public and third sector
News and articles about work, policy and workers' struggles in the public and charity sectors. It includes housing, but does not include most nationalised industries like health, transport or security forces.
State Capitalism in Britain
Despite the State being the main investor in the UK's national economy, the official rhetoric of private sector productivity is alive and well. James Heartfield takes a look at New Labour's failed strategy of privatising public services and the rise of ‘corporate welfare'
Two very contradictory stories about British capitalism are told today. The first is that the State is eating up more and more of the private sector. The sudden increase of public shares in the major banks and the falling of the railways into receivership is evidence of a return to the nationalisations of the 1970s.
Shirking 9 to 5: diary of a reluctant temp
An agency worker recalls several years' temping in London, trying to help his co-workers and do as little work as possible.
An incomplete text, I will be adding to it in the coming days and weeks.
Introduction
Fools and their "gold-plated" pensions
Public sector workers have been fools. No more so than private sector workers, for sure, but it has been a breathtaking level of foolishness across the board which has led to the imminent extinction of the entire concept of final salary pensions*.
First they came for the staff of the weakest private sector companies
Then they came for the strong
Guy Debord: National Treasure?
Translation of news article published in 14 June 2009 edition of "Le Monde": in order to pay off Ms Alice Debord, the Bibliotheque nationale Francaise must come up with approximately $500,000 (if not more) to prevent the sale of the complete archives of Guy Debord to someone else (Yale University, perhaps).
"Two hundred people dine together to keep the works of Debord in France"
Le Monde, 14 June 2009
One dead in Guadeloupe strike
As Guadeloupe's general strike against rising prices spreads across the Caribbean, a union official is shot dead.
Local officials states that union representative Jacques Bino, aged in his 50s, was shot dead in a crossfire while driving his car near a roadblock manned by armed youths, who opened fire at police in the capital Pointe-a-Pitre.
Workers in Guadeloupe launched a general strike on 20 January in protest at the rising cost of living.
Resistance to job cuts at the University of Salford gathers steam
Around 150 job losses have been forecast by opponents as part of large cuts across the university, along with the slashing of courses and funding.
The job losses and cuts to courses and infrastructure stem from the ‘project headroom’ program currently being pushed through by university management, which aims to claw back £12.5 million for the university budget.
Greek general strike to go ahead
The planned general strike for later today, 10 December is still scheduled to go ahead, but unions bowed to the government and called off protest marches amidst Greece's worst rioting in decades.
2.5 million workers in the GSEE and ADEDY general unions, comprising around half of Greece's total workforce are to strike today.
They are demanding an end to cuts in public spending and attacks on pay and pensions.
Greece's transport network in particular is set to grind to a halt, as many airlines have already cancelled all flights in and out of the country.
Pay: what went wrong in 2007?
Libcom's analysis of what went wrong with the industrial disputes over the rising cost of living in 2007, and how to do things better in 2008.
A 'Summer of Discontent', Gordon Brown preaching pay restraint, union leaders talking about 'co-ordinated strike action', sound familiar? It should, because exactly the same things were being said last year.
Long lost wildcat strikes in the UK, 1960s - 1990s
Interesting article with snippets of analysis and often personal anecdotes about a number of unofficial strikes in the UK since the 1960s.
An introduction…
Titan prisons: "consultation" ends, construction set to begin
With the required political processes out of the way, the building of the 2,500 capacity jails is set to begin.
A new report by the Prisons Reform Trust has accompanied the end of the “consultation” period on the government's policy of constructing huge new “titan” prisons, which Gordon Brown has stated will mean the beginning of construction of the jails.
