Leeds trades unionists: zero-carbon homes can help tackle climate change

Leeds Trades Union Council has issued a call for large-scale investment to insulate homes and install electric heat pumps, to cut carbon emissions and help tackle global warming.

Such a drive to retrofit and electrify homes would be an alternative to a multi-billion-pound scheme, supported by oil and gas companies, to turn the gas network over to hydrogen.

That scheme, Northern Gas Networks’ H21 project, could tie up billions of pounds of

Thermal imaging shows heat escaping from a house without insulation (right). From the Open Eco Homes web site

government money in risky carbon capture and storage technology, which is not proven to work at the scale required – but would help to prolong the oil and gas industry’s life by decades.

This is a test for social and labour movements all over the UK.

The demand for retrofitting and electrification should be taken up, and fossil-fuel-linked technofixes rejected. Otherwise, talk of “climate and ecological emergency” is empty words.

“Our most important and urgent action is to halt the flow of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere”, says a draft document that the Leeds TUC published last week. “This means radical changes to the way we use energy for work, travel and to heat our homes.”

In setting out a plan for Leeds, the TUC there hopes to “offer a model that will be taken up by other towns, cities and regions”, where it can form the basis for collaboration between local authorities, and a focus for trade unions and community campaigners.

The case for super-insulation and heat pumps

“There can be no realistic pathway to zero carbon which relies solely on changes in the way we produce energy”, says the TUC document. “Continuing to extract and burn carbon-

South Africa: ‘climate change intensifies gender-based violence’

This guest post is by ORTHALIA KUNENE, a South African writer and grass-roots activist in her community with Extinction Rebellion (XR) South Africa. It is based on a talk she gave at a zoom session last month, organised by Extinction Rebellion Greenwich (UK).

Global warming isn’t simply going to destroy our communities – it is also going to be a serious intensifier of violence against women and girls.

I am a feminist, an African feminist to be exact. African feminism acknowledges Africa’s historical colonial realities. Hence, our battle is twofold: to dismantle patriarchal capitalism and to dismantle neoliberalism.

I grew up in an environment that normalised the oppression of women, and I only realised later in life that I, like so many black women in my country, fell into the demographic that

A climate policy protest in South Africa

unfortunately suffers the most – because the reality is that global capitalism has placed women, especially black women, at the bottom of the economic system.

Climate change is a direct product of the patriarchal capitalist economic model, which is built on the destruction and exploitation of human and natural resources. The oppression of women through control of women’s bodies, minds, and labour is part and parcel of this system.

As Africa still bears the horrifying scars of gender-based violence, alongside Covid-19, climate change has placed African women in the eye of the storm. Gender-based violence

Belarus: ‘what counts is workplace organisation’

The confrontation in Belarus between the Lukashenko regime and the mass movement continues. Strike committees are being formed at state-owned enterprises, and the strike at Belaruskali, one of the country’s strategic conglomerates, has begun. At the giant Minsk Tractor Factory, demonstrators who tried to talk to workers were stopped by police. In Grodno, Belarusian media report that the local authorities have begun a dialogue with the opposition. I am trying to follow the situation, and tell English-language readers about independent socialist and working-class trends in the movement. Here are an interview with an independent trade union activist, and, below, a political statement supported by the largest independent trade union federation. Many thanks to P for help with translations. GL.

“Until workers in the factories begin to organise, this will be so much hot air”  

An interview with Sergey Antusevich, deputy chair of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BCDTU), published by the Russian magazine Snob on 18 August.

Q: Strikes have started in Belarus. Clearly, they are linked with the post-election protests, but they certainly didn’t start straightaway. What has the decision-making process and why did it take time?

SA: I think that people had waited for the outcome of the elections, in the hope that their vote against Lukashenko could influence the situation in the country. But when it turned out that their votes were simply thrown in the bin, the conversation changed. On 10 August people came into work, talked with colleagues and discovered that none of them

Striking workers at Belaruskali, Soligorsk, 17 August. Photo: EPA-EFE

had voted for Lukashenko. They ended up feeling that something needed to be done. From different factories, activists from trade unions affiliated to BCDTU called us with questions and ideas. We replied that centralised trade union structures could, of course, condemn electoral fraud and demand a vote recount, but that this would be of little use without being supported by action from the workplaces. I said, and I can say it again now, that until workers in the factories begin to organise, begin to oppose the lies, the lack of rights and the degrading treatment, when the authorities have just spat on them and wiped them on the pavement, this will all be just so much hot air.

Q: Did you co-ordinate the workers’ actions

SA: At first we had no means of full-scale coordination: the Internet was cut off nationwide. I spent two days with no connection, basically; I could not set up a working

Belarus: potash workers strike to support victims of police violence

This statement by striking workers at Belaruskali, a giant potash fertiliser production complex, has been released today by the Belarusian Independent Trade Union. The Russian original is here. Belaruskali, based at Salihorsk, 120 kilometres south of Minsk, is one of the largest producers of potash fertilisers in the world, employing about 12,000 workers. Each of its four production units consists of one or two potash ore mines, and a processing unit.

This morning at Belaruskali there were meetings of all production units with management, who were informed that an indefinite strike is to begin. Strike committees have been formed at all production units. They are formulating demands to the employer and guarantees of safety for the strikers and their families. Later on, around two p.m., these demands will be presented to Belaruskali management. At present, production has not been stopped. Workers are conserving equipment and preparing for cessation of operations, so as not to damage the enterprise or its employees.

The strike is expected to start at midnight on 18 August. From eight a.m., the production process will be stopped.

The strikers’ demands:

What was done to the peaceful Belarusian people on 9-11 August 2020 showed the true face of the Belarusian authorities, and the real attitude of the power of the wealthy towards citizens. Hundreds of men and women of all ages, including young boys and girls,

A meeting at Belaruskali this morning

became the helpless hostages of monsters in uniform, and were subjected to unprecedented torture, humiliation and the most vicious beatings. And this lawlessness was conducted with the approval, and the direct participation, of officers of the district department of internal affairs and judges of the Salihorsk district court.

No-one will forget what has happened; no-one will pardon your crimes. Thousands of people in Salihorsk, whole enterprises, have joined the national peaceful solidarity STRIKE. The people are against violence and brutality, against the falsification of election results, and against lawlessness and recklessness in our city.

The following demands by citizens are being expressed through peaceful mass actions in the city of Salihorsk:

1. Take measures to declare the results of the presidential election null and void. To this end we call on the Salihorsk Regional Electoral Commission to make public the real results

Belarus: ‘without organisation, without struggle, the oppressive unfreedom will never disappear’

The revolt against the authoritarian regime in Belarus has spread from the city streets, where thousands of protesters have been battling with police, to the workplaces. On Thursday 13 August workers at large enterprises – including chemical and food factories, and construction and transport companies – downed tools in protest at the monstrous surge of police violence and arrests. People are quitting the state-supported trade unions. Films and photographs of workers’ meetings, at which participants denounced police violence and the fraudulent election results, are spreading like wildfire across social media. Womens’ organisations are taking to the streets – against a president whose fury was provoked, especially, by the support for Svetlana Tikhonovskaya, the woman who dared to stand against him for election. Here are two appeals by independent trade union organisations that were published yesterday. Please share and re-post. GL.

Open Appeal by the Belarusian Independent Trade Union to workers

Dear Belarusians,

The authorities’ actions – in falsifying the election results, breaching human rights, instigating mass arrests and beatings of peaceful protesters and passers-by across the whole country – could all lead to irreversible consequences for Belarus. We are hearing ever-louder

A factory meeting in Minsk earlier this week

announcements from the European Union and the United States, that they are ready to impose various sanctions, including economic ones, on Belarus as a state that is trampling cynically on the rights and freedoms of its citizens.

Closure of the western markets for our products and services would be a catastrophe for our enterprises. The impact of this would be borne first of all by ordinary workers, who are in a bad enough situation already.

To defend ourselves and our freedom of action at the workplace, we propose the following pattern of simple collective actions:

1. Quit the state’s social organisations, such as the [government-supported] Federation of Belarusian Trade Unions, [the pro-presidential civic-political association] Belaya Rus and the

The Russian state’s case against Yuri Dmitriev, historian of Stalinist repression, dissected

On 22 July the city court in Petrozavodsk, north-west Russia, sentenced Yuri Dmitriev – a historian of Stalin era repression, who works excavating the remains of political prisoners killed in local camps – to three-and-a-half years in a penal colony.

Dmitriev was found guilty of forced sexual activity with his underage adopted daughter, and cleared of charges of creating pornographic material, possession of weapons and indecent acts. He has always denied all these charges. Taking into account time served, Dmitriev is expected to be freed in November – although the prosecutor had called for a 15-year sentence.

Dmitriev, who was acquitted of similar offences at a previous trial, has won support internationally as a victim of political persecution.

People & Nature today publishes an article by Nikita Girin, examining the charges in detail, that first appeared in the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta on 13 July. It reflects the view of Russian human rights defenders and free speech advocates – that these charges were contrived, with a view to silencing Dmitriev’s authoritative, determined voice on Stalinist repression.

The article shines light on the brutal and cynical methods used by the state to protect its Stalinist predecessors from Russians determined to understand their own history. Please read and share.

Viktor Filinkov, political prisoner: “An idealist who takes on responsibility for the big picture”

While Black Lives Matter demonstrators fill the streets of cities around the world, opening a new chapter in the history of anti-racist and anti-fascist struggle, the Russian anti-fascists Viktor Filinkov and Yuli Boyarshinov are starting long jail sentences.

A St Petersburg court sentenced Filinkov to seven years, and Boyarshinov to five-and-a-half, on 22 June, on trumped-up charges of involvement in a “terrorist grouping” – the “Network”. In February, seven other defendants were jailed by a court in Penza for between six and 18 years, and last year another in St Petersburg for three-and-a-half years.

Detailed evidence that the “network” case defendants were subjected to horrific tortures after their arrest

Viktor Filinkov in court. Photo by David Frenkel, Mediazona

has been published and submitted to state bodies. President Vladimir Putin last year cynically promised to look into it. Nevertheless, the defendants have been railroaded to penal colonies.

This portrait of Viktor Filinkov – who refused to admit guilt and received one of the heaviest sentences – is by Yevgeny Antonov. It was first published in Russian by the Petersburg news outlet Bumaga.

==

On Monday 22 June, the 2nd Western District Military Court [in St Petersburg] announced the sentences on the Petersburg defendants in the “Network” case, Viktor Filinkov and Yuli Boyarshinov. They were found guilty of involvement in a terrorist grouping (article 205.4, part 2 of the criminal code). Filinkov was sentenced to seven years in a penal colony (standard regime). Boyarshinov got five and a half years (Yuli was also convicted of the illegal possession of explosive materials (article 222.1, part 1)).

Four days before the sentencing, Filinkov addressed the court. The 25-year old computer programmer set out the inconsistencies in the prosecutor’s case, and used diagrams to show why the PGP [Pretty Good Privacy encryption] programme would not be used by a conspiratorial terrorist group, as the prosecution had claimed.

In his closing statement, Filinkov stated that the internal affairs ministry, the prosecutor, the federal prison service, the Investigative Committee, the federal security service [FSB], the court and the

Lugansk: authorities cough up miners’ unpaid wages, but activists still under arrest

Mineworkers have ended an underground occupation in separatist-controlled territory in Lugansk, eastern Ukraine, after bosses paid most of the wages they were owed. But 14 trade union activists are still under arrest by the authorities of the Russian-supported “people’s republic”.

The sit-in by 119 mineworkers at the Komsomolskaya mine in the city of Antratsit, which started on Friday 5 June, ended in the early hours of Saturday 13 June. They were paid a large part of the wages they were owed, promised the rest by this week, and assured that there would be no more arrests.

On Friday, about 100 people gathered in the town square at Antratsit to support the miners. Pavel Lisyansky, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman in the area and a long-standing trade union activist, said in a facebook post:

I have been informed that the final decision to accede to the protesting mineworkers’ demands was made on account of the solidarity protest by people in Antratsit. The Russian federation’s occupation administration feared that this protest would spread, especially since international trade union organisations had begun to speak out about the strike.

Lisyansky said on Saturday that an electronic and transport blockade of Antratsit, and the

Demonstrators in Antratsit on Friday. Photo: ok.ru/vgorodeant, via MK

Dubovsky area around the mine, continued, and the fate of activists arrested last week was unknown. The internet was blocked, although Whatsapp and similar services worked.

Aleksandr Vaskovsky of the Independent Miners Union of Donbass said, in an interview with News.ru, that 21 activists – based in Krasnodon, Rovenki, Krasnyi Luch and Belorechensk, as well as Antratsit – had been detained last week. Some had been tortured.

According to News.ru, Azamatkhan Karimov, an activist of the Workers Control group, had reported that seven of these 21 were released on 9 June. Karimov said that the detainees

Black and white protesters have changed the political landscape

These comments on the Black Lives Matter protests were published by Let’s Get Rooted, a group looking to focus on workers’ self-organisation at work and beyond.

Hundreds of thousands of people in cities across the world marched in defiance of their governments and police to show their solidarity with the protest in the US against the police murder of George Floyd.

His murder by the police was just one more in the long list of such killings in the US, in the UK

London, 7 June. Photo by Steve Eason

and around the world. But the response to this latest outrage has been a storm of protest which is inspiring. Black and white protesters, mostly young, have changed the political landscape.

A killing, which in previous times might have led to local black protests in the US, lit a spark of multiple frustrations and discontent. The world is in lockdown with the coronavirus epidemic which has highlighted and deepened all the social inequalities. The virus is a killer but its victims, medically and financially, are overwhelmingly the most deprived sections of society.

In the UK, a government which came to power on its nationalistic, flag-waving Brexit campaign has shown its incompetence and indifference to ordinary people’s lives, trying to push people back to work, push children to school – all to try to get the profit making machine going again.

The protesters in Bristol who pulled down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston will be cheered by millions of people. The footage of the mass murderer, who has been worshipped by the Bristol elite for decades, being rolled and dropped in the river will be watched over and over again.

It is hilarious watching British politicians, academics, civic dignitaries and other worthies all now trying to play catch-up with their learned debate about whether to remove other statues. Sir

Lugansk miners occupy pit and defy security forces

Mineworkers are staging an underground occupation in defiance of the authorities in the Lugansk separatist “republic” in eastern Ukraine – who have responded with a campaign of intimidation and arrests.

There were 123 mineworkers underground at the Komsomolskaya pit, in the mining town of Antratsit, for the third day running on Sunday (7 June), the News.ru site reported yesterday. One who had fallen ill was brought to the surface.

The protesters are demanding that their wages for March and April be paid in full. A similar underground protest on 21 April resulted in some money being handed over by Vostok-ugol’,

An earlier protest, in Zorinsk in the Lugansk “republic”, on 4 May, against the closure of the local pit. Photo from Dialog.ua

a new company set up in the “republic” and charged with closing pits and cutting the labour force.

The Lugansk and Donetsk “people’s republics” were set up by separatist military forces, supported by the Russian government, who clashed with the Ukrainian army in the military conflict of 2014.

The militarised regimes have clamped down on labour and social movement activists, and made independent journalism impossible in the “republics” – meaning that protest has been rare, and news of it does not travel easily. But this week mineworkers and their supporters have taken action nonetheless.

On Sunday the Lugansk “republic” police blockaded the Komsomolskaya mine and stopped food and drink being passed in to the occupiers. Galina Dmitrieva, a local trade union activist, received a a message saying that state security ministry (MGB) officials were on their way to the mine.

After that, mobile phone reception was blocked and the popular “Vkontakte” social media (similar to facebook) was blocked. News.ru published text exchanges with local residents who