LUXURY DEPARTMENT STORE WOES MOUNT AS WORKERS OPPOSE RELENTLESS OVERWORK, STAGNANT WAGES AND STRIPPED-BACK BENEFITS ~ Francis Kingston ~ With the luxury department store facing serious questions about its handling of Mohamed Al Fayed’s sexual abuse, Harrods workers are preparing to strike over Christmas. Hundreds of retail, restaurant, kitchen and cleaning staff are balloting for strikes to start on 19 December, right in the middle of the store’s busiest season. Having previously achieved a pay rise, staff say they still face relentless overwork, stagnant wages and stripped-back benefits, but Harrods does not recognise the United Voices of the World (UVW) union which represents them. According to the union, part-time cleaning staff are forced to work nine days straight starting around 5am, bank holiday shifts are now mandatory and workers say days off are a fight to get. Waiters in Harrods’ restaurants are demanding transparency over tips, a Christmas bonus and a meal allowance. “Harrods is prioritising profits over its workforce while owners are payed grotesque sums“, said UVW’s Petros Elia. The ballot closes on 4 December. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photo: David Iliff, CC BY-SA 3.0 The post Harrods workers balloting for Xmas strike appeared first on Freedom News.

AN ABSOLUTE TRIUMPH OF PUNK SCHOLARSHIP AND ALTERNATIVE HISTORIOGRAPHY ~ Jim Donaghey ~ Reading through this richly detailed overview of punk zines from the late 1970s and the 1980s, you can feel the effort that Matt Worley has poured into this. I imagine him elbow deep in piles of fading black-and-white missives, delving into their innards to discover themes, connections and discordances. Mention is made of hundreds upon hundreds of zines – and, unlike many books about fanzines, Worley gets beyond the front cover pages to actually provide a sense of the messy complexity of a dozen years of countercultural media. Zerox Machine takes a chronological approach, zooming out at key moments to offer wider context, especially with regard to the print industry at large, then zooming in for a closely detailed look at particular zines that illustrate an essential point. Combined with an embrace of all variety of zines, and myriad associated punk sub-genres and political preferences, the approach is very effective – meticulously detailed without losing grasp of the broader sweep of (counter-)cultural transformations. In a refreshing distinction from other punk history books, Worley is explicit from the outset that the end point of this book actually presages a huge upswelling of punk zine production into the 1990s and beyond (chiefly driven by riot grrrl). Arguably, the hazily drawn finishing point makes sense in terms of evolving production technologies – the book charts the shift from reliance on professional offset printers to the office photocopy machine (and nods to all sorts of other idiosyncratic devices such as Gestetners), closing off before the advent of the home computer and the retrenchment of DIY production. The ending of the book feels a bit abrupt as a result, but, as Worley puts it, punk zine production is “a story that never ends” (p. 310), with each successive generation and iteration ‘sowing seeds’ for the next blossoming of DIY culture. Other punk historians should take note: the subject matter doesn’t stop just because one book does!  The geographical focus is on Britain (or, more accurately, the UK, with the inclusion of numerous zines from the north of Ireland). MaximumRockNRoll’s emergence in 1982 in the US gets a nod here and there, and the ‘rest of the world’ is present in the scene reports, interviews and reviews covering places like New Zealand, West Germany, Belgium, and, with recurring prominence, Yugoslavia. Within the confines of the UK though, the geographical spread is impressive – lists of zines from absolutely everywhere, from tiny villages to the big urban centres – and Worley celebrates the London-sceptic localism that pervades many of these regional zines. Worley’s close attention to detail is impressive. It’s long been a bugbear of his that Dick Hebdige misattributed the ‘here’s a chord, here’s another, now start a band’ memetic image to Sniffin’ Glue instead of Sideburns, and never bothered to correct it. In that vein, one teensy error worth correcting here is the mis-location of Just Books anarchist bookshop in Belfast, which has been repeated from Fearghus Roulston’s error-strewn book about punk in Northern Ireland. For the record, it was on Winetavern Street! Elsewhere, the veracity of Worley’s analyses is not in doubt. The huge quantity and variety of zines that Worley takes as source material is impressive, and he augments his reading by actually speaking with many of the zine producers themselves. The reflections of zinesters some 40 or 50 years later is really enriching. With all the expected shrugging off of youthful naïveté, most recollect their activities as urgent and essential and important. Worley’s research is respectful of that energy, while weaving a critical and alternative history from their pages. Anarchism is a recurring theme, as you might expect, making itself evident in scrawled circle-As, countless interviews with Crass and Poison Girls, as well as more thoroughgoing engagements with anarchist political philosophy. But Worley doesn’t shy away from the messiness of punk politics, which is well-evidenced in zine production. He notes those with links to the National Front and British Movement, avowedly ‘non-political’ zinesters, along with the avant-garde and outré artsy efforts. The book also takes in the emerging football zine culture and those associated with indie rock (back when ‘indie’ meant independent). Worley has never been one to attach a false coherence to punk politics, but he’s clear that punk zines are politically important, and that ultimately, “a fanzine’s politics remained best expressed through praxis” (p. 217). Praxis, by the way, means the interplay between theory and practice, where one informs the other without devolving into two separate activities. Zines, perhaps far more than song lyrics or poster graphics, have the capacity to express that ‘praxical’ politics. Do It Yourself initiative, creativity and networking all animate the life of punk zines. The fact of their publication is political in-and-of-itself, and this interweaves with the ‘theory’ splashed haphazardly across their pages. There is a lot to learn from reading this thoroughly researched tome. Worley’s immersion in the punk zine culture of this period stands as an excellent example of doing history from below – this should become the go-to book for anyone who wants to know. Matthew Worley (2024), Zerox Machine. Punk, post-punk and fanzines in Britain 1976-88, London: Reaktion Books, 360pp. The post Book review: Zerox Machine appeared first on Freedom News.

KEMI BADENOCH EXEMPLIFIES THE DECADES-LONG TRADITION IN THE UK OF ‘PULLING UP THE LADDER’, PRACTICED BY CLASS-ASCENDANT IMMIGRANTS ON THE RIGHT OF THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM ~ Daniel Adediran ~ Kemi Badenoch is the death’s head of the Tory Party. A withered husk,it is now completely hollowed out since its heyday in the 20th century and grasping for relevance, in a political landscape that sees the neoliberal Labour party and the far-right dominate mainstream discourse.  It seems obvious enough, with her racist and anti-migrant rhetoric, that Badenoch was chosen by the Tory membership. They are terrified out of their wits that Reform UK will beat them in the elections of the future. The Tories are making a hard pivot to the extreme right in order to court some of the more disturbing elements in our society, and Badenoch will be the face of that pivot in the coming years. Yet there is more to it. Badenoch’s appointment is the latest in a series of desperate pleas to the Tory electorate, pretending that the Party is not as racist and misogynist as everything they say indicates. With the double power of her gender and race, she is the salve to the part of the country that the Tories are desperate to win over, and a convenient mouthpiece for all the virulent racists and misogynists within it. After all, if a black woman is calling for more draconian measures against immigrants, how could it be racist? But Kemi is not one of us. She is not for the liberation of black people and women up and down the country. She not only opposes reparation payments for the descendants of the people enslaved under the British state, she is also vehemently against teaching Black history. She also backed the Sewell report, which denied that Britain today was institutionally racist. Badenoch not only believes that trans girls are not girls, she has also publicly stated that maternity pay is too high for women doing the fundamental work of raising the next generation. A defender of black, brown and women’s rights she is not, and that is not even including her vile comments on immigration.  Badenoch exemplifies the decades-long tradition in the UK of ‘pulling up the ladder’, practiced by class-ascendant immigrants on the right of the political spectrum. We will never know whether she believes everything she says, or whether it’s just a cold calculation to appeal to the most rabid right-wingers in the populace. But we have seen the like time and again. From Priti Patel and Suella Braverman, all the way to the doors of number 10 with Rishi Sunak, we have seen migrants and their descendants prostitute their position as brown and black people for the sake of a morsel of political power and entrenching themselves in the ruling class.  Badenoch has now reached this pinnacle herself, and does not give a damn if the people at her level do not look like her. She is interested only in herself and seems confident that she will not reap the whirlwind that her ‘culture war’ posturing has sown. But with her massive unpopularity amongst the broader electorate, Badenoch’s cosying up to the old, rich, white racists that make up the Tory Party membership will not be enough to give her a platform to rule over us. They are dying out. Siding with racists, she has tied her mast to a sinking ship and I for one will eagerly watch her go out to sea without a raft.  Why would I, a Brit of Nigerian descent watch in glee as Badenoch flails around spewing divisive rhetoric in a burning house? Because, as the saying goes, Skinfolk aren’t always your kinfolk. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photo: Number10, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 The post A black woman Tory leader? Sure, as long as she’s batshit right-wing appeared first on Freedom News.