façt the latest available minutes are from 5/9/21, and cryptic).

Watch this space! More background here.

The long-promised proposals for democratic reform in Momentum were due to be published on 17 January 2022.

No word. Not even an explanation of why there’s a delay, and when the proposals may come.

Unofficially we’ve been told they will be out “very soon”, and have been held up by consultation with affiliates.

Unofficially again, we were advised to get more information from the Momentum National Coordinating Group minutes – but the latest minutes available are from 5 September 2021, so no light there.

Even 17 January was a long postponement compared to the schedule published early in 2021, according to which:

September 26: interim proposal published….

December: all member ballot.

Momentum has something like 20 paid staff. Evidently they are not spending their time getting Momentum members out onto the streets, or onto picket lines, or even helping local Momentum groups caucus to fight back in their CLPs. They should at least be able to get minutes out.

Comrades in the RMT union have asked us to circulate these suggested wordings.

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This [body] notes:

1. The Tories’ abolition, from 2018, of the central government operating grant to Transport for London (TfL), making TfL the only transport system of its type not to receive regular state funding for its operations.

2. That TfL relies on fare revenue for around 75% of its income, compared to less than 40% for equivalent transport systems in New York and Paris.

3. That the short-term financial bailouts the government has paid to TfL throughout the pandemic have come with numerous strings attached, including that TfL raise fares, identify opportunities for staffing cuts, and attack staff terms and conditions, including the TfL staff pension scheme.

4. That London Underground (a wholly-owned subsidiary of TfL) has announced plans to cut up to 600 jobs from Tube stations across London [including: name local stations if possible].

5. That members of the RMT, the majority union amongst LU workers, have voted by a 95% majority for industrial action to defend jobs, conditions, and pensions; ASLEF has also voted for industrial action.

6. That RMT driver members on the Central and Victoria lines are currently striking on Friday and Saturday nights until June, to demand the reinstatement of hundreds of part-time driver positions which have already been slashed.

This [body] believes that:

1. adequately-funded, safe, accessible public transport is a social good, and is essential to reducing pollution and protecting the environment;

2. it is not right to make transport workers, who have worked throughout the pandemic, to pay for TfL’s funding crisis with cuts to jobs and terms and conditions;.

3. neither is is right to make working-class Londoners and passengers pay for TfL’s funding crisis through cuts to services or rises in already-expensive fares;

This [body] calls for:

1. public transport to be socially provided and publicly funded, rather than being forced to be “self-financing” by heavy reliance on fare revenue.

2. the Labour administration in City Hall to stand with workers and communities to tell central government to restore regular funding to TfL.

This [body] resolves to:

1. support London Underground workers in their struggles to defend jobs and conditions.

2. write to the RMT London Transport Regional Council and relevant bodies of other TfL/LU unions to convey this support.

3. mobilise our members to support LU workers’ picket lines.

4. to approach LU unions and other local labour movement bodies to discuss a joint protest at [local station] to oppose plans to cut station jobs.

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This [body] notes:

1. The outsourcing of cleaning on Transport for London (TfL) and London Underground (LU) to the private company ABM Ltd. This cleaning contract is one of the largest outsourced cleaning contracts in Europe, employing over 2,000 cleaners.

2. That although TfL/LU cleaners are paid the London Living Wage, unlikely directly employed LU staff they have no contractual sick pay and no travel passes, despite being as much a part of the permanent, core workforce as station staff, drivers, and others.

3. The TfL cleaning contract with ABM expires in September 2022 and will likely soon be put out to tender.

This [body] further notes:

1. Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan is on record, in an LBC interview from August 2021, as saying that he “will consider an in-house option” when the contract is up for renewal.

2. The United Voices of the World union has recently pursued a successful legal claim arguing that the practise of outsourcing represents an indirect form of racial and gender discrimination, as it leads to situations in which outsourced workforce, with a higher proportion of BAME and women workers than the directly-employed workforce, has substantially worse terms and conditions. Other unions, including PCS and RMT, are preparing similar legal claims.

3. The RMT’s ongoing campaign for full contractual sick pay, staff travel passes, and direct employment for TfL/LU cleaners.

This [body] believes:

1. It is scandalous that a transport authority overseen by a Labour administration continues the exploitative and discriminatory practise of outsourcing.

2. The TfL/LU cleaning contract must be brought in-house, with cleaners guaranteed the same terms and conditions as other TfL/LU workers, including sick pay, travel passes, and access to the TfL staff pension scheme.

This [body] resolves:

1. To write to the RMT London Transport Regional Council to express our support for their campaign.

2. To write to the City Hall Labour Group and the Mayor’s office to convey this position.

3. To contact the RMT and other local labour movement bodies to propose a demonstration at City Hall to demand the in-housing of the TfL cleaning contract.

https://asylummatters.org/2021/10/25/draft-motion-for-local-councils-to-oppose-the-anti-refugee-bill/

https://www.anothereurope.org/nationality-and-borders-bill-model-motion/

MPs not border guards – has your MP signed? https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/our-campaigns/migration/mps-not-border-guards-pledge-signatories/

Labour Party women’s conference is on 19-20 March 2022, online. The deadline for motions and delegacies from constituencies is 11 February. The limit for motions is 250 words, and the text below is 247.

We note:

• The government is using public outrage about violence against women and girls to help its Police Bill – a law that will increase police powers, diminish collective freedoms and deepen inequality

• At least 15 serving or former police officers have killed women since 2009

• 2,000 police officers have been accused of sexual misconduct, including rape, over the past four years

• One woman a week reports domestic abuse by a police officer.

• 53% of women in prison report having experienced abuse as a child

Heavier policing and a more punitive criminal justice system are not solutions to society’s problems. We must attack poverty and inequality and expand social provision – starting by comprehensively reversing cuts to services, including refuges and rape crisis centres.

We will campaign to:

• Stop the Police Bill and commit Labour to repeal it if passed

• Tackle police violence and abuse of power; replace the Independent Office for Police Conduct with a genuinely independent body with representation from friends’ and families’ campaigns and the labour movement.

• Curb of police powers and role, including in terms of use of force, stop-and-search, and police presence in schools.

• Addressing drug-related problems through public-health policies instead of criminalisation

• Boost services so that mental-health crises are dealt with by mental health professionals

• Launch major prisoner release programme of those convicted for non-violent crimes, and reduce the use of prison sentences.

• Restore local government funding and expand VAWG services

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In January 2022 Leeds West CLP passed this motion on the Police Bill (not specifically for LP conference) which other CLPs may want to adapt. Note that it calls for a commitment by the Labour Party leadership to repeal the Police Bill and anti-union laws on return to office.

LWCLP:

Notes that the Police, Crime and Sentencing and Courts Bill:
• Is designed to undermine hard fought rights to protest and campaign across a range of issues affecting society • Aims to use draconian powers to suppress the right to protest. 

LWCLP calls upon the Labour Party and its leadership to: • Work alongside campaign groups to publicise the dangers this Bill represents to democracy in this country. • Organise effectively in Parliament to defeat the Bill and, if unsuccessful, to commit to the repeal of this legislation along with other restrictions on the right to protest along with anti-trade union laws.

This resolution to be passed to: • The Labour Party NEC • The Leader of the Labour Party • The Labour Member of Parliament for this constituency 

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Labour To Win supporters in some CLPs are putting the following motion:

It is time to take action on how society deals with misogyny, exploitation and violence against women.

We call on Labour authorities to:

Campaign to change the law to ensure that misogyny is recorded and prosecuted as a hate crime.

Campaign for legal changes to make public sexual harassment a crime.

Campaign for immediate action on bringing rapists to justice including fast-tracking rape and serious sexual assault cases through the courts and improved support for survivors.

Provide long-term, stable funding for specialist support for domestic abuse survivors including funding providers led by and for those from minority communities including for Black, Asian and other ethnic minority survivors, LGBT+ survivors and survivors who are disabled, deaf or blind.

Ensure there is a firewall to separate immigration enforcement from services supporting survivors of gender-based violence and abuse and ensure all women including migrant women and women with no recourse to public funds can safely and confidently access domestic violence support services.

Press for the governmental end-to-end rape review to detail how the systemic, practical and emotional issues preventing women reporting violence, harassment abuse will be tackled.

Provide proper funding for specialist trauma-informed mental health services for survivors and victims.

Ensure that the national personal, social, health and economic, and relationships and sex education curricula in schools includes actively tackling harmful gender stereotypes so that all young people learn about domestic violence, hate crime and their right to report and right to justice.

Note that it focuses heavily on increased police activity and on increased activity by local councils without any corresponding call to restore central government funding to those councils.

Saturday 15 January 2022, 5pm on Zoom. Third in our series of “linking-up-the-campaigns” meetings.

Zoomlink https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89987346975

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/events/288244993325263

Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.com/e/migrant-rights-make-labour-act-tickets-241712948937

Speakers include:

• Julie Ward, No to Hassockfield https://notohassockfield.org.uk/

• Emma Jones, Labour Campaign for Free Movement https://www.labourfreemovement.org/

• Alena Ivanova, Another Europe is Possible https://www.anothereurope.org/

In the North-East campaigners are opposing the development of an Immigration Removal Centre for women, similar to a Category 3 Prison. The UK’s asylum and immigration system is already mean-spirited – the UK, despite its relative wealth, ranks no.17 for refugee intake per head of population of the EU+ 28 – and the Tories are pushing through the Borders Bill to make it even meaner. Labour Party conference 2019 voted to defend and extend free movement, but the leadership is back-pedalling fast.