Search

Time and Motion Strike, Manchester 1934-7

The action was brought by five workmen: mr samuel davies, mr joseph cordt, mr levi wood, mr robert best and mr james bennett (in the employment of the firm from eight to forty one years) all of manchester, against rich¬ ard johnson & nephew ltd., wire manufacturers, of bradford ironworks, manchester, and charles h. bedaux, american efficiency experts of bush house, aldwych, london, w.c., mr d.n. pritt, k.c. represented the five men and mr gavin simmonds, k.c., the firm. Oh september 28, 1934, the firm sent the union a letter which ended: 'this action on the part of your society fur¬ ther compels us to give you due notice hereby to terminate all agreements applicable to our manchester works existing on 30 june, 1934, between your society and your mem¬ bers and ourselves'. 21 14  and that was a slamming of the door firmly intended not to be reopened, and all the sweet reasonableness on the part of the firm in subsequent discussion with the lord mayor, the representatives of the trade unions who had members in the works and representatives of the trades council could not hide the single mindedness of sir walter campbell and his colleagues in obtaining, peaceably and with the agreement of the union, if possible, forceably and with organised strike breaking, if necessary, the im¬ position of the bedaux system on the workers at messrs. richard johnson & nephew ltd. 7.

Novel Approaches A Tale for New Times

why aren't you in oxford?' and tom - who was becoming something of a dab hand at this - managed to imply that he was visiting the city for a limited time and unspecified purpose, and clara said she had some marxism today august 1989  visiting to do, and would he like to join her, and he said yes but what about her bicycle, and she said that if he felt up to it they'd ride together. And you're providing kids - again, especially round here - with alternatives to selling petrol to the rich and junk food to each other' and as though to answer tom's unspoken question, clara admitted that in exchange for state support for such endeavours, and the guarantee of jobs or student grants at youth wage rates, young people were required to take up at least one of the options offered. 'which as you can imagine caused some trouble with the class of '68,' said clara, 'the inalienable right not to work brigade, you know.'

WAR AND PEACE Rape and Women’s Politics

revolutionary feminists are saying nothing new by emphasising the conflict of interests between women and men;the women’s movement is based on the assumption that men are powerful and privileged in relation to women, and that we’re engaged in struggle as women against their relative power. There are obvious benefits of setting up a national network of anti-rape groups like the opportunity for regular ex­ change of information, experience and ideas, avoiding unnecessary duplication of work, facilitating co-opera­ tion with other groups like women’s aid and affirm, there was some anxiety that by setting up an auto­ nomous structure of our own we’d distance ourselves from the mainstream of the movement, and also that by strengthening our public presence we’d be in danger of becoming liberalised or co-opted.

We Are the Champions LIVERPOOL VS THE 1980s

The demise of empire and the expansion of north european trade left liverpool stranded on the wrong side of the country; continuing trade with the commonwealth was increasingly being carried in nigerian, indian, pakistani-flag ships as these and other countries sought savings on foreign currency; containerisation drastically reduced the numbers of ships and seafarers and the numbers of men needed to service ships when in port; air travel killed off the passenger ships and road haulage badly damaged the coastal shipping trade. On the understanding that the social character of a town or city is largely given by the social relations found in the dominant labour markets, it is easy to see how much liverpool has been shaped by ships and the commodities of empire and then commonwealth.

Strike to the Finish A roundtable discussion

the participants in the roundtable are: alan baker, who is the secretary of the oakdale lodge, south wales area of the num and a member of the welsh committee of the communist party; george bolton, who is vice-president of the scottish area of the num; and jack taylor, who is the president of the yorkshire area of the num, sits on the num national executive and is a member of the labour party. But we have also got a mass of miners who are, for whatever reason, not involved to that extent and, at this point in time, they are being held because of the negative or strong feeling of fear of what would happen if we did go back to work: the pits would shut, the coal board and the government would walk over them and trample their agreements underfoot, coupled with a good deal of loyalty to the union.

Karl Marx: 100 not out - roundtable discussion

But the very fact that marxism has to grapple with new forms of contradictions means that we must constantly ask the question, is marxism adequate to this task?  march 1983 ralph so long as class conflict endures so long will marxism as the doctrine of class conflict remain vital. ralph if one asks, has marxism developed an adequate strategy i disagree with bob about the speed of the transformation of the of revolutionary change in advanced capitalist countries, the  10 march 1983 marxism today answer, it seems to me, has clearly got to be 'no'.

The State of the Left in Western Europe

The spanish cp, which entered legality with the prestige of furthermore, the ability of the traditional its unparalleled resistance record and at the working class parties to rally round them communist parties broad alliance for progress has been weakthe situation of the communist parties is head of a fighting union movement built up ened, as has, unfortunately, their own inter- complicated by their very varying situation under franco, established itself as a strong nal cohesion. It was still possible to have some confidence in the historically inevitable rise of labour, which would eventually overcome capital-  marxism today october 1982 11 movements of their countries, play a minor role in politics, mass parties since at least 1945, and new parties which entered legality in the 1970s as potential or actual mass parties.

EQUALITY FOR WOMEN Have the laws worked?

average earnings and hours worked in 1978 average weekly earnings of which o/t payments pbr payments shift premium average weekly hours of which o/t hours male £80.7 £11.6 £7.2 £2.4 46.0 6.1 female £49.4 £1.7 £4.8 £0.9 39.6 1.1 male £100.7 £3.0 £3.0 £0.6 38.0 1.4 female £59.1 £0.6 £0.6 £0.3 26.7 0.4 source: new earnings survey 1978 to summarise, the concentration of women in certain sectors, the fact that those sectors in general and the particular jobs that women hold within them tend to be the lowest-paid, the predominance of parttime work by women and, finally, the greater reliance of women than of men on their basic rate only, as opposed to other elements of their earnings, are all characteristics of female employment to be borne in mind when assessing the extent to which the equal pay act and sex discrimination act were intended to challenge the status quo and the nature of their impact in practice. A neutral non-discrimination clause in a collective agreement is not much good either; positive steps for affirmative action to break down traditional barriers between male and female jobs, encourage women to re-train, and integrate maternity and paternity leave into the accepted pattern of employment, are all government policies are not only accelerating the decline of women's earnings relative to men's, but challenging the right of (married) women to take paid work at all.

Economics for the Age of Oligopoly—3

The influences operating on the rate of surplus value were rather more complex: on the one hand this rate would tend to be raised by such factors as increases in the intensity of labour, the decline in the value of wage-goods caused by increasing productivity, etc.; and on the other hand this rate would tend to be lowered by the resistance of the wage-earners to increases in the intensity of labour, their struggle to share in the increases in the real social product, etc. on balance, marx seems to have believed, the influence of the first of these two sets of factors on the rate of surplus value had been greater than that of the second, so that the rate of surplus value had in fact risen; but this rise in the rate of surplus value had not been sufficient to offset the downward pull upon the rate of profit caused by the great rise in organic composition which had occurred, so that the rate of profit had in fact fallen. ronald l. meek : karl marx's economics 23 was the interaction between technological and sociological factors which was of decisive importance - i.e., in the present case, to put the point in marx's terminology, the interaction between the ratio representing the organic composition of capital and the ratio representing the rate of surplus value.8 as capitalism developed and brought about the substitution of machinery for labour, marx argued, the organic composition of capital tended to rise, thus exercising a downward pull on the rate of profit.

The Impossible Object: Towards A Sociology Of The Sublime

1 taking advantage in what follows of the critical licence opened up within the post i shall move back and forth across this landscape mobilizing different kinds of knowledge, different voices, different kinds of writing, to reflect upon the provenance in the modern period of the idea of aesthetics and aesthetic judgement and to summarize two different but related critiques of the 'aesthetic': on the one hand, pierre bourdieu's work on the social origin and functions of aesthetic taste and, on the other, the postmodernist promotion, following nietzsche, of an 'anti-aesthetic' based on a rejection of the enlightenment idea(l) of beauty. 5 bourdieu has argued that it is only by understanding the social function of bourgeois and ostensibly anti-bourgeois, 'radical', avant-garde tastes that we can properly grasp the significance and the long-term effects of kant's work on aesthetics.13 for according to bourdieu, the pure aesthetic taste constitutes itself precisely in the refusal of impure taste and sensation, in the refusal of the 'vulgar' 'taste of the tongue, the palate and the throat'.

Rank and File Building Workers Movements 1910-20

frank jackson august 1977 1  abbreviations asc&j assm asw aubtw bsp bwiu cpgb ec lbif lcc lmba nabtc nfbte nfbto nw&cc obs ucatt tuc wra — — — — - amalgamated society of carpenters and joiners aircraft shop stewards' movement amalgamated society of woodworkers amalgamated union of building trade workers british socialist party building workers' industrial union communist party of great britain executive council london building industries federation london county council london master builders' association national association building trades council national federation of building trade employers national federation of building trade operatives national wages and conditions council operative bricklayers' society union of construction allied trades and technicians trades union congress. -also a full-time union official whose position would cease if the conference decided on the formation of a new union-concluded that 'hicks had not his heart in the work and that the personal side has got the better of him'.74 the following resolution was moved and carried: that seeing that every attempt that had been made to consolidate the unions in the building industry by the process of amalgamation has been met with unscrupulous opposition of the official element, which opposition has magni¬ fied out of all proportions the difficulties confronting the movement; grossly misrepresenting the proposals, and juggling with the votes; and seeing that in spite of the bitter and painful experience of the london lock-out that there is no genuine desire amongst the officials to move in the direction of consoli¬ dation:- it be resolved; that we herewith form a building workers' industrial union, capable of embracing all the workers in the industry in one organisation.

Problems of The German Anti-Fascist Resistance

now a v a i l a b l e reprint of no. 7 of "our history" "enclosure and population change" price 2s for further information, write to the secretary of the history group, t. ainley, 16 king street, london, w.c.2.  problems of the german anti-fascist resistance, 1933- 1945 allen merson i. was there a german resistance? in most countries in which fascist regimes prevailed before and during the second world war, whether as native growths or as an aspect of foreign occupation, broad anti-fascist resistance movements developed and played an important role in the country's liberation. it is particularly necessary that this question should be asked, because the widespread tendency to underestimate the german resistance to fascism and the part played in it by the working-class has led to a dangerous underestimation, 'even among sympathisers, of the historical roots and the moral and political strength of the g.d.r.  page the most influential accounts of the german resistance to appear in english have been versions of books by west german scholar, notably hans kothfels' the german opposition to hitler (1948, expanded l96l) and gerhard ritter's the german resistance (1958).

You've Never Had It So Good - Again!

While nationalised industry, state planning and consumer aggregate demand were popular images of the consumer boom as a game of chance or wheel of fortune 31 marxism today may 1988  'advertisers and marketers are not simply the "slaves of capital", driven by the frantic search for markets' cornerstones of the economic theory and practice of consensus politics, there was little attempt to translate postwar macro-economic policy into a political vocabulary which tapped into people's imaginings of personal as well as social good. And if - and it's a big if- labour can begin to think through its economic policy in cultural terms, in images as much as policies that pull on the commonsense of choice, fulfilment and styles of life, it may indeed have the making of the big idea to challenge popular capitalism on its home ground.

CROSSING THE PICKET LINE Interview with Finetime Fontayne

But i did a play about a club act and encouraged my family earlier this year, during the miners' strike, finetime fontayne played the part of henry wakefield, an unemployed scab, in coronation street. in coronation street henry wakefield became hilda ogden's lodger and pretended to go to work (at british rail) each day.

Angola under Attack: Watching the Revolution Being Taken Away

South africa's ten year old undeclared war with angola had the country on its knees, and the angolan authorities were deeply sceptical about western journalists, who mostly reported angola out of johannesburg, or through interviews with the fluent and media-friendly leader of unita, jonas savimbi, at his headquarters in south east angola, under the vigilant protection of the south african military; and none were allowed in except with a programme carefully controlled by the authorities. 143  soundings since independence from portugal in 1975 south africa had repeatedly invaded and occupied the southern provinces; a camp of swapo refugees, including many children, had been massacred from south african helicopter gun ships at kassinga; an anc teacher at the university of lubango, jeanette schoon, and her small daughter, had been assassinated by a south african letter bomb; tens of thousands of peasants had been killed, kidnapped, or driven from their villages by land mines - victims of unita terror tactics.

Balancing Act: Personal politics and anti-roads campaigning

there is enormous hopefulness for an old-time feminist campaigner like me to see so many young men committed to non-violence ('keep it fluffy' is what is urged as the bailiffs move in and the adrenaline surges.) and the anti-roads people are making their campaign into a positive campaign, with the sculptures on the street, and the 'inside-out' idea, having a community, a street for people not roads for cars. People who had made major changes in heir life, to be part of h a t campaign, some by virtue of being here; 90-year old dolly refusing to be evicted from a terraced house in claremont road where she'd lived all her life; he local lollipop lady who is committed to he campaign 126  balancing act greenham common to keep the streets safe for children.

The Homeward Path: Fragments Of Journeys Into New Worlds

And throughout this drifting course, a figure was always carefully put on things: three girls met at the fountain on one of the juan fernandez islands, a peak ioo metres high scaled to gain a vast panoramic view of the pacific and the andes, which is itself also judged to be some fifty leagues in extent and is studded with twenty little islands; ten gourds to be earned in valparaiso to pay for a wedding to a fiancee who, during that time, died of leprosy; four whaling boats and twenty-four oars beating through the waves in an attack upon a whale whose blood spurted up in columns some fifteen to twenty feet in height; five inches of snow covering the hill from which the traveller attempted to view - with the temperature at 150 centigrade - the kamchatka landscape which was still plunged in the boreal night; four big black dogs pulling the funeral cortege of a native to the top of the same hill, four ship's biscuits shared by this sailor on shore leave for the funeral meal on the dead man's tomb; four kilometres covered in a dizzy five-minute downhill sleigh-ride to catch up with the unleashed dogs that had set off three minutes before; the yourt 100 square metres in volume his companions took him back to - a phalanstery with soot hanging in black stalactites where bear and otter-meat and grilled fish mingled with the odours of men, women, children, foxes, and dogs; eighteen polynesian canoes coming alongside the ship to propose the unacceptable barter of a cargo of coconuts for the kitchen utensils it was carrying; the exchange - this time accepted - of a french sailor picked up by an american whaler for an american sailor picked up by a french whaler; 467 francs brought back to granville as a prize for four years' peregrinations and reduced in one night to 13 francs by the obligatory coup de parlance. 41 what buchner sought to discover, no doubt, was how these dreams and grievances would go on to become, for instance, the feverish but undiscriminating desires of plebeian magdeleines who, like the grisette marion in danton's death, made no distinction between carnal sensuality and the pleasure of looking at holy images,42 or like the character marie, in woyzeck, to whom everything was indifferent, but not, however, the fine appearance of drum-majors or the sparkle of an earring in a sliver of broken mirror; no doubt, too, buchner was obsessed by how they would grow, for instance, into the superstition and dread felt by the soldier woyzeck in his desperate attempts to come to terms with his 'dual nature', with the noises he heard underground and thought were perhaps made by freemasons, or with the shapes he saw mushrooms make in the grass, or with the world itself as it seemingly went up in flames; and buchner saw them at work, too, in the stories which idiots told, or which were passed on by grandmothers, repeated in the patter of the fairground or in the barrel-organ tunes and entertainments of those artisans who 'pissed cross-wise so a jew might die'.

Balancing act Personal polities and anti-roads campaigning

there is enormous hopefulness for an old-time feminist campaigner like me to see so many young men committed to non-violence ('keep it fluffy' is what is urged as the bailiffs move in and the adrenaline surges.) and the anti-roads people are making their campaign into a positive campaign, with the sculptures on the street, and the 'inside-out' idea, having a community, a street for people not roads for cars. People who had made major changes in heir life, to be part of h a t campaign, some by virtue of being here; 90-year old dolly refusing to be evicted from a terraced house in claremont road where she'd lived all her life; he local lollipop lady who is committed to he campaign 126  balancing act greenham common to keep the streets safe for children.

Old Fogeys and Angry Young Men: A critique of communitarianism

It is salutary that the great 54  old fogeys and angry young men movement of fathers in the 1990s has not been to reduce working time, nor to desegregate men's and women's incomes and social security benefits (which would mitigate the pressure on poor men to become itinerants, moving between giro drops, their own mothers and the mothers of their children), but to protest against the child support agency's attempts to make them pay for their children. Gershuny's research on british domestic labour and child-care not only shows that time spent with children is increasing among both fathers and mothers, but among those mothers working full-time the time spent with children is actually greater than the time given to children by full -time homemakers three decades ago.

The Migrations Of Modernism: Remaking English Studies In The Cold War

51 what is so striking, is that although kermode has not yet the term 'modernism', he presents a modernist canon and critical principles as already accepted, agreed and beyond question: 'the unanimity of the witnesses is impressive'; the critic 'cannot give up the autonomy of the symbolic work of art'; if a new poetic emerges, 'it will still, of course, be symbolist'; 'the one thing nearly everybody seems to be agreed upon is that the work of art has to be considered as a whole, and that considerations of "thought" must be subordinated to a critical effort to see the whole as one image; the total work is not about anything - "a poem should not mean but be" which is simply a vernacular way of saying what modern critics mean when they speak of it as "autotelic".' Terry eagleton, in literary theory, proposes no significant break between leavisism and new criticism: 'new criticism is generally taken to encompass the work of eliot, richards and perhaps also leavis and william empson, as well as a number of leading american critics'; eagleton finds in new criticism and scrutiny alike 'the ideology of an uprooted, defensive intelligentsia who reinvented in literature what they could not locate in reality'.

The Anti-Fascist People's Front In the Armed Forces

£5.00 orders to : (please include 25p per pamphlet postage & packing) history group, 16 john street, london ec1m 4al eds: bill moore, george barnsby isbn 07147 30882 published by the communist party history group £1.95  foreword on september 26, 1986, following the publication of richard kisch's book the days of the good soldiers, the history croup called a conference of communist party members, past and present, primarily those who had been in the armed forces during the second world war, in order to record a wider picture of communist activity that it was possible to present in the book. the anti-fascist people's front in the armed forces the communist contribution the contribution made by members of the communist party in the armed forces to stimulating discussions on war aims, and especially discussions about the kind of britain the troops wanted to come back to (with the usual conclusion about how to get it: by electing a labour government) was present almost from the beginning.

Staging the spectacle Reflections on Olympic and World Cup ceremonies

1 soundings issue 13 autumn 1999 staging the spectacle reflections on olympic and world cup ceremonies alan tomlinson alan tomlinson argues that since the la olympics of 1984, opening ceremonies have come to symbolise much more than sport olympic and world cup screenings the los angeles olympic games of 1984 was a watershed in the staging of the mega-sports event, providing spectacular opening and closing ceremonies to assert the superiority of the western, capitalist, free-american way over the oppressive eastern, communist, totalitarian soviet way. Billy the dreamer drew upon the platitudes of official olympic history: *our mission is to conduct the centennial olympic games with sensitivity, integrity, fiscal responsibility and commitment to the needs of athletes ... to share with the world the spirit of america, the experience of the american south and the vision of atlanta ... and to leave a positive physical and spiritual legacy and an indelible mark upon olympic history by staging the most memorable games ever ...

Staging the Spectacle: Reflections on Olympic and World Cup Ceremonies

1 soundings issue 13 autumn 1999 staging the spectacle reflections on olympic and world cup ceremonies alan tomlinson alan tomlinson argues that since the la olympics of 1984, opening ceremonies have come to symbolise much more than sport olympic and world cup screenings the los angeles olympic games of 1984 was a watershed in the staging of the mega-sports event, providing spectacular opening and closing ceremonies to assert the superiority of the western, capitalist, free-american way over the oppressive eastern, communist, totalitarian soviet way. Billy the dreamer drew upon the platitudes of official olympic history: *our mission is to conduct the centennial olympic games with sensitivity, integrity, fiscal responsibility and commitment to the needs of athletes ... to share with the world the spirit of america, the experience of the american south and the vision of atlanta ... and to leave a positive physical and spiritual legacy and an indelible mark upon olympic history by staging the most memorable games ever ...

'That's Entertainment': Generation X in the Time of New Labour

This school, most commonly associated with the work of ronald ingelhart and his collaborators, argues that generational changes provide the key to some of the most salient cleavages in politics and social attitude which prevail today.7 locating a seismic shift in political values amongst the generation which grew up in the conditions of affluence of the 1950s and 60s, these commentators argue that the emergence of new types of issues on the political agendas of modern states is a direct result of this generation's concern for quality of life issues, now that their basic economic security had been guaranteed, as well as of the impact of movements like feminism on a wide range of young people. Politics and voting: a briefing paper published by the british youth council, london, 1995; and d.walker, 'young people, politics and the media', in young people's social attitudes, barnados publishing, london, p l 2 1 . 192  that's entertainment meaningful spaces for political debate or sources of initiative and ideas for the parent party.

A Journey Through Blue Velvet: Film, Fantasy And The Female Spectator

although i do not want to tie different primal scenes too directly to different forms of looking, it does seem that in blue velvet the fantasy of castration is overwhelmingly linked to a voyeuristic/sadistic look while the fantasy of the primal scene is linked to a masochistic look. this does not mean that the female spectator will automatically identify with the feminine position - the situation is too complex to produce a neat split in relations of looking between female/feminine and male/masculine.15 although the representation of the seduction fantasy per se may not necessarily be locked into any particular form of looking, in this instance it has been overwhelmingly determined by the voyeuristic structures of the look (looking at the naked body) which are invariably linked to a scenario of castration within filmic mise-en-scene.