Revolting Europe
welfare
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
Employers call for ‘tax haven’ in France
By Patrick Apel-Muller The new head of the French Employers Association MEDEF, Pierre Gattaz, considers himself to have the ear of power, so much as to say aloud what employers want in France: ‘A tax haven’. He did not mean by this one of those tiny states which are used to launder money from corporations … 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
Spain: No Country for Old Men
By Nacho Goberna Spain is no country for old men. Maybe it was before, when today’s older generation were young, when shoulder to shoulder, with hope, they participated in building this society that we now share with them, or perhaps it will be again in the future when the time comes to leave behind the … Continue reading
Poverty scares us, but inequality outrages us
By Edmundo Fayanas Escuer Spanish Caritas has just published a new report (FOESSA) with data for 2012. The outlook is bleak and should mark a turning point for us all to do something to end this social disaster caused by these neoliberal policies imposed by the European Union and which here in Spain are executed … Continue reading
The Rise and Fall of the Welfare State
The welfare state is under attack in Norway as elsewhere in Europe. It must be defended, as far as possible, but there’s no chance of getting a new class compromise to rebuild it when the conditions underpinning that historic deal between bosses and labour many decades ago have been swept way, along with controls on … Continue reading
An age old problem
Forget ageing – capital’s class war against labour is behind the crisis in pensions and welfare worldwide, says Vincent Navarro Thomas Malthus was an economist who believed that the resources of the planet were limited, fixed and constant. Hence he believed that the growth of the population would reach a level that there would not … Continue reading
How Austerity is Hurting Women in Europe – In Numbers
Women are disproportionally affected by austerity cuts because they are society’s main carers, and the main users of public services and welfare recipients, where there have been heavy reductions in budgets; they predominate in low paid, insecure employment, which is expanding, facilitated by labour counter-reforms; because they are heavily employed in the public sector where … Continue reading
Spain’s Unfinished Civil War
By Vicente Navarro The history of Spain in the twentieth century (and into the twenty-first century) is the constant conflict between, on the one hand, financial establishments, focused on banking, and business, focused on large employers (assisted by a state dominated by conservative forces, including the armed forces and the judiciary and police, and the … Continue reading
Why the Eurostrike?
By Vincent Navarro The ruling Conservative and liberal parties, both in Spain and in most European Union countries, including the Eurozone, are implementing policies that result in: 1) labour reforms that reduce wages and increase unemployment, 2) the shrinking of the labour force, 3) reduction of social protection, 4) social spending cuts, 5) the privatization of … Continue reading
Monti attacks the weak
By Michele Azzu Cuts to the disabled and other dependents are the most striking case. But all the actions of the Italian government in social policy resemble the wrath of God. They are policies that make us a country that is not only more unjust, but poorer. For a week 70 severely disabled members of … Continue reading
Italy: Severely disabled in hunger strike over cuts to support
Fifty severely disabled people have gone on hunger strike in Italy to demand that the government of Mario Monti restore funding axed by his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi and provide round the clock care. The hunger strikers are suffering from progressive neurodegenerative disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis. The campaign group … Continue reading
Spain: Anti-austerity referendum campaign kicks off
A coalition of 150 Spanish civil society organisations and unions have begun collecting signatures for a referendum on the brutal austerity programme of the Popular Party government of Mariano Rajoy. The complete mismatch between the right wing Government’s programme and the manifesto it won the elections with last November is an underlining theme of the … Continue reading
Poverty on the increase in Europe as austerity bites, new study shows
Despite the promises of the European Commission to tackle unemployment and the social consequences of the crisis, poverty has increased by 2 million since 2010 as the focus on austerity undermines benefits and public services, according to a new study by the European Anti-Poverty Network. More
Germany shows solidarity with struggling southern neighbours
The same day the European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi delivered his bombshell declaration that the European welfare state was no more, the Continent’s Great Power, Germany issued orders to stop welfare payments to non-German nationals. Whether coincidence or not, the move by the Federal Labour Agency on February 23 has helped put some flesh … Continue reading
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