Allow John Calvin to stay: Petition to Canadian Government

"Imagine if, because of your religion, political beliefs and sexuality, your own family would have you killed. Imagine if the only way you could survive was to escape the society you were raised in. And now imagine you’d made a new life for yourself in a different country – only to be told you were about to be deported back to those who want you dead.

John Calvin doesn’t have to imagine any of this. Raised by a Hamas-supporting family in the West Bank – his grandfather was one of the founding fathers of the group - this young Palestinian man was indoctrinated to believe in violence, anti-Semitism, and an extreme interpretation of Islam. However, by the age of 15 he began to question these beliefs, beginning a journey that culminated in him converting to Christianity. For his parents, this was unacceptable. His life in grave danger, John had no choice but to escape.

Moving to Canada, John changed his name, joined a Christian university, and came out as gay. For several years, he had the security and freedom that would have been impossible back home. But dark clouds were forming on the horizon. His former "affiliation" with Hamas – a proscribed terrorist group – meant that he was threatened with deportation.

Despite having long ago renounced the ideals of his family, John’s final appeal was not only denied, it wasn't even heard. In a tragic twist of fate, Canada’s strict anti-extremism laws have sealed the fate of one man who has bravely stood up against the bigoted ideology he was born into.

There is no doubt as to what will happen if John is sent back to the West Bank. As he told us:

"In my particular case, deportation would mean a certain death. A fate that is sealed. Furthermore, it wouldn't be a merciful death either. For someone like myself, the punishment must be as severe as the "crime" itself. And my "crimes are unimaginable" – this is how they describe my religious conversion, coming out, and talking publicly to the media about it"

That’s why we’re asking you to help us put pressure on the Canadian government to allow John to stay. His life is in desperate danger – so please help us to help him."

Sign the petition here:

 

https://www.change.org/p/canadian-government-allow-john-calvin-to-stay-2

Sponsored by: 

ZF UK

The ZF is the UK’s leading Israel advocacy organisation countering false and unfair criticisms of Israel and educating and empowering people to promote a better understanding of the country by highlighting Israel’s positives.

Further info: http://www.zionist.org.uk/

The UCU’s recent Congress in Glasgow

Guest Post by Sarah Annes Brown



Although there are some divisions over strategy within the University and College Union, there was consensus over many of the most pressing problems facing members in HE and FE today.

Workers in our sector have seen the real-term value of their pay eroded, as well as further attacks on our pensions. Meanwhile workload problems have intensified in the face of increasing demands from employers.

Casualised contracts are a huge problem in HE, and whereas many members are stressed through overwork, others are on zero hours contracts with no certainty from one year to the next whether they will be offered any work at all. They also sometimes face less favourable treatment – for example being denied an institutional email or access to resources.

Inequality is a problem for our sector, and motions were passed in support of anti-racism, disability rights and LGBT equality. Other motions condemned violence against women and deplored bigotry aimed at Muslims and immigrants.

Colleagues in many branches are facing redundancy, unfair dismissal and aggressive performance management. At the University of Salford, for example, two colleagues were sacked, with no recourse to appeal, after they raised concerns about a restructure. It is thought that their union activism may have played a part in their treatment.

http://www.ucu.org.uk/7530

In the light of the increasing problems faced by workers in education, it’s not surprising that there was strong support for a motion calling for more cooperation with other TUs to explore the best ways of ensuring success and repositioning UCU as a fighting union protecting members’ pay, pensions and conditions. It also urged the NEC to act more quickly to authorise emergency strike action.

FIFA: It's all the Jews, I mean Zionists fault....

 

The arrest of a number of FIFA executives has been at the forefront of the news over the last couple of days or so. I don't follow football but lots of people do and it seems that these revelations come as no surprise. Playing football in the middle of one of the hottest parts of the world in Qatar? Seems odd even to an outsider like me. Backhanders? Seems unsurprising, though the figures involved are mind boggling to us ordinary folk on a "normal" wage and struggling.

Yet here we are. Corruption, fraud and backhanders passing between the rich.

The Swiss one of the most ardently neutral countries in the world have nicked these men and we all await a trial. It'll make the MP's expenses scandal look like peanuts in comparison.

Meanwhile readers might remember this charming chap back in 2011. The Times of Israel reminds us that:

Ex vice president of world soccer body Jack Warner, arrested as part of massive raid Wednesday, previously pointed finger at Israel after bribery scandal with Qatari official.

Former FIFA vice president Jack Warner, arrested in Trinidad and Tobago on Wednesday on bribery charges as part of a massive bust of top soccer officials, previously blamed “Zionism” for a bribery scandal which saw him forced from the world soccer body in 2011.

Warner surrendered to authorities late Wednesday in his native Trinidad and Tobago after his name appeared on a list of nine current or former FIFA officials and five business executives who “abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks,” according to US Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

Nothing to do with anything he might have done. Just blame the Jews Zionists.

He's not alone in this as unsurprisingly the anti-imperialist brigade through the laughingly named Stop the War Coalition have seemingly been reading the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (a Tsarist secret police forgery lets not forget) and have declared on their website:

The FIFA corruption crisis came just as its annual congress was due to debate a motion calling for Israel to be suspended from world football.

The corruption is "convenient" for Israel apparently as the well known collection of despots, dictators and other nasty regimes gang up to try and suspend Israel from FIFA. 

Only Israel of course. Never mind trying to reach a peaceful solution. Only the Palestinians suffer no one else. There's not even racism amongst these high and mighty coalition of countries that of course do not discriminate against women or gays, certainly don't oppress human rights, fix elections (when they bother) or commit genocide against their own minorities..

Lets not mention Tibet or the Kurds or the Baha'i or the Copts or....

No it's just Israel.

Just the Jews Zionists.

No matter what the problem just blame it on the Jews Zionists

What do another 6 Million matter to the anti-imperialists and their reactionary friends. Capitalism is of course just a  International Jewish Zionist conspiracy.

After all Adolf did warn us.., mein kamerads....

The far left IS the new far right.
---------------------------------------
Update: The StWC website has edited it's article since my post was written. It seems the comrades can be shamed but their true faces have been exposed.

Defending Trade Unions and the future

Worth noting amid fresh crackdown on unions that days lost to strike action fell from 2011 peak of 1.4m to 443,000 in 2013 ‪#‎QueensSpeech‬ (Prospect Union Tweet)

Trade unions are a long established force in British politics and have through struggle won and retained rights for their members over the years which has been for the benefit of millions of low paid and badly treated working people.

Unions have declined since the zenith in the 1970's and today the TUC is very much dominated by the public sector largely due to decline of both the manufacturing industry and mining since the Thatcher years. Yet for many they remain the first line of self defence against the excess of bad employers, of which there are many.

The Queens speech will contain the long threatened proposals to reduce the ability of unions to strike through measures reported in today's London Evening Standard:

A Trade Unions Bill will require a minimum 50 per cent turnout for union ballots on industrial action. But in key public services such as transport, health, education and the fire brigade, a strike will only be legal if at least 40 per cent of all those entitled to cast a ballot vote in favour of one.

Although not specifically mentioned in any reports I have read it is likely the Civil Service will be hit by the severe end of these measures.

Opponents will rightly point out that most MP's voting in favour of such legislation will not have reached a similar level of "threshold" and there is a high level of hypocrisy on the part of the Tory Government in pushing these quite unnecessary measure through.

Yes there are some badly run unions where strikes take place on very small turnouts (both PCS and the RMT are obvious examples) but the vast majority of strikes that take place tend to be smaller, more localised ones involving much smaller numbers of members.

These are those that are at the least political end of the trade union movement and tend to be over very specific issues and quite often in defence of a sacked or unfairly treated workmate. With Industrial Tribunals being made too expensive for workers, even in trade unions to undertake it seems the Tories want to have their cake and eat it, not that this will come as any surprise to the vast majority of the population some 63% who did not vote for this government.

More hypocrisy from David Cameron exposing his "one nation conservatism" for the charade it is. 

The legislation is not designed to benefit workers who "do not strike" as Boris Johnson tried to claim. Far from it. No one is forced to go on strike, the days of closed shops are long gone. The so-called militant union PCS has never managed to persuade the majority of it's members to go on strike at any one time. 

The nature of why people join unions changed a long time ago, but a lot of their leaders stuck in the 1970's mindset failed to notice due to their ideological preoccupations. Members see unions as "insurance", in particular personal insurance for when they get into trouble with management. A lot of union reps have become good advocates for their members and quite rightly so. 

Whilst not every case can be won (and sometimes there are a minority of members who cannot be saved due to the nature of their "offences") unions do a very good job.

Nevertheless there remains a huge gap in many unions between what members actually want and what their leaders and activists seek to use their organisations for.

Too much political nonsense that is not directly linked to trade union work and in the case of some civil service unions goes against the interests of large sections of it's membership. This is due to conferences and even internal elections being dominated by left wing activists who want to affiliate to and work for a whole range of activity that is of no concern to the average member in the sense that this is not what their subscriptions should be paying for.

If people want to get active in reactionary campaigns such as the totally misnamed Stop the War Coalition or the Trade  Unionist & Socialist Coalition then they should do so on an individual basis.

Unions exist to protect it's members within the industry or sector to which they belong. They do not exist to overthrow either parliamentary democracy or capitalism. The vast majority of members vote for the main political parties and more than a few will have voted either Tory or UKIP. Certainly far more than even considered the tiny and irrelevant TUSC.

Trade unions need reform and change but that needs to come from the inside. The old Marxist orientated left needs to be challenged and pushed aside. Not an easy task and one that may well take a generation to complete.

The sight of activists including some from the unions getting involved in rucks with the police outside Downing Street or Trafalgar Square does not impress the vast majority of union members.

However the oppressive legislation proposed by the Tories will backfire and give the far-left a boost they don't deserve.

The Bills proposed by the Tories in the Queens Speech are not democratic and pander to managements needs not peoples needs and should be dropped now.

Meanwhile the unions must modernise, democratise and prepare for a new less ideologically motivated future for the twenty first century.

Failure to do so will weaken the trade union movement further.

Time for change.

A Bank Holiday Interlude with Stanley Baxter

Well that was a weekend to remember. The British entry to Eurovision bombed despite being a great song but it was the Teutonic states of Germany and Austria that got Nil points. The Irish gave two fingers to the Catholic Church (about time) and voted for gay marriage.

And Stanley Baxter was 89 yesterday!

One of my favourite comedians from the seventies, not very politically correct but very funny. Here's a short reminder:

The Hypocrisy World Cup? FIFA sponsors must tell Qatar to play fair on workers' human rights.

Cross-post from Labourstart by Eric Lee

62 workers may lose their lives for each game played during Qatar’s 2022 World Cup, a tournament likely to be sponsored by FIFA partner companies Coke, VISA, McDonald’s, Adidas, Kia and Hyundai. Without sponsorship, this multi-billion dollar tournament couldn’t take place.

Most sponsors commit themselves to respecting the UN Declaration of Human Rights – which guarantees the right to join a union - and have specific policies banning forced labour and slavery in their supply chains. However, none of them seem to have considered that paying FIFA to host a tournament built on slave labour goes against everything they claim to believe in.

As a customer or potential customer of these multinational companies, can you help us pressure them to live up to their own ethical standards in how they spend their sponsorship funding?

We know money talks in FIFA. If one of these sponsors were to speak up it would be hugely influential in guiding FIFA and Qatar into ensuring that labour standards for people preparing the country to host the World Cup meet international standards of safety, decency and human rights.

Click here to send a message.

To learn more about this issue, click here.

To watch the video, click here.

PCS: Not a union for it's members

The aftermath of PCS Conference continues to astonish observers as the union digs it's own grave deeper after years of political and financial mismanagement leaving the union both isolated and broke. The end of check off has seen thousands of members just give up on PCS and either start looking for alternatives or worse leave trade unions behind.

Even putting aside the sectarian stance taken by the Serwotka/Socialist Party leadership towards the Labour Party and failing badly to gain attention with some misnamed Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition, it seems the comrades are more concerned about their being seen as defenders of the faith rather than act as trade unionists.

One of the more controversial government policies has been the "sanctions" placed on job seekers by the DWP. Now the union has every right to lobby and argue a case about such matters with the employer but in the case of PCS the political activist caste has placed its extra-curricula interests above defending ordinary members.

The Morning Star reports

Jobcentre workers in Sheffield put a motion to PCS conference suggesting that protests in Halifax, west Yorkshire, had been “hijacked by a minority of individuals keen to cause unrest and accuse jobcentre staff of deliberately using the sanctions system to persecute benefit claimants.”

The motion asked for PCS to withdraw an anti-sanctions leaflet jointly produced with the Community division of general union Unite, which organises unemployed workers. It demanded that the PCS logo not be used on any future materials to be distributed at such demonstrations.

Sheffield delegate Ian Davis told delegates: “We cannot be seen to condone protests outside our offices where members face intimidation.

“We’ve had resignations among long standing members, an impact on direct debit campaign which we cannot afford.”

He said PCS members were online and subjected to “extreme verbal abuse.”

At one protest, PCS members offering support felt “so intimidated they had to leave,” he said.

Sheffield wasn't the only place where members were incensed about being lobbied by protesters using PCS sponsored literature. Copies of a leaflet with the logo were circulated around the office I work in and members were not happy. This coming just before check off ended helps explain the high level of disillusionment that people felt about the union.

Given all the antics undertaken by the far-left leadership over the years spending huge amounts of time and members subscriptions on overtly political campaigning from promoting the TUSC/Respect (through the so-called Make Your Vote Count Campaign) to the Stop the War Coalition that proved nothing of the sort, along with defending Cuban dictatorship, sending delegations to meet Hamas terrorists the interests of the members became very secondary.

No wonder many of us took the plunge and went elsewhere. In my case Prospect, a whole department broke away to form the NCOA and more recently the RCTU was established by disgruntled HMRC members.



Of course in some departments or parts of the country such as Northern Ireland there is no readily available alternative so PCS has retained a certain level of membership but even that has been placed under threat by the recognition of Unison.



The "comrades" are not happy and Mark Serwotka is to make an official complaint to the TUC. But the days where members did not have a choice and were virtually held hostage by some unions are long gone.

In the past many members asked about an alternative to PCS. Now many of these people are leaving.

PCS has failed as a trade union and although there remain many decent reps and activists in it's ranks the union is now well beyond reform.

You have choices:

Prospect: https://www.prospect.org.uk/

Unison: http://www.unison.org.uk/

RCTU: https://rctunion.org.uk/ (HMRC)



Join a proper trade union today!