energy

The TGV ran 90 out of 700 trains. The other national service, Corail, ran only 12 trains out of a normal service of 300. With the local TER services few trains ran, although a scab service of 2000 buses was in operation. Transport authorities are promising to improve the situation tomorrow, claiming one in three TER services will run, 50 Corail and 150 TGVs.

An inter-union grouping composed of CGT, SUD-rail, FO, CFTC and CFE-CGC has called the action in relation to government attempts to change their retirement circcumstances. The other two recognised rail unions are awaiting the Government offer.

About 140 Reefton and Dunollie miners were due to meet in Runanga at 1pm to decide their next step.

In an escalation of previous action, the Spring Creek miners walked off the job on Friday morning.

Our dispute continued today and we were shown a great deal of support from fellow Hunterston employees. Those employees had to endure long waits at the picket and still had the courtesy to stop and listen. We cannot stress enough how much we appreciate their support and understanding of our plight.

Strange Victories

- by Midnight Notes

Originally published in Midnight Notes #1, 1979

Published as a pamphlet by Elephant Editions, London, 1985

Also included in the collection - Midnight Oil: Work, Energy and War 1973-1992 .

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INTRODUCTION

While the American-led interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s were presented as ‘humanitarian wars’, it was hard to disguise the fact that the invasion of Iraq was primarily motivated by a drive to reassert American power, and in particular its control over the world’s oil supplies.

In Aufheben 3 (Summer 1994), we reviewed Midnight Oil: Work, Energy, War, 1973-92, a collection of articles from the American autonomist journals Zerowork (1974-9) and Midnight Notes (1979-).

In asserting the centrality of class struggle Midnight Oil is an important attempt to go beyond Lenin's theory of imperialism as a means of understanding the Gulf War. Unfortunately the inadequacy of their understanding of capitalism leads them on some bizarre theoretical wanderings in their search for an alternative.

Wildcat-Zirkular No. 58 - December 2000 - pp. (german edition) 34-37

Fuel Blockades

(This was a letter to a discussion about the petrol prices movement in the UK. Gill and Dave referred to by Rachel had denounced the movement as 'petit bourgeois'.)

As an international freight driver I find it hard to keep my cool on this one, we truck drivers at last, all be it in a distorted way, start to stick together, tanker drivers refuse to cross blockades, Bill Morris and the TUC leaders indulge in a disgraceful sell out (which more than matches Bill Morris's sell out of the Liverpool Dockers) and my own "Comrades" side with Bill Morris!

Wildcat-Zirkular No. 58 - December 2000 - pp. (german edition) 24-33

Letter concerning the struggles over the oil price in Britain
»Looks as though we've got ourselves a Convoy«

C.W. MaColl's; Country 'n' Western Truckers hit song.

... It came out of the blue: a sudden eruption of direct action on the motorways and around the oil refineries in Scotland, Wales and England by truckers and small farmers in early September 2000. After the 1990s - the worst years these islands had experienced in centuries on the industrial strike/urban rioting front - finally, something was happening. That »something« which people everywhere felt in their own perception of what was happening also tended to change the shifting character of this raw protest. A welcome drift was taking place.