By Andrew McPake, additional writing by me, blogging fae Athens on today’s demonstrations protesting the Greek parliament’s vote to bring in destructive “austerity measures” in the wake of Greece’s near-financial collapse.
PAME demonstration of around 10,000 in central Athens
Athens is a city that is acquiring a reputation for itself. When a taxi driver asked where we were headed with our suitcases, our response prompted him to ask “Athens? Will you no get caught up in they riots out there?”. It would seem that the combination of constant reporting of Greece as overtaken by bomb-strewn madness and the main Scottish reference point when it comes to riots – the Poll Tax Riots – has given people a distorted view of what’s really going on here. The fact is, the IMF are being sold Greece under the table by the ‘Socialist’ government (Read: Greek version of the Labour Party), and their conditions for giving Greece money to bail out its failed banks is that the Greek government goes about systematically destroying any vestiges of a welfare state. It’s understandable why the people are angry. But they are expressing it in a way that is altogether more concise and class conscious than any pictures of anarchists throwing Molotov cocktails at riot police while stray dogs look on cooly can convey.
What we attended today was not a Poll Tax riot. No banks were burnt down, no statues were defaced. What we attended was an eye opening experience that allowed us to see two things:
The diversity and competence of the Left in Greece
The sheer extent of the unbalanced and jaundiced way in which the international press have reported this situation.
Yesterday there were general strikes in Greece and the Basque Country. Last week workers in France and Italy walked out as well. Across Europe the working class is waking up to the threat posed by the attacks of European governments, but in the UK the response has still been quite muted.
SSY has been involved in building opposition to the ConDem cuts over recent weeks, with our members taking part in last Saturday’s street rally against the “emergency” budget for instance. But it’s clear that if we really want to stop the neoliberal assault on our rights, we need to learn a thing or two from our friends in Europe.
Now, America doesn’t do trade unions a whole lot. Despite a militant and often bloody labour tradition stretching back 200 years, trade union membership in the United States is now under 15% of the total workforce, and militancy in the workplace is rare. However, when it does do unions, it manages to get them SO FUCKING RIGHT.
Covering a Lady GaGa song perhaps isn’t the most original idea in the world. It’s been done by everyone from American GIs in Afghanistan to erm, some topless guy jumping about his room on chatroulette. But how about charging into the hotel you work in, THEN performing the song with rewritten lyrics that highlight the poor pay and conditions being served to you by your employer? SSY thinks the labour movement in the UK could learn much from our forward-thinking American friends. No doubt the BA dispute would have been solved months ago, if only Unite union leaders Derek Simpson and Len McLuskey had taken it upon themselves to star in a reworked version of Busted’s ‘Air Hostess’. And indeed, we’re sure that the posties would have their battle ages ago if CWU leader Billy Hayes had thought about doing a hilarious youtube spoof of the Postman Pat theme song. Until then, we’ll just have to make do with watching the awe-inspiring attempts of our comrades across the Atlantic. Workers’ rights are hot!
UPDATE: in the interests of balance, here’s a nice bit of union-busting from Wal-Mart:
Deputy First Minister had her day campaigning on the streets ruined yesterday by an angry bin man. He hijacked her to demand to know why the SNP government wasn’t doing anything to support bin men facing brutal attacks from the SNP/Liberal coalition that runs Edinburgh City Council.
The bin man, Charlie Docherty, did a pretty good job of explaining what the dispute is all about, with his wages facing a big cut while managers have given themselves pay rises. The council has been been trying to crush the bin men for months, spending millions on private contractors that pick up the rubbish bin men refuse to pick up on public holidays as part of a work to rule.
Sturgeon’s response is to parrot the SNP’s stated policy of freezing pay for those at the top end of the scale to ensure low paid workers don’t face wage cuts. The only problem with this is it isn’t a policy the SNP has applied where it’s in power in Edinburgh. She also keeps saying that it’s up to the council to resolve the dispute (the council your party runs!), and that she doesn’t know the details of the dispute. Charlie’s response is classic: “Are youse the government of Scotland? You need to find out about what’s going on in your own country, eh?”
You can watch a video of the incident on the BBC site here. Leftfield applauds Charlie for taking a stand and calling the SNP out on their supposedly anti-cuts agenda. We hope that the SNP face more attacks over their record on the bin men, until things escalate to this level:
In yet another example of rich people thinking that what is best for their wallet is best for everyone, British Airways boss Willie Walsh has today criticised the government for daring to cost his airline some money by not letting him fly through VOLCANIC FUCKING ASH. Members of the International Airline Association, i.e. a lot of very rich men who are out to get absolutely every penny of your money while you are hurtling through the air in a metal box and are completely reliant on them for your safety, condemned European governments across the board for not letting them fly when it’s not actually safe to do so. This quote from BBC news says it all:
BA chief executive Willie Walsh – who flew aboard a BA 747 on a test flight through parts of the restricted zone on Sunday – said the airline deemed the risk to be “minimal”.
He is the latest airline boss to speak out against the flight bans imposed across Europe.
Mr Walsh is demanding the authorities lift the flight ban and allow the airlines themselves to judge when it’s safe to fly.
So some planes have flown through some parts of the air that might be near some volcanic ash, and didn’t crash. That’s great for the poor pilots who were told to fly them, but that doesn’t actually prove anything, Willie. Let’s not forget Willie is a union-busting, money-grabbing arsehole who’s been in the news recently condemning trade unions for daring to function within normal practices.
Who would you trust to be the judge of whether it’s safe or not for you to fly through volcanic ash, which has caused engines to switch off mid-flight in similar situations before – a government meteorologist, or a desperate airline owner who’s losing £20 million a day? Of COURSE the airline owners should not be allowed to judge whether it’s safe to fly or not! That is MADNESS!!!!!!! They are unscrupulous bastards who don’t care if you die, so long as you buy 200 fags off their underpaid air stewards before you burst into flames. Don’t listen to what idiots like Willie Walsh have to say – if you need to fly, wait until people who actually know what they’re talking about tell you it’s safe to do so.
Here is a list of ways in which volcanic ash is most definitely dangerous to aeroplanes. Anyone saying that it’s not dangerous, well they’re probably about as intelligent as Richard Littlejohn.
Bob Crow's massive secret volcano fortress. Where he keeps his magical TUSCs.
Travel chaos struck the UK as a Militant left-wing volcano took an illegal solidarity eruption with striking BA workers. This act of disruption has come shortly after Iceland rejected banker’s takeover of their economy and a large vote for the left-greens. Unite Union Baron Charlie Whelan told SSY today -- “All of Thatcher’s anti-trade union laws have been swept away by the massive power of socialist Volcanic activity”. Other Unite activists told us that various laws affecting secondary picketing had been spiked by their Unite’s Emperor Ming like ability to control the planet’s very inner workings. Gordon Brown has been unavailable for comment, suggesting that he is in ad hoc to the magma lobby. Tories have said “How is Britain meant to keep up with these volcanoes erupting every other week? It’s time to limit the number of single mum volcanoes allowed in this country.” Bob Crow has already established a Blofeld style base inside the volcano, and unconfirmed reports suggest he is plotting to blast Edinburgh’s previously inactive volcanoes into mass destruction to support the SSP’s election campaign.
Unite Union secretary Len McCluskey strikes chaos from his office.
Angry Scots are tired and emotional at volcanic-socialist eruption disruption.
Earlier today over 200 staff and students at Glasgow University rallied against the ongoing ‘restructuring’ process and the cuts which, despite initial denials from management, are eventually beginning to come to light. Called by the UCU, the main lecturer’s union on campus, the demo also had a strong turnout from both Unite and Unison, who represent maintenance and admin staff respectively.
The demo came on the same day it was unveiled in the national press that an entire research unit at the university, the Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division (GUARD), a pioneering group which regularly features on programmes like Time Team, is being closed down by senior management who claim it does not generate enough income. This is despite the fact it made £200,000 over the past financial year and is entirely self-funding! GUARD staff this afternoon told Leftfield of their shock and anger at the decision, but assured us that they wouldn’t be going down without a fight (apparently they’ve got whole cupboards stacked full of medieval weaponry and cannons, just sayin’…).
The decision clearly indicates where the priorities of senior management and Principal Anton Muscatelli lie – in the further marketisation of education, where any department ‘not generating enough income’ can be discarded and thrown to the scrap heap, and raises serious questions of where the axe will fall next – if a self-funding department at the forefront of archaeology in the UK can be sacrificed, can anything be considered safe?
Over 100 jobs are now at risk at the university. The UCU have identified 83 across four departments which they believe are at threat, plus the 30 staff employed at GUARD. On top of this, across departments staff are not being replaced when leaving – a sly strategy of ‘natural wastage’ that avoids any confrontation. Last year, the University Health Service was subject to serious downgrading, with the closure of the main medical facility for student accommodation. Earlier this year, the post-graduate student union – the only one of its kind in Scotland – went bankrupt. What this amounts to is a serious attack on education and student services, but from a management cynical and skilled enough to stagger out the cuts – chances are, the major announcements will come at the very end of term, if not during the summer holidays itself.
The student-run Anti-Cuts Action Network was established at the uni last year as a pre-emptive move against the cuts. Management have consistently played a difficult game with us, making false promises and refusing to even reveal the existence of the restructuring process in itself until February of this year. Similarly, the student union bureaucracy have acted shamefully – no official student representation showed up in support of today’s demonstration. This comes despite past assurances from the SRC that they will ‘oppose academic cuts’.
Today’s ACAN speaker received an excellent reception, arguing that if any cuts are necessary at Glasgow Uni, it should be the salaries of senior management. Muscatelli is paid £248,000 and received a pay rise of 8% this year. Meanwhile, staff are being offered below-inflationary increases of 0.5%, effectively mounting to a pay cut, exposing the rank hypocrisy of those pushing through these swathing job cuts.
The UCU have called for an immediate halt to the restructuring process and for a fuller consultation to take place.Unfortunately, any opposition to the plans was needed months ago – when the unions were offering ‘cautious welcomes’ to the plans and refusing to engage with those who predicted the inevitable cuts and job losses that would soon follow. Nevertheless, there is still scope for action to be taken – the uni has warned that compulsory redundancies may be necessary, saying that ‘nothing can be ruled out at this stage’.
The restructuring, which will see the number of faculties cut from 9 down to 4 and departments slashed from 45 to around 20, will be complete by August of this year. It looks likely that the major cuts will not be announced until the break-up for the summer, creating obvious difficulties for resistance from a students.
As struggles like the one at Sussex, which has seen a huge militant anti-cuts campaign of student occupations and resistance alongside UCU strike action (in the face of police brutality and unjustified expulsions), the campaign will require mass participation and solidarity between staff and students. Today was just the beginning!
Where would you say the man in the above clip comes from?
It doesn’t take a dialectologist to correctly guess he probably grew up in the Liverpool area. He’s Len McCluskey, assistant general secretary of the UNITE union, and the union official currently responsible for leading the BA cabin crew strike.
With the Tories desperate to try and make it look as if Labour is being run by the unions ahead of the election, and Labour desperate to try and out-Tory the Tories on looking anti-union, he’s someone who’s become a target for the right wing media. Both major parties care about the core of right wing voters from southern England who put Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair in power, and are keen to shit all over the working class to get their support.
But the Tory smear campaign took a turn for the bizarre this weekend, when Tory Vice Chairman Margot James attacked McCluskey for his “Scots accent”!
“On the airwaves all day yesterday, that familiar Scottish accent that we’ve come to associate with militant trade unionism.”
James is a millionaire former PR guru, and a prospective Tory candidate in the upcoming election. She also clearly has as much experience of talking to working class people from north of the Midlands as a monkey driving a bus.
Thirty thousand civil servants (people who work in places like the Scottish Parliament, job centres, courts and tax offices) are on strike in Scotland today.
The action is being taken by members of the PCS trade union, over changes to redundancy entitlement which mean that if staff lose their job, they could also lose up to a third of what they would’ve previously been paid as compensation. The government is hoping to save £500,000 through this scheme.
What makes this so important at the current time, is that both Labour and the Tories are intent on pushing through massive cuts in the public sector, including job losses - and now they don’t even want workers taking redundancy to even get decent compensation!
Meanwhile at the Student Loans Company – where workers are also represented by the PCS union – management are looking to lay off around around 150 staff in Glasgow – 20% of the total workforce!
Now, if you’re a student, you’re probably already pretty familiar with the SLC – last year, the issuing of loans was left in chaos, with tens of thousands of students starting the year with no money whatsoever. And these are the loans that have to be paid back, with interest, remember – no student grants for us! Predictably enough, it soon emerged that at the same time as students weren’t receiving their loans, senior executives in the SLC were getting massive bonuses – in some cases, up to five figures. And now, the same management have unveiled their plan to slash nearly 200 jobs across the country, which will presumably make the whole loans thing be even more efficient this year than it was last year, while hundreds of workers are thrown onto the scrapheap at the same time. Logic!
Mairi Cranie, an SSY member who works at the SLC in Glasgow, explained: “The Student Loans Company is cutting almost 200 jobs, the majority of which are in Glasgow. Forty-five of these jobs are moving from Hillington to Darlington at no saving to the tax payer. This will impact families across the west of Scotland and the service for both current students and people in the process of repaying their loans.”
You can sign a petition against the cuts at the SLC here: http://www.gopetition.com/online/34078.html The PCS strike continues tomorrow, so get down yr local picket line and offer them some support!
Despite choosing the slightly more family friendly title of “Why must our children pay? Invest in their education” SSY members, particularly those still in high schools support the EIS teaching union’s campaign against cuts. Whilst many other unions have either decided to accommodate to cuts, or fight them solely through industrial action the EIS are opening another front and trying to win over public support. The logic of their argument is clear – cuts in education are due to a financial crisis not of teachers or students making, and will result in poorer education for a generation of young Scots.
Already cuts are taking place in local council education budgets.
* 2,500 fewer teachers in classrooms than 2 years ago
* Teacher support numbers reduced
* Books, paper and photocopying materials etc. reduced
* The decision to cut the number of students to train to become teachers.
In the future this will mean
* Teacher shortages
* Increased class sizes
* Impact on teaching and learning, including the new Curriculum for Excellence
* A cut in equipment (including computers) and materials in schools
* A reduction in specialist provision, e.g. classroom assistants, learning support and music instructors
* Fewer opportunities to access further and higher education
They are also being proposed is the same time that its been revealed that inequality has increased under the Labour government – David Cameron and his Eton pals might have a chance to escape public sector cuts for his kids, but ordinary working people will see less teachers and therefore less attention for their children. In both high schools and further education, there is an attack on funding which will attack jobs and young peoples right to a decent education.
The SSP supports a “20’s plenty” campaign, for a maximum of 20 children to each teacher in class. Following this programme would have kept enough teachers employed to stop any of Labour’s previous cuts of Glasgow’s schools. The SSP was recently involved with the Save Our Schools campaign, which fought hard against these cuts.
Support the campaign against cuts in education, turn up to the rally,
THIS SATURDAY – MARCH THE 6TH
ASSEMBLE KELVINGROVE WAY, KELVINGROVE PARK 10.30AM
Yesterday there were general strikes in Greece and the Basque Country. Last week workers in France and Italy walked out as well. Across Europe the working class is waking up to the threat posed by the attacks of European governments, but in the UK the response has still been quite muted.
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