Condition of the working class

One of the enduring themes of the ruling class is the idea that the current crisis is the result of a credit-fuelled consumerism. Supposedly the working has run up a credit card bill with high living during the boom and now we have to tighten our belts in order to pay for it. The really insidious lie is that the working class enjoyed some sort of renaissance during the ‘boom’.

There has been a great scandal in the media about the atrocious state of athletes’ accommodation and facilities at the Commonwealth Games site in Delhi: big name athlete’s pulling out, various teams delaying their travel or staying in hotels while they wait for the village to be brought up to standard. The Commonwealth Games ‘brand’ has been damaged! But this pales into insignificance compared to the much greater scandal related to the construction – the conditions faced by workers at the site.

Before the World Cup there was all the usual hype about how it would benefit the country. Yet, for all the more than six billion dollars worth of investment in stadiums, roads, airports and other projects, there has been very little that will benefit the vast majority of the population.

A year and a half after the ‘credit crunch', the international working class is still reeling under the avalanche of attacks on its living standards by all governments, whether of the left or the right. But over this period it has not remained entirely passive as can be seen from a number of struggles which we have written about in our press.

These last few months, the French media have reported copiously on the suicides of France Telecom employees (33 in 18 months, almost two per month). It's not the first time that the news has headlined cases of suicide at work or because of work. The same thing happened two years ago at Peugeot and Renault.