[PEN-L:7633] Re: The Long Term
At 11:32 PM 11/27/96, Tom Walker wrote: What, pray tell, is so 'new' [or even interesting] about this 'nothing new here' argument? Uh, just to clarify, newness is not a virtue by me nor is lack of newness a vice. I just get irritated when Rifkin's stale idiocies are presented as fresh advances in human thought. Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html
[PEN-L:7645] Re: The Long Term
But do allow me to indulge a slight digression on the 'nothing new here' theme. In October of last year, the Atlantic Monthly carried a cover story criticizing the use of the Gross Domestic Product as a surrogate measure of national prosperity. Conventional economists arose with such a uniform chorus of 'nothing new here' that it would have been easy to imagine they were all activated by a single master switch. Of course there was 'nothing new here', reasoned critiques of GDP have been advanced -- and dutifully ignored -- for decades. I know this is actually off the subject of the thread to date, but just for the record, and for those of you who didn't see this article, it's excellent material for intro and intermediate macro classes. "If GDP is UP Why is America Down?" Halstead, Cobb, and Rowe, the authors of the Genuine Progress Indicator, Redefining Progress' "corrected" measure of economic welfare. Blair Blair Sandler [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:7632] Re: How to win strikes in the 90s -Reply
Patrick Bond asked, Why stop at the (broadly-characterised) point-of-production? and argued convincingly for: Corporate campaigns aimed increasingly at both the power and vulnerability that characterise firms' financial relationships. To which I would add, that the strategic state policy framework for the dominance of finance is NAIRU -- the North American Initiative for (W)Recking Unions (more commonly known as the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment). Tactical targeting of firms' financial relationships would be most effective within a comprehensive anti-NAIRU strategy. Which, at the risk of repeating myself, brings me back to the struggle for the generalized reduction of working time. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7639] French truckers' strike II
November 28, 1996 FRENCH TRUCKERS VOTE TO EXTEND STRIKE PARIS (Reuter) - Striking truck drivers voted to keep up their 11-day stranglehold on the French economy on Thursday, defying government calls to return to work after talks with bosses collapsed over pay demands. Truckers maintained almost 250 barricades on main roads and tightened a blockade of the oil industry after talks broke down around midnight. The strike has brought petrol rationing in some areas, closed factories and stranded hundreds of foreign trucks. Unions said grassroots truckers consulted about the outcome of marathon government-brokered talks with employers were voting to stay on strike despite repeated calls by Transport Minister Bernard Pons to go back to work. Pons said most truckers' demands had been met and that the government mediator had successfully ended his mission. "We've got the result of the votes from the barricades in15 to 20 sectors -- about a fifth of France -- and it's 100 percent for continuing the action," said Michel Fleurot, strike coordinator for France's biggest union, the pro-Socialist CFDT. Other unions, noting a gulf with employers over demands for pay rises, said the trend among their members was the same. "Perhaps the truckers don't have a good perception of reality," Pons told a news conference. "In a compromise, you can't get everything you want." "Very positive results were obtained," he said. Pons said the two sides had agreed to cut the retirement age to 55 from 60 and reached accords on working time and sick pay, even though there was still discord over pay. He ruled out using force to clear the truckers' roadblocks on highways, at ports, borders, refineries and fuel depots. Pons said that despite the break in negotiations, a group made up of representatives of unions and employers would try to tackle the controversial issue of what could be defined -- and consequently paid -- as working time for drivers. Some firms pay drivers differently according to whether they are actually driving on the road or waiting to load or unload. There is also confusion as to what rates of pay apply to long-distance drivers during rest time they enjoy after unloading and before returning home or loading again. Pons warned that "if this working group does not agree quickly, I will propose to the government that we settle the issue by decree." Leaders of main unions -- the CFDT, the Communist-led CGT and the non-partisan Force Ouvriere - - all told workers to stick to their roadblocks. The state traffic information center counted 240 blockades on major highways around midday Thursday, slightly down from 247 Wednesday. Snow and sleet fell overnight in some areas. Strikers completed a blockade of oil refineries with barricades outside the only one of 13 that had escaped the strike so far, an industry ministry official said. About half the country's 400 fuel depots were blocked. Force Ouvriere leader Marc Blondel appealed to the government to make one more mediation attempt. "Talks must continue," he told Europe 1 radio. "The big problem is wages." The CGT said "the government is alone in considering the talks ended in a success allowing it to withdraw its mediator." A CGT statement said the move effectively blessed the employers' refusal to grant bigger wage hikes. Secretary of state for transport Anne-Marie Idrac said unions and employers could hold wage talks without mediator Robert Cros. "The dialogue is not broken," she told France 2 television. "The mediation has been successful...Most demands have been satisfied even though the question of wages remains." Haulage firms were offering a one percent raise and a one-off bonus of 1,500 francs ($300). Unions are demanding pay increases that amount to an average 23 percent. The roadblocks have forced closure of some factories and cut supplies of perishable goods ranging from fish to fruit. Farmers reported shortages of animal feed as grain shipments were hit. The strike was also disrupting mail deliveries. The strike and a parallel one in Denmark caused problems in other European countries, clogging highways and ports and disrupting commerce. Ports in neighboring Belgium were clogged by trucks seeking an alternative ferry crossing to Britain.
[PEN-L:7631] Scientific Laws Of Political Economy
The manner in which human beings act upon naturally occurring material in order to subsist and procreate, and the manner in which they relate with one another in the process of this production are governed by economic laws. These scientific economic laws exist objectively and cannot be created, destroyed, changed or modified by human beings. These laws govern the change development and motion of the economic systems that human beings have gone through, are passing through and will go through. Humans can endeavor to understand these laws and create conditions for their full expression and operation in favor of the people, the economy and the society, as well as create conditions whereby certain laws no longer have fertile soil in which to operate. The laws of political economy do not disappear, they lose the possibilities to operate under certain conditions, however, given the proper conditions they will reappear in full force and scope. This is proven forcefully by the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union. Conditions have reappeared that give full rein to all the economic laws that operate under capitalism. If the operation of any naturally occurring scientific law is violated, ignored or opposed -either consciously or anti-consciously - there are serious consequences. The laws of political economy operate in the same manner as other scientific laws. There is a fundamental law of political economy that states: the relations of production must conform with the forces of production. If they do not conform, there is upheaval, constant chaos and crisis until the law of conformity is satisfied. The world is witness to the chaos and upheaval caused by the class forces that are fighting against the resolution of this fundamental law. All reactionary social classes on the verge of extinction, which are no longer the leading social class in conformity with the existing productive forces, react against the resolution of this fundamental law in a desperate bid to cling to power and avoid extinction as a social class. In the course of their resistance they attempt to manipulate the naturally occurring economic laws in their favor with disastrous consequences. For example, the monopoly capitalists try to stop, wittingly or unwittingly, the operation of the law of the falling rate of profit. The monopolies use their dominant position in society to deflect the consequences of this law onto their competitors and the working class. They try to orchestrate the situation in order to survive, but the consequences of this law cannot be avoided and are expressed within the economic system in one way or another. Take as an example the general economic law of value (exchange-value). The law of value is not specific to capitalism as it operates wherever there is commodity production, production destined for exchange. One of the features of the law of value is that market prices must hover around their true value or the consequences can be calamitous. Is this the case under monopoly capitalism? No. Prices are either arbitrarily kept high by the monopolies, usually their manufactured goods or financial services, or they are kept extremely low, usually raw materials from oppressed countries, such as copper and tin. The consequences of this violation of the law of value can be seen in the inhuman living conditions of the people in the oppressed countries, the uneven development of economies throughout the world and the eventual collapse of the world capitalist system into depression and war. Shawgi Tell University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:7643] Fwd: Re: Technology Shock and Teen Pregnancy
BUT, BUT, BUT The women we are talking about, working class women of all races (the largest percentage increase in teen births has been amongst caucasian teens) do NOT go to college, nor do they receive professional degrees. Work by Elaine McCrate and (I forgot the other author's name, oops) has pointed out that the population of young black women bearing children in their teens is the same population working in dead end jobs with or without bearing children at a young age. ALSO, of the over 100 job categories listed in the census, 90% of wage earning women are concentrated in the 8 lowest paid job categories -- not in 'careers'. This goes to the heart of why I think it is dangerous to make too much of the strides women have made in some occupations and the marginal increases in income they have received as a result. MOST working women STILL do NOT have careers. Most working women still have jobs at the bottom of the pay scale which they keep because they must. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] In a message dated 96-11-27 14:48:46 EST, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Gerald Levy) writes: (2) Is there reason to believe that having a child while a teenager, in general, has an adverse affect on the ability of the mother to finish high school and/or attend college? Is there reason to believe that poor women without high school diplomas or college degrees are more likely to remain poor? Is there reason to believe that having a child while young and poor can (in the presence of the lack of affordable or employer-offered free daycare) affect the ability of the mother to obtain better-paying jobs? Jerry --- Headers Return-Path: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Received: from anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu (anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu Received: from anthrax (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 11:46:30 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Originator: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk From: Gerald Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:7621] Re: Technology Shock and Teen Pregnancy X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: Progressive Economics Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII MIME-Version: 1.0 - Forwarded message: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Gerald Levy) Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 96-11-27 14:48:46 EST Doug Henwood wrote: Empirically speaking - and I know what high regard you have for empirical work, Jerry - there's no evidence that early childbearing has any "affect" on the long-term employment prospects of poor women. (1) I have a very high regard indeed for *some* empirical work. I have a very low regard for empiricists. (2) Is there reason to believe that having a child while a teenager, in general, has an adverse affect on the ability of the mother to finish high school and/or attend college? Is there reason to believe that poor women without high school diplomas or college degrees are more likely to remain poor? Is there reason to believe that having a child while young and poor can (in the presence of the lack of affordable or employer-offered free daycare) affect the ability of the mother to obtain better-paying jobs? Jerry
[PEN-L:7630] Re: How to win strikes in the 90s -Reply
Tom Walker [EMAIL PROTECTED] 28/November/1996 09:33am Introductory remarks: Strike breaking and union busting in the 1990s: What can we learn from the past to combat it? ... "what strategies might the labour movement adopt to try to eliminate that substantial surplus of labour?"... What I'm getting at is the need to move from a series of isolated *tactical* withdrawals of labour to a generalized *strategic* withdrawal of labour. Why stop at the (broadly-characterised) point-of-production? If our analysis of the crisis of K tells us that worsening overaccumulation signals capitalists not to reinvest in productive circuits but instead to switch into financial activities; and if in doing so competition heats up and capitalists take on added debt to make the switch; and if, increasingly, firm profitability flows from treasury-type activities while firm costs include higher interest repayments; and if the broader speculative activity that all this represents and contributes to generates financial sector innovations and intensified waves of mergers and acquisitions; and if, furthermore, these are financed by leveraging firms (both the acquirer and acquired) to the hilt; and if all of these phenomena mean that workers now struggle for their wage share (and rights to pension surpluses now being used as cash-cows to liquidate LBO debt) against not only management and shareholders but also financiers and the financial circuit of K (not to mention their struggle as taxpayers to avoid picking up the tab for various burst bubbles), the strategic orientation for labour is pretty clear, right? Corporate campaigns aimed increasingly at both the power and vulnerability that characterise firms' financial relationships. Aside from one mishap (Hormel), I recall that US labour strategists who have used this strategy -- with a variety of tactics linking labour to redlined communities, consumers, farmers, the anti-apartheid movement during the 1980s, and other international and local allies -- have met with some degree of success. More than if they went on strike, which often would have guaranteed incoming scab labour as permanent replacements. And more than in other secondary boycotts (outlawed by Taft-Hartley), because they often link their issues directly to genuine public interest grievances against bank consumer practices. Hanging on my office wall is a cover from The Banker magazine a few years back, picturing a huge, hairy clenched fist under the headline "Union strongarms bank" (relating to the clothing/textile workers' mauling of then-Continental Illinois during an LBO tussle in 1988-89). And the late 1980s were not unique. "...this class of parasites [have gained] a fabulous power not only to decimate the industrial capitalists periodically but also to interfere in production in the most dangerous manner -- and this crew know nothing of production and have nothing at all to do with it" (Uncle Whiskers, Vol III).
[PEN-L:7640] Danish truckers also strike (fwd)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 16:00:02 + From: LabourNet [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Danish truckers also strike Comments: To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Truckers Still Block Border Crossings, Ports to Protest Tax Rule Source: Associated Press COPENHAGEN, DENMARK - AP World News : Truckers protesting a Danish tax rule, Tuesday continued their blockade of border crossings and major ports bringing Denmark's exports by road to a virtual standstill. - Several hundreds of trucks idled at the main crossings of Padborg and Froeslev on the border to Germany. No trucks transporting Danish goods to other European countries, were able to embark ferries for Germany, Sweden and Norway. - The blockade mainly affected fresh pork meat, fish and Christmas trees which are Denmark's main export products, worth several million dollars. There were no immediate estimate of how much the actions will cost in lost exports. - ``The situation seems chaotic because we cannot get trucks with fresh meat out of the country,'' Peter Detlevsen of the meat exporters' agency told Danish radio. - The Danish truckers allowed their foreign colleagues, vehicles with live stock, buses and private cars through the blockades. - The protesters say they are shortchanged by being allowed to deduct only 150 kroner (dlrs 26) from their income tax for each day they work outside Denmark. Many other Danes working abroad can deduct up to 500 kroner (dlrs 86) per day. - Taxation Minister Carsten Koch on Monday reiterated the government's plan to increase truckers' deductions to 200 kroner (dlrs 35) a day by the beginning of next year. - The lawmakers are to meet Wednesday to discuss the proposal and a bill is scheduled to be presented before the parliament next week. - The truckers want the 500-kroner (dlrs 86) deduction and some 2,000 of them started their blockade of the Padborg crossing, 280 kilometers (175 miles) south of Copenhagen, on Sunday night. - ``If the lawmakers try to fool us, we'll shut down Denmark,'' several truckers were quoted as saying by the Berlingske Tidende daily. They also said they will continue their blockades until their demands have been met. - Late Monday, the blockades which are organized spontaneously by the truckers themselves and not by their union, spread to ports where ferries link Denmark to other Scandinavian countries, Britain and Germany. - A key ferry link between the islands of Zealand _ where Copenhagen is located _ and Funen _ which is tied to the Jutland peninsula, also was blocked for trucks carrying goods for export. [11-26-96 at 15:42 EST, Copyright 1996, The Associated Press]
[PEN-L:7635] Regulationism, etc.
Tom Cochrane misunderstood. I was NOT rejecting Lipietz et al 100%. In fact, I've learned a lot from the regulation school. I like Lipietz's esoteric vs. exoteric distinction, though I'd rather use different words. I like to think about the dynamics of capital at a high level of abstraction (i.e., those developed in Marx's CAPITAL) vs. the dynamics of actually-existing capitalism, i.e., what happens at a low level of abstraction. Tom Walker praises me for making sense, suggesting that it's (partly) because of my hands-on experience with parenting. Maybe, but I'm also pretty lucky to have a professorial job that gives me a tremendous amount of flexibility in my schedule so I can stay at home sometimes (while using the modem to get _some_ work done despite being stranded). (I only teach on Tuesdays Thursdays.) I also have a streak of anti-intellectualism that I keep hidden and usually sublimate into trying to makes professorial abstractions concrete, empirical. I love abstractions, but my abstractions tell me that abstractions are not enough. Empiricism isn't enough either. But I don't see why we have to reject the work of empiricists completely (or why we have to reject the work of those with "bad" theories completely). There's a division of labor in which the theorists can learn from the empiricists and vice-versa. In fact, we should learn from each other. I think one of the big problems with academia is that the competition between the various schools and modes of investigation. can prevent such learning. (We can learn from Lipietz or Aglietta without being regulationist; we can criticize the reg. school without rejecting it completely.) BTW, I like to put some personal details into my messages once and awhile simply to get away from the narrow academic perspective. I'm sorry if it came off as bragging about participating in childcare. I also think it's a bit inappropriate to pen-l for Tom to praise me the way he did. It's not a popularity contest. Nonetheless, it made my ego swell. Next, I'll see if I can make my belly swell in the annual US ritual of self-stuffing as a way of thanking the Indians for allowing the Pilgrims to survive. Thanking them for not having rational expectations, or for not acting on them? ;-) in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ. 7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
[PEN-L:7642] the longer term
Tom Walker wrote: The 'this' that's already happening is not the same 'this' that's nothing new. Part-time, casual and short term contract work are most definitely not the 'same thing' as a generalized reduction and redistribution of work time. Are you seriously suggesting that insecure, part-time work with few or no benefits amounts to the 'same thing' as, say, a ban on compulsory overtime, extensive paid leave provisions for education and parenting, or the establishment of a standard 32 hour work week? I certainly hope I wasn't suggesting that, however, I was suggesting that there has been an increase in parttime casual etc work and in Australia these are growth industries. Increasing de-regulation of the labour market will make this type of employment more and more common. The industries where extensive overtime is currently being worked are industries in decline (in Australia anyway). I do suggest that sharing work in declining industries is unlikely to have much of an impact on unemployment or wealth distribution generally. I certainly do support bans on compulsory overtime, extensive paid leave provisions for education and parenting and the establishment of a 32 hour working week as issues of work justice, however, I do not believe that this is going to be the panacea for unemployment or inequality in wealth distribution! I do in fact support a shorter working week, I was merely suggesting that corporations are already allowing workers to have shorter working weeks courteousy of parttime casual etc work, I was not suggesting that it was happening on terms amenable to the labor movement! In talking to a group of unionists last week, all casual, all on "shorter hours" it seemed more appropriate to be focussing on issues such as job security rather than "shorter working weeks". This is not however to say we should abandon the struggle for better working conditions for those on permanent fulltime work.
[PEN-L:7646] Re: The Long Term
At 9:23 AM 11/28/96, Tom Walker wrote: But there is a danger in attacking Rifkin and his "stale idiocies" because Rifkin mixes those stale idiocies with some of the most important strategic issues of the day. The popular expression is "throwing out the baby with the bath water." It's important to learn to separate the baby from the bath water. Rifkin's best selling book is the only contact that many people have with arguments about the effects of technology on labour markets, the shallowness of the "high-tech, high-skills future" fantasy, the increasing polarization of the work force, etc. To simply dismiss all of Rifkin as stale idiocy is to risk re-inforcing the claims of the neo-liberals that the capitalist free market is sorting things out just fine and dandy, thank you very much. The point is that Rifkin has found a way to appeal to a broad audience that the more analytically sound left has been unable to find. I would like to ask, "what makes Rifkin's argument seem plausible to so many people?" rather than denounce his arguments wholesale as stale idiocy. One reason Rifkin has "found a way to appeal to a broad audience" is that he locates the source of the economic problem in technology, not in the charming system known as capitalism - a stance that understandably appeals to philanthropists and commercial publishers. But he's factually wrong. Jobs are not disappearing. Service sector productivity isn't experiencing the explosive growth he claims. Downsizing captures all the headlines, but U.S. employment is up by well over 10 million since the 1992 trough. No, the jobs of the future are not in systems analysis and web page design - they're as nursing home attendants and cashiers. That's the reality of the labor market. Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html
[PEN-L:7644] Re: The Long Term
friends, i have not read rifkin's book, mostly because i think he is something of a charlatan. i have read aronowitz's and difazio's book, and i have written a review of it for science and society. it is not especially well-written and it is full of jargon. it certainly never demonstrates that we are headed toward a jobless future. what is interesting is the generally positive responses which these books have elicited, especially from the left-liberal press (i.e. the ..nation and the progressive and like journals). i wrote a book, longer hours, fewer jobs (the fewer jobs is meant in juxtopsition to the longer hours-people are working more hours at the same time that relatively more people are un and under employed) around the same time that these two books were published. it struck me that i could not get this book reviewed in most left-liberal magazines. my book is certainly better written than aronowitz's and difazio's. it is accessible to a mass audience, and i know that it has been read by many working people, from the workers i teach to the cook at the day care center at which my wife and daughter work. ordinary people find the book very readable and quite interesting, despite the fact that it is a book about the economy. at the same time, the book is uncompromisingly radical ( i accuse our government of murdering people every time it enacts policies which raise the unemployment rate) and it has considerable theoretical content. what i wonder is - why do some authors get reviewed in the "right places while other do not, despite the fact that many of the books written in the rifkin mode are pretty worthless and will never be read by average people. i wonder sometimes if leftist intellectuals have any real desire to communicate radically with "the masses". for example, the united electrical workers journal gave my book a rave review, but chris tilly, writing in dollars and sense, complains that my book is too direct, that is, lacks sufficient cynicism and irony. take a look at his book about part-time workers and ask yourself whether you would rather give it or my book to your favorite factory worker or secretary or janitor or sales clerk to read. michael yates
[PEN-L:7634] Re: The Long Term
Doug Henwood wrote, I just get irritated when Rifkin's stale idiocies are presented as fresh advances in human thought. I can sympathize with Doug's irritation. Rifkin adds nothing to the discussion other than a popularizing zeal and a slick presentation. Rifkin is especially good at mining the painstaking work of scholars and taking -- or at least getting -- credit for the ideas. If you haven't seen Rifkin perform in the flesh, I suggest you rent the video, "The Road to Wellsville" starring Anthony Hopkins as Dr. John Kellogg -- it's about as close a portrayal as you can get. But there is a danger in attacking Rifkin and his "stale idiocies" because Rifkin mixes those stale idiocies with some of the most important strategic issues of the day. The popular expression is "throwing out the baby with the bath water." It's important to learn to separate the baby from the bath water. Rifkin's best selling book is the only contact that many people have with arguments about the effects of technology on labour markets, the shallowness of the "high-tech, high-skills future" fantasy, the increasing polarization of the work force, etc. To simply dismiss all of Rifkin as stale idiocy is to risk re-inforcing the claims of the neo-liberals that the capitalist free market is sorting things out just fine and dandy, thank you very much. The point is that Rifkin has found a way to appeal to a broad audience that the more analytically sound left has been unable to find. I would like to ask, "what makes Rifkin's argument seem plausible to so many people?" rather than denounce his arguments wholesale as stale idiocy. While we're on the topic of stale idiocy, I'd like to bring up two other phrases that lead us around in circles, "bourgeois ideology" and "false consciousness". It has been the everlasting conceit of leftists that one could build a mass audience through the polemical trick of demonstrating that anyone who cared to listen was deluded in thinking what they did think and the truth -- or at least the correct analysis -- was elsewhere. This has been extremely effective, yes, in attracting a smattering of intellectual masochists. Is it really more important to be aloof than to be effective? Or is it possible to combine political integrity with rhetorical appeal? Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7636] Socialist Scholars Conference 1997
The Brecht Forum 122 West 27 Street, 10 floor New York, New York 10001 (212) 242-4201 (212) 741-4563 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (e-mail) 1997 Socialist Scholars Conference original message posted by: From: "Robert Saute, CUNY Grad Center" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Socialist Scholars Conference For additional information, reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] == **1997 SOCIALIST SCHOLARS CONFERENCE** **RADICAL ALTERNATIVES ON THE EVE OF THE MILLENNIUM** ** SAVE THESE DATES** The 1997 Socialist Scholars Conference will be held the weekend of March 28 to 30, 1997 at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers Street, in downtown Manhattan. The Conference's theme is "Radical Alternatives on the Eve of the Millennium." Each year the Socialist Scholars Conference, the largest non-sectarian gathering of the Left in the United States, attracts between 1500 and 2,000 intellectuals and activists from more than a dozen countries. At one hundred panels, plenaries, and workshops, scholars and militants debate and exchange ideas about struggles around the world and in our communities. Last year's Conference saw spirited debates on the "end of work" vs. jobs for all, identity politics and the Left's universalism, the Million Man March, Cuban economists on market reform, and the war on drugs. This year panels will discuss changes in the labor movement at the top and bottom, independent politics and NY's race for mayor, struggles for survival and justice in Asia, Africa and Latin America, bringing culture back in, and dozens of others on race, ecology, gender, class, and the building of a better world. The majority of panels each year are put together by participants and not the organizers. Here is your chance to combine theory and practice. Write to us for further details. The Socialist Scholars Conference is a great place to renew old acquaintances, meet new comrades, and share ideas. We hope to see you there! DETAILS: When: 6:00 PM Friday March 28 to 6:00 PM Sunday March 30, 1997 Where: Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers Street, New York City Cost: Pre-registration (postmarked by March 14, 1997) Regular Income $30 Low Income $20 Undergraduate/HS $8 One Day $15 On-site Registration Regular Income $45 Low Income $30 Undergraduate/HS $8 One Day $20 Checks should be made payable to: Socialist Scholars Conference c/o Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center 33 West 42nd Street New York, NY 10036 For further information write to the above address or call (212) 642-2826, or email us at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:7641] Trouble in Lotus Land
The labour movement in British Columbia was delighted with the re-election of the social democratic NDP in the provincial election last May. Since the election, however, the government (which had campaigned AGAINST the neoliberal agenda) has taken to slashing the public sector in the name of reducing the provincial deficit. Things came to a head this week when the government announced cuts to municipalities. = The Vancouver Sun November 28, 1996 CUPE ATTACKS CUTS BY VICTORIA Mike Crawley, The Vancouver Sun Fearing that they'll bear the brunt of the $113-million reduction in transfer payments to municipalities, members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees led the condemnation of the cuts Wednesday at the B.C. Federation of Labor annual convention. Delegates to the convention blasted the provincial government for announcing earlier this week that grants to local governments will be reduced by 28 per cent. Their angry mood continued a theme of the week-long convention: the current tension in B.C. between the labor movement and the usually union-friendly New Democratic Party as a result of plans to cut 3,500 jobs in the provincial civil service. "I am angry at the government and I am starting to question their commitment to workers," said Bernice Kirk, CUPE's B.C. president. For most municipalities, the cut in grants from Victoria represents about three per cent of their total revenues and Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Miller says local governments should be able to absorb the drop in funding without raising taxes or cutting services. But throughout the province, municipalities are already making plans to trim services. And that means job cuts, delegates to the federation convention warned. They debated and unanimously approved a resolution condemning the federal Liberals for their cuts in transfer payments to the provinces and the provincial NDP for cutting grants to local governments. The resolution also calls on the municipalities not to lay off workers or contract out services in response to the funding cut. But, acknowledging that job losses are likely, delegates said the province and municipalities must consult with workers on the shape that layoffs will take. They want early-retirement packages, severance deals and an over-all labor adjustment strategy. CUPE predicts 1,000 to 1,500 of its members could lose their jobs as a result of the cuts, delegate Shane Simpson said. "The bottom line is it's the province that made the decision to make this cut," he said. "The province has to accept responsibility for that decision." Simpson said CUPE is concerned the Union of B.C. Municipalities is seeking changes that will allow its members to privatize or contract out more services.
[PEN-L:7637] Irish Nurses May Strike (fwd)
The Irish Times OPINION Thursday, November 28, 1996 _ =20 PATIENCE RUNS OUT AS ANGELS GO FOR JUGULAR _ =20 After years of timidity nurses are now seeking nothing less than a tota= l reappraisal of their role within the health service, writes Padraig Yeates, Industry and Employment Correspondent =20 It will be a brave man who attempts to stop the nurses' stampede towards their first national strike. I say "man" advisedly because the general secretary and deputy general secretary of the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) are both men; so is the chief management negotiator and, of course, so is the Minister for Health, Mr Noonan. =20 What we are witnessing in the INO is not so much an industrial dispute as a social revolution. For decades nurses have been the most quiescent of public sector workers. The INO only affiliated to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in recent years and its presidents were almost invariably matrons, in other words members of nurse management. =20 But that was in the days when most qualified nurses could be expected to emigrate or marry. Either way, they left the profession after fulfilling their "vocation" for a number of youthful years; years when issues like long-term career structures, pay scales and early retirement seemed unimportant. =20 Today, a third of staff nurses have put in over 15 years service, over half have at least nine years service and all 26,000 know that, short of winning the Lotto, they will still be working the wards at 65. That prospect has concentrated minds. =20 There have also been changes in the nature of the job. A far higher degree of medical knowledge and technical expertise is needed than ever before. The existing "on the job" apprenticeship by student nurses is being converted into a three-year, college-based national diploma course. Most new entrants are expected to take the fourth-year extension to convert that diploma into a degree. =20 Existing nurses have also acquired additional qualifications. The maximum bonus they can acquire for those qualifications is =A3600 a year. =20 Unlike many other workers, nurses have no national agreements on overtime. They may receive shift premiums worth around =A33,000, if they work unsocial hours, but extra time worked can only be reclaimed as time off in lieu. Amid all the glittering new medical technology nurses still find themselves tied to outdated and highly questionable work practices. =20 In many hospitals, for instance, nurses have to work a seven-night, 12-hour shift roster. Patients have an unfortunate habit of dying in the early hours of the morning. In such cases nurses on night shift often stay on an extra hour or two to comfort the family, knowing that they must be back on duty at 8 p.m. that night for the next 12 hours. =20 When factors like these are taken into account, the only wonder is that it has taken so long for nurses to reach boiling point. =20 There were signs of discontent, including a mild rash of local strikes during the past two years over staffing levels, working conditions and facilities for patients. But, as recently as the negotiation of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work, nurses voted to accept relatively modest pay increases and a chance to negotiate a further 3 per cent in a productivity-oriented restructuring deal. =20 What the nurses are now seeking is a total reappraisal of their role within the health services - and recognition from society in general that their role is as important, in its way, as that of doctors or dentists. Many nurses feel that it is, at least in part, because the overwhelming majority of them are women that they have never been granted more than a fraction of the status of the senior, male-dominated, health professions. =20 Unfortunately, national wage agreements are poor vehicles for carrying out revolutions. Agreements are more akin to wagon trains. If one wagon tries to pull out of its allotted place the wagon masters - in this case the Government and the other social partners - will whip it back into line. The alternative is a stampede. =20 Ask any trade union leader and he (they are nearly all men) will tell you that the nurses have done exceptionally well out of the PCW. The =A350 million package rejected by the INO has a real price tag nearer 6 per cent than the notional 3 per cent limit set in the PCW. =20 It was so good that two of the smaller nursing unions, SIPTU and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association, voted
