The trouble with working out with the radio on is that you cannot fully concentrate on what is being said. But as I was on my fourth set of bicep curls this morning, I heard something that nearly made me drop my dumbbells on my toes.Work and pensions minister Chris Grayling was debating some policy wonk from Demos on the Today Programme over the announcement that credit checking agency Experian will be put on payment-by-results incentives to tackle benefit fraud.And either the wonk or the minister – I forget which – proclaimed that only 1% of benefit is fraudulently claimed. That’s right, just 1%. One sodding measly barely perceptible little per cent.Look, I’m from a working class background and had two longish spells on the dole as a younger man. I know damn well that people will play the system if they think they can get away with it. Full disclosure: I’ve even signed on while doing cash in hand jobs myself. You do what you’ve got to do to make ends meet.But 1%? Surely that can’t be right….Yet that 1% stat turns out to be entirely kosher, based as it is on government figures. That graphic is from here. The reality is that benefit fraud – while not morally commendable – is far, far less prevalent than anybody would reasonably expect, especially given the blanket media coverage of those who are caught out.The £1bn a year it costs the taxpayer is little more than small change in comparison with the £850bn spent on the bank bailout. That  figure is one that everybody on the left should commit to memory ahead of the debates with the right that inevitably lie ahead.

I thought this was pretty interesting especially considering that of the 2.46 million unemployed in the UK, only 1.46 million are claiming JSA. That’s 1 million people not claiming the benefits that they have a right to.

This is from the touchstone (TUC think tank) blog. I’m pretty shocked by it to be honest. Its pretty clearly showing that where there is high unemployment relative to job vacancies Labour have seats, where there is low unemployment relative to vacancies the Tories have seats. Now I’m unsure what the exact relation here is, but I think its still pretty interesting. (It also runs against the beliefs that many of us on this blog have that questions of political representation are relatively unimportant.)

So Unemployment relative to vacancies:

And Representation after 2010 elections:

I tend to think in pictures, often when I’m listening to a seminar or reading a journal article or planning a piece of writing, I take my notes in cartoon form, drawing little pictures, arrows, cartoon like headings.  These presentations do the same, very effectively. It makes me think perhaps it’s time to go back to chalk and do the same when teaching or presenting. Anyhow, for your summer viewing, two great RSA animates; one on David Harvey speaking about the crisis in capitalism, one on Philip Zimbardo speaking about orientations to the past and the present (and on technologies impact on our perspectives on time). Also, a song about Marx.



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In this blog, I have been noting how the economic crash is affecting working time. National governments have proposed increases in working hours as a way of escaping recessions. These proposals have been either supported (Ireland) or opposed (Denmark) by the unions. Private companies are also drawing on the economic collapse as a rational for increasing working time, and in some cases, such as the transport industry, attempts to alter contracts have resulted in industrial action.  So what about the last great crash – the Great Depression. What were the nature of working time struggles then?  I have been reading an interesting article by Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt in the edited collection Work Time and Industrialisation that looks at New Deal and the Shorter-Hour movement.

In the early years of the twentieth centuary working hours in the US declined. Trade union struggles mobilised around calls for shorter hours. Following the economic crash in the 1920s unions threatened ‘universal strike if national 30 hour legislation was not introduced in order to reduce job losses caused by the economic downturn. Businessmen and industrialists also supported the shorter hours calls, albeit demanding that wages be reduced accordingly and that hours were reduced only for a temporary period. In 1932 half of American industry had shortened hours in order to save jobs. By then the “share the work” movement was growing and both Hoover and Roosevelt incorporated “share the work” policies into their political platforms. With Roosevelt’s election, the move was towards a legalisative basis to working hour reductions. A 30 hour bill was drafted and passed its first senate reading. However, whereas business would contance reducing hours voluntarily and on their own terms, they weren’t comfortable with legalisation.  Opposition to the bill began to grow, an opposition that was drew on a new definition of progress, a definition based on “right to work” and a “full-time job”. Ultimately Roosvelt bowed to this pressure.  Kline argues that this commitment to shorter hours was abandoned as Roosevelt and other politicans came to see the free-time produced by these policies as a threat; the policy agenda moved towards increasing employment and working time – and this policy has continued through to the present day. Trade-unions similarily changed their approach to working hours “labor’s call for “the progresive reduction in the hours of work” has been replaced by the more general call for more work and more jobs (1988: 237)

In the Irish context, is interesting to see a similar process for work today. Rather than calling for short hours, some like the INTO executive, recommend their members vote for an agreement that increases working hours. In this trade unions accept a definition of efficiency, drawn from business interests, that see progress and economic recovery as being based on more hours worked. To give a sense of how things have changed, I’ve added one of my favourite trade union posters to this post. From the Irish Women Worker’s Union at the turn of the century, it proclaims “The Irish Women Worker’s Union is out for more independence, more leisure and more comfort for the Working Classes”. I wish.

Cross, Gary. 1988. Work Time and Industrialization: An International History. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Cutright, P. 1986.

For years, Marxists have been accused by their opponents of believing in a crude economic determinism. However, it is not so much Marxists who believe this as our rulers. George Osborne described his Budget yesterday as “unavoidable.”  His stooges have described the measures as “necessary.”
This is bull. The austerity is not necessary or unavoidable. It is the outcome of a choice, a judgment: should we risk damaging economic growth in order to placate the markets, or should we risk a sell-off in gilts to nurture the recovery?  By all means argue that the government has made the right choice. But don’t pretend there wasn’t one.

MSc European Employment Studies at Trinity College Dublin

There are a few places left on the MSc European Employment Studies at Trinity College Dublin. 

Applications will be accepted until 31 July 2010. 

For further information including course contents, admission requirements, fees and how to
apply please consult http://www.tcd.ie/ERC/MSC/index.php

All the details are here and a PDF of the provisional timetable is here.

It’s online at http://www.interfacejournal.net.

One of the oddest things about moving to England is the fact that the press is so right wing, and Sir Tony O’Reilly is so opportunistic, that the main O’Reilly newspaper is centre left. Anyway their front page today is pretty good.

Text reads:

Inside Parliament: “Legislation will be brought forward to restore freedoms and civil liberties”

Outside Parliament: “Peace Protesters targeted in Westminster: veteran campaigner Brian Haw is arrested”

 For those of you who don’t know, Brian Haw is a peace campaigner who has been protesting against the ‘war of terror’ continuouslygdsfg day and night since 2001.