Rob Ray
Articles by East Anglia-based anarcho-syndicalist, journalist, ginger and editor of Freedom newspaper, Rob Ray.
New round of cuts hit news media
Union activity remains low in the media as more job losses are announced across the industry following a continuing advertising slump and falling profits - but more workforces are beginning to stand up to be counted.
Several newspaper and other media titles have announced more cuts are to be made in the industry as it goes through the largest mass cull of reporting staff of the last decade in the face of falling advertising revenues and readership.
Unrest over academies expansion
As 70 failing schools join the 310 already on the list of schools which will be or already are now operating as academies, coalitions of parents in Brighton and Hove, Ipswich and Sheffield are challenging moves to switch them over.
In separate developments, privatisation moves in Goldsmiths College, London and Essex University are also being fought by staff and students, and sponsors of the Unity Academy – one of the early flagships of the initiative – have pulled out. The academy lost its primary backer, Amey, who deny financial pressures are behind their decision.
Redistributionist budget? Yeah right.
The angle of the mainstream media on the Budget is 'big borrowing, big risk, the death of low taxes for the rich'. Only the first two are true.
I'm not going to comment on the borrowing aspect of all this, because it's fairly obvious that yes, it's alot, and yes, it's a big risk (though not so much as the press is going on about, it's basically the same as France works with).
But I have found the talk of 'redistributionist taxation' somewhat confusing as a conclusion from the following figures:
Tube worker warns of more conflict to come
Tube worker and RMT rep Andy Littlechild has beaten an attempt to oust him by Transport For London (TFL), but in an interview with Freedom Newspaper has warned this is not the end of it.
Andy, who is a health and safety rep at TFL-run Metronet, was ordered off the job at 3am in the morning – with no transport home - after a four hour grilling by management earlier this year, for his refusal to wear safety equipment when it wasn’t required because the company should have made the area he was working in safe enough.
Explaining his own verdict, Andy said: “They found me guilty on all counts, put me on a year’s warning, but that was suspended the next day and I was told it wouldn’t be put on my record. They realised there was a strength of feeling.”
“All the reps and activists in Metronet, TFL and that supported me. When I was suspended I was out round the branches and I got a lot of support. Lots of people were out talking about the issues and what happened to me and getting support. In terms of (the RMT) head office, I think they did a good job, came to all the meetings – though we did keep an eye on them. The union is small, and they didn’t have people allocated to saving my job so by and large I ran my own campaign.
“While I was suspended I didn’t sit around, I got around the offices and talked to people. But I’m glad, I think that’s a better way to do it if you know what you are doing. The left was very supportive of me and I was really pleased with that – though sometimes they didn’t check with me so some of what was written wasn’t helpful. Across the RMT there’s a lot of leftists, mainly trots, as people join to get involved in the industrial activity, and they did a lot of work and were very reliable.”
He is one of three reps who taken on by bosses after several major union successes, including three successful strike actions. In one case, a man was at a Metronet depot, picketing in support of striking cleaners when he was accused of threatening behaviour. In another case, a member was accused of intimidatory behaviour in meetings. Both cases were dropped after early intervention by the RMT.
Andy believes these recent cases are not isolated, and that recent changes to the rules could see more in future: “Since Metronet went into administration that can be seen as the turning point. They started parachuting Transport for London people in, particularly Paul Tullet and a couple of safety guys, and that’s when things started to get stiff.
“We have a good organising model and we have seen that in the last three disputes which we have won. At TFL there’s a lot more division but we want to expand our model across the business. I think there’s lots of reasons why they want to knobble us. They changed the rules now to try and catch people – if you go about your union duties you have to have written permission from your supervisor, explain what you are doing etc.
"But this means management talks can’t take place, as they don’t organise them in advance and tend to do it ad hoc. So if we can’t do these meetings without permission it opens us up to disciplinary proceedings. They want to normalise industrial relations, and to do that they want to discipline people. If they think they can get away with it, they’ll do it.”
The next big fight will be over pay for 2009 – which could potentially provide the flashpoint for London mayor Boris Johnson to try and fulfil his election pledge to break the tube unions.
“The next thing coming up is the pay talks for next year, and I think it’s going to be really interesting to see how that pans out.” Andy notes, “It coincides with that of London Underground and we think they’ll be wheeling out the mantra of accepting a pay cut as the only way forward. We don’t know which way things are going to go at TFL, it’s going to need reps and activists to organise.”
Rob Ray
The great class struggle video library project
Christiebooks have announced that they are set to close their class-struggle films section on December 17th unless they find an alternative host - or a £26,000 donation. As a purely hypothetical exercise, could a free alternative be found for their 760 titles?
It has to be one of the best-kept secrets in class struggle anarchism (and we aren't exactly high-profile to start with).
Sweeping down on the supermarkets
As supermarkets continue to hike their prices, it seems a response is being planned – and not before time. But will it work?
A new initiative from a few people in London, including Ian Bone and raw (one of the leading lights of the ex-Wombles and more recently of the London Anarchists network) which has both interesting and controversial elements to it is the Price Reduction campaign, which they intend to discuss in November and possibly l
The peccadillos of Winston Churchill
Following a few questions and misconceptions on the man himself, I thought I'd reiterate a few of them to balance things out a bit.
The grand old man of Conservative politics, Winston Churchill has been revered for telling Britain to buck up and keep going under the bombing raids of the Luftwaffe. But outside this reasonably useful propaganda work, there's a less widely-known part of dear old Winston's personal history which is often glossed over.
Starting with Churchill's support of the Kurdish gassings. This was a dirty little war in which the British state looking to keep hold of land in what is now Iraq against a substantial and violent campaign for independence, used both gas and bombings against the populace as a sort of test run for its fast-developing weaponry.
Come the hour, come the man. From the Guardian newspaper:
Quote:
Churchill was particularly keen on chemical weapons, suggesting they be used "against recalcitrant Arabs as an experiment". He dismissed objections as "unreasonable". "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes... (to) spread a lively terror" In today's terms, "the Arab" needed to be shocked and awed. A good gassing might well do the job.
This, bearing in mind, was said in 1919, shortly after the horrors of the first world war and shortly before the adoption of the Geneva ban on such weapons.
Racial supremacist
By 1937 he had gone on to explain in a little more detail his views on the worth of subject peoples in his submission to the Palestine Commission, arguing:
Quote:
I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.
Drenching the Ruhr
He was back sticking it to foreign civillians again during the second world war, 20 years on from the gas ban's ratification as Britain started to gain the upper hand and send its bombers over German cities, saying:
Quote:
If the bombardment of London became a serious nuisance and great rockets with far-reaching and devastating effect fell on many centres of Government and labour, I should be prepared to do anything that would hit the enemy in a murderous place. I may certainly have to ask you to support me in using poison gas. We could drench the cities of the Ruhr and many other cities in Germany in such a way that most of the population would be requiring constant medical attention. We could stop all work at the flying bomb starting points. I do not see why we should have the disadvantages of being the gentleman while they have all the advantages of being the cad.
Apparently, the Germans weren't the only ones considering the mass gassing of civilians in the 40s. Just as well the Germans weren't a bit faster building their doodlebugs really.
Dresden
What he did go for in the end of course wasn't exactly wonderful. In what is widely (and probably wrongly, given the other activities of the British empire over the years) regarded as one of the most shameful episodes in the UK's history, between 25,000 and 40,000 people died during the firebombing of Dresden. From the Wikipedia entry on Dresden:
Quote:
Winston Churchill pressed the Secretary of State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair: "I asked [last night] whether Berlin, and no doubt other large cities in east Germany, should not now be considered especially attractive targets. …Pray report to me tomorrow what is going to be done"
This is backed by the Churchill centre here, though they couch it slightly differently it is clear his cigar-stained authority lay at the heart of the action.
Meanwhile, In India
It wasn't just the unfortunates of the Axis that Churchill was happily slaughtering, he presided over some of the nastiest activities the British government has yet managed while waving his V-sign and proclaiming Britain as the beacon for All That Is Good In The World.
Quote:
When in 1942 the popular Quit India Movement threatened to disrupt the war effort, it was brutally put down with public shootings and mass whippings, torturing of protesters and burning of villages, leading even bourgeois observers to make comparisons with 'Nazi dreadfulness'. When in 1943 food shortages began as a direct result of British scorched earth policies, the War Cabinet ignored the problem, refusing to stop ordering Indian food abroad in the interests of the war effort. The resulting man-made famine in Bengal may have accounted for as many as four million deaths.
His charming response when asked about this was to castigate the Indian people for:
Quote:
Breeding like rabbits and being paid a million a day by us for doing nothing by us about the war
(Hat-tip to the ICC and a post by libcom poster cantdocartwheels there).
One war just isn't enough
Of course, his disregard for human life was not confined only to foreigners. It was Churchill, more than any other politician, who pushed for the disastrous campaign in favour of the Whites against the Bolsheviks following the great war. Taking a large British fleet and 1,600 men as Britain struggled to find the money to rebuild, he attempted to restore the Russian aristocracy to power against the wishes of the British population. After spending £100 million in money the state hadn't got, and wasting countless lives, he was only forced to admit defeat following mutinies and widespread demonstrations of discontent at home.
(For the full tale of this military debacle, try Churchill's Crusade, The British Invasion of Russia 1918-1920 by Clifford Kinvig)
Churchill's actions during the general strike:
Quote:
During the General Strike of 1926, Churchill was reported to have suggested that machine guns should be used on the striking miners. Churchill edited the Government's newspaper, the British Gazette*, and during the dispute he argued that "either the country will break the General Strike, or the General Strike will break the country." Furthermore, he was to controversially claim that the Fascism of Benito Mussolini had "rendered a service to the whole world", showing as it had "a way to combat subversive forces" - that is, he considered the regime to be a bulwark against the perceived threat of Communist revolution.*Using paper confiscated from radical publishers, it was a simple slandering machine against the strikers.
(From this)
Further to his pro-fascist tendencies, a direct quote:
Quote:
If I had been an Italian I am sure I should have been whole-heartedly with you in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism... (Italy) has provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison. Hereafter no great nation will be unprovided with an ultimate means of protection against the cancerous growth of Bolshevism.
In his own words, Churchill saw fascism as the ultimate defence against communism. His antipathy to Hitler was not based on great politics or fine motives, but on a rivalry of power. On this point, Churchill also advocated a policy of appeasement to the fascist Franco in Spain (Churchill and Spain The Survival of the Franco Regime, 1940-1945 by Richard Wigg) which directly aided him in consolidating power after his butchery of the Spanish revolutionaries despite international condemnation from around the world.
So, in summary, good line in cigars and sloganeering, yes. Greatest Briton of all time? I fucking hope not...
After the break... more Freedom
The copy deadlines for the rest of the year have been set, so if you have an article to send in, you know where to check...
6916 - copy deadline 4th September
6917 - 18th September
6918 - 2nd October
6919 - 16th October
6920 - 30th October
6921 - 13th November
6922 - 27th November
6923/24 - 11th December
Jobs on the paper
We’ve had a few drop-outs in the last couple of collective issues, so Freedom is looking for more people…
Internationals editor
You need:
- An interest in international news
- A keen and enquiring mind
- To not mind about the whole ‘lack of renumeration’ thing
Your role:
UK: One in four will live in fuel poverty
Over 14 million people could find themselves in fuel poverty in the near future, if new figures from gas giant Centrica predicting a 70% rise in gas prices prove accurate - nearly a quarter of the population.
Around 4.5 million households are currently living in fuel poverty, equating to around 10.4 million people according to the government’s 2002 figures from the Household Survey, but another 1.6 million homes are likely to be added as prices continue to rise.
