Hundreds of workers protest against Italians/Foreigners 'taking jobs'...

[audiotech]

Paul Mason on newsnight shortly, hopefully will idiots like MC5 just why he is being an idiot.

 

[belboid]

what is your point? You have nothing to add to the thread, daren't you give us your actual opinion, you're not normally so shy.

one of the things MC5 will have missed in Paul Masons report was the way the main bbc news deliberately distorted opne protesters words to make him seem like an utter bigot, when he was saying something quite different.

"We can't work along these Portuguese or Eyeties" said the main news. Obviously 'eyeties' isn't exactly right on, so he must jsut be a bigot, right?

On Newsnight it transpired he said at least three more words - "because they're segregated.".

Where's that link to BBC complaints gone again?

 

[starfish2000]

WTF? Here's a simple fact tl, the EU has been a single labour market for nearly 20 years. It's nothing to do with being a 'middle class global citizen' - UK construction workers were making up a higher % of UK employees in Europe a long time before the m/c were there - in fact because of the differences in things like law, teaching, medcine and lots of other m.c jobs in some respects it's easier getting trade work in the EU because there's a greater shared skills base and more commonality in standards - also driven by the EU.

So please, drop your own easy stereotyping - those who work in construction were global workers while I was still in school.

Auf Wieder.....damn I know what you mean

But are we're gonna see Global Citizens like Polish Company Directors and Newspaper Journalists undercutting Guardian/Mail/Telegraph writers and British CEO's are we?

David Dimbleby is gonna be replaced by someone from the EU on 50% less?

This global movement only applies to certain people lets not pretend.

I think this is just gonna hand the BNP an increase in Parish and thats disturbing in the extreme.

 

[BarryB]

it seems you do not know the first thing about trade unionism

- the key thing we have as a class is power to withdraw labour - that is why control of labour is critical - that is why this issue is so key and has been so destructive over the last few years - forcing capital to employ locally give our class power -

when you get local people employed rates of union density are always higher

local jobs for local people also makes for sustainable work - in this case that is not entirely relevent as it is a project requiring skilled outside labour - so the local would mean in the area or region instead of busing in from hundreds of miles away - though many of the jobs could be local

the demand also makes 100% sense to anyone who lives and works in the real world? you got kids? mine is looking for work at the moment, unsuccessfully - people rightly put the nearest and dearest first .. this is NOT wrong ..

the deal is to generalise that but you can not generalise solidarity from a divided and beaten and fragmented class .. we need to get class power where we live and work before we will get more generalised solidarity

I agree that at least to a certain extent there should be local jobs for local people. Thats why on some developments in Hackney the Planning sub committtee impose a condition that there should be a percentage of local labour employed. The most recent instance is for the construction of a school at Woodberry Grove where we have imposed a condition that at least 25% of the workforce should be local labour which means that at the time they are taken on they have to live in Hackney. They can be of any nationality.

BarryB

 

[butchersapron]

what is your point? You have nothing to add to the thread, daren't you give us your actual opinion, you're not normally so shy.

one of the things MC5 will have missed in Paul Masons report was the way the main bbc news deliberately distorted opne protesters words to make him seem like an utter bigot, when he was saying something quite different.

"We can't work along these Portuguese or Eyeties" said the main news. Obviously 'eyeties' isn't exactly right on, so he must jsut be a bigot, right?

On Newsnight it transpired he said at least three more words - "because they're segregated.".

Where's that link to BBC complaints gone again?

Didn't see the report, will watch it in the morning, but well done Mr Mason.

 

[belboid]

I agree that at least to a certain extent there should be local jobs for local people. Thats why on some developments in Hackney the Planning sub committtee impose a condition that there should be a percentage of local labour employed. The most recent instance is for the construction of a school at Woodberry Grove where we have imposed a condition that at least 25% of the workforce should be local labour which means that at the time they are taken on they have to live in Hackney. They can be of any nationality.

BarryB

that's illegal under EU procurement rules, isn't it?

 

[frogwoman]

what is your point? You have nothing to add to the thread, daren't you give us your actual opinion, you're not normally so shy.

one of the things MC5 will have missed in Paul Masons report was the way the main bbc news deliberately distorted opne protesters words to make him seem like an utter bigot, when he was saying something quite different.

"We can't work along these Portuguese or Eyeties" said the main news. Obviously 'eyeties' isn't exactly right on, so he must jsut be a bigot, right?

On Newsnight it transpired he said at least three more words - "because they're segregated.".

Where's that link to BBC complaints gone again?

What??? Absolutely fucking disgraceful

 

[BarryB]

that's illegal under EU procurement rules, isn't it?

Im sure that if it was illegal the Councils planning lawyer would ensure that the Planning sub committee are made aware of this.

BarryB

 

[belboid]

hmm, interesting. I was at a T&G conference last week, in a workshop on contracts & social contracts, and we quite explicitly told we couldn't insist on any 'social clause' such as that, under those EU regs. Discriminatory against Latvian workers.

 

[belboid]

sorry, only just got your point!

Good of you to admit being a puppet of the bosses on this one

 

[belboid]

What??? Absolutely fucking disgraceful

was wanting to check before writing to the BBC to complain that I hadn't misheard. Altho the programme isn't online yet, someone on the Permanent Revolution site has jsut made the exact same point (http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/2544) so http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/complaints_stage1.shtml here I come.

 

[treelover]

what is your point? You have nothing to add to the thread, daren't you give us your actual opinion, you're not normally so shy.

one of the things MC5 will have missed in Paul Masons report was the way the main bbc news deliberately distorted opne protesters words to make him seem like an utter bigot, when he was saying something quite different.

"We can't work along these Portuguese or Eyeties" said the main news. Obviously 'eyeties' isn't exactly right on, so he must jsut be a bigot, right?

On Newsnight it transpired he said at least three more words - "because they're segregated.".

Where's that link to BBC complaints gone again?
Reply With Quote

blimey, thats pretty dodgy, and puts a whole different perspective on that guys comments, not that I'm one for scanning, etc at the drop of a hat

 

[elbows]

Taking soundbites out of context is one of the basic elements of the TV reality distortion effect.

 

[treelover]

These strikes are the upshot of a decade of blunt mantra
Brown's tin-eared faith in unchecked globalisation has propelled inequality. And workers are right to fear that worse is to come

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/03/gordon-brown-economic-policy

'So the only surprise is that indignation has taken this long to erupt. It is not irrational xenophobia or scapegoating migrants, but a rational appraisal by local people deprived of 300 particular jobs, for no benefit to them or people like them. They are not wrong. Labour has been serially wrong - in praising the UK's "flexible" workforce, in fighting against the EU to let our agency workers be worse treated and our employees work the longest hours. Almost the entire public-sector manual workforce is outsourced to worse employers. The Warwick agreement only redressed a little, forced from Labour in need of union funds for the 2005 election. So when Brown trumpeted "British jobs for British workers", it was profoundly devious. Like the 10p tax-band cut, it sprung from the same cynicism that forms half his bifurcated political personality.'

Now Polly has put her oar in and amazingly it looks lke she is backing the strikers

 

[where to]

yup, interesting article. she concludes that Brown is yesterdays man. i don't follow her generally, but this seems like a defining break for her?

these are fascinating days, seeing those who are finally getting it and those who don't.

 

[elbows]

I like her article, a good dose of sense in it.

I am reminded of a quote from some leaked minutes to do with GATS talks:

Malcolm McKinnon (DTI) said that the pro-GATS case was vulnerable when the NGOs asked for proof of where the economic benefits of liberalisation lay.

http://www.gatswatch.org/LOTIS/2337.html

Im sure there are other nuggets of interest in some of the other minutes too:

http://www.gatswatch.org/LOTIS/LOTISapp1.html

Since then things have remained mostly stalled at the WTO level, but things have obviously progressed on a regional level, in our case the EU. I was just starting to learn about this sort of stuff at the global WTO level when I got totally distracted by Bush & 9/11. Not sure if I need to learn all the detail now, or if bigger economic & social forces have come into play and thus a much broader struggle. Or maybe detail matters more than ever now that the genie is out of the bottle.

 

[frogwoman]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...al-strike-as-industrial-action-escalates.html

The right-wing press are getting REALLY worried about this.

 

[where to]

Michael Meacher takes a pro-strike position, some decent content in there for the ignorant amongst us like myself:

What however is very worrying - since this could be the first flashpoint out of many in future - is that IREM is bringing in foreign workers because they are entitled under the Bolkestein free market directive (Bolkestein was a right-wing Dutch Christian Democrat) to pay significantly below local pay rates, so long as it is not below the national minimum wage. This entitlement was recently reinforced by the notorious Laval case at the European Court of Justice where the ECJ ruled that a company was legally entitled to import foreign workers and pay them at the rate prevailing in the country from which they come (e.g. Latvia), not the rate prevailing at the place where the work was to be undertaken. This established a deregulated labour market place where the employer's right to pay the lowest rates was elevated above the unions' collectively negotiated local rate. This judge-made law is a timebomb destined to cause severe labour conflict till it is repealed.

 

[pk]

Taking soundbites out of context is one of the basic elements of the TV reality distortion effect.

Yep, but it's pretty fucking wrong if the BBC have been doing it again, you'd think they'd have learned their lesson by now...

 

[where to]

a good background piece on the Laval case, particularly noteworthy was the role of the Confederation of Swedish Employers, Svenskt Näringsliv (Swedish equivalent of the CBI) who took the case on in order to attack the 'Swedish Model'
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jun2006/swed-j27.shtml

 

[shagnasty]

Now Polly has put her oar in and amazingly it looks lke she is backing the strikers

I did read that and it was quite good .i usually ignore her articles because she usually talks bollocks

 

[FridgeMagnet]

one of the things MC5 will have missed in Paul Masons report was the way the main bbc news deliberately distorted opne protesters words to make him seem like an utter bigot, when he was saying something quite different.

"We can't work along these Portuguese or Eyeties" said the main news. Obviously 'eyeties' isn't exactly right on, so he must jsut be a bigot, right?

On Newsnight it transpired he said at least three more words - "because they're segregated.".

And here are the two quotes compared and contrasted, via the iPlayer footage:

 

[belboid]

aah, nice one fridge

 

[Divisive Cotton]

Listening to the voice it's also worth noting that Nick Robinson was a chair of the Young Conservatives in the mid-80s

 

[Fire]

Why haven't these strikers been sacked yet? It is an illegal strike.

Some Thatcher union smashing is needed.

 

[dennisr]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...al-strike-as-industrial-action-escalates.html

The right-wing press are getting REALLY worried about this.

so the workers fairweather 'brit' friends are deserting them already

 

[dennisr]

Why haven't these strikers been sacked yet? It is an illegal strike.

Some Thatcher union smashing is needed.

fuck off

 

[pk]

Why haven't these strikers been sacked yet? It is an illegal strike.

Some Thatcher union smashing is needed.

LOL, nice try Mr Troll.

Mandleson hasn't got the balls Thatcher had, I guess.

I agree with the strike - why the fuck should some Italian or Portugese lads be sending (smaller) wage packets straight home, when the local lads would keep their wages in the immediate community?

Local shops and amenities need all the help they can get, poaching cheap labour from the other side of the EU isn't going to help.

Plus of course it's Total at the centre of this, who are large scale polluting cunts.

 

[free spirit]

what is your point? You have nothing to add to the thread, daren't you give us your actual opinion, you're not normally so shy.

one of the things MC5 will have missed in Paul Masons report was the way the main bbc news deliberately distorted opne protesters words to make him seem like an utter bigot, when he was saying something quite different.

"We can't work along these Portuguese or Eyeties" said the main news. Obviously 'eyeties' isn't exactly right on, so he must jsut be a bigot, right?

On Newsnight it transpired he said at least three more words - "because they're segregated.".

Where's that link to BBC complaints gone again?

fuck me that's appalling editorial bias, I saw that on the news and did a proper double take, but had a feeling it was badly edited as it looked like he'd not finished his sentence.

complaints to the bbc methinks?

 

[Fire]

fuck off

Is that the best you can do? These striking tits need to be fired, and fired yesterday.

You can't simply expect jobs because you're British - its a highly competitive global economy and if you want the job then you have to be better then the next guy. If you're more expensive then you better be worth it.

These tits simply are not.