En Passant

Hong Kong socialist Lam Chi Leung in Socialist Worker UK says the current protests sweeping the country show the politicisation of ordinary people The government in Hong Kong has suspended a planned bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China. The climbdown follows huge demonstrations. On the morning of 12 June, forty thousand Hong Kong citizens […]

This time, Beijing has spoken directly, and it will take a massive effort to get them to back down. Mass strikes could do it, but the unions are weak and divided, with the largest federation (the HKFTU) a pro-Beijing sham. Nevertheless, the Professional Teachers’ Union, which belongs to the pro-democracy HKCTU, has called a strike in protest at the police actions. Workers at a Coca Cola factory in one of the major new towns in the New Territories, Sha Tin, also voted to strike after an emergency meeting on Monday morning.

This is a note from LabourStart about the situation in Hong Kong. This strike call pits workers, the one social force that can win this battle, against the dictatorship, and raises the possibility of drawing in workers in China itself and going beyond bourgeois democracy to genuine democracy. The note says: On September 28, the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions declared “we cannot let the students fight alone”, and called for workers to strike in support of 4 demands: the immediate release of all the arrested, an end to the suppression of peaceful assembly, replacing the “fake universal suffrage” formula with the genuine political reform workers have been demanding, and the resignation of Chief Executive Leung Chun Ying.

The Swiss agreement to provide banking details on a case by case basis doesn’t go far enough. Abolish bank secrecy, not pander to it.