Donna Ferentes
jubliado
I don't. There have always been a number of correspondents supportive of the labour movement and pieces supporting trades unions (and inded written by them) do quite often appear.Isambard said:
The Guardian: a right wing trajectory?
- Thread starter treelover
- Start date
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Hmmm, I think you might want to examine your assumptoins before rolling youreyes when someone else does.comstock said:Yeah whatever. This isn't the thread to discuss it on anway
Blame Virgil, that's the way the bastard wrote it. Why are you called comstock when you've got at leat two names?comstock said:why are you called Donna btw when you are male
)
kyser_soze said:
sorry, but the above just simply isn't true, not even on a minority basis and not even working from an anti-union bias. German companies have been waving the outsourcing stick at their workers for a while now and the big unions have clicked-heels and done as they were told - to the extent of 4 figure job losses, pay freezes, revision of working conditions, productivity increases. Workers have complained but industrial action has been negligible.
You're just parroting a tired cliche.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
This would be compared to what, and when? It wasn't all Alistair Cameron in the old days, y'know.Rob Ray said:
One point people apparently find difficult to grasp is that the Guardian is not, in fact, a political party. Most of its employees are just doing a job and would therefore resemble much the same people doing much the same job inthe offices of the Telegraph or the Independent. Not surprisingly, only a few of its employees are, therefore, committed leftwingers. It's a real straw-man position. Gosh, the Guardian isn't chocker with leftists! Well, mercy me.Rob Ray said:
kyser_soze said:
imvho the main problem with the TU movement in Germany is that the grass roots have little control and everything is sewn up by the bureaucrats with even strikes being down by rota.
The leadership sells to the members that all have they have to do is elect union bureaucrats onto works councils and everything will be cushty.
If you accept the system as it is then maybe yes, you should make some concessions but hey guess what, you make concessions and they come a year later for what they said they didn't want.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
So what you're saying is that it's never happened? Once. Ever?
I'm not saying that it's widespread or the norm, but it has happened (to a FoaFs famliy business for one)
Just out of interest, do any of you luminairies have any workable solutions to Germany's current economic ills - unemployment stubborn at over 10%, stagnant economy, ongoing problems with immigration and old East Germany, pensions timebomb and a population that steadfastly refuse to spend their way out of slow growth?
I'm not saying that it's widespread or the norm, but it has happened (to a FoaFs famliy business for one)
Just out of interest, do any of you luminairies have any workable solutions to Germany's current economic ills - unemployment stubborn at over 10%, stagnant economy, ongoing problems with immigration and old East Germany, pensions timebomb and a population that steadfastly refuse to spend their way out of slow growth?
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Yeah, I know. You might recall I spotted this as soon as you started posting. remarkably, Donna isn't my real name either.[/QUOTE]comstock said:
comstock said:
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Hasn't it always been? If not completely than at least aspirant m/c...
Without getting personally nasty, it is the owners of "small family business" who are amongst the worst blackmailers and leaches in Germany. they bitched and moaned the whole 7 years of Rot-grün and ran an investment strike becasue they couldn't BEAR the though of not being able to have a Thathcerite orgy.
Will come back to this later.
kyser_soze said:
Will come back to this later.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Some of the "whither Germany" pieces have been unintentionally revelaing as the bosses interviewed have all gone on about how lazy they think their workers are (and how overpaid).Isambard said:
Rob Ray
Weight is meaningless
Compared with when it was actually a good source of information and campaigned strongly on left-wing subjects, from what I gather (I was too young to read it by the time it changed over, so it's hearsay from older journos I've spoken to). The Manchester Guardian is usually held up as an example of how you can run a successful paper that does the job it is supposed to, even amongst socialist/anarchist journalists.
The topic of the article was 'is the guardian on a right wing trajectory'. The answer I gave was that it used to be left wing, and is now full of liberals with very few left-wingers involved, thus changing the structure and overall outlook of the paper. I'm not entirely sure how this is off toic or a straw man argument.
The topic of the article was 'is the guardian on a right wing trajectory'. The answer I gave was that it used to be left wing, and is now full of liberals with very few left-wingers involved, thus changing the structure and overall outlook of the paper. I'm not entirely sure how this is off toic or a straw man argument.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
treelover said:yeah, who reads that crap and more importantly who buys the crap they advertise/promote/waffle on about?
eg dresses: 400 pounds, tables, 600, pounds, kitchen gadget, 80.00
oh i forgot, some urban posters who pay 300 pound for a meal
OOO, I sense bitterness here...besides, when was the last time you saw an article in the main newspaper extolling a new interior design fad or a £10,000 table?
And I've NEVER paid that much for a meal. Expenses, always expenses
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Well, I think it's being compared to a largely imaginary past. (I also think the evidence adduced was laughable.)Rob Ray said:
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Probably the most succinct answer about the OP on the enture thread...
Genuine question, as I know very little about these things - are there many Guardian journos who've worked for the Mail, Times etc? Not the likes of the star columnists eg Toynbee, I mean the reporters, subeditors etc. Might add some credence to my "just another paper, so what" thesis.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Yes, there are, and yes, to a degree it would confirm that thesis.hibee said:
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
hibee said:
Same applies around the press full stop tho - I've met lefty journos who work at the Mail before (their defence of 'It pays the bills and pays them well' completely fine in my book) as well as right of centres at the Indie. Journos will adapt their stories to whatever the house style is for the title they're working on - i.e. for the Mail they switch on 'hysteria' and use a thesaurus for as many creative ways to say 'Asylum seekers cause house prices to drop while eating swans and causing A-level standards to drop' (did I miss any there?) whereas Inidie jounoes go for 'Ways to make this story 10 times less interesting than it might be'.
kyser_soze said:
Well if it's not widespread or the norm, why would you feel the need to comment upon it? It's hardly evidence of a economy choked by constant strike action and obstinate trade unions, or even of a need to reform.
(oh, and FYI, your FOAF whining about his 'uppity workers' probably says more about them than German trade unionism
)Well for a start I'd junk the assumption that high labour costs are causing Germany's low growth levels and high unemployment. In East Germany average labour costs are actually lower than in the UK and considerably lower than in the west - guess where all the unemployment is!
Solving Germany's problems? Well I'd say even the status quo is better than neo-liberalism.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Incidentally, if they worked for another national paper before the Guardian something must have gone wrong as the Guardian is the worst payer among the nationals. (Worse than the Indie, since you ask.)
The Guardian is different to the Mail, Times etc in so much as it's run not-for-profit. How much difference that makes is less certain.
You also have to remeber we now (thank f**k) have had a Labour govt for 8 years. The Guardian has always been the voice of opposition to the status quo, at least to some extent. The status quo is now New Labour.
You also have to remeber we now (thank f**k) have had a Labour govt for 8 years. The Guardian has always been the voice of opposition to the status quo, at least to some extent. The status quo is now New Labour.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
There was a very good piece by Kevin Toolis in the Guardian Weekend a few years back, about Afghanistan, which for some reason that I forget began with his time on the Vile writing "loony lefty" pieces. One of these actualy involved stitching up an old friend of his. He even went round and took a photgraph of him and all.kyser_soze said:
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
My FoaF was made bankrupt by union action so take your ill thought out comment and place it somewhere else. His famliy were fortunate in that they had savings and suchlike, the 250 people the firm employed aren't in quite the same position.
What I love is this idea that's coming through here that workers could in any way never be 'lazy', which is utter bollocks.
And why would you junk the assumption that high labour costs are PART of the problem? Bercause it makes any subsequent disucssion on how to solve the problems slightly harder? And pointing to East Germany and making the comparison is pointless - it's got a completely fucked industrial infrastructure left over from reunificaiton from where WG companies failed to invest in and skipped over to Poland and cheaper Eastern European countries to build new plant because, funnily enough, emplying a Weast German is considerably higher than someone in Poland - more to the point, it's considerably more expensive to fire workers in Germany.
kyser_soze said:
How can they be bankrupt and have savings? You don't mean bankrupt, you mean 'took their ball and fucked off home' because the union wouldn't let them shaft their workers sufficiently.
Pretty shit criticism of a nation whose worker productivity is afaik the best in Europe though.
Christ... if German investors were looking for low labour costs then why aren't they decamping to East Germany?
Labour costs in W.Germany £18 an hour
in UK £14 an hour
in E.Germany £11 an hour
Why does the bottom one have no-growth and massive unemployment?
Because German investment strike has fuck all to do with not being able to make any money (plenty of layoffs at profitable factories), it's to do with blackmailing an economic system - using their muscle to diassemble the social model.
Why does the blame for that fall on German workers? How low do you suppose they'll have to go before investors decide to give them a break?
But then, it's the unions blackmailing society with their commie ways
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
I'm not blaming anyone, and you're right, I used incorrect terminology - the business went under because they were unwilling to keep pouring money into something that, had they been allowed to lay off 1/3 of the workforce, would be making a profit at the moment. So yes, instead of chucking more money into a hole they decided to cut the losses and run. To which the local union boss tried to cal a strike to prevent.
Poland is CHEAPER than E.Germany and it doesn't have the same employment legislation that makes it extremely difficult to lay workers off once they're employed. Hourly rate isn't the only thing to take into account when employing someone.
I'm not blaming anyone - German management, as with Britain during the 70s has got as much to blame, but the real culprit is the combination of unions AND bosses AND Workers failing to recognise and adjust the social model over time to cope with the trading world outside Germany. The mess that the German economy is in at the moment is the fault of all parties concerned, govt, business and unions. But your way of looking at the world doesn't allow for that.
Poland is CHEAPER than E.Germany and it doesn't have the same employment legislation that makes it extremely difficult to lay workers off once they're employed. Hourly rate isn't the only thing to take into account when employing someone.
I'm not blaming anyone - German management, as with Britain during the 70s has got as much to blame, but the real culprit is the combination of unions AND bosses AND Workers failing to recognise and adjust the social model over time to cope with the trading world outside Germany. The mess that the German economy is in at the moment is the fault of all parties concerned, govt, business and unions. But your way of looking at the world doesn't allow for that.
What is interesting about the debate about Germany, in the Guardian and, dare I say it, on here , is the sheer class hatred that it exposes.
Garton-Ash's latest article is a case in point - the most condescending pile of crap I have read in a long time. His use of words like "ghastly" says it all - who uses words like that these days? His fawning description of the German section of the footloose cosmopolitan global business class and their young is very instructive. We are really meant to think, "these are the people that should be running the world", these thrusting, enterprising, countryless, morality free yuppiescum that one can now see infesting Europe from Moscow to Dublin
The point about the Guardian is not chiefly that it is "more right-wing", but that it currently slavishly follows and promotes the neo-liberal globalisation agenda of the Blairites in just about every editorial and the majority of articles on international topics. It is about creation of a reality where "choice" is between two unpalatable versions of the same rotten dish and anything else is classed as eccentric or unrealistic.
, is the sheer class hatred that it exposes.Garton-Ash's latest article is a case in point - the most condescending pile of crap I have read in a long time. His use of words like "ghastly" says it all - who uses words like that these days? His fawning description of the German section of the footloose cosmopolitan global business class and their young is very instructive. We are really meant to think, "these are the people that should be running the world", these thrusting, enterprising, countryless, morality free yuppiescum that one can now see infesting Europe from Moscow to Dublin
The point about the Guardian is not chiefly that it is "more right-wing", but that it currently slavishly follows and promotes the neo-liberal globalisation agenda of the Blairites in just about every editorial and the majority of articles on international topics. It is about creation of a reality where "choice" is between two unpalatable versions of the same rotten dish and anything else is classed as eccentric or unrealistic.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Yeah, but you pretty much see that on here every day really.
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