Today's Topics:
1. liberta salonica: Coordinate Action Against Sunday Work and
Freed Time: Concentration Against Sunday Work - 1/4 (gr) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. US, black rose fed: The Lure of Elections: From Political
Power to Popular Power By Frank Ascaso, Enrique Guerrero-López,
Patrick Berkman and Adam Weaver (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #281 - The Quays of Wrath
(fr, it, pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Britain, solfed - Corbyn's Labour Party: Manchester a
Reality Check (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Britain, solfed: National Minimum and Living Wage Increases
April 2018 (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. no 83. Note companies n ° 9 - March 29, 2018 -- March 22nd:
and after ? (fr, it, pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
"Liberated" hours-work on Sunday, rubber we did all our lives ---- The Coordination of
Action Against Sunday Work in Thessaloniki and Athens has been on the road for over three
years, fighting against the abolition of Sunday's holiday , which adds to the more and
more flexible working relationships and timetables, unpaid work, on hunger wages. His
action surpassed the inertia of the Federation of Private Employees of Greece and the
Union of Merchants who, in their best, simply declared a strike without giving the fight
on the road, the only point that employees can gain: with strikes, strikes, with conflicts
with various aspects of repression (bosses, "indignant consumers", media, police). This
long battle already counts the first victories. ---- Despite the adoption of the 4th
Memorandum that supplemented the institutional framework for the operation of retail
stores 32 (+6) Sundays per year, the implementation of the measure stumbles on workers'
resistance. In several shops there was a mobilization by the workers themselves , who
claimed and eventually enforced their right to free time, striking the Sunday when the
store was supposed to open (notos galleries in Thessaloniki, public in Athens). It is up
to the workers themselves to break the fear, to organize themselves in assemblies and
unions and to collectively claim their own interests.
What we live in or trade is clear: We want to work more and more (7 out of 7), more and
more elastic (split, part-time, beyond the stated hours), more and more cheap
(semi-insured or uninsured, without collective agreements, with subordinate wages, without
triennias and allowances, without paid overtime).
For our part, having decided to follow up on this fight, we are proceeding to protest
meetings at the commercial center of Thessaloniki on Sunday 1 April, as well as on Sunday
6 May. And somewhat like that, we are determined to continue for the next Sunday
(May-October) for what stores in the industry are trying to be open, based on the rage and
the will for practical resistance that will be expressed by the workers themselves in
these shops.
They rely on our own fear and our defeatism, thinking that the ax of the unemployment
hanging over the heads of all of us will make us accept everything without resistance. The
spark of the race that was lit in large branches of the industry spreads out. And it is
this spark that reminds us that when we stand next to each other, when we respond
collectively to our bosses, the upper hand is we:
ORGANIZATION AND RESISTANCE IN EACH PLACE OF WORK
THE SUNDAY WORK, THE WHITE NIGHTS AND THE BLACK FRONT OF THE OFFICIALS MAKE THE LIFE OF
THE WORKERS
SUNDAY 1st APRIL 10.00
CEMENT WITH ARISTOTLE
Coordination of action against Sunday's work and "free time" / communication:
sintonismoskiriakis@espiv.net
https://libertasalonica.wordpress.com/2018/03/31
------------------------------
Message: 2
In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, the gravitational pull of electoral
politics has gripped the left with renewed intensity. Fueled by the popularity of Sen.
Bernie Sanders, discontent with political elites and the failure of the Democratic Party
to defeat Trump, various segments of the left see an opening for breathing new life into
building a "party of the 99 percent," a "party of a new type" or a "mass socialist party."
Others are content running leftist candidates as Democrats under the guise of radical
pragmatism. Given the history and structural limitations of such projects, social
movements, activists and organizers should regard these calls with caution. If we want
meaningful social change, or even basic progressive reforms, the electoral road leads us
into a strategic cul-de-sac. Instead of better politicians, we need popular power -
independent, self-managed and combative social movements capable of posing a credible
threat to capitalism, the state, white supremacy and patriarchy.
The recent push toward electoral politics stems in large part from Senator Sanders's
insurgent primary campaign. For decades, Sanders occupied a relatively obscure position in
the political arena. From his first stint in office as mayor of Burlington in the 1980s,
to his recent years in the US Senate, Sanders's lone voice against corporate power had
little impact. Yet by 2016, the cumulative weight of deteriorating socioeconomic,
political and ecological conditions, along with the growth of mass movements, laid the
groundwork for the popularity of the Sanders campaign. Indeed, the political terrain had
already shifted before Sanders launched his "political revolution."
An oft-cited 2011 Pew Poll revealed that 49 percent of Americans under 30 had a positive
view of socialism, while just 47 percent had a favorable opinion of capitalism.
Disillusionment with President Obama, coupled with a steady stream of post-recession
movements from Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter, had significantly altered public
discourse, expanded the field of struggle and pulled the broader political spectrum to the
left. In other words, the Sanders campaign slipped through the door kicked open by social
movements and brought a broad cross-section of the left into the electoral arena.
Following the Sanders campaign, a growing mix of old and new voices have been clamoring
for the left to consider electoral struggles. For example, the Democratic Socialists of
America (DSA), Jacobin Magazine and strategists like Max Elbaum at Organizing Upgrade have
been some of the most vocal proponents of electoral strategies. They justify their calls
in terms of fighting back against Trump and the far right, shifting politics to the left,
and winning policy change like universal health care. Coupled with the recognition that we
also need to build mass movements outside of the voting booth, these same organizations
and individuals are promoting variations of an "inside-outside" strategy.
The "inside-outside" approach, which casts itself as hard-nosed, strategic and realistic,
claims to hold out a possible middle path between focusing exclusively on
movement-building and leaping headlong into the palace intrigue of beltway politics. Its
advocates argue that social movements are of vital importance, but they can't get it done
alone: There needs to be a ballot-box strategy to punish bad incumbents, elect movement
champions and enact real change by leveraging state power. In other words, as Marxist
political economist Leo Panitch often says, echoing civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, we
need to move "from protest to politics."
Their strategy is characterized by the following three points:
* If we want victories, we need strong, militant social movements in communities and
workplaces agitating on the outside, but we also need movement champions in elected office
changing the system from the inside. Through election campaigns, social movements can
expand their base and have the ear of someone in power who can be held accountable to
movement demands.
* Political campaigns are an effective way to bring up vital issues, expose more people to
left politics and provide easy on-ramps for the newly politicized to get active. After
Election Day, no matter how we do, our politics have reached a wider audience and built
movement capacity.
* Currently the Democratic Party is the most viable vehicle for our candidates if we want
them to win, but ultimately, we need to develop our capacity for building an independent
party of the left. Alternatively, some argue that the Democratic Party is beyond repair
and we need to build an independent political party of the left now.
But this is wrong; elections are a trap with more costs than benefits. Political change is
a question of political power, and the electoral arena is a field of battle that caters to
the already rich and powerful. It hands our power to politicians. As a result, when
popular candidates win electoral office without the backing of powerful social movements
(even candidates of the left), they are powerless to take meaningful action. Instead,
electoral campaigns drain movements of vital resources that could be better spent
elsewhere. The electoral road is not a shortcut to power; it is a dead end - structurally,
historically and strategically.
Electoral Campaigns Don't Take Us Where We Want to Go
It's often said that electoral politics is the graveyard of social movements, but that
always seemed unfair to graveyards. After all, graveyards merely house the dead: They
don't actually do the killing.
Those who enter the front door of elective office are quick to find themselves in the
house that capital built. Even those with the best intentions will find themselves boxed
in on all sides by business interests and institutional constraints. For local and state
officials, they must strain under the weight of a larger political and monetary system
over which they have zero control, and which can override their decisions and policies at
any time. For national officials, not only are constitutional and procedural restraints
ever-present, but looming over every choice is the power of business to influence policy
and one's chances of re-election. Ultimately, the ruling class can always use the threat
of capital strike and capital flight: A Wall Street crash, a bond rating downgrade, a
panic, runaway inflation, currency manipulation and so on. The particular constraints may
change based on what position they're elected to, but the outcome remains the same.
Social movements that dedicate their limited resources to electing politicians end up
undermining the very energy and capacity needed to hold those politicians accountable once
elected. The resources spent electing someone would be better spent forcing whoever is in
office to concede to our demands by developing popular power that cannot be ignored.
History Shows the Failures of the Left in Power
To illustrate that movements - not politicians - make change, it's useful to look at
history. In the US, the major periods of political change came when social movements -
including labor, Black liberation, feminist and ecological struggles - were at their peak.
New Deal reforms of the 1930s came when workers were occupying factories and shutting down
cities with general strikes. Civil rights and environmental protection bills came at the
end of the 1960s, when social movements were organizing for popular power, and disrupting
the ability of business and the government to operate. It is often quipped that Richard
Nixon, a Republican, was the last liberal president because he oversaw the creation of the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and
other liberal reform measures such as the expansion of affirmative action. He even
contemplated a proposal for a universal basic income and mandating employer-provided
health insurance. This is not because he was a good-natured liberal at heart, but because
social movements had changed the political terrain and forced his hand.
In periods without social movements, politicians fare much worse - even those that
authentically believe in creating a better world. In Atlanta, Georgia, in the 1980s, Andy
Young, the chief strategist, legal counsel and close friend of Martin Luther King Jr., ran
for and won the city's mayoralty, a position he held for close to a decade. By that time,
however, the strength of the civil rights movement had ebbed, leaving Young a crusading
reformer in office without the power base to make change. According to scholar Clarence
Stone, Young faced widespread opposition from the city's corporate business elite,
preventing him from passing any meaningful reforms for the city's Black population. Here,
lone progressive candidates can do little without the backing of social movements. The
phenomenon is true even for far-left candidates like socialist Seattle city council member
Kshama Sawant. Her major reform, "$15 Now," was watered down and transformed by business
and business-union interests who created major exemptions in the law, giving Sawant a
"victory" she could run a re-election campaign on, but not bringing meaningful change to
working people in Seattle. To this day, many workers do not earn $15 an hour in Seattle
because of employer exemptions.
In short, movements - not politicians - make social change. No movements, no change - no
matter how far left the politician. With movements, social progress and shifting the
terrain is possible, no matter how far right the politician.
Elections are designed with the needs of the state and capital in mind. Every step of the
way - from the first donation to the final TV ad - is crafted to further stack the deck in
favor of entrenched elites and draw people into a system that many have rightfully
abandoned. There's no bypassing the white supremacist, patriarchal, anti-Black and
settler-colonial pedigree of the state: The true political power of people is always found
and built elsewhere. Elections are at best a reflection, not a cause, of social change -
using elections to change society is like trying to turn up the temperature with a
thermometer.
Electoral Campaign Work: Shallow and Superficial
The kind of outreach and mobilization efforts undertaken by campaigns is little more than
a shadow of actual grassroots organizing, focused first and foremost on the singular
transaction of the vote. Forget about a serious one-on-one conversation. When a campaign
has 20,000 doors to knock on and it's crunch time, there isn't a spare minute to ask about
the problems a constituent is having, or what issues they're interested in. You must find
out if they're planning to vote, and if so, for whom. Give them some literature and a big
smile, and be on your way to the next house. Every pancake breakfast, parade appearance
and house-party fundraiser is geared toward building the candidate, not the movement. The
unique activities of a campaign have very little to offer social movements.
Furthermore, if a left candidate wins, it's a signal for their supporters to go home and
disengage. Getting the candidate in office is the supreme goal of any campaign: the next
steps belong in office chambers and committee rooms. "We get you elected, then you do good
things for us," is the rationale of electoral work. Staying active and organizing beyond
Election Day goes against the core logic of the campaign itself. We need not look back
further than a decade to find concrete examples of this dynamic. After Barack Obama's
historic election in 2008, his administration proved unwilling to mobilize millions of
campaign volunteers in support of the Affordable Care Act and other political priorities.
Picking the Wrong Target
Organizing 101 instructs us to pick a primary target that can grant us what we want - be
it a corporate board, slumlord or politician. The electoral campaign throws this out
completely, focusing on a single elected official and the bad things they've done or stand
for, while offering an opposing single elected official and all the good things they'll do
and stand for as the alternative. This personalization of politics is harmful to social
movement-building because it reinforces the popular notion that our problems are not
systemic and structural, but merely a problem of staffing, fixed by swapping in new and
improved politicians.
The Media Horserace
Mainstream media coverage is usually trouble for organizers. But elections are a bit
easier, and positive media coverage for important issues is one of the main strengths of
electoral campaigns of this type. The fundamentals of electoral strategy - people should
vote for me and donate, my top issues are x, y and z, and my opponent is bad for these
reasons - are familiar to journalists. And they have a set of narratives they choose for
their coverage: the outsider, the long-shot, the neck-and-neck race, the third-party
spoiler, etc.
But even here there are serious pitfalls. While it can be exciting to have a candidate's
core message spread far and wide through the news, the surrounding narrative makes it
often not worth it. Winnability will be the ultimate metric that the media will use to
frame a candidate and their agenda. A fringe candidate's issues can be automatically cast
as dangerous and unpopular. A candidate running neck-and-neck with their opponent can have
their bold ideas portrayed as politically risky, costing them precious votes.
Election Day: A Timeline Not of Our Choosing
For electoral organizers, dates of campaign climax - the primary and general election -
are set in stone. It doesn't matter if we'd prefer to move it up a few weeks to capitalize
on an opponent's scandal, or delay it until some key community leaders can focus on the
campaign. The date is set, and that's it. Workers know to time union elections and
contract fights based on a timeline that offers them the most strategic advantage and
greatest ability to harm the owners. Tenant organizers plan their campaigns around the
cycles of the housing market to find the best moment to withhold rent from a slumlord.
Student organizers ensure their protests and strikes coincide with trustee meetings,
alumni days and parent weekends - occasions when the stakes are highest for
administrators. With political elections, however, once the votes are cast, you're done;
there is little way to escalate, or for broad-based movement-building to develop.
Getting the Goods: Social Movements and Class Power
When political elites agree to adopt progressive reforms, it has never been because of a
burst of sympathy for those of us at the bottom. It's been because they saw a systemic,
existential threat to their collective power that made concessions unavoidable. We didn't
get Social Security, the Wagner Act, or the eight-hour work day because of electing the
right individual politicians, winning primary fights or clamoring from the sidelines on
behalf of a third party. We won them because we had built massive, militant movements that
threatened open revolt against our nation's economic and political rulers.
For those of us who want a world beyond capitalism, we know that we should be spending our
limited time, energy and money investing in people-powered movements strong enough to
topple our unjust social order. For those who want reform, understand that the only time
liberals and progressives in power actually make good on the reforms we want is when we're
capable of posing a fundamental threat to the status quo. Following the "Great Recession,"
President Obama said in 2009 to the nation's bankers that, "I'm the only one standing
between you and the pitchforks." We don't need more Obamas, or even Sanderses and Sawants.
We need more pitchforks.
Despite hopeful spurts of activity, social movements in the United States remain weak,
unable to impose their demands beyond a small scale. While most advocates of electoral
politics acknowledge that the balance of power is not in our favor, they argue that
running candidates - or better yet, winning elected office - will complement or strengthen
social struggles. However, the historical record is clear: Electoral campaigns tend to
defang, demobilize and drain social movements of limited resources, not strengthen them.
We should resist the calls to organize as an electorate and pick up once again the task of
organizing as a class. Only through popular organizations that are democratic and
accountable to their members, can we improve our living and working conditions right now
while building the power needed to create a better world. These combative popular
organizations should be based on our particular location within the economy and society:
labor unions at work, student unions at school, tenant unions at home, popular assemblies
in our neighborhoods and communities. They're important not just because they are the
sites of struggle most accessible to us as individuals, but because they amplify our power
to disrupt and halt the flow of production, distribution and profit. More importantly,
they are the necessary basis of a society free from oppression.
This is not a call to disengage from politics, or somehow to operate outside of capitalism
and the state. It is exactly the opposite - a call to engage in politics, organizing, and
the state in the only meaningful and empowering way available to us. Because we exist as
objects, not subjects, of the economic and political system in which we find ourselves,
our true power lies in our ability to collectively disrupt, dismantle and replace that
system. The state in general, and electoral outcomes in particular, play a critical role
in shaping the political terrain in which we all struggle, but we don't need to "take" the
state in order to affect the playing field. You don't need the excuse of canvassing for a
politician to knock on your neighbor's door; you don't need to cast a vote to influence an
election; and we don't need a campaign rally to advance our vision for a better world.
Dedicating precious resources to electoral work isn't just a mistake, it's malpractice.
While many socialists rightfully refuse to try to take back the Democratic Party, the
perpetual appeal to independent party politics maintains an instrumentalist approach to
the state, fostering the illusion that with the right people in office, along with the
right balance of forces, we can wield state power to advance our interests. But even if we
want limited social reforms, electoral strategies are dead ends. At the moment, we're all
short on people, resources and - thanks to climate change - we're short on time. Instead
of an "inside-outside" approach, it's time to commit ourselves to organize where we live,
work, study, play and pray - outside, against and beyond the current system.
This piece was originally published at Truthout.org. If you enjoyed this piece we
recommend our "Electoralism" tag for other articles discussing electoral politics
critically and our "Strategy" tag with additional articles looking at revolutionary strategy.
Frank Ascaso is a historian, active with Seattle Solidarity Network and member of Black
Rose Anarchist Federation based in Seattle, Washington
Enrique Guerrero-López is an educator and a member of the Industrial Workers of the World
and the Black Rose Anarchist Federation based in North Carolina.
Patrick Berkman does graphics design work and is a member of the Black Rose Anarchist
Federation. He is based in Burlington, Vermont.
Adam Weaver is a member of Black Rose Anarchist Federation and based in Miami, Florida.
http://blackrosefed.org/lure-of-elections/
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Message: 3
Philippe Huet is the author of a series of three historical novels about labor struggles
in the port city of Le Havre. Each of the three novels evokes a period and a specific
struggle, which can be read separately. Nevertheless, the novels follow each other and
appeal to the past, characters are found from one novel to another, adding interest to the
triptych. Let's discover this month the first of them. ---- The Quays of Wrath, released
in 2006, recounts the tragic (and no less real !) story of syndicalist Jules Durand.
Philippe Huet plunges us successfully in Le Havre from 1910. The port, the quays, the
atmosphere of the bistros and popular districts, everything is described with
meticulousness and the reader is quickly embarked. Among the thousands of workers who live
the port, the coalmen are the most exploited body, the most miserable and especially the
most despised. And even from the CGT, which sees in these daily workers only a horde of
alcoholic brawlers unable to organize and fight collectively. Jules Durand, trade unionist
and anarchist, takes up the challenge of taking over the charcoal trade union and
preparing the next clash against employers. These bosses,
Feeling the danger rise with the organization of coalmen, the coal masters have only one
idea in mind: stop by all means the anarchist syndicalist who organizes them.
There follows a court case that will take a national scale, some will speak of " the
Dreyfus affair of the poor ". A beautiful tribute to the unknown Jules Durand, whose
terrible history will mark for decades the labor movement Le Havre. A story that shows,
like others, how far the capitalists are willing to go when it comes to defending their
interests. And the ease with which they play with legality. A captivating and interesting
work for the memory of the French labor movement. And who will undoubtedly want to read
the other novels of Huet.
Benjamin (AL Nantes )
Philippe Huet, The Quays of Anger , The paperback, 439 pages, 8.99 euros.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Les-Quais-de-la-colere
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Message: 4
Cuddly Jeremy's fight to turn the Labour Party into a red blooded socialist party has some
way to go, if Manchester is anything to go by. The city is virtually a one party
mini-state with Labour holding 95 of the 96 council seats, so the perfect place, you would
have thought, to start the Labour fight back against austerity and inequality in the UK.
Well..., not quite! ---- Leaked documents show that, out of a total of 15,000 new homes
approved by Manchester's Labour Council in the last two years, most of them around the
city centre, just a paltry 47 could be classed as socially affordable housing! Manchester
City Council does have a policy that any developments containing more than 16 properties
must contain 20% affordable provision. However, Labour has inserted a nifty "get out of
jail" clause, which allows developers to pay a penalty fee which enables them to totally
ignore the policy. This has allowed developers to get on with the much needed task of
providing luxury homes in the centre of Manchester, freed from the unnecessary burden of
having to include social housing, which would, according to the leaked Labour Party
documents, "undermine significant development proposals critical to economic growth within
the city" - developments such as the planned huge Renaker city centre development,
containing 1,508 luxury apartments and boasting a 25 metre swimming pool, tennis court,
1,900 square foot gym and roof terrace.
Before any bleeding heart liberals amongst you start banging on, it should be stressed
that the money handed over by developers to exclude social housing has been used to fund
the 47 affordable social housing units planned by the council. Needless to say these 47
homes will be built well away from the glitzy city centre in some of the most deprived
areas of Manchester. And quite right too! After all, you don't want a bunch of chavs, or
worse, their children, spoiling the view from the window of your luxury apartment!
In response to complaints that money is being poured into the city centre while the rest
of the city is being starved of funds, the deputy leader of the council was at pains to
explain that 40% of people in Manchester live within a 20 minute drive to the centre so
can enjoy all that the centre has to offer. Leaving aside the other 60% of us being left
to rot on the massive "sink" estates on the "outskirts" of Manchester, you have to wonder
what form of transport the deputy leader must be using to get about Manchester. He must be
a mate of Dr Who because it takes everyone else 20+ minutes just to get out of the city
centre in Manchester's permanent traffic jams.
In any case, most of those lucky people who live close enough to enjoy the delights of the
award winning 21st century city centre will not be using the bus to get there. Manchester
City Council has just announced yet more cuts to the already ravaged bus service which has
already seen 8,000+ bus miles axed in the last two years alone. It is not hard to guess
that most of the cuts will fall on those who need buses the most, those in the deprived
areas of the city. We have now reached the point where, in many of the poorest areas of
Manchester, bus services are reduced to once an hour after 6pm and on Sundays, with night
buses now being an urban myth, talked about by older Mancunians with faulty memories.
Compare this with the student areas of the city, where there are that many competing buses
they actually cause traffic jams and where there is an overabundance of night buses. But
then again, do we really want drunken estate youths spoiling the ambiance of our southern
European café style culture, so lovingly crafted in the centre by our beloved Labour
council leaders.
When challenged over cuts to bus services Manchester's Labour council, when it can be
bothered, blames it all on deregulation and those nasty Tories. However, this "not me,
guv" approach really does not wash. The truth is that this Labour council has embraced the
free market with such enthusiasm that it would have made the dear, late Maggie Thatcher
blush. One minute, Manchester was a "nuclear free zone", whatever that meant; the next
minute, everything was either being privatised, outsourced or sold off - even then the
Town Hall has been sold and leased back! The shopping centre in one estate, part of which
had been renamed Leningrad Square by the well-meaning idiots of the Labour left when they
were in control, was completely sold off and is now run by a private company, including,
alas, Leningrad Square. With the council working hand in glove with the local trade union
bureaucracy, any resistance to privatisation was opposed, marginalized or gradually worn
down, often with the tacit support of local union leaders.
The latest resistance is the Mears dispute. After council leaders broke a promise that a
housing maintenance contract in the north of the city would never be handed to the
appalling Mears Group PLC, maintenance workers were soon involved in a protracted struggle
with Mears. Although this dispute is a rarity in that it was won, the workers involved
complained bitterly about the lack of any kind of support from the Labour Council and the
fact that not one of the 95 Labour councillors had attended a single event or picket line.
There was even suggestions of corruption. Our beloved free market Labour council leaders
involved in corruption? Surely not!
No doubt the more Corbyn-inclined amongst you will be nodding your heads and telling
yourselves that this is the whole point of the Corbyn revolution - getting rid of the
likes of the Blairite functionaries who run Manchester and building a democratic
alternative. As the seemingly decent, but equally naïve, Owen Jones put it in the
Guardian, the next job of the Labour Party General Secretary would be to "build a
democratic, pluralistic, transformative mass movement firmly rooted in local communities".
And there was good news on that front with the "election" of the appalling, Corbyn-backed
Jennie Formby as General Secretary of the Labour Party. After a year or two in her teens
when she actually had a job - and even then she craved escape - this privately educated,
machine-like politician had applied for her first full time union job at 19, and has spent
all of her adult life as a union official, furthering her career within the totally
undemocratic world of trade union bureaucracy. Just the sort of person to put your trust
in to bring about a "transformation" to democratic change. Mind you, it could have been
worse; Momentum's Jon Lansman might have got the job, a man you truly wouldn't want to buy
a used car from.
It seems odd that you set about building a democratic, transforming movement, rooted in
the local community by trying to take control of the Labour Party and trade union
officialdom. This is a world devoid of democracy and one that is dominated by
factionalism, egos, naked ambition and full of truly awful people. It is a twilight zone
completely divorced from the lives of ordinary people where, even if you start out being
half-decent, you are soon corrupted. Surely, the way to build a democratic movement is to
organise within, and as part of, the local community and local workplaces, with the aim of
making immediate improvements to people's lives. By necessity, this would involve warning
people that they must organise themselves rather than putting their trust in the Formbys
and Lansmans of this world.
Anyway, must rush; we've a table booked at a swanky city centre restaurant in Manchester.
Isn't it just so marvellous that you can now get a decent meal outside of London? We hear
that Manchester City Council is hoping to attract some of that Russian mafia money away
from London. If they could, that would be such a boost to the local economy, with house
prices rising so high no normal human being could possibly afford them. Manchester would
then have truly arrived as the heart of the northern powerhouse.
http://www.solfed.org.uk/manchester/corbyns-labour-party-manchester-a-reality-check
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Message: 5
The new rates for the National Minimum Wage and the National Living Wage from April 2018
are set out below: ---- £7.83 per hour for ages 25 and over ---- £7.38 per hour for ages
21 to 24 ---- £5.90 per hour for ages 18 to 20 ---- £4.20 per hour for those under 18 ----
£3.70 per hour for apprentices. ---- For your boss to pay the apprenticeship rate there
must be a genuine apprenticeship agreement in place. This agreement must be based on
training being the main purpose of the agreement, with working being secondary. ---- The
apprenticeship rate only applies to apprentices aged: ---- under 19 ---- 19 or over, who
are in the first year of their apprenticeship. ---- Apprentices aged 19 or over in their
second year of apprenticeship must receive the National Minimum Wage or National Living
Wage Rate their age entitles them too.
It is important to remember that, although the new rates come in on April 1st 2018, this
does not mean that your rate of pay will increase from that date. The new rates apply to
the next pay reference period that begins on or after April 1st. One way of calculating
this is to use the date you get paid. For example, if you get paid on April 15th each
month, the new rate of pay will apply to all hours worked from April 16th onwards. This
does mean that those who get paid towards the end of April miss out, in that they have to
wait longer, in some cases nearly a month, before they get the pay increase.
Most workers are entitled to either the National Minimum or National Living Wage,
including pieceworkers, home workers, agency workers, commission workers, part-time
workers and casual workers. Under certain circumstances interns are also entitled to be
paid the National Minimum or National Living Wage.
The following people are not entitled to the National Minimum or National Living Wage
under current Government rules:
those who are genuinely self-employed volunteers or voluntary workers company directors
members of the armed forces family members, or people who live in the family home of the
employer, who undertake household tasks work experience students, depending on the length
of their placement.
The minimum wage should be paid from the moment you start work and should be paid even if
you work only for a few hours or you are the only person employed.
If you have to work "sleep-ins" that require you to be physically present at a workplace
that is not your home, then the likelihood is that you should be paid the National Minimum
Wage or National Living Wage rate for the whole of the "sleep-in", including those hours
you are asleep.
Tips, gratuities, service charges and cover charges do not count towards National Minimum
or Living Wage. This is regardless of whether they are paid through your payroll or are
given direct to workers by customers or a troncmaster. For example, if you work as a
waiter and receive tips, your boss must pay you the minimum or living wage on top of any
money you receive as tips.
Enhanced rates of pay for working overtime, weekends, bank holidays, unsocial hours London
weighting etc. do not count towards the National Minimum or National Living Wage and, as
such, should not be included when calculating your pay.
Deductions from your pay, or payments made to you, for items or expenses that are
connected with the job do not count when calculating your minimum or living wage rate.
This could include, for example, travel expenses or safety clothing, uniforms, tools or
other equipment needed for the job.
Remember, the National Minimum Wage and the National Living Wage rates remain pathetically
low. The only thing the guaranteed National Minimum Wage and the National Living Wage
actually guarantee, is that those forced to live off them will be trapped in a life of
permanent poverty. It is important therefore that the National Minimum Wage and the
National Living Wage are seen for what they are, the absolute least amount your employer
has to pay you. Therefore, do not simply accept the pitifully low pay set by the
government; instead, organise in order to force your boss to increase your pay and improve
your conditions.
Contact SolFed for advice about how to go about organising in your workplace or if you
wish to attend a SolFed Workplace Organiser Training Course.
http://www.solfed.org.uk/manchester/national-minimum-and-living-wage-increases-april-2018
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Message: 6
The information from the different regions indicates a good level of mobilization but not
of tidal waves. The presence of more FSU processions seems to indicate a rise in
mobilizations in the National Education, even if the number of strikers has not changed
since the day of October 10. In fact, there as everywhere, it is especially the disparity
of the situations which strike, with very mobilized places and others much less within the
same branch of the Public Service. It is clear that everyone is convinced that it is
possible to win. This also corresponds to the very low number of local GAs held on the
22nd. However, it should also be noted that March 22 is the same level or more than
October 10, while CFDT and UNSA n called more. Otherwise,
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?22-Mars-et-apres
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