Revolting Europe
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The IMF and bosses’ war against Spanish youth
By Jose Antonio Arias Again, for the umpteenth time the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has attacked Spanish youth and their wages, while the Spanish business lobby shouts “we told you so”. This is the scenario: over 50% youth unemployment, the minimum wage at €645.30 (virtually frozen since 2011) and almost non-existent labour rights. Faced with … Continue reading
Germans to get ‘amputated’ minimum wage
The German parliament has approved the country’s first minimum wage but unions and critics on the Left are not much impressed. The wage – backed by a vote in the Bundestag on Thursday – will be set at 8.50 euros (£6.80) per hour, which is higher than the equivalent in the US and UK. Angela Merkel’s … Continue reading
How PM Renzi’s Jobs Act will sink Italy
Italy’s new PM Matteo Renzi has pledged to slash the country’s record unemployment with his American-branded ‘Jobs Act’. But his labour reforms, which will see short term job contracts extended for up to 3 years, are more of the same medicine applied since the turn of the 1990s that have been such bad news for … Continue reading
Inside the Greek laboratory
IN THE RADICAL PRESS / MEMOIRE DES LUTTES A new book publishing the views of Greek scholars and professionals on the impact of Troika policies has helped Bernard Cassen understand better the criminal nature of market fundamentalism pursued by Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin You have to be very naive to believe that the fury of the “troika” against Greece … Continue reading
What’s behind the anti-immigrant vote in Switzerland?
IN THE RADICAL PRESS / HUMANITE Since the Swiss / EU agreement on the free movement of people, a sense of unease has been growing in Switzerland, fuelled by the crisis and exacerbated by the demagoguery of the extreme nationalist right. The success of the anti-immigration initiative of the far-right Swiss People’s Party, led by … Continue reading
The EU is a new form of colonialism – it’s time to break free
Spain has a future but it means breaking with the Eurozone and EU institutions, argue Hector Illueca and Adoración Guamán The economic crisis affecting our country and the austerity policies imposed by the troika (European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund) are leading to an increasingly evident social fracture. Astonished citizens observe the … Continue reading
Spain in 2014: Not a Prosperous New Year
By Esther Vivas We have entered 2014 a little poorer. For those of us with a job, our salaries have been frozen, or even cut; only a few can expect a rise in the New Year. Furthermore, the price of electricity, public transport and water are increasing. 2013 ended with the controversy over a threatened … Continue reading
Portugal: Local polls to test government austerity policies
UPDATE: The local elections held in Portugal on Sunday resulted in the centre-left Socialists, the main opposition party, gaining 36.3 per cent of the vote and control of 106 of Portugal’s 308 town halls, which was their biggest local election victory to date. The governing PSD won 26.5 per cent of the vote and 99 town … Continue reading
The salariat is the revolutionary class in the making
IN THE RADICAL PRESS / L’HUMANITE Hike pay roll taxes and and a wage for life for all. Radical ideas to take French society beyond capitalism. Interview with Bernard Frio, communist sociologist and labour market expert With over 10% unemployment in France, a labour market in crisis, you are advocating a ‘salaried wage revolution’, even … Continue reading
Are we Portuguese living beyond our means?
By Jose Manuel Pureza If there wasn’t the Troika there wouldn’t be money to pay salaries or pensions – this assertion is repeated ad nauseam by the heralds of foreign intervention in Portugal. And this is immediately followed by the argument that this is because we have long been living beyond our means, squandering money … Continue reading
Billions for shareholders, crumbs for workers
Dividend payouts in France increased seven fold over the past two decades, new figures show, underlining widening inequality of wealth in Europe’s second largest economy. Over the same period workers got very little of this wealth that they had created, with wages rising by around a third. An astonishing 550 billion euros was handed out to … Continue reading
The Troika’s Men in Black and the Crime of Organised Money
Continuing to force states to finance themselves at high-interest rates is just a strategy to justify wage control, the privatisation of public services and, ultimately, to enslave peoples, says Juan Torres Lopez Spain has once again received a visit from the so-called Men in Black, the Troika inspectors, coming to elucidate if all is going as … Continue reading
The class nature of inflation
Prices rises affect different income groups differently new figures for Italy show. One more argument for wage hikes for middle and low incomes New figures show how inflation has hit the worst-off hardest in Italy. Official data released for the seven years between 2005 and 2012 showed that those with lowest average spending saw it … Continue reading
Portugal’s unions hail court rejection of pension, wage cuts
Portuguese unions welcomed the decision by the country’s Constitutional Court to strike down four out of nine austerity measures in this year’s budget. The court on Friday rejected cuts in pensioners’ and public servants’ holiday bonuses, as well as reductions to sickness leave and unemployment benefits, which formed part of a swinging austerity plan designed … Continue reading
Everything you wanted to know…about Austerity in the EU
Poverty, unemployment, wages, the economy, public services, tax dodging, wealth and gender inequality – check out the latest facts and figures in the Europe of the bankers and austerity. http://wp.me/P1bMfw-oA
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