Strike Action

[stringvest]

You're obviously not talented enough Paul, if we don't pay the quality the quality will leave, didn't you get the memo?

 

Bank bonuses may have come from bail-out cash | Interactive Investor

 

It's a bullshit argument, this. Having spent a lot of time in and around the investment banking industry, I can tell you that what these bankers do to earn millions in bonuses could quite easily be done by hundreds of thousands of others in this country. It's a long way from what the average knobhead on the street can do, but it's not rocket science. 'Talent' hardly comes into it.

[mars]

Problem is though Noos, the chattering classes don't have their kids in state schools. It's not going to hurt them in the least. There's no way their comrades in the private school sector will be coming out on strike .

 

Certainly not those private schools that are also boarding schools because it is accepted that you don't leave pupils without adequate supervision. Then again, I imagine their pension schemes will be different so why would they strike? Your first point is fair enough - have to say at present even the state comp I work at probably won't close because lots of union members are away on trips with pupils and the head is confident that there are so few pupils left in school that classes can be covered by senior management and non-union cover staff. However, I understand the head teachers union is now balloting members so maybe the situation will change.

[Strontium]

On the bold bit - No, you dont. If you did then you'd know by now, because you'd have looked for it. It's not as if there isn't a sea of information about it. I presume you are aware of the internet? Inclination and desire to be informed on this is precisely the problem. Like I say, if you pay me £5 per example I'll do your leg-work for you.

 

The idea that your party's tax experts aren't aware that there are individuals and corporations that are avoiding paying tax, or know who some of them are, is almost child-like in it's naivety. I feel like I'm having a discussion with a child about whether Santa exists.

 

 

I know about the Internet. I also know that the Internet is full of lies and liars, silverlining and his smears being an excellent example. You seem unusually reticent to give me any examples and I don't understand why. You must have some names of individuals and companies that don't pay tax or you wouldn't have formed the opinion in the first instance.

 

Please, explain as you would to a child if that's the only way you can do it.

[Section_31]

It's a bullshit argument, this. Having spent a lot of time in and around the investment banking industry, I can tell you that what these bankers do to earn millions in bonuses could quite easily be done by hundreds of thousands of others in this country. It's a long way from what the average knobhead on the street can do, but it's not rocket science. 'Talent' hardly comes into it.

 

I don't doubt it mate.

 

How much has the industry changed since you've been involved with it?

 

My boss's mrs was a manager at HSBC, nowhere near the top and nowhere near the finance side of things, but she got gradually more and more fed up before she took redundancy.

 

She said when she started working there way back when it was a traditional money management job, but as time went by it was purely sales. Selling cards and loans. Even after the crash, it was back to selling almost instantly.

[stringvest]

On the bold bit - No, you dont. If you did then you'd know by now, because you'd have looked for it. It's not as if there isn't a sea of information about it. I presume you are aware of the internet? Inclination and desire to be informed on this is precisely the problem. Like I say, if you pay me £5 per example I'll do your leg-work for you.

 

The idea that your party's tax experts aren't aware that there are individuals and corporations that are avoiding paying tax, or know who some of them are, is almost child-like in it's naivety. I feel like I'm having a discussion with a child about whether Santa exists.

 

You're arguing with a man who bought his moral compass from Poundstretcher.

[Stu Monty]

I know about the Internet. I also know that the Internet is full of lies and liars, silverlining and his smears being an excellent example. You seem unusually reticent to give me any examples and I don't understand why. You must have some names of individuals and companies that don't pay tax or you wouldn't have formed the opinion in the first instance.

 

Please, explain as you would to a child if that's the only way you can do it.

 

Because I don't, for a second, think that you actually want to know and can't be arsed arguing all night with you about whether water is wet. If you don't trust the internet then what examples do you want? Do you want me to box up my book shelf? Maybe I should go leafing through them and referencing for you? Wasting my time on someone with no intention of engaging with the truth.

 

There's fucking shitloads, Barclays were front page news for it a few months ago for fuck's sake. We all saw your attitude when the Vodafone lashback kicked off. I could probably find some idiotic posts about the Fortnum & Mason protest. I posted figures about other multi-nationals a while back too, if you want them then why would I go searching for them again and not you? Why on earth would I dig out dozens of examples for you when it's widely available if you care to search for it and I know your sole intention is not to "pass it on to Beaker Alexander for his perousal" but to try and pretend it isn't actually happening.

 

Like I say, we're getting buckets of confetti chucked in our faces and you're pretending it's not a circus.

[silverlining]

You're arguing with a man who bought his moral compass from Poundstretcher.

 

And his sexual compass from battersea dog's home

[stringvest]

I don't doubt it mate.

 

How much has the industry changed since you've been involved with it?

 

My boss's mrs was a manager at HSBC, nowhere near the top and nowhere near the finance side of things, but she got gradually more and more fed up before she took redundancy.

 

She said when she started working there way back when it was a traditional money management job, but as time went by it was purely sales. Selling cards and loans. Even after the crash, it was back to selling almost instantly.

 

Retail's a different game mate, but it's clear that, as you say, even that's now all about selling products with higher margins; insurance, primarily.

 

I've worked with people for years who will pick up million pound bonuses for doing very little. Granted, they may work long hours, and become fairly frazzled, but a lot of the 'art' of the job is now automated - forecasting, risk modelling and analysis are instantaneous. Market analysis is bought in. There is less industry 'expertise' on the trading floor than ever. It's been replaced by people adept at speed reading what are not much more than glorified wikipediae.

 

Essentially, the bonuses are related very closely to the scale of profits made by themselves and their team. That's fine in itself, but the industry does not and can not ever legislate against potentially harmful (to the average man or woman) trading behaviour. I would not be at all confident in saying that any single large investment bank or fund management company in the UK is doing business in a 100% ethical (or moral if you like) manner.

[stringvest]

And his sexual compass from battersea dog's home

 

you'll be condemned to eternal dalmatian for a remark like that..

[Strontium]

Because I don't, for a second, think that you actually want to know

 

 

I promise you I do. I am always open to evidence-based arguments, irrespective of whether those arguments are in accordance with, or opposition to, my present stance.

 

There's fucking shitloads, Barclays were front page news for it a few months ago for fuck's sake.

 

 

Okay, we're getting somewhere now!

 

Before we start, it's important to note that "front page news" is not the same as "facts". Liverpool fans of all people should understand that much at least.

 

Now, so far as I can see Barclays is indeed engaged in tax avoidance on a major scale, with more than 250 subsidiaries in tax havens around the world.

 

Unfortunately, they don't appear to be doing anything illegal, and I'm not sure how we would go about getting more tax off them when they're paying all the tax they're legally required to pay in the Channel Islands or the Caymans or wherever.

 

We all saw your attitude when the Vodafone lashback kicked off.

 

 

Everything I saw suggested that Vodafone had paid all the tax they were obliged to pay. The idea that the government let them off £6bn was a complete fiction. It's entirely possible that if it had gone to court, they could have even ended up paying less than they did. In the end, they were happy to pay it because it was less than they had budgeted for as a contingency.

 

I could probably find some idiotic posts about the Fortnum & Mason protest.

 

 

Fortnum is another company engaged in tax avoidance, their parent company pays tax in Switzerland and Luxembourg. Again, all apparently legal and above board.

 

Why on earth would I dig out dozens of examples for you when it's widely available if you care to search for it and I know your sole intention is not to "pass it on to Beaker Alexander for his perousal" but to try and pretend it isn't actually happening.

 

 

Nobody on earth is pretending that companies don't avoid tax. Not least because these companies are completely brazen about it, so it would involve reality denial of religious proportions to claim that they didn't.

 

We can both sit here and moan about how unfair it is til the cows come home. Where we differ is that I am asking to see ways in which we can get companies that are based in offshore tax havens to pay tax here. I'm not at all sure it's possible to do that but, as ever, I remain open to practical suggestions, as do the MPs who are currently investigating ways to make companies pay.

[sparta7]

From The Guardian February 2009:

 

"British taxpayers are being left to plug a multibillion-pound hole in the public finances as hundreds of the country's biggest companies increasingly employ complex and secretive tax arrangements to limit the amount they hand over to the exchequer.

 

An extensive Guardian investigation has examined the accounts of the UK's biggest companies - many of them household names - and discovered a series of sophisticated tax strategies which, critics say, amount to an almost unstoppable tide of perfectly legal corporate tax avoidance.

 

The veil of confidentiality that covers these tax avoidance schemes is so difficult to penetrate that nobody knows exactly how much tax goes missing each year. But HM Revenue & Customs estimated that the size of the tax gap could be anything between £3.7bn and £13bn. The Commons public accounts committee put it at a possible £8.5bn and the TUC said £12bn.

 

UK listed companies are not required to set out exactly how much UK corporation tax they actually hand over to HM Revenue & Customs. When the Guardian asked each FTSE 100 company to provide this information only two offered a response.

 

Similarly each company was asked what its official policy on so-called tax planning is and how this is implemented. No company was prepared to answer the question directly. However, the investigation, which we publish over coming days, has established that:

 

• The UK-based drinks giant Diageo plc has transferred ownership of brands worth billions of pounds, including Johnnie Walker, J&B and Gilbey's gin, to a subsidiary in the Netherlands where profits accrued virtually tax-free. Despite average profits of £2bn a year, it paid an average of £43m a year in UK tax - little more than 2% of its overall profits.

 

• Two major drug firms have shifted ownership of their brands to tax havens in the Caribbean. Their UK operations can then be made to pay royalties for the use of the trademarks, reducing their profits and the amount of tax due in this country.

 

• An internationally renowned corporation has structured itself so that it is now simultaneously a British public company, tax-resident in Amsterdam, but whose brands are Swiss-owned.

 

• The makers of an iconic British food product have shifted the rights in it to a tax haven in Switzerland.

 

• A household name has been deliberately loaded with debt so that it no longer has any profits to pay tax on.

 

• Top accountancy firms are charging £500,000 a time to invent tax-avoidance schemes.

 

• Some UK-listed companies which have moved control to Dublin to benefit from Ireland's low-tax regime appear to have little real presence there.

 

According to the National Audit Office, in 2006 more than 60% of Britain's 700 biggest companies paid less than £10m corporation tax, and 30% paid nothing.

 

Britain's top taxman, Dave Hartnett, told the Commons public accounts committee last year that 12 major corporations had "extinguished all tax liabilities in 2005-6" thanks to avoidance schemes. Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats' deputy leader, said last night: "The scale of corporate tax-dodging exposed by the Guardian research is absolutely mind-boggling. It will deeply anger households and businesses who pay their fair share.[/B]"The baroque complexities of corporate tax-avoidance schemes are similar to the elaborate structures which have now devastated a substantial part of the banking system. The tax authorities should stop trying to compete in the complexity stakes and apply the general principle that if companies deliberately seek to avoid taxation they should be penalised and charged."

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, overall tax receipts - including personal income tax - will be £7bn lower next year than forecast as a result of the downturn. The respected thinktank says key Labour programmes face being squeezed, in particular health and education spending. The result, say unions and campaigners, is that ordinary taxpayers have to make up the difference. If the TUC estimate of £12bn is correct, it takes the average income tax contribution of 2.4m households just to fill the gap left by the perfectly legal tax manoeuvres of big business. That £12bn is the equivalent of around 480 new schools, 300 hospitals or more than 1.3m new nursery places.

 

Today, guardian.co.uk is also launching a unique interactive database of the corporation tax figures recorded in the accounts of each FTSE 100 compay in the last four years. It reveals the low amounts of tax paid by some, and a reluctance to supply meaningful numbers to the public.

 

Despite their efforts to shift profits out of the country and minimise UK tax, the companies enjoy a range of important benefits by being based in Britain and listed on the London stock exchange.

 

This has given them access to one of the widest pools of capital in the world; they have enjoyed light-touch but respected regulation and high corporate governance standards; and it has enhanced their international reputations to be listed in the UK, helping them to attract the best talent. Companies here also benefit from political stability and - perhaps most important of all - the directors want to live near London

 

Many of the companies the Guardian looked at are already feeling the effects of the recession on their profits so their tax bills will go down. But campaigners insist that this makes the task of collecting maximum tax revenues more, rather than less, urgent. Failure to do so, they say, will put a massive strain on public finances already being stretched to breaking-point.

 

Brendan Barber, TUC general secretary, said: "Tax avoidance is hollowing out the tax system. With the rest of us having to fill the tax gap left by Britain's most wealthy, there is a real threat to the future of public services - especially as the recession takes its toll on normal tax flows.

 

"It will be hard to maintain public support for tax when it looks increasingly optional for big companies and the super-rich, who increasingly float free from the network of mutual obligations that underpin any civilised society."

 

As they watch tax receipts dwindle through a combination of legal avoidance schemes and economic downturn, governments also face international pressure to crack down on the entirely separate problem of illegal tax evasion.

 

In the US, Barack Obama introduced the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act in 2007 when he was still just an Illinois senator. Obama and his fellow sponsors of the act, Democrat Carl Levin and Republican Norm Coleman, claimed the US annual tax gap was approaching $100bn. "We need to crack down on individuals and businesses that abuse our tax laws so that those who work hard and play by the rules aren't disadvantaged," Obama said.

 

Political concern is growing across Europe. German chancellor Angela Merkel launched hostilities against individual tax evaders after her secret service bought computer discs from a whistleblower detailing the bank accounts of thousands of wealthy Germans in the tiny Alpine tax haven of Liechtenstein.

 

In Britain, the Revenue paid £100,000 for the same information about individual UK tax dodgers and is now pursuing them. And just before Christmas, Alastair Darling, the chancellor, launched a potentially explosive review of British-linked tax havens."

 

This is for a prior tax year, but there is no reason to suspect they will suddenly have started paying tax since then, and if these measures are legal, they shouldnt be. Cane these thieving fuckers. Be interesting to know what Cable has to say on tax dodging now as well

[Stu Monty]

I promise you I do. I am always open to evidence-based arguments, irrespective of whether those arguments are in accordance with, or opposition to, my present stance.

 

 

 

 

Okay, we're getting somewhere now!

 

Before we start, it's important to note that "front page news" is not the same as "facts". Liverpool fans of all people should understand that much at least.

 

Now, so far as I can see Barclays is indeed engaged in tax avoidance on a major scale, with more than 250 subsidiaries in tax havens around the world.

 

Unfortunately, they don't appear to be doing anything illegal, and I'm not sure how we would go about getting more tax off them when they're paying all the tax they're legally required to pay in the Channel Islands or the Caymans or wherever.

 

 

 

 

Everything I saw suggested that Vodafone had paid all the tax they were obliged to pay. The idea that the government let them off £6bn was a complete fiction. It's entirely possible that if it had gone to court, they could have even ended up paying less than they did. In the end, they were happy to pay it because it was less than they had budgeted for as a contingency.

 

 

 

 

Fortnum is another company engaged in tax avoidance, their parent company pays tax in Switzerland and Luxembourg. Again, all apparently legal and above board.

 

 

 

 

Nobody on earth is pretending that companies don't avoid tax. Not least because these companies are completely brazen about it, so it would involve reality denial of religious proportions to claim that they didn't.

 

We can both sit here and moan about how unfair it is til the cows come home. Where we differ is that I am asking to see ways in which we can get companies that are based in offshore tax havens to pay tax here. I'm not at all sure it's possible to do that but, as ever, I remain open to practical suggestions, as do the MPs who are currently investigating ways to make companies pay.

 

And I'm the man who doesn't buy the idea that the MPs are actually seriously attempting to get a grip of big business. It would be quite hazardous to their future positions on the boards of BP and Goldman.

[stringvest]

If the issue is being addressed across Europe then there is a good chance that legislation could be introduced - it would require consistency across the EU, and it could take the form of legislature to tax at source, or to subject any products sold inside Europe to a new tax. All it requires is enough people with enough moral gumption and imagination.

[mars]

If the issue is being addressed across Europe then there is a good chance that legislation could be introduced - it would require consistency across the EU, and it could take the form of legislature to tax at source, or to subject any products sold inside Europe to a new tax. All it requires is enough people with enough moral gumption and imagination.

 

Ah...spotted a bit of a flaw in the plan, there - it's the politician's achilles heel.

[dennis tooth]

I deliberately joined the most moderate union when I became a teacher as I think strike action should be the last resort, but I voted for this action with the ATL (the first time in its history the union has even balloted for action never mind actually gone ahead with the strike itself). It's a fucking piss-take what they're suggesting. Why the fuck should I have to pay for the bankers' fuck up of our entire economy? Also, why should I have the terms and conditions I agreed to in good faith when I entered the profession fucked with now?

 

The argument is that the ageing population will cost the taxpayer billions more and the TPS is therefore unsustainable. However, what the fuck do they think will be the effect of raising the retirement age in line with the state one? The profession will be clogged up with late 50s/early 60s teachers who are knackered and very expensive at the top of the pay scale leaving no room for fresh blood at the bottom. In short, a de-motivated and more costly work force. How the fuck does that make sense?

 

I really fucking object to the government rhetoric about the legitimacy of the ballots, too. Don't these cunts know what proportion of the electorate turns out to vote for them or how few of those voting put a government into power? And besides, they're deliberately blocking the use of online strike ballots because they know what the effect would be - a doubling at least of the turnout in a ballot. Cake and eat it? What a surprise from a bunch of hypocritical cunts who are almost certain to wave through the MPs' pension scheme unchanged (for the worse, at least; wouldn't put it past them to improve it).

 

If these public sector pension schemes are so prohibitively expensive then they should close them to new members (with a five year warning for those currently embarking on training and education with a view to a public sector career). However, even that's fucking shit. Surely the public service is a crucial aspect of our society that needs to be valued in monetary terms that will maintain standards?

 

Paul the confessed moderate becoming an extremist. People must be learning, its the extremists who shape society becaus ehtye define the margins and the shape. Glad to see you joining the winning team. A critical mind is a great gift.

[Carvalho Diablo]

"Working class fido's" - brilliant tagging.

[dennis tooth]

Bottom-up revolution

The waves of revolution have had profound effects transforming possibilities into reality.

 

In mid-February, the week after Hosni Mubarak was driven from office by the Egyptian Revolution, unprecedented demonstrations erupted in the state of Wisconsin opposing the efforts of the newly elected Republican governor to destroy the organising power of public employee unions. Although the specific causes were significantly different, the underlying logic of the people rising up against powerful anti-democratic elites made for more than just a superficial resemblance between Tahrir Square in Cairo, and the capitol building and its environs in Madison, Wisconsin.

 

They were unique, yet related events, like the differing national expressions of waves of protest and revolution that swept Europe in 1848, or that wrapped around the world in 1968. These recurrent world-historical waves represent a prolonged struggle to realise a more just, egalitarian world - a yearning that crosses all manner of cultural boundaries, though it finds unique expression wherever it arises.

 

The pattern of these past waves was similar. Initially, an invigorating sense of unity in striving against the dead hand of the past brought together many different groups accustomed to seeing themselves as distinct. But within a few weeks or months, conservative forces counter-mobilised and found ways to play different groups off against one another, as the initial sense of unity faded in the face of difficult nuts-and-bolts questions of how to build something new.

 

Yet, despite the apparent defeat of these waves of revolution, they had profound effects, altering the very sense of the possible - even if it wasn't immediately obvious how to make the possible into the real. For example, demonstrations on both sides of the Iron Curtain in 1968 foreshadowed the decades-long development of movements that helped bring the Cold War to a peaceful end. The Western European peace movement and the Eastern European civil society movement gave significant support to one another, starting simply with their very existence and shared inspiration. Movements for the environment, gender equality and human rights also came to span the globe in the decades following 1968, eventually even gaining conservative support for some version of their aspirations.

 

The story of 1848 was similar. When Otto von Bismarck - one of Europe's leading conservatives of the 19th century - became the architect of Germany's welfare state in the 1880s, he did it in part to co-opt support for the socialist-oriented Social Democratic Party. Yet, that very act of co-option was itself an acknowledgment of how 1848 had profoundly changed the world.

 

The current wave of revolutionary protest, intensely focused in the Arab world, but which echoes from Iran to Spain to the US, shows signs of similar dynamics, though they play out very differently in different situations. One crucial difference from 1848 and 1968 is the role of social media, which gives bottom-up egalitarians a better footing for sustained organising. It remains to be seen how effective this will prove to be, but at the very least there is a vastly increased potential to sustain a broadly-shared sense of what a very different world could look like.

 

The Egyptian "Facebook Generation" was able to drive events in January and February, drawing everyone else along with them - even including the army. But even as those events were unfolding, it was well understood that getting rid of Mubarak and building something new were two very different things - as the late May demonstration in Tahrir Square reminded us again.

 

Things are very different in and around the Euro-US economic core, and the reason for that largely hinges on how the draconian practices of neo-liberal economics - forced onto the global south in the 1980s and 1990s - have finally come home to roost in the neo-imperial heartland.

 

Both the Egyptian Revolution and its Wisconsin echo resulted, to different degrees, from the catastrophic failure of the global neo-liberal order in the financial crisis of late 2008, and the followup efforts to save those responsible for the crash, rather than those victimised by it. The same is also true of Tunisia, birthplace of the Arab Spring, as well as in Spain, where the "Real Democracy Now!" movement has brought strikingly similar mass demonstrations onto the European continent.

 

Of course there are many more contributing causes for the Arab Spring - the story is set simpler in the West. But the explosion of Arab Spring can be seen as a more compressed and complicated version of Latin America's decade-long realignment away from neo-liberalism and US hegemony.

 

The neo-liberal backstory

 

In order to better understand how Spain and Wisconsin differ from Egypt and Tunisia, we need to reflect on the decades-long struggle between neo-liberalism and welfare-state economics around the globe. That's because the financial crash was a virtually inevitable outcome of decades-long practices preceding it, among them, the spread of the neo-liberal "Washington Consensus" that reordered the world economy after the collapse of the original Bretton Woods system amid the twin oil shocks of the 1970s.

 

That system, constructed following the Great Depression and World War II, had recognised the necessity for elites to accept the democratically popular welfare state to address social needs that the market had failed to meet during the 1930s, and which helped pave the way for war. Yet, it was primarily a system for maintaining Euro-US hegemony. When Iran tried to nationalise its oil in 1953 and Guatemala tried to establish its own New Deal-style welfare state in 1954, CIA operations were used to overthrow both democratically elected governments and replace them with dictatorships, in order to "defend freedom" as defined by the US during the Cold War.

 

Still, more modest forms of state welfare - food subsidies, public education and health programs et cetera - were accepted as normal costs of limiting mass unrest throughout "the Third World", as it was then called. But all this changed with the shift to the neo-liberal order that began in the 1970s. As explained in the 1988 book, The Debt Squads, by Sue Branford and Bernardo Kucinski: "The industrial centre transferred the oil bill to the periphery through dollar inflation, the deepening of the recession, and an increase in interest rates."

 

This in turn established the pre-conditions for imposing increasingly severe "structural adjustment policies" throughout the 1980s, primarily through the IMF and the World Bank, forcing countries throughout the global south to slash social investments and adopt neo-liberal economic policies. A pattern that has finally come hit home in the US itself, as Washington turned its back on efforts to restore normal levels of employment, and fixated on destroying America's welfare state - ostensibly in order to save it. Similar pressures are at work in Europe as well, with the European periphery - Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland - facing the most severe attacks.

 

In 2001, the Center for Economic Policy Research published a report: "The Scorecard on Globalization 1980-2000: Twenty Years of Diminished Progress." It analysed data on economic growth and various social indicators - life expectancy, mortality among infants, children, and adults, literacy, and education - grouping the countries by income quintile. It found that: "For economic growth and almost all of the other indicators, the last 20 years have shown a very clear decline in progress as compared with the previous two decades."

 

A follow-up report in 2005 reached similar conclusions, comparing the previous 25 years to the 20 years before that. But a third report issued earlier this year showed that things had actually improved over the past decade. "For all except the top quintile of countries – ie for the vast majority of low- and middle-income countries, there was a sharp rebound to the growth rates of the 1960-1980 period during 2000-2010." The report cited widespread rejection of failed neo-liberal policies as one reason for the turnaround. IMF influence rebounded somewhat after the world economic downturn, but most of its influence was "in Europe, especially Eastern Europe and the weaker Eurozone countries (Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Greece)," rather than Asia, Latin America and Africa - regions of the world that have recovered more rapidly than Europe and the US, though there are obvious exceptions, and inequalities within countries, as seen in Tunisia and Egypt, for example.

 

Underlying these particulars is a perpetual clash between the ideological promise of free market rhetoric, and the recurrent reality of oligopolies, oligarchs, crony capitalists and the like who manage to thrive, even dominate, in the name of freedom. First Britain, then the US, have dominated the world for two centuries under this peculiar banner of "freedom" that gives license to the most predatory forms of capitalism.

 

Abandoning the abandoners?

 

Throughout the world, but especially in Europe and the US , so-called "left" parties have largely accepted the neo-liberal rhetoric over the past two decades, even while maintaining a theoretical commitment to social and economic justice to distinguish themselves from parties of the right. This is why Spain saw massive demonstrations against the policies of the "socialist" government they had previously helped elect. It's also why more than a million voters stayed at home, allowing massive conservative gains in the recent elections - a phenomena quite similar to that which happened in the US in November.

 

The situation in the US is more complicated than in Spain, because many state-level Democrats - particularly in states such as Wisconsin - remain much more closely aligned with their electoral base. But it was remarkable how relatively little attention national Democrats paid to the massive Wisconsin uprising against Republican attempts to break public unions. National Republicans were far more attentive, because their state and federal policies were much more closely aligned.

 

This was seen again following a special election in New York, where Democrat Kathy Hochul won in an overwhelmingly Republican district, capitalising on the Republican House vote for the "Ryan Plan" to end Medicare as a social insurance program. Some commentators immediately noted that close to half the Republican House seats could be in play in 2012 - roughly four times the number needed for Democrats to re-take the majority.

 

But since then, President Obama and other Democrats have blurred the razor-sharp distinction Hochul drew by prominently discussing so-called "entitlement reform" with Republicans who continue to push the Ryan Plan. Any such compromise will seriously blunt any attacks on Republicans, while alienating their own base, as happened with the Spanish Socialists.

 

While much of the Arab world now clearly sees Obama siding against the forces of progressive change, particularly on the issue of Palestine, Americans remain remarkably confused, partly due to the depth of right-wing hatred. Even after the release of Obama's long-form birth certificate, a new poll of Iowa Republicans found that a majority of Republicans still aren't convinced Obama is a natural-born citizen - legally entitled to be president. With over-the-top opposition, it's difficult for a relatively disengaged public to see Obama as anything other than the complete opposite of those attacking him, even though his free-market ideology makes them remarkable similar.

 

Demonstrations such as those in Wisconsin can change this, however. They not only grab people's attention, and provide information about what politicians stand for, they help make politics matter to people. They draw lines in the sand. So far, Obama's response has been to stay away, to avoid being forced to make his position clear. He also tried to do this with the Arab world in his recent speech responding to the Arab Spring. But the Arab world is not so easily fooled.

 

Obama, however, is just one political figure, reflecting the more general state of US politics - particularly elite opinion and major economic interests. His ambivalence is, in this sense, an expression of America's fading power. Obama's belated attempts to play catch-up with the Arab Spring are but one facet of a more general loss of previous dominance.

 

But the true revolution is not to replace US power with another, similar false prophet of "freedom" defined by the marketplace alone. The true revolution is to make the marketplace the servant of humanity's dreams, rather than their master. This is the cause that Mohamed Bouazizi sacrificed his life for. It is the reason that his spirit lives, not just in Tunisia, but across the Arab world and around the entire globe - even in Madison, Wisconsin.

 

Not yet in Washington, DC, perhaps. But if 1848 and 1968 are any guide, that could certainly change within a decade or two. It could change much faster if social media make as big a difference as some believe they might.

 

Paul Rosenberg is the Senior Editor of Random Length News, a bi-weekly alternative community newspaper.

[Paul]

Paul the confessed moderate becoming an extremist. People must be learning, its the extremists who shape society becaus ehtye define the margins and the shape. Glad to see you joining the winning team. A critical mind is a great gift.

 

I suppose I don't really see this issue in terms of moderate or extreme, mate; I just see it as blatantly wrong. It's quite simply unjust. The older I get, the more the hypocrisy of professional politicians becomes ever more obvious and ever more galling.

 

I am far from comfortable with striking. It bothers me personally because it'll cost us a couple of hundred quid or more in our house and bills need paying and babies need feeding; it also bothers me professionally because I see educating deprived children as my vocation and know that the cost of extra day off for many of them won't just be six hours less education; it'll be a day of mayhem they could have avoided if they were in school. Still, the cunts in power play on that shit, knowing how hard most of find it to take this course of action. Fuck 'em.*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*For now. Not sure how strong my resolve will be if the action grows and intensifies. I don't see me ever being a scab, but my vote - and those of others - could change. It's hard not to be bullied when they've got your family over a barrel.

[Sugar Ape]

Looks like it is deffo happening now then. Expect the rhetoric from the coalition to be stepped up. Got to say Gove has had a 'mare over this, hopefully they continue in that vein.

 

BBC News - 'Major gap' between unions and ministers over pensions

 

There is still "a major gap" between the government and unions over plans to overhaul public sector pensions, TUC leader Brendan Barber has said.

 

Speaking after talks, he said there was "the possibility of agreement" in some areas, but key divisions remain.

 

Civil servants' union leader Mark Serwotka said "not one jot of progress" had been made on demands for staff to work longer and contribute more.

 

Up to 750,000 teachers and civil servants are set to strike on Thursday.

 

That action will still go ahead, involving members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), the University and College Union and the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union.

 

The walk-out, in England and Wales, is expected to disrupt thousands of schools.

 

Mr Serwotka - whose PCS union represents 300,000 civil servants, including coastguards, tax officials and court and job centre staff - said the government had shown "no interest in actually negotiating on any of the key principles at the heart of this dispute".

 

Mr Barber agreed there were still major divisions between unions and the government over three key proposals - to raise the pension age, to increase workers' contributions and to link pension values to the generally lower consumer prices index (CPI) rather than the retail prices index (RPI).

 

The government has, however, said it will enter into separate discussions over the local government pension scheme, after unions warned that many members could opt out altogether if made to contribute much more - putting the whole existence of the scheme potentially at risk.

 

Mr Barber welcomed this development and said that, more broadly, ministers had indicated "some movement in their thinking on some issues".

 

"They are trying to look at ways of giving greater assurance that the value of people's pensions will be maintained," he said.

 

He added that more talks would talk place in July and the TUC was committed to taking part in them to try to reach an agreement.

 

The public sector union Unison - which represents more than 1.2 million workers - had warned that it would ballot its members for strike action if the talks proved unsatisfactory.

 

But Unison's leader Dave Prentis said that while "a massive cavern" remained between the two sides, no ballot would be called.

 

"I think we found today the government were willing to treat the negotiations seriously," he said.

 

"We thought that today may be the last day and we would be moving into conflict this evening, [but] they've agreed to two further meetings in July and we hope to negotiate through July.

 

"We'll make a decision based on the outcome of those negotiations."

 

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude described the talks as "constructive".

 

"This is a genuine consultation to which we are committed in order to try and agree a way forward with the unions, including on how to implement the changes on contributions set out in the spending review," he said.

 

On the local government scheme, Mr Maude said: "We recognise that the funding basis for the local government pension scheme is different.

 

"There are important implications for how the contributions and benefits interact... On that basis, we have agreed to have a more in-depth discussion with local government unions and the TUC about how we take these factors into account."

 

The government has insisted it has contingency plans in place to prevent any major disruption to essential services on 30 June.

 

But Education Secretary Michael Gove has been criticised after suggesting that parents should go into schools to help keep them running.

 

The prime minister's spokesman has since tried to clarify the matter: "Michael Gove simply said schools should make every effort to stay open to minimise inconvenience.

 

"This is not something we are doing from Whitehall - schools themselves should look at every option for staying open."

 

Mr Gove has also warned that the teaching profession is risking its reputation by striking and last week, he wrote to head teachers saying they had a "strong moral duty" to keep schools open during the strike.

[Section_31]

Don't fuck with the middle class, they won't lodge a protest vote with the BNP and tell you you're all shite, they'll actually vote you out.

[dennis tooth]

They cant negotiate, the unions need to go over there heads and negotiate with the actual people who are dictating this policy rather than the front teams.

But in reality they should not negotiate anything, its agreed terms and conditions of their contracts and they should not budge an inch. Its alright pointing to tax loopholes and saying its perfectly legal, it works both ways, bound by contract of law.

[Fowlers God]

Question for you Paul, (as you seem to be the only person on this threat that is actually talking about the stirke)

 

Now I understand your reasoning behind the strike and support the reasoning, however.....

 

What gives you as an individual/organisation the right to strike just because you feel that you are being given the shit around.

 

I work in the private sector, havent had a pay rise in three years, get paid less than colleagues doing the same job and all the rest blah blah blah. I could tell you how shit my working enviroment is but on the flip side what I am saying is it is my choice to carry on working here. I am not tied down to being here or having to come here.

 

I come here because I need to proviode for my family. If I dont turn up to work then I will face action of my failure to come to work. So why is that different for you?

 

Thank you for the stuff on how you feel about it and the fact that you have said it will be a financial hinderance to your family.

[Brodie]

FG - not answering on behalf of Paul, but speaking as a teacher:

 

Firstly, I chose this profession only 3 years ago, genuinely because I wanted to try and make a difference (I know it sounds cheesey but cant think of a better way of putting it). I did not consider the pension, the retirement ages etc..., I just looked at how much I'd take home a month and whether I could afford to take a drop of over 10k a year from my previous job. I could, just. Now I am being told that due to a combination of increased pension payments, changes in NI and tax rates I will be £1k a year worse off. With the rising cost of living, I will be in a position where I will be worse off after 2 years after teaching than I was when I started. No matter how you look at it that cannot be right.

 

Secondly, think about those teachers who are nearing retirement age, and I know a few, they will have based their saving spending etc... over the last 20-30 years, on what they would need to live on when they retire. They are now being told they will get less than they planned, with next to no time to react. I'm sure if the terms and conditions were different when they started they may have but more money away for retirement, now the can't. Again no matter how you look at it wrong again.

 

Thirdly, from a teaching point of view, I am paid 10k less a year than I was in industry, for a more time consuming, higher pressure lifestyle, with less flexible hours, that I paid over £3k to qualify in. When I started I took the full commitment on. If you expect the best candidiates to enter the profession, then you need to have terms and conditions that appeal to them, and those will never include pay at a levels that you can gain in private sector, so the pension etc... has always been a selling point to some. The way I see it, reduce the overall package, and the best candidates will go to the private sector, which will result in a poorer teaching profession, which is not fair on the kids.

 

Finally, as Paul mentioned earlier, early retirement in teaching, has allowed the profession to stay relatively fresh, as its allowed a significant intake of new teachers every year. Keep teachers working longer, will mean more teachers in their 60s literally going through the motions, and restrict the intake of new teachers.

 

I am striking for all the reasons above, only one of them effects me directly as I was 35 when I got my first teaching job, and only paid into the pension for 2 years, but they are all equally valid.

[dennis tooth]

I know about the Internet. I also know that the Internet is full of lies and liars, silverlining and his smears being an excellent example. You seem unusually reticent to give me any examples and I don't understand why. You must have some names of individuals and companies that don't pay tax or you wouldn't have formed the opinion in the first instance.

 

Please, explain as you would to a child if that's the only way you can do it.

 

Copyright Nick Clegg

[Sugar Ape]

Question for you Paul, (as you seem to be the only person on this threat that is actually talking about the stirke)

 

Now I understand your reasoning behind the strike and support the reasoning, however.....

 

What gives you as an individual/organisation the right to strike just because you feel that you are being given the shit around.

 

I work in the private sector, havent had a pay rise in three years, get paid less than colleagues doing the same job and all the rest blah blah blah. I could tell you how shit my working enviroment is but on the flip side what I am saying is it is my choice to carry on working here. I am not tied down to being here or having to come here.

 

I come here because I need to proviode for my family. If I dont turn up to work then I will face action of my failure to come to work. So why is that different for you?

 

Thank you for the stuff on how you feel about it and the fact that you have said it will be a financial hinderance to your family.

 

First of all most people on this thread are discussing the strikes, not just Paul. Though he does put his position across most eloquently.

 

We can only go on strike under certain criteria. We can't just walk out for any reason. The employer can fire people for taking strike action, but they can't single out an individual. So, if they want to fire me for striking on Thursday, they will also have to fire everyone else.

 

I think if you and your workmates join a union and all your workmates strike with you then your employer would have to either fire you all or negotiate with you. If you just decide to strike on your own your employer can fire you.

 

My dad works for Jaguar ( formerly Fords, ) obviously a private company, and, through the union in there, has been on strike loads of times for improved working conditions. Though more people are in unions in the public sector.

 

Figures released today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on trade union membership highlight the large disparity between the public and the private sector. In 2009, 15.1 per cent of all private sector employees in UK were union members compared to 56.6 per cent of public sector employees.