A year after the "fair tips" law, restaurant workers are still being robbed

In December last year, I commented on how changes in the law on tips paid to service sector workers hadn't prevented abuse by employers. This remains an ongoing issue, and has recently sparked protests from members of Unite the Union a year after the ineffectual change in the law.

The Brighton Solidarity Federation offers a fuller report and analysis;

The beginning of October saw the first anniversary of a change in the law designed to give waiters 100% of their tips. It was brought in because many café and restaurant owners were routinely taking advantage of a loophole in the law which allowed them to use their workers’ tips towards the wage bill. Despite being rewarded by customers with extra money for their hard graft, waiters were being paid only the minimum wage by unscrupulous managers.

The then Labour government, prompted by campaigns by Unite the Union, passed the law on 1st October 2009. But one year on, there are still problems front of house. According to Dave Turnbull of Unite, “There are still too many employers who regard tips as a subsidy for low pay and who see the tips and service charge money left by customers as a pot of cash to which they are free to help themselves.

“Unite members working in restaurants, hotels and bars across the country have seen establishments increase the percentage of service charge they deduct from their pay packets.”

Unite’s response to this is to propose further campaigns to get the government to act to put pressure on employers. Some of their members protested outside the Business Department last week, supported by no less than John Prescott, famous ex-shop steward and waiter in the merchant navy – now Lord Prescott.

However, what this demonstrates is the fact that the law is a paper tiger. For a year now the law has demanded that waiters get all of their tips – but employers know that they can find ways to get around it. The law also says that workers must be paid in full for work done – but as the Solidarity Federation has learnt recently rogue employers in Brighton are ignoring this and using the recession as an excuse not to pay up.

No amount of pleading to the government will change this situation. The only sure way of getting what we are legally entitled to is to demand it directly from our bosses in our own workplaces. Workers facing this kind of threat to their livelihoods need to stand together to demand their full wages and tips. This should be backed up with the threat of industrial action appropriate to the situation.

Brighton SolFed offer support to workers in their area looking to enact such threats, and they are not the only group willing to give a hand to workers trying to organise for the first time. The Industrial Workers of the World are also worth contacting, offering a wealth of knowledge, and experience to fellow workers in struggle.

Now, more than ever, we need to build a culture of solidarity across the working class, so that when the ruling class mess with one of us, they’re messing with all of us.

Why unemployment is not caused by worker organisation

In a 2003 paper (PDF) for the London School of Economics, Christopher A Pissarides argued that "the decline of trade union power" is one of the reasons for falling unemployment in Britain. Seven years later, this has been dredged up with much glee by the "Libertarian" blogosphere.

The Devil's Knife sums up the basic reasoning behind this;

Unions, in this day and age, exist to do only two things: inflate wages and protect their members' jobs (regardless of ability or need).

High wages reduce the number of jobs that are created—especially as technology becomes cheaper—and making it difficult to sack people not only means that jobs can be occupied by those who are not best suited to them, but also reduces the willingness of employers to take people on in the first place (thus reducing the available jobs).

This isn't exactly rocket science, is it?

It's not rocket science, indeed. But then it's not a science at all - it's economics, which is the business of blinding people to the obvious to suit the interests of certain classes.

I have already, previously, torn down the Devil's argument that worker organisation has no place or purpose in the present day. It is, quite simply, an absurdity and I feel no need to labour the point here. Suffice to say that workers, without organisation, face only a race to the bottom.

In fact, you will find this by going back to the writings of Adam Smith. Whilst workers "are disposed to combine in order to raise" wages, bosses are equally disposed to combine "in order to lower the wages of labour." More than that, "the masters can hold out much longer" than the workers if employment ceases. They can exist "upon the stocks which they have already acquired" from the labour of others.

The difference is that, in Smith's time, there was "a certain rate below which it seems impossible to reduce, for any considerable time, the ordinary wages even of the lowest species of labour." The "wages must at least be sufficient to maintain" the workforce.

With the advent of cheap credit, that is no longer the case. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (PDF), "a couple with two children needs [to earn] £29,200" in order "to afford a basic but acceptable standard of living." But many don't earn that. And many more have to work multiple jobs and live hand-to-mouth in order to barely scrape that figure.

Add to that the casualisation and ever cheaper labour that comes from un-organised workers, and the idea of a level below which employers cannot reduce wages quickly vanishes. Compared to previous generations, we are working for less - and harder.

Returning to the argument that strong unions increase unemployment, this may be true to a certain extent. But if lower wages mean more jobs, at what cost does that come? Talk to those stuck in precisely the casual work that such a market creates, such as Chugging, and you will see that trapped is exactly the right descriptor to use.

They have no base wages. They have no statutory entitlements. Attempts to assert their rights or to combine will see a target on their back and their arses out the door. They endure appalling conditions, for pitiful return, and often can find nothing better because of the declining standards of work.

Is this really an acceptable alternative to unemployment? Is this really the alleged prosperity created by the free market and the employers enjoying an unopposed monopoly of force?

The idea that high wages and job security leave those not employd out in the cold is an argument put forward in the past by Milton Friedman. In Free to Choose, he argued that unionisation frequently produces higher wages at the expense of fewer jobs, and that, if some industries are unionised while others are not, wages will decline in non-unionised industries.

But, from the left, this is a point that the Industrial Workers of the World (amongst others) make - in favour of more universal organisation!

One of the major left-libertarian criticisms of craft or trade unionism is that by organising along the lines of specific crafts or trades rather than across entire industries it creates a two-tier workforce and improves conditions for one group of workers only at the expense of another.

The alternative to this is not to get rid of organisation and equalise everything with a race to the bottom. That only benefits the bosses and makes the problem more acute.

Rather, the answer is to organise workers as a class, to unite everyone in any given industry under the same banner, and to challenge the broader injustices of the wage labour system. Rather than defending one insider group to the detriment of everybody else.

Part of which would involve pushing for greater investment and employment, both inside the workplace and outside through the organisation of the unemployed, to challenge exactly that issue.

But none of this increases the power and privilege of the ruling and propertied class, and so you won't here the right-wing (least of all self-styled "Libertarians") arguing for it. As Adam Smith noted so long ago, the combinations of the masters go unremarked upon, viewed as entirely natural, whilst the combination of workers is derided and scorned as the physical manifestation of evil or madness.

Unemployment is the product of an economic system built on theft and artificial scarcity. Those who would have us believe that combining to challenge that system is the real fault do so only because of ideological dogma. And, to be frank, they can fuck right off.

Anarcho-blogging roundup #4

Once again, I'm out of the city and away from the computer. Not that I lead (or have the money to lead) a jet-set lifestyle of any sort, you understand. A three-day training course in Manchester isn't quite the same as swanning off to the south of France for the weekend.

But anyway, in my absence, here's a quick tour around the anarchist and left-libertarian blogosphere. With, for the pedantic amongst you, a few stops at blogs that don't neccesarily self-identify as such.

@ndy comments on his own "outing" on Stormfront. He also offers us an obituary for the Australian Defence League, some more insights into Australia's "nutzis," and an interesting 2008 documentary called Antifa: Chasseurs de Skins.

Ian Bone has had an inspiring day out in Norwich in support of justice for Ian Tomlinson.

Molly Mew reports on the second organised Wal-Mart in North America, and some airport God-Botherer bothering whilst Ann Arky comments on the Spanish General Strike and protests in France. Cactus Mouth talks about the shape of British Democracy.

Over in the world of media blogging, Angry Mob tears apart the Daily Mail's polemic on asylum seekers, and reports on a rather interesting Twitter exchange involving Duncan Bannatyn from Dragon's Den. Whilst Adam Ford reviews Jack London's The Iron Heel and Nick Cave's The Death of Bunny Munro.

Aethelred the unread comments on the difficulties of finding blogging inspiration, and what it's like to find out he's "probably" not autistic.

Julia is back and on top form at Ten Minutes Hate, telling Gillet and Hicks to do one from Liverpool FC and advises readers to accept no half measures. Her considerable rant on sweat is also worth a look-in.

Quiet Riot Girl is scribbling on Foucault's walls (two links). Seán has had a script leaked to him about Yates of the Yard.

Where's the Benefit offer an easy way to protest your MP, and a series of thoughts on Mental Health Day. Bendy Girl talks about finding work [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. And Mr Civil Libertarian tells us why Real Welfare Queens wear Armani Suits, not tracksuits.

Finally, leading people over to my other blog, I shamelessly urge a read of Children, sex, and the age of consent, Atheism and all the things it's not, and Some thoughts on fascism and loyalism.

The picture on this blog comes via Ian Bone. And I'll finish with the observation that, if all of that isn't enough to keep you occupied, then you have too much time on your hands and really, really need a hobby. Or a pet.

Putting a new spin on "bank robbery"

Via Ann Arky, who tips her own hat to Politics in the Zeros, I today came across this truly astounding story from the States;

In yet another sign that the foreclosure crisis in the US may be getting out of hand, a Florida woman has gone to the press about having her home broken into -- by an agent of her mortgage bank.

Nancy Jacobini of Orange County, Florida, says she was three months behind on her mortgage payments, but not in foreclosure, when she heard an intruder breaking into her home. 

Panicked, she called 911 and spent 10 nervous minutes on the phone with a dispatcher only to discover that the intruder was an agent of her mortgage company, JPMorganChase, who had come to change the locks on her home.

"Someone is breaking ... somebody broke into my house!" a frightened Jacobini can be heard saying on a 911 tape obtained by WTFV channel 9 in Jacksonville.

Now, I'm hardly a legal expert, but I know for a fact that this was an illegal act not only on the part of the burglar, but also the bank that hired them.

In Britain, even with a repossession order, bailiffs cannot force entry into your home. They must be invited or go through an open door or window. In America, I don't know if that same protection applies. But certainly, when a home is not in foreclosure and there is no possession order, they have no right to be there.

As Politics in the Zeros comments, "it’s getting so hard to tell the difference between organized crime and bankers now."

The solution recommended by Tickerguy is to "buy guns." He points out that in such a situation, many Americans "have every right under the law to stop him, up to and including the use of deadly force." I'm not sure I'd go that far, but there certainly is a case for greater community self-defence.

To cite a point I've made previously;

Groups such as Neighbourhood Watch are nothing more than gatherings of curtain twitchers, thinking they can make a community safer by putting stickers on lamp posts or acting as killjoys towards local kids. But there is no reason that people couldn't organise their neighbourhood along more radical lines, resisting thugs and repelling burglars without treating all kids as villains or getting embroiled in "keeping up with the Joneses" nonsense. Likewise, we need to advocate a defence of posession rather than or private property, recognising that defending your home and attacking private property are not oppositional acts but both a part of working class self-defence.

If we've reached the point where banks are willing to hire people to break into your home before they can lawfully repossess it, then this argument only becomes more urgent.

Graduate tax off, but students still about to be screwed

Back in July, business secretary Vince Cable proposed to solve the problem of tuition fees with a graduate tax. Needless to say many, including my other half, thought this another way of pricing the poor out of higher education. Now, it seems that the government has responded to this feeling.

However, as so often in politics, the good news is just sugar-coating for the bad;

Vince Cable has admitted the government will not make any move towards a graduate tax to fund universities.

Tory and Lib Dem members are to receive an e-mail explaining the decision in a move that will be seen as preparing the ground for a hike in tuition fees.

Lord Browne's review of fees in England is expected to recommend more than doubling fees to about £7,000 a year.

Yes, because lord knows that students don't come out of university in enough debt as it is. The figure is currently set to reach an average of £25,000 per student, and will only grow exponentially as fees are hiked up.

We should add to that the fact that it is especially low-paying and casual jobs, i.e. those frequented by students to make extra cash, are seeing pay freezes or below-inflation rises, both of which amount to a cut in pay. Thus, whilst the money they will owe out is rising, the money they can rake in is steadily falling, which will further mount up the debts.

All of which is compounded by the fact that after university graduates are no longer able to make up for that by entering lucrative careers. Many are among the one in five workers who are trapped in low-paying employment, even long after they leave university.

This is a slap in the face to all those students who (naively) supported the Liberal Democrats for their tuition fees pledge. But it is also another example of what is really happening in the economy - with universities dragging more money out of students whilst cutting what they can get in return. The only beneficiaries of this will be those raking in the cash, as ever.

When the graduate tax was announced, the National Union of Students urged a "critical mass" to mobilise against the fees as "the arrogance of vice chancellors and the supine response of spineless politicians in the Labour and Tory parties must not go unchallenged."

But this is not just about students, as employees of the universities are affected by the same cuts. This is, in fact, a microcosm of the wider class struggle, wherein the interests of the workers and of the broader community don't simply overlap: they are virtually identical. It could also provide a model for how workplace and community resistance could work in tandem.

University staff need to get behind the students and support their actions, especially more radical ones such as occupations. At the same time, students must refuse point blank to cross a single staff picket line. It is only with solidarity, and coordinated militancy, that any victory can be won.