Please support the tube strikes

Thousands of London Underground workers are taking part in a 48-hour strike over proposed cuts which include closing every Tube ticket office in London. Members of the RMT and TSSA unions walked out on Tuesday and will stay out until 9pm on Thursday 6th February in the first of two 48-hour stoppages. Under the proposals being put forward by London mayor Boris Johnson and Transport for London (TfL) hundreds of station staff jobs would be lost and supervisors would be moved from stations. TfL claims the plans are needed to save £50 million a year. The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimate each strike could cost the London economy £50 million a day. Workers have already been taking action with an overtime ban in place since last month which has led to some station closures. From Friday union members are set to start a 'revenue strike' which should allow free travel between certain times on certain days. The second 48-hour stoppage is due to take place from 9pm on Tuesday 11th Feburary to the same time on Thursday 13th February. Picket lines Workers are asking members of the public to support their picket lines and are expecting supporters from groups fighting austerity, such as Disabled People Against the Cuts and Occupy, to attend. Please visit this website below http://www.rmtlondoncalling.org.uk/node/4830 To find out where picket lines will be and to pop down and lend your support. During the next few days where we will see some rough stormy weather why not warm a tube worker up by popping along to the picket lines and offering solidarity. This is sure to be a long drawn out bitter dispute with Boris Johnson looking to try and smash the unions. Don’t let him these are attacks against our class we must stand up and show solidarity with our brothers and sisters who work on the tube day in day out and provide the safety in their assistance they give us. As a disabled person I am hugely appreciative of the kind support and assistance I can access when travelling the tube and this allows me to access the capital and travel independently. Do not allow Boris his moment in the sun. Solidarity and victory to all tube workers.

Uk out of recession but not for the 99%

As today’s growth figures for the last quarter show the UK is out of recession cue the celebrations from the capitalists a whopping 1% growth between June and September is nothing to shout about but if you are in the 1% you may well be recessions never affect you. For the rest of us the 99% the recession continues, pay freezes continue, attacks on our terms and conditions continue and job cuts in the publican the private sector continue so forgive us, the working and middle class’s for not whooping and hollering when we heard today’s news. For us we will still be made to pay for the crisis we did not create, the crisis of capitalism is on our shoulders even further as we are still only roughly 15% into the proposed cuts. So while the rich celebrate over a 1% bit of growth mainly born out of the fact we had the Olympics which doesn’t tell the whole story as we all know other parts of London which were normally busy in the summer suffered hugely due to the Olympics. We the workers will not see any benefits to this bit o growth are there more people in work now ? We are told yes but I highly doubt it with still a million young people out of work and the unemployment figures still high this is nothing to be jumping up and down about. This is in fact one of the longest not yet the deepest but it may be recessions we’ve ever seen. With today’s news of Ford motorcar manufacture in Dagenham and Southampton deciding to close its factories and move to Turkey at the expense of 4000 jobs this news of growth will appear very hollow to many workers facing redundancy. I do hope Unite the union at Ford gets its finger out and shows its full might in fighting these job cuts and factory closures. It’s no good telling us how bad it is these workers are loosing their jobs workers want to see action and a call for national strike action if that’s what it takes. The National shops stewards Network put out this piece earlier today in reaction to the news. The National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) sends its full support to Ford workers and their unions – Unite and the GMB after their company’s announcement that it intends to close two British plants and sack up to 2,000 workers by next summer. We support any action taken by these workers to defend their plants and jobs. At the same time, Ford is shutting its factory in Genk in Belgium with the loss of 4,300 jobs. The closure of Southampton Transit and the Stamping plant in Dagenham which supplies Transit panels is an attack on the whole Ford UK workforce as it will leave it smaller and vulnerable to a total closure or attack on workers’ terms and conditions. In the year 2000, there were 52,000 workers in Ford UK, these closures will leave under 11,000. This is the reward for sacrifices made by Ford workers over the last few years – from outsourcing indirect jobs to agreeing a new starter pension rate and closing the final salary pension scheme to new starters. This announcement shows that no workers are safe, whether they be in the car industry or anywhere else. These redundancies could lead to 20,000 workers losing their jobs in the component industry or related sectors. Unite and the GMB must link workers in Ford with these companies to build a huge army of opposition. Plant closures and redundancies are difficult to stop, but they can be stopped if a serious and determined fight is organised. Unite members in the construction industry and London buses this year have won victories, showing that the bosses’ plans can be resisted. Union policy is to trigger a national dispute over a closure threat. There should be an immediate national meeting of all Ford UK shop stewards and convenors to discuss what action is needed, including the organising of a ballot for national strike action. Action, official or unofficial, should be coordinated with workers in Genk and throughout the European plants. Therefore, an emergency meeting of the union-side Ford European Works Council should be organised, with stewards from every plant invited. This could give Southampton and Dagenham workers the confidence to raise any and all means to fight the closures, including occupations. In Southampton, a call across the city for a demonstration opposing closure of the plant would get a resounding echo and bring thousands onto the streets. The NSSN campaigned on the 20th October 150,000-strong TUC demonstration in London for a 24-hour general strike against the attacks being made by this Tory/Lib Dem government of the bosses. The threat to the Ford plants shows yet again why the unions and the TUC need to link together all workers – in the private and public sectors – to defend all our jobs, pay and pensions. Fords should be nationalised if it refuses to stop the redundancies, in order to save workers’ livelihoods and their skills and the plants they are working in. All Ford workers must fight Looming over both Ford workers and pensioners is the company’s pension deficit of about £2 billion. They will ask themselves how a company of reduced size that is blaming its closures on losses of £1 billion really intends to keep the fund afloat by paying the deficit. Workers should remember how the ex-Ford Visteon component plants were closed in 2009 through administration, which saw 600 workers sacked. Now, over 3,000 Visteon pensioners are taking Ford to court to protect the full value of their pensions because the fund has gone into the Pension Protection Fund. The option to dispense with this financial ‘burden’ must be increasingly tempting for Ford. The Visteon workers would have got statutory redundancy money of a maximum of £9,000 each but won an enhanced pay-off because they fought for it, through occupations and pickets. The immediate launch of serious national and even international action would give workers in the two UK plants confidence to fight and send the strongest possible signal to Ford that the battle to save their jobs and pensions is on. Solidarity with the Ford workers! Rob Williams So forgive me if I don’t get too excited over this bit of news. Its time we fought back on every plain. TUC name the day for joint public and private sector national strike action. Time workers felt their power once again!

Support the coryton oil refinery workers stop the jobs massacre

If the government and the liquidators get their way, over 800 workers at Coryton oil refinery in Essex will be sacked as the plant is shut down on 19 June.
The refinery has been under a shadow since its Swiss owner, Petroplus, having loaded itself with debt, became insolvent in January, placing the facility in the hands of the receivers, Price Waterhouse Cooper.
PWC plan to sell the plant to the highest bidder, regardless of the effect of their decision on the workers.
In this case the highest bidder would appear to be a cover company for the Shell oil company, who intend to dismantle the refinery and replace it with a terminal - a facility for the importation of fuels employing a fraction of the numbers that currently work there - leaving Coryton workers without even the guarantee of basic redundancy pay - even though many have given decades of service.
Members of Unite at the refinery are fighting back. On 11 June they mounted protests at the refinery gate and at the Vopak fuel depot, a supply hub for petrol stations across the region, as well as marching into the centre of the local town (Corringham), where they were welcomed by the people there, who understand the blow that the closure will deal to their community.
It has come out that Shell's offer for the site was not the only one, and that in fact another bidder had a proposal that would have maintained production at Coryton.
The difference between this bid and Shell's amounts to some £50-£60 million. Calls for the government to step in with guarantees for this amount have been stonewalled, even though it has been reckoned that the closure will cost up to £80 million to the local economy. This is quite a contrast with its actions in relation to insolvent banks.
Visteon
There are echoes here of the Visteon struggle, where a ruthless employer and the former parent company Ford attempted to weasel out of its responsibilities towards its employees.
That struggle, played out only a few miles away at the Visteon plant in Basildon, is well known to Unite members at Coryton.
It showed that workers can win something if they fight. After months of occupations and pickets, Visteon workers facing only statutory redundancy payments won an enhanced pay-off.
For the Coryton workers there is a very limited amount of time in which to take action. If the closure is allowed to go ahead as planned it will not only be a disaster for the workers on that site, sacked with the maximum statutory redundancy off the government of under £13,000, but it will be used to undermine the security, pay and conditions of workers right across the fuel supply industry - including drivers and depot workers as well as refinery workers.
While the Coryton workers need to have an urgent but serious and sober look at all of the options open to them, including occupation, their union has a responsibility not just to back their actions, but to deal with the issue on an industry-wide basis, by taking action across the industry to protect jobs at Coryton.
If Unite made the threat that the sacking of these workers would trigger a national stoppage at all oil refineries and in particular the oil tanker drivers, it would put huge pressure on the government to intervene.
Industry analysts and commentators speak ominously of "overcapacity" in the UK. It would be naïve to imagine that the closure of Coryton would settle the matter.
The Coryton closure is part of a 'race to the bottom' in a global industry whose key players are amongst the most ruthless capitalists on the planet.
Even a successful campaign to save Coryton would be only a temporary victory. As socialists we call for the public ownership of the fuel supply industry, under workers' control and management.
Then we could look seriously not just at securing the future of the workers in that industry but also at the wider issue of the efficient, sustainable and ecologically sound development of the energy industry.

A public meeting is due later to rally support to help keep the Coryton oil refinery in Essex open.
There is a public meeting planned for tonight if you can get along
Stop the jobs massacre! Support the Coryton oil refinery workers!
Monday 18th June, 7.30pm
Pitsea Leisure Centre, Northlands Pavement, Pitsea, Basildon, Essex, SS13 3DU
Speakers – Unite Coryton worker, Linda McCulloch – Unite National Officer for Chemicals Sector, National Shop Stewards Network, Visteon 2009 Occupation, Right to Work

Contradictions of capitalism - where £11 billion is not enough

Banking giant HSBC has said it will cut another 25,000 jobs by 2013 and exit operations in 20 countries as it looks to save billions of dollars.

The announcement came as the bank reported pre-tax profits for the first six months of the year of $11.5bn (£7bn), up 3% on the $11.1bn the bank made a year earlier.

HSBC said it did not expect any of the new job cuts to fall in the UK.

The bank had already announced 5,000 job cuts, 700 of which are in the UK.

Together, the job cuts amount to about 10% of HSBC's total workforce, although the company stressed it will also be recruiting staff by 2013.

"The net number will be a lot smaller than the 30,000 [job losses]," said group chief executive Stuart Gulliver.

As well as the job cuts, bank said it is closing its retail banking operations in Russia and Poland and selling three insurance businesses as part of pre-announced plans to save $2.5bn-$3.5bn by 2013.

On Sunday, it announced the sale of 195 US retail branches, primarily in New York, to First Niagara Bank for about $


This to me is just quite ridiculous and highlights even more the contradictions in teh capitalist system of profit and even mor profit. Even when a global bank like HSBC makes a huge profit of 11 billion pounds it is still deemed not enough and job cuts and branch closures are needed. Why you may ask ?

The bank put it down to efficiency savings and improvements in technology. In reality its cost cutting and in order to squeeze even more profit out of their customers and their overheads.

It is systematic of the capitalist system that a profit is not just enough. They crave more and more and complete domination of a market. This can often lead to monopolies developing in the markets. Which capitalism isnt supposed to do. But still does. The natuarl competition requires business's to compete and under cut eachotehr leading to some dropping out who cant keep up.

Its a real dog eat dog world in the free market and banks are no different.

How can a bank be making 11 billion pounds profit yet the rest of the country is facing tough austerity measures cuts and tax rises.

It is just not on and i urge the banking sector to be taken under democratic workers control where the profits were put back into society and the wealth is spread equally for the benifit of all not justa few.

This is what would happen under socialism where a workers bank was run for the workers by the workers and no rich business.

An unemployed generation

So today the figures were out on unemployment and yet again these figures dont make good reading for anyone be e you a government minister or a young person looking for a job.

UK unemployment rose by 44,000 to almost 2.5 million in the three months to the end of December, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said.

Youth unemployment rose to a fresh record high, with more than one in five 16 to 24-year-olds out of work after a rise of 66,000 to 965,000.

The unemployment rate is now 7.9%, with youth unemployment running at 20.5%.

The number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance also increased, by 2,400 last month to 1.46 million.

Prime Minister David Cameron said unemployment, particularly among the young, was "a matter of great regret".

But he stressed that it had been a problem for some time.

The number of people in part-time work because they could not find a full-time job rose by 44,000 to 1.19 million, another high since records began in 1992.

"The latest UK labour market figures provide further evidence that the jobs recovery has gone into reverse," said economist Vicky Redwood.

Long-term unemployment also deteriorated, with 17,000 more people out of work for more than a year, to a total of 833,000.

Other data from the ONS showed that average earnings rose by 1.8% in the year to December last year, slightly down on the 2.1% growth in the year to November.

The figures also showed that unemployment fell in Scotland by 13,000, but rose in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.


I personally feel we havent felt the true brunt of this unemployment hike the later part of this year 2011 only then we will start to see the true results of this governments terrible attack on working people in this country.

It would be interesting to compare the figures of jobs lost in the public sector compared to bankers loosing their jobs.

Argueably or should i say for sure bankers have done a worse job in brigning the country almost to its knees yet you dont see any banker loosing his or her job about that. Maybe this is waht David Cameron meant when he said he wanted to readdress the balance in society. Completely tip the balance in a unfair advantage to those at the top compared to those at the bottom. Why dont we believe him and his tory cronies i wonder. Oh it wouldnt happen to be the fact all this has happened before. Shrinking of the state is one thing but the state works hand in hand with the private sector often sharing jobs and contracts. So expect the jobless numbers to rocket in the next few years as this tory lead government offers no real alternative for growth.

What worries me most and the title of this post suggests this is that we will have young people growing up today not being able to attend a university due to ridiculously high tuitian fees and very few job prospects around. So we may be seeing a jobless unemployed generation growing up today. That for me is very sad indeed.