1. LibreOffice
Not long ago, a friend asked me if he should buy a copy of Microsoft Office for his new Windows laptop — or should he get a friend to give him a “free” (i.e., pirated)…
The coup in Egypt: First impressions
This is the text of a presentation made to a meeting of the Alliance for Workers Liberty in London on 11 July 2013. Let’s start with what we probably agree on: 1. support for early,…
Beyond the legal strategy: Taking the fight against BDS into the unions — and how to win
This is the text of my presentation on a panel held at the Wiener Library in London on 11 July 2013. We should begin by facing up honestly to the disaster of this Employment Tribunal…
The UCU, Antisemitism and the boycotts campaigns against Israel
I’ll be speaking at this event on 11 July at 16:00. It’s open to the public, free of charge, but you must register to attend.
From Tahrir to Taksim
This article appeared in Solidarity and Talking Union. I was talking the other day to an educated and informed American and mentioned that I’d spent a lot of time recently working on building support for…
Die richtigen Schlüsse ziehen: Über Gewerkschaften der Textilarbeiterinnen in Bangladesh
This article appeared this week in Jungle World. Viele internationale NGOs konzentrieren sich in ihren Kampagnen als Reaktion auf den Fabrikeinsturz in Bangladesh auf die Konsumenten. Wichtiger ist jedoch die Stärkung der lokalen Gewerkschaften. Der…
De-Googling
I wonder if that’s a word. It should be. I’ve been de-Googling my life today. It’s hard to remember, but there was a time when Google was cool. Back in the 1990s, I remember reading…
LabourStart – agi por homaj kaj laboraj rajtoj
That’s the title of a two-page article — an interview with me — that appears in the current issue of the magazine for members of the German Esperanto-Federation and the Austrian Esperanto-Federation. The title means “to…
Confronting Stalinism
This article appears in Solidarity. It is a reply to a letter by Martin Thomas (“How to marginalise Stalin“), who was replying to my original article three weeks ago. Martin Thomas is opposed to kicking the…
Bangladesh: Learning the right lessons
This article appears in Our Times, Canada’s independent labour magazine. The deaths of more than 1,000 workers in the Rana Plaza building collapse in April provoked a flurry of activity among campaigning organizations around the…