When you start to be seen as a critical thinker some will call you a pain in the backside, a cynic and maybe other, slightly more expletive laden things. There’s nothing wrong with having a critical appraisal faculty in your thinking. Certainly one might expect trade union leaders to have some degree of critical appraisal.
Brendan Barber clearly has no such faculty. Mr Barber is the General Secretary of the TUC and before today was probably best known for his pro-Facebook at work stance against employers.
Until today.
Now Mr Barber hasn’t quite grasped that employers do in fact have the right to say what can and cannot happen on their computer networks. In fact there are good reasons why this is so. Once the Disaster Recovery posts are published I’ll write a post on that topic. And it’s nothing to do with wanting to control employees’ lives outside work (although there are some organisations who want to do that and should be rebuked severely for their desire).
Today, in an outstanding demonstration of a complete lack of critical thinking and a total disregard for the basic tenet of English Law – innocent until proven guilty – Mr Barber was trotted out as another puppet to justify the Orwellian sanctions in the Digital Economy Bill.
I draw attention to this part of the BBC report
“I am fed up of hearing corporate propaganda being deployed in order to justify intrusions on our rights to freedom of speech, privacy and to a fair trial,” [Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group] said.
“We have no truck with infringement of copyright, but it is shameful that anyone from the Labour movement can attempt to justify removal of vital services such as the internet as a punishment.”
The ORG recently revealed that certain amendments to the bill proposed in the House of Lords – but not passed – had been drafted by music industry group the BPI.
“Members of the Labour movement spent decades fighting for people’s rights to basic services, education, and political organisation: they need to ask themselves where their true values lie,” said Mr Killock.
“Are they with Gordon Brown’s call to recognise the internet as just as vital for the today’s citizens as water, gas and electricity; or are they with music industry lobbyists, calling on Parliament to infringe people’s human rights?”
Instead of swallowing corporate propaganda spewed out by puppets, go to the Open Rights Group blog and read some balanced and justifiably critical commentary.
Brendan Barber has shown a flagrant disregard for the history of the Labour movement. He no longer retains any credibility.
Just like the government with which he associates himself.