A Ukrainian tank fires in Chasiv Yar, the site of fierce battles with the Russian forces, Ukraine, Wednesday, June 7, 2023.
GMB members were urged today to reconsider giving “blind support to Ukraine’s neoliberal, anti-trade union government as it cracks down on the workers’ movement.”
Union member Joshua Boyle, who uses they/them pronouns, warned that, amid the ongoing Russian invasion, the West is repeating past mistakes. They also asked: “If war is an industry, how can there be peace in a capitalist world?”
The intervention came during a debate at the general union’s annual congress in Brighton on whether GMB should continue to “campaign to increase arms sales to Ukraine, provide material support and build direct links with Ukrainian trade unions.”
While 69 per cent of Ukrainians want negotiated peace, Western leaders are cynically prolonging the war for their own strategic and economic goals, to the immense detriment of Ukraine and Europe, write BOB ORAM and MAGGIE SIMPSON
‘People up and down the country are asking whose side is the Labour government on and coming up with the answer: not workers,’ Unite general secretary Sharon Graham says
