ALB
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Even if the total number of working hours a week is reduced when there’s a 4-day week employers will only do it if it improves productivity by their workers working harder during the shortened working time.
This weekend’s i paper has quotes from 3 employers who have introduced a 4 day week with less working hours. In the first case, workers now work 32 hours over 4 days instead of 37 and a half over 5 days. The employer is quoted as saying that “it has increased productivity and energy levels”.
Presumably by “increased energy levels” he means people exercising more energy ie working harder. Of the other 2 employers, the one talks of “better streamlining and efficiency” and the other of “getting staff working when they are at their most productive and creative”.
Of course a 4-day working week has some advantage for workers but it’s not a free gift.
We are just going to have to wait and see if the electoral commission is going to accede to the supreme court’s request.
More from the Orinoco Tribune, this time confirming that the Supreme Court requested the electoral commission to publish the tally sheets. Don’t know if this is reliable or not, but why would a pro-government newspaper say this if the government wasn’t going to do it?
“Despite the fact that Venezuelan electoral authorities have presented evidence of cyberattacks on its electoral system, the heads of state requested that the details of the July 28 voting results be published. The Venezuelan Supreme Court had already requested the National Electoral Council (CNE) to do so in its ruling that ratified the victory of President Maduro.”
That article in a pro-government newspaper seems to indicate that the famous actas (tally sheets) will have been submitted to the Supreme Court:
“Their [the pro-US opposition] demand that 100 percent of the tally sheets (‘voting records’) be submitted by the government, profusely parroted by the world corporate media, is phony (and they know it). Machado and Gonzalez have made several confusing claims, that they have 40 percent of the voting records, then 70 percent and also 100 percent. President Maduro has gone to the Supreme Court filing a review appeal which involves the government submitting all the ‘voting records’ in the possession of his coalition, asking the Supreme Court to summon all 10 candidates for them to submit their voting records.“
I read the part in bold as saying that the government (governing party) would be submitting the tally sheets to the court. Presumably they did.
Also, the Court seemed to request that the electoral commission publish the full “election results” within 30 days of the proclamation of Maduro as the winner. Maybe there is someone out there who can say when the result was officially proclaimed? Maybe it wasn’t 30 days after the date of the election?
In any event, if Maduro wants to claim “democratic legitimacy” for his re-election the government needs to publish them.
Valid point, by the way, asking why the pro-US opposition didn’t submit its tally sheets to the court. What had they to lose?
Book review from the July 2024 Socialist Standard translated here:
https://antropocene.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=543:tre-recensioni&catid=12
It’s in the link given in the news item:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/02/does-capitalism-have-to-be-bad-for-the-environment/
Here is the relevant passage:
“First, firms in a capitalist setting are under enormous pressure to cut costs, because if they don’t, their competitors will. Since their competitors cut costs to be able to reinvest in the firm’s growth and thereby, become more competitive, if one firm refrains from doing so, it will be soon pushed out of the market by others.
As the economic sociologist Erik Wright of the University of Wisconsin-Madison said, one way of cutting cost is to project some of that cost onto the environment. Imagine, for instance, throwing a can of soft drink from a car window because this is a low-cost way of disposing of a can, and being totally indifferent to its negative impact on others. The same behaviour is often adopted by large businesses.
The market dynamics in capitalism do not provide any mechanisms in themselves to prevent this behaviour; it requires some forms of non-market intervention either by state or by organized social forces. States have shown that they are reluctant to or deliberately ignore taking measures against this.”
The Labour Party has sent us an email from Sir Keith Starmer addressing us, rather presumptuously, as “Friend”.
Here are some extracts:
“Frankly, things will get worse before they get better.”
“I’ll have to turn to the country and make big asks of you as well. To accept short term pain for long term good. The difficult trade-off for the genuine solution. And I know that after all you’ve been through, that is a really big ask …”
Actually it’s a bloody cheek.
How many times have government asked workers to put up with pain on the promise that things will get better? That before we can reach the sunny uplands we have to pass through the Valley of Austerity? Or that if we tighten our belts today we’ll get Jam Tomorrow?
It’s the standard government line when the state of the capitalist economy forces them to give priority to profit-making over meeting people’s needs.
As of course is for an incoming government to blame the outgoing one rather than capitalism.
There is also this which says that the court indicated that the election “results” should be published within 30 days after the proclamation of the result (whenever that was or is).
Exhortó al CNE a publicar los resultados en la Gaceta Electoral, según el artículo 155 de la Ley Orgánica de los Procesos Electorales. “El CNE ordenará la publicación de los resultados en la GE dentro de los 30 días siguientes a la proclamación»”, indicó.
It’s from this pro-governnent news site:
Venezuela: Supreme Court Delivers Electoral Review Verdict, Confirms Maduro Victory
They’ve still got till tomorrow to publish the detailed results. Let’s hope that you don’t end up with egg on your face!
Of course if they don’t then they will virtually be pleading guilty to the charge of ballot rigging.
If socialism never happens it obviously wasn’t possible. (….) You didn’t cross the road; you went into the store instead. You imagine it was possible for you to cross the road. But it wasn’t, because you didn’t.”
Oh no, no this sophistry again ! It is possible that I will reply in detail but I won’t. So I didn’t. So it wasn’t be possible after all. QED.
Can we move on to the next item on the agenda: How many angels can dance on a pinhead?
Ps. Don’t reply to this because if you do it will be impossible for me to reply.
I didn’t know this before — the Maduro government subsidising evangelical Christian churches in a bid to get their votes:
https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2024/april/venezuela-maduro-evangelicos-elections-chavez.html
I see they are saying that Starmer is going to make a speech later this week saying that things are going to get worse. That will be one promise he will keep.
Meanwhile, appropriately enough, the conspiraloon candidate, Robert F Kennedy Jnr, has endorsed Trump.
At least in the swing states. Under the undemocratic US election system, where it is not the candidate who obtains the most votes who wins but the candidate who wins the most seats in a “electoral college” made up of representatives of the various states who vote as a bloc, this makes sense.
This system also means that the candidates base their campaign on appealing to electors in these ten or so states. Thus, since he has no chance of winning there anyway, Trump can deliberately alienate electors in California (“lefty liberals”) and New York (“Wall Street versus Main Street”) in order to win votes in the swing states.
Then there are the legal manoeuvres by the Democratic Party to keep third party candidates off the ballot paper and by the Republican Party to keep voters off the electoral roll. And no effective limits on campaign spending.
What a farce ! Not that that stops US governments lecturing other states about how to hold “free and fair” elections.
As expected, the Venezuela Supreme Court has ruled that Maduro won the presidential election. But also:
“The TSJ president, who also heads the body’s electoral branch, additionally stressed that the CNE should publish the “definitive results” in the National Gazette before an August 28 deadline. Venezuela’s electoral authority has not published detailed results broken down by voting center.”
So, we still have to wait till next Wednesday to see if the electoral commission will publish results broken down by voting center and how they compare with those put out by the pro-US opposition.
