RMT leader Mick Lynch gives Jeremy Corbyn general election backing

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Image of Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68393822

The RMT Union has announced it will be supporting former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at the next general election.

Mr Corbyn is the independent MP for Islington North – a seat he has held since 1983.

Last year, the 74-year-old was banned from standing for Labour, having been suspended from the parliamentary party over an antisemitism row in 2020.

RMT leader Mick Lynch said the union would back Mr Corbyn should he run for his seat again as an independent.

“We will support all sorts of people in this election, because we’re not affiliated,” Mr Lynch told the War on Want conference.

He added: “We will support Labour candidates. We will support socialist candidates.

“We will be supporting Jeremy Corbyn in the next election.”

The RMT became estranged from Labour in 2004 under Tony Blair’s leadership, meaning – unlike many other trade unions – it is free to support other candidates.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68393822

Continue ReadingRMT leader Mick Lynch gives Jeremy Corbyn general election backing

Unions call for end of ‘rampant profiteering’ as pre-Christmas food inflation remains at 9.2%

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https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/unions-call-for-end-of-rampant-profiteering-as-pre-christmas-food-inflation-remains-at-9

Shoppers in a supermarket, October 15, 2021

UNIONS called for an end to “rampant profiteering” as official figures showed food inflation remains at a painfully high 9.2 per cent in the run-up to Christmas.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said yesterday’s larger-than-expected drop in overall inflation would not offset the real-terms fall in wages this Christmas.

She said: “Headline inflation might be slowing, but workers know their wages aren’t going as far as they did two years ago.

“Even the competition regulator now admits what Unite has said all along: that firms have been exploiting the cost-of-living crisis to raise prices excessively.

“It’s time the government and Bank of England tackled the rampant profiteering in our economy to get inflation under control.”

Responding to the figures showing CPI inflation slowing to 3.9 per cent and RPI inflation to 5.3 per cent, TUC general secretary Paul Nowak added: “Today’s inflation figures will provide scant relief for hard-pressed families. Prices are still going up — just a bit more slowly.

“Household budgets remain under immense pressure. And many families will struggle with the cost of Christmas, with food and energy bills sky high.”

https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/unions-call-for-end-of-rampant-profiteering-as-pre-christmas-food-inflation-remains-at-9

Continue ReadingUnions call for end of ‘rampant profiteering’ as pre-Christmas food inflation remains at 9.2%

More than 1,000 trade unionists block four Israeli weapons factories

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https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/more-1000-trade-unionists-block-four-israeli-weapons-factories

Activists blockade Eaton Mission Systems in Bournemouth Photo:  Workers for a Free Palestine

FOUR arms factories producing parts for Israeli fighter jets were shut down in protests by more than 1,000 trade unionists today.

Campaigners calling for an end to Britain’s complicity in war crimes being committed in Gaza blockaded sites at Bournemouth, Glasgow, Brighton and Lancashire.

The demonstrations were organised by campaign group Workers for a Free Palestine in co-ordination with workers in France, Denmark and the Netherlands, involving members from trade unions including Unite, Unison, GMB, the NEU, the BMA, UCU, Bectu and BFAWU.

The campaign group said they targeted sites run by defence giant BAE Systems which produces parts for the F-35 stealth combat jet currently being used by Israel to bombard Gaza.

More than 600 blockaded Eaton Mission Systems in Bournemouth alone.

A spokeswoman for Workers for a Free Palestine said: “The fighter jets these factories help to produce are being used to imprison the people of Gaza in a death trap.

“Workers all over Britain are rising up for Palestine, saying we will not allow arms used in a genocide to be supplied in our name and funded by our taxes.

https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/more-1000-trade-unionists-block-four-israeli-weapons-factories

Craig Murray discusses the positive legal obligation to prevent genocide.

Every single state in the world has a positive duty to intervene to prevent the Genocide in Gaza now, not after a court has reached a determination of genocide. This is made crystal clear in para 431 of the International Court of Justice judgment in Bosnia vs Serbia:

This obviously does not mean that the obligation to prevent genocide only comes into being when perpetration of genocide commences ; that would be absurd, since the whole point of the obligation is to prevent, or attempt to prevent, the occurrence of the act. In fact, a State’s obligation to prevent, and the corresponding duty to act, arise at the instant that the State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed. From that moment onwards, if the State has available to it means likely to have a deterrent effect on those suspected of preparing genocide, or reasonably suspected of harbouring specific intent (dolus specialis), it is under a duty to make such use of these means as the circumstances permit.

This case was specifically on the application of the Genocide Convention. That the ICJ has ruled there is a positive duty on states to act to prevent genocide makes it even more astonishing to me that no state has invoked the Genocide Convention over the blatant genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza.

Continue ReadingMore than 1,000 trade unionists block four Israeli weapons factories

Paul Nowak: The Tories are today back doing what they enjoy most: Attacking unions

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/11/paul-nowak-the-tories-are-today-back-doing-what-they-enjoy-most-attacking-unions/

Let’s be clear. These Conservative anti-strike laws are a dog’s dinner – they’re shambolic and unworkable and will frustrate employers, workers and unions alike.

Paul Nowak is the General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress

MPs are to consider further draconian restrictions on the right to strike in the form of compulsory minimum service levels during strike action in ambulance service, rail and the border force.

Also in front of the House of Commons is a code of practice that seeks to force unions to act as the employer’s policeman.

In their rush to attack unions, ministers are even attempting to sneak in further anti-union restrictions, including absurd rules on picketing.

Let’s be clear. These Conservative anti-strike laws are a dog’s dinner – they’re shambolic and unworkable and will frustrate employers, workers and unions alike.

Rather than dealing with the problems working people face, the government is trying to tie unions up in more red tape.

And these new laws will stoke tensions between employers and workers, poison industrial relations and drag out disputes.

Regulations for minimum service levels have now been laid in rail, the ambulance service and border security. Ministers are also consulting on rules affecting workers in hospital settings, schools, universities and fire services.

The government has said regulations for the pernicious Strikes Act will be rushed into force by the end of the year.

A massive 1 in 5 workers in Britain – or 5.5 million workers – are at risk of losing their right to strike.

https://leftfootforward.org/2023/11/paul-nowak-the-tories-are-today-back-doing-what-they-enjoy-most-attacking-unions/

Continue ReadingPaul Nowak: The Tories are today back doing what they enjoy most: Attacking unions

Mick Lynch: ‘Democracy in this country is in a lot of trouble’

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/05/mick-lynch-interview-democracy-in-this-country-is-in-a-lot-of-trouble/

Standing in a sunny Parliament Square surrounded by a colourful mix of trade union flags, Mick Lynch spoke to LFF about the troubling state of democracy in Britain.

The RMT general secretary was a speaker at the emergency protest organised ahead of the final Parliament vote on the anti-strike legislation, Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill.

For Lynch, the anti-strike legislation comes under a broader attempt by the Tory government to clamp down on any kind of opposition, warning that a threat to trade union power is a threat to democracy.

“The government has got an attitude towards anything they don’t agree with, any kind of dissent. It could be politically or more broadly socially, where if they don’t agree with people, they try to ban them,” said Lynch.

“We got these police bills and these counter-demonstration bills where people will be stopped from demonstrating or protesting.

“We saw that during the coronation, one of the most passive pieces of civil disobedience if you like, was banned in effect and people were put in jail for the day.

“They’re trying to clamp down on any dissent, and I think that’s a very troubling state, and it’s time for the British people to wake up to that and see that if trade unions, which are an organic part of life and grow in every society, if they’re not allowed to function properly, democracy in this country is in a lot of trouble.

“We’ve got to make sure that people are out opposing that and we’ve got to make sure that people understand the issues.

https://leftfootforward.org/2023/05/mick-lynch-interview-democracy-in-this-country-is-in-a-lot-of-trouble/

Continue ReadingMick Lynch: ‘Democracy in this country is in a lot of trouble’

High Court gives unions green light to challenge government’s anti-strike regulations

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/high-court-gives-greenlight-legal-challange-unions-against-governments-anti-strike

UNIONS will be taking legal action against the government’s strike-buster agency worker regulations after the High Court granted permission for the challenge today. [yesterday]

The judicial review of anti-worker rules has been brought by 11 trade unions, co-ordinated by the TUC, to protect the right to strike.

Reports suggest that the government is considering new ways to undermine industrial action amid a surge in strikes across the country.

The 11 unions — Aslef, BFAWU, FDA, GMB, NEU, NUJ, POA, PCS, RMT, Unite and Usdaw — have taken up the case against the government’s new regulations, which allow agency workers to fill in for striking workers.

The unions argue that the regulations are unlawful as ministers failed to consult unions as required by the Employment Agencies Act and as they violate fundamental trade union rights protected by Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Continue ReadingHigh Court gives unions green light to challenge government’s anti-strike regulations

NHS in crisis :: Unpatriotic militants? No, Jeremy Hunt – doctors are just fighting to be able to care for us all.

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Clare Gerada on the strike by junior doctors.

 

Image of George Osborne asking where is the money to be made in the NHS

Unpatriotic militants? No, Jeremy Hunt – doctors are just fighting to be able to care for us all.

Being a doctor – or any public sector worker – shouldn’t be such a battle. That’s why we must support junior doctors in their planned strikes.

For the last 9 years I have been the medical director of an NHS service providing confidential help to doctors and dentists with mental health problems, seeing a rising number of doctors week on week.

But our patients have changed.

In our early days the ‘typical’ patient was an older male (GP or psychiatrist) with alcohol problems.

Now nearly half of all new patients are under 30 years old. They come to us with depression, anxiety and symptoms akin to posttraumatic stress disorder. Many have worked in the NHS only a few years. They started out bushy tailed and bright eyed, but end up ‘burnt-out’ (a polite euphemism for depression) after only a few years working. Our youngest patients are only a few months qualified and many are in their Foundation years.

Patient after patient talks of feeling betrayed and bewildered by their loss of enthusiasm about a profession that they had strived to enter (often since their early teens). How their desire to care for patients is sapped by every working day. The language they use to describe their work is that of the battlefield. Being on the ‘front-line’, of ‘surviving’ another shift, being ‘at war’ with management. They talk of feeling abandoned by the NHS. Of working intolerable shifts that appear to have been designed by robots with no concept that humans will need to work them. Of having no sustenance – literally and metaphorically – as they try their best to deliver care to patients.

They talk of working in an unforgiving environment – where every error will lead to punishment and where every move is watched and recorded. They describe the fun having gone out of their profession. They say that they cannot see a future any more in medicine.

Hardly surprising therefore that the numbers progressing through training (from the early Foundation Years to the start of specialty training) is reducing. That now nearly half of doctors are not progressing. And that this is against a background of fewer of our brightest entering medicine in the first place.

Our junior doctors are striking for more than pay and conditions – important though these are. Their planned strike is consciously or unconsciously action to shine a light on what is going on within the NHS – to shine a light on the conflict between idealism and industrialization.

Increasing privatisation has changed the relationship doctors have with their patients. Constant reorganisation has fragmented services, and shattered long-standing teams. At a series of NHS listening events I held in 2014, the overwhelming term used by all NHS staff to describe their working environment was ‘Fear’.

The pay of junior doctors has never been good – not when calculated across the hours worked, the responsibilities they have and when compared to their non-medical peers.

But this was part of the compact we all had – we gave our all for our patients and the organisation we worked in gave their all to us – cared for us, nurtured us, trained us.  We also knew that the intolerable hours would end as we climbed the medical career ladder. Now all of this has been fractured.

Instilling ‘fear’ in doctors, teachers, nurses and other public sector workers is deliberate government policy – as explicitly set out by Cameron’s policy guru, Oliver Letwin, in 2011.

The new junior doctor contract will erode not just pay but also the current safety net against exploitative hours of work. Saturdays will be counted the same as week-days (tell their children that when they are off school and wanting to see Mum or Dad). Women and others who take career breaks will be discriminated against. Junior doctors have been forced to look into the abyss and chose between pain today (strike action) or pain tomorrow (agreeing to an unfair and unsafe contract). They are being treated as children rather than the committed adults they are – their please ignored, instead accused by Jeremy Hunt of being ‘extreme’, ‘militants’, and even unpatriotic.

The junior doctors are not alone in their discontent. The nurses who are marching this Saturday, the teachers and social workers, in fact most public sector workers have seen insecurity, exploitation, fear, and subtle discrimination as the backdrop to their working lives.

The junior doctors are fighting for fairness for all of these workers.  They are leading the charge for a restoration of the values that should drive our public services. For a change by those who employ them – ultimately our Government – who have a moral duty to protect those who care for some of the most vulnerable in society.

Without this change, goodwill will disappear forever and with it the glue that binds our public services together. The government must now stop their bullying tactics and accept that something is profoundly wrong the NHS today and act before it is too late.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

 

Continue ReadingNHS in crisis :: Unpatriotic militants? No, Jeremy Hunt – doctors are just fighting to be able to care for us all.

UK politics review – the lurch towards Fascism

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UK political events combine into a lurch towards Fascism.

The gagging law is passed. Called the Transparency of Lobbying Bill, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act it has nothing to do with transparency of lobbying and everything to do with silencing the government’s critics and opponents. It’s a huge blow against trade unions and other campaigning groups like 38degrees and charities. The Conservative-pretendLiberal coalition have attacked democracy by passing this law.

Fascism is described by it’s creator Benito Mussolini as corporatism – the unification of corporations and government. This is entirely the action that the gagging law continues to excuse. Fascism is right-wing authoritarianism typified by attacks on trade unions and political opponents.

Home secretary Theresa May wants to strip suspected terrorists of their nationality and leave them stateless. This is to be done through the use of secret courts. Theresa May has previously stripped dual-nationals of UK nationality so that they could then be renditioned, etc.

This is intended to be done to suspected terrorists. If there was any evidence against them they would be terrorists. Political activists and dissidents are suspected terrorists. Terrorism as defined in UK law is not necessarily anything to do with explosives or arms or similar threats. Once again the government is seen to be silencing it’s critics and opponents.

Madman and London Mayor Boris Johnson wants police to use water cannon and “get medieval” on protesters. The riots of 2011 were sparked by the police murder of Mark Duggan.

Tory MP calls police on handful of retired constituents delivering petition against lobbying bill ‘gagging law’

Mark Duggan: profile of Tottenham police shooting victim

later edit: Home Secretary Theresa May’s intention is to deprive ‘naturalised’ subjects i.e. from abroad and granted UK status, of UK nationality. It’s still disproportionate since it only needs suspicion rather than any evidence and the powers are bound to be extended later. Politicians love terrorism because it gives them cover for Fascist laws.

Although reported almost universally as suspected terrorists it is actually “… the Secretary of State is satisfied that the deprivation is conducive to the public good because the person, while having that citizenship status, has conducted him or herself in a manner which is seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the United Kingdom, any of the Islands, or any British overseas territory.” [source] That seems far wider than suspected terrorists.

5/2/14
Rise in citizenship-stripping as government cracks down on UK fighters in Syria | The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Former British citizens killed by drone strikes after passports revoked | The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

‘Medieval Exile’: The 41 Britons stripped of their citizenship | The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Continue ReadingUK politics review – the lurch towards Fascism

Commentary and analysis of recent political events

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That Conservative, illiberal Nick Clegg is keen to do the Tories’ work

Clegg leaves the door open to further welfare cuts

George Osborne has made it clear that he plans to introduce “billions” more in welfare cuts if the Tories win the next election, including a possible reduction in the £26,000 household benefit cap and new limits on child benefit, but where does Nick Clegg stand? At the Deputy PM’s final monthly press conference of the year, I asked him whether he was prepared to consider a reduction in the benefit cap in the next parliament. He told me:

It’s not something that I’m advocating at the moment because we’ve only just set this new level and it’s £26,000, which is equivalent to earning £35,000 before taxI think we need to keep that approach, look and see how it works, see what the effects are, but not rush to start changing the goalposts before the policy has properly settled down.

The key words here are “at the moment”. While Clegg again declared that he believed the priority should be to remove universal pensioner benefits from the well-off (“you start from the top and you work down”), he was careful not rule out a cut in the level of the cap.

Spiked has a good article on modern slavery being make-believe and Theresa May’s Modern Slavery bill addressing a non-existant problem. This blog has addressed slavery not existing. Spiked are on the Want to make a worthwhile donation this Solstice? page.

Firefighters to strike on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Tony Blair intervened directly in a firefighters’ strike while the FBU was headed by a Labourite idiot. Strange to see Blair referring to the “real world” since he was a total stranger to it.

Image of GCHQ donught buildingHome Secretary Theresa May fails to provide any evidence that the Guardian’s publishing the Edward Snowden leaks have damaged national security as claimed by boss of MI5, Andrew Parker. Keith Vaz, chair of the home affairs committee told May “What you have given us today, and what we have heard so far, is only second-hand information. Mr Parker and Sir John are making statements in open session and nobody knows what the follow-up is.” and “Everyone is appointed by the prime minister … They are asking questions of each other, and giving answers to each other … That is exactly why we need to see them [the agency heads]. But you don’t want us to see them at all.”

Why Cameron is wrong to declare ‘mission accomplished’ in Afghanistan

What the welfare cuts mean for us: ‘The feeling of dread never goes away’

Hungry Christmas: Food Bank Use Soars

2013 in Review: Unions Are the Only Defence Ordinary People Have Left

Poorer than your parents – post-war pensions boom ‘is coming to an end’

Federal judge holds NSA telephone surveillance unconstitutional

Lord Hanningfield says of allowance claims: ‘I have to live, don’t I?’

For the Sake of Humanity Society Must Unleash War on the Tories

SILENT TO THE GRAVE (The Waterhouse Report)

Continue ReadingCommentary and analysis of recent political events

David Cameron orders inquiry into trade union tactics

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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/17/david-cameron-inquiry-trade-union-tactics

Review condemned as ‘a Tory election stunt’ by Unite union, while coalition tensions emerge over remit

David Cameron has ordered an inquiry into the tactics of the trade unions in the wake of the bitter industrial dispute which almost led to the closure of the Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland.

Downing Street said the wide-ranging review, headed by Bruce Carr QC, would investigate allegations of the use of “leverage tactics” by the unions as well as the impact of such disputes on the critical national infrastructure.

However, in a sign of renewed coalition tensions, the Liberal Democrat business secretary Vince Cable made clear he had only agreed to the inquiry on the basis that it would also examine the practices of employers.

The review follows claims that Unite sought to intimidate executives from Ineos, the refinery’s owners, including sending demonstrators to protest outside their homes and at premises associated with Ineos chairman, Jim Ratcliffe.

A Unite spokesman said: “This review is a sorry attempt by the coalition to divert attention from the cost of living crisis. Vince Cable may not have noticed but the Grangemouth dispute has been settled. This review is nothing more than a Tory election stunt which no trade unionist will collaborate with.”

[Glad to see that Capitalists will be investigated re: their affect on critical national infrastructure.]

Continue ReadingDavid Cameron orders inquiry into trade union tactics