Technology of Exploitation: Intensifying Workers’ Heartrates to Maximize Capitalist Profits

Tesco accused of using electronic armbands to monitor its staff

Supermarket grades employees on efficiency and can reprimand them for breaks, says ex-worker

Kevin Rawlinson , The Independent, Wednesday 13 February 2013

Tesco workers are being made to wear electronic armbands that managers can use to grade how hard they are working.

A former staff member has claimed employees are given marks based on how efficiently they work in a bid to improve productivity and can be called in front of management if they take unscheduled toilet breaks.

The armbands are worn by warehouse staff and forklift drivers, who use them to scan the stock they collect from supermarket distribution points and send it out for delivery. Tesco said the armbands are used to improve efficiency and save its staff from having to carry around pens and paper to keep track of deliveries. But the device is also being used to keep an eye on employees’ work rates, the ex-staff member said.

The former employee said the device provided an order to collect from the warehouse and a set amount of time to complete it. If workers met that target, they were awarded a 100 per cent score, but that would rise to 200 per cent if they worked twice as quickly. The score would fall if they did not meet the target.

Anti-Austerity Strikes: Protests Grip Europe

Anti-Austerity Strikes: Protests Grip Europe

Anti-austerity protests and strikes

Activists battle with police during violent clashes in Lisbon, as protests against austerity sweep across Europe.

10:21pm UK, Wednesday 14 November 2012

Video: Protests Across Europe Against Austerity

Enlarge

Rome is being brought to a standstill as anti-austerity protesters take on riot police in the streets.

A wave of anti-austerity anger is sweeping across Europe with general strikes in Spain and Portugal and walkouts in Greece and Italy – grounding flights, closing schools and shutting down transport.

Millions of workers have been taking part in the dozens of co-ordinated protests in a so-called European Day of Action and Solidarity against spending cuts and tax hikes.

Hunger Strike: The Irish Experience

by DENIS O’HEARN

When people ask me, “what is the most important thing you learned about Bobby Sands?” I tell them one simple thing. The most important thing about Bobby Sands is not how he died on hunger strike, it is how he lived.

New York – Bıa news agency, 5 November 2012

The hunger strikes of 1980/1981, in which ten men including Bobby Sands died, are the most famous use of that political weapon. Yet hunger striking has a long history in Irish political culture. It is said that the ancient Celts practiced a form of hunger strike called Troscadh or Cealachan, where someone who had been wronged by a man of wealth fasted on his doorstep. Some historians claim that this was a death fast, which usually achieved justice because of the shame one would incur from allowing someone to die on their doorstep. Others say it was a token act that was never carried out to the death – it was simply meant to publicly shame the offender. In any case, both forms of protest have been used quite regularly as a political weapon in modern Ireland.

The history of Irish resistance to British colonialism is full of heroes who died on hunger strike. Some of the best-known include Thomas Ashe, a veteran of the 1916 “Easter Rising”, who died after he was force-fed by the British in Dublin’s Mountjoy Jail. In 1920, three men including the mayor of Cork City Terence MacSwiney died on hunger strike in England’s Brixton Prison. In October 1923 two men died when up to 8,000 IRA prisoners went on hunger strike to protest their imprisonment by the new “Irish Free State” (formed after the partition of Ireland in 1921). Three men died on hunger strike against the Irish government in the 1940s. After the IRA was reformed in the 1970s, hunger strikes became common once again. IRA man Michael Gaughan died after being force-fed in a British prison in 1974. And Frank Stagg died in a British jail after a 62-day hunger strike in 1976.

Unlike in Turkey, the Irish make no distinction between a “hunger strike” and a “death fast,” although many hunger strikes have started without the intention of anyone dying. In 1972, IRA prisoners successfully won status as political prisoners after a hunger strike in which no one died. They were then moved to Long Kesh prison camp, where they lived in dormitory-style huts and self-organized their education (including guerrilla training), work (including cooperative handicrafts production), recreation, and attempts to escape and rejoin the conflict. The prisoners used their relative freedom to raise their collective and individual consciousness about their struggle against British occupation of Ireland. They read international revolutionaries like Che Guevara and Irish socialists such as James Connolly. This was, in turn, a foundation for rebuilding the IRA on a basis that included a less hierarchical and more participative structure, with a higher emphasis on community politics as a part of armed struggle.

As the IRA rebuilt their organization in prison the British government also changed strategy. The main pillar of the new strategy was a “conveyor belt” of security operations that included widespread arrests of young Catholic males, heavy interrogation including torture, and juryless courts in which a single judge pronounced guilt often on the sole basis of verbal or written statements under interrogation.

European General Strikes announced: “We don’t owe! We won’t pay!”

Main Greek union calls general strike on November 6-7

ATHENS – Agence France Presse

EPA photo

Greece’s main union to called a 48-hour general strike for November 6-7 in protest at a new wave of austerity measures unveiled by the government in order to unlock EU-IMF bailout loans, AFP reported.

“The central aim and demand of the unions is the rejection (by parliament) of unacceptable, destructive and coercive measures imposed by the troika,” the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) said in a statement, referring to the EU, IMFand European Central Bank.

October/31/2012

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#14N: European General Strike

29 October 2012

Soulevons-nous! Erheben wir uns! Solleviamoci!

Northern Ireland: Here Comes Trouble(s) — (again)

[Typically, bourgeois Brit media characterize rebellious violence in Northern Ireland as nonsensical and anarchistic, without good or understandable cause.  This is especially true since the highly touted peace deals were consummated years ago.  But today, conditions in Northern Ireland continue to worsen for the people as the economic crisis grows.  Farmers march in protest of milk prices, mass resentment grows at plans for a celebratory visit by the hated British monarchy, provocative Orange marches are staged, and the gap between the conciliating compradors of Sinn Fein and the abused and discarded working class youth in the streets is a faultline that the powers only address with force. — Frontlines ed.]

  ——————————————–

Police Wounded In Northern Ireland Violence

Sky’s David Blevins reports on the anarchy that emerged in Belfast as the annual Orange Order march reached an ugly end.

By David Blevins, Ireland correspondent, Sky News — Friday, July 13, 2012

Nationalist protesters face the police in Ardoyne in north Belfast after an earlier Orange parade returned back past shops in the area

At least 20 police officers have been injured during public disorder at a flashpoint in North Belfast.

Nationalist youths rioted for hours after a loyalist march on a contentious stretch of road.

The teenagers went from hurling missiles to ramming police lines with vehicles they had stolen.

Officers deployed water canon and later fired plastic bullets in an attempt to restore calm.

Police later came under gun attack. Officers escaped injury when at least 10 shots were directed at them.

Nigel Dodds, the Democratic Unionist MP, witnessed the unrest in his constituency.

“There comes a point where everybody has to stand up against people who only are interested in violence,” he said.

The Orange Order had been told it must complete its annual parade earlier than usual.

Loyalists were outraged when the Parades Commission then permitted a nationalist protest march on the road.

Tension reached breaking point when rival factions came face to face, exchanged chants and threw bottles at each other.

Not for the first time, police were caught in the middle.

Protesters clash with police in Ardoyne following an Orange Order parade in north Belfast

Gerry Kelly, a Sinn Fein member the Stormont Assembly, said: “Let’s sit down, talk this out and come to some sort of accommodation. We have had worse problems to solve.”

North Belfast witnesses similar disturbances every July but they are now being fuelled by a power struggle.

Sinn Fein had called for calm but dissident Republicans made no such appeals.

Assistant chief constable Will Kerr, the officer in charge of policing parades in Northern Ireland, encouraged “individuals and communities” affected by trouble to respond in a “calm and responsible manner”.

With the Orange Order demanding its right to walk traditional routes and Catholic residents objecting, the marching season often provides the backdrop for a period of tension on the streets.

Loyalists march to mark the victory of King William of Orange over the Catholic King James in 1690.

To some, it is tradition; to others, triumphalism and they rarely compromise.

Europe’s deepening debt crisis sparks a day of protests, strikes and clashes with police

200,000 take to the streets of Dublin to protest cuts in government programs

NY Daily News, November 24th 2010

 

Debt-stricken Europe was hit by protests, strikes and clashes with police Wednesday.

Strikers brought much of Portugal to a standstill. They all but closed the airport, with passengers unable to get in or out of the country, the Associated Press reports.

In Ireland, proposals were made for its deepest budget cuts in history.

The Irish Stock Exchange saw a plunge in bank stocks as investors panicked and traders speculated on when Portugal and Spain would be the next countries begging for bailouts.

Facing criticism that he has downplayed the scale of Ireland’s financial meltdown, Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen said he expects the European Union-International Money Fund bailout loan to total $115 billion.

“The government is completely in denial about the amount of money they’ll have to borrow,” said Constantin Gurdgiev, a finance lecturer at Trinity College Dublin.

Amidst global crisis, the NATO summit in Lisbon: EU and US make a deal for missile shield aimed at Iran

Frontlines Editorial

Recent imperialist meetings have seen many new developments.  The G20 meetings in Seoul, Korea brought limited success to the US’ plans for the world economy. Public disagreements broke out among the imperialist countries over issues of trade, monetary policy and government deficit spending.

The recently concluded NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal  took place in the shadow of the deepening imperialist economic crisis in the US and the European Union. The same week as the summit, the EU and International Monetary Fund had to give Ireland hundreds of billions of dollars to save its failing banks, and Portugal may be next.  Even while the economic ties among the US and EU imperialists are growing increasingly strained, the US and its European allies in NATO were able to agree on a common political and military strategy for defending and expanding their imperialist interests in the Middle  East and Central Asia.

The articles from The Guardian and Al-Jazeera that are posted below only describe what was decided at the NATO summit. Here is Frontlines’ analysis of the summit’s most important decisions. Our comments are more extensive than usual due to the importance of this subject.

Missile Shield

The NATO leaders announced a missile shield that will be deployed in stages beginning in 2011. This is the result of an intense US campaign to focus imperialist military coordination on isolating the Islamic Republic of Iran and forcing it to give up its nuclear program.. Throughout the upcoming decade of construction of a complex multi-billion dollar system against a handful of Iranian missiles, there  will be an ever-present  and hysterical media campaign claiming that the Islamic Republic is run by “unstable fanatics” who are a military threat to Europe and to Israel.  Building the shield against the alleged “threat” from Iran aims to justify tighter US/EU sanctions, and  to prepare political support for military action against Iran.

Afghanistan

The summit also agreed on a timetable for “withdrawal” of NATO forces from Afghanistan in 2014. This is aimed at defusing growing opposition to the war (eg. the growing number of body bags of US and NATO troops). The 2014 withdrawal date is an attempt to buy time to prevent a total Taliban victory.  The war plans of the US and NATO commanders– launching bigger offensives to clear Taliban forces out of southwest Afghanistan, and  making new attempts  to split the Taliban—are not new and have not prevented the Taliban from growing and spreading throughout the country.  Still, the US and NATO countries have no choice but to continue the war.  All of them see the victory of an anti-Western fundamentalist force like the Taliban as a threat to their imperialist interests in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Russia joins the summit

The most significant development of the summit was the agreement of Russia’s President Medvedev to cooperate with the US and NATO in several areas. Medvedev offered to provide increased military assistance to the Karzai government. The Russian government also wants to see the Taliban defeated in order to cut off a source of support for separatist Islamist forces in Chechnya and the former Soviet Central Asian republics.  Most importantly, Medvedev agreed to work with the US and NATO on the missile shield.  In the months before the summit, President Obama withdrew Bush’s plan to base missile interceptors in Poland, which were aimed at Russia.  Based on the US’ assurance that the new missile system would be directed solely at Iran, the Russian imperialists decided that it was in their interests to cooperate in the development of the shield.  Russia also agreed to support tighter sanctions against Iran, and withdrew from several of its previous agreements with Iran.

US military enlists NATO in forging proxy armies in Eastern Europe

Before the NATO Summit in Lisbon on November 19-20, 2010 Pentagon Forges NATO Proxy Armies In Eastern Europe by Rick Rozoff On November 19 and 20 the leaders of 28 North American and European nations, all the major Western military powers and their vassals, will gather in the capital of Portugal for this year’s summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Until recently held every other year, NATO summits are now annual events, with the last held in France and Germany in 2009 and the preceding one in Romania in 2008. Prior to last year’s summit in Strasbourg and Kehl, the first held in two nations, four in a row had occurred in Eastern Europe: The Czech Republic in 2002, Turkey in 2004, Latvia in 2006 and Romania in 2008. None of those host countries, of course, are anywhere near the North Atlantic Ocean. Neither are any of the 12 nations incorporated into the Western military bloc in the past 11 years. This year’s summit will endorse the Alliance’s first Strategic Concept for the 21st century, a draft of which was crafted by a so-called group of experts led by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and presented in a report entitled NATO 2020: Assured Security; Dynamic Engagement. Despite NATO referring to itself as a “military alliance of democratic states in Europe and North America” and claiming that all its members’ opinions carry equal weight – as though Luxembourg and Iceland could block or override the U.S., the world’s sole military superpower as its current head of state proudly christened it last December – next month’s summit will be a rubber stamp affair. Everything the Pentagon and White House demand will be granted, most notably: Standard Missile-3 planned for Baltic and Black Sea deployments The subordination of NATO’s theater interceptor missile initiative, the Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence Programme launched in 2005, and the U.S.-German-Italian Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) to a U.S. missile shield structure throughout all of Europe and into the Middle East. The retention of at least 200 U.S. nuclear bombs on air bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. A complementary cyber warfare “dome” over the European continent directed by the new U.S. Cyber Command. [1] The qualitatively accelerated military integration of NATO and the European Union in the aftermath of the Lisbon Treaty entering into force last December 1. A Portuguese adviser to President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso recently affirmed “that the best solution for the enhancement of EU-U.S. relations would be that the European Union (EU) joins NATO.” [2]

Massive Student Protests in Ireland (two articles)

25,000 Protest Against Fees Increase

 

By Sean Flynn, Education Editor
Irish Times, November 4, 2010

In the largest student protest for a generation, at least 25,000 voiced their opposition to increased student fees outside the Dáil yesterday.

As he surveyed the vast crowd on Merrion Street, the president of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) Gary Redmond declared: “The sleeping giant that is the student movement has been awoken.”

For too long, he said, students had been a sitting
target for the Government, but the movement had been
reinvigorated and they would no longer roll over.

Pointing their fingers accusingly towards Leinster
House, the students chanted “I am a Vote, I am a Vote”
for several minutes. It was a powerful moment during a
protest which seemed at times like a throwback to student resistance in the 1960s.

The scale of the protest, organised hurriedly after weekend reports of a threatened _3,000 student charge, appeared to take even the USI by surprise. It estimated that over 40,000 attended the event. Protesters wore yellow T-shirts bearing the slogan Education Not Emigration.

Looking for profitable investments, China turns to Europe

[This Chinese move seems motivated by a search for profitable investments and the opportunity to step across the threshold of Europe.  When the Greek financial crisis exploded a few months ago, and Germany, the UK, and the US all resisted bailing out the bankrupt regime, the Chinese smelled an opportunity to go where they could not go before.–Frontlines ed.]

New York Times, November 1, 2010

In Athens, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China toured the Acropolis with Greece's prime minister, George Papandreou.

PARIS — When Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China visited Athens last month, he came bearing gifts: billions of dollars worth of business deals and a wave of favorable attention from a crucial foreign investor.

“The support of our Chinese friends is fortunate for us,” Greece’s minister of state, Haris Pamboukis, said by telephone. But China has much greater ambitions. Greece is one foothold for China’s broad, strategic push into Europe. It is snapping up assets depressed by the global financial crisis and becoming a significant partner of other hard-hit European nations.

That message will be reinforced by a visit this week by China’s president, Hu Jintao, who is scheduled to meet with top officials and business executives of Portugal and France.

Ultimately, analysts say, Beijing hopes to achieve not just more business for its own companies, but also greater influence over the economic policies set in the power corridors of Brussels and Germany.

“They are indicating a willingness to stick their nose into Europe’s business,” said Carl B. Weinberg, chief United States economist of High Frequency Economics. “It’s very clever and sends a clear message,” he added, “that China is a force to be contended with.”

 

Anti-austerity protests engulf Europe

People protest in Marseille, 02 Oct 2010

The Globe and Mail

September 29, 2010

Anti-austerity protests erupted across Europe on Wednesday as with Greek doctors and railway employees walked off the job, Spanish workers shut down trains and buses, and one man even blocked the Irish parliament with a cement truck to decry that country’s enormous bank bailouts.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets of Brussels toward European Union buildings in bright red, green and blue labour union jackets, aiming to reinforce the impact of Spain’s first countrywide strike in eight years.

Strikes or protests were also taking place Wednesday in Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Slovenia and Lithuania, all aimed at the budget-slashing, tax-hiking, pension-cutting austerity plans that European governments have implemented to control their debt.

Irish artists pledge to boycott Israel

Irish Boycott Israel campaign also targets TESCO, which sells Israeli goods produced in settlements on occupied Palestinian lands

The Irish continue to put the world to shame with their fighting spirit and devotion to justice.

From the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign:

On the afternoon of Thursday 12th August 2010, the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) officially launched the historic “Irish artists’ pledge to boycott Israel” at a lunchtime concert in Meeting House Square in Dublin. Present at the launch were 20 of the pledge’s current 150 signatories, including musicians Damien Dempsey, Donal Lunny and Eoin Dillon (Kíla), artists Robert Ballagh and Felim Egan, playwright Jimmy Murphy and actress Neilí Conroy as well as a crowd of supporters.

Pledge Signatories (L-R): Hassan Ould Moctar (musician), Philip Donnery (musician), Jimmy Murphy (playwright), Felim Egan (painter), Renate Debrun (artist), Sami Moukkadem (musician, writer), Rhona Clarke (composer), Dave Lordan (poet), Raymond Deane (com

Pledge Signatories (L-R): Hassan Ould Moctar (musician), Philip Donnery (musician), Jimmy Murphy (playwright), Felim Egan (painter), Renate Debrun (artist), Sami Moukkadem (musician, writer), Rhona Clarke (composer), Dave Lordan (poet), Raymond Deane (composer), Stephen Rothschild (artist), Steve Woods (film-maker), Bobby Ballagh (artist), Deirdre Murphy (dancer), Donal Lunny (musician), Damien Dempsey (singer), Trevor Knight (musician), Eoin Dillon (ceoltóir), Dearbhla Glynn (film-maker), Neilí Conroy (actor), Freda Hughes (IPSC chairperson)

The pledge, described by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) as “a ground-breaking initiative”, has now been signed by over 150 Irish creative and performing artists including Christy Moore, Andy Irvine, Seamus Deane, Sinéad Cusack, Jimmy MacCarthy, Margaretta Darcy and Conor Kostick. It commits signatories to boycotting the Israeli state under it respects international law,

An Artist’s Pledge To Boycott Apartheid Israel

Irish poet Dave Lordan joined the cultural boycott of Israel

By Dave Lordan

28 August, 2010

The Electronic Intifada

I am proud to be among the many Irish and Ireland-based artists from across creative disciplines who have chosen to publicly support the growing campaign of boycott against apartheid Israel. Compared to the imprisoned Palestinian people themselves and to those taking part in flotillas and other perilous anti-apartheid activities in Palestine our contribution and risk may be justly considered small. At most we might lose the chance of lucrative invitations to read, perform or display our works in parts of the US where apartheid Israel’s supporters hold the power of censorship. Departments of foreign affairs and ministries of culture may also not include us among those artists they can rely upon to project a lying image of a harmonious, bon vivant and, above all, harmlessly apolitical intelligentsia. We are sure to be slandered and ridiculed by the hired bullies of the global media empires.

These are tiny punishments indeed compared to the instant annihilation that Israel with its snipers and bombers and jet planes and tanks has visited on a daily basis upon Palestinian men, women and children for the last 62 years. The threat we come under for speaking out at a safe distance is nothing beside the threat apartheid Israel holds constant over every urban civilian in the Middle East with its 200-bomb-strong nuclear arsenal. Besides, to be ostracized and blacklisted by these last remaining friends of apartheid Israel, the gangster governments of west and east and their spies and ideological enablers, is to be reminded of the phrase of that great political artist William Blake, who tells us to “Listen to the fool’s reproach — it is a kingly title.”

The rising of youth in Northern Ireland

[Though “those in the front line of public disorder appear to be mostly young people from disadvantaged areas”, this article cannot comprehend any reason why the youth would be rising up, years after the ‘peace deal.’  The media once again can neither imagine nor explain that people have real issues and reasons for thinking that ‘business as usual’ is oppressive.-ed]

Police officers face rioters throwing Molotov cocktail and bricks in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Wednesday.

N. Ireland cops face ‘Disney theme park for rioting’

Political, religious leaders plead for youths to stop violence before one is killed

msnbc.com,  7/15/2010

BELFAST — Rioters attacked police in Northern Ireland for the fourth straight night with children as young as 9 taking part in the mayhem, according to reports.

Molotov cocktails were hurled at officers in Belfast, Britain’s Press Association reported on Thursday.

On Monday, nationalists attacked police with petrol bombs during parades by the pro-British Orange Order and tried to set a train traveling on the Belfast-Dublin line on fire. The unrest followed violence on Sunday night in which three police officers were shot and wounded.

Rose McGowan Hit for Pro-IRA Comments

Sept. 18, 2009 Associated Press

The producers of the IRA drama “Fifty Dead Men Walking” have taken the unusual step of distancing themselves from incendiary comments made by the film’s star, Rose McGowan. The actress caused a stir at the Toronto Film Festival last week when she said she would have joined the Irish Republican Army had she lived in Belfast during the Troubles. She said she could understand why people turned to violence during that time in Northern Ireland.

The movie is based on the life of double agent Martin McGartland, who infiltrated the IRA. Jim Sturgess plays McGartland as a young Catholic man in Belfast moving up the ranks of the IRA as he feeds information to his British Special Branch handler (Ben Kingsley). McGowan, whose father is Irish, plays a strong-willed IRA leader.

In a statement sent to The Hollywood Reporter, the producers said they “regret any distress” that McGowan’s comments may have caused “to people of Northern Ireland and particularly those who were victims of or caught up in the shocking events that existed during the conflict.” They added: “Ms. McGowan’s views were private ones, and as such they greatly saddened the film’s producers.”

Her views, said backers HandMade Films International, Future Films and Brightlight Pictures, “are not shared nor endorsed by anybody associated with the production or creative elements of the film.”

Added the film’s Canadian director, Kari Skogland: “Rose’s personal opinions of Northern Ireland do not reflect the perspective of the film in any way. Our goal was to present an even, non-judgmental point of view so the audience could follow the path of an informer with empathy no matter what the politics.”

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter