The Glasgow & Edinburgh Branches Blog. Towards a better understanding of the world, in order to change it.
Friday, May 11, 2012
WAGE SLAVERY AT $1.50 A DAY
You have probably never heard of Chittagong but for many capitalist firms it is a very important place indeed. "Bangladesh is proud of its Chittagong zone, not just because its 137 factories export $1.6bn worth of goods a year, and last year invested $930m, but because it claims to have the cheapest labour in the world and there is a desperate need for foreign currency and jobs. China's minimum wage in its EDZs is $250 a month, Indonesia's $135 and Pakistan's $80. But corporates manufacturing goods in Chittagong need pay workers an average of only $48 a month, said the zone manager. That's about $1.50 a day. " (Guardian, 30 April) Inside capitalism profit means everything and one of the best ways to make a profit is low wages. So where does Nike make its trainers? Or Wrangler its jeans? In the same place Raleigh make its bikes, Philip Morris makes its cigarettes, Korean companies make LED lights, and giant corporations like Walmart, Mothercare, Tesco and Reebok make practically everything from pharmaceuticals to fishing rods and baseball caps. The Chittagong export development zone (EDZ) in Bangladesh is the capital of globalisation, the plumb centre of global free trade, and the reason, it could be argued, that many workers in industrialised countries are now unemployed. RD
what austerity?
Nato's plans to upgrade the US's estimated 180 tactical nuclear weapons in western Europe. The alliance is preparing to replace "dumb" free-fall nuclear
bombs and ageing delivery aircraft with precision-guided weapons that
would be carried by US F35 strike aircraft. The plans to upgrade significantly the US's stockpile of tactical
nuclear weapons would increase its ability to reach targets in Russia.
The cost to upgrade the bombs with precision-guided B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs will be at a cost of $4bn (£2.5bn). Replacing their existing aircraft with the US F35 Joint Strike Fighter, whose cost has risen to more than $100m (£62m) each.
Ted Seay, who until last year was arms control adviser to the US mission at Nato headquarters in Brussels adds that modernisation would be a form of expensive nuclear escalation
by default that could be expected to draw a hostile reaction from
Moscow.
Ian Kearns, chief executive of the European Leadership Network , a thinktank supported by former UK defence ministers including Lord Des Browne and Sir Malcolm Rifkind, said "The planned upgrade of Nato's tactical nuclear forces in Europe will be expensive and is unnecessary. Nato states are fully secure without this additional capability and should be focused on removing all tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, not on modernising them".
The cost to upgrade the bombs with precision-guided B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs will be at a cost of $4bn (£2.5bn). Replacing their existing aircraft with the US F35 Joint Strike Fighter, whose cost has risen to more than $100m (£62m) each.
Ian Kearns, chief executive of the European Leadership Network , a thinktank supported by former UK defence ministers including Lord Des Browne and Sir Malcolm Rifkind, said "The planned upgrade of Nato's tactical nuclear forces in Europe will be expensive and is unnecessary. Nato states are fully secure without this additional capability and should be focused on removing all tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, not on modernising them".
UCS Shipyard Occupation - What we said
Former Glasgow shipyard trade unionist Sammy Barr recently passed away. Alongside Jimmy Reid and Jimmy Airlie and Sammy Gilmore - he was one of the organisers of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders workers occupation in 1971. The shipyard work-in was an alternative to a strike to thwart attempts by the then Conservative government to close the yards by refusing subsidies. The decision meant at least 6,000 of the 8,500 shipyard workers employed by UCS would have to be made redundant. The work-in saw workers manage and operate the UCS shipyards until the government changed its policy. It was intended to prove that the yards were viable. The Heath government finally relented in February 1972 and announced a £35m injection of cash into the yards. Within three years, shipbuilding on the Upper Clyde had received about £101m of public grants and credits, with £20m going to the UCS.
The following is an article written at the time of the UCS work-in.
A Report from the Clyde
At the time of writing the UCS situation is still unresolved. It would appear that the government's plans for Govan and Linthouse may be extended to include Scotstoun with the remaining division, Clydebank, possibly being sold to a private buyer encouraged by favourable government terms. This would give the workers concerned a respite, however temporary, and leave them still hoping - and we shall return to this - that a future Labour government will nationalise the whole Upper Clyde shipbuilding complex. Whatever happens it seems unlikely that the original proposals which meant a reduction of another 6,000 jobs and the closure of the Scotstoun and Clydebank yards will go through. It looks, then, as if the resistance put up by the men has been at least partially successful. Of course their actions have nothing to do with Socialism and fall within the confines of trade union activity, an activity which is and only can be defensive in nature.
Much ink has been spilled over these events and many opinions have been expressed on the "work-in" tactics employed in the struggle. Several alternative courses of action have been suggested, the most popular one being that a "sit-in" would be more productive. This would entail occupation of the yards with no work being done on the ships already under construction in the hope that the delay would force the government to capitulate. However, this would mean finding money to pay the entire workforce instead of, as at present, only the several hundred made redundant. As the weekly wage-bill for UCS amounts to £250,000 then it can be seen that the task of providing even half this sum each week would be a monumental one. Also, it is unlikely that such a tactic would have secured as much popular support as the work-in and doubtless the shop stewards' committee to ok these and other considerations into account. Then there is the possibility that a non-working sit-in would present the government with an excuse to clear the yards on the grounds that the men had no legitimate reason for being there.
It is heartening to see a group of workers refusing to passively accept the sack, but we deplore the repeated promises to work harder and give the fullest cooperation to their employers in future. Of course these promises may only be so many words and were, after all, the product of having had the unemployment gun held to their heads. At least they didn't meekly accept their fate or rely solely on appeals to Labourite and trade union leaders to save them. They took positive action on their own account.
It could be argued that since shipbuilding is, at least at present, unprofitable and is bound to be run-down anyway, then the redundant workers should bow to the inevitable, take their redundancy payments, if any, and get out. This view could be supported by pointing out that even if the UCS workforce could be maintained at its present level then this would probably be at the expense of shipyard workers elsewhere : more orders coming to the Clyde means less orders for Tyneside or Belfast. This, of course, is true but because the industry is declining there is already a high level of unemployment in shipbuilding on Clydeside, so the chances of finding work locally are poor.
For many it would mean uprooting their families to seek work in England or overseas. And it is unreasonable to expect workers who generally think production for sale at a profit (capitalism) is the only way to run society, to put first the interests of the whole working class - that will come when they are socialist minded and not before. They joined a trade union for the limited purpose of combining with their fellow members on a craft basis to protect their own interests. We recognise this and accordingly don't expect revolutionary policies from non-socialist trade unionists.
We also recognise that before men can have any views at all, political or otherwise, they must have access to the necessities of life. They must have sufficient food, cothing, shelter, and all the other things which have come to be regarded as making life tolerable. For most workers nowadays "necessities", or their current standard of living, aren't acquired by dole money. Living standards should rightly be measured in relation to the wealth of society. Despite all the talk about how well-off to-day's workers are, their wages only enable them to live in a state of relative poverty. Nevertheless, these wages at least prevent them sliding into destitution which for many is what dole money means. Besides, there is either the personal experience or the handed-down knowledge of what large scale unemployment can do to men, so they feel that their backs are to the wall and that they must unite to save their jobs.
In their fight to change the government's mind the men have an unrecognised ally - the fact that governments cannot simply ignore political, economic and social pressures. For example, the Tories must have been dismayed at the general response to the proposed sackings and closures; they cannot afford to lose too many votes between now and the next general election. Also, the consequences of such severe unemployment might well result in increased social problems like the break-up of families or a steep increase in the crime rate, and there have been local warnings to this effect. So factors like these could account in part for the softening of the government's attitude.
The whole UCS episode has once more thrown into relief the utter hopelessness of the "left-wing". They have offered every solution under the sun but the real one; they will talk about absolutely anything except production for use and the abolition of exchange relationships. Some of their utterances have been simply ridiculous. The Communist Party actually called for an "end to redundancies and the nationalisation of shipbuilding". As if nationalisation ever meant anything less than the rationalisation of the labour force involving, as with British Rail and the Coal Board, large scale redundancies. Hugh Scanlon of the Engineers claimed that success for the UCS could mean the abolition of unemployment in Britain. Small wonder if workers remain convinced that their problems can be solved within capitalism. Scanlon should know that while production for profit remains, then so must unemployment in one degree or another. The "Militant" Trotskyists were outraged that the government sbould grant Yarrow's, which is outside the UCS,$4.5 million of "taxpayer's money". Apparently the taxes wbich are a burden on the capitalist class alone should be spent in a way Trotskyists approve of. We also bad the usual "appeals" for "soviets" plus howls that the imagined revolutionary situation was being betrayed by traitors, etc., etc.
Whatever the outcome on Clydeside the unpleasant fact remains that the production for profit system will still be with us. Even if the UCS workers realised their dearest wish to see the four yards remain as an integrated whole, production there as elsewhere must be subject to capitalism's economic laws - it must be profitable or, if under nationalisation, at least make the minimum of loss. This means that the process of removing as much unnecessary labour as possible must continue. Indeed, J. Reid, the men's spokesman, recognises this when he argues that by remaining together the yards would be "more viable" through a "lack of duplication in terms of marketing, design, research and many other factors" (Glasgow News 11 October). The avoidance of duplication is only achieved by sacking some of the workers concerned. So in order to be "more viable" the realities of capitalism - the need to produce cheaper ships to meet competition - must result in future sackings whether by the hand of the government or even by a shop steward's committee.
There is no way out of this. The fact is that in shipbuilding, just as in every other industry, the productive forces have outstripped the demand. True, there will be a continuing growth in the amount of tonnage required to meet the increasing volurne of world trade, but even a considerable increase in the demand for ships could not satisfy the present world capacity to produce them, so the contenders will still have to fight for a share in the market.
The Socialist Party of Great Britain will continue to urge workers everywhere to resist attacks made on their living standards by their employers. This is a basic necessity so long as capitalism lasts. At the same time we recognise such action to be purely defensive, besides never-ending, and which still leaves the factories, mines, shipyards, land, transportation systems, and the other places where wealth is produced, in the hands of the owning class. We therefore have organised politically to work to bring nearer the day when capitalism's inhumanity, waste and chaos will be swept away by the democratic action of the majority of the world's working class - the useful people.
Vic Vanni
(Socialist Standard, December 1971)
The following is an article written at the time of the UCS work-in.
A Report from the Clyde
At the time of writing the UCS situation is still unresolved. It would appear that the government's plans for Govan and Linthouse may be extended to include Scotstoun with the remaining division, Clydebank, possibly being sold to a private buyer encouraged by favourable government terms. This would give the workers concerned a respite, however temporary, and leave them still hoping - and we shall return to this - that a future Labour government will nationalise the whole Upper Clyde shipbuilding complex. Whatever happens it seems unlikely that the original proposals which meant a reduction of another 6,000 jobs and the closure of the Scotstoun and Clydebank yards will go through. It looks, then, as if the resistance put up by the men has been at least partially successful. Of course their actions have nothing to do with Socialism and fall within the confines of trade union activity, an activity which is and only can be defensive in nature.
Much ink has been spilled over these events and many opinions have been expressed on the "work-in" tactics employed in the struggle. Several alternative courses of action have been suggested, the most popular one being that a "sit-in" would be more productive. This would entail occupation of the yards with no work being done on the ships already under construction in the hope that the delay would force the government to capitulate. However, this would mean finding money to pay the entire workforce instead of, as at present, only the several hundred made redundant. As the weekly wage-bill for UCS amounts to £250,000 then it can be seen that the task of providing even half this sum each week would be a monumental one. Also, it is unlikely that such a tactic would have secured as much popular support as the work-in and doubtless the shop stewards' committee to ok these and other considerations into account. Then there is the possibility that a non-working sit-in would present the government with an excuse to clear the yards on the grounds that the men had no legitimate reason for being there.
It is heartening to see a group of workers refusing to passively accept the sack, but we deplore the repeated promises to work harder and give the fullest cooperation to their employers in future. Of course these promises may only be so many words and were, after all, the product of having had the unemployment gun held to their heads. At least they didn't meekly accept their fate or rely solely on appeals to Labourite and trade union leaders to save them. They took positive action on their own account.
It could be argued that since shipbuilding is, at least at present, unprofitable and is bound to be run-down anyway, then the redundant workers should bow to the inevitable, take their redundancy payments, if any, and get out. This view could be supported by pointing out that even if the UCS workforce could be maintained at its present level then this would probably be at the expense of shipyard workers elsewhere : more orders coming to the Clyde means less orders for Tyneside or Belfast. This, of course, is true but because the industry is declining there is already a high level of unemployment in shipbuilding on Clydeside, so the chances of finding work locally are poor.
For many it would mean uprooting their families to seek work in England or overseas. And it is unreasonable to expect workers who generally think production for sale at a profit (capitalism) is the only way to run society, to put first the interests of the whole working class - that will come when they are socialist minded and not before. They joined a trade union for the limited purpose of combining with their fellow members on a craft basis to protect their own interests. We recognise this and accordingly don't expect revolutionary policies from non-socialist trade unionists.
We also recognise that before men can have any views at all, political or otherwise, they must have access to the necessities of life. They must have sufficient food, cothing, shelter, and all the other things which have come to be regarded as making life tolerable. For most workers nowadays "necessities", or their current standard of living, aren't acquired by dole money. Living standards should rightly be measured in relation to the wealth of society. Despite all the talk about how well-off to-day's workers are, their wages only enable them to live in a state of relative poverty. Nevertheless, these wages at least prevent them sliding into destitution which for many is what dole money means. Besides, there is either the personal experience or the handed-down knowledge of what large scale unemployment can do to men, so they feel that their backs are to the wall and that they must unite to save their jobs.
In their fight to change the government's mind the men have an unrecognised ally - the fact that governments cannot simply ignore political, economic and social pressures. For example, the Tories must have been dismayed at the general response to the proposed sackings and closures; they cannot afford to lose too many votes between now and the next general election. Also, the consequences of such severe unemployment might well result in increased social problems like the break-up of families or a steep increase in the crime rate, and there have been local warnings to this effect. So factors like these could account in part for the softening of the government's attitude.
The whole UCS episode has once more thrown into relief the utter hopelessness of the "left-wing". They have offered every solution under the sun but the real one; they will talk about absolutely anything except production for use and the abolition of exchange relationships. Some of their utterances have been simply ridiculous. The Communist Party actually called for an "end to redundancies and the nationalisation of shipbuilding". As if nationalisation ever meant anything less than the rationalisation of the labour force involving, as with British Rail and the Coal Board, large scale redundancies. Hugh Scanlon of the Engineers claimed that success for the UCS could mean the abolition of unemployment in Britain. Small wonder if workers remain convinced that their problems can be solved within capitalism. Scanlon should know that while production for profit remains, then so must unemployment in one degree or another. The "Militant" Trotskyists were outraged that the government sbould grant Yarrow's, which is outside the UCS,$4.5 million of "taxpayer's money". Apparently the taxes wbich are a burden on the capitalist class alone should be spent in a way Trotskyists approve of. We also bad the usual "appeals" for "soviets" plus howls that the imagined revolutionary situation was being betrayed by traitors, etc., etc.
Whatever the outcome on Clydeside the unpleasant fact remains that the production for profit system will still be with us. Even if the UCS workers realised their dearest wish to see the four yards remain as an integrated whole, production there as elsewhere must be subject to capitalism's economic laws - it must be profitable or, if under nationalisation, at least make the minimum of loss. This means that the process of removing as much unnecessary labour as possible must continue. Indeed, J. Reid, the men's spokesman, recognises this when he argues that by remaining together the yards would be "more viable" through a "lack of duplication in terms of marketing, design, research and many other factors" (Glasgow News 11 October). The avoidance of duplication is only achieved by sacking some of the workers concerned. So in order to be "more viable" the realities of capitalism - the need to produce cheaper ships to meet competition - must result in future sackings whether by the hand of the government or even by a shop steward's committee.
There is no way out of this. The fact is that in shipbuilding, just as in every other industry, the productive forces have outstripped the demand. True, there will be a continuing growth in the amount of tonnage required to meet the increasing volurne of world trade, but even a considerable increase in the demand for ships could not satisfy the present world capacity to produce them, so the contenders will still have to fight for a share in the market.
The Socialist Party of Great Britain will continue to urge workers everywhere to resist attacks made on their living standards by their employers. This is a basic necessity so long as capitalism lasts. At the same time we recognise such action to be purely defensive, besides never-ending, and which still leaves the factories, mines, shipyards, land, transportation systems, and the other places where wealth is produced, in the hands of the owning class. We therefore have organised politically to work to bring nearer the day when capitalism's inhumanity, waste and chaos will be swept away by the democratic action of the majority of the world's working class - the useful people.
Vic Vanni
(Socialist Standard, December 1971)
A sick country
A team of researchers analysing 1.75 million people in Scotland found that nearly a quarter had two or more chronic diseases.
Rising numbers of people are living with more than two long-term disorders, called "multimorbidity", which could include coronary heart disease, diabetes, cancer, stroke and depression. In general, people with multimorbidity are more likely to live in deprived areas and have a poorer quality of life. Their care is fragmented because they see a number of different specialists. "Existing approaches need to be complemented by support for the work of generalists, providing continuity, co-ordination, and above all a personal approach for people with multimorbidity." explained the report
The study of nearly two million patients registered with 314 medical practices in Scotland showed that people living in the most deprived areas were particularly affected by long-term physical and mental disorders. These disorders were more common among poorer communities and occurred 10-to-15 years earlier than among those living in affluent areas.
Dr Chris Salisbury, from the School of Social and Community Medicine at the University of Bristol, said GPs in more deprived areas should have lower caseloads to account for higher levels of multiple morbidity.
Rising numbers of people are living with more than two long-term disorders, called "multimorbidity", which could include coronary heart disease, diabetes, cancer, stroke and depression. In general, people with multimorbidity are more likely to live in deprived areas and have a poorer quality of life. Their care is fragmented because they see a number of different specialists. "Existing approaches need to be complemented by support for the work of generalists, providing continuity, co-ordination, and above all a personal approach for people with multimorbidity." explained the report
The study of nearly two million patients registered with 314 medical practices in Scotland showed that people living in the most deprived areas were particularly affected by long-term physical and mental disorders. These disorders were more common among poorer communities and occurred 10-to-15 years earlier than among those living in affluent areas.
Dr Chris Salisbury, from the School of Social and Community Medicine at the University of Bristol, said GPs in more deprived areas should have lower caseloads to account for higher levels of multiple morbidity.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
RICHER, RICHER AND RICHER
The extreme wealth of the owning class is hardly a secret. Indeed the owning class are so confident of the slavish acceptance of this wealth gap by the working class, that they flaunt their extravagancies for all the world to see. "The combined wealth of the 1,000 richest men and women in Britain has risen to record levels in the past year, despite the country's continuing economic slump. .... Their total fortune has risen by just under five per cent since 2011, to £414 billion, according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List." (Daily Telegraph, 28 April) Those members of the owning class who form this exclusive 1,000 club have nothing to fear as long as the exploited accept capitalism as the natural order of things. RD
BARGAINS GALORE
The forthcoming Olympic Games offers an excellent opportunity for British estate agents to coin in the cash. This is especially true for the high end of the market as this item in the US press highlights. "The travel service Lloyd and Townsend Rose rents high-end homes and, well, castles throughout Britain at rates starting at roughly £25,000 (about $39,500) a week. ... For many visitors, the Olympic Games are the activity of interest this summer, and Lloyd and Townsend Rose has a portfolio of properties just for them. Its "London Olympics Accommodation" promises properties within an hour of where the Games take place, in Stratford, or in London. One, on Ladbroke Road, could be considered a bargain. This four-bedroom, four-bathroom home in Notting Hill includes a live-in maid and two parking spaces at a price of £20,000 a week. Don't expect to see anybody camping in this garden." (New York Times, 25 April) They well may consider it "a bargain", but at £20,000 a week it represents the annual income of many workers in Britain. RD
THE UNCARING SOCIETY
As the government looks for more and more ways to cut support for the sick, the elderly and the disabled recent figures show how it is affecting voluntary carers. "Almost six in 10 admitted that taking care of vulnerable family members had put them under so much stress and strain it caused depression, anxiety and nervous breakdowns. The same number said their caring responsibilities had harmed their careers, research by the newly-formed Carers Trust found. There are about six million unpaid carers in Britain looking after older parents or disabled children." (Daily Express, 8 May) Capitalism always seeks to cut overheads to increase profits and caring is just not one of its priorities. RD
Strike to defend pay and pensions
Tens of thousands of Scottish workers will be on strike today protesting at government pension reforms. Departments affected include Jobcentres, tax and benefit offices, courts, coastguards, Historic Scotland venues such as Edinburgh Castle and Stirling Castle, and civilian workers at the Faslane nuclear base and the Scottish Parliament. Some health workers, mainly porters and technicians from the Unite union, are also expected to take action.
PCS Scottish Secretary, Lynn Henderson, said the changes, which appeared in April's pay packets for the first time, were costing some members up to £150 a month.
STUC general secretary Graeme Smith said the action demonstrated the frustration people were feeling. "People feel aggrieved at being asked to pay more, having to work longer and get less at the end of the day," he said.
We are being told practically every day that we are living in hard times and that we must be prepared to tighten our belts. Longer working lives, lower pensions and more unemployment are the prospects for the working class. Socialists recognise the necessity of workers' solidarity in the class struggle defending pay and pensions against the capitalist class.
It's simple really.Your pension is your wage deferred until you retire. And we need to be very clear. Lowering pension levels and raising the retirement age are cuts in real pay. That there is at present a "problem" once more proves that the market economy is incapable of going beyond the limits of the wages system. That capitalism cannot adequately provide for the needs of the class that creates all the wealth in the first place and it cannot offer us security in the long run.
Unions cannot work miracles. Unions cannot make revolutions. What is required in addition to trade union action is socialist political action.
If you accept the logic of capitalism, you play by its rules – and by its rules, government cuts are just necessary and inevitable. By its rules, to fight against the cuts and for higher wages is as senseless as trying to shake fruit from a dead tree. Without a decent anti-capitalist argument, and an idea of what we are for, we've lost before we’ve begun. That’s why socialism is so important. Yes, it is, as we are often told, a ‘nice idea’. But when it takes hold of workers, it could become much more than that.
PCS Scottish Secretary, Lynn Henderson, said the changes, which appeared in April's pay packets for the first time, were costing some members up to £150 a month.
STUC general secretary Graeme Smith said the action demonstrated the frustration people were feeling. "People feel aggrieved at being asked to pay more, having to work longer and get less at the end of the day," he said.
We are being told practically every day that we are living in hard times and that we must be prepared to tighten our belts. Longer working lives, lower pensions and more unemployment are the prospects for the working class. Socialists recognise the necessity of workers' solidarity in the class struggle defending pay and pensions against the capitalist class.
It's simple really.Your pension is your wage deferred until you retire. And we need to be very clear. Lowering pension levels and raising the retirement age are cuts in real pay. That there is at present a "problem" once more proves that the market economy is incapable of going beyond the limits of the wages system. That capitalism cannot adequately provide for the needs of the class that creates all the wealth in the first place and it cannot offer us security in the long run.
Unions cannot work miracles. Unions cannot make revolutions. What is required in addition to trade union action is socialist political action.
If you accept the logic of capitalism, you play by its rules – and by its rules, government cuts are just necessary and inevitable. By its rules, to fight against the cuts and for higher wages is as senseless as trying to shake fruit from a dead tree. Without a decent anti-capitalist argument, and an idea of what we are for, we've lost before we’ve begun. That’s why socialism is so important. Yes, it is, as we are often told, a ‘nice idea’. But when it takes hold of workers, it could become much more than that.
Blast from the Past
Bill Knox, a one time member of Edinburgh branch of the SPGB, produces some interesting facts from the 19th and early 20thcentury
The Inequality
In Scotland in 1867 by 10% of the population received over 50% of national income. Those in the top 1% of income earners annually received 200 times more than the bottom 30%. Some of these men were fabulously rich, with industrialists such as ironmaster James Baird leaving an estate worth £1,190,868 on his death in 1876. The uneven distribution of wealth is also shown in the fact that only 12% of Scots had estates worth making a will for in 1881, and that the yearly wage for a well-paid skilled worker, such as a compositor, only amounted to £78 in 1880. The skilled worker would have had to have worked for over 15,000 years before he could have earned what Baird left on his death.
The super-rich were followed by the substantial middle classes whose average annual income was around £145 in 1867. They enjoyed a lifestyle which revolved around work, family and the kirk. Although they did not enjoy the social trappings of the super-rich, which included lavish houses and country estates, they experienced all this on reduced scale. What marked them out from the rest of Scottish society was servant-keeping. Over 55% of female workers in Edinburgh in 1871, although somewhat less in Dundee and Glasgow, were employed as domestic servants.
By the 1890s the picture might have seemed rosy: economic growth was inducing complementary improvements in the standard of living which, in turn, was actively transforming the social experiences of the Scottish people. However, much of this was a delusion.
Between 1901 to 1910 net emigration was running at the equivalent of 52% of the natural increase in the population, or some 282,000 people. Although many of the emigrants were from the Lowland towns, the numbers leaving the Highlands were still significant. The collapse of the fishing industry in the 1880s had impoverished many crofters and they were unable to afford the rents on their crofts. This led to rent strikes and land grabbing and provoked retaliatory measures in the form of evictions by the landlords. The result was the Crofters' Wars of the mid-1880s. The Highlands and Islands remained poor, with agricultural wages in 1907 13% below the British average. As much as 34% of the total land area of the crofting counties of the Scottish Highlands was given over to deer stalking in 1914. Hunting lodges proliferated costing anything between £10,000-£70,000 for the more palatial to £3,000-£6,000 for the more modest. Although activity in this respect created employment for builders and gamekeepers, the gains were more than offset by the decline in the number of shepherds. Spending was of little benefit to local suppliers as the rich brought their supplies of food and wine from Glasgow or London. As one contemporary put it, the popularity of deer stalking turned the Highlands into the happy hunting grounds of the rich.
In spite of reform in 1845, the Poor Law still discriminated against the able-bodied poor. Under the 'Law of Settlement' the Irish were singled out for particularly harsh treatment, with regular deportations. Spending on the poor was also parsimonious. Expenditure increased from £740,000 in 1864 to £1,600,000 in 1914, but this was still grossly deficient in relation to need. It was also less than expenditure in England. Indeed, the latter on average spent a third more on its poor than Scotland did. For those in work outside the skilled trades the picture was not much better. Women earned much less than men and there was a large gulf between the skilled and unskilled worker.
The Slums
An indicator of poverty - the infant mortality rate - increased as the 19th century wore on. The rate increased from 118 per 1,000 live births in the period 1854-1859 to 122 in 1904- 1905; a figure much higher than that for England and Wales. This was primarily the result of poverty but it also had an obvious connection with housing conditions. In Glasgow 32% of all children who died before the age of five in the late 1890s lived in one apartment houses. The 1861 census had showed that 34% of all Scottish housing consisted of only one room - the 'single end' - and a further 37% consisted of two rooms. Fifty years later the census showed that while the number of people living in one-roomed houses declined to 13% of the total, the number of those living in two-roomed houses remained high at 41% of the total. Of course, in the large cities the situation was much worse. Glasgow still had two-thirds of its population in this type of cramped accommodation, as did Dundee. A survey of Edinburgh in 1913 revealed that there were over 7,000 one-roomed houses, of which 94% shared a common water closet and 43% a common sink. In Glasgow there were 44,345 such houses and of these 93% shared a toilet, but most had their own sink. The position was not much better in Glasgow's 111,451 two-roomed houses as 62% of them shared a toilet. There was a need for good quality public sector housing let at rents people could afford, but the dominance of property owners and their interests on town councils blocked such a move. The public health measures introduced in the large urban centres in the 1850s and 60s were ignored by smaller towns and villages. Lochgelly in Fife in 1867 had two toilets for a population of 2,000. Sewage was thrown on the streets where it seeped through the ground surface into a mine well from which the public water supply was drawn.
Lloyd George's election slogan 'Homes fit for Heroes' led to the passing of the Addison Act of 1919. This began a programme of house building in the public sector. Local authority building in Scotland was responsible for over 50% of new housing in 1934, while in England it was only around 20% which was to intensify after the 2nd World War and leave Scotland in the 60s with a higher state ownership of housing than most Eastern Bloc countries. However, in spite of the general expansion of the public sector, it was still a fact that most of the population of the leading cities were living in one or two roomed houses, with Dundee and Glasgow by far the worse. Those in most need of re-housing were put off applying for a new council house because of the high cost. In Dundee the yearly cost in 1926 of a four apartment house on the Craigiebank estate was estimated to be 52% of the average textile wage, and a three apartment at the Logie estate was 46%. As a result most of the new tenants tended to be from the white collar or the skilled working class.
The 'Godless Poor'
A survey carried out in 1900 showed that the unskilled did not attend church in large numbers. In mining areas evangelists found it difficult to win converts; in industrial Hamilton the presbytery found that from one-fifth to a half of Protestant families did not attend church in the 1890s. Ten years earlier in one area of Glasgow noted for its unskilled working population only two out of every seven men surveyed had any connection with the church. In spite of the abolition of pew rents, the working class was still alienated from the church and its ministry. The exception was the Catholic Church.
Religion divided Scotland on sectarian lines. Catholic Irish families suffered from the prejudices of presbyterian Scotland. They were depicted by the media and the pulpit as uncivilised and drunken, idle and lazy. The same did not apply to Irish Protestants who migrated in large numbers in the 1870s and 1880s to Clydeside. The growing large Irish Protestant population increased religious tensions as they brought their Orange Lodges with them. By 1913-1914 Glasgow had 107 Orange Lodges out of a total of 400 for the whole of the United Kingdom, and certain occupations, such as boilermaking, were recruited for on a religious basis. Prejudice and discrimination combined to keep the Catholic Irish at the bottom of the heap. Insecurity fuelled sectarianism rivalries. Reacting to the decision in 1918 to provide for Catholic schooling out of local taxation, the Protestant churches led a racist anti-Irish Catholic crusade. In 1923 the Church of Scotland issued a pamphlet condemning the Irish as a 'menace' to the Scottish race and kept up a stream of anti-Irish propaganda throughout the 1920s. This set the tone for more extremist Protestant organisations to make headway as the economic depression grew worse after 1929. At a time when the main churches were losing members in droves, the Scottish Protestant League in Glasgow and the Protestant Action Society in Edinburgh made spectacular gains in local elections, with the latter also carrying out a policy of attacking and harassing Catholic gatherings. Glasgow also faced the problem of sectarian gang warfare which emanated from football. The Billy Boys supported Rangers, while their rivals the Norman Conks identified with Celtic.
The Inequality
In Scotland in 1867 by 10% of the population received over 50% of national income. Those in the top 1% of income earners annually received 200 times more than the bottom 30%. Some of these men were fabulously rich, with industrialists such as ironmaster James Baird leaving an estate worth £1,190,868 on his death in 1876. The uneven distribution of wealth is also shown in the fact that only 12% of Scots had estates worth making a will for in 1881, and that the yearly wage for a well-paid skilled worker, such as a compositor, only amounted to £78 in 1880. The skilled worker would have had to have worked for over 15,000 years before he could have earned what Baird left on his death.
The super-rich were followed by the substantial middle classes whose average annual income was around £145 in 1867. They enjoyed a lifestyle which revolved around work, family and the kirk. Although they did not enjoy the social trappings of the super-rich, which included lavish houses and country estates, they experienced all this on reduced scale. What marked them out from the rest of Scottish society was servant-keeping. Over 55% of female workers in Edinburgh in 1871, although somewhat less in Dundee and Glasgow, were employed as domestic servants.
By the 1890s the picture might have seemed rosy: economic growth was inducing complementary improvements in the standard of living which, in turn, was actively transforming the social experiences of the Scottish people. However, much of this was a delusion.
Between 1901 to 1910 net emigration was running at the equivalent of 52% of the natural increase in the population, or some 282,000 people. Although many of the emigrants were from the Lowland towns, the numbers leaving the Highlands were still significant. The collapse of the fishing industry in the 1880s had impoverished many crofters and they were unable to afford the rents on their crofts. This led to rent strikes and land grabbing and provoked retaliatory measures in the form of evictions by the landlords. The result was the Crofters' Wars of the mid-1880s. The Highlands and Islands remained poor, with agricultural wages in 1907 13% below the British average. As much as 34% of the total land area of the crofting counties of the Scottish Highlands was given over to deer stalking in 1914. Hunting lodges proliferated costing anything between £10,000-£70,000 for the more palatial to £3,000-£6,000 for the more modest. Although activity in this respect created employment for builders and gamekeepers, the gains were more than offset by the decline in the number of shepherds. Spending was of little benefit to local suppliers as the rich brought their supplies of food and wine from Glasgow or London. As one contemporary put it, the popularity of deer stalking turned the Highlands into the happy hunting grounds of the rich.
In spite of reform in 1845, the Poor Law still discriminated against the able-bodied poor. Under the 'Law of Settlement' the Irish were singled out for particularly harsh treatment, with regular deportations. Spending on the poor was also parsimonious. Expenditure increased from £740,000 in 1864 to £1,600,000 in 1914, but this was still grossly deficient in relation to need. It was also less than expenditure in England. Indeed, the latter on average spent a third more on its poor than Scotland did. For those in work outside the skilled trades the picture was not much better. Women earned much less than men and there was a large gulf between the skilled and unskilled worker.
The Slums
An indicator of poverty - the infant mortality rate - increased as the 19th century wore on. The rate increased from 118 per 1,000 live births in the period 1854-1859 to 122 in 1904- 1905; a figure much higher than that for England and Wales. This was primarily the result of poverty but it also had an obvious connection with housing conditions. In Glasgow 32% of all children who died before the age of five in the late 1890s lived in one apartment houses. The 1861 census had showed that 34% of all Scottish housing consisted of only one room - the 'single end' - and a further 37% consisted of two rooms. Fifty years later the census showed that while the number of people living in one-roomed houses declined to 13% of the total, the number of those living in two-roomed houses remained high at 41% of the total. Of course, in the large cities the situation was much worse. Glasgow still had two-thirds of its population in this type of cramped accommodation, as did Dundee. A survey of Edinburgh in 1913 revealed that there were over 7,000 one-roomed houses, of which 94% shared a common water closet and 43% a common sink. In Glasgow there were 44,345 such houses and of these 93% shared a toilet, but most had their own sink. The position was not much better in Glasgow's 111,451 two-roomed houses as 62% of them shared a toilet. There was a need for good quality public sector housing let at rents people could afford, but the dominance of property owners and their interests on town councils blocked such a move. The public health measures introduced in the large urban centres in the 1850s and 60s were ignored by smaller towns and villages. Lochgelly in Fife in 1867 had two toilets for a population of 2,000. Sewage was thrown on the streets where it seeped through the ground surface into a mine well from which the public water supply was drawn.
Lloyd George's election slogan 'Homes fit for Heroes' led to the passing of the Addison Act of 1919. This began a programme of house building in the public sector. Local authority building in Scotland was responsible for over 50% of new housing in 1934, while in England it was only around 20% which was to intensify after the 2nd World War and leave Scotland in the 60s with a higher state ownership of housing than most Eastern Bloc countries. However, in spite of the general expansion of the public sector, it was still a fact that most of the population of the leading cities were living in one or two roomed houses, with Dundee and Glasgow by far the worse. Those in most need of re-housing were put off applying for a new council house because of the high cost. In Dundee the yearly cost in 1926 of a four apartment house on the Craigiebank estate was estimated to be 52% of the average textile wage, and a three apartment at the Logie estate was 46%. As a result most of the new tenants tended to be from the white collar or the skilled working class.
The 'Godless Poor'
A survey carried out in 1900 showed that the unskilled did not attend church in large numbers. In mining areas evangelists found it difficult to win converts; in industrial Hamilton the presbytery found that from one-fifth to a half of Protestant families did not attend church in the 1890s. Ten years earlier in one area of Glasgow noted for its unskilled working population only two out of every seven men surveyed had any connection with the church. In spite of the abolition of pew rents, the working class was still alienated from the church and its ministry. The exception was the Catholic Church.
Religion divided Scotland on sectarian lines. Catholic Irish families suffered from the prejudices of presbyterian Scotland. They were depicted by the media and the pulpit as uncivilised and drunken, idle and lazy. The same did not apply to Irish Protestants who migrated in large numbers in the 1870s and 1880s to Clydeside. The growing large Irish Protestant population increased religious tensions as they brought their Orange Lodges with them. By 1913-1914 Glasgow had 107 Orange Lodges out of a total of 400 for the whole of the United Kingdom, and certain occupations, such as boilermaking, were recruited for on a religious basis. Prejudice and discrimination combined to keep the Catholic Irish at the bottom of the heap. Insecurity fuelled sectarianism rivalries. Reacting to the decision in 1918 to provide for Catholic schooling out of local taxation, the Protestant churches led a racist anti-Irish Catholic crusade. In 1923 the Church of Scotland issued a pamphlet condemning the Irish as a 'menace' to the Scottish race and kept up a stream of anti-Irish propaganda throughout the 1920s. This set the tone for more extremist Protestant organisations to make headway as the economic depression grew worse after 1929. At a time when the main churches were losing members in droves, the Scottish Protestant League in Glasgow and the Protestant Action Society in Edinburgh made spectacular gains in local elections, with the latter also carrying out a policy of attacking and harassing Catholic gatherings. Glasgow also faced the problem of sectarian gang warfare which emanated from football. The Billy Boys supported Rangers, while their rivals the Norman Conks identified with Celtic.
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
THE PAY RISES THAT AREN'T
One of the illusions beloved by supporters of capitalism is that while the system isn't perfect at least there is a steady improvement of conditions. The Income Data Services has come up with figures that prove that is complete nonsense. "Of Britain's 29.million-strong workforce around 80 per cent, or 23.1million, work in the private sector. The vast majority of these received a pay rise which failed to keep pace with inflation, said the report by pay experts Incomes Data Services (IDS). It said the average pay rise between January and March was 3 per cent, compared with inflation at 3.5 per cent. And 8 per cent of workers, typically those working in the manufacturing, construction or not-for-profit sectors, saw pay frozen." (Daily Mail, 8 May) RD
THE PLIGHT OF THE ELDERLY
It is only one case amongst thousands of how elderly men and women of the working class are treated, but it highlights the daily experience of workers everywhere. "A health board has been ordered to apologise to the family of an elderly man sent home from hospital in winter in his shirt, trousers, dressing gown and one slipper. David Spelman, 85, had hip replacement surgery at the Southern General in Glasgow after a fall in February 2011. Days after being discharged he fell again and died shortly afterwards." (BBC News, 8 May) An apology from the health board may satisfy some jobsworthy official somewhere, but for socialist this is just another reason why we must have socialism now. RD
The Free Colliers - the original Bravehearts
Continuing our little bit of Scots history
Until the end of the 18th century the Scottish collier was a serf, bound in servitude to his master, the coal owner, almost as tightly as any slave on the cotton plantations of the Americas. Although he could not actually be sold as an individual, he and his family were ranked with any other article attached to the colliery to be bought and sold along with lengths of rail or stacks of timber. Once bound to a pit they had no right to move to another place of work and could be brought back to face severe punishment if they tried. Many did just that and were returned in manacles to face the wrath of the owners. Convicted criminals, beggars and other homeless people were gifted as 'perpetual servants' to the masters and, children born to collier families were, on payment by the owner of a small sum of money, bound like their fathers to the owner and his pit for life. No surprise then that few outsiders would volunteer to join the ranks to labour in Scotland's dangerous pits even when the industrial revolution increased demand for coal and pushed up wages. It was with a good deal of reluctance that the colliers were granted their freedom in grudging stages, first the new recruits in 1775 and twenty four years later the whole workforce.
But their new found freedom did not bring justice.
In the early decades of the 19th century conditions in Scotland's mines were deplorable with women and small children working long hours alongside the men in dark, cramped and dangerous conditions. Attempts by the colliers across the country to organise into trade unions were strenuously opposed by the authorities and the owners and even the repeal of the laws forbidding union activity did not protect workers and their families from the threat of dismissal for taking action or encouraging others to do the same. In 1856 the coal owners combined to reduce the colliers' wages from five to four shillings per day and a widespread strike followed. In the Falkirk area the Redding (In 1923 40 miners lost their lives in a pit disaster) colliers took the lead and on more than one occasion troops and special constables were sent to the area to disperse marches and demonstrations. Amid great hardship the strike dragged on for twelve weeks before the defeated colliers returned to work for the lower rate. Similarly, in the early 1860s, the establishment of a General Association of the Operative Coal and Ironstone Miners, Reddsmen and Drawers* in Lanarkshire was crushed by an employers' lockout which lasted for six weeks and ended in a humiliating return to work and reduced wages. * reddsmen clear the way for the colliers, drawers transported the coal.
Soon after the anniversary of the Battle of Falkirk which had been fought near their homes in 1298 colliers they began an annual march from pit to pit under the banner of their hero, William Wallace, to the spot near their village, the Wallace Stone, where he is said to have viewed the battle. Such associations or brotherhoods among the miners were not unusual at the time but the annual demonstration and the association with Wallace marked out the Redding colliers from the rest.
It was obvious that a new defence was needed to mobilise the colliers and reassert their rights and this came about the following year. In 1863, at Redding, James Simpson who had been a trade union activist in the area before and during the 1856 strike, realised that he had in the annual William Wallace marchers a ready made army of volunteers, and on February 3rd he and his colleagues constituted themselves as the first Lodge of Free Colliers pledged to take up the struggle. Within nine months there were lodges in Slamannan and Bo'ness and the movement spread to the Lanarkshire and Ayrshire coalfields. By the end of the following year there were sixty-five lodges in a network covering the whole Scottish coalfield and uniting miners by the thousand. Some areas like Stirlingshire and Lanarkshire were more enthusiastic than Fife and Midlothian but no area was without its lodge. The lodges usually bore the name of a Scottish noble from the romantically remembered past - John de Graeme and Robert Bruce, the Lord Andrew Moray and the Young Boswell, the Duke of Gordon and the Sir William Baillie
One of the weaknesses of previous union activity had been its openness, which the masters had exploited. Many miners claimed they were frightened to speak out at open meetings for fear of their employers. To ensure that the actions of the Free Colliers remained secret and the new lodges adopted many of the trappings of freemasonry, binding each to the other by oaths of loyalty and using coded signs and language to preserve their unity and secrecy. Simpson himself became Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland.
The actions of some of the Free Collier lodges especially in the west of Scotland led to considerable internal argument and many union members outside the movement felt that the secrecy associated with the lodges could be counter productive. Their very Scottishness was seen by many as potentially devisive in an industry where a growing number of the colliers were immigrant Irishmen and where solidarity of all workers was essential. The Free Colliers insisted that their ranks were open to all miners but hostility and suspicion remained. Just four years after their birth Free Collier membership began to decline and many of the lodges which had bloomed so quickly began to wither away. In east Stirlingshire, in the last of the lodges, the role of representation passed and eventually to the National Union of Mineworkers.
http://www.falkirklocalhistorysociety.co.uk/home/index.php?id=98
Until the end of the 18th century the Scottish collier was a serf, bound in servitude to his master, the coal owner, almost as tightly as any slave on the cotton plantations of the Americas. Although he could not actually be sold as an individual, he and his family were ranked with any other article attached to the colliery to be bought and sold along with lengths of rail or stacks of timber. Once bound to a pit they had no right to move to another place of work and could be brought back to face severe punishment if they tried. Many did just that and were returned in manacles to face the wrath of the owners. Convicted criminals, beggars and other homeless people were gifted as 'perpetual servants' to the masters and, children born to collier families were, on payment by the owner of a small sum of money, bound like their fathers to the owner and his pit for life. No surprise then that few outsiders would volunteer to join the ranks to labour in Scotland's dangerous pits even when the industrial revolution increased demand for coal and pushed up wages. It was with a good deal of reluctance that the colliers were granted their freedom in grudging stages, first the new recruits in 1775 and twenty four years later the whole workforce.
But their new found freedom did not bring justice.
In the early decades of the 19th century conditions in Scotland's mines were deplorable with women and small children working long hours alongside the men in dark, cramped and dangerous conditions. Attempts by the colliers across the country to organise into trade unions were strenuously opposed by the authorities and the owners and even the repeal of the laws forbidding union activity did not protect workers and their families from the threat of dismissal for taking action or encouraging others to do the same. In 1856 the coal owners combined to reduce the colliers' wages from five to four shillings per day and a widespread strike followed. In the Falkirk area the Redding (In 1923 40 miners lost their lives in a pit disaster) colliers took the lead and on more than one occasion troops and special constables were sent to the area to disperse marches and demonstrations. Amid great hardship the strike dragged on for twelve weeks before the defeated colliers returned to work for the lower rate. Similarly, in the early 1860s, the establishment of a General Association of the Operative Coal and Ironstone Miners, Reddsmen and Drawers* in Lanarkshire was crushed by an employers' lockout which lasted for six weeks and ended in a humiliating return to work and reduced wages. * reddsmen clear the way for the colliers, drawers transported the coal.
Soon after the anniversary of the Battle of Falkirk which had been fought near their homes in 1298 colliers they began an annual march from pit to pit under the banner of their hero, William Wallace, to the spot near their village, the Wallace Stone, where he is said to have viewed the battle. Such associations or brotherhoods among the miners were not unusual at the time but the annual demonstration and the association with Wallace marked out the Redding colliers from the rest.
It was obvious that a new defence was needed to mobilise the colliers and reassert their rights and this came about the following year. In 1863, at Redding, James Simpson who had been a trade union activist in the area before and during the 1856 strike, realised that he had in the annual William Wallace marchers a ready made army of volunteers, and on February 3rd he and his colleagues constituted themselves as the first Lodge of Free Colliers pledged to take up the struggle. Within nine months there were lodges in Slamannan and Bo'ness and the movement spread to the Lanarkshire and Ayrshire coalfields. By the end of the following year there were sixty-five lodges in a network covering the whole Scottish coalfield and uniting miners by the thousand. Some areas like Stirlingshire and Lanarkshire were more enthusiastic than Fife and Midlothian but no area was without its lodge. The lodges usually bore the name of a Scottish noble from the romantically remembered past - John de Graeme and Robert Bruce, the Lord Andrew Moray and the Young Boswell, the Duke of Gordon and the Sir William Baillie
One of the weaknesses of previous union activity had been its openness, which the masters had exploited. Many miners claimed they were frightened to speak out at open meetings for fear of their employers. To ensure that the actions of the Free Colliers remained secret and the new lodges adopted many of the trappings of freemasonry, binding each to the other by oaths of loyalty and using coded signs and language to preserve their unity and secrecy. Simpson himself became Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland.
The actions of some of the Free Collier lodges especially in the west of Scotland led to considerable internal argument and many union members outside the movement felt that the secrecy associated with the lodges could be counter productive. Their very Scottishness was seen by many as potentially devisive in an industry where a growing number of the colliers were immigrant Irishmen and where solidarity of all workers was essential. The Free Colliers insisted that their ranks were open to all miners but hostility and suspicion remained. Just four years after their birth Free Collier membership began to decline and many of the lodges which had bloomed so quickly began to wither away. In east Stirlingshire, in the last of the lodges, the role of representation passed and eventually to the National Union of Mineworkers.
http://www.falkirklocalhistorysociety.co.uk/home/index.php?id=98
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
SEVENTY FIVE AND OUT
Dreams of rocking chair contentment in retirement may be the goal for many workers but capitalism's reality could well shatter that notion. "Millions of workers will be forced to work past the age of 75 because they are in the dark on how much they need to save for a comfortable retirement. The Pensions Policy Institute, which carried out the research, said that people were not saving enough, although living longer, volatile stock markets and plunging annuity rates were also to blame. Its research found that 45 per cent of people over the age of 50s would have to work for an extra 11 years past the state pension age, currently 65, if they wanted to live a comfortable retirement." (Daily Telegraph, 25 April) After a lifetime of exploitation and insecurity most workers will not attain their retirement aims. RD
AFRICAN CAPITALISM
The popular image of Africa as being a backward, poverty-stricken continent does not apply to the fabulously wealthy owning class of that continent."Aliko Dangote is the richest man in Africa. He dwarfs diamond kings, telecom giants and oil magnates, and his estimated $11.2-billion net worth is four times that of Oprah Winfrey's. His only rival on Forbes' global list of black billionaires is a Saudi of Yemeni-Ethiopian parentage who recently nudged Dangote from the top spot, thanks to a decline in Nigeria's stock exchange." (Los Angels Times, 25 April) With Europe in crisis and America's recovery sluggish, Africa is an economic bright spot. Nigeria's economy has grown about 7% a year in recent years, just behind Ethiopia, Angola and Ghana. Capitalism is an international system and its class divisions between the immensely rich and the working class are world-wide too. RD
Scottish common ownership
Scotland has a tradition of common property rights. They include rights arising from commonties, grazing rights, peat-cutting rights, salmon rights, rights to use harbours and foreshore, mineral rights, sporting use rights, ownership rights, rights to usufruct, rights of access to resources and rights of passage over land and inland water. Commonty in Scots Law means; a piece of land in which two or more persons have a common right. A widespread example of such common property is living in
a tenement. Those who own or rent a flat also hold other parts of the
property, e.g. the stairs or close (and have its common responsibility -
your turn to clean the stairs!) and access to the communal back-garden It does not mean state-owned or public-land but could be parish/burgh land.
It is estimated that half the land area of Scotland was still common land in 1500. They provided areas of free access. It was not a "free for all" but their use was covered by sets of rules that were well established and understood locally. No-one could make financial profit. The resources of the commonty were solely for personal uses, and individuals could not, for instance, cut timber for sale or rent grazing to someone else. By the mid 19th century, virtually all this common land had been divided into the private property of neighbouring land owners. Subsistence farming could not survive without access to the resources that the commons traditionally supplied and their loss was a major factor in forcing local people to abandon the way of life that had sustained generations before them and join the mass of people leaving the Scottish countryside. "Ferm touns" or collective farm settlements, of Scotland’s subsistence agriculture, which survived in northern areas into the 19th century, were a traditional arrangement that typically could not have survived without the resources provided by a commonty which provided many of the resources needed by a community at no cost apart from the inhabitants’ own labour. The commonty also offered a degree of flexibility to meet fluctuations in population or food supply, that was not possible within the formal restrictions of privately held land. The image of commonties as barren wastes was the perspective of the land-owning class, who were seeking to do away with commonties and the "ferm touns" they served.
A green is a small area of common land usually closely associated with a settlement, whether a town or village or single clachan. These greens provided an area where cows could be milked, markets and other events held, garments bleached and a host of other common and communal activities carried out. The greens associated with many fishing communities were used for the drying and repairing of nets, the salting and drying of fish and other related activities. One specific type of green were the overnight and river crossing stances associated with traditional routes and drove roads.
A loan was a common route through private property to and from an area of common land or some other ‘public’ place. The distinction between this and a right of way was that the loan was itself common land and not just a right of use. Their former existence of others is indicated by street and place names, like Loanhead.
A moss is a wet area where peats can be dug and historically many were used in common by local inhabitants. Common mosses were the same form of shared property. The common status of surviving common mosses has often gone unnoticed because they have been of relatively little use since the decline of peat cutting in the eastern and central Highlands.
Rigs were narrow strips of cultivated land, sometimes up to around 15 metres wide. Traditionally, adjacent rigs were used by different cultivators and the rigs periodically re-allocated between them. This system was known as runrig. Lands lying runrig were invariably associated with an area of rough ground or hill land that was also shared in common. These two types of land were the longstanding basis of farming in Scotland before the Improvements of the 18th and 19th centuries. Originally, many areas of runrig, together with their shared hill ground, were held by two or more proprietors. Each owned a number of rigs, which were interspersed with the rigs of the other owners and each owner had an undivided share of the ownership of the common hill. The common hill was thus a commonty and the runrig lands equivalent to a commonty on arable land.(Bishopbriggs was originally Bishoprigs)
Burghs were established in Scotland from the 12th century. The creation of Royal Burghs was to provide the Crown with a convenient counter-balance to a feudal aristocracy which threatened to assume supreme power in the State. It was necessary that the King’s burgesses should have absolute freedom from the jurisdiction of the neighbouring baron and should have an adequate patrimony. The Kings, therefore, granted wide privileges and vast territorial estates for the common good use of their chartered burghs. In 1617 the jurisdiction of the Magistrates of Rutherglen extended from Polmadie on the south side of the river Clyde to Carron; the entire parish of Ayr at one time belonged to the Burgh of Ayr; Aberdeen once possessed lands which extended many miles in circuit round Aberdeen, granted by the Kings of Scotland, for the use of the town. Edinburgh’s common land, the Burgh Muir had a total area of approximately 5 square miles. The last open area of common land remaining of the Burgh Muir is now Bruntsfield Links. The Border towns still retain the tradition of the annual Common Ridings, reasserting the boundaries of it.
Even the towns which did not hold their charters from the Crown, but from the neighbouring baron, possessed wide territories of commonity. The lands over, which property rights and privileges of use were held by the burgh were the burgh commons. The loss of the burgh commons stemmed in large part from an Act of the Scots Parliament in 1469. This Act had suppressed the popular election of Councils and led to the dominance of burghs by local land owners and wealthy merchants. The evidence in the reports shows how these land owners and merchants, with their relations and allies, had appropriated the burgh commons to themselves through generous land grants and cheap feus. Labour politician Thomas Johnson wrote extensively about Burgh commons and its loss, being a sympathiser of "municipal socialism" and nationalisation
Crown Commons were land held directly by the Crown and are thought to have originated out of the once extensive Royal Hunting Forests. The lands that became Crown Commons were areas within those forests where traditional communal use, which had predated the establishment of the forests, continued after the system of forests broke down in the medieval period. While these Commons were most heavily used by people living nearby, anyone unconnected with the area could also use them. Crown Commons had certainly largely disappeared by the early 19th century. An Act in 1828 allowed for their division and the land was then shared out between the adjoining land owners.
Crofters’ Common Grazings are an example of a common property resource where legislation has been used to safeguard equitable access to the resource by those entitled to a share in it. Many, but not all crofts have two parts: the in-bye land - arable ground on which the crofter’s house is usually built; and rough grazing held in common with neighbouring crofts, usually a much larger area of rough hill pasture – the common grazings. While the land involved is mostly owned by private land owners, the local crofting communities have secure legal rights of occupation and use. This is as a result of the Crofting legislation of 1886 and 1891 that followed a period of riots, rent strikes, political agitation, land raids and government commissions of inquiry in the aftermath of the Highland Clearances. crofting common grazings still cover a substantial part of the Highlands and Islands - 541,750 hectares or around 7% of Scotland’s total land area. The management of common grazings is governed by regulations which are administered by local committees appointed by the grazings shareholders. There are some 853 registered grazing committees and a further 200 unregulated grazings. The main functions of these committees has until recently been to administer, manage and improve the grazings primarily for livestock production
During recent decades, an increasing number of rural communities mostly in the Highlands and Islands have become directly involved in the ownership and management of land within their locality through purchasing, leasing or some form of management arrangement. It is estimated that over 94 community land trusts control around 130,242 hectares which amounts to some 1.98 percent of rural land. Many of the early instances of this were remote rural communities whose members were largely the tenants of a single large private estate and who set up a collective body which bought the property on the open market, preferring to be their own landlord than have another new private landlord. In a number of celebrated cases (Assynt, Eigg and Knoydart), community purchases took place when the private land owner had gone bankrupt or run into financial difficulties and the community was able to negotiate with the main creditors or the financial receivers. To purchase properties, local communities form a democratic body with an appropriate legal structure to represent the whole community or make use of an existing one.
SOURCES
http://www.scottishcommons.org/docs/commonweal_1.pdf
http://www.scottishcommons.org/docs/commonweal_2.pdf
http://www.scottishcommons.org/docs/commonweal_3.pdf
It is estimated that half the land area of Scotland was still common land in 1500. They provided areas of free access. It was not a "free for all" but their use was covered by sets of rules that were well established and understood locally. No-one could make financial profit. The resources of the commonty were solely for personal uses, and individuals could not, for instance, cut timber for sale or rent grazing to someone else. By the mid 19th century, virtually all this common land had been divided into the private property of neighbouring land owners. Subsistence farming could not survive without access to the resources that the commons traditionally supplied and their loss was a major factor in forcing local people to abandon the way of life that had sustained generations before them and join the mass of people leaving the Scottish countryside. "Ferm touns" or collective farm settlements, of Scotland’s subsistence agriculture, which survived in northern areas into the 19th century, were a traditional arrangement that typically could not have survived without the resources provided by a commonty which provided many of the resources needed by a community at no cost apart from the inhabitants’ own labour. The commonty also offered a degree of flexibility to meet fluctuations in population or food supply, that was not possible within the formal restrictions of privately held land. The image of commonties as barren wastes was the perspective of the land-owning class, who were seeking to do away with commonties and the "ferm touns" they served.
A green is a small area of common land usually closely associated with a settlement, whether a town or village or single clachan. These greens provided an area where cows could be milked, markets and other events held, garments bleached and a host of other common and communal activities carried out. The greens associated with many fishing communities were used for the drying and repairing of nets, the salting and drying of fish and other related activities. One specific type of green were the overnight and river crossing stances associated with traditional routes and drove roads.
A loan was a common route through private property to and from an area of common land or some other ‘public’ place. The distinction between this and a right of way was that the loan was itself common land and not just a right of use. Their former existence of others is indicated by street and place names, like Loanhead.
A moss is a wet area where peats can be dug and historically many were used in common by local inhabitants. Common mosses were the same form of shared property. The common status of surviving common mosses has often gone unnoticed because they have been of relatively little use since the decline of peat cutting in the eastern and central Highlands.
Rigs were narrow strips of cultivated land, sometimes up to around 15 metres wide. Traditionally, adjacent rigs were used by different cultivators and the rigs periodically re-allocated between them. This system was known as runrig. Lands lying runrig were invariably associated with an area of rough ground or hill land that was also shared in common. These two types of land were the longstanding basis of farming in Scotland before the Improvements of the 18th and 19th centuries. Originally, many areas of runrig, together with their shared hill ground, were held by two or more proprietors. Each owned a number of rigs, which were interspersed with the rigs of the other owners and each owner had an undivided share of the ownership of the common hill. The common hill was thus a commonty and the runrig lands equivalent to a commonty on arable land.(Bishopbriggs was originally Bishoprigs)
Burghs were established in Scotland from the 12th century. The creation of Royal Burghs was to provide the Crown with a convenient counter-balance to a feudal aristocracy which threatened to assume supreme power in the State. It was necessary that the King’s burgesses should have absolute freedom from the jurisdiction of the neighbouring baron and should have an adequate patrimony. The Kings, therefore, granted wide privileges and vast territorial estates for the common good use of their chartered burghs. In 1617 the jurisdiction of the Magistrates of Rutherglen extended from Polmadie on the south side of the river Clyde to Carron; the entire parish of Ayr at one time belonged to the Burgh of Ayr; Aberdeen once possessed lands which extended many miles in circuit round Aberdeen, granted by the Kings of Scotland, for the use of the town. Edinburgh’s common land, the Burgh Muir had a total area of approximately 5 square miles. The last open area of common land remaining of the Burgh Muir is now Bruntsfield Links. The Border towns still retain the tradition of the annual Common Ridings, reasserting the boundaries of it.
Even the towns which did not hold their charters from the Crown, but from the neighbouring baron, possessed wide territories of commonity. The lands over, which property rights and privileges of use were held by the burgh were the burgh commons. The loss of the burgh commons stemmed in large part from an Act of the Scots Parliament in 1469. This Act had suppressed the popular election of Councils and led to the dominance of burghs by local land owners and wealthy merchants. The evidence in the reports shows how these land owners and merchants, with their relations and allies, had appropriated the burgh commons to themselves through generous land grants and cheap feus. Labour politician Thomas Johnson wrote extensively about Burgh commons and its loss, being a sympathiser of "municipal socialism" and nationalisation
Crown Commons were land held directly by the Crown and are thought to have originated out of the once extensive Royal Hunting Forests. The lands that became Crown Commons were areas within those forests where traditional communal use, which had predated the establishment of the forests, continued after the system of forests broke down in the medieval period. While these Commons were most heavily used by people living nearby, anyone unconnected with the area could also use them. Crown Commons had certainly largely disappeared by the early 19th century. An Act in 1828 allowed for their division and the land was then shared out between the adjoining land owners.
Crofters’ Common Grazings are an example of a common property resource where legislation has been used to safeguard equitable access to the resource by those entitled to a share in it. Many, but not all crofts have two parts: the in-bye land - arable ground on which the crofter’s house is usually built; and rough grazing held in common with neighbouring crofts, usually a much larger area of rough hill pasture – the common grazings. While the land involved is mostly owned by private land owners, the local crofting communities have secure legal rights of occupation and use. This is as a result of the Crofting legislation of 1886 and 1891 that followed a period of riots, rent strikes, political agitation, land raids and government commissions of inquiry in the aftermath of the Highland Clearances. crofting common grazings still cover a substantial part of the Highlands and Islands - 541,750 hectares or around 7% of Scotland’s total land area. The management of common grazings is governed by regulations which are administered by local committees appointed by the grazings shareholders. There are some 853 registered grazing committees and a further 200 unregulated grazings. The main functions of these committees has until recently been to administer, manage and improve the grazings primarily for livestock production
During recent decades, an increasing number of rural communities mostly in the Highlands and Islands have become directly involved in the ownership and management of land within their locality through purchasing, leasing or some form of management arrangement. It is estimated that over 94 community land trusts control around 130,242 hectares which amounts to some 1.98 percent of rural land. Many of the early instances of this were remote rural communities whose members were largely the tenants of a single large private estate and who set up a collective body which bought the property on the open market, preferring to be their own landlord than have another new private landlord. In a number of celebrated cases (Assynt, Eigg and Knoydart), community purchases took place when the private land owner had gone bankrupt or run into financial difficulties and the community was able to negotiate with the main creditors or the financial receivers. To purchase properties, local communities form a democratic body with an appropriate legal structure to represent the whole community or make use of an existing one.
SOURCES
http://www.scottishcommons.org/docs/commonweal_1.pdf
http://www.scottishcommons.org/docs/commonweal_2.pdf
http://www.scottishcommons.org/docs/commonweal_3.pdf
Monday, May 07, 2012
A THREE QUID BONANZA
A popular myth with both politicians and media hacks is "we are all in this together" when dealing with the present economic crisis. So how do they explain the following development? "Former MG Rover workers told of their anger yesterday after learning they will get payouts of just £3 each. ... The directors took out pay and pensions worth £42million before the company controversially collapsed with debts of £1billion in 2005. The car workers learned that they are in line for a derisory payout after a High Court ruling left their trust fund with just £22,000." (Daily Express, 3 May) £42 million to them and £22,000 to us may seem a little unbalanced,but let's hope those lucky workers spend their £3 wisely and don't do anything rash with it. RD
DISTORTED VALUES
Everyone is familiar with the TV scenes of families living on the streets in Africa and Asia, so what are we to make of the following? "Feline tired? Designers unveil luxury $1,600 cat platform bed for pampered pets Most pet owners would admit to occasionally spoiling their furry friends every so often, but this feline furniture takes cat comfort to the next level. This extravagant tiny platform bed allows cats to relax in style thanks to a design which makes it look like a bed made for people. The luxury pet item is made Paradise wood and includes neat bedside tables, as well as perfectly cat-sized pillows and a mini duvet." (Daily Mail, 26 April) $1,600 for a pet cat's comfort while millions try to survive on $1.25 a day. Capitalism has some strange priorities. RD
BROKEN BY CAPITALISM
In the shipbreaking yards of Chittagong, Bangladesh there is something of a boom going on because some 250 ships from Europe are due to be broken up every year.But now, in a move that India, Bangladesh and other developing countries with major shipbreaking industries say could wreck local economies, the EU has proposed laws stating that ships registered in Europe should be broken up only in licensed yards meeting strict new environmental guidelines. It estimates that up to 1.3m tonnes of toxic materials on board end-of-life vessels are sent each year to Chittagong and other shipbreaking yards in south Asia from the EU alone, with "incalculable" risks to workers. "Figures are hard to verify but, say local Chittagong watchdogs, in the past 10 years hundreds of men working in the 70 breaking yards have died or been maimed or poisoned. Many are from the poorest communities in the country." (Observer, 6 May) The labourers in these yards work for as little as £1 per day and their plight would be unknown if it wasn't for the latest piece of proposed legislation. This is the fate of hundreds of workers risking their lives for a £1 a day. RD
Scotland's My Lai Massacre?
It has been dubbed “Britain’s My Lai massacre” a reference to the infamous murders by US forces in Vietnam.
The 16-man patrol of the 7th Platoon, G Company of the 2nd Scots Guards, on 12 December 1948 were conducting military operations to combat the post-Second World War Communist insurgency of the Malayan Emergency. Soldiers surrounded the rubber estate at Sungai Rimoh in Batang Kali and shot dead 24 unarmed villagers before setting light to the village. The bodies of several villagers were reportedly mutilated.
"So cruel those British," Foo Moi keeps repeating, "so cruel." An eyewitness, now aged 89
The British then introduced an extraordinary retrospective "licence to kill" law interpreted by lawyers as a clumsy bid to render legalise the killings that had already occurred. .
The colonial Attorney General who exonerated the British troops of any wrongdoing at the time privately believed that mass public executions might deter other insurgents.
Former defence secretary Denis Healey instructed Scotland Yard to set up a task team to investigate the matter while Labour was in power, but an incoming Conservative government dropped it in 1970 due to an ostensible lack of evidence. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has argued it cannot be held legally liable and that legal responsibility was transferred upon independence in 1963. On January 30, 2009, the Foreign Office in Britain rejected a call for an inquiry into the massacre of villagers. The UK government’s refusal to hold a formal investigation into the killings is being challenged during a two-day judicial review hearing.
Although the Emergency was a war, it was never officially called one out of regard for the London insurance market that the Malayan economy depended upon for cover. Insurance rates covered losses of stocks and equipment through riot and civil disobedience in an "emergency".
http://www.scotsman.com/news/scottish-news/top-stories/secret-law-to-protect-scots-guards-killers-in-malaysia-uncovered-1-2279117
The 16-man patrol of the 7th Platoon, G Company of the 2nd Scots Guards, on 12 December 1948 were conducting military operations to combat the post-Second World War Communist insurgency of the Malayan Emergency. Soldiers surrounded the rubber estate at Sungai Rimoh in Batang Kali and shot dead 24 unarmed villagers before setting light to the village. The bodies of several villagers were reportedly mutilated.
"So cruel those British," Foo Moi keeps repeating, "so cruel." An eyewitness, now aged 89
The British then introduced an extraordinary retrospective "licence to kill" law interpreted by lawyers as a clumsy bid to render legalise the killings that had already occurred. .
The colonial Attorney General who exonerated the British troops of any wrongdoing at the time privately believed that mass public executions might deter other insurgents.
Former defence secretary Denis Healey instructed Scotland Yard to set up a task team to investigate the matter while Labour was in power, but an incoming Conservative government dropped it in 1970 due to an ostensible lack of evidence. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has argued it cannot be held legally liable and that legal responsibility was transferred upon independence in 1963. On January 30, 2009, the Foreign Office in Britain rejected a call for an inquiry into the massacre of villagers. The UK government’s refusal to hold a formal investigation into the killings is being challenged during a two-day judicial review hearing.
Although the Emergency was a war, it was never officially called one out of regard for the London insurance market that the Malayan economy depended upon for cover. Insurance rates covered losses of stocks and equipment through riot and civil disobedience in an "emergency".
http://www.scotsman.com/news/scottish-news/top-stories/secret-law-to-protect-scots-guards-killers-in-malaysia-uncovered-1-2279117
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Paternalism is a common attitude among well-meaning social reformers. Stemming from the root pater, or father, paternalism implies a patria...
