Branson.An ideal Employer??

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7165490.stm

Richard Branson is often quoted to me as the most 'right-on' employer we have. Very Third Way. That view has been dashed today by his tactless comment to his employees that basically asks them to leave if they dont like working for the Airline.

Leaving is not an option. For many aircrew the industry isnt as bouyant to risk resigning to gamble with another employer. The Union is correct to fight for a better pay deal in view of the massive profits that the Air Companies make.This just confirms to me what most socialists already know. Employers are dictators and that by their actions they can have an unreasonable effect on their employees lives. The only way to make your employer heed the wishes of their employees is through the power of the Union. Lets introduce democracy into the workplace through Union power.Why do employers think they have a divine right to impose their wishes on their employees who make the profits for them?

I hope Branson gets a bloody nose from this dispute.

Legal Abuse of Kids

Shame on the Government.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article3293987.ece

Its amazing that this kind of thing still goes on. I watched the Film Scum again the other week. 30 years on you would have thought this kind of dramatisation of a Borstal was long ago extinct. Apparently not.

Noticeably this didnt appear in the Tabloids. Why should it while Murdoch etc are conducting their own war against young people as every person under the age of 16 apparently is a potential ASBO about to bring down western civilisation as we know it.

New Labour=Blairism = Brown = Defeat at the next General Election

Stephen Byers, desperately craving attention, gives us the benefit of his view (see link below) to how the dwindling ranks of the Labour Party needs to combat the Cameron machine. It is acutely depressing that people like Byers cant look beyond the debates of the mid 90s and try and modify policy to fit the present. After all, you cant use the argument that moving to the left would lose Labour votes, a perspective dominant from the ranting Kinnock years to the 'third way' psycho babble of the Blair Cult which we have witnessed in the last ten years.

The bubbling pot which has simmered over the last ten years into the consciousness of working class people has not been addressed by Brown let alone Blair, as we see the better off, better off getting better off under the government of a political party that is supposed to address the yawning class chasm that is getting bigger and bigger.

Is it really that difficult for a 'left' political party, while it still has a mass base, to address the class division in UK society?
Not while you have Brown or Byers around you cant. Frustratingly I think Cameron knows this and regardless of the efforts of what is left of the Labour activists enthusiasm in the election campaign that will eventually happen, the 'mythical' middle ground which New Labour have bet their mortgage on, will return to their natural home, the Tory Party.

And aren't we going to pay the price for this?

What is needed is a mere change of perspective, a change in direction to embrace the millions of working class voters that don't vote in elections anymore. We hear nothing from our New Labour 'Guru's' to address the disenfranchised because they haven't a single clue how to and even if they did , would be shit scared of using that support. They are so locked into the Narnia of ' making difficult decisions' and 'not making promises we are not going to keep'. In other words, a commitment to Thatchers legacy, which voters rejected in 1997 , apart from the government that was voted in to replace them.

There have been welcome gains brought in since 1997.No-one can deny that. They were needed after 18 odd years of the Tories. In no way though could the changes Labour brought in then be compared to the sea change of reaction thatcher represented in 1979. We are still waiting for our revenge but unfortunately the new generation of voters who will be voting at the next general election will just remember the shit of the last 10 or so years.

One thing is for sure, you wont be able to blame the left if New Labour gets a drubbing come the general election. What is Byers or Brown going to do then? Suggest the LP move further to the right, sorry, centre ground? What excuse is he going to use, as the old 1983 'longest suicide note' excuse is going to be as effective as a tissue trying to stop the River Severn from flooding next year?

The debate has started in the Labour Representation Committee and it is important to get involved. The Trade Unions are key to this as long as they approach the political question from a socialist view and NOT from the idea of partnership. How can you be a 'partner' to an idea where the employer and their representatives in New Labour set the agenda?

Pour yourselves a big New Year drink and read the report here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7164757.stm

and here

http://www.politics.co.uk/news/party-politics/labour/blairites-rally-round-brown-$483580.htm

Harrys Place, Barrack and the American Dream.

Saw this on Harry's Place today. HP is a site I visit now and then. I do get a bit confused where exactly they are coming from but on the whole I view the blog with a great deal of socialist tolerance even though one or two of the posts there are damn right reactionary. I find the comments box the best.

Anyway , this quote, respectfully pilfered from an Adam L post about Osama Barrak presidential chances, caught my eye

'Why? The main reason is because what many people in Europe, especially our friends on the hysterical anti-American left, just don't get, is that for Americans, America is not just a country, but is an ideal, a dream if you like. There is no greater example among the presidential candidates of the American dream than Barack Obama.'

Hey, I don't mean to take the quote out of the context of the post, which has the objective of stirring up debate about Mr Barraks Obama election chances as president.To be honest I don't really care who become US President and I expect nor do the majority of the international left or the US working class as will shortly become apparent.

My beef is about the view of America being an 'ideal'. I spent most of the 80s opposing the Republican view and things didn't really change in the 90s and the 2000's in fact it got worse. This so-called 'American Dream' is just undiluted Capitalism of the Chile/Pinochet variety, the dominant strain of US foreign policy that has promoted a form of minor genocide throughout the developing world in the 20th Century. Coups, counter coups and CIA interference in order to promote the 'American Ideal', that's what I am talking about.

Well a lot of financial interest lies behind this 'idea/dream'. The so called American Idea is straight faced brutal capitalism. An ideology that can just as much brutally suppress opposition as the fundamentalist brutality we see being experienced in some parts of the Muslim political ideology.

Am I an 'hysterical anti-American left'?

No.

I stand on the side of the US working class who have had to put up with this neo liberal bollocks for years. I side with the US trade Unions , whose members have had to sit back and take the gross erosion in workplace terms and conditions in order that the main promoters of the American Dream, the Rich, make the most from their sick and bankrupt economy.

Anti American? Not me. The dream I support is a socialist one that can be achieved if certain sections of the so called left stop making excuses for the USA and start attacking the sections of society that is trying to drag us back into the neolithic. A break with Capitalism is needed.

Some people have to choose which side they are on.

Pigs snouts in the trough

Doesnt this make you want to honk?
MPs were , a few years back , the first to vote in filling the pension black hole that existed in their wage packets. They have since consistently awarded themselves above inflation payrises.
This latest report will further increase the amount of disinterest and apathy amongst the voting public in taking part in elections.

Read and weep

http://www.politics.co.uk/news/opinion-former-index/economy-and-finance/mps-want-salary-hike-$483532.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7159357.stm

Please note the Labour MPs comments.

Seasonal Greetings. But lets look at poverty this Christmas

Ten and a bit years into a Labour Government and things should be getting better. Or is it?

New Labour Robotniks will list endlessly the benefits over the last ten years but you still need the chilling reminder that poverty is still here and as the UK economy teeters on the brink of another recession, mainly caused by an uninterupted encouraged reliance on credit, it is wirth reffering to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation December Report to provide us with the type of Xmas cheer we all hoped the election in May 1997 would bring.

http://www.poverty.org.uk/reports/mpse%202007.pdf

Its quite a heavy report but worthy of reflection by those 'socialists' who think Free Enterprise is the answer to all our ills.

Donations, Donations, Donations.

One of the reasons why the Labour Party was originally formed , was to compete with the financial power of the Conservative Party backers.A political voice for working class people. There was no way individual LP supporters, members of trades unions, could compete with the generous amount of Lords and Ladies that would always back their natural party. Unless they individually contributed through their Trade Unions which is what the LP is based on.

Recent times have shown a shift in the LP. While they still greedily accept union members money, they push a pro business agenda and with that comes business money.What logically follows here is the mess New Labour have been in over donations since the Bernie Ecclestone fiasco. It is a right mess. One that has exposed Union donations, the most transparent of political donations (well not quite apparrently. See link below) to attacks from Cameron and even some in the LP.

Think about this. If Brown does accept the £50,000 cap on donations from all sources, the Tories will be once again the richest party. Why? Because the hundreds of rich doners will always flock towards their 'natural party of government' while the dozen or so unions that donate to the LP will be humbled for donations due to this new legislation.

100+ Lords and Ladies donating £50K compared to 12-15 unions donating £50k? You do the maths. The Tories will always be the richer party after all in is the openly pro business party.

I suppose this will be doubled up with state funding of parties. That makes it alright then?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7125317.stm

UNITE - Look behind the Label Campaign

I used to work for M&S back in the late 80s and believed them to be a company that treat their staff well and used credible suppliers who were leaders in their field. A visit to any meat proccessing plant today builds a different picture.

Unite is currently organising in the Red and White Meats sector. Unite come with a good track record in organising with campaigns that rebuild a membership organised to fight back against the employers race to reduce workers terms and conditions.

This current campaign will reach out to vulnerable agency workers, mainly migrant workers, and low paid full time staff who work under horrendous conditions to the dictates of the supermarkets.

http://www.tgwu.org.uk/Templates/Campaign.asp?Action=Display&NodeID=93971?NodeID=93974

Links to a petition can be found on the site.

BNP Implodes

Politics best known secret has now reached boiling point. The night of the blunt knives has taken place in the BNP and the inevitable split has happened.

Read on here for updates http://www.stopthebnp.org.uk/index.php?location=BNP_crisis

The party that became a focus point for every disenfranchised sexual deviant,White Lightning drinker, racist ignoramus and closet Hitler worshipper, has choked on its own vomit.

Sadly we will only see the demise of the BNP. A new ultra right nationalist party will follow the wake but we can rest happy believing that the could never become a credible force.

Still, we shouldn't rest. The ideas of extreme nationalism will always be a threat to the Labour movement. We must organise to be on guard against the nationalist when they rear their heads.

Nationalisation and Northern Rock

As world banking slowly sinks into the crisis brought on by their hugely expensive flirtation with the US sub prime market, the debate hots up about what to do with Northern rock.
No business seems to want to touch it with a barge pole which makes me fear that there will (and are) similar crisis that will affect our 'respected' financial institutions. In turn the debate has once again turned to the dreaded 'N' word.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7137843.stm sums up the debate and

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7139241.stm shows what a corpse the company is.

The Liberals have started to push the nationalisation argument prompting a fairly typical Tory answer from Cameron. Point is that in one way Cameron is right. It would be a disaster if the Bank was run in the way nationalised Industry has run since 1945.
Just think, overpaid bosses, taxpayers money being drained in waste, lack of investment and absolutely no public accountability, the list goes on.
New Labour would do it because they would have no alternative to nationalise, I reckon. But deep down Brown and Co share the same anxiety as Cameron. They share his faith in the dominance of the 'Free Market'.

Heaven forbid the New Labourites actually consider a real socialist answer. Real workers control with the business being run for the benefit of its workers and the local communities.

What an old fashioned idea!!

Working Students - Join a Union!!

I have had a bit of a break from blogging but thought I would make a gradual, phased return over the Christmas period.
Found this link on the Amicus Unity Gazette site today. This is a positive initiative which must be welcolmed, especially over the festive season when thousands of students have to take on work in order to manage crippling student loans.

http://www.uniteworkingstudents.org/index.asp

It is also a better way to introducing students to politics (left groups please note!!). Its surprising how quickly a socialist class consciousness develops working part time under a bullying, 'jack-booted' boss.