There was another song and dance made by MPs this week over the takeover of Cadbury by Kraft-US in 2010. This was because the Kraft CEO refused to appear in front of the Commons' select committee, not even by video link, "to give assurances about future employment levels".
Of course, there was some hoo-hah last year, which came to nothing, when Kraft decided to close the Somerdale factory near Bristol after initially promising to keep it open - making 374 workers redundant. But in fact the former Cadbury bosses had planned to do the same, in order to move production to Poland. Kraft just implemented their plan in the end.
And now, whether Kraft promises that the present Cadbury workforce is safe or not, it is entirely possible that it may decide in the future to dispose of more jobs in order to improve its profits. Profits, after all come first for the capitalists. And bigger profits mean squeezing workers harder.
They wouldn't touch the job slashers!
What really takes the biscuit however, is the hypocrisy of the MPs who sit on the "Business, Innovation and Skills" select committee who pretend to be "outraged" over all of this.
Because whichever side of the political spectrum we might look, we don't see any outrage when it comes to the many thousands of job cuts imposed on workers on a weekly and daily basis by bosses with whom they can speak to face-to-face, because they are sitting right here, in British headquarters.
Did they make any attempt to summon the boss of BT - who just announced a 71% increase in profits of £1.7bn - after having cut 30,000 jobs over the last 2 years? Or the bosses of the other privatised utilities on the grounds that they have been cutting "far too many" jobs?
In fact wouldn't they have to summon themselves?! Under Tory, Labour and Con Dems, the job cuts in the public sector have been phenomenal. 65,000 postal jobs have been cut since 2002, for instance - with more to go. In the civil service and local government the jobs' massacre amounts to hundreds of thousands.
Indeed, will Danny Alexander be summoned? Didn't he say the Treasury wants to see 490,000 public sector jobs cut by 2013-14?
132,000 went last year - including 32,000 in schools and colleges. 170,000 local government workers were issued with "jobs at risk" notices. No surprise then, that the number of people claiming Jobseekers' Allowance rose again in the last 4 weeks to reach 1.47 million. Or that the number of women claimants is now 474,400, the highest figure since October 1996!
But the working class can do it
The MPs' rant against Kraft is just a hypocritical diversion to cover their backs. But who do they think they are fooling with their nationalist posturing? As if this kind of hot air could stop the increase in unemployment!
Yet there is one way to do it: by making it illegal for any boss, public or private, to cut jobs and by threatening private companies which break this law with expropriation without any compensation.
After all, if "we're all in it together", they've got to be "in it" as well. And if MPs are wondering where the money will come from, to keep public sector jobs and services expanding, as is needed, here's one place: the government is sitting on the publicly shored-up capital of 3 banks which the state took over - all of which are making BIG profits!
But making it illegal to cut jobs is not enough. What about working conditions and the ongoing (and growing) problem of temporary working? It should also be made illegal to impose second rate conditions on workers, like those imposed by casualisation, given such a boost under Labour.
In fact, contrary to what we are told, the legislation coming in this October to supposedly give temporary agency workers "rights" - will only apply after 12 weeks. It ends up being nothing but an invitation to the bosses to ensure that casualisation becomes even more casual - with jobs lasting 11 weeks at a time, or less! And this is just a way of keeping a whole section of the working class semi-employed or under-employed, for the benefit of shareholders.
Making job-cutting and casualisation illegal would be the only rational way of dealing with this crisis. But it would mean forcing the capitalists to use their accumulated profits to tackle the problem which they created in the first place. Of course, this is the last thing that the politicians who take care of the bosses' needs, will ever dream of doing - that is, until they are left with no other choice, by an all-out mobilisation of the working class!