tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.comments2024-02-19T16:54:06.139+00:00Trade unions and global restructuringAndreas Bielerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08920020665441380498noreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-57188693315840203502023-10-10T18:14:34.769+01:002023-10-10T18:14:34.769+01:00Good piece Andreas - reflects many of the argumen...Good piece Andreas - reflects many of the arguments I've been having over the last year or so.<br />Jane Holgatenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-56299021476170551542022-12-06T22:24:47.580+00:002022-12-06T22:24:47.580+00:00Most Chinese cities will be 15-minute cities by th...Most Chinese cities will be 15-minute cities by the end of the current decade. Many already are. They include athletic/exercise facilities in their 15 minute calculations. Godfree Robertshttps://www.herecomeschina.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-54888290929815049242022-03-04T23:15:54.600+00:002022-03-04T23:15:54.600+00:00"There had been huge hopes for a peaceful, pr..."There had been huge hopes for a peaceful, prosperous future in a united Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Three decades later, the war in Ukraine has brought these hopes to an end"??<br /><br />The NATO invasion and devastation of Yugoslavia brought those hopes to an end.<br /><br />The Ukraine action is merely a postlude.Godfree Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06178509602799506224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-21447379022493965582021-10-31T23:06:43.581+00:002021-10-31T23:06:43.581+00:00The brightest light on labor's horizon is Chin...The brightest light on labor's horizon is China. For decades, workers there have doubled their real wages every 8 years, as regular as clockwork and 98% of them own their homes.<br /><br />Add to that the PRC's drive to make available to everyone the advantages that middle-class Westerners take for granted–Shared Prosperity–and our workers will have enough evidence to scare their employers silly.Godfree Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06178509602799506224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-52178628416784955872021-07-23T20:17:44.742+01:002021-07-23T20:17:44.742+01:00In Turkey like Italy and Ireland, the experience a...In Turkey like Italy and Ireland, the experience and practices of the anti-fascist struggle of the revolutionary left prior to the 1980 military coup have been influential in the organization of the movement against hydroelectric plants in some regions albeit not many.ömürhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02719396534616103940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-40702657666041481342021-01-22T07:28:55.291+00:002021-01-22T07:28:55.291+00:00Narrowness at that age may be appropriate. Young p...Narrowness at that age may be appropriate. Young people do well to focus on acquiring basic skills and knowledge. Plenty to time to broaden their scope later on.Godfree Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06178509602799506224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-66199619943094997032020-07-01T09:51:32.810+01:002020-07-01T09:51:32.810+01:00This is a damned good article. Thanks for writing ...This is a damned good article. Thanks for writing it. I'm glad it did well.<br /><br />Do you see a rise of cooperatives in Britain at some point in the future?<br /><br />Fraternally,<br /><br />GabrielGabrielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16338223873648046156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-74437650189000997752019-12-16T18:26:10.734+00:002019-12-16T18:26:10.734+00:00I agree with pretty much all of the analysis here,...I agree with pretty much all of the analysis here, though I would add a couple of points. First of all, its important not to accept the narrative of the Labour Right (and much of the Soft Left) about this election being an unprecedented disaster that proves the failure of the Left. This narrative was already written in 2015, based on an unshakable conviction that the Left had always been and always would be unelectable, there was widespread panic that Corbyn would mark the existential death of the party. The obvious thing to say is that, on the contrary, Corbyn`s left platform did prove enormously electorally successful in 2017 receiving a popular vote of 12,878,460 (40%), the only time that the party has broken through 40% in the past half century aside from the two Blair landslides of 1997 and 2001. This was also the largest increase in vote share in electoral history (if we exclude the 1945 election which had a much longer cycle due to WWII). However, even if we look at the 2019 election, which undeniably was a disaster in terms of seats won, Corbyn`s Labour had a popular vote of 10,269,076 (32%) which was in fact up on the performance of the two previous leaders of the party, Ed Miliband with 9,347,273 (30%) in 2015 and Gordon Brown, who only managed 8,609,527 (29%) in 2010. Already you are hearing comparisons with 1983, but in that election Michael Foot fell to 8,456,934 (27%). What is clear from these two elections is that a left wing labour party can attract a considerable popular vote, at least comparable to, if not larger than that offered by either the New Labour Right or the Soft Left. Why Labour lost so many seats in this election, particularly in its traditional heartlands, is a crucial conversation to have, but it cannot be legitimately framed as irrefutable evidence in proof of the unelectability of the Left. Jonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-78553661773208296322019-10-22T15:14:24.127+01:002019-10-22T15:14:24.127+01:00'Neoliberal Capitalism' is really what Mar...'Neoliberal Capitalism' is really what Marx referred to as Late Stage Capitalism. <br /><br /><i>"The final stages of capitalism, Marx wrote, would be marked by developments that are intimately familiar to most of us. Unable to expand and generate profits at past levels, the capitalist system would begin to consume the structures that sustained it. It would prey upon, in the name of austerity, the working class and the poor, driving them ever deeper into debt and poverty and diminishing the capacity of the state to serve the needs of ordinary citizens. It would, as it has, increasingly relocate jobs, including both manufacturing and professional positions, to countries with cheap pools of laborers. Industries would mechanize their workplaces. This would trigger an economic assault on not only the working class but the middle class—the bulwark of a capitalist system—that would be disguised by the imposition of massive personal debt as incomes declined or remained stagnant. Politics would in the late stages of capitalism become subordinate to economics, leading to political parties hollowed out of any real political content and abjectly subservient to the dictates and money of global capitalism."</i><br />https://www.nationofchange.org/2015/06/02/karl-marx-was-right/Nebrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05974591864059776528noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-18796874626199496982018-09-04T17:22:38.127+01:002018-09-04T17:22:38.127+01:00Yes, I like this very much Andreas. It's a per...Yes, I like this very much Andreas. It's a persuasive case and one that reflects my thinking on a topic that all-too-easily gets muddied/muddled in the cut and thrust of debate. Cheerssimon crosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09073599748978405328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-75265315764492163802018-04-29T22:52:51.437+01:002018-04-29T22:52:51.437+01:00'It would be unfair to say that there are no e...'It would be unfair to say that there are no economists attempting to chart a different course. '<br /><br />It certainly would. China's economists–the only successful practitioners of economics as a predictive science–have doubled average wages every decade for 50 years while creating the highest home ownership on earth.Godfree Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06178509602799506224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-42943898161175032072018-04-12T14:26:08.832+01:002018-04-12T14:26:08.832+01:00Dear Andreas, thank you for your analysis. But, I ...Dear Andreas, thank you for your analysis. But, I find your comparison with the Greek case as poorly thought. In the case of Greece, the choice was either take the measures or had all the banking system abolished and the money supply cut off (meaning suspend all imports, etc, etc). That is either leave the euro and go back to the stone age, or take the unpleasant medicine. The populist left along with their far right government partners, had only themselves to blame for selling to the ill-informed and desperate electorate in Greece that they, somehow, will be much better where everyone else had failed (akin to create wine from water...). The comparison with UCU is unfounded. A similar situation would have been if UCU members were threatened with abolishing the HE sector as known, such as wholesale privatisation, and the like. That was not the case. <br />Regards,<br />George Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-36979185034901921362017-10-23T00:20:37.060+01:002017-10-23T00:20:37.060+01:00Shame on UoN Yet again despite a£20million profit ...Shame on UoN Yet again despite a£20million profit last year, their own employees cannot afford to feed their families. DisgracefulAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-35194415038981753342017-07-21T23:15:58.943+01:002017-07-21T23:15:58.943+01:00Great Review! I enjoy reading your articles. Keep ...Great Review! I enjoy reading your articles. Keep them coming. Oliver Doddhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12200728253799363144noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-21339464779805638522017-05-25T20:16:08.083+01:002017-05-25T20:16:08.083+01:00The fight goes on but labour needs to sell itself ...The fight goes on but labour needs to sell itself better to the working class at moment look a shambles but ideologies are what the country is desperate for Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16112001942539593852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-40052373187190925782017-05-06T21:44:41.232+01:002017-05-06T21:44:41.232+01:00Oh dear. I'm a tutor at the Open University a...Oh dear. I'm a tutor at the Open University and while I do enjoy the work - well I would have to at the rates they pay (It's that overly tiresome argument about the 'hourly' rate which totally ignores the fact that the management cynically exploit the tutors desire to give a good service to their students) Oh and the management (and I don't mean the academic management but the ones who control the purse strings) do keep telling us that we are 'valued' many many many times througout all the recent UCU negotiations. And indeed regarding the UCU and the Open University I remember the protests at the OU's vicious and pointless cull of the Regional Staff as the OU were once famed for their regional support of OU students. It's all centralised now. Like government. And we know how well that works. Some things are just not meant to be 'centralised' - including education. So the protests led to nothing. Neither have negotiations led to better pay for us or even a contract because negotiations have 'stalled.' But I say 'oh dear' though 'Oh f**k' would be better because I just joined the UCU and then immediately found your excellent dissection of the UCU! But hey - at least OU tutors are 'valued'. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-29981433059550297532017-02-13T11:39:37.649+00:002017-02-13T11:39:37.649+00:00“Even modest jobs like bar work or shelf stacking ...“Even modest jobs like bar work or shelf stacking can demonstrate to employers that you [the student] have a responsible attitude to work" > Nothing wrong with that. These jobs are useful, if conditions and pay are right, yes, employers should reward who did them. Better an employer who rewards people who had these jobs (which people do because they need the money and they do not do for free!), than an employer who prefers people who never did bar work but have lots of great FREE internships on their CV - internships they could do for free because their family is rich. Getting rid of unpaid internships should be the priority, not discouraging or devaluing students/graduates who do shelf stacking so they can EAT! Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-8177952298389987412016-09-09T01:14:40.655+01:002016-09-09T01:14:40.655+01:00A great blog! The Labour Party membership in the c...A great blog! The Labour Party membership in the constituency where I live has tripled and generally is buzzing with activity to support Jeremy (admittedly I live in Islington North, but I don't think we're unique!), although 100 people did vote against him (284 in favour of JC) at our local nomination meeting. It is apparent that the political establishment, however aware it may be of voters' lack of trust in feeling of connection to it, is running scared of the prospect of a senior politician who has actually gained the public's respect and trust by voicing policies and beliefs that run counter to the neo-liberal economic model existing in the UK. Interesting times.Viva1959https://www.blogger.com/profile/08010689237962579117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-91051268003377328482016-01-07T08:31:48.931+00:002016-01-07T08:31:48.931+00:00Thanks, his contact E-mail address is rob.lambert@...Thanks, his contact E-mail address is rob.lambert@uwa.edu.au Andreas Bielerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08920020665441380498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-47254891149980913222016-01-02T15:21:28.108+00:002016-01-02T15:21:28.108+00:00I am trying to get in contact with Rob Lamabert. W...I am trying to get in contact with Rob Lamabert. We worked together with YCW in South Africa back in the Sixties. I am now 80 yrs. old and he sent me birthday greetings. I want to get his email address so I can thank him and reconnect after so many years.<br /><br />Fr. Cas. Paulsen, now at MariannhillFr. Cas. Bloghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04979574953053850151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-90038711869781907532015-02-05T18:42:32.836+00:002015-02-05T18:42:32.836+00:00Don't forget that this £55k cap is not tied to...Don't forget that this £55k cap is not tied to a salary spine point, or anything remotely sensible like that. The *plan* is just to move it with CPI. This means two things will happen: (i) when employers at some point in the future agree to an above CPI pay deal in a given year they will likely bargain with "not increasing the cap this year", and (ii) it's not just *some* staff who earn over £55k... if wages rise even a fraction above CPI over the next twenty years then it'll be pretty much ALL UCU members who are affected by the cap as they progress through their career. It's only the employers who care what proportion of current members are above and below the cap (as it tells them how much they need to pay). Us, the employees should be concerned about whether such a cap will affect us *in the future* which I would guess most staff would *hope it does* if they have any ambition of ever reaching Senior Lecturer level.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-72187944373862679162015-02-05T14:06:16.053+00:002015-02-05T14:06:16.053+00:00Thank you for your thoughts Matthew. Yes, I am mor...Thank you for your thoughts Matthew. Yes, I am more confident that members would have been prepared to engage in sustained strike action. First, because this was clearly backed in the ballot on industrial action. Second, and perhaps even more important, industrial action is also a dynamic, collective process. Strikes always offer the possibility to talk to colleagues and convince them to join the action. Unsurprisingly, it is during times of industrial action that unions succeed most at recruiting new members. Finally, the members meeting at Nottingham University on 19 January, the one with the largest turnout for years, demonstrated the importance of regarding industrial action as a dynamic process. When colleagues realised how widespread the anger was against the draconian cuts and that other colleagues were also prepared to engage in sustained strikes such as Tuesday to Thursday every second week, very quickly a strong resolve developed to move forward collectively. <br /><br />Would UCU have succeeded, if we had had a better leadership? I cannot answer this question. There are no guarantees. But not even to have tried large-scale mobilisation has unarmed the union for any future campaign. The employers know now that they do not have to fear anything from us. They can do whatever they want. In my view, the settlement is not UCU's Brest-Litovsk. It is our Waterloo. Andreas Bielerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08920020665441380498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-53384627287901052092015-02-05T13:28:42.778+00:002015-02-05T13:28:42.778+00:00I voted to accept the proposals, and for much the ...I voted to accept the proposals, and for much the reasons cited by the long anonymous post above. The union was still--at any rate officially--defending the final salary scheme, and while that was not the only thing it was fighting for, this weakened its moral case. First, it amounted to asking junior members of staff who would never enjoy such a deal to risk swinging deductions to their salaries on behalf of their elders (including me). Where is the equity there? Moreover, those who would have benefited most from the final salary scheme's continuation would be those who will have higher pensions in any case--viz., professors. I am always in favour of extracting better terms for labour vis-à-vis capital, even for the better paid members of the workforce, but the moral urgency of ensuring that a professor should have a pension of £40k per year instead of £20k per year does not seem overwhelming. Finally, in defending UCU's position last autumn, I had some people ask me whether people who had achieved enough to get promoted early in their careers didn't *deserve* bigger pensions. It is not at all obvious to me that they do, but I also do not have a knock-down argument as to why they don't. Be that as it may, I did not relish the idea of telling my students that I was going to refuse to mark their papers and jeopardize their timely graduation partly in order to preserve a two-tier scheme that was (a) inequitable toward junior staff, and (b) disproportionately benefited the highest earners.<br /><br />That said, this was not only about final salary, as Alan Phelps writes above. Suppose we'd traded that demand away at the end, could we have extracted a better deal on the other issues? I agree with Andreas that we should reject the notion of a 'social partnership'--the employers certainly don't behave as if they were *our* partners--but putting it bluntly, were we strong enough that we could have won? We are not industrial workers in the 1950s--when union membership was widespread--but rather in a sector where only a minority belongs to the union. If we had the strength that Andreas's argument presumes, we wouldn't faff around with one-day strikes--we'd strike like a proper union and down tools for weeks if necessary. UCU, presumably, does not believe its members are prepared to do that; what reason is there to believe that enough of them are willing to hold the line on an assessment boycott when they are losing 25% or more of their salaries?<br /><br />Now, if most people *did* belong to the union, then we'd be in a completely different situation. And UCU Left is right to see that as the goal to be worked for. But we're not there at this point, and given the present correlation of forces, it seems likely to me that industrial action would have led to much suffering and little gain. I'm not a fan of Lenin, but one thing that must be said for him is that he generally knew when to fight and when to strike a deal. This settlement, I would say, is UCU's Brest-Litovsk.<br />Matthew Rendallhttp://www.nottingham.ac.uk/politics/people/matthew.rendallnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-37745265832073202492015-02-05T10:15:22.703+00:002015-02-05T10:15:22.703+00:00This was a massive historical defeat for the lectu...This was a massive historical defeat for the lecturers of the United Kingdom, which should as Andreas Bieler says be laid at the feet of the UCU HEC leadership. I do not share the view that only strikes can work; I actually think the marking boycott might have been a valid tactic if employed well, and one-day strikes had little power in the past five years, leaving members skeptical about their validity. I also believe that on pensions, given the balance of social forces, an orderly retreat was necessary and that meant sacrifice of the final salary scheme. But the line should have been held at defined benefit, and it was not. Now the consequences will ripple outward. The pension scheme, lacking employer contributions for those over £55,000 will be weakened and vulnerable and will surely go to defined contribution entirely in time. What will this mean? The employers pay far less into such defined contribution plans, employees are captive to the fees charged by financial services companies, which sap returns, and retirement becomes a roulette game based on market performance. Welcome to the neoliberal university.Christopher Phelpshttp://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCMQFjAA&url=http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/american/staff/christopher.phelps&ei=-z_TVO2FOc3sapqJgZAH&usg=AFQjCNEK2XbmPY0AKdmV9jJzjnxT7MdpDQ&sig2=Gp-l02UtG7tsCG0SjyW5XAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3081320827566289783.post-7212871256955193602015-02-03T12:37:43.163+00:002015-02-03T12:37:43.163+00:00I think the anonymous comment makes an important p...I think the anonymous comment makes an important point. I was an activist in MSF for many years and became a university lecturer pretty much by accident when I got a PhD at 51, working for seven years before a publish or perish cull thrust early retiirement on me.<br /><br />When I was a senior rep at GEC, pensions were a long way off in time - and a long way from the workplace in the group's structure. Organizing around them was difficult. I can understand why reps may see a compromise maintaining the status quo for existing members as attractive. How do you motivate employees who are told their own pensions are safe to go on strike to defend the putative pensions of possible future colleagues? The problem of a divided workforce may be seen, but how do you stir up the punters to have a go?Alanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16365402242052425654noreply@blogger.com