Our Streets.

        The following article is from The Hague, but if you live in, or visit a city, then this the pattern you will be experiencing or about to experience. The march of capital to turn our cities into nothing more than profit producing entities. Cities are rapidly becoming places where only those with large disposable incomes can congregate. They are no longer places where ordinary people live, meet, hang out and socialise. In these new sanitised city centres, if you enter and are not in that group of "well-to-do", you will treated as suspicious, and probably deemed to be "up to no good". The controllers of the new cities don't want you unless you can spend "big time", or you can work as the minions that serve as attendants to the money spenders. You will have the opportunity to have a crap job with crap wages, and zero hours contracts. Is this the new cities we want? Our cities must be our streets, places we built and places where we wish to live, not simply money making machines for the corporate beast and the financial Mafia.

         The following from Enough is Enough:

 

       The Hague. Netherlands. On Friday and Saturday 31st of July and 1st of August, HOUSING ACTION DAYS will take place in The Hague. The theme for Friday is social housing and precarious modes of housing, and the theme for Saturday is the selling out of the city and gentrification. During these two days we will make a collective fist against precarity and the housing shortage.

Originally published by Woonactiedagen.

      In the past couple of years the city has become the stage of a social struggle. Capital is increasingly controlling housing and public spaces. The city is transformed into a revenue model, a new apparatus for a select group to accumulate wealth. This has drastic consequences for many of us. De waiting lists for social housing are ever lengthening, rents are already way too expensive and the political unwillingness to take up these issues is stifling. In the inner city, one loft gets restored after another and only expensive private sector housing is built. Hip coffeehouses and their terraces are spreading like an oil spill.

     We don’t want a city merely for consumption but a city in which we can live!

Paired with the gentrification, the state’s net to control public spaces tightens. Concurrently to being forced to pay increasingly high rent for increasingly small spaces, we are being dispossessed of the streets: hanging out in the street is perceived as suspicious and will get you castigated for gathering. The only places where you can still gather in public are parks or sports field – but never without the supervision of cameras. Our living spaces are shrinking, we will no longer put up with this shit anymore!

For this reason, let us meet on 31st of July and 1st of August, to take action against the selling out of our cities and our lives. We invite everyone to come to The Hague, the belly of the beast, to struggle for the right to live and to the city!

Mail: woonopstanddenhaag [at] riseup.net

Twitter: @woonopstand070

More information: woonactiedagen.wordpress.com

You will find posters and leaflets here: https://woonactiedagen.wordpress.com/info/promomateriaal/

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

A Worker Is A Worker, Is A Worker, Is A Worker!!

       You have got to hand it to our corporate lords and masters, they never give up on their policy of trying to eliminate all workers organisations. The last thing they want is for the workers to be organised to defend their wages and conditions. Of course they get the backing of the babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, who crap on about the evil unions destroying everybody’s day by calling a strike, and the government responding with legislation to “limit the power of the unions”. One other the trend, is to get the workers “self-employed”, you do our work, but you are not one of our workers, you’re on you own buddy. Uber is probably the best known, but there are others. At the moment the people who “work” for Deliveroo are classified by the company as individual contractors, so the company refuses to recognise the union. With ”self-employed”, zero hours contracts, and part time work, the workforce is fragmented, apart from losing out on all the normally accept conditions, that were won by unionised struggle, and go with a “job”, such as holiday pay etc., it makes it more difficult to be organised to protect you pay and conditions, let alone fight for improvements. The bosses are well organised, they know the need to be organised, as they see the true position, bosses and workers are on opposite sides. The workers have to take a leaf out of that book, and realise the need for all “workers”, no matter the label that the bosses put on them, to be organised. The bosses know and accept that it is a struggle of opposites and they will pull out every dirty trick to get the advantage for their side of the battle. We have to do the same, come together, organise to support each other, and see the boss class as the enemy of our desire for that better life for all.

This appeal from Labour Start:

        Since November, the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) has been attempting to gain recognition (a collective bargaining agreement) from Deliveroo in London.
        If the IWGB is successful, it will be the first collective bargaining agreement in the UK's so called "gig economy" and will force Deliveroo to recognise their riders as workers.
        This will give them the right to the minimum wage, paid holidays, legal protection against discrimination and more.
        Deliveroo has rejected the initial request, but the union remains determined to succeed and a tribunal case is currently pending. But it shouldn't take a tribunal case to compel Deliveroo to do the right thing. They should recognise their drivers as "workers" and should recognise the union for the purposes of collective bargaining now.

Please click here to send a message to Deliveroo telling them to recognise the union now.

       And please share this message with your friends, family and fellow trade union members.

Thank you!



Eric Lee

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

Capitalism Has Crashed, Install New System.

          Here we are in the 21st. century, and nothing has changed, the poor still have to pay for the mistakes of the rich. How the rich make the poor pay for those greed driven blunders, can be subtle and/or brutal, sleight of hand by legislation put out by their minders, the “government”, or simply brutal pay-offs and redundancy. Most of the methods being used to bludgeon ordinary people into paying for the blunders of the rich parasites, do permanent damage to lives of those affected. They also come in many guises, for example, the bedroom tax, benefit sanctions, leaving individuals with no means of support, attacking the sick as they lose their meagre benefits to the callous, Work Capability Assessment. Working hours are increased while wages decrease, the uncertainty of zero hours contracts and part-time working, and the doubt to whether you will have a pension or not. These are all part and parcel of making the poor pay for the rich life style of the parasite class. Then there is the bonus to their rich corporate friends, through the Workfare schemes, offering their rich buddies free labour, why pay employees, when your friends in government are handing you free labour? 

      Invariably these cuts and schemes come down hardest on the poorest sections of our community, forcing them to make choices between, to eat or heat, increasing homelessness, and mental and physical health problems. Slowly and surreptitiously, public services vanish, day centres, care homes, libraries, become memories. The education budget diminishes, forcing councils to introduce unqualified teaching staff, to the detriment to the pupils potential and development. Any wonder anguish and pain multiply, suicides increase, this is the price the people pay for the crass greed of an army of rich parasites. To add insult to injury, when they create the conditions when our NHS is in greater need, they start to dismantle it, slicing and dicing it up into bite size pieces for their rich corporate henchmen to gobble up, privatisation by sleight of hand. They can now make large profits from the sick and injured as the whole ethos of the NHS is swung towards profits. 

      This is also handed out as the only way possible, there is no other game in town, which we all know is utter rubbish. There is a better way, there is a better world waiting for us, it is up to us to start moving in that direction. We have the ability, the imagination, the resources, the the numbers, all we need now is the will. We know we can create a world based on mutual aid and respect, co-operation across and between communities, a world of no borders where we see to the needs of all our people, a world freed from the profit motive and built on sustainability. We have the plans in our hearts and our heads, we made and distributed everything in this world, we know we could do a much better job if we decide to start again working from the base of decent humanity. 

       I have hope, I see people fighting back, direct action, protests, strikes and taking up arms, we all know, capitalism has failed miserably, we all know reformism has failed miserable, the next stage is to get rid of the whole stinking system. 

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

Awards For Scum-bags.

      What type of society honours those who evict people from their homes, hands out awards to people who pressurise individuals shackled by debt, and to poor to pay? What type of scum-bag would want to turn up to be honoured in such a way, at the same time paying £4,000 for a seat at a table surrounded by this form of low life?
     In this system of festering economic corruption, we have the perverse Oxbridge millionaire henchmen of the financial Mafia, extolling family values and fairness, while pushing through legislation that drives ordinary people deep into the mire of poverty and deprivation, creating homelessness. low wages and unemployment, and then turning their enforcers into heroes, hence the “Credit Awards” for putrid scum-bags.

    Those lauded in this type of society are the greed infested banksters, corporate bosses, who abuse people with zero hours contracts, and slave labour workfare, the blood drenched military, with their tales of conquest, which translates into the killing of ordinary innocent people in foreign lands. Those exploited, abused and vilified, are the ordinary people, the ones who create everything around us, from the spoon at the £4,000 dinner table, the railway, carrying goods and people, to the boiler that heats the house, and the shoes on our feet. Without us the ordinary people, these parasite squids would be naked, why do we tolerate this situation?

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

A Time Of Celebration And Good Cheer!!!

      While the babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, spews out images of throngs of people fighting their way into shops to spend hundreds of pounds in an attempt to buy happiness in a colourful box, let's not forget the reality of modern day Britain. The Britain where millions of us live, the Britain of the daily struggle, of trying to keep our heads above water. A world where we are surrounded by unimaginable wealth, but are witness to beggars, rough sleepers, homeless, food-banks, child poverty and fuel poverty. the question is why?

      Behind the veneer of designer names and brightly coloured shopping malls, there is another world. A world where hopes and dream die, and opportunity never knocks.

      Zero hours contracts and the minimum wage are the establishments method of guaranteeing poverty. Don't expect them to try to alleviate the problem, it suits them the way it is. It creates a pool of cheap labour.

      Poverty kills both the young and old, and those it doesn't kill, it scars for life. So who is responsible for those scars and those deaths?

      Poverty, a preventable phenomenon,  turns good people into bad parents, but not by their own desire.

      Fuel poverty in one of the richest countries in the world, is a crime, who is responsible?

     Don't expect the top layer of parasites to do anything about poverty, they need it to keep getting fat bank accounts. If we want to be rid of poverty, we will have to do the fixing ourselves.

      No matter how they do the numbers, no matter the illusion they try to weave, the truth is that the UK has millions living in poverty, Why?

     Food banks, a necessity in modern capitalist Britain, while the Oxbridge millionaires talk of a growing economy, Why?

      Employers will gladly pay you the minimum wage or less, if they could get away with it, and some do.

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

How Long Are They Going To Get Away With It?

        The so called “crisis” was in 2008 and here we are in 2014 and the ordinary people are still being kicked in the teeth, under the guise of “balancing the books”. The “crisis” was a wonderful opportunity for the corporate/financial greed machine to put pressure on the political class to create a sweatshop Europe. Of course the political class willingly agreed, they are the managers of this ideology of “austerity” and its resultant misery and deprivation.

      The sad truth is that they seem to be getting away with their callous disregard for human dignity. In their eager endeavour to placate their corporate/financial masters they have introduced a series of measures to syphon all wealth upwards, to plunder public assets and privatise all social services. In doing this they slash the living standards of all the ordinary people.

We've had to make some tough decisions.

      They have introduced slave labour under the nice sounding name of “workfare”. This scheme gives the corporate world an army of free labour to swell their coffers. The big corporate names are queuing up to grab a share of this free bonus to the balance sheet. At present there are more than 180,000 people in “government supported training and employment programmes”. This is growing as the threat of sanctions force people, who in most cases are already in poverty, to accept this slave labour scheme, or face total deprivation.

       Another inhumane scheme they dreamed up to cut social spending, is the bedroom tax. If you, for what ever circumstances, find you have a “spare room” you are forced to move to a smaller house, and there aren't any, or lose a portion of your council tax benefit. Recent statistics show that there are well over 500,000 people facing the threat of homelessness due to this inhumane, ideology driven, attack on the poorer section of our communities.

       Probably the most brutal and callous of their schemes so far, is their attack on the disabled. They always give these savage attacks nice sounding names, in this case it is called the disability assessment process. This translates as, cut disability allowance. The government has paid millions of pounds to the firm ATOS, to carry out this attack on the wellbeing and dignity of the disabled, and so far they have done this with an amazing ineptitude and indifference to those being “assessed”. 

       The ATOS assessment has seen more than 10,000 deaths that can be related to this assessment process. That is 10,000 disabled people who have been caught up in this ATOS assessment process, and dying. I think part of Michael Meacher's statement in the House of Commons last year is worth quoting, 

      "The fundamental issue is this: how can pursuing with such insensitive rigour 1.6 million claimants on incapacity benefit, at a rate of 11,000 assessments every week, be justified when it has led, according to the Government’s own figures, to 1,300 persons dying after being put into the work-related activity group, 2,200 people dying before their assessment is complete, and 7,100 people dying after being put into the support group? Is it reasonable to pressurise seriously disabled persons into work so ruthlessly when there are 2.5 million unemployed, and when on average eight persons chase every vacancy, unless they are provided with the active and extensive support they obviously need to get and hold down work, which is certainly not the case currently?"

       Six years on from the “crisis” and these policies are set to continue indefinitely, they are policies that suit the corporate world, privatising everything, cheap labour, zero hours contracts, and eight people chasing every job, which helps to keep down wages. So why should they change them? If we don't like them, then we will have to be the ones to change things. The political class are part and parcel of the corporate/financial world, they have nothing to do with our world. We are mere dispensable units to be used or discarded according to profit levels. We mine, make, grow, and distribute everything on this planet, We don't need the parasites on our back, we can create a much fairer world on our own, but they do need us. 

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

The Abuse Of Zero Hours Contracts.

      The use of zero hours contracts is on the increase, and from the employer's point of view, it is obvious why. You can dump workers for a few days and then call them back for few hours, when ever you feel the need. The employer simply has no responsibility to the worker, but the worker has a responsibility to turn up when demanded or get fired. A one sided system that greatly benefits the employer, but simply abuses the employee. It removes the possibility of managing your financial affairs, since you have no idea how much you will earn from week to week. You could be hit with weeks or months on a few days wages a week, but the bills keep coming in at the same pace and are increasing week on week as energy and food prices keep climbing.

 

      If we keep the same economic system then you can rest assured the zero hours contracts are here to stay and will become the norm, no matter where you are employed. We can boycott the employers that use this serf style employment system, and campaign against it. However the only way to guarantee the end to employer abusing employee is to get rid of the system of capitalism and create a workers controlled economic system, that sees to the needs of all our people and not to the greed of a bunch of parasitic employers.

Abercrombie: 

Stop abusing zero hour contracts

Sign the Petition 

 

      I have been working at the Hollister store now since May. What I have witnessed has been a clear violation of workers’ rights. The companies Hollister and Gilly Hicks are sister companies of Abercrombie and Fitch. I work for the flagship Hollister store in Regent Street. Being a flagship store, it should be setting an example to all other stores about its employment ethics, but it’s not.

At the beginning of December all overnight staff were told their shifts are being dropped to one a week and the hours shortened to four hour shifts instead of five hours.

        People working twenty - thirty hours a week have now been told they will only work four hours, eight if they're lucky. Staff who have been working for up to three years have been told to "get on with it" and accept the change. All of these people are on zero hour contracts, meaning the company has no obligation to them and that the employees have very little rights.

This is completely unethical. Abercrombie are standing by this injustice, in the name of zero hour contracts.

      People that work for Abercrombie are dependent on the reliability of shifts that have been given to them over the year. And without notice this has been taken away from them, because they were forced to go on zero hour contracts. Some were forced on zero hour contracts with no formal consent.

No information was given as to why these cutbacks have happened, just that the workers, me included, have to get on and accept it. This has left people worried about paying rent and bills. So close to Christmas. It’s saddening and completely unethical.

      Most of the overnight work force are migrants relying on this job as their main income. Young people and mothers will now be spending Christmas in London with no financial security.

     What’s worse is that Abercrombie are employing more overnight staff. Twenty were employed last week. Surely with cutbacks being made, employing more staff is the last thing they should do?

     A zero hour contract is supposed to give people flexibility, but Abercrombie are abusing this and taking advantage of their powerless staff. They have abused legalities to suit them, with no care for the workers which depend on them, this is cruel and saddening.

In order to give people that feel silenced a voice at Abercrombie I have set up this petition, please join our fight for ethics and the abolishment of the exploitative zero hours contract.

What we want:

     Abolish the zero hours contract and adopt a part time contract. Provide at least a months notice of any drastic changes to the workplace and schedules

Sign the Petition

By Charles Mason, London.

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

Accelerating To Deprivation.

     This government's eager complicity in the financial Mafia's drive for sweatshop Europe is seen in the number of ways in which they offer their business friends helpings of free labour. They give interviews proclaiming unemployment is falling and the recovery is gaining ground. However, unemployment is falling because thousands of people are on workfare, a government gift of free labour to the corporate greed machine, and as for recovery, well among the ordinary people the recovery is a fairytale. The millionaire's Old Boys network, our government, has now started another way of forcing young people to work for nothing, their “traineeships” scheme. Of course their millionaire buddies in businesses like Boots, Poundland and Kwik-fit, to mention just a few, are more than eager to take on board as much free labour as they can get their hands on. Why employ people for a wage when your friends in government hand you free labour.

       Another smiling comment from the millionaire cabal in charge of our drive to deprivation, is that inflation has fallen from 2.7% to 2.2% and this should ease the pressure on the general public. What a load of bullshit, in that “fall” there is hidden the fact that food has risen by 4.6% and energy bills are set to rise in the region of 10%, how this will ease the pressure on the ordinary household budget has yet to be explained.

     With workfare, traineeships, zero hours contracts, part-time employment, bedroom tax, rocketing food and energy prices, and ATOS killing off the disabled, this government has pressed the accelerator as we spiral down the deprivation road. Sweatshop Europe here we come. 

 

An excerpt from an interesting and informative article by The Void:

Unpaid workers on these schemes are counted as employed, a handy distortion of the figures for a Government that claims they are bringing down unemployment.  With the numbers in part-time work, precarious self-employment or workfare all at record levels, and wages falling far behind inflation, the true picture of the labour market is far from good news. Recent Housing Benefit statistics* show that the number claiming help with housing costs remains at record levels.  Over 5 million people are on this benefit and for the first time, in July 2013, the number of working Housing Benefit claimants topped one million.

 Read the full article HERE:

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

Evictions To Help The Economy!!

      According to Sweet & Maxwell,(legal information providers), tenant evictions by landlords have risen to 36,177 for the year June 2012 to June 2013. This is the highest in 5 years, an increase of 9% on the previous year. We all accept that the governments “bedroom tax” has pushed already struggling tenants over the edge and must be blamed for most of this increase. Of course we should not forget the last few years of enforced austerity measures had already taken thousands to the brink of financial collapse and ever closer to that eviction. As Daniel Dover, co-author of Residential Possession Proceedings, has been quoted as saying, “Rising rents on residential property and falling real wages are trends that have been in place for a number of years, and have stretched the finances of an increasing number of tenants to breaking point.”

      Campaign group False Economy, through a Freedom of Information request, received figures from 114 local authorities, indicating that because of the “bedroom tax”, a minimum of 50,000 are adversely affect and facing rent arrears problems. You can add to that number by approximately 30,000 tenants in housing association property.

      Recently a much smaller survey, found that one household in four, 25%, affected by the “bedroom tax” have found themselves facing rent arrears for the first time. According to the National Housing Federation, just over 50% of 63,578 tenants from 51 housing associations were unable to meet their rent payments in the first few months of the introduction of this tax. The worst affected area being Barrow in Cumbria, where more that 75% of all council tenants have fallen into rent arrears since the introduction of this brutal tax. Other areas are showing figures of around 50%. That is a lot of anxiety, stress and misery.

     We are not alone in seeing this tax on the poor as unfair, brutal and unacceptable, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on housing Raquel Rolnik has called for a rethink on the policy after finding the reform was causing “great stress and anxiety” to “very vulnerable” people.

      Will rent arrears, the ensuing poverty, and the actual and threatening evictions, be the spark that will light the fire? The fire is inevitable, as sparks are flying everywhere, ATOS, workfare, zero hours contracts, decimated social services, continuing austerity in the midst of arrogant wealth, and a government that is no more than a thin mask for blatant corporate greed.

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

The Smothering Of Potential And The Destruction Of People.

      It is difficult to quantify the damage being done to the ordinary people of this country by this millionaire regime sitting in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption. Is it the damage done by their smashing of the education system, is it facing the choice of eating or heating, is it the brutal attack on the disabled by ATOS, is it the working for nothing slave labour workfare scheme, is it the inhuman zero hours contracts, is it the bedroom tax, is it the lack of support when things don't work out in your life. Probably most of all it is the illusion they peddle, that this is a fair society, and if you work hard you'll do just fine. We tend to think that people could be hit by one of the problems mentioned above. However the brutal truth is that you can be savaged by some or all of these injustices, as you struggle through this greed driven system of exploitation, capitalism has no compassion. The damage is not a one-of blow, it is a cumulative assault on the person, that can and does damage them for the rest of their lives. Bullying, harassing, and degrading people is spouted as criminal, but our millionaire cabal, under the stamp of legitimacy granted to them by "the state", can do it daily and on a widespread basis, with impunity. Only the people can call them to justice, and surely our patience is running thin.

     The following letter was offered to Glasgow Against ATOS. It speaks volumes on what is wrong in this type of society. Bright intelligent, hard working people being destroyed, as their potential is trodden in the mire of an unjust and brutal system. We can surely do better than this for all our people.

Someone has very bravely asked us to share this honest letter to their MP. ***Warning: could trigger; report of suicide attempts.

Dear MP,
      I meet you back in 2007 at ***** school while you where presenting to the sixth form year. I was one the only one in that group to say I was interested in politics. You probably don’t remember me but I do remember you. I found your presentation very interesting and actually a lot better than the Lib Dem local MP presentation. You actually inspired my keen interest in politics.

     Since then I was presented with an Anti-bullying Diana award by Ed Balls, meet Gordon Brown and even had meetings (although short) with Ed Balls. I was also a founding member of the Young Anti-bullying Alliance. Then once I turned 20 I became an advisor to the group passing on my knowledge and skills to the younger members as well as being emotional support and encouragement. In 2011, when Tories and Lib Dem came to power, the Young anti-bullying alliance was disbanded due to decrees in funding for both the princess Diana memorial awards and the anti-bullying alliance. That was a sad day for all our members and it was heart breaking to say goodbye to the young people I had been mentoring, which also included young people from mencap.

       2011 was an eventful year for me as I also finished my psychology degree, and I have to say I was very fond of the psychology of politics and terrorism module. I learnt a lot and I was hooked on every word during the lectures. Despite being severely dyslexic I made it through my three year degree and had a great sense of achievement at the end of it.

        All of us left university with great ideas of what we could do with our lives, ambitions and lustre to work up the ladder in a career we would enjoy and keep us interested. Ah that almost childish enjoyment of being 21 again and gently nudged into the world of work. All of us started applying for work before we left university, looking for the best we could get and keeping our hopes up. After about three months of looking none of my friend group had found any work and we were starting to feel the drain of the “real world”.

      I can’t speak for our entire group from university, but I ended up getting to my 22nd birthday and crying because I had no job, no money and a lot of debt left over from university. I finally got a full time job in February, though it was far from perfect. I worked hard and ended up getting promoted in the summer.

     However I was working 60+ hours to even earn a decent wage. The hours took a drain on me and I ended up being diagnosed with depression in November 2012 the second time in my life. I wanted to hold onto my job but knew that I could not go on without treatment. So I referred myself to CBT. This only help to a certain extent but due to family commitments I had to keep working, I soon received a demotion as I could not keep up with my work load. This caused my first suicide attempt, which luckily my family intervened and my GP became very supportive of me. Helping me to take time off work and even stand up for me when I was given 40+ hours work when I should have been on a phase back to work.

      However my mental health was not improving and there were problems at home. I had no outlet and no ability to deal with distressing emotions or incidents in my life. Finally one day I was in a meeting with my boss, the word safeguarding was mentioned and I cracked like I have never cracked before. I could not stop crying, I was a failure and I couldn’t even do my job, my boss was also saying how I seemed to “space out” at work and I was thinking it was due to alcohol. I wanted to quit back in November and again during the meeting. However I was not going to get JSA if I left my job and I had financial commitments.

      April the 5th 2013. MY LIFE ENDED.
Everything I had known up to that day changed, I was rushed to hospital by my friends as I screamed and cried and tried to wrestle my way out of the car onto the motorway. I had in an automatic and uncontrollable moment bought alcohol after I left work, I had my painkillers with me and the roof of the car park at the back of town just looked as if it was a good place. I had tried to contact someone I felt I could talk to before this although I do not recall what time exactly but no answer. Anyway no longer having the courage to jump I decided to go sit by the abbey. It was a beautiful place and it relaxed me. I was sobbing on the bench as people walked past, downing my vodka and pills. I couldn’t go on living. I was in an unskilled and undervalued job with low pay and my family was a mess. I could not afford to move out from my parents and every part of my soul felt drained. There was nothing happy left. Society had drained me and far too quickly. I still wonder what the point of life is to this day.

       Since then I had spent 48 hours in an acute unit, 8 weeks in an acute day treatment unit and been on sickness benefits. I’ve had different diagnosis from reoccurring depressive disorder to depression and psychosis. I hear voices when I am distressed and upset. I do things which I cannot control and I feel like I am now a drain on society. However I decided that I will take the time I need to recover and plan on in the future becoming a productive member of society.

      Now that you have had my life story I feel I should explain why I am writing to you. Since your party has been in government I feel as if not only myself but everyone like me has been tarred with the same brush. We are called work shy, made to go to numerous assessments and generally harassed by your party for being disabled. I may not have a leg missing or some major physical disability, but that is not the defining point for being classed as disabled or unable to work.

        I ask of you to help stand up for people who do not have a voice. Such as me, I am only able to write to you, I cannot travel to London and protest because I cannot stand in a crowd without having panic attacks or a “psychotic episode.” I am scared to stand up for myself as I fear backlash from the public. I hide the fact I have mental health problems as your party continues to persuade the public of how we are lazy, workshy and undeserving of help.

        I understand that the economy does not permit the government the luxury of just handing out a cushioned lifestyle to people who cannot work and you are even trying to help people who may be able to return to work, one day reach that goal. However I believe that your party is attempting to, if not already, trying to breech the human rights of the disabled.

      Remember that a society is judged on how it treats it poor and vulnerable.

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

Full Circle, Victorian Poverty To Osborne Poverty.

      How far will this government of millionaires go in creating its section of the European sweatshop economy? Well as far as we will let them. Though they failed to get voted in, they managed to cobble together a cabal of privileged parasitical millionaires to push through their agenda of low wage anti-union policies at the behest of the financial/corporate mafia. However they are by no means finished, there are some very vicious plans still to be implemented. Having attacked the unemployed with slave labour "workfare", brutally assaulted  the disabled by means of ATOS, bludgeoned individuals and families with the "bedroom tax" and coerced those working into accepting zero hours contracts, Old Etonian millionaire Osborne, has a super plan to bring back the Victorian workhouse conditions. Come April, all unemployed will be forced to do 30 hours a week of unpaid of charity work, or lose their benefits. If you can't find a job, you can be expected to be out picking up litter etc. saving the council money, and allowing them to pay off some more workers, to be forced to the same work. How you are supposed to find work while doing 30 hours a week slave labour is not mentioned. The reason being that they are well aware that there are no jobs.

      All this bodes well for their corporate  friends, forced labour, and shrinking wages and the promise of more "anti-union legislation". The phrase, "anti-union legislation" translates as an attack on all our working conditions, including health and safety. As far as the corporate greed machine is concerned, health and safety is costly, and that money could be used for shareholders bonuses. After all people are cheap, much cheaper than health and safety. Since taking the reigns of power, this millionaire cabal have managed to cut the average family income, in real terms, by £1,300 annually, and remember, they are talking about the "austerity" conditions lasting until 2018. How much will your average income have shrivelled to by then?

      It is all going to plan, sweatshop Europe is well under way, wages have fallen by approximately 10% since 2010, the unemployed will work for nothing, unions are being decimated, so firing at will isn't a problem, and zero hours contracts take a load off the employers responsibilities. In the marble halls of the corporate world, the champagne glasses are clinking in honour of the Osborne/Cameron attack on the working class.

Following extract from Mirror News:

     He said taking more money off the wealthy to pay for schools, hospitals and defence was “not sensible for a country if it wants to support wealth creation”. On the opening day of the conference he also announced policies that included pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights. And his shift to the right was reinforced by party chairman Grant Shapps who set out plans for new anti-union laws – as his boss appeared to doze off in the audience.

Read the full article HERE:

     This is the best we can expect from this type of economic system, it's called capitalism. That means make lots of money for corporations at the expense of the people employed. However, it is not the only game in town, as we are continually told. There are other ways to shape our society, there is co-operation, mutual aid, producing to see to the needs of all our people and sustainability. We can create structures that serve us the people, rather than a market, controlled by billionaires. The parasites need us, we don't need them.

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