PES Manifesto

1. Here's one flower... by Asynjen on Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 16:58

Interesting to read Poul Nyrup's thoughts about the upcoming election campaign! I have a proposal for a flower: Equal pay for men and women. The PES has addressed this in an action before and I think this message could also make voters stop and think.

2. Universal childcare by pattheact on Saturday, March 22, 2008 at 09:05

If there is another flower I'd like to see flourish on the fertile PES Manifesto ground that it is without any doubt the project of universal childcare in the EU states. Having followed the PES campaign on the subject very closely I think that this is one subject all social-democrats, socialists and labour parties could campaign with, as it has already been the case in some countries last year.
Here we have a subject that could help tackle the demographic challenge Europe faces with it's ageing population, facilitationg the access to women to the labour market and helping both parents to concile private, professional and family life in a more serein ambient. Universal childcare is also a strong integration factor for all foreign children and their parents in the local communities and therefore also a strong argument for more equality between men and women, as fathers and mothers will be able to live more balanced family lives by taking away the educational role from only mothers shoulders...
A few interesting studies have also shown that universal childcare is a factor of economic growth for the cities whos invest massively in childcare facilities, creating better qualifyed jobs amongst childcare workers, who become tax payers whilst giving our children an always better structured learning environment.
There are many other arguments that I could bring up, but I'll wait to debate with the following flower providers....

3. Another one... by carl0s on Sunday, March 23, 2008 at 20:09

My addition, would be a democratisation of the public planning process, enabled by interactive technology and the internet. I'd call it "Putting People In Charge" of decisions which directly affect their environment. The EU can act as enabler in this process.

4. 5 ideas by jonworth on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 at 10:05

Thanks for linking to my post when I was blogger of the week... :-)

As for the need for 5 ideas - I very much agree with that. Making 5 main campaign days in the 5 weeks leading up to the election should definitely be possible, with candidates across Europe speaking about the same themes.

Maybe I'm taking too much of a UK perspective, but I'm not too sure how 5 flowers can relate to these themes? Is a daisy more symbolic of social inclusion than a sunflower? I would rather have 5 core themes, and state them as such.

5. Public healthcare for all by avalon on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 at 17:11

As a flower, I would go for public healthcare for all.

Let's stop the privatization of the healthcare facilities, as quality healthcare should be available for everyone! Like education, access to healthcare should be free for all - more than that, it should be a made right!

6. Do Five Big Ideas Exclude Those With Little Ideas? by Duncan Anderson on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 12:16

I've just come across from the Labour Party's members only web site http://www.labour.org.uk/labour_membersnet where part of it was dedicated to collecting members view for a forthcoming General Election manifesto.

There were ten topic areas, some sub-divided, that feed into six policy commissions.

This meant that no matter how large or small, how important or trivial, everybody had the ability to have a say, to have an input. Nobody was excluded.

After all, who is to say what is a big or good idea? It all depends upon your perspective. For example, I would suggest a lot more help and assistance to people creating Co-Operatives. In the UK the Co-Operative movement has been shown to be more responsible to its employees, more responsible to their customers and more responsible to the environment.

So a small idea that can have very big effects.

Another idea would be to develop this web site allowing it to continue after the European Elections so promoting greater dialogue between centre-left and left-wing believers across Europe to help create a greater understanding of each other's problems. In the 1950s and 1960s a lot of towns and cities were twinned with one another and visits became great social occasions. But this has now died-out, unfortunately, and are now ofter only attended by the political elite. Times have moved on and I don't think we can revitalise the twinning movement, although educational exchanges must still be encouraged, but this web site can do a lot to break down people's fear's and prejudices and help build a greater understanding among all Europeans.

I hope that everybody sees that these are both good ideas, but neither are big flowers.

My view is that either this site is expanded to allow for more topic areas. Or the people who'll be building the manifesto from these comments can put them into five basic topic areas and include all relevant ideas that have been posted.

Remember, it is always the big ideas that always make a difference, when I helped write the manifesto for North Lincolnshire Labour Group we specifically added small ideas as these can also appeal to the voters and it is sometimes these smaller ideas that can make the average person on the street take a notice of what is going on in the EU.

 

7. Ideas in all shapes and sizes by Asynjen on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 16:44

Duncan, I agree with you that a manifesto needs both 'big' and 'small' ideas - also because the 'small' ideas are often a lot more tangible than the big and fluffy ones. I'm also very sympathetic towards the idea of cooperatives, eventhough I don't know a whole lot about them (yet). Will you perhaps share your ideas for this?

8. European Co-Operatives/Co-Operation by Duncan Anderson on Friday, March 28, 2008 at 11:57

I can’t speak about Co-Operatives across the world or throughout Europe, I’d suggest you visit http://www.eurocoop.org/ I can speak about my experience of the Co-Operative Movement in the UK.

 

The Co-Operative Movement was started by the Rotherham Pioneers - http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A2764424 & http://museum.co-op.ac.uk/ - who want to make sure that the working class could get unadulterated basic food stuffs at fair prices.

 

The Co-Operative Movement in the UK is made up of a variety of Societies and is now involved with more than just foodstuffs. I’m a member of the Co-Operative Group - http://www.co-operative.co.uk/en/ – who has recently merged with United Co-Operative – and was formed from the Co-Operative Retail Society and Co-Operative Wholesale Society. CWS is one of the largest landowners in the UK producing most of the food required by the Co-Operative Movement. It production has been organic since the 1980s. The Co-Operative Movement has been at the forefront of ethical trading for over 100 years. For example, none of its pharmaceutical products are tested on animals. The Co-Operative Bank and Co-Operative Insurance Services have been ethical investors since the 1980s.

 

Membership costs GBP1.00 and is now deducted from the first pound a new member earns on their discount card. If you invest GBP25.00 you can become, after an election, a member on a local board. If you invest GBP50.00 you can become, after an election, a member of a regional board. All full-time employees and full members and part-time employees are given the option of becoming members. All members are regularly surveyed quite intensively about how they would like to see the society run. So most employees and customers are democratic bosses of their local shop. Employee and customer disputes are very rare.

 

Co-Operative shops work within their local community. Every store manage has the right to sell products at reduced price or cost price to local charitable organisations. Furthermore, the odd pennies are taken from the members quarterly discounted and put into a Community Fund http://www.co-operative.co.uk/en/communityfund and this is used to fund larger community products. Or you can, like me, have all of you discount paid into the Community Fund.

 

Co-Operatives don’t have to be shops, any business can be run as a co-operative, all employees would be members and have a say in how the business is run and you also have customer representatives on the board. To a capitalist this might sound like a crazy idea, but it has been shown by Henry Ford that socialist values or often the right way to run a business. It means that customers get the product, quality and cost they want and these are discussed before prior to going for with a contract. All arguments are resolved before they become arguments.

 

Co-Operatives have far higher ethical standards than capitalist businesses..

 

Whilst all Co-Operative societies are politically neutral it was realised in the UK that to further promote their ideas and change society a political movement was required. Consequently the Co-Operative Party - http://party.coop/index.php - which now has a National Agreement with the Labour Party.

 

Hopefully I have given you enough information and links for you to be able to find out more. Incidentally, don’t be fooled by David Cameron’s cynical ploy of creating a Conservative Cooperative Movement, it has no co-operative principles and isn’t recognised as being part of the Co-Operative Movement.

 

Now all that is left is for me to give a quote by somebody famous.

 

“The co-operative movement is one of the largest organised segments of civil society, and plays a crucial role across a wide spectrum of human aspiration and need. Co-operatives provide vital health, housing and banking services; they promote education and gender equality; they protect the environment and workers' rights. Through these and a range of other activities, they help people in more than a hundred countries better their lives and those of their communities...They are a key partner of the United Nations system.”

Kofi Annan, former General Secretary of the United Nations

 

http://party.coop/co_operative.php?article_id=29

http://party.coop/co_operative.php?article_id=28

 

9. Co-Operative/FairTrade Addendum by Duncan Anderson on Friday, March 28, 2008 at 14:56

I forgot to mention that the Co-Operative now stocks and sells more FairTrade http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/ products than any other food retailer. And is a strong supporter of the FairTrade Towns http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/get_involved/campaigns/fairtrade_towns/default.aspx

 

10. 5 flowers by Wilfried1 on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 at 15:48

...all great ideas, which will hopefully contribute to a better world...

In the community of 27 memberstates, the differences are ....huge...

1. Give  people a fair pay for a fair days work. Also those who do not have a job. We do not want American situations in Europe.

2. Access to basic healthcare and housing for  people within the community. 

3. Why do multinationals take trillions (Euro's and/or USD) of profits whereas millions of people  have no acces to basic social security. Budgets of some multinationals are  multiple multifolds of the whole European community.  

4. Anyone in the E.U community ever compared his / her paycheck against the income of an average Roumanian or Bulgarian worker and asked the question why there is that much difference? Or is that the question that should not be raised?

 5. Don't globalise for the sake of globalising. One example I recently saw a documentary whereby exclusive hairdresser shops in European capitals "EXPLOIT" the religion of the poorest Indian people to get their hair cut. Behind screens, this mass of hair finds its way to the West at extremely outrageous prices...with not one  penney for  the "manufacturers"