Self-Organised Health Structure.

      In the district of Exarchia, in Athens, they have been building the future, in spite of the daily state violence and repressions. If we are to build that better world, it can't be done by patching up the holes left by the state's indifference to our conditions. It has to done by replacing the state's strangle hold on our lives. We can create that better world by being imaginative, daring and working outside the state's tentacles. Asking the state to be our benefactor is only tightening its grip on and control over our lives. This is an excellent example of what is possible, and where we should be aiming.

This is from Contra Info:

Exarchia Self-organized Health Structure (ADYE) —psychologist, pathologist/radiologist, special tutor–child psychologist, gynecologist, speech therapist

    The Exarchia Self-organized Health Structure is an undertaking created through a general assembly of residents, social projects and collectives that live and act in the district of Exarchia.

It’s addressed to the local community of Exarchia, doctors, psychologists, nurses, pharmacists, but also to any other resident who would like to help.

     Basic activity of the Exarchia Self-organized Health Structure is to offer free primary healthcare, immediate help and psychological support as well as to promote the concept of health for all, without any discrimination for reasons of race, skin color, origin, sexual identity or religion.

     Main political conviction of its participants is being able to provide solidarity reciprocally, rather than egoistically or philanthropically, given the fact that we are all potential migrants, homeless, unemployed, precarious workers without access to healthcare services.

     We believe that self-organized health structures are not solely a response to problems in provision of medical care, filling the gap left by the State. Therefore, what we apply in practice is the way we would like to see health in the society we are envisioning, a society of true solidarity and humanity.

     We perceive the project of the Exarchia Self-organized Health Structure as a living cell of social resistance and emancipation against contemporary barbarity, thus we collaborate with people’s assemblies and base unions.

     During the operation hours of the pathology treatment room (Wednesdays and Thursdays, 18–20pm), you are welcome to bring medications that you no longer need.

56, Arachovis Street, VOX, Exarchia Square

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

Merry Christmas From Athens, And Now Mexico City.

    In shades of Athens 2008, citizens of Mexico City torched a Coca-Cola sponsored Christmas tree in the centre of the city. In lots of cities the lavish city centre Christmas tree is seen as a glaring contrast to the poverty that surrounds it, and it is even more despicable when it is sponsored by a greedy, exploiting multinational corporation. The retail trade refers to the Christmas as the golden quarter, it is all geared up to consumption. From that babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, we are bombarded with an array of lavish coloured boxes, all, so we are told, guaranteed to bring happiness and love. Parents feel pressurised into getting their kids the latest very expensive, coloured box, which the manufacturers will make sure, is out dated by the beginning of next year. We are all encouraged to pile on the debt to keep the shops busy, to fatten the bank accounts of the shareholders. In this society, Christmas is all about consumption. At least burning a large Christmas tree in the city centre gives people a free heat.

Photo Athens 2008.
This from Anarchist News:

Protesters Burn Coca-Cola Christmas Tree in Mexico City

       A group of anarchist protesters used a Molotov cocktail to burn a Coca-Cola sponsored Christmas tree along Mexico City’s Paseo de la Reforma on Friday.

      The Mexico City Metro raised their ticket price from 3 to 5 pesos on Friday, effectively making it the most expensive in the world. Thousands jumped metro turnstiles in a protest called #PosMeSalto, with many taking it to the streets, as well.

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

Solidarity Is Our Weapon For Victory.

       As usual as the people struggle for dignity, freedom and a decent standard of living, that babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, turns the other way and interviews an over paid celebrity. Their silence is meant to make you believe that there is no struggle and everything is fine. While the state apparatus tries to intimidate and repress all those who dare to struggle and resist, the mainstream media reports a drug user here, and a paedophile there, and how we have to make a stand against the mythical flood of bad, bad nasty immigrants.

       We have to be our own media, we have to spread the word ourselves, we must show solidarity.

 This appeal from Labour Start: 

 

   In the last couple of days, our worst fears about the railway strike in South Korea have come true. Severe repression has kicked in as police stormed the headquarters of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) -- for the first time since the union became legal back in 1999. Smashing down glass doors, spraying pepper gas, the police arrested well over 100 union activists -- but didn't find the leaders of the striking railway workers they'd come to arrest.
The KCTU has decided to call a general strike for December 28th.
     These Korean workers, fighting against privatization and for the basic human right to strike, are now on the very front lines of the battle against neo-liberalism and for human dignity.
I know that many of you will not see this message until after the Christmas holiday. I also know that 90% of the people receiving this message have not yet sent off their messages of protest and solidarity. If you're part of that 90%, please take a moment right now to send off your message demanding that the Korean government allow the railway workers to peacefully strike:

http://bit.ly/1aUdMGq

    If have already send off your message, please try to recruit just one more person who's not done so.  If everyone who supported this campaign recruited just one more person, it would be the largest online campaign LabourStart has ever waged. In addition, I'm going to ask you to do one more thing.
    The mainstream media, incredibly, is completely ignoring this important struggle.  LabourStart has tons of links to news stories, but these are largely from Korean media.
    If you visit the websites of the BBC, CNN, and Sky News, you won't see a single word about the strike, the repression, and so on.
     I've just written to all of them asking them why they're not covering the Korean strike.  I think it would help if you added your voices to mine.
Here's how to do it:

• BBC - go here and fill in the form at the very bottom of the page
• CNN - go here
• Sky News - email them at news@sky.com
  Thanks very much -- and a very festive holiday season to all of you.
  
  Eric Lee

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

  

Who Is Big Brother Protecting??

      Here in the UK we have more cameras per head of the population than any other country in Europe, if not the world. A recent visitor to Glasgow from Italy, that I spoke to, was shattered at the volume of cameras watching her every move. She said she felt intimidated and found it difficult to relax when out and about in town. She wanted to know was this array of cameras because Glasgow was a more criminal city than anywhere else. Of course the answer to that is most definitely, NO. Glasgow as well as being plastered with CCTV cameras on every street corner, lamp post, and lots at bus stops, (six at the bus stop at my home) we also have them on buses, in pubs, cafés, restaurants, underground stations, bus and train stations. On top of this, until the recent tragic crash at the Clutha pub, we had a police surveillance helicopter, fitted with an array of sophisticated surveillance equipment, flying low over the city. All of this, we are told, is for our own protection. Are we really that untrustworthy, violent, vicious a bunch of people, that we have to be watched at every move, our every trip to the shops, pub, church, train station, monitored? Would the city descend into mayhem and self destruction, if our lords and masters did not watch our every movement? 

     Forget “our protection” and think “control”. With this volume of detailed surveillance, we are living in a large prison, our minders are watching our every move, and ready to control you should you not be where the deem you should be, if they assess that you are not doing what they think you should be doing. Your patterns of behaviour are being analysed, you are being profiled. Who is big brother protecting? You are in prison.

     Though other cities in other countries, don't suffer the same intrusion of privacy that we do, there is still an anger and indignation at the volume of surveillance they do suffer, where is our anger and indignation?

       The following is a translation from Catalan and appeared in Anarchist News: 

"We refuse to live in a prison" (translated from Catalan)

Today, the society in which we are obliged to live appears ever more like a prison. Our movements are registered and our conversations listened to and controlled systematically via our cellphones. Our emails are analysed and maps of our social networks are created using, for example, Facebook and Twitter.

The national press gets indignant about the tracking of [European] politicians by the NSA but what's certain is that for a long time they have been not only complicit, but directly promoting the sharing of data on a large part of the population between European agencies and the NSA. And on the other hand, we have not seen the same indignation for the dozens of cases of spying on activists carried out by CESICAT [an extralegal or private security apparatus formed by the government of Catalunya, as part of its bid for independence].

An element of devastating quotidianity in this web of social control are the surveillance cameras. They seek to train us to accept "for our own safety" being filmed from the moment we leave our houses in the morning until the moment when we come home at night. Some cities are already installing systems of integrated surveillance with all the cameras in a region linked up to facial and other recognition software.

None of this surprises us, since the very nature of the State is to want to exercise absolute power over life. Freedom is not possible under a power that aims to control and surveille our lives in their entirety. Any attempt to transform this world in accordance with our needs or to recover control over our own lives will be surveilled and punished by the State as an act of criminality. For this reason the struggle for freedom must take the path of illegality.

We refuse to live in a prison. We refuse to be listened to and followed. We refuse to have our movements recorded. We refuse to allow anyone to be obliged to grow up in a world in which they will be recorded, filmed, Twittered, and localised 24 hours a day.

Read the full article HERE:

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

Fascist Infiltrators.

        A threat protest groups must always be alive to is that they can be infiltrated by the far-right, and this seems to be the case in the Italian “Pitchfork Protests”. There are reports that groups sympathetic to Greece's fascist party, Golden Dawn, have become involved in the “Pitchfork Protests”.

 This from Channel 4 News: 

   Last week students demonstrated in Turin, Italy's main unions rallied outside parliament, and protesters marched in Venice and Ancona. An Italian neo-fascist fringe group also scaled the front of the European Commission's Rome headquarters and tore down the EU flag.
    Ten people including the deputy president of Casapound, far-right activists who aid the poor and venerate former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, were arrested and charged with theft, resisting authority and unauthorised protest, police said.

Read the full report HERE:

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

Quality Of Life = Length Of Life.

       If life expectancy is an indicator of quality of life, and it is, then we in Scotland can be worried. Scotland has the lowest life expectancy levels in the EU. Men in Scotland have a life expectancy of 76 and women 80, but in the most deprived 15% of areas in Scotland, (2007/08) it is 57.5 for males and 61.9 for females. Whereas the European average is 79.7 for men and 84.8 for women.

In that very low average for Scotland, Glasgow languishes at the bottom as the lowest in Scotland, with 71 for men and 78 for women.

 Cartoon by Frank Boyle:

         Of course across Glasgow that average rises and falls as you move from the more affluent areas to the more deprived. The area with the lowest life expectancy is the Calton district of Glasgow, with a life expectancy of 54 for males. While not many miles away just on the outskirts of Glasgow we have Lenzie with a male life expectancy of 82. If we move south of the Scottish border to the London district of Kensington and Chelsea, we have the highest life expectancy in the UK with a figure of 89 for males.

        These vast fluctuations are an indictment of a system that not only tolerates such wide variations in quality of life, but fosters and perpetuates a grossly unequal society. Why should one person expect to die younger than another born just a handful of miles away? These variations in life expectancy also show the callousness and injustice of the raising of the pension age to 70. What does that mean for those living in the 15% most deprived areas in Scotland whose life expectancy is in the 50's?

        There is no democracy, there is no justice in the midst of such disparity in quality of life, and we can't expect a band of millionaire parasites to put matters right. It would be against their own personal interests. We will have to do that ourselves.

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

Does Utopia Exist?

        Does Utopia exist? Well, there is a small town in Andalusia in Spain called Marinaleda, with a population of just over 2,700 and they have no municipal police, another feature of this small town is that every week or so they declare a “Red Sunday” when the citizens go out and clean the streets and do odd jobs about the town that need doing. Marinaleda runs a 3,000 acre farming co-operative, employing 2,650 people, the farm is about 7 miles outside of town, as well as olive groves, they grow artichokes, broad beans, broccoli and peppers and has a section growing wheat. This didn't come about with a grand plan in some central office, but was born from the struggle of the people of the town, and their belief that planning the future is not enough, the future has to be built here and now, in the present, brick by brick.

     The mayor of this remarkable town is one, Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo and is quoted as saying,

     ‘The myth of capitalism has crumbled,’ he announced, ‘that the market is an omnipotent God that fixes everything with his invisible hand. We’ve seen this is a great lie, a stupid fundamentalism: we’ve seen that in times of crisis, markets have had to resort to the state, and that states are putting money into the banks.-----If there were any justice in the world the big bankers, and the governments that allowed them to perpetrate their economic terrorism, would be in jail. And those same people who caused the crisis are the ones who now want to fix it. The pyromaniac wants to play the fireman! Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy want to speak for the banks and fix what they caused.

    You can read more on this human endeavour for justice in the book The Village Against The World.

      An interesting fact about Spain is that in 2008, Spain's financial situation was well withing the Eurozone's fiscal rules. In fact, Spains government debt as percentage of its GDP, was lower than Germany's. The debt was created out of the crash, it was not the debt that caused the crash. Hundreds of billions of Euros were poured into Spains banks after the crash. It was the financial market's collapse that caused the debt and the resultant “austerity” (read poverty) across the whole of Europe.

      We the people are still paying for the greed of that parasite army, the financial Mafia. Perhaps we should be taking a leaf out of Marinaleda's book, and building our future here and now brick by brick, outside this festering mess of capitalism. 

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

Our Friend Bahrain.

      Our friendly nation Bahrain, of course the fact that it is home to a vast US naval base might have something to do with that.

Post by Occupy Bahrain.

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

What Is In a Name?

       Thousands of brands but just a handful that control them all. Are you being conned?

Infographic from: Popular Science

INTERESTING???

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

Monsanto, Birth Defects And Soybeans.

        Monsanto has been involved in the US and UK chemical warfare research back during the second Word War and was involved in the production of Agent Orange used to devastating effect across Vietnam. Now it is poisoning the people of Argentina, a land once known for its grass lands and grass fed cattle. Now Argentina is a soybean growing chemical factory, where birth defects are soaring by the month. The land is being poisoned and so are its people.

      In this April 1, 2013 photo, Aixa Cano, 5, who has hairy moles all over her body that doctors can't explain, sits on a stoop outside her home in Avia Terai, in Chaco province, Argentina. Although it’s nearly impossible to prove, doctors say Aixa’s birth defect may be linked to agrochemicals. In Chaco, children are four times more likely to be born with devastating birth defects since biotechnology dramatically expanded farming in Argentina. Chemicals routinely contaminate homes, classrooms and drinking water. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

This from AVAAZ:

    Monsanto's extending its power over the globe, with a massive new frankenseed factory in Argentina. Sofía Gatica and local neighbours have spoken out, and she has received death threats and a brutal beating. The threat is urgent -- let's stand with them and stop the plant. Monsanto manufactures the genetically modified seeds that, when combined with toxic pesticides, create the devastating 'monocultures' -- where nothing grows but a single plant -- that increasingly cover our planet. Now they plan to build one of the world's largest GM seed factories in Malvinas.
     Sofía, worried about health risks from the plant, has joined the protests, backed by nearly 70% of the area's residents. If 1 million of us join the people of Malvinas in the next 3 days, we can raise the profile of the issue in local media, feature the petition in an ad campaig n , and push the unpopular Argentine President to shut down the plant and roll back the spread of Monsanto's toxic agriculture:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stop_monsanto_in_argentina_global_/?bwqhjab&v=32981
      Sofia and the people of Malvinas have been lying in front of bulldozers to block the construction of the plant. If we can amplify their protest -- we can help them win. President Kirchner is facing a wave of unpopularity right now, and she can't afford to be seen to be choosing Monsanto's profits over her own people.
The mega-plant will use toxic chemicals to engineer seeds, which sounds weird because seeds are supposed to come from plants right? Not in Monsanto's scary new world, where plants are genetically designed to be sterile, and the only way farmers can keep planting food is by buying seeds every year from Monsanto! In the US, up to 90% of some types of crops are planted with Monsanto seeds, and with its new mega-plant in Argentina, the infamous company is extending its power over the globe. The threats and beating of Sofía and her fellow protesters are the last straw -- let's stop Monsanto's invasion of South America, and start rolling back the devastat ion wreaked on our ecosystems by their products:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stop_monsanto_in_argentina_global_/?bwqhjab&v=32981
      Some argue that genetic modification holds great promise for increased agricultural efficiency. There may be many such benefits in the future, but often the gains are hyped by corporate PR (such as the line that GM seeds 'feed the world' by being far more productive than normal seeds -- in fact there's little evidence of that), and GM technologies often put profit over people and planet. Governments should adjudicate the public risks and benefits, but Monsanto is skilled in undermining democratic governance. They even passed a law in the US that says that a judge cannot order a recall of Monsanto products, even on grounds of public safety!
       Our planet is being rapidly transformed by genetically modified, industri al agriculture, and our governments are far too heavily influenced by the American mega-corporation at the center of it all -- a corporation that is gradually coming to control the world's food supply. Let's not force our children and grandchildren to deal with a world fed by Monsanto, when we can stop it now.
With hope,
Ricken, Meredith, Laura, Nick, Alice, Luis, Marie, Nadia and the whole Avaaz team

More Information:
Anti-Monsanto activists assaulted in Argentina (RT)
http://rt.com/news/argentina-monsanto-protest-clashes-483/
Pesticide illness triggers anti-Monsanto protest in Argentina (DW)
http://www.dw.de/pesticide-illness-triggers-anti-monsanto-protest-in-argentina/a-17013525
Birth defects, cancer in Argentina linked to agrochemicals: AP investigation (CTVNews)
http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/birth-defects-cancer-in-argentina-linked-to-agrochemicals-ap-investigation-1.1505096
Sofia Gatica (The Goldman Environmental Prize)
http://www.goldmanprize.org/recipient/sofia-gatica
Photos from Argentina’s farms, documenting an agrochemical plague (Denver Post)
http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2013/10/21/photos-argentina-agrochemicals/6446/
Argentina's Bad Seeds (Al Jazeera)
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2013/03/201331313434142322.html
Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear (Vanity Fair)
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805

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

Living With The Fear Of Homelessness.

       Across the UK people are being penalised because of a government hell-bent on pursuing the policies of the financial mafia. You can pick any village, town or city and there will be people being pushed into poverty, or worse, facing homelessness. If its not low wages, it's zero hours contracts, if it's not disability benefit cuts, it's being sanctioned and having your jobseekers allowance stopped, then there's the bedroom tax.
       With the bedroom tax there are approximately 50,000 people living with the threat of homelessness because of this vicious attack on ordinary people. Homelessness has rocketed in the last year, up 62% in London alone, and other massive rises across the country as a whole. Why should anybody have to fight for a home? We are in a society where the fear of homelessness is becoming part and parcel of life.
       This is the picture of capitalist progress, this is us "on the mend", this is the vision of the mythical growth, that the millionaire cabal of pompous parasites keep mouthing off about.
       You could pick one of thousands of cases that bring home the viciousness and callousness of these policies, each one a display of the injustice and inequality that riddles this capitalist system, each one genuine and unacceptable.Though we should campaign to have the bedroom tax scrapped, the real answer is to destroy this system that has these policies inherent within its very fabric, a system built on power and exploitation.

 This is just one case put forward by Care2:

 

 

      For fourteen years Danielle Heard has fought cancer -- a disease that has left her disabled.
    Despite everything she's been through, she's now got another fight on her hands: avoiding homelessness because of the bedroom tax.
The cruel, unfair "Bedroom Tax" means that Danielle's parents must now pay an extra £80 a month in rent; they're now worried that they could lose their home if they can't stretch the budget to make ends meet.
      Right now, a staggering 50,000 people across Britain like Danielle and her family face losing their home because of the bedroom tax.

That's not right, and it's not fair.

Take action today: Join us in calling on David Cameron to repeal the bedroom tax and stop penalising hard working families like Danielle's.

 

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

International Migrants Day.

   Today, December 18 is International Migrants Day. While this date is recognised as such, the UK state still works hard at stopping migrants from entering the country and does its best to deport as many as possible, as individuals and in large groups, unless of course they happen to be very rich.

     So today we should spare a thought to those individuals who have left, and in lots of cases, fled from their home county, friends and families and find themselves now among strangers and fighting the British state for the right to live as a free human being.

 From Popular Resistance:

     International Migrants Day 2013 is a day to recognize and celebrate the millions of people around the world who have left their homeland in search of a better future or a new opportunity. First proclaimed by the United Nations in 2000, December 18th invites countries to celebrate International Migrants Day “through the dissemination of information …and through the sharing of experiences and the design of actions to ensure their protection.” In this spirit, based on the latest Pew Research study, Latin Times has compiled  7 Facts And Statistics About Migrants In 2013.

Read the full article HERE:

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

The Dispossessing Of The People.

      This quote is taken from the introduction to the chapter of The Barbarian called "Crisis".

       The concept ‘crisis’ has indeed become a motto of modern politics, and for a long time it has been part of normality in any segment of social life. The very word expresses two semantic roots: the medical one, referring to the course of an illness, and the theological one of the Last Judgement. Both meanings, however, have undergone a transformation today, taking away their relation to time. ‘Crisis’ in ancient medicine meant a judgement, when the doctor noted at the decisive moment whether the sick person would survive or die. The present understanding of crisis, on the other hand, refers to an enduring state. So this uncertainty is extended into the future, indefinitely. It is exactly the same with the theological sense; the Last Judgement was inseparable from the end of time…Today crisis has become an instrument of rule. It serves to legitimize political and economic decisions that in fact dispossess citizens and deprive them of any possibility of decision…We must start by restoring the original meaning of the word ‘crisis’, as a moment of judgement and choice.

-Agamben

Read the full chapter HERE:

      Today we are certainly seeing the dispossessing of the citizens under the banner of "crisis", and it is not just on a national scale, but an international, global scale. The present "crisis" has seen the largest dispossessing of general public ever. What meager to acceptable standard of living you once had, has been shredded. In spite of rapid increase in production efficiency, across the planet the ordinary people are poorer now than they were ten years or so ago, all due to the "crisis". In actual fact, those who saw it as a "crisis", and caused that "crisis" are all doing fine, they are not being dispossessed, they are doing the dispossessing. 

 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

Our Christmas Message.

    It seems only right that we should put up our Christmas message, this one from Crimethinc.com

Listen HERE: The Ex-Worker Holiday Special.

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

It's Our World.

 

       I received this article, "A World Divided" and thought it fell in line with my own thoughts, and something that should be said and repeated until it is universally accepted. We are citizens of the one world, it's our world, and we the ordinary people have to put it right. I have said something similar in my poem Patriotism.

Patriotism

No, I shall not die for the fluttering flag,

if truth be known, ’tis nothing but a multi-coloured rag

held aloft by some foolish hand

inciting worker and peasant to kill

on some green and wooded hill,

peasant and worker from some other land.

Nor shall I shed blood for the fluttering rag

that brings out fools to stand and brag

of brutal deeds painted grand,

deeds where rustic and craftsman lie so still

killed by my brothers' misguided hand.

No allegiance have I for the Nation

this man made autocratic creation

that divides my brothers in a world so small,

binds us to a country's cause, right or wrong,

bids us follow its drum, sing its song,

then sheds our blood in some border brawl.

No, I'll be no slave to flag or nation,

have no ear for power oration,

though its iron heel is on my breast,

my back feels its leather thong,

at patriotism's barracoon, I'll be no guest.

A World Divided

    After working at the University of Sussex over the summer, myself and two of my best friends embarked on an interrailing trip around Europe. The trip was a wonderful experience and a fantastic chance to visit iconic cities and locations. We managed to see, and do, so much, as is evidenced by this brilliant video my friend made of our time on the continent. As well as the memories, and the photos of our experience, the trip proved to be incredibly thought provoking. It gave me a wealth of ideas and topics which I wanted to write about. Travel really does broaden the mind and I would defy anyone to venture across Europe for a month and come back the same person as when they left. I learned many things on the trip, and many of my beliefs were re-affirmed. None more so than the belief that this world is divided into unrepresentative and irrelevant categories.

     It was in Austria, whilst staying with more friends of mine in Vienna, that it became apparent. The only divide I had with these people was that of nationality. In almost every single way we were identical. We were around the same age, we held the same interests, had the same views and beliefs, participated in the same leisure activities and were concerned about the same things. My two friends from the UK and my friends in Austria were only separated because of the land mass that they happened to have been born on. There was no difference between “British” and “Austrian”.

     I try not to define myself as any nationality. I don't believe I owe allegiance to any flag, or country in particular, I certainly don't take pride in being a nationality, for a start I am not really sure what that even means. Does it mean that I should feel good about what other people have done? Other people that just so happened to have been born on the same land mass as me? The accusation of traitor has probably been levelled at those that have expressed similar views as these in the past. With regards to being told “you’re betraying your country”, I believe that its an empty insult. As cliche as it sounds, I have no country. The world is my country and all its people are my brothers and sisters. This is something I truly believe. I will not discriminate against someone due to their nationality, and I will not immediately support someone just because they are of the same nationality as me. Nationality to me is a creation. Its a concept that everyone buys into, and because of this, the concept is legitimised. In my opinion nationalities and nations are obsolete. That though, is for another article, and is another argument.
Read the full article HERE:

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