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This article is the reportage of Jerome Small of Socialist Alternative (Australia) on his participation to the 3rd Asian Global Justice School in Manila. --------------------------------- Commonwealth Avenue is usually 18 lanes of pounding Manila traffic, but this afternoon it is quieter. For days, the media has been advising motorists to avoid the area near the Congress building, the target of the big protest today. It’s the morning of 25 July, 2011, and we’re standing in the humidity, waiting for the contingent of the Philippines Labor Party to come past. An open drain runs on one side of Commonwealth Avenue here and the homes of the urban poor, all rusting corrugated iron and scraps of thin ply, crowd back from the drain. We’re in Quezon City, a mainly middle class area, home to universities and government institutions, but poverty is never far away. A toddler, barely old enough to stand, is shouting excitedly, pointing at my shoes – obviously not many good black shoes in this part of town. Her family, and my companions, think it’s hilarious. |
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This is the report for the Third Asian Global Justice School of the International Institute for Research and Education – Manila (IIRE-MANILA). As was scheduled, the school was held last July 17 to August 17, 2011 at the IIRE-Manila office. This report includes general pictures from the preparation stage, actual conduct of the school and post-school prospects. It also includes general recommendations and observations. |
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By Murray Smith
With the onset of the world economic crisis, the European workers' movement finds itself in a new phase, one that is replete with dangers and challenges. It is important to underline that we are in fact in a new situation and not just a continuation of the previous period.
There is nothing new about the fact that the European working class is under attack and on the defensive. There has been since the 1980s a systematic drive, increasingly coordinated by the European Union (EU), to impose neo-liberal policies in Europe. The aims have been to lower the cost of labour (wages, benefits, social programs), to remove limits on capital and to open up new sectors of the economy to private capital. So we have seen deregulation of the economy and of finance in particular, the imposition of "flexible" working practices, an increase in precarious work, privatizations and "reform" of the social state in the sense of undermining universal rights to pensions, unemployment benefits, free healthcare and other programs. Collective bargaining agreements are identified as a structural problem, the weakening of unions defined as an objective (Financial Times editorial, 2010-05-10). Such a weakening has occurred in some countries, but not all. The speed and scale of the attacks has varied across countries, but the direction is unmistakable. The cumulative effects have undermined, but not destroyed the welfare state that developed in large measure during the post-WWII economic boom.
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(By Piet Engelschman, presented during the Second Asian Global Justice School of the IIRE-Manila, August 2010) I Introduction Mankind has always migrated. This has been the case since we first came out of East- Africa. The reasons throughout history were always the same: food, shelter, security, better life. Sometimes the migration was voluntary, sometimes forced. Sometimes migration was voluntary, sometimes forced. As a result of migration in many area’s we saw mixed populations. |
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