Interesting.

The POA are a pretty impressive union. A close member of my family who’s a psychiatric nurse in a secure hospital’s a member.

I think their leadership in recent years has done a lot to combat racism generally and specifically the influence of far right groups such as the BNP.

They are right behind the campaign against the anti-trade union laws. They are more than happy to stick 2 fingers up at those laws, which is interesting given that they are responsible for incarcerating criminals

They have jointly sponsored today’s and yesterday’s issues of the Morning Star with ASLEF.

Yet in certain jails they are part of the reason bullying screws get away with stuff that would make most progressive people appalled if they knew about it. And they complain about prisoners getting paid too much compensation for ill treatment.

Why for so much of the far left are they different to the Police?

What’s your take on all that as someone who’s worked in the prison system Jimmy?

Genuine question because I work with prisoners myself.

What were they members of – necrophiliacs anyonymous?

I really can’t be doing with Russell’s pot-boiler – I did read it quite a few years ago, when I had some time to waste.

But the advantages of ‘work’ are related to demands one wouldn’t otherwise encounter – I don’t mean the exploitative arrangements – but the way it brings one into contact with those you wouldn’t/may not usually associate with, and often with people across the generations. This applies just as much to collecting trolleys in a supermarket car park as it does to more ‘professional’ vocations.

This makes ‘work’ challenging and challenges keep humans lively minded and, to an extent, physically active. This is why volunteering at, say, a charity shop or having a fulfilling hobby (though both are very valuable and far better than watching daytime tv) doesn’t always provide opportunities for the range of engagements available to those in the work-place.

Recommeded reading: Counter Clockwise* by Ellen J. Langer

http://www.ellenlanger.com/books/1/counterclockwise

It’s this emphasis, and other expressions which I think unhelpful. But I agree with your aim of having a debate which is comradely and wide ranging.

Which is why I think it important to register that the tremendous victory of the hunger strikers has greatly improved the outlook for broad-based work in support of the Palestinians.

I think I made it clear I agree with that.

People should be allowed to retire at the kind of age that was the norm until recently, and preferably earlier. That means flexibility should work in the interests of working people- not the bosses or the state.

For a far more sensible view of the whole miserable business of “work”, I heartily recommend Bertrand Russell’s “In Praise of Idleness”

http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

I thought Marxism was scientific- many people are frequently healthier and fitter at a much later age now- scientific fact. If they want to work there should be no barriers to them doing so.

People on the left should learn some of the lessons of the USSR and Eastern Europe- we don’t want socialism to be a regimented system where equality means being forced to be the same. And if we don’t want it under socialism we certainly shouldn’t aspire to it before we even get there.

Vanya: What’s wrong with flexibility?

Well, for example, if you have to be flexible to suit me, there’s nothing at all wrong with it. If I have to be flexible to suit you, then that’s a different matter.

yes that is unnecessary pedantry, as the context was already explained that I was in a rush organising a strike today.

When the substantive article is published, the the typing errors will be caught.

I may be an ageing pedant with nothing else to do with my time, but could you please spell MitteRRand right?

And in Fife the Tories and Communist Party of Scotland have(OK Wullie Clarke) said they will not put up any barriers to a Labour minority administration as Labour are the largest party. We are all characters in a Terry Pratchet novel methinks.