The Mark Andrew Development (MAD) hospitality group recently went bust, leaving over 100 workers in the City of Manchester without a job.
125 staff at pubs, clubs and other venues in Manchester all owned by MAD entertainment were given no warning or support from their employer when the company went into sudden liquidation overnight.
With the crisis of capitalism deepening everyday, we see numerous examples such as this plunging workers into turmoil.
This sudden event highlights the dangers of a workforce not being unionised. When pressure from the bosses pushes down, workers must be unified and organised in order to fight back.
With the Christmas season around the corner, the most expensive time of year for working families, this news will cause great financial instability for the now ex-employees of MAD entertainment.
Amongst these workers are students who often rely on extra income to be able to continue their education. As student fees rise and the costs of living soar, young people are increasingly struggling to make ends meet. The loss of these jobs is an added blow to struggling students who worked for the company.
Yet one thing is for certain: this will not be the last business to go into liquidation, throwing workers onto the scrapheap and into uncertainty. To rub salt in the wound, the Tory government is withdrawing all stable support through their austerity programme, with cuts to welfare and the introduction of the Universal Credit system.
The capitalist crisis is leaving many of us unemployed, with no way to survive within this suffocating system.
The bosses and their Tory friends have thrown down the gauntlet. Their system has failed. We need to transform society to create a world free from corruption, greed and poverty.
The labour movement must take up the cause of those in such precarious positions, going into workplaces everywhere and organising workers to fight back against low pay and insecure conditions.
The Labour Party, meanwhile, must promise to make the bosses pay for the crisis. This means reversing all welfare cuts and nationalising – without compensation to the fat cats – those employers who go under and leave workers with nothing.
In short, we need a socialist Labour government that will fight against job losses – and fight against capitalism!
by Karl Luetchford, Manchester Marxists
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