It was just a passing remark, the first time I heard Arpad Bogdan talk about the Roma father who had left him in an orphanage, and wonder if he should try to find him. We were drinking late at night in a semi-derelict house in a Budapest side street. We had skipped over bicycles and rubbish to make our way inside. I should say this was not a doss house but a trendy Urban Minimalism club. "He doesn't have to tell you this you know," whispered our mutual friend, director Antonia Meszaros. And it was then that I realised how conflicted Arpad is - how much of a dilemma his Roma inheritance has created. Arpad is a much-garlanded young film director, whose feature film Happy New Life has won many awards. It is about a young Roma man's unbearable childhood in an orphanage. In the end, he can't hack it - unlike Arpad who emerged from his own orphanage into the University of Pecs and a promising film career. "My film," Arpad says, "is about the dilemmas of someone who realises that in order to face the future, he must come to terms with his past - and that's something that I still have to do in my own life."
It was just a passing remark, the first time I heard Arpad Bogdan talk about the Roma father who had left him in an orphanage, and wonder if he should try to find him.
We were drinking late at night in a semi-derelict house in a Budapest side street. We had skipped over bicycles and rubbish to make our way inside. I should say this was not a doss house but a trendy Urban Minimalism club.
"He doesn't have to tell you this you know," whispered our mutual friend, director Antonia Meszaros. And it was then that I realised how conflicted Arpad is - how much of a dilemma his Roma inheritance has created.
Arpad is a much-garlanded young film director, whose feature film Happy New Life has won many awards. It is about a young Roma man's unbearable childhood in an orphanage. In the end, he can't hack it - unlike Arpad who emerged from his own orphanage into the University of Pecs and a promising film career.
"My film," Arpad says, "is about the dilemmas of someone who realises that in order to face the future, he must come to terms with his past - and that's something that I still have to do in my own life."
Today's news is that the Alitalia operation is a great success for the government. Who said that? The President of the Council, Silvio Berlusconi who is praising himself to bits all on his own. Even because from the experts he has just received raspberries and criticism, not to mention the press and all the international operations that measure things according to the free market and not according to the despotic little Italy that is coming back together with the regurgitated bits of fascism that have been rightly denounced by Famiglia Cristiana. It's not easy to understand what he is celebrating, this gentleman, given that in the last 15 years he has been President of the Council for about 7 of them, that is half: in these 15 years, Alitalia has lost 15 billion euro of our money, thus half of the money lost is his fault, of his governments, and the other half is the fault of the Centre-Left governments, because politics has always kept its hands on Alitalia and as we shall see, it will continue to keep them there even after having made it collapse innumerable times. Prodi and Padoa Schioppa, one of the few good things done by the Centre Left government, had found the arrangement, they managed to convince AirFrance to take the whole thing. That would have meant no bankruptcy, no need to rely on the Marzano law on loss-making companies, the creation of a very big European group including AirFrance, KLM and Alitalia that could have been of a decent size for the international markets where, by now, the airlines are big, in consortium, based on alliances between a number of companies. We would have got away with 2150 excess personnel: that was according to the plan presented by Monsieur Spinetta, and that's what would have happened if the negotiations with the French had been concluded straight away, at the beginning of spring, whereas now we have 6-7000 personnel in excess, that is triple the number. AirFrance would have paid one billion 7 hundred million to buy Alitalia shares and it would have invested 750 million. Basically it would have shelled out and there would have arrived from France the great sum of 2 billion 6 hundred million. Now we see that, instead, that money it's us that has to give it. It's not just that we don't get the cash, but we lose it. What's more, Malpensa would have been saved and restructured and the airport at Fiumicino would have been strengthened. This, in short, was what had been agreed between the Prodi government and AirFrance and that went up in the air because of the arrival of Berlusconi and his henchmen and because the Trades Unions, completely blinded by the short term, did not know how to choose between the tiny sacrifice today and an enormous blood-letting tomorrow, which is what we will have instead.
aaargh... ~Government budget deficits are not nearly as dangerous as the deficits we have created in vital and complex natural systems.~ Naomi Klein.
This, in short, was what had been agreed between the Prodi government and AirFrance and that went up in the air because of the arrival of Berlusconi and his henchmen and because the Trades Unions, completely blinded by the short term, did not know how to choose between the tiny sacrifice today and an enormous blood-letting tomorrow, which is what we will have instead.
The entire history of british unionism in one sentence. The insane belief that they could turn back the tide of change if they were stubborn enough. keep to the Fen Causeway
The print unions NGA, NATSOPA and SOGAT no longer exist in any shape or form simply because the unions were unwilling to compromise with changes in technology. The dockers destroyed the various docks systems far more effectively than containerisation by their stupidity (and I know this cos in my early years in the labour party I spoke at length to a cockers shop steward who, after telling me tales of the silly pointless striks they had (and he agreed they were silly and pointless), I then asked him about his culpability with losing the docks as a working environment and he sighed and said, "well yea, I guess we did").
The NUM committed suicide with stupid tactics during the miners strike. They were right about the govt's intentions, stupid to fight as they did, in the old way.
the car industry ?? Excuse me ? Red Robbo ? Shipyards ? Seamen ?
Unionism largely destroyed itself because it turned its face against change, thinking that all it needed was sufficient resolve and they could prevent it and all could continue as before. Barbara Castle tried to get through the "In Place of Strife" legislation in 67/68. But it was wrecked by union intransigence. So 15 years later thatcher did far worse and brooked no argument. They should have realised In place of Strife was a bargain.
I'm genuinely surprised you think my view is off the wall. keep to the Fen Causeway
The entire history of british unionism in one sentence. The insane belief...etc...
is as sweeping a statement as one could make, which was my point.
And you consistently talk here as if developments were always somehow natural and inevitable: as if there were no powers at work pushing the levers of change ("technology" is not always a neutral force that just happens to change things, it can be applied to effect change in favour of the interests of a category or class).
So what would you have unions do but fight? OK, they didn't and don't always choose the right fights or the right way of fighting. But I don't understand your angry dismissal of them. Try getting mad at the capitalists instead?
(And don't get mad at me because I snark at one of your comments ;))
Your criticism is valid, but equally I would argue that all technology change is driven, to a greater or lesser extent, by a vested interest of category or class. Change has a cost to implement, you don't do it if it doesn't make changes that reflect greater bang per buck.
What should unions do ? Accept change, embrace change, own change. Be a part of the process. Negotiate with an honest acceptance that the more the business thrives, the more chance there is of continuing employment.
However, the relationship between unions and management in much of the anglo-economy is based on an atagonistic zero-sum game where, to prevent unions gumming up the works entirely, the rules have been gamed to ensure only the management win nowadays.
you must remember that the most awful example of unions "protecting" differentials and jobs was in councils where the unions and management were in unholy alliance to prevent sex equality legislation from being implemented fairly. This resulted in huge legal payouts against the unions and the councils that nearly bankrupted them (and they whined all the way). And they did it because they were more interested in preserving the old-fashioned status quo than in helping work practices enter the 21st century. keep to the Fen Causeway
unions found themselves trying to preserve jobs, wages and differentials
This is what unions are meant to do.
The print unions NGA, NATSOPA and SOGAT no longer exist in any shape or form
Is this supposed to mean there are no longer any UK print unions? Like other trades, the printers were eventually subsumed by one of the super-unions, Unite.
The dockers destroyed the various docks systems far more effectively than containerisation
Containerisation was decisive.
The NUM committed suicide with stupid tactics during the miners strike
The refusal of the executive of the mines deputies' union to bring out their members on strike was decisive.
What workforce would pay subscriptions if unions didn't fight to preserve jobs and improve conditions? Quite apart from which, globalisation was decisive in these examples.
So 15 years later thatcher did far worse and brooked no argument. They should have realised In place of Strife was a bargain.
And a subsequent Tory government would have left the unions in peace? Calling the shots is easy 40 years after the event, less so at the time. Yet it's questionable whether some folk can get it right even with the benefit of all that hindsight.
