Workers — Revolution Socialist Youth

The wages are too damn low! Fast-food workers fight back

November 30, 2012 By sean89bowiecat Leave a Comment

Hundreds of low-paid New York fast-food industry workers walked off the job yesterday in protest at poverty pay which is seeing bosses rake in record profits.

The action marked escalation by the New York Communities for Change campaign which has been leading a drive to unionise workers in an industry where unions are virtually unknown – and most workers earn an average of $8.76 an hour.

40 organises have been visiting outlets, gathering support for a new union, the Fast Food Workers’ Committee, which is not recognised by the industry.

Workers from McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and other chains joined pickets across the city, which joined up to march on the McDonald’s in Time Square. They are demanding the right to join a union and an increase in pay to $15 an hour.

In an industry where trade unionists are regularly sacked, and workers who speak out victimised or even fired, this act of defiance reflects the grinding burden of austerity.

Traditionally high-turnover and limited benefits helped undermine unionisation drives. But now, as workers are forced to take out unaffordable healthcare insurance and jobs are harder to come by, many workers are forced to stay in these so-called ‘temporary’ or ‘entry-level’ jobs, while trying to feed families or pay for education.

Coming in the wake of the Black Friday strike by Walmart workers, this latest attempt to organise low-paid workers is an inspiration for the mainly young workers in the international fast-food industry.

From meat-packing to burger-flipping, the industry relies on paying the lowest possible wages in order to secure the biggest profits for its bosses.

Forming a union is a legal right, and the most effective way for workers to fight back against the bullying, limited hours and unpaid overtime which is rife within the industry.

REVOLUTION sends its solidarity to the workers America’s biggest companies taking a stand against poverty pay and exploitation.

Sign the petition in support of the workers here

Filed Under: Civil Liberties, International, News, Workers Tagged With: america, burger king, exploitation, fast food, fast food forward, low pay, mcdonalds, new york, nyc, Unions, USA, wendys, workers

£1m a year not enough for Ryanair boss

October 3, 2012 By sean89bowiecat Leave a Comment

The boss of Ryanair, Michael O’Leary is complaining that his £1 million a year salary is too low. He claims to work 50 times harder than his average employee, but his pay is only 20 times higher.

The millionaire moaned that he was “paid £1.2 million last year for carrying 80 million passengers.” What carried them all to Lanzarote on his own back did he?

Hardly. It was in fact the work of thousands of employees, whose low wages ensure big profits for the airline bosses. While Ryanair may boast about a £50k average salary, this conveniently ignores the growing number of agency workers employed in jobs from maintenance to cabin crew.

Last year it’s eight directors (what do they do?) shared £5.6 million between them.

Ryanair refuses to recognise trade unions- the last time BALPA tried, management sent employees a letter threatening to cut jobs, cut hours and cut pay, if the union won the right to represent the company’s workers.

No trade union means no hassle about working conditions and safety. If workers do press their right to join a union, they simply get sacked – as happened to several Italian employees.

Michael O’Leary once said “the best thing you can do with environmentalists is shoot them” – what’s the best thing to do with greedy bosses leeching off their workers?

Filed Under: News, Wanker of the Month, Workers Tagged With: agency work, airlines, bosses, capitalist, exploitation, millionaire, ryanair, salary, union busting

Money Masters: Why capitalism functions on inequality

August 15, 2012 By sean89bowiecat Leave a Comment

Created by: www.ForensicAccounting.net

Filed Under: Civil Liberties, News, Workers Tagged With: bosses, capitalism, inquality, rich, trickle-down, wealth, workers

More pain for long-term unemployed

August 14, 2012 By sean89bowiecat Leave a Comment

The Coalition’s latest medicine for the unemployed is a new forced-labour scheme which will see one million people who have been on JSA for longer than three years forced to work unpaid for six months or have their benefits removed.

The scheme has been named ‘support for the very long-term unemployed.’ However stripping people’s benefits from them and forcing them to work for less than £2 an hour is clearly not supportive in any way.

The government’s insistence on rolling out more and more ‘work-for-your-dole’ schemes is hardly an incentive to companies to invest in well-trained, well-paid jobs. If bosses think there’s a steady stream of jobless candidates who are forced to work for them, paid for by the taxpayer then that starts a race to the bottom.

Some companies are already using prisoners as cheap labour to reduce costs and boost profits.

In a job market with millions of unemployed and less than half a million vacancies, stripping people of their entitlement to benefits is no solution.

None of the government’s policies are about really putting a dent in the jobless figures. After all, the millions of unemployed represent a reserve army of workers that can be used to drive down wages, scab on strikes and scare people into accepting worsening pay and conditions for fear of being made unemployed.

Filed Under: Cuts, News, Workers Tagged With: benefits, cuts, dole, jobcentre, jsa, unemployment, workfare

Cardiff boss profits from call-centre chain gangs

August 13, 2012 By sean89bowiecat Leave a Comment

US chain gang

A Cardiff solar panel company, Becoming Green, has sacked workers in favour of getting inmates from a nearby prison to work for just £3 a day – 6% of the minimum wage.

The Ministry of Justice has confirmed that dozens of workers from Prescoed prison inSouth Wales have done “work experience” for at least two months at the rate of 40p an hour in the company’s call centre.

Becoming Green has said they are proud to be supporting [- and profiting from] prisoner rehabilitation. The company also confirmed that since it started using prisoners, it had fired other workers.

Andy Richards, Unite Wales secretary, said: “This looks likes a disgraceful and worrying development which follows the UK government’s already discredited Workfare scheme.

While we support rehabilition of prisoners, including providing useful training and help finding jobs, it’s clear that the company motivation is profit not philanthropy. While some prisoners appear to be paid minimum wage, would the company be so keen to employ loads of prisoners if they couldn’t get them on the cheap?

It is crucial that prisoners are given the opportunity to learn new skills and the chance of rehabilitation, but this shouldn’t be at the expense of other workers jobs and shouldn’t involve them being taken granted and paid peanuts.

Instead the government should be investing in schemes to retrain and employ ex-prisoners, providing them with a secure economic and social basis to restart their life. The cost of this would be more than saved by the reduced rate of re-offending.

REVOLUTION fights for:

Jobs for all and paid at a living wage

Rehabilitation not exploitation – prison work to be paid at industry average

The abolishment of all workfare schemes

Filed Under: Civil Liberties, News, Workers Tagged With: exploitation, jail, Living wage, minimum wage, prinsons, prisoners, rehabilition, wales, workfare

DWP in ‘workfare doesn’t work’ shocker!

June 15, 2012 By sean89bowiecat 3 Comments

It turns out that forcing people to work 40 hours a week for their dole doesn’t increase their chances of getting a job. This according to the government’s very own Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Their report shows that the result of the various schemes, known as “Mandatory Work Placements” is that people are forced to spend longer claiming benefits and increases the number of people claiming sickness benefits.

The assessment was filed on Tuesday evening, just three hours after (un)employment Minister Chris Grayling announced he’d found an extra £5million to pump into the scheme – meaning 70,000 people will be working, unpaid, profiting millionaire bosses, while the taxpayer gives them £53 a week to live off.

This £5 million translates into tens of millions of pounds worth of profit for companies like Tesco, which have made their biggest ever profits, by driving down wages.

Grayling claims the schemes are a deterrent to those who are avoiding work, which is around 1% of the total. The vast majority of those on benefits do want to work, however not in an unpaid ‘job’ with no chance of employment at the end.

The government recently announced it will become more difficult to refuse the schemes and those who do, will have their benefits cut. Being paid only £53 a week benefits for 30 hours a week work equals just £1.30 an hour, for parents this would mean increasing childcare, on no extra money.

Researchers found that, between May and November last year, more than 1,600 people had their benefits cut for up to six months for refusing to start a placement or leaving it before it finished.

The assessment revealed over a five month period, those who entered the scheme were actually less likely to go into paid employment than those who didn’t. This is probably due to the fact they have no time to job hunt and attend interviews while getting a job at the end of their scheme is also unlikely as the employers can just apply for the next shipment of free workers.

The money to run this scheme is coming from the cuts made to the NHS, schools and pensions.

It all amounts to a big fat subsidy for bosses. Because the minimum wage is below the government’s poverty threshold, it has to top up wages with Working Tax Credits, funded from general taxation. This system which makes ordinary people subsidise the bosses’ poverty wages is bad enough.

But normalising a system where the unemployed have to work for free is even worse. After all, it’s the bosses who throw people on the dole in order to keep their profits high – we think bosses who sack people should have their companies confiscated and managed by the government.

Unemployment is a construct of capitalism which increases competition, keeping wages low.

We want to abolish unemployment. By raising taxes on the rich we can employ people in socially-useful jobs like house-building.

Boycott workfare – fight for a job and living wage for all!

Filed Under: Civil Liberties, News, Workers Tagged With: cuts, DWP, jobs, unemployment, wages, workfare

From low pay to no pay

June 15, 2012 By Sally Turner Leave a Comment

Security workers at the Jubilee event in London were forced to sleep under London
Bridge, do unpaid work and had no access to toilets for over 24 hours. 30 jobseekers
and 50 on apprentices ‘worked’ for Close Protection UK (CPUK) under the
government’s workfare system.

Downing St refused to see any criticisms and made it clear they would not be
changing its system which profits the rich by providing them with free labour while
threatening to remove the poor’s benefits unless they comply.

This is by no means a one off as workfare is rapidly taking off nationally with more
companies being exposed for profiting from the scheme.

At Tescos we see the unemployed working 40 hours a week for 6 weeks just to
receive their benefit of £53 a week, this works out at just £1.30 an hour. People are
given the impression there might be paid work at the end however less than 40% are offered a job.

Workfare seriously undermines wages and replaces jobs. If multi-millionaire
companies like Tesco’s can get workers from the government for free, then why
would they employ workers they had to pay? The government should demand that big employers, who are making record profits, should create more jobs paid a living wage.

The number of unemployed currently stands at 2.67 million (a rate of 8.9%). The
TUC has suggested that the real figure could in fact be over 6 million. Contrast this with just 400,000 or so vacancies, mainly in the south. In many regions the figure is worse. At the end of 2011 in Hull, there were over 18,000 unemployed chasing less than 500 vacancies.

It is predicted that there will be 500,000 public sector job losses over the next five
years. It is clear that the government intends to use workfare to replace gaps left in
the public sector. It is already doing this within the NHS; under-trained volunteers are
doing eight weeks of unpaid work including cleaning and feeding patients. These are
important aspects of patient care and require full training; it is appalling that untrained
volunteers have such a massive weight on their shoulders.

We need to be fighting back against this government and their scheme which benefits
only the rich. With youth taking the brunt of the unemployment, we are being scapegoated as lazy scroungers if we refuse to take unpaid work.

For professional jobs the situation is even worse, with work in law and the media almost impossible without doing months of unpaid internships.

We don’t say the government owes us a living – but we do say we don’t owe the bankers a bailout.

If money can be found for banks, wars and jubilees, then money can be found to invest in decent, secure jobs, paying living wages – but we’ll have to fight for this to happen.

Filed Under: Cuts, News, Workers

Unemployment at its highest in decades

June 1, 2012 By Jack D Leave a Comment

Unemployment is currently rising to the historic mark of 3 million. Although recent statistic show that it has dipped slightly, the reality is the coalition have fiddled the figures by placing the unemployed onto workfare training courses such as A4E and Best. Recently A4E has been in the spotlight for allegations of fraud by making up jobs that they managed to find for them or another tactic being used is to sanction those that are unemployed for menial errors.

Leeds Unemployment Action group has recently been set up; we have regular meetings and leaflet local jobcentres talking to people signing on. Last week whilst down at park place job centre I was speaking to a young man who told me he’s lost his Job seeker’s allowance (JSA) due to the fact he misunderstood the time of his next appointment to sign on subsequently he lost his JSA for a month. I asked him “Did you apply for a crisis loan?” His reply “Yeah but they wouldn’t give me one as they didn’t in their opinion consider me in severe enough need!” The fact somebody else can decide whether or not you need money to live off just highlights the disgrace our government are.

The argument the coalition give for cutting public sector jobs is that it will be offset by the boost in private sector jobs. Latest evidence show the contrary happening as those in the public sector lose their jobs

The private sector is unable to make up for the demand as the economy is being hampered by the lack of consumer spending and the crisis in the Eurozone.

Those that claim disability living allowance (DSA) or Employment support allowance (ESA) are facing re-assessment. Already dozens of disabled people who can’t cope with facing re-assessment and consequently losing their benefit have committed suicide. The coalition government has contracted out the re-assessment to a private multinational corporation called Atos. The re-assessment criteria is deliberately geared towards throwing as many disabled people off the sick register, Atos is given a bonus incentive by the government for every sick person it manages to find somehow rather miraculously “fit and healthy.” With Remploy factories been closed down it will throw even more disabled people into unemployment because they simply can’t get a job anywhere else.

Being unemployed is a constant uphill struggle and incredibly demoralising. Unite have recently launched a community membership programme. For just 50p a week, people not in work and over the age of 16 can receive a range of advice, including access to Unite’s legal helpline, debt counselling, assistance on claiming benefits and the chance to talk to people in a similar position as them. There are already branches set up in Sheffield, Salford and Liverpool with plans to extend further afield. Having the unemployed in a union branch would be a step forward in giving them a bigger voice and fighting back against austerity.

Filed Under: Cuts, In the Media, News, Society, Workers Tagged With: anti-austerity, cuts, Leeds, unemployment, unite, workfare

“We’ve lost our patience” say Doctors planning strike action

May 31, 2012 By Sally Turner Leave a Comment

Doctors have voted overwhelming in favour of strike action in a BMA (British Medical Association) ballot of 104,000 members over pension changes.

There was a 50% turn out and 79% of GPs, 84% of hospital consultants and 92% of junior doctors who responded voted in favour.

Doctors last took action in 1975, when Harold Wilson’s labour government was in power. Consultants worked to rule from January to April after Health Minister, Barbara Castle tried to stop them carrying out private work on top of their NHS duties. In November, junior doctors took industrial action over low pay in new contracts. A deal was struck.

The 24 hour strike will be on the 21^st June and while they will still provide emergency care, outpatient appointments and non-urgent care will be affected.

BMA said:

“We will be postponing non-urgent cases and although this will be disruptive to the NHS, rest assured, doctors will be there when our patients need us most and our action will not impact on your safety.”

Doctors have been hit hard recently with pay freezes, increased workloads and the prospect of increased pension contributions.

The latest changes will see doctors paying up to 14.5 per cent of their salaries in pension contributions – twice as much as some other public-sector staff on a similar salary in order to receive a similar pension.

While the right-wing media go on about doctors pensions being higher than most it doesn’t change the fact that the government are reversing on deals made four years ago. The media have been successful in their attacks on other public sector workers which have left doctors alone amongst the pubic sector with their pensions still in tact. There should be no pensions being cut in the public sector and we want to bring other pensions up, not drive them down. Doctors earn 10 times less than the corporate CEOs and bankers who are profiting from the crisis they created and driving millions into poverty.

Recently the RCN held a ballot where the majority rejected the government’s pension changes, however the turn out was low. We call for nurses, porters, cleaners and other hospital staff to strike alongside the doctors and that they should lobby their unions until they agree to do so. If the union leaderships don’t listen, then rank and file activists need to develop their own organisation to enable other hospital staff to take solidarity action alongside doctors and smash a hole through the government’s austerity agenda.

This vote shouldn’t just be seen as the doctors and their pensions; it’s about the government’s dismantling of public services. It’s a vote against the recent changes within the NHS and the selling off of our healthcare services!

Filed Under: Cuts, In the Media, News, Workers

When homework = profit… we say hands off our education!

May 29, 2012 By KD Tait Leave a Comment

Education Minister Michael Gove has let slip what we knew all along – he wants schools to become institutions run for profit, where profitability takes priority over education.

In his appearance at the Leveson Inquiry into phone-hacking by Murdoch’s media empire, he revealed that the Tories’ pet ‘free schools’ “could” become profit-making businesses “when we come to that bridge”. A bridge he hopes to construct as soon as possible – in the Tories’ second term.

The New Statesman calls this a “policy shift”. We call it a liar caught out by his own over-inflated sense of self-importance.

Last year he said:

Nick (Clegg) and I are completely in agreement on this (banning for-profit free schools). It’s not an issue.

The Conservative election manifesto said that we don’t need to have profit at the moment, the Liberal Democrat manifesto said that we don’t need profit at the moment and we don’t.

While Clegg cemented his reputation as a liar of the highest calibre by claiming:

To anyone worried that, by expanding the mix of providers in our education system, we are inching towards inserting the profit motive into our school system, again, let me reassure you. Yes to greater diversity; yes to more choice for parents. But no to running schools for profit, not in our state-funded education sector.

The revelation of the Tories’ plans to put our education under the control of the profit-hungry bosses and banks who caused the economic crisis should come as no surprise. It comes as the Tories seek to distance themselves from the Liberal Democrats – trying to make themselves more attractive to their big-business backers who are demanding a harder line on austerity and privatisation.

The ongoing privatisation of universities was merely the first step in their offensive against the remaining elements of the Welfare State.

With these plans out in the open, resistance to the current attacks on teachers’ pensions, working conditions and national pay agreements becomes ever-more urgent.

The Tories are hoping to win a decisive confrontation against the teachers’ unions over the issue of pensions. If they succeed, this will dramatically weaken the power and militancy of the unions, making them incapable of resisting the introduction of the profit-motive into our schools.

Academies and ‘free’ schools are not required to sign up to the nationally-agreed pay, pension and working conditions implemented by the Labour government. Many are now employing teachers on lower salaries, with longer hours and fewer support services.

If big business are so interested in running our education for their profit, let them pay their taxes so we can decide how money is spent in our society.

If the Tory plans are succesful, the idea of comprehensive, free education for all will disappear from Britain. In it’s place will be a patchwork system of private schools competing for the brightest and wealthiest students. This will result in a two-tier education system, where schools in working class and immigrant areas are starved of funds, staff and resources.

In this context, it’s good news that the NUT and NASUWT unions – which represent 85% of Britain’s teachers – have announced plans to stage joint strike action this autum.

As the recent victory at Central Foundation Girls’ School in London showed, united cross-union action is the most effective way to beat the attacks.

We support the planned strike action and will organise a solidarity campaign amongst school students. Students should form strike committees in their schools to democratically organise action alongside their teachers – from picket line support to boycotts and demonstrations.

The unions are striking over jobs, pay, workload and pensions – but students can strike in defence of the right to free, high-quality education that leads us to real jobs, paid a living wage.

If the government doesn’t back down over these plans, we must organise young people to build a movement which demands the support of the trade unions and Labour Party in defeating the idea of for-profit education for good.

Education is not for sale!
Kick the profiteers out of our schools!
Nationalise the academies and free schools!
Bring back EMA – a living grant for all students!

Filed Under: Education, News, Workers Tagged With: cuts, education, fe, he, NASUWT, NUT, privatisation, schools, Students, universities

The wages are too damn low! Fast-food workers fight back

Sign the petition in support of the workers here

£1m a year not enough for Ryanair boss

Money Masters: Why capitalism functions on inequality

More pain for long-term unemployed