communalise the land

John Hancox, director of community food organisation The Commonwealth Orchard, wants the Scottish Government to encourage bodies such as the Forestry Commission, health boards or the Crown Estate, as well as private landowners, to make surplus land available for growing food. It is argue that bodies such as councils, health boards, power companies and conservation organisations all own large amounts of unused land, some of which is derelict or unused and measures can be introduced to provide people with space to grow fruit and vegetables or establish community gardens.

  While there may be a legal requirement to retain land in public ownership a presumption of a community right to use land assets and utilise unused land should be considered, Mr Hancox suggests "We believe that much land is needlessly unproductive, and would urge the Scottish Government to encourage ways to allow people to use land more intelligently," he said. "Making land available to poorer Scots offers them a way to grow healthy, accessible local food, and build skills and food security at a local level. In our urban areas such as Glasgow there is a lot of land which is largely passive and unused, while in rural areas, patterns of land ownership which concentrate land into relatively few hands also mean that availability of land for ordinary people is scarce."

Hospital bed-boarding

Patients are being put at risk in Scotland by a lack of consultants and a shortage of acute hospital beds the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) has highlighted. A growing number of patients are being forced to stay in wards not designed to cater for their illness in a practice known as “bed-boarding”. Doctors say this delays treatment and increases the time patients stay in hospital, making them more likely to contract a superbug, like MRSA, or suffer from blood clots.

Eight out of ten physicians questioned for the survey say bed-boarding takes place year-round, and every expert said the practice had a negative impact on the quality of care patients receive. Seven out of ten RCPE members say putting patients in inappropriate wards has a negative impact on death rates and that it increases the chances of a patient being readmitted to hospital due to them not getting the correct care during their initial stay.

Food for thought

The announcement in February that Target, the second largest US discount department store retailer, will be opening one hundred and thirty-five stores in Canada, starting in March 2013 brought a swift retort from the head of Wal-mart, Canada, Shelley Broader. She said,
"When people ask me what our target strategy is, I say we have a Wal-Mart strategy. That's about helping people save money so they can live better." That sounds a little strange from a company that pay their employees little enough to live on, let alone save. Even stranger considering how Wal-Mart force their suppliers to fire union employees lowering their standard of living; strange, too, considering the companies they have ruined in competition, hence more grief and unemployment. Socialists do not take sides in competitions between capitalists as they are all at the same game -- lowering labour costs for more profits -- and the only way to end this race to the bottom is to get rid of the profit system. John Ayers

OLD, POOR AND HUNGRY

Experts warn that many older people cannot afford a healthy diet, partly because rising energy bills force the worst off to choose between heating or eating. "The official figures show that 531 people were admitted to hospital with a primary diagnosis of malnutrition in 2011 – more than ten a week. This is up 14 per cent in the last year and 47 per cent on the 362 who were hospitalised in 2007. The Equality and Human Rights Commission warned last year that home care was often so poor it put the elderly at risk of malnutrition. .... The figures are the tip of the iceberg, because thousands more people admitted to hospital for other reasons turn out to be badly nourished. Michelle Mitchell, of charity Age UK, said: 'It is estimated that one million older people are malnourished. Every case is preventable." (Daily Mail, 28 May) It speaks volumes about capitalism that after a lifetime of producing surplus value for the owning class that many workers end their lives neglected and malnourished. RD

The Charity of Carnegie

Owner of the Carnegie Steel Works, Andrew Carnegie was called the "Richest Man in the World." Carnegie's hundreds of millions accounted for about 0.60% of America's GDP and when adjusted into to-days value, he was worth anywhere from $75 billion to $297.8 billion. All over Scotland towns possess libraries thanks to endowments and the philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie. However,  he did not show the same charity to his workforce. Carnegie holding to the widely held theory of "Social Darwinism" declared that direct charitable 'handouts' would interfere with humans' competition for survival and impede the progress of the race.

Andrew Carnegies family were effectively exiled out of Scotland by the rich ruling classes because both his father and his uncle were active and strong leaders of the Chartist movement. The Chartists were demanding that the working class people were given the vote and the right to stand for election so they could take political power from the rich and lead to a far fairer society. His father was a weaver dependent on employment in the big textile factories was sacked by the rich owners for his political views and word got round that he was a “troublemaker” and effectively unemployable. With no social benefits to support the family they were had no choice but to sell up every stick of furniture they owned and move to the USA in 1848. Like many of his contemporaries, Carnegie hired someone less fortunate substitute and serve in his place in the Union army during the Civil War. Too much money was to be made from Army Department contracts to personally risk life and limb.

After the Civil War the industrial revolution in the United States really began to accelerate and led to dramatic changes in labour. Traditionally, Americans owned small proprietorships. With the introduction of automated machinery and the specialisation of tasks, workers found their economic position declining. Employers hired unskilled labourers for many of the positions and increasingly demanded longer and longer hours at a lower wage from their workers. The rise of labour unions led to an increase in demands on the part of the workers for shorter hours, better pay, and safer working conditions. Employers realised that any concessions to labour would ultimately reduce profits, so negotiations usually proved futile to the labour unions. By the 1880s strikes began to occur with some frequency, often resulting in violence and bloodshed.

Carnegie started by building iron bridges for the railroads, then cashed in with steel and by acquiring competitors grew and became, US Steel,  the largest steel company in the States. Carnegie bought up coalfields to feed his furnaces and expanded into railroads as large users of steel he could then ensure they only bought his steel for trucks and rolling stock etc. His power and greed to become even richer however created clashes with the growing union movement right across his industrial empire. He was ruthless enough to do anything to retain his financial empire no matter what the cost to others. Carnegie expressed support of the right to unionise such as when he wrote "The right of the working-men to combine and to form trades-unions is no less sacred than the right of the manufacturer to enter into associations and conferences with his fellows" , but something did not ring true about his words when it came to strikes in his own factories. His quest to make his steel cheap and affordable, thus the key to making profits, adversely affected Carnegie's workers. Cheaper steel invariably meant lower wages and more dangerous working conditions, as efficiency trumped safety in Carnegie's mills. Further, Andrew Carnegie's quest to reduce labour costs by investing in mechanization put people's jobs in jeopardy. Under Carnegie, workers within the steel company routinely worked seven days a week, twelve hours a day. Carnegie gave his laborers but one holiday off a year, July 4. Working conditions were dangerous and sometimes deadly, many workers laboured with no breaks, and the average pay in for the common unskilled laborer in the Carnegie Steel Company was just above $500 a year, averaging $10 a day, often just 14 cents an hour.  And because Carnegie was heavily anti-union, the job security of his labourers was always at great risk. He was an industrialist who was willing to employ both strike breakers from out of state and armed guards to defeat strikers using whatever means was necessary including bombing and shooting of strike leaders. Les Standiford’s account  of Carnegie and relationship with his iron-fisted business partner and trusted company manager, Henry Clay Frick reveals a hypocrite who prided himself on being a friend of the working man, while at the same time planning and executing what turned out to be one of the bloodiest labour lock-outs in U.S. history, the Homestead Strike.  Andrew Carnegie was to become not just a union basher but gave the orders which would lead to strikers at his Homestead steel factory in July 1892 being physically beaten up and shot dead.

At Carnegie’s Homestead Steel Mill, after an unsuccessful campaign to rid the Homestead mill of the militant Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, Andrew Carnegie went off to his Scottish Highland estate on vacation but  just before he left, Carnegie instructed the head of the  plant  Henry Clay Frick to  reduce wages by 25 percent and end union recognition. Frick  handed the committee representing the company union (to which only about 800 of the 3,800 workers belonged) the new contract "proposal," with no explanation. The union, of course, rejected the proposal. With negotiations between Frick and the unionised steelworkers now concluded without a contract, Frick locked out the workers, fenced off the mill and called in the Pinkertons, the private police force so vicious its activities were outlawed in 11 states. The Pinkerton Detective Agency had been started Allan Pinkerton, born in the Gorbals, an ex-Chartist and a slavery abolitionist activist yet by 1872, Pinkertons were being hired by the Spanish Government to help suppress a revolution in Cuba which intended to end slavery and give citizens the right to vote. The Pinkertons was becoming very active in smashing strikes. Some dozen or so Irish miners had been sent to gallows thanks to Pinkerton agents who infiltrated the Molly Maguires. The Pinkertons were a private army contracted to protect factories when strikes were looming. Pinkerton’s would send in hundreds of men all issued with Winchester rifles with instructions to use them if lives or property belonging to factory owners were threatened. Their people were involved in shootings of strike leaders and had even used a bomb to attack a union headquarters in Chicago a couple years earlier. That reputation was known to everyone involved including Carnegie!

Carnegie was not holding back from any confrontation with his strikers. Frick had a hard line reputation for ruthlessness against unions and strikers. Frick had previously employed Pinkerton’s Agency to break up strikes on several occasions for example, in 1884 to protect Hungarians and Slavs employed as strike-breakers to work in his coal fields, in 1891 to protect Italian strike-breakers, when the above Hungarians and Slavs went on strike.  Full scale violence erupted when Frick hired out of state workers to continue operating the factory during the strike. Pinkerton’s bought in 300 men fully armed and ready to use whatever force was necessary to win the fight against strikers. Local strike leaders were attacked and  shot by Pinkerton’s men as an example to other strikers. The strikers were then supplied with guns by local community members and retaliated. The Pinkerton men were surrounded and pinned down behind hastily erected barricades. People were dying from wounds and no help could be given by either side as they lay there caught in the cross fire. Pinkerton’s men tried to surrender three times waving a white flag on a stick but each time sharpshooters broke the stick in two with bullets. They were later allowed to leave the area but only after severe retribution was given leaving many agency men with broken bones and severe injuries. It was effectively a civil war with revenge being extracted by the winners. Over 8,000  state militia to occupied Homestead and protect the strikebreakers who would be put to work at the mill. The strike and sympathy strikes at other Carnegie plants continued until November, but practically speaking it was all over once the militia marched into town.

Pinkerton’s had a history of using violence to break up strikes. Their people were involved in shootings of strike leaders and had even used a bomb to attack a union headquarters in Chicago a couple years earlier. That reputation was known to everyone involved including Carnegie! Ten men were killed during the clashes at Homestead seven of them were strikers and three Pinkerton’s men. Previous strikes at his businesses also resulted in deaths of strikers. It was during the Homestead strike that the anarcho-communist Alexander Berkman to avenge the workers shot Frick in an attempted assassination and was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment.

 Although Carnegie was out of the country at the time and although he may not personally have pulled the trigger, cables he sent to Frick clearly show he supported the move to employ strike-breakers and gave instructions to Frick do whatever was necessary to win the battle against the strikers. Carnegie was fully complicit in how the Homestead incident was handled  and he himself wrote: "The handling of this case on the part of the company has my full approval and sanction."  Carnegie and Frick broke the strike. After the union surrendered and called off the strike the Carnegie owned steel mill slashed wages even further, imposed a longer work day and blacklisted over 500 men who would never again work in the mills again. The union lost virtually its entire treasury supporting strikers and successfully defending them against attempts by Carnegie to have them convicted of murder and other crimes.Trade unionism was effectively crushed at Homestead. As a result, unionism would die in steel plants throughout the country. By 1900, not a single steel plant in Pennsylvania remained union. By 1910, the union had no members at all. Unionism had been eradicated from the entire steel industry, and though the output of steel mills had doubled and the number of working hours had increased from 10hrs to 12hrs a day,  pay barely increased. In many mills, it actually decreased. Workers would have virtually no say in their conditions or wages, and while the company's profits soared, the common labourer was reduced to a state of semi-slavery.

Inevitably, Carnegie  and Frick fell out and nearly thirty years after the Homestead debacle, Carnegie dispatched a servant bearing a letter begging his old partner to let bygones be bygones “You can tell Carnegie I’ll meet him. Tell him I’ll see him in Hell, where we both are going.” Frick was obviously labouring under no illusions about the moral stands he and Carnegie had taken in clawing their way to the top. Perhaps by giving away his money it was an attempt by Carnegie  to justify what he had done to get that money - and paying penance and buying absolution for his sins. It was the poverty wages of the great majority of his workers, on whose backs that Carnegie had earned his fortune. The bloody struggles of 1892, the hired assassins, the hired thugs, demonstrated to working people the ruthlessness of the many-times-over  millionaire Andrew Carnegie. In Dunfermline, his birth-place, there is a museum in his honour but he is a man all Scottish workers should  villify rather than respect.


Sing ho, for we know you, Carnegie;
God help us and save us, we know you too well;
You're crushing our wives and you're starving our babies;
In our homes you have driven the shadow of hell.
Then bow, bow down to Carnegie,
Ye men who are slaves to his veriest whim;
If he lowers your wages cheer, vassals, then cheer.
Ye are nothing but chattels and slaves under him.
 "A Man Named Carnegie"
Anonymous

See more on the Homestead Strike here

DIAMONDS IN DEMAND

As an economic blizzard blows millions on to the unemployment queues and closes factories, it is worth noting that the super-rich are still managing to survive. "The market for diamonds is forecast for further soaring growth, outstripping even the buoyant wider luxury market, spurred by burgeoning demand from Asia. .. Bain & Company has forecast that spending will rise between 9 and 11 per cent this year because of a scarcity of large diamonds and continued demand among a cabal of billionaires." (Times, 9 June) RD

Royal secrets

An Amendment Bill to the original 2002 Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act proposes changing the “qualified” exemption to royal communications to an absolute exemption. Communications by the Royal Family are currently subject to a qualified Freedom of Information exemption. A qualified exemption means that a “balance of public interest” test is applied – and only where the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure can information be withheld. The qualified exemption relates to communications with the Queen, other members of the Royal Family or the royal household.

The Amendment Bill proposes to change this to create an absolute exemption for information relating to communications with Her Majesty, the heir or second in line of succession, with no requirement to consider the balance of public interest.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/secrecy-for-queen-s-finances-challenged-1-2347440

Food for thought

This is how the so-called socialists around the world act. In France, journalist Gwyn Dyer predicts a big victory for 'socialist' candidate,
Francois Hollande. Dyer writes, "What Hollande has actually promised is slightly less austerity than Sarkozy." (EMC , April 26, 2012). In Venezuela, that renowned 'socialist' Hugo Chavez has tried to manipulate the capitalist system to bring cheap food to the poor (yes, they are still there). According to The New York Times (April 29 2012) he has mandated the prices that the manufacturers can charge to keep prices low. The result, as expected, is that the manufacturers simply stopped production and there are shortages of even the basic food supplies in a very rich country. Lesson? What passes for socialism in the in the tiny minds of would-be leaders and the press has nothing to do with real socialism. You cannot divorce manufacturers from profit. If there is no profit, there is no production. Both are very elementary lessons for socialists. John Ayers

The class struggle

Members the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), Scotland's largest teachers union, yesterday voted in favour of fighting austerity measures in a renewed campaign which could lead to industrial action in the autumn. The union backed motions calling for action to protect the profession from public sector cuts and oppose changes to their pensions being made by the UK government. While pension reform is reserved to Westminster, the Scottish Government has said it must implement the changes or face losing £100 million a year it receives from the UK government. Last November, Scots teachers took part in a UK-wide strike over pension changes – the first nationwide walkout by the profession in Scotland since 1986.

In a scathing attack the newly-elected EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan said  “We understand that it is the UK government, the coalition, that has been the driving force behind the attempt to make teachers pay more, to work longer and to get less. We know who the guilty are in this great cash robbery. But we have a clear message also for the Scottish Government and for Mike Russell, the cabinet secretary for education, in particular. You cannot hide behind the coat-tails of some Eton toffs and say, ‘It wisnae me’. Scottish teachers expect the Scottish Government to stand up for Scotland on this issue and if they fail to do so, if they fail to deliver a fair settlement on pensions here in Scotland, we are prepared to fight them every bit as hard as we will fight the UK coalition government on this issue...There is a simple choice: fight the cuts or fight us, because we are not minded to pay the price for the greed of others.”

Mr Flanagan said Westminster’s austerity measures had been “firmly rejected” by voters. Local elections in May made it clear “not only in Scotland but across Britain, that the UK government’s austerity programme has been decisively rejected”. Mr Flanagan said: “It is clear that what the electorate wants is for elected politicians to fight back against austerity and not to simply administer a cuts programme." Teaching was a stressful profession, he said, adding: “The suggestion that teachers should stay in the classroom till they are 68 or even longer is not a credible notion and it is one we will resist: 68 is way too late.”

Charlotte Ahmed, a union member from Glasgow, said: “This is theft. It’s a smash-and-grab. They’re taking money out of our pockets and putting it where exactly? The autumn is the time to turn the screw and commit ourselves to action.”

NO GOLD MEDALS HERE

Sportswear producers love to project an image of clean-cut athleticism but behind the glossy image lies the sordid profit-making reality of the sweatshop. "Adidas, the sponsor of the London 2012 Olympics and the maker of Team GB kit, will be the focus of protests about sweatshops this summer. The sportswear brand, which is promoted by David Beckham, will be targeted with a 90-second video alleging exploitation of workers. Campaigners from War on Want will also attach tags to Adidas clothing as part of the protest to highlight the claims. The YouTube film released by the anti-poverty group features an English woman called Jeanette, who describes working at a factory for low wages and poor conditions. She claims workers are beaten by their boss for asking for time off to see their children. At the end of the clip, she reveals she is telling the story of Anisha, who works in a factory in Asia that allegedly supplies Adidas." (Daily Telegraph, 7 June) RD

DOLLARS AND DEMOCRACY

The American press is very fond of boasting about the political democracy in the USA compared to many other political set-ups throughout the world. An examination of the US political process reveals that it is far from democratic. "US Republican candidate Mitt Romney raised almost $17m (£11m) more than President Barack Obama's re-election effort in May, figures show. Mr Romney and the Republicans raised $76.8m, while the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party brought in $60m. Mr Romney now has $107m cash on hand, almost matching the $115m Mr Obama's campaign had by the end of April." (BBC News, 7 June) The role of the extremely rich and powerful in largely dictating the outcome of US elections shows that big bucks counts for far more than big ideas. RD

Red Clydeside's Racism

In previous blogs on the history of Scottish labour we have observed how religious bigotry often marred attempts to unite the working class. But racism has also existed and been exploited for sectional advantage by supposed internationalists.

In all the major sea-ports of Britain communities a non-white sea-farers arose, many marrying local women. In Glasgow they mostly settled around the harbour area, commonly known as Broomielaw.

Many Red Clydesiders have become Scottish national heroes, remembered for their fight for workers' rights. Seamen's leader, president of the Glasgow trades and labour council and chairman of the 40 hr workers’ strike committee, Emanuel – Manny – Shinwell gained fame for his part as a left-wing trades union official in 1919, finding himself thrown into jail on Bloody Friday. But Stirling University historian Dr Jacqueline Jenkinson, in her book "Black 1919", accuses Shinwell of encouraging Glasgow seamen to launch a series of attacks on black sailors. Jenkinson reveals how Shinwell's British Seafarers Union banned black members and how labour histories of the period  fail to mention this Glasgow race-riot .

Jenkinson said: "There has been a reluctance to accept that many of the Red Clydesiders promoted actions that were discriminatory and unfair to the black sailors. Manny Shinwell was one of those who campaigned to stop black sailors getting work. His radical seamen's union, the British Seafarers Union, openly banned black members. It was felt they were keeping Scots out of jobs when they returned from service in the First World War, and lowering wages. Shinwell gave what some consider inflammatory speeches in which he condemned the employment of black sailors in the merchant fleet."

Professor Elaine McFarland, a specialist in modern Scottish history at Glasgow Caledonian University, said: "Red Clydeside does have this dark, racist underbelly, and there has been a reluctance to expose it. It may be due to the political leanings of some historians, but there has been a sentimental view of those who took part in Red Clydeside."

Socialists are only too aware of the racism that can inveigle itself into the trade union movement. Our companion blog SOYMB  recently re-published an appeal from Jewish workers about the descrimination they were facing from elements within the British TUC in the 1890s

The SPGB had reason to distance itself from certain members of the Socialist Party of Canada for their anti-Chinese statements in the early 20th century.

Addressing a meeting of migrant workers in London in 1892, dockers leader Ben Tillett told them: “Yes, you are our brothers, and we will do our duty by you. But we wish you had not come.”

Keir Hardie argued: “It would be much better for Scotland if those [Scottish emigrants] were compelled to remain there [in Scotland] and let the foreigners be kept out. Dr. Johnson said God made Scotland for Scotchmen, and I would keep it so.” According to Hardie, the Lithuanians migrant workers in the mining industry had “filthy habits”, they lived off “garlic and oil”, and they were carriers of “the Black Death”. He described the typical Irish immigrant coal-miner as having "a big shovel, a strong back and a weak brain"

E.D. Morel of the Independent Labour Party and future Labour MP, could describe colonial French troops as "black savages" .

The Glasgow Evening Times were able to employ the words "sambo" and "nigger" in its articles.

The two main sailors’ union, the British Seafarers Union and the the National Sailors’ and Firemen’s’ Union, played the "race" card to attract and mobilise white members at the expense of their black co-workers. The operation of a "colour" bar by sailors’ unions heightened dockside tensions around Britain’s seaports. Prominent Glasgow labour leaders enforced and supported the "colour" bar on black and Chinese sailors. They opportunistically played on this manufactured division within the low-paid and low-skill seafaring workforce as part of the wider campaign for a 40-hour week to reduce unemployment pressures caused by demobilisation. Trade union leaders endeavoured to involve white British sailors in the general strike called in Clydeside, by tying on-going white sailors’ protests against the "unfair" competition posed by overseas labour to the 40-hours strike action. During waterfront speeches at sailors meetings, Shinwell linked the predudices among white British merchant sailors about the ‘unfair’ competition provided by overseas "Asiatic" labour, placing them into a wider industrial setting. He offered dissatisfied white British merchant seaman an opportunity to voice their concerns about workers from overseas undercutting their wages and threatening their job opportunities as part of the wider strike movement. The rioting at the harbour and the threat of more in the succeeding days drew public attention to the 40-hours campaign. The day before the general strike descended into violence on ‘Bloody Friday’ Shinwell presided over a third meeting of sailors in a week, where he ‘…urged them to take effective steps to prevent the employment of Chinese labour on British ships….’  A newspaper report reads: “...Councillor Shinwell, of the BSU, who addressed the meeting, directed attention to the large number of British seamen and firemen who were at present unemployed and the large number being demobilised who would find it difficult to secure employment aboard ship. This he attributed to the refusal of the government to exclude Chinese labour from British ships, and it was essential, he said, that action should be taken at once.”

Willie Gallacher joined with Shinwell on 28 January to address sea-going members of the BSU and other unionised sailors at the harbour to persuade them to take part in the strike action. The tenor of this meeting was no different from the ones addressed by Shinwell; again, the tactic was to import the old demand that black and Chinese crews should be expelled from British ships into the broad strike campaign. The strike committee viewed support from white sailors as useful in widening the 40-hours protest movement and were none too particular as to how such involvement was secured. Shinwell and Gallacher were simply parroting the mis-conception that it is the poor unfortunate immigrant who is responsible for wage cuts and unemployment.

Jenkinson uncovered newspaper accounts that reported Shinwell's role in a Glasgow race riot in 1919. She said:"He played a celebrated role in the protest in George Square on 31 January 1919. But just a week before, on 23 January, he also played a key role in a very violent attack on 30 African sailors. Newspaper reports tell how he spoke to 600 sailors and it was quite a rabble-rousing speech about black and what he called Asiatic, or Chinese, sailors. This led to around 30 black sailors being chased by a baying mob down James Watt Street. On 23rd January that year fighting broke out on the Glasgow waterfront between black and white sailors waiting to sign on to a ship. According to three newspaper reports, whites were being signed up in preference to blacks. A fourth report claimed that blacks were being signed up in preference to whites."

The riot on Thursday 23 January 1919 began at the signing-on hall in James Watt Street a few hours after a Shinwell speech. The black sailors, fled from the hiring yard, pursued by a much larger crowd of white sailors. Locals joined the crowd, swelling its numbers to several hundred. The mob, using guns, knives, sticks, bricks and other makeshift weapons, attacked the nearby sailors' retreat in Broomielaw in which the black seafarers had taken refuge but the mob smashed all the windows and they were turned out on to the street. The black sailors fled back to their own boarding house. When this, in turn, was attacked by the rioters, some of the black sailors fought back with guns, shooting one of the mob. One black sailor was singled out and attacked with knives, leaving him with a gaping wound in his back. The police eventually intervened, this time by taking thirty of the black sailors into 'protective custody'. All of them were charged with riot and weapons offences. Only one of the white rioters was arrested. Shinwell blamed the violence on the arrival in Glasgow of black West African sailors from Cardiff and the recent appearance of a group of Chinese sailors from Liverpool.

The 1919 Glasgow race riot proved the first of a number that spread to major ports throughout Britain such as South Shields, Salford, Hull, London, Liverpool, Cardiff, Newport and Barry. Five people were killed, dozens seriously injured, and over 250 people – usually blacks – arrested and soldiers deployed to stop the rioting. The origins of the riots in Glasgow and elsewhere lay in the policies pursued by shipowners in that national wage rates for sailors hired in Britain (who were almost certain to be white) had been  established after the 1911 seafarers’ strike but rates of pay for those hired overseas (who were almost certain to be black or Chinese) were lower by as much as 25-50%. The trade union response to shipowners using black sailors to cut their labour costs was not to campaign for an extension of the 1911 wage rates agreement to cover all sailors employed on British ships but to demand an end to the employment of foreign (black and Chinese) sailors. Instead of directing the union's wrath at the capitalist class which exploits and takes advantage of the lack of working class unity, Shinwell openly backed the idea of securing jobs for white British sailors at the expense of foreign black sailors.

Such was the perception, that when shipping companies employed foreign (black and Chinese) sailors rather than white (British) sailors, the latter saw themselves as being undercut in the jobs market by the former. This was exacerbated  by the increased unemployment of the  post-war demobilisation when white sailors who had quit the merchant navy to join the Royal Navy, or who had been conscripted to join it, demanded ‘their’ jobs back in the merchant navy. Yet  many of those jobs had already been filled by foreign seafarers. Thus, at the time of the Glasgow riot there were an estimated 400-500 unemployed white sailors in the city. The rioting was triggered by intense job competition among merchant seaman. However, a black sailor from any part of the Empire eg Sierra Leone (where the 30 sailors originated from) was just as British as a white sailor from Glasgow and would be paid the higher rate, and likewise any foreign sailors hired in Britain – because they had arrived here on another ship, or because they had settled here. While whites viewed blacks as foreign, different and inferior, blacks viewed themselves as citizens of the British Empire. The black workers attacked in Glasgow were regarded by the white crowd not as fellow Scots caught up in the same contracting post-war job market but as outsiders trying to snatch employment from white Scottish workers. Shinwell's speeches amounted to not much more than “British jobs for British workers”, scapegoating black and Chinese sailors for unemployment amongst ex-servicemen.

Colonial Britons were used as a convenient "industrial reserve army of labour" during wartime but after the war soon found their continued presence among the white British working class was resented. Black people were viewed as an "alien" element in the workforce by white rioters whose violent actions against their employment were ultimately appeased by the launch of an extended programme of repatriation for black colonial residents throughout Britain in summer 1919. By August 1921 repatriation forced two thousand black workers and their dependents out of Britain under protest. However, many others stayed put in Glasgow, continuing to live and work in the city. But the race-rioting at the docks had served its purposes, limiting the job opportunities for black sailors. Following the riot shipping employers’ were more reluctant than previously to hire black sailors in the port. The increased difficulty in finding employment provoked an organised  protest campaign as members of Glasgow’s black population worked together to publicise the growing destitution among black seafarers caused by the long-term unemployment. The African Telegraph in April 1919 reports "In Glasgow there are more than 130 British seamen walking on their uppers, down and out. They happen to be coloured men, but they are all true British-born subjects, who have served on British ships during the war."

Sylvia Pankhurst's, Workers' Dreadnought, of the Workers Socialist Federation described the sea-port race riots as by-products of capitalism and a divide and rule tactic of the employers. "Do not you know that if it pays to employ black men employers will get them and keep them even if the white workers kill a few of the blacks from time to time?"  It also wrote: "The fight for work is a product of capitalism; under socialism race rivalry disappears.” and asked "...those who have been Negro hunting: - ‘Do you wish to exclude all blacks from England?’ If so, ‘do you not think that blacks might justly ask that the British should at the same time keep out of their countries?’ "

The Socialist Labour Party's journal The Socialist commented: “It is useless to contend that coloured labour cannot be organised. If white men have approached coloured labourers in an arrogantly superior manner, it is small wonder that they have been unable to organise them. ... ‘Alien’ on the lips of one of the working class should have only one meaning – the Boss and all that is his." It bitingly explained  "The Trades Unions have prided themselves on having ousted coloured labourers from certain occupations... Black men and yellow men have been attacked for doing precisely what white men do. This, of course, is but the logical development of the Trades Unions’ policy which is prepared to strike rather than that any unskilled white worker should get a 'skilled job.' "

The temptation to blame your unemployment or wage level on foreign labour may be strong. But nevertheless such views are false. The blame lies elsewhere. You must not blame another worker for your poverty. The clash on the Broomielaw can be taken as an example of how one element of the working class can be made the scapegoat, by those supposedly protecting the interests of all workers, in order to secure a better deal for their members, at the expense of the minority.

Shinwell went on to become a Independent Labour Party then Labour Party MP, chair-person of the Labour Party, Minister of Fuel and Power in the post-war Labour government, Secretary of State for War, Minister of Defence, Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, and Baron Shinwell of Easington. It is ironic that he played a role in this campaign against black sailors when Shinwell himself was a victim of anti-semitism. After a Tory MP told Shinwell, who was Jewish, to "go back to Poland" during a debate in Parliament in 1938, Shinwell crossed the floor of the chamber and punched him.

Sources from here and here and here

SELFISH SUICIDES

After 10 years at war, American soldiers are showing severe signs of wear. Not only have 126,000 troops returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with traumatic brain injuries since the start of the wars, another 70,000 of them have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. According to Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli, the majority of soldiers disqualified from service due to injury have either TBI or PTSD. Hundreds of American veterans and enlisted people still commit suicide every year, and for a couple years more soldiers were killing themselves than were dying on the battlefield. "But to at least one American general, all this complaining about soldiers killing themselves is "selfish." "I have now come to the conclusion that suicide is an absolutely selfish act," wrote Major General Dana Pittard, who commands Fort Bliss, one of the nation's largest military bases, in an official blog post......The National Journal reports that the blog post was deleted from the Fort Bliss website soon after it was posted, but the damage has been done. Pittard has not apologized, nor has the Pentagon condemned his comments as being distasteful and out-of-touch." (Good News, 23 May) More committing suicide than killed by the enemy and a general calling suicides selfish.Truly capitalism is a crazy society. RD

SUPER-RICH LUXURY

The newspapers may be full of economic crisis with mounting unemployment and increasing poverty for millions, but it is not all bad news. "Their wardrobes are packed with haute couture and designer accessories but for the world's super-rich shopping is no longer enough: lavish one-of-a-kind travel adventures are the latest status symbol. Helicopter skiing in Alaska or a getaway to luxury goods group LVMH's exclusive hideaway in the Maldives are the current trends for the growing number of millionaires, according to a report. It predicts that, despite the eurozone crisis, spending on luxury goods will hit $1.5tn (£975bn) this year as the wealthy look for novel ways to spend their riches." (Guardian, 5 June) For the super-rich it is a case of we never had it so good. RD

Nursing the figures

It’s estimated 5000 NHS workers, including around 2500 nurses, have lost their jobs in the last three years. NHS chiefs spent £94million on temporary nursing staff last year – to fill the gaps left after they axed the 2500 nurses. The cost of using supply and agency nurses in Scottish hospitals soared by £4million compared to 2010, a report has revealed. And the number of staff hours taken up by temporary nurses rose by 1.5million to 6.3million.

Ellen Hudson, of the Royal College of Nursing Scotland, said: “It is vital that bank nursing is available to cover shortages when staff are off sick.However, the bank should not be used to cover long-term vacancies caused by recruitment freezes as it would be much better for patients if they’re filled with permanent staff.”

The RCN said the small increase in the number of nursing and midwifery staff was largely accounted for by the inclusion of nursing and midwifery “interns” in the workforce figures. The internship scheme is available to newly qualified nurses who cannot gain employment. They work a 22.5 hour week and the internship lasts one year. So is not a true reflection of the nursing workforce.

forgetting the poor

Figures obtained by the National Union of Students show older universities each typically recruit fewer than 100 students from deprived backgrounds. Student leaders have described as "truly awful" the record of Scottish universities on admitting students from poorer backgrounds.

 Students are classed as coming from a poorer background if they grew up in one of the least affluent 20% of postcode districts.

St Andrews University admitted 13 students from these areas. It teaches a total of 7,370 undergraduates.

Edinburgh and Aberdeen also recruited fewer than 100 students from these districts. Aberdeen could only muster 51 and Edinburgh 91.

Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, whose intake of 102 students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Edinburgh College of Art, which merged with the University of Edinburgh last year, took in eight students, or 5.6 per cent, from deprived areas. Glasgow School of Art took in 13 students, 7.0 per cent of their intake last year.

Glasgow recorded higher figures. They admitted 303 students from the most deprived backgrounds, more than 10 per cent of their intake in 2010/11. The University of Dundee also had an entry rate of at least five percentage points higher than Aberdeen, Edinburgh and St Andrews.

Henry McLeish, chairman of the City of Glasgow College said Scotland was one of the most unequal societies in western Europe. "Scotland  talk a good game about tackling social inequality issues, but our achievements fail to match the rhetoric. We cannot build a nation's future in a situation where one-fifth of our citizens live on or below the poverty line. That means a massive number of people being disadvantaged and what it means for the nation is that we're wasting an enormous amount of talent through not giving people proper opportunities."

AN INSANE SOCIETY

Nothing sums up the priorities of capitalism better than the following news item. "On Tuesday, the British government — in the midst of an austerity program that includes cutting education, health and retirement programs — announced contract awards of $595 million to begin design of replacements for its four nuclear submarines that carry Trident sub-launched ballistic missiles. Currently, these submarines each have 16 missiles, each with three, independently guided warheads whose power is roughly eight times that of the Hiroshima bomb. Based in Scotland, one is on patrol at all times." (Washington Post, 24 May) Education, health and retirement programmes are of little concern when compared to a bomb with the potential of eight times the power of Hiroshima. Truly capitalism is a mad house! RD

who owns the North Pole-part 49

Ny-Alesund research station is a base not just for the Norwegians, who have political jurisdiction, but also for British, Indian and Chinese scientists. Few believe the national bases – Beijing's has huge stone lions outside – are there just for science. They are symbolic political and economic stakes in the future of the Arctic.

Drilling is also under way in earnest off Greenland to the west and in the Barents Sea to the east of Svalbard. Oil price rises and melting ice caps have made the region more accessible for mining, shipping and drilling. Yet ownership of the Arctic seabed is far from clear. The drilling threatens to spark territorial disputes and sabre rattling, such as the bellicose noises made by Argentina over British companies seeking oil off the Falkland Islands.

The  Arctic Council is largely composed of states surrounding the Arctic Ocean and territorial disputes – for example, between Canada and the US over seaways – are all being handled through the UN convention on the law of the sea. They are determined to defend their right to introduce national oil regulations. Norway's state energy company, Statoil, has its commercial compass pointing north, believing there is nothing to stop its deep water experience of the northern North Sea being safely applied to the Arctic or sub-Arctic.

Diana Wallis, a British lawyer and former MEP explains "Like it or not, what is happening in the Arctic and how it is dealt with becomes everyone's business," said Wallis. "This is an issue which Norway and other Arctic states have to accommodate. A growing number of players have a legitimate interest in what happens in the Arctic and therefore the governance regime there."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/05/arctic-oil-rush-dangers-svalbard

The killing fields - something to grouse about

There is an old Gaelic saying  that "everyone has a right to a deer from the hill, a tree from the forest, and a salmon from the river" yet that salmon that yesterday was miles from the land is instantly claimed by the landlord the moment it reaches the shore.

 The image of the Scottish Highlands as vast and empty and full of sheep is misleading. The Highlands were once heavily populated. It is estimated that 85-90% of the population were forcibly cleared from the land. There exists a delusion widely held in Scotland that the Highlands are a paradise in a state of natural grace, which might more properly be held in public ownership. The Scots must be told again and again until they start to believe it, that their hills are in reality intensively and expensively managed by private landowners

The Glorious Twelfth of August is the start of the red grouse shooting season. Scotland’s sporting estates have seen their profits soar after massively hiking the fees they charge for shooting grouse, prompting landowners to increase the number of moors open to commercial shooting. There are around 340 sporting estates in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland covering 5.2 million acres of land. They represent over 30% of the total privately-owned land in Scotland and over 50% of privately-owned land in the Highlands and Islands. A study, published by the Fraser of Allander Institute at the University of Strathclyde, found grouse shooting sustains up to 1,072 jobs across the country and contributes £23.3 million to the economy. Critics argue that such employment is low paid and encourages a servile mentality. The supposed virtue of capital inflows only serves to sustain an outdated and inappropriate form of land use whilst incurring opportunity costs in doing so. It should be pointed out, sporting estates have never been rational economic holdings in the sense that owners either expect or derive a revenue surplus from them. They have always been, by contrast, a form of conspicuous consumption which, together with retainers (ghillies), uniforms (tweeds) and large country houses (hunting lodges), provided a forceful statement of social and financial standing within the leisure classes. An outdoor playground for the upper strata of society. John McEwen, in the 1970s argued: “My own estimate of the quality of husbandry, over all, is that, in the ‘arable areas productivity is around 60 per cent of its potential, whereas in the huge ‘upland’ or marginal land area it barely reaches the 50 per cent mark…The use of the uplands and rough grazing areas as a playground for blood sportsmen accounts for the huge loss we estimated there.”  Hill-walking and mountaineering  are quite clearly more valuable use of recreational landhills and moors of the Highlands and Islands in terms of revenue and employment.

 The Chair-person of Scotland's Rating Valuation Tribunals in a report to the Scottish Office observed, sporting estates like to describe themselves, when it suits them, as being part of a sporting industry. In fact, they are part of an inefficient trade which pays inadequate attention to marketing their product, largely because profit is not the prime objective. He goes on to say the local staff are poorly paid, their wages bearing no relation to the capital invested in the purchase price, and it is not unusual to find a man responsible for an investment in millions being paid a basic agricultural wage. Many of the estates use short-term labour during the sporting season, leaving the taxpayer to pay their staff from the dole for the rest of the year. Estates can in many cases be deliberately run at a loss, thereby reducing their owner's tax liability to central funds elsewhere in the UK.

What is very clear is that sporting estates are directly responsible for the widespread persecution of a range of bird species and some mammals considered to be a threat to populations of game. Conservationists claim thousands of wild animals are being killed by gamekeepers in the name of country sports. Eggs are crushed, chicks trampled, nests smashed, baits poisoned, birds trapped and shot – and all to line the pockets of the landowners. Mark Rafferty, a former police officer who now investigates wildlife crime for the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said “To suppress a whole population takes a huge amount of organised effort, and that’s what’s happening. It is the grouse industry that is responsible. They simply won’t tolerate birds of prey on grouse moors.” The owners of sporting estates are keen to control the numbers of birds of prey, because they eat or scare grouse. This leaves fewer to be shot by paying visitors, many of whom come from abroad.

Anything that can't be shot and eaten is shot and hung from fences.

50 golden eagles are being illegally poisoned, shot or trapped every year in Scotland. A report on hen harriers says: “Illegal persecution is causing the failure of a majority of breeding attempts.” The Scottish population of hen harriers is reckoned to be about a third of what it should be. That means that up to 2,300 birds are missing because they are being killed, or otherwise prevented from breeding. Areas where the birds are illegally killed nearly all take place on or near grouse moors belonging to sporting estates. Much is made by the Scottish Gamekeepers Association of their claim of increasing wader numbers through their work on estates. The only reason there are good numbers of waders is because they pose no threat to red grouse. If they did they would be as rare as hen harriers on grouse moors.

Mountain hares have inhabited the uplands for more than 130,000 years but are culled in their tens of thousands by estate owners trying to halt the spread of fatal diseases in valuable red grouse. But now a new report suggests that the yearly slaughter of iconic mountain hares on the Scottish hills to protect the prized game birds from tick-borne conditions may be unnecessary. A study, published in the Journal Of Applied Ecology by Scottish scientists, claims that on estates where there are other "hosts" on which the blood-sucking ticks can feed - such as deer or sheep - the culling of mountain hares has little effect on the spread of tick-borne diseases, such as louping ill virus. The report, produced by academics from Glasgow University's Biomedical and Life Sciences department and the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in Aberdeen, says: "We conclude that there is no compelling evidence base to suggest culling mountain hares might increase red grouse densities." It is estimated by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust that around 25,000 of the hares are shot or snared every year. More than 95 per cent of the UK's mountain hare population is found in Scotland - with just a small number found in the Isle of Man and Derbyshire.

Deer in Scotland are legally res nullus – not owned by anyone – so the right to kill them rests with the owner or occupier of the land. Deerstalking became a sport in the Victorian era with many estates encouraging the growth of deer herds to provide profits. But despite efforts by landowners to reduce numbers of the browsing animals, in the abscence of predators, stocks have continued to rise in Scotland and there are now an estimates 350,000 to 500,000 red deer roaming the Highlands. The result is that large tracts of the Highlands are are grazed to the quick, hampering plans to bring back thousands of trees. In Sutherland, a wide territory covering 5,200 sq km. a report reveals, 4,000 sq km are in the hands of estates, which number just 81. In other words, three-quarters of one of the biggest counties in Britain is owned by 81 families. The population of Sutherland is around 14,000. If 81 families consist of around 10 people each, then 75% of the land is controlled by around 6% of the population. The income generated by deer stalking on the estates throughout Sutherland is £1.6m (a tiny sum when spread across 4,000 sq km). Their expenditure on deer management is £4.7m. Professor Douglas MacMillan, head of the School of Conservation at Kent University and a long-standing adviser to the Scottish Government on countryside issues, says "There are too many deer out there, and not enough of them are being shot. Part of the problem is that landowners promote the idea that deer hunting is about solitude, privacy and exclusivity."  MacMillan interviewed 127 landowners and found that many relied on family, friends and business contacts to carry out the shooting on their estates, excluding anyone who lacked the necessary social networks. The figures seem to support this view, with less than 0.001 per cent of the population – 3,500 people – taking part in deer hunting, according to the most recent survey in 2004. Those that do take part are usually white, over 50 and in the upper social classes, claims the study. They are also able to pay up to £1,000-a-day fees for stalking. Scotland, he suggests, should follow the example of Norway where most deer hunting is carried out by young working class men. Charles Fford, whose family own the Arran estate, has retorted :"...You can't have Rab Nesbitt wandering off into the hills to shoot a deer. How would he get it home for a start?" A survey by the British Association for Shooting and Conservation showed that 65 per cent of their members would like to go deer hunting, but were not able to do so. The main reason is they lacked the contacts within "hunting circles" to get a chance to hunt deer.

Today, just 1250 or so landowners own two thirds of Scotland. 25% of estates over 1 000 acres have been held in the same family for over 400 years. In the Highlands, 50% per cent haven’t been exposed for sale since World War Two. This is mainly the aristocracy and rich individuals: the largest landowner, after the Forestry Commission, is the Duke of Buccleuch (270,900 acres). He owns estates, castles and palaces. A keen hunter, he is said to have donated £3/4m to the Countryside Alliance. It is necessary to challenge the hegemony of the sporting estate owners to offer a different and alternative different future for  5.2 million acres of land. Common landownership, in general terms, is an ownership regime whereby a group of resource users share rights and duties towards a resource. The primary motivation for many of the frequently absentee landlords - which may comprise as many as 66% of the land-owners -  is simply sport and private enjoyment, not the needs of the community as a whole.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/transport-environment/the-killing-fields-1.1080172
http://tohatchacrow.blogspot.com/2011/01/scottish-shooting-estates-in-slaughter.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/8124364/Grouse-shooting-profits-increase-on-estates.html
http://scottishaffairs.org/backiss/pdfs/sa31/SA31_Wightman%20_and_Higgins.pdf
http://www.scotsman.com/news/call-for-deer-stalking-for-the-masses-1-1362193

MIND THAT GAP

One of the illusions fostered by politicians and the media is that we live in an era of growing prosperity wherein the gap between the rich and poor is gradually diminishing. Figures produced by the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that exactly the opposite is occurring. "Yet the rising prosperity resulting from three decades of economic growth has not been shared evenly. After tax, the richest 1 per cent of households claimed 3 per cent of total income in 1977; that proportion has trebled to 9 per cent, the institute found." (Times, 4 June) RD