21.08.2008
LALIT will be holding four new sessions in political education in Curepipe. The first session on the question "WHAT IS A POLITICAL PARTY?" starts Saturday, 23 August at 4:00 p.m. The LALIT speaker who will lead the session is Alain Ah-Vee. The four sessions will be held at 1A La Croix Street, Forest-Side in the Piano Room. It is the first house as you turn into La Croix Street from the main road, and is on the same side of the street as Manhattan, and diagonally across from MBC). Sub-themes: Difference between political struggle & social work, political parties & unions, a party that aims to change the nature of power & one that takes power, and the inter-relationship between parties, the working class as a class, & the more advanced sections of the working class. The false dichotomy of mass party v/s vanguard party.
The course will have three other sessions, once a fortnight: The second session will be "What is a trade union? How the new Employment Relations Bill is worse for genuine unions than the existing Industrial Relations Act. How do unions handle being part of the workers' movement, alongside political parties and associations, while also being part of the state apparatus, in particular part of the wage-fixing mechanism under capitalist exploitation. What are the constant pressures for bureaucratization of unions? How bureaucracy is the opposite of democracy. How different people see Unions and function in the union movement. How the union movement relates to other parts of the working class movement that are not unions."
The third will be "What is labour, and what is pay?" This will be a more theoretical session, getting to the heart of economics, and the human aspect of economics. This looks at the labour power we, some 90% of people in the country sell, and the conditions for its sale, and to whom we sell it. We will also get an idea of how wage rates function in the increasingly liberal economy, which will be worsened by the Employment Rights Bill.
The fourth will be how LALIT is challenging the economy and economics at the same time. The session will look at why we are using politics to challenge the economy of Mauritius at the moment in our campaign for an alternative economy to sugar and textiles, and simultaneously to challenge the control of the economy by a small minority of the rich. It will also look at how we are at the same time challenging the kind of "economics" (the subject which studies the economy) taught in schools and increasingly at university and referred to in the Press.
The courses are free, and anyone can contact us to come.
For further info Tel: 208 2132 or email us on lalitmail@intnet.mu