The Monopoly board of the city: Grenfell Tower - where was the HCA, government housing regulator??
Submitted by Red Marriott on Jun 19 2017 16:23
The Homes & Community Agency(HCA) is the UK state regulatory body for social housing; its job is to monitor the performance, finances and provision of services of landlords. Missing from the media coverage of the Grenfell Tower fire disaster so far is any discussion of what relation the HCA has to this horror story of corporate murder. Given the years of complaints from Grenfell tenants(1) about their landlord the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation(KCTMO)(2), we can reasonably ask why the HCA never stepped in to investigate the terrible tenant-landlord relationship and the many fire safety complaints tenants had flagged up repeatedly before the fire broke out.
Muting the SWAN: a radical alternative to Trotskyist social work
Critique of the Social Work Action Network, a group aiming to bring social workers and other interested parties together to campaign against austerity, by an angry social worker. SWAN's activism happens in the classroom or on the streets, but not in the workplace itself.
Politics at stake: a note on stakeholder analysis
In what Partha Chatterjee calls 'most of the world' the state and capital have two defences against grassroots political society - the police and civil society (especially NGOs and the academy). The first protect oppression with violent repression, the second do the same by throwing up a spongy wall around it in which grassroots political society is absorbed via individualising technocratic 'public participation' processes and educated to accept domination via all kinds of workshops and training that teach people to know their place. This article is an important attempt to think with grassroots militancy against civil society.
2005: Tonga Public Servants General Strike
Submitted by Reddebrek on Feb 3 2017 01:37
In 2005 civil servants in Tonga began a wildcat strike for higher wages, the strike grew to include many other public sector workers and took on political reforms.
Every cook can govern: a study in democracy in ancient Greece; its meaning for today
Submitted by Steven. on Dec 4 2016 14:29
CLR James gives an overview of ancient Greek democracy, how it functioned, how it came about, and how it offers features which could be emulated in a future, radically democratic socialist society.
C. Inza Deboise- Domestic Violence and Social Work from an Anarchist Perspective
Article by a domestic violence worker about the complicity of social services in the enforcement of patriarchy.
Revolutionaries Behind Closed Doors
Capitalism intrudes on the daily life of a mental health worker.
Against the conceptual dumbing down of the 2016 “movement” in France - Mouvement Communiste/Kolektivně proti Kapitălu
This is a leaflet criticising the wildly inflated claims made about the recent "movement" against the new Labour Law in France and the accompanying degradation of political language. Also included PDFs of original french leaflet and English version.
It’s getting hot in here! Conversations in Gurnell Leisure Centre’s Sauna, Greenford
Submitted by AngryWorkersWorld on Jun 8 2016 16:48
One article for issue #4 of WorkersWildWest - out soon! Ealing Council wants to sell off the land, the leisure centre will be demolished and rebuild together with luxury flats in 2019 - at least according to their plan. We hope local people will try to keep the centre open...
The decimation of the English working class
Submitted by Whatever-ism on Dec 21 2015 15:00
A history of working class housing and some bleak speculations about a future that is coming unless we can change its course.
