
The Socialist 1 June 2011
Strike - to defend jobs and pensions

Glencore - Profiting from global hunger
New attacks on women's sexual and reproductive rights
Disabled protester - "inadvertently struck with a police baton"
Shoesmith sacking - social work under growing pressure
Egypt and Tunisia: Revolutions at the crossroads
Greece: unite the struggles and bring down the government
Strike - to defend jobs and pensions
Government plans for the NHS: Privatisation and world class profits!
"Frontline first" a dangerous tactic - unity is the key
Cardiff NHS protest against Topshop tax dodger
Demonstration against closure of day centre in Llandeilo
Southampton - council workers' strike spreads
Saltend construction workers' struggle ends
Lewisham teachers - Action threat spells victory
Newcastle East Coast rail call centre - Save jobs!
18 years since Stephen Lawrence murder
Coventry action against academies grows
Yorkshire meetings make Jarrow plans
Lib Dems - a party rooted in capitalism
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Glencore - Profiting from global hunger
Vincent Kolo, chinaworker.info
The Swiss based multibillion dollar mining, energy and food trader Glencore was listed on the London and Hong Kong stock markets on 24 May. Protesters from the League of Social Democrats and Socialist Action (CWI Hong Kong) showed their opposition to a company that makes a handful of speculators insanely rich while impoverishing millions.
Glencore is profiting from the current China-driven bubble in global commodity prices. Even before its stock market debut, Glencore controlled 60% of the global zinc market and 50% of the copper market as a trading intermediary.
Glencore is a major speculator and manipulator of commodity prices, gambling on price movements that hammer the poor, but enrich its small band of directors and fellow speculators. The company made a financial killing from rising wheat prices in August 2010, when Russia - the world's third largest exporter - suffered its worst ever drought.
The Asian Development Bank recently warned that an additional 64 million people globally could be thrust into extreme poverty this year as a result of skyrocketing food and fuel prices. Inflation has been a trigger for massive movements across the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere. Also in Hong Kong, Singapore and other Asian economies, food prices are fanning discontent.
Glencore has caused misery for thousands of townspeople living near its copper mines in Zambia. Local residents told the Daily Mail of acid in the water supply and huge clouds of sulphurous gas drifting through their homeland. The company is also accused of tax avoidance in Zambia, cheating the desperately poor country and its people of a few crumbs from its banquet table.
The initial public offering of Glencore shares will make its eight directors fabulously rich. Chief executive, Ivan Glasenberg, will become one of Europe's richest men with a paper fortune of nearly $10 billion from the flotation and his own 15% stake.
With an estimated valuation of about $60 billion, Glencore will be the first company in a quarter century to make the FTSE 100 (the London market's biggest companies) on its first day of trading.
Capitalist symbol
Glencore was founded by the US fugitive Marc Rich, who fled to Switzerland in 1983 after being indicted by federal prosecutors for tax evasion and trading with Iran. Rich was later pardoned by former US president Bill Clinton, on his final day in the White House, in a move that drew massive criticism at the time.
The company recently appointed as a non-executive director and 'environmental adviser' none other than Tony Hayward, who as former chief executive of BP presided over last year's massive oil spill and bungled clean-up in the Gulf of Mexico - the biggest oil spill in US history.
Glencore is a symbol of all that is wrong with capitalism and why working class people around the world need to join the fight for democratic socialism. Only through public ownership - placing the mining and energy industries under democratic workers' control and management - can these resources be planned in the interests of the majority, rather than being used as gigantic chips for the billionaires in the casino of global capitalism.
Full article on www.chinaworker.info
In this issue
Socialist Party news and analysis
Glencore - Profiting from global hunger
New attacks on women's sexual and reproductive rights
Disabled protester - "inadvertently struck with a police baton"
Shoesmith sacking - social work under growing pressure
International socialist news and analysis
Egypt and Tunisia: Revolutions at the crossroads
Greece: unite the struggles and bring down the government
National Shop Stewards Network
Strike - to defend jobs and pensions
Socialist Party NHS campaigning
Government plans for the NHS: Privatisation and world class profits!
"Frontline first" a dangerous tactic - unity is the key
Cardiff NHS protest against Topshop tax dodger
Demonstration against closure of day centre in Llandeilo
Socialist Party workplace news
Southampton - council workers' strike spreads
Saltend construction workers' struggle ends
Lewisham teachers - Action threat spells victory
Newcastle East Coast rail call centre - Save jobs!
Socialist history
18 years since Stephen Lawrence murder
Youth fight for jobs and education
Coventry action against academies grows
Yorkshire meetings make Jarrow plans
Socialist Party feature
Lib Dems - a party rooted in capitalism
Related links:
Books that inspired me: The Road to Wigan Pier
Life in lockdown - being home from school when you're poor is hard
Bosses profit out of 'starvation' food parcels
Protests in solidarity with Indian farmers
Food and a capitalist Brexit: No trust in Tory Deals!
Global capitalism at most dangerous conjuncture since the 1930s
Covid vaccine nationalism threatens pandemic response
A new world order - global reconstruction after World War Two