More job losses at RBS, but still no picket lines 3:35 pm / 02 September 2010 by Phil Dickens, at Truth, Reason & Liberty

The Royal Bank of Scotland has announced that it will be cutting a further 3,500 jobs from its technical and back office division. This comes on the back of a total 27,000 job losses since it began its restructuring plan in early 2009. Meanwhile, the company has announced profits of £1.1bn.

Needless to say, the contrast is an obscenity. Especially given that the bank has no qualms about giving those at the top individual bonuses of over £1m whilst those at the bottom are shown the door.

However, this kind of disparity - where those at the top are rewarded even for failure and those at the bottom punished even for success - is to be expected. It is a microcosm for the ideology of cuts more broadly, and part and parcel of capitalist society.

What is truly obscene is the lack of serious fightback.

Unite, the union which supposedly represents RBS workers, has issued a press release condemning the job losses;
The news that the Royal Bank of Scotland is to cut another 3,500 staff from across the UK is a horror story.

It will be a specially bitter pill for staff to swallow as RBS has decided to move some of the jobs abroad to the Far East, India and America.

Just three weeks ago staff were boosted to hear of the £1.1 billion half year profit yet today thousands of them are told that they have no future at the bank.

Unite is appalled that this 84 per cent tax payer supported institution has since 2009 - under the banner of a strategic review - cut 21,500 staff.

The scale of the cuts announced today beggars belief and staff across the country today will be left reeling from this news. We continue to see a financial services sector which thinks the skills and expertise of it's staff are a disposable asset with scant regard for the high level of service these very same staff provide to their customers.
There is nothing wrong in their assesment of the situation. It is indeed unacceptable that workers are little more than a "disposable asset" for the purpose of boosting the bosses profit.

But simply being "appalled" will not save the workers' jobs.

As I've argued many times previously, the only way to do that is by building a culture of militancy from the ground up. Solidarity, exercised in the form of direct action, is our most powerful weapon against the ruling class. Those facing job losses need picket lines, not press statements.

Jock’s OXFr33? Blog 2010-09-02 06:45:06 6:45 am / 02 September 2010 by Jock, at Jock's OXFr33? Blog

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Jock’s OXFr33? Blog 2010-09-02 06:45:05 6:45 am / 02 September 2010 by Jock, at Jock's OXFr33? Blog

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Speaker from Canada on Community Organizing & Anti-poverty work 10:58 pm / 01 September 2010 by stanleymilgram, at Edinburgh Anarchists

Public meeting with Ontario Coalition Against Poverty speaker at Out of the Blue Drill Hall, 13th September, 7:30pm.

Is It A New Game Show? 2:57 pm / 01 September 2010 by Highlander, at Cactus Mouth Informer

Trafford Council Spending Challenge.It sounds like it should be a new game show. You know. With questions, contestants, prizes and stuff."Question number 1 to contestant number 1. A 25% cut in government funding means services have to go - where would you start?""Well, we could ask the government to scrap Trident and pull the troops out of our business-based, imperialist escapades abroad and use

Global capital and the second occupation of Iraq 1:49 pm / 01 September 2010 by Phil Dickens, at Truth, Reason & Liberty

Much is being made of Tony Blair's memoir, particularly the section on Iraq. But the war is being treated like a part of history. US combat troops have withdrawn. Yesterday, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki said that his country "is sovereign and independent." But that isn't the end of the story.

For Al Jazeera, Mark Levine makes the following observations;
Winding down the war in Iraq and removing all troops from the country is considered the most important campaign promise Barack Obama, the US president, made. So actually, withdrawing troops on schedule would be a major accomplishment, perhaps the singular accomplishment, of his presidency thus far. But it should be noted that the schedule, and the reality underlying it, belong to President Bush, his predecessor, not Obama.

It was Bush who signed the memorandum of understanding that included the August 2011 timetable for withdrawing combat troops.

It was Bush who initiated the "surge" and, most important, it was the Bush Administration which set the conditions so that when it actually came time to "leave" Iraq, most Iraqis, however grudgingly, would opt to have some permanent US presence rather than be left completely to their own devices, with no one to referee and prevent a possible return to sectarian civil war.

And this is precisely where we are today.

Combat might officially be over for most US soldiers, but the US is not likely going anywhere anytime in the near future.

It was clear as I watched the huge convoys heading out into the desert six years ago that the US was there to stay. And today, listen to the words of Iraqi Lt Gen Babakir Zebari: "If I were asked about the withdrawal, I would say to politicians, the U.S. army must stay until the Iraqi army is fully ready in 2020."

Ryan Crocker, the former US ambassador, revealed a core American reason, or excuse, depending on your point of view, for staying. "For a very long period of time, we're going to be on the ground, even if it's solely in support of its [Iraq's] US weapons systems," he said.
This ties in with the point that I made last week, when the "withdrawal" apparently came to pass.

Yes, on paper, Iraq is now "sovereign and independent." But the malign influence of capital remains, as does the shadow of 50,000 armed troops. (Though they will apparently "only use their weapons in self-defence or at the request of the Iraqi government." Call me cynical...)

The reasons, as Levine points out, don't really need exploring. "US oil companies may not have got all the spoils they'd hoped from the US takeover of Iraq, but the US defence industry has never had it better."

And, alongside the 50,000 armed US soldiers, there are "at least 7,000 private security contractors working for the state department, and tens of thousands of American military contractors." Not to mention the "tens of thousands of foreign contractors" serving corporate interests.

These private forces - the forces of global capital - are not always brought in, as they were in Iraq, at the point of a gun. In other parts of the world, bribery, extortion, and corruption are preferred to outright war. But nonetheless, the consequence is always the same - the rich-poor gap expands exponentially and incomprehensible levels of wealth flow into private hands.

This is the direction in which "sovereign" Iraq is headed. The military occupation is over, but the corporate one has barely begun. Though it is unlikely to make the history books.

Quote of the day… 3:49 pm / 31 August 2010 by Phil Dickens, at Truth, Reason & Liberty

...comes from the Daily Mail, who offer this headline;

Mother of 10 living in three-bed council home demands TWO houses next door to each other 'because we need more room'

Outrageous! Except, of course, that as usual the story is a non-story.

The "mother of 10" in question is actually a mother of seven, who also cares for three other children. Because the social housing supply in Bradford is "very limited," she currently "shares a bedroom with a son, daughter and partner."

The "demand" of the headline comes from this comment;
I can't cope, there's no room in the house for the kids. 

I have got four girls in one box room. I have had to put a partition up in one bedroom so we don't have boys and girls sharing together.

They are always fighting over the bathroom. 

We have taken on three extra kids and no-one's given us any help. Nobody helps at all and I don't get anything for free, not even free school meals. 

I have put my name down for a few places. When people have got ten kids they should knock two houses through for them.
Yes, that is an offhand comment in a quote she offered to the newspaper. From which the Mail constructed a "demand" to "officials" for which there is no substantial proof.

Yet this is perhaps the story with the most substance in today's edition. A half-baked pop at poor people padded out with gossip, absurd human interest stories, and a look inside Barack Obama's "thoroughly modern" oval office. And Mail Online is the most popular online newspaper site in Britain.

Proof that, in the propaganda war waged by the ruling class, apathy is more valuable than reaction.

What is anarcho-syndicalism: revolutionary unionism 3:09 pm / 31 August 2010 by Phil Dickens, at Property is Theft!

The third part of a series exploring anarcho-syndicalism, its aims and principles, and the practicalities of enacting them in the real world. Although it isn’t limited to workplace struggles as traditional syndicalism is, industry remains an important battleground for anarcho-syndicalism. After all, it is here that the working class create the wealth of the world, … Read more

Continue reading at Property is Theft! …

PLEASE DON’T HURT US??? 4:21 am / 31 August 2010 by ann arky, at annarky's blog.

      
         The European Trade Union Confederation is staging a European Day of Action on 29 September next. It will be made up of a Euro-demonstration in Brussels and trade union actions in the various European countries. The European trade unions will be demonstrating against the austerity measures adopted recently by many European countries, and to demand recovery plans in favour of quality jobs and growth.
        This is not enough, little pockets of demonstrators dotted around Europe will not have any effect on the powers that be. What is needed is an indefinite pan-European general strike. To call on the workers to politely form marches here and there asking the financial world not to hurt them too much is a retrograde step. We want to change the system, we don't want more of the same. If we want that better world for all, we can't simply ask for more of what we have just had. All the workers of this world have to do to change it for ever is just simply fold their arms. Stay at home, read a book, take the kids for a walk, go for a cycle, then organise your community and work place the way you want it to be, but don't turn up to be employed by the parasites, occupy your work place.
         This action by the European TUC should be expanded, it should be seen as the opportunity to grasp the moment and take control of our lives and free ourselves from the yoke of exploitation by the parasitical financial greed merchants and their state mouthpieces the politicians. We could take that step to start the creation of that better world based on mutual aid that sees to the needs of all our people and consign this system of greed and profit to the dustbin of history. We don't want to beg for work, we don't want to to say “Please don't cut my social services, my health service or my kids education but do keep exploiting me.” We want to change the world and only we the workers will do that for the benefit of the workers.


ann arky's home.

PLEASE DON’T HURT US??? 4:06 am / 31 August 2010 by annarky1, at Annarky1's Blog

 

 

     The European Trade Union Confederation is staging a European Day of Action on 29 September next. It will be made up of a Euro-demonstration in Brussels and trade union actions in the various European countries. The European trade unions will be demonstrating against the austerity measures adopted recently by many European countries, and to demand recovery plans in favour of quality jobs and growth.

         This is not enough, little pockets of demonstrators dotted around Europe will not have any effect on the powers that be. What is needed is an indefinite pan-European general strike. To call on the workers to politely form marches here and there asking the financial world not to hurt them too much is a retrograde step. We want to change the system, we don’t want more of the same. If we want that better world for all, we can’t simply ask for more of what we have just had. All the workers of this world have to do to change it for ever is just simply fold their arms. Stay at home, read a book, take the kids for a walk, go for a cycle, then organise your community and work place the way you want it to be, but don’t turn up to be employed by the parasites, occupy your work place.

       This action by the European TUC should be expanded, it should be seen as the opportunity to grasp the moment and take control of our lives and free ourselves from the yoke of exploitation by the parasitical financial greed merchants and their state mouthpieces the politicians. We could take that step to start the creation of that better world based on mutual aid that sees to the needs of all our people and consign this system of greed and profit to the dustbin of history. We don’t want to beg for work, we don’t want to to say “Please don’t cut my social services, my health service or my kids education but do keep exploiting me.” We want to change the world and only we the workers will do that for the benefit of the workers.

ann arky’s home.