Hardship fund for possible industrial action against privatisation.
Unemployed Black Woman Pretends to be White, Job Offers Suddenly Skyrocket
November 15, 2012 | Filed under: BizTechNews | Posted by: bowatkin If you don’t believe that racism in the job market is real, then please read this article by Yolanda Spivey. Spivey, who was seeking work in the insurance industry, found that she wasn’t getting any job offers. But as an experiment, she changed her name to Bianca White, to see if employers would respond differently. You’ll be shocked and amazed by her phenomenal story.
Yolanda Spivey Writes:
First, I created an email account and resume for Bianca. I kept the same employment history and educational background on her resume that was listed on my own. But I removed my home phone number, kept my listed cell phone number, and changed my cell phone greeting to say, “You have reached Bianca White. Please leave a message.” Then I created an online Monster.com account, listed Bianca as a White woman on the diversity questionnaire, and activated the account.
That very same day, I received a phone call. The next day, my phone line and Bianca’s email address, were packed with potential employers calling for an interview. I was stunned. More shocking was that some employers, mostly Caucasian-sounding women, were calling Bianca more than once, desperate to get an interview with her. All along, my real Monster.com account was open and active; but, despite having the same background as Bianca, I received no phone calls.
“Mrs Rowling, let’s talk about my name,
Cho Chang,
Cho and Chang are both last names,
They are both Korean last names,
I am supposed to be Chinese,
Me being named ‘Cho Chang’ is like a Frenchman being named ‘Garcia Sanchez’”
This is the third time I’ve seen this story today and it never has enough notes.
The word really needs to get out on this.
Wondering what movie to see this weekend? Look no further than the film about North Korean terrorists invading the White House, Olympus Has Fallen!
What’s that you say? Oh, you’re one of those people who need to hear some reviews first? Not to worry! These fellow movie goers’ tweets are sure to…
FFS, America.
Excellent demo against the bedroom tax in Liverpool today. Two marches to main rally at St.Georges Square, one from town, one from North end. Footage is of North Liverpool march arriving at rally.
Interestingly no sign of Labour party when they know tenants are in control of the platform.
Labour’s attempts to co-opt grassroots resistance to the bedroom tax
So Labour have been trying to hop on the bandwagon following months of organising on Merseyside against the bedroom tax. This is pretty much to be expected and has been covered quite well by others:
- http://infantile-disorder.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/bedroom-tax-labour-seek-to-police.html
- http://anarchobastard.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/labour-party-fails-to-co-opt-grass-roots-anti-bedroom-tax-campaigns-in-liverpool/
What I didn’t expect, however, was what happened in Wallasey when we started arranging organising meetings here. A room was booked in a pub for a tenants’ meeting for the purposes of organising community resistance. I know this because I arranged the venue myself, about a week later, however, I was forwarded some emails written by the treasurer of the local Constituency Labour Party claiming that the meeting had been “organised by our Liscard cllrs in partnership with Unite the Union.”
On contacting members of the Wirral Unite Community Branch, I was told that this was news to them as much as me. The local Labour Party appear to be ignoring emails reminding them that the meeting was not organised by them and that they have no right to claim that it has been. I expect the Labour Party to attempt to co-opt grassroots anger for their own ends, that’s basically what they’re for, but this is cheek on the level of pissing through somebody’s letterbox and then asking how far it went.
Needless to say, any councillors who turn up at our meeting expecting to be allowed to take charge are in for a hell of a shock.
I’d like you to remember the last time you found it difficult to give an explicit “no” to somebody in a non-sexual context. Maybe they asked you to do them a favour, or to join them for a drink. Did you speak up and say, outright, “No?” Did you apologise for your “no?” Did you qualify it and say, “Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t make it today?” If you gave an outright “no,” what privileged positions do you occupy in society, and how does your answer differ from the answers of people occupying more marginalised positions?
This form of refusal was analysed in 1999 by Kitzinger and Frith (K&F) in Just Say No? The Use of Conversation Analysis in Developing a Feminist Perspective on Sexual Refusal. Despite the seeming ambiguity in question/refusal acts like, “We were wondering if you wanted to come over Saturday for dinner,” “Well, uhh, it’d be great but we promised Carol already,” they are widely understood by the participants as straightforward refusals.
K&F conclude by saying that, “For men to claim [in a sexual context] that they do not ‘understand’ such refusals to be refusals (because, for example, they do not include the word ‘no’) is to lay claim to an astounding and implausible ignorance of normative conversational patterns.”
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Under Duress: Agency, Power, and Consent Like I’ve said before. There’s no excuse. (via home-of-amazons) |
It’s been 12 days since a public meeting was held in Liverpool to decide what do about the Bedroom Tax. The overwhelming response from the packed out tenants meeting was one of militant resistance. Since then, tenant meetings have been set up across Liverpool to network social housing tenants against a shocking attack on the welfare of the working class.
The Bedroom Tax affects nearly 700,000 people nationwide; many will be expected to uproot their families, move away from their communities, their support networks and downsize to properties that simply do not exist; those who decide to stay will be constantly battling to make up the shortfall in rent. This should not be a question of move or stay; it should be about refusing to pay the tax, full stop.
Yet, State and landlord ultimatums of ‘stay & pay’ or ‘move’ have disempowered tenants and landed the blame of a fictitious housing crisis at their doorsteps. Housing Associations (HA’s) wasted time lobbying a political Men’s club immersed in escalating the divide between the rich and the poor. Instead of flatly rejecting the Bedroom Tax in defence of tenants, HA’s petitioned those in power to be ‘reasonable’ —a petition that smacked of complicity. That complicity continues as HA’s now prepare to implement and collect the Bedroom Tax for their own ends and the governments.
Social Housing is being privatised; it’s written all over the faces of the ministers and chief executives who in the same turn ‘console’ tenants who are self-evicting or who will eventually be evicted. This is nothing other than contempt for tenants and we, as tenants, must make a stand against this contemptible tax and its architects.
We argue that a stand now against the Bedroom Tax, based on solidarity and direct action, will put down roots of resistance to allow us to better defend ourselves against a broader attack that extends well beyond 2013. Refusing to pay is a big step for tenants to take, but by standing together we will be stronger and can support each other. If we do nothing now, the repercussions of the Bedroom Tax will cause greater hardship & increased evictions in the run-up to the implementation of Universal Credit.
Let’s show the government, housing associations, collection officers and bailiffs that we won’t be fucked with.
combatbedroomtax@gmail.com
The UK Border Agency has rejected a call by prison inspectors to stop using force on pregnant women and children it is trying to remove from the UK, according to an internal government document seen by the Guardian.
The document contains UKBA’s response to recommendations for improvement at the government’s new child detention facility, Cedars, near Gatwick airport, by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons.
Inspectors said force should never be used to effect the removal of pregnant women or children but UKBA has written “reject” alongside this recommendation, saying that without it removals could be delayed, leading families to strengthen their ties with the UK.
