Europe

The MSF and AEEU held their conferences last week as part of the process of fusion into one union, Amicus. A steady move to the left is taking place. The next step is the battle of the left to win the executive, after last year's victory that saw the candidate of the left, Derek Simpson, elected to the position of General Secretary of the AEEU.

Now that the war in Iraq is over attention in Germany is being concentrated on Schroder's 'Agenda 2010'. This is an outright attack on the rights of German workers and it is already producing its effects both in the trade unions and in the SPD. The demand for a general strike has already been raised in the movement.

146 comrades attended our "Pfingstseminar", a socialist youth camp organised by the Marxist tendency of "Der Funke" in co-operation with several branches of the Young Socialists (Sozialistische Jugend, SJ) and other left wing youth organisations.

St. Petersburg - or Leningrad as it was known during Soviet times - is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, but it is having a difficult time now. In 1991 during the "anti-communist" rising the city got back its old name of St. Petersburg and with this name trouble was being prepared for its people.

The municipal workers' strike is now over. It came to a humiliating end when the union leadership decided to sign an agreement with the employers over the heads of the membership. This agreement will only give the workers a relatively low settlement, far lower than the modest 5,5% originally demanded. It is nothing less than a betrayal against those workers who were ready to struggle.

Why did the union leaders call off the strike, when the opinion polls told us that there was a massive (over 80%) support for the struggle? And why did they back down when one union after another (the electricians, the bus-drivers, the commuter-train personnel and the builders for example)

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The victory of Tony Woodley as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union, Britain's third biggest union, is a further confirmation of the continuing swing to the left in the British trade unions. It is also a clear indication of the discontent within the union rank and file with right wing trade union leaders and the policies of the Blair government.

Today Austria is going on strike. It is the biggest strike movement the country has seen for decades. All sections of the Austrian working class will participate in this mobilisation against the pensions reform planned by the right wing government.

Mick Brooks looks at the question of the movement of labour (emigration and immigration) and how the bosses have always managed to have a flexible approach on this question depending on the needs of their system at any given moment. In the end whether they are campaigning for it or against it, it is always used to enhance their profits as they attempt to divide the workers on this issue.

This weekend the AMICUS conferences (of the MSF and AEEU, the two unions that have merged to form Amicus) start in Blackpool. This document analyses the present situation in the union and also looks at its history and how the left managed to win the position of General Secretary of the AEEU - a good insight into the state of the British trade unions as they steadily shift to the left. It also looks at the tasks ahead for the left in the union.

On May 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his state of the union address. In comparison with the triumphal statements of the past, it displayed unusual frankness about the country's problems. The truth of the matter is that capitalism has been a nightmare for the Russian people and the position of the masses is not improving, but getting worse.

Two different worlds were visible in Germany last weekend – with a huge gap separating the one from the other. In Berlin, the SPD leadership were celebrating the party’s 140th anniversary. As party leader and chancellor Gerhard Schröder defended his counter-reformist "Agenda 2010" and praised Tony Blair’s "New Labour" as a successful example of "modern" social democracy. At the same time, up and down the country, some 90,000 workers responded to a call by the Trade Union Federation, the DGB and demonstrated against Schröder’s attempt to dismantle the welfare state. In East Germany, 84% of all steel workers organised in the IG Metall voted in favour of industrial action for the 35-hour

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