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The global financial crisis and the National government’s assault on the working class

August 10, 2010

The new stage of the world financial crisis is driving a turn from economic stimulus policies to austerity measures and a deepening assault on the social position of the working class in every country. It has reverberated in this part of the globe, in the backroom political coup that saw Julia Gillard installed as Australian prime minister at the behest of the mining conglomerates, and in the National-led government’s fresh assault on working people in New Zealand.

“This fight is first and foremost a political struggle against the Gillard government”

July 21, 2010

Zac Hambides, the Socialist Equality Party candidate for Kingsford-Smith and president of the International Students for Social Equality (ISSE) at Sydney’s University of New South Wales (UNSW), advanced the need for a political struggle against the Gillard Labor government and for a socialist perspective to defend education at a demonstration of students on Tuesday.

The rally was called in support of 70 staff who have been stood down by the administration for imposing work bans as part of an ongoing dispute over working conditions. Against the efforts of other speakers to cover up the decisive political issues at stake, Hambides explained that the university’s actions flowed directly from two central policies of the Labor government—its “education revolution” and its anti-strike laws.

Socialist candidate’s open letter exposes attempted political censorship at UNSW rally

July 21, 2010

The following open letter by Zac Hambides, the Socialist Equality Party candidate for Kingsford-Smith and president of the International Students for Social Equality (ISSE) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), was circulated at a students’ rally on Tuesday. The letter was issued in protest at the UNSW Student Representative Council (SRC) leadership’s refusal to include Hambides on the official speakers’ list on the grounds that it would be “impolite” to the other speakers.

SRC president Osman Faruqi grudgingly allowed Hambides to speak after ISSE members and supporters began distributing the letter among the assembled staff and students (See: “This fight is first and foremost a political struggle against the Gillard government”).

International Students for Social Equality

July 20, 2010

To Osman Faruqi

Australia: The political issues in the University of NSW work bans dispute

July 18, 2010

The following statement is to be distributed at a July 20 student meeting called by the Student Representatives Council at the University of New South Wales, a university with more than 44,000 domestic and international students in Sydney.

The work bans commenced by academic and administration staff at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) on June 30, and the university’s provocative decision to stand down over 70 staff without pay in retaliation, raise crucial political questions.

The ISSE expresses its support for the stand taken by UNSW staff, and demands that all be reinstated immediately and paid in full for the period they have been stood down.

ISSE meetings in Germany: “Education is a class issue”

June 28, 2010

Last week, the International Students for Social Equality (ISSE) completed a series of meetings across Germany under the title “Massive Social Cutbacks and the Attacks on Education.” The meetings took place against the background of the most extensive social cuts to be carried out in Germany since the Second World War.

Two days before the opening meeting in Mannheim on June 9, the German government—a coalition of conservative parties and the free-market Free Democratic Party—agreed on an austerity programme aimed at making savings amounting to €80 billion by the year 2014. The class character of the austerity package is immediately evident. After having donated billions to the banks, the government’s programme is aimed at milking ordinary workers and the poor. The wealthy and the super-rich remain untouched.

The way forward for a defense of education in Germany

June 7, 2010

Nationwide demonstrations to defend education are planned for June 9 in Germany. The protests are taking place as part of the “Education Strike” campaign, whose organizers are spreading the illusion that it is possible to achieve concessions by putting pressure on the government.

In June 2009, about 270,000 pupils and students took to the streets to express their dissatisfaction with the so-called Bologna process. The initiative was introduced in 1999 by the SPD-Green federal government, drawn up by the European Union authorities in order to establish free-market criteria in the realm of education, thereby transforming the education process into a commodity.

Since this time, nothing has improved. On the contrary, the situation has only worsened in schools and universities, as in all other social sectors in the wake of the recessionary crisis.

The social crisis facing students: For a working class movement to defend education

May 10, 2010

The right to free, universal higher education and associated student income support was the by-product of the struggles of the working class for major social change in the 1960s and 1970s, not only in Australia but around the world. Those rights have been largely destroyed through decades of retrograde policies by both Labor and Liberal governments. Students now face immense financial obstacles while studying and massive HECS debts upon graduation. The university system has become corporatised, increasingly reliant on business sponsorship and full-fee paying students.

Britain: SEP campaigns at University of Manchester

May 4, 2010

A Socialist Equality Party campaign team and members of the International Students for Social Equality have been campaigning at the University of Manchester campus on Oxford Road. The campus is in the Manchester Central constituency, where the SEP is standing its candidate Robert Skelton.

Many students and university workers have taken the SEP’s election manifesto. The team spoke to students, former students, prospective students and members of staff about the policies of the SEP.

Jersey City high-school students defend April 27 walkout

May 2, 2010

On Tuesday, April 27, tens of thousands of students in New Jersey walked out of their classes to protest $820 million in education budget cuts being implemented by Governor Chris Christie. The protests were spontaneously organized on a Facebook group, and spread by text-message and word of mouth. The cuts will average 11 percent statewide, with mass teacher layoffs and severe cuts to athletic and arts programs.

Other walkouts across the state occurred on Wednesday and Thursday. Another Facebook group announced plans for a statewide school walkout on May 12.

The largest protests took place in the some of the poorest schools districts, notably in Newark. About 5,000 students rallied at City Hall, demanding to see Mayor Cory Booker, where “virtually every uniformed cop in the city was being called to control the crowd”, as nj.com noted.

Liberian students protest increase in university fees

April 18, 2010

On March 31 and April 1 thousands of students at the University of Liberia (UL) in Monrovia—the nation’s highest institution of learning—protested against the hiking of tuition fees by 148 percent. The first day of the two-day protest saw a sit-in lasting four hours in front of the Cassel Building (which houses the offices of the university president and other administrators).

Students chanted slogans and carried placards, including ones that read: “Don’t Privatize the UL,” “UL is not a profit-making enterprise but a center of learning,” “Stop the attack on education.”