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Cost of Living Crisis: Enough is Enough Campaign

It's 'our' economy in that it's the one we work in and depend on even if the working class, quite obviously, doesn't control it.
 
Anyway, apologies for derailing this Brexit thread with some Enough is Enough chat, but saw this, and:

I feel like this is an example of what my issue with EiE is - I'm not interested in slagging off the RMT and CWU for not being the CNT or FORA, and I'm not even really interested in slagging off EiE for being less radical than Don't Pay, although I do wish they were working together more, I just feel like... with the resources they have available to them, they should really be doing more stuff? Like, I don't think it's setting up an impossible standard to say that, by this point, they could've found a few local groups running warm hubs and thrown a bit of cash at them in exchange for them agreeing to call themselves EiE warm hubs and running stalls where people can learn more about the campaign and trade unionism? I dunno, possibly getting to be a bit of a broken record at this point, but well done to Don't Pay Lewisham anyway.
 
If Lynch and Dempsey are part of some initiative that you want to criticise then it’d be more helpful if you focussed on them rather than saying it’s the RMT.
 
Magnus McGinty said:
If Lynch and Dempsey are part of some initiative that you want to criticise then it’d be more helpful if you focussed on them rather than saying it’s the RMT.
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I'm a bit of a broken record on this too, but I don't think it's a case of being critical, it's a case of something not being quite what it appeared to be. There was some discussion of Labourism before the thread took it's Brexit turn. EiE looked really positive because it looked like it was breaking out of Labourims and the idea that the working class has 2 wings, the political and the industrial and that the Labour Party and TUC have the franchises sown up on these. It broke out of that with the idea of community organising, which carries with the it the idea of something, almost by definition, isn't controlled from the top and isn't necessarily given the job of harvesting souls for the Labour Party. The other break out was the potential for direct action, direct action not necessarily in the sense of the illegal, more the idea of mutual aid - union members and others working on food, heating and clothing for example. And yes, I know some unions do this to a degree, support initiatives already in existence, but this had the promise of something more sustained.

So, by definition, I'm not going have a go at unions who fighting massive struggles for their member at the moment and have also shown signs of a new way of thinking about the relationship between the class and the labour movement. It's just, gah, the fact that it doesn't seem to have happened or is happening on a local basis* only suggests that Labourism is being bent and stretched, but not broken.

* As opposed to a 'national programme of local organising' iyswim.
 
Wilf said:
I'm a bit of a broken record on this too, but I don't think it's a case of being critical, it's a case of something not being quite what it appeared to be. There was some discussion of Labourism before the thread took it's Brexit turn. EiE looked really positive because it looked like it was breaking out of Labourims and the idea that the working class has 2 wings, the political and the industrial and that the Labour Party and TUC have the franchises sown up on these. It broke out of that with the idea of community organising, which carries with the it the idea of something, almost by definition, isn't controlled from the top and isn't necessarily given the job of harvesting souls for the Labour Party. The other break out was the potential for direct action, direct action not necessarily in the sense of the illegal, more the idea of mutual aid - union members and others working on food, heating and clothing for example. And yes, I know some unions do this to a degree, support initiatives already in existence, but this had the promise of something more sustained.

So, by definition, I'm not going have a go at unions who fighting massive struggles for their member at the moment and have also shown signs of a new way of thinking about the relationship between the class and the labour movement. It's just, gah, the fact that it doesn't seem to have happened or is happening on a local basis* only suggests that Labourism is being bent and stretched, but not broken.

* As opposed to a 'national programme of local organising' iyswim.
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I’m annoyed because EIE has nothing to do with branch level but it’s a criticism levelled at the union as a whole. At branch level, for example, you get requests for eg winter solidarity funds for backlisted miners and their families which are voted in favour unanimously but nobody gets to hear about that as it isn’t publicised.

ETA: and obvs solidarity/charity isn’t enough to get us through this but the context was hitmouse’s post which appeared to claim the RMT do fuck all.
 
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hitmouse said:
Anyway, apologies for derailing this Brexit thread with some Enough is Enough chat, but saw this, and:

I feel like this is an example of what my issue with EiE is - I'm not interested in slagging off the RMT and CWU for not being the CNT or FORA, and I'm not even really interested in slagging off EiE for being less radical than Don't Pay, although I do wish they were working together more, I just feel like... with the resources they have available to them, they should really be doing more stuff? Like, I don't think it's setting up an impossible standard to say that, by this point, they could've found a few local groups running warm hubs and thrown a bit of cash at them in exchange for them agreeing to call themselves EiE warm hubs and running stalls where people can learn more about the campaign and trade unionism? I dunno, possibly getting to be a bit of a broken record at this point, but well done to Don't Pay Lewisham anyway.
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This is fair and I agree. Posted earlier in another thread where EiE came up.

Skimmed through this one and I get people's frustrations. I was worried the campaign wouldn't get the numbers, it would just be a Facebook/Twitter catchphrase. But it has gotten people out on the streets, in their thousands. I'd love to see that people power turned into local groups and community organisations like this, which was touted from the beginning.

Some of the actual organising could have gone a lot smoother (and why the fuck hasn't the website been updated, at all?) but I don't want to write this one off just yet. Will talk to some of the organisers and see what we can do. At the very least it's been nice seeing younger people get involved with unions and strikes.
 
hitmouse said:
Like, I don't think it's setting up an impossible standard to say that, by this point, they could've found a few local groups running warm hubs and thrown a bit of cash at them in exchange for them agreeing to call themselves EiE warm hubs and running stalls where people can learn more about the campaign and trade unionism? I dunno, possibly getting to be a bit of a broken record at this point, but well done to Don't Pay Lewisham anyway.
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Yes. Spot on. This is exactly the type of next step EiE needs to take. These could be (relatively) easily set up, wouldn’t cost the earth and could be both practically useful for the community and also physical spaces that bring people together and act as starting points for other work. Partnering with those already doing it shouldn’t be too difficult either.

Wilf said:
There was some discussion of Labourism before the thread took it's Brexit turn. EiE looked really positive because it looked like it was breaking out of Labourims and the idea that the working class has 2 wings, the political and the industrial and that the Labour Party and TUC have the franchises sown up on these. It broke out of that with the idea of community organising, which carries with the it the idea of something, almost by definition, isn't controlled from the top and isn't necessarily given the job of harvesting souls for the Labour Party. The other
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And this is why, thinking about EiE from a longer term perspective, that Warm Hubs (or anything like them really. The key thing politically is the need for a step that represents the planting of a flag that says solidarity, is visibly a communal space and represents the actual living presence of the organised working class in a place is the critical next step). Both the CWU and RMT strikes are currently paused for different reasons. Other unions in the public sector can now step in. It’s also winter and people will be going colder and hungrier. So now is precisely the right time for this type of idea. Shamefully the money Unite has wanked off on its risible ‘Unite for a workers economy’ would cover the setting up of a number of these. But, fuck them, those of us involved in EiE should be raising this type of idea locally. Any break with labourism has to done via industrial and community work and - whilst noting the pointless criticism of those who seem to believe this can happen overnight with a century of thought seemingly lobbed overboard at a stroke - the reality is that small steps are the most important
 
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ACN article on the upcoming budget and further austerity

anarcomuk.uk

Going for Broke

In Gordon Brown’s last budget just before the 2008 financial crash, he declared that the state had effectively resolved the instability of capitalism promising “we will never return to the ol…
anarcomuk.uk anarcomuk.uk
 
hitmouse said:
Like, I don't think it's setting up an impossible standard to say that, by this point, they could've found a few local groups running warm hubs and thrown a bit of cash at them in exchange for them agreeing to call themselves EiE warm hubs and running stalls where people can learn more about the campaign and trade unionism?
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So a branding exercise? Fuck that. If something's worth doing then it's worth doing for it's own sake. If you're spending time in these places doing the work then you can have whatever conversations you want to have with people, if you're not then you've no right to use them to plug your project just because you've thrown some cash at someone.

We started a food bank some years ago in our community space. Two different religions approached us offering funds in exchange for using their branding. We told them thanks but go fuck yourselves. People's vulnerability should not be treated as an opportunity.
 
hitmouse said:
Anyway, apologies for derailing this Brexit thread with some Enough is Enough chat, but saw this, and:

I feel like this is an example of what my issue with EiE is - I'm not interested in slagging off the RMT and CWU for not being the CNT or FORA, and I'm not even really interested in slagging off EiE for being less radical than Don't Pay, although I do wish they were working together more, I just feel like... with the resources they have available to them, they should really be doing more stuff? Like, I don't think it's setting up an impossible standard to say that, by this point, they could've found a few local groups running warm hubs and thrown a bit of cash at them in exchange for them agreeing to call themselves EiE warm hubs and running stalls where people can learn more about the campaign and trade unionism? I dunno, possibly getting to be a bit of a broken record at this point, but well done to Don't Pay Lewisham anyway.
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'Warm hubs' shouldn't even fucking exist
 
Telling nothing been posted on here for nearly a month.

I'd forgotten about EiE until today when got an email about collecting for food banks. What happened? Any more news from anyone given the huge upsurge in strikes coming up?
 
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Interesting comments about warm banks and community support. At the London EIE rally a few months back one of the more interesting demands was community work about food poverty.

I kept meaning to follow that up but didn’t. They had a speaker saying there was work planned on this in a few London boroughs and that sounded good to me.

Maybe like what Co-Operation Town are doing but bigger. Cooperation Town – a network of community food co-ops
 
Tbf, Tribune were always among the original founders, I vaguely got the impression that the idea was first cooked up between the CWU leadership and Tribune? I'm still not actually on EiE's email list, I did get an email from Tribune asking if I'd like to subscribe but that's fair enough since I'm on their mailing list, I suppose.
 
Dunno about anyone else but I already get a magazine from my union.

It's actually pretty good too. A recent issue had an article about the spycops scandal, written by a victim of same.

E2a: Also 10 a month just for a magazine is more than I currently pay in union dues. And union dues come with, well, union membership as well as the magazine.
 
Elpenor said:
Possibly a Quo fan with that outfit and the hand in jean pockets
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Soul, punk and Irish music as I remember. Very engaging fella, well read politically, and an absolute nightmare with the fash. When him and others were expelled a number of us in the SWP involved in physical anti fascism debated what to do and most of us ( for better or worse) stayed . He never bore a grudge against the members it was the leadership that he opposed. You could have a pint , have a discussion and even if you disagreed , leave on comradely terms . There’s a few ex posters on here knew him as well .

I’ve a good story to tell when he and me were witnesses to an arrest on a pro abortion demo.
 
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