The strike began two days before when a worker was refused entry to the factory for wearing her identity card incorrectly attached to her shirt. After she complained about his actions the guard threw her to the ground.

It may have been a spontaneous event that triggered the strike but it fits into a pattern of growing unrest and a general raising of workers’ consciousness over the past couple of years as China emerges from an economic slump on the back of another potential housing bubble.

In 2008 the English language blog ‘China Labor News Translations’ released a statement saying “We believe that the labor movement in Guangdong province has entered a new stage and is worth our close attention.”

Approximately 1,700 striking Honda workers are demanding a nearly twofold increase in their wages in what was the third Honda factory stoppage in two weeks.

Outrage and protests over a recent spate of suicides at electronics goods manufacturer Foxconn (which assembles products for corporate giants including Apple, Nokia and Sony) in the past year have led to pay increases of nearly 70%. These figures may seem impressive in themselves but they come after two decades of real wage stagnation as demand for workers in the industrial centres was easily met by an abundance of cheap labour brought in from China’s rural areas. The planned increases don’t even meet the minimum wage in the Shenzhen province which is due to be rolled out later in the year.

Confidence of the workers

The striking Honda workers were met by police in riot gear but showed no signs of intimidation. By midmorning the police had dispersed, leaving the workers to block the road leading to the industrial estate where they work. An hour later they too dispersed but remained on strike.The workers (most in their early twenties, over half of them women) have low levels of education, though some hold high school degrees. They are demanding their pay to be brought into line with the workers at the first Honda factory to strike in Fashan.

Workers at the Fashan factory are nearly all young men aged 18-24 with high school degrees and a couple of years of vocational experience. Recently there have been strikes at Japanese and Taiwanese-owned factories in five other cities. But these strikes are reported to have ended quickly as managers, facing extreme labour shortages, have moved to meet workers’ demands. It is believed that the labour shortage was partly caused by the infamous one-child law introduced in 1978. Councils of workers have sprung up formed of representatives from each department, elected due to their persuasive skills, to hold negotiations with management.

Extreme conditions

Workers report having to stand up at their posts for 8 hours a day. Pregnant women are only allowed to sit at their work stations when in their third trimester. As well as not being allowed to speak to each other whilst at work (a widespread policy across China), workers have to request passes before taking toilet breaks and are criticised by managers for taking too long to get a drink of water.

Although individual strikes are tolerated by the state, any form of wider organisation between workplaces is forbidden. Although there appears to have been no organised connection between the wave of strikes, they appear to have inspired a chain reaction of spontaneous actions. This has added to workers’ increased confidence and willingness to fight. The rise of China’s working class may be causing worry for companies who rely on the ‘workshop of the world’ to maximise profits and maintain a competitive edge in a global market over-saturated with competing firms.

A grass roots movement

An online publication by the South Wind Window magazine describes an emerging grass roots labour movement in Southern China “committed to the mission of ‘self-help struggle”. According to the report, in areas of high density labour “migrant workers have been unfairly treated for a long time. Strikes, retaliation against bosses, suicides and other extreme actions are causing serious social instability.”

It sees the task of labour NGOs as reducing the ‘instability’ caused by strikes and walkouts saying “the activities of these organisations have mitigated labour conflicts and promote justice for workers, and have effectively contributed to social stability.” But it’s possible that the militancy of workers may soon overtake the conservative attitude of labour NGOs, however ‘grass roots’ they may be.

This could explain why exploited workers are demanding directly representative, democratic unions of their own to break away from the conciliatory function of ‘self-help’ NGOs. Mr Liu of Livelihood Watch said “I think more strikes are on the way.” He doesn’t share the view that labour NGOs should refuse to rock the boat, saying “they won’t destabilise society. On the contrary, they are outlets for worker anger. Social stability will be threatened only if the government tries to limit these actions.”

Open clashes between angry workers and strike-breakers sent from ACFTU, the All China Federation of Trade Unions (which is heavily state-controlled and doesn’t allow workers the right to collective bargaining) support the idea that the level of class struggle is far in advance of the union bureaucracies.

A divided response

According to China Labor Translations (CLT) some sections of local government bureaucracies “are in disagreement about what to do” now that industrial struggle is stepping up a notch and “pro-business sectors of the bureaucracies have begun curtailing the legal activities of the NGOs”.  However this is not yet a consensus amongst local government bureaucrats. According to CLT, the Guangdong Provincial General Federation of Trade Unions “disapproves of these suppressive measures for fear this will only exacerbate antagonistic labor relations” and is seeking to “incorporate the labor NGOs under its wing”.

A reputation to contend with

As the labour NGOs of the Guangdong province have built a reputation for successful disputes, the official trade union has been forced to enter into discussions with them. Needless to say “this relationship is very fragile” but workers may not be best served by such relationships.

If a powerful and effective labour movement is to be built which can seriously challenge the status quo, workers must not be afraid to fight for economic equality. This means challenging the profit model which free market corporatists have been dining out on for so long. A “don’t rock the boat” mentality benefits capitalists far more than it does workers, on who management depends to produce the real wealth of society.

Under the spotlight

The Honda strikes certainly represent a qualitative and quantitative shift in the level of struggle but it was the shocking wave of suicides at Foxconn that  sparked widespread anger across the movement and brought the levels of exploitation sharply into people’s minds. Protests were held in China and across the world on the 8th June- the day that Apple launched the high-profile iPhone4- in response to management’s failure to improve working conditions or raise wages.

CLB founder Han Dongfang (a Hong Kong based worker-activist imprisoned for organising workers during the Tiananmen square protests) says concessions made by ACFTU towards labour NGOs are not enough to satiate labour unrest. Foxconn factories may be of an extremely high-standard (including local cinemas and swimming pools) but hours are long, work is repetitive and the management system has been described as ‘militaristic’.

Han says that the only way to resolve workers’ disputes is to “have a real trade union go through the collective bargaining procedures and say, ‘Sorry, the piece rate is that low and you ask us to make that many pieces per hour?’”Collective bargaining is being used at the three Honda factories where workers struck. With no more than 2,000 workers per plant (a relatively low number in China) it has been relatively easy for workers to organise outside of ACFTU.

Confidence in the face of adversity

The transmission factory strike was resolved on the 4th June but two days later workers at another factory in Foshan struck, forcing Honda to halt production. A few hours before the second Honda dispute seemed to be reaching a temporary settlement, fellow workers at a third factory (producing door locks) struck as well.

Industrial action in China is no walk in the park. Both the police and the official state union are prepared to face down the workers with force. China’s militant workers, fully aware of the resistance they face, are prepared for such clashes and aren’t ready to back down. Ms Li, a spokeswoman for independent worker representatives said “everybody should protect their own rights, and sooner or later we will start to build our own independent union.”

Strikes held on 8th June coincided with workers at Shanghai’s KOK International clashing with police. A petition circulated by the KOK workers read “power lies in unity and hope lies in defiance”. This is a lesson the NGOs may be unwilling to learn.

Young, angry and informed

The new generation of workers are predominantly aged between 18-24 and are unwilling to accept the conditions their parents’ generation faced as China entered into a rapid programme of capitalist expansion. Mainly high-school educated, workers get information about strikes elsewhere through reports in official media, blogs and internet chat forums.

According to Professor Chang Kai of Renmin University “Workers now realise that they can’t protect their rights as individuals so their awareness of the need for collective action has increased.” He is dubious, in light of union behaviour during the Honda dispute, about “what position unions should take in the conflict between workers and capitalists.”

The tipping point

Strikes appear to have increased significantly since a major demonstration held by workers in 2008 at Yantian port, Shenzhen. The factory is owned by Li Ka-Shing, Asia’s richest man. According to Liu Kaiming, director of Shenzhen based labour rights group the Institute of Contemporary Observation, the demonstration marked the ‘tipping point’ because workers “demanded their own representatives.” Liu Kaiming believes that “workers in China are becoming more and more powerful.

They are not just asking for higher wages; they are asking for an elected union. Their appeal is not just about individual issues – they are asking for collective rights and benefits.” This new generation of militant workers are aware of their rights and are willing to fight for them.

Impact on the economy

Some have speculated that corporations will no longer be able to achieve maximum exploitation of those who toil in ‘the workshop of the world’ any longer and that this will drive inflation across the world and drive down the value of the yuan. Others believe that the value added to products assembled by Chinese workers is minimal and that added cost wont impact greatly on consumers.

Geoffrey Crothall, spokesman for the China Labor Bulletin, said that workers have been driven harder as China begins to pull out of its recent economic slowdown, yet they have seen no appropriate wage increase. He believes this is the driving force between workers’ antipathy towards management. He also thinks that workers have been inspired by the successes of previous industrial action, saying “they see strikes have been successful elsewhere and decide to try their luck,”

A challenge to state power

China’s ruling class fear their grip on power is being challenged by China’s rising labour movement. Those who dissent in public or set up unofficial labour organisations face abuse and prosecution. Labour unrest has lead to most local government in China announcing a rise in the minimum wage to 1,000 (USD147) and has lead to several companies considering shifting their industries to India, Indonesia and Vietnam.

But China’s advanced supply chain network and industrial infrastructure makes capital flight unlikely. This puts the Chinese working class in a strong position to throw their weight around after 30 years of exploitation under an expanding economy. A strong labour movement in China would be in a position to back the exploiting class into a corner and attack corporate profit margins.

But it is the response of the working class of the rest of the world working in solidarity with the struggle in China that can shift the balance of power in favour of the exploited. The process has begun in Greece in response to punitive “austerity measures” implemented by a disorientated but vicious ruling class, determined to make workers pay for a crisis they did not create. China also points the way and could be decisive in the battles ahead.

First published on Counterfire.org.

The honeymoon is over

But the reality is that support for the coalition has been declining rapidly. Many voters withheld their judgement from the start, but now “views are hardening up”, according to a YouGov analysis which compares ConDem support to Blair’s New Labour administration in 1997.

Immediately after New Labour came to power 76% approved of the government’s performance and 13% disapproved. One week after the ConDems came to power, 39% approved and 26% disapproved. ConDem support reached a peak at 48% five weeks later and then opinion began to nosedive. It took just over two months for ConDem support to sink to levels not reached by Labour in 3 years of falling opinion.

As of 24th August, approval ratings were evenly split at 40/40 but the next day the government’s net approval rating (the amount of people who approve above and beyond those who disapprove) dropped below zero, to minus 2.

The cuts: who benefits?

Resistance to the cuts is clearly a strong factor in vanishing approval ratings and diminishing voter intentions. This has lead to Labour clawing back voters as Lib Dem support disintegrates to a dismal 12%. The gap between Conservatives and Labour is beginning to close at 41% and 39% respectively.

Support for the coalition is support for the cuts. As the effects of the emergency budget begin to be felt and October’s spending review looms, the public are beginning to wonder exactly who has their best interests in mind.

It’s quite clear that the banks have bounced back at the cost of public spending and to the detriment of the welfare state. In the City, the excess of bonus culture has returned whilst in government, Topshop mogul Sir Phillip Green has been hired to review the government’s cuts and in education schools face privatisation under the class-biased Academies scheme.

The cost of the cuts

The ConDems “ring-fencing” of the NHS was a vital pillar in their election rhetoric but that has now turned out to be another lie. The “restructuring” of the NHS will cost around £3 billion, which is money spent on a process with no evidence of effectiveness, instead of providing vital services.

This teaches a vital lesson- where the government says “savings”, read “cuts”. The NHS has been asked to find up to £20 billion in “savings” (cuts) in the next few years and it’s quite clear that this will translate into thousands of job losses- with a projected “worst case scenario” of 34, 000 posts cut by 2014.

Alongside this an estimated £11 billion will be cut from benefits, hitting pensioners, the disabled and working families the hardest. Furthermore, the National Housing Federation warns that £45 billion could be lost from the economy in the construction industry as the government slashes the housing budget. This will add hundreds of thousands of people onto waiting lists for council housing.

The need for resistance

As support for the ConDems diminishes and the impact of the cuts becomes increasingly catastrophic, people are beginning to look for an alternative. The space this opens up in the political arena will be contested by both the left and the right. The failure of the left to mobilise a mass movement against cuts and privatisation would be grossly negligent.

The call for a Coalition of Resistance announced by Tony Benn, Caroline Lucas and many others is a call for the left to unite and mobilise vast sections of wider society. With an attack on the welfare state more savage than those enacted by Thatcher, the cost of defeat will be huge. We have to act now and act fast.

A London-wide activists’ meeting will be held the University of London Union (map), room 3a, 2nd September, 6.30pm with a national organising conference at The Camden Centre (map), 27th October, 10am-5pm.

First published on Counterfire.org.

Noam Chomsky, Hopes and Prospects (Hamish Hamilton 2010) 336pp

Chomsky reveals the protean nature of imperialist doctrine from a wealth of academic sources. What emerges is a picture of incredible ideological smoke-and-mirrors from the proponents of neo-liberalism.

One particularly perverse idea that Chomsky dismantles is the concept of “the abuse of reality”.

This is the idea that reality is judged by the extent to which the “national purpose” has been achieved- an aim which can only be realised by contemplation of “the evidence of history as our minds reflect it”.

Any reliance on the objective historical record (a concept which is itself the source of contempt in post-modern circles which see history as series of competing “narratives”) is to be discarded, as merely the “abuse of reality”.

It is only those blessed with recourse to a higher national purpose who can judge the righteous aims of “exceptional” states such as America.

Hopes and Prospects takes as its main focus this concept of “American exceptionalism”- a pernicious pseudo-philosophy which grants America exemption from basic moral actions on the grounds that is an exceptional state entity for who the normal rules of international diplomacy don’t apply.

Chomsky spends a great deal of the book demonstrating in painstaking detail that there is nothing “exceptional” about America’s actions or the idea that it is somehow exempt from standard moral practices.

Indeed, America acts in exactly the same way that all empires act- with the callousness and arrogance of those who feel above the law because they are its ultimate enforcer.

He describes how American military bases have been established across the world in the name of “security” or “stability” but are really just networks of fear and intimidation proliferated in a bid to outdo and suppress all global competition.

He also explains how “American exceptionalism” is extended to the ruthless actions of Israel in its continuing acts of aggression against Palestine and the people of Gaza.

These chapters are some of the most insightful and even-handed in the book. He reports how Hamas repeatedly called for ceasefires and peace talks with Israel and that time and again it was Israel that broke ceasefire and perpetrated gross acts of war upon Palestine.

He dismantles any notion that Israel’s actions are in any way acts of “retaliation”, however disproportionate, and rightly describes them as acts of aggression and war in defiance of international law.

He explains how America publicly condemns “disproportionate” Israeli acts but never pursues legal action. He describes this as a “nudge and wink” relationship where Israeli leaders know they will get away with the acts that the USA claims to deplore.

Chomsky has some interesting things to say about political economy in a section which details the state’s use of centralised planning by the military to achieve the developmental aims which individual capitalists are unable to achieve- such as constructing roads, railways and even the internet; all tasks assigned to the US military at crucial stages of American development.

The chapters of Hopes and Prospects that deal with Obama’s presidency make for fascinating reading. He describes Obama as a skilled legal operator with a carefuly refined use of words who walks a tightrope between pleasing the American people and pleasing the corporations who fund political parties and influence both domestic and foreign policy.

He explains how Obama capitulates to the corporations when their interests conflict with those of the American people, which is most of the time.

Obama’s controversial healthcare plan started out with a public option but was systematically attacked by the right and gutted of any ability to hold health insurance providers to account or properly regulate the system, let alone reform it.

Obama’s election campaign is described as a “blank slate” onto which the hopes of his voters can be mapped but which contain no real content.

Of interest is the fact that public healthcare was massively popular amongst American people in polls with over 70% in favour of it despite concerted efforts by the mainstream media to decry it as a social evil.

Chomsky uses statistical data from polls to reveal that governments are significantly to the right of their populations all across the world and as such Hopes and Prospects is a vital guide to debunking the insidious idea that people get the governments they deserve.

In fact Chomsky reveals how Obama not only maintained the continuity of America’s imperial agenda which advanced rapidly through the Reagan and Bush years but that Obama has actually gone a lot further than Bush ever did in escalating war in the Middle East.

It is in describing the actions of imperialist states that Chomsky excels: plainly and even-handedly correcting myths and misrepresentations about international relations with reference to mainstream news publications, academic journals and scholarly works.

He even attempts to reclaim the idea of globalisation from its neo-liberal architects.

Chomsky describes two competing forms of globalisation- the expansion of capital across the globe in the name of the free market and the humanitarian attempt to foster true internationalism, fostering unity between diverse social groups.

He expertly debunks the notion of free markets with rigorous historical examples. His essential argument is that markets can only be “free” once wealth has been appropriated first through imperialist wars.

This merely translates into the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak first through militaristic, then through economic means.

It is in describing the alternatives to such a seemingly all-pervasive system of expropriation and exploitation that much of the book falls down.

As fascinating as Chomsky’s articles are (the book is collated from a string of lectures delivered by the author over a one year period) the fundamental flaw is the lack of any really concrete “hopes and prospects” other than a relatively vague notion that the ideas of various pro-democratic movements such as the “World Social Forum” in South America will somehow take hold and change the balance of power in favour of social justice and economic equality.

He points to the expansion of the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a genuine prospect for humanity whilst simultaneously acknowledging that “American exceptionalism” will inevtitably frustrate any possibility of global disarmament.

Chomsky doesn’t make it clear how such worthy aims are to be achieved in the face of such blatant obstructionism.

More uplifting is his emphasis of the importance of internal resistance and political activism in Afghanistan, citing the example of Malalai Joya, a politician who went into hiding after defying the repressive political establishment.

Her continuing battle for equality and genuine democracy from within her own country is an inspiring rebuttal of the imbecilic notion that democracy has to be enforced from above by foreign invaders rather the developed from below by the very people who seek emancipation.

But there are not enough examples of concrete political prospects such as the anti-capitalist movement which exploded in Seattle in 1999, democratic revolutionary struggle in Thailand and Nepal, a rising labour movement in China or political resistance to austerity programmes in Europe to create a dynamic picture of the alternatives to global capitalism.

It is true that humanity has great prospects for radical, progressive change but it is not nearly enough to hope that such change will emerge spontaneously from a generalised sense of injustice. For those who wish to change the world it is not enough to merely hope- we have to act.

First published on Counterfire.org.

But even Saatchi and Saatchi couldn’t gloss over the cracks in the Tories’ pseudo-liberal facade.

As soon as Cameron was taken off his well-rehearsed script he asked for the cameras to be turned off rather than admitting that Tory MPs would not be whipped to vote against homophobic policies in EU localities.

The laughable appointment of Theresa May as Equalities Minister (that sinisterly Orwellian title) was appropriately attacked by the left with a Facebook campaign forcing her to admit on Question Time that she had “changed my view” on her previous vote against the repeal of Section 28.

It is not clear whether she has “changed her view” on a whole series of anti-LGBT votes throughout her parliamentary career.

May’s supposed change of heart may have played well to the QT audience but as recent as 2008 she voted in favour of a bill saying that IVF rights should require a male role model- clearly discriminating against fertility rights for lesbians.

However May is one of the new, smart breed of Tories who know how to talk liberal when things get tricky.

Those who bought Cameron’s pro-gay rhetoric only to see him choke on his words during a live interview may be harder to convince a second time round that the “new politics” is anything but, especially when it comes to LGBT issues.

So much for the Tories. We would perhaps expect more from the Liberal Democrats. Step up, David Laws. His excuse for appropriating ￡40,000 of tax payers’ money was that it was to keep his relationship with his partner, James Lundie, a secret from friends, family and colleagues.

Of course there are situations where people aren’t fully out in public, to family or to friends- it can be a difficult process, yet an important one.

But for a millionaire, liberal figure-head to hide his relationship from the world completely is a failure of his duty to be a representative and role-model to the LGBT community of which he effectively denied being a part.

It would seem that we can’t look to the political mainstream to defend LGBT rights. The Green Party, however, were the only party to launch a LGBT manifesto during their election campaign.

It was a significant achievement for the left and those concerned with LGBT issues that Caroline Lucas gained a seat in Brighton.

The Green Party, which passionately supports environmental issues and social justice, could be the progressive party that the Liberals have failed to be.

But politics doesn’t stop with politicians. Real, significant change has to come from a mass movement organised by the working class, students and the unemployed- not from career MPs.

It was the Stonewall riots which began to turn the tide against institutionalised, state-sanctioned homophobia in the US, a struggle which then spread to the UK and beyond.

The movement gained its strength from militant campaigns that drew on the working class struggle and saw identity politics as rooted in class divides.

As the ConDem cuts kick in it will be marginalised LGBT people who, like many other persecuted minorities such as Muslims and black people, bare the brunt of unfair, unequal and disproportionate attacks on the working class, the poor and the excluded.

Never has it been more important for LGBT people to organise to defend their community against homophobic discrimination in the workplace, in schools, colleges, universities and wherever else it arises.

First published on Counterfire.org.

A noble sentiment indeed. Just to put this philanthropic gesture into context, if one was to distribute Lagrange’s generous donation to the estimated 650,000 children living in poverty in London they would receive an egalitarian 15 pence each.

But let’s not be too cynical. £100,000 is certainly a large amount of money for any individual to be able to donate to charity and it is of course only the first step. If the fund reaches its £1 million target and is matched pound for pound by the ConDems, the resulting £2 million would enable each poverty stricken child to received a whopping 3 pounds and 7 pence.

High profile figures have lent their support to the fund with David Milliband proclaiming that ‘the gap between rich and poor in our capital is too high.’ It’s not quite clear what size gap between rich and poor David considers appropriate.

Before we get too gooey-eyed about the ConDems’ rampant generosity we might perhaps pause to consider a rather unfortunate statistic, revealed in the same edition of the Standard which waxed lyrical about its pioneering fund.

The government’s forthcoming housing benefit cuts could result in 750,000 people losing their homes according to the National Housing Federation, the highest figure in 30 years. That’s 100,000 more people than there are poverty stricken children in London.

Perhaps the Standard will launch a charity fund for the homeless as well. But like children in poverty, they may need more than £3 to see them through.

First published on Counterfire.org.

David Laws, a senior Liberal Democrat in the ConDem coalition, has resigned as chief secretary to the Treasury. In his resignation letter to David Cameron, Laws wrote:

‘I do not see how I can carry on my crucial work on the budget and spending review while I have to deal with the private and public implications of recent revelations. At this important time the chancellor needs, in my own view, a chief secretary who is not distracted by personal troubles.’

This is one of the most baffling statements I have read in a long time.  Quite how a story about the abuse of public money by a millionaire government axe-wielder – presiding over more savage public sector cuts than those of Thatcher – has been turned into one about the failure of liberal social mores is quite unbelievable.

The centre-left blog Next Left responded to Laws’ resignation by commenting: ‘David Laws’ resignation reflects an error of judgement in his expenses claims which the government believe made his position untenable. But its root cause was a lack of confidence in the liberalism of contemporary Britain.’

Laws is adamant that his decision to spend £40,000 of public money on his own personal living costs was not in order to “maximise profit but to simply protect our privacy and my wish not to reveal my sexuality”. If we are to be charitable and take this statement at face value, it reveals a level of class-blindness that is hard to match.

Beneath the social facade of this story of sexual privacy (however valid) is one of pure double standards: a millionaire politician and former Goldman Sachs banker using public money to pay for his partner’s mortgage.

Most people borrow money when they have none themselves- that’s why they borrow it. What Laws did is to take £40,000 of public funds with no strings attached and spend it on a house, when he had more money in his bank account(s) than the average person will earn in a lifetime.

As if that was not bad enough, he is the man who has only recently laid out what are fashionably called “austerity” measures but could reasonably be called “severity” measures- aimed at hacking the public sector to bits in order to pay for a crisis created by international finance.

For Lib Dem MP Jeremy Browne to describe the debacle as “a human story, not a financial story” is frankly quite insulting to those who care about gay equality as well as those who also care about economic equality.

It’s unfortunate that David Laws felt unable to come out as being gay. It’s unforgivable that he felt justified in taking public money that he didn’t need, especially at a time when working class people, especially LGBT people, are about to suffer from the cuts that he himself has instigated.

First published on Counterfire.org.

There will be a protest outside Downing Street at 2pm today.

John Rees has released a statement on Counterfire.org

Night Siege

The heavy thump of lead on flesh
night terror storming the decks

as vessels sag to the sickening camber of the waves
dreaming eyes wake into nightmare

who tends the wounded, shrouds the dead
as stranded noise at sea defies all metaphor of panic
and the night air reels with death?

a cargo of strength, burden of the ages
home and homeland split by military zeal

these deaths are nothing new to the register of years
the long history of struggle, defiance, return
telescopes into the instant at the squeeze of a trigger

In memory of the dead and the wounded aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, 31 May 2010

Welcome to ‘Earth 101‘, the new, multimedia, internet-based radio comedy series, which uses a combination of video, audio and Twitter feeds to create a surreal world of satirical science fiction.

There is little information available on the site but the first episode aired at midnight on Friday and presumably at the same time each week.

The shadowy ‘global meta-government’, MI23 is overseen by a greedy American corporation run by the brutish Bradley, who ruthlessly pursues ‘profit not loss’ and is sent into paroxysms of rage at the utterance of the ‘D word’: ‘deficit’.

Woolsey and Cromwell are two cowardly bureaucrats whose cosy world is threatened when Bradley demotes them from their functionless, Kafka-esque department (where their own job descriptions are unknown even to themselves) to work on a rickety satellite in orbit somewhere above the Earth.

We follow the hapless duo as they cheat and scheme their way out of facing early ‘retirement’ by the barrel of a gun, by backstabbing and scapegoating those beneath them.

A whimsical Douglas Adams-stlye humour provides some wry smiles in a fictional world which exists somewhere between Yes Minister and Blade Runner.

We are shown a universe in which Margaret Thatcher was a robot designed to wreak havoc on the public sector, and where the ruling classes have achieved a Machiavellian grip over the population, who unquestioningly go about their work whilst ruthless corporations endlessly chase profitability at the expense of humanity.

In reality, however, whilst the world’s ruling elite can be seen to be increasingly coalescing into aggressive corporate bureaucracies, it is certainly not true that the population is docile and unquestioning.

In contrast, the world is currently being rocked by protest movements, from democratic revolution in Nepal to riots, protests and general strikes in Greece. Spain is on the brink of a general strike, there are protests in Romania and last year saw 100,000 protest in Ireland over massive state cutbacks.

In March this year there were numerous student protests in America. We have seen strikes in the UK over cuts to education, the public sector and the attack on the BA workers by the union-bashing Willie Walsh.

Nor has capitalist hegemony been anything like achieved, as there is genuine conflict even amongst the ruling class as they squabble over the best way to make working people pay for the crisis of global finance.

Earth 101′s sci-fi dystopia has a sense of inevitability about it, which doesn’t necessarily chime with the reality of a world in which people can and often do decide to fight back against their oppressive rulers.

But to avoid becoming the ‘slumbering masses’, acquiescent of a life of toil and exploitation it is vital to build organised resistance against the ravages of global capital and continue to fight for a better world.

Counterfire.org

One worker who refused to sign the suicide clause spoke to the state-run China Daily newspaper saying “If I bicker with my supervisor, will I be sent to a mental hospital?”.

A 21-year-old worker from the southern Guangxi province told South China Morning Post how she worked 72 hours a week with only one day off and described Foxconn workplaces as “so tight and depressing that we’re not allowed to speak to each other for 12 hours or you’ll be reproached by your supervisors.”

Another worker, 22 (only workers in their early twenties are employed by the company), earns the equvalent of $300 per month, the US cost of a 32gb iPhone. It appears it is as cheap to buy a worker as it is to buy the latest technological gizmo.

Foxconn’s response is to set up nets to catch workers who leap to their death from the factory roofs and to open counselling centres and stress hotlines.

There has been no talk of reducing working hours, improving conditions or raising wages.  Apple, who launch the new iPad this week have decided to turn a blind eye to these appalling events and have made no comment regarding the shocking deaths.

11 Foxconn workers have attempted suicide this year. Only two survived. This prompted journalist Richard Lai to go undercover and report on workers’ conditions in the plant.

According to Lai’s report in Southern Weekend ‘modern factory workers are being paid way less than the first generation Chinese migrant workers in the 80s.’

Labour activists claim that the conditions of Foxconn workers are dire. Shifts are too long, assembly lines move too fast and management uses military-style discipline to control workers.

This appears to be backed up by a Beijing TV news report revealing footage which it is claimed shows Foxconn security guards beating up workers at a Beijing plant.

SACOM, an organisation of activists, trade unions, students and scholars staged a protest yesterday demanding that Foxconn raises wages to 3,000 yuan ensuring a living wage for its exploited workers. According to a statement on their website, SACOM calls on the Chinese government to “immediately end the model of development that has sacrificed people’s basic dignity.”

The organisation has published a report (available in PDF) entitled “Dying Young: Suicide and China’s booming economy” which links the rise in suicides in China to 30 years of heavy industrial growth which has, according to the document, “deepened regional inequalities, prolonged stagnation of wages, and deprived migrant workers’ citizenship and human rights.”

It is a clear indication that the expansion of capitalist production is accompanied by the savage degradation of the conditions of the workers who produce the commodities that make millions for the wealthy few.

The Foxconn story is just one isolated example of the atrocities of rampant global competition which pursues corporate profits at the expense of working people.

First published at Counterfire.org