As you will have seen from the media coverage there has been riots across Britain. That riots have taken place is not surprising as large sections of the British working class live in poverty and social deprivation. Many working class communities in Britain have never recovered from the closure of traditional industries coal mining, steel making engineering and so on.
This dates back to the 1970's and 1980's when Britain's manufacturing bases was decimated. In the early 1980's with millions unemployment rioting took place in Britain. The riots were largely concentrated in the "inner cities" and on "council estates" these areas are vast local government built housing estates and are some of the poorest communities in Britain. Though the inner city areas tend to have high immigrant populations the council estates tend to be dominated by white working class. In the 1980's the media at first attempted to portray the riots as "race riots" but the fact that so many white working class on council estates were also taking in part in riots forced the media to drop the attempt at blame the riots on immigrants.
For the last few months the Solidarity Federation (SF) has been involved in supporting a victimised former Office Angels temporary worker. The person involved had worked for Office Angels last December but was still owed wages by the company. The SF had organised a number of pickets in an attempt to force Office Angels to pay the money they owed. As part of the campaign against Office Angels the SF organized a week of action in Britain to be followed by an IWA week of action at the end of May.
Durante los últimos meses, la Solidarity Federation (SF) ha estado participando en el apoyo a un antiguo trabajador temporal victimizado de Office Angels. La persona de que se trata había trabajado para Office Angels en diciembre pasado pero la empresa aún le debía los salarios. La SF había organizado una serie de piquetes en un intento de forzar a Office Angels a pagar el dinero que debían. Como parte de la campaña contra Office Angels, la SF organizó una semana de acción en Gran Bretaña que iba a ser continuada por una semana de acción de la AIT a finales de mayo.
The Solidarity Federation (SF) has been involved in supporting a victimised former Office Angels temporary worker. Dan worked for Office Angels for three days in December of last year. He was assured by the company that the lack of a time-sheet would 'not be a problem'. However, Office Angels are refusing to pay him the wages he is owed - falsely claiming he only worked for one day, despite them having called him at work on his third day. After completely ripping him off, they had the nerve to harass him for seeking advice on an internet discussion forum.
La Solidarity Federation (SF) ha participado en el apoyo a un antiguo trabajador temporal victimizado de Office Angels. Dan trabajó para Office Angels durante tres días en diciembre del año pasado. La empresa le aseguró que la falta de una hoja de horarios no sería problema. Sin embargo, Office Angels se niega a pagarle los salarios que se le deben –argumentando falsamente que él solamente trabajó un día, a pesar de que le llamaron al trabajo durante su tercer día. Después de haberse deshecho de él completamente, tuvieron aún la cara dura de hostigarle por buscar consejo en un foro de discusión en internet.
In recent years British Airways has gained a reputation for union busting in its continuing dispute with cabin crew. However, its image has been further tarnished for allowing forcible deportation on its commercial flights, most notably when, on 12th October 2010, Jimmy Mubenga was killed by three security guards from G4S while being deported on British Airways flight 77 from Heathrow to Luanda in Angola.
En años recientes, British Airways se ha hecho con una reputación de reventar a los sindicatos en su continua disputa con las tripulaciones de cabina. No obstante, su imagen ha seguido empañándose por permitir la deportación forzosa en sus vuelos comerciales, más notablemente cuando, el 12 de octubre de 2010, Jimmy Mubenga fue muerto por tres guardias de seguridad de G4S, mientras estaba siendo deportado en el vuelo 77 de British Airways de Heathrow a Luanda, en Angola.
Throughout the world it is the workers who are paying the price for the capitalist crisis. In Britain it took a trillion pounds sterling to save the banks from collapse and the government now aims to pay for the bank bailout by making brutal spending cuts. The attacks by the Thatcher government decimated many working class communities but the planned spending cuts go much further than Thatcher ever dreamed. Over the next 4 years the government intends to cut public spending by 25%.
Even the government admits that this will lead to the loss of half a million public sectors jobs. And as the British economy is so dependent on the public sector, again, according to the government’s own figures, there will be at least another half million jobs lost in the private sector. These job losses will be felt hardest in the old industrial heartlands of Britain, places like Scotland, the North of England and Wales, that were decimated by the Thatcher government.
Por todo el mundo, son los trabajadores los que están pagando el precio de la crisis capitalista. En Gran Bretaña, salvar a los bancos del colapso ha costado un trillón de libras esterlinas y el gobierno ahora aspira a pagar el rescate bancario llevando a cabo brutales recortes en el gasto. Los ataques del gobierno Thatcher diezmaron muchas comunidades obreras pero los recortes previstos van mucho más allá de lo que Thatcher jamás soñó. A lo largo de los próximos 4 años, el gobierno intenta recortar el gasto público en un 25%.
Incluso el gobierno admite que esto conducirá a la pérdida de medio millón de empleos en los sectores públicos. Y puesto que la economía británica es tan dependiente del sector público, una vez más según las propias cifras de gobierno, habrá al menos otro medio millón de empleos que se perderán en el sector privado. Estas pérdidas de empleo se sentirán con mayor dureza en el corazón de las viejas zonas industriales de Gran Bretaña, lugares como Escocia, el Norte de Inglaterra y Gales, que fueron diezmados por el gobierno Thatcher.
