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NuLab Chancellor Alistair Darling has refused to rule out a public sector pay freeze. Darling sought to play-off public and private sector workers saying:-
"We have got to be fair with regard to people who work in the private sector, many of whom have seen their pay conditions somewhere near freeze."
Darling's comments follow a controversial article in a Sunday newspaper calling for a freeze in public sector pay. In the article, Steve Bundred chief executive of the Audit Commission called for real-term wage cuts. Bundred claimed:- "Cuts are inevitable and perfectly manageable".
Solidarity General Secretary, Pat Harrington declared:-
"Bundred and Darling want to make ordinary workers, many already underpaid, pay for the recession caused by bankers and speculators. Why should they? Workers must stand firm against attempts to impose pay cuts."
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Comments
I work for the NHS and we’re generally paid less than other public sector workers. If the pay of NHS workers is frozen, how will we survive? What are Labour trying to do here – force a return to the grinding poverty of the ‘Hungry Thirties’?
Solidarity General Secretary, Pat Harrington has rightly said that the bankers and speculators have caused the recession. The government also has a lot to answer for. Bankers, speculators and the government are the one’s responsible for the current economic nightmare. However, I don’t think it’s just enough to blame the bankers, speculators and the government. To me, the entire economic and political system is wrong.
Maybe now is the right time for workers in general (and trade unionists in particular) to look at alternatives to the current capitalist system. Communism is a no-no. It just doesn’t work.
What about examining other economic and political ideas and structures? I feel a study of Distributism, Social Credit, Workers Co-Operatives and National Syndicalism would be of huge benefit here.
I’d be interested to hear what other workers feel.
I thought that it would be a good idea to examine other economic and political ideas and structures and suggested a study of study of Distributism, Social Credit, Workers Co-Operatives and National Syndicalism.
Those wanting to explore these ideas further could look at the following entries in Wikipedia.
For Distributism click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism
For Social Credit click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit
For Workers Co-Operatives click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_co-operative
For National Syndicalism click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_syndicalism
I know that Wikipedia is not the most reliable of sites – it can be amended at will by supporters and opponents of each of the above ideas – but it still remains a useful starting point for research.
(To illustrate the unreliability of Wikipedia, compare the entry for international forms of Syndicalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicalism and National Syndicalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_syndicalism
To me, the whole tone of the information on internationalis t forms of Syndicalism is different from that of the section on National Syndicalism. Indeed, the first variant of Syndicalism is included in the Organised Labour section, whereas the latter is smeared as Fascism!
Wikipedia also manages to contradict itself when talking about the Portuguese National Syndicalist, Francisco de Barcelos Rolão Preto: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Rol%C3%A3o_Preto Preto is smeared as a Fascist - yet he was opposed to the Portuguese dictator, Antonio Salazar (who is more often considered a Fascist!)