Honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work, aye?
March 1st, 2010Quick-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.
A report from the anti-SDL protest in Glasgow
November 29th, 2009A reader has sent us this first hand report of the protests against the SDL’s march in Glasgow.
The protests in Glasgow against the Scottish Defence League can broadly be called a success. Anti-fascists were certainly successful in preventing the group from assembling in any significant way on the street, and the number of people who came out to fight the fascists was extremely impressive. However, as was the case in Leeds where a comrade was handed over to the police by a steward, the actions of the self-appointed leaders of the anti-racist movement – Unite Against Fascism (UAF) – were disgraceful.
Anti-fascists met outside the St. Enoch Street subway station in significant numbers with the intention of going to Cambridge street, where the majority of the SDL were drinking in a bar behind a sizeable police line. We set off through the streets towards their hideout as a loose group, but soon the UAF banner was at the front of the march and Weyman Bennett was stopping for photo opportunities, and commandeering a megaphone to tell the group to slow down to accommodate the cops! Despite this, those who were interested in actually opposing the SDL on the streets walked on towards the bar.
Having got to Cambridge street, Bennett and his supporters once again took control of the megaphone and began telling protesters to head to the ‘Scotland United’ demonstration at Glasgow Green! This created a split in the group leaving only 50 behind to oppose the SDL where they were, with the majority following the UAF banner away from any confrontation and towards the official protest. This not only left those who stayed in danger, but also allowed the SDL briefly outside the bar.
The actions of the UAF group on Saturday were despicable, but not unexpected. Their history of state collusion against radical anti-fascists and collaboration with religious groups, political parties and the forces of the state is no secret. It is becoming increasingly clear that they cannot be trusted as a genuine anti-fascist group, and are not an effective means of combating fascism in Britain.
It’s not just London: Visteon factories occupied
April 1st, 2009At risk of being lost in the G20 meltdown London protest flood comes the news that workers in Enfield and Northern Ireland have decided to occupy their factories in response to getting fucked over by Ford.
Yesterday workers at the 3 factories owned by Ford Cars subsidiary Visteon in Basildon, Enfield and Belfast were called into the offices by management at 2pm and laid-off with immediate effect. They were not even given time to collect their belongings or provided with any redundancy pay (other than an initial week’s wages that had been held back from them in the first place.
Visteon is a tax dodge that was set up by Ford in 2000. It has been variously used as a way by Ford for not providing normal legal provisions for workers. Recently, it was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange after shares dropped from 7c to 2c.
the workers demands are:
- Full back pay
- Full legal notice in compliance with UK law
- The same conditions of redundancy that Ford workers receive
