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In
the
afternoon of Wednesday, January 29 (Venezuelan time), two workers
were killed by police in the state of Anzoategui, Venezuela. The
workers killed are Pedro Suarez from the Mitsubishi factory and José
Marcano from nearby auto parts factory Macusa. They were killed when
regional police of Anzoategui was attempting evict hundreds of workers
who had been occupying the Mitsubitshi (MMC) factory.
The newest University in London, London Metropolitan, is in trouble. Earlier
this week, a crowd of over 100 disgruntled teachers, students and staff
gathered outside the Holloway campus to protest against cuts of up to 500 jobs.
It seems the cuts are the result of bad book keeping by management that led to
years of over-reporting of student completion rates to the Met’s funding body
HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England). Now HEFCE is demanding a
repayment of £38 billion and, as usual, the tops intend to produce the bulk of
it in the form of staff cuts.
The
European Union set up an Emissions Trading Scheme as a market solution to deal
with pollution. Pollution is of course, overwhelmingly generated by big
business (‘market’) activities. Now the scheme has turned around to bite them.As a result
of the crisis, polluting companies have found themselves strapped for cash. So
they’ve cashed in their carbon credits for short term readies.
‘Shock therapy’, or rapid mass
privatisation, in the former Soviet bloc 1990s was responsible for the early
deaths of 1m people. This is the principal conclusion of a paper published in the
medical journal ‘The Lancet’ (15.01.09). Not
only did privatisation devastate the economy and the means of feeding, clothing
and housing their people; it also shredded the social welfare system and all
the social support mechanisms built up over decades. As a result unemployed, desperate
people with no hope just went to pieces.
On December 5, 2008 over 200
recently-fired workers at the Republic Window and Doors factory in Chicago occupied
their plant, demanding that they be paid their vacation and severance checks.
The occupation ended victoriously six days later when the Bank of America and
other lenders to Republic agreed to pay the workers the approximately $2
million owed to them.But the workers didn’t stop there. They are now
seeking ways to restart the factory and potentially operate it as a worker-run
cooperative.
n light of the recent Israeli attacks on Gaza, people in Britain and around the world have come out to demonstrate and show their disgust at the imperialist attacks of the Israeli state and its funding and support from both the UK and the USA. On the 10th of January supporters of Socialist Appeal attended the Palestinian Solidarity demonstration in Edinburgh.
Around 300
people gathered in the centre of Cambridge last
Saturday in the biggest demonstration yet since Israel
began its assault on Gaza
a few weeks ago. A noisy rally was held in front of the Guildhall before a short
march through the town centre as shoppers were treated to the loud rallying cry,
‘Free, free Palestine, occupation is a crime!’
Stock exchanges in Britain and the USA have
been on the slide over the past few days. The reason is not hard to seek. The
FTSE has been spooked by bank shares collapsing. Barclays, for instance, saw
25% of its share price shaved off in one hour last Friday (16.01.09).
This was the day after the bank announced 2,100 job losses.It’s starting to look like the time back in
October when it seemed that banks such as Barclays and the Bank of Scotland
(now HBOS) that had been in existence for hundreds of years would be destroyed
by a share collapse in a matter of hours.
The
events of the past year or so, financial meltdown, political instability,
uncertainty over jobs and the threat that many workers could lose their homes
represents a huge shift in society, both internationally and especially in
Britain where the effects of the “credit crunch” have been particularly acute.
In the context of such a deep crisis the halcyon days of the “feel good factor”
and the “15 years of unbroken economic growth”, seem like ancient history.
Whose fault is it that nearly 30,000 workers have lost their jobs
with the closure of all the Woolworths stores? Not the workers, that’s for
sure. We are due to see an avalanche of job losses after Christmas. Unemployment
is nearly 2 million already, and due to hit 3 million in 12 months’ time. None
of these workers deserve to lose their jobs. They are the victims of a
capitalist system that is just not working. How can we make things better? If
we fight for work or full pay, the bosses would soon find them something to do.
In 1848 The Communist Manifesto opened with the line, "A spectre is
haunting Europe – the spectre of communism. " The spectre of Marx haunts
world capitalism still.The years of steadily rising living standards, of relatively full employment
have gone, never to return. This year, and for years to come, workers look with
trepidation at their future. Will they have a job? Will they still have a roof
over their heads?
The government has thrown its weight behind the
Hooper Report and decided to sell 30% of its stake in Royal Mail.
The background to all this is that Royal
Mail has been making shed loads of profit for us as a publicly owned company
for years. The trouble was that the Treasury has been using the Post office as
a milch cow all that time, siphoning off all the money. Then the government
complains that the firm hasn’t invested. No wonder!