Capitalism And Slave Labour Camps.

       Capitalism, where is it going? I suppose we could look at the most developed capitalist country in the world and gain some idea. America, King Capitalist, the big boy in the game, the pinnacle of capitalist development, what does it show us? Over the last six years, America's wealth has grown by over $30 trillion, a staggering 60%, over roughly the same period, the number of homeless children has grown by the same staggering figure, 60%. In 2013, 2.5 million children experienced homelessness, 1 in 30. According to UNICEF, America has the highest child relative poverty rates in the developed world.
      Homelessness in America is another indicator of what capitalism brings to people, approximately 3.5 million people experience homelessness in America each year. Roughly 15% of Americans, 4.8 million, live in poverty, with 7.7 million classified as living in poor households. These are figures from the crowning glory of capitalism.
      Apart from the poverty and homelessness in America, there is a much more sinister aspect to American capitalism, the road that we are all heading down, its prison system. America incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, its recent figures stand at 2.3 million, of its citizens locked up, mostly Black and Hispanic. America has locked up half a million more people than China, which has five time the population of the US. America, with 5% of the world's population, accounts for 25% of the world's prison population.

      The prison system in America is big business, the system is highly privatised and a wonderful money maker for the corporate world. 

       “The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners’ work, lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce. The system feeds itself,” says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses the prison industry of being “an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and concentration camps.”
     The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on Wall Street. “This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security, and padded cells in a large variety of colors.”

        The American prison system is slave labour, with a workforce that can be paid less than a dollar a day, has no union rights or representation, never turns up late, never goes on strike, or makes demands for increase wages, and can be punished for not working hard enough. In some cases, private prison are paid by the government for the number of empty beds they have, as the government guarantees a certain occupancy rate, so logically it pays the state to fill the prisons. This of course encourages big business to build more prisons.
       The US prison business is no small-fry production unit, this is BIG business. The American prison system produces for the American market, 

     100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts pants, tents, bags and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98 percent of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93 percent of paints and paintbrushes; 92 percent of stove assembly; 46 percent of body armor; 36 percent of home appliances; 30 percent of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21 percent of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.”
       When you can get that kind of labor for less than a dollar a day, it’s hard to see the government’s motivation for incarcerating fewer people. And it’s all done at the taxpayer’s expense.

        So let's look at America,  and see the future of capitalism, poverty, homelessness and mass slave labour camps by means of state incarceration. This is our future, unless we do something about it, and do it quick.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Yes, It Is Class War, And We Are Losing.

       Is there anybody out there who still isn't convinced that we are in the midst of a class war?  For years now we have seen wages frozen/cut, any wage increases have been below inflation, benefits are being cut, attacking the poorest in our communities, those on benefits are be sanctioned, (benefits stopped) on the most trivial and inane excuses, over a million workers are on the uncertainty of zero hours contracts. Then there is the slave labour of workfare, workers forced to work for no salary. All this while the rich get richer.

      These conditions would automatically trigger resentment among the workforce, and should push them to take action to protect their standard of living. However our corporate loving Bullingdon Club boys, who rule the roost at the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption are taking action to make sure that anger can't transfer into action. Their new anti-trade union laws will not only tie the hands of the employee by making it almost impossible to take "legal" strike action, it will hand the employer the tool to break any strike action by the workers to defend themselves. Employers will be allowed by law to employ agency workers during a strike action, effectively neutralising the effect of the strike action. Do you consider these action to be the actions of a neutral government, or the actions of a bunch of very rich people with interests in the corporate world, creating a subservient cheap labour force for their corporate buddies, in other words, open and brutal class war.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Learndirect Gets Some Visitors.

 

       Yesterday, a group of enthusiastic and poster armed people from far and wide descended on Edinburgh to protest against the government's inhumane and cruel policy of slave labour, that flies under the flag of workfare. A scheme of forced labour without wages, and the continual threat of benefit cuts, (sanctions). The protesters target this time round, was Learndirect, the slave dealer that supplies the market with its free labour. Well done, to all of you, your fight is for all working class people, not just the unemployed, the unemployed are the tool used by the government to undermine the wages and conditions of all workers. Workfare is also a bonus to the corporate friends of the millionaire cabal that sits in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption. They work hand and glove to further their own wealth and power, the corporate bosses want wages to go down, the government hands them slave labour, what more could they ask for? Well plenty, if we let them get away with it, workfare must be stopped, this is everybody's struggle.

These photos from Boycott Workfare Edinburgh, and there are plenty more there and also HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Protest Against Massive Slave Labour In The UK.

      Workfare is nothing less than slave labour, no matter how they dress it up and phrase the various forms, it is still working for no wage, and being sanctioned if you refuse. This is not just an attack on the unemployed, it affects all our jobs, it helps to depress wages. We might expect big business to grab this money making gift from their friends, the government, but charities and voluntary organisations are supposed to work on a different level, lots of them don't.

      This week in October, across the country, is a week of protest against workfare, to highlight its injustice and help bring it to an end.

       Action for today:

Take action: No grounds for greenwashing workfare

Posted: October 7th, 2014 | Author: boycottworkfare | Filed under: Call to action, Charities | No Comments »

Groundwork boasts of its involvement in workfare. Join in with an online blockade of their social media and let them know what you think of their prolific and unashamed use of forced unpaid labour.  

      Take online action today against Groundwork, the green charity using unpaid labour. Branches of Groundwork up and down the country openly advertise their involvement in all kinds of workfare, including the latest and most exploitative programmes.
     Charities and voluntary organisations should know the value of volunteering. Instead Groundwork is taking thousands of unemployed people on workfare placements with no pay and putting people at risk of sanctions. According to their own statistics they forced 4,500 people through workfare last year alone. They trade on the goodwill of their ‘volunteering’ projects to secure government money for unpaid labour schemes.

More details HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

It's The System That Stinks.

        Workfare schemes are an attack on all the ordinary people of this country. It is a process by which wages are squeezed and corporate profits are increased, they are a further step in creating a sweatshop economy, the corporate dream. Free labour paid a starvation allowance by the state, useing tax payers money, all to help their millionaire buddies. During this period of "austerity", the corporate world has seen their profits go through the roof, while we have seen our wages and benefits go through the floor, not an accident. The world is awash with wealth, the number of billionaires increase almost on a daily basis, yet, across the planet, among the ordinary people, poverty increases on a daily basis. Wealth is being sucked up to the greedy few at an ever increasing rate, workfare is just one of the many methods. Smashing workfare is a necessary step, but only one step, it is the system that is flawed and must be dismantled and a system of fairness, justice and co-operation, that sees to the needs of all our people, built in its place. However, don't expect the political parties or the large organisations like the TUC to help you along that road, it is up to us at grass-roots level to bring this stinking system down.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Welcome To Greece's Economic Miracle.

      The Peloponnese in Greece, is probably one of the most beautiful places on earth. Breathtaking views, glorious weather, and steeped in Greek history and mythology. While the rest of Greece mires in "austerity", unemployment, poverty and deprivation, nestling in the beautiful Peloponnese is the small town of Nea Manolada. Former “Socialist” Prime Minister George Papandreou, praised the area as an "economic miracle". This little town has a turnover of more than €90 million, all from that lovely fruit, strawberries, acre upon acre of strawberries.

      While the Greek state,  under its program called, Xenios Zeus, after the ancient Greek God of hospitality, carries out mass sweeps of immigrants, rounding them up and placing them in over crowded and inhumane concentration camps, it gives the area of Nea Manolada a miss. This might seem odd as the town has a population of approximately 2,000, but a migrant population of approximately 4,000. Among and around the lush strawberries are migrant workers living under the glaring Greek sun in makeshift plastic tents, where hygiene is poor or none existent.  

 

      This is the small town in which an employer and a some of his foremen, blasted some migrant workers with shotgun pellets, for having the audacity to ask for their six previous months wages. Their case came to court recently and the result proves that the Greek judicial system is as corrupt and fascist as the Greek state. The employer was acquitted, while the two shooters were given 14 years and 8 years, but were released on appeal and ordered to pay a €5 a day fine instead.

      The Nea Manolada "economic miracle" is built on extremely low, or non-existent wages, and dreadful conditions. Greece is in the European Union, and this part of Greece is where brutal exploitative capitalism morphs into brutal capitalist slavery. The latter being the ideal conditions for maximum profit, the capitalists dream.

        These conditions, and worse, are repeated all over the world, all in the name of profit for the few, that is the system we tolerate, why?

The full story HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Change Of Words Doesn't Change The Reality.

       They can change its name, dress it up in fancy words, and spout the usual pie-in-the-sky benefits, but slave labour is still slave labour. Work placements, workfare, internships, traineeships, blaa-blaa-blaa, a great job in the murky distant future, it still boils down to working for nothing, to make a rich company richer, capitalist exploitation at its worst. What is more, it's the master plan of this bunch of millionaire pompous parasites, sitting in that Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, it's their vision of the future, it's their gift to their millionaire corporate buddies.  

 

 If you exploit us we will shut you down.

This from The Void:

      George Osborne announced before Christmas that young, unemployed people between the age of 18 and 21 will be forced to attend either a Traineeship, other unpaid work experience position or face a Community Work Placement.  That means young people who refuse to work in Shoezone for free will be forced to carry out 780 hours community work instead – for no wages.  Traineeships are workfare, and claimants  who refuse them face a punishment that is double the length of current community service sentences that can be inflicted by the courts.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Forced Labour Is Fascism.

       What is happening in this country is no longer about party politics, it's about fascist forced labour, it's about ordinary people being forced to fatten the bank accounts of greedy shareholders, being forced to swell the profits of rich corporate giants, all for no wages. Thousands of people are, at this moment in time, working for prosperous corporations and so called charities and receiving no wages while failing to turn up can see your benefits sanctioned. There has already been one case where a homeless man failed to turn up on his workfare scheme, on two separate days and was fined in court, the sum of £250. Is prison the next step to force you to work for nothing? Where does this stop, it wont, until we stop it, by mass protests, by boycotting those greed merchants that are exploiting this situation, by changing the system to one that sees to the needs of all our people, and gets the millionaire parasites off our backs. What do you call a country that forces people to work for rich companies, for nothing, a democracy???? 

This from The Void:

Exploit us and we will shut you down.

      In April George Osborne’s mass workfare scheme will begin.  Unemployed people will be sentenced to 780 hours community work simply for being unable to find a job. Not even lone parents with young children are to be exempt from the scheme which will see so-called charities like Groundwork UK and the Salvation Army paid by the tax payer to force people to work for free.  Part time workers and those currently genuinely volunteering will also face being sent on unpaid work.

      Collective action can halt this forced labour scheme in its tracks.  A week of action against workfare has been called beginning on the 29th March.  An escalation in the campaign against unpaid work is vital and there is no better chance than this.  It only takes a few people to get the ball rolling, and protests against organisations using workfare have proved to be effective.  Boycott Workfare can offer support with publicity, leaflets and advice. Please help spread the word about the week of action and let’s make this the strongest stand against people being forced to work for free that has been seen so far.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Osborne Workfare Regiment.

        Come April next year there will be a new slave army in town, the Osborne Workfare Regiment. This will not be a volunteer army, it will a conscripted force. Thousands of mainly young people, but not necessarily so, will be conscripted, not to fight on foreign soil to secure and increase, our corporate masters oil assets, but here at home to boost the coffers of the corporate greed machine. These unemployed conscripts will be forced to do six months under the command of an over paid parasitic CEO. They will be posted to various organisations under the misnamed, operation, “Community Work Placements”. What ever it says on the the packet, this is not volunteering, it is conscription, under the threat of acute deprivation, destitution and homelessness. Being forced to work for six months without wages, is nothing short of forced slavery, no matter where that “placement” happens to land you. Osborne and his millionaire, Eton educated cabal, should look up the word “volunteering” in a dictionary. Of course they don't need to, they know full well the meaning of the word, and they know full well that what they are doing is forced labour. But it all goes to helping their millionaire corporate buddies to keep down wages and has the side effect of lowering the unemployment figures. This in turn will allow them to spout their usual delusional crap about growth.

This from The Void:

       “There has been a lot of talk recently about the latest scheme to help people who are unemployed, with mention of “compulsory volunteering” as part of the “Help to Work” programme.  DWP do not refer to it as volunteering, but others are starting to, which is muddying the waters.  These “Community Work Placements” are NOT volunteering, as people are not freely choosing to participate in them, but rather will be faced with benefits sanctions if they do not engage in the compulsory placements.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Who Voted For Slavery?

       How much longer will the people of this country vote in this system of greed and corruption, that works against their interests, how long will it be until they all realise that this is not a democracy, never has been, and under the present system, never can be. We cannot tolerate any longer, a system where by the poor are forced to work for nothing to enrich the profits of large wealthy companies. This, Workfare/Traineeship/Work Experience con, is not a little temporary fix, this is the template for the future, this is the pattern they want to be the accepted route for the next generation. The kids will leave school and be conned into thinking that this is the norm, a crap eduction, then work for nothing, swelling the bank accounts of rich shareholders, with the carrot held out in front of you, that if you humiliate yourself sufficiently for long enough, you might be one of the privileged that get a paid job at the end of it all. How wonderfully gracious of your employer to actually pay you.

       We as a class cannot accept that our kids are here to be forced into slave labour at the dictate of a bunch of millionaires, whose only interest is in the profitability of their shares. We are responsible for the dignity and well being of our kids and grand kids. Standing by and watching them being humiliated and abused by corporations is not acceptable under any circumstances. Nobody in this country voted to bring back slavery, but it has already got its foot well and truly in the door.

       There are so many avenues being used by this government of boardroom directors to attack our living conditions, all of them help big business. The slashing of social services and benefits is necessary to allow them to reduce the taxes that their corporate friends pay, if and when they pay at all. The bedroom tax, ATOS attack on disability allowance, and Workfare/Work Experience/Traineeships are all part of this business friendly agenda. Do we want a society that has only one aim, to enrich the corporate world at the expense of the people? As long as we keep putting rich millionaire business people in charge of our lives we will get screwed. Their businesses come well before your kids, you would be an idiot if you expected them to do otherwise. Can you not hear Osborne's speech to the Employers Federation, "I have a dream, one day all the workers will come to your businesses for nothing, and we will realise that paradise of sweatshop Europe"

      If we want a decent life for all we have to get rid of this festering cancer of capitalism. We shouldn't be organising to ask for some more crumbs from the cake, which we made, or please don't squeeze us so hard. We should be organising to take over the entire running of all aspects of our society, all manufacturing and distribution at the dictate of the people's needs, not driven by the greed of a handful of overtly rich useless parasitic leeches.

This from The Void:

      Osborne will force all those out of work for six months and between the ages of 18 and 21 into Traineeships or Work Experience.  Those who refuse will be sent on a Community Work Placement  – 780 hours unpaid work – or face losing benefits completely.  This is a huge turn around for a Government that in early 2012 were falling over themselves trying to persuade people that unpaid Work Experience – for major employers such as ASDA and Poundland – was voluntary.

     Osborne’s speech yesterday made a laughing stock of companies like Tesco and charities like Barnardo’s who have insisted that Work Experience schemes are not workfare.  Even if you bought that, they are now, or will be as soon as Osborne gets his way.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Week Of Action Against Workfare.

Tuesday 3rd December
Week of Action Against Workfare and Sanctions:

Day Two, Online: Everywhere
 

Organised by Boycott Workfare - Day Two:

     Online targeting of the companies that are profiting from making young people work without pay on Traineeships.
      Traineeships are about providing cheap labour, driving down wages, massaging unemployment figures and conditioning our young people for a life of poverty and jumping through endless hoops in search of a job.
     They're a fairly new scheme that targets 16-24 year olds with more unpaid work. Traineeships involve a work placement of up to six months for which the employer is not even required to pay travel expenses. The promise at the end of six months' unpaid work? You may then be eligible to work for £2.67 an hour as an apprentice.
     Used together, traineeships and apprenticeships have the potential to massively undercut the minimum wage on the high street and elsewhere. The government is of course rolling out compulsory education for 17-18 year-olds and unpaid work looks set to make up an increasingly large component of that education. Benefits cuts for 18-25 year-olds are also threatened. There are many companies happy to take advantage of young people and profit from their lack of opportunity, so today let's take action against them. Contact them by phone, email or on social media.

     Here are some of the companies eager to abuse our youngsters to fatten their shareholders bank accounts.   

Kwikfit
(http://feweek.co.uk/2013/09/19/kwik-fits-unpaid-traineeship-branded-unacceptable/)

 https://www.facebook.com/KwikFit

http://www.youtube.com/kwikfitltd

https://twitter.com/Kwik_Fit

tweet them at @Kwik_fit

Subway

https://www.facebook.com/SUBWAY.UK.Ireland

Tweet to @SUBWAYUKIreland

Toywatch

Let them know your opinion at 

onshop@toy-watch.com,

Tweet to @ToyWatchWorld

Novotel

Difficult to contact without joining their "club" their phone number earns them money and costs you about 10P a minute.

For further information and actions in the coming week contact.

:http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=3123

     There are lots of other firms involved in this legalised degrading abuse of our young people, if you know of them, talk to them, email them, tweet them, telling them what you think of their actions. 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Next Generation Will Be Slaves.

       In the West, as else where in the world, hundreds of years of workers' struggle produced improvements to our living conditions, it has been a slow brutal road to get to where we were 5 years ago. Since then, the employers through the medium of their puppets in government, have slashed at those conditions in a vicious attempt to claw back whatever benefits we gained. Unless we stop this assault on our class, the next generation will not be wage slaves, but simply slaves. The foundations are being cemented in place, decimated benefits and workfare are not meant to be temporary affairs, they are the template for the future. It is not stopping at workfare, this corporate dream system is being expanded to “traineeships”. You get placed in a job for up to six months, but not necessarily with pay, at the end of which you could be offered a job at £2.67 an hour. As this sort of slavery and abuse continues and expands, the next generation will have known nothing else, and it will be deemed “normal”. Normal to leave school/college or what ever, and then go into unpaid employment in the hope that at the end of that, you might get a job with a lousy wage. 

      The corporate world is awash with money, but it still wants lower wages and sweatshop conditions to compete with the Eastern sweatshops. This is not some fiction writer's manuscript, this is the future for our kids and grand kids, unless!!! Unless what, unless we in this generation stop it in its tracks. I'm sure you can think of a better way to shape our society, let's do it.

This week is a week of action against workfare, get involved. Also see The Void

This from Boycott Workfare:

 

     Day One of the week of action against workfare and sanctions was great – with a LOUD noise demo at the workfare industry’s annual conference, hijacking its hashtag and actions in Cardiff and Germany! On Day Two, target the companies profiting from making young people work without pay on Traineeships.

     Traineeships are about providing cheap labour, driving down wages, massaging unemployment figures and conditioning our young people for a life of poverty and jumping through endless hoops in search of a job.

     They’re a fairly new scheme that targets 16-24 year olds with more unpaid work. Traineeships involve a work placement of up to six months for which the employer is not even required to pay travel expenses. The promise at the end of six months’ unpaid work? You may then be eligible to work for £2.67 an hour as an apprentice.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Boycott Workfare.

     We all know that the real reason for "workfare" is to drive up corporate profits and drive down wages. All the crap about helping the unemployed, and training them for a job, is just an attempt to put a badge of respectability on what is  plain and simple, slave labour. The corporate greed merchants have nothing but praise for their millionaire friends in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, for coming up with such a lucrative scheme. They probably thought that they would never again get free workers legally in this country, but here we are, in the 21st century UK and the government is handing them thousands of free slaves to fatten their shareholders bank accounts.

     We can stop this abuse of our people with solidarity, if together we boycott and picket all those whose greedy hands grasp at this inhumanity. They don't want anything that might hurt their pockets. We must realise it is not just a problem for the unemployed, it is also a problem for the employed. This slave labour scheme depresses incomes of those in employment and also hinders those looking for work. Why give a job to a person looking for a wage, when you can get one to work for free?

This from Boycott Workfare: 

 

12.30-1.30pm, Monday 2nd December, outside the ERSA workfare industry conference, Senate House, Malet Street, London (nearest tubes: Russell Square, Warren Street, Euston), 

facebook event here

     (Can’t make it to London? Take part in the week of action where you are.)

     On 2nd December, those driving forced labour for unemployed people on the government’s workfares schemes are getting together in one place for their annual conference. Be there too to show them that their days of vast profits for abusing the poorest people in the UK are numbered.

     The workfare industry is already on the backfoot. The government’s flagship ‘Work Programme’ which promised to hand £5 billion to this sector – whose profits are wholly subsidised by public funds – has failed. The industry failed to meet even the minimum targets and tens of thousands have returned to the Jobcentre as the two year stint comes to an end.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Britain's Slave Labour Force.

     What do you call a society that has thousands of people forced to work without any salary, for the benefit of the rich? Remember the Romans with their slaves, then in the not too distant past we had the imperial slave trade that built empires by taking hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people from Africa and using them as unpaid beasts of burden across Europe and America. Well that's all in the past now, or is it?

      According to the latest Labour Market Statistics, here in the UK we have 168,000 people being forced to work for no salary, a jump of 8,000 since last year. This also chops 168,000 off the unemployed list, more dodgy accounting. As in the past, these slaves are building empires, they are benefiting the rich. These slaves are friends and family of people like you and I, they are ordinary folks, who are being used by this system to undermine the wages and conditions of us all. Our lords and masters, the Oxbridge millionaire cabal, in The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, call it “workfare”, we should call it by its real name, modern day slavery. This is not just an attack on the unemployed, it is an attack on all our wages and conditions, it is an attempt to force our conditions low enough to compete with the eastern sweatshops, to create a European sweatshop economy that will give the financial Mafia a better return on their ill-gotten plunder. It is not a civilised society that forces people to work for nothing, leaving them in poverty, while their efforts benefit those with unimaginable wealth. 

      We live in a country under a system that hasn't enough jobs for everybody and punishes those who are unemployed. I say “not enough jobs”, not that, there isn't enough to do to improve our society. In a socially organised society we would utilise everybody's efforts for the common good, we would all gain from each others efforts and nobody would be superfluous to requirements, as in this society. As long as profit is the aim, people will be exploited, used and abused, the wellbeing of the people and profit for the few are two completely incompatible aims.

       The list of companies and charities that have or are using “workfare” is like an A to Z phone directory. All of these companies should be boycotted, picketed, and publicly shamed. As long as they can pull in free labour, they will refrain from looking for new paid employees, they will cut the hours of existing employees, and so the downward spiral of our conditions continue. The system isn't broken, it was built this way, it's how capitalism works. 
Useful sites:

Wikipedia's A-Z of UK slave users. 
Boycott workfare.
The Void.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglagsow.me.uk