History that's haunting America

FRONTLINE TO PICKET LINE. US war vets line up to protect Oakland occupation.


AMERICA'S Occupy Wall Street movement has not only spread across the continent from shore to shining shore, but taken on new seriousness in the West Coast port city of Oakland, where police attacks on the protesters have widened their support, and led to a general strike action stretching from school teachers to longshoremen (port workers).

People were not placated by an apology from the mayor after an ex-marine was injured when police officers fired tear gas canisters into the crowd. As the Marine Corps paper reported:

OAKLAND, Calif. — A clash between Oakland police and Occupy Wall Street protesters left an Iraq War veteran hospitalized Wednesday after a projectile struck him in a conflict that came as tensions grew over demonstration encampments across the San Francisco Bay Area.

Scott Olsen, 24, suffered a fractured skull Tuesday in a march with other protesters toward City Hall, said Dottie Guy, of the Iraq Veterans Against the War. Olsen’s family members said the Marine Corps corporal served two tours of duty in Iraq.

The demonstrators had been making an attempt to re-establish a presence in the area of a disbanded protesters’ camp when they were met by officers in riot gear.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2011/10/ap-iraq-vet-critically-injured-oakland-protest-102711/

Fortunately Scott Olsen recovered. But news of the attack brought more ex-servicemen out to line up in protection of the protest camp, and stirred expressions of support from among serving military personnel.

Although some wild rumours had been flying around about "the marines coming", there is no doubt that ex-marines and other veterans have been turning up at occupy protests, not just on the West Coast but at Wall Street itself. Their participation is at least partly motivated by experience of the jobs market and health issues after the military has dispensed with their services, and has apparently taken extra encouragement since the AFL-CIO unions voiced support.

http://www.care2.com/causes/u-s-marines-protect-occupy-wall-street-protesters-video.html

http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/more-veterans-on-the-way-to-occupy-wall-street.php

We might also note that in a week when politicians and the media have been trying to turn poppy-wearing and Armistice Day into their own propaganda stunt, a group of ex-servicemen turned up at St.Paul's cathedral to meet with the Occupy LSX campers.

Although the British Legion and American Legion are different, both originated in the period after the First World War and Russian Revolution, when the ruling classes grew frightened that returning servicemen facing unemployment and hardship would form dangerous revolutionary material. One only has to look at photographs of the original Jarrow Crusade to see that these marchers with neatly folded capes over their shoulders were marching in step and used to it.

But for the United States, supposed land of safe and successful capitalism, the news of ex-servicemen siding with the people against the bankers, and coming into potential conflict with the very forces they served has a haunting echo of history. Next year will be the 80th anniversary of the Bonus March when unemployed ex-servicemen went to Washington to demand payment of money owed them from their First World war service.

The Bonus Expeditionary Force, as they called themselves, numbered 43,000 marchers, 17,000 First World War veterans. their families, friends and supporters, who assembled in Washington, D.C., in the spring and summer of 1932. Many had been out of work since the onset of the Depression.

Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, who became famous for his frank and outspoken criticisms of US policy and the use made of the military to serve big business interests by intervening overseas, visited the marchers' camp to show support.

But on July 28 US. Attorney General William D.Mitchell ordered the veterans removed from all government property. First the Washington police moved in, and meeting resistance, opened fire. Two veterans were wounded and later died. Then President Hoover ordered the army to clear the campsite.

At 4:45 p.m., commanded by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the 12th Infantry Regiment, Fort Howard, Maryland, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, supported by six battle tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, formed in Pennsylvania Avenue while thousands of civil service employees left work to line the street and watch. The Bonus Marchers, believing the troops were marching in their honor, cheered the troops until Patton ordered the cavalry to charge them—an action which prompted the spectators to yell, "Shame! Shame!"

After the cavalry charged, the infantry went in with fixed bayonets and adamsite gas, an arsenical vomiting agent. Driven out, veterans, families, and supporters retreated across the Anacostia River to their largest camp. Hoover ordered the assault stopped. But General MacArthur, who regarded the Bonus March as a Communist attempt to take power, ignored the President and ordered a new attack.

(Perhaps a later President Truman was mindful of this episode when, fearing war with China, he relieved General MacArthur of his command in Korea, and MacArthur came home to a ticker-tape reception on Wall Street).

Fifty-five veterans were injured in the onslaught and 135 arrested. A veteran's wife miscarried. When 12-week-old Bernard Myers died in the hospital after being caught in the tear gas attack, a government investigation reported he died of enteritis, though a hospital spokesperson said "the tear gas did not do it any good".

The US public showed what it thought by dumping Hoover and giving a landslide electoral victory to Franklin Delano Roosevelt that year. In 1933 there was another veterans' march, which Roosevelt tried to defuse with a more compromising approach, though it was to be some years before he was forced to agree the bonus.

On the labour front, 1934 saw a West Coast maritime strike, which became a general strike in the San Francisco bay area, including Oakland. There was also the widely supported teamsters' strike in Minneapolis.

The two men killed when police opened fire on the Bonus Marchers in Washington were William Hushka , a Lithuanian immigrant who had served in the US Army in World War I, and Eric Carlson a veteran from Oakland, who had served in the trenches in France during that war. Both men are buried at Arlington.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army

Studs Terkel's Hard Times, an oral history of the Great Depression, has accounts of the Bonus March and its repression.

Cleaning up with the help of Controls

WHILE James Murdoch was denying he knew anything about how his Dad's firm's hacks hacked into people's private communications, and Home Secretary Theresa May was denying responsibility for Border Controls officers being told to reduce passport checks, I was almost nostalgic for the days when Labour was in office and ministers were automatically held accountable -by the Murdoch press among others - for every file that went astray in the post. Nobody asked why Her Majesty's mail was being carried by private couriers.

In those days too the Home Secretary was ridiculed for being unable to say exactly how many illegal immigrants there were in Britain. I could not see how people who had somehow managed to sneak in illegally were supposed to be counted, and to hear the papers you'd think they knew where they lived, but I was never that good at maths, not even the flexible sort called statistics.

But with Labour trying to beat the Tories at their own game by chasing Theresa May over immigrants and borders, a friend has questioned the pretence that this is about "security", He asked innocently how many terrorist attacks in Britain in recent decades have been carried out by people who were here "illegally"?

"Not many", is I think the most generous answer.

But surely that is not the point. We may have had buildings and transport bombed by Irish Republicans, UK -born Muslims (and Zionists if you go back to the 1940s) and supposedly "lone wolf" members of the British Far Right, but if you are recruiting people to build, look after and clean them, that's where the "illegals" come in.

But it is the control system which makes people "illegal", and helps make the business work.

Cleaning is an oustanding, albeit not unique, example. From prestigious City banks to hospitals, colleges, and trains, the work is put out to companies which bid for cheapness by employing people who are desperate for the work. These workers can expect neither the pay and conditions nor security obtained by inhouse staff. But then they try to better their position a bit by organising and joining a union. That's when the employer or agency starts to look for excuses to get rid of someone, or takes an interest in their passports, and the border police show up. By sheer coincidence, of course

In June 2009, ISS. the company employing cleaning staff at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) called all its staff to a meeting in a ground floor room at 7 am one morning. When they were assembled more than 40 police in full riot gear entered by fire doors and the main entrance and surrounded the workers.

They cleaners were locked in the room and then led one by one into another room, where their immigration status was checked during which they had no representation or even a translator (many staff are native Spanish speakers). A lot of the cleaners were in emotional distress. A trade union representative was refused access to the staff.

The raid was instigated by the cleaning contractor ISS who requested the police action. (Ironically ISS had won this contract from another company which was not paying a living wage). Two members of SOAS management were present during the raid liasing with the police. Nine cleaners, five of them UNISON members were taken into detention. One detained cleaner was six months pregnent, she collapsed during the events. Five of those detained were already being put on planes and returned to poverty and possible persecution in South America within a few days of arrest, and while SOAS students and fellow trade unionists were meeting to protest.

A current case concerns John Laing Integrated Services. Known as a major building contractor, Laing has expanded into numerous niches in the public sector (which we were always told is not "wealth creating". ) John Laing Integrated Services (JLIS) boasts that it "provides a full suite of operational services to public sector clients, including local authorities, education, rail, police, fire and rescue, health and cultural services. We are also at the forefront of outsourcing for library services, being the only private sector organisation running and directly employing library professionals in the UK. Our approach is based on providing a fully integrated solution to the management of services and facilities. We develop management solutions that enable our clients to focus on their core business, whilst delivering first class services to their customers."

John Laing Integrated Services is managing library modernisation in the London Borough of Hounslow and services at several London police stations, as well as the public order and firearms training centre at Gravesend.

It also runs cleaning on London Overground railways. And as the RMT rail union announced recently:

"RMT CLEANERS have forced contractor John Laing Integrated Services to recognise the union on London Overground following an organising campaign that has seen the vast majority of the workforce join the union since the end of March.
A ballot carried out under Central Arbitration Committee rules after the firm refused to enter into a voluntary agreement returned a six-to-one vote to give RMT bargaining rights for the staff, who work from depots at Acton, Gospel Oak, New Cross Gate and Willesden.
The union has been waging a long-term campaign to win better terms for transport cleaners who have seen their pay and working conditions squeezed massively by hard-nosed sub-contractors since rail privatisation 15 years ago".

RMT general secretary Bob Crow said:
“Our reps at John Laing deserve massive credit for a determined organising campaign that began only in March, supported by organisers and activists from across the RMT family".

The sequel wasn't long in coming, as RMT activist Steve Hedley reports. over 30 workers were rounded up by the border cops, in collusion with the company.

"These workers were told by their managers to come in to do overtime. When staff said that they did not wish to do this overtime the managers became insistent. Instead of being given overtime they were hauled in by Border Agency agents. These workers now believe that there was never any overtime for them to do and John Laing is clearly complicit in this disgraceful operation.

"The incident occurred on October 25. Among those rounded up was one of the RMT representatives who was handed over as ‘the RMT Rep’ by management. Further evidence of John Laing complicity – if further evidence was needed – comes from payslips where the pay of those who were to be detained had been stopped in advance and when workers arrived with company vehicles there were staff there ready to take these vehicles off them and drive them back to the depot".

RMT members and supporters will be lobbying:

John Laing Headquarters

Arlington House

150 Victoria Street, opposite Victoria station

Wednesday November 16 8 am -10am

Most of those detained have now been released. Despite this a John Laing manager has said that none of those who had been detained will be re-employed.A number have not yet been released and may even face deportation. The RMT will assist these members legally and will be part of any fight back against deportation

The Union is conducting an inquiry into these events and John Laing’s complicity in them. It says it will fight to get the members back to their workplace. "The Border Agency was used against members on LUL and Network Rail after RMT won the London Living wages. We saw them off there and will see them off here as well."

HARD-WORKING "EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH" TREATED WORSE THAN CRIMINAL

THESE actions concern human beings, not statistics, and decent workers, not the kind of stereotype depicted in the tabloid media. Here is a footnote about one of them.

Marciano Flora is a cleaner on London Overground, working for the contractor John Laing. The Home Office wants to deport Marciano. But he, his family and his workmates want him to stay in London. Please support our campaign.

Marciano Flora is 42 years of age. He came to London in October 2006, invited by his brother-in-law to work as a plumber in his company. He had a five-year working visa.

His brother-in-law describes him as “such a hard worker, who never complained, and got on well with our clients.” Unfortunately, the business went into liquidation in December 2009 due to the recession.

Marciano immediately looked for another job, and began working for John Laing as a cleaner in March 2010. He showed all his details, including his passport, and was assured that it was legal to work in this job.

Within six months working for John Laing, Marciano was nominated for an ‘employee of the month’ award. He is hardworking and popular at work, and actively involved in his church.

On Tuesday 25 October 2011, John Laing told several of its employees to carry out cleaning duties, and then gathered them inside a school hall for the UK border police to arrest them. Marciano had applied for leave to remain in the UK before his visa was due to expire in October, and has a receipt letter from the Home Office that this application is being processed. He explained this to the officers, but they arrested him. He is now being held in a detention centre in Dover, and has been told that he must leave the country by Wednesday 9 November.

Marciano Flora is very much settled here in London. He lives with his sister and brother-in-law, and has a very close relationship with them and their two daughters, Chloe and Chanelle.Marciano is a member of the RMT trade union. The union is helping Marciano to fight this unjust deportation, and we need your help.

http://www.marciano.epetitions.net/

http://rmtlondoncalling.org.uk/node/2360

http://stevehedleyrmt.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/john-laing-union-busters-offer-low-paid-cleaners-overtime-and-then-have-them-arrested/

http://www.irr.org.uk/2009/june/bw000034.html

Police "kettled" electricians to prevent them joining students

The National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) has issued a statement
condemning the actions of the police in London on the 9th November
in kettling over 200 construction electricians for well over an hour.

"Workers, including many in their 50s and 60s, were left standing
within  a ring of riot police with no access to food, drink or toilet
facilities.At the end of this harrowing experience, coming after they
had spent most of the day marching, they were subject to a search and,
we  believe, manyunlawfully forced to give their names and addresses.

No doubt many of these workers will be getting a letter from the Met's
new commissioner, warning them off future peaceful protests!  Their
crime? After marching in protest at the plans of the big construction
companies to smash their Joint Industry Board (JIB) contracts which
will cut their wages by up to 35%, they wanted to show solidarity with
the many  students who have supported their 3-month long campaign by
joining their  demonstration.

Out of the 2,000 workers who took part in the Unite-organised march
to the Balfour Beatty site at Blackfriars, about 300 started to make
their way up  to Fleet Street to wait for the student protest so that
they could march with them.  Disgracefully, police converged on these
workers and barred the way and were later joined by members of the
Met's Territorial Support Group, successor to the notorious Special
Patrol Group!

Startled by their actions, some managed  to push through
the lines while the others were stopped and quickly contained.
It became clear that the intention was to keep us kettled until
the student demonstration had marched past. In a magnificent show
of solidarity, we  believe led by the Jarrow marchers and other
student campaigners, the students  stopped their march in an
attempt to relieve the electricians' siege.

However, such was the overwhelming presence of police on the
student protest,it was eventually forced to continue. Finally,
the electricians were let out of thekettle but not without
being forced to give their personal details. Why? Because
the police's commanding officer deemed that a 'breach of the
peace' was likely! Reasons given for believing this after an
entirely peaceful march included worries of a repetition of
the incidents of last year's student demonstrations, that the
march, having 'deviated' from its agreed route, was now 'illegal'
and even, most scandalously, that the electricians were going
to attack the students' demo! 

The police may have achieved their aim of stopping significant
numbers of these workers from joining the students but if anything
their repressive and undemocratic actions have brought home to both
groups how the police are  being used to attack the rights of protest
and assembly. The police action  yesterday is the first instance
to our knowledge of workers being on thereceiving end of the same
treatment meted out to students and young people over the last few
years, and particularly over the last 12 months.  This is being done
in the interests of this government that is making working-class and
many middle-class people, young and old, pay for the  bankers' crisis
and ruthless companies, like Balfour Beatty that has an order
book of £15 billion and has made £91 million profits in the last
six months, yet has given 1600 of its workers notice that they will
lose over £200 a month in wages.

The NSSN has supported the electricians'protests over the last three months,
which has grown in support despitethe media blackout and we support Unite's
strike ballot against Balfours. Like the students, these workers had a
tremendous reception from bystanders in central London, even though the first
leg of their march, organised by rank  and file electricians, started at the
Pinnacle in Bishopsgate at 7am! Buses came from all round the country, with
the Newcastle coach leaving at midnight. 

All unions and anyone who still believes in the freedom of protest
and assembly must condemn yesterday's events.

On November 30th, three million workers will be striking against the ConDems'
attacks on public sector pensions. Many of them will be joining rallies and
demonstrations. It is clear from yesterday, that the best protection for our
civil liberties is to ensure that these demonstrations  are numerous, as big
as possible and very well stewarded. 

info@shopstewards.net
http://www.shopstewards.net/contact.us.htm
https://www.facebook.com/groups/332519048044/  

Invisible Men (and Women) battle cops, but baffle Beeb

HOW many newsreaders would it take to change a lightbulb?

Reason I ask is that I was watching the BBC News 24 yesterday for live coverage of the big student protest, and formed the impression that the corporation no longer employs electricians, indeed is training its staff so they do not see, let alone believe in such persons.

I knew that electricians and other construction workers were planning to come into town yesterday morning, as part of their continuing campaign against de-skilling and pay cuts, and the anti-union blacklist. After visiting two big sites, the Shard and Blackfriars, they were due to go on to an official union-backed lobby of parliament.

Rather than compete with the students for attention, the workers intended to join their forces.

Watching the BBC news, we got helicopter-born coverage, interrupted only occasionally by news of the Greek crisis, and were told that some unspecified other groups were demonstrating that day, or had joined behind the student demonstration. We were even told that police were guarding a big building site at Blackfriers from demonstrators, but might have been left with the impression this was just some breakaway student group or anti-capitalist protesters heading that way for no partiular reason.

In the evening I stepped on to a train and picked up an evening paper, and sure enough it had a photo of a crowd of people who it said were electricians struggling with police. The story mentioned that they were union members fighting pay cuts. Later I met a university lccturer friend who had been on the student demonstration. He complained of "heavy" and intimidatory policing and said "They would not let the electricians join us".

Fortunately we no longer have to depend on corporate media for our news and here's more about the sparks protest, as reported by freelance photographer and journalist Peter Marshall:

Around a thousand 'sparks' (electricians) protested in London today over plans by 7 major employers to tear up national agreements and impose worse conditions and pay cuts of at least 26 %.

The seven companies - Bailey Building Services, Balfour Beatty, Tommy Clarke, Crown House Technologies, Gratte Brothers, SES and SPIE Matthew Hall - announce in May that they were withdrawing from the long-standing Joint Industry Board (JIB) pay and conditions deal in the construction industry. In its place they intend to impose 'BESNA', the Building and Engineering Services National Agreement, which will result in the replacement of skilled workers by lower grade workers.

Unite has targeted Balfour Beatty as the ringleader of the companies, and at today's protest rally outside The Shard site next to London Bridge station, General Secretary Len McCluskey announced that the union has given notice today of a strike ballot for its members employed by them.

Several hundred electricians had arrived in London earlier in the day and had held a protest in Bishopsgate and visited the OccupyLSX site at St Paul's before marching to the protest meeting in the street leading to The Shard site, one of Balfour Beatty's many projects, which also include Crossrail and some power stations.

As they waited for the official Unite rally to start, there were a number of speeches by rank and file trade unionists including Rob Williams of the National Shop Stewards Network. These were followed by several Unite union speakers, including Assistant General Secretary Gail Cartmell, construction workers' rep Kevin Williamson, regional officer Bernard McAuley and London regional officer Harry Cowap, before a final address by McCluskey.

BESNA would see fully qualified craftsmen largely replaced by a new grade of 'Installer' on £10.62 per hour, with a ratio of one craftsmen to eight installers in restructured 'gangs'. For most workers it would mean a basic cut of 26% in pay, but they would also lose out on overtime pay, with an end to the seven and a half hour day allowing employers to arrange shifts to cover unsocial working hours. Workers would also lose out on allowances for travel of over 25 miles and for accommodation where required.

Balfour Beatty is an extremely profitable company and the union says "It has no need whatsoever to rob its employees in order to satisfy its shareholders. Perhaps the threat of strike action will bring Balfour Beatty to its senses and back to the negotiating table." Despite the recession it is doing well and "orders are up six per cent with £15.5 billion worth of projects on its books since last year and the latest interim shareholder dividend is up five per cent.

I left the electricians as they marched through Southwark to a further rally outside another Balfour Beatty site at Blackfriars.

http://www.demotix.com/news/918202/electricians-protest-against-de-skilling-and-pay-cuts

Appeal to "Rank-and- File police"!

Incidentally, some enterprising sparks recently produced a leaflet containing an "Appeal to Rank and File Police from Rank and File Electricians". Explaining how Balfour Beatty had issued termination notices to 1,700 electricians, and were refusing to negotiate, it also pointed out that this company, which does well with government contracts, had been "found guilty of operating an illegal blacklist" to stop union reps getting another job.

Comparing this with what would happen if a Police Federation representative was sacked and denied employment in any police force, the leaflet asks "What would you do?"

Reminding the police that they are facing job cuts, and pay reductions due to changes in allowances, the leaflet appeals to "rank and file police officers" to support the democratic right to protest.

I have not heard how police responded, if at all, to this appeal to their better nature, but it does not appear to have inhibited their action yesterday. My informant says police faces seemed full of hate and anger. Perhaps they were disappointed at not getting the chance to use plastic bullets/ baton rounds as we were promised would be issued.

Another glimpse from the day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_kCB54oi04&feature=share

To be fair to the BBC, their view from above seemed mainly focussed on Trafalgar Square, where some breakaway students briefly set up tents before the police moved in to shift them. We heard how the cops were struggling to lift a man lying face down.

Perhaps they were concerned he might be one of their own.

The Sun today has the story of an officer from the firearms squad, who apparently the worse for wear, wandered in among the St.Paul's protesters after having been turned out of the Savoy. The dreaded anti-capitalist occupiers took pity on the poor fellow, and found him space in a tent to sleep it off, and next morning he was back on duty.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3925449/Binge-cop-wakes-up-in-demo-tent.html

Manchester University falls for scare, forces Finkelstein off campus

SOME years back there was a furore about a Manchester University professor removing the names of two Israeli academics from the specialist journal that she published. It was only a gesture, as neither of the people were employed by the journal or at Manchester. Professor Mona Baker explained that it was aimed at their institutions' complicity in the Israeli state's conduct, rather than the two individuals, both of whom had a good record of supporting civil rights and opposing their government's policies.

Nevertheless it was widely reported she had "sacked" the two Israelis, and as the story made the rounds of American Zionist chat lists you were given the impression that a wholesale purge of Jews was in full spate at Manchester. The hate e-mails and threats followed, Tony Blair stuck his oar in, and Manchester University came under pressure to make a real sacking, of Mona Baker.

Having criticised Professor Baker's gesture as unfair and misguided, (see my letter to the Guardian (July 9, 2002), http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4457592,00.html, I felt it only right later to join those writing to the university authorities urging them to resist the pressure for action against her (tactical errors are not sackable offences). Fortunately on that occasion good sense prevailed against the whipped-up hysteria, and the professor kept her job.

But now Manchester has another 'academic freedom' row.
A Jewish professor who was due to visit the university is being forced to give his lecture off campus.
But don't expect the Zionists to make a fuss or complain.
The visitor is Professor Norman Finkelstein.

Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survovors has upset Zionists by criticising the way they use the Holocaust for financial and propaganda advantage, and by his support for Palestinian rights. From what I have seen, his views are not as extreme as either his opponents or some of his professed admirers might affect to believe, but they have hurt his professional career, and whenever he is billed to speak the machine is turned on against him - which probably encourages the invitations to flow.

At the start of a tour in Britain, Professor Finkelstein was due to speak at Manchester University today, but the lecture will have to take place off campus. Students from Manchester Action Palestine said the university management and Union “capitulated to pressure from JSOC [Jewish Society] to limit attendees of the event to students only, depriving the public of seeing one of the world’s foremost commentators on the Israel-Palestine conflict.”

It seems JSOC members alleged that the safety of Jewish students would be endangered if the public were allowed in, even though they had made clear their own intention to attend and hold a picket. Administrators issued an ultimatum saying that the lecture would have to be closed to non-students or be cancelled. Action Palestine was therefore obliged to find a new location in the city.

They are not the only people upset about the ban. In a letter to university Head of Governance, Martin Conway, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods ( J-BIG ) say they are astonished “that a respected university should collude with Zionist attempts to suppress open discussion of Prof Finkelstein’s views on campus.”

Abe Hayeem, Chair of Architects & Planners for Justice in Palestine, told Conway he was “appalled to hear that Manchester University had created impossible conditions that would prevent Professor Norman Finkelstein from speaking at a meeting that was open to both students and the public.”

“Your action smacks entirely of bias, pre-emption and censorship that does not enhance the reputation of such an important University, by caving into pressure of a determined minority who wish to deny anyone presenting the realities of Israel and the situation in the Middle East,” Hayeem wrote.

Manchester Action Palestine is asking supporters to send protest letters to Conway (martin.conway@manchester.ac.uk) and to Pat Sponder (pat.sponder@manchester.ac.uk) Head of the Office of Student Support and Services.

Suspecting that Manchester's Jewish student society has been used in this affair by adult Zionists from outside, I am not entirely surprised that the Manchester Zionists pulled off this speaking ban, recalling how they boasted of pressuring local hospitals to cancel talks by Miri Weingarten of Israeli Physicians for Human Rights. It was also in Manchester that Henri Guterman, a respected veteran Jewish communal leader, came under attack from right-wing Zionists who said he was unfit to hold office, because he had shared a platform with Ken Livingstone at a meeting to oppose the fascist BNP.

I know nothing about Action Palestine. But seeing that J-Soc had threatened to picket the Finkelstein meeting, and having seen how some Zionist students behave on such occasions in the past, I find the suggestion that Jewish students "feared for their safety" if the meeting had been allowed to go ahead with visitors on campus a bit suspicious, if not ludicrous.

When I was a Labour Zionist in my teens we were commended to "Be Strong, and of Good Courage", chazak v'amatz. The right-wing Zionist Betar for their part exhort the young to be upright and noble, hadar, and teach that "silence is despicable", which may be why they have been known for shouting down speakers before chucking the furniture about. This youth movement boasts incidentally of its part in picketing Norman Finkelstein meetings in the United States.

But it appears the young have been accorded the undignified role of wee, timorous beastie, perpetually "fearing for their safety" whenever the Zionist machine, and particularly its "security" wing, wishes to bully authorities into believing they are performing their duty by hastening to suppress dissent. (The excuse of protecting Jewish school students was recently used by Tory Education Minister Michael Gove to forbid north London schools participating in a Palestinian childrens' event - thus imposing early on the racist conception that you must choose your prejudice, not learn from one another).

It is a pity this has arisen at a time when the Union of Jewish Students has found itself under pressure from funders and the Right because one of its officers dared to criticise Jonathan Hoffman, the chairman of the Zionist Federation, as well as suggesting that criticism of Israel might be OK.

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/57758/call-ujs-campaigns-director-go

Meanwhile if anyone wanted to find something to feel endangered by, they might look at Oxford university, where four members of the Tory student association have resigned after exposing leading fellow-Tories who when drunk enjoyed singing Nazi songs and talking about "killing kikes".

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/57849/oxford-conservative-students-sang-nazi-songs

Perhaps wealthy Americans who might be approached for funds may also consider Oxford less desrving than say, Manchester.

But hey, what am I saying , those true-blue Tory horst wessel choristers never invited Finkelstein.

Still, maybe there is a need for Jewish students to show good courage, not against those who have been deemed "Israel's enemies", but some of the community machers who stand behind them posing as friends.

• Norman Finkelstein's tour will include lectures on the Israel Palestine conflict and a discussion in London on Friday November 11 with Jonathan Rosenhead, chair of the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, which leads the campaign for academic and cultural boycott of Israel.

The Manchester lecture will now take place at the Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount Street, M2 5NS at 6 pm on November 8.

Other tour dates:

• Leeds – 7 pm Monday November 7
  University of Leeds, Rupert Beckett Lecture Theatre, Michael Sadler Building
  Woodhouse Lane, LS2 9JT. Arrive early or reserve your place in advance irial@hotmail.co.uk
• Nottingham – Wednesday November 9
  University of Nottingham, Coates Auditorium, University Park Nottingham - Thursday Nov 10, 1pm-3pm open Q&A Tickets for both events from Students Union box office in Portland or telephone 07411 430873
• Birmingham – 5 pm Thursday November 10
  University of Birmingham, Vaughan Jeffreys Lecture Theatre, Education Building Book your ticket: http://www.guildtickets.co.uk/event/How-to-solve-the-IsraelPalestine-conflict-by-Norman-Finkelstein

• London - 2 pm Friday November 11 – BDS discussion Bloomsbury venue to be announced
• London – 7 pm Friday November 11
  University of London, Logan Hall, Institute of Education Reserve your place at http://www.eventsbot.com/events/eb253345787

Thanks to friends in Manchester who drew my attention to this row, and to article from J-BIG:
http://jews4big.wordpress.com/2011/11/05/harassment-forces-change-of-finkelstein-venue-in-manchester/

Sheikh Jarrah to Dale Farm ...and the perils of "crossfire"

IT'S been that kind of week. Not hard to join up the dots, but not necessarily in ways expected.

ON MONDAY, in the wake of Tory Defence Secretary Liam Fox''s resignation and the continuing inquiry, friends were talking about the Israeli connection. Three of the names linked to Fox and his best man Werrity were lobbyists, Mick Davis, Michael Lewis, and Poju Zabludowicz. On the Jewish Socialists' Group national committee that evening we discussed how ordinary people feel about these big shots, and how to counteract their influence.

Tuesday evening I was in the House of Lords attending a meeting hosted by Lord Hylton, about housing rights and planning laws in occupied East Jerusalem, as viewed by delegates of a new body called Advocats Sans Frontieres who had specifically been invited to observe the struggle in Sheikh Jarrah district, to the north of the Old City.

Professor Bill Bowring of the Haldane Society said that evey time he has visited the city he sees new gaping holes where there used to be houses and people, and new places going up for settlers and surrounding the city. He said you could tell which were Israeli and which Palestinian blocks by the water tanks on roofs, because the Israelis enjoyed a constant supply while Palestinians were only supplied two or three times a day.

Bill went through some of the international law and pronouncements from the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice, concerning status of occupied territory, discrimination, and human rights, which Israeli authorities ignore even though Israel has ratified international treaties.

According to international law no one should face interference in their home or private life, and eviction is only justified in exceptional circumstances. Israel says such laws do not apply to it. When an Israeli genral who had ordered demolition of homes at Rafeah came to Britain in 2005 he was tipped off so as to avoid arrest, otherwise he might have faced a privately-initiated prosecution. Now there were changes in the law so any attempt to bring charges against Tzippi Livneh during her visit would have to go through the Director of Public Prosecutions. (Foreign Secretary) "William Hague has issued retrosepective immunity."

Hannah Rought Brooks spoke about the way urban space has been affected in east Jerusalem under occupation and annexation - 35 per cent expropriated, 22 per cent designated "green areas" where people could not build, 30 per cent "unplanned areas" likewise, thus leaving just 13 per cent for Palestinians, though they were a majority. In this shrinking space they faced restrictive plans, a shortfall of 1,100 housing units a year, and a restrictive permits regime.

No wonder then that people wound up building homes without waiting for permission, and then could be given a choice - either demolish your own home, or pay the cost of it being demolished by the authorities. So families are not only made homeless but landed with a large bill.

Hannah praised the activity of some Israeli groups like the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and Bimkom, which oppose the evictions. But their efforts and the tenacity of Arab families were up against the attitude of Jerusalem municipality which only allocates 5-10% of its budget to Palestinian areas, though they are 35 % of the population. The Israeli state, with its settlements, its wall, seperate transport system and checkpoints was doing everything to wrest East Jerusalem from the West Bank, already reduced to just three points of access, at Qalandiya, Olives and Gilo.

Palestinian families, some of whom found themselves in Sheikh Jarrah having fled or been forced out of other areas in 1948, had been told by the UN refugee administration that if they stayed there three years the homes would be theirs. But the properties were not given them in name. Then after Israel took the area in the 1967 war it went on to pass the 1970 Administration Law under which Jewish families who had left in 1948 could claim ownership, bringing forth Ottoman title deeds which were recognised - unlike the Palestinian refugees who have been accorded no right of return, and those like the Bedouin within Israel whose claims to property are seldom recognised.

Since then the properties claimed have paassed via two Israeli committees to the Nahalat Shimon company, and Palestinians are being harassed and forced out not by returness but by settlers, including right-wing religious groups who have fortified themselves in a seven-story building dominating the area. This too was built without planning permission, but instead of demolition it is being defended by armed soldiers.

Marina Sergides showed the presentation about Sheikh Jarah, and told us about three families who had lost their homes, like the El Ghawis, whose nine-year old son was taken away in plastic handcuffs during the eviction, and whose mother found him later in a police cell, injured and not given medical attention.

Over the last three years, more than 60 Palestinians have been forcibly evicted in this area and at least another 500 are at risk of dispossession and displacement, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA).

We discussed how to get more international media attention to this situation, to make sure that British officials visit Sheikh Jarrah, and to urge the British government to use its influence in the European Union in support of people like the Sheikh Jarrah residents.


I noted the irony that while the British consulate's location in Sheikh Jarah had been seen as watching over the territory, it was the British government which using its presidency over the EU had tried to suppress a report on what was happening to East Jerusalem. No wonder Palestinians are up in arms over Tony Blair the "Middle East Peace Envoy" having his new headquarters built in Sheikh Jarrah.

That day there had been a report about Givat Hamatos, another Israeli development designed to drive a nail into the prospect for two states by cutting off the West Bank from its capital, East Jerusalem. Illegal flats plan to cut off Arab east Jerusalem
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/110868


WEDNESDAY morning, we saw hundreds of riot police storming into Dale Farm, in Essex, so the bailiffs would be able to evict those traveller families they haven't been able to intimidate. Like the Bedouin facing clearance under Israeli plans, these people are no longer free to move around, nor tolerated when they try to settle. The council says they were on greenfield land, the former owner who sold it to them says it was a brownfield site which the council itself had tarmacked for a scrap yard. The council which had denied or kept them waiting for planning permission says they were illegal for setting up home without a permit.

Having tried negotiations and the courts, those who have been driven out by this show of force, and given nowhere else to go, are homeless. Even some of the news coverage reminds me of the Middle East, with an ITN reporter going straight from the police action to interview an Essex man who had complained about people from Dale Farm allegedly throwing beer bottles over the fence into his garden. That's it, then, evict the whole community!

I've clocked the Beeb before purveying what I saw as porkies about a smaller scale eviction exercise against Gypsy families camped on land they had bought near Broxborne, so I guess the media toeing the line on this are showing consistency.

Anyway, we watched the police storm in, and in later footage five of them appeared to ram a woman against a fence. We were told that one woman had been injured, "caught up in the violence" apparently. Nothing deliberate then? She had been taken to hospital with what sounded like serious back injury, and said she had been attacked by police, but I suppose you can't believe everything you hear from those people.

I shouldn't imagine an operation like this was carried out solely at the Tory council's request and without at least a nod and a wink from the Home Office, and perhaps the prime minister. And on Wednesday evening I went to a meeting about public service pension rights, where leading trade unionists told us the Con-Dem government is waging class war, and negotiations are a waste of time, because the government is not even listening. I can't help thinking the Dale Farm operation, tasers and all, is also a rehearsal for dealing with workplae occupations and community cuts protests too.

When we are hearing about senior Tories pocketing large sums from the Zionists and other lobbyists, maybe what should impress is not the latters' readiness to bribe, as the formers' greed in augmeng their already large incomes by accepting financial inducements to support the kind of policies that they are inclined to follow anyway.


And so to THURSDAY, when having heard what US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton had to say earlier in the week about Gaddafi, I very much doubted suggestions that he had been captured alive and might live to stand trial and give his side, as well as testify about relations with Western business interests and governments.

Sure enough, it appears he was wounded in the legs, but later died from two shots in the head, having been taken from his car, or from a culvet where he was hiding -with a gold-plated pistol, they add, - having taken shelter from NATO attack. The details seem to vary, but as someone said we had to be shown the sewage pipe just as we were shown Saddam Hussein being taken from a hole in the ground, though it now seems that too was a bit of fakery for the camera.

Today we learn that according to Mr.Mahmoud Jibril of the National Transitional Council, whom papers are already dubbing Libyan Prime Minister, Muammar Gaddafi was captured alive, but then he was "killed in crossfire".

Some say the Libyan rebels are not ready for our lind of democracy, but it sounds like they are soon picking up the language.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/oct/20/hillary-clinton-gaddafi-capture-video
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/20/muammar-gaddafi-death-averts-legal-headache
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/20/us-libya-gaddafi-trial-idUSTRE79J49320111020
http://mail.aol.com/34290-111/aol-6/en-gb/Suite.aspx

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8840292/Col-Gaddafi-died-from-bullet-wound-to-head-in-crossfire.html

West Papua. It's a Goldmine.

SOME of the places in the world whose people play the most important part in our lives through actual wealth creation (as distinct from conspicuous consumption, or the hocus-pocus trick of transposing billions of debt owed peoples and profit bonuses for private individuals), are places seldom heard of.

There are places deep in the heart of Africa where kids are made to crawl into unsafe mines for an ore called Coltan, from which tantalum can be extracted to end up in cellphones, game players and other gadgets used by your kids, and for all I know in this laptop I am using. The UN says the trade fuels wars, but then the wars help provide the captive child labour, and somehow the Western companies involved in purchasing ore or supplying weapons manage to keep their hands clean.

Unlike the makeshift mines and holes dug out of the ground of eastern Congo, the world's biggest gold and copper mine is one gigantic hole and an underground mine which make up Freeport, in West Papua, owned jointly by US-based Freeport McMoRan, Indonesian subsidiary PT Freeport Indonesia and their Anglo Australian partner, Rio Tinto.

West Papua is the western half of the island we used to call New Guinea. Its straight
-line border shows the colonial past, when this was Netherlands New Guinea. With UN approval it was taken over by Indonesia, which has encouraged its own settlers there, while the formerly Australian-administered eastern side together with adjoining islands forms the state of Papua-New Guinea.

Papuans who don't accept the carve-up come into conflict with the Indonesian military, as seen in the report which a friend in Australia has forwarded from the news site New Matilda:

20 Oct 2011

Troops Open Fire On Papuan Gathering

The Indonesian military and police opened fire late yesterday on a gathering of West Papuan leaders. At least one person is believed to have been killed and hundreds have fled the capital

The Indonesian military and police started shooting at around 2:37pm West Papua time, yesterday 19 October. Information about what exactly transpired are still sketchy but at least one person was shot (believed dead), scores have been arrested, hundreds have fled to the hills and jungle surrounding the capital, and the capital is in a state of lockdown.

A Papuan priest who was fleeing the shooting contacted New Matilda to report that an army truck passed him carrying Papuan participants who had been present at the Third Papua Congress. According to the witness they were "covered with blood" and had been "beaten and shot".

The violence erupted at the conclusion of the Third Papuan Congress, a three-day gathering held at the Taboria oval (Zaccheus Field) in Abepura, during which Papuan leaders declared their independence from the Indonesian state.

As many as 20,000 West Papuans met, danced and debated how to achieve their civil and political rights. For three days the atmosphere had been tense. The venue was ringed by Armed Personnel Carriers, military trucks and Barracudas — a type of armed jeep favoured by the paramilitary police. Machine guns were trained on the participants and thousands of soldiers and paramilitary police armed with automatic weapons were present.

Published on newmatilda.com (http://newmatilda.com)

Some earlier reports show an important dimension to what's happening in West Papua. Here are excerpts:

16 Aug 2011

Enough, Say West Papuan Workers To Freeport

Indigenous Papuans who provide the labour that keeps the world's largest gold and copper mine operational have gone on strike to pressure Freeport into wage negotiations, report Alex Rayfield and Claudia King

Recently trouble at the mine flared up again, as around 12,000 Indonesian and Papuan Mine workers and contractors went on strike, joined by local indigenous leaders. Walking off a job has never been so hard, Yan Ampnir told us. When he decided to join the mine workers’ strike in the remote Indonesian province of Papua, it was not a simple case of heading out the gate and driving home to his family. It involved a gruelling 40-mile trek down a roller-coaster road that plunges 8400 feet down from the vertiginous cloud-cloaked mountain walls of Tembagapura, the remote mine base camp, to the sprawling swamp lowlands of Timika.

Tembagapura is a company town. The only people who live there are mine workers. After long shifts in the Grasberg open pit or in the underground mine, workers are bussed on four-wheel drive trucks back to Timika or the US lookalike suburb of Kuala Kencana, replete with shopping malls, manicured lawns and street lights, all carved out of the middle of the jungle. So, when the company refused to bus the workers outside the Indonesian military- guarded mine area, Ampnir and his compatriots picked up their bags and started walking.

Strike leaving Tembagapura. SPSI collection.

Seventeen hours later the first group arrived in Timika; tired, wet, cold and hungry. Eight days later the strike ended. In the process some 12,000 mine workers (of a total workforce of 23,000) halted production at the world’s largest gold and copper mine, inflicting a loss of US$95,000 per day on US-based Freeport McMoRan, Indonesian subsidiary PT Freeport Indonesia and their Anglo Australian partner, Rio Tinto.

After a quick search online, Albar Sabang, the local union branch secretary, hands us an Excel spreadsheet. On it is a list of pay scales. Sabang is a mechanic who fixes heavy machinery like bulldozers and excavators. He has worked for PT Freeport Indonesia since 1994 and earns US$3.00 per hour. He is one of the highest paid local employees out of a group PTFI calls "non-staff". Others earn as little as $1.80 per hour, a wage that rose 98 per cent after a similar workers strike in April 2007.

Sudiro (his only name) is a softly spoken tall Javanese man, unassuming in person. He is the local SPSI (Seluruh Pekerja Serikat Indondesia — or All Indonesian Workers Union) chair of the Freeport Mine Workers Union, an affiliate with the national SPSI network. Recently sacked by PT Freeport Indonesia for organising workers, he only just got his job back. "Of all the Freeport mines", Sudiro tells us, "PT Freeport Indonesia is the most profitable. It has the lowest production costs. But workers are paid the lowest salaries. We are even paid less than Freeport mine workers in Mongolia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. That’s not right."

Freeport is emblematic of much that is wrong in West Papua.

The company’s Contract of Work was signed in 1967, two years before the Act of Free Choice was concluded, a referendum that was supposed to give the indigenous West Papuans a chance to say whether they wanted to be independent or part of Indonesia. In fact, there was no vote. Instead, 1022 West Papuans, less than 0.01 per cent of the population, were corralled into camps and told to "vote" for integration with Indonesia or have "their tongues cut out". But it was not just the Indonesian government that consented to democratic fraud writ large; the US, Australian and European governments were also not prepared to contest the election or risk stability in the region for what one US Embassy source at the time called a handful of "Stone-Age illiterate tribal groups".

The biggest prize of all was Freeport.

Suharto declared the company a national asset and instructed the military to guard the mine, which led to a long history of human rights violations, including un-investigated mass killings, theft of Papuan land and massive environmental degradation — all of which has led to ongoing violent and nonviolent resistance.

This was the era before the notion of "free, prior, and informed consent" became best practice for extractive industries. According to local indigenous landowners, they still feel that they have not been consulted or their rights respected.

As the Amungme people’s sacred mountain is consumed, tailings are dumped in the Ajkwa River at the rate of 200,000 tons a day. The result: over 30,000 hectares of rainforest have been wiped out and huge levee banks built to stop Timika from being smothered by sludge waste. In the process, Freeport became a lightning rod for all Papuan grievances.

---

18 Aug 2011

Freeport Cracks Down On West Papuan Unions

.

"We are not valued as human beings. We are treated as an instrument of the company. Our goal is to get to a position where we are treated as human," says union organiser Sudiro.

According to miners interviewed in July 2011, many workers are forced to take out bank loans to pay for basic needs and to support their families. After retirement, some must seek alternative types of income. Yet when workers attempt to raise these issues with Freeport management, they have received warning letters in return.

"It seems like the company sees us as the troublemakers. But," says Sudiro, referring to workers’ contributions to gold and copper production, "we are the solution-makers."

SPSI PT Freeport Indonesia is one local branch of the national labour union federation of Indonesia. The organisation has represented PTFI mine workers in 16 Collective Labor Agreements (CLA) dating back to 1977. But until recently it functioned as little more than a rubber stamp for company policies.

Freeport has a history of suppressing workers’ rights and union organising. Under Suharto, independent labour organising was prohibited. Those that tried were often killed or spent years in jail. But over the past decade, as political space has slowly opened up, Sudiro and other workers have been quietly organising.

Campaigns to educate fellow mine workers about their rights and the role of unions in protecting workers seem to be paying off. Reflecting on worker participation in the recent strike, Sudiro says, "The workers finally opened their eyes and minds to the situation. The company cannot stop this. We have woken up. We will never go back to how we were treated before the strike."

Nevertheless, SPSI Freeport members continue to face threats and intimidation from the company. When two of the union members travelled to Jayapura to seek advice from Papuan leaders, they were followed by Indonesian security forces who have long been paid by Freeport to guard the mine.

9 Oct 2011

Striking Mine Workers Face Death Threats

West Papua's striking mine workers continue their standoff at Freeport's Grasberg mine despite increasing danger and the presence of a foreign security firm. Setyo Budi reports

'At 10pm on 11 September, the chief negotiator in West Papua’s ongoing Freeport strikes was sitting alone on the veranda of his house. Sudiro had spent all day with Freeport Indonesia management, bargaining for a wage rise for the members of his union — the All Indonesia Workers Union (SPSI) Freeport division. Suddenly a bowl that was sitting on a table close to him was hit by a bullet and shattered. The shot was a clear warning to Sudiro: if he continues to fight for wage parity for the workers at Freeport’s Grasberg mine, he will be killed.

"I was surprised when I got home that night and told that our leader was shot [at]," Albar Sabang from the SPSI told New Matilda in a phone interview. "We don’t know who shot him. The gunman used a silencer."

The shooting took place on the same day the union received a letter from Freeport management requesting the union "not propagate a strike action and recruit workers to join the strike".

Talks between the SPSI and Freeport management over the 2011-2013 contract terms took place from 21 July to 19 August this year. The parties failed to reach an agreement and the deadline was extended to 26 August with the same result. In the beginning the union bargained for a wage increase from US$1.50-$3 to US$35-$200 per hour. This demand was decreased to $30-$100 per hour during negotiations, and is now at $12-$37.50 per hour. Last year, the company gave the workers only a 3 per cent wage increase.

As the negotiation went into deadlock, the union called a month-long strike, which started on 14 September. The strike now continues for a second month and this week Freeport was forced to halt production at the mine after a pipe carrying gold and copper to the port was severed.

The workers demand a parity wage with their comrades who work in other Freeport mines in North and South America. Freeport workers in West Papua receive the lowest wages of all Freeport workers — lower than workers in Mongolia or the Congo.

In a letter that was forwarded to New Matilda, SPSI argues that their demands are based on the fact that Freeport Indonesia has profited more than its sister companies in Peru, Chile, Arizona and New Mexico. Their skills are equivalent to their fellow workers in those mining areas, and profit margins are believed to be as high as 60 per cent. Their working conditions are harsher and more dangerous, and the price of gold, copper and silver has significantly increased.

Freeport’s Grasberg mining complex is one of the world’s largest single producers of both copper and gold, and contains the largest recoverable reserves of copper and the largest single gold reserve in the world.

In an interview via email, Sabang describes the terrain and working conditions at the mine:

"The mining area is located up to 4200 metres above sea level that require the workers to take an hour journey by busses, and trams. The weather in the area is cold, and misty, especially in Grasberg open pit area, and rains heavily all day. They have to wear four layers of clothes to work. They have to work five days to seven days a week. They have to work up to 10 hours a day. For those who work in the Maintenance Department, sometimes have to work from 12 to 14 hours a day."

From the beginning of the negotiations, relations between the two parties were uneasy. In a letter to the Indonesian Minister of Mining and Energy dated 16 September, Freeport management accused the union of "intimidating and threatening those who did not participate in the strike". The letter also said that the workers’ demand to have to have a "wage increase equals to workers in the developed countries is irrational".

The letter continues: "If [the wage increase] takes place it will affect our national economy, as [it] will create high inflation and our country competitiveness in the international market."

In the same letter, Freeport management told the minister "to avoid a great loss, it will recruit temporary workers to replace those who were on strike". These workers are to be employed in the operational field and maintenance.

In his reply to Freeport management dated 21 September, the director general of coal and minerals, Thamrin Sihite, said the Indonesian government "understands the situation, and allow Freeport Indonesia to use sub-contractors to replace the striking workers". This decision resulted in the death of one worker, Petrus Amayiseba, and 10 others were injured when the police (who had been hired by Freeport) opened fire at them during a scuffle on 10 October when striking workers tried to prevent replacement workers from travelling to the mine. Amayiseba’s death triggered solidarity protests across Indonesia and was condemned by Amnesty International.

There was another shooting incident on 15 October when a busload of workers was riddled with bullets and three workers were killed. On the same day, Leo Wandagau, a 34-year-old striking worker who was a victim of the shooting incident on 10 October, reportedly died in the local hospital.

Since the shooting incidents union officials have received threats from the police. On 11 October, the police commander in Mimika, Edward Siregar, allegedly told Sudiro "let’s see who is more powerful, your organisation or the police. I will finish you and your followers off".

The strike has had a huge impact on Freeport Indonesia’s operation. It is reported that the company has lost 1361 metric tons of copper and 5000 ounces of gold a day because of the strike. As well, the Indonesian government is reportedly losing about US$8.2 million dollars a day in taxes, revenue and dividends.

Unlike Freeport, which only pursues an economic interest, the Indonesian government also has political interests in the region. The Freeport mining area has been used by the government as a foreign diplomacy bargaining chip against the West Papuans’ desire for independence. For the Indonesian military the mine has also been a source of revenue.

Al Jazeera reports that Freeport has illegally paid individual soldiers and policemen to secure the Grasberg complex and its staff. A report by Global Witness revealed that an additional $10 million had been paid directly to individual military and police commanders between 1998 and 2004. This included payments of $247,000 between May 2001 and March 2003 to General Mahidin Simbolon, who was responsible for the 1999 East Timor massacre, and monthly payments throughout 2003 to the police Mobile Brigade, which is known for numerous serious human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, and arbitrary detention.'

GUESS WHERE THAT PRIVATE SECURITY FIRM IS FROM...

'During the strikes, Freeport management has intimidated the workers via local media and text messages and visited the workers’ houses and asked them to go back to work.

Now, they have also employed the private British security firm Securicor — which merged with Group 4 Falck in 2004 to form G4S (Group Four Securicor). G4S came to prominence in Australia in 2008 over the death of an Australian Aboriginal man, Mr Ward, in the back of one of its transport vans. The firm has also been the subject of controversy over its treatment of immigration detainees here.

An SPSI official told New Matilda that Securicor officers have intimidated the striking workers and operated beyond their working areas. SPSI also said that on 23 September Securicor and police officers went to the SPSI office in Freeport to arrest one of the members, Jimmy Deda, but were stopped by other workers. On the same day Securicor and Freeport management brought in temporary workers to replace the striking workers in Mile 38.

In response to their prolongation of the strike action, Freeport Indonesia has sacked all SPSI officials and taken over SPSI headquarters at the mine. In a letter dated 5 October, management wrote to Sudiro, "We would like to request a house on Tembagapura St number. 380 that was provided for SPSI last year by October 8. If the house is not emptied, we will pack all documents and stationaries".

The workers’ struggle in Freeport is a struggle for justice; a struggle that is shared by many West Papuans. It is a struggle against greed and the powerful elites in Jakarta and Papua that have made West Papuans poor. The natural resources have become curse for the local population. For this reason, the seven tribal chiefs who represent the population of Freeport areas wrote a letter on 25 September to support the striking workers. They too threaten to "close the mines" unless the workers’ demands are met.

The Suharto dictatorship was backed and supported by the United States, and supplied with arms and equipment by Thatcher's Britain. The relationship with the Indpnesian military did not end there or with her, notwithstanding Robin Cooke's famed wish that British foreign policy should contain a "moral dimension". Under the Labour government, Indonesian officers came to train at the Shrivenham military academy, and attended courses at Hull University subsidised by the British taxpayer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1999/sep/19/indonesia.easttimor1

Buck House cleaners get a result

BACK in April I blogged about the campaign to win better pay for the cleaners at Buckingham Palace. Working amid such opulent surroundings they were getting less than the living wage. The issue got good publicity and was raised in Parliament, Campaigners in the Public and Commercial Service (PCS) union even turned up among the tourists outside the Palace during the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, to make sure the downstairs side of Palace life was not forgotten.

It's good to report that persistance and initiative seem to have worked. Today via Facebook we received this message:
We're nearly there! Thanks everyone for your support on this, on behalf of our PCS members working as cleaners in the royal household. It has not been the easiest of times, but we've got there in the end! In solidarity Lizzie

That's not Lizzie Windsor, by the way. Here's the report from the PCS to which our FB friend directed us:

Big pay rise for Buckingham Palace cleaners

17 October 2011

The Queen's cleaners have won a 16% pay rise after a campaign by PCS.

The low-paid workers, who keep Buckingham Palace spic and span every day, will see their pay rise from £6.45 to £7.50 an hour from 1 November.

Contract company KGB Cleaning – which employs the workers – has promised there will be no cuts to jobs or hours to pay for the rise.

Cleaners have also been given new changing rooms with lockers.

The union campaign included a demonstration during Prince William and Kate Middleton’s royal wedding celebrations.

The rise will be paid to cleaners working in Buckingham Palace and Buckingham Palace Mews.

http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/pcs_comment/index.cfm/id/6585206A-3ED8-42E2-A96040DD6FC6CA3A#.TpwtI1NjBt4.facebook