Lal Khan was speaking
in Birmingham on June 1 at a meeting organised
by the local PTUDC, where he outlined the developing crisis in Pakistan and
highlighted the need for socialism as the only answer to the problems of the
workers and peasants.
In the first part of this article on the poverty of life in Britain
we looked at the experience of working people in the workplace. In this
section our focus is on what is called the social wage. This is the
social provision of goods and services that working people cannot,
unlike the rich, provide for themselves individually. It includes such
things as health services, education, pensions, support if you become
unemployed, and local services such as swimming pools or meals on
wheels for the elderly.
Yesterday the GMB announced that their Local Government
members had voted 4:1 against strike action in the wake of management’s offer
of 2.45% with strings. The result is significant for a number of reasons, not
least that UNISON members have just commenced voting in a similar ballot that
began on June 2nd and finishes on June 20th.
Speaking to a gathering of
national leaders of the PSUV on May 30, President Chavez explained that he was
reading a book by Alan Woods, Bolshevism – the road to revolution, and
raised a copy for everyone to see. He referred to Alan as a friend and a
British Marxist theoretician. He then quoted a couple of passages from the book
on the role of the revolutionary party.
Over seventy people
gathered on Wednesday, May 21, at London’s
Bolivar Hall for the opening of the film season Venezuela: a revolution in film, which is organised
by Hands off Venezuela in association
with the Venezuelan embassy in the UK. (Also in Spanish).
The recent ballot by members of the Police Federation who
voted overwhelmingly to press for full industrial rights including, ultimately,
the right to strike is evidence of the understandable anger and disillusionment
currently felt by rank and file police officers at the derisory pay increase
they have been offered, at a time when the price of many of life’s essentials
is rising so sharply.
Headlines such as ‘Agency and temporary workers win rights
deal’ have publicised the agreement brokered by the government between the TUC
and the CBI. Though agency workers and temps have made some gains, the battle
for equal treatment is far from over. There are 1.4 million agency workers in
Britain. They have been getting a raw deal. They have no job security, no
holiday entitlement, no right to sick pay, no right to maternity provision and
no right to overtime rates.
Boris Johnson, new Mayor of London, has started as he
intended to go on. He introduced an alcohol ban on London Underground without
any preparation and without putting staff in place to enforce the ban.
Inevitably the ban was challenged last Saturday night. Tube staff were left on
their own to deal with drunken revellers in addition to running a transport
system, as they had warned in advance. They were left at the sharp end of
Johnson’s self-publicising antics.
The government claims inflation is ‘under 3%’ but, according to The Independent of Saturday 17th of May, food prices have gone up by 6.6 % but that basic food items have gone up by 20% in the twelve months to May 2008! Sainsbury’s profits are up 28% to £488million.Tesco profits are up 11.8 % to £2.8 billion and Premier Foods up by 216% to £280 million. British Gas prices are set to rise by 40% this year when profits have risen by 501% to £570 million. The article says that “the food business insist they are struggling to keep costs […]
The water companies were privatised by the Tories to harness
‘the dynamism of private enterprise’ to the water industry. Most people at the
time didn’t realise there was a problem with the water supply. They could turn
a tap on any time and water rates were low. There’s a problem now – the problem
is private ownership.
Bradford and Bingley are the latest bank to catch a cold in
the present financial crisis. They’ve declared a loss of £8m for the first four
months of 2008. This compares with £108m profits they made in the same period
last year. The main reason for the losses is because they’ve had to
write down £89m of their assets. ‘Write down’ is banker-speak for the fact that
they realise they can whistle for their money.
