The Illusion of Democracy Difts Off Like Smoke in The Breeze.

       Conditions in Greece are deplorable for the ordinary people, thanks to the financial mafia and the Troika having "saved" them, but for immigrants the conditions are made much worse by the constant persecution by the state apparatus and by the violence from the fascists of Golden Dawn. Vicious attacks on immigrants by this fascist organisation go unhindered as the police turn a blind eye, they are also subject to brutal treatment by the police. Now it seems that the Greek state is in collusion with the Turkish state to return political refugees to Turkey, some having fled Turkey ten or more years ago and are now settled in Greece with families and friends. 

     In the recent weeks, Turkish and Kurdish political refugees in Greece are faced with constant prosecutions (arrests, searches at their homes, detentions when they protest in front of the Turkish Embassy). Turkey is activating several extradiction signals, even for refugees who have been in Greece for over a decade, and whose asylum requests are still pending due to the substantially inefficient system of asylum granting.

Read the full article HERE:

       As the days pass the illusion of democracy in Europe drifts off like smoke in a breeze. Governments openly co-operate with the financial mafia in looting the public purse, human rights are violated on a daily basis, and the corporate world at an ever increasing pace, takes control of all public space.

      It doesn't have to be this way, there are alternatives, capitalism is not the only game in town. There is a war going on at the moment, it is one class against another. The corporate financial class is looting and plundering the assets of the ordinary people, who as a class, have the power to reshape our world to a better place for all. Our class make and distribute everything in this world, their class dictate what we make and how we distribute it. Why do we let them, we don't need them, they need us. It is our sweat blood and tears that keep the parasites in their marble halls, while we go cold and hungry, why do we continue to do so?

ann arky's home.

We Are Half Way There!!

       I keep mouthing off about the financial Mafia driving us back to the deprivation of the Victorian era in their attempt at creating a European sweatshop economy, well we are half way there. The figures from a newly published study from the High Pay Centre makes for some interesting reading. Its conclusions are that the UK has returned to the pay inequalities that have not been seen since the 1930's. While we, the ordinary people have seen our incomes shrivel, the top 1% have seen their share of the national income more than double since 1979, they now claim 14.5% of the national income. The national average wage in the UK sits at £20,500, while the 26,000 top earning parasites of this country receive more than that in a month after tax, taking home a tidy sum of at least £21,500 a month. Of course average earnings can be misleading, we have approximately 6.75 million people in the UK earning less than £800 a month. Think of the difference in your standard of living, £800 a month or £21,500 a month, how do you justify that disparity?

     At least one rich retired business man doesn't seem to like this. The Independent on Sunday reported that a certain Sir Mike Darrington, retired CEO of Greggs, has written to the remuneration boards of all the FTSE 100 companies begging them to show restraint on executive pay, no this is not a joke. Strange that he should write this letter AFTER he retired and not before. However I wouldn't hold my breath on a positive response from his FTSE 100 colleagues.

     Of course it is not just in Europe that this great divide is ever widening, in the US they have the same pattern, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In that land of the free and opportunity, for the year 2009, a mere 311 Americans shared between them a staggering $54 trillion, while 80% of the American population share just 7% of the national wealth. As for the bottom 40%, well they get by with barely any wealth at all. Ah well, that's capitalism for you.

      If we want to change this, and what ordinary sane person wouldn't, we will have to take a very different approach from our Sir Mike Darrington, It is no use appealing to the charity of a bunch of greedy parasites, we have to get rid of them. Would the chickens ask the fox to help them?

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Austerity = Sweatshop Economy.

       I've said it, you've said it, it's about time everybody said it and acted on it. Austerity is about creating sweatshop conditions, it's about robbing the public purse and handing that wealth to the financial Mafia. All the chatter on that babbling brook of bullshit, the media, by "economic experts", is smoke and mirrors, it's gobbly-gook and should be classified as economic bullshit, it's a charade for your benefit, to keep you ignorant and subdued, while the financial parasites suck you dry. We are being bled to death by deliberate policies, adhering to a strict ideology. Austerity kills, but only the ordinary people, millionaires don't notice austerity, they're doing just fine.

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A Creeping Killer Epidemic.

      We are witnessing a creeping killer epidemic, it is moving steadily across Europe and where it takes hold people suffer, people die, futures are blighted. Until recently Europe was relatively free from this killer, but know it is virulent and covering ever wider regions of Europe. It is not an unknown disease, and for years it has been growing in many regions of the world, mainly the Third World and the sad fact is, it is a preventable disease. This killer can be managed and eradicated simply by better management of resources. I am of course talking about poverty and deprivation. We should be alarmed as Greece is now entering that "Third World" category, simply on the back deliberate and predictable policies, policies that are being enacted across the rest of Europe. They will of course have the same results elsewhere as they do in Greece.

This from a recent meeting of ICAN held in Thessaloniki 

    A trip to the doctor or hospital now costs €25 – and climbing. Having a baby sets you back €800 – double that if you need a caesarian. Without the money, you’re told to ‘go home and do the best you can’. Free access to contraception and abortion have been removed. Vaccinations for children have virtually stopped. The big pharmaceutical companies now refuse to sell medicines to the hospitals.
   We spoke to a pharmacist who said every day she came across people who couldn’t afford their medication, and many who take a vastly reduced dosage to make it last longer. She told us: “In this corner of Europe, the situation is very bad – it’s tragic. People die through lack of access to basic health services.”Read the full article HERE:

    Why do we tolerate this ideology of emptying the public purse into the vaults of the financial Mafia? Why do we watch our brothers and sisters slowly die to gratify the egos of bullshit economists? This is not some God given system that is eternal, it is a man made system of greed, created by parasites. It can be destroyed and a system of justice and mutual aid built in its place. If not now, when? If not us, who?

ann arky's home.

Rich Countries and Foodbanks.

      The capitalist system is now a world wide system, but a system that has failed miserably to see to the needs of the people of this planet. The world is split between rich, so called high income countries, and devastatingly poor countries. To the apologists of the capitalist system this is an ongoing process, to them, soon all the countries will be high income countries. However the facts on the ground tell a different story. Today most of people in those high income countries are seeing their incomes drop and in some case very dramatically, Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, to mention a few. So called poor countries are not always poor in resources, Niger and Mali spring to mind. Even in the so called high income countries poverty tugs at the sleeves of the ordinary people.

       In the “rich” high income countries approximately 60 million people turn to food banks to just get by. That is almost equivalent to the entire population of the UK. A staggering 7.2% of the entire population of all the high income countries need to get help from food banks to survive. This is the success story of capitalism in the rich countries, consider the poverty and hunger in the poor countries. It is not that the food and resources just aren't there, we live in a world of abundance, wealth is stockpiled, we have food rotting in shops and warehouses, a recent study showed that 50% of all the food we produce is thrown away. We could all sit at the planet's table and eat our fill. However we have devised a system that won't allow that to happen, unless a few parasites can make money from the process. Until we end this insane capitalist system, millions will go hungry and poverty will continue to grow.

ann arky'a home.

TWO FACED----!

      While our millionaire parasites that go by the name of MP's, continually wring their hands and tell us things are so bad that we have to tighten our belts and accept all this misery and austerity, they don't seem to think the same about themselves. It seems that our “Honourable Gentlemen” have suggested to the Commons expenses watchdog that they should have a 32% salary increase. In a recent survey our humble MP's suggested that they deserved a salary of £86,250, and though they have worked hard at getting rid of final salary pensions for all and sundry across the land, they feel that it should be retained for them. That's what you call “serving the people”. 

 I'm worth it, I'm an MP.

       The survey also shows that 69% thought that MP's were underpaid, what's your thoughts on that one? The varying amounts that they thought that they should be paid changed according to party, with the Tories coming in with the biggest ego, believing that their salary should be £96,740. One fifth of those in the survey thought that they should be paid £95,000 or more. This is the thoughts that are running through the heads of that bunch of millionaire playboys that are sitting and without any blushes or shame forcing legislation on the rest of us that drive us deeper and deeper into poverty. Perhaps the term “Honourable Gentlemen” should be dropped from the Westminster House of Corruption and Hypocrisy and be replaced with “two-faced lying bastards”. Or do you think I'm being too harsh on the poor souls?

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DEMOCRACY'S BANKRUPT.

       Yea, it seems a good idea, just test their logic. I have no doubt that you will find it wanting. We vote for a system of crooks and liars, hypocrites and millionaires and pampered parasites, WHY?

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PAYMENT BY RESULTS??

     All the figures that come out regarding this economic system make it blatantly obvious that it does not work in the interest of the majority of the people. Yet millions still accept it as if it was the only game in town. We the ordinary people are continually told austerity is the only answer and we have to accept this harsh reality, so that we can have pie in the sky in the years after 2020, perhaps. As we suffer wage cuts/freezes, unemployment, and a destruction of our social society, the millionaire cabal that run this gambling casino and hand out this need for austerity, move further and further into the stratospheric realms of opulence.

     Recent figures show that the average pay package of a FTSE 100 chief executive, for the year 2011 reached £3 million. This translates into an average annual increase of 8.5%. Compare this with the national average pay increase of the ordinary workers, which works out at 1.6%, well below half the rate of inflation.

     You would imagine that with the FTSE 100 chief executives claiming all that loot and that massive increase in salary, they must have done their job very well. However, during the same year, 2011, the FTSE 100 fell by 6.5%, leaving all those sweaty handed investors much worse off, is that payment by results?

    Of course it doesn't stop there, new research indicates a boardroom pay explosion has taken place at the beginning of this year. Yes, it is true, austerity is the way to prosperity. However it is our austerity that paves they way for the parasites' prosperity

      Surely it is the realms of insanity to continue with an economic system that grinds the vast majority of the population into a pit of deprivation, while throwing unimaginable wealth at a handful of parasites. The wealth that has been accumulated in this country over the years, all created by the labour of the ordinary people, is more than sufficient to see to the needs of all our people. The resources are there, it is this ludicrous greed driven system of economics that makes sure that all that wealth goes to the few and it translates into power for that few, over the rest of us. Another world is possible.

ann arky's home.

THE TROIKA HAS SPOKEN.

         Despite the savage slashing of the standard of living of the Greek people over the last few years, despite the resulting poverty, degradation and deprivation sweeping across the general population, the financial Mafia have insisted on more of the same. According to the “Troika” (the financial Mafia's hit team) the Greek people have not been crushed enough and the Greek state apparatus agrees. It's not for the Greek government to look out for the interests of the Greek people, they are there to manage the “austerity” plans of the financial Mafia. So on top of gross hardships the people of Greece are struggling under, on top of the “austerity” cuts that are already in place, they have to be hit with a further €11.5 billion in cuts for 2013. Among other degrading measures, this will entail further cuts in pensions, raising the pension age, more cuts to public sector wages, more public sector sackings and more privatisation. Of course we are told that all this transferring of public money to the bankers is for the benefit of the Greek people. To save the bankers and bond markets from suffering from their gambling losses, the people have to be stripped naked. While the financial Mafia recoup their gambled loot, the people are promised pie in the sky in the bye and bye. While this looting goes on, the people are expected to suffer in silence and feel better knowing that the coffers of the bankers are being replenished. All that matters in this crazy, unjust, economic system (corporate fascism) is that the billionaires of this world don't lose their ill gotten plunder, the people are of little or no concern. The world that the people live in can be shit, that's OK, just don't let the leeches and the parasites lose their power and wealth.

You have to cut wages, we need a bailout.

           Of course we have to accept that if we all sit back, sleeping in the illusion that it is all happening somewhere over there and we are all right Jack, we are in for a very rude awakening. It is not a matter of the Greek people done something wrong, so have to pay the price, the Greek people done nothing wrong. It is a pan-European policy and we are all going through the stages. Where Greece is going we are following. Spain and Italy teetering on the brink, Ireland and Portugal, slipping down the slope and several Eastern European countries beside them or not far behind. There is nothing in this process that will show compassion because the people are suffering, we are not in the equation. If we don't like being ripped off by a billionaire class, then we have to sort the problem, we have to take control, we have to shape the society we want. They are shaping it the way that they want it to be, we sit back and let them or we shape it the way we want, there is no compromise. 

ann arky's home.

GET OLDER, SUFFER POVERTY.

            One way to measure a civilised country is to look at how it cares for its most vulnerable citizens. First we should remember that in spite of all the crap poured out by our millionaire lords and masters, this country is a very rich country. As we get older we take our place among the vulnerable, so how does Britain, a modern rich country, care for its elderly? Well British pensioners are among the poorest in Europe, in this country more than two million older people are at risk of poverty. In 2010 21.4% of elderly British were classed as being at risk of poverty, dwarfing the European average of 15.9%. The only nations in Europe who treated their elderly worse were Cyprus with 45.2%, followed by Bulgaria at 32.3%, then Spain at 21.7%. We are shamed by such figures as Hungary 4.1%, the Netherlands, 5.9% and Luxembourg, 5.9%. Of course it is not just the elderly that are at risk of poverty in this country. In 2010, 10.7 million people, 17.1% of the population, were at the risk of poverty, where as the European average is 16.4%. So all the nonsense pumped out by the media and the establishment, that we in this country are better off than everybody else is bullshit. What these figures show is that almost a sixth of the entire population of Europe is living with the risk of poverty and that risk rises as we get older. This is the best that capitalism can do, from this dismal position, thanks to the “austerity”, “deficit reduction” plans, we are heading in a downward direction. The system can only deliver poverty for millions while the financial Mafia grow fatter on salaries that have shown a 51% increase in the last couple of years. I find it strange that we tolerate a system that hands astronomical bonuses to parasitical fat-cats and sinks the rest of the population into Victorian deprivation. It doesn't take much imagination to come up with a system that would see to the needs of all our people, but first we have to get the fat-cats and the parasitical financial Mafia off our backs. Shed that burden and we are almost there.

ann arky's home.

NO EXPNSE SPARED, - WE'RE RICH!!

           Well you have to admit, when it comes to spending money in a big way the Jubilee takes the biscuit. What a lavish pouring out of public money to titillate the egos of our lords and masters. No expense spared, heads of state from across the world, banquets, and luncheons fit for a queen, probably as many troops playing at pomp and circumstance, parading up and down central London as we have in Afghanistan. However at the other end, there's money to be made. It seems that a stewarding company called Close Protection UK had a contract to help steward this lavish event, but when it comes to the wages of the stewards, well it wasn't quite no expense spared. For the event this company took on 80 unemployed, under the governments apprentice scheme, 50 were under 25 and paid £2:60 an hour, the other 30 either accepted the same rate or refused payment as it would adversely affect their benefit money. Now that's a good deal if your a business. It was a 14 hour shift with no access to toilets during their shift, they were brought in by bus from Plymouth, Bath and Bristol, dumped in the middle of the night in London with no shelter.

I'm not over dressed for this little do, am I?

         Compare this treatment of “Her Majesty's Loyal Subjects” with the treatment of all those millionaire/billionaire parasites being pampered at our expense. It was a glorious display of what this society is all about, wealth and power separated from the adoring poverty stricken hordes. It was displayed for all the world to see, Britain is still a wonderfully class divided society, a great place if your a millionaire and a place in the adoring crowd if your not.

ann arky's home.

LIVING IN A PONZI SCHEME.

          We have a system where the poor are pushed deeper and deeper into poverty, and by legislation ruthlessly trapped there. It is a system that will use the language of irrationality to prove its groundless claims. There is the cry from our privileged overlords for a return to family values while at the same time branding a mother who stays at home to look after her children, a scrounger, and if she goes out (forced out) to work, with no time off to care for the kids during the summer holidays, she will be accused of being a bad mother allowing her kids to roam the streets. On occasions when some individual “cheats” the benefit system, all hell breaks loose and our lords and masters scream about all the “lower class” being feckless, lazy parasites. Though they never mention the fact that the system itself is one big ponzi scheme, riddled with fraud and corruption, where that fraud and corruption increases in size as you go up their vitiated ladder.

We have to crack down on those benefit cheats!!

           It is also a system dominated by super-rich, over privileged, privately educated middle aged men, who have no perception of what it is to live at the “ordinary” level of life, to struggle with bills and worry about keeping a roof over your head, or whether your job will be there next month. All that daily struggle is an alien world to the real super-rich parasites who control the system and our daily lives. Like I have said before, they need us, we don't need them.

ann arky's home.

IT'S NOT JUST "TWO POSH BOYS", IT'S THE SYSTEM.

        According to Tory MP Nadine Dorries our two millionaire supreme leaders, Cameron, descended from King William IV and Osborne, heir to a baronetcy, are, to quote, "Not only are Cameron and Osborne two posh boys who don't know the price of milk," "But they are two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition, and no passion to want to understand the lives of others - and that is their real crime."

What's milk, and does it have a price? I personally drink Champagne.

         Of course us at the receiving end of their “deficit reduction” policies, (pseudonym for transferring public funds to their friends in the financial Mafia) are fully aware that they have no idea how we the ordinary people live, we are also aware of the fact that they have any inkling to find out. It is two different worlds, one of wealth, privilege, arrogance, greed and power, and ours, of struggle and exploitation. Of course it is not just Cameron and Osborne that are responsible for this dual world, they are more the products of this system of wealth equating with power. It is the system of capitalism that allows and encourages wealth creation through exploitation of the many by the few, and that wealth to become the power that controls us the ordinary people. Running round to the ballot box at the next election with the desire to remove these two privileged prats and replace them with two new shiny smiles in new suits, will in no way change the system. The wealth plundered from the many will still hold the reins of power. As long as we do no more than poke fun at the privileged parasites who control our world and do nothing more drastic, then we are doomed to be that mass being exploited and plundered by that cabal of privileged arrogant prats, they will certainly not give up their position of power and privilege because we call them names.

          Forget the ballot box and organise outside the system to take control of our own lives, start in our communities, to lay the foundations of the type of world we want. A world of fairness, justice and seeing to the needs of all our people, a world of co-operation, sustainability and free from the greed and profit motive of the privileged parasitical prats that infest our lives at present.

ann arky's home.

WE ARE AWARE.

           October 15 may have come and gone, but the anger of the people is still there. The corruption and exploitation is still there, the parasites are still filling there over sized bellies with the wealth of the people. What is more the anger is spreading, the people are joining hands across borders. A message to the army of parasites that inhabit the world of the financial Mafia and to the corporate fascist, we are aware. We are aware of your lies and you corruption, we are aware of your greed and money making tricks such as war, we are aware of your plundering our public assets. Also we are aware of a better world, we are aware of your vulnerability and we are aware of our strength. Change is coming, the people will make that change.

 

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FIBRE OPTIC PARASITES.

        You and I know that the system stinks and is corrupt from top to bottom. It is a system of making money from nothing and those who make nothing make the most money, and have most control over our lives. It is a system of parasites feeding of the daily lives of the ordinary people. Capitalism used to be those with money investing it in making things and making more money, but things appeared. Now those with money make money from thin air and get rich faster than ever imagined and at the end of the day they have produced nothing, except more money for their money making smoke and mirrors trick.

It's  great system, who'd want to change it!!

This from The Drum:

Trade parasites feeding at the heart of the ASX 

By operating at the speed of light high frequency traders can "feel" a buy order coming and can dart in front of them.

        In the Australian Securities Exchange's Sydney data room, which is about the size of a big lounge room, there are six "cuckoos". These are the banks of servers installed by high-frequency traders.

        They sit against the wall opposite the ASX servers and each is connected directly into the host by a fat fibre optic pipe. Each cable is precisely the same length by agreement with the ASX so that none gets an advantage; if one server is closer to the input, its cable is looped around to lengthen it.

      Think about that: one less metre of optic fibre carrying data at 299.8 million metres per second - that is, the speed of light - would give one share trader an unfair advantage over the rest. It suggests that something pretty quick is going on.

        The question is whether it's fair to the rest of us; whether those six parasites with their suckers fastened directly into the heart of the ASX should be allowed to get away with it.

Continue READING:

ann arky's home.

WHO NEEDS YI BABY.

        It seems that one of those brilliant intellectual "think tanks", Centre for Economic and Business Research, (CEBR), have come up with a simple way of increasing the UK's GDP. According to them, the UK GDP suffers from to many Bank Holidays, simply by scrapping the Bank Holidays the country would be richer by £19 billion a year. Of course the question that might be asked is, by the workers scrapping their one day holidays, how much of that increased GDP would end up in their pockets? The same brilliant team also pointed out that South Korean workers work approximately 500 hours a year more than their UK counter parts and that country doesn't have the same "crisis" that we have. 

       In spite of the fact that the filthy rich in this country are getting richer faster than ever before, by getting an ever increasing slice of that GDP, they still believe that they have to get the ordinary people to work longer hours and have fewer holidays. They find it difficult to understand why ordinary people should have weekends off and enjoy holidays when they could be at work producing wealth for the parasites club.

      Think of all those hours you work just to survive at a half decent living standard and how much of the wealth you produce ends up in the bank balance of those who want you to work longer. Is it any wonder that they want you to work seven days a week for as many hours a day as they can squeeze out of you? Think how little you would have to work if that bunch of parasites were not creaming off the largest slice for themselves.

     For us to pruduce all that we need for ourselves, without all that surplus crap and without supporting an army of leeches sucking us dry, would probably bring the working day down below 4 hours a day, with as many long weekends as you wish. There is an army of non productive jobs that are there just to make sure that as much as possible is creamed off for the parasites and as little as possible goes to those producing the wealth.

      By reshaping society so that we produce what we need and making at available to those who need it, we would free up all those people in the non productive wealth directing and protecting organisations. This would  allow everybody to reduce the working hours and lead a more creative and enriched life.  We don't need to feed that army of parasites that insist on telling us that we are not working hard enough nor long enough, but they most certainly need you. To change the world all the workers have to do is stop, and the world comes to a standstill. What would happen if all the CEO stopped? Sod all, we don't need them.

ann arky's home.

THAT'S JUST A BONUS, NOT THE SALARY.

          Trying to grasp the extent of the wealth that we produce to give to the army of parasites that feed of our backs is difficult. We tend to live in the real world of wages that keep you scurring back to work to pay next months bills. While sums of money that look like your mates phone number just don't register properly and are impossible to imagine dropping into your bank account on a regular basis. Staying with Think Left, this article helps put it into some perspective.

Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Stephen Hester has agreed to waive his bonusof approaching £1million after the Labour Party threatened to call a parliamentary debate on the issue.

“these men can afford to refuse what the rest of us would consider a fortune”

       This follows close on the heels of the RBS chairman, Sir Philip Hampton’s, decision to refuse his own bonus of £1.4million. As a measure of wealth these figures are pretty striking. They are bonuses not pay. Mr Heston still stands to pocket in the region of £39million during his time with RBS.

       Apparently these men can afford to refuse what the rest of us would consider a fortune. To put it into perspective, if you were to put £1.4million into a savings account at 5% interest, this would earn you £70,000 a year.

Continue reading:

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STITCHED UP.

             This society that we live is is always spouting that it gives you choice, but seldom is the choice what you REALLY want or really need. It is a choice from what others say you want and need, the others being the ones that make billions from your illusionary need. There is another factor that governs your choice, money, we live in a society of financial apartheid, you don't have the money you are excluded from any choice. One of the biggest money spinner for the parasite class is the fashion industry. An industry where the bright colours, luxury feel and the exotic launch of the latest offering, conceals the poverty, deprivation and health hazards at the production end of your latest must have necessity.

An interesting article from ThinkLeft.    

     What’s on your back today? Is it exploited children and abused women, products of a rapidly disappearing and polluting fossil fuel, or is it toxic dyes polluting our planet and our people?

     What we wear really reflects the fabric of our society. It reflects power, hence shoulder pads, Roman togas and Eton ties. It leads women to starve themselves, leads children to become sexualised at young age and makes billions for the fashion industry. A close look at the fashion industry reveals how the greediest in the world shamefully make their unethical profits without thought for the environment or the workers who produce it. For the vast majority consumers who buy the cheap and poor quality, quick-to-be-discarded goods, there is little information as to how their must-have garment came to be.

Continue reading:

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WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY - CLYDESIDE APPRENTICES STRIKE 1952.

       

        January 27 marks the 60th anniversary of an industrial event that introduced me to working class struggle. As an apprentice in, what was then, Fairfield shipyard, I was involved in the apprentices strike of that year. 60 years on and the whole concept of apprentices has almost disappeared and so have the shipyards, but the working class struggle still goes on. This struggle is a continuous struggle and will be as long as we live under the yoke of this exploitative system called capitalism. Capitalism has moved forward and has developed into a world wide corporate fascism, which is even more ruthless in its quest for ever increasing wealth and power for its small army of parasites. The development of global corporate fascism re-enforces our need for global class struggle.

SOLIDARITY.

THE CLYDESIDE APPRENTICES' STRIKE 1952.

THE CONFERENCE.

January 27 1952 saw an event that set the ball rolling for the first major apprentices' strike since 1937, before the second world war. On that Sunday the Young Engineers Clydeside Conference was called. It took place at 1pm in Community House Clyde Street Glasgow, wages and conditions being the main subjects up for discussion. A Clydeside Apprentices' leaflet claimed, “Apprentices pay the same as journeymen for meals, travel, tools and overalls, etc.” The conference also called for Action Committees to be set up in every workshop and to pursue a claim for £1 week increase on apprentices' wages. At the conference there were 31 firms represented with 114 apprentice delegates representing all trades in engineering and shipbuilding.

Committee secretary, Jimmy Reid, stated, ”--it is not enough to feel indignation, but it was necessary to translate it into action. The committee supported 100% trade union membership among apprentices and stated, “We are the skilled tradesmen of tomorrow---and it is in our hands that the future prosperity of this country depends--.” At this time young lads were being sent to fight in Korea, Egypt, Malaya etc.

A RISE IN FEELINGS.

A delegation from Fairfield Shipyard, Govan, Glasgow, stated that the apprentices there believed that the next step forward was a token strike and demonstration on the streets of Glasgow. “We will make the bosses shake when they see 1,000 apprentices marching through the streets of Glasgow.” Some working conditions were described, saying, apprentices were working on water tests, up to their knees in muck and rust and earning 24 shillings a week.

FIRST DAY OF ACTION.

The first one day strike and demonstration saw 5,000 apprentices march through Glasgow city centre. There was a roar of cheering when the demonstration was informed that 1,200 Greenock apprentices had stopped work in solidarity. At the Hydepark Locomotive works Springburn Glasgow, the management tried to get the apprentices to go to an arranged film show instead of striking. It failed miserably.

Eric Parks of Weirs Pumps Cathcart Glasgow said he was called before the apprentices' supervisor who said, “Eric my boy, you've fallen down in my respect. The employers are making sacrifices in our works--.” Eric pointed out that Weirs had made £1.25 million profit last year, or £6 per head per week.

A comment by a member of the government that a loaf of bread might soon cost 10/- (ten shillings, -50p). This was taken up as, 3 loaves of bread a week—an apprentices wage.

THE LONDON DELEGATION.

A delegation of apprentices interviewed employers representatives in London and it was stated in the press, that these young engineers didn't fear important looking gents in Anthony Eden hats and impeccable suits. On this London delegation were Eric Parks, Jimmy Reid, John McColl, and Ernest Skilling.

SPREADING.

In Aberdeen 600 apprentices noisily marched through the city streets, the call for strike action was now spreading. There was now apprentice action in Glasgow, Greenock, Aberdeen, Manchester, Shefield and London.

THE RESOLUTION.

At a delegate conference on Sunday March 2nd a resolution to call a strike for Monday March 10th 1952 was carried by 95 for and 5 against. The resolution stated, This conference of delegates representing apprentices from all over Scotland, demands a reply not later than 12am of Friday March 7th to the claim of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions for a £1 per week increase in all apprentices wages. An unsatisfactory reply or a failure to reply will be regarded as deliberate refusal to reach agreement and will result in strike action commencing on Monday March 10th at 11am..

BULLISH ATTITUDE.

The attitude of the apprentices was very bullish with speaker after speaker emphasising that apprentices wanted strike action in the belief that only militant action would lead to a successful campaign. At the conference Jimmy Reid stated; “Before the lads went into action the employers had no need to worry about them, but now these people are sitting up and having to take notice of the apprentices,--- the lesson is clear.”Eric Parks reminded the conference of the huge profits being made by the employers and said; “We must see the necessity of forming apprentices' committees in every factory as the main form of organisation----it is better to suffer a little hardship than to grovel on our bellies and accept the miserable and intolerable conditions of the present time.”

THE STRIKE.

On Wednesday March 6th 500 apprentices from Caledonian Shipyard Dundee staged a half day token strike in support of the £1 claim. Other action, demonstrations and marches of support sprang up in London, Manchester and elsewhere.

No satisfactory answer arrived so the strike went ahead on Monday 10th March. With 5,000 Clydeside apprentices walking out at 11am that day. By March 22nd over 17,000 apprentices in engineering and shipbuilding and other key industries were on strike. At this period Birkenhead, Manchester and Shefield joined the strike. There was union and financial support form workplaces, some workplaces were levying workers 2/6 (two shillings and sixpences,12 and a half pence.) to 5/- (five shillings, 25 pence.) Workers at the Rolls Royce Works donated £150.

By March 25th nearly 20,000 apprentices were on strike. March 26th Glasgow shop stewards decided to take token action to support the apprentices strike. In Edinburgh where apprentices had decided to go back, they walked out again the same day 800 strong. Harland and Wolf's Belfast now joined the strike with over 1,000 apprentices walking off the job.

That week there was a march and demonstration in Glasgow which saw 5,000 apprentices march through the city streets. By this time Rolls Royce had donated £500 to the strike fund.

THE RETURN TO WORK.

Approximately 20,000 apprentices who had been on strike for more than three weeks went back to work on the understanding that it would speed up negotiations with the employers. Delegates representing 14,500 took decisions for future action should the employers fail to give a satisfactory response. The conference adopted a strong worded resolution which expressed determination to carry the fight to a successful conclusion.

Pat McCauley, secretary of the Greenock strike committee stated; “This is only the first round in the struggle. The lads have shown their mettle and shaken the bosses. If we don't get a reply to our claim shortly, the bosses must be held responsible for what will follow--- this is a tactical retreat not a defeat. The boys are still in fighting mood.”On Friday April 25th apprentice delegates from Clydeside, Aberdeen, Manchester, Shefield and York decided in Glasgow to accept, under protest, the recent wage award agreed between the trade unions and the employers. The conference stated that this was only the first stage in the struggle for better conditions.

DISCONTENT.

Eric Parks, secretary of the Clydeside Apprentices committee said that the amount employers gave which was higher than their first offer, and the fact that they negotiated a separate wage claim for the apprentices at was entirely due to the militant action taken by the lads in the workshops and shipyards. The fact that there had been a separate negotiated wage claim for the apprentices represented a terrific victory for the lads. Previously the apprentices wage increases, if any, were simple tacked on to the end of the wages agreement made with the journeymen.

The general feeling among the apprentices, especially the 1st. 2nd. and 3rd year lads was one of discontent. A discontent that said it should be accepted under protest and immediately make arrangements to go forward for a new demand.

THE AWARDS.

Age-- Award.

15-- 5s 6p

16-- 6s 5p

17-- 7s 4p

18-- 8s 3p

19-- 10s 1p

20-- 11s

The 10s and 11s award was a fair bit of money to many apprentices and this may have been the aim of the employers by making it less likely that the older lads, who would be journeymen in a year or so, would be less likely to support further strike action.

Posted by John Couzin.
the book Radical Glasgow.
the website Radical Glasgow.

More on Glasgow's working class history.

ann arky's home.

WHERE'S OUR GDP??

        I believe it is generally accepted by the public that as a country gets richer, we should all be better off. After all, that is why the powers that be, keep telling us about the growth of our GDP, to let us know who much richer we are becoming. It is safe to say that over the years the UK GDP has been growing steadily, with the exception of 2008/9, but suddenly we are told that we can't afford most of the things we take for granted. Things like libraries, nursery classes, decent pensions, and a half decent social welfare system are now beyond our reach. We are now being told that we have to accept wage cuts/freezes, work longer to get a smaller pension, cuts in social benefits, rising unemployment, while our kids education system is decimated and privatised along with our National Health Service. But I thought our GDP had been growing year on year for some considerable time, with just the odd blip? Well it has, so where is all that extra wealth, who has the money? What has also been happening as our GDP kept growing, was that a larger share of the wealth was being syphoned upwards to an ever decreasing number of individuals. The salary gap just kept getting wider and wider, so must of that extra wealth from our ever growing GDP, (your effort and my effort) was ending up, not in the common pool, but was heading straight into the bank accounts of the ever dwindling little bunch of parasites. If all those gains from the ever increasing GDP had been evenly spread in the common good, infrastructure and welfare for example, would we be facing the same problems? It is really ironic that it is those who gained all that extra wealth from our ever growing GDP, who are now telling us that we can't afford all the most basic parts of a decent civilised society.

Some difficult decisions will have to be made!!

       Even a glance at such an economic system tells you that it is inefficient, wrong, immoral, unjust, and corrupt. It doesn't take an Einstein to come up with a better, fairer and more just system, based on mutual aid, co-operation and sustainability, a system that sees to the needs of all our people, instead of working, struggling and worrying, just to keep a bunch of millionaire/billionaire parasites in the lap of luxury. Isn't it about time we sorted this lot out and started taking care of our own people?

ann arky's home.