sheffield labour council targets workers and the vulnerable

16 02 2012

David Huckerby reports on the 550 council jobs to be axed in Sheffield.

Anti-cuts demonstration in Sheffield

Julie Dore and the Labour group who run Sheffield Council will make council workers and some of the most vulnerable people, who depend on council services, pay for the financial crisis. While Julie Dore sneers in public at protesters with placards, she tells Sheffield Star readers and trade union meetings that she has protected the most vulnerable. This is a dishonest attempt to justify choosing to make cuts, rather than organise to fight the government. The image of the dented sheild only makes sense if you have taken part in a battle, not surrendered before the fight has begun.

Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: , , , , ,
Categories : sheffield, the commune

nostalgia for old labour

2 02 2012

Clifford Biddulph reviews ‘Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class’

Owen Jones describes how hatred of the working class finds expression in discourse, in negative images and gross exaggerations and distortions of working class experience in the media. The myth that we are all middle class except the chavs. We are all familiar with anti working class stereotypes, such as Vicky Pollard, the comic creation of the posh Matt Lucas and David Walliams, who come from a privileged background. Owen explains how the mockery of the working class demonstrates their social inferiority for their tormentors and superiors. It’s a culture which blames the victims rather than social injustice or structured social inequality in capitalism. It’s the way the “working class rump” lives that’s seen as the problem. But what is Owen’s alternative?
Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 5 Comments »
Tags: ,
Categories : book reviews, labour party, reviews, the commune

death by a thousand (paper) cuts

14 01 2012

Taimour Lay reports on the crisis in the print-media from a journalist’s perspective 

Most of you reading this article won’t be regular buyers of a newspaper. You might not have the time or the inclination. You might be rightly hacked off with the tabloids or fed up with the ideological biases of the broadsheets. You might think most papers most of the time won’t cover what you want in the way you want it. That’s probably why you picked up The Commune (plus, like Metro, we’re free.) Or you’re reading all you need online, including this paragraph…

In a spin: newspaper circulation is falling rapidly

For those of us who work in newspapers, it’s obvious we’re part of an industry in crisis. And it’s not just a slump, it’s an existential panic, a growing realisation that we’re the last generation who will have worked in print. A whole language and culture of work will go – the backbench, downtable, going off stone, the four-star, the slip, the runner, top and tailing – it will all be history, along with the final edition. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: , ,
Categories : the commune

january issue of the commune – out now!

12 01 2012

The January issue of The Commune is now available. It features articles on the state of the anti-cuts movement after the 30th November pensions strikes, a plan for the NHS beyond both market and state, the uprising in Wukan, China, and much else besides.

The paper is free: click the image above to download the PDF. See below for a list of articles as they are posted online.

news

cops back bosses bullying cleaners - Siobhan Breathnach reports on Guildhall cleaners standing up against management bullying

wukan peasant victory sets stage for chinese turmoil - Adam Ford reports on the Wukan rebellion and asks what it means for the future of social struggles in China

reza shahabi must be free! - Omid Rezai looks at the case of a jailed militant on hunger strike in Iran

the woolf that didn’t bark: the LSE-libya inquiry - Jack Staunton, a student at the London School of Economics (LSE) looks at Lord Woolf’s inquiry into the School’s ties to the Gaddafi régime

thatcher and liverpool thirty years on - Adam Ford writes on revelations that the Thatcher Government discussed a ‘managed decline’ of Liverpool.

news in brief… – suicide threat at foxconn; la senza occupation; G4S asylum-seeker homes deal

anti-cuts

the n30 strike and a 2012 of struggle - Steve Ryan, a PCS activist in Wrexham, looks at the aftermath of the 30th November national pensions strike and the opportunities for struggle in 2012

faith in the government or unity on strike? - Clifford Biddulph comments on the GMB union’s announcement on the Government’s pensions deal in the wake of the 30th November strike

unions not up to the challenge - A Unison branch secretary replies to Clifford’s article

taking control of our struggle – A college worker who struck on 30th November reports on the mood in her workplace six weeks later

an alternative for the here and now – the editorial argues that communism isn’t just some dream for the future: it’s about how we organise today

working life

death by a thousand (paper) cuts - Taimour Lay reports on the crisis in the print-media from a journalist’s perspective

workers’ control in the health-care system - Mike Levine discusses how we can go beyond the hierarchical form of the National Health Service. 

self-managed socialism: possible, urgent, necessary - Henrique T. Novaes looks at advantages and limitations of the Latin American experience of workers trying to overcome capitalist work relations through their control of their workplaces

distribution

This paper is free, and we’re always looking to expand our distribution network. Would you like to share these ideas with friends or colleagues? Leave a few in your local library or café? Contact us at uncaptiveminds@gmail.com

To get our communist message out there, we also need money. If you enjoy the paper, the price of a couple of pints a month would be of great use to us. Email us, or set up a standing order to The Commune, Co-op sc. 089299 ac. 65317440. You can also send cheques, addressed to ‘The Commune’, to The Commune, Freedom Bookshop, Angel Alley, 84b Whitechapel High St, London, E1 7QX


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags:
Categories : the commune

‘when the crisis comes’

19 11 2011

An essay by Henrik Johansson, exploring the perverse ideology perpetuated during capitalist crisis

When the next crisis comes, and it will, you will lose your job. There is a connection, but you will not see it. The management will say it’s a result of reduced orders and lack of work, with what you perceive as honest intimacy and regret.

You shall consider not telling anything to your family, but every morning to get up, drink coffee and leave home. You imagine that you will be looking for a new job that you can  proudly present to them one fine day. The plan is too absurd and you never try it. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags:
Categories : the commune

the 99%, the 1% and ‘anti-finance’

9 11 2011

Oisín Mac Giallomóir argues the Occupy movement needs to oppose capitalist production not just capitalist finance and governments

A lot of people have commented that a problem with the Occupy  movement is that it is not clear what they are for. I think that is a smaller problem than the lack of clarity about what they are against. It is against the rule of the 1%. But who are the 1%? What role do they have in society?

The statistical fact that there is a very, very small section of society that is in ‘control’ is clear but the nature and basis of their control isn’t. Certainly the argument is in some sense ‘anti-capitalist’. We are against the tiny minority who control the majority of the earth’s wealth and in the process have huge political power. And we are against the system that enables this to happen. But after that questions arise. What is the system that enables this to happen? Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 8 Comments »
Tags: , ,
Categories : the commune

november issue of the commune

5 11 2011

The November issue of our free newspaper is now available. It features extensive coverage of the Occupy movement, four pages on the travellers’ struggle at Dale Farm, and much more. See the list of articles below as they are posted online… or click the picture to download the PDF.

As always we ask that if you enjoy or disagree with any of our features then please write to us and we can feature your views in the next edition. If you would like copies to distribute then send us a message at uncaptiveminds@gmail.com, and we will send some copies in the post.

Organising

N30: there is an alternative - The Commune’s editorial looks forward to the 30th November strike against austerity

there’s more to politics than westminster - Greg Brown asks what is the way forward for students’ struggles after last year’s defeat on fees and EMA

make or break for the ‘sparks’ – Adam Ford reports on developments in the electricians’ movement

Occupy

bishops, tents and the city - Sharon Borthwick reports on the occupations at London’s St Paul’s and Finsbury Square

all eyes on oakland [online only] - Donagh Davis reports from Occupy Oakland

the same old slogans? - Bristol Communards headed down to their local ‘Occupy’ space

the 99%, the 1% and ‘anti-finance’ - Oisín Mac Giallomóir argues the Occupy movement needs to oppose capitalist production not just capitalist finance and governments

occupy tel-aviv: the israeli summer - Lee Meidan writes from Israel on a rare wave of social unrest

Dale Farm

dale farm: a community under siege - Dominic Fitzgerald reports on the eviction of the Dale Farm traveller site

travellers, the state and the meaning of solidarity -  Richard B. argues that traveller support must now become a part of our movement

Ideas

the power to make change for ourselves - David Broder was unconvinced by ‘Anarchism: a Marxist Critique’ by John Molyneux

‘when the crisis comes’ – an essay by Henrik Johansson, exploring the perverse ideology perpetuated during capitalist crisis

a platform for struggle - Sheila Cohen, co-editor of Trade Union Solidarity, writes on the new venture


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , ,
Categories : the commune

15th october 2011: birth of a global anti-capitalist movement?

16 10 2011

By Adam Ford

In my opinion, it is very likely that the historians of the future will look upon yesterday as the day a truly global anti-capitalist movement was born. Following the example of Occupy Wall Street, Los Angeles, Boston, and hundreds of US towns and cities, a huge number of small and large occupations began on every continent except Antarctica (see Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, South America).

All proclaim their opposition to the capitalist status quo – with its obscene riches at one pole and sickening poverty at the other. All of this has been organised online, completely outside the clutches of the decaying trade union bureaucracies, for whom ‘international solidarity’ is just some words they used to say a few decades back. The old organisations of timid protest seek influence on the margins, but they are ignored and seen to be as irrelevant as they actually are. It is highly appropriate that this moment has been crowned by the apparently successful resisting of the attempt by New York’s mayor and second richest man to retake Liberty Park. There is a sense that the powers that be are losing control by the hour, if not the second if you follow it all on Twitter.

Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: , , ,
Categories : the commune

life as a ‘chugger’ – owing money to your boss

6 10 2011

An ex-fundraiser recounts life working in the charity sector, where employers’ ‘ethical credentials’ are far from the reality

As a bête noire of the mainstream media, right-wing and liberal alike, street and door-to-door charity fundraising is something that has had a lot of column inches and broadcast time devoted to it over the last few years. Unsurprisingly this coverage has almost exclusively sought to lump together workers with their employers and paint a picture of one homogenous group of ‘chuggers’ (charity muggers) collectively scamming charities and donors out of money.

With the vast majority of fundraisers aged between 18 and 30 and either without qualifications, or working the job to pay for studying, the image the media have sought to create neatly fits into both the on-going campaign of media hate directed at working-class youth, and populist rhetoric that portrays bankers, public sector workers and benefit claimants as somehow collectively conspiring to rob the rest of the country.

Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 8 Comments »
Tags: , ,
Categories : the commune, workers' enquiry

the whac-a-mole approach to fixing the euro

5 10 2011

Oisín Mac Giollamóir explains European politicians’ ongoing failure to avert crisis

The great experiment of the European Union has continued its bizarre march into oblivion. I wrote the ‘unhappy economies’ article in the last issue of The Commune in early August, shortly after the Greek ‘bailout’ of 21st July. Since then much has happened… but equally, nothing much has happened.

The German Chancellor and the President of the European Central Bank calm market fears

First, how has the 21st July bailout worked out? Different for different countries. Oddly, for Ireland, things are looking rosy. The interest rate on two-year government bonds is now just over a third of what it was in late July. This has resulted in some bold confident statements from the Irish government about their achievements that are almost certainly a bit premature. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , ,
Categories : the commune

« Previous Entries


Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 74 other followers