While the Tories get all the abuse about the new government, their partners in the cuts coalition don’t deserve to get off scot-free. SolFed in Liverpool are calling for a Radical Workers’ Bloc at the demonstration against the LibDem’s conference:
The Merseyside Trades Union Council have called a demonstration at the Liberal Democrats’ annual conference. This has been billed as “against coalition cuts in public jobs and services” – but we want more.
Of course, we need to protect jobs. Every job lost to redundancy means more workload for those who remain. An injury to one really is an injury to all. We also need to stop the cuts that take away vital services, hard-won by generations of struggle. But these are not Liberal Democrat, Tory, or even coalition cuts – they are cuts by the ruling class, which we would be facing whoever got into power.
Liverpool Solidarity Federation and others are forming a Radical Workers’ Bloc on the demonstration. We reject the notion that a different government will bring about a solution for us – the cuts will be defeated on the streets and on the picket lines, not at the ballot box.
We need to send a message not only to this coalition government but to all political parties. The working class will not take these attacks on our livelihood lying down. We do not need anyone’s permission to fight back, and we do not need politicians or bureaucrats to lead us.
Join us on the Radical Workers’ Bloc on Sunday 19th September (new date, see comment below) at the Echo Arena in Liverpool. Look for the red & black flags and the Liverpool Solidarity Federation banner.
Stung by criticism that they’ve lost touch with their anti-capitalist roots, the Camp for Climate Action are this year focussing on RBS as the target of their direct action environmentalism. Want to shut it down on the 23rd August, give the workers the day off.
Message and wee video from them.
Camp for Climate Action 2010
Break the Bank!
Edinburgh
Four days of training and direct action: 21st–24th August
The Camp for Climate Action is a grassroots movement taking direct action against the root causes of climate change. We’ve already had major successes with Heathrow’s third runway and E.ON’s plans for a new coal fired power station at Kingsnorth.
This year we’re targeting the Royal Bank of Scotland, one of the world’s largest investor in oil, gas and coal.
Last year RBS were bailed out with £50 billion of public money. From tar sands extraction in Canada to coal infrastructure here in the UK, we’re paying to trash our future. These projects are not just causing catastrophic climate change, but destroying the lives and livelihoods of people across the globe. Meanwhile, we’re told there is no money left in the public pot and we should be braced for decades of public sectors cuts.
What are we doing about it? In August, people from across the UK will be converging to take back the power and Break the Bank! Our sustainable and collectively organised basecamp will give you the chance to learn, train up, and meet like minded individuals. Exciting action plans are also underway for those who want to get involved.
More information: www.climatecamp.org.uk
Not a proper post, but I want to share this from The Void:
Go to google. Enter ‘Squatter Eviction UK’. Click on the sponsored links on the right of the page advertising bailiff firms and other scum. Every time you click it costs the cunts some money
Fraud-riddled sponges off of the tax system A4e, who specialise in forcing benefit claimants into unpaid “voluntary” positions (featured here before), are the target of countrywide protests this Wednesday at 11am. Their Edinburgh office is at Earl Grey Street (i.e. Lothian Road).
Local organisers, Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty, condemn A4e’s multi-millionaire owner, Emma Harrison, for “raking it in”, while “ the sick, the disabled, the unemployed, single parents and other people who need support face cuts in services and the prospect of being made to work for their benefits.” ECAP continue: “We want to let Emma Harrison and her pals in government know that welfare is a right and should not have to be earned. People not in waged work contribute a lot to their communities. Single parents are already working and deserve a decent wage.
“Welfare to work” effects us all, waged or unwaged. Low income, temporary and insecure jobs will be replaced by “work for your benefits”. Privatisation of the Department for Work and Pensions role, e.g. bringing in profit hungry firms such as A4e, is an attack on DWP/ Jobcentre Plus workers and on our rights to access welfare.
the Tory smear campaign took a turn for the bizarre this weekend, when Tory Vice Chairman Margot James attacked [Scouser] McCluskey for his “Scots accent”!
It’s all part of the bizarre pantomime around the BA cabin crew strike. Clearly BA boss Willie Walsh is a complete cock and the government are also desperate for the strike to fail. But Unite leadership have made some questionable moves from the point of view of the striking cabin crew.
All the false outrage about Unite’s £11 milion to the Labour party isn’t asking the right question. What the hell are the workers getting from it? That money could be doing good in a solidarity fund, a strike fund, or funding a grassroots support campaign. Instead its paying the salary of a New Labour parasites.
Quick-quiz: How many of you out there think that “non-executive” means the same as “doesn’t do anything”? As in “non-executive director”?
I thought that being a NED meant to turn up to the meeting, eat the biscuits, read the minutes, send texts to your mistress and nod through pay rises. Their performance at scrutinising RBS, among others, says I’m right.
But maybe I’m wrong. They must be working awfy hard, because according to this story, they’ve been given a payrise of more than 5% across big companies. Meanwhile, workers are seeing pay freezes (always a cut in real-terms, remember) if they’ve not been put on short hours to “save” their jobs.
What happened to “fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay?” Seems like that was only ever meant to work one way. Fuck the wages system.
Anyone on the average salary (that’s £25,000, more than most people globally could dream of) knows that buying a home to live in has become virtually impossible. This isn’t the story usually told in newspapers (who have very profitable property supplements), where rises in house prices are prayed for as fervently as visions of the Madonna in Ireland, with just as much basis in reality.
If you had a house before prices went crazy, you have a huge amount of pretend money. If you didn’t, you won’t. Ever. A house no longer costs 3-4 times your salary, it’s 7 or 8.
Now some minor government functionary says: fugged abaht it. You ain’t getting one. Rent forever. Raise kids in a place where you can be turfed out at the whim of one of the Propertied Classes. Don’t decorate. Don’t even put posters up. No you can’t insulate better, pay the ever-increasing heating bill instead.
Which we knew anyway. What’s the solution?
Here’s one. Since there’s a drought of nice, secure council / social housing since the introduction of the Right to Buy in the 1980s, why don’t we level the playing field a bit?
Let’s not abandon the Right to Buy, let’s extend it to privately-owned homes. If I’ve lived in a place for a certain number of years, it is mine, treat it the same as if it were a mortgage. Landlord’s got their money back several times over.
It takes the sound principle of ownership by use, the proven popularity of right-to-buy and it’s a win in terms of increasing equality.
Now their secret is out, claims that the Scottish Defence League are an attempt to franchise dumbfuck English Nationalism can be shown up for what they are.
Much handwringing in the news this week over an apparent “epidemic of middle class shoplifting”. Turns out we’re the best in Europe at it, and look at what’s happening:
Hundreds of retailers said shoplifting surged as goods were taken for personal use and not for re-sale by organised criminal gangs.[...]
employee theft is also rising. Branded “silent shoplifters” in the trade, employee thieves are more prolific and steal goods worth £1,585.
First off, these aren’t separate groups of people. “Middle class” is a cultural category, but these are workers as much as the ones in the stockroom. (If you have to go to work, you’re working class, whether that’s as a teacher or a mechanic.)
Much handwringing in the news this week over an apparent “