Traditional Remedy

I leave Stalybridge tomorrow after a short and unproductive stay, moving back to Manchester for another new start at another call centre the day after.  But first, I thought I’d share a local folk remedy for dealing with pay freezes and economic crises:

Blue plaque on the ruins of Stalybridge Town Hall

It says:

The first general strike (1842) originated in this area. It began as a movement of resistance to the imposition of wage cuts in the mills and was also known as the ‘Plug Riots’. It spread to involve nearly half a million workers throughout Britain and represented the biggest single exercise of working class strength in nineteenth century Britain.

It most certainly did…

At the root of the strike were the swingeing wage cuts that accompanied a downturn in trade, at a time when the economy had been in desperate straits for a full five years. But the strike grew into something far more than that as workers took up the political demands espoused by Chartism, leading to confrontation not just with employers but with the state…

Pay Freezin’

You can tell it’s mid-July from the fierce chill wind on the picket lines this morning.  Oh well.  I’ve been talking to some of the strikers on behalf of Socialist Worker; the hurried synthesis of phoned-in reports from many comrades around the country into a coherent set of articles being, by necessity, a bit of a Mostly Harmless affair from the point fo view of the contributors, I thought I’d put my own experiences straight up here.  (Update: my reports - with a photo - made it into this article, only available, alas, in the online edition)

First we went to a council office in Gorton.  Unison steward Phil Moth said they’d had a very good response to the picket line.  This was borne out by the honking of supportive horns from virtually every other car or van that drove past, and hte near-emptiness of the car park.  One first-time striker said she was shocked by the level of hostility they received from some of the non-unionised workers; another steward commented that those scabbing were almost all at the higher end of the pay scale.  Several of the workers that did come in expressed an interest in joining the union - membership has apparently been surging in the run-up to the strike.  One visitor to the offices - a member of NAHT - said he wasn’t about to cross the picket line, and turned right around to leave, boosting the morale of the picketers considerably.

Generally the strike had been well organised, on the part of Unison at least, with union stewards from workplaces that had been shut down coming to support pickets at weaker workplaces.  Less impressive was Unison’s unwillingness to promote the rally tomorrow (12 noon at the peace gardens), but this hostility didn’t filter down to the picket lines.  Most of the people we spoke to hadn’t been aware of the rally, but were now intending to come.

In front of Longsight library was a collection of very lively picket lines - library workers, school workers and social workers - numbering about 20 people in total.

Rachelle Whittle, a teaching assistant with a placard saying “We teach your kids, help us feed ours!” told me that there was a real feeling of anger among her colleagues at the way they had been treated.  Their real pay was being cut not just by inflation - although that was a real concern - but by the extra workload they’ve been forced to take on.  TAs have to cover for teachers while the latter are sick or busy with other duties, to the extent that some now teach more often than they work as TAs, with the result of what picketer Hannah Cutts described as “chronic additional hours”.  Extra unpaid hours are being phased in, adding up to 9 hours per week for some workers, and the school offers TAs no help with childcare, even as they work to care for others’ children.  These childcare expenses form a major part cost of living increase for school workers whose wages are already low.

Although the pay and treatment received by the TAs and other staff is poor compared to teachers, there is a good deal of solidarity between the two workforces.  The teachers were apparently organising a collection to support those striking today, returning a favour done by the others for the teachers’ strike in April.  The public passing by were also very supportive; Unison steward Eddie Hughes explained that they “understand that the people who work in their schools are very badly paid, and so they support our strikes”.

The message from social workers, too, was that inflation was not the only problem.  “It’s about resources as well as wages”, Jim Hall told me, “We have to go out trying to find support for people who are struggling with their situation, and there’s just none out there.  We’re working in crisis mode; it’s only a matter of time before something goes wrong, and then it will be the ordinary social workers who take the blame”.   Linda Marie Winfield, who had been frustrated that at how long it took to get this kind of militancy, pointed out the hypocrisy of MPs who can get second homes on expenses trying to cut the pay of those who do the real work on the ground.

Overall, the atmosphere was both very positive and very angry.  The pay freeze had been the last straw for many workers, who’d already seen years of funding cuts and workload increases.  There was no sectional “economism” or “workerism” either; the workers striking this week are mainly those who dedicate their lives to helping others anyway, and it’s been made harder and harder for them to do that properly.  Social workers are not just striking for social workers, but the chance to do proper social work, a defiance of the logic of privatisation and a defence of public services.

Opinions were mixed as to whether the strikes would ultimately succeed (the government has already said no but there is talk of another two-day strike in August, and of joint action later with the workers who walked out in April), but even the pessimists were refusing to take it lying down.  I think the recent victory by the Shell tanker drivers shows just what can be acheived; the money is there, and it’s just a matter of taking it.

National Blacklisted Staff Register

Workers accused of theft or damage could soon find themselves blacklisted on a register to be shared among employers. It will be good for profits but campaigners say innocent people could find it impossible to get another job.

To critics it sounds like a scenario from some Orwellian nightmare - an online database of workers accused of theft and dishonesty, regardless of whether they have been convicted of any crime, which bosses can access when vetting potential employees.

But this is no dystopian fantasy. Later this month, the National Staff Dismissal Register (NSDR) is expected to go live.

Organisers say that major companies including Harrods, Selfridges and Reed Managed Services have already signed up to the scheme. By the end of May they will be able to check whether candidates for jobs have faced allegations of stealing, forgery, fraud, damaging company property or causing a loss to their employers and suppliers.

Workers sacked for these offences will be included on the register, regardless of whether police had enough evidence to convict them. Also on the list will be employees who resigned before they could face disciplinary proceedings at work.

The project has attracted little publicity. But trade unions and civil liberties campaigners are warning that it leaves workers vulnerable to the threat of false accusations.

TUC policy officer Hannah Reed says that while criminal activity in the workplace can never be condoned, she fears such a system is open to abuse.

“The Criminal Records Bureau was set up to assist employers to make safe appointments when recruiting staff to work with vulnerable groups. The CRB already provides appropriate and properly regulated protection for employers. Under the new register, an employee may not be aware they have been blacklisted or have any right to appeal.”

James Welch, the legal director of human rights group Liberty, also says that he is concerned that the register does not offer sufficient redress to the falsely accused.

“This scheme appears to bypass existing laws which protect employees by limiting the circumstances when information about possible criminal activity can be shared with potential employers.”

Surely there’s a robust legal challenge to made against this sort of thing?  I don’t know what the Data Protection Act actually says, but if it does anything then it’s got to protect us against this kind of extralegal blacklist.  The NSDR has probably only got as far as it has through lack of publicity; I usually consider the act of writing to MPs as an act of the utmost futility but in this case I think it might get us somewhere, and maybe write to some newspapers too.

Facebook group: Workers against the NSDR [note: this link was broken before, now I've fixed it]

Off to a good start 1 - Tories in all their glory

Racist toff Boris Johnson managed to keep his racist toffery out of sight for much of his election campaign, and has probably been warned not to be too overtly arch-Tory, yet, for fear of alerting people to the threat they pose and jeopardising the predicted general election victory in a couple of years. Nevertheless, the scumbags just can’t quite resist their smug, gloaty urge to make up for 11 years lost Torying time:

(thanks Rick for the video). We’ve got so used to New Labour’s enthusiastic application of the Tory anti-union laws that it comes as a shock to be reminded how far the Tories themselves will go. Shadow chancellor George Bastard Osborne wants to further curtail the right to strike, while Tory ideologues enthuse that the time has come to smash the NUT, one of the few unions that even approaches being effective. This is, to an extent, bluster, but it will contribute to an atmosphere even more hostile to working class organisation - and no-one hates the working class more than BoJo the clown.

Can you guess, by the way, the substance of his first policy announcements? Go on, I’d give you three guesses but really one should be enough. Here it is, in all its Toriffic beauty:

Boris Johnson has pledged to tackle the “scourge” of crime on London’s transport system as a key priority in his new role as mayor of the city.

For non-Londoners (I spend probably one weekend a month in London), let me explain: London buses are now free in effect but not on paper. Their design makes it so easy to hop on and off without paying that it becomes automatic. If Ken Livingstone had been on the ball, he would have made it official: the costs would be the same, and he would have come off as spectacularly munificent rather than ineffective and easy to defraud, but it’s a bit late to be giving him advice.

Anyway, Boris has been able to turn this into a wonderful gift to his upper-middle class voters. He inflicts a massive effective price-hike on working class bus users in such a way that it is them, and not him, who come off as theiving grasping bastards. He has criminalised the users of public transport, and especially the poorer users of public transport, and especially - God love our Tory-backed boys in blue - the black people with their “gang culture” and “lack of role models” and all the rest of the racial defects that can only be cured through the liberal application of the truncheon.

LOL! OMFG WHAT A LEGEND!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!

Paul Merton and Ian Hislop have a lot to answer for.

May Day Greetings from the West Coast

Ok, I’m not in America, I’m in Manchester recovering from a night needling the political class at the count and several weeks frantic election activity running up to that. We did pretty well, since you ask, but I’ll doubtless tell you more when the (potentially catastrophic) London results are in.

In the meantime, let me share this with you:

ILWU shuts down docks for May Day

Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky report on plans for the West Coast dockworkers’ antiwar action.

OAKLAND, Calif.–Dockworkers voted to shut down West Coast ports on May 1 to protest the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

On May Day 2008, container ships will sit idle at all 29 ports on the West Coast. From San Diego to Seattle, the giant “hammerhead” cranes that lift cargo containers on and off ships will stand motionless.

Every dock in California, Oregon and Washington will grow quiet as 25,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) lay down their tools and walk off the job “to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of troops from the Middle East.”

The ILWU’s longshore caucus voted to use a clause in its contract that allows the union to call “stop work” meetings for union business. The ILWU motion authorizing the shutdown argues, “It is time to take labor’s protest to a more powerful level of struggle by calling on unions and working people in the U.S. and internationally to mobilize for a ‘No Peace No Work Holiday’ May 1, 2008.”

This is the first time in decades that a union in this country has taken industrial action against a U.S. war. It is doubly significant that the ILWU chose to do so on May Day, the International Workers’ Day, which is typically not honored in the U.S.

The ILWU motion is noteworthy because it also takes the Democrats to task for continuing to fund the war and encompasses a wider condemnation as the U.S. “imperial” interventions in the Middle East.

Jack Heyman, a dockworker in Oakland, Calif., and a union officer, reports in the San Francisco Chronicle that the debate generated by the resolution was spirited and impassioned. Heyman credits the union’s Vietnam veterans with turning the tide of opinion in favor of the antiwar resolution.

In San Francisco, the ILWU has also called for a march and rally on May Day, which includes the following demands: a withdrawal of the troops now, health care for all, funding for schools and housing and a defense of civil liberties and workers’ rights. In an effort to build bridges with immigrant workers, who will also be marching on May Day, the ILWU calls for “no scapegoating of immigrant workers for the economic crisis.”

The ILWU is no stranger to political action. The union was one of the first to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the first major U.S. union to oppose the Vietnam War. The ILWU expressed hopes that its historical action on the docks would serve as a clarion call to all of labor to put some teeth into the many antiwar resolutions that unions have passed.

The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Branch 214 in San Francisco has requested its members observe two minutes of silence in all its stations on May Day in solidarity with the ILWU. NACL Branch 630 in Greensboro, N.C., did likewise. The New York Metro Area Postal Workers, a local of the American Postal Workers Union, followed suit.

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 2334 at City University of New York voted to undertake a campus event or teach-in on May Day in solidarity of the ILWU. Support has also come from the Vermont AFL-CIO, the San Francisco Labor Council and SEIU Local 1021.

Of course, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), the West Coast employer association of shipowners, stevedore companies and terminal operators, opposes the action.

The coastwide dock shut down in opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also serves as the first volley to this year’s contract negotiations between the ILWU and the port bosses. The contract between the PMA and the ILWU is set to expire July 1. During the last round of negotiations in 2002, George W. Bush invoked the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act during a 12-day PMA lockout of the ILWU.

Have it! According to the token coverage in the mainstream media, they really did shut down the West Coast for a day: LA Times, NY Times, Reuters.

Counting Down To Fightback Thursday

Up to half a million public sector workers will be striking this Thursday, and even if it’s substantially less than that there’s no doubt that this will be the biggest strike in this country since I was born.

It’s the pay freeze that did it.  Gordon Brown is trying to make the working class pay for the economic crisis - imposing real wage cuts on the public sector (and, via the invisible hand, the private sector too) and increasing tax on low earners even as he cuts it for their employers.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: this will be his Iraq.

However, if it was the pay freeze that has finally pushed people from resignation to defiance, they’ve no shortage of things to be defiant about.  All the reports from a union rally I attended last week suggested that, now the fightback had begun, there was no stopping it: teachers in particular were tying their opposition to academies and internal competition and ten years of dripdripdrip marketisation.

So I’m well excited.  As a representative of both the SWP and the Manchester University students (and, tangentially, as a probable future high school maths teacher), I’ll be up at the crack of dawn visiting picket lines, but even for the slightly less motivated (who won’t be at work all day), there will be rallies and demonstrations going on all over the place:

• Barnsley: March from Barnsley College (Old Mill Lane) site, 9.30am, to rally at Barnsley Town Centre Cinema, Eldon Street, 9.45am.
• Birmingham: Rally between 12 noon and 3pm Victoria Square, to include a demonstration around the city centre.  Called by NUT, UCU and PCS. Unison has also committed to join the rally if council workers strike over single status.
• Bolton: Rally at Bolton Central Library, Le Mans Crescent, 10am.
• Bradford: Rally at Bradford City Football Club (Off Manningham Lane), 10.30am,
• Brighton & Hove: Assemble Pavilion Gardens, march to sea front, 11am, rally Old Ship Hotel Ballroom, 11.30am-12.30pm.
• Bristol: Rally around midday involving NUT from south Gloucester, North Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire. Details of march and rally tbc.
• Calderdale: Rally at The Trades Club, Holme Street, Hebden Bridge, 10am-11am.
• Cambridge: Rally at Guildhall, Market Square, 12 noon-1pm
• Derby: Rally in Market Place, 11am, followed by rally in Darwin Suite of the Assembly Rooms, 12 noon
• Exeter: Rally at 12 noon, Exeter city football club, Coaches from Devon, Torbay, Plymouth.
• Hull: Rally at Royal Station Hotel, Ferensway, 10am.
• Ipswich: Ipswich Borough Council Social Club, Black Horse Lane, 12 noon
• Kirklees: Rally at St Patrick’s Catholic Centre, 2 Trinity Street, Huddersfield , 10.30am-11.30am
• Leeds: Assemble 10.30am for 11am start, Victoria Gardens, Headrow (outside the Art Gallery) for an open air rally.
• Leicester: Rally at Athena Conference Centre, Rutland Street, 11am-12 noon
• Lincoln: Rally at Turks Head, Newport, 11am,
• Liverpool: Assemble at Victoria Memorial, Lord Street/James Street (opposite end to Town Hall), 10.30am; March along Victoria St (past Education Office) to St Georges Hall, 11.15am; Open air meeting at St George’s Plateau; Rally at Liner Hotel, Lord Nelson Street, 12.30pm-1.30pm
• London: Assemble 11am Lincoln’s Inn Fields to march to Central Hall, Westminster for a rally.
• Manchester: Rally at Friends’ Meeting House, 6 Mount Street, 11am
• Medway: Rally at Command House, Gunwharf Dock Road, Chatham, 12.30pm-2pm.
• Newcastle: Regional rally, Grey’s Monument, City Centre, 2pm
• Northampton: Rally at Northampton Guildhall, 12.30pm to 1.30pm
• Nottingham: Assemble at the Forest, 10am; March to rally at Congregational Hall, Castle Street, 10.30am
• Oldham: Oldham Civic Centre Rochdale Road side, Outside on the steps, to proceed to Manchester rally, 9.30am.
• Oxford: Picket at Oxpens FE college with UCU and NUT from 7.30am to 12 noon. March at 12 noon to rally at 12.30pm at Oxford Town Hall, followed by a march through the city centre.
• Preston: Rally at Preston North End Football Club, Sir Tom Finney Way, 2pm-3pm
• Reading: Rally at Reading International Solidarity Centre (RISC), London Street, 10.30am & 1.30pm
• Sheffield: Regional rally at 12 noon in the city centre, involving Barnsley, Rotherham, Sheffield and Doncaster NUT and hopefully UCU. Details tbc.
• Somerset: Rally at Taunton Rugby Club, 11.30am.
• Southampton: Rally at Hoglands Park (across the road from Council offices), 1pm.
• West Sussex: Rally at The Pavilion, Worthing, 10am.
• Windsor and Maidenhead: Rally at The Thames Hotel, 9am-12 noon.

Come on down and show some support.

Off-topic, I’ve recently been pointed at the Salford Star, a free magazine that looks fantastic.  I say “looks”, because I’m not in Salford very often and I’m too cheap to pay the £3.50 to read it online, but it’s already getting a reputation for grassroots investigative journalism.  Go check it out.

Peterloo in Egypt

From Associated Press:

Security forces clashed with workers in the gritty industrial city of Mahalla al-Kobra in northern Egypt Sunday afternoon after earlier plans for a strike at the nation’s largest industrial complex were foiled, according to eyewitnesses and security officials.
Meanwhile in the capital Cairo many citizens responded to activists’ calls for nationwide action by skipping work or school to protest deteriorating economic conditions, amid a heavy security crackdown that saw massive amounts of riot police occupying public squares.
Police have arrested four workers in Mahalla following the clashes and another 94 people in several provinces across the country, including several prominent activists and trade unionists, reported a security official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.
The factory strike over low wages and rising prices was scheduled to begin at 7:30 a.m. when the workers changed shifts, but hundreds of security forces arrived hours earlier and took control of the Mahalla al-Kobra textile plant, said Mustafa Foda, a 25-year veteran of the company.
“From 3 a.m. they took control of the inside of the company with plainclothes security,” said Foda. “Anyone who tried to talk was taken.”
The 55-year-old worker said that security prevented him and many others from entering the factory and arrested some 150 workers ahead of the shift change.
The strike was also hindered by the decision from several worker leaders not to carry out any strike inside the factory due to ongoing negotiations with the government-controlled union and factory management.
“They are working on our demands, so why go on strike?” he told The Associated Press. “We have to give them a chance to see improvements,” he added, suggesting that labor would reconsider the strike in July.
Inside the factory, throughout Sunday, business continued as usual, but after the day shift ended at 3:30 p.m. local time (1330 GMT) locals and workers gathered in the main square where they were confronted by large numbers of riot police, according to eye witnesses.
“A lot of rocks are being thrown and there are indications that people are being beaten,” said Joel Beinin, a professor of Middle East Studies from the American University at Cairo who was at the scene. There were later reports of tear gas fired into the crowd of several hundreds.
Traffic was significantly lighter than usual in Cairo on Sunday and schools were almost completely empty, indicating many of the city’s millions of residents were heeding the activists’ call.
Egyptians are often characterized as being politically apathetic, and many Cairo residents seemed surprised by the enthusiastic response. Hundreds of students demonstrated in Helwan and Cairo universities in the capital after previously skipping classes and chanted anti-regime slogans.
Hundreds of intellectuals and activists also protested inside the grounds of the Bar Association in downtown Cairo, waving banners and chanting slogans demanding economic reform. The protesters congregated despite a warning by Egypt’s Interior Ministry on Saturday against civil disturbances.
“The strike is legitimate against poverty and starvation,” chanted the protesters, who were surrounded by hundreds of riot police personnel. People on the roof later showered security forces with glass bottles and bits of wood.
Other attempts to stage demonstrations in the city’s main squares were swiftly dispersed and dozens of activists were arrested.
“The regime is terrified and Sunday’s strike is a test for the upcoming popular uprising,” said a headline in the Sunday edition of the Sout El-Umma opposition newspaper… Strikes and demonstrations are illegal in Egypt under the country’s emergency law, and protesters are often silenced by Egyptian security forces.

A “gritty” Northern textile town, righteous working class anger, brutal security forces upholding the status quo, workers betrayed by the labour aristocracy but buoyed up by growing student radicalism… what more could you ask for in a story? If anyone has fallen in love during the strikes, please let us know; that little bit of human interest could make it worthy of a movie deal.

Okay, seriously, it is early days yet, and the movement is still massively outnumbered and outgunned by the forces of Mubarak’s dictatorship, but it is building momentum. The past year has seen a surge in strikes and protests in Egypt, beginning with demands for food security and getting more political each time. As the report indicates, the response to the repression of the Mahalla strike may have been decisive in showing Egypt’s working class its own strength.

As usual, one of the best sources for information on the movement in Egypt is Hossam el-Hamalawy. See also tadamonmasr.wordpress.com, the words are in Arabic but the pictures are worth thousands.

Refuse/Resist - Basra and Britain

I will have some words on recent events… but first, here’s Sepultura to set the tone.

Okay.

When our Grandkids are learning about Iraq in school (as if), the past week will almost certainly deserve a mention.  It began with the Vichy-Baghdad regime invading the city of Basra, and other strongholds of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army and, faster than you can say “you’ve been Hizbollah’ed” it ended with al-Maliki sueing for a truce via Iranian middlemen.  They should have been more careful; it’s become clear that the secret behind the “success” of the surge lay with the Sadrists’ ceasefire.

It may be premature, actually, to talk of the Mahdi army as an Iraqi Hizbollah, and it would be an extravagant flight of fancy to describe them as an Iraqi Viet Minh, but they are becoming the preeminent political force within Iraq - a state of affairs which provoked the recent clashes, and which has been reinforced by them.  al-Sadr’s stand against the occupiers, against their puppets, against their enclosure of Iraq’s resources, has won him much support, and his explicit rejection of violent sectariana and Iranian meddling* has done no harm.  His bloc was on course for a sweeping victory in the elections later this year, and this is almost certainly why le Mareshal al-Maliki moved to crush it, why the US-UK occupiers had little choice but to throw their might behind the assault, and why it is so significant that they failed.

Before I move on, there are a few al Jazeera clips it’s worth watching.  First, excerpts from an interview in which al-Sadr positions himself as the legitimate face of the Iraqi resistance and calls for international support…

… followed by a post-ceasefire report, notable for the testimony of Iraqi government fighters who preferred to hand their weapons over to the Sadrists.  “I didn’t want to be a tool of the occupation any longer”.

Anyway, much of the above probably didn’t get through to most audiences in this country, but one thing did.  For all the time they’ve spent hiding in Basra airport, it’s been easy to forget that there are still any British troops in Iraq - but there are, and the Second Battle of Basra will have brought that home.

The obvious question, then, is what next for the British antiwar movement?

First of all, we’re in better shape than some miserablists list to speculate.  It’s mad to think we’ll get 2 million on the streets again any time soon - we’re in for the Long War now, and need a correspondingly long antiwar - but we continue to draw in large numbers of new activists.  It’s clear though, that we need more than just demos.

Well, aside from the Viet Minh, probably the most important factor in ending the Vietnam War, was “low morale” in the army - that’s mass mutinies to you and me.  Similar mutinies ended Russian and German involvement in the First World War too, kicking off revolutions in both countries and bringing the war to an end (forget what they tell you about Britain having “won”), so we’d be mad not to focus on the army.  Hence the increasing importance of the likes of Ben Griffin, and Military Families Against The War.  Hence also the importance of recent Iraq Winter Soldier testimonials (the name, for those like me too young to remember, being a reference to an influential set of confessions from Vietnam veterans).

Of course, Iraq and Afghanistan, unlike Vietnam and the trenches, are occupied by volunteer armies, and these will never feel the same compulsion to revolt as those who are compelled by law to fight, kill and die for their rulers’ mad ambitions.  Fortunately, however, they may not have to; they can cause enough problems simply by not bothering to volunteer.  Recruitment problems can be allayed through the judicial use of robots and mercenaries, not to mention the intensification of the economic draft that will come with the recession and incomes policy, but they are problems nonetheless.  How else to explain, for example, all the faintly pitiful messing about with uniforms and (Heaven help us) the idea of an “Armed Forces Day”?

And how to explain that worksheet, produced by the MoD (or rather, et quelle surprise, by the private company Kids’ Connections on behalf of the MoD), which would have teachers explain how the war and occupation are “helping the Iraqis to rebuild their country after the conflict and years of neglect”.  This is always described as “unprecendented”, when of course it’s not, but it has been enough to make teachers see red.  The NUT conference this week has resolved to oppose military recruitment in schools in England and Wales (teachers in Scotland having apparently thought of it beforehand), and to support teachers who bring antiwar speakers into schools for the sake of balance.

In so doing, the NUT has thrown its weight into one of the hottest arguments in student politics.  Many student unions are discussing “no-platforming” military recruiters from their campuses - I am less optimistic about Manchester than I would have been a month or two ago (hey, we’ll do our best - I remember being outraged when I saw army recruiters at freshers’ week, and I surely wasn’t alone), but UCL have already passed their motion and others will doubtless follow.  What will start at schools and universities will hopefully carry on elsewhere (although we can’t do much against the relentless advertising).  We may not be able to get the troops off the streets of Basra just yet, but we might just get them off the streets of Britain.

* Some qualifications are in order.  Though al-Sadr has repeatedly called for solidarity with Iraq’s Sunni minority, fighters in the then-nascent and undisciplined Mahdi army were implicated in much of the violence circa 2004.  And, while he claims not to approve of Iran’s influence in Iraqi affairs, it doesn’t seem to have stopped his militia from accepting Iranian gun money.

Facilitating and Incentivising Empowerment Through Technology

From this week’s Private Eye (not reproduced in the online version, annoyingly):

Lie-detector technology developed by Mossad for interrogating suspected Palestinian terrorists is being used in British Jobcentres.

Outsourcing “specialist” Capita has deployed the “Advanced Validation System” in an attempt to catch benefit cheats at five Notts Jobcentres and the DWP call centre.

Over a three-month trial 1,250 claimants of income support and jobseekers’ allowance must undergo AVS. Those whose voices show signs of “stress” when answering questions are called in for “corroboration interviews”. Exactly where this leaves genuine claimants who exhibit signs of stress caused by the indignity of being treated like terrorists is unclear.

As is how being routinely and systematically treated in this way must feel to a Palestinian.  Time for slogans like “In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians” and, just as importantly “Globalise the intifada!“

Seriously though, this is what happens when an industry grows up around oppressing and controlling the undesirables, it’s only a matter of time before it expands into new markets closer to home.  This should be a lesson for any idiot taken in by Tory talk of the need to militarise our “porous” borders; not only is it deplorable xenophobic paranoia, it’s taking the potential for state repression right up to eleven (all the while courting the votes of people who never shut up about speed cameras).

Women’s Liberation, and Men’s

This Saturday was International Women’s Day.

Aren’t you almost glad, first of all, that you barely heard anything about it? Whenever the issue of women’s oppression and liberation is broached in the mainstream, it’s usually the start of a sentence that ends in legitimising racism or agitating for war. The IWD website, fortunately, doesn’t really agitate for Muslim women’s liberation by smart bomb, but it doesn’t really do much else either. It’s a corporate-sponsored day of celebration comemmorating, among other things, the liberating role of technology, and the companies which take women’s advancement seriously.

There is, of course, much progress to celebrate. My sister-cousins haven’t seen anything like the oppression my great-Grandmas would have faced, and hopefully they never will. That’s not to say they don’t have problems of their own.

A woman’s sovereignty over her own body, for example, is in constant need of defense and advancement. Never mind an assault on abortion rights the likes of which my generation has never seen, let’s talk a woman’s right not to be raped - something which increasingly seems to be dependent on her commitment to dress modestly and avoid the company of men. How else to interpret the comments on date-rape, for example, from the likes of John Redwood, who trivialises it as “a disagreement between two lovers as to whether there was consent on one particular occasion.“

Of course. I mean, once she’s gone home with you there’s nothing left to discuss, is there? Not unless you “want to have to take a consent form and a lawyer on a date”. Actually I’d say if you need a lawyer and a consent form to remind you to, erm, not rape people, then something’s already gone seriously wrong. The overwhelming majority of sexual assaults being committed between acquaintances and friends, not strangers hiding in the bush, this is no laughing matter.

Still, never mind Tory crackpots - the idea that some women are just fair game is pretty much the consensus of the legal establishment. Look at the gang-rape victim of whom the defense council said “She may well have been glad of the attention.” Not quite Saudi Arabia, but not great. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. A female solicitor comrade recently told of a conversation she had with a male colleague experienced in defending rapists: when asked how he would react if she’d been raped while drunk or provocatively dressed, he responded “You’d know better than to press for charges”. Quite. No wonder conviction rates are so low.

Oppression doesn’t end with the spectacular, though; most of it is spectacularly mundane. Let’s talk about the “health” and “beauty” industrial complexes; businesses that feed on insecurities, that manufacture zero-sized ideal beauties at a time when most of our waists are expanding, that have gone beyond selling diets and girdles to selling operations: cut things off, stuff things in, pump your faintly-wrinkled face with poison for a very reasonable price. Look at raunch culture, the soft-pornographication of adverts and music videos, and the assumption that anyone not prepared to get her tits out for the lads and find it good clean liberating fun is some kind of 1950s throwback prude. This is oppression repackaged, oppression commoditised.

Look, now, at the one sympton of women’s oppression that is routinely acknowledged even among the white men and their sisters: the relative paucity of female faces the higher up one climbs up any given hierarchy. This is a reflection of the disproportionate strains on women - and especially on mothers - in our society, and the inadequacy of the support provided for those who need it. Social stigma is no longer as significant as it once was in keeping women in their place, but economics still tends to have it covered. A paucity of affordable childcare makes it hard to put one’s career first, while the benefits that make family life possible are forever being eyed with resentful frugality by the powers that be.

It was against real life constraints like these that women struggled in the first International Women’s Days of the early twentieth century:

1908
Great unrest and critical debate was occurring amongst women. Women’s oppression and inequality was spurring women to become more vocal and active in campaigning for change. Then in 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.

…

1911
Following the decision agreed at Copenhagen in 1911, International Women’s Day (IWD) was honoured the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on 19 March. More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women’s rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination. However less than a week later on 25 March, the tragic ‘Triangle Fire’ in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working women, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This disastrous event drew significant attention to working conditions and labour legislation in the United States that became a focus of subsequent International Women’s Day events. 1911 also saw women’s ‘Bread and Roses’ campaign.

Within a few years, women in Russia were at the forefront of that country’s antiwar movement, culminating in 1917 when a women’s strike kicked off the February Revolution. Thus goes probably the most radical history you’ll ever read on a website so bedecked with logos, and it’s worth reminding ourselves of the roots of the women’s movement. Feminists are usually held up as the vanguard of the political-correctness police, as “language rapists” getting their knickers into quite a twist about making up words, and I think this stereotype owes more to sexist snobbery than to anything else - but it’s pretty convenient that it’s drowned out our collective memory of radical mass action against exploitation and war.

* * * * *

There’s another way of looking at boardrooms and parliaments full of men, of course. There’s an urge to ask, what if half of those CEOs and half of those MPs were women?

There are some feminists for whom that would be enough (and some who would demand all-female boardrooms and parliaments). Indeed, if we define a feminist as one who struggles on behalf of her gender and against the other gender, there’s no reason why that shouldn’t be the locus of her struggle. But I don’t think it would have meant very much to the women who burned to death in the Triangle shirt factory, to the women who marched in New York and went on strike in St. Petersberg. I don’t think it means very much to my indisputably betesticled self that there are so many men on the various boards of directors either.

* * * * *

Perhaps the first campaign in which I’ve taken part from the very start is the defense of abortion rights, and this campaign has already involved probably the most confrontational demonstration I’ve ever been on, ever. And yet, a number of people I’ve spoken to about it have expressed surprised that I even take a position on such a womanly issue, let alone that I can get that worked up about it. I can actually get quite worked up about a lot of things, given the right atmosphere, and besides there were almost as many men as women on the aforementioned demo.

To me, it’s obvious that men should stand up for women’s liberation; to say otherwise is akin to saying that racism is something that only Black people should stand up against(or Brown or Jewish or Polish or Irish people, or whatever, in seperate movements for Black/Brown/Jewish/Polish/Irish liberation) . It’s absurd. Not only do we all have a duty to stand up for the oppressed whoever they may be, but the only meaningful way in which we have to stand up to the various discriminatory -isms is to deny them, to transcend them. Black and White Unite against the racists; so too must men and women stand together against sexist oppression.

It’s very very simple, surely? But it doesn’t seem to go without saying. Take the example of the campaigns on violence against women, and the Reclaim The Night marches in particular. These are important events, in which there is certainly much to admire, but I still failed to be inspired when it came to Manchester the other week. The main march was for women only, with a secondary (mixed) march for “friends” under the slogan “these hands won’t hurt women”, or something along those lines.

From what I’ve heard the event was a considerable success; hopefully it will feed into a new era of politically aware and politically active young ladies, as well as raising awareness of the problem… but still, there’s so much more for we men can do than staying in a seperate section meekly promising not to be part of the problem. We could learn from the fight for abortion rights in the 1960s and 1970s when, of course, women took the lead - but when massive victories were won by trade unions, mobilising men and women. Why let ourselves be divided, why make ourselves easier to conquer?

But making women’s liberation a women-only fight doesn’t just miss the point about liberation; it misses the point about oppression. Oppression brutalises the oppressor, and a society that pits men against women is doing its men no favours either. Women are oppressed in different ways to men, but I’m ultimately no happier about being a mammoth hunting bigot than my imaginary is about being locked in the kitchen all day. Fathers rarely face the same uphill balancing act that single mothers do, but men to do work the longest hours of their lives right around the time their partners are giving birth - precisely the time they’d be most inclined to spend time with their new families.

Men tend to work longer hours full stop - this sucks for women, glass-ceilinged into the lowest paid jobs, but it’s not exactly fun for us either. Is it the same? No, but it’s another side of the same coin, and the fight for a fairer society free of sexism is our fight too. Suicide and mental illness are more common among the male population by orders of magnitude, and we die quicker too.

Emmeline Pankhurst would have had me sent to die in the trenches or had me interned, so that a woman could have taken my job. But the mentality that got women the vote by killing off a generation of young men is the same mentality that pushes women’s retirement age to be as high as men’s and gives everyone a paycut in the name of equality. For all that she was an awesome campaigner, by the time she became a Tory MP working class women would have had far more in common with working class men than with the esteemed Mrs Pankhurst (now Sylvia, she was the smart one…). Ask my Mum; she’s always hated Thatcher.

Women’s oppression is as real in 2008 as it was in 1908, and women’s liberation needs to be just as real too. Real liberation doesn’t mean bullying hijabis, praising responsible corporations or giving men a pay cut - it means recognising oppression, and fighting it together.