Firefighters' pay: Strike Now For A Living Wage

THE FIRE Brigades Union recall conference meets on 12 September as we go to press. They will be voting on whether to call a strike ballot over pay. MARTIN REYNOLDS spoke to an east London firefighter about the origins of the dispute and the mood of firefighters.

TONY BLAIR said that he and Bush have decided to give Saddam Hussein "one more chance". It's clear that mounting opposition from Republicans, the military, Arab leaders and public opinion generally to the ' go it alone' plans of US hawks, has forced Bush to try and involve the UN Security Council. One US opinion poll found only 20% supported a US-only invasion of Iraq.

BLAIR’S GOVERNMENT is to give Britain’s largest electricity generator, the struggling nuclear power company British Energy (BE) an emergency loan of £410 million to save it from immediate collapse.

"WE'RE NOT talking about a war in Tora Bora here. We're talking about a war in the world's main petrol station." That's how New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman assessed the prospects for an imperialist invasion of Iraq.

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Firefighters' pay

Strike Now For A Living Wage

THE FIRE Brigades Union recall conference meets on 12 September as we go to press. They will be voting on whether to call a strike ballot over pay. MARTIN REYNOLDS spoke to an east London firefighter about the origins of the dispute and the mood of firefighters.

WE WENT out on strike 25 years ago and won a pay formula which linked us to manual workers. But the relative drop in some manual workers' pay means that for the last 15 years we've been losing out. Now some firefighters have to claim benefits.

There's now a strong feeling for strike action. Before you come in the job you have an image of the fire brigade as a vocation, saving people's lives. But in the last strike we were out for weeks and we realised the government didn't give a gnats about what happened.

If we go out they have to try to provide fire cover. The police are quite good at showing people where to go but they're not much good at fire-fighting. The army have got one or two specialists but they're either abroad or waiting to go.

I know some soldiers who were being trained for the Green Goddesses and have already been taken off that to prepare for a possible war.

Without fire cover some things like railways and airports cease to be safe to run. I don't know what's going to happen to football matches and things like that. If they have a fire and there's no back-up, what will happen?

We have support from the rail and postal unions and the French trade unions on the Channel Tunnel.

We've also got public support, especially when people find out what our wages are now. A woman came to see the fire station with her grandson the other day. When she found out we are on £21,500 plus London Weighting, she said she employed secretaries on more than we get.

In the last few years the pay formula has resulted in us getting 3-4%, recently 1.5%. We're now being compared with shelf-stackers at Sainsbury's. Our job is dangerous and requires high standards of professionalism and training."

Firefighters are now in the front line of the struggle. Millions of workers realise that a victory for them would be mighty blow against low pay and would give a major boost to the struggle against privatisation, this pro-market government and the system it supports.

• Support the firefighters' strike for a decent living wage.
• For a one-day public sector pay strike.
• For a national demonstration in support of public services and against privatisation.

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A Rocky Road To War

TONY BLAIR said that he and Bush have decided to give Saddam Hussein "one more chance". It's clear that mounting opposition from Republicans, the military, Arab leaders and public opinion generally to the ' go it alone' plans of US hawks, has forced Bush to try and involve the UN Security Council. One US opinion poll found only 20% supported a US-only invasion of Iraq.

Blair will be hoping that a UN resolution demanding the return of weapons inspectors and 'evidence' of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction will be enough to take the sting out of the anti-war opposition in Britain. Opinion polls have shown around 70% opposed to war. In a recent survey of 100 backbench Labour MPs, 90% said there was insufficient grounds to declare war.

The former Labour Chancellor Denis Healey summed up Blair's predicament when he said: "I don't think he could survive overwhelming public and party opposition to British support for an American attack".

But will Blair's strategy work? The situation today is very different from that of a year ago after September 11 and from the time of the last Gulf War in 1990/91.

This time there has been no terrorist attack killing thousands of people or an invasion of a neighbouring country that could be used to try and justify a military attack and conceal the real reasons for war - asserting the economic and political dominance of US imperialism internationally and in the oil-rich Middle East in particular.

UN resolution

The propaganda machines have gone into overdrive to talk up the supposed threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and have come up with a damp squib (see page 3).

US imperialism will attempt to use its economic muscle to bully and bribe the other UN Security Council members into backing a new resolution. Yet, even if it succeeds, the figleaf of the UN will not necessarily cut across the anti-war movement.

There is a growing awareness of the real intentions of the US.

The narrow vote at the TUC against blanket opposition to a war with Iraq (see below) is an indication of that.

The unions are becoming increasingly militant on the issue of low pay and discontent on this and other questions such as privatisation could feed into and harden the anti-war mood.

A firefighters' strike in particular, could concretely affect the timing of a planned military attack on Iraq. As one senior army officer explained: "We can't fight fires and Saddam Hussein at the same time".

Bush and Blair have made it quite clear that if the UN does not play ball or drags its heels in forcing compliance of any resolution, they would still want to wage war on Iraq without it. If this happened it would unleash enormous opposition.

Whatever the outcome at the UN, the road to war is a rocky one. Bush and Blair have shown that they are not immune to the pressure of public opinion. The potential exists to build a massive anti-war movement in Britain and internationally.

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Renationalise British Energy

BLAIR’S GOVERNMENT is to give Britain’s largest electricity generator, the struggling nuclear power company British Energy (BE) an emergency loan of £410 million to save it from immediate collapse.

Capitalist ‘entrepreneurs’ picked up the electrical power industry for next to nothing. BE bosses are now telling their 5,000-plus workers that they could face the dole queues.

Nuclear power is so expensive that this privatised company, providing one-fifth of all Britain’s electricity needs from its nuclear reactors, cannot make big enough profits.

No War For Oil Profits

"WE'RE NOT talking about a war in Tora Bora here. We're talking about a war in the world's main petrol station." That's how New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman assessed the prospects for an imperialist invasion of Iraq.

Kevin Parslow

Whatever the need for US imperialism to restore its prestige or to enhance its strategic interests, the defence of oil supplies has been and will continue to be one of the major, if not the major, factor in deciding whether to intervene in the Middle East.

Intervention could not be isolated to Iraq itself but would have repercussions throughout the Middle East and Islamic world, including oil producers.

Oil, 'black gold', has been of huge consequence in past conflicts in the Middle East. In 1973, following the Yom Kippur War, Middle East oil states turned down the taps to the capitalist world. The price of oil shot up fourfold to $40 a barrel.

While not the major cause of the world recession of 1973-75, it brought it forward and deepened the crisis. But it wasn't all bad news for capitalism as the rise in price created huge wealth ('petrodollars') for the oil sheikhs, some of which was reinvested in the world's major capitalist economies.

Following the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, imperialism feared the spread of political Islam throughout the Middle East. This would have had dangerous consequences for pro-western regimes and their oil reserves. They were quite happy to fund and arm Saddam Hussein at that time, in his war against the regime of the ayatollahs.

The Iran-Iraq War lasted eight years; it was fought to a stalemate, but it prevented the downfall of pro-imperialist regimes for a time. But Saddam Hussein overestimated his value to imperialism. He thought the US had given him a green light for his invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.

This was immediately seen as a threat to imperialism's oil supplies, with Kuwait's reserves now in Iraqi hands and the danger of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states falling to Iraq if imperialism did nothing.

Therefore, the US government, led by George Bush senior, organised the recapture of Kuwait from Iraq in early 1991. On this occasion, they gained the support of most Middle East states, fearful for their own future if nothing was done to check Saddam.

Punitive sanctions

AT THAT time, however, imperialism's leaders, including Colin Powell, concluded that it would be hazardous to continue into Iraq to overthrow Saddam. The risks outweighed the benefits. Nevertheless, imperialism imposed punitive sanctions and reparations on Iraq for its destruction of Kuwaiti oil fields, including limiting the amount of oil it could bring onto the market.

Now the security of oil supplies is again a factor. The US has been committed to defending the royal house of Saud ever since President Roosevelt visited the kingdom in 1945 following the Yalta conference of wartime leaders.

Despite the US's support for the creation of the state of Israel and its later expansionist policies, it has always maintained its role as defender of the Saudi feudal regime. In return, as the world's largest producer, the Saudis have regulated the world's oil supply.

But some US strategists are arguing that the reactionary Saudi theocratic regime is on the verge of collapse, to be replaced by an even more 'fundamentalist' one, which would be hostile to US interests. Saudi citizens were active in the destruction of the World Trade Center and are prominent in al-Qa'ida; such 'strategists' see no benefit in continuing to defend the regime.

But they would possibly need to replace its oil supplies; they have considered using Russian oil, even West Africa, where they suggest Nigeria could leave OPEC for economic gains, and they would like to drill in the Alaskan forests, to the protests of those defending the environment.

But they conclude that only Iraq's reserves of up to 200 billion barrels, the second largest in the world, could replace the loss of Saudi oil. 'Regime change' in Baghdad would put a compliant government in power and hopefully allow unfettered exploitation of the oil reserves.

But as more far-thinking strategists argue, the US has even less support now in the Middle East than in 1990-91, and the consequences of an invasion would not stop at Iraq's borders.

Risky strategy

THIS TIME Middle Eastern states are wary of supporting imperialism as the US continues to support Israel's oppression of the Palestinians, and they fear that an invasion would bring down their own regimes.

This would have its own effects on oil supplies for imperialism. As in 1973, the Gulf War in 1991 produced a large oil-price increase which worsened the world economic situation. The effects of the US recession that followed saw George Bush senior lose the 1992 elections to Clinton.

A war now would cause problems for the world economy as well. A $5 a barrel rise in oil prices over a year is estimated to knock 0.25% off world gross domestic product.

With the world's economies already sickly, the price of oil is already 36% higher than on 1 January rising towards $30 a barrel as the war drums beat.

The effects would be an increase in inflation as prices rise but at the same time job losses and lower production. In addition, the Saudis are starting to withdraw large amounts of the invested petrodollars from the US. This would have disastrous effects for the value of the dollar.

Energy interests were the big backers of the Bush/Cheney presidential campaign, This is 'their' government; both Bush and Cheney worked for oil and energy businesses. They hope to gain the lion's share of concessions in any post-Saddam regime.

But their methods are extremely risky for imperialism's oil supplies; Mo Mowlam wrote recently that Saddam "is now the distraction for the sleight of hand to protect the west's supply of oil".

But it will take more than magic for the US to pull off the trick of overthrowing Saddam without serious repercussions for the price or supply of 'black gold'.

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IS IT possible to survive on the minimum wage? This is the question that journalists Fran Abrams and Barbara Ehrenreich ask in their books Below the Breadline and Nickel and Dimed. Abrams spent three months in England and Scotland as a cleaner, factory worker and care assistant, while Ehrenreich worked in the USA as a waitress, cleaner, carer and shop assistant. Both earned not much more, and sometimes less, than the minimum wage.

Christine Thomas reviews both books, which graphically depict what it's like to be one of the 'working poor'.

Lifting The Lid On Poverty Pay

SHIRLEY AND Dave have five kids. Shirley works days and Dave works nights in a care home for elderly people in Aberdeen. They hardly ever see each other and snatch sleep in between looking after the kids.

Joan is a waitress in a diner in Florida. She lives in a van parked behind the shopping centre at night and showers in a motel room.

These are the experiences of just three of the people who Abrams and Ehrenreich meet in their 'other life' as workers on the minimum wage.

Of course they're not the first people to temporarily leave a relatively comfortable lifestyle to experience first-hand what it's like to be poor. George Orwell famously did the same when he wrote his book Down and out in Paris and London.

It's a shame that so few books are written by working-class people themselves about their own experiences. Nevertheless, the 'experiments' carried out by both journalists have resulted in two very readable books which make you angry while being funny at the same time (especially Nickel and Dimed). Workers trying to eke out an existence on low wages will readily identify with them.

Housing crisis

There are obviously important social differences between the USA and Britain. Here working-class people still have the remnants of a state welfare system which was fought for and won by workers in the past. The situation in the US is much more grim, as Nickel and Dimed reveals.

Ehrenreich explains that housing is the "principal source of disruption" in her co-workers' lives. Apart from Joan sleeping in a van, there is Gail who shares a motel room for $250 a week. Her male room-mate is sexually harassing her but she can't afford to move out and live on her own.

Marianne and her boyfriend pay $170 a week for a one-person trailer, while George can only sleep when one of the people he shares a flat with goes to work because they sleep in shifts in the same bed! Ehrenreich herself is reduced to staying in a seedy, dangerous motel room with nothing to screen the window and no bolt on the door.

The existence of housing benefit in Britain means that the situation is marginally better. Nevertheless, the cleaners who Abrams works with in London are mostly living with relatives and friends in overcrowded accommodation. She has to live in a caravan site in Doncaster and a miserable B+B in Aberdeen, which is supposed to be temporary but is in fact permanent home to many of the single men living there.

Housing benefit is in reality a state subsidy to low-paying employers. If the minimum wage was set at a decent level then nobody working would need to claim it or any other in-work benefits. But even this life-line is under attack. Already many councils 'cap' the amount on offer so that the unemployed and workers are forced to pay the difference out of their benefits or their poverty wages.

There are many, including in New Labour, who would like to go even further, cutting housing benefit and forcing the unemployed and low paid into 'appropriate' accommodation. Nickel and Dimed gives a glimpse of what it would be like if the 'reformers' got their way.

Daily grind

In a country like the USA, where at least 40 million people have no health insurance, falling sick can push you completely under. Holly, a pregnant cleaner with 'The Maids' cleaning company, keeps fainting. She falls and "something snaps" in her ankle. Yet she refuses to stop cleaning because she can't afford to take any more time off work.

In the sauce factory in Doncaster, Julie, an agency worker, strains her shoulder which becomes inflamed. But still she ignores all advice and continues working because, as an agency worker, she isn't entitled to sick pay and is afraid that 'Temps R Us' will sack her for being a bad employee.

Many of the 'maids' only survive the heavy, physical grind of daily cleaning by popping painkillers which they can't afford to buy.

Rosie gets by on a bag of Doritos on her eight-hour shifts because she hasn't enough money to buy lunch. Back in London, one cleaner is so poor she steals a greasy, tasteless cheese sandwich left over in the posh hotel she cleans, which is frequented by American tourists and celebrities. As Amos, another cleaner explains, all they're really doing is "keeping body and soul".

Ehrenreich asks Colleen, a single mother with two children, how she feels about the wealthy owners of the houses they clean. "I don't mind, really" she replies "because I guess I'm a simple person, and I don't want what they have. I mean, it's nothing to me. But what I would like is to be able to take a day off now and then... if I had to... and still be able to buy groceries the next day".

The Economic Policy Institute in the US recently calculated that a living wage for a family of one adult and two children is $30,000 or $14 an hour. 60% of American workers earn less than that. Even with the wage gains that have taken place over the past four years, the low paid are still earning less percentage-wise than they did in 1973.

"Something is wrong" writes Ehrenreich "when a single person in good health... can barely support herself by the sweat of her brow".

Ehrenreich points out that welfare reform was sold in the US on the basis that a job was the ticket out of poverty. But, she explains, the 'working poor' "neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shining and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high".

She herself is only able to balance incomings and outgoings by taking two jobs. She works five days a week as a cleaner and then at weekends in a nursing home. Lynne works six hours a day in Wal-Mart followed by an eight-hour shift in a factory. In that situation, which is not uncommon, 'life' consists of working and sleeping and little else.

Abrams paints a similar picture of 'multiple' jobs and working endless hours as the only way to survive in Britain on the minimum wage. According to the first chairman of the Low Pay Commission, George Bain, the minimum wage was supposed to bring the low paid from the "margins of degradation" to the "mainstream" of society. Yet £4.10 an hour (for over 21-year-olds) works out at just £140 a week, £40 below the current poverty line.

And Below the Breadline reveals how in many cases the minimum wage is no such thing. Employers find all kinds of ways fiddling the system and paying less.

In her cleaning job Abrams is charged £10 administration charges for a bank transfer facility and has to work an unpaid 'training night'. At the sauce factory in Doncaster she has to pay £15 for steel toe-capped boots and isn't paid over-time or for the actual hours she works.

In the care home in Aberdeen the carers don't get paid for breaks and have to buy two uniforms at £18 a go. In the first two years of the minimum wage, the Inland Revenue investigated 6,400 complaints, yet there wasn't a single prosecution.

The lowest-paid workers are not just made to feel alienated from society, in that they can't afford or don't have the time to buy goods or engage in many of the social activities that make life bearable, they're also alienated in the workplace itself. This is most starkly evident in the US where the bosses appear to go out of their way to humiliate and degrade.

Ehrenreich has to endure routine personality tests and drug tests when applying for a job and her private property is searched in the workplace - the assumption being that all workers are potential thieves or drug addicts. Wal-Mart even refer to 'time theft' i.e. employees doing anything other than their allocated work (including 'gossiping') in works time.

Many of the people she works with want to take a pride in their jobs - which after all they have to do day in day out, but are prevented from doing so by the relentless efforts of the bosses to cut corners and boost profits. The 'maids', for example, are only allowed half a bucket of water to clean floors, which is completely inadequate.

Abrams writes about "nappy abuse" in the care home in Aberdeen, where carers are encouraged not to change soiled incontinence pads because they cost too much money.

Unionisation

So what are the prospects for low-paid workers organising to fight against these terrible conditions? While Ehrenreich is working at Wal-Mart, 1,450 hotel workers go on strike at nine hotels. She starts to talk to her workmates about the strike and the need for a union: "I think we could have done something" she writes "... if I could have afforded to work at Wal-Mart a little longer".

A recent survey carried out by the US trade union federation AFL-CIO revealed that, for the first time in 18 years, more non-union workers would vote for union representation (50%) than not (43%). Unionisation drives have resulted in a growth in unionisation amongst cleaners and other low-paid workers, and some notable improvements in wages and conditions.

Ehrenreich concludes her book on an optimistic note: "Some day... they are bound to tire of getting so little in return and to demand to be paid what they are worth. There'll be a lot of anger when that day comes and strikes and disruption. But the sky will not fall, and we will be better off for it in the end".

The recent strike of privatised ancillary workers working for Sodexho at Glasgow Royal Infirmary also shows what is possible. They won a £5 an hour minimum wage as well as other improvements in sick pay and overtime payments.

But as Ehrenreich writes: "... even the most energetic and democratic unions bear careful watching by their members". This will certainly be the conclusion many local government workers will have drawn from their strike action, where their leaders are attempting to sell a deal which gives £5 an hour to the lowest-paid workers but very little for anyone else.

Reading books like Below the Breadline and Nickel and Dimed can make you very angry. Being a working-class person in capitalist society makes you very angry. But being angry is not enough; workers need a programme, strategy and organisation to fight to change their conditions and to fundamentally change a system which condemns them to poverty and exploitation in the interests of the profits of a few.

This is what the Socialist Party is striving to provide.

What We're Fighting For:

For the unions to take immediate action to implement their current minimum wage demands, as a step towards a legal minimum of £8 an hour (the European decency threshold).

For a minimum income of £320 a week.

No exemptions from the minimum wage. An annual increase linked to average earnings.

A maximum 35-hour week without loss of pay.

Employment protection rights for all from day one of employment.

Stop all council house sell-offs. A massive building programme of decent, affordable social housing.

How Much Should The Minimum Wage Be?

ABOUT £8 an hour according to the Council of Europe. This is its 'Decency Threshold' - the amount needed to ensure "a decent standard of living taking account of the basic economic, social and cultural needs of workers and their families". In other words - if you earn less than this wage you are doing without some of the basics that make for a decent life in the 21st century.

The TUC has called for a minimum wage set at half male median earnings, This works out at £5.38 an hour. But this is one of the levels that is used as a measure of poverty! Although it might be welcomed by those workers on the minimum of £4.10 (or only £3.50 in the case of under 22-year-olds) it would clearly do very little to lift anyone out of poverty.

The TUC has also said that wage negotiators should set a target of a £6 per hour minimum. If the minimum wage were raised to this level it would be an important first step towards reaching the decency threshold of £8 an hour. But this would require a determined campaign by the unions, involving demonstrations and strike action if necessary, to ensure that it was actually implemented.

It would also mean that union activists would have to organise to keep the pressure on the leaders so that they are not let down, as they have been in the local government pay dispute for example.

Because expectations have been pushed back a long way in the past few years, some people might think that £8 an hour is too much. But why should we settle for anything less? At £320 for a 40 hour week this is still nearly £140 less than the average wage, while the average pay for a chief executive officer is £509,000 a year!

And why should we be dependent on top-up benefits to supplement poverty wages? These are state handouts to low-paying, exploitative bosses and help entrench poverty pay. They also create a poverty trap - where wage increases are virtually cancelled out by clawbacks in benefits.

A minimum wage set at £8 an hour would go some way to ending the poverty trap. It would also help to close the pay gap between men and women, as women make up the overwhelming majority of low-paid workers.

The money that was saved from paying benefits such as the Working Families Tax Credit could be used to increase spending on health, education, childcare and other public services which working-class people need.

Of course it's vital that the minimum wage is updated annually in line with average earnings and is paid to all workers, including those under 21. There should be no exemptions.

Combined with a maximum 35 hour week, a decent minimum wage would help end the long hours culture, leaving workers less stressed, healthier and with time to spend with family and friends and to engage in leisure activities.

If the bosses say they can't afford such a basic demand, then we have no choice but to fight to change their system.

How much do you think the minimum wage should be?

Let us know about your experiences of poverty pay.

Write to us: PO Box 24697,

London E11 1HH.

email: editors@

socialistparty.org.uk

tel: 020 8988 8777

fax: 020 8988 8787

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European Social Forum

A Socialist World Is Possible

LAST FEBRUARY, 70,000 people went to the World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil. It was set up in opposition to the World Economic Forum of government ministers that took place at the same time. On 7-10 November 2002, a similar counter-summit, the European Social Forum (ESF) is to take place in Florence, Italy.

Judy Beishon

Like the WSF, the European Social Forum will attract a vast range of organisations and individuals who are against aspects of globalisation and capitalism.

It will attract thousands, or even tens of thousands in total, of human rights activists, environmentalists, trade unionists, socialists and many others.

The theme adopted in Porto Alegre: "Another world is possible", will be attractive to millions of ordinary people in Europe who have been affected by service cuts, job losses and worsening workplace conditions. This will include young people, who will also be outraged at the US war threat on Iraq and concerned about increased turmoil in the Middle East.

Wave of struggle

Far from the anti-capitalist movement being in decline following 11 September 2001, as many capitalist commentators speculated, events so far this year have served to give it a major boost.

In Europe, a number of large demonstrations have taken place against the Israeli government's onslaught on Palestinians in the occupied territories. Workers in Italy and Spain have been involved in massive demonstrations against 'neo-liberal' attacks.

Italian workers led the way with the magnificent three million-strong demonstration in Rome, in March this year, followed by a one-day general strike in April, against changes in the labour law to make it easier for employers to sack workers.

Spanish workers followed in June with a one-day general strike against government threats to unemployment benefits, during which three million workers protested on the streets.

The same day, hundreds of thousands of workers demonstrated in Portugal in response to vicious government attacks there, including a plan to sack 50,000 public sector workers.

Economic crisis

Throughout Europe, governments are presently lining up further attacks on workers' living standards, in response to the worsening economic situation.

The Eurozone's largest economy, Germany, managed a growth rate of only 0.3% in the first two quarters of this year. German manufacturing industry contracted in August following just two months of expansion.

An editorial in the Financial Times (4/9/02) spelt out what this situation will mean for German capitalism: "If Germany stagnates much longer it will face a deep fiscal crisis... Germany will either face a solvency crisis or have to accept lower quality public services and infrastructure".

Four Eurozone countries: France, Germany, Portugal and Italy are struggling to keep their budget deficits below the level required by the Maastricht Treaty.

Italy's public sector budget deficit over the first eight months of this year is 60% higher than in the same period last year!

This is driving the right wing Berlusconi government to continue its attacks and Italian workers are responding with a day of anti-government demonstrations on 14 September, and possibly with a further general strike in October.

All this is before the European Union Copenhagen summit in December, at which final negotiations are supposed to take place on admitting a further ten countries from central, eastern and southern Europe into the EU, with all the financial wrangling and constraints that this process is bringing to EU governments.

Will people going to the European Social Forum in Florence who are looking for an explanation of this crisis-ridden capitalist system, find one?

Will they be introduced to socialist ideas, and therefore to a form of society that can develop the productive forces further, democratically, while at the same time repairing environmental damage?

Unfortunately, at the WSF, no alternative to capitalism was given in the official meetings and this is likely to be the case at the Florence gathering. Speakers advocated a more humane, less brutal form of capitalism, with a reduced gap between the rich and poor.

These figureheads of the anti-capitalist movement do not use the vital tool of Marxist analysis to study the workings of capitalism, so do not understand that mass poverty, repression and war are inevitable as long as capitalism exists in any form. It is essential that a socialist current in the anti-capitalist movement is developed that can explain the need for a complete transformation of society.

When socialist ideas are raised at the European Social Forum, either through contributions in official meetings or through the many unofficial meetings that will take place, they are sure to get a good response from those looking for a real alternative to the nightmare of living under capitalism today.

Socialist Party members will be attending the European Social Forum. For details tel: 020 8988 8791.

Read Socialism in the 21st century - the way forward for anti-capitalism by Hannah Sell, only £5.

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