More Bad News Gospel posted by Richard Seymour

Apparently, tomorrow's stats will show forty one straight months of wage contraction in the UK.

The ONS also said earlier this month that 91% of days lost to strike action were over pay - but also that the level of industrial action was the lowest since a historic low in 2005, just 250,000 days lost, and that over 75% of such strikes last no longer than a single day.

The impact of such strikes on profits is likely to be negligible - not just because most such strikes will be in the public sector.  In the US, the Bureau of Labour Statistics counts the percentage of total working time lost to stoppages. In recent years, it's so low, below 0.005%, that they don't even bother calculating it accurately.  If the same calculations were done in the UK, it would probably be a similar plop in the ocean.  The ruling class is winning this massively.

Get used to this. Any talk of a 'vanguard' or a 'rank and file' as anything other than a distant aspiration in today's situation is frankly delusional.