It’s
increasingly clear that the political and economic situation in Ireland is
heating up – what with the banking crisis and the bail-out of the banks, then
the nationalisation of Anglo Irish. Thousands of jobs have disappeared, Dell
and the threat to Waterford
being two of the most important. Unemployment has risen by over 120,000 in a
year and the government is looking for cuts in the private sector.
Yesterday it was David Blunkett and his
privately funded trip to South Africa, which he forgot to own up to. Today it
is Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and her £116,000 expenses claim. According to
the BBC: ‘Ms Smith reportedly claimed £116,000 in expenses for her home in
Redditch, Worcestershire, after telling the Commons that her sister’s home –
where she stays while in London – was her main residence.’ The tax-free
Additional Cost Allowance is worth up to £24,006 a year at present.
Boris Johnson,
Mayor of London, was the man who didn’t let the buses go out during the snow in
London on Monday 2nd February because he thought it was dangerous.
So how did he
expect people to get in to work? Now he’s docking transport staff a day’s pay for
not making it in. The managers who are making the threat are claiming that they
were ‘working from home.’ So they get their money.
David
Blunkett has been rapped over the knuckles by the Parliamentary Commissioner
for Standards. Apparently the former Minister ‘forgot’ to register a trip to
South Africa paid for by a private training company.
Blunkett,
as a former Minister in charge of the Department for Work and pensions, was a
big fan of opening up the administration of the welfare service to the private
sector. No wonder. Sheffield-based firm A4e is bidding for a whole raft of
multi-million pound contracts under New Labour’s misnamed welfare reform
programme. And they find Blunkett’s services well worth purchasing.
Socialist Appeal interviewed Keith Gibson, spokesperson for the Lindsey
strike committee:
“I believe the result in Lindsey was an
excellent victory for the workers. It truly inspired me. The solidarity of the
lads around the country in particular was tremendous. It was spontaneous. The
lads were looking for a lead, especially as they were fed up at seeing
employers with their own workforce for years coming in and under-cutting the
national agreements."
Socialist Appeal interviews John
McKewan, victimised worker from Lindsey Total Oil Refinery:
"The workers
were prepared to break the law. The national trade union bureaucracy don’t want
a fight on their hands. They are more afraid of losing their salaries and cars.
They do not understand the anger of workers fearful for their jobs and
livelihoods. I asked the coppers what they were doing here. “Shouldn’t you be
in London
arresting bankers and city speculators?” They seemed to agree. We told them to
move the BNP. If not, then we would move them ourselves, so they obliged."
French students are out of the classroom and back on
the street. On Thursday, 29th January, students and teaching staff
joined in the national strike that had an estimated 2.5 million French workers
marching in the major cities to prove to President Sarkozy that his provocative
remark in the summer of 2007- ‘These days, when there’s a strike in France,
nobody notices,’ was as wrong as it was rash.
A new issue of the Olympic worker is available now. Download as a PDF to print out and distribute.
Socialist Appeal interviewed Phil Willis, an unemployed steel erector and Unite activist involved in the battles at Lindsey refinery and all over the country. He tells us, "
The action at Lindsey
was a complete success and it achieved many other very important objectives.
Firstly it created 102 new jobs for UK workers. It highlighted the plight of
the UK engineering construction industry and brought the issues forward into the
public consciousness and in doing so secures huge public sympathy and support.
It displayed a massive show of strength, volatility and unity from workers,
which both the government and unscrupulous employers believed had long since
ceased to exist."
Socialist
Appeal interviewed Antonio Recano, an engineering shop
steward, who works
in the
construction and maintenance of industrial plants, and works for one of the
companies operating within the Syracuse oil refinery. He sends a message. "
To the British workers
who, not because of any xenophobic or protectionist logic, continue their
battle in the whole country for wages and jobs, I wish to express my full
solidarity and explain that I agree with the aims that flow from our common condition.
I salute them, bringing greetings from all the Italian workers who are
presently struggling like them for jobs and wages."
In these recessionary times the fear of a
future with no income amongst redundant workers is persuading some to part with
all their cash in return for future wealth and riches – only to find themselves
bankrupt and maybe homeless. This is a legal form of
ripping you off, with the rise of the some of the worst kind of leeches to prey
on the real victims of the economic downturn. This cost me and by wife £50,000, and hundreds
of other hard working people have lost tens of thousands of pounds to this form
of legalised extortion.
Yesterday, some 80 or so construction
workers, many of them unemployed, gathered outside the head office of the TGWU
(Unite) in central London,
demanding action from the union. Many had been refused work at a
Nottinghamshire power station. The crowd was later addressed by Tony Woodley,
the joint general secretary of Unite, who recognised the just cause of those
demonstrating. “Casualisation is the curse of the construction industry as it
has been on the docks and elsewhere”, he said.