the ‘social wage’ and the hackney nurseries campaign

Camille Barbagallo and Nic Beuret look at the role of public services and how the cuts axe is falling

Childcare services in the UK are under attack. Childcare services across the country are being defunded, abolished and downgraded. In this article we start with the specific cuts in Hackney to nursery places and analyse these cuts in the context of the gendered nature of the ConDem’s austerity budget. We explore both what enables these cuts to happen now and what their effects will be and conclude with some reflections on possible paths of resistance within the current crisis of care.

Let’s be honest – the public services that are being cut include things that we need, but we hate how they are given to us: like unemployment benefits. They also involve jobs that we rely on but resent having to do. But what is also true is that they are part of a ‘social wage’ fought for and won by pervious generations.

london forum on big flame

This August The Commune in London has staged a series of meetings on communist organisation, and we have already looked at the examples of Kamunist Kranti in India and 1960s-70s Italian group Potere Operaio.

The final meeting in the series is on Big Flame, a  British libertarian Marxist group in the 1970s. The discussion will be led off by a worker active in Merseyside car factories at that time. All welcome – the meeting is from 7pm on Monday 30th August at the Lucas Arms, Grays Inn Road, near King’s Cross (note change from original venue).

is unison ready to fight the cuts?

A UNISON branch official looks at the attacks on the left within the union at a time when public sector workers face major cuts

This summer Dave Prentis won his bid to become General Secretary of UNISON for the third time with 67.2% of the vote (based on a very poor 14% turn out). As a speaker at conference Dave Prentis often talks left.

However, despite his fine words, he has been at the helm during a period when the left have suffered serious attacks from the leadership. Several very well known and respected left wingers in UNISON have faced harassment and even expulsion on trumped up and unfounded charges. Some of these instances are well known amongst the wider labour movement.

protest against marks and spencer over indian sweatshop

Join a solidarity protest in front of the Marks and Spencer store, 173 Oxford Street, London – 11 am, Saturday 4th September 2010

From a press release of Mazdoor Ekta Manch, a union based in Gurgaon:

Workers of the Viva Global Factory, including women were brutally beaten up with hockey sticks and lathis [canes] by goons called in by the Management of Viva Global, the Gurgaon based sweatshop apparel house. The incident happened on 23rd of August 2010 between 9:30 and 10:00 AM when workers were to enter the premises of the Factory, as part of a tripartite agreement between the Management of Viva Global, the Labour Department and the Garment and Allied Workers Union (GAWU).

Viva Global is a major supplier of apparel to ‘reputed’ multinational superbrands such as Marks and Spencer. There have been serious violations of labour laws and human rights at the Viva Global Factory. The Management has been using strong arm tactics against union leaders, representatives of workers etc., each time that the workers have demanded that basic amenities and legal wages be given to them. On the 21st of Aug 2010, at 6.00 PM, contract workers were locked out of the Factory in an attempt to illegally terminate them.

Our demands are: All workers be reinstated and the management of the Viva Global apologise to the workers.

cuts agenda tough on peckham

Ahead of our September 11th assembly on the crisis, Sharon Borthwick writes on the changes in social composition and public services in Peckham in recent years, and the meaning of the crisis and cuts plans.

The sign outside Academy at Peckham reads, “Our facilities are unparalleled by any other school in Britain”. And well they might be! But the ‘facilities’ spoken of here are nothing to do with the vast playing fields of Eton. There are no well-stocked libraries. They can’t boast a rowing lake or a Latin Master. Learning for learning’s sake is not the object here. The facilities consist of things such as a “Professional Hospitality and Catering Suite” and a “Hairdressing and Beauty Salon”.

The children of Peckham are being told what career paths they are cut out for. Though academies are mostly funded by public money, Lord Harris of Peckham is the chief ‘sponsor’ of Academy at Peckham and nine other South London Academies; he likes them all to bear his name. Harris is a Conservative member of the House of Lords and contributes substantial donations to his party; he is also a vocal opponent of gay rights. The Academy at Peckham is set to make job cuts, specifically in support staff.

a syndicalism for the 21st century?

Sheila Cohen looks at the Great Unrest and the meaning for syndicalism today

It seems unlikely that the centenary of the 1910-14 Great Unrest will gain much attention in the media – if, indeed, it gets a mention at all. But, for supporters of workers’ revolutionary self-activity, this is an anniversary to remember.

potere operaio: the last firebrands

In August we staged a series of forums on what we can learn from past communist organisations. Martine Bourne reports on the discussion about Italian group Potere Operaio.

Potere Operaio (Workers Power) were the focus of the second meeting of the series organised by the London group on communist organisation and class struggle. Potere Operaio emerged in 1967 as a grouping operating independently of the trade union movement. They stood as a faction within the Communist Party-led CGIL trade union during internal elections at the Petrolchimico company based in the industrial zone of Venice, Porto Marghera. From here they built themselves into a national organisation which at their high point had 10,000 activists, but by 1973 had split.

the commune issue 17

The September issue of The Commune is now available. Click the image below to see PDF or use the list of individual articles as they are posted online.

Contact us at uncaptiveminds@gmail.com if you would like to buy a printed copy (£1 + 50p postage) or set up a subscription. (£12 a year UK/£16 EU/£20 international.

News

spectre of communism haunts china’s rulers – Adam Ford on the recent strike wave

solidarity with the miners’ strike in ukraine – by Chris Kane

demo to support berns salonger cleaners – an IWW member writes on recent solidarity initiatives with migrant workers in sweden

is UNISON ready to fight the cuts? – a UNISON branch official looks at the state of the union as it gears up for major confrontations with the government

Life at work

a “zero hours” contract… for thousands of hours – Jack Staunton writes on his work in a government market research call centre

‘the security is to keep us in!’ – Sharon Borthwick reviews Rivethead, a ‘book of tales from the assembly line’

Strategies for fighting the cuts

building a movement against cuts – by Steve Ryan

nothing will be like it was before – Tom Denning writes on strategies we need and strategies we don’t

no escape from theory – Oleg Resin revisits the 1970s ‘state debate’ and questions the nature of public services

the ‘social wage’ and the hackney nurseries campaign – Camille Barbagallo and Nic Beuret look at how the cuts axe is falling, and why

proposed principles for anti-cuts movements – a motion by Dave Spencer to The Commune’s upcoming conference

Events

from meltdown to upheaval – an assembly on the crisis and how we organise hosted by The Commune, 11th September

the commune around britain – details of local groups and forums

women at the cutting edge – Feminist Fightback meeting on the crisis, 30th October

Our network, the left and theory

potere operaio: the last firebrands – Martine Bourne reports on one of the recent London forums on communist organisations past and present

a syndicalism for the 21st century? – Sheila Cohen draws the lessons of the 1910-14 Great Unrest for a modern understanding of workers’ democracy

for creative and critical thinking on the left – Permanent Revolution’s Eleanor Davies calls for joint forums and a culture of openness

a spectre of communism haunts china’s rulers…

Adam Ford reports on recent upheavals in China

With the US empire in terminal decline, the Chinese economy has become essential to the globally integrated capitalist economy. China is now the world’s second largest economy, having officially overtaken its neighbour Japan, with a gross domestic product of over a trillion US dollars in the second quarter of 2010. It has long enjoyed gargantuan economic growth, and even weathered the storm of the global economic crisis up to this point.

But its status as “sweatshop of the world” now seems extremely vulnerable to both internal and external shocks, and a period of huge social upheaval is on the horizon.

for creative and critical thinking on the left

Eleanor Davies, a member of Permanent Revolution, proposes joint forums and a culture of openness

Permanent Revolution members attended The Commune’s recent summer school and found it to be a day of open discussion with many committed activists. One of the things that stuck out most was the number of people who wanted to talk about taking the day forward in terms of working together with a common goal of rebuilding the movement.

The plenary session was opened by Chris Ford of The Commune who made the point that, as we approach a period where the working class will come under the savage attack of the Con-Dem government, the left is marginalised to the point where we have very little influence in any sphere of society. The idea of ‘communist regroupment’ was posed and met with favourable if cautious response.

a coalition of cuts, a coalition of resistance

Gregor Gall, professor of Industrial Relations at the University of Hertfordshire, explores the difficulties of forming alliances and coalitions to fight the cuts.

In previous articles for The Commune, I laid out the arguments for, and problems and challenges contained therein, in constructing civil alliances between the providers (via unions) and users of the services in order to oppose cuts in and privatisation of public services.

from meltdown to upheaval: 11th september assembly

The Commune are hosting an assembly on Saturday 11th September, debating the effects of the crisis, the existing resistance and the questions it raises regarding how we organise. We have now filled in more of the timetable and blurbs for workshops, see below.

All welcome. We will be soliciting and publishing local and industry-specific reports in the lead-up to the event, see below for examples and see here for the questionnaire. Workshop details below, followed by timetable. The event is from 10am on Saturday 11th September at LARC, 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 (Aldgate East tube).

is marxism just too abstract?

by Nathan Coombs

The following commentary is in response to a forum organized by The Commune and the Marxist-Humanist Initiative, held in London on July 5, 2010.  This involved a talk by Anne Jaclard, “You Can’t Change the Mode of Production with a Political Agenda,” followed by a talk by Andrew Kliman, “The Transformation of Capitalism into Communism in the Critique of the Gotha Program.” Both talks can be read here.

In 1965 Louis Althusser opened his famous paean For Marx with a withering reflection on French theoretical culture at the time. He bemoaned the fact that ‘we have spent the best part of our time in agitation when we would have been better employed in the defence of our right and duty to know’.[i] The result of which was ‘the stubborn, profound absence of any theoretical culture’; whereas, he claimed, ‘Marxism should not be simply a political doctrine, a ‘method’ of analysis and action, but also, over and above the rest, the theoretical domain of fundamental investigation’.[ii] For this task Althusser saw as indispensable the role of intellectuals committed to necessary theoretical work.

Plato: an 'abstract' proto-communist?

a “zero-hours” contract… for thousands and thousands of hours

Jack Staunton writes on his work in a call centre compiling government market research surveys

When drunk we feel a strange kind of tiredness. Not the exhaustion of physical exertion nor the sleepiness which dusks in the late evening, but rather a cloying, dulling hibernation of the mind. This same sensation is brought about by endless hours of repetitive workplace routine.

No-one has ever sincerely smiled this much while wearing a headset

I have worked well over a thousand days at the call centre. I have read through still more thousands of surveys. The call centre does not test us physically or mentally yet it is a massive drain of human energy and vitality.

The idea is to collate telephone surveys for various government departments. We ask businesses how much training they do, if they need more government support, what they think the answer to the recession is. Every survey is unique yet they are all the same: half-arsed and self-contradictory fragments of ideas, answering what they think they are meant to say to a bunch of questions which tell them what they are meant to say.