What has happened to P&O workers is exactly how deregulated Britain is meant to operate. With British regulations abolished or inoperative and EU regulations void, predatory international capitalists are free to treat workers like property, to be picked up or disposed of at whim, with no consideration at all other than the profit of the company.
Politicians have reacted to the public disgust at the summary sacking of 800 people (disguised as redundancy even though they are to be replaced by cheaper labour), by expressions of disgust, but with no proposals at all to do anything about the particular or the general situation. Nobody has contradicted the statement in the Commons by junior Tory transport minister Robert Courts that “P & O’s finances are a matter for them alone”.
Government ministers, most notably Kwasi Kwarteng, have noted that P&O’s actions are probably illegal, but nobody in government seems to feel the slightest urge to intervene to stop a major company deliberately acting illegally and on a major scale. P&O appears to have calculated that the paltry fines and three month extra salary compensation payouts that may result from illegality are outweighed by the savings it will make. Government fury seems to be confined to the vicious way the redundancies were announced.
DP World treats its British workforce with no more consideration than it treats its Pakistani and Bengali labourers in Dubai, and that fact appears to have rattled Tory ministers. But Tory condemnation has been entirely for the way the redundancies were handled, not for the fact of fire and rehire. The leaked fact we now know, that the government was indeed aware of the redundancies before the P&O staff, rather puts the fake indignation in perspective. That makes it even more unlikely that Johnson did not discuss it in when in Dubai the day before.
But this is all precisely how the system is meant to work. DP World are a major player in the governments Freeports initiative. These are zones where companies, with a hub physically in the Freeport zone and satellites virtually “in” the zone, will be even more exempt from regulation than they will be in the rest of the UK. Plans are already in place to build hostels in the Freeports and bring in workers from Colombia and other sources at £1.40 an hour – exactly the kind of system that operates in the Gulf states.
Employment legislation of course is not the only regulation the Tories are seeking to obliterate. Employment, environmental, child safety, food safety, building standards, there are numerous standards the UK is now ready to revoke or water down as part of the “benefits of Brexit”. The Freeports will be the cutting edge, but across the UK the Tories are planning to allow capitalists to use their muscle with minimal protection for the employee, consumer or taxpayer.
P&O is a sign of the times. That we have no political party in Westminster calling for the nationalisation of P&O reflects the collapse of political diversity in the neo-con UK. The Labour Party has returned to Blair’s policy of acquiescing in all the Tory anti-trade union legislation from Thatcher on. Starmer has come up with an empty slogan about a “new deal for workers’ rights” in response to the P&O debacle. His great new idea appears to be a right to flexible working, which is a very good thing for middle-class mums and I am all for it, but not of much practical help to a ferry worker. To be fair there are some Corbyn remnants in Labour industrial policy, but give Starmer time and there will not be.
There is no salvation to be had from the elite and their stranglehold on the political system and the mainstream media. We have to go back to the basics and build again the notion of horizontal solidarity in society. Liberal philanthropy did once assist the development of a more equal society in the UK, which reached its zenith in the 1970’s, but working class self-organisation, particularly through the union movement, was always essential to societal advance.
We now live in a society where liberal philanthropy is reserved for emoting about distant conflicts or channeled into identity, rather than class, politics. We live in a society where inequality in wealth distribution is returning to nineteenth century levels, but many of those left behind consider themselves too genteel to identify with working people and do anything about it.
I do strongly urge everybody to find out today what union you are eligible to join, and to join it. The paradox is that the unions themselves are so desperate to fit in with the new normal that I myself am excluded from joining a union as a dangerous radical. I have yet again applied to join the NUJ. Their current excuse for keeping me out is that people subscribe to my site and I am therefore not paid per article. This seems to be a rule that Michelle Stanistreet has invented unique to me – John Sweeney, Jonathan Cook, Paul Mason and many others run a subscription model. I remain however determined to join and urge you to join a union too.
The government genuinely is angry about P&O, but not because of what it is doing. Simply the startlingly abrupt way that it has acted has brought a harsh spotlight on the deregulation of the UK and what it entails. British Gas did effectively the same thing more smoothly and with far less publicity.
Jacob Rees Mogg is now tasked with pursuing with gusto a bonfire of rights and protections across the whole sphere of government. If you are a billionaire, great times are coming. If you are anybody else at all, welcome to the world your ancestors struggled out of from the 1830’s on.
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I can see the value to you of the NUJ but in my opinion the average worker sees no practical benefit from his or her monthly union sub.
After what P&O have just done I would have thought that even the most right wing employee could see the need to rebuild trade union strength. It’s not an overnight solution but if Britain was back to previous levels of unionisation this would have been much more difficult for P&O, there would probably have been country-wide actions and the Labour party wouldn’t have dared take such a low profile.
Not sure what trades unions have to do with the P&O thing.
You can’t make a person redundant. It is the position they hold that is made redundant. If you make workers “redundant” and then fill the positions with agency workers, then you haven’t made the position redundant, and the sacked workers are entitled to compensation and their jobs back. I understand that these workers are employed in the UK, not Dubai, and their rights can be enforced in UK courts and employment tribunals.
Maybe I’m missing something important; but I don’t think this is something that needs a campaign. It just needs a rather short court case, followed by a massive fine (and maybe a few jailed directors).
If privatisation is such a great model, why don’t we have a privatised Royal Navy crewed with mercenaries? Oh, I forgot, the Royal Navy is already a private armed force of the monarch, and with British naval impressment (maritime slavery) laws apparently never repealed, there’s always the option of really cost-effective crewing.
That’s what Blackwater and Dyncorp have in effect become in the USA.
Give it time, it’ll happen here – but it will probably be foreign owned (USA), working on our soil, funded by us.
Well, to be fair, the British have been providing mercenary armed forces to the Arab Gulf States for many years.
I would assume that the freeports planned by the Scottish Government would be required to follow the same model. If they have to compete with freeports south of the border then they must engage in a race to the bottom or remain empty and the money on their development wasted.
“and the money on their development wasted.”
Not at all wasted: many billions would have been transferred from the public purse to private pockets, the right kind of private pockets, those belonging to the already rich.
«then they must engage in a race to the bottom»
Fortunately most UK parties are committed to help UK workers become more competitive, to win the race to the bottom.
Brexit = ‘Race to the gutter’ for UK employment rights.
American corporations will be licking their lips…
That is nothing to do with ‘Brexit’, Brexit does not define how UK law will be shaped outside the EU.
It is the UK/US axis that might define it, but that can easily be legislated against
It’s extremely simple to say that any US corporation, any US citizen, any US diplomat wishing to operate/reside in the UK must sign a legally binding document stating that the five genocides committed overseas by US military forces, not to mention all the illegal activities of the CIA, NSA and outsourced black ops contractors, are all incompatible with any US citizen who turns a blind eye to it from retaining the right to human rights anywhere in the world outside of the USA.
That’s a document with enormous power, it costs no money really to enforce and gives US citizens zero rights to reside in any country of the world unless they turn in totality against the genocidal psychopaths who have controlled that recalcitrant nation since 1948.
It is also possible to remove all rights to legal due process to any corporation or executive officers who do not enforce a legal Living Wage in all their operations in the UK. It is possible to criminalise and disbar any lawyer talking to the executives (but not the workers) of any organisation which has not enforced such standards, putting them in prison without trial until such a date as it seems appropriate to hear their confession.
Think up what rights you want to abolish for the ruling class and Brexit won’t stop that from happening.
It’s all about politics, not about Brexit.
– “…putting them in prison without trial until such a date as it seems appropriate to hear their confession.”
I think you need to embrace your latent S&M tendencies, Rhys. They’re much more healthy, and fun, out in the light where you can examine them, and there are excellent websites and retailers catering for such tastes. It’ll all be much easier once you’ve admitted to yourself that you were duped over the EU, and that actually it’s marginally more socially progressive than England.
The EU and the UK are involved in their own race to the bottom. Thanks to Thatcher the UK had a considerable advantage when the race began but the EU has been catching up rapidly. And now they are neck and neck as they approach the precipice.
As for Scotland what did anyone ever imagine that aspiring to be a Celtic Tiger meant?
Re: ‘[The EU is] marginally more socially progressive than England.’
Do you know much about politics in Poland and Hungary – to name but two examples – Clark?
“you were duped over the EU, and that actually it’s marginally more socially progressive than England.”
That was then, this is now.
Rich
Quite. Well said.
@ Bob (original)
“Brexit = ‘Race to the gutter’ for UK employment rights.”
Had we got a Corbyn government it would have been a race to the top as he would have undertaken an interventionist programme of economic renewal on a potentially world leading scale that would have been forbidden and fought against by the bankers’ EU.
I think we can safely say that Corbyn would not have been rolling out a Freeport programme and the red carpet treatment for P&O/DP World that Johnson and Co are doing.
The Trade Union Act 2016, which many consider to be the biggest attack on UK workers’ rights in modern times, received royal assent on 4th May 2016, when the UK was still a member of the EU, and was brought in by a prime minister and a government who (with a few exceptions) campaigned vigorously for Remain.
Before brexit all the ills in our country were the fault of the EU. Then it was Covid, now it’s all the fault of brexit or it’s all the fault of Russia/China/Ukraine.
It’s NEVER the fault of the political party that has been in power for more than the last twelve years. Blair has an awful lot to answer for but most of our current ills are down to the Tories. And, if there was an election tomorrow they would be voted in again by the brain-dead masses. There is no escape.
Brexit has less than nothing to do with this.
The British government, elected by the British people, decides what is or is not legal in Britain.
Brits are free to elect a government that respects ordinary people.
(Every time something – anything – bad happens, a Remainer will post a comment blaming it on Brexit.)
“Brexit = ‘Race to the gutter’ for UK employment rights.”
Ah yes, the old “Let’s stay in the EU so that we can go on electing crappy Tory governments and not suffer the full consequences” argument. That’s like saying that you don’t need to get the puncture in your tyre fixed because you carry a pump in your car.
Don’t be stupid , look around you open your eyes and you will see that brexit has been a disaster stop trying to make out that brexit has changed nothing.Fools.
«channeled into identity, rather than class, politics»
The economic purpose of identity politics is to ensure that objecting to things like this:
“build hostels in the Freeports and bring in workers from Colombia and other sources at £1.40 an hour”
is “white supremacism”:
* In the global labour market 85% of workers are BIPOC and the typical wage is £1-2 per hour.
* 85% of the UK workers are whites and their typical wage is £10-20 per hour.
* Therefore hiring UK workers, which are almost all white and cost 10 times more, must be “white supremacism”, motivated by the wish to exclude cheaper global BIPOC workers from the “good jobs” in the UK to favour privileged white workers.
Overall the thesis is that globally there is a system of “apartheid”, where BIPOC workers are excluded from the “good jobs” in Europe and north America even if those BIPOC workers are far cheaper, just like it used to happen in South Africa.
That this line of reasoning is awesomely convenient for european and north american employers and rentiers is of course just happy coincidence.
“That this line of reasoning is awesomely convenient for european and north american employers and rentiers is of course just happy coincidence.”
Not that it stands up to even a brief scrutiny. The BIPOC workers may be getting the “privileged white workers'” jobs, but they sure as shit won’t be getting their pay, nor will any system that allows BIPOC workers to be employed at £1.40/hr mean that white workers, too, will not be able to be employed at £1.40/hr, should they wish to be.
«The BIPOC workers may be getting the “privileged white workers’” jobs, but they sure as shit won’t be getting their pay, nor will any system that allows BIPOC workers to be employed at £1.40/hr mean that white workers, too, will not be able to be employed at £1.40/hr, should they wish to be.»
The question is whether the “white supremacists” are overpaid at £10-20/h or their “BIPOC victims” are underpaid at £1-2/h.
The thatcherite argument is that “the markets” set wages, and if 85% of the world are on £1-2/h, then that’s the global wage market rate, and then those paid £10-20/h in Europe and the USA for doing the same job are just extorting a lot of money from their employers because of “white privilege”. Therefore employment conditions in Europe and the USA should converge to the global market standard: social justice requires that 85% of the jobs in Europe and USA should go to BIPOC workers on £1-2/h wages. Isn’t identity politics wonderful?
Well no, white workers are not paid £10-20/hr because their employers are being nice to them, they are being paid £10-20/hr so that, after they have had 40% of that taken away by taxation, they still have enough to pay for fuel, food and rent. BIOC people are no different. If they are not going to starve in the UK, they will have to be paid £10-20/hr too. If arrangements in the way of less taxes, cheap food and free housing and fuel are made in the Freeports so that they can survive on £1.40/hr, so can white workers. 85% of the world are on a tenth of the wage of workers in developed countries because their cost of living is a tenth of what it is in developed countries. You can import the workers, but you can’t import the cost of living.
Sanity. Thanks Bayard.
The ‘£1.40/hr’ will actually be that PLUS free accommodation onsite in hostels.
The aim will be that these people will be indentured slaves, having to repay their relocation costs just like the trafficked women have been doing in London for 20 years.
They won’t be able to integrate into society, they will live ‘onsite’ in ‘enclaves’ and will have zero interaction with UK society, and hence will in effect be ‘guest workers’, probably without voting rights.
The choice which HAS been made is not to use precision, modern targeted weaponry to obliterate solely the billionaire slave-owners of the Middle East, whilst leaving the peasantry of those countries unharmed.
That’s the choice taken by Western politicians and people should comment on whether they think it is an ethical one.
“The aim will be that these people will be indentured slaves, having to repay their relocation costs just like the trafficked women have been doing in London for 20 years. They won’t be able to integrate into society, they will live ‘onsite’ in ‘enclaves’ and will have zero interaction with UK society, and hence will in effect be ‘guest workers’, probably without voting rights.”
How is that any different to just moving whatever these people are doing to another country? It is completely pointless building a little piece of the Third World behind barbed wire in your own country when it is a lot cheaper simply to export the manufacturing process there.
Oh, and BTW, there weren’t more than a handful of “trafficked women” when a nationwide search was made for them. The figures, the tens of thousands that the police were looking for had all been made up by bureaucrats.
Comparing wage rates is pointless unless you also compare cost of living.
The whole farce of EU free migration was that you got Romanians and Bulgarians capable of sending money home to buy 4 bed houses for £50k, when a 1 bed flat in London would cost £200k.
A UK worker putting 15% of their wages into savings would take 20 years to get a deposit on a one-bed flat. The migrants from SE Europe send home 15% of their wages to buy their family home from the get go.
Hardly the English workers getting treated better, is it??
Great piece, Craig
This really nails it
Homo sapiens sapiens do not have a (human) “nature” (https://www.versobooks.com/books/2207-wolf-children-the-wild-boy-of-aveyron), and no other animal species has ideology. Just as “society” exists as soon as there is a division of labour (even Aristotle understood this, 2,000 years before Thatcher), so ideology exists as soon as there is “society”: a “non-ideological society” is a meaningless notion. There is no division of labour amongst any other animal species, therefore there is no “animal society” and no “animal ideology”. Sorry Jordan Peterson et al!
A strange way to start a comment on industrial relations, but a necessary one in order to pre-emptively cut the ground from under the usual (philosophically idealist) “people are, by nature, (insert the desired negative characteristic here), so what can be done?”-type arguments.
Everything is societal. If one wants to fight Capitalism, the society of the exploited class, (their “conditions of existence”, which cannot be manipulated, falsified or denied (since they are lived every day) but only given false “solutions” by religious, nationalist or other ideologies of the exploiting class) must be provided with scientific knowledge of their real situation within the mode of production and group action encouraged. This is the ideal, regularly subverted by the power-hunger of those with personality disorders or psychoses, and those seeking either base financial gain or deliberate intellectual corruption of the movement.
The “simple” solution? Root out the psychologically inadequate and financially/intellectually corrupt individuals that flock to such organisations like moths to a flame. The longer that such a solution remains unrealised, the greater the reputational damage to both Socialism and Communism.
Got me thinking about this. Don’t many animals have division of labour in terms of birthing and caring for the young, and some ants have it in classes too? Does that tell us anything about an ideology or have I just jumped down a rabbit hole?
Neither of these examples constitute an economic division of labour: in all animal species, the female gives birth and both parents (can) care for their young without the help of any other of their kind, and in the case of ants I believe that there is some kind of bio-chemical determination of their role before birth.
“in all animal species, the female gives birth and both parents (can) care for their young without the help of any other of their kind, “
There are species where the care of the young is exclusive to one or other of the sexes and there are species where other family members and non-family members contribute to the upbringing of the young.
There are evolved psychologies, they can wind their way through verbal ideologies and societies, as well as being shaped by them. Hierarchical psychology needs to be better understood, not brushed under the carpet. That would also help understand and improve psychiatry, rather than colluding in it.
Marx was wrong when he wrote in a letter that we ceased to be apes. His paragraphs here and there about animals building seem unclear.
The real challenge is actually how you can fight without going bankrupt.
The rentier class can usually survive five years easily without income. They don’t want to, but they can if necessary.
The vast majority of ordinary working class people would struggle to go six months without income.
That’s why society is an unequal fight. All the rentiers have to do is sit back and wait for the working class to bankrupt themselves.
The reason cooperative societies grew up in Victorian days was that workers realised that they would never win such fights, so they had to become self-sufficient and independent of the rentiers.
“The real challenge is actually how you can fight without going bankrupt.”
There are several challenges, one of which (the problem of the psychological/moral/intellectual “calibre” of certain individuals who have historically worked their way into leading positions in Communist organisations and caused vast reputational damage) was the subject of my original comment. This corruption has been a godsend for capitalist ideologues only too eager to equate the regimes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot et al with Communism tout court, while dismissing Hitler, Suharto et al as “bad eggs” unrepresentative of Capitalism.
The history of others, two of which you raise (the financial weakness of the working class and self-help organisations), merely demonstrate that physical revolution is the only possible answer to the question of how Capitalism can be superseded. Once this reality is accepted, a problem even harder to overcome than that of reputational damage emerges: many individuals are simply not prepared to risk what little they already have in the creation of some potential future “paradise”. This problem is well-known to those who have engaged in any kind of progressive activity (“a few people end up doing all the work”), and contributed significantly to the failure of the post-1917 European revolutionary movements. It was as a result of a reflection on these failures that the group of intellectuals that later became known as the Frankfurt School (together with others such as Gramsci) pivoted to “culture” as a way of attempting to progress. The result of this moronic turn? Hello “culture wars” and “identity politics”, and a boost to every societal division that one can imagine (racial, sexual, gender et al) except the one that really matters: class.
Two conclusions: first, every mistake made makes the transition to Communism even harder; second, when even Tucker Carlson has more theoretical nous than the “Left” on the question of the diversion of attention from class relations, one knows that the education system has performed its duty perfectly.
The reason these people were laid off does not meet the legal definition of redundancy and if a company proposes laying off 20 or more people then the law requires a period of consultation. P&O seem to believe that because the ships are not UK registered UK employment law does not apply. A case brought against SeaLion by the seafarers’ union Nautilus a few years ago may yet prove them wrong. I hope it does.
Fire and rehire – on worse terms – is not something new.
It’s a feature, not a bug.
Bit of an cliché at the moment after featuring in Netflix’s Archive 81, but it sums it up perfectly.
But overall the politics of this is that “the economy” (that of affluent southern property owners) has been booming for 40 years, and an ever greater percent of voters are rentiers or on a fixed income, and they usually vote for cheaper wages:
Why did the Freeport legislation- brought in hastily in Sunaks first budget, just as Covid was becoming pandemic and we were keeping out of the collective EU preparations for it – have a ‘arbitrary’ geographical size/reach of 40km or 25 miles?
Why indeed did the Freeport proposals include ‘banking’ as one of the value-adding industries that could qualify within a Freeport?
There is ONLY one proposed Freeport that this would make any sense for.
London Gateway
And a direct line between that and the City of London is… exactly 25miles or 40km.
BrexShit was about freeing the City and Freeport’s is about giving it a further protection before us peasants are allowed to go back to the single market and free movement and regulations except for the Freeport’s. Of which only one counts.
P&O’s failure is directly linked to the loss of freight traffic from Eire. Most of which will return once we are told to rejoin the EU.
I saw this coming 20 years ago which is why I got out of the U.K. As the financial, industrial and social sun rises in the east, I’d look for a way out if I were young and had a life to live.
People in unions – and the non-unionised – need to take direct action as the only way to defend themselves against this sort of savagery. The RMT, to their credit, have embraced this to an extent, calling on workers to block roads, even ports, and occupy ships.
I was talking to a friend yesterday who was blacklisted many years ago by the construction industry for his union activism over issues like health and safety at work. He couldn’t get another job in the industry and became a hotel kitchen porter on no doubt poverty pay. After years of fighting for compensation through legal channels, he finally got a modest pay-out – after he retired.
He went to Hull docks (some 45 miles away) to join in the protests against P&O, and said there were several other unions who had joined the RMT in solidarity. Ed Miliband was among the speakers – but got a roasting for what the Labour Party had done to Corbyn and for generally selling out their principles.
Really we are at a point where general hand-wringing and even appealing to the law are inadequate responses, since the law does little to protect workers’ rights and what it does (as pointed out) is too little, too late. Besides, the head-bangers in government want to strip away what few protections we have left because they make us ‘uncompetitive’ in a global market.
Even ballots and strikes within the same company can be deemed illegal if the company structure is re-configured in a particular way (this happened to me when I was in the NUJ – Johnston Press claimed its subsidiaries were separate companies and was vindicated by the High Court, with the NUJ rolling over). So to be effective, whether as an activist or worker, we need to consider illegal action, preferably non-violent and with as many others as possible.
The most effective unions these days are the ones that take direct action – witness the UVW or the IWGB – both of whom represent precarious workers, including many migrant workers and those on zero-hours contracts. If you don’t hear about their many victories, it’s because the mainstream media doesn’t want you to know. Among other actions, they have used taxis to block bridges in central London and worked with allies like other unions and political groups to swarm and pressure employers like Harrods, various universities and corporate entities (via their London headquarters).
I agree with Craig, join a union – but think carefully about which one you join and be prepared to act beyond what their leaders (and the courts) allow.
– “I was talking to a friend yesterday who was blacklisted many years ago by the construction industry for his union activism over issues like health and safety at work. He couldn’t get another job in the industry and became a hotel kitchen porter on no doubt poverty pay. After years of fighting for compensation through legal channels, he finally got a modest pay-out – after he retired.”
https://www.shrewsbury24campaign.org.uk/history/building-trade-in-1972/
– “Building sites were temporary. When the job was finished workers moved to another site and trade union organisation had to start all over again. Good trade union activists were quickly blacklisted and found that they could not find work. The employers funded a secret organisation, the Economic League, to maintain the blacklist. One of the main contributors to the fund were the building trade employers. Although the Economic League was exposed and disbanded the Consulting Association replaced it and the practice of blacklisting continues to this day.”
Just as with Julian Assange, justice delayed is justice denied.
Rise up!
While employed as a senior manager in a British Gas subsidiary I used to strongly recommend that the members of my team join a union to mitigate the worst excesses of the company. I learnt over time that the union representatives had all been bought in one way or another by the management and would nod through just about anything the board wanted. It was left to me and a few other contrarian managers to do the union’s job in protecting our teams. I suspect that a similar situation prevails today, twenty-odd years later, and that the unions exist to help themselves rather than the poor folk who keep paying their subs.
«the union representatives had all been bought in one way or another by the management and would nod through just about anything the board wanted»
That is pretty common, but not universal, and I think is based on two main factors that are understandable:
The latter is the political problem that “leftoid” intellectuals refuse to consider while they dream of the socialist revolution “one last heave”), and that the Mandelson Tendency is eager to pander to (“we are all Thatcherites now”).
I worked once as a warehouse labourer in a company that manufactured printer’s ink; it was unionised, the union was NATSOPA (National Association of Typesetters, Operative Printers and Assistants). The place was a health-and-safety nightmare – the floors were a slippery mess of resins and solvents, and the air was full of pigment dust. During the short time I worked there, several of my colleagues went down with severe dermatitis from contact with solvents.
The union’s main concern was the maintenance of pay differentials. They weren’t the least bit interested in health and safety; and as an unskilled labourer, I got the fuzzy end of the “pay differentials” lollipop. We never saw any managers; we were literally managed by the shop stewards, who gave us our orders. It was clear to me that the purpose of the union was to provide an income for the union’s staff.
Modern unions are better, as far as I can see; the pre-Thatcher union regime was an awful scam. Better to have a union than no union, I guess; but I looked at the managers, then the union shop stewards, and back at the managers, and I couldn’t tell the difference.
Happy to throw something in the pot for each article if this mysteriously validates you as a ‘real’ journalist. Incidentally, how are salaried journalists paid per article? Or salaried TV journalists per report? So they are frauds as far as the NUJ is concerned. Funny how that mirrors the artificial contortions of the Dorrian genius.
The NUJ appears to be advocating an Uber style piece rate – what a progressive lot they are, lol.
Ian – I think that nowadays a lot of ‘MSM’ journalists are freelance contractors who do indeed get a flat rate per article. Obviously, if your contract is ‘one article a week’, like Johnson had with the DT at £5k a pop, that’s like being a ‘salaried employee’ as the income is guaranteed rather than hit and miss.
I’m extremely confused. Most newspapers now operate on a subscription basis and their self-styled “journalists” are salaried. So does that mean they’re ineligible to join the NUJ?
The thinking seems to be that they are fine, because they work for corporate media, often owned by offshore interests. And they offer no threat to the status quo. Journalists with their own blog are dangerous, however, because they have no middle class editor to massage their copy into an inoffensive, tame article which will pass unnoticed. I mean, these independently-minded people might have an uncomfortable opinion, for goodness sake, and even worse, have a conscience, be uncompromised and care about the truth. Heaven forfend. Can’t have those types in the NUJ. Dorrian has spoken, and made a new legal distinction. The NUJ will jump when asked.
It seems to be a problem without a solution. The Westminster parties won’t provide any solutions, the SNP/Scottish parties won’t provide any solutions, so it appears to be a case the people just having to suck it up. There won’t be any uprising, general strike or revolution because everything happens to other people so people don’t feel impacted by these decisions of the type by P&O.
A lot of companies had a dry run of this firing and rehiring on a lesser contract during the Covid period, I wonder if they used that as a test run to see how far they could go?
Anyway, there are no solutions on the horizon as far as I can see, possibly until there’s a major disaster involving P&O ferries in which case people will begin to question the standards of the staff.
– “There won’t be any uprising…”
There’s already uprising:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/03/po-and-the-tory-road-to-serfdom/comment-page-1/#comment-1014816
and there’s more starting on April 9:
https://extinctionrebellion.uk/2022/03/04/2022-the-year-the-movement-of-movements-align-to-end-fossil-fuels/
‘Course you can sit at home and watch TV if you prefer, but The Revolution Will Not Be Televised 😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnJFhuOWgXg
A new feudalism is underway for the majority of our citizens. The Labour Party is supine in the face of the race to the bottom . Keep the light shining on the enserfment of the dispossessed.
By all accounts they have broken UK employment law, even if the ships are registered to a foreign country it matters not one bit. The staff work in the UK and as such are protected under UK law. P&O are operating on increased redundancy payments in an attempt to offset the legal damage that will be inflicted if / when they get taken to court.
This will cost P&O a small fortune once the class action law suit starts. It’s not a political matter, the law already protects against this sort of thing. As for Unions… pfft… most of these sacked staff are union members – how much did that help them? My own experience of unions is that they are feckin useless, they just take your money and pay it the people at the top.
The one to watch (as all big employers will now be watching) is the scale of the punishment the courts dish out. Legally the directors are liable for this action. Let’s see if the unions step up and take them to court, or just sit there wringing their hands saying “oh how terrible”.
P&Os actions are disgraceful in every way possible. I suspect that the unions lack of action will be an equal disgrace.
@david
Maybe they have broken the law, and will receive a derisory fine and a telling off; but what they won’t get is their routes taken from them with no compensation. I’m sure that P&O had engaged their lawyers prior to their decision, and received a promising response; otherwise they would not have gone ahead with the mass redundancies.
Unfortunately, this is the future in an extreme right-wing controlled world. Human decency doesn’t come into it. As far as the billionaires are concerned, they have been awarded their position by fate (or a god if you wish). Similarly, the poor have been given their wretched and miserable lives by fate, and can be treated like the scum the uber wealthy believe they are.
Their mantra is “if you don’t like your job/pay, then find another one; because there are millions more employees out there”. (Many of which have been made desperate by rockets and bombs falling on their homes over the past 30 years). If anyone thinks this is happening by accident, they need to get a grip.
There is very little the unions can do. The billionaires have got us by the short and curlies.
“Human decency doesn’t come into it.”
Human decency hasn’t come into it for decades. After all, why should people act decently, what’s in it for them?
You are missing my point. Human decency may not come into the world of the billionaire; but it does to the poor wretches beneath them,
This is what the wealthy have lost.
Why do you think the “plebs” are raising millions for blankets and food for the Ukraine, whilst the billionaires are sending military weapons?
People’s reaction to any situation used to be “what should I do here?” Now, by and large, it is “what can I get away with doing here?” That’s what I meant by the lack of human decency. Yes, the tendency is more marked amongst the ruling classes, but it is there throughout society.
Yes, but the same ‘decent’ plebs won’t be raising millions for the UK’s homeless or the innocent victims in Yemen or Gaza or Syria will they?
Why do I think they do it? Virtue signalling, bandwagon jumping, impaired mental capacity, … take your pick.
The public pay to help the people their government is killing. Madness!
In my experience with UCU, Unions are far from useless, they are the only thing preventing management from even more venal actions than they actually inflict. The problem is the members free-riding to a large extent, as if the collective decision to take industrial action has been consumerised. The vote was such and such but they still perceive they have unfettered freedom to choose. This and the recent ant-union legislation placing ever more stringent requirements on strike ballots… against a background of “salami approach” anti union legislation, ie bit by bit, that has been basically uninterrupted since 1979.
> By all accounts they have broken UK employment law
IANAL, but I’m pretty sure you’re right: it’s the position that gets made redundant, not the worker. If you make someone “redundant” and then replace them with an agency worker, then evidently they weren’t redundant, and they are entitled to demand (a) their job back, and (b) compensation. I fail to understand why P&O directors weren’t dragged into court on Monday, and ordered to meet their legal responsibilities or face jail. It would have been no more than 30 minutes of court time.
Instead of organising demonstrations, surely the RMT should have been instructing lawyers. The demos are an attempt to pressure P&O to do the right thing. But why do you need demos, if P&O’s actions are clearly criminal?
I don’t get it.
I couldn’t agree more! Decades ago the universities were drumming into students that the move to new technologies, the decline in numbers of factories, the solving of the contradictions of capitalism etc meant that we were now in a ‘post-industrial society’ in which the working class was now middle class (’embourgeoisment’ is a term I seem to remember), the vast majority were now far better off with pensions, health care, better jobs, consumer goods etc. The need for trade unions and working class solidarity was gone. Socialism was old hat, out of date, no longer relevant, the right wing of the Labour Party represented modernity and practicality etc. etc. The P&O sacking of its own workers is the sign of what is to come. The good days are over. Regulation, Keynesian economics, the welfare state, the mixed economy and all the ideas that went along with those post world war 2 times have been rejected by the bosses and their society is returning more obviously to a dog eats dog set-up in which rights and protections for the masses of the people will be stamped out of existence in the drive for profits. The ‘out of date’ will, going forward, be more and more proven to be up to date, the ‘irrelevant’ now again relevant. But we do not have any leadership that understands the class nature of society. (I don’t suggest we try to enlighten Starmer and co. They’re not misguided, rather they are the representatives of the interests of capital as much as are the Tories) But I do state my own view that the question of the quality of the real leadership of the working class is the burning issue of our time.
Having spent my younger years in a socialist economy I can assure you that socialism is not the answer either.
We have stopped making things and hence have to finally admit that we are poor. Moving magic numbers in the bank ledgers in London doesn’t generate wealth for the masses.
@curiouslittleman – and where was this ‘socialist’ economy that you disparage? Tell us so we can examine your generalised assertion on socialism.
We de-industrialised a long time ago. that does not explain the extremes of corporate behaviour we are now witnessing, what has changed is amongst other things the weakness of organised labour in the face of anti-union legislation, lack of political support, lack of fighting spirit in the wake of lockdowns.
Actually, Nick, what we did was to lose all the very large industrial concerns like iron and steel, shipbuilding and coal mining.
We still have a thriving, albeit smaller, ‘industrial base’ of niche products. We are slowly building the sort of approach Germany built post the second-world-war, namely ‘global leaders in niche products’.
You have to go looking for these sorts of things, but they are out there.
They aren’t firms of 10,000 employees, they are SMEs.
It takes a couple of generations to build a really strong SME base and it will take a UK public prioritising home products rather than cheap tat from abroad. That’s part of the education process – learning what to value. Something which lasts 25 years at £300 is cheaper than having to replace something every year for £25.
> They aren’t firms of 10,000 employees, they are SMEs.
The NHS? The Post Office? The Civil Service?
I realise that the Post Office has to a great extent been broken up, and a lot of “NHS” workers are actuallly employed by private companies that are either agencies or hold contracts to do work under the auspices of the NHS. But these are still very large unionised employers.
Yes.
The ‘Proletariat’ in its material form are those who literally change materials into material things i.e. metal into a fridge etc.
Not some people who service finance the already manufactured material thing – that is making profit on an already made product.
There is no doubt that the above has been ‘outsourced’ to China and others over the years.
This is the dichotomy for the West,
If you want cheap laptops China makes them cheaper – if you want to make them in the US then you need to understand that you have to pay US labour rates and you will pay three times more retail for your Patriotic laptop.
This is the way in a wicked capitalist world.
Sounds dramatic and poetic but as the West is going to find out there are consequences for your actions.
The Fire Brigade call it ‘Blowback’.
Putting a fire out can have consequences.
p.s. Why is every media outlet in Ukraine hanging out on rooftops in Livv?
Kiev is where it’s at, surely?
“If you want cheap laptops China makes them cheaper – if you want to make them in the US then you need to understand that you have to pay US labour rates and you will pay three times more retail for your Patriotic laptop.”
US labour rates are so much higher because taxation is much higher, so is the cost of living, fuel, food and rent. Taxation is much higher because the US has a very hungry “defence” industry to feed. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Screenshot-1699.png
> The ‘Proletariat’ in its material form are those who literally change materials into material things i.e. metal into a fridge etc.
According to my understanding, the man who coined the term defined it as those who are compelled to sell their labour, because they don’t own assets (means of production).
Well, you want to change that, you have to change your banking habits and open current/saving accounts in organisations that invest in local industry, not in mines in Kazakhstan. UK versions of the German Landesbanken, in fact.
If 60% of UK citizens closed their current accounts with the ‘High Street Banks’, that would start to change things.
Personal bank accounts are not much more than a nuisance for retail banks. They cost banks more to administer than they make from them. Don’t forget, your money is a liability to the bank, not an asset.
Contrary to popular belief, they don’t lend out deposits, they create loans from thin air – which then become deposits.
Your main use to your bank is as a consumer of additional profit-generating products, like insurance policies or mortgages.
Moving your account will not bother them much, if at all. They make their money from loans, overdrafts and mortgages, so the trick is to avoid borrowing if you can, but easier said than done.
«the vast majority were now far better off with pensions, health care, better jobs, consumer goods etc. The need for trade unions and working class solidarity was gone.»
All really true if one replace “vast majority” with “a large minority of affluent middle aged and older mostly southern-property owning voters”.
That large minority votes largely as a block for cheaper wages, higher property prices, meaner social insurance, pushing down taxes (on themselves only), because they are fundamentally rentiers even if they still work.
If we are going in for stupid generalisations, how about this ?
The vast majority of affluent middle aged and older mostly southern-property owning voters worked hard, saved hard and contributed substantially to their pensions to enable them to buy an overpriced house and have a comfortable retirement. Whilst those up north pissed away their wages every week and saved nothing even though they had cheap housing and guaranteed jobs for decades, these same northerners then voted in a tory government because they believed capitalists would protect them better than socialists.
IMO, one of the problems is that the ethos of modern society is based on debt, ‘live now, pay later’. People have been tricked/persuaded into adopting this lifestyle which means they cannot afford to lose their jobs, so they cannot afford to be reactionary. Keep your head down and do as you’re told, is the way of the modern worker.
Indeed, the persuading of people into the acceptance of indebtedness is one of the great cons practised upon the British. As far as bankers and employers are concerned, it’s win-win: not only does the majority now pay interest to the banks instead of the banks paying them interest, but, as you point out, far more people can be controlled by the fear of losing their home.
> one of the great cons practised upon the British.
I’m reminded (again) of the Scottish version of the East India Company: the Darien scheme.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme
So many Scots went into debt from investing in that failed project that Scotland was forced into a union with England.
One of the problems is actually that it takes a really repressed human being to work 10hr days with a 90 minute commute each way, 5 days a week. Not to mention needing have the constitution of an ox to do such ridiculously unhealthy things for years.
How do you exercise healthily, eat healthily and have a relationship doing that?
You get the votes of the seriously repressed that way. And that’s what the rentiers want. Seriously, seriously repressed people who can solely say: ‘I did it, so I will destroy anyone who thinks that there is a better way’.
I speak from very personal experience about the above statement – you would not believe the absolute evil to be found in middle class London psychopaths who can’t address their own mental health problems so set out to destroy people who set a course of more humane, more healthy living.
The Universities were lying. The ‘working class’ wot dun good the past 40 years remained true to ‘working class professions’ and became skilled tradesfolk. Left school, took on an apprenticeship and worked on big construction projects on contract. I met a 27 year old on a tube several years ago: he’d done just that, was earning £70k a year taking 10 weeks holiday a year, had worked Terminal 5, Wembley Stadium, Emirates Stadium was looking towards Olympic Park going forward.
Compare that to going to University, running up £50-100k student debt and then getting to a salary of 70k aged 29 – 35, if ever. That’s the ‘middle class’ route for you.
No contest.
Craig echoes an (ignored?) Warning from America more than 10 years ago.
George Carlin – The American Dream (YouTube, 3m 14s)
Political satirist George Carlin uses rather riper language than Craig. But the message is the same.
What an excellent post this is! And such wise and informed comments too.
The point about Unions is that members must control them, or at least monitor closely what is going on in them. That is the essence of democracy.
There should be few if any permanent staff and a regular rotation of offices with nobody losing touch with the day to day realities of life in the ‘trenches’.
But most of all there needs to be a sustained campaign involving direct action and sympathy strikes in defiance of the law on industrial action which has become a classical example of Class Legislation.
As to the Labour Party it will become one of History’s little ironies that what began with an MP named Keir ended when his first namesake became ‘leader.’
“But most of all there needs to be a sustained campaign involving direct action and sympathy strikes in defiance of the law on industrial action which has become a classical example of Class Legislation.”
Unfortunately millions of “working class” people are very content with massive property profits, and with the prospect of retiring soon on good old-style pensions, they don’t care much about wasting time supporting with their struggle those poorer than themselves.
This the dilemma for all Woke folks:
Is it not logical that we should all be prepared to work for £1:40 an hour?
Any other protectionism is racist or cultural or something else, Shirley.
In the real world, there would be enough experienced heads in government to know that P&O should be stamped on frmo a great height, and should lose all their UK ferry routes.
The great British Public would refuse to holiday on DP World cruise ships, and their business would suffer.
I suspect the real world doesn’t exist any more, and none of the above measure with consequences will happen.
We should just try and vote in good people, that would be a start.
If Nicola was anything other than completely incompetent, she would have a hundred great ideas to support innovation and employment, and maybe a couple of ferries available for the NI routes.
From the poll tax riots to with clapping for nurses. What a nation of pussies we’ve become, shame on us!
Wait for ‘Clap For Ukraine’. That’ll be along shortly.
There’s a theory, unproven of course, that when the CERN super conductor thing started, it created a black hole into which our reality slipped and that’s why the world today is so different from how it used to be.
From the “Irish Times”, it seems that the EU member Irish government can do nothing to support the small number of Irish citizens laid off with the rest either. It seems that the Sultan of Dubai, the chair of the parent company, has the rest of the world over a barrel when it comes to this kind of thing.
Exactly my point a few hours back.
We can’t form a group to combat this extreme right wing takeover because they would instantly infect it and shut it down, either through the MSM or through humiliation via social media . The wealthy hold all the cards but one; the ability for individual choice.
All we have to do is avoid paying for anything from multinational corporations.
Do you really have to eat out, or takeaway? Can’t you learn to cook anything sold by a multinational, or buy it from a local family company? The big companies have spent decades using fat, salt, sugar to addict you to their products.
Just learn to cook it yourselves, from basic local ingredients. It’s not rocket science.
Do you really have to order anything from Amazon?
Hit the multinationals in their softest part – turnover. No profit, no power.
I’m sure many people can join in the the trend to go local rather than multinational.
The revolution starts here, as long as no one creates a revolutionary group.
Fat Jon,
” Can’t you learn to cook anything sold by a multinational, or buy it from a local family company? ”
The ultimate cost and who ultimately absorbs the cost?
Interesting comment – it depends on the products, of course, but I find that UK-owned SMEs are cheaper and higher quality when buying vegetable-, fruit- and flower seeds. I have done detailed due diligence over the past 7 years and now have three or four excellent suppliers at a fair price. One is a cooperative, one a husband-and-wife home business, one a three-generation family business. I haven’t bought from the multinationals in 5 years and do not have a single regret.
If you think that buying online from Amazon is cheaper, you’d better start doing some due diligence. I find Amazon to be very, very expensive online and only buy via them very, very rarely if there is truly no alternative. For the vast majority of things, you don’t need next-day delivery anyway, which is probably their main selling point. Again, I bought direct from two farmers in the autumn, buying half a pig and half a lamb respectively for the freezer. Supported the farmers directly and they used UK-based couriers. It worked a treat both times. Quality was excellent and price would not have been cheaper going to the supermarket.
My view is that you try and buy local until it is obvious that it is such a poor economic decision that societal solidarity is no longer justified.
It won’t be everything, but it can be plenty of things.
“If you think that buying online from Amazon is cheaper, you’d better start doing some due diligence”
Which takes as long as it takes to look up the same product on eBay, which is almost invariably cheaper when purchasing like-for-like and usually not much more expensive if purchasing things actually produced in the UK.
Well, they could encourage Irish citizens not to go to Dubai, neither on holiday nor as a stopover in intercontinental flights.
Doesn’t have to be too overt. Just encourage alternatives….
Just to remember – at the last budget speech Rishi Sunak made a special mention of increasing prison space.
This all comes to fruition!
When P&O Group collapsed a couple of decades ago its container ship fleet was bought by Maersk, and its half dozen or so container terminals around the world were bought by DP World, with the ferries ‘division’ thrown in. DP World are container terminal operators and never had a clue about the ferry business and still don’t. In a strategic sense they would have been better selling off the ferries business, which was always marginal anyway. Having said that the way they have acted over ferry workers is unacceptable however that is a matter directly related to the lack of adequate UK Government employment regulation.
RMT are arguably the biggest constraint in holding back modernising CalMac’s outdated fleet and its costly working practices, and part of the cause of the ongoing ferry procurement mess due to their ‘demands’ for crews living on board ferries, most of which are on short crossings of just 1-2 hours, plus overmanning requiring ever higher subsidies. An outdated ageing fleet and ever worsening service for users/island communities is another outcome of union intransigence/power in a state monopoly situation.
Craig, I’ve long said Thatcher’s hidden gameplan was refeudalisation of society, into 1% management Barons with ALL the rights & NONE of the duties (even to pay tax) & 99% serfs, with ALL the duties & NONE of the rights, having to pay for what used to be free at the point of need https://t.co/jm65F3m4SF
[ MOD: Caught in spam-filter ]
—
Yes.
The ‘ Proleteriat ‘ in its material form are those who literally change materials into material things i.e. metal into a fridge etc.
Not some people who service finance the already manufactured material thing – that is making profit on an already made product.
There is no doubt that the above has been ‘ outsourced ‘ to China and others over the years.
This is the dichotomy for the West,
If you want cheap laptops China makes them cheaper – if you want to make them in the US then you need to understand that you have to pay US labour rates and you will pay three times more retail for your Patriotic laptop.
This is the way in a wicked capitalist world.
Sounds dramatic and poetic but as the West is going to find out there are consequences for your actions.
The Fire Brigade call it ‘ Blowback ‘
Putting a fire out can have consequences.
p.s. Why is every media outlet in Ukraine hanging out on rooftops in Livv?
Kiev is where it’s at surely?
They’re too scared to go there – understandably. Kiev/Kyiv is only for the hard-core like Lyse Doucet, Orla Guerin* & John Sweeney.
* 1 down. A ruin ogler (anag.) 4,6
Eastern Donbas is “where it’s at”. Or Rostov-on-Don. Or maybe Moscow. We only get reports from territory held by Ukraine.
I realise that the Russian government can imprison journalists that perpetrate “fake news”, but war reporting didn’t used to be about swanning around after dusk in a flak jacket and helmet, it used to involve being on or near the front-line, and taking risks.
These so-called war-reporters shouldn’t be standing on rooftops in Lviv in military costumes. They should be sitting in their comfy hotel suites, several floors down, keeping warm. Why are they always filmed outdoors, when there’s nothing happening outdoors?
Thanks for your reply Jimmeh. Lviv would be scary enough for me – and I’ll venture out and about in Chapletown & South Leeds etc at the witching hour with hundreds in my pockets without a second thought.* The Ruskies could easily soon be targeting hotels hosting Western journalists, and they have their spies you know.
Re: ‘it used to involve being on or near the front-line, and taking risks’
Did you hear what happened to Sky’s Stuart Ramsey and his team in Irpin, near Kiev/Kyiv?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10579869/Sky-reporter-Stuart-Ramsay-shot-wounded-lower-Russian-reconnaissance-squad.html
Fortunately for him, that was probably only 5.45×39 ammo and not 7.62×54 rimmed, otherwise, flak jacket or not, he could well have been another Frank Gardner case.
Maybe you’re one of these people who volunteers to fight local ISIS chapters in various African locales without body armour or helmet because you think that your fate has already been determined – or maybe you’re one of those people who has never so much as seen a gun up close in real life, let alone been the victim of one.
Take care.
* Note: I am not a drug dealer.
> * Note: I am not a drug dealer.
Noted!
As a youth, I was a good shot; I think I was classified “junior marksman”. No, I’ve never been shot, nor shot at.
My tone was wrong; it sounded like me whining about the cowardice of the reporters. I’m really whining about the uniformity of the propaganda: *all* the reporters are standing on the roof of the same Lviv hotel. On all the channels. Even if they’re reporting an event that was happening in Brussels.
It’s a kind of tease, like F1 racing: they’re risking death, on live TV! If you watch the show, you might see someone killed! And yet, as far as I’m aware, not much ordnance has landed on Lviv.
Thanks again for your reply Jimmeh. Apologies for my tone in the last paragraph of my above comment. I’ve never fired a gun in anger, but I have been shot at – on Stockton-on-Tees High Street, of all places, possibly having been mistaken for a local light & dark kingpin. Fortunately for me, they missed. Stockton High Street is apparently the widest in England – just as well.
I don’t think the reporters in Ukraine are on the rooftops because they think it makes them look brave. It just seems to be a TV News trope that you must have the subject of your reporting as a backdrop, even though it would often be easier (and usually warmer) to report from a nearby studio. Remember during the seemingly endless Brexit hullabaloo, when they all had to be on College Green outside Westmonster, even though they kept being harassed by Steve Bray with his ‘Stop Brexit’ placards – and then they all rigged up tall scaffolding to try to stop him, so he just attached his placard to a long pole.
Well said, Craig. That’s the best and most powerful comment I’ve seen from any source defending and advocating workers’ rights in the whole of the so-called United Kingdom. It is unacceptable that you are denied membership of the NUJ but it is perhaps a reflection on that organisation’s state of health? My admiration for your journalism grows. We need more like yourself in a world struggling for survival – yes! survival – in the face of environmental change, uncontrolled pandemics and wanton expansion by NATO in the cause of US and Corporate hegemony!
Neil Kenny,
” That’s the best and most powerful comment I’ve seen from any source defending and advocating workers’ rights in the whole of the so-called United Kingdom. It is unacceptable that you are denied membership of the NUJ but it is perhaps a reflection on that organisation’s state of health? “
It actually is a reflection on the British state’s – state of ill health!
Srarmer and his PLP are now affecting to oppose Fire-and-Rehire but P&0 may well have taken its cue from the actions of Starmer’s lLabour Party.
Labour recruiting staff on insecure contracts while making mass redundancies
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-fire-and-rehire-keir-starmer-david-evans-b1889879.html
See also the actions of Coventry Labour Council in response to its bin collectors’ strike and this latest threat by Calderdale Labour Council in the wake of all the hullabaloo about the P&O outrage.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/labour-run-council-threatens-use-fire-and-rehire-end-dispute-employees