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

Great to see people on here complain to the BBC about the editing, etc of the strikers interview, it would also be great if posters could complain to the media when issues about welfare reform, etc, are chock full of misinformation, distortion bias, etc, the media is very very guilty of this.
 
KS said
It's because it's all happening outside the aegis of a party or other organisation, that the whole thing was spontaneous and self-generating. Spion doesn't like non-party stuff like this to happen without a thorough analysis
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Yes, there is a post on SU, which says 'whatever the original motivation of some workers, leadership, albeit on the ground', has been provided.

again, the obsession with leadership, this time its the workers and the poster seems dismayed it wasn't the vanguard!
 
tangentlama said:
Example (West Midlands):
Annex: CHP Technology - Workforce Supply and Skills - read this cache of a .doc in html
(http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cach...8/CHP%20Workforce%20Supply%20and%20Skills.doc)
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That isn't construction work though is it.

once again it is industry striving to cut workforces, why employ a gasfitter, pipefitter and an electrician when one man can be all three.

Construction work is very static, new skills are instilled into the workforce as and when they are needed.

For example a welder has to weld a new alloy, training and testing of the new materials welding is done on site then a test piece is submitted to Lloyds and hey presto a new coding is up for grabs.
 
dennisr said:
Spoin you did not answer my earlier question.

BA reckons you are not a member of any party.

KS assumes you are an SWPer and I assumed you were that or fellow-traveller - which is it?
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Keep guessing, pal - you're as wrong as you can be. But really, you'd do better to spend time discussing hard facts about the issue at hand rather than getting yourself worked up like a petty bureaucrat trying to bully reds into silence
 
Spion said:
Keep guessing, pal - you're as wrong as you can be. But really, you'd do better to spend time discussing hard facts about the issue at hand rather than getting yourself worked up like a petty bureaucrat trying to bully reds into silence
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sorry where you telling me not to get 'worked up' ??

that was a simple question - i didn't realise it was so appalling for such a delicate soul

"bully reds into silence" *laughs*
 
In Bloom said:
The demand is for a union controlled register people in the area who have the skills to work there, who can then be nominated for jobs that come up. That doesn't exclude migrants who live in the area or people who come from elsewhere but live nearby. If anything, it contributes towards deracialising the strike and pushing back nationalist tendancies.
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What does everyone think should happen if someone on the union controlled register is a member of a far right party such as the BNP?
 
TwoTimer said:
What does everyone think should happen if someone on the union controlled register is a member of a far right party such as the BNP?
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Personally, I'd argue that they should be kicked off the register, as should anybody who scabs, but that's for the workers in the dispute to decide.
 
My complaint:

Dear Ms Boaden

I'm writing to complain about what I consider a serious and deliberate incidence of misleading editing on BBC News at Ten. I watched the main news and took at face value an interview with a striker which was introduced with the words: "Beneath the anger ministers fear lies straightforward xenophobia." The striker was then heard to say: "These Portuguese and Ities; we can't work alongside of them."

Ostensibly a pretty damning quote. However, when I turned over to watch Newsnight, I heard the full quote: "These Portuguese and Ities; we can't work alongside of them - they're segregated, and coming in in full companies."

This last section puts a completely different slant on the quote, showing the striker meant only that there were organisational reasons he didn't work alongside the migrant workforce. The only conclusion I can draw is that the News at Ten version was deliberately edited to make the striker appear racist, to fit with the narrative the reporter had prepared. I find this a shocking breach of trust and attempt to mislead. The BBC has in recent weeks much trumpeted its impartiality, but this is evidence of distortion and bias of the most blatant type.

The very least the BBC should do is give the same prominence to a retraction and apology, and ensure that standards are in place that no repeat of this type of practise can happen.

Yours
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I filled in the online complaint form - asked if they could make a correction as prominent as the original smear.
 
http://news.scotsman.com/opinion/Hugh-Kerr-It39s-about-time.4938756.jp


Hugh Kerr: It's about time Labour really stood up for British workers



Published Date: 03 February 2009
The party will pay a high prices if it continues to oppose better employment rights across Europe, says HUGH KERR

THE sight of British workers on picket lines demanding "British jobs for British workers" is entirely predictable and is due to the actions of Gordon Brown with his disgraceful dogwhistle speech to the TUC in 2007. Moreover, "British jobs for British workers" is something he not only knew he could not deliver, it was a policy he was actively resisting in Brussels.
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Excellent and accessible account of the issue by Hugh Kerr, here, and some revealing facts about the UK Govt blocking 'social europe directives'
 
#Friends,
I am an immigrant and fully support strikers. The Companies are trying to play both immigrant and native workers against each other, i believe we all workers in the same boat, without unity of workers at least europewide, we are doomed to lose.

All media are telling that strikers against foreign workers, they say it is freedom of immigrant worker to work and live in this country. As if they are talking about some rich people living in Monaco for tax purposes or Bahama Islands. It is not an issue of freedom, it is issue of slavery. Who will live in barges afar from their families for peanut? Only Slaves! Who will work in restaurant 14 hours a day less than minumum wage? only slaves! Now Total and its contractor has tried to reduce local workforce from worker into a slave. If we are against slavery we should support strikers.

Immigrant workers coming here because they have to not because they want to. thats why companies love immigrant workers, it is easy to exploit them abuse them, plus they can play us workers against each other. They want all british workers work for peanut too. Or Move to other countries to work as slaves. Why the hell workers need to move to other countries while they have jobs in their towns?

Friends I am an immigrant and support strikers fully

Comment by Ahmet — 3 February, 2009 @ 9:02 am
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Elequent defence of the workers here, from an 'immigrant'
 
Spion said:
Well, someone obsessed over it on the strike cttee, and along with some of those the producing the placards, have been very careful to substitute 'local' for 'British'
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And has it not occurred to you that they might be doing this because they don't want this to become a campaign against immigrant workers? Of course not, because that wouldn't fit into your neat little narative of the strike where all the nasty British builders are just being racist.
 
Spion said:
Well, someone obsessed over it on the strike cttee, and along with some of those the producing the placards, have been very careful to substitute 'local' for 'British'
Click to expand...
“This worker solidarity is against the ‘conscious blacking’ of British construction workers by company bosses who refuse to recruit skilled British labour in the UK. The workers of LOR, Conoco and Easington did not take strike action against immigrant workers. Our action is rightly aimed against company bosses who attempt to play off one nationality of worker against the other and undermine the NAECI agreement.” - Keith Gibson, Lindsey Oil Refinery Strike Committee

That nasty racist bastard :mad:
 
In Bloom said:
And has it not occurred to you that they might be doing this because they don't want this to become a campaign against immigrant workers?
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Local, British, it means the same. They might not want it to appear it's against immigrant workers but restricting employment to 'locals' is the same thing in practical effect.

Why are so many people so keen to gloss over the real demands about who can be employed and who not that this strike has? It's sad that so many people are so desperate to see some working class action they'll cheerlead what is clearly a pisspoor at best and reactionary at worst set of demands.

BJ4BW should have been clearly opposed by the left wingers involved, not gone along uncritically with a fluffy sounding substitute that has the same effect
 
Its incredible how quickly some of the Left and plenty of liberals have identified racism, xenophobia amongst the strikers, almost as if they expected it from the working class:hmm:


then again, at least they are discussing it, indymedia has largely ignored it, what a joke it is since FTP became its guru!
 
Spion said:
Local, British, it means the same. They might not want it to appear it's against immigrant workers but restricting employment to 'locals' is the same thing in practical effect.

Why are so many people so keen to gloss over the real demands about who can be employed and who not that this strike has? It's sad that so many people are so desperate to see some working class action they'll cheerlead what is clearly a pisspoor at best and reactionary at worst set of demands.

BJ4BW should have been clearly opposed by the left wingers involved, not gone along uncritically with a fluffy sounding substitute that has the same effect
Click to expand...
And once again, how do you square this analysis (and it's pretty charitable to describe is as that) of yours with a mass meeting of the LOR workers agreeing to demands including a demand for immigrant workers to be brought into the union? Is that "pisspoor at best"?

People's politics don't arrive in neat little packages from some central committee, they develop over time and in struggle. There are both nationalist tendancies and pro-working class tendancies within this dispute, and as far as LOR is concerned, the latter appears to be winning.
 
treelover said:
Its incredible how quickly some of the Left and plenty of liberals have identified racism, xenophobia amongst the strikers, almost as if they expected it from the working class:hmm:
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good thing no such thoughts were reflected in the thread title or first post isn't it?

Who was it came up with that then.....
 
treelover said:
Its incredible how quickly some of the Left and plenty of liberals have identified racism, xenophobia amongst the strikers, almost as if they expected it from the working class:hmm:
Click to expand...

you made a thread about "foreigners" taking jobs at a time when 'british' workers were being laid off, didn't you?
 
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