Workers march on Derby to try and save jobs

[Shropshire Socialist]

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/107365

[bricolage]

Ok so while we obviously fight this as we would fight any job losses and wage any struggle to maintain class terms and conditions, there are problematics.

The Unite statement seems to be framed not in terms of defending class interests but that this will demage The Economy (Capital T, Capital E). So the job losses are bad because they are 'just the sort of workers we need to get the country back on its feet' and contrastingly what we should aim for is what had made a Germany 'an industrial powerhouse', irrespective of the class relations of such 'powerhousing' (is that a word?). Later on it even invokes the rhetoric of the government (albeit to use it against it but...);

In March Chancellor George Osborne concluded his Budget statement with a manufacturing mantra. "We want the words 'Made in Britain,' 'Created in Britain,' Designed in Britain,' 'Invented in Britain' to drive our nation forward. A Britain carried aloft by the march of the makers. That is how we will create jobs and support families."
Nice words, George, but they are sounding very hollow here in Derby.I'm not trying to be critical for the sake of ultra-left posturing but that it's not the place of revolutionaries to be working on the basis of what will help economic growth. The economy is something abstract, something alien, something used to justify attacks upon workers. We should oppose job cuts because they are an attack upon the social wage not because they are damaging to Her Majesties economy. Incidentally this often plays into the hands of the far right and I should add that RMT made a good statement in coming out against this and even in mentioning how this was a class issue;

We note that UKIP and the BNP are trying to get involved with this campaign, hoping to portray it as a nationalist, British vs. German issue, rather than a class issue of workers vs bosses. We reject this, and will not offer a platform to UKIP speakers in this campaign or tolerate any BNP involvement.