As ordinary Greeks have been thrown into ever greater poverty by wage and pension cuts and a seemingly endless array of new and higher taxes, their wealthy compatriots have been busy either whisking their money out of Greece or snapping up prime real estate abroad. "Greek ship-owners, who have gained from their profits being tax-free and who control at least 15% of the world's merchant freight, have also remained low-key. With their wealth offshore and highly secretive, the estimated 900 families who run the sector have the largest fleet in the world. As Athens' biggest foreign currency earner after tourism, the industry remitted more than $175bn (£112bn) to the country in untaxed earnings over the past decade." (Guardian 13 June) The current economic crisis may be bad news for the Greek working class, but for the owning class it is business as usual. RD
The Glasgow & Edinburgh Branches Blog. Towards a better understanding of the world, in order to change it.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Thursday, June 14, 2012
PROGRESSING BACKWARDS
It suits the politicians and the media of today to spread the notion that somehow the present social system is improving. A look at the wages levels in the USA at present shows that this is just not the case."The federal minimum wage is now $7.25 cents an hour, about $15,080 for a full time, year round worker. At that level, it means poverty wages for a family of three, and weakened demand for the economy. As Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan and New York's bishops concluded, this leaves workers "on the brink of homelessness, with not enough in their paychecks to pay for the most basic of necessities, like food, medicine or clothing for their children." ...... If today's minimum wage were at its previous height in 1968, adjusted for inflation, it would be over $10.00 an hour." (Washington Post, 29 March) RD
Food for thought
While austerity measures and economic downturns may save money for the owning class, they are decidedly unhealthy for the working class. All over Europe suicides by economic circumstances are on the rise, especially in the fragile nations. In Greece, suicides increased 24% from 2007 to 2009, in Ireland by 16%, in Italy suicides rose from 123 in 2005 to 187 in 2010. Capitalism is a dangerous business. Time to make our lives safe!
The recent federal budget was presented as a reasonably benign affair but careful scrutiny reveals a massive move towards getting government out of all kinds of public services. Apart from the thousands of public service job cuts, the budget ended the National Council of Welfare that advises the government on poverty (ignore it and it will go away!); closed the National Aboriginal Health Centre; trimmed funding for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by $115 million; scrapped the National Roundtable on the environment; cut funding to Transport Canada that regulates airline safety; cut foreign aid and over 1 000 positions from the Canadian Border Services Agency; eliminated over 2 000 professionals and scientists who protect the safety of Canadians in the food, product testing, and environmental fields. It is a sly and cynical piece of underhand work, and the only way to deal with it is to eliminate capitalism altogether, and soon.
Recent headlines in the business sections of the newspapers have highlighted the doom and gloom of the current recession -- " European
Auto Manufacturers heading into a Fifth Straight Year of Falling Sales"; "Yahoo Looks to Right its Sinking Ship...thousands of Layoffs"; "Tortuous Recovery Spurs China to Lower Growth Expectations"; "Global Growth Fears Hammer TSX"; "Toronto Hydro Dropped by Insurer -- Power Provider Warns Decision to Curb Equipment Renewal Will Lead to Blackouts" This is just the tip of the iceberg, of course, but it's enough to show a system in deep trouble and should make everyone think about something better. Let's work to make that something socialism!
Recent figures released by Statistics Canada revealed that youth unemployment (15-24 year-olds) now stands at 14.7%. However, figures do lie. This does not count the youths who have returned to school because they couldn't get a job, or those who are underemployed in part-time jobs, or those who have used up their unemployment benefits. It is pointless to publish such figures unless the object is to hoodwink the public. One more thing is pointless -- the continuation of a system that creates unemployment. John Ayers
The recent federal budget was presented as a reasonably benign affair but careful scrutiny reveals a massive move towards getting government out of all kinds of public services. Apart from the thousands of public service job cuts, the budget ended the National Council of Welfare that advises the government on poverty (ignore it and it will go away!); closed the National Aboriginal Health Centre; trimmed funding for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by $115 million; scrapped the National Roundtable on the environment; cut funding to Transport Canada that regulates airline safety; cut foreign aid and over 1 000 positions from the Canadian Border Services Agency; eliminated over 2 000 professionals and scientists who protect the safety of Canadians in the food, product testing, and environmental fields. It is a sly and cynical piece of underhand work, and the only way to deal with it is to eliminate capitalism altogether, and soon.
Recent headlines in the business sections of the newspapers have highlighted the doom and gloom of the current recession -- " European
Auto Manufacturers heading into a Fifth Straight Year of Falling Sales"; "Yahoo Looks to Right its Sinking Ship...thousands of Layoffs"; "Tortuous Recovery Spurs China to Lower Growth Expectations"; "Global Growth Fears Hammer TSX"; "Toronto Hydro Dropped by Insurer -- Power Provider Warns Decision to Curb Equipment Renewal Will Lead to Blackouts" This is just the tip of the iceberg, of course, but it's enough to show a system in deep trouble and should make everyone think about something better. Let's work to make that something socialism!
Recent figures released by Statistics Canada revealed that youth unemployment (15-24 year-olds) now stands at 14.7%. However, figures do lie. This does not count the youths who have returned to school because they couldn't get a job, or those who are underemployed in part-time jobs, or those who have used up their unemployment benefits. It is pointless to publish such figures unless the object is to hoodwink the public. One more thing is pointless -- the continuation of a system that creates unemployment. John Ayers
Rangers are staring into the abyss
The European Court of Justice ruling in the case of Bosman is authority for the view that professional footballers are workers like anyone else.
PFA Scotland chief executive Fraser Wishart said that Rangers prospective owner Charles Green had a legal obligation to consult the union about his plans. Players will be free to walk away from the club if it goes into liquidation. Equally, they would also be free to accept offers to stay on at Ibrox under the new company which is set to take over Rangers but the choice would be theirs.
Green said that players would be in breach of contract if they opted not to move to his “newco”. Arguing that Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) legislation, known as Tupe, compelled the players to move from the old company to the new. But Mark Hamilton, a Tupe expert with law firm Maclay Murray & Spens, said the legislation made a specific exception in the event of insolvent liquidation. “The current Tupe Regulations, which became law in 2006, do say that, in general, employees’ contracts are automatically transferred when a company’s business is sold from administration. But the rules are different for liquidation. In that case, the key point is that employees do not transfer under the Regulations, though they are free to agree new contracts with the buyer of the business...Players and other employees can choose to move to the newco. But, if people do not want to go, they cannot be compelled...they are under no obligation to work for the liquidated company or any newco unless that is agreed.”
Fraser Wishart said “The purpose of Tupe is to protect employees’ terms and conditions of employment in exactly this type of situation...The players are being asked to decide upon their future with so many uncertainties involved. Unanswered questions such as which division the new club will actually play in, whether there be any sporting sanctions against the club, whether the club be eligible to play in the Scottish Cup and whether there will be a registration embargo. One or more of these factors may have an influence on a professional footballer’s career – particularly since it a career that is relatively short lived."
This is the face of 21st century football – clubs bought and sold speculatively and loaded with debt whilst communities get little benefit. Only TV companies, who stage matches at times to suit themselves are considered important. European football is where the strong thrive and become ever-more powerful and the weak get left behind.
Back in season 2009/10, Christian Aid released the report Blowing the Whistle, which includes a league table of financial secrecy in UK and Irish football. Rangers came in at number 6. Ample warning of things to come. Channel 4 reporter, Alex Thompson, explained how“Because – like the bankers – everyone was having too much fun living the dream? Partly yes, but partly a crucial check and balance to all the Ibrox hype had all but gone. For years too much football ‘journalism’ in Glasgow had been too lazy, sycophantic and incapable of asking awkward questions...Something about asking questions about RFC clearly angers some in the Glasgow media in a way I’ve never seen in 25 years of global reporting...So it went on – year after year. On one side the directors at Scotland’s football ‘governing’ bodies didn’t ask much. On the other, large sections of Glasgow football journalism declined to delve...Legions of fans sold out again,”
Football clubs are social entities and should not be corporate assets. The story of these clubs is the story of communities and the stories of the generations of families who have supported them through thick and thin. Club owners and their sponsors make millions from fans. There should be righteous anger from supporters - at capitalism.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Food for thought
Roper, North Carolina has a population of 617, so there are few officials -- just four, in fact, including a mayor who works for free, and its annual budget is $360 311. Roper's average annual family income is $20 600 or $2 000 below the poverty level for a family of four. When they can't pay their water bills, neighbour Dorenda Gatling turns it off. Some haul buckets from their neighbour's house but to prevent that, homes are sealed with yellow police tape to prevent entry. So the homeowners are waterless and homeless. In capitalism it's 'can't pay, can't have' no matter what the consequences are.
An article in The Toronto Star, March 4, called attention to the plight of non-unionized workers. A hotel worker had her part-time hours cut back to nothing for ten months in 2009 after she spoke at a rally in support of forming a union at her workplace, Novotel, in Mississauga.
About a dozen other Novotel workers have been fired, disciplined, or had their working hours cut since 2008 when they began union organization. The fact that, legally, they had a right to unionize meant nothing to the management. It's like it was two hundred years ago when unionization began. This shows that nothing has changed in capitalism, which is an excellent reason to abolish it.
Thomas Walkom writes in the Toronto Star that there has always been a tacit agreement in Canada that Canadians would welcome new immigrants as long as the government didn't use them to drive down wages. This is very shaky reasoning considering that Marx showed 150 years ago that the reserve army, including immigrants, is there to do just that, drive down wages. Walkom reports that even that agreement has been abandoned by the Harper government. Ottawa will now allow employers to pay temporary foreign workers less. Just who qualifies as a temporary worker is cause for stretching a point. By 2011, there were over 300 000 temporary foreign workers in Canada. What the government is saying, according to Walkom, is that if Canadians don't want to see jobs going to foreign workers they should quit whining and accept lower wages. Right! John Ayers
An article in The Toronto Star, March 4, called attention to the plight of non-unionized workers. A hotel worker had her part-time hours cut back to nothing for ten months in 2009 after she spoke at a rally in support of forming a union at her workplace, Novotel, in Mississauga.
About a dozen other Novotel workers have been fired, disciplined, or had their working hours cut since 2008 when they began union organization. The fact that, legally, they had a right to unionize meant nothing to the management. It's like it was two hundred years ago when unionization began. This shows that nothing has changed in capitalism, which is an excellent reason to abolish it.
Thomas Walkom writes in the Toronto Star that there has always been a tacit agreement in Canada that Canadians would welcome new immigrants as long as the government didn't use them to drive down wages. This is very shaky reasoning considering that Marx showed 150 years ago that the reserve army, including immigrants, is there to do just that, drive down wages. Walkom reports that even that agreement has been abandoned by the Harper government. Ottawa will now allow employers to pay temporary foreign workers less. Just who qualifies as a temporary worker is cause for stretching a point. By 2011, there were over 300 000 temporary foreign workers in Canada. What the government is saying, according to Walkom, is that if Canadians don't want to see jobs going to foreign workers they should quit whining and accept lower wages. Right! John Ayers
Brief history of Glasgow branch
To say times were hard when Glasgow branch was formed in 1924 would be a serious understatement. The branch consisted of working men, only some of whom had jobs, and money was so scarce that in the early days branch meetings were sometimes held in the open because members couldn’t afford to rent a hall.
If funds were lacking then energy and commitment were not, so members threw themselves into making the party known in the city. John Higgins, the first branch secretary, was particularly effective at this and his meetings Glasgow Green gave many Glaswegians their first introduction to the party’s case.
To branch members knowledge meant everything and they were determined to have as much of it as they could, so classes on Marxist theory, logic, etc, were an essential feature, but the main activity was always indoor and, especially, outdoor meetings. Glasgow branch always had a reputation for having first-class speakers and even our opponents, whatever else they thought of us, conceded that.
Two outstanding examples of this were Alex Shaw* and Tony Mulheron. Shaw was an old-time street corner orator with an ability to have his audiences in stitches – his lampooning of some of Glasgow’s left-wing folk heroes, especially the “Red Clydesiders”, was hilarious. Mulheron, by contrast, was in his element on the indoor platform. Tony was extremely articulate and had a witty, flamboyant speaking style that could turn even the driest-sounding theoretical subject into an entertainment.
During the war activities were stepped up. Ever more meetings were held and new, younger speakers came forward. The wartime scene was brightened by visits from London speakers taking a break from the Blitz and, later on, doodlebugs and V2 rockets.
After “peace” was declared the momentum was maintained and the branch’s biggest ever audiences attended meetings at the St. Andrew’s Halls and the Cosmo cinema. Membership increased and the branch even acquired its own premises. In 1949 a second branch was formed in the city and this lasted until 1961.
In the late 1950s an influx of younger members revitalised activities, and in the 1960s candidates were fielded in three parliamentary and five municipal elections. More outdoor speaking stances were opened and there were public debates aplenty with Labourites, Leninists and others.
Added to all this was a winter programme of Sunday evening indoor meetings which ran from October to April and continued for many years. This meant that members had to wrack their brains to come up with titles for around 30 meetings every winter!
Today the old propaganda methods, which were the branch’s strength, are all but finished. People will no longer come to indoor meetings or stop and listen to those held outdoors, and this means that the branch has had to adapt to the new situation. Now we organize day schools, discussion groups, hand out leaflets at demos, provide speakers and other assistance for party activities elsewhere in the country etc.
Glasgow branch has for over eighty years played its part in the party’s activities. Its members have, in the past, given generously of their time, effort and abilities, and today’s members, despite very different and difficult conditions, strive to maintain this record.
V.V.
2004
* see here for a report on Alex Shaw in a 1931 debate with the SLP
If funds were lacking then energy and commitment were not, so members threw themselves into making the party known in the city. John Higgins, the first branch secretary, was particularly effective at this and his meetings Glasgow Green gave many Glaswegians their first introduction to the party’s case.
To branch members knowledge meant everything and they were determined to have as much of it as they could, so classes on Marxist theory, logic, etc, were an essential feature, but the main activity was always indoor and, especially, outdoor meetings. Glasgow branch always had a reputation for having first-class speakers and even our opponents, whatever else they thought of us, conceded that.
Two outstanding examples of this were Alex Shaw* and Tony Mulheron. Shaw was an old-time street corner orator with an ability to have his audiences in stitches – his lampooning of some of Glasgow’s left-wing folk heroes, especially the “Red Clydesiders”, was hilarious. Mulheron, by contrast, was in his element on the indoor platform. Tony was extremely articulate and had a witty, flamboyant speaking style that could turn even the driest-sounding theoretical subject into an entertainment.
During the war activities were stepped up. Ever more meetings were held and new, younger speakers came forward. The wartime scene was brightened by visits from London speakers taking a break from the Blitz and, later on, doodlebugs and V2 rockets.
After “peace” was declared the momentum was maintained and the branch’s biggest ever audiences attended meetings at the St. Andrew’s Halls and the Cosmo cinema. Membership increased and the branch even acquired its own premises. In 1949 a second branch was formed in the city and this lasted until 1961.
In the late 1950s an influx of younger members revitalised activities, and in the 1960s candidates were fielded in three parliamentary and five municipal elections. More outdoor speaking stances were opened and there were public debates aplenty with Labourites, Leninists and others.
Added to all this was a winter programme of Sunday evening indoor meetings which ran from October to April and continued for many years. This meant that members had to wrack their brains to come up with titles for around 30 meetings every winter!
Today the old propaganda methods, which were the branch’s strength, are all but finished. People will no longer come to indoor meetings or stop and listen to those held outdoors, and this means that the branch has had to adapt to the new situation. Now we organize day schools, discussion groups, hand out leaflets at demos, provide speakers and other assistance for party activities elsewhere in the country etc.
Glasgow branch has for over eighty years played its part in the party’s activities. Its members have, in the past, given generously of their time, effort and abilities, and today’s members, despite very different and difficult conditions, strive to maintain this record.
V.V.
2004
* see here for a report on Alex Shaw in a 1931 debate with the SLP
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
A CABINET OF MILLIONAIRES
Politicians love to strike the pose of "we're all in this together" and stress how much they have in common with the ordinary man in the street but the combined wealth of the Cabinet is estimated at nearly £70 million, with 18 out of 29 ministers worth more than a million, according to a new analysis. "Wealth-X, a consultancy specialising in analysing the financial affairs of US politicians estimated David Cameron's net worth at £3.8 million. The most wealthy cabinet minister is Lord Strathclyde, the Leader of the House of Lords, who is estimated to be worth £9.6 from his stake in his family's estate management company, Auchendrane Estates. Also in the top five are Defence Secretary Philip Hammond at £8.2 million, and Foreign Secretary William Hague and Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt at £4.8 million each." (Daily Telegraph, 28 May) So much for the man in the street pose. RD
Food for thought
A recent study suggests retailers can increase yearly takings by almost $100 000 by employing people whose ethnicity reflects the local community. The study by Temple University, Rutgers, and Davidson College studied the theory at over seven hundred JC Penny stores. The extra take averages out to $630 per employee (wonder if they received any of it) and brought the company $69 million a year. Altruism is a wonderful thing, especially when it brings in millions.
A recent Toronto Star article divulged some interesting facts about the rise and fall of the 'Celtic Tiger', commonly known as Ireland, that spent the 1990s enjoying unprecedented economic growth. Housing prices quadrupled and unemployment fell from 17% to 4% and 'plasterers were making 2 000 Euros ($2 666 Canadian) a week and spending 200 Euros on a pair of pants'. In 2007, the housing bubble burst and the Bank of Ireland's stock plunged 75% in one year. Now Ireland has an official unemployment of 14%. No matter how well things go in the boom, the bust will follow and the bubble will burst. There is no security for the worker in capitalism. John Ayers
A recent Toronto Star article divulged some interesting facts about the rise and fall of the 'Celtic Tiger', commonly known as Ireland, that spent the 1990s enjoying unprecedented economic growth. Housing prices quadrupled and unemployment fell from 17% to 4% and 'plasterers were making 2 000 Euros ($2 666 Canadian) a week and spending 200 Euros on a pair of pants'. In 2007, the housing bubble burst and the Bank of Ireland's stock plunged 75% in one year. Now Ireland has an official unemployment of 14%. No matter how well things go in the boom, the bust will follow and the bubble will burst. There is no security for the worker in capitalism. John Ayers
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."
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.
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.
Monday, June 11, 2012
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
"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
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
Sunday, June 10, 2012
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
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
Saturday, June 09, 2012
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
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.”
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.”
Friday, June 08, 2012
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
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
Thursday, June 07, 2012
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.
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."
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."
Wednesday, June 06, 2012
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
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
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
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
Monday, June 04, 2012
Give the Orange Lodge their marching orders!
As part of the Queen's 60th Jubilee the Protestant, pro-monarchist Orange Order staged numerous parades and held street parties to commemorate the day.
The Orange Order has its origin in Ireland, where in the 18th century Protestant and Catholic farmers banded together in defense of each other in secret societies and informal militias. The structure of the Order was modeled after the Freemasons, and the name was chosen to show support for William of Orange, the man who had replaced James II in 1690. Early in their history, the Order was mostly an agrarian movement, and was not particularly popular with the gentry. They were seen as a potential problem. It was feared that they would turn on the aristocracy. This changed when the United Irishmen entered the scene in Ireland in the 1780s, with their revolutionary ideas, and posed an even greater threat to the gentry. The reality was that the Orange Order became a counter-revolutionary institution to target not just Catholics but also "disloyal" Protestants. It's formation and spread was encouraged by the British state in order to drive a wedge between ordinary Catholics and Protestants. The 12th of July was picked as the key date to provide an alternative attraction to the marking of Bastille day and in itself to mark the sectarian massacre that led to the formation of the Orange Order.
The Orange Order was born in Armagh in 1795 as part of an armed terror campaign to deny full citizenship rights to Catholics. This was in the context of struggles between landlords and tenants in the area of which the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh said "the worst of this is that it stands to unite Protestant and Papist, and whenever that happens, good-bye to the English interest in Ireland". Specifically the penal laws forbade Catholics from bearing arms, but radical (and mostly Protestant) volunteer companies in the 1780's had been recruiting and arming Catholics with the "the full support of a radical section of Protestant political opinion". Catholics were driven out of Armagh by Orange Order pogroms but many expelled Catholic families were sheltered by Presbyterian United Irishmen in Belfast and later Antrim and Down, and the (mostly) Protestant leadership of the United Irishmen sent lawyers to prosecute on behalf of the victims of Orange attacks. They also sent special missions to the area to undermine the Orange Order's influence. The Orange Order probably played a key part in ensuring the failure of the 1798 rebellion. At the time General John Knox, the architect of this policy described the Orange Order as "the only barrier we have against the United Irishmen" after the failed rebellion he wrote "the institution of the Orange Order was of infinite use".
The strategy was simple. In order to prevent Protestant workers identifying with their Catholic neighbours the order offered an anti-Catholic society, led by the wealthy Protestants that offered all Protestants a place in its ranks, and the promise of promotion and privilege. The annual parades were a key part of this strategy, they filled two roles. They allowed the working class Protestant members a day in the sun to mix with their "betters" and lord it over their Catholic neighbours. At the same time, they exposed radical Protestant workers to accusations of being "traitors" for refusing to take part in the events. Much of the imagery of loyalism, the bonfires, the bunting and the painted kerbstones provide an opportunity to demand of every Protestant worker in a community "which side are you on". The lodge was also a place where workers could meet employers, and formally or informally receive job offers. While in rural areas employers would be aware of who was a member and discriminate in job applications against those who were not.
In the relevant stability after the defeat of 1798 the British and local ruling class felt they no longer needed the Order.The Order was banned in 1825, because the British government in Dublin Castle did not like the idea of another armed presence that was not under their control. Its survival during these years shows that the institution cannot simply be viewed as dependent on Britain or local Protestant rulers. It also fed off the historical legacy of sectarianism and annually offered a chance for the "little man" to feel big. In this sense the psychological attraction of Orangism for poor Protestants is similar to the attraction described by William Reich of poor workers/unemployed for fascism. The Orange Order's complex nature is also shown by later events in 1881 when it was possible for the Land league to hold a meeting in the local Orange hall at Loughgall. Micheal Davitt told the crowd that the "landlords of Ireland are all of one religion - their God is mammon and rack-rents, and evictions their only morality, while the toilers of the fields, whether Orangemen, Catholics, Presbyterians or Methodists are the victims".This danger of class unity saw the ruling class and British conservatives rapidly returning to the Order and the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland responded with a manifesto claiming that the Land League was a conspiracy against property rights, Protestantism, civil and religious liberty and the British constitution. When the question was put this way the Orange Order fulfilled its role and went on to provide the scab labour which attempted to harvest Captain Boycott's crops.
There were other occasions when the Orangemen organised resistance to certain events, such as when Daniel O’Connell organised a march in favor of Catholic Emancipation to Belfast, but for most of the period from 1860 to 1886, the Order had little significance. That changed in 1886 when fear of the Home Rule Bill became a factor. Henry Cooke, the leading voice for the conservative Presbyterian Church in Ireland, managed settle intra-Protestant problems between the Presbyterians and the "Anglican" Church of Ireland. The Presbyterians joined the Orange Order and it became the popular voice of Irish Protestantism. From here on, the Order was spread throughout the British Empire.
The Orange Order was first was brought to Scotland by soldiers who had been posted to Ireland to help out against the 1798 United Irishman's rebellion that had been inspired by the French Revolution. Scottish soldiers serving with Fencible regiments, as well as the Regulars, were sent to Ireland to assist in suppressing the rebellion. In this task they often served alongside Orange Yeomanry. Ex-servicemen formed the first Scottish Orange lodges around 1807. However, early growth was very slow. Indeed, the first recorded Scottish "Twelfth", held in Glasgow, was in 1821.There is no record of any civilian Lodge warrants being issued for Scotland by the Grand Lodge of Ireland in its first register (1798-1819), and the Lodges known to be working in Ayrshire, Glasgow, and Argyllshire all had military origins. In 1835, Scottish Orangeism also fell upon hard times because the Loyal Orange Institution of Great Britain and Loyal Orange Institution of Ireland were "dissolved" for their part in the "Orange Conspiracy". This was a bizarre yet treasonable plot to place the Duke of Cumberland (Imperial Grand Master of the Loyal Institution of Great Britain and the Loyal Institution of Ireland) on the throne in place of Princess Victoria. In addition, the reigning monarch, King William IV was to be deposed for sanctioning reform! Civilian Lodges composed mainly of Ulstermen came in a later phase of development during the 1830s with the transformation of Scotland’s industrial landscape. The modern textile industry replaced handloom weaving, and the coal and iron industries developed, as did shipbuilding which brought Irish migrants to Scotland, including many Protestants. This scale of industrialisation ensured the survival of Orangeism. Indeed, it has often been noted that Scottish Orangeism is essentially a by-product of the Industrial Revolution. Membership of the Orange Order was popular with the Lowlands' Protestants because it gave them a mechanism for personal success and fulfilment: membership could secure better jobs, and made up for a hard and unrewarding life with flamboyant titles like Grand or Worshipful Master. The Orange Order has 800 lodges in Scotland and probably 50,000 members today.
Politically, the Scottish Orange has been very active.Their 'Use and Wont’ campaign – to keep bible study in Schools, when in the 1872 Education Act a “conscience clause” allowed withdrawal form religious instruction. – saw many Orangemen being elected to school boards in 1873. During the Home Rule agitation, around 6,000 heard Carson at a meeting in Glasgow – where seven UVF companies were raised. During the inter-war period, anti-Catholicism grew increasingly prevalent in many areas of Scottish society. Protestant bosses told their foremen to give jobs to Protestants first. In the 1920s and 1930s this got to a point where Catholics knew that if Protestants were competing for jobs, they did not even need to apply. After the Great War there was even Protestant political parties in Scotland. The "Orange and Protestant Political Party" in 1923 defeated the sitting Communist MP in Motherwell and Wishaw to win its one and only seat. Ramsay MacDonald's cabinet had two Scottish Orangemen, Gilmour as Home Secretary and Scottish Secretary Sir Godfrey Collins. Protestant Action, an extreme group led by John Cormack, gathered followers in Edinburgh during this time. While in Glasgow a similar Protestant extremist group, with Alexander Ratcliffe at its head , the Scottish Protestant League, managed to gain support. Ratcliffe was an anti-Semite and becaame a follower of Hitler. Another factor in the Protestant-Catholic relationship in the 1930s were the street gangs in Glasgow. The best known of these are the Bridgeton “Billy Boys”. Billy Fullerton, their leader, was awarded a medal for strikebreaking in the 1926 General Strike. The Catholic equivalent were the Norman Conqs. Glasgow in particular was full of poverty and rife with gangs. Men who feel a lack of identity sought it out in the Orange Order (where they could all be Protestant together). Then there were the football rivalries. Rangers and Celtic, Hearts and Hibs (Dundee Hibernian in 1923 dropped its Irish connections and became Dundee United).
With the growth of the labour movement and the Left, the Orange Order warned of a conspiracy of "Popery" and "socialism". Whenever radicalism Protestant workers linked up with Catholic workers and acted in their own class interests this threatened the unity of the Order. When in 1932, the Falls and Shankill rioted together against unemployment, the Order warned "loyal subjects of the King, the vital necessity of standing guard against communism".
The differences between Catholics and Protestants have declined in significance. A survey of Glaswegians of both faiths showed a negligible one per cent could claim to have experienced employment discrimination first-hand. Catholics do not appear to be discriminated against in employment, education, the provision of public goods, and most of Scotland feels very strongly that prejudice is never justifiable. In fact, religion in Scotland really doesn't matter that much at all. Faith itself matters little to the secular people of today's Scotland.
Stuart Waiton of Abertay University in Dundee writes: “... that there are no real differences in the lives of Catholics and Protestants - and any differences that do exist are dying out fast...” Research by Gillian Raab of Edinburgh's Napier University found evidence that intermarriage between Protestants and Catholics had largely eroded the causes for sectarian discrimination.
No-one is arguing that sectarianism is non-existent but these days Orangemen are of less significance. No-one would claim that Scotland was a hotbed of neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers, but you can find a few. Likewise, you can still find the die-hard Orangemen, but they are a dying breed. Crimes motivated by racial/ethnic or sexual orientation origin are far more a problem in Scotland than crimes of any religiously motivated nature. Members of both Protestants and Catholics communities are now increasingly reserve their xenophobic hatred for newer migrants to Scotland
Socialists have no time for either the Union Jack or the Irish tricolour.
APPENDIX
The Anti-Irish Church of Scotland
The national church in Scotland today is the Church of Scotland, which is legally recognised as such. The Church of Scotland is the largest religious grouping in Scotland with 36% of Scottish population nominally as members. The second largest religious grouping in Scotland is Roman Catholicism, with 16% of the Scottish population, most of which are of Irish descent. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of the immigrants from Ireland were Catholic. From the 1960s, when almost everyone claimed a religious label, the “no religion” identity has grown considerably and people who profess no religion actually outnumber either those in the Roman Catholic church or Church of Scotland in Scotland.
In 1922, incited by a kirk minister, a Protestant mob stoned and bottled buses carrying Catholic women and children to the Eucharistic Congress in Morningside, Edinburgh. In 1923 an official Presbyterian campaign against Irish immigration not only demonstrated the anti-Catholicism present in the Presbyterian churches at this time, but also emphasised race and tried to portray differences as national, not just simply religious. This campaign has later become known as “the Kirk’s Disgrace”. It was about singling out an ethnic minority whose presence in Scotland was to be regarded as an evil, polluting the purity of the Scottish race and culture The campaign started at the Church of Scotland General Assembly, with a report called "The Menace of the Irish race to our Scottish Nationality " which protested that Catholics had “most abominably abused the privileges which the Scottish people had given them...Already there is a bitter feeling among the Scottish working classes against the Irish intruders. As the latter increase and the Scottish people realise the seriousness of the menace to their own racial supremacy in their native land, this bitterness will develop into a race antagonism which will have disastrous consequences for Scotland." At the same General Assembly, it was warned that the presence of “Irish Catholic aliens … would soon bring racial and sectarian warfare to Scotland”.
The expressions "racial supremacy" and "aliens" makes the report sound like it could have been written by Hitler's Nazi propagandists or white supremists of the American south. Yet this report by Rev. John White's Church and Nation Committee was accepted by the General Assembly and a sub-committee formed to promote the anti-Irish cause
Restrictions on immigration from Ireland and the revision of the Education Act were proposed and passed. As the campaign was adopted by more senior church figures, more emphasis was put on what was meant to be “respectable” arguments surrounding race and national character. In 1928 the churches presented their case to the government. They complained that Scotland had become a “dumping ground” for Irish immigrants after the USA had reduced their quota, and that 70% of parish and other relief funds, were spent on the Catholic Irish. The Church of Scotland's Church and Nation Committee called for the deportation of unemployed Catholics to Ireland - a country most of them by then had never seen. Scottish Catholics from the Highlands and Irish Protestants, however could stay, because "they are of the same race as ourselves"
Attempts to get government support collaped when first the Glasgow Herald demonstrated that the immigration was not at all as high as was claimed, and when the government after an investigation of their own refused to have anything more to do with this campaign. The campaigners then decided to redirect their efforts and the 1930 General Assembly decided that the church should instead focus its attention on businesses and have them “employ Scottish labour where such is available”. Now that the Kirk understood that no government would halt Irish immigration then they would appeal to the patriotism of Scottish employers to practice job discrimination in their hiring.
In 2002 the General Assembly formally apologised for its actions and statements.
Saturday, June 02, 2012
Friday, June 01, 2012
ANOTHER CLASS ADVANTAGE
Inside capitalism the rich have access to all the best food, clothing, housing and education and the working class are left with the cheap and the shoddy. This even applies to legal services according to an authority on the subject. The solicitor Andrew Phillips speaking from 55 years of experience had this to say on the subject. "The way we're moving will result in the rich and powerful being even more advantaged than they already are in terms of legal services. There is not even a remote equality of arms. The law has become a tool for the rich and mighty that others cannot access." (Times, 31 May) RD
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