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

[Fedayn]

I've never said the strike cttee should be criticised for something they've not done. But as the first point of yours I've bolded makes clear, there was a clear BJ4BW sentiment evident among the strikers.

To not make a clear stand about a sentiment that was quite evident seems a bit daft to me, ignoring the elephant in the room. The slogan will almost certaily arise again and if the SP or similar is not in a position to 'absorb' it as it did last time then it could gain real legs.

S in a resolution supporting the LOR ST why make it an issue in the resolution when the point can be drawn in the debate. I don't have to tell the strike committee of the dangers of the BJ4BW, they're had to deal with it. it won't be ignored fear not.

 

[dennisr]

But as the first point of yours I've bolded makes clear, there was a clear BJ4BW sentiment evident among the strikers.

I think the point I c&p'ed from some other individual (post 1563) stands as does Feds above

 

[Nigel]

If anyone is interested in hearing about the dispute from the inside, there's a public meeting on in Friends Meeting House on Euston Road in London on Friday 13th February at 7 PM.

It's jointly organised by the Socialist Party and Respect and the speakers include Keith Gibson, who was a member of the strike committee at Lindsey, and Jerry Hicks, the left candidate for General Secretary of Amicus.

Is the ISG/Socialist Resistance supporting this, or have they got some funny line on it?

Was going to go up with one of their supporters to one of the other Wildcat Strikes, so would be interested to know their perspective.

 

[TremulousTetra]

is this irony on your part?

no that's when I'm pressing my shirty.

 

[durruti02]

Most workers want to work close to home. They dont actually want to travel thousands of miles for a job - one that is paid LESS than local workers have agreed (did you see the posts about the italian worker saying he got paid 1000 euro's less than his brit counterparts?).

Sourcing workers as locally as possible has always been a demand of workers in the industry, not to provide 'british jobs for british workers', but to give workers anywhere preferable working conditions. That happens in itally as well as in britain.

yes .. i really don't understand why people find this all so difficult! lol

 

[durruti02]

Absolutely right. There is nothing xenophobic about employing locally, as many workers could be from other countries anyway. Where I live in Brighton, the local football club got planning permission to build its new stadium partly by saying it would create 100's of jobs for the local community. It is being built very near Moulscombe and Whitehawk, two of the poorest estates in the country. Spion's arguments remind me of the Thatcherites in the 80's arguing for the sort of economics that decimated local communities then.

spot on .. cept the albion/falmer stadium is imho a con! imho they wanted it at falmer so as to in the future get add-ons .. the downs have been trashed enough as it is .. why did the board go for a daft option that was always going to be contreversial?? .. they should have gone for the station site or shoreham imho and it would be built by now!! and i doubt they would have employed local ( sorry for derail!)

 

[durruti02]

The other thing is, the 'solution'local jobs for local people, is an illusion. Every single job in this country if it were legislated tomorrow to be given to local British living people, would do nothing to resolve the concerns of those workers about lack of jobs. The responsibility for the shortage jobs does not lie with the mobility of workers, it lies with the bankers at this moment in time, and the capitalist system in general. It is not that we can't have full employment, it is that the capitalists have chosen to rein back investment, because of the lack of profit.

hi rmp3 .. look imho i think that the swp have lost all understanding of trade unionism and the w/c .. you talk of 'legislating' .. no one here is talking of legislating .. but WE are talking of workers action for jobs ..

and we know all about WHY we are in the situation we are in .. but the issue is how to create a TU and revsoc movement that can fight capital .. it will ONLY be built by supporting issues like this that empower the w/c and trade unions .. if the left denies the w/c the right to fight for themselves, theirs sons and daughters and family and freinds, as the SWP has done in this dispute, they will rightly ( and disasterously ) ignore not just the liberal left but all progressive ideas .. you are playing with fire

 

[durruti02]

Since you like orgainsing a solidarity meeting for the xenophobes and little englanders who went on strike, any chance on putting the hat round for Carol Thatcher as well?. Will you be selling Golliwogs in an attempt to redeem them, just as you are trying to redeem the buthers apron which infested the picket lines and fascist slogans like British Jobs for British workers which wer eon the placards?

It will be years before the left will trust you lot again

is this post for real .. think JPS log in got nicked before and this is just way to daft for him .. surely!! :O :O

 

[durruti02]

imo the 'left' who spent their time condemning the strike from a distance were either ignored or invisible to the workers on the ground. They cut themselves off from those workers and had no influence on turning the strike. But weve gone over this ground many times and probably best to 'agree to disagree' The unite leadership played with echoing the reactionary demands. The left stewards on the ground turn that strike around while others, luckily on the sidelines, simply tried to paint the movement as a wholey reactionary (or - in the case of union tops 'tailending' in an empiric manner) which could not go anywhere positive - those sideline 'lefts' should at least recognise that they miscalculated what the actual existing mood and reasons behind the dispute were even if they cannot admit the mistaken tactics that resulted from that miscalculation.

I agree with your last point - its only a beginning, but that is obvious - at this moment in time we can say that, in turning that movement around, the real left on the ground have played an important role in the potential further direction that movement can go in.

yes .. and tangent is not being honest .. the 'left' he refers to ( the swp/wp) did not support critically the strikes but actually attacked them

 

[durruti02]

I didn't dismiss the question. I a) didn't see the direct relavence to the particular issue we were talking about at that juncture (the reaction of some of the left to the strikes) and b) objected to the loaded nature of it. It's hardly an attempt at asking a balanced and neutral (as far as possible) question is it? It assumes a negative state of affairs (i.e you beat your wife) and asks how many others that applies to today (how many of you also beat your wife?).

There are just far too many issues and questions jumbled up in this - for starters, unions are an integrative institution in contemporary capitalism, they're neccesarrily reformist and dependent upon the continuing functioning of capital, so their role is in part to support one capital in its competion with other capitals in order to benefit their own members - is this nationalist if the other capitals are from another state? Should they give up their defence of their own members in the name of a higher principle? Should the members of the union in the competing company? Should support only be given to those who reach the requisite awareness - decided by who and on what basis? External parties? Why?

Which brings us to another issue the unions, the left and the w/c are three seperate things, there is significant (but nowhere near total) overlap in the case of unions and the w/c but only really in that case - so all the comments that have been slipping between the strikers, the w/c and the left have been serving to muddy the picture IMO.

Questions about how far the strikes were nationalist, or how backward some strikers are not what people should be concentrating on here. They are the wrong questions. The right questions concern how the class logic of the conflict opened up space (and had to open up space) for a leftward movement and how rthis will play out in the future and ongoing disputes, why they took place in these particular industries and so on, why thousands of workers were prepared for the first time in years to openly flout anti-union laws and why no one was able to do a damn thing about it, how direct worker-to-worker contact outside of the usual official union channels spread the strikes nationally and so on These are the important things, the things we need to be clear on. Not all this rubbihs about nationalism or racism.

absolutely .. the liberal left here .. spion rmp tangent .. really seem to not understand the basics .. the simple dynamics of w/c struggle and trade unions ..

 

[Spion]

absolutely .. the liberal left here .. spion rmp tangent .. really seem to not understand the basics .. the simple dynamics of w/c struggle and trade unions ..

LOLz at the bolded bit. You're such a funny man

But seriously, you mistake understanding the dynamics etc for simply tailing the existing consciousness of the w/c. You have nothing to add to what is already happening.

 

[durruti02]

LOLz at the bolded bit. You're such a funny man

But seriously, you mistake understanding the dynamics etc for simply tailing the existing consciousness of the w/c. You have nothing to add to what is already happening.

tailending? lol .. you are not even in the game lol .. what actually IS your political activity spion?

 

[Spion]

tailending? lol .. you are not even in the game lol .. what actually IS your political activity spion?

So, no answer to the charge other than 'what do you do?' Says it all really

 

[dennisr]

So, no answer to the charge other than 'what do you do?' Says it all really

given the 'charge' has been answered in countless posts i imagine he has given up trying to take you seriously.

any excuse to do nothing and simply fantasise, ehh spion?

so, you the joker with the 'Johnny Void' blog, fella?

 

[Spion]

given the 'charge' has been answered in countless posts i imagine he has given up trying to take you seriously.

any excuse to do nothing and simply fantasise, ehh spion?

so, you the joker with the 'Johnny Void' blog, fella?

What do you do exactly?

 

[Spion]

so, you the joker with the 'Johnny Void' blog, fella?

You what?

 

[Spion]

given the 'charge' has been answered in countless posts i imagine he has given up trying to take you seriously.

any excuse to do nothing and simply fantasise, ehh spion?

I've done plenty. I was a toolmaker for half my working life. I've had the hard arguments so I know it when I see a bottler

 

[dennisr]

What do you do exactly?

building sites 7 years.
print 12+ years (give or take 6-7 months working holiday as a chef of all things...)
layout last 7 years

or political work where you would like me to begin?

 

[dennisr]

I've done plenty. I was a toolmaker for half my working life. I've had the hard arguments so I know it when I see a bottler

'bottler' - i think fantasist is definately the correct term for you.
(to clarify for the hard of thinking: its your politics i'm talking about - i couldn't give a fuck if you claim to have been a horny-handed son of toil at any point - that has not relvence whatsoever)

you really are a complete idiot arn't you?

so what have i 'bottled' then you spanner??

 

[dennisr]

come on hurry up - bottled what dicksplash???

 

[Spion]

'bottler' - i think fantasist is definately the correct term for you.

you really are a complete idiot arn't you?

so what have i 'bottled' then you spanner??

This whole thread has been about your organisation bottling it. Fedayn produced another example yesterday on another thread with that ludicrous self congratulatory resolution where he admitted the mover would criticise BJ4BW in his spoken preamble but that it was not in the resolution the refinery workers would see if it was passed. That counts as bottling it in my book.

 

[Spion]

come on hurry up - bottled what dicksplash???

LOLz - Settle down you nutcase

 

[dennisr]

This whole thread has been about your organisation bottling it. Fedayn produced another example yesterday on another thread with that ludicrous self congratulatory resolution where he admitted the mover would criticise BJ4BW in his spoken preamble but that it was not in the resolution the refinery workers would see if it was passed. That counts as bottling it in my book.

i'm afraid the 'the bottlers' stood on the sidelines with their critical irrelevance - missing the point.

bit of a late bid for attention on your part isn't it? - the arrogance of your post hides cowardice

 

[Spion]

This issue won't go away. We'll have the same arguments again - and the SP might not be on hand to provide the same cover next time.

Goodnight. Sleep well

 

[Fedayn]

This whole thread has been about your organisation bottling it. Fedayn produced another example yesterday on another thread with that ludicrous self congratulatory resolution where he admitted the mover would criticise BJ4BW in his spoken preamble but that it was not in the resolution the refinery workers would see if it was passed. That counts as bottling it in my book.

Bottling what exactly? 'Ludicrously self congratulatory' quite how is it thus you? Who is congratulating themselves?

 

[dennisr]

This issue won't go away. We'll have the same arguments again - and the SP might not be on hand to provide the same cover next time.

Goodnight. Sleep well

the issue being that the working class arn't ready formed revolutionaries? that they reflect to an extent the society in which they live? - probably

night, night

 

[dennisr]

An analysis if the issues behind the dispute (in english) from rifondazione

THE IREM-EAST LINDSEY CASE. UNITED AGAINST FREE MOVEMENT OF SERVICE

http://home.rifondazione.it/xisttest/content/view/4730/310/

 

[nightbreed]

the issue being that the working class arn't ready formed revolutionaries? that they reflect to an extent the society in which they live? - probably

night, night

End of discussion, really. As was said earlier, the 'bottlers' are the ones who opted out of support for the strikers to defend TU organisation on all major Refineries and Construction projects.

The SP role was crucial and correct in the LOR dispute.

 

[danny la rouge]

My complaint:

Just had a reply:

Dear Mr _________


Thank you for your email.



As part of a report on the BBC News at Ten on February 1st about the wild cat strikes centred on the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire, the BBC's Political Editor Nick Robinson included a vox pop of one of the striking workers. It was used in the context of the Government's expressed concern that xenophobia might be to blame for the action.



The worker was quoted in the report as saying: "These Portuguese and I-ties, we can't work alongside of 'em." Later on that evening, in the BBC's Newsnight programme on BBC Two, the quote was run on a little longer to add the words: "They're segregated. They're coming in in full companies."



We have received complaints that the shorter quote did not fairly reflect the worker's views and was edited deliberately to give a different meaning to what he was saying. While the striking worker described foreign workers in a way that some regard as offensive, the edit gave viewers the impression that he was not prepared to work alongside others from Italy and Portugal, when in fact his full quote said companies were responsible for segregating workers from different nationalities. There was no intention to deliberately misrepresent his views, but we accept that the edit on the News at Ten gave the wrong impression, for which we are sorry.



Yours sincerely



Helen Boaden

Director, BBC News

So, basically "it was OK to lie because he said 'I-ties'." Nothing about giving any prominence to a retraction or apology, and a downright lie about the intention to misrepresent the striker's views.

 

[belboid]

sorry seems to be the easiest word these days.