Grenada, an island in the southeastern Caribbean Sea, can be heaven for tourists but Grenada Breweries Company turned it into a hell for workers as 125 of them were locked out just before the Christmas on December 19, 2011.
CLICK HERE to send a message to Grenada Breweries Company telling them to stop violating workers' rights and end the lockout!
Time and time
again we see our legislators, who are elected to protect assets that
belong to the people, take those assets and hand them to the
corporate world, gift wrapped. Councils across the country will soon
see masses of valuable public assets disappears into the portfolio of
the rich and greedy, with the public purse receiving as little as 40p
for sites worth millions. This is thanks to the Scottish government
having another look at a bill that ran out of time in the last
parliamentary session. The cronies of the corporate world sitting in
Holyrood never give up, if they can't do the bidding of their
corporate masters in one session, then will try again in the next. This plundering of public assets is all part and parcel of the privatisation of everything and anything that is of value, part of the sustained attack on the ordinary people, making them totally dependent on the corporate world for everything from their education, libraries, public parks to health and leisure. They are your assets, were you asked if you wanted some millionaires to have them for 40p?
We are better equipped to develope these site.
The following is an
extract from, an article in the Scottish paper The Herald.
"Land
expert Andy Wightman said publicly owned property let on so called
ultra-long-term leases – with more than 100 years still to run –
could be sold to the leaseholders for a nominal sum. This would mean
assets that councils hold on behalf of citizens and protect from
redevelopment could be under threat.
Mr Wightman,
the author of Who Owns Scotland, and The Poor Had No Lawyers, said it
would affect assets such as Waverley Market – now known as Princess
Mall – in the heart of Edinburgh. It is publicly owned and shielded
from development.
The
law-change could see the 1.68 acre site sold to the current
leaseholder, former Rangers owner Sir David Murray, who would assume
ownership for a nominal sum. What happens to the prime site will set
a precedent that could affect many civic gems as about 9000 long
leases are examined in Scotland.
Mr Murray
stands to get a £50million prime city centre site for less than 40p
as a direct result of the planned law change being relaunched by the
Scottish Government. the ultra-long-term leaseholds – some last 999
years – were introduced at the end of the 18th century to encourage
industrialisation and are being modernised as they can pose legal
problems for leaseholders in developing the sites.
It
is understood Mr Murray's Premier Property Group (PPG) bought the
leasehold on Waverley Market in 2004 from developers who acquired it
in 1982. PPG is thought to have paid £37m for the lease alone. The
site brings in about £2m a year in rent from shops. The firm pays 1p
a year rent to Edinburgh City Council. The nominal sale sum for
Waverley would be based on the 1p rental deal struck with the
original developer in 1982 and if it went ahead early after the law
was changed the cost would be expected to be under 40p.---"
Yea, we all know it's a stitch up and the financial Mafia are the only ones who gain. I am of course talking about the banking system and the cosy relationship with the ratings agencies and the IMF (International Mankind Fuckers).
Here are a couple of quotes from that informative site THINK LEFT.
"Who elected them? Who gave them their power? Who was it who decided that these companies and no other should have the right to assess the credit worthiness of whole nations? Where is the oversight? Where is the public accountability? Where is the peer review system able to judge the accuracy of their ratings? Who assesses the assessors, in other words?"
"---So what happens when a nation like Greece has its credit rating downgraded to junk status? Basically it can’t borrow, which means it can’t get money to service its debts. The IMF moves in, and the country is forced to sell off its assets to pay its debts. It’s like a garage sale of public assets. Everything must go, at rock bottom prices. And who benefits from this? Well the banks, of course. The banks get to buy up the public assets, which they can then “monetise”. They get to own the Parthenon and the Lottery and the country is forced into even greater debt, having now lost its only forms of income.
It is legalised theft, and all enabled by that fictional “credit rating” provided by the ratings agencies in the first place. It is by this process that the world is being driven into further and further indebtedness to the banks.----"
Red
and black flags waved as a dozen people from the Anarchist
Federation,
Industrial Workers of the World, the Scottish Socialist
Party,
the Solidarity Federation and other individuals took part in a
picket
of the Glasgow premises of Adecco for one hour between 4 and
5pm
on Friday 20th January.
A
couple of hundred leaflets were handed out to curious passers-by
explaining
how Adecco are supplying strike breakers to replace workers
on
an indefinite strike at the ABB Factory in Cordoba Spain. We also
explained
how the lower wages and job insecurity encouraged by
employment
agencies like Adecco worsens conditions for all workers.
One
member of Adecco's staff came out and laughed when we told her why
we
were there and then had her fag break. 2 other members of staff
came
out to ask what we were doing and took the leaflet. One falsely
claimed
that we weren't making it clear that the Adecco strike
breaking
was in Spain to try to disassociate their office from the
dispute.
However he did accept they were part of the same company.
Placards
clearly stated the demands of the strikers in Spain – equal
pay
for all workers at the ABB Factory in Spain, respect for all ABB
and
Adecco subcontracted workers, a safe workplace for all workers,
ABB
and Adecco should talk to the strikers, Adecco should stop
providing
scabs for strike breaking, sacked strikers should be
re-instated
by ABB and Adecco collective bargaining rights and job
security
for all workers. Another placard in Spanish, based on a
banner
by the strikers union, the National Confederation of Labour
(CNT)
called for the defence of all jobs.
The
other member of staff called the police. The police turned up to
ask
what the picket was about and to say the protest was fine as long
as
we didn't block the entrance and then quickly left. No one crossed
the
picket line. The police returned a bit later to tell us they had
spotted
us on Facebook and to repeat what the picket was about!
A
postman calling at neighbouring offices stopped to say even though
he
wasn't going to Adecco he wouldn't cross a picket line even if it
was
one man and a dog. He was a Communications Workers Union rep who
also
trains people in other unions. He took our leaflets to put up on
noticeboards
at the main Glasgow sorting office in Glasgow.
He will also be giving them to Union of Shop,
Distributive
and Allied Workers (USDAW) members he is currently
training
through Union Learn at the Tesco Extra in Springburn. A
passing
teacher also stopped to voice his support. He had been out on
November
30th.
Pickets also took
place in Brighton, Bristol and London. Since November 28th there have
been numerous solidarity pickets around Spain and one as far away as
Chile. From Mark M.
We take wikipedia for granted but what would the world be without it? It is not just the loss of wikipedia but all the periferal damage, the censorship, the control over what you can post and what you can watch, that this act would impose on everybody. You would be under threat each time you clicked on a search engine list, or the list would be so depleted that it would be next to useless.The corporate world controls the fiscal policies of most governments and now they want to control you via the internet. You can rest assured that it is not for your benefit but for the benfit of the corporations in the media and entertainment world. It is another tentacle of corporate fascism.
More on the US big brother approach to the internet, from AVAAZ.
Avaaz.org - The World in Action
Dear friends,
Today could be the day we save the free Internet. We've flipped the White House and Congress is on the back foot. Now Wikipedia's blackout has pushed the US web censorship bills to the top of the news. Today we've reached the tipping point. Let’s bury the bill for good. Click to sign the petition:
Today could be the day we save the free Internet.
The US Congress was poised to pass a law allowing officials to censor access to any website around the world. But after we delivered our 1.25 million strong petition to the White House, it came out against the bill and with public pressure at a boiling point even some bill backers are switching sides. Now, the Wikipedia - led blackout protest has rocketed the public campaign to the top of the news.
We are turning the tide. But the dark forces of censorship are trying to revive the bill right now. Let’s bury it for good today. Click to sign this emergency petition to save the Internet now and if you've signed already, to email, call, Facebook, and tweet Congressional and corporate targets. Then send this to everyone:
The bill would make the US one of the worst Internet censors in the world -- joining the ranks of countries like China and Iran. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) would allow the US government to block any of us from accessing sites like YouTube, Google, or Facebook.
We got the White House to switch sides and now our global campaign and the growing public pressure is forcing Congress to abandon the bill. Last weekend, Senator Cardin, who cosponsored the legislation, announced he will vote against it! Then six prominent Republicans penned a letter requesting that the bill be shelved. Now the lower house vote is reportedly on ice.
Just days ago we were told it was impossible to stop the corporate censorship cabal, but now this is at a tipping point and amazingly we could win! Let’s stop US censorship today. Sign this emergency petition to save the internet now and forward it to everyone:
This US legislation could infringe on all of our freedoms. But if we win, we will show that when people unite with one voice from all over the world we can stop the abuse of power anywhere. We have brought this bill back from the brink. Now, if we amplify our voices today, we can put an end to the most powerful Internet censorship threat that the world has ever seen.
With hope,
Dalia, Ian, Alice, Ricken, Diego, David, and the Avaaz Team
Big brother never goes away, the tentacles of the corporate empire wriggle their way into ever aspect of your life. Government is there to further the aim and to protect the wealth of the corporate empire. It always takes a consolidated effort by the people to stop this continued attempt at control over all aspects of our life, the Internet is there for you as a tool of self expression and creativity and they don't like that, if they can't control it then they will do their damnedest to destroy it. This bill going through Congress is just another example of the corporate fascism that demands total control over our lives. Only the strength of people power can stop their strangling the creativity of the people.
PROTECT-IP
is a bill that has been introduced in the Senate and the House and is
moving quickly through Congress. It gives the government and
corporations the ability to censor the net, in the name of protecting
"creativity". The law would let the government or
corporations censor entire sites-- they just have to convince a judge
that the site is "dedicated to copyright infringement."
The government has already wrongly shut down sites without
any recourse to the site owner. Under this bill, sharing a video with
anything copyrighted in it, or what sites like Youtube and Twitter
do, would be considered illegal behaviour according to this bill.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill would
cost us $47 million tax dollars a year — that's for a fix that
won't work, disrupts the Internet, stifles innovation, shuts out
diverse voices, and censors the Internet. This bill is bad for
creativity and does not protect your rights.
We keep
hearing rumblings from our shiny politicians about regulating the
banks and curtailing those monopoly money bonuses. But I wouldn't
hold my breath on anything actually happening, afte all most of the politicians have friends in that little racket, all the patter is for
public consumption only. It is difficult to find on what criteria the
bankers base their right to those obscene bonuses. They can't justify
their bonus claim on hard work. If it was hard work that merited
those staggering bonuses, then I would probably be a very rich man.
Not because of my hard work, but that of my father, he was a coal
miner all his working life. The pits used to close for the Glasgow
Fair fortnight, but they always needed a skeleton crew to go down the
pit every day to check for gas and/or flooding etc. So he volunteered for
that year after year. My mother and her wee gang would head off to
Dunoon for our two weeks holiday, my father never came, we saw him at
the weekends. Now that is hard work, so if stratospheric bonuses were
based on hard work my dad would have been a millionaire, and no
doubt, me being his only son, would have benefited very nicely after
his death, however, I'm just one of the nations poor pensioners. So
we can discount the hard work theory for big bonuses. Perhaps it is
based on the amount of money you generate, they could believe that
the more money you generate, the bigger your bonus. So the less
money you generate the less of a bonus you get. Of course if we carry
this to its natural conclusion, if you don't generate money then you
are in trouble. Meaning that people like surgeons etc. who go off to
work every day, cutting and stitching people, don't generate any
money. In fact they cost us money, should we then charge these people
to work for us? Or should we base remuneration on a simple “fair
days wage for a fair days work”, principle?
The
truth is that there is no justification for those ridiculous,
mind-blowing bonuses, it is just the simple law of gangsterism. Just
as in the Al Capone days, the mobsters looked after “their boys”,
so that they could rely on them to do their dirty work and protect
them and their wealth creating racket. So the financial Mafia of today, look
after “their boys”, so that they can rely on them to do their
dirty work and protect them and their wealth creating racket. It is
not in the remit of the financial Mafia and “their boys” to do
anything for the community at large, it is simple to gather as much
wealth and power into their particular section of the rackets.
ADECCO: Stop Supplying Strikebreakers to Asea Brown Boveri factory in Cordoba, Spain. Employment agencies have long been criticised for profiting from casualisation, precarious emploment and for creating an increasing insecure job market. However, ADECCO, the largest employment agency in the world, has now taken this to a whole new level. Not content to simply lower wages and job security through inferior short term contracts, ADECCO has now gotten into the business of strikebreaking. Workers at a Asea Boveri Brown (ABB) factory in Cordoba Spain have been on indefinite strike since 28th November, camped out all day and night in front of the factory. The strike was called in protest at ABB plans to make workers employed by subcontractors EULEN at the factory redundant and replace them with EUROCEN non-union labour with no experience or qualifications. EUROCEN is the logistics division of the ADECCO Group of companies.
Their union the National Conferation of Labour (CNT) points out that the problems related to the work in ABB are also related to outsourcing in general. The workers who were employed through EULEN in fact worked for ABB and took orders from them, but they have a much lower salary and worse working conditions than regular ABB workers and ABB took no responsibility for them as an employer. There were serious breaches of health and safety and inadequate equipment provided. There is also the fact that the relevant collective agreements for the work they actually perform were not applied. Management's refusal to address these issues also led to the strike. First management responded by hiring scab labour from ADECCO. Then they fired all the strikers. By continuing to provide strikebreakers, ADECCO is Complicit in ABB's continued union repression at the factory where there have been a number of union victories over the last 2 years. The workers of the Cordoba factory in Spain are demanding what all workers deserve: fair pay, respect on the job, and a safe working environment. Austerity is providing employers in the public and private sectors alike with the excuse to attack our pay and working conditions. We must stand together—across borders, industries and trade unions—and fight back. Employment agencies have exploited us long enough. A win for workers at ABB, a giant multinational that operates in over 100 countries, will not only improve working conditions for Spanish workers, it will let employment agencies like ADECCO know that workers are willing to fight back against their unscrupulous practices. We demand that sacked strikers are re-instated, management talks with the workforce, and that ADECCO stop providing scab labour .
Want to help? Send a message to ADECCO demanding they cease this disgusting behaviour - Demand for contracted workers at the ABB factory: 1. Equal Pay to other workers at the factory. 2. Respect on the job. 3. A safe working environment. 4. That management talk to the striking workers. 5. That Adecco stop providing scabs for strikebreaking. 6. That the sacked workers are re-instated. 7. Collective bargaining agreements. 8. Job Security. A model message to send to ADECCO-EUROCEN in Spanish can be found here and below: http://www.solfed.org.uk/?q=adecco-casualised-strikebreaking-at-its-finest Model message to be sent to ADECCO-EUROCEN via their website contact page -
Cut and paste the following:
ADECCO: Para de traer esquiroles a la fabrica ABB de Cordoba. Eurocen-Adecco promueven el esquirolaje en la fabrica ABB.
Exijimos por los trabajadores contratados en la fabrica ABB:
1. Que se terminen con la arbritrariedad en el pago de los salarios. 2. Respeto en el trabajo. 3. Un entorno seguro en el trabajo. 4. Que la empresa abra negociaciones con los trabajadores en huelga. 5. Que Adecco deje de traer rompehuelgas. 6. Readmision de los trabajadores despedidos. 7. Convenios colectivos.
8.Estabilidad en el trabajo.
We should never lose sight of the fact that all this talk of "austerity cuts" has a human face. While those, the faceless ones, in expensive suits, sit in marble halls discussing how, where and how deep to cut at the social fabric of our society, the results among those without the expensive suits, you and I, the ordinary people, can be ill health, poverty, deprivation, mental health problems and even death. It is discussed politely on TV and radio and long winded economic articles appear in the mainstream media, all with a cold rationalism the belies the horror and hurt of the situation to most ordinary people. As the results of the polite decision makers policies grind on, our society changes, suicides rise dramatically, family relationships start to break down, hopelessness descends on youth, who see their future as a bleak unknown devoid of opportunity. It is not the "economy" that is killing people, it is a small group of human beings making decisions to protect their vested interests.
The powers that be would like to keep that veneer of politeness and cold discussion, but it can't last. The people are getting more anger by the day, across the developed world we are taking to the streets to vent that anger, and there is more to come, we will not be destroyed to save the wealth of the financial Mafia.
At approximately 7pm on Monday evening, 78-year old S.K. set himself alight with petrol at a parking lot in the town of Lefkada, in Western Greece. The man died on the spot.
This follows from a tremendous increase in suicides across Greece, and Crete in particular – where also, two days ago (on Saturday night) a homeless man died of the cold in the streets of the city of Chania.
On December 6th 2008 a police shooting of a 16 year old innocent boy in Athens started a two week revolt in cities around Greece. Three years on people march in remembrance of Alexis Grigoropoulos. Greece now is very much in social and economic turmoil. This films looks at the events surrounding December as well as an inside look to the often cases of revolt in a country that is sinking deeply in recession. This film also explores the role that anti authoritarian movements play in Greece.
Greece,
Hungary, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Romania, and the Occupy
Movement in America, across the developed world people are on the
streets protesting. All this has nothing to do with national
governments, it is a world wide corporate assault on the public
purse. The national governments are just carrying out the dictates of
the corporate financial Mafia. Here in the UK there are those who see
the privatisation of public services, including our health service,
as a Tory Party affair, yet across the world the same thing is
happening irrespective of the political persuasion of the government.
In Romania the riots there are against the austerity cuts and the
attempt to privatise their already rather flimsy National Health
Service. Social Democrat, Liberal, Socialist, Conservative, or
whatever, they all have the same agenda, cut public spending and
privatise everything that can make money for the billionaire
corporate class. Call it what you will, but it is corporate fascism
in full frontal attack on the conditions of the ordinary people.
Voting for this party or that party, is like choosing which end of
the egg to crack first, the big end or the little end. You end up
with the same thing on your plate.
This system of corporate fascism can't be modified, repaired, or
reformed, it can't be turned into a benevolent beast that will see to
the well being of the people. It is an elitist system where control
stays firmly in the hands of the super wealthy, the
millionaire/billionaire parasites that sit nameless, in rooms in
marble halls shuffling their billions around the globe destroying
economies and countries in the pursuit of ever increasing wealth. In
this system, wealth means power, and it is rigged to make sure you
and I don't get our hands on the wealth or the power.
If
we want a better world for ourselves, our kids and our grand kids,
then we have to destroy this profit sucking, parasite controlled
monster. We can't look to the people who stand to gain from this
financial sewage system we live under, why should they want to give
up privilege, power and unbelievable wealth for our benefit? Forget
the ballot box, forget the party political system, these are the toys
you are give to play with while the big boys rip you off. The system can never work in your favour, it has to be a new way of thinking, grass
roots, people power, community organisations, direct action,
occupations, are the only road to real change, we have to take control of
our society if we want to change it to benefit all our people.
We all know that the School of Americas, SOA, is a US government organisation for the export of torture and repression. It functions for the purpose of training forces of repressive regimes around the world in brutal methods of supressing political and public dissent. It is part of the US foreign policy of propping up repressive puppet governments that are compliant to the aims of American foreign policy. All this from the country that preaches democracy, but it is democracy at the end of a gun and only if it suits the American corporate empire.
For years groups of people have organised to try to shut the place down, they have faced brutallity, and imprisonment but still they come back. They see it as a cancer on the land, it has no place in any civilised country, it is the bedrock of government repression. One such case of over the top sentencing is that of Theresa Cusimano who has been sentenced to six months in Federal prison for peacably crossing the line to speak out against the SOA.
Those
words adorn the wall inside the courtroom of Judge Stephen Hyles at
the Columbus courthouse. And there they remain, strong words that
ring hollow in face of injustice, merely adornments. For her act of
peacefully crossing the line at Fort Benning, Georgia - a misdemeanor
offense - a 6-month sentence was imposed on Theresa Cusimano. Those
who train men with guns at the SOA/WHINSEC, those who created those
torture manuals, have never had to defend their actions, yet Theresa
is being sentenced to six months in prison for nonviolently calling
attention to the US military's role in the violence carried out
against her sisters and brothers in the Americas.
Theresa
Cusimano wrote the following statement to Judge Stephen Hyles before
her sentencing, telling him that his complicity goes on record today
as obstructing international justice and U.S. Rule of Law, and that
she wished that he had the courage of Father Roy and the honor of
being a subversive.:
Students took to the streets in Chile and were met with riot police and water cannon. The protests were in response to a Mayor referring to a girl's boarding school as a "whorehouse".
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?
Members of the Mexican electrical workers union have been engaged in a heroic struggle that began more than two years ago -- and today they need our help. Despite being evicted from their workplaces by police and military in 2009, they continued their resistance and today are negotiating with the government on a just solution.
But they need our help -- the support of trade union members from around the world.
Sending your message to the Mexican government and the union will take you less than a minute -- please do so now - click here.
Please spread the word inside your union, to your workmates, friends and family -- and share the campaign via these social media sites:
Meanwhile, thanks to the more than 7,600 of you who responded to last week's appeal in support of jailed trade union leaders in Greece. The trial began on Tuesday and the union leaders have thanked all of you for your support. But we need more messages before it resumes next week, so if you've not yet sent off a message, please do so now - click here.
Finally, it's a new year and we're relaunching our partnership with UCS - the unionised bookshop - to promote books by and for trade unionists. This month, I'd like to urge all of you to have a look at Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America. If you've never heard of Mother Jones, you're in for a real treat. And remember that every book you purchase using this link helps to support LabourStart. Have a great weekend.
