John Jefferies
Reply
Monthly Archives: April 2020
My review of “Class Power on Zero Hours”
What do you want to do ?
New mailCopy
In this new book a group of self identified communists demand a revolutionary approach to changing society. It sounds far fetched and outrageous, but we are living in a society where revolutionary change by capitalism has already taken place, as can be witnessed physically by the domination in our cities of luxury flats and offices, whilst poor people have been socially cleansed from former public housing. Money dominates, working class people and their communities have been thrown under the bus whilst the organisations that should defend them including the Labour Party and trade unions have collaborated in their demise.
The Labour Party and trade union movement used to be the way that working class people gained power to change society. I am from a working class Irish background; my community played a major role in the labour movement. My parents saw…
View original post 993 more words
Crisis, cracks and canteen Marxism – For a communist debate within the working class
I remember various moments over the last decade, when day-to-day conversations at work or at the bus stop or wherever you hang out with fellow workers were stretched beyond the usual. Moments of crisis create cracks, where your otherwise seemingly encapsulated political thoughts and circles, your Marx reading groups or whatever, and the daily grind touch each other. Exhilarating moments. The various crises of the last decade have stripped away layers of the myths that the current system shields itself with.
I remember working as a refuse collector in Hackney, when the 2008 – 2009 crisis kicked in properly. This crisis opened the eyes of many to the global nature of (primarily) the financial system and the actual property relations in the country, the differences even within the working class. The money system was questioned further by blatant contradictions like an increase in homelessness and empty apartments. I remember at…
View original post 739 more words
Tripalium or Tartan House: Glasgow Migrant Workers Network fights back
Beginnings are always the hardest. Like the blank sheet for the writer, the beginning is a challenge, it is uncertainty – and tackling it always requires a dose of reflection and bravery.
Taking the first step is essential and encouraging.
Migrant workers did at Tartan House. Workers from the tourist shop chain with more than twenty stores across Glasgow and Edinburgh launched a campaign in December to challenge their appalling working conditions.
The list of labour abuses deserved it: irregular disciplinary processes, working shifts of 10 or more hours, unpaid holidays, insects and rodents in the workplace, absence of heating with opened doors in the middle of winter, etc.
Not to mention the bagpipes – bagpipes blasting in an endless loop, a cruel metaphor for racist jingoism stepping on the migrant working class.
When thinking about Tartan House I cannot avoid recalling the etymology of the word, ‘work’. It…
View original post 196 more words
Workplace Notes
The Anarchist Communist Group (ACG)
London Bus Drivers Act to Protect Themselves (and Get Free Transport for All!)
After the death of at least 26 London bus drivers from coronavirus, their colleagues had had enough. They forced Transport for London (TfL) and the London bus companies to ensure that front doors on buses stayed shut, so that passengers could enter by middle and back doors and avoid contact with drivers. For this to happen, it was necessary to stop paying fares. TfL was reluctant to do this, because of loss of revenue, but they had to back down under pressure.
However, some 2,000 buses in London have entry by front door only and bus workers want these routes to be suspended unless multiple door buses can replace them.
The Croydon Pizza Hut struggle continues, and other updates
A few updates:
From the Croydon Solidarity Network:
#PizzaHutPayUp – 25th April
In support of Pizza Hut workers, Croydon Solidarity Network calls for those able to, to gather outside Lewisham Pizza or Wandsworth Pizza Hut on Saturday, 25th April at 5.30pm.
Pizza Hut workers across several stores owned by the ATEAM franchise have not had their wages paid in full for several weeks now. On 22nd April, 25 people workers and supporters gathered, 2 metres apart, at Pizza Hut Penge, an amazing show of solidarity in these uncertain times.
Despite numerous emails, phone calls and social media posts in the week leading up to the action, only a small number of them have been paid in full. Some workers have only received part of their pay and others have yet to be paid any of the money owed, and neither the franchise owner nor Pizza Hut have furloughed…
View original post 347 more words
Revolutionary working class strategy for the 21st century – Part 1
Reflections on ‘uneven and combined development’ and ‘class composition’
For PDF: UCD_CC1
From a perspective that puts the working class into the driver’s seat of social emancipation we find ourselves in a contradictory situation. During the last decades workers, as in people who have to sell their labour power to survive, have become the majority on the planet. When Marx, from his armchair, called for ‘workers of the world’ to unite, workers were actually a tiny minority globally, islands in a sea of independent artisans, peasants and forced labourers. Only today can we really speak of a ‘global working class’, but to the same degree that ‘being a worker’ has become a global phenomenon, ‘the working class’ seems to have disappeared.
Some people will jump to the conclusion that this invisibility is due to its lack of political agency, the fact that the working class doesn’t act as a…
View original post 13,950 more words
COVID-19 Practicalities and Politics
If the UK government had set out to demonstrate that capitalism can’t cope with a pandemic, they couldn’t have made things much clearer. Their initial reluctance to do anything that would interrupt the economy will be blamed for thousands of extra deaths; and, even now that they have realised the need to take action and spend large sums of money, the focus of their expenditure has been on preserving the economic system. Otherwise, they apparently consider it enough that hundreds of thousands of households will be kept just above subsistence level, though even this has only been achieved through public pressure
The government seems determined to do nothing that might reverse social inequality, but there are questions being asked about what will happen when the immediate threat is over: should we return to the old ways? As a society, we have seen that capitalism couldn’t provide a solution and that…
View original post 1,971 more words
Some links I found useful this week…
It’s been a busy couple of weeks, and I noticed there have been a few resources I have come back to several times to for friends, Fellow Workers and others, so I thought I would share them.
Please note that while this was up to date at the time of writing, and hopefully will be updated, things are changing fast, so you will need to check the links and do your research! This isn’t legal advice either, just stuff that might be useful.
If you have other links for useful information on organising, workplace rights, mutual aid or other relevant topics please comment with them below.
During this crisis, many people are facing problems with work, housing and other issues.
The most important thing you can do right now, if at all possible, is organise. There is information on how to do this in your workplace here:
https://iww.org.uk/resource/basic_principles_organising/
View original post 515 more words
Global struggles against the Covid-19 regime – Early April
Quote
A short summary of global Covid-19 struggles – 1st to 14th April 2020
First off, we have to admit the rather random character of such summaries, as the amount of strikes, riots, protests has been massive. Rather than pretending to present a complete picture, we want to make a few points, illustrated by examples. We call internationalist comrades to take part in our collective effort to share information about these struggles – beyond the headlines – in order to be able to support them:
1) The ruling class knows what’s at stake
In a Bloomberg article, a commentator alleges that the current peak-period of the Covid-19 pandemic might see a temporary lull in protests in regions which have witnessed fierce protest movements (Sudan, Chile, Iraq, etc.). After this lull the economic impact of the pandemic, which, according to the ILO will result in severe cuts in the income of…
View original post 2,970 more words
Industrial Workers of the World Dorset 