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

[Jean-Luc]

lol did you READ Marx on the Irish coming to England and the Chinese coming to America?? he was very aware of how migration and imported workers are used to undercut wages and workers power

Yes, I do remember reading something in Marx (and Engels) about the downward effect of Irish immigration on wages in England. I take your word for it that he said the same thing about Chinese immigration into America. But I took that to be a mere factual description (which equally applies to the recent influx of Polish workers into the building trade and construction industry), not what do about it. I don't recall Marx saying that the answer was to keep workers from Ireland or China out. I thought it was more along the lines of Workers of the World Unite to Abolish the Wages System, ie the system under which they were commodities who had to compete against each other to get a job from employers. In the meantime that workers should try to ensure that all workers in a particular trade or on a particular job should be paid the same wherever they might have come from.
I do know that in America some unions, and even some calling themselves Marxist Socialists, went off the rails in calling for a ban on Chinese immigration, just as Bob Crow and his crew are today.

though btw the SP (and me) oppose the slogan BJFBW so where you get the idea dr supports it god knows

I thought Dennis said so himself, but maybe he was being ironic (which is a warning to all to not use irony as some people will take you literally). But I'm not sure about this. When I quoted on a different thread (the one about workers on the Olympic site) this statement from a press release on the NO2EU site and asked him to explain it, he didn't answer:

“The anger amongst workers over the race to the bottom on jobs, pay and working conditions by companies exploiting the recession and the hiring and firing of overseas workers is now turning into a national fightback. That’s why I will be joining with our colleagues from the construction industry on the gates of the Olympic site in Stratford on Wednesday morning to show full support and solidarity,” Bob Crow said today.

"Full support and solidarity" with "the anger amongst workers over ... the hiring and firing of overseas workers", what do you think it means?

I concede that
(1) the Crow list is not racist, ie is not saying (as is the BNP) "British jobs for British-born White Workers", but something more like "British jobs for British-born Workers of All Races", and
(2) that there is a trade-union aspect to this that they are trying to put forward, that all workers, wherever they are recruited from, should have same wages and conditions.

But, if the reports are correct, what the strikers have been demanding is that jobs be reserved for "local" ,ie British, workers and not go to "overseas" workers even if they were to be paid the going trade-union rate. If Crow and Dennis support this (as they seem to) then they have crossed the line. In any event, one aspect of their anti-EU campaign is opposition to "the free movement of labour". In other words, that a British government should be free to opt out of this, ie to impose controls on the movement of workers from Europe into Britain. Otherwise why bring the EU into it at all.

 

[nightbreed]

.



But, if the reports are correct, what the strikers have been demanding is that jobs be reserved for "local" ,ie British, workers and not go to "overseas" workers even if they were to be paid the going trade-union rate. If Crow and Dennis support this (as they seem to) then they have crossed the line. .

Its 'local' as in 'local' workers. Not just British. There could be Poles, Germans Portuguese Carribean Chinese etc workers living locally. That my and I believe Dennisr and Crows view.

Do you agree with the free movement of Labour to ther extent that T's and C's are undercut?

The issue at Lindsey was clearly about defending the Naeci agreement, not BJ4BW(a minority of workers), against the client trying to get a job done cheaply

BTW the excuse at South Hook by employers that they cant find 'local' labour is pathetic and a really stupid excuse.

We saw the same thing down here at Fawley back in 2006

 

[belboid]

Poles have been in the UK for at least 60 years. The ones who are settled here consider themselves British....You still seem to want to think its xenophobic to argue for British jobs for British workers but it isnt. Its arguing that people should have the right to jobs in the places they have settled and not have to migrate for work...

of course it is xenophobic. It was okay for Poles to come here when you thought there were 'enough' jobs, but not now. Poles are okay, slovaks aren't? This is shallow drivel. BJ4BW leaves you flailing around trying to justify it, when it cant be justified, even if the workers with those banners (or many of them at least) don't really mean to exclude eastern europeans or others (altho i know you'd exclude them), they simply want to be able to work close to home, as the vast majority of people do. It is an utterly shite slogan, and while socialists (actual socialists that is, not ones who vote liberal) shouldn't simply say anyone using the slogan is racist, they should niot in any way seek to repeat or support it.

Of course people shouldn't have to migrate for work, but neither should they be banned from so doing, as you wish.

 

[belboid]

Do you agree with the free movement of Labour to ther extent that T's and C's are undercut?

it's not really 'free movement of labour' tho is it? it is tied labour owned and transported by the bosses, not moving because they (the workers) want to. That is NOT free movement

 

[treelover]

A question, can foreign labour ever be 'scabs' or is it that because they are foreign, migrants, 'the wretched of the earth' etc, much of the Left can't conceive of them in those terms?

 

[belboid]

what a fucking stupid question.

 

[Spion]

A question, can foreign labour ever be 'scabs' or is it that because they are foreign, migrants, 'the wretched of the earth' etc, much of the Left can't conceive of them in those terms?

Of course foreign workers aren't scabs you racist twat

 

[treelover]

This was an abstract question, not about the current events at the sites, so, in no circumstances whatsoever imported labour cannot be scabs, you are a fanatic chum and why the left is failing and flailing.

 

[belboid]

no one has ever said anything like that tho. you view of 'the left' is entirely fictitious and exists solely in your head

 

[treelover]

Of course foreign workers aren't scabs you racist twat'

This sounds uniquivocal to me....

 

[belboid]

hearing what you want to hear

 

[dennisr]

This sounds uniquivocal to me....

Spion is not 'the left'. Spion is special. Plenty on the left have been arguing with Spion for months - quite sharply, earlier on this thread.

Discussion with Spion is a bit like discussion with you though - 'one' goes through points patiently. They don't answer the points - actually they ignore those points only torepeat the same old formulaic argument that had previously been answered - the one already in their head - a few posts later

 

[dennisr]

"Full support and solidarity" with "the anger amongst workers over ... the hiring and firing of overseas workers", what do you think it means?

I concede that
(1) the Crow list is not racist, ie is not saying (as is the BNP) "British jobs for British-born White Workers", but something more like "British jobs for British-born Workers of All Races", and
(2) that there is a trade-union aspect to this that they are trying to put forward, that all workers, wherever they are recruited from, should have same wages and conditions.

But, if the reports are correct, what the strikers have been demanding is that jobs be reserved for "local" ,ie British, workers and not go to "overseas" workers even if they were to be paid the going trade-union rate. If Crow and Dennis support this (as they seem to) then they have crossed the line. In any event, one aspect of their anti-EU campaign is opposition to "the free movement of labour". In other words, that a British government should be free to opt out of this, ie to impose controls on the movement of workers from Europe into Britain. Otherwise why bring the EU into it at all.

Do you live in the same vacuam as Spion and Treelover?

The replies that answer the assumptions and distortions you have just repeated for the nth time - have already been gone over and explained again and again this thread.

The fight is for equal opportunity to jobs - to stop the cutting out of local unionised workforces, against the use by multinationals of cheaper 'impoted' labour to break previous agreements and lower the wages and conditions of all workers (added: using EU laws to do so, of course).

Why the fuck you feel I should waste my time answering your purile rhetoric whenever you ask me to jump through your artificial hoops I don't know? Do you consider yourself 'special' too, spacemen?

 

[Spion]

This was an abstract question, not about the current events at the sites, so, in no circumstances whatsoever imported labour cannot be scabs

I never said anything of the sort. Scabs are scabs and their nationality is irrelevant to whether they are or not

Shame on you, Dennis

 

[dennisr]

Shame on you, Dennis

What again?

 

[dennisr]

A repeat for Spion from way back in post 770 (just over 1000 posts ago...) in reply to his/her earlier fantasy moralism:

Its called providing a lead rather than abdicating responsibility and leaving those workers open to the hypocritical platitudes of the BNP.

Spion - why one position for Hamas supporters and another for British workers when those workers arn't already fully fledged 'revolutionaries' you wish them to be?

This is a key test case in working out where any genuine left alternative in this country really comes from. Those who stand aside should be ashamed

 

[Spion]

Soz pal. I don't have the time or inclination to answer the kind of feeble-minded rubbish I already answered months ago. Find someone else to work your ego on

 

[dennisr]

Soz pal. I don't have the time or inclination to answer the kind of feeble-minded rubbish I already answered months ago. Find someone else to work your ego on

"ego", "feeble minded" - you answered nothing and now you run away.

its ok, Jean-Luc can take over in the tag team of do-nothing idiots.

'pal'

 

[dennisr]

Milford Haven strike win big victory

http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/latest/7316

"Construction workers at the South Hook LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) terminal construction site near Milford Haven in South Wales have won a big victory over employers by taking unofficial action in defiance of anti-union laws.

Solidarity action by construction workers across Wales and England has forced Hertel UK to back down from its attempt to refuse to employ any more unionised UK-based laggers on the site. The plant's contract with Hertel UK is "under review". Clearly the prompt action, illegal under the current ant-union legislation, across the country was hurting Hertel and the industry as a whole. Hertel was forced to make a humiliating climbdown."

the 'racists'...

 

[dennisr]

"Journalists from all the main media outlets searched in vain at Milford Haven for the banners demanding 'British jobs for British workers'. This was never action against foreign workers, but to defend jobs and to protect union agreements.

The BBC emphasised that a UKIP candidate was leafleting workers at Aberthaw power station in the Vale of Glamorgan but failed to mention he had been instructed to f*** off from the platform by the union convenor. In contrast there was a warm response to the leaflets for No2EU - Yes to Democracy and workers at both sites queued to take copies of the Socialist Party newsletter from Lindsey."

I should add - those newsletters take up the dangers of the BJ4BW slogan - the dangers of division and argue for getting ALL workers - local and non-local - on the books and unionised.

 

[tbaldwin]

of course it is xenophobic. It was okay for Poles to come here when you thought there were 'enough' jobs, but not now. Poles are okay, slovaks aren't? This is shallow drivel. BJ4BW leaves you flailing around trying to justify it, when it cant be justified, even if the workers with those banners (or many of them at least) don't really mean to exclude eastern europeans or others (altho i know you'd exclude them), they simply want to be able to work close to home, as the vast majority of people do. It is an utterly shite slogan, and while socialists (actual socialists that is, not ones who vote liberal) shouldn't simply say anyone using the slogan is racist, they should niot in any way seek to repeat or support it.

Of course people shouldn't have to migrate for work, but neither should they be banned from so doing, as you wish.

You havent given one single reason there why you think the slogan is xenophobic. Just gone off in a prejudiced tangent.....
There is nothing wrong with British workers having jobs is there belboid?

 

[belboid]

yes of course, i want al lbritish workers to be unemployed

learn to read, pillock

 

[durruti02]

1) Yes, I do remember reading something in Marx (and Engels) about the downward effect of Irish immigration on wages in England. I take your word for it that he said the same thing about Chinese immigration into America. But I took that to be a mere factual description (which equally applies to the recent influx of Polish workers into the building trade and construction industry), not what do about it.

2) I don't recall Marx saying that the answer was to keep workers from Ireland or China out.

3) I thought it was more along the lines of Workers of the World Unite to Abolish the Wages System, ie the system under which they were commodities who had to compete against each other to get a job from employers. In the meantime that workers should try to ensure that all workers in a particular trade or on a particular job should be paid the same wherever they might have come from.

4) I do know that in America some unions, and even some calling themselves Marxist Socialists, went off the rails in calling for a ban on Chinese immigration, just as Bob Crow and his crew are today.


I thought Dennis said so himself, but maybe he was being ironic (which is a warning to all to not use irony as some people will take you literally). But I'm not sure about this. When I quoted on a different thread (the one about workers on the Olympic site) this statement from a press release on the NO2EU site and asked him to explain it, he didn't answer:

"Full support and solidarity" with "the anger amongst workers over ... the hiring and firing of overseas workers", what do you think it means?

I concede that
(1) the Crow list is not racist, ie is not saying (as is the BNP) "British jobs for British-born White Workers", but something more like "British jobs for British-born Workers of All Races", and
(2) that there is a trade-union aspect to this that they are trying to put forward, that all workers, wherever they are recruited from, should have same wages and conditions.

5) But, if the reports are correct, what the strikers have been demanding is that jobs be reserved for "local" ,ie British, workers and not go to "overseas" workers even if they were to be paid the going trade-union rate. If Crow and Dennis support this (as they seem to) then they have crossed the line. In any event, one aspect of their anti-EU campaign is opposition to "the free movement of labour". In other words, that a British government should be free to opt out of this, ie to impose controls on the movement of workers from Europe into Britain. Otherwise why bring the EU into it at all.

1) was a bit of a debate on Marx here before it degenerated

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=164047

2) no i understood he argued to use trade unions to protect wages and conditions and against the use of migrant labour to attack those

3) workers unite? well yes but that starts at home first . how can you unite with someone who is prepared to do your job for less?

4) yes but the differrence is they called for the STATE to ban immigration .. THAT is the key ideological differrence ..

5) you still have not explained what is wrong with demanding employers employ locally .. ( btw do you have kids? )

 

[Jean-Luc]

3) workers unite? well yes but that starts at home first . how can you unite with someone who is prepared to do your job for less?

4) yes but the differrence is they called for the STATE to ban immigration .. THAT is the key ideological differrence ..

5) you still have not explained what is wrong with demanding employers employ locally .. ( btw do you have kids? )

3) What are you saying here? That workers should unite against them? Worker against worker?
4) So direct action to stop immigration is OK, then?
5) What do you mean by "local"? Those living in the same street, same neighbourhood, same town, same county, same country, what? "British Jobs for British Workers" is just a development of "Local Jobs for Local Workers" or perhaps it's the other way round: "Local Jobs for Local Workers" is the politically correct way of saying "British Jobs for British Workers".
What's wrong with it is that it accepts that we are commodities who have to compete against each other for jobs and opts for making the best of it. It's probably inevitable as long as people accept that this is way things have to be. Can't you think outside the box? Why do we need employers to employ us? Discuss.

 

[tbaldwin]

yes of course, i want al lbritish workers to be unemployed

learn to read, pillock

Not something i said is it? Just i dont agree with you about your opposition to calling for British jobs for British workers. I think its fine if thats all it means. If it means no jobs for Blacks its not so good is it...But if anyone uses the slogan British jobs for British workers does that suddenly mean everyone who uses it secretly means that? I dont think so.

 

[belboid]

fuck you can be astoundingly thick. And why do you keep going on about colour? no one else has, its all in your head.

It's a fucking stupid, xenophobic, slogan that will come back and bite those using it on the arse.

I hope you have fun going around dragging foreigners out of their workplaces tho

 

[tbaldwin]

I hope you have fun going around dragging foreigners out of their workplaces tho

Children....Today we have a new supply teacher for maths....Mr Belboid......

2 and 2 makes 76....

 

[belboid]

pathetic, even by your low standards. You dont ever actually think through what you write, do you? That's why you come out with such shite

 

[Nigel]

Hypothetically,
If all these workers did follow a Chauvanistic Line, and say all joined P+t H@rrigt *ns' S O L I D A R iTY how would we/you deal with it!

 

[durruti02]

I said Originally Posted by durruti02 View Post
3) workers unite? well yes but that starts at home first . how can you unite with someone who is prepared to do your job for less?

4) yes but the differrence is they called for the STATE to ban immigration .. THAT is the key ideological differrence ..

5) you still have not explained what is wrong with demanding employers employ locally .. ( btw do you have kids? )

YOu said

3) What are you saying here? That workers should unite against them? Worker against worker?
4) So direct action to stop immigration is OK, then?
5) What do you mean by "local"? Those living in the same street, same neighbourhood, same town, same county, same country, what? "British Jobs for British Workers" is just a development of "Local Jobs for Local Workers" or perhaps it's the other way round: "Local Jobs for Local Workers" is the politically correct way of saying "British Jobs for British Workers".
What's wrong with it is that it accepts that we are commodities who have to compete against each other for jobs and opts for making the best of it. It's probably inevitable as long as people accept that this is way things have to be. Can't you think outside the box? Why do we need employers to employ us? Discuss.

3) you are jumping the gun .. workers need to first unite where they work to get some sort of power .. it makes no practical sense to talk of uniting with other workers if first you are not organised .. why should you unite with people who are essentially taking your jobs? yes make the offer but .. so yes the first rule of trade unionism is to create a closed shop/ or level of organisation so as to force the employer to do what you say .. if that means uniting against a set of workers who are prepared to take your jobs then so be it

4) you entirely miss the ( many actually ) point/s .. immigration is NOT a GOOD thing .. it is a forced economic thing .. workers have lost much of their power .. the bosses are using migration as part of cheap labour and non union work forces etc etc ..

so NO the issue is NOT about being AGAINST immigration .. it is about how to rebuild workers power where we work and live

5) local simply means what it says .. if there are unemployed people they should be employed first .. this not only makes sense to people directly but is hwo we will rebuild community and unions

your last point is interesting and again dramatically misses the point .. sadly we ARE just commodities now .. the issue is how to change that .. we can NOT just wish it away nor, sadly, simply absent ourselves from capitalism.. a tiny minority can but the vast majority do not