SideWiki: A game changer from Google?

Google’s SideWiki is a great new tool which allows you (yes, you) to add your thoughts to somebody else’s website. Your comments can then be viewed by anybody who has the Google toolbar, ie tens of millions of people, and rising fast. We’ve tested it by adding comments to Wal-Mart, Wikipedia and BBC news pages. There’s also one on this page; you’ll see a little tab symbol top left of the screen if you have the toolbar installed. Although there were a few delays before some of our comments appeared, they all got there in the end. One can just imagine some of the uses this technology will have, particularly where people’s patience has been eroded by spin doctors hiding the truth regarding abuses of corporate social responsibility. In effect, we suddenly have the ability to slip a leaflet into the company’s annual report.

 

Multinationals and the commodification of public sector work

Combining national case studies and comparative work, “The New Gold Rush: the new multinationals and the commodification of public sector work” examines the transformations involved for capital, labour, trade unions and service delivery in the drive towards public sector privatisation.

Editor Ursula Huws, in her introduction to the book, points out that the new public services industry comprises: “the very operations of our own government – the inner workings of the democratic machine and the services that citizens expect to receive” (p2);  ie health care, education, social security, and environmental protection, as well as all the associated information, communication and facilities support. This has all become a gold mine for capital, open to penetration by multinationals and powerful new corporations. Central to the shift is the transformation of public services into standard replicable commodities, with their labour power effectively ‘recommodified’.

Analysts on the left typically consider privatisation in all its various forms – commercialisation of public organisations, joint ventures, full private ownership – as capital’s gain and labour’s loss. This collection provides plenty of evidence to support that understanding.

 

The struggle for new unionism in Mexico

Richard Leitch updates his story on the exemplary solidarity work of two unions – the United Electrical Workers of America (UE) and Mexico’s Authentic Labor Front (FAT). Their relationship is an inspiring one for unionists, particularly as it draws heavily on rank and file involvement. The struggle for a new and independent unionism in Mexico involves ghost unions, corrupt bureaucrats, legitimised thuggery and battling drug cartels.

Last century a deeply restrictive ‘corporatist’ political machinery developed in Mexico during the 70-year dominance of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). This effectively constrained the development of the labour movement, imposing a network of official union bodies and labour laws which fiercely protect the status quo, and are backed by repression. Tying together state, official union and employer interests, this conservative ‘triple alliance’ has dominated Mexico’s social order for decades, posing real problems for any independent force.