Bombardier: La Lutte Commence (ou possiblement, Continue)

I've just come from an open organising meeting called by the RMT to kick off the campaign to save 1500 jobs at Bombardier (and thousands more support jobs) in the wake of the decision not to award the company the Thameslink contract.

There was an amazing display of solidarity tonight. As well as speakers from RMT, GMB, and TSSA, MP Chris Williamson was there, who has been circulating a petition that in less than two weeks has got more than 34,000 signatures.

In addition, there were statements of support from the city's Trades Council, Unison, NUT, climate change activists, LMHR and workers from Birmingham. There was also mention of unusual cross-spectrum support, which even extends as far as the *shudder* Di'ly Sexpress.

The main thrust of this post is the stuff you can do to help. Here's a list:

• Sign Chris's petition - it's paper, and the deadline is this weekend so turn up to the Carribean carnival on Saturday where there will be a stall for you to put your name to it.
• Go to the Right to Work meeting on Tuesday - at The Quad in the Market Place, 7 pm. This is a broad front meeting with speakers from Right to Work, Labour, SWP, the Green Party, the Indian Workers Asociation, Climate Change and trade unionists. This meeting is to help build public support for the Bombardier workers, all are welcome.
• Sign Unite's petition here.
• Lobby your MP. The Bombardier issue has received unusual levels of cross-party support, even within the Con-Dems, so tell them you want the decision to give Siemens Preferred Bidder Status revoked NOW, before any final decisions are made.
• Go to the rally on the 23rd. This rally is sponsored by all four unions at Bombardier - Unite, TSSA, GMB and RMT. Meet on Saturday 23rd at Bass Recreation Ground, 10.00.
• Lobby the Con-Dems during conference season. Info on the Right to Work campaigns on that here.
• Any other suggestions welcome - just put them in the comments.

How Not to Get a Good Night's Sleep

I was about to go to bed when I thought I'd check up on Lenin. It turns out he's had an article in today's Graun about the Murdoch implosion, which obviously I'm finding satisfying on a number of levels. Specifically he was commenting on Ed 'Twat' Miliband's decision to stick the boot in now the beast is wounded*.

Point is, much though I enjoy Richard's writing, CiF becomes an even worse bearpit than usual under his articles. A brief survey of the comments suggests at least 3 sub-species of Trollus Cryptofascistus.

• The 'cynic'. This is a common troll endemic to CiF threads. Cynics usually acknowledge that something is not good but then proceed to offer up whatever banal platitudes they use to ensure they don't actually have to do anything about it and lets them drown out the little squeals of guilt that occasionally erupt from the dustier layers of their reptilian hindbrains. These trolls' comments usually have the effect of siding with the aggressor against the victim - ach, you see it every day in the playground, bless them. Typical examples include iamaliberal:

Labour - the party with the bravery to kick someone when they are already down.

• The 'clearly a hack'. Typical examples include Ilohan:

Whilst the media, liberal commenators, Ed Miliband etc get in a hysterical tizzy about events that happened years ago and are, in any case, a side effect of having a free press....1000s of people are losing their jobs in Derby cos we have no meaningful industrial policy**...

But some dodgy phone tapping is a national crisis...

I don't know...but have we al lost our minds?

• The 'Sir Thickington Thickalot'. These are generally just your examples of either pig-ignorance or outright barefaced lying. Possibly a witches' brew of both. Examples include flatpackhamster:

Did you know that Richard Seymour, the author of this article, is an active member of the Socialist Worker's Party? Did you know that his party campaigns for totalitarian rule and glorifies the Soviet era?

The last ones do at least have comedy value. However, it brings out the worst in me.

--------------------------------

* For the record, it's great that he is sticking the boot in, long may it continue. However little confidence I have that it will, should Murdoch manage to pull something out of the bag to stop the rot and begin reinflating his rancid bladder of a media empire. Maybe he could do something about his unfortunate tattoo whilst he's at it.

**PS - it's not because 'we have no meaningful industrial policy' - at least, not in the sense I suspect Ilohan means. It is, as ever, because of the way capitalism runs industry. And if you want to stop the job losses, there's a public meeting next Tuesday.

UPDATE: Having grabbed a few hours sleep, I've come to the conclusion that in fact this is a pretty normal CiF crowd. And in some ways, isn't that the biggest disappointment of them all, eh?

In Praise of Chris Bryant

Chris Bryant is coming dangerously close to restoring my faith in elected representatives. Yesterday there was this, and today there was this!

Come the revolution, I for one will aim to miss. His criticisms are so reasoned and substantive that I feel a bit guilty about the following snark aimed at the periphery of his statements.

Here it is: Astonishing - first he works out that the PCC is a fig leaf, then he spots that Burley's 'a bit dim'.

Hmm, you know, reading that back, I feel that I've irrevocably lost any claim to the moral high ground ever.

-----------------------------

There is still going to be a Marxism post. Honest.

UPDATE: Of course, nobody's perfect

Strike!

First off, sorry this is late. The strike kept me pretty busy all day, then I was off to Marxism 2011 straight after work on Friday (of which more later). Anyway, this is more of a diary entry than an attempt to analyse, but I hope I capture something of why I think it was a welcome and positive development.

We got some good coverage today -here's Radio Derby (about 46:00 in - listen for the vile Tory MP proud to be scabbing, but the best bit starts at about 2hrs 20 and there's a great piece from Sue, who teaches at a local PRU, closer to 2hrs 30).

Here's how the paper went with it:

Workers were told at a rally in Derby's Market Place that more strikes would follow if the Government did not back down on its plans to raise the pension age for public workers to 68 and increase ontributions.

Keith Venables, Derby National Union of Teachers president, said: "Strikes after the summer holiday could lead to an autumn of discontent."

In yesterday's action, members of the National Union of Teachers, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, and the Universities and Colleges Union joined those in the Public and Commercial Services union for the one-day strike .

With other unions preparing to ballot members, including Unison and the National Association of Head Teachers, leaders are confident the percentage of schools shut or partially closed next time could be nearer 100%.

Which is pretty positive, really. There's some photos here.

All in all, I think this was a good turnout and we have good reason to hope for a wider strike in the autumn. I also think that a healthy proportion of people are not buying the government line on the strikes despite the blanket media coverage and the spinelessness of the Labour leadership. Of course, the key thing is to broaden it out now.

Finally, despite NUT and ATL not being a majority of staff members in our school, it was largely shut down on the day, so from a personal perspective there was the added benefit of having an actual effect.

Hahahaahaaa

Off to a strike meeting in a minute, but this tickled me:

'Is US TV too leftwing?'

And as an example of leftwing, the Graun's put up a picture of The West Wing. I shit you not.

Dear America,
Thank you for reminding me how comparitively unfucked our political discourse still is and how vitally important it is that, to paraphrase Lenin, you be removed from your position and replaced with something which differs in all other respects from you.

Yours etc

The Proletarian Tide
(dictated but not read)

Might find this handy

I know I'll find a use for it...
I think it came from these guys - cheers!

I Don't Think Much of Ed Milliband's New Tattoo

Sometimes I can't help but think these kind of things are a mistake. I mean, once it's done, it's permanent. It's the sort of thing that can make you squirm with embarrassment for years if you don't get it done right.

On a related note:

[Ed will tell] the public sector unions that it would be a mistake for them to strike next week, saying they need to do more to persuade the public of their argument over the perceived injustices in the government's changes to public sector pensions.

Oh good. I'd hate to think that the leader of the Labour Party would back us, the people who routinely vote for his party, at a time when our livelihoods are under attack by some of the most reactionary hacks ever to disgrace the title of Minister of State. No, Ed, you tell us that it's our fault. Why oh why don't we use our incredible presence in the national media to make our case to the public before we take action to defend ourselves? Shouldn't take much longer than the rest of this century, after all.

And that's before you get to the bollocks about 'opening the Labour Party up' - no, you arse. The Labour Party was founded to defend the working class against the depredations of the capitalist class. It's not MEANT to be for everyone. It's to help the majority organise to defend against the powerful minority in society. It's not going to be able to do that if every branch has to listen to what the local Alan bloody Sugar thinks about every damned thing.

Still, I think the tattoo is the biggest mistake.

---------------------------------------------------

UPDATE: Anyways, I've got yer 'case for strike action' right here...

Guardian in 'headline that literally cannot be true' oddness

I mean, if you think about it for a second,

'World's oldest person dies aged 114'

can't actually be possible, can it?

Just sayin'.

One out, all out

So the results are in and barring major government climb downs, we will be on strike on the 30th June.

I thought it was just worth reiterating the reasons why we'll be out.

1. We are being asked to work longer, pay more and get less. I won't be able to retire until I reach 68, I will have to pay at least an extra £100 out of my pension every month, and I'll receive a minimum of £168,000 less when I do retire.


2. There is no crisis in the pension fund. It is self-sustaining and there is no shortfall.


3. The proposed move from a final salary to average salary will hurt many teachers but particularly women - if you take time off to have children, your pension will suffer as a result.


4. Our pension money is being used for the purposes of deficit reduction. Workers are being asked to pay for this crisis. I feel like a stuck record at this point, but this crisis was not of our making. This deficit was not of our making. This was a crisis created entirely by the capitalist class and this is an attempt to make the rest of us pay. To borrow a slogan that tells us more than the ConDems are comfortable with, We Won't Pay for Their Crisis.


5. As a corollary to that, do not forget: this is class war. The tories are using the deficit as cover to hit our communities and hit them hard. This is a concerted bid to destroy the public sphere in whatever ways they can. The attacks on the NHS, the academies acceleration and the universities show us this. Do not be deceived: they are attacking us and if we do not resist now, our ability to withstand attacks in future will be weakened too. This is capitalism: continual class war, waged by the haves against the have nots and the have lesses. Only a fight back can halt their advances. Only socialism can end the war.

Unanswered Questions of Some Importance

I didn't get to watch AWOBMOLG live this week so I didn't liveblog it. Might well post a review when I've got a bit more time though. However, never mind all that now because Who finished last week and I have Some Questions.

Here we go...

1. What is the Myth Corporation?




2. Why aren't there any ducks in the pond?




3. Is Melody really River?




4. Is the girl in the suit Melody?




5. Who shot the Doctor?




6. Who do the Silent work for?




7. What's the point of the Headless Monks?




8. What does 'Silence will fall' actually mean?




9. Just who is fighting this 'eternal war'?




10. How are the Cybermen involved?




11. Didn't the Doctor go back to see young Amy at the end of the Eleventh Hour? What happened there then?




12. Why doesn't Amy remember the Daleks?



13. Why did the TARDIS explode in the first place?


14. Where can I get the exciting dum-dum-dum dum-dum-de-dum incidental music?

Other stuff may come up in time.