A ‘Racist’ Strike?
Hundreds walk out of their workplace. On the second day the strike spreads, pulling up to a thousand workers out on secondary action across sites in Northern England and Scotland - much of it illegal under the anti-trade union laws Labour has, to its eternal shame, left on the statute books. In short, an outbreak of the very ’spontaneous’ actions of our class that would normally excite the left in this country. Except there appears, at first glance, a racist fly in the militant soup.
According to the BBC, on Wednesday the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire awarded a portion of a £300 million construction project to an Italian firm, which, according to reports, will be using Italian and Portuguese workers. At a time of rising unemployment, you can understand why the local union, Unite, and many of the workers are angry about this development. Quoted on the BBC, Unite’s Bernard McAuley says “there are men here whose fathers and uncles… built this refinery from scratch. It’s outrageous.”
But, somewhat surprisingly, it is left to the Daily Star(!) to show this dispute is about class, not race. An anonymous scaffolder tells the soaraway Star “we need to make a stand now. This is not a racist protest. I’m happy to work hand-in-hand with foreign workers, but we are not getting a look in. There are guys at this site who had been banking on that work and then it gets handed to an Italian firm. It’s about fairness.” No doubt some of these workers will have attitudes a lot less enlightened than the chap above.
British bosses are past masters at using race, ethnicity and nationality to divide and conquer both at home and abroad in their former colonial possessions. Drafting in migrant labour from overseas is a tried and tested method of undermining the pay and conditions of workers. Turning on the workers who come in to take advantage of employment opportunities opening up plays directly into the bosses’ hands - it obscures the fact it is they who are attacking and driving down wages, and therefore the responsibility lies with them. Unsurprisingly, the mainstream of the labour movement has a less then spotless record when it comes to this. For example, while in the North West the T&G arm of Unite have done some good work amongst Polish workers, trade unions as a whole have done little to combat knee-jerk xenophobia of this type.
When the bosses divide our class along the lines of race and nation, we are weaker. Instead of capitulating to the anti-immigrant sentiment fanned by the gutter press, unions must demand legislation that prevents employers from taking on workers at below the basic rates of its workforce. Unfortunately, as this appears to be beyond the political imagination of many a trade union leader, it falls to the small and scattered forces of the left to make this case at the refinery gates.
This piece also appears at A Very Public Sociologist.
This is a good article Phil. (altough I would argue that Southern Region GMB has a much more effective record of organising migrant workers than T&G/Unite in the North West, and I understand the strategy from Southern Region is now being rolled out to Scottish Region GMB - there are some motions to Congress this year (including one from my branch) arguing for it to be adopted and fully resourced from GMB nationally)
Firstly, the Unite members are correct to argue against foreign workers being brought in at worse terms and conditions, and secondly, the whole issue needs too be regulated by a collective agreement between management and unions, that would protect the interests of both migrant workers and indigenous workers.
The darker side to this is not going away. At our last GMB branch commitee we heard report of a factory where we have negotiated a reduction in bonus to save 50 jobs, and some workers (including sadly former shop stewards) wee arguing against the deal on the basis that they weren’t taking a wage cut to save the jobs of “bloody polaks”. Fortunately the ballot was won two to one, and union mebership has increased as a result. Fortunately this is a factory where we have both Polish and British shop stewards who work well together. But I have to say that our stewards took nasty abuse from some members.
And at last night’s SW NSSN meeting, we heard an RMT delegate from his bus branch in Devon who says that people have raised in the union brnach meetings the idea of getting rid fo the Poles and latvians.
The left won’t get anywhere by simply denouncing workers as racist, when the real underlying factor is bosses trying to divide and rule, and use migrant workrs to push down wages.
I was pleased to see that Jerry Hicks took a very sensibel view on this over the Staythorpe power station dispute http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=3317
The answer is for the TUs to take the issue seriously, recruit migrant workers into the union, and ensure that migrant workers and indigenous workers have the same pay and conditons, so that there is no benefit fro bosses to play people off against each other
Comment by Andy Newman — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:13 am
You are far to kind to the scum who are striking
Theirs is an openly racist call for british jobs for british workers. As internationalists, we should not give a fig if it is so called british or so called foreign workers are in a particlau job. If jobs on offer were given to foreigners, so what? If this action suceeds, its open season for a general pogrom against foreign workers, with employers being put under pressure to sack foreign workers in favour of british ones. This is where this road leads
It is our generations Imperical Typewriters strike
I think the first action is to expel any shop stewards involved here forthwith, and for the union leaders to condemn this strike
Secondly, its solidarity action with the foreign workers, making it clear they are welcome here
Thirdly, confronting the racists on the picket line, just as we would a BNP mobilisation
As side line to this issue - election result from last night
Newcastle upon Tyne MBC, Fenham.
L D. 1049
Lab. 1025
BNP. 836
Con. 186
BNP poll 27% in a ward in Newcastle, which they polled only 9% in in May 2008
Comment by JimPage — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:21 am
I just spoke to a national GMB official and he was saying that a number of agencies involved in the sector are point blank refusing to hire UK workers in a deliberate attempt to smash union organisation and drive down wages.
In this situation calling on the unions to demand government legislation is utterly futile, the jobs will be long gone before they even get to see a government minister.
The workers and unions are taking action to prevent the total destruction of union organisation in the industry.
Comment by Eddie Truman — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:25 am
Good point Eddie.
The argument for legislation is not a bad one, but it would be shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Our union branch has considerable experience with organising migrant workers, and a balance needs to be struck that we completely welcome migrants, but we do not welcome employers undermining pay and conditions.
Comment by Andy Newman — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:33 am
“You are far to kind to the scum who are striking”
Way to reach out to striking workers, Jim.
Look, there will be times when we have to isolate and condemn strikes. But this isn’t one of them.
The issue for the left is to emphasise and support those strikers who are clear that this is about class not nationality.
This is the sharp end of the labour movement. No use ducking it on the grounds that it has not very good implications.
By taking the tone you’ve taken, you have completely removed yourself from any position of influence over the workers. Worse, you will drive them to the right.
Comment by external bulletin — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:33 am
Let’s keep a sense of proportion, Jim. A strike is not a pogrom. It’s Total who have taken this decision, trying to set one group of workers against another - and it’s Total who are suffering from the strike action. When there are people who can do the work locally, I don’t see anything inherently reactionary in saying that employers should look to them first. More to the point, I don’t see anything necessarily reactionary in workers in a particular industry in a particular area asserting themselves against employers in that area. Short of the general strike, all industrial demands are particularistic. (Very abstract discussion - more specifically, I endorse Andy’s point that the whole issue needs too be regulated by a collective agreement between management and unions, that would protect the interests of both migrant workers and indigenous workers.)
As internationalists, we should not give a fig if it is so called british or so called foreign workers are in a particlau job.
As internationalists, we’re going to find it pretty bloody difficult to organise among “so-called british workers” on that basis.
Comment by Phil — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:39 am
You are far to kind to the scum who are striking
are you for real? Your worth your weight in gold to the BNP on the doorstep
Comment by fred — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:48 am
The action is spreading, good. Unfortunately the BNP appear to be all over this - just google ‘lindsey refinery oil strike’.
Comment by Phil BC — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:06 am
This is much more about class than about race.
It’s happening in the context of the biggest meltdown of capitalism ever; on the back of billions of pounds being used to bail out banks that we now discover are corrupt and rotten to the core; in which thousands of working class people face home repossessions and redundancy and bankers are receiving hundreds of millions of pounds in bonuses; in which 2 - 3 million workers took part in a general strike in France yesterday, in which Greek workers have staged ongoing protests; in which the Icelandic government has been forced out by protests.
And…it’s not even the end of January.
Yes - the working class are back on the agenda.
Comment by PBi — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:14 am
Bobby Buirds, a regional officer for Unite in Scotland, said the workers at Grangemouth were striking to protect British jobs.
“The argument is not against foreign workers, it’s against foreign companies discriminating against British labour,” he said. “If the job of these mechanical contractors at INEOS finishes and they try and get jobs down south, the jobs are already occupied by foreign labour and their opportunities are decreasing. This is a fight for work. It is a fight for the right to work in our own country. It is not a racist argument at all.”
Comment by Eddie Truman — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:28 am
Andy Newman, the likes of us are sick of being kicked in the guts by the likes of you. a revolution will come, i don’t think you will be invited.
Comment by tally — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:34 am
I wonder if the socialist left has any role in the dispute. No doubt
it is an example of working class anger at growing unemployment and
the need for a fightback. If socialists dont intervene with a
socialist perspective there is a danger that the BNP will profit and
working class anger will be directed towards dead end anti working
class nationalism. the last thing we need at present would be the SWP
and others denouncing the workers as racist or telling the workers
that their action is reactionary. God Knows what line the “left”
scottish nationalists of the SSP and Solidarity will have.
A workers plan to beat the crisis is necessary and the call for a
workers government. Of course a workers plan and the perspective of
workers government point out the need for a british wide socialist
party to fight for the interests of the working class in Britain
In the absence of any socialist alternative there is a real danger that there will be a growth of a populist British nationalism which seeks to blame foreigners for the crisis. We should be raising anti capitalist demands such as the socialization of the oil industry under workers control and the right to work or full pay
sandy
Comment by Anonymous — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:37 am
Jim is totally ultra-left, and no swp member is going to steam in there denouncing this as a racist strike.
It is clearly a response that’s rooted in class anger, but the problem of course is that while the majority of those taking action will not be racist and are trying to fight for their own immediate interests in getting work, the possibilities for the likes of the bnp to give support and pull people around them are very big.
What can the left actually do about the issue at the moment, concretely? I think that a very careful and measured intervention in these protests by putting genuine class arguments (for workers unity with union rates of pay for all, as well as equal access to all jobs) could shift things - but it wouldn’t be easy.
Comment by swp member — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:50 am
Jim Page - ‘You are far too kind to the scum who are striking’, ‘I think the first action is to expel any shop stewards involved here forthwith, and for the union leaders to condemn this strike’
These are disgraceful comments to make against striking workers and shop stewards Jim. I think its brilliant to see secondary action breaking out throughout the country, including now in Wales, over this action. Socialists have been hoping against hope, for so long, that this sort of spontaneous solidarity action might happen here. This is NOT a xenophobic strike; the workers in Lincs are understandably angry that british workers are being discriminated against in order that their bosses can pay their workforce less.
Exploitation of foreign labour is a vital part of the whole neo-liberal package, whether it involves jobs being exported overseas or cheap labour being imported to this or indeed any country. True internationalists should be against this as it damages the economic interests of the international working class, as well as sowing divisions among workers and boosting the fortunes of far-right parties.
To my mind, this action is part of an inspiring wave of strikes and protests throughout Europe, including in Italy for that matter, as a reaction to the economic crisis - workers interviewed in Lincs have pointed out that their backs are against the wall because of the unemployment situation. As an international movement it can help to generate a sense of solidarity between workers of different nationalities. Socialists can help this process along by talking about how people are fighting back throughout Europe against, effectively, a common enemy: the international capitalist class.
Comment by Alex — 30 January, 2009 @ 12:01 pm
There is no evidence of racist motives behind the strike this isn’t like the “Enoch is Right” dockers strikes years back.
The left should get behind the strikers, not leave a space for the BNP.
Looking at France, Iceland and Greece, the time is now, we must throw ourselves into the struggle. The globalisation of capital means that we may well be faced with similar situations in the coming few months and years.
Comment by Green Socialist — 30 January, 2009 @ 12:04 pm
Workers from the Grangemouth refinery, Scotland, are heading down to Lincolnshire.
Comment by Eddie Truman — 30 January, 2009 @ 12:07 pm
There’s a fair number of quotes from people actually involved in the dispute in the local press and the BBC that indicate they at least don’t see this as a racist protest, or deny they have something against foreigners in general.
Why do people expect working-class people in dispute to have fully formed, correct opinions? The fact that a lot of people in this country are nationalist, even racist, is something we have to face up to.
Comment by Duncan Money — 30 January, 2009 @ 12:17 pm
So Jim you say we should treat them like the BNP. You going to counter picket with a lolly pop?
Comment by fred — 30 January, 2009 @ 12:17 pm
The lack of relexitivity by people like Jim Page is glaring and also the best recruiting tool for the BNP:, you can’t have the sort of breackneck globalisation that the UK has seen, one of the most open economies in the world without dislocation. Something like this was predictable here in the UK, particualrly as the labour movement and the left are so weak here. The left is now disconnected from the fears and desires of most working class people, i remember being amazed when there were some construction workers on the Lebanon demo here, turns out they were Polish! The earlier warning was the Petrol Dispute, when wildcats with no organic links to the wider but diminished labour movement broke out. It’s also interesting to see people attack the workers on here, the Left has in the last few years averted its eyes from the miseries many people are facing here in the UK, the welfare reforms are a case in point, which in time will bring their own backlash as people on the estates look for scapegoats.
One has to wonder how this will pan out?, it is only going to get bigger and there really doesn’t seem to an effective response from progressives, the left, etc. Calling them xenophobes, nationalists, etc, won’t work, and the BNP seem to be more welcome on the picket lines than anyone else, I suspect the SWP, etc will get short order from the picketers.
At the moment there are no easy answers, but often instead of debate, its often a case of ’shoot the messenger’ or shouting troll,this won’t be good enough in the coming very dark years to come, new thinking surely has to emerge and a new left focussed on the concerns of working class people, including the unemployed, claimants and the peripheral workforce, etc.
Comment by history tells us things — 30 January, 2009 @ 12:17 pm
‘The left should get behind the strikers, not leave a space for the BNP.’
GS - genuine question - don’t you have any problem with the slogan ‘British jobs for British workers’?
Comment by swp member — 30 January, 2009 @ 12:18 pm
‘the BNP seem to be more welcome on the picket lines than anyone else’
Do you have evidence that that is true or are you just assuming its true?
Comment by swp member — 30 January, 2009 @ 12:20 pm
SWP member - is anyone (apart from Gordon Brown) raising that slogan? Incidentally, it’s easier to get a civil answer to a genuine question if you ask it straight - “don’t you…?” looks a bit too much like coat-trailing.
Comment by Phil — 30 January, 2009 @ 12:29 pm
I dont think any socialist should use the slogan british jobs for british workers
the demand should be for the right to work and make the bosses pay for the crisis etc
sandy
Comment by Anonymous — 30 January, 2009 @ 12:30 pm
#21
I just spoke to Jerry Hicks, who has been talking to strikers, and it simply isn’t true that thr BNP are welcome.
Comment by Andy Newman — 30 January, 2009 @ 12:31 pm
@24
as usual zoom in on one quote, care to answer my substantive points?
Comment by history tells us things — 30 January, 2009 @ 12:36 pm
frenetic why are you still trolling under a different name?
Just say what you have to say about the strikes without turning it into a tedious “telling hard truths to the left which they don’t want to hear” whinge.
Tedious and inaccurate.
Comment by frenetic hater — 30 January, 2009 @ 12:37 pm
@26,
right on que, i refer you to
‘At the moment there are no easy answers, but often instead of debate, its often a case of ’shoot the messenger’ or shouting troll,this won’t be good enough in the coming very dark years to come, new thinking surely has to emerge and a new left focussed on the concerns of working class people, including the unemployed, claimants and the peripheral workforce, etc.’
btw,,are you obsessed?. I, like others on here, Fred comes to mind, have genuine concerns about the direction of the left in its broadest sense, that is a legitimate position, which sadly may be borne out by events.
Comment by history tells us things — 30 January, 2009 @ 12:41 pm
The idea that the BNP are welcome comes from comments posted on their website and supporting blogs. If what they say isn’t true, they’re hardly likely to broadcast it are they?
Comment by Phil BC — 30 January, 2009 @ 12:50 pm
‘SWP member - is anyone (apart from Gordon Brown) raising that slogan? Incidentally, it’s easier to get a civil answer to a genuine question if you ask it straight - “don’t you…?” looks a bit too much like coat-trailing.’
Phil - its quoted approvingly in a placard on one of the pictures on the Guardian website (no. 4 out of the 9).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/gallery/2009/jan/30/oil?picture=342555747
I don’t think that it’s being quoted in order to then present a detailed critique.
As far as your advice is concerned, I’m not sure how I could have rephrased that question more directly, and I don’t actually know what coat trailing is.
To History tells us things, people who don’t usually agree on much have zeroed in on that point because if it was true that the BNP are welcomed with open arms, then it would be extremely instructive about the character of these protests. So it needs substantitting. For myself, I truly hope that Jerry is right, although if you look at the video of the strikers on the bbc website, of the two who are quoted, the first says something like ‘we want jobs for British workers and that lot should go home’. I’d be astounded if sentiments like that aren’t common on the picket lines.
Is Jerrys leaflet online anywhere?
Comment by swp member — 30 January, 2009 @ 12:51 pm
btw,,are you obsessed?. I, like others on here, Fred comes to mind, have genuine concerns about the direction of the left in its broadest sense, that is a legitimate position, which sadly may be borne out by events.
Yes troll, I am obsessed with your terrible terrible postings.
Everybody is concerned about the direction of the left, but you think you’re the only one who sees through it all.
You waste everyone’s time demolishing straw men, and c&p’ing the same tiresome clichés across U75, here, Dave Osler, grimmerupnorth etc.
Just for once, try to complete a post without using the words “the left”.
Comment by frenetic hater — 30 January, 2009 @ 1:01 pm
According to their website the BNP has despatched a team of members to the picket line at Grimsby oil refinery.
The $64 million dollar question is what response the BNP will get from the striking workers in Grimsby.
The strikes are not reactionary given that the ultimate cause is the conscious decision by the employers to use the lever of non union agency labour in an attempt to smash union organisation and force down pay and conditions. The fact that the non union labour is foreign is also clearly a conscious divide and rule tactic ie to divide the workforce along national lines. Nevertheless there is a potential for the strikes to develop in a reactionary direction if the central slogan of the strikers is and remains ‘British jobs for British workers’.
In circumstances such as these we would do well to remember Lenin’s caveat that consistent trade union miltancy in and of itself does not automatically translate into socialist consciousness.
The BNP website article is at
http://tinyurl.com/bg4jyh
Comment by Patrick Scott — 30 January, 2009 @ 1:02 pm
31 - yes. American trade unions sometimes upheld colour bars and Jim Crow, claiming that black workers drove wages down, and a US slogan before WW1, “We are ruined by cheap Chinese labour” was not an employers’ slogan alone.
Comment by Faust — 30 January, 2009 @ 1:07 pm
This seems to be growing. Simon Darby (BNP) blog reporting every half hour or so on this
BNP currently in Warrington, and are trying to get Sellafield on strike
Dounreay near Thurso affected
Comment by JimPage — 30 January, 2009 @ 1:27 pm
JimPage,
Just scanned through Darby’s blog and there’s nothing about Sellafield, where did you get it from?
A couple of my mates work at Sellafield they’ve not heard anything.
Comment by Duncan Money — 30 January, 2009 @ 1:41 pm
As far as your advice is concerned, I’m not sure how I could have rephrased that question more directly, and I don’t actually know what coat trailing is.
Coat-trailing is trying to pick a fight. And you could have said “do you have a problem with”, etc. “Do you…” is a question, “don’t you…” is an implied accusation.
Comment by Phil — 30 January, 2009 @ 1:48 pm
“JimPage,
Just scanned through Darby’s blog and there’s nothing about Sellafield, where did you get it from”
In the comments section on BNP main website in the article abour the Grimsby strike. Truth truck out this morning there
Comment by JimPage — 30 January, 2009 @ 1:50 pm
Incidentally, I categorically dissociate myself from some bloke with a home-made placard; even if the intention of some bloke with a home-made placard was only to embarrass Gordon Brown by quoting his words back at him, the message he sent was wrong. Denounce some bloke with a home-made placard! Unite to strengthen the workers in struggle and resist the deviationist tendencies of some bloke with a home-made placard!
Seriously, of course the migrant workers aren’t the enemy; everyone should be aware that that point will need to be made, and prepared to make it good and loud. But support the strike.
Comment by Phil — 30 January, 2009 @ 1:59 pm
On the 1 o’clock bbc news, there seemed to be a fair few similar placards or banners. There was then an interview with a UKIP Mepcoming out with the expected garbage.
Now obviously the press will go for Ukip rather than Jerry Hicks or whoever, but the point is the interview fitted like a glove. Similarly, the press will highlight the ‘British jobs for British workers’ placards, but it’s not like they seem to be hard to find. I’m afraid that from what I’ve seen, the ‘bloke with the home made placard’ seemed representative of a big chunk of the support.
I don’t think ’support the strike - full stop’ is ok. I think support the demand for access to jobs, sure but the support has to be extremely critical.
Comment by swp member — 30 January, 2009 @ 2:25 pm
PS looking again at your post your not saying ’support the strike -full stop’ cos of the sentence before. But you get my drift. I hope.
Comment by swp member — 30 January, 2009 @ 2:26 pm
Haven’t seen the TV news today but last night the vast majority of workers who were (briefly) interviewed talked about the bosses trying to get the work done on the cheap, they weren’t talking in terms of race. I think we should support the strikes and of course intervene and discuss with those that see workers from other countries as a threat.
Those that can’t discuss with the strikers directly should be discussing the issues in their own workplaces. This is one of the ways we can cut across the crap in the national media. I don’t think ‘extemely critical’ support is the best way forward - and I’m not sure the workers on the protest will be too welcoming of those who wish to go along and preach to them.
Comment by Clive — 30 January, 2009 @ 2:33 pm
BTW excellent post from Phil BC.
Comment by Clive — 30 January, 2009 @ 2:35 pm
‘I’m not sure the workers on the protest will be too welcoming of those who wish to go along and preach to them.’
I’d happily accept a different formulation to ‘extremely critical’. There is a position, somewhere between standing on the picket line saying ‘Hey isn’t this great’ and getting chucked off it or denouncing the strikers/demonstrators. Finding that position is very hard, but it’s the place to be.
Comment by swp member — 30 January, 2009 @ 2:44 pm
Good post by ‘Lenin’ at the Tomb here too.
Comment by Phil BC — 30 January, 2009 @ 2:51 pm
Just a few word’s on the “nationalist” nature of the strike.
It is worth recalling that what sparked this dispute was the discrimination of an Italian construction firm against British workers not primarily on the basis of nationality but rather on the basis of their refusal to accept inferior terms and conditions. This is a collective struggle by the workers in this industry to fight back against the race to the bottom and the boss’s tactic of pitting workers from different countries against each other.
It seems to me that talk about this being a strike against foreign workers is mostly based on management spin and one unfortunate photo on the BBC website of a picketer holding up a notice saying British jobs for British workers.
Socialist Party members have been intervening at several different pickets around the country with the following key demands that have been getting an excellent response:
1) ALL workers in the construction industry to be paid the National Engineering Construction agreement wage.
2) A register of all unemployed construction workers, controlled by the unions to be used in deciding who fills vacant positions, new contracts etc on construction sites
In my view the influence of the BNP is being over-exaggerated by a hostile media in an attempt to undermine the strike. Socialists have a much greater influence on events here than the BNP. For example on the strike committee of the Lyndsie Oil refinery dispute, the Socialist Party has two members.
Comment by Neil — 30 January, 2009 @ 2:52 pm
This is a nationailist strike. Whatever the shop stewards say, the key message the strikers are giving is that in a recession, jobs should go to british workers, not italian workers. That is clearly and openly racist.
Where we are now is that these italian workers are in jobs here and this strike is to sack foreign workers and repalce them with unemployed british ones
That demand is identical in all ways with BNP policy
Comment by JimPage — 30 January, 2009 @ 3:29 pm
No it isn’t.
The dispute revolves around the fact that the Italian firm hired workers who were not part of the construction wage agreement. This is a thin end of the wedge to undermine the bargaining position of the unions involved and a step towards a complete open shop and driving the union out of the workplace.
No union activist worth their salt can ignore this challange.
The key message that comes out is still up for grabs. We can leave it to the BNP and then it WILL go down as a ‘nationalist’ strike or we can use this as a spring board for a wider labour movement response to the threat of unemployment which is THE MOST important issue facing the working class right now.
Certainly this is what the SP will be doing in this dispute.
Comment by Neil — 30 January, 2009 @ 3:38 pm
Good that GG has made this statement, and Jerry Hicks his, and that socialist unity has reported it.
But I have just been to SWP website (15.30pm, fri 30th jan) and can find NO MENTION of the dispute at all - not in any form. (The website and paper is all about Gaza).
Therefopre, angry working class people will find no guidance on this outbreak of strike action if they turn to the SWP website today.
And yet our enemy, the BNP is all over it.
The SWP CC argues for their ultra-centralised structure to enable their party to make fast responses to turns in the class struggle.
Well, we are waiting…
Comment by Barry Kade — 30 January, 2009 @ 3:42 pm
What is sickening is that NL cheerleaders like the local M.P, Shona McIsaac who completely endorsed the globalisation and neo-liberal project, even advertising the UK in global trade journals as a ‘low wage economy’ is now turning around and attacking the Italians and the workers they encouraged, etc,
what an opportunist..
Foreign worker jobs ‘red rag to a bull’
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/foreign-worker-jobs-red-rag-to-a-bull-1520687.html
Comment by history tells us things — 30 January, 2009 @ 3:51 pm
#45. I don’t see this strike as rascist. Surely the problem is that every single worker on this project happens to be from Italy or Portugal. What’s the odds of that if there was a fair selection process? And I bet there aren’t too many people of Italian or Portugese extraction that live within a 20 miles radius of the Oil Refinery. Anybody who thinks this is alright is having a laugh.
British Blacks and Asians are also suffering unemployment due to employers not advertising jobs locally, but going directly to agencies. Bring back the closed shop, that would stop all this nonsense.
Comment by Denzil — 30 January, 2009 @ 3:53 pm
Report from SP interventions on pickets on SP website:
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/latest/6848
More to follow soon.
Comment by Neil — 30 January, 2009 @ 4:01 pm
Can the racism argument not be turned on it’s head.
The Italian contractors are refusing to employ UK workers, that’s the origins of the dispute.
Gordon Brown and New Labour came up with the appalling ‘British Jobs For British Workers’ line and the left needs to navigate around that by concentrating on the essential issue which is the clear attempt by an Italian company to smash the trade unions and wages structure in a part of the UK which it has won a contract.
Comment by Eddie Truman — 30 January, 2009 @ 4:04 pm
Jim, you normally have your head screwed on when it comes to anti-racist and anti-fascist issues. I can’t understand why you’re so determined to stand against the rest of left opinion on this.
Comment by Phil BC — 30 January, 2009 @ 4:09 pm
BTW, full marks to Richard for good article on this over at Lenin’s Tomb:
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/01/wild-cat-strikes-are-not-racist.html
Comment by Andy Newman — 30 January, 2009 @ 4:11 pm
I have to echo Phil, JimPage, as someone who is generally spot on about the BNP and antifascism in general do you not see anything positive in a wave of illegal solidarity strikes even if they do have distinct nationalist overtones?
Comment by Duncan Money — 30 January, 2009 @ 4:31 pm
#47 This is from Socialist Worker.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=17004
Comment by anticapitalista — 30 January, 2009 @ 6:06 pm
#55 Yes - finally at 5.30pm this evening - three days after the picketing began - the CC issues its statement online in SW. Long after the BNP fascists began spreading their shite about it - and the capitalist media bigging it up - and also other Marxist groups like the SP getting involved.
And the SWP CC are denouncing the strike as reactionary and xenophobic!
No attempt to shape the struggle - to bring the class dimension to the fore, then.
Comment by Barry Kade — 30 January, 2009 @ 6:22 pm
Oh dear the SWP have spoken and once again have not got a clue. It would be funny if they weren’t such a disaster for the left and working people around the world.
Comment by Clive — 30 January, 2009 @ 6:30 pm
hehe, I knew that would cause a frenzy.
Comment by anticapitalista — 30 January, 2009 @ 6:32 pm
58 - I’m not laughing. Its horrific. On the verge of the great depression, after 30 years of defeats and retreats - we have the first offensive strike in years. It involves mass solidarity action spreading across the UK, rank and file militancy, but it also has a nationalist dimension with the fascist BNP and capitalist media exploiting it. And the SWP stand marginalised on the sidelines, denouncing the strike, instead of being able to shape events with a socialist intervention and socialist demands.
Anti-cap -rather than smirking - what do you think? And of course the CC statement is diametrically opposite to the one on here http://leninology.blogspot.com/
Comment by Barry Kade — 30 January, 2009 @ 6:41 pm
There is no doubt that the slogan of british jobs for british workers
has a reactionary dynamic. the socialist left must intervene and build
support for a class struggle orientation in the dispute. we must
oppose a nationalist outlook and fight for a class struggle outlook.
But to denounce the strikers simply plays into the hands of the BNP
and sections of the capitalist class who will try to bolster
nationalism by supporting rubbish demands such as “put british workers
first”
worrying to see the union jack on display at one of the demos.
sandy
Comment by Anonymous — 30 January, 2009 @ 6:45 pm
Doesn’t matter what I think Barry as I can do f’all about it. I’m not in the UK.
I would hope that the strikers are trying to make links and get the immigrant workers (Italians and Portuguese, I beleive) in the union and on the same rates of pay. Didn’t they do that in Ireland a few years ago on the ferries with Latvian/Lithuanian(?) workers?
Comment by anticapitalista — 30 January, 2009 @ 6:45 pm
61 “Doesn’t matter what I think Barry as I can do f’all about it. I’m not in the UK.” Yes, but that has not stopped you giving us your opinion on the SWP and the rest of the left in the UK before!
“I would hope that the strikers are trying to…..”. Yes, but to do that socialists have to be on the picket lines, arguing for it. You cant do that if your CC denounces the entire strike.
Comment by Barry Kade — 30 January, 2009 @ 6:50 pm
The swp statemtent is if anything even harder than my initial gut response. I’ll admit that initial response was softened by some of the argumenst on here, but trawling through the media seeing BJ 4 BW placards or banners again, and again, and again makes me think that this deeply pessimistic interpretation is nearere the reality than what Jerry and the SP are arguing.
And i don’t think having some SP members on one of the strike committees changes that - if they can get all those placards changed to some less reactionary slogans then it’ll show that they’re shaping events, but I fear that that’s not the case.
Now if I have more arguments they’re gonna be with my comrades, for now so tara.
Comment by swp member — 30 January, 2009 @ 7:06 pm
#63 - the alternative to the CC’s position would be to seize the initiative and attempt to develop slogans that could allow members to intervene and try to take the strike movement in a leftwards and internationalist direction.
And those slogans might be…
Comment by Barry Kade — 30 January, 2009 @ 7:11 pm
#62, I wish you all the best on the picket line Barry.
Comment by anticapitalista — 30 January, 2009 @ 7:19 pm
Jeezo, the SWP position is absolutely hopeless.
A union busting contractor moors barges of scab labour in Grimsby harbour and the comrades get snooty about militant action against union busting multi nationals.
Comment by Eddie Truman — 30 January, 2009 @ 7:25 pm
#66 Eddie go tell the immigrant workers that they are scab labour. Your comment is a disgrace!!
Comment by anticapitalista — 30 January, 2009 @ 7:32 pm
*64 for national wage agreements, pay and conditions, and for equal and fair employment procedures! if this were to happen why would a company go to the expense of transporting workers from italy?
We need to stop arguing if its racist or nationalist or not, and develop demands that can unite all the workers involved migrant or uk based. I’m not sure but i believe this is the union position? that’s what we should be thinking about, on what basis is the union going to fight this dispute, (and hopefully become a rallying point for other woeskersa in the industry) and show a lead to other workers facing competition, wage cuts, and redundancy.
more news on how the union are fighting this, and how workers are responding to that lead?
Comment by non-partisan — 30 January, 2009 @ 7:41 pm
#67, if you are brought from Italy or Portugal and housed in barges in Grimsby harbour, employed by an agency that excludes UK unionised labour with the specific intention of smashing the unions and driving down wages then you are scab labour, no question about it.
Workers need to say that up front to these workers and appeal to Italian and Portuguese trade unions to work together to halt the anti union employers.
Comment by Eddie Truman — 30 January, 2009 @ 7:44 pm
#69 Good job you weren’t involved in the Irish Ferries strike.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=8021
“The dispute centred on plans to replace 540 workers from the Irish Republic with migrant workers on less than half the Irish minimum wage. The workers have won a pay package for all migrant workers which will bring wages above the Irish minimum wage of £5.20.”
Comment by anticapitalista — 30 January, 2009 @ 7:49 pm
Of course it is an indictment of the Union bureaucracy in the UK that they have not developed a campaign of strike action against job losses and closures.
Instead, the ‘Unite’ leadership has cultivated this campaign - because nationalism makes it the easiest target to mobilise around.
But there is a strong class dimension to it. And it will impact on how the class struggle develops in the UK in the recession. It could have both positive and negative impacts - either a recovery of union strength or dividing and weakening the class.
But socialists dont wait for the ‘perfect strike’. They try and shape the direction of the actual class struggle as it unfolds.
This use of ‘foeign’ labour to break unions is not a new tactic. In the late nineteenth century modern trades unionism in Britain was built in the struggle against bosses attempts to divide the working class by using poorer Irish workers as scabs to attack English working conditions. There was obviously much bitterness, division and inequality - but the working class found a way to defend itself. It formed the ‘new unions’ for general labourers that were based upon mass picket line solidarity. These united all workers – English and Irish, Catholic and Protestant – and formed the origins of the TGWU and similar unions that won the great battles of the twentieth century.
Comment by Barry Kade — 30 January, 2009 @ 7:53 pm
I think the leaflet issued by the SWP gets the tone right, to the effect ‘foreign workers are not the enemy, turn your fire on the multinationals’. It is, of course, essential for the left to intervene positively in an attempt to radicalize the strike. Remember that the same dockers who came out for Enoch were at the heart of the upsurge in working class militancy in subsequent years. The nationalism of this strike doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as nasty as that, but similar lessons can be drawn.
Comment by Jonathan — 30 January, 2009 @ 7:57 pm
Barry Kade is right. The quickest way to ensure that this episode becomes a reactionary strike is to simply denounce it as a reactionary strike. It is much more contradictory than that. The ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ slogan, in the way that these workers are using it, is social-chauvinist and protectionist in its implications, and is lifted from Gordon Brown, not from the BNP. Though scandalously Brown was himself echoing of the slogan of the NF from the 1970s, it is not (currently) being inspired by the fascists - though they are trying hard to exploit the harmonics. But to simply denounce these workers as ’scum’ is to fail to notice this difference and actually point them towards the BNP.
This is a divide and rule operation by neo-liberal bosses, and since spokesmen for the strikers have stressed that they are not hostile to the Italian and Portuguese workers involved, but rather to the employers who have stopped locals from even applying for these jobs, we should be advocating non-discrimination in hiring as an immediate demand. Simple - open these jobs up for all to apply for at the normal rate for the job. Because that is the issue at the heart of this dispute .. real unfairness in that locals are not allowed to even apply for these jobs. That is how to undercut the ‘British jobs for British workers’ mentality that indeed is potentially dangerous.
Don’t kid yourself that the employers are operating some kind of affirmative action scheme for Italian and Portuguese workers - nothing could be further from the truth. Its not clear to me that these workers are scabs in the classic sense … but they are certainly being made use of in a less direct way to undermine union organisation. But the key demand is an open hiring process - equality and anti-discrimination cuts both ways.
Comment by ID — 30 January, 2009 @ 8:15 pm
Anyone looked at the figures for British workers employed in Italy or Portugal? I saw the details for Germany and France, around 100,000 between the two. Should they all be sent home to allow indigenous workers apply for the jobs? The overriding position of posters on this blog is one that panders to chauvinism and xenophobia.
We have to try to relate to the workers on strike, but there are no short cuts. We need to do it in a manner which does not assume that that these Italian workers are scabs, they are foreigners employed in Britain just as tens of thousands of Britons work abroad right now. Arguing against the nationalist basis of the strike is the only principled way of going about things, not imagining that this is a noble strike that can have a great outcome. Anyone who doesn’t is as bad as the striker who turns a deaf ear to a racist comments for an easy life or sings sexist songs on a bus full of flying pickets. Of course, you can just keep dreaming that this is about union organisation, but, to really do something worthwhile, you’re going to need to convince a couple of people that they’re on the wrong tack. It won’t win you many friends, but maybe a few lasting comrades who can have a positive influence in future.
Comment by Inigo Montoya — 30 January, 2009 @ 8:55 pm
There’s nothing wrong with arguing hard against the nationalist politics of the strike - the SWP statement is very good on that. But it is wrong to characterise it as a reactionary strike in itself - the exclusion of locals from applying for these jobs is simply wrong and by not stating that clearly, it means that the only people really addressing this grievance are the BNP. It is wrong to call the Italian and Portuguese workers ’scabs’, however, and on that Inigo Montoya is right - if they were recruited to break a strike that would be correct - but that seems not to be the case here. Getting either aspects of this wrong can only make a difficult situation worse.
Comment by ID — 30 January, 2009 @ 9:09 pm
Seumas Milne, Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/30/tradeunions-protest
Our flexible friends
The real theme of these strikes is not xenophobia but outrage at UK and EU rules designed to keep labour cheap and weak
Gordon Brown’s promise of “British jobs for British workers” certainly counts, along with an “end to boom and bust”, as his most cynical and asinine to date. Not only was he incapable of delivering on it under European Union law, but the slogan was bound to be exploited by the far right in the shape of the British National party – who coined it in the first place.
Now it’s been thrown back in his face by striking energy workers across the country, protesting against local workers being undercut and excluded from a £200m construction project at Total’s Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire in favour of Italian and Portugese workers brought in by the Italian company IREM. Sympathy walkouts have been staged across Britain, including at the Aberthaw power station in Wales and the Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland, where last year workers won a famous victory against their private equity owner Ineos by closing down the North Sea Forties field for two days in protest at attempts to slash pension rights.
Of course, the BNP and its friends will try to exploit these rolling stoppages, as they have been doing at the Staythorpe power station in Newark, Nottinghamshire, where Alstom is refusing to hire locally and relying on non-union Polish and Spanish contracted workers instead. But it would be wrong – and play into the far right’s hands – to portray this as a xenophobic protest directed against foreign workers and immigration, instead of what it actually is: a fight for jobs in the middle of a deepening recession and a backlash against the deregulated, race-to-the-bottom neoliberal model backed by Brown for more than a decade which produced it.
IREM claims it is paying the same rates as existing contractors on the Lindsey refinery site and is only using its own workforce because they are “specialised”. Since the contract is secret, that can’t be put to the test, but is regarded as absurd in the area, where engineering construction skills are high and plentiful. European workers are supposed to be shielded from such social dumping by the EU’s posted workers directive, but Britain’s version only offers limited protection. And the directive itself has been undermined by the European Court of Justice’s recent Viking and Laval decisions – which effectively outlawed industrial action where unions are trying to win equal pay for migrant workers and banned public bodies from requiring foreign contractors to pay such workers local rates.
The reality is that EU directives and, even more so, British legislation have encouraged employers to exploit deregulated labour markets to play off one part of the workforce against another and drive down employment costs. Now that jobs are at a premium, organised workers in Britain are no longer prepared to put up with it and are ignoring anti-union laws to make their voice heard. So long as their protests continue to target employers and the government, rather than other workers, that will intensify the pressure on Brown to stop tinkering, come up with what is now long overdue: a serious programme of investment in public housing, infrastructure and transport to replace the jobs now haemorrhaging across Britain.
Comment by Eddie Truman — 30 January, 2009 @ 9:09 pm
Surely if there is `racism’ here it is that of the italian company insisting on using italian labour in Britain. Capitalists think that socialism is a form of protectionism. They want the right to hire and fire at will.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:02 pm
Barry (71.), having solidarity with all workers involved - British, Italian, Portuguese - is exactly what needs to be argued. It is good that there are comrades (from the SP, at least, if I understand correctly) on the strike committees, they need to argue hard against the nativist (as we call it in the US) elements.
Comment by christian h. — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:09 pm
Christian h: what neo-liberal cobblers.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:10 pm
I see Richard Seymour changed his mind after the line came out from the SWP that these were indeed racist strikes after all. He’ll never live that one down.
Still, it’s hard to imagine the likes ov Eddie Truman calling these Italian workers “scab” if they were Muslims.
A lot to reflect on there. Why are you so hypocritcal?
Comment by Ed D — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:12 pm
Seamus Milne would be more careful too if these were Muslims.
Comment by Ed D — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:13 pm
#82 and #83 this has nothing to do with religious belief, why do you feel the need to introduce that into an already explosive situation ?
Comment by Eddie Truman — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:18 pm
#84 Indeed, what has being Muslim got to do with anything. I’m a british buddist does that mean I can’t apply for one of these jobs? Apparently so according to this italian mob.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:26 pm
Bloody Hell, what are you talking about? What’s “cobblers”, by the way - help an American out. I suppose you mean to say that only neo-liberals would think it’s “Workers of the World Unite”? All right then. Damn Marx and Lenin and their neo-liberal nonsense. I guess if you were in the US, you’d patrol the Mexican border with a gun and feel all manly about it…
Comment by christian h. — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:28 pm
Eddie Truman, the point is, you’re one of the guys behind Islamophobia watch. There’s no way on earth you’d be calling these Italians a bunch of scabs if they were Muslims.
You should reflect on why you are such a hypocrite.
Comment by Ed D — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:04 pm
#88 Yes, I am “one of the guys on Islamophobia Watch”.
I totally fail to understand what significance this has on the current discussion.
I have also been an active socialist since 1979 and am currently assistant national secretary of the Scottish Socialist Party.
When I post material I try and make it clear if I am doing so from the perspective of an official position.
So far in this discussion I have not said anything on behalf of the Scottish Socialist Party or Islamophobia Watch.
Comment by Eddie Truman — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:15 pm
@Zoe,74
how patronising and offensive, the strikers don’t need people like you intervening, at last there is some spontaneity from the working class, and you try to condemn it.
Comment by history tells us things — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:21 pm
Ed D is not being very British. Religious freedom is a longstanding right in Britain and being a Muslim does not stop you from being British anymore than being a jew or a catholic or a protestant or a bhuddist like myself does.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:30 pm
i dont understand why British folk are fighting for jobs in there own country everyone should me paid the same .this is what is going to make British people racist. With our companies abroard do we only employ British people DO WE?
Comment by jim — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:33 pm
‘I see Richard Seymour changed his mind after the line came out from the SWP that these were indeed racist strikes after all. He’ll never live that one down.’
Actually its not funny, in the context of whats happening, its quite dangerous, a 2.0 rewriting of blog history once the party line comes down from above, and we are meant to take this group seriously.
Comment by history tells us things — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:38 pm
The SWP has not issued any ‘line’ saying that these are ‘racist strikes’. Consequently, if Richard Seymour changed his mind it cannot have been on account of that.
Comment by Jonathan — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:41 pm
The comment by “Jim Page” isn’t by Jim Page.
It’s by a BNP Nutzi who used it a few minutes later to open a thread on Scumfront.
Comment by John Charles — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:42 pm
to add - in fact the comment by “Jim Page” was made by the BNP’s Lee Barnes.
If you’ve got the IP address of the idiot please mail it to me.
Comment by John Charles — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:44 pm
Welsh TV tonight interviewed a shop steward outside Aberthaw saying it wasn’t against foreign workers, it was against the bosses. He added there were Polish workers working at Aberthaw that the union had recruited and got on comparable rates of pay - that’s the struggle, that’s the focus.
Comment by seren — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:40 am
Eddie Truman, don’t play dumb - you know precisely what I am saying. I know it’s not strictly relevent to the subject, but it is worth noting that you would be a hell of a lot more sensitive to the cries of racism if these were, say, workers from Jordan or something. You know this to be true. You would imagine great hatred in the eyes of these British workers and say they were in large part motived by the thought of scary Muslims taking their jobs.
Given that you definitely, 100%, would have got that wrong and smeared a lot of British workers as racist, maybe Islamophobia watch should ponder on whether it isn’t getting a lot of other things wrong as well?
Comment by Ed D — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:51 am
The SWP has not issued any ‘line’ saying that these are ‘racist strikes’. Consequently, if Richard Seymour changed his mind it cannot have been on account of that.
The SWP released a statement on the strikes, which Seymour immediately posted up at the end of his post with the comment that they were “much more critical” then he was. Within a few hours another post was up denouncing his previous post and agreeing with everything single point in the SWP statement.
Clearly the change of mind was prompted by cult head quarters.
Comment by Ed D — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:56 am
“history tells us things”, no blog history is being “re-written”. That’s just in your imagination.
Comment by christian h. — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:56 am
#98, these are not “workers from Jordan or something”, there is no link with Muslims or religious belief of any kimd, I’ll ask you directly again;
Why are you attempting to construct a Muslim link to this story when none exists ?
Comment by Eddie Truman — 31 January, 2009 @ 1:02 am
You are behind Islamophobia watch and smear a lot of people for racism. I am highlighting your hypocrisy.
Why are you pretending to be fucking stupid?
Comment by Ed D — 31 January, 2009 @ 1:04 am
I know there is no Muslim link to the story. That’s the point. If there was a link then you would be calling everyone of these British workers a racist.
See?
Comment by Ed D — 31 January, 2009 @ 1:05 am
#103 `I know there is no Muslim link to the story. That’s the point. If there was a link then you would be calling everyone of these British workers a racist.’
Well there isn’t and they are not.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 31 January, 2009 @ 1:10 am
It’s a good opportunity to sit back and say: “you know, I certainly would have balls this up completely if these were Muslim foreign workers, so maybe I am also getting it wrong on in many other racism issues as well, and in fact people are just concerned about issues like Islamism and community cohesion, and are not racism.”
Just do it.
Comment by Ed D — 31 January, 2009 @ 1:14 am
What’s the difference between “racism” and “concerned about Islamism”? How are they different?
Comment by Ondine — 31 January, 2009 @ 5:59 am
“Welsh TV tonight interviewed a shop steward outside Aberthaw saying it wasn’t against foreign workers, it was against the bosses. He added there were Polish workers working at Aberthaw that the union had recruited and got on comparable rates of pay - that’s the struggle, that’s the focus.” Seran
Thats good of course but then on the national news a welsh worker from I think Milford Havan said they wanted foreign workers out . Looking at it it appears the main thrust of the dispute is centrered round a slogan of “British workers, British jobs”. That is a reactionary slogan favoured by the hard right. Socialists can’t ignore this, can’t wish it away, pretend its not there etc. So the focus is not about the bosses but about foreign workers. In some ways its not surprising, our union leaders have done sweet fa and said we couldn’t fight, its a recession etc ( this of course includes those on the left) and the recession creates huge bitterness and anger. That can express itself in any number of ways. What really concerns me about Galloway and Hicks statement is it really seems to want the strikes to be about something which is patentdly is not. It sweeps under the carpet the real dynamic of this strike and claims its all made up in the media. sorry, not good enough. As for Hicks, feels like ducking the real issue to not alienate some votes!!
Comment by ll — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:04 am
One one side we have a multinational corporation which made over $14b profits last year, running a privatized energy utility and who refuses to employ local workers on union rates at its construction sites.
On the other had we have a rapidly growing movement of demonstrations, secondary pickets and wildcat strikes demanding jobs for local working class people at Union rates and conditions.
Now, which side are you on, comrades?
Of course it depends who you are. There are two kinds of Socialists who inhabit the blogspheer. Those who choose this time to sit in their ivory towers, denouncing the workers as racists. And those who get down to the picket -lines and intervene, to spread and the movement against the corporations (and their political servants) and for Real jobs for all.
Comment by amnon — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:34 am
#107 `As for Hicks, feels like ducking the real issue to not alienate some votes!!’
And the truth will set you free. SWP are motivated to brand british workers racist in the hope some of it will rub off on Jerry Hicks whose candidacy they oppose. They will surley be lucky to get within ten miles of the picket lines. Very sad as Richard Seymour’s natural instinct on his Lenin’s Tomb blog was to support the strikes until the official line came down from the self-serving CC and changed his mind for him.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:52 am
Has the Socialist Party decided what its position is yet? Can’t see anything on the website.
Comment by fans of abstract propagandism — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:09 am
#110
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/latest/6848
+ See Niel’s comment #44
Comment by amnon — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:25 am
Well, it’s a tough one. Do you back a flawed but powerful mass movement of industrial action, aware that you’ll have to be critical of large swathes of it even while building support for it, and may have to jump ship altogether if it develops the wrong way, or do you jump now and criticise it from the outside, aware that you’ve lost the chance of influencing it and that you may have to clamber back on if it develops the right way?
Fortunately for the SWP leadership, the question could also be posed another way: do you line up with Jerry Hicks and George Galloway or do you denounce them for moving right? Perhaps not quite so hard.
(Shame Seymour fell into line so quickly. Fair play to him for not deleting his first, and I think largely correct, post.)
Comment by Phil — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:37 am
Biting back at bosses’ Europe
Morning Star editorial (Friday 30 January 2009)
IT would be all too easy to look at the huge wave of stoppages sweeping the country at the moment and write them off as an outbreak of jingoism.
But it would be entirely wrong to do so.
Naturally, the slogan “British jobs for British people” has been seized on by the right-wing press in their description of the dispute.
Equally naturally, the far right are desperately trying to get their grubby arses on the bandwagon, but the issue is far more significant than their nasty little philosophy suggests.
The speed at which this movement has developed has taken everyone by surprise, but it should really come as no shock that working people have noticed that the policies of Gordon Brown’s government, allied with the pro-business bias of the European Union, are costing them jobs, and are hitting back.
Because that is what is at the root of the issue.
In its anxiety to provide a completely free market for the profit-hungry bosses of companies across Europe, the EU paid absolutely no notice to the rights of workers.
The bosses’ freedom to make a fast buck completely swamped any consideration of the rather more basic right to work.
Reinforced by the recent anti-union rulings of the European Court of Justice in the Viking, Laval, and Rueffert cases, this has meant that bosses are now free to bid for and win contracts anywhere in Europe and supply whatever labour they feel like.
In the case of the dispute in Lincolnshire, this has meant that Italian subcontractor IREM has brought in its own workers, apparently housing them in a ship at anchor in Grimsby dock.
This may well be in keeping with the bosses’ freedom to exploit as enshrined in EU law, but it has effectively deprived British workers of the right to seek work in their own country.
Blowhard Prime Minister Brown can witter on as much as he likes about globalisation and a developing global new world order, but it is increasingly clear that it is a bosses’ world order.
As a result of his global fixation, Mr Brown is getting more and more out of touch with the concerns of ordinary working people.
And, up until recently, it almost looked as if he was getting away with it, but no longer. The consequences of such neglect have a habit of creeping up on politicians and this rash of protests is evidence that it is happening to the Prime Minister and his new Labour cronies.
It is interesting to watch which subjects are being brought up by various people at the protests.
There is no sign of any xenophobic fear of foreign firms or workers. Indeed, at least one of the firms at which several hundred workers walked out in protest was a German subcontractor.
But there are concerns being expressed about the lack of local jobs, the dearth of apprenticeships and the absence of any opportunities for young workers to gain employment.
It should be noted that these thousands of workers are not protesting merely for themselves. They have jobs in the industry. But their concerns are for others, for those unemployed with no opportunity to find work and for young people who cannot find work because of the nature of the European Union’s version of a free market.
They are to be applauded and, if their unions cannot support them publicly because of the strictures of the anti-union laws, we can and we will.
Comment by Nick Wright — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:52 am
I didn’t see one non-white person in any of the news coverage. This is reminiscent of the racist strikes decades ago.
Presumably those backing these ‘Little Englanders’ are also calling for the million plus UK workers abroad to be sacked too?
Small-minded people who don’t want to accept we live in a global village?
Many of us have moved all over the UK to get jobs or training, other have moved all over the world. Others oppose all change and want everything to stay the same. No job is for life anymore.
Comment by Ray — 31 January, 2009 @ 10:01 am
Ray, this has absolutely nothing to do with people moving around looking for work, this is an organised attempt to smash the UK trade unions in this sector.
The Morning Star editorial posted by Nick Wright is spot on, the SWP line is totally useless, a gift to the BNP.
If there really are hundreds of “Little Enlanders” working in Cockenzie Power Station and Torness nuclear plant in East Lothian, Scotland, prepared to take totally illegal secondary action then we are in big trouble.
Comment by Eddie Truman — 31 January, 2009 @ 10:17 am
`Small-minded people who don’t want to accept we live in a global village?
Many of us have moved all over the UK to get jobs or training, other have moved all over the world. Others oppose all change and want everything to stay the same. No job is for life anymore.’
Ray of the SWP reveals his true anti-working class credentials. What is the difference between you and Norman Tebbit? Global village? Good god.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 31 January, 2009 @ 10:19 am
Scottish Socialist Party statement;
SSP statement on Power Station strikes
The SSP fully supports all those workers in the construction and engineering sectors taking strike action in defence of their jobs and those of future generations. This dispute is not directed, as suggested by the media, against foreign workers but rather against anti union employers and their refusal to employ UK labour for sub contracted work.
The SSP supports the free movement of Labour and vehemently opposes racist immigration controls introduced by New Labour. At the same time however we unequivocally support the demand that UK workers should enjoy equal consideration for work on these contracts. We reject efforts by organisations such as the BNP to divide workers up on the basis of race or nationality.
This is fundamentally a dispute to defend jobs, wages and working conditions and it requires the unity of all workers, of all nationalities, in rejecting multi national employers’ attempts to slash jobs, wages and conditions and trades union rights.
We urge UK unions to support those defending their right to work and to urgently meet with unions in Italy and Portugal to build a unified approach capable of halting employers efforts to divide and exploit workers across Europe.
Comment by Eddie Truman — 31 January, 2009 @ 10:19 am
Ray
Do you really mean that - “Small-minded people who don’t want to accept we live in a global village?… Others oppose all change and want everything to stay the same. No job is for life anymore”?
This is a paean to globalised capitalism. It’s the kind of language Blair used to invoke in those interminable Labour Party conference speeches. And it’s utterly defeatist.
This is like the supercilious tone of the well heeled petit bourgeois in France who claimed that the No vote in the EU referendum was driven by a lumpen opposition to Polish plumbers.
Above all, it sets a test of purity for outbreaks of class struggle which are unlikely to be met. I think it’s a big mistake not to approach this with a view to engaging and providing a focus from the left. There are confused slogans and ideas. Starting from the worst ideas in some people’s heads is exactly the wrong way to approach this.
It ends up with the left sounding like the archetypal “metropolitan elite” who not only have no connections with the mass of working people (something that’s unforunately true) but have a distainful attitude them.
Comment by Kevin Ovenden — 31 January, 2009 @ 10:21 am
Ray:
“I didn’t see one non-white person in any of the news coverage. This is reminiscent of the racist strikes decades ago.”
Probably you would say the same thing about the miners in 1984-5. There were hardly any black miners - though I used to know one who was a very good militant. But the miners were overwhelmingly white - that’s a fact.
This is not a strike about getting rid of foriegn workers. The nationalism that exists is directed at something that is manifestly unfair - the fact that some jobs are reserved for overseas contractors and barred to local workers of whatever ethnicity. Striking against that is eminently just.
By denouncing this as a reactionary strike per se, the SWP have made a very serious political error. Criticise the nationalist overtones as much as you like - they certainly need to be argued against. But at the same time agitate for equality in hiring - no bars against any group of workers having the chance for a job. If you can’t do that, you are handing these strikers over to the BNP on a plate.
Comment by ID — 31 January, 2009 @ 10:36 am
I don’t think it is a coincidence that much of the left seems more comfortable occupying a university building for Gaza than dealing with a strike containing xenophobic elements. Then again, people didn’t like “actually existing socialism” in Eastern Europe. There may also be a problem with the “actually existing working class” in this country, too.
Comment by Faust — 31 January, 2009 @ 10:39 am
It is not clear to me from the SWP statement whether their comrades are intending to go to the various picket lines to argue their position. Can somebody tell me please?
Comment by Stockwell Pete — 31 January, 2009 @ 10:43 am
Not too bad statement from the SSP. Of course no political conclusions are drawn re the need for the working class in britain to come together and pose
a political alternative to the capitalist crisis. So no call for a
british wide socialist party or for the need to fight for a workers
government. and no call to spread the strike to other sectors around
the demand for the right to work for all workers. No call for rank and
file control of the strike or criticism of the TU leadership role for
backing new labour and accepting job losses without a fight. and of
course nothing on the dangers of British nationalism and need to drop
or transcend the reactionary slogan of british jobs for british
workers. Hard for the SSP to criticizes the anti working class nature
of nationalism for obvious reasons. And a small point- I dont think
socialists should say we favour the free movement of labour. we oppose
immigration controls yes but we dont favour the free movement of
labour when such free movement under capitalism is actually not free
but forced wage slavery. Why should workers have to travel around the
world to find work? In a planned economy this would not be necessary.
I doubt we will see a statement from Solidarity on the strike anytime
soon given that the CWI support the strike and the SWP oppose the
strike and it is also difficult for the Solidarity to give a scottish
nationalist spin to the workers fightback since it is an example of
the common action of a section of the british working class and
Solidarity (and the SSP) oppose the unity of the working class in britain
sandy
Comment by Anonymous — 31 January, 2009 @ 10:53 am
#120 Yes, you make a fair point. But I can understand why there is such confusion on the left at the moment about this issue. There has been a very low level of industrial struggle for many years and the revolutionary groupings have a much weaker industrial base than, say, in the 1970s. At least now, with the internet, we can hammer out our differences much more promptly and intervene accordingly.
I don’t live near any of the picket lines so my knowledge of what is happening now is second-hand. I can understand, and partly agree with at a more abstract level, what the SWP are saying, but if it leads to abstentionism on their part then I think that is a big mistake on their part. It will only give more space to social chauvinist elements involved in the strikes. I am not just talking about the BNP here, I am also referring to elements of the trade union bureaucracy too.
On balance, I am much more persuaded by what comrades like Eddie and ID are saying at the moment, to be honest.
Comment by Stockwell Pete — 31 January, 2009 @ 10:56 am
I think one problem the swp has is that the strikes are happening in areas that they are very weak in. I imagine that comrades near striking refineries are being encouraged to intervene but this is only a small section of the (not very large) membership. If it was happening in London then it would be a lot easier for the swp to intervene in. It is very easy to fall into a position of support or of opposition what is much harder is intervening on the ground (which is what is also needed more than the other two).
Comment by friendly lefty — 31 January, 2009 @ 10:59 am
#121 - “It is not clear to me from the SWP statement whether their comrades are intending to go to the various picket lines to argue their position. Can somebody tell me please?”
We already have been and will continue to do so.
Nowhere in the statement are the strikes called “racist”, though it does show how the spread of this slogan can lead to the spread of racism and anti-immigrant feeling. What the statement does is take a more critical tone towards the strikes than the rest of the left, who seem to be happy to imagine away the prevalent (if contradictory) chauvinistic character of the protests in favour of focusing on the question of union organisation or “having a fair crack of the whip”.
At the pickets, we need to be saying it’s great that workers are taking action but that this action is aimed at the wrong people. Keep dreaming that it’s not aimed at workers, but yesterday Italian workers were being called Wops and every other name under the sun as they were driven into work - at least, that’s what I’ve heard from comrades who were actually there on the picket lines. How will you be engaging with that when you all visit the picket lines? People can imagine that what the SWP is saying is that we should abstain from the strikes, that we should condemn them as racist, but this is not the case. But nor are we going to just issue airy statements to the blogosphere that take no account of the real, contradictory conciousness of workers on the pickets, of the reactionary demands that workers are themselves raising, of the disgraceful chauvinistic reaction of the union bureaucrats in pandering to them.
What exactly do comrades here disagree with in these demands:
* Fight all job cuts
* No deals that cut wages or accept lay-offs
* Smash privatisation and sub-contracting
* Unity against the bosses, no to racism and the BNP.
What will they be arguing differently to these? “Fair crack of the whip, sack the Italians and make them reapply with us”? Hmm… Will comrades visiting pickets or sitting on strike committees forcefully argue against the idea of sacking Italian workers and for dropping the British Jobs for British Workers slogan? Or is this going to be a game of playing the line of least resistance to sell a few papers or get a few contacts or votes or whatever you want to get out of it? If socialists think they can have their cake and eat it in this situation then they’re kidding themselves and are doing a disservice to the class - in Britain and elsewhere.
Comment by Inigo Montoya — 31 January, 2009 @ 11:14 am
Apparently the SWP position came out after SWP comrades went to picket lines and found that arguing against the slogan BJ4BW didn’t go down too well.
So for those of you ‘on the ground’ how are you going to get support for this strike in your workplaces/union?
Simply ‘Solidarity with the strikers’ isn’t good enough.
Comment by anticapitalista — 31 January, 2009 @ 11:21 am
#76 ID: “There’s nothing wrong with arguing hard against the nationalist politics of the strike - the SWP statement is very good on that. But it is wrong to characterise it as a reactionary strike in itself - the exclusion of locals from applying for these jobs is simply wrong and by not stating that clearly, it means that the only people really addressing this grievance are the BNP. It is wrong to call the Italian and Portuguese workers ’scabs’, however, and on that Inigo Montoya is right - if they were recruited to break a strike that would be correct - but that seems not to be the case here.
I’m in agreement here but still need a bit more clarification.
But is the central dynamic of the strikes “British jobs for British workers”? Then surely the SWP statement is correct to urge caution when it says, “Those who urge on these strikes are playing with fire.”
Is there really a substantial section of the strikers who see the companies as the enemy, and can the left turn around the bulk of the rest? Or is this wishful thinking on our part? Is it possible to get those Italian and Portuguese workers linking arms with their British counterparts? Because that’s the moment we’ll have succeeded in turning the central issue of this action around.
What happens to British workers who find employment abroad? Are these strikes the safety valve needed by government and business when we’re facing meltdown? They’d obviously like to see local workers’ fire turned on lower paid “foreign” workers.
BTW, I’m pleasantly surprised to find myself largely in agreement with the SWP on this particular issue given the position of some of their leaders in the past. I hope it’s not merely a spoiler regarding Hicks and Galloway as some on here suspect. Unless I’m missing the subtleties of nuance, it didn’t read like it to me.
Comment by Madam Miaow — 31 January, 2009 @ 11:22 am
#127 - “I hope it’s not merely a spoiler regarding Hicks and Galloway as some on here suspect.”
Given that some people on here also think that the SWP is run by MI5 agents and is indistinguishable from the Khmer Rouge, I think it’d be fair to say that’s nonsense. People can think whatever they like about the the party but the notion that we’d take a position on such a vitally important issue just to spite Hicks (who is prominently supported on our most recent industrial leaflets) or Galloway is something that most sane contributors on this site would surely see as sectarian waffle.
Comment by Inigo Montoya — 31 January, 2009 @ 11:27 am
I agree with Madam Miaow at #127. I too would like more clarification.
I am very worried about the political implications of these strikes esp. based on a reactionary racist slogan: ‘British Jobs for British Workers’.
There are laudable demands at the heart of the strike but it is overshadowed by the appalling slogan. And the political meaning of that slogan and who it attracts. The strikers may have good intentions about who they are venting their anger against but it has the potential to backfire. And wtf ….why have Unite supported the slogan?
Do Unite actually approve of building a campaign of strike action based on a divisive slogan?
It is about international solidarity, and that’s why it is utterly politically wrong, wrong, wrong to have a slogan that while supposedly encapsulates the aims of the strike and the demands, it is instead appallingly divisive. And a recruiting ground for fascists.
And divide and rule is the oldest trick in the book…. which fans the flame of racism. And people cannot and should not fall for it!! Especially at the time of an economic crisis, where scapegoating and blaming the powerless for the economic woes (from the unemployed to migrant workers to asylum seekers). It distracts from the real enemy, the ruling class.
And we cannot afford to give ground to this reactionary ideology, we need to work together and show international solidarity.
We also need to discuss and debate these issues within the trade union movement as a whole.
Comment by Louise — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:23 pm
I don’t have a fully-worked-out attitude to this one (it isn’t yet happening near where I live, but it might in future).
On the one hand, it is a working-class and union mobilisation. On the other hand, there is the xenophobia. I think the left should intervene but not be surprised if it doesn’t cut much ice.
It may give an idea of capitalism’s crisis that the old stand-by of blaming “Johnny Foreigner” is being resorted to. If the strikes spread, the xenophobia element might be overcome by the class struggle element - anyway, I hope so.
This is the British equivalent of what is happening in Greece or France, but it might be an indication of the backwardness of the left and the unions, in the country where Karl Marx did most of his theoretical work.
Comment by Faust — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
A huge spontaneous movement of workers erupts and the left start wetting themselves. Let’s get this straight. These are not reactionary strikes. Full stop. What is wrong with workers reflecting back at the government its own empty rhetoric and hyporcisy? And yes, Madam Miaow, the SWP are using this to cement their relations with the right wing of the union bureaucracy to smear Jerry Hicks. Just read II, Ray and other comments on here. That is where elite ultra-left liberalism gets you. All this talk of the BNP is just a bullshit smokescreen. Abstract talk of internationalism won’t wash here either. What about the Italian contract workers showing a bit of `internationalism’ by refusing to work for non-union contractors? Certainly, I can’t see the SWP getting anywhere near this movement now. Let’s just hope they haven’t skewed it for socialists who do want to show solidarity.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 31 January, 2009 @ 1:15 pm
“Bloody Hell”, along with referring to Italians as a “mob” now attacks them for not showing a bit of internationalism in joining a union. Who would have thought that workers being called scabs and Wops would not immediately link arms in a struggle to get them sacked? How darn inconsiderate of them! He says the left is wetting itself. The SWP has been on the pickets and is trying to intervene. From your tone, you’d be down there patting them all on the back and joining in the anti-Italian jeers. Socialist indeed!
He also continues this ludicrous lie that somehow the SWP is attempting to smear Jerry Hicks. The SWP is supporting Hicks for GS. It took up around a third of the recent leaflet we put out over job cuts. Why do you continue to talk utter shit?
Comment by Inigo Montoya — 31 January, 2009 @ 3:15 pm
So, I called the Italian company a mob and that equates to calling italians scabs and wops. only in your fucked up little social fascist world Inigo. You say the British workers are racists and I said how about the Italians showing a bit of internationalism by refusing to work for companies that disbar British workers from jobs in Britain.
`He also continues this ludicrous lie that somehow the SWP is attempting to smear Jerry Hicks.’
This blog is littered with SWPers calling the strike `reactionary’ and racist and condemning Jerry Hicks and George Galloway for supporting it.
What exactly does your intervention entail?
Comment by Bloody Hell — 31 January, 2009 @ 3:32 pm
i’m unsure about these actions. i found out about it from the uk welders forum, some of the posters there were involved and most of the sentiment was nationalistic protectionism (bj4bw being almost ubiquitous), a large minority outright racist and a very small minority seeing it as a class issue.
one poster even mentioned his supervisor sending them out! obviously, this was only messageboard chatter, so it’s difficult to generalise from that.
i’ve a feeling much of the lefts response is about wishful thinking. i think it’s a much trickier situation which needs the debate to be about what the situation actually is and how we respond to it, rather than what we would like it to be.
i may go to the demo and chat to people before i make my mind up.
Comment by discokermit — 31 January, 2009 @ 3:34 pm
“You say the British workers are racists and I said how about the Italians showing a bit of internationalism by refusing to work for companies that disbar British workers from jobs in Britain.”
You are a liar, and a bad one at that. Where have I called British workers racist? Where have I said that those on strike are racists? All I have done is say what has been relayed to me by a number of comrades who have visited lines: that the large numbers of workers are expressing anti-Italian sentiment, calling them Wops, screaming abuse at them when they are taken into work. This, and the prevalence of the BJ4BW has to be taken into account and challenged by socialists - I am astonished that anyone would find this a controversial position. You call on Italian workers to show a little internationalism with nothing but insulting pig-ignorance about how that might be encouraged.
“What exactly does your intervention entail?”
Getting off my arse and taking the difficult arguments to striking and protesting workers rather than spreading idiotic half-truths about the SWP’s position. I’ll be out on Monday - I would say I hope you will too but I’m sure you’d just be adding fuel to the fire, attacking those recalcitrant Italians for not showing enough internationalism rather than trying to find common cause.
Comment by Inigo Montoya — 31 January, 2009 @ 4:00 pm
Some meanderings…
In a way, I’m quite impressed that the SWP statement on the strikes has rejected their economistic and syndicalist instincts and taken seriously the issue of the actual political consciousness of the workers and political direction of the strikes. The slogan BJ4BW is clearly reactionary and going to weaken the working class movement even further.
I had hoped their was a socialist force strong enough to intervene in these strikes and bring to the fore positive, class based demands. As an XSWP-er, my economistic and syndicalist training even lead me to entertain the hope that even maybe the strikes would start with this backward level of politics, but the experience of fighting and unity would enable genuine class consciousness to grow and take the lead! But I expect that this is wildly over optimistic.
BUT THE REAL QUESTION IS:
Why has it seemed almost impossible to get strike action against the massive wave of job cuts and redundancies?
It seems that with the current state of political consciousness in the working class and the trades unions, this demand is seen as IMPOSSIBLE. Perhaps it is not in the popular consciousness today today to imagine or hope that we could defy the logic of capital or the operation of market forces?
So the logic is instead to attack other workers and succumb to nationalism. Compared to actually defending jobs against capitalism, the hideous BJ4BW slogan seems ‘realistic’ and ‘winnable’.
This is the legacy of thirty years of defeat and retreat for the UK unions, the globalised power of capital and the collapse of the idea of socialism.
Those of us who fondly imagined that the ‘downturn’ would end with a new rebirth of class consciousness and militant action have had a rude awakening.
ON THE OTHER HAND…
But - on the other hand - we have seen how groups of ‘unite’ stewards have been building this campaign for months, through hard work. And its true that importing as a block a 100% ‘foreign’ workforce, with no local skilled workers taken on IS a massive provocation. Its not in the same league as employing a mixed workforce, composed of individuals from everywhere.
Could not the left have intervened at an earlier stage? The demand could have been for ‘EQUAL HIRING PRACTICES’?!
Perhaps the whole discourse would have then been about equality, rather than the current exclusionary one?
But we have all, instead, had our focus on mobilising solidarity for Gaza! (And quite rightly). But people might then ask ‘who speaks up for working class people in Britain?’. The anti-working class scum of the fascist BNP can even pose as the answer, in our absence from the scene.
What is clear is that the left needs to find an issue, a battle that symbolises the real plight of the working class in Britain - and hammer away at it, with tireless hard work and campaigning. Then we shall have our focus. We can not wait for this to happen ’spontaneously’ - coz then we get this BJ4BW mess.
So the argument on the SWP CC - about an anti-recession united front movement versus waiting to see how events unfold - is very relevant here. Maybe a rethink is needed?
Comment by Barry Kade — 31 January, 2009 @ 4:42 pm
Madam Miaow:
“But is the central dynamic of the strikes “British jobs for British workers”? Then surely the SWP statement is correct to urge caution when it says, “Those who urge on these strikes are playing with fire.”
“Is there really a substantial section of the strikers who see the companies as the enemy, and can the left turn around the bulk of the rest? Or is this wishful thinking on our part? Is it possible to get those Italian and Portuguese workers linking arms with their British counterparts? Because that’s the moment we’ll have succeeded in turning the central issue of this action around.”
What happens to British workers who find employment abroad? Are these strikes the safety valve needed by government and business when we’re facing meltdown? They’d obviously like to see local workers’ fire turned on lower paid “foreign” workers.”
My understanding is that the strike that sparked this off, in Lindsey refinery at North Killingholme, Lincolnshire, is against the fact that hundreds of new jobs have been created by a Italian contractor that has brought in its own, permanent workforce of Italian and Portuguese workers without even interviewing local workers who may have wanted to apply for these jobs. As far as I can see, what this is actually directed against is the tendering process that gave rise to this, whereby through a commercial deal, within the framework of EU ‘tendering’ guidelines, an entire workforce can be excluded from the opportunity to apply for these jobs.
That in my view is a legitimate greivance; it would be just as legitimate if it was happening in Italy or Portugal and British workers had been brought in without allowing the local workers there to apply for an analogous set of jobs. It is also the kind of thing that will almost inevitably, and spontaneously, produce at least a partially nationalist response whereever it is practiced.
We should oppose the spontaneous nationalist response, but that does not make it a reactionary strike in terms of its demands. This is not London dockworkers going out on strike supporting Enoch Powell in 1968 saying ‘blacks out’ or whatever. This is a legitimate grievance, and if the left does not take it up and channel it against the employers and the kind of divide and rule tactic that this tendering process represents, then the far right will certainly do so and give it their thrust towards division and attacks on foriegn workers.
No, the thrust is not ‘British jobs for British workers’; the actual greivance is against a discriminatory tendering process that comes from the EU’s neo-liberal rules, and that grievance is legitimate and supportable. Demanding fair employment practices in terms of hiring is not the same thing as opposing overseas workers’ rights to work in Britain. Though if the left plays into the hands of the BNP by dismissing the thrust of this strike as reactionary, it would make it much easier for things to be channelled that way.
The statements of representatives of the workers I have seen have been contradictory, with many saying that they are not against the Italian and Portuguese workers, but rather against the companies and their discriminatory practices. But at the same time, slogans about ‘British jobs for British workers’ have indeed been raised by the rank-and-file it appears; it is not clear, however, that this is a response to BNP propaganda. In many cases it looks like a jibe at what they see as the ‘hypocrisy’ of Gordon Brown. And of course, there is also a nationalist element even in workers’ social-democratic consciousness (and there always has been). So in my view the real thrust of this is contradictory at this point.
Comment by ID — 31 January, 2009 @ 5:15 pm
At the outbreak of the 1984/85 miners strike i remember going along to a picket line in Yorkshire. If i recall correctly, the NUM members there had been on strike for several days in advance of the national dispute beginning, over a (not unrelated) matter of the workforce conflicting with another group of NUM members from the neighbouring colliery. The argument i think was about entitlement to open a new face between the two pits, each workforce disputing ‘ownership’ in a contracting industry when jobs were visibly disappearing.
No one had any expectation that the striking NUM members were advanced Leninists, indeed, i thought they would probably be just like most members of the working class, a bit nationalistic, and probably a bit racist. They were. Actually, some were acutely racist, but most were negotiable on it. They all shared strong union consciousness.
i don’t recall the swp taking a line which began by denouncing the basis of the strike in any way. The priority was to establish contact and argue that the main thing was to struggle against the employers. The chauvinism was regarded as a somewhat secondary issue to be dealt with during the dialogue.
What has changed so much between then and now? Is the revolutionary Party become so embourgeoised that it stands back in horror when it has to observe the class warts and all? Whatever happened to concepts of leadership and attempting to shape ideas as they rapidly develop?
The emphasis of the swp statement, although unarguably correct in many of its criticisms can only serve to create pessimism when what is required is its hard nosed
opposite.
Who’d have thought it?
Comment by redcogs — 31 January, 2009 @ 5:15 pm
The nature and nasty dynamic of this dispute is becoming more and more clear. It seems even on this blog somme are starting to see the ugliness of this situation. The attempt to make a comparision with the Miners strike is simply not tenable. Whatever the faults and weaknesses in the miners strike and yes many held sexist and generally racist ideas like many workers it was not the driving force. I did not see the miners placards with the slogans present on this dispute. And of course when miners made sexist comments the SWP and many others challenged it on the basis that it weakend their struggle and the class as a whole. I have to be honest and remember the Militant at the time turnig a blind eye to the sexist rubbish and indeed chanting along with it.
Ok thats 20 odd years ago. The issue is not wether workers have contradictory ideas, of course they do the issue os the demands of this strike is not one we can simply champion. The arguement is being put that foreign workers should be sacked and british ones replace them. I heard a steward on the radio say they should be sent home. Simply saying this is not happening is to be willfully blind. I think Respect ahve a problem. Hicks doesn’t want to challenge the populism of the strike becuase it may damage his election. I am of the view that there are more important things at stake. The SWP has not abstained, indeed I know it will be SWP members going to the picket lines and carrying an arguement. The idea that you sometimes has to challenge some of the ideas workers hold is ABC for socialists.SWP members will distrubting the statement/leaflet to as many people as possible. I know many people not SWP and quite some distance from the hard left who are perturbed and worried at the slogans and feel despondant by it. And they are people who want a fight, but we need more France than UK at the moment.
Comment by ll — 31 January, 2009 @ 5:47 pm
yes ll (140) - but what is wrong with demanding equal hiring practices and against nationally exclusive workforces? That was the initial grievance. Maybe it need not have had the BJ4BW slogan?
Comment by Barry Kade — 31 January, 2009 @ 5:52 pm
ll - if Yorkshire miners had held up placards arguing against bosses shipping in scabs for Nottinghamshire would it be reactionary to support them?
Comment by Joseph Kisolo — 31 January, 2009 @ 5:57 pm
Mmm… you lot wouldn’t like these people. They’re the working class.
Stick to the romanticising the fascist thugs overseas like Hamas.
Comment by working class hero — 31 January, 2009 @ 5:59 pm
#141 You don’t get it Barry even when II spells it out for you above. The SWP is opposed to this strike. It is playing politics with the gen sec election for its own immediate and self-interested aims which are no more than the CC’s bureaucratic hubris. Worse than that, they are prepared to send young members into a very difficult situation that they have created just as the AWL sent people onto Gaza demonstrations with Israeli flags.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 31 January, 2009 @ 6:00 pm
#142 ll - if Yorkshire miners had held up placards arguing against bosses shipping in scabs for Nottinghamshire would it be reactionary to support them?
Joseph I wasn’t aware the present workers were brought in to scab on a strike. Because there was no strike action was there? Therefore the comparision is not effective.
In some ways we shouldn’t be surprised, a deep recession, union leaders who won’t resist new labour and peddle a lie that workers can’t win etc. A long and sustained campaign by all the political establishment against immigrants and this can be the outcome. So why deny what is happening. I wish it wasn’t the case but those on the left who want to duck what is happening are doing anybody any favours. The idea the drive and central issue of the miners strike was against foreign workers is a total travesty of the truth. Why are Italian workers being jeered, are you really happy thats happening, I am sure you are not. When the main slogan is BJ4BW we have to argue hard this is not the way forward. The SWP have been on the picket lines so this is not an abstention it is the only clear position for socialists to take.
Comment by ll — 31 January, 2009 @ 6:04 pm
Bloody hell
I prefer Lenin and his description of socialists being the tribune of the oppressed ys even if thats not popular, so be it. Being pro asylum seeker is not particulalry popular but I am proud of the SWP’s record on this issue. Its called being a socialist.
Comment by ll — 31 January, 2009 @ 6:08 pm
The example i gave involved two separate groups of NUM members who felt they were in competition for a dwindling number of jobs in a threatened industry. In fact,they felt so threatened they were physically fighting with their brothers from the next pit underground.
In this respect, the comparison between the 1984/5 strike and todays oil strike remains valid.
But the discussion is about emphasis for me. To dwell on the negative aspects of the most important movement of workers for a generation is to obscure the potential for it to take on a far more positive and openly class oriented character. Surely people who can need to engage on that basis.
Comment by redcogs — 31 January, 2009 @ 6:13 pm
The truth is that nobody actually knows what is motivating this strike. Probably as many motivations as there are strikers might be somewhere near an realistic assessment. The media emphasis naturally seeks to sow the seeds of racist division, but on the picket line those offering leadership can hope to sway opinions positively.
A few reactionary placards and some difficult chanting means little. The objective facts are that a significant section of our class are taking direct political action that challenges the employers ‘right’ to determine terms and conditions of employment. If they succeed it will send a massive signal to the rest of the class that industrial action can produce results and the potential for change.
Keep your eyes on the prize.
Comment by redcogs — 31 January, 2009 @ 6:28 pm
‘The SWP has been on the pickets and is trying to intervene. From your tone, you’d be down there patting them all on the back and joining in the anti-Italian jeers. Socialist indeed!
Did you take your Gaza/Hamas leaflets with you, i’m sure the strikers will rush to get them!
Comment by Anon2008 — 31 January, 2009 @ 6:50 pm
The troll called Anon2008 jeers at the SWP comrades:
“Did you take your Gaza/Hamas leaflets with you, i’m sure the strikers will rush to get them!”
Well, for all their many faults - the SWP are internationalists. Your anonymous jeer is just narrow nationalism.
This whole issue behind the L.O.R dispute is about the increased power given to the bosses by capitalist globalisation. The capitalist enemy organises internationally. That’s how it has outmanoeuvred us nationally organised working classes since the 1970’s.
Nationalism amongst workers weakens our fight against internationally organised capitalists.
The old slogan “Worker’s of all countries unite!” is now more immediate and relevant than ever.
Comment by Barry Kade — 31 January, 2009 @ 7:14 pm
A very powerful article here, which exposes sentiments some on here hold about the nature a large part of the WC:
Total stupidity makes British patience snap
We should be angry that the skilled oilmen of Lindsey now find themselves flotsam and jetsam on the economic tide
Janice Turner
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/janice_turner/article5622048.ece
Comment by history tells us things — 31 January, 2009 @ 7:14 pm
The comments which I have seen here confirm what I had suspected. The hard-left is so disappointed with the British working people: disappointed that they want simply to have reasonably paid jobs, decent housing, a bit of money left over for the pleasure of a few beers and cigarettes etc; disappointed that they don’t want to have some kind of revolution to impose the failed doctrine of a long dead political theoretician. The left’s answer is that they should be replaced in their millions by millions from elsewhere, from anywhere. That is betrayal and treason. BTW have any of you sociologists ever had a real job?
Comment by Allan Sharp — 31 January, 2009 @ 7:26 pm
Zoe #137: “Many people just don’t understand the nature of these towns in the North, they aren’t like London, that’s why many of us from there don’t live there.”
Unbeleivable arrogance.
Comment by Andy Newman — 31 January, 2009 @ 7:30 pm
Unbeleivable arrogance.
For once we are in agreement.
Comment by fred — 31 January, 2009 @ 7:37 pm
Post #153 Allan Sharp -
yet when talking about the working class you use the term ‘they’.
So to rephrase you - yes:
WE want to have reasonably paid jobs, decent housing, a bit of money left over for the pleasure of a few beers and cigarettes etc;
I’m not so sure what you mean when you say that we should ’simply’ want these. But yes, they are certainly the very basics that we demand.
But it is obviously the capitalist depression that now poses the greatest threat to our enjoying even these basics.
And it is the trades unions that won us even these very basics in the first place, that’s our history.
But what is wrong with wanting more than these basics? Like a better, more tolerant, harmonious and free society in general?
And one thing - even to get these basics of jobs, housing, food and recreation - then we need to unite. We cannot afford the poison of worker fighting against worker on grounds of race, nation or religion. We know all about this divide and rule that is used to rob the people and fatten the rich.
Comment by Barry Kade — 31 January, 2009 @ 7:56 pm
And just to add - when A. Sharp preaches on about what he reckons we need as the working class - his patronising formula that
“they want simply to have reasonably paid jobs, decent housing, a bit of money left over for the pleasure of a few beers and cigarettes etc”
This just shows he doesn’t have a clue about the real conditions facing the modern working class in Britain.
So he reckons all we need is a little extra for ‘a few beers and cigarettes’ eh? What about those pension scheme payments and the mortgage, plus all the other ever growing bills? All these outlays we need to keep up because the welfare state has been rolled back? A few beers and cigarettes and were happy. Ah, but are we just the ’simple’ working people of olde englande in this guys eyes?
Comment by Barry Kade — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:05 pm
#126 “Apparently the SWP position came out after SWP comrades went to picket lines and found that arguing against the slogan BJ4BW didn’t go down too well.” So some left-wing paper sellers who know no-one in the refinery turn up on the picket line, give a lecture on how the workers have got the wrong slogan and don’t get cheered to the rafters. And this is what determines the political line of an organisation which wants to be taken seriously! Farcical. Cliff really will be spinning in his grave.
Comment by are you serious — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:12 pm
@160
‘It’s easy to condemn when you aren’t forced to live in a place where Asda keeps the garlic in the ‘foreign food’ aisle.
Is this satire?
Comment by history tells us things — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:28 pm
Btw, you know the link to ‘A Very Public Sociologist’ is wrong at the foot of the article?
It takes you to ‘everypublicsociologist.blogspot.com’ instead.
Comment by Duncan Money — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:29 pm
FFS Zoe
i grew up in Keynsham, and I live in Swindon!
My mum’s familly come from scunthorpe.
Don’t extend whatever personal reasons made you leave home into a general principle.
Socialism has to be about working in the actually existing working class andits mass organisations, not running off to somewhere where everyone reads the guardian, and knits their own tofu.
Comment by Andy Newman — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:33 pm
#159 are you serious (just use one name, Tony)
So you pander to the nationalist slogan of BJ4BW then?
I’m sure you’ll make some friends that way.
Comment by anticapitalista — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:07 pm
Dear Zoe,
I live in a small northern town of about 50,000 people, its quite nice. We have hills, some factories and heavy industry left, colleges, pubs, trades unions, theatres, cinemas, churches, mosques, gay bars and political satire. People did not give the fascists of the BNP an easy time, and after oppositional direct action and loosing badly at elections they have now absented themselves as an organised body round here. You should visit.
Comment by Barry Kade — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:26 pm
“knits their own tofu.”
have you got the recipe?
Comment by ll — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:35 pm
“#159 are you serious (just use one name, Tony)”
FAIL.
Comment by name FAIL — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:44 pm
“are you serious” (159) writes in reply to #126: “Apparently the SWP position came out after SWP comrades went to picket lines and found that arguing against the slogan BJ4BW didn’t go down too well.” So some left-wing paper sellers who know no-one in the refinery turn up on the picket line, give a lecture on how the workers have got the wrong slogan and don’t get cheered to the rafters. And this is what determines the political line of an organisation which wants to be taken seriously! Farcical. Cliff really will be spinning in his grave.
Well, there was no talk of a “lecture”, but actually, that’s how you intervene in a high-profile strike in which you have no members and no initial influence (assuming that’s the case with the SWP). You go to the lines, you talk, you discuss, you get into arguments where you need to but stand your ground on principles such as opposing disastrous lines like “British jobs for British workers”. After the first intervention you try to prepare for the next intervention, with an informed leaflet, with sharpened arguments, and hopefully with a few contacts on the picket line who are willing to help out. It’s a hard slog, but you do it. That’s what socialists do.
I’m not sure what else you’re supposed to do in an area where you have no members or influence. You can’t show up with a leaflet based on news reports and gossipy blog crap. Leaflets have to related directly to the workers on the lines and the only way to hammer out such a leaflet is to get on the lines, show your politics, talk, discuss, debate - and if the cops or scabs attack you stand with them. It’s ABC.
Comment by djn — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:45 pm
I really wish people like Ray would stop using ‘Little Englanders’ as an insult. The history is that ‘Little Englanders’ were those who opposed the Boer War, probably the most imperialist of all Britain’s African wars in that it was totally driven by the fact of the major gold and diamond strikes in what is now SA. They were the anti-imperialists of their day, who wanted their nation not to interfere in the affairs of other nations.
There’s a portrait of one in George Orwell’s “Coming Up For Air”
“He was a real old nineteenth-century Liberal, the kind that not only used to ask you what Gladstone said in ‘78 but could tell you the answer, and one of the very few people in Lower Binfield who stuck to the same opinions all through the war. He was always denouncing Joe Chamberlain and some gang of people that he referred to as ‘the Park Lane riff-raff’. I can hear him now, having one of his arguments with Father. ‘Them and their far-flung Empire! Can’t fling it too far for me. He-he-he!’”
Comment by Laban Tall — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:49 pm
Instead of denoucing working class blokes who are just worried about paying their bills and mortgages, why don’t socialists intervene in the strike with some socialist slogans? Revive the old IS slogan of ‘Fight for the Right to Work’ for example. If you impotent lot sit carping on the sidelines then you are abandoning the field to the fascists.
Comment by Sue R — 31 January, 2009 @ 10:39 pm
Actually, as my mother said the other day Gordan Brown was a bloody fool for every saying that, when he would KNOW that it is not legally permissible.
Comment by Sue R — 31 January, 2009 @ 10:44 pm
Is there really a substantial section of the strikers who see the companies as the enemy, and can the left turn around the bulk of the rest?
It seems to me that most of the strikers are saying that the companies are the enemy. They’re saying that companies operating in Britain should hire workers based in Britain, even if that means offering them terms and conditions which they wouldn’t have to offer workers shipped in (literally, in this case) from elsewhere in the EU. “Jobs in Britain with a hiring process open to workers living in Britain”, in other words - and try as I might I can’t see anything reactionary, let alone racist, about that demand. “BJ4BW” has horrible overtones, but it’s (a) catchy and (b) a direct and embarrassing quote from the Prime Minister. I don’t think we need to read too much into it.
Is it possible to get those Italian and Portuguese workers linking arms with their British counterparts?
Probably not. The strike’s directed against the company, but if it’s successful some Italian workers will be losers in the short term. It’s divide and rule, as Louise says, but it’s the bosses who are doing the dividing. This is why socialists should work to generalise the demands which are being made, and insist that this strike can and should be pursued without any animosity towards the immigrant workers who have been caught in the middle. If the loophole in European labour law which other posters have talked about is closed, Italian as well as British workers will benefit.
Comment by Phil — 31 January, 2009 @ 10:44 pm
Phil #176
Exactly
That is precisley the correct understanding and approach we need.
Sue R #174. I don’t often agree with you. But i do 100% here.
Comment by Andy Newman — 31 January, 2009 @ 11:13 pm
Zoe #173
You basically wrote that everyone who loves outside London is a carrot-cruncher or idiot oik, so it is not suprising that i thought that was a bit of an arrogant idea :o)
Comment by Andy Newman — 31 January, 2009 @ 11:20 pm
Andy: “knits their own tofu.”
Yeah, but is it plain stitch or pearl?
Comment by Louise — 31 January, 2009 @ 11:40 pm
it might be crochet
Comment by Andy Newman — 31 January, 2009 @ 11:57 pm
“BJ4BW” has horrible overtones, but it’s (a) catchy and (b) a direct and embarrassing quote from the Prime Minister. I don’t think we need to read too much into it.”
if respect members think its catchy god help us. Don’t read into it!!! in other words ignore it, put our heads in the sand and it will go away. For fucks sake wake up.
Comment by ll — 1 February, 2009 @ 12:02 am
ll - try to be serious instead of in a permanent state of righteous indignation. Of course it’s catchy. The devil often has the best tunes. Please post the Socialist Worker leaflet that is aiming to cut through all this. It would be helpful.
Comment by Nas — 1 February, 2009 @ 12:13 am
#171 Why don’t you just admit you got it wrong and stop embarrassing yourselves? But admitting you ever got anything wrong is a real problem for you isn’t it, witness the failure to apologise for wrecking Respect, despite the fact you’ve purged the lead wreckers. For yet another analysis which gets it right, rather than wrong like the SWP statement, see this from the excellent Seumas Milne in The Guardian cif, Friday 30 January 2009
Our flexible friends
The real theme of these strikes is not xenophobia but outrage at UK and EU rules designed to keep labour cheap and weak.
Gordon Brown’s promise of “British jobs for British workers” certainly counts, along with an “end to boom and bust”, as his most cynical and asinine to date. Not only was he incapable of delivering on it under European Union law, but the slogan was bound to be exploited by the far right in the shape of the British National party – who coined it in the first place.
Now it’s been thrown back in his face by striking energy workers across the country, protesting against local workers being undercut and excluded from a £200m construction project at Total’s Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire in favour of Italian and Portugese workers brought in by the Italian company IREM. Sympathy walkouts have been staged across Britain, including at the Aberthaw power station in Wales and the Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland, where last year workers won a famous victory against their private equity owner Ineos by closing down the North Sea Forties field for two days in protest at attempts to slash pension rights.
Of course, the BNP and its friends will try to exploit these rolling stoppages, as they have been doing at the Staythorpe power station in Newark, Nottinghamshire, where Alstom is refusing to hire locally and relying on non-union Polish and Spanish contracted workers instead. But it would be wrong – and play into the far right’s hands – to portray this as a xenophobic protest directed against foreign workers and immigration, instead of what it actually is: a fight for jobs in the middle of a deepening recession and a backlash against the deregulated, race-to-the-bottom neoliberal model backed by Brown for more than a decade which produced it.
IREM claims it is paying the same rates as existing contractors on the Lindsey refinery site and is only using its own workforce because they are “specialised”. Since the contract is secret, that can’t be put to the test, but is regarded as absurd in the area, where engineering construction skills are high and plentiful. European workers are supposed to be shielded from such social dumping by the EU’s posted workers directive, but Britain’s version only offers limited protection. And the directive itself has been undermined by the European Court of Justice’s recent Viking and Laval decisions – which effectively outlawed industrial action where unions are trying to win equal pay for migrant workers and banned public bodies from requiring foreign contractors to pay such workers local rates.
The reality is that EU directives and, even more so, British legislation have encouraged employers to exploit deregulated labour markets to play off one part of the workforce against another and drive down employment costs. Now that jobs are at a premium, organised workers in Britain are no longer prepared to put up with it and are ignoring anti-union laws to make their voice heard. So long as their protests continue to target employers and the government, rather than other workers, that will intensify the pressure on Brown to stop tinkering, come up with what is now long overdue: a serious programme of investment in public housing, infrastructure and transport to replace the jobs now haemorrhaging across Britain.
Comment by are you serious — 1 February, 2009 @ 5:55 am
I’ve just read the Weekly Worker report on the small and overwhelmingly SWP-dominated StW activists meeting last Saturday. If the report is to be believed, there is an emerging irony that German and Rees are now pursuing a more sensible and less sectarian line than the new SWP CC. The report claims that German gave wholehearted support to Galloway’s Gaza convoy, calling on activists to set up convoy meetings. Socialist Worker, on the other hand, has pretended it does not exist.
I am sure this is just a cynical move in the ongoing faction fight but I would be curious to know if there is a similar division over the refinery strikes. Sad indeed, but hardly surprising given recent history, if serious political analysis in the SWP is being subordinated to the faction fight.
Comment by are you serious — 1 February, 2009 @ 6:02 am
“Are you serious” - You obviously didn’t bother to read what I wrote in 171 or even bother to read what you wrote in your own idiotic post (159). In 159 you ridicule socialists showing up on picket lines, finding ugly nationalist slogans, and then drawing up a statement/leaflet on which socialists can then intervene to shape the strikes and pull them away from nationalism and towards working-class unity. Again, what is wrong with this? This is the ABCs of how socialists intervene in a strike.
But you’re obviously so hell-bent on attacking a particular socialist organization, the SWP, that you can’t even put together a response to what I’ve actually said let alone make any coherent argument about how socialists should be intervening in this strike.
And in your sectarian haste, you automatically assume I’m an SWP member. I’m not. I don’t even live in the UK.
Comment by djn — 1 February, 2009 @ 6:27 am
‘Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP for Dagenham, said there was a real risk that “prestige projects”, such as the 2012 Olympics, would be hit by similar protests unless ministers acted. At the last count, only 63% of workers on the Olympics site were British.’ from the Observer
The next stage - ‘only 63% British’ - apparently this will be seen as unnacceptable. This isn’t just the equivalent of the sexism at the start of the miners strike - the whole dynamic of this movement is moving in a deeply reactionary direction.
I really don’t buy the line that BJ4BW isn’t the dominant ideological pole in this strike.
Comment by swp member — 1 February, 2009 @ 7:11 am
#185 If you had pointed out in the first place that you had not been near the strike and were merely pontificating in the abstract from a distant place in defence of the SWP, I would not have bothered to respond to your contribution.
Comment by are you serious — 1 February, 2009 @ 7:41 am
#186 Let’s be clear about the nature of the (very important) difference between the SWP approach to these strikes and the approach of others.
No-one is arguing that these strikes could not be taken in a reactionary and chauvinistic direction, with the BNP picking up even more support as a result, or that there are reactionary and chauvinistic aspects to them. In fact I wonder which strikes have lacked elements of the reactionary and chauvinistic? Not the Great Miners Strike or the Wapping Strikes in the 1980s which enjoyed the wholehearted, but not of course uncritical, support of the SWP.
The key question is how to relate to the strike and that depends on how you understand the nature of the strike. The SWP, apparently on the basis of a bad initial reaction of some strikers to SWP members, has concluded that the fundamental thrust of the strikes is reactionary.
On the other hand, the analysis of the Morning Star, the Socialist Party, Seumas Milne, Tony Woodley, Jon Cruddas, George Galloway, Andy Newman, Jerry Hicks and others who know a thing or two is that the strikes as they have erupted thus far are not fundamentally reactionary, are prompted by legitimate grievances and deserve a leadership which will not only take them in a progressive direction but will only be successful if they take that direction. The Socialist Party even has a member on the strike committee raising those progressive demands.
I know which analysis I have more confidence in, but perhaps SWP members could round out their analysis with an indication as to why they think the list of people and organisations above who disagree with them have got it so wrong.
Comment by are you serious — 1 February, 2009 @ 8:09 am
You are where you are. I’m sure in your perfect world they would all be out wild catting for open borders etc but life’s not like that.
Getting the right to work slogan dusted off would seem a sensible move.
And I’m reliably informed by the wife that its best to crochet tofu.
Comment by fred — 1 February, 2009 @ 8:16 am
“The SWP, apparently on the basis of a bad initial reaction of some strikers to SWP members, has concluded that the fundamental thrust of the strikes is reactionary. ”
I love the way tittle tattle is made into fact. The interviews of workers, the OFFICIAL placards are BJ4BW’s, the way in which the UKIP, TORIES, SUN NEWSPAPER are able to back these protests are surely some indication. Now the Galloway line is it is all made up by the press, they are lying, Well it just doesn’t seem that way.
If the left organisations stated above want to pretend there isn’t a real central problem with this disoute then carry on. You can cheerlead away. I would be interested to see the SP leaflet which no doubt the strike cttee member is giving out. Has Galloway visited the picket lines? Italian workers we are told by some on these picket iines need to be sent home. If this is a figment of the media then they must have good actors in the BBC.
Has Respect gone to the protests? what was the reaction? you see these are genuine questions. If the driving force ideologically of a dispute is to get rid of foreign workers then I am pleased the SWP see this as very dangerous and are trying to intervene to change the focus. No doubt the likes of Simpson don’t want that focus changed. By the way Simpson isn’t mentioned on your list. If you think Woodley is the acid test on industrial matters then you are barking up the wrong tree. And no offrence but the idea the Morning star are the fount of all wisdom in industrial matters is again a bit warped is it not? but hey you also seem to think Andy Newman is a great gauge adn figure in the union movement. To be fair to Andy I don’t think he claims this. So the list you produce is not that impressive.
Comment by ll — 1 February, 2009 @ 8:28 am
#186 `The next stage - ‘only 63% British’ - apparently this will be seen as unnacceptable. This isn’t just the equivalent of the sexism at the start of the miners strike - the whole dynamic of this movement is moving in a deeply reactionary direction.’
It is unacceptable you idiot. Do you expect workers to languish on the dole and their kids in shitty schools whilst British capitalism imports union busting contractors from the EU? Obviously you do.
Comment by Taking the Michael — 1 February, 2009 @ 8:51 am
#186 Yours is the `internationalism’ of global capital.
Comment by Taking the Michael — 1 February, 2009 @ 8:54 am
The bosses, and the government are using this British Jobs for British Workers in an attempt to hamstring the unions in the coming period. The outburst of anger is global but in Britain, uniquely, it is directed not against the bosses but against other workers. In Ireland they have occupied Waterford Glass, in France and everywhere they have fought the state and capitalism openly, even if as yet in politically inadequate forms. This reaction was consciously initiated by Gordon Brown, is enthusiastically supported by the TU bureaucracy who have moved far beyond the popular frontism of the Peoples Charter to outright reaction - see Saturday’s Morning Star, a more disgraceful edition of a so-called workers paper was scarcely ever produced. They warn the BNP off the picket lines but politically open the door for a major advancement of the far right by their disgraceful conduct.
No, we need a rank-and-file movement in the unions to combat this - but the Socialist Party are accommodating to it. Of the bigger groups only the SWP have taken a relatively healthy stance. The SP have moved beyond accommodating to Crow and Serwotka and now prostrate themselves before Woodley and Simpson/Hicks who are attempting to outbid each other in reaction in the bid for the leadership if Amicus/Unite.
Gerry Downing
“A trade union led by reactionary fakers organizes a strike against the admission of Negro workers into a certain branch of industry. Shall we support such a shameful strike? Of course not. But let us imagine that the bosses, utilizing the given strike, make an attempt to crush the trade union and to make impossible in general the organized self-defence of the workers. In this case we will defend the trade union as a matter of course in spite of its reactionary leadership.” Trotsky 1939
Comment by Gerry Downing — 1 February, 2009 @ 9:40 am
Post #177 “On the other hand, the analysis of the Morning Star, the Socialist Party, Seumas Milne, Tony Woodley, Jon Cruddas, George Galloway, Andy Newman, Jerry Hicks and others who know a thing or two is that the strikes as they have erupted thus far are not fundamentally reactionary, are prompted by legitimate grievances and deserve a leadership which will not only take them in a progressive direction but will only be successful if they take that direction.”
All of which is utopian rot. In fact the strikes are based on a nationalist slogan that the above named groups and individuals, with the exception of the CWI section, have in common with Old Labour, New Labour and the political tendencies that can be found to the right of them. And the nationalism of a state that remains an imperialist predator is a deeply reactionary ideology despite the ludicrous attempts of some to rehabilitate it for the left.
Certainly these strikes have an underlying legitimate cause, job insecurity, but targeting our fellow workers as the cause of that insecurity, while failing to raise demands that would remedy the situation to the benefit of all workers, is to act in a divisive and reactionary manner. And those who tail behind the strikes urging them on are falling into a very obvious trap for internationalists that can only benefit the bosses.
Comment by Mike — 1 February, 2009 @ 9:56 am
working class opposition to social dumping should be supported. For capital to import a foreign non union workforce and separate them off in barges from the rest of the working class is an attempt to undermine working class strength and collectivity. Any struggle against this practice should be supported by socialists. Capital is trying the same thing throughout Europe to drive down working class living standards. We need a european wide movement against this practice
sandy
Unite the Union launches petition against social dumping
Unite the Union has launched a new petition against social dumping
within the European Union. Following three rulings by the European
Court of Justice (ECJ) which have potentially dire consequences for
workers’ rights across Europe including the undermining of collective
action and the right to strike.
ECJ rulings in the cases of Laval, Viking and Ruffert have determined that
* Unions cannot take action against companies employing imported
workers at rates below those agreed with local workers
* workers’ rights to collective action are less important than
market freedom of access for cheaper workers
* Union members are prevented from being able to take collective
action to defend industry agreement
* Outlawing action aimed at ‘levelling up’ wage rates of imported
workers.
The campaign website is promoting a Europe-wide petition for the following
* An amendment to the posted workers directive to at least clearly
spell out how mandatory standards can be guaranteed through collective
agreement and also defended through collective action.
* An agreed temporary agency directive as quickly as possible.
* A social progress clause making it clear that the fundamental
right to organise and the right to strike are in no way subordinate to
the economic freedoms.
Unite aims to persuade the Commission to honour their commitment. The
purpose of their petition is to build up a groundswell of support for
action.
http://www.lavalvikingruffert.eu/about_the_site-1.aspx
Comment by Anonymous — 1 February, 2009 @ 10:00 am
#183 `Certainly these strikes have an underlying legitimate cause, job insecurity, but targeting our fellow workers as the cause of that insecurity, while failing to raise demands that would remedy the situation to the benefit of all workers, is to act in a divisive and reactionary manner. And those who tail behind the strikes urging them on are falling into a very obvious trap for internationalists that can only benefit the bosses.’
Keep pumping out the lies about the strikers Mike. The target is not `fellow workers’ but the Italian contractor that keeps it workers housed and isolated on ships and the neo-liberal EU job market that seeks to bust unions.
Comment by Taking the Michael — 1 February, 2009 @ 10:19 am
I live in a working class area of Glasgow. Recently Tesco have been trying to get planning permission for a new super store. Locals have dubbed it Tesco town. There have been protests re the affect on local shops and the disruption on the roads etc that building the store would cause. Other locals have said it would be good for the area to have the jobs that the store will create. In general I am in favour of the new store. However imagine the response of local people if Tesco said it would be importing the workforce to build the store and to work in the store from Bulgaria and that the Bulgarian workers would be housed on barges on the Clyde and local terms and conditions would not apply to their work and that therefore local people would be excluded from working on the building project or the store. I think the locals would be non too happy. You may get some anti Bulgarian comments and placards saying local jobs for local workers but the essence of the anger would be correct and socialists would intervene in such a struggle with socialists demands. It would not be sensible to denounce the locals as racist and oppose their protests and thus effectively give support to the bosses and their attempt to drive down our living standards
sandy
Comment by Anonymous — 1 February, 2009 @ 10:39 am
‘ `The next stage - ‘only 63% British’ - apparently this will be seen as unnacceptable. This isn’t just the equivalent of the sexism at the start of the miners strike - the whole dynamic of this movement is moving in a deeply reactionary direction.’
It is unacceptable you idiot. Do you expect workers to languish on the dole and their kids in shitty schools whilst British capitalism imports union busting contractors from the EU? Obviously you do. ‘
What do other people think of this position? (I’d be surprised if many major employers in London are as high as 63% British these days.)
Comment by swp member — 1 February, 2009 @ 10:40 am
Last night the Unite union demanded urgent talks with Brown. It called for the government to ensure contractors on public infrastructure projects agreed to sign new corporate social responsibility clauses that will ensure free access for local labour. “If the government can bail out the banks, it can deliver a level playing field for engineering and construction workers in the UK,” said Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of the union.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/feb/01/british-jobs-unions-gordon-brown
So, courtesy of Simpson, the strike has now effectively acquired a coherent demand. I don’t think much of Simpson, by the way, but this is a supportable trade union demand. Not a demand for the exclusion of foriegn workers, but a demand to an end to the exclusion of ‘domestic’ workers from applying for jobs in these situations. This, not ‘British jobs for British workers’, is the real demand of the strike as far as I can see. For once, and very belatedly, Simpson seems to be doing a little bit of what he should have been doing all along and formulating less-coherently expressed workers’ greivances into a concrete, coherent and achievable trade-union demand.
Anyone who argues that the demand Simpson makes here is a reactionary demand is so wacked out as to be a dupe of the BNP. In fact, if you argue this, you might as well be on Griffin’s payroll for all the good you are to the labour movement!
Comment by ID — 1 February, 2009 @ 10:42 am
# 187. Finally a SWPer I agree with!
A very useful debate: we will be talking about this at our T & G/Unite Branch meeting next Wednesday and it’s helped clear my views.
Talking to my Sister yesterday she found that Cruddas has explained the case best for her: that this is employers’ use of labour market rules to exploit differences between workers (on conditons of employment etc). Also: it is beyond belief that anyone finds it normal and acceptable that a group of bosses get people from half way across Europe to do a job in a place where there’s already plenty of skilled labour, out of internationalist goodness of their hearts.
Furthermore this is, I argue, part of the general European unrest. That is people’s rising expectations during a long period are suddenly brought up hard with a mssive eocnomic downturn. The loss of hope would lead some to reactionary anti-foreigner ideas (and I hear plenty of that from workers).
It could, if handled right, lead to the united campaign to end social dumping that #184 describes in an excellent post. Forward to the European Social Republic!
For stuff on the European unrest:
http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2009/01/31/european-unrest-uk-strikes-against-foreign-labour-or-social-dumping/
Comment by Andrew Coates — 1 February, 2009 @ 10:49 am
this is the start of opperation molten spanner set up by ??????? three years ago to overthrow the goverment and stand up for Britain.The beekeeper is going to take over western europe.
Comment by smith — 1 February, 2009 @ 11:44 am
Quite useful debate indeed. One has to be thoroughly disappointed with the self-appointed vanguards of the British left (did I hear someone say white left?) - SWP. Their statement on the strikes though mentions certain broad points (internationalist solidairty, no to racism, etc.) utterly fails to raise the call for active involvement in the strikes. It wrongly assumes that the nature of these strikes tied to the slogan of “brit jobs fr brits” has become static. Not only its the duty of all socialists (communists, anarchists, progressives, whatever one wants to call themselves) to struggle shoulder to shoulder on the questions of bread and butter but also to raise the key questions(why are there job cuts, why the government is coming to the rescuse of employers not the workers, etc.), and how can we raise these questions if deny to engage with the struggling workers.
Also the complete absence of the most important questions - why can’t workers simply not only take these jobs but also caputre the means of production, why do they need legitimacy from the bosses, from this debate is disheartening.
Comment by Collaterally Damaged — 1 February, 2009 @ 12:06 pm
You can understand their anger and frustration, but in the face of job losses in the industrial sector in the order of tens of thousands, they need to direct action at the real causes of the recession, instead of trying to scape-goat a few hundred Italian workers. Other countries in the EU will be watching all of this, and
it could cause reciprocity and increase antagonism towards British workers abroad. How much longer before we see “Italian jobs for Italian workers” demos in Italy (and similar in other countries for that matter) and calls for “British workers to go home”?
I’ve heard elsewhere people describe it as a racist strike. I don’t think it is (at least yet) the issue with the Italian workers is a
cause celebre though, and not the real, substantive cause for protest or strike. They are being scape-goated for the failings of free market capitalism and corporate greed. The focus on the Italians
though does come across as xenophobic. It is a form of protectionism, that could end up futile and counter-productive. If a
nationalistic fervour for occupational protectionism runs amok and starts to take root throughout Europe, British workers could end up losing more jobs on the European continent than she gains over here
through the misguided intolerence of raternal workers from the
continent.
Comment by Tam G — 1 February, 2009 @ 12:13 pm
192. I read your post and thought of the 1980s TV series “Auf Wiedersehen Pet”, about British workers from the unemployment-ravaged north of England working in Germany and elsewhere. It is fiction but presumably founded on fact. Were they in fact driving down the wages and conditions of German workers? Is that why they were hired, at least in part? I have trouble remembering specific episodes, but if others have a better memory of the show, their thoughts would be useful.
Comment by Faust — 1 February, 2009 @ 12:27 pm
Faust, if memory serves correct, British and other workers were hired in germany for two reasons. Firstly, British workers were seen as more skilled than their German counterparts. How true this was at the time I don’t know. Secondly, back then there was no EU open borders policy and it was possible for the Britsish workers to “work on the black”, paying no tax or contributions to the German state, thus enabling them to take home more pay. Whether they were paid more or less than their german counterparts I don’t know, but it would certainly be true that none of them were unionised or held to abide by union agreements.
Comment by Kent&CanterburyDan — 1 February, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
It sounds like they would have been driving down German wages and conditions.
There was and is a sizeable “black economy” in Germany, a large part of it people from Turkey (major targets of racism), but more recently East Europeans as well.
An aspect of this was covered by the German journalist Gunter Wallraff, who disguised himself as a Turkish worker (in the early 1980s, I think) and was illegally hired in all sorts of jobs, some of them dangerous or unhealthy.
Comment by Faust — 1 February, 2009 @ 12:55 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunther_Wallraff
This is the Wikipedia article about him. Interesting bloke.
Comment by Faust — 1 February, 2009 @ 12:58 pm
beekeeper says British jobs for British workers
Comment by smith — 1 February, 2009 @ 1:01 pm
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090201/tuk-brown-condemns-wildcat-strikes-dba1618.html
Comment by Faust — 1 February, 2009 @ 1:55 pm
beekeeper says who are you forced by.
Comment by smith — 1 February, 2009 @ 2:10 pm
beekeeper says who are you forced by.we have not said this already
Comment by smith — 1 February, 2009 @ 2:14 pm
uk welder forum has now shut down the jobs section where this was being debated/organised.
up until yesterday i had been debating, in the most fraternal way, how it was the bosses we should be attacking, not fellow workers. you should have seen the grief i was getting. the nearest thing to support was one post calling for unity. one poster actually said i must be polish, another warned me i was causing trouble and should stop posting. the worst ones were the ones who had joined the messageboard in the last couple of weeks. i ended up having to prove where i was from, prove i was a welder, prove i had done erecting work, even prove my commitment to the working class! when i raised the closed shop, i was told that it didn’t work because it led to “lazy and useless” shop stewards.
it was very disheartening.
Comment by discokermit — 1 February, 2009 @ 2:22 pm
201. Sound like delightful people.
I don’t know, if the left was judged by its posting behaviour on forums, negative conclusions might be drawn about it too. But xenophobia does seem to be rife among contributors to the UK Welders’ Forum.
Comment by Faust — 1 February, 2009 @ 2:34 pm
It’s worth reading the comments on this question on Lenin’s Tomb, by the way. The SWP is not monolithic on this … comrade John G is arguing some basically correct stuff on the strike that seems to parallel my own views, though I should point out that the person in this thread with the same initials as me is NOT me. I tend to agree with John G in this debate, not my namesake.
Good to see some public debate taking place between SWP comrades on a contentious issue on a public blog.
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/01/ugly-turn.html
Comment by ID — 1 February, 2009 @ 2:37 pm
Events like this do illuminate the political landscape. Three things occur to me.
Whatever the precise form of words Brown used it is beyond dispute that New Labour has had a strong British chauvinist streak running through it both in its foreign and domestic policy. This is coming home to roost.
None of the unions which would claim to represent these workers have strong records in defence of jobs and conditions, in particular the introduction of casualisation. That goes some way to explaining the chants of “Italians go home” outside their quarters. The movement, from the outside, seems to lack an authoritative leadership which could channel the militancy in a less alarming direction.
The third point is the utter absence of a party on the left which can orientate to these workers. Having no ambitions beyond selling a bunch of papers and recruiting a small number of people in the face of events like this is evidence of a strategic stupidity when it is obvious that the big missing factor is a class struggle party with a national profile.
Comment by Liam — 1 February, 2009 @ 2:42 pm
#201 Don’t be disheartened. If these workers really want some control over their lives and the industry they work in then a closed shop is the only sensible outcome for this dispute. `Lazy and useless’ shop stewards are the result of workers’ indifference which is the product of many things. If, however, they really are just venting a load of racist cobblers and aren’t really serious then they’ll get what they deserve from the bosses i.e. conquered. However, I do think it was the scab contractor bosses they were attacking and perhaps your intervention came across as a bit high brow and divisive.
Comment by Maybe — 1 February, 2009 @ 2:50 pm
#203 `It’s worth reading the comments on this question on Lenin’s Tomb, by the way. The SWP is not monolithic on this’
One JohnG does not a summer make though he is doing a sterling job in the teeth of some distincly uncomradely responses. Very disappointing how Seymour did a complete U-turn without so much as a sqeek in just a few hours when the new line was handed down.
`I should point out that the person in this thread with the same initials as me is NOT me.’
Thank goodness for that. i thought you’d gone over to the dark side.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 1 February, 2009 @ 3:08 pm
high brow, maybe? possibly. i have got a cse 2 in metalwork, so i’m educated, i have got some slade albums, so i’m a patron of the arts and when i have dripping on toast, i only have the brown jelly. ;o)
Comment by discokermit — 1 February, 2009 @ 3:51 pm
204
Liam
I take it then that you think Galloways statement is not good enough. Just saying this is a media con trick is very poor politics
Comment by harry — 1 February, 2009 @ 3:59 pm
177 - Abstract? Do you know the meaning of the word? Get a grip.
Comment by djn — 1 February, 2009 @ 4:03 pm
Brown said it so he should stick to it not try to change what he said
Comment by smith — 1 February, 2009 @ 4:21 pm
To Brown it was just a throw away sound bite for the clapping seals at a new labour conference but its come back to well and truly haunt him-good!
The right to work was a good slogan and it can be again.
Comment by fred — 1 February, 2009 @ 4:38 pm
British Jobs for British people first, that is not racist in any way shape or form.
If we do not put our own people first the BNP will grow & grow in my opinion
Comment by Kata — 1 February, 2009 @ 6:59 pm
Apparently Arthur Scargill has been on the radio (Talk Sport?) with Galloway earlier today.
It sounds as though Arthur’s perspective is exactly what you would expect and precisely what is needed - full support for the strike movement. Even now, 25 years after the great strike for jobs, he is probably the only one with the gravitas and profile that could give this strike wave some appropriate direction.
Anyone got a magic wand?
Comment by redcogs — 1 February, 2009 @ 7:01 pm
British people first, that is not racist in any way shape or form.
If we do not put our own people first the BNP will grow & grow in my opinion
Comment by Kata — 1 February, 2009 @ 7:01 pm
If we do not put our own people first the BNP will grow & grow in my opinion
Comment by Kata — 1 February, 2009 @ 7:02 pm
ID - yes, John G is playing a blinder. Michael Rosen has said some sensible stuff too. Interesting thread - well worth a look, if only for John Palmer’s suggested alternative slogans.
Comment by Phil — 1 February, 2009 @ 7:23 pm
To JIM COMMENT NO2
What you have said is one of the most offensive things I have ever seen said against the working man of this country. You really are a hater of your country and its people. Dont hide behind your delusional idea of socialism. Its idiots like you that have hijacked the movement turning many away from us. Your a Nazi and you dont even know it.
Comment by Graham — 2 February, 2009 @ 4:01 am
If anything there’s too much debate about this issue and too little about practical action in support. This is obviously a big opportunity for the left to influence workers and can’t be allowed to slip.
The positions these workers have adopted are no more “nationalistic” than those the miners adopted in sucessive strikes; safeguarding their jobs, stopping imported scab coal and defending the domestic industry. The fact they lost allowed the industry to be destroyed.
These strikes are the first mass challenge to the Tory anti-union laws in decades.
They are a spontaneous working class upsurge that’s been triggered by the economic recession.
They are union organised and led.
If the slogans are “nationalistic”, or the BNP are involved it’s because the left hasn’t developed, or has dropped an socialist action programme for the economic crisis.
However, the view that the strikes are “racist” is completely misleading.
Talk to anyone who’s ever organised workers in building and construction and they are extremely hostile to non-union subcontracted labour. I used to know someone who produced a rank and file building workers paper a few years ago and that was exactly his attitude.
The question should be posed in terms of union organisation, pay and conditions.
Then the Tory and New Labour nonsense about “protectionism”, being spewed by Brown, Mandleson and Kenneth Clarke falls away.
There should also be calls to (re)-nationalise essential industries, such as power and oil, with a workers veto over hiring and firing decisions. i.e. workers control.
This is about workers imposing controls over their conditions of employment and safeguarding their jobs.
Comment by prianikoff — 2 February, 2009 @ 8:33 am
Post #185 “The target is not `fellow workers’ but the Italian contractor that keeps it workers housed and isolated on ships and the neo-liberal EU job market that seeks to bust unions.”
Sadly the target is our fellow workers in Europe as is proven by the popularity of ther slogan ‘British jobs for British workers’ that has appeared time after time in this rash of disputes and which was raised by brown only weeks ago and was defended on Sky News by Simpson only yesterday. I also note that it is not the ‘neo-liberal EU job market’ that seeks to bust unions but the bosses and they appear to hail from a variety of countries including this ‘Britain’ that some here are so keen to defend against Johnny Foreigner. Capital is international and gives not a damn for borders and the workers movement should have exactly the same attitude of opposition to borders.
Comment by Mike — 2 February, 2009 @ 10:05 am
Post #188 “So, courtesy of Simpson, the strike has now effectively acquired a coherent demand. I don’t think much of Simpson, by the way, but this is a supportable trade union demand. Not a demand for the exclusion of foriegn workers, but a demand to an end to the exclusion of ‘domestic’ workers from applying for jobs in these situations. This, not ‘British jobs for British workers’, is the real demand of the strike as far as I can see. For once, and very belatedly, Simpson seems to be doing a little bit of what he should have been doing all along and formulating less-coherently expressed workers’ greivances into a concrete, coherent and achievable trade-union demand.”
This is the same Simpson who defended the slogan ‘British Jobs for British workers’ on Sky only yesterday while identifying himself with Gordon Brown. Brown has, of course, condemned the disputes and demonstrations. This is a clever game being played by the offical leadership of the workers movement and fools follow behind them rather identifying the chauvinist dynamic of these disputes.
Comment by Mike — 2 February, 2009 @ 10:09 am
So is this a supportable demand or not? If it is, you should support it and use it to marginalise the nationalist stuff. If you don’t support it, then you are even more of an agent of the bosses than Derek Simpson.
Comment by ID — 2 February, 2009 @ 10:22 am
BBC:
Workers in Scotland are continuing wildcat strike action for a further 24 hours as the row over the use of foreign contractors escalates.
It comes after unions held mass meetings across the country.
Thousands of workers across the UK staged unofficial walkouts on Friday over the use of foreign staff at a Lincolnshire refinery.
In Scotland, fresh action has hit the Ineos oil plant at Grangemouth and the Longannet power station.
About 400 workers at Longannet, in Fife, voted to stay out on strike for 24 hours and return to hold another mass meeting at 0730 GMT on Tuesday.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/7863662.stm
Comment by Eddie Truman — 2 February, 2009 @ 10:23 am
Jim Page, Just wanted to say you’re a fucking douchebag. First of all, how can you call it “racist” when they say british jobs for british people. Germans, italians, they’re all WHITE - it’s not about fucking race. Whether white or brown these people are not only losing their jobs, they’re losing their fair wages etc. This is a big business bollocks deal that shows how little businesses care about the people in britain. For example, there are already immigrants in britain who could take those jobs as well. Why do they have to SHIP them in? The government should NOT approve any work visas, until or unless the companies try first to hire people who already live in Britain. PEOPLE FIRST, NOT BIG BUSINESS.
Comment by Rebecca — 2 February, 2009 @ 4:40 pm
PEOPLE FIRST, NOT BIG BUSINESS! Should any foreign company be obliged to hire only local workers, indeed it would be (BIG) BUSINESS FIRST for in EC only (big) companies would have the opportunity to make business… but in Europe people come first, that’s exactly what the freedom of movement of European workers means.
Does anybody know that for example hundreds of British workers are employed by EXXON down in Rovigo (Italy), and nobody has ever complained (yet) that Italian jobs should be for Italian workers only? I guess that this thing is going to start off a war all over Europe…
Comment by Rufus — 4 February, 2009 @ 10:45 am