Strike Action

[lifetime fan]

"but the prime minister's very clear view is that he always opposes actions which gives disruption to the public".

 

 

 

Of course he does the shithouse.

[VladimirIlyich]

"but the prime minister's very clear view is that he always opposes actions which gives disruption to the public".

 

 

 

Of course he does the shithouse.

So why doesnt he object to the cuts in Police Officers,Firemen and women,NHS staff. Hypocritical wanker.

 

He objects to normal people having rights and a say in how their lives and jobs are done is more like it.

[Strontium]

Anyone arguing for a large rise in NHS wages should, at the very least, say how they'd pay for it.

[lifetime fan]

Anyone arguing for a large rise in NHS wages should, at the very least, say how they'd pay for it.

It isn't a large rise Dog, you know it isn't.

 

Would you be entirely happy with the coalition tearing up your contract and fucking you off over your terms and conditions?

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Anyone arguing for a large rise in NHS wages should, at the very least, say how they'd pay for it.

Chopping off body parts of Lib Dem leaders and auctioning them off. I'd start with Clegg's bollocks, if only he had a pair.

[lifetime fan]

Anyone arguing for a large rise in NHS wages should, at the very least, say how they'd pay for it.

Seeing as you asked I'll at least have the decency to answer.

 

Bankers bonus tax

Scrap trident

Land bank tax

Raise the top rate of income tax to 50p

Raise inheritance tax for the largest estates

Windfall tax for the energy companies

A massive property tax on all foreign owned property not lived in by the owner for 9 months of the year.

 

This is the point Stronts, these 'pay rises' are affordable. As are the pensions which will be clobbered yet again next.

 

The coalition you prop up have their priorities completely fucked up though, they'd rather claim pay rises below the cost of inflation, costed and proven to be affordable are not.

 

Then they'll start kicking off about affordable pensions again.

 

Your party has allowed an almighty amount of shit to be passed by a government with no mandate from the electorate. And your party will have that amount of shit and more repaid at the election.

 

They can have no complaints about it.

 

 

EDIT: Scrap HS2, the biggest waste of finances imaginable. I can fly quicker and cheaper, why the fuck would I get the train!

[Carvalho Diablo]

[Paulie Dangerously]

We secured a pay increase of 3% for our bargaining group moving forward which we were happy about. How much would a comparative or marginally smaller increase for the lowest laid nhs staff cost do we reckon?

[lifetime fan]

Seeing as you asked I'll at least have the decency to answer.

 

Bankers bonus tax

Scrap trident

Land bank tax

Raise the top rate of income tax to 50p

Raise inheritance tax for the largest estates

Windfall tax for the energy companies

A massive property tax on all foreign owned property not lived in by the owner for 9 months of the year.

 

This is the point Stronts, these 'pay rises' are affordable. As are the pensions which will be clobbered yet again next.

 

The coalition you prop up have their priorities completely fucked up though, they'd rather claim pay rises below the cost of inflation, costed and proven to be affordable are not.

 

Then they'll start kicking off about affordable pensions again.

 

Your party has allowed an almighty amount of shit to be passed by a government with no mandate from the electorate. And your party will have that amount of shit and more repaid at the election.

 

They can have no complaints about it.

 

 

EDIT: Scrap HS2, the biggest waste of finances imaginable. I can fly quicker and cheaper, why the fuck would I get the train!

 

 

Do you not agree it's easily affordable Dog?

[Sugar Ape]

HS2 is the biggest fucking con going. Paid for by everyone and only rich twats will be able to afford to use it regularly.

[General Dryness]

HS2 is the biggest fucking con going. Paid for by everyone and only rich twats will be able to afford to use it regularly.

 

Don't know much about this HS2 thing, having been out of the country for a while, but from what I've read its absolutely gobsmacking that they can preach austerity and yet still go ahead with something like this. Insanity.

[lifetime fan]

HS2 is the biggest fucking con going. Paid for by everyone and only rich twats will be able to afford to use it regularly.

 

7m 50secs in.

 

 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

"but the prime minister's very clear view is that he always opposes actions which gives disruption to the public".

 

 

 

Of course he does the shithouse.

My instinct (I'm happy to say) is the exact opposite of Cameron's.  Knowing how hard you have to push a workforce to get them to the point where they're ready to take a stand - and knowing how difficult it is to get a strike organised - I tend to assume that any workforce who have reached that point must have a good case and must deserve my support.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

And if you're anywhere near Liverpool on Saturday, don't forget the March for Public Services - assemble at the Pier Head between 10.00 and 10.45.

 

See you there.

[Sugar Ape]

Don't know much about this HS2 thing, having been out of the country for a while, but from what I've read its absolutely gobsmacking that they can preach austerity and yet still go ahead with something like this. Insanity.

 

It's a fucking joke.

 

7m 50secs in.

 

 

 

Yeah, remember seeing that before. It needs fucking off ASAP and then maybe we can find money to fund our public services adequately

[Carvalho Diablo]

QT promises to be a decent watch tonight. Hope we have a decent panel.

[Strontium]

It isn't a large rise Dog, you know it isn't.

 

Would you be entirely happy with the coalition tearing up your contract and fucking you off over your terms and conditions?

Apologies, I intended to put "larger". One of those annoying spelling errors which alters the meaning of what you're writing, haha.

 

I wasn't aware of any contracts being torn up though? As I understand it, anyone with contractual pay progression is getting it.

 

Seeing as you asked I'll at least have the decency to answer.

 

Bankers bonus tax

Scrap trident

Land bank tax

Raise the top rate of income tax to 50p

Raise inheritance tax for the largest estates

Windfall tax for the energy companies

A massive property tax on all foreign owned property not lived in by the owner for 9 months of the year.

 

This is the point Stronts, these 'pay rises' are affordable. As are the pensions which will be clobbered yet again next.

 

The coalition you prop up have their priorities completely fucked up though, they'd rather claim pay rises below the cost of inflation, costed and proven to be affordable are not.

 

Then they'll start kicking off about affordable pensions again.

 

Your party has allowed an almighty amount of shit to be passed by a government with no mandate from the electorate. And your party will have that amount of shit and more repaid at the election.

 

They can have no complaints about it.

 

EDIT: Scrap HS2, the biggest waste of finances imaginable. I can fly quicker and cheaper, why the fuck would I get the train!

I appreciate the constructive contribution, it makes a nice change around here.

 

The land bank tax and inheritance tax rises I am totally on board with. Although inheritance tax is really unpopular with the public, considering it won't affect 95% of them.

 

Scrapping Trident I support, at the same time you need to acknowledge this will cost jobs in other areas.

 

Raising the top rate of income tax to 50p wouldn't raise much more money than 45p. HMRC's own figures. This was how Clegg persuaded Osborne to lower it to 45 when Osborne wanted to bring it back to 40.

 

I'm uncomfortable with taxing property because it's owned by foreigners. However, extra tax on high value properties, much of which is owned by foreign domiciles, would be very much welcome.

 

Bankers bonus tax, I'm not sure how it would work. How would you define "banker" and why should they pay extra tax on top of the 50% or so which they'll already be paying? This seems to be an arbitrary moral decision by government that some earnings are more worthy than others, and I'm always wary of government decreeing what is and isn't moral.

 

Windfall tax for the energy companies seems feasible, I wouldn't be opposed in principle.

 

I don't agree with scrapping HS2. The economic benefits are pretty clear.

 

Anyway, we can agree you have some good ideas for increasing revenue here. What you then have to do is justify spending this money on public sector wages over and above investing in infrastructure or paying down the deficit.

 

Nobody ever seems willing or able to justify it. They always say "XYZ should earn more, they deserve it". Why should XYZ earn more money? Why do they deserve it? You need to be able to make a case for it.

[Stu Monty]

Dog, you've got some fucking brass. You get constructive contributions to your comments calling people illiterate ass-clowns and you lie or swerve them.

 

If you want honest and constructive, do fucking honest and constructive. Spin doesn't work on a written forum.

[lifetime fan]

Apologies, I intended to put "larger". One of those annoying spelling errors which alters the meaning of what you're writing, haha.

 

I wasn't aware of any contracts being torn up though? As I understand it, anyone with contractual pay progression is getting it.

 

 

I appreciate the constructive contribution, it makes a nice change around here.

 

The land bank tax and inheritance tax rises I am totally on board with. Although inheritance tax is really unpopular with the public, considering it won't affect 95% of them.

 

Scrapping Trident I support, at the same time you need to acknowledge this will cost jobs in other areas.

 

Raising the top rate of income tax to 50p wouldn't raise much more money than 45p. HMRC's own figures. This was how Clegg persuaded Osborne to lower it to 45 when Osborne wanted to bring it back to 40.

 

I'm uncomfortable with taxing property because it's owned by foreigners. However, extra tax on high value properties, much of which is owned by foreign domiciles, would be very much welcome.

 

Bankers bonus tax, I'm not sure how it would work. How would you define "banker" and why should they pay extra tax on top of the 50% or so which they'll already be paying? This seems to be an arbitrary moral decision by government that some earnings are more worthy than others, and I'm always wary of government decreeing what is and isn't moral.

 

Windfall tax for the energy companies seems feasible, I wouldn't be opposed in principle.

 

I don't agree with scrapping HS2. The economic benefits are pretty clear.

 

Anyway, we can agree you have some good ideas for increasing revenue here. What you then have to do is justify spending this money on public sector wages over and above investing in infrastructure or paying down the deficit.

 

Nobody ever seems willing or able to justify it. They always say "XYZ should earn more, they deserve it". Why should XYZ earn more money? Why do they deserve it? You need to be able to make a case for it.

No you do not. You can do both simultaneously as I've pointed out, you just have to chose your priorities.

 

That's why this bollocks about giving a pay rise would mean having to lay off X number of nurses, is just that. Complete bollocks.

[Carvalho Diablo]

[AngryOfTuebrook]

This week was the centenary of the Ludlow Massacre.  It's shocking to think that it's really not so long since people in the USA were being murdered just for defending their rights in work.  (Even more shocking to think that people in Colombia, the Philippines, etc. still are being murdered.)

 

http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=12582

 

This month marks the centenary of the Ludlow Massacre when US national guardsmen killed 20 striking miners and their families in Colorado. This is the story of one of the most violent episodes in American labour history.

On 20 April 1914 the US National Guard attacked a tent colony of striking miners at Ludlow in Southern Colorado. By the end of the day at least 20 strikers, their wives and children were dead. Thirteen had died in a pit dug underneath a tent where they were sheltering from the gunfire after the militiamen deliberately set fire to the tents.

Louis Tikas, a strike leader of Greek origin, and two other strikers were murdered in cold blood after they were summoned to a "negotiation" by Lieutenant Linderfelt of the National Guard. Linderfelt knocked out the unarmed Tikas by breaking his rifle butt over his skull and then ordered the shooting.

An eyewitness was reported in the New York World as saying, "The militiamen aimed their rifles and fired into the unconscious man's body. It was the first murder I had ever seen."

This slaughter, better known as the Ludlow Massacre, was the most violent incident in a 14-month long strike of 11,000 coal miners in Southern Colorado. The US labour historian Howard Zinn described the strike as "one of the most dramatic and violent examples of class conflict in American history".

At least 75 people died in the strike. The strikers, members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), were pitted against the richest man in the world, John D Rockefeller Jr, who owned the largest mining company, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CFIC).

The miners had many grievances which fuelled the strike. The Southern Colorado coalfield had the worst safety record in the world. Rockefeller was vehemently anti-union and in 1912 alone over 1,000 miners were sacked as suspected union members.

Rockefeller had deliberately imported foreign labour to ensure a mixture of nationalities at every mine in an attempt to keep the miners divided. In a speech to a union conference in September 1913 the veteran UMWA organiser Mother Jones quoted a CFIC mine manager as saying, "Dagos are cheaper than props," in dismissing criticisms of the company's safety record. She commented, "There are no dagos in this country. It is the game that has been played down the history of the ruling class to divide the working class."

Most of the miners lived in what were effectively feudal mine camps where the company owned everything. The mine superintendent was mayor and outsiders were denied entrance. The company owned the shops and saloons and appointed the marshal. Mine guards were employed to control the miners. They controlled state and sheriff elections too. CFIC Colorado manager L M Bowers described his company as "the political dictator of Southern Colorado".

 

Machine Guns

While UMWA officials sought a negotiated settlement prior to the strike, the coal operators prepared for war. They paid for hundreds of gunmen and detectives of the Baldwin-Felts Agency to be deputised and brought in up to 20 machine guns. Detectives from the agency shot dead a UMWA organiser, Gerald Lippiatt, in Trinidad, the main town in the mining area.

The 11,000 miners walked out on 23 September 1913 demanding union recognition, an eight hour day, a 10 percent pay rise and, most significantly, for the state mining laws to be enforced in the Southern Colorado mines. The miners and their families moved into giant tent colonies as the coal operators would evict them from the company camps. Ludlow was the biggest with 1,200 people living there.

The unity and resolve of the miners were unbreakable despite every effort of the coal operators and their hired guns, who even paid for an armoured vehicle, nicknamed the "Death Special" to shoot up tent colonies with machine guns. The first time it was used one boy was hit nine times in the leg and a striker was killed. The miners fought back with what few arms they had.

Bowers agitated for the National Guard to be called in. He told Rockefeller he had got the backing of "all the bankers of the city...the chamber of commerce, the real estate exchange, a great many of the best businessmen...[backed by] 14 of the editors of the most important newspapers in the state." That was sufficient to force the state governor to do as Bowers wished.

The miners believed that the National Guard would be neutral. They were quickly disillusioned. The commanding officer, General Chase, drove around in a CFIC vehicle. He created what he called the "military district of Colorado" arresting hundreds of miners and their wives. Mother Jones was held without charge for months.

The coal operators had hoped that the arrival of the National Guard would break the resolve of the strikers. When this failed they agitated for the National Guard to oversee the mass importation of scab labour. Eventually the governor agreed, so trainloads of strike breakers started arriving, protected by the National Guard, so much so that the women taunted them, calling them "scab herders".

These men did not know they were to be used as strike breakers until they arrived at Ludlow rail junction. Some who protested were killed. They were held prisoner by armed guards in the mine camps. Those who did manage to escape found refuge in the tent colonies.

The salaries of the guardsmen were effectively being paid by the coal operators. As the money dried up most of the guards were recalled at the end of March, leaving just three companies, made up primarily of mine-guards and agency detectives. The company at Ludlow was commanded by Lieutenant Linderfelt, a man who had established his brutal credentials in November when he savagely attacked Louis Tikas and had him jailed.

The attack on the Ludlow tent colony began early on 20 April. Three machine guns fired into the tents, backed up by 400 armed men. The miners fought back as best they could with the limited arms available to them but could not stop the onslaught.

Union railwaymen refused to transport National Guard reinforcements to Ludlow in the form of an armoured train until eventually a scab crew was found. The colony was burnt to the ground and it was not until the fires were put out the following day that the 13 dead were found beneath the tents.

A conservative newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News, commented, "Machine guns did the murder. It was private war, with the wealth of the richest man in the world behind the armed guards." The New York Times said, "No situation can justify the acts of the militia" and fretted that their blunder would give justification to whatever the miners did in response.

 

The brutality of the massacre sent shockwaves through the American working class. The striking miners were enraged and armed men from other tent colonies poured into the Ludlow area, attacking the working mines, driving off the guards and dynamiting them. They were backed by other local workers taking up arms, including clerks and teachers. Railway workers continued to refuse to transport troops and ammunition to Ludlow.

In Wyoming 1,700 miners took up arms and told the UMWA they were ready to go to Ludlow, while in Cripple Creek 500 miners headed for Ludlow. The Denver Cigar Makers Union voted to send 500 armed men.

 

Demonstrators

Solidarity donations poured into Ludlow. From September 1913 to April 1914 $8,700 had been donated; in the three weeks following the massacre this rose to $80,000. In Denver 5,000 demonstrated to demand that the National Guard officers be put on trial for murder and branded the governor as an accessory. Demonstrators hounded Rockefeller in New York.

A group of 82 guardsmen mutinied in Denver and refused to board a troop train bound for Ludlow because they did not want to kill women and children. Eugene Debs, leader of the US Socialist Party, said; "The shots fired at Ludlow...will prove the signal for the American revolution." Debs, who had received over 900,000 votes in the US presidential elections two years earlier, called for the setting up of a Gunmen's Defence Fund to ensure that the strikers had the firepower to match that of the guards.

UMWA locals all over the country demanded the union call a national strike. Such a strike could have had huge support, have sparked widespread solidarity strikes and the coal operators could have been beaten. But UMWA officials argued that the best way to support the strike was to stay at work.

When President Wilson sent in federal troops nine days after the massacre union officials effectively stopped resistance. The strike was not finally called off until December but it had been beaten when the national union leaders failed to escalate the strike.

The Ludlow Massacre showed that the US ruling class was willing to use any means to defeat workers (it would enter the First World War three years later in the name of "democracy" and "freedom"). But the Ludlow strike also shows that America's rulers were not all powerful.

If the bravery of the 11,000 strikers and their families fighting the richest man in the world and his private army had been matched by bravery from their union leaders this could have been a famous working class victory. As it was, it took another generation before the Southern Colorado coalfield was finally unionised.

[Paulie Dangerously]

Horrendous that. Never heard of it before. Today's haggling over an above inflation payrise is childsplay

[Malarkey]

HS2 to basically make London into more of a behemoth than it already is. It'll be its own country next.

[Bjornebye]

Horrendous that. Never heard of it before. Today's haggling over an above inflation payrise is childsplay

 

The americans didn't stop steaming in and slaughtering women and children there!

 

Waco! fucking metal that 

[Guest Super Sub]

Fuck if I was to even mention strike I would get told to walk over the picket line and not stop walking and my job would be advertised in the Echo the following day.