Trade unionists in Maidstone are to protest tomorrow (14th February) against the closure of the town’s DVLA offices. The protest is at Coronet House, 11 Queen Anne Road, ME14 1XB. 32 staff face redundancy, more victims of Osborne’s class war. If anybody is in the town tomorrow it would be worth going and supporting.
« Posts by Julian
Caution, falling prices
I'm Tory Plan B
(P.S. is that a UKIP sign very slightly to his right, suggesting his correct place on the political spectrum?)
Quantitative Easing – economics in wonderland
The best, being the briefest, explanation of quantitative easing that I have read is that of Simon English in yesterday’s Independent. Chiefly that “no money is actually printed, merely credited to the accounts of the big banks and pension firms in the hope that their balance sheets will open, that enterprise will flow”.
Those uninitiated into the ways of the City may need to read this several times before understanding it and the consequences that flow from it. Remember that socialists and trade unionists have always been ridiculed by their enemies for allegedly believing that they will ‘print money’ to boost services. Under neoliberalism giving a vast gift to those that trashed the economy is seen as the only way to save it.
I would contend that the blurring of the state and the financial sector – always to the advantage of the latter, and shown by the rapid turnover between leading politicians and financiers – is absolutely indefensible. It is clear that only the state should be creating money, that this should be done the traditional way using a printing press, and that high finance is a natural monopoply that threatens every aspect of our society and should be nationalised, with compensation on the basis of proven social need only, immediately.
Once done, financiers will no longer have to complain about public opposition to their bonuses. As civil servants, investment bankers will be graded as executive officers or administrative officers, on up to £25,000 a year (with London Living Allowance) and nobody would begrudge them their £30 reward and recognition bonus at Christmas if they do a decent job.
What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers
This week’s incredible news that the bosses of the Student Loan Company, Railtrack and other public sector firms got agreement from the Treasury to minimise their taxes follows equally incredible stories about this year’s bonus season. You can add to the mix evidence that London’s landlords are evicting tenants to make a quick buck and also the seemingly inexorable rise of corporate profits.
This shameless theft from working families and the most vulnerable (and I have been told that 50 severely disabled people in Tunbridge Wells are facing eviction following the cuts) shows capitalism, which its defenders consider amoral, to be a system that is deeply immoral, at least in its present, and terminal, phase.
Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains!
Today’s picket
Picket of St John's Church
Representing Christian Conservative attitudes common in the United States (anti-secular, hostile to ‘no-fault’ divorce etc) he was taken to task by a number of the Church’s own congregation, some of whom expressed their thanks to us for our action today.
Interestingly however, he also attacked the indidualism, libertarianism and consumerism of the modern United States. Perhaps if he could drop his prejudices he could see the light.
Faith yes, bigotry no – join the picket on Sunday 29th January
News that Dr Jim Reynolds from the Core Issues Trust is coming to St John’s Church, Tunbridge Wells, on Sunday 29th January is alarming. A statement on the Church’s website may attempt to reduce concern, but the Core Issues Trust’s own website carries a statement that it aims to change the sexual orientatiion of gay people. That it also dislikes some expressions of hetrosexuality is used to suggest that it is being reasonable.
Religious faith is a matter for the individual. However, sexual orientation, like gender, disability or age, is regarded in law as a ‘protected characteristic’ innate to the individual. Most scientists would also agree that there is nothing unnatural about being gay or lesbian, and point to instances of homosexuality among other species.
We have decided to carry out a picket of St John’s Church, not in order to attack the faith of the congregation but to register our concerns at the promotion of attitudes that can be used to justify out and out bigotry.
Picket from 10am on Sunday 29th January, St John’s Church, St John’s Road, Tunbridge Wells
Not likely!
The Royal Yacht - for 30 minutes a time
Michael Gove, minister for bad ideas and a man who once declared his love for Tony Blair, had a new wheeze today – wouldn’t it be a great idea if we all put our hands in our pockets and bought the Queen a new yacht. The family, with its castles from the Scottish Highlands to the South of England, the Royal Train, the Royal Flight etc, are clearly deprived so he saw this as a great way to mark whichever jubilee it is this year. Those on the lowest incomes, many of whom have been told to either work on this day or lose a day’s pay, are, I’m sure, delighted.
I have a better idea. In a socialist society the Windsors would be able to apply for social housing – in fact in a needs-based society they would be near the top of the list due to the high levels of worklessness in the family. If they applied to live on the Sherwood Estate they would be in easy walking distance (and connected by an excellent public transport system) to Dunorlan Park. There, for a modest fee, they can take a boat out on to the lake.
Union leaderships decide whether they stand with the majority or the millionaires
Unilever Strike
Union executives are deciding whether to accept or reject the Tory-led Government’s assault on public sector pensions. Acceptance of this will have a major effect on weakening resistance to Cameron’s shock doctrine when it comes to defending jobs and services, and any union leadership weakness on this demonstrates only that it is not fit for purpose.
UNITE and the PCS have rejected the Government’s proposals. Very positively UNITE are proving that the crude divide and rule rhetoric, that of public vs private, is a lie, with strike action at Unilever. The NUT is still negotiating, but it seems increasingly unlikely that the teachers’ union will sell its members out.
However there are real concerns that some unions may betray their membership and weaken the possibility of a united fight. UNISON have some hard thinking to do, together with some of the smaller unions.
Shortly before Christmas the Government was claiming that it was close to reaching an agreement with the main unions. Clearly this was a lie. But some union leaders need to choose whose side they are on.
Stand up for red tape
Figures revealed by the BBC show that the number of people killed at work in Kent has risen from one in 2010 to four in 2011. Over 700 were seriously injured in the county at the same time.
This comes at the same time as the Tories, UKIP and even more disreputable outfits such as the BNP, are calling for a cut in so-called red tape, giving bosses even greater power to run their companies as little dictatorships, with no regard for the health and wellbeing of their staff.
Red tape over the last couple of centuries is responsible for, among other things, the fact that drivers cannot work so long that they are in danger of falling asleep at the wheel on a motorway. It limits the work that children are able to do to that which does not endanger them (unfortunately for the libertarian right, you can no longer send your child up a chimney to clean it). It means that there is a statutory minimum temperature and that decent working conditions need to be maintained. In general it benefits society at large and, in more fly-by night firms, transfers the cost from the worker to the business, although more reasonable businesses recognise that attention to health and safety often pays in the longer term by cutting sick absence. It ensures that disadvantaged groups are treated with a degree of respect, rather than being thrown on to the dole (again at great cost to society). What’s not to like?
One resolution to 2012 across Kent should be that all workplaces need to be sufficiently unionised to ensure that health and safety and anti-discrimination red tape is adhered to.
Why we must remain revolutionary green socialists*
Capitalism over centuries proved itself a dynamic system, able to renew itself. From mercantile and finance capital at the margins of production, through the heroic age of capitalist industry and agriculture paid for by the blood of working people, to an even more bloody age of imperial expansion and global warfare driven by the demand for resources and markets, to this, its final phase.
For rather than a system able to revolutionise production, final era capitalism is a break on the further development of humanity. It is characterised by the absolute domination of finance capital. Few fortunes can be made through the production of commodities. Instead all must contribute a regular tribute to the financiers. If a government wishes to build a school or a hospital, private finance must take a share. Many schemes that could go ahead thus are abortive. A factory, farm or even just a citizen will bear the vast cost of bailing out the banks, the guarantees extended to them, the extra tax burden imposed by their assisting of massive tax avoidance and evasion for others, for many decades. Concepts such as intellectual property have been developed and extended so that even the natural wealth of the planet can be owned by an individual or corporation, to whom others must pay tribute if they wish to make use of it. The dominant culture lionises the person that makes a fortune overnight, at whatever cost to others, and despises those that just want an honest living.
The cost of this is enormous. Much of the world has entered a ‘lost decade’ of stagnation punctuated by periods of recession. Democracy has been effectively suspended in parts of Southern Europe. Citizens face higher taxes, pay cuts and services being shut.
Everything is ‘sweated’ to its limit. LEAN methodology is inflicted on public and private sector workplaces alike. Perks and privileges are deemed ‘uncompetitive’ and removed. Benefits supporting the disabled and those forced onto the dole by the lack of jobs are squeezed, with cowboy outfits like ATOS Origin making fortunes for their owners.
As with previous societies, such as the Greek city states, it is clearer than ever that our current form of society is reaching its ecological limits. However, this time the crisis is global, not local. Climate change, resource depletion and soil erosion are having an effect in every part of the world.
The answer is that we need to reaffirm revolutionary principles for 2012. The overthrow of the financiers and the liberation of the majority must be our core aim. This cannot be achieved through ‘dropping out of society’, or an illusion that we can create an alternative to what exists unaffected by the world around us, but by conscious engagement in the mainstream of actually existing society, whether in the workplace or outside it.
* This is very much written in a personal capacity, with some inspiration from an article by an early Tunbridge Wells socialist, Willis-Harris, published in Justice (March 1st 1890).