North Staffs TUC is organising a public meeting against the cuts 7pm this Wednesday (August 18th) at the Hope Centre, Garth Street, Hanley. Confirmed speakers are listed below. I'm told one of the speakers not trailed is a local Labour councillor who is prepared to vote against cuts in the council chamber. Interesting.
Speakers include:
Jason Hill (N Staffs TUC President)
Neil Singh (Communication Workers’ Union)
Tony Conway (Public and Commercial Services union)
Liat Norris (Youth Fight for Jobs)
Andy Bentley (UCU)
Chris Bambery (Right to Work)
All welcome.
Hi Comrade,
ReplyDeleteYour blog looks really great these days!"
We will need more than to do more than just organise meetings, although they to have there place in the great scheme and systematic plan of action. We need to put socialism as the real and only alternative to the day light robbery of capitalism. We need to win a new generation and rebuild our movement.
However the comment that I really wish to make is dose Chris Bambery (Right to Work)think that slaves would have demanded the right to be slaves?"
You could say arguing for the right to work has a dynamic pointing to workers' control of the economy. After all, enshrining the right to work knocks away a cornerstone of managements' power.
ReplyDeletePhil,
ReplyDeleteI think Jim has a philosophical point in so far as Marx distinguished between Work and Labour. Labour is what defines "Man", but "Work" is what "Man" has to do under conditions of Class Society, and exploitation.
The demand for the Right to Work here and now under Capitalism, does as Jim suggests mean the demand to be exploited by Capital, because the whole basis of the Capital-Labour relation, as Marx explained it, is that Capital will only employ Labour if Labour agrees to be exploited, to provide a certain quantity of Labour for free. I'm not sure that in the minds of most workers the demand for the Right to Work does point to the demand for Workers Control. In the minds of many it will point to the Tories proposals for "Workfare".
Labour Brought in workfare not the Tories.
ReplyDeleteWe have to see the right to work campaign as being part of a wider defensive struggle against cuts designed to lower workers living standards.
ReplyDeleteIt should be noted that many slave revolts over epochs were motivated not by a wish to be freed but because of the conditions of existence. So slaves did demand the 'right' to be slaves.
Though I do tend to agree with Boffy's points (!!!!!)