TRADE UNION RIGHTS.

An appeal from Labour Start.

       Every June, trade union leaders, employers and government officials meet in Geneva for the International Labour Conference. And every year since 1926, that conference has set aside some time to discuss the worst violations of trade union rights. But not this year - because this year employers have put down their foot and said "no". As I write these words, unions have issued some strong statements (here's one example) and we're monitoring the situation.

         To coincide with the conference, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has just issued its annual report on violations of trade union rights -- and it makes for chilling reading.

        "Colombia is once again the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists," says the ITUC. "Of the 76 people murdered for their trade union activities, not counting the workers killed during the Arab Spring, 29 lost their lives in Colombia. And in Guatemala yet again trade unionists paid a heavy price, with 10 assassinations committed with impunity. A further eight trade unionists were murdered in Asia."

You can read the report in full here.

As if to highlight those issues, two of the global union federations have launched major appeals in the last 24 hours.

1. One is in support of oil workers in Iraq - please make sure to add your name to the online campaign here.
2. The other supports nine trade union leaders in Algeria, five of them women, who have been on hunger strike since 6 May. They too need your urgent support - please click here.

The employers' representatives in Geneva may want us to stop talking about workers rights, and maybe they'll succeed in doing so at the ILO conference. But they can't stop us from campaigning -- as we will show them in the next few hours. We are going to fill the inboxes of political leaders in Iraq and Algeria with our messages of protest. And we're going to show the world once again what solidarity means.

I know that I can count on your support - thank you!

Eric Lee

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NO EXPNSE SPARED, - WE'RE RICH!!

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

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

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

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YOUR KIDS WILL BE NEXT.

         What awaits us as the Eurozone circles the drain, for some idea we can look at what has happened to the Greek people in just a couple of years. From a relatively comfortable lifestyle for most, to deprivation, from a comparatively low crime rate, to a rocketing crime rate, from mostly stable communities to massive increases in suicides, alcoholism and mental health problems, all the direct result of AUSTERITY, which is just a polite word for plundering the people and pushing them into deprivation. I should add that all these problems are for the ordinary people, our political masters and the financial Mafia are exempt from that deprivation they inflict on the rest of us. This from Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ.

      This picture was taken in the centre of Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. The young teen, no older than 13 or 14 was wheeling a shopping trolley full of scrap metal just metres away from the high end hotels and shopping malls that call this part of the town home.

      He, along with many even younger can be seen in the city rooting through the recycling bins for cans, scrap metal and paper.. For those who scavenge, beg, sell trinkets and wander the streets of this European city there is no school or perhaps even a future, except for more of the same.

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WHY ASK PERMISSION FOR A BETTER LIFE?

I found this a very thought provoking poster from The Black Door. A picture is worth a thousand words, what about a thousand pictures like this dotted around your neighbourhood?

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A PROUD MOMENT FOR SCOTLAND.

          Edinburgh celebrates the jubilee with the anarcho-syndicalist Red and Black flying at the headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

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YES OR NO, THAT IS THE QUESTION?

YES or NO, where do you stand on Scottish Independence and why?

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THE BRUTALITY OF ATOS.

          The brutal stories still come out from the ATOS experience, each story is a case of human suffering. This from ATOS Victims Group News.

Hello

         About two years ago I started suffering from extreme anxiety due to the pressure of my work as a college tutor combined with my caring duties for my mum. This triggered a severe panic attack and also severe alopoecia. My doctor of 20 years and my counsellor both said I was unfit for work. My medication also means that I feel very tired and have poor concentration for large parts of the day. I was placed on ESA and had to attend an ATOS ‘assessment’. I wasn’t able to travel in on my own, on the bus or by foot, due to my fear of having another panic attack; my mum, who I was meant to be caring for, cared for me and brought me in by car, despite being in pain with her own condition and needing to rest several times on the short walk from the car to the assessment centre.

        The first impression I had of an ATOS centre was seeing the TV tuned to ‘The Jeremy Kyle‘ show at full volume in reception, watched by a bored security guard. This increased my levels of anxiety even further as I waited and my mum had to ask for it to be switched off. When I entered the interview room I answered all the questions as truthfully as possible whilst the ‘assessor’ ticked his little boxes on a PC.

My report said that I was able to work and that ‘I underestimated my ability to concentrate on work tasks’. This was despite the report saying that I was very subdued in the assessment and looked extremely anxious, despite me telling the ‘assessor’ that the very reason I was suffering from severe anxiety was because I was trying to combine a job with caring for my mum.

        After some excellent advice from my local CAB, I found I was able to claim Carer‘s Allowance and Income Support to help me look after my mum full-time. Obviously, at no time was I ever told this by anybody at ATOS or at Jobcentreplus; I was just another statistic, boosting ATOS’s performance profits and meeting government targets. I know this; I worked for Jobcentreplus Head Office as an Executive Officer for eight years.

        This experience is one of the many reasons I am now fighting the government’s cuts; their desire to move genuinely disabled and incapacitated people into a workfare style scheme that takes no account of their condition is merely a way for the government to make an easy target, people who did not cause our social and economic crisis, pay for it.

         Don’t let them make the people of this country an easy target. Don’t let them forget the effects of their atrocious policies on real flesh, blood and minds. On real people who refuse to be treated like crap.

Show them that we have the guts to fight back.
Read the story:

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IT'S TIME TO LEAVE!!

A debating point worth a little thought from Infoshop:

Conflict, safe spaces and removing people.

by Scott Crow
May 30, 2012

         To all of us engaged in groups in general. If you will allow me for a minute. I haven't paid attention to all of the chatter and conflict etc . of your particular group, but I bet it is similar as to most places. I wanted to take a moment to address anarchism and open groups in brief. I believe our spaces have value to them and we have all learned and shared things over their existence. Flame wars have happened since the dawn of the interwebz and personal conflict has happened at least since we could open our mouths. But sometimes we have to say Ya Basta!(Enough!)

          I have been an anarchist in the real world for a long time and I do not believe in large open groups for much more than short term organizing. They always fall into trouble over the long haul due to not having enough cohesion ,collective input and shared power . I actually mostly only work in small closed collectives with people I can develop intimate shared ideals, principles and actions.

Our Spaces , Our Places.

          Anarchism is not about all of us getting into one big boat and heading towards the horizon--and all getting along singing Kumbaya. This is the mess we are in now. This 'boat' is filled with the lowest common denominator of ideal/principles of all the participants. The way I see it is that the horizon is the goal (follow me on this for a minute). And instead of all getting into one big stupid boat, we call get into our own boats, rafts, ships or whatever and head towards the horizon without sinking each others boats. Some will get there faster, and some will not make it, some will go in armadas. But the key is we get there individually or collectively how we can--without sinking each others boats.

          I also believe and practice protecting the spaces we have carved out within groups, workplaces, meetings, housing etc. I am not a liberal who believes we have to , or can accept everyone. It's why I am an anarchist. We need multiple small accountable groups that can federate , network--or not. If we can't get along then we form other groups and don't try to sink the others boat. We don't have the capacity to deal with everyone's personal issues--whether its drugs, alcohol, mental health or they are just assholes looking for a fight. There is plenty of pie to go around for all of us, plenty of problems to solve and lots of disagreements to be had with people we like or love without the added stress . Find the place that fits and work in it.

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THE END OF THE BANKERS' PONZI SCHEME?

         Predictions for the global economy and banking system grow more dismal by the day. One financial commentator, Business Insider, puts it thus; “The problem is not Government Debt per se. The real problem is that the $70trillion in G10 debt is collateral for $700 trillion in derivatives--- Yes, that equates to 1200% of global GDP and it rests on very, very weak foundations.”

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       Here in Europe the financial Mafia and their action men, the national governments, waffle with all sorts of ideological theories, from bleak brutal austerity, to austerity with grow, but nothing is actually being done, meetings and discussions keep them busy, sort of fiddling while Rome burns. Of course we shouldn't blame them too much, as in actual fact there is nothing they can do, the ship has a large hole well below the water line, it is called “magic money made from nothing”. What this means to the ordinary people caught up in this the biggest ponzi scheme of all times is dire poverty and deprivation on a scale not witnessed before. At this stage of their game unemployment across Europe is now at 11% for the second month in a row. Spain, has the highest unemployment rate in Europe at 24.3%, about the same as the US during the “Great Depression”. Greece at present has 21.7% unemployment, with Italy and Portugal both having 15.2%. France, one of the supposedly economically strong nations of Europe has unemployment running at 10.2%. Even that saviour of the western capitalist system, the US, unemployment has risen again and is now at 8.2%. These figures equate to 17.4 million people out of work across Europe, of that total 3.5 million are 25 years old or younger, up 214,000 on the previous month. What future does that predict for those young people of today and those still at school? In the face of all this “economic gloom” companies across the globe are shedding jobs like trees shed leaves as winter approaches.

        To any informed observer of the capitalist chaos that is at the present time, destroying millions of lives across the planet, it becomes obvious that the system cannot work for the benefit of the ordinary people, it cannot be transformed into some fair, just and compassionate system that will see to the needs of all our people. It is and has always been an unfair, unjust elitist system and at present it is the the throes of its biggest crisis since its inception, and its only chance of survival is to plunder all public resources and assets and in the process destroy the lives of millions of innocent people. This chaos in the capitalist ponzi scheme is also an opportunity for the ordinary people to organise outside the system and take control of their own lives, control of their communities and their work places. To start to build a system that will produce for the needs of all our people freed from the greed for profit, a system that is built on co-operation and sustain ability. Now is probably the best opportunity we have had in years to bring down a system that has exploited our parents and our forefathers, generation after generation. In the words of the song, “From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success”, however it is up to us, the ordinary people, but we have to do it without, Leaders, Presidents, Monarchs and others of that ilk. Their record is one of greed, disaster, exploitation, war and deprivation.

An attempt to rescue the bankers and their friends.

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ASSEMBLIES, THEN WHAT?

This from Info Exchange:

Occupy to Self Manage
By Michael Albert

         I have yet to see my nearest large occupation, Boston, or the precursor of all U.S. occupations, Wall Street. Instead, I have been on the road for the past six weeks in Thesselonika and Athens Greece; Istanbul and Diyarbikar Turkey; Lexington, Kentucky; London, England; Dublin, Ireland; and in Barcelona, Madrid, and Valencia Spain.

        In all these places, I talked with diverse individuals at many meetings and popular assemblies. I met people involved in occupations, as well as audiences assembled by my hosts to hear about participatory economics. Beyond addressing assigned topics, my own priority was to learn about local movements. I repeatedly asked what folks struggling for many months wished to say to other folks first embarking on similar paths.

Boredom, Disempowerment, and Consensus Obstruct Growth
       In Greece and Spain, a single message predominated. It had nothing to do with analyses of capitalism or other analytic focuses. Instead, Greek and Spanish activists reported that they had massive assemblies in widespread cities and their occupations grew, grew, grew, so that assemblies were up to 12,000, 15,000 - and then they shrunk, shrunk, shrunk, so that assemblies are now not meeting, or are meeting in the hundreds, or less. ---

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ENTRAPMENT.

From Crimethinc:

           Over the past month, the FBI has initiated a spateof entrapment operations designed to frame anarchists as “terrorists.” Significantly, they have not targeted longtime organizers, but rather people who are relatively peripheral to anarchist communities. In response, we’ve prepared a pamphlet suitable for a wide readership explaining how this entrapment strategy works, and an analysis exploring why the FBI has adopted it. Please circulate these widely.

Reading PDF [550kb]
Imposed PDF for Printing [550kb]

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I'M PROUD.

I’M PROUD.

I’m proud of my people, proud to be one of them,

that great mass on society’s bottom rung.

Those who, with coal-dust under their nails

in their eyes, in their lungs

claw at the earths entrails.

Their brothers,

cement in their hair

in their mouth, in their ears,

oil ingrained in their fingers,

on their face.

Sisters, glistening with sweat

midst the ceaseless noise of machines

that throw out shirts, shoes, toys, carpets

for other people.

Those with soil and sweat stuck to their skin

smelling of the earth, feeding the multitude,

grinding out their lives in a harsh pitiless system

weighted down

with a sack load of half-dead dreams,

sometimes brought to their knees

by a tidal wave of despair,

never defeated,

groping in the dark to find tomorrow,

keeping hope alive;

they amaze me.

Somehow, from somewhere

in this cold, cruel

unforgiving scheme of things

they find love for their children.

Not a teaspoonful, not a cupful,

but buckets full, to bathe them in,

to pour over them.

They seem to know

that one day this world will be ours

and to take care of it

we will need those who have been loved.

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SOLIDARITY,

Just a little celebration in keeping with the previous post.

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OCCUPY AND SOLIDARITY ARE WINNERS.

From The Irish Examiner:

Battle of Vita Cortex comes to an end after 161 days

Thursday, May 24, 2012 - 05:14 PM

       One of the longest-running industrial relations protests in the history of the State ended in Cork today. On Day 161, the marathon sit-in protest at the Vita Cortex factory ended with a ceremonial march out the gate. The 23 workers who occupied the factory since December 16 have now all been paid an undisclosed sum by company owner, Jack Ronan, as the final part of their redundancy. The foam-workers’ stand lasted longer than the Dublin Lockout of 1913, when James Larkin led thousands of workers for 146 days in the most significant industrial relations dispute in Irish history.
The former Vita Cortex staff said their campaign began on nothing more than a gut instinct and a feeling of injustice. The workers were due to leave the foam factory for the last time when it shut down on December 16 last year. When it became clear they would not receive their redundancy package of 2.9 weeks’ wages per year of service they decided to take a stand.
      On a shift rota, they have occupied the building ever since, and their efforts have seen them held up as a symbol of workers’ rights. Up to 5,000 people marched through Cork to support their plight on a rainy day in February in one of the largest public demonstrations the city has seen in recent years. The campaign attracted support from soccer legends Alex Ferguson and Paul McGrath, former President Mary Robinson, philosopher Noam Chomsky, actor Cillian Murphy and Cork sport and GAA stars.
      Former machinist Helen Crowley, who gave 27 years’ service to the company, said: “The whole campaign snowballed in a way. You got completely swept away in it.” After spending Christmas, New Year’s Day, St Patrick’s Day and Easter in the Kinsale Road factory, the workers were today looking forward to normal life again.
     Jim Power, who worked for the company for 43 years, summed up the mood. “It’s a relief really. Now that it’s all over, I look forward to normal living again,” he said. Seán Kelleher, who worked at the plant for more than 47 years, said: “This campaign has dominated our lives for the past five months. It was the generosity of the Cork people that kept us going.”
After months of failed negotiations, the company finally agreed at a meeting in Cork earlier this month to pay the workers.

Article courtesy of The Evening Echo newspaper

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DAWN RAIDERS DAWN RAIDED!!

           At 5:30am this morning a group of dozen protesters from Unity & the No Borders Network blockaded and closed the gates at the UKBA reporting centre in Brand Street Glasgow, in protest against the continuing detention of children and the practice of early morning raids following the harrowing dawn raids and subsequent detention of two African families in the city over the last month. 

          Protesters have attached themselves through lock on tubes across the entrance of the main gates, blocking the exit for dawn raid vans, and closing all vehicle exits to the building where the heavy handed UK enforcement teams are based.
The team of protesters are chained together through tubing on which reads the slogans “STOP DAWN RAIDS” & “END DEPORTATIONS”. Banners in support of refugee rights hang across the gates.
          The peaceful protest attracted the attention of 15 police officers. As protesters blocked the road this morning, members of the UKBA Enforcement Teams which carry out the dawn raids arrived, protesters believe, in preparation to carry out a dawn raid on another family this morning. Protesters believe that we have managed to successfully stop the UKBA detaining a family today.

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STILL THE MOST DEMOCRATIC STATE IN THE MIDDLE EAST???

May 24, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- One of South Africa’s largest tertiary institutions, the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in Durban, is a site of multiple controversy but a near-disaster on May 21 deserves more reflection because it points us in a positive direction: away from allying with the Israeli state and its apartheid policies during a time of heightened racism. A representative of Israel had been invited to speak but was then disinvited, after the university was called on by staff and students to respect the “academic boycott” of Israel.

From South Africa, the African continent and everywhere else, it is a critical time to step up pressure against the rogue regime in Tel Aviv. Israel’s hard-right leader, Benyamin Netanyahu, is in a dangerous career phase, preparing to bomb Iran; illegitimately holding thousands of Palestinian prisoners in worsening conditions; expanding settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank; terrorising Gaza; and tightening his militaristic hold over the region.

Netanyahu’s approach to protecting his core constituency was unveiled at a recent cabinet meeting, in his paranoid description of African refugee immigration (mainly from Eritrea, Ethiopia and South Sudan): “If we don't stop the problem [sic], 60,000 infiltrators [sic] are liable to become 600,000, and cause the negation of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic [sic] state.”

Interior minister Eli Yishai picked up the same theme: “They [African immigrants] should be put into holding cells or jails … and then given a grant and sent back."

In spite of police data confirming that Israelis commit more than twice as many crimes per person as African immigrants, Yishai claimed, “most African infiltrators are involved in crime”.

According to the Hotline for Migrant Workers, “In the last month, the number of hate crimes carried out by Israelis against Africans has risen tremendously. Multiple Molotov cocktails were thrown into houses of Africans in southern Tel Aviv on two separate occasions, a week apart.” Then on the night of May 23, the logic of Netanyahu/Yishai unfolded at street level when hundreds of their followers attacked Africans in what was widely described as a race riot, leaving many injured, with a dozen Israelis arrested for violence.

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THE ONLY DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST!!!!

         It is not very often that we hear a criticism of Israel coming from America. As we all know America is Israel's banker and minder, and in return Israel is the US policeman in the Middle East, who refers to itself as, “the only democracy in the Middle East”. So when US state department raise concerns about Israel's treatment African asylum seekers, stating that they are being denied their basic human rights, the situation must be serious. The US annual report on human rights says that many asylum seekers are refused refugee status, so cannot access health care. This report also criticises the Israeli government officials for referring to migrants as “infiltrators”. It is believed that in recent years, approximately 60,000 migrants have entered Israel, mainly from Sudan and Eritrea. The UNHCR states that, last year from 4,603 new asylum applications Israel received, only one was approved. Their figures also show that there are approximately 6,000 previous cases still pending. There is also concern about the fact that Israeli authorities can reject applications and there is no road for appeal, no independent appeal process. All our states are riddled with right-wing politicians, Israel has more than its fair share of those driven by religious extremism. The US state department report criticises some of those right-wing politicians, stating that the are stoking up hatred by referring to “infiltrators” as a cancer, while calling for all migrants to be expelled. There is the usual claim from the Israeli state mouth pieces, stating that the overwhelming majority of migrants are not fleeing war, violence and persecution, but merely seeking a better life, (in state ideology this is a crime). A simple look at the war, violence and persecution taking place in that part of the world makes that kind of statement no more than an utterance blinded by racial and/or religious hatred.

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AH, POOR NICK!!

        UK Uncut has moved it targets from high street corporate tax dodgers to those, "We're all in it together" millionaire politicians. It beggers belief that the people of this country put up with being told to tighten their belts and face poverty with humility, from a bunch of pompous, arrogant over privileged parasitical milliomaires. When will we ever learn!!!

This from a BBC report:

       Hundreds of anti-cuts protesters have gathered outside Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's home in south-west London.

       UK Uncut said disabled activists had chained their wheelchairs at both ends of the street in Putney where he lives. The group, which is staging protest "street parties" in 10 UK cities, said it was targeting Mr Clegg as he was "one of the architects of austerity". A spokesman for Mr Clegg said: "People have a right to peaceful protest."

        A Metropolitan Police spokesman said there were no reported arrests.

        UK Uncut, which has previously targeted high profile people it believes are avoiding paying tax, said it was now targeting politicians. Jean Sandler, 42, a UK Uncut supporter, said: "Nick Clegg is one of the architects of austerity; he's a millionaire and lives in a £1m home. "The cuts are a political choice of this government and the cabinet of out-of-touch millionaires, they are not necessary.

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A NEED FOR A DEBATE.

Food for thought from AdBusters:

Dear occupiers, jammers, dreamers,

        Three years after the May 1968 uprising that swept the world, the great French philosopher Michel Foucault observed that a key strategy of power is to “appear inaccessible to events.” Power, Foucault argued with a nod towards 1968’s failed insurrection, acts to “dispel the shock of daily occurrences, to dissolve the event … to exclude the radical break introduced by events.”

       Forty years later, in light of Occupy, Foucault’s observation still strikes home. Despite achieving the impossible at unprecedented speed – sparking a global awakening, triggering a thousand people’s assemblies worldwide, and giving birth to a visceral anti-corporate, pro-democracy spiritual insurrection – Occupy is now struggling through an existential moment. Our movement has been dealt a blow: our May 1 and follow-up events have been dissolved by power; the status quo has shown itself to be far more resilient than many of us expected.

         Now a passionate debate is emerging within our movement. On one side are those who cheer the death of Occupy in the hopes that it will transform into something unexpected and new. And on the other are patient organizers who counsel that all great movements take years to unfold.

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