Film Review: “Pride” (2014)

Feb 20, 2015 07:48 pm | drew

by Róisín Lyder

Pride is a dramatized version of a series of events that took place in England and Wales during the 1983-5 miner’s strike, which was brutally crushed by Margaret Thatcher and her Tory government as part of their efforts to break the British trade union movement. The movie opens with the song ‘Solidarity Forever’ playing overtop of historical images of the strike and the song punctuates the rest of the film. Indeed solidarity is the real theme of Pride, a film that is a light-hearted meditation on the possibilities created when members of the working class overcome what may seem like insurmountable differences.

At the 1984 gay pride march in London we are introduced to Mark Ashton as he begins taking up a collection for the striking miners. It is at this march that the group Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) is formed. Ashton persuades the others to join by asking: “Who hates miners? Thatcher, the police, the public and the tabloids. Sound familiar?” The young queer people see the parallels; one suggests that the usual police harassers have been absent from the gay nightclubs lately because they have been too busy harassing the miners. The group sets about fundraising and eventually finds a mining town reluctantly willing to accept the cash. Following the usual practice of thanking solidarity groups, the LGSM are invited to the small Welsh town of Onllwyn where they meet an assorted cast of characters ranging from those who effortlessly lack prejudice, to the mildly uncomfortable, to the outright and staunchly homophobic. A series of predictable yet entertaining moments of bigotry and acceptance ensue.

Pride is not your average historical film; it is more glitter than grit. Reflection on the significance of LGSM to the history of the British left probably should not end here. Pride is silly, irreverent, tongue-in-cheek and will leave you laughing out loud the whole way through. In between the disco dancing and occasional outbreak of song, however, the film does manage to be thought provoking; raising a series of questions about what working class solidarity means.

The question that seems to linger most is what the members of LGSM receive in exchange for their unrelenting, unwavering commitment to the needs and the struggle of this mining town. How does solidarity emerge? One young gay man asks: “When did the miners ever come to our aid? Those bastards kicked the shit out of me every day.” However, the group is clearly touched by the kindness they receive from members of the mining community and for some of them the experience is an opportunity to work through their own difficult relationships with the small towns and families that raised them, but the real political exchange of solidarity only becomes clear at the end of the movie. It is here that Pride manages to pull off the happy ending the genre requires despite the obviously grim crushing of the strike movement. The film closes exactly one year after it starts at the 1985 gay pride march with dozens of buses filled with miners and their families descend upon London unannounced to march in support of the queer community.

As heartwarming – and truthful – as the ending is, Pride comes up short in explaining the motivations of LGSM. The film would have benefited from a more fully developed articulation of class politics. The inspiring commitment of LGSM to the strike cause comes off, at worst, as an odd and slightly masochistic hobby and, at best, as a result of a vague understanding of the shared experiences of groups targeted by the state. The real and more convincing explanation comes from the class-consciousness of the leadership of the LGSM. It is Mark Ashton who pushes forward with almost unfailing confidence in both the ability to the miners to overcome their prejudices and the absolute necessity of supporting the strike. Ashton was, in fact, a communist organizer and the leader of the YCL-Britain during the strike and before his untimely death of HIV AIDS at the age of 26. The only nod to Ashton’s political commitments happens when he is on stage at a nightclub in London someone in the audience yells ‘commie’. Clearly Ashton and other key members of LGSM had a deep commitment to revolutionary politics and the interests of the working class as a whole but the movie leaves this part of the story untouched.

Some have suggested that Ashton’s political background was left out in an attempt not to alienate audiences. If true, the irony is palpable. For a film clearly articulating the lessons that we should be proud of who we are when we participate in the struggle (“this is a gay and lesbian group and we are unapologetic about that”), and that we shouldn’t take heed of what our enemies say about us (“I don’t believe what they say about us miners, why should I listen to what they say about the gays?”), the choice to skirt Ashton’s revolutionary politics seems a shame.
This and other great articles will be in the next print issue of Rebel Youth! It’s a special issue on the struggle for full equality to be released for International Women’s Day 2015. Be sure to check it out!

 

On January 5, 2015, the Jackson Central Labor Council meeting in regular session “voted unanimously to endorse and support HR 676, the National Single Payer Legislation,” reports Joe Coleman, President of the CLC.  Art Sutherland III, MD, of Physicians for a National Health Program and Terry Hash of PAX Chrisiti in Memphis spoke at an earlier meeting and urged the CLC to endorse this legislation.

The CLC resolution states, “Unions have battled to achieve the highest standards of health care for members and their families, and those gains have lifted up health benefits for all workers, even those who have no union.  All of these achievements are now under constant attack as costs rise and employers seek to shift those costs to workers.”

“HR 676 will save hundreds of billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and by using our purshasing power to rein in the drug companies,” the resolution continues.

“By standing up for all working people and leading the effort to win healthcare for all, we will affirm labor’s rightful role as a leader in the fight for social justice.  Bold action by our unions can rally the nation to pass HR 676,” the resolution concludes.

CLC President Coleman said “The Jackson Central Labor Council is grateful for the dedication and perseverance of all who work tirelessly to forge the support that keeps this vital legislation at the forefront of organized labor,”

Working with Physicians for a National Health Program, Unions for Single Payer will provide speakers to unions and other labor organizations interested in learning more about single payer health care.  Just contact us using the information below.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system by expanding a greatly improved Medicare to everyone residing in the U. S.  Patients will choose their own physicians and hospitals.

HR 676 would cover every person for all necessary medical care including prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and preventive care, emergency services, dental (including oral surgery,
periodontics, endodontics), mental health, home health, physical therapy, rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care and correction, hearing services including hearing aids, chiropractic, durable
medical equipment, palliative care, podiatric care, and long term care.

HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments.  HR 676 would save hundreds of billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and HMOs.

In the current Congress, HR 676 has 47 co-sponsors in addition to Congressman Conyers.

HR 676 has been endorsed by 617 union organizations including 149 Central Labor Councils/Area Labor Federations and 44 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO, MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI, MT, NE, NJ, NY, NV, MA, RI, NH, ID & NM).

For further information, a list of union endorsers, or a sample endorsement resolution, contact:

Kay Tillow
All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care–HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551

Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayer.org

https://www.facebook.com/unionsforsinglepayer 

02/16/2015

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/18/the-billionaire-governor-goes-after-workers/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-billionaire-governor-goes-after-workers

DECLARATION

 

World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU)

XII th World Congress of Trade Unions of Public Service Employees and Allied (TUI-PSEA)

 

Social Functions of the State — in the service of the workers and people

In defense of rights of the Public Service Employees

The workers and peoples of the world have been confronted with the profound consequences of the worsening of the crisis of the capitalist system, which in the recent past has had its greatest expression since the 1930s, as a result of the intensification of exploitation and growing financialization of the economy. Processes that are the direct and intrinsic result of the development of capitalism, along with intensification of tendency in the decline of profit rates and concentration of capital.

The worsening of the crisis of the capitalist system laid bare once again its irremediable contradictions, and its now confronted with long periods of economic stagnation, fall in investment in production and deceleration of prices. The rapid growth in unemployment, reaching historic levels in various regions of the world, is reflected in a mass of unemployed workers, the majority of which without social protection. A situation that serves the interests of capital, that uses the threat of unemployment to blackmail workers, lower wages, withdraw labor rights, and weaken negotiating power in collective bargaining.

Faced with unprecedented levels of unemployment — mostly in the capitalist poles —, economic retrocession, and increases in public and private debt, capital and the government in its service have found a new opportunity to deepen the offensive against workers and the popular masses, imposing a social and civilizational retrocession with successive attacks on rights, collective contracts and the class based trade-union movement, enlarging the already the substantial sectors of the population who live in the risk of poverty and worsening misery and social exclusion.

The reconfiguration of the State and the destruction of public services

The reconfiguration of the State, increasingly placing it in the service of big capital, is clearly one of the great objectives of capitalist governments. The so-called “social State”, created after World War II as a response to the progressive advances in the Soviet Union towards building socialism, and which guaranteed important advances in the social and economic development in the countries where it was installed, rapidly became a target to kill after the fall of the USSR.

The social functions of the State — including Education, Health and Social Security —, and the principles of universality, solidarity and non-payment, are the result of the will, demands and struggle of workers and populations and are therefore their inalienable right. These principles allowed widening access of basic and non basic education to the popular masses, and the access to the highest levels of education to the children of workers; allowed universal access of the population to quality health care in case of disease, but also improvement in its prevention, in public health, and in the development of health sectors that potentiate the general improvement of living conditions; the replacement of wages in case of their loss due to disease, maternity, unemployment and old age, guaranteeing that no one who found himself in a situation of total or partial loss of wages were left to live in misery. To the social functions of the State one can also attribute the responsibility of disseminating and democratizing culture, art, improving mobility, aid in housing, aid in childhood, old age and the handicapped with public equipment, although with some insufficiencies given the population in need. Globally, the social functions of the State allowed important social and economic developments, representing a key role in decreasing the existing social inequalities, and its destruction has implied a civilizational set backwards and worsening the living conditions of workers and peoples.

The destruction of these worker’s and people’s conquests, despite being framed in a process that has been occurring for more than two decades, has had new qualitative and quantitative advances in the last years, using as arguments the sustainability of the social security systems, budget consolidation and the reduction of sovereign debts. In the case of the European Union countries, the approval of treaties and directives that are deeply against the interests and aspirations of peoples has served to crush their rights and conquests in benefit of big companies, with their respective governments handing over national sovereignty on a platter to an antidemocratic and neoliberal directorate.

The privatization packages have been horizontal to all countries in retrogression. First, with the privatizations of strategic sectors of the economy and development, like the energy sector (electricity, gas, fuels), the communication sector, including the postal service and telecommunications, the transport sector (air, rail, maritime and road transportation , as well as their respective infrastructures). The privatization of these public services meant that State monopolies were transferred to private monopolies (or almost monopolies), guaranteeing the accumulation of colossal profits to their shareholders, frequently foreign. The total dependence of populations upon the goods and services rendered — electricity, gas, telecommunications, etc. —, and the enormous investments already made by the states (and paid by taxes) in order to install and, more recently, modernize their distribution networks (with levels of coverage of the populations that can vary from country to country), in addition to having guaranteed profit, also allows that capital freely decide rate increases, reduction in coverage of services and decay in their quality, and to reserve services to those who can pay high bills.

But capital did not want to merely possess the strategic sectors of the sovereign economies. Therefore, governments opened the doors to the social functions of the State: health, education and Social Security.

The governments of capitalist countries have sought to deteriorate these social functions through progressive and substantial cuts in their budgets, by closing infrastructures (schools, hospitals, health centers, offices) and proximity services, with serious losses to populations, specially those far from the great urban centers. Children now travel dozens of kilometers to attend public school; the sick take more than an hour to reach the nearest emergency services. Social benefits have suffered significant reductions, and increased bureaucracy is used  as an obstacle to access benefits: note the low the coverage of unemployment benefits given the high number of workers without a job.

In Europe, particularly in countries that suffered the intervention of the Troika (IMF, ECB and European Commission), the essential public services have begun to rupture as the result of constant budget cuts, and lack of human and material resources. The emaciation of public services also occurs through profound attacks upon the Public Administration workers. The decrease in the number of workers, either by lay-offs, either by not renewing retired workers; the withdrawal of rights, with wage cuts, frozen career progressions, blocks to collective bargaining and contracts, and limitations on the right to strike (considering that in many countries the right to strike is totally denied to public employees); in increase in working hours and work overload; the precariousness of thousands of workers with temporary contracts while performing permanent functions are some of the offensives of governments. Simultaneously, the aim to demonize work in in public careers, passing responsibility of poor service onto the workers, in order the divide the working class and the people — when in reality the public employees and public companies are doubly penalized with the monthly pillage of their wages and will less, worse and more expensive public services.

There is no doubt that the decay of the social functions of the State is singularly aimed towards its privatization. The governments that crush the financial, human and material resources in health and education, that crush social benefits, are the same that then say that public services are unsustainable and incapable of responding to the needs of the population, in order to then hand them over to private companies — leaving the more disfavored at the mercy of charity and assistentialism.

The transformation of the State into a minimal state for the workers and peoples and maximum state for capital, a state always ready to financially sustain big banks and multinationals, with either direct injections of cash or with multiple tax benefits that allow them to be exempt from any taxation. The reinforcement of the instruments and mechanisms of repression — the remanescente function of the neoliberal State —, the large packages of privatizations (expunging the State of its instruments for economic intervention), the gradual but accelerated process of loss of sovereignty and national independence, the vast body of legals norms that penalize the working class; call rights, guarantees and liberties into question; and aim to satisfy the insatiable hunger for more exploitation and more profit.

The role of the class trade union movement in defense of public services

The class trade union movement, deeply committed with the struggle of workers in defense of their rights and public services, plays an irreplaceable role against the advance of capital. The bosses, using all the instruments at their disposal, will deepen the exploitation of workers, attacking conquests, liberties and guarantees of the peoples in order to maintain their dominance and fatten their pockets.

The reinforcement of the unity and cohesion of workers in their mass and class trade unions in the work place, as well as in their regional and international structures within the WFTU, is therefore fundamental to the development of demands, struggles and the consciousness of the working class, and in particular the workers in the public services and companies. This reinforcement also presupposes the unity in action of all workers and the struggle against reformism and bourgeoisie ideology.

Regarding demands, the actions of trade-union organizations affiliated in the TIU-Public Services, should involve, while respecting the particularities of each country:

1. The demand of modern, efficient, quality, universal and free public services that answer the real needs of workers and the populations, against their externalization or privatization, recusing their use towards the accumulation of profits by an oligarchy;
2. The demand to recall all the norms damaging  the rights of public administration workers in the countries were they were imposed;
3. The demand for improvement in the working and living conditions of the public administration workers, namely by improving their wages and work schedule, making them compatible with their personal and family life;
4. The end to precariousness of work contracts and for guarantees of stability in public jobs that guarantee its independence relative to capitalist governments, either in the central, regional and local administration, wither in the state business sectors;
5. For the rights to exercise trade-union freedom (of association, reunion, demonstration, participation, etc.) in all the workplaces and the right to collective bargaining and contracts;
6. For the implementation of social policies that respond to the interests of peoples and workers for a more just distribution of wealth, with the rejection of social assistentialism;
7. For the rejection of all neoliberal and austerity policies that in several parts of the world aim to destroy labor and social rights of workers and peoples;
8. For the struggle towards peace and internationalist solidarity, against war, militarism, aggressions, interferences and blockades that attack the interests of workers and peoples — in defense of national sovereignty, so that peoples freely decide their destiny.

The newly elected leadership of the TUI must meet and put forward a plan of action of solidarity and support of the struggle of public service workers all over the work, that will be based on the guidelines of this document voted by the XII Congress of the TUI of Public Service Workers and Allied.

Kathmandu, February 2015

WORLD FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS

Class oriented – uniting – democratic – modern – independent – internationalist! 40, ZAN MOREAS STREET, ATHENS 11745 GREECE TEL. (+30) 2109214417, (+30) 2109236700, FAX (+30) 210 9214517 www.wftucentral.org E-MAILS : info@wftucentral.org, international@wftucentral.org 1 AL 16/02/2015

Athens, Greece – February 16, 2015

SOLIDARITY WITH CANADA RAIL WORKERS

The World Federation of Trade Unions representing 90 million workers in 126 countries extends its solidarity with the Rail workers on strike in Canada.

The strike by locomotive engineers and other train workers began late Saturday after contract talks failed.

The WFTU denounces the proclamation of the Government of Canada in violation with the right to strike that the workers struggles for better wages, for safer and better working and living conditions is a “threat to the economy”.

The working class which is the engine of the economy producing all wealth in the society should be able to satisfy its contemporary needs according to the scientific and technological progress.

The WFTU joins its voice with the workers struggle and asks that their demands must be accepted and implemented not only to protect themselves but also the passengers.

THE SECRETARIAT

Hi,

We support the efforts of the USW union to improve the wages and benefits as well as working conditions of the striking refinery workers. Jobs in refineries are dangerous and require a high level of skill. As we know from the BP disasters, mistakes can cause catastrophes for the surrounding communities and the environment. These workers deserve to be compensated well and treated fairly. Failure to bargain fairly in these negotiations will only reflect the Shell Oil Company’s lack of regard for the workers and the communities in which their enterprises are located. We refuse to buy Shell products until the strike is settled.

That’s why I created a petition to Ben van Beurden, CEO, which says:

“We support the striking USW members at Shell Oil Company refineries. We will support the workers by boycotting Shell Oil Company products.”

Will you sign this petition? Click here:

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/boycott-shell-oil-company?source=c.em.mt&r_by=8638452

Thanks!