INDUSTRIAL DISEASES.

We have come through the start of the industrial age and moved on to the hi-tec age, but every move into every industry comes with its on particular problems. Practically every industry is linked to an industrial disease. We have silicosis, lung disease prevalent among stone masons, potters grinders etc.. Then there is pneumoconiosis, mainly among coal miners, caused by breathing in fine coal dust and carbon dust. Arc-welders are at risk of manganism, manganese poisoning brought on by exposure to the toxic effects of the fumes from welding rods melting as the are used. Painters are at risk from neurological deficits from solvent‐exposure, which include impaired colour vision, cognitive defects, tremor and loss of vibration sensation. There are many more links with occupation and disease, but we are seldom told of these dangers when you apply for the job. Health and safety regulations go some way to protect workers from these dangers but usually these measures are re-active and only come after years of suffering and campaigning.

As a young man starting my trade in the Clydeside shipyards in the 1950’s, I was ignorant of the dangers of asbestos, and as it was widely used, all of us were exposed to the horror of death from mesothelioma, an asbestos induced incurable cancer. It was not that the dangers of this substance wasn’t known, medical papers had been written about the danger from asbestos exposure as far back as the 30’s, but it continued to be used up to and including the 60’s. The employers didn’t abandon asbestos willingly, it took campaigning and legislation to finally attempt to get rid of this killer substance. That is the pattern in most of industries, its dangers are only restricted by campaigning and legislation. The profit motive drives industry, not the well being of the employee. Most industries can be made safe, but it usually requires investment in safety equipment and training and that costs money which in turn cuts into the profit. So safety in industries will always come lower down the ladder, and as times get harder, corners are cut in safety to prevent cuts in profit. The economic system we have at present does not lend itself to the welfare and well being of the workers, only when the workers control all the industries will their well being be at the fore front of production.

WHEN  THE TIME-BOMB GOES OFF.

The bike just sits there,

dust covering its lovely sheen,

puffing up the Fintry Hills

well, it’s no longer my scene.

Y’see, as a Clydeside apprentice

I proudly learnt the tradesman’s skill,

little did I know then

the price, asbestos lungs that kill.

Now I just sit here through the painful day

gasping each mouthful of air, wondering

how can I make the bastards pay.

They new it was a killer

a time-bomb in our lungs

but, because it was so quick and cheap

they firmly held their tongues.

So what, if it cost the workman’s life,

there’s always a couple of new workers

in the care of the worker’s wife.

Please try to understand my anger

as I and others bear their cost,

a slow death from asbestos lungs,

a vibrant life lost.

Anguish for family and friends,

all in the name of profit;

now that really does offend.

Our anger without direction

is a blind archer behind the bow,

we have to use our anger

to smash the status-quo.

DIRTY WATER, DIRTY SYSTEM!!

       We are continually fed the illusion that the world under capitalism is always improving the lot of the people on the planet. However, if we check out some figures we  see that illusion burst and disappear. Take the basic minimum necessity of life, access to safe drinking water. You would imagine that as this wonderful system of capitalism develops more and more people would have access to safe drinking water. The truth is the opposite, at this moment in time 18:45 on September, 25, 2010 the figure of those who have no access to safe drinking water is, 1,422,510,560. The reason I give the time as well as the date is that the rate is rising so fast the it would be out dated by the time I have posted this article.

    This surely is irrefutable proof that the system of capitalism is failing the people of this planet. The small group of parasites at the top gather ever more wealth and power, their lives move in circles of ever increasing opulence while the number of people who don’t get the basics of life continually rises. 

     The misery of not getting access to safe drinking water brings with it disease and early death yet we see the figure rising so fast that it is impossible to give an accurate figure. This situation will not improve with aid packages and charity organisations , as long as profit is the  name of the game, people will die in ever increasing numbers.

    Our only hope is to destroy this corporate nightmare of greed and to hell with the hindmost and start to build a society based on mutual aid, sustainability and co-operation, anarchists point the way, anarchism is the tool.

  At the end of writing this article  the figure for those with no access to safe drinking water is now: 1,422,523,901 and rising.

Check the figures here at http://www.worldometers.info/

ann arky’s home. 

SLAVERY IN THE E.U.

           

         Here in the West we like to think that we have got rid of slavery. However, right here in our very own “Fortress Europe” we have our pockets of slavery, excluding the millions of wage slaves. It is hard to believe that with the mountain of bureaucratic legislation covering all aspects of our lives here in Europe, that we can have factory workers not being paid and then being sacked for asking when they are likely to be paid.

Lifted from the Polish site :   http://pracownik.net.pl/rubryki/english

       Workers from ZEFAM furniture factory in Nowe Miasteczko in the west of Poland were given disciplinary dismissals because they asked when the would get paid.

          ZEFAM stands for Zielona Gora Furniture Factory. Workers there had not received salaries for months. Some had not been paid for four months and nobody was receiving overtime payments. On August 19, the workers asked about this. The manager went to consult with the director of the firm, Marek Cierpka. Then he told the workers to “go home”. They didn’t want to, but the manager shut down the production hall. After some time of not knowing what to do, the workers went home.

         The next day, the manager was waiting for them at the gates of the factory with disciplinary dismissals. Most people refused to take them, but they were sent by post to 27 workers. In the dismissals it was written that they were being dismissed for leaving their work place without permission or justification.  The boss claimed that the workers held a wildcat strike.

         The next day, the boss proposed that people return to work, but with new contracts, for “trial periods”. Some people were so desperate that they agreed to this, but 11 people refused. Six of them are prevented by security from going near the factory.

          But even the ones who “agreed” to the new conditions are not factory. The Mayor of Nowe Miasteczko “mediated” but convinced them to agree to the bad deal. It was agreed that if the workers have no problems or “strikes’ over the next two months of the “trial period”, then the Director will annul the disciplinary dismissal.

         In Poland, all records of work are kept in your “work book”. If you were fired, it stays on your record and basically creates a problem for you for years, if not the rest of your life.

           The workers at ZEFAM were totally fucked. The majority of them are older, many in their 50s and 60s. Many have worked in the factory 30 or 40 years with no problem. And now they are told they should be on a trial period! If they give their work books, the bosses will write that they were fired. If they don’t give their work books to be signed, they will have no proof of the work they have done for decades!  It is important to point out that these people live in a high unemployment area.

         The Mayor of Nowe Miasteczko is actually aiding the director, Mr. Cierpka, in committing a crime. Unfair dismissal is not a crime in Poland, but if he is not paying, the company should go into bankruptcy, its assets liquidated and the workers paid from this. But the case is more likely that the company just wanted to find some pretext to get rid of old staff and hope that the workers will not be able to fight back.

          We hope that this assessment of the workers will prove wrong and we support the 11 who refused! Hopefully the next wildcat strike will be a real one!

Protests can be sent to:

Prezes Zarządu
Marek Cierpka
Zielonogórskie Fabryki Mebli S.A.
ul. Głogowska 18
67-124 Nowe Miasteczko
Tel. (+48 68) 325 46 31
Fax (+ 48 68) 388 89 64
Email: zefam@zefam.com.pl
www.zefam.com.pl

ann arky’s home.

PLEASE DON’T HURT US???

 

 

     The European Trade Union Confederation is staging a European Day of Action on 29 September next. It will be made up of a Euro-demonstration in Brussels and trade union actions in the various European countries. The European trade unions will be demonstrating against the austerity measures adopted recently by many European countries, and to demand recovery plans in favour of quality jobs and growth.

         This is not enough, little pockets of demonstrators dotted around Europe will not have any effect on the powers that be. What is needed is an indefinite pan-European general strike. To call on the workers to politely form marches here and there asking the financial world not to hurt them too much is a retrograde step. We want to change the system, we don’t want more of the same. If we want that better world for all, we can’t simply ask for more of what we have just had. All the workers of this world have to do to change it for ever is just simply fold their arms. Stay at home, read a book, take the kids for a walk, go for a cycle, then organise your community and work place the way you want it to be, but don’t turn up to be employed by the parasites, occupy your work place.

       This action by the European TUC should be expanded, it should be seen as the opportunity to grasp the moment and take control of our lives and free ourselves from the yoke of exploitation by the parasitical financial greed merchants and their state mouthpieces the politicians. We could take that step to start the creation of that better world based on mutual aid that sees to the needs of all our people and consign this system of greed and profit to the dustbin of history. We don’t want to beg for work, we don’t want to to say “Please don’t cut my social services, my health service or my kids education but do keep exploiting me.” We want to change the world and only we the workers will do that for the benefit of the workers.

ann arky’s home.

TOMORROW’S WORLD!!!

TOMORROW’S WORLD!!

 See the fat cat’s grinning smile

as Corporate Capitalism runs amok, 

Chasing profit as it goes 

firing millions of ordinary folk. 

Raping and polluting land after land, 

starting bloody wars. 

Toxic waste, sweat shop wages 

and oil covered sea shores. 

Where have all the flowers gone 

beneath this ozone free sky? 

To join the birds, to join the fox 

on yonder plutonium field to die. 

Mercury fish, strontium lamb 

trees that never show a leaf, 

radio active beaches, toxic streams 

good lean BSE-antibiotic beef. 

In a world of epidemic, plague and famine 

it’s bottled water and chemical food. 

Of course, it’s all tested on rats and mice 

so you know its got to be good. 

Beneath a sky that’s always black, 

hurricane winds and endless drought, 

its oxygen masks for the toxic air, 

corporate profit’s what its all about.

       Of course it doesn’t need to be like that, we have a choice. We can continue to let the corporate world run amok, polluting and plundering to further enrich the parasite millionaire shareholders or we can say, enough is enough and put an end to this insanity they call capitalism.

        A fairer sustainable world is possible but only if we take control of our own lives and organise society to see to the needs of all our people. Destroy this system that has become the destroyer of the planet. and create a society based on mutual aid and sustainability freed from the greed driven profit motive.

ann arky’s home. 

 

GRASP THE MOMENT!!!

           

             On 29 June 2010, I posted the idea that nothing less than an indefinite Pan-European general strike would be needed to change the shape of society for ever. To free ourselves from the grip of corporate greed and build a society based on mutual aid in a sustainable fashion we have to take control of all those corporate institutions. In a word, occupy, transforming them into institutions that are truly democratic, sustainable and run for the benefit of all in our communities, working in federation with each other.

           There is no point to forming a mass organisation to ask our “Lords and Masters” (the parasites) to please give us back some of our pensions and please don’t decimate our health service and could we please have a half decent education system, but leave the greed mongers and millionaire parasites in charge. We created all the wealth on the planet, we own it by our forefathers sweat and blood and by our own efforts. They on the other hand have contributed nothing but control it all. The present economic climate may be our last chance to grasp control and change society for ever. Every ordinary person will feel the effects of the millionaires “austerity cuts”, ever ordinary person has to realise that there is a better way to organise our society without feeding the plundering parasites of the corporate world. We have nothing to lose, they are attempting to take every public asset into private hands and completely out of your control. Social services will be private business, you pay or you do without or rely on charities. This system of leaders, presidents and corporate greed has given us nothing but wars, poverty and deprivation, we can surely manage our lives much better than that.

         Organising to take control of our communities and our workplaces is the only hope left for the ordinary people to create a decent life for themselves and their children. As long as we accept the present system of plundering and exploitation of the many by the few, then we are on an ever accelerating downward spiral to ever greater deprivation.

          The UK Trades Unions have called for a co-ordinated defence of our conditions, the members should be calling not just for UK co-ordinated action but for that Pan-European general strike, not to protect our conditions but to create that better society which is run for the benefit of all. A truly free and democratic society based on free association, voluntary co-operation, mutual aid and sustainability. To hell with the misery of being exploited to hand greedy shareholders a life of unearned luxury, to hell with Chief Executives firing thousands of workers and walking away with millions of pounds for their efforts. The 29^th September is growing ever nearer???

ann arky’s home.

WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR??

 

        As the well manicured twins from the millionaires’ club down at the Westminster House of Hypocrisy and Corruption go ahead with the financial world’s plans to decimate the living standards of the working class, they are still, without laughing, muttering that blatant lie “we are all in this together” You and I are looking at a massive rise in unemployment, savage cuts to social spending, cuts in benefits, a shattered education system, reduced pensions, working longer to to get that lousy pension, if you have a job at all, and on top of that they are now about to rip apart the health service and turn it into a market governed grouping of private enterprises, in other words the privatisation of our health service. They are about to create a society where if you want something you buy it, at a profit to some corporate body. Of course if you can’t afford it then you do without and that will apply to health, education and special needs plus a host of other things that a civilised society should provide. While we, the ordinary people, are supposed to take this, the friends of this millionaire cabinet are still laughing all the way to the bank. Take for example a certain Mr Justin King, chief executive of Sainsbury’s, the burden that he has to carry during this period of austerity is an £8 million package which was his last years earnings. Another of the millionaire cabinet’s friends Marc Bolland of Marks & Spencer’s has just sign a nice wee contract that could net him approximately £15 million for next years pay check. As you can see, we are all in this together.

          The most blatant lie about this whole affair is the fact that they keep repeating, “there is no alternative” what shit. You and I and any member of the working class know that we could create a society that would see to the needs of all our people, we know we have the ability, imagination and resources to create a society free from the profit motive, based on mutual aid and sustainability. We know we do not need that army of pampered, well manicured parasites that rip us off day and daily. We, the working class, are facing what is probably one of the biggest challenges that has arisen in capitalism, we now have the ability to organise across the whole of the European continent on an almost instantaneous basis. What is happening in this country is happening across Europe, it is a united attack by the financial institutions of corporate capitalism, it surely makes sense that we should respond with a united attack on those institutions that aim to destroy our already meagre standard of living. Local strikes, marches and demonstrations can be ignored and dealt with without too much trouble to the system. However a national general strike would be a different matter and much more difficult for the system to handle, a pan-European general strike would be impossible for the system to cope with, and would be our opportunity to restructure society to our aims based on that fair and universally desire, of a society free from the fear of deprivation and exploitation.

ann arky’s home.

SAME OLD SHIT!!.

     

      If we know our history we realise that this so called “crisis” we are facing is nothing new. It is just one of the many and usual “crisis” in this system of capitalism that blights our lives.

     As our two manicured public school boys, running that Westminster House of Corruption keep spouting about cuts here and cuts there, all of which will be an attack on the ordinary people, we should cast our minds back. It was on  the 31st of July 1925, the then Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, stated “All the workers of this country have got to take reductions in wages to help to put industry on its feet”.  Sound familiar? Yes, it was just the same old shit. The parasitical industrialist were feeling a wee bit of a pinch, due to their greed and short sightedness, so it was time to make a a bigger grab from the working class.  They know their class war!!

    What followed shortly afterwards was the 1926 general strike. Of course we all know how that it ended. It ended by the unions selling the working class down the river.

    With this latest attack on the working class we could or perhaps that should read “should” take the same action again.  However, knowing our history we should be better prepared and not allow the unions to do the same as last time. We must be better organised at grassroots level, keep control of the actions at that level, making sure that the unions are there to do our bidding not to dictate to us.

   Of course things have changed as far as industry goes, but we are  still all workers and it is that which must unite us across the full spectrum of society. It is with that in mind that we must organise and work together in federation with all other groups. Victorian povert awaits you if there is inertia and/or disunity among our people.

       Again history might help, we could do well to recall the Clyde Workers Committee.   Of course we could just sit back and let the wealthy privileged parasites slash and grab at our standard of living, after all we wouldn’t want the bankers, bond holders and shareholders to run the risk of losing some of their ill earned wealth, would we??

ann arky’s home.

A CITY IS NOT A COMPANY.

Rather late with this post but thought it was still worth posting.

 Workers Initiative, Poland.

Sent: Tue, 9 March, 2010 11:05:20

Subject: Poland: City is not a company!

 37 anarchists arrested in Poznan City is not a company!” – 37 anarchists arrested in Poznan after clashes with cops. On Monday, 8th March, about 50 people from Rozbrat squat Collective made a demonstration in front of the gate of Poznan International Fair Center, where a congress of local councils from all over Poland was taking place. Shouting slogans “City is not a company. Rozbrat stays!”, the anarchists blockaded the gate. Many cars with the officials were forced to turn back. After a while, the protesters decided to walk inside the premises of the Fair, they were not stopped by anyone. Then, they tried to go inside the building where the congress was taking places. They were attacked by the police. Some of the anarchists were heavily beaten up, 37 were arrested and driven to three different police stations. Most of them are already released with minor charges. From the information we were able to gather, 3 people will be charged with an attack on a functionary, those three are still in jail. The demonstration’s aim was to show that the city council in Poznan is not interested in developing the social-cultural side of the city but they only care about the profits coming from the wealthy investors. Activists from Rozbrat have been coming to the meetings of the city council for over a year now and the officials have never been interested in doing anything about our situation. They have been debating over a local development plan for the district of Solacz, where Rozbrat is situated and this debate has been taking them so long only because so many ordinary people have come and have been opposed against it. According to the plan, there will be a villa neighborhood on the premises of Rozbrat. Meanwhile, another culture center, the Inner Spaces gallery, which was renting a bulding from the city, has just been removed and the city decided to rent that space to a restaurant. Two independent and long-running cinemas Malta and Amarant also have to close down because they have been dominated by the big multiplex cinemas and they also haven’t received any support from the city council. Still, the authorities are standing for the title of the Cultural Capital for Poznan in 2016. Monday’s action was a call for the demonstration on the 20th March. We won’t give up without fight!

Pictures here:   http://www.rozbrat.org/galeria/category/218-

Video here:   http://www.szumtv.blip.tv/

ann arky’s home.