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Strike!

Aye. Just worth remembering that a general strike in Europe is often quite a different beast to what one might be in the UK.
 
JHE said:
I'm not sure what you're complaining about. I simply quoted part of the article you linked.
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fained innocence - what a surprise...

Here is another bit you could have quoted from those unrealistic "trots"
"However, the fundamental tasks posed by the new social movements, of opening up the unions on the basis of democratic control from below, unionising the young ’precariat’ and the building of a united movement of workers, youth and the unemployed, remain unsolved."

My views on the situation in Greece comes from folk on the ground there. My views on the situation in Portugal come from folk on the ground there. My support for Sparks in London is not retrospective.

Just get to fuck :)
 
articul8 said:
first lock out in Britain for over 50 years!?
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Don't you remember the very long running liverpool dockers lockout in the late 90s - don't know what those 'labour history experts' are talking about, unless they're using a very strict definition.

Other news:

Strike days lost in 2011 ‘highest since Thatcher’

More days of work were lost to industrial action in the UK last year than at any time since 1990, official figures have confirmed.

Data from the Office for National Statistics revealed that almost 1.4 million working days were lost in 2011, up from 365,000 in 2010. There were 184 individual stoppages and around 1.5 million workers took part in some form of industrial action.
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Not strictly a strike related question (except part of UNISON's logic for backing down) but has there been any decision from the unions' legal action re RPI/CPI uprating?
 
Would be fun if they came out on the next union strike day, 28th March. So far I'm told it will be the NUT, Unite and Unilever.
 
This will derail the whole bloody agenda, just as we were getting steam up on the NHS and Workfare we've now got to go through five rounds of 'Who pays the paymasters' in the House and with the Press.
McCluskey, you fool. The Tories will now get away with some dirty stuff in the next week or two while Ed tries to get the 'Union Stooge' sign that's just been slapped on him. Which will damage the prospects of his members. The bloody fool.

I support unions, and am a union person myself. But even I can see political incompetence in this case
 
William of Walworth said:
PCS are currently balloting their members (incl me :) ) re striking on Wednesday 28 March.
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It's a brilliant interview and absolutely the right thing to say. Makes me delighted to have voted for him.

Anyone actually reading the interview would have great difficulty disagreeing with him either*. He is simply pointing out that it would be wrong to say the Olympics are special and sacrosanct and must not be the focus of any kind of political action. If we want to highlight the appalling effects the cuts are going to have then we should be doing so in a way that gets that message across to as many as possible. And if that means having an Olympic protest, then yay!

If you bother about what the tories are going to say, you'll do nowt and end up with another Tony Blair as Labour leader.



*other than maybe the bit about 'legal' civil disobedience :facepalm:
 
What's the problem? The tories and lib-dems were never going to paint the unions as heroes justified in their fight to protect pensions, NHS, public services etc (that's a generous uncritical reading of what they're doing for now). They've been getting this grief anyway regardless of whatever rhetorical threats they offer. There's no way to offer any sort of resistance (even at this pathetic level) without going through this. And if it emboldens the significant section of the population both opposed to the cuts and not at all bothered by the Olympics then all the better. This really isn't the time for timidity - there's going to be flak coming at you when you try and apply pressure, the trick is no to panic and immediately back off in the face of it, or they've achieved exactly what they set out to by sending it in your direction.
 
Balbi said:
Now McCluskey's unpatriotic, and Labour will get tagged the same way. Nightmare :(
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Why is it a nightmare? Labour are a bunch of spineless milksops so I don't feel they're much of a loss. The rightwing press and the tories already hate the unions.
 
I'm not sure it's the most effective intervention for him to have made this week - why not focus on the NHS bill or the Workfare issues, which could align the union's position with a potentially massive reservoir of public support. Talking about disrupting the olympics is just grandstanding(!), bound to be quite divisive and not really pressuring Cameron.
 
belboid said:
He didn't choose the questions they asked him
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No, and if he was challenged to rule out protesting during the Olympics he'd be right not to. But he should thrown the emphasis on avoiding strikes back onto Cameron and the government
 
articul8 said:
I'm not sure it's the most effective intervention for him to have made this week - why not focus on the NHS bill or the Workfare issues, which could align the union's position with a potentially massive reservoir of public support. Talking about disrupting the olympics is just grandstanding(!), bound to be quite divisive and not really pressuring Cameron.
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He did as it goes and he related any proposed action during the Olympics to the fight to save the NHS.

Have you read the thing?
 
articul8 said:
I'm not sure it's the most effective intervention for him to have made this week - why not focus on the NHS bill or the Workfare issues, which could align the union's position with a potentially massive reservoir of public support. Talking about disrupting the olympics is just grandstanding(!), bound to be quite divisive and not really pressuring Cameron.
Click to expand...

This. And regardless of the email'd question - the last week or two have shown a groundswell of opposition to the govts. policies on the NHS and Workfare, with the quick label tossing of 'trot' 'extremist' and others being laughed off.

Now McCluskey's weighed in, and will drive away the single issue supporters who don't want to be associated with being 'unpatriotic' and all the other things. Like when the SWP turn up and monster some embryonic campaign group and drive everyone away with the kool aid drinking party line, McCluskey just switched a lot of the potential support to either maybes or against.
 
bad move, imo, but I am baffled why he hasn't called for a national protest against the health bill, it would be massive..
 
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