Work till you drop

Today people are having to work longer and longer hours and harder still. Those who are lucky enough to be in work anyway are facing incredible hardship which I’m sure some will say oh well at least they have a job well yes but not many stop and think how tough that job is and how tat job may have changed with a employer looking to get more flesh for their pound so to speak. As many companies struggle on and instead of employing new staff and the costs of training new staff up the existing workforce are forced into longer days and asked to do a lot more for less. You see this now in London where the rush hour which used to tail off around 7 pm is now going way on to 8 and beyond in some case’s. People have to work longer and harder than ever before just to make ends meet it would seem. The untold stress and knock on affects of this on workers in Britain and beyond is very sharp with family life becoming difficult and also time for yourself to relax and enjoy your life becomes less and less. This post may seem like a stating the obvious but quite often we are talking about unemployment and all the rest of it but those who are still in work are often over looked. We must not forget them. Due to capitalism’s inability to solve the low rate of profit it is trying all sorts of counter tendencies including lengthening the working day and cutting wages where it can all in a bid to restore the rate of profit for various companies sectors and ultimately economies. Clearly workers are at the sharp end of capitalisms problems and are feeling its affects the worst as they are bearing the brunt of the crisis without a doubt. The idea of working hard which was pushed a lot at last weeks Tory party conference is the key to a happy life is clearly not quite the reality it is made outdo be on the ground. Many struggles to put food on their tables s it is with loan take outs and pay day loans shooting up in the last year or so as wages are squeezed again and again. Clearly there is a cost of living crisis which capitalism cannot solve as its main motivation is making profit workers feelings and lives are not important ultimately as long as they are making surplus value and profit as a result for the capitalist there is no concern. We have to be honest working dam hard and getting ill and stressed out due to work is no way to live and we should be making the case against work and for a change of society which doesn’t base life on work and the ability to work being the be all and end all. Pushing communist and socialist ideas can make sense to many right now all is it many are so tired and stressed to think anything than where we are is possible at all now. It must feel like you’re on a giant hamster wheel where you cannot get off being a cog in a giant system of money making which you barely benefit from if at all. Take tonight on the radio I heard a plumber ring in to a phone in show claiming he works till 11 or 12 at night only to have to be back in work the next day at 7.30 am now that is no life for anyone surely. Its also no point blaming migrant workers as I am sure some out there will as ok they may work harder but they are not getting any more for it in fact their lives are no better than British workers for doing the same. Migrant or British worker our problems and issues at work are the same. This is a class problem not an us or them one. The only we and they there is is us the workers and the capitalists. It wouldn’t surprise me if in a few years time we don’t see people dieing through stress and over working as this capitalist system grinds workers into the groundin pursuit of its own goals which is greater and greater profit. Quite frankly this system does not benefit the majority of people and it simply has got to go. Whilst I say that we are still a long long ay of major system change as it stands today but things can and do change as we have seen in the past. Providing works with confidence to organise in their workplaces must be a revolutionaries mission in life here and now to provide the means and the ideas to fight back against their employer to win small battles at first but to know that fighting back can get you wins. Much like the Hovis workers who defeated 0 hours contracts the other week which got no real media coverage but can be a beacon to workers up and down the land facing stress and the daily grind of this exploitative system.

Hovis workers make toast of 0 hours contracts dispute

Much solidarity and congratulations must go to the workers and members of the BFAWU over at Hovis in Wigan who could well have set a new stage in fighting 0 hour contracts potentially in the UK. A historic win in many ways is coming to an end today and this sis something we should all be shouting about I feel. With few victories about right now for workers its worth making the most of all that we do get and show to other workers look you can win if you fightback. From The excellent Union news Uk website: More than 400 bakery workers have voted overwhelmingly to end two weeks of strike action in a protracted dispute over zero hours contracts at the Hovis bakery in Wigan. Under a settlement which was put to the workforce on Saturday (21 September), agency employees who work 39 hours per week for 12 consecutive weeks will be moved to parity pay. BFAWU said the strikes had been triggered after the company broke an agreement designed to limit the number of agency workers at the Lancashire bakery, so that people were only employed on “zero hours” contracts in absolute emergencies. Following talks last week, the company has now agreed that future production will be covered from overtime and “banked hours” by members of the full-time 400-strong workforce. Union reps say the increasingly confident wave of strikes had secured “everything we were looking for”. However, negotiators have insisted that the local management of Premier Foods, which owns the Hovis brand, must put the new agreement to them in writing before they formally call off further strike action. BFAWU regional organising secretary, Pauline Nazir, told UnionNews: “The sense of solidarity among the workers has been absolutely brilliant. “It makes you see why you’re a member of a trade union and why our parents told us to join a union.” The second of the two week-long stoppages had seen scores of strikers and supporters blockading one of the gates at the Wigan site. They prevented up to 80% of scheduled delivery lorries from leaving the bakery. Strike organisers said those lorries which did leave were so heavily delayed that they would have failed to meet their delivery deadlines for stores in the Midlands and North Wales. Drivers based at the Wigan bakery had refused to run the gauntlet of noisy, but largely good-natured pickets with the Hovis-liveried lorries on health and safety grounds. Some workers at the Wigan bakery had been on zero hours contracts for up to 3 years before they were given full-time posts, only to find they were doing the same job as they had been doing previously on a temporary contract. The local Labour MP, Lisa Nandy, had told the company the dispute gave Premier Foods an opportunity to reach a settlement which could “demonstrate to the whole country that people do not have to put up with terms and conditions that blight lives and blight whole communities”. Geoff Atkinson, BFAWU’s lead official in the dispute said the commitment from the company over agency staff “also has the potential to create jobs in the local area”. News of the settlement came less than 48 hours before workers at the Wigan bakery were due to begin a third week of strikes. With thanks and credits to Union news Uk at http://union-news.co.uk/2013/09/hovis-workers-win-zero-hours-contracts-toast/

Zero hours contract scandal

This week the scandal of 0 hours contracts has come to light. Of course this has been known about for a long time but this is something we must fight against. The exploitation of workers and more often than not the young. Below I republish a excellent article in this weeks socialist from Youth Fight for Jobs. We demand real jobs and a living wage The scandal of Sports Direct employing their entire part-time workforce (90% of employees) on zero hours contracts has been exposed this week. At the same time they are paying huge bonuses in the forms of shares to 2,000 staff. But the bonus scheme only applies to full-time workers - mostly supervisors or managers. And managers are apparently allowed to exclude workers from the bonus scheme for 'under-performing'. The workers on zero hours don't know how many hours they will get to work from one week to the next, making it impossible to plan ahead or pay normal household expenses. They are also not entitled to sick pay or holiday pay. This precarious existence is experienced by hundreds of thousands of workers - even the government statistics office ONS admit that over 200,000 are on such contracts and nearly half of those are 16-24. These figures are rising as the bosses pass the effects of their crisis onto the workers at the bottom of the employment pile. A combination of zero hours contracts, plus working hours and bonuses which can be arbitrarily withdrawn as a disciplinary measure, creates a bullying climate of fear in many workplaces. Laurence, a young worker from south London is on a zero hours contract. He told the Socialist: "The biggest things for me are that it makes it impossible to plan what you're doing on a week to week basis. "That means it's socially inconvenient but obviously you don't know what money you'll have anyway. "It's impossible to navigate the benefits system, which is designed for people who are on a fixed income. You can't tell them how much you earn." But there is a fight back. Youth Fight for Jobs has launched the "Are You Sick of Your Boss" campaign. They were protesting in London outside Sports Direct in Oxford Street on 3 August and spreading the protests around the country from then on. Youth Fight for Jobs spokesperson Ian Pattison said: "We won't win proper contracts with guaranteed hours by asking nicely. "Around the country, we will be marching straight into Sports Direct stores speaking directly to staff about how they can fight and strike for better rights and conditions." ________________________________________ Youth Fight for Jobs demands: • Proper contracts, guaranteed hours and full employment rights • Pay us enough to live on • Decent tea and lunch breaks • End 'fire at will' • We won't be used as cheap or free labour • We have the right to get organised at work • Scrap the anti-trade union laws • Build democratic campaigning trade unions • No to benefit cuts • Fight sexism and discrimination in the workplace For more on this see www.youthfightforjobs.com

Fighting for a future with Youth Fight for Jobs

This following piece was originally published in this weeks edition of the socialist by comrade Ian Patison a leading Youth organiser in the socialist party. I’d like to tahnk Ian and the party for the excellent youth work the party and himself have been doing of late. In Sweden, where youth unemployment is 24%, riots have struck the capital Stockholm. Rage has exploded onto the streets following police repression and racism and decades of neoliberal attacks and privatisation in an increasingly unequal society. Unemployment, at 12%, and youth unemployment, at 24%, have both reached a record high in the eurozone. In Italy, 40% of youth are unemployed. In Spain, more than half of young people are out of work. Tragically in Greece, two thirds of youth are jobless, contributing to rapid rises in homelessness and suicides. No one can deny this is a disaster for humanity. Europe is sinking under the weight of austerity. One million young people are unemployed in Britain, with millions more now underemployed, in and out of work, facing terrible conditions, zero hour contracts, low pay, and barely enough income to survive. Surely, then, it can only be promising that European Union leaders have been seeking a solution to mass youth unemployment? Germany's pro-big business finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, starkly warned that if young people were made to pay for the crisis through further cuts, it would bring "revolution...on the very same day". So what solutions do the EU leaders have? None. Another forum, headed by former US president Bill Clinton, championed privatisation of education - and big profits for greedy private sector vultures - as their preferred option to somehow reducing unemployment. Clearly young people will have to look elsewhere for ideas about how a decent future with jobs and education can be realised. But Schaeuble is correct on one thing - the continued slaughter of jobs and the even further impoverishment of a section of workers and youth are making a whole generation angry. Schaeuble, German chancellor Angela Merkel, and their super-rich counterparts in Britain don't have to look far for the consequences of their vicious cuts policies. Thousands have taken to the streets in Turkey, which exploded following police brutality. Youth Fight for Jobs (YFJ) offers an effective way for angry young people to organise themselves in action. YFJ explains that the trade unions could provide a powerful attraction to young people if they took decisive action on pay, jobs and apprenticeships with real jobs. The call for a 24-hour general strike against austerity would give an immediate authority to the trade unions among young people who at this stage can often see no hope for their future. Get involved: Visit www.youthfightforjobs.com Phone 020 8558 7947 Email youthfightforjobs@gmail.com Text 07749379010 Create real jobs! • A record 370,000 young people applied to the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) from February to April this year - an average of 11.31 applicants for every vacancy • 41 young people are applying for every plumbing apprenticeship • Youth Fight for Jobs calls for a massive government scheme to create socially useful jobs and apprenticeships which pay at least the minimum wage (with no youth exemptions) and offer guaranteed jobs at the end • All work-for-your dole schemes should be scrapped. Unemployed people should not be used as slave labour. If a job needs doing, someone should be employed for a proper wage to do it • Instead of bankster bailouts and tax cuts for the rich, we need huge investment in public services and the nationalisation of companies threatening closure, under democratic control In this issue Socialist Party news and analysis Food bank Brita

The 'precariat fighting for a better world

This is the term given to many under paid over worked young people in particular but can apply to many those who are in and out of work all the time never knowing where the next pay cheque is coming from. This is similar to my brother who works for a giant multi national through an agency and is waiting on the agency to tell him when he can work and for how long each week. His life is planned around work focused by work and not knowing when he will have work each week. You cannot plan your life or your lifestyle for that matter with this sort of life and it is no way for young people who have good degrees from university who were told that going to uni would get you a better life. For many young people this is turning into a disaster now many well over qualified are ending up doing manual labour just to get by. This is the modern day reality of capitalism I am afraid. There are many people in and out of work and unionising is difficult as a result but our unions should not back away from this they should be on every gate every door to work every factory looking to recruit where and when they can. 'Get a job!' is the constant refrain of privileged Tory ministers and vicious right-wing tabloids. A million unemployed young people are the subject of a relentless campaign of smears and lies. But what about the people who have 'done the right thing'? What about those who've been lucky enough to find work, despite the fact that, on average, five jobseekers chase each vacancy? According to the politicians and the media, everyone's on their side. The toils of the low-paid worker are frequently invoked by Cameron and his ilk - usually as a supposed justification for benefit cuts. But is this sympathy genuine? Are the Tories really 'making work pay'? Despite waxing lyrical about hard-work being the ultimate test of a person's moral fibre, the government's policies are really ensuring it's far less rewarding. Real wages have fallen by 10% since 2008. Yet, big business's demands for a more 'flexible' and 'competitive' labour market are continually indulged. At the behest of the multinationals, the Con-Dems gleefully attack employment rights and give the green-light for further squeezes on terms and conditions. Their workfare schemes represent the ultimate expression of the race to the bottom. Taxpayers fund paltry dole payments for the unemployed, while companies are offered their labour power for free. Profits soar. Misery deepens. Insecurity So for workers, finding a job can be a happy occasion. But it's a happiness often short lived. Because signing-off at the jobcentre rarely heralds the start of a new, stable period in a person's life. The opportunity to settle into relatively secure living - confident that bills can be paid, rent supplied and that a regular pattern for work and leisure can be established - is a 'luxury' few are allowed. Insecurity is the name of the game for huge numbers of workers. It's no wonder 'precariat' has become something of a buzzword. Over 2.5 million people are unemployed including one million young people. Young people are also suffering severe underemployment. Studies have found that underemployment has dramatically intensified since 2008. In fact the disparity between the number of extra hours people would like to work and those people would like to give up has almost doubled since the onset of the crisis. But rather than sharing out the work - redistributing hours to those who want to work more (without loss of pay, as socialists demand) - capitalism reinforces this. Older workers are told they must work more and retire later, meanwhile a 'lost generation' is left out altogether. Zero-hour contracts are now almost ubiquitous. These represent the ultimate deal for employers. Workers are required to be ready to work on demand, whenever the company deems it necessary, but the employer is under no obligation to provide any hours at all - nor any wages. People on these contracts live in a state of perpetual insecurity, never knowing whether next week will bring enough hours to pay the gas bill, to pay rent or even buy food. Once hours are given, they're usually rewarded at minimum wage or close to it. Breaks are rarely paid, shift patterns changed at the whim of the boss and being bullied is a normal part of working life. In fact, despite the rhetoric coming from the Con-Dems, many of these workers are actually dependent on state benefits for survival; benefits which are being capped, cut and scrapped altogether, ostensibly with 'making work pay' as the aim. It's because of this that Youth Fight for Jobs has launched the 'Sick of Your Boss?' initiative. We are aiming to work with trade unions and young workers to fight for a better deal. It's only by fighting collectively that there's any hope of improving the lot of the 'precariat'. Unionise As a starting point that means protesting, highlighting how workers are being treated, naming and shaming the bosses responsible. But it's also necessary to get organised within the workplace itself. Trade unions can channel the potential power workers have and, through organising industrial action, fight for and win improvements. The 'logic' of capitalism means that the interests of workers and the bosses are in fundamental opposition. Put simply, the smaller the wage bill for the boss, the larger the profit margin for the shareholder. It's only through working people being organised, and in particular, workers exerting economic power through withdrawing their labour - striking - that we have at times been able to secure increasing wages, greater security and other improvements. 'Liberalisation' of the labour market really means loosening all constraints placed on bosses - freeing them to pay workers as little as possible. It's an attempt to reverse the rights won by previous generations. 'Sick of Your Boss?' aims to take the fight to some of the most exploitative employers in the business. Many casualised young workers are left feeling isolated. Our campaign aims to give workers confidence from knowing they're not alone - the confidence that comes from organising and fighting alongside others facing similar problems. We call for decent breaks that workers can take without being 'clocked off'. We're demanding pay that provides enough money to live on, without people needing benefits to act as a top-up. And we're demanding an end to the 'zero hour contract' - proper contracts and full employment rights. Unreasonable? Some would say that, in this time of austerity, it's unreasonable for young workers to be demanding a better deal. They would say that we should be grateful we're not stuck in the dole queue like so many others. But surely it's far, far more unreasonable that, in this time of austerity, the bosses are demanding a still greater share of the pie. You'd think that they might be a bit more grateful for the billions they're already sitting on. You'd think that, in hard times, what we really can't afford is to further swell the purses of the fat cats. After all, theirs is money we're unlikely to ever see again. Because not only do the multinationals avoid and evade billions in tax, they are not even investing their money. That's why fighting for a better deal for young workers is more than just dealing with bullying managers and nasty companies. It's also about challenging a system that demands the super-exploitation of the many to satiate the greed of the few. If, while in private hands, companies can't provide young workers with basic security and enough money to live, it's time they are placed in public hands. And if capitalism - a system where the accumulation of private wealth is the only universal goal - cannot provide a bright future for the 99%; then we need a system that can. We need to fight for jobs, for decent pay, for security, and for a system that will provide these to all - a socialist system - one runs for us, not the bosses! Sick of Your Boss demands: • Decent tea and lunch breaks • Give us proper contracts, guaranteed hours and full employment rights • Pay us enough to live on • End 'fire at will' • We won't be used as cheap or free labour • We have the right to get organised at work • Scrap the anti-trade union laws • Build democratic campaigning trade unions • No to benefit cuts • Fight sexism and discrimination in the workplace