Toff



Heres an early picture of David Cameron trying to be working class.

What can you say. This government gets more like a fascist dictatorship by the day and still we stand back and do nothing. There are sparks on strike up and down the country as the employers are set to smash their terms and conditions and reduce their pay by 35%, the petrol tanker drivers of Jet are also set to strike yet we hear little or nothing about them, I wonder why that is. These corrupt bastard politicians are determined to crush the working classes, not only are they intent taking away peoples benefit, they are now expecting people to work for nothing at places such as Poundland and Tesco's (they have the cheek to call it workfare) work unfair. As if the rich bastards don't make enough profits!!

Here's something equally ridiculous, an internal e mail from a government department;

" Living Streets (the charity that campaigns for pedestrians and better local environments) have kindly agreed to visit and give us a talk about what they do, explain the individual and organisational benefits of walking to work, and show us some of the tools we can use to help us walk more in our everyday lives.  For those who are interested, they have also agreed to hold a number of one-to-one "Walk Doctor" sessions for staff (places will be limited).   This is a good opportunity to learn more about the benefits of walking, and some tips and tricks for doing it more, just in time for StepChange." 

Civil servants need to be told how to walk! Next week they are having a seminar on how to breath. Yet again we see government not only wasting money but also giving civil service employees time off to go to this crap. Its a joke!

  

City of London Corporation cleaners say: Occupy Guildhall!

Cleaners are staging a sit in at the Corporation of London’s Guildhall in protest at the inadequate response of their employer, the contractor Sodexo over the abusive treatment of women employees.

Friday 23rd December, 6am onwards
The Guildhall, London, EC2V 7HH

Cleaners staging sit in at Corporation of London’s Guildhall over abuse of women!

The cleaners who are organised by the independent workers union, the Industrial Workers of the World say their action comes after a growing frustration with Sodexo (and their predecessor Ocean) following persistent complaints regarding the conduct of certain members of the management team at Guildhall. Repeatedly complaints have been raised with respect to varying degrees of the mistreatment especially women, including extreme acts such as bullying, confinement of individuals, intimidation and assault.

The cleaners say the last straw was an incident involving a manager and one of the union representatives on Monday 21 November. The rep Isabel Martin was followed to a room in the basement of Guildhall, where she was blocked from leaving with the door closed, then it is alleged a male supervisor subjected her to an outburst of aggression and intimidating behaviour, the terrified women felt was under threat of real physical violence.

The IWW London Regional Secretary Chris Ford states that ‘the union has raised concerns and complaints of the treatment of employees on enough previous occasions with the employers to warrant sufficient preventative measures to safeguard the safety employees and to ensure no further mistreatment may occur. In the summer a mass meeting of cleaners had called for the removal of those managers responsible for ill-treatment of workers.’ The last incident the IWW insists could have been avoided if the concerns of workers were respected and acted upon beforehand. One cleaner stated: ‘These big companies need to put the safety of the workers before the reputation of the City of London Corporation’.

The union feels Sodexo have dragged their feet over this incident – they raised a complaint in letters of 22/11/2011 and 29/11/2011 but it took twenty days before the women worker was formally interviewed. Her complaint of such a serious matter has been treated as a mere grievance.

For the last two days a number of workers have refused to undertake their cleaning duties and are staging a sit in at the reception of the Guildhall. They are demanding robust action that can protect women workers from such ill-treatment occurring again.This is an ongoing campaign and the cleaners would appreciate any support.

Sack Prentis and Barber

Pensions: Will Prentis try and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

Leicester Solidarity Group on the rumours that Unison general secretary Dave Prentis is set to agree a backroom deal to cut local government and NHS workers' pensions.

While Brendan Barber openly pimps the government's latest pensions "offer" (which in reality offers sweet FA) and is busy urging all public sector unions to kiss Francis Maude's posterior, Unison's Dave Prentis also seems keen to let his backbone slip, and the word on the street is, he's been arguing for total surrender with other union bureaucrats. We're not in the least bit surprised, given that Prentis and the Unison leadership only backed N30 on account of rank and file pressure. Still, Dave tells us it ain't so and in today's Unison eFocus says:

"I realise that rumours have been circulating and I wanted to reassure you that no decisions have been taken over the details surrounding contribution increases or the future look of the LGPS.

"However, I believe that - if agreed - the principles under discussion will provide a very positive framework for negotiations and potentially could lead to no change until 2014."

If you notice just how positive he is, then you don't need to read between the lines to see that Prentis is itching to sell out his members.

Rank and file pressure forced him to back us and rank and file pressure can force him to hold firm. But if that fails, the electricians are already showing us how it's done without the help of union bureaucrats.

Meanwhile, there's an online petition against secret deals by union leaders here.Sac

Never trust a politician

Lord hahah Hutton has just said that the changes to public sector workers should be speeded up to avert the country slipping further into economic decline. What a joke not only have public sector workers been told they will not get a rise for another 2 years they are also being told that out of their meagre wages they should contribute more towards their pension. Some of us haven't had a pay rise in 6 years. What aren't saying is that the extra contributions aren't going into the pension fund but are going to the treasury. They are also relying on people staying in the pension fund but quite the opposite is true. People will leave in their droves. What they also are conveniently forgetting is that MPs all of whom are parasitic and many of whom are millionaires are on final salary pensions. In the year 2008 MPs had a hole in their pensions of £40,000,000 and were then bailed out by the treasury. They have also been told their pensions will be changed in line with the public sector and the backbenchers have rebelled. So its all right for the workers to suffer but MPs mustn't. Hang the lot of them. Get the money back of the bankers and the rich not the working classes.

When will people stop treating soldiers as heroes!!! No one told them to join the army, no one told them to go and fight on foreign shores!! They volunteered, they thought it would exciting. Getting shot for areshole politicians to flex their muscles is a waste. It's also been reported that american soldiers a have come under fire from across the boarder in  Pakistan, what do they expect its a war. Its about time we our priorities right, what about people who are killed doing their daily work (construction etc) are they heroes?They should be  applauded, but they are forgotten. Society is crap, stop wars and take the toys from the boys!

Symbolic protest or strike to fight

Wednesday November 30th heralds the most widespread strike action for many years in the UK. With 24 public sector unions all striking on the same day, it is very welcome to see unions taking concerted action in this way.

However, it's worth remembering that it will require much more than one day strikes to be sure of a real victory and the 30th's action will definitely need to be built on. But whether the trade unions are capable of doing this, especially given the weak, legalistic tactics that trade unions are entrenched in remains to be seen.

But aren't the unions tactics already having an effect?

True there has been some movement from the government and employers in response to positive strike ballots but this is just conciliatory noises, a ploy to make the unions look inflexible while obscuring the fact that the government and employers are actually offering us nothing. The unions long ago surrendered to anti union legislation and other oppressive employment laws and have got used to doing everything 'through the proper legal channels' and they are now virtually incapable of fighting to win.

But we can't do everything by the book because it's not our book;
these laws were enacted to specifically hamstring effective industrial action.

If we want to be sure of a real victory, then we'll need to:

• Intensify strike action in spite of the anti-trade union laws and the reluctance of union high-ups to engage in action beyond anything purely symbolic.
• Spread the dispute- it's essential that we take our struggle beyond the single issue of pensions. The way the unions have mobilised makes it seem as though it is indeed our pensions that are the central concern. This is far from the truth. The point is to show that workers reject the idea that we all have to make 'sacrificies' and to do so in solidarity with the whole  working class, including unwaged people and service users. Instead, the way the unions have mobilised makes it seem as though it is indeed public sector pensions that are the central issue. We cannot unite with the rest of the working class on the basis of a one day strike over public sector pensions.
• Unite with other workers - that means broadening our aims to include private sector workers over a range of issues other than pensions.
• Go wildcat - in recent years, a number of disputes have by-passed trade union bureaucrats and we have seen a rise in forms of direct action that defy the unions reluctance to break the law. From wildcat strikes to workplace occupations, from blockades to technically unlawful secondary action, we have seen workers refusal to submit being expressed in ways that the state and the employers have not been able to stifle.
• Establish local strike committees between workers form different unions and workplaces - controlled from below rather than trade union bureaucrats above.

What we as anarchists are talking about is not only winning this particular dispute but also building an effective, militant and autonomous workers movement that will set us up for future battles and future victories.

Meanwhile the best way to guarantee any degree of success over pensions, privatisation, attacks on services, attacks on any section of the working class, is to make this strike as strong and effective as we can, to widen the issues and spread the dispute to other sectors.

So lets get to it and fight to win!!!!

To be governed

To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated, regimented, closed in, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, evaluated, censored, commanded; all by creatures that have neither the right, nor wisdom nor virtue........ To be governed means that at every move, operation, operation or transaction one is noted, registered, entered in a census, taxed, stamped, priced, assessed, patented, licenced, authorised, recommended, admonished, prevented, reformed, set right, corrected. Government means to be subjected tribute, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolised, extorted, pressured, mystified, robbed all in the name of public utility and the general good. Then at the first sign of resistance or word of complaint, one is repressed, fined,despised, vexed, pursued, hastled, beaten up, garroted, imprisoned, shot, machine gunned, judged, sentenced, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and to cap it all ridiculed, mocked. outraged and dishonoured. That is government, that's it justice and its morality.
These words were written by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1853 over 150 years ago yet all the above is still relevant and we are still allowing it happen in the mis-lead belief in western democracy. Think again and RISE UP!!!!