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Contrary to the assertion on the advertisement, we - humans - are not '99% monkey', but we are 100% ape. Of course if you are feeling like a baboon, you might be interested in Paulville - a cursory scan of the website forums turns up yet more 'libertarians' in favour of the free movement of capital without corresponding free movement of labour - or in fact free movement of pedestrians ... shut that gate! Do they really enjoy it when their waking hours are spent staked out on the porch with a loaded shotgun trained down the street? Perhaps someone should build Paulieville next door - just to piss them off.
Remaining on the topic of feudalist filth, according to the Times, 'help is at hand for organisations that fear disruption if their workforces are unionised' - those bastards, refusing to send their children up chimneys!
Burke Group [...] is a new sort of HR consultancy that arrived in Britain eight years ago. [I]t describes itself as the largest American management consultancy that specialises “in union avoidance and preventative industrial labour relations”. It employs more than 60 consultants, including a representative in Britain.
Most of the companies seeking Burke Group’s help want to swing an employee ballot against union recognition. If 40% vote in favour of recognition, their union gains legal rights, including the right to negotiate on pay, hours and holidays.
The next time you ask what trade unions have ever done for you, think about the 40 hour week, award wages, holiday and sick leave, the fact that your employer is supposed to provide a safe and secure working environment and that your kids aren't working 16 hours a day in a factory - rights which were won after years of hard class struggle by working men and women, for which some laid down their lives. Anyone who takes these rights for granted is deluded - they are not guaranteed.
Fight the power!
End slavery!
Hak,
I fear that you are missing the point about so-called 'free movement of labour'. Fringe libertarian loonies like those inhabiting Paulville may "favour the free movement of capital without corresponding free movement of labour", but that's because they're fringe libertarian loonies.
Monopoly capital on the other hand definitely does favour the free movement of labour, because it allows corporations to dump the price of labour without any concerns for the social consequences for workers or the economies of the developing world. Hence, the European Union refers to the 'four fundamental market freedoms; movement of goods, services, capital and labour'. See: Free movement of labour in the EU-27 Published: Thursday 23 September 2004
"Some of the EU's strongest and wealthiest 'old' member states continue to restrict access to their labour markets by workers from Eastern Europe. Germany and Austria are the only member states, however, which have voiced their intention to block access to their labour markets until 2011."
Free movement of labour is no less a capitalist freedom than free movement of capital, goods or services.
Socialists and trade unionists on the other hand are opposed to the untrammeled right of employers to hire and fire at will and so ought by rights to oppose the free movement of labour. Instead we should be arguing for labour immigration/emigration to be mediated by collective agreements. The phrase 'free movement of labour' is a EUphamism for social dumping.
Posted by: Macavity at May 10, 2008 02:26 PMCute handle.
The phrase 'free movement of capital without corresponding free movement of labour' is applied to so-called 'libertarians' to highlight their logical and political inconsistencies. Another name for them is feudalist racist scum who fantasise about guns and have an aversion to paying taxes.
On a more convivial note, I can thoroughly recommend Tesco brand Lightly Sparkling Scottish Raspberry Crush.
Posted by: hakmao at May 10, 2008 03:19 PM