Occupying my time...

OK, so, clarification time. I didn't want to give the impression that I was against the #Occupy movement, or even thought it was just the usual suspects: my point is that our obligation, and even my own inclination, is to raise the issue of challenging for political power; and that unless the movement spreads into something that reaches into every street, then it will be smothered -- one way or another.

Let's put it this way, the image of Tahrir Square, and the Arab spring on which it is modelled were very dramatic. But the substance of the Arab spring happened the other week, with the election of the new government, the final grasping of the levers of political power by the new Ennahda Government in Tunisia (and the same old military in Egypt).

The old Trotskyist image of the steam and piston comes to mind: the popular protests were the steam on which the piston of the Islamist/Military parties came to power. Doubtless that image is still motivating Trotskyists here.

What I hope for, though is that we all become not steam, but small cogs, wielding a share in a precision mechanism in which we all can fine tune and control (and which we can brake by our refusal). Note how quietly the elections have gone, but how oh so determining they were in the future direction. The devil is in the detail.

Of course, in Oakland the protest has spread and taken the form of a "General Strike" -- lets hope our can do the same come N30; but I'm going to keep banging the tedious drum for the necessity for political action.

FBU Picket run down by manager

hat tip Ian Bone

Mick Shaw, president of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), described the accident. He said: "A fire engine returned from an incident and drove into the fire station, its crew refusing to wind down their windows and talk to the pickets.

"It was followed by a car driven by the officers, and as the pickets tried to talk to the driver of the car, it accelerated suddenly and one of the striking firefighters was thrown up and into the windscreen.

(Croydon Guardian

The driver of the car has been arrested.

Update: More at Scrocialist untie

In my judgement

A lot of confusion appears to have grown up around the BA/Unite injunction. A few things need to be made clear.

First, as to spoilt papers, section 231 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1992 says

"As soon as is reasonably practicable after the holding of the ballot, the trade union shall take such steps as are reasonably necessary to ensure that all persons entitled to vote in the ballot are informed of the number of (a) votes cast in the ballot; (b) individuals answering yes to the question, or as the case may be, to each question; (c) individuals answering no to the question or as the case may be, to each question; and (d) spoiled voting papers."

So, the law is the Union *must* provide a result including the numbers of spoilt ballots. Unite, though, maintain they did take the reasonable necessary steps to give the statutory results. What was argued in court, as can be seen from the Judgement, was whether the steps taken were in fact those "reasonably necessary" or whether they were insufficient.

Indeed, what we are up against, then, is not necessarily a failure to comply with the act, but the British common law system, wherein the courts get to interpret the meaning of such bits of law as 'reasonably' - many laws operate on a basis of trying your level best to comply, and hoping not to reach a court case which will confirm one way or another the legal practice (a lot of copyright work is like that).

Anyway, this is the most important point. The judge wasn't even making a ruling on whether the union's actions were legal, merely whether there was likely to be a case to answer

In the end I consider the arguments as to whether the statute has been complied with give rise to properly arguable issues for trial. The matter is not so clear as Mr Hendy would in my view have it. I certainly cannot hold that the union's likelihood of success is overwhelming. I have regard to my assessment of the likelihood of success at trial, and at present I am inclined to think that the union may well have failed to put in place an adequately analysed system calculated to ensure that all reasonable steps were taken to communicate with relevant members as soon as reasonably practicable the relevant items of statutory information. The point to my mind is an arguable one.

That's it, it's not a ruling, it's just an injunction based on the likelihood that BA *might* win the court case and so be subject to severe unjust detriment were the injunction not to be granted.

So, the law puts the test of reasonableness into the hands of the judges. But look at it this way - imagine if a journalist had to notify anyone likely to be identifiable in their copy at least a week in advance of publication, and had to show them that article in final draft and in full. Imagine if they could get an injunction based on the likelihood that there was any inaccuracy (including placing of commas or semi-colons) or if they felt that that they had not been properly informed of the process. We'd say clearly that was an inhibition on freedom of speech, and so this is on the freedom to strike.

Vote early

Well, this morning I voted. I voted in the Kentish Town "Arizona by-election" - caused by the Lib-Dem councillor who thought he could represent an inner London ward from Arizona (he went there to get a Phd.).

Given the unrelenting lies of the Lib-Dems - including the dodgiest of bar charts (not to scale, using the last election but one, putting a text box over the bars to disguise where the zero line was, etc. - all to try and make their real challengers in the ward, the Greens, seem less of a threat) - I was sorely tempted to vote to try and get them out.

In the end, though, Party discipline prevailed, and I spoilt my ballot by writing "World Socialism: SPGB" across my ballot paper.

My way of explaining this strategy, this days, is by likening it to strike action. By consciously applying a political picket line, which says: "We are not going to express priorities and preferences, unless and until this great issue of class is sorted out." They need our votes, our input.

Sometimes it might hurts us a little, as all strike action does, but the final goal is clear.

Striking works

See, told you so!.

Let's hope that the kids in Scotland get the same result.[*]

We have an obligation to each other to push wages up, and to exhert our strength where we can.

A victory for one is a victory for all.

[*] Note the appalling BBC photo of some bins bags on a street, as if this is the winter of discontent again, FFS, it's only a 1 day stoppage. Right into the employers myth of chaos and inconvenience.

New Tories, new nickname...

From the Beeb.

Conservative leader David Cameron warned the government it was going to have to be "extremely tough" on unions to avert a wave of strikes.

He said Labour was "so reliant" on unions for funding they felt they had a "stranglehold" over the party and could "dictate terms".

And he backed tough action on strikes as they "rarely achieve their goal", he said.

Ah, so that's it, then. Wavey Davey* Cameron wants to stop us striking, for our own good. Don't you see, striking doesn't work, you're just hurting yourself and others (never mind that when we in Higher Ed. struck for higher London weighting, we won the principle that it too goes up with inflation annually - albeit we didn't get the maximum demand of £4K).

Of course, I've said it before, we only strike when we're losing, usually, it's no coincidence that strikes only happen when the employers aren't just backing down and paying out to avoid trouble - the best strikes never happen.

As it is, price are going beserk (note, this is not necessarily inflation, the media confuse this fact, prices rises due to real demand increases or natural rises in the cost of producing a good are not inflation, inflation is a monetary phenomena when money falls in real and thus relative value). The price of our labour should rise to cover that cost, else we're giving money to the capitalists. It's as simple as that.

The principle is clear, if you went into a shop and said "Can I have that oil please, I need it to make my car go" they'd ask for the folding stuff - no amount of pleading how necessary your job is, how that vehicle is needed for some essential public service, would shift the hardware store to give up their goods for free.

So long as the market system exists, we need to play by its rules - even if sometimes the rules of the system Wavey Davey supports leads to outcomes he doesn't like. Watch out for him and Wavey Davey Davis (if, chortle, he gets re-elected) and their cuddley libertarian Tories engaging in massive state intervention in the Labour market.

*As Reeves and Mortimer revealed to us in the early nineties, Wavey Davey is the devil.

Everybody out...

OK, UNISON's industrial action committee has backed a ballot of local government staff over strike action against the government imposed paycuts (news via Marsha Jane).

Obviously, this, after the POA strike, is clearly a strike that effects everyone - not just public sector workers, but all workers because of the massive effect that government spending has on the jobs market.

It seems clear, that paycuts are not acceptable without some sort of fight, ever - we need desperately to make that clear to the government and all employers - not a penny from the pay.

That the PCS are looking to ballot for the same day is good news, and as Marsha and others are saying, if the teachers could be brought out, we'd be close to a general strike magnitude event.

Say it loud, say it proud...

Victory to the RMT!

So, the maintenance crews for the former Metronet (the failed PPP company) are striking to get guarantees over pension and job security rights (see press release here). Strategically, this is directly in their members' interests.

Politically, it is in all our inetrests - the whole point of PFI is to fragment workers and evade national bargaining frameworks. If the message gets out that there isn't a simple, cheap transition method of taking over contracts without workers causing mayhem and all sorts of trouble, this will make investors think twice before joining in.

Also, we need to fight the idea that there can be any diminution of workers' standards as a result of the largely fictitious front PPP companies going arse voer tit.

So, when friends, colleagues and strangers on the street start complaining about the strike, explain, it benefits us all.

Screwed

A surprise strike by prison officers says The Guardian.

This is thoroughly illegal - whereas prison officers (workers in uniform, natch) have in the past organised sick outs, this is direct industrial action (and will probably see their Association hammered, pass the hat, comrades). Things must be sharp for prison officers to start considering a strike.

Although they'd been balloted, it looks like they didn't give proper notice of the strike.

This looks like the first strike against the paycut by inflation the government is trying to inflict.

Deutsche Zugarbeiter sollen streiken

First with the news as usual, much like here, it seems workers in Germany are getting a pay squeeze, and are doing something about it - read about today's train strike in Der Spiegel:

Rail unions Transnet and GDBA are calling for a 7 percent salary rise for about 134,000 employees. Deutsche Bahn has until now only offered two increases of 2 percent each, arguing that an excessive wage increase could put up to 9,000 jobs at risk. The strikes came after weekend talks between Deutsche Bahn and the two unions broke down.

I know whe we'rer striking we aren't winning, but solidarity demands some awareness: viel Gluck Gnossen!

Old dog, old tricks

Apparently the US government is considering using troops to break a strike in a tyre factory, according to the Financial Times - because the tyres concerned are needed for military vehicles.

Nothing really changes. The Taft hartley Act is similar to laws we have here, only on steroids, giving the executive wide ranging powers to break strikes that harm the national interest.

Couple this with reports that the US is considering increasing the size of its armed forces and you can picture that pretty much any industry could be deemed to be afecting the military struggle and the national interest.

This, then, is apparently freedom, the freedom that soldiers are allegedly dying for in Iraq and Afghanistan - the freedom to work when the boss tells you, for pay your boss determines.