Firefighters - Their Fight Is Our Fight :: The Socialist Issue 278

TONY BLAIR is waging war on the firefighters. He's refusing to finance their wage claim but his arguments are backed up by lies:

Lie No 1 - The firefighters' claim will wreck the economy

There's more than enough money to meet the firefighters' full claim of £30,000 a year which would cost around £450 million. Just restoring corporation tax to its level before 2001 would release £11 billion a year.

Blair doesn't want to pay the firefighters. He's doing the bidding of his big business backers who want public services on the cheap so they can maintain their profits and mega salaries.

Lie No 2 - The firefighters don't want to modernise

As the FBU has explained, firefighters have been modernising for the past 25 years. But Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has admitted that their 'modernisation' means up to 11,000 job cuts.

Lie No 3 - The firefighters can't win

The firefighters have enormous public support. Teachers, council workers, lecturers and support staff in colleges and universities, rail workers have all been on strike in the past few weeks over low pay. Workers see that it's in their interests for the firefighters to win. With solidarity action they can.

No Fees

THE NATIONAL Union of Students (NUS) demonstration on 4 December will show the anger of students at New Labour policies to make them pay even more for education.

Colin Wray, Sheffield University

Opposition is mounting to further attacks on the already difficult situation students face. At present students have to look forward to tuition fees, loans and escalating debts that have to begin to be paid back once they leave university.

The government is reviewing how higher education should be funded. But all the options mentioned will mean students meeting the costs.

The Russell Group, vice-chancellors from some of Britain's elite universities, favour the introduction of top-up fees, which would mean universities being free to charge what they want.

Other options are a graduate tax or a repayment system along the lines of the arrangement that operates in Scotland.

Neither of these alternatives offers any hope for students, many of which are already in hardship. Ministers have now conceded that education is in a crisis, and it is no wonder when universities have to cope with continual cutbacks.

This crisis has become so acute that some universities have even sold off some of their accommodation to raise extra cash.

This all comes down to the unwillingness of the government to put in the money that is essential for education because they place the interests of big business first.

NUS should launch a campaign of mass non-payment to defeat fees and for a return to a decent living, maintenance grant. We must fight for a free education system and put a stop to these damaging and elitist plans that New Labour is proposing.

The 4 December demonstration should mark a new stage in the fight back against an elitist education system and for a universal and high quality education system for all.

NUS DEMO

Wednesday 4 December, 11am, Malet Street, London WC1

THE NATIONAL Union of Students demonstration on 4 December will show the bitter opposition of most students - and their parents - to further rises in tuition fees and in particular to top-up fees. KIERAN ROBERTS calls on the student movement to organise mass opposition to these government plans.

Students Under Attack

What the government want to introduce:

IF THE government gets its way big rises in university fees are definitely on the agenda. The only question is what sort of system they are going to introduce.

The cabinet is currently riven by internal wrangling between the advocates of top-up fees and those who prefer increased tuition fees paid back through a graduate tax.

Top-up fees are charged by the individual university, which may fix the amount itself. The more prestigious universities want to be able to charge as much as £15,000 a year.

Some reports suggest that if the government gives the go ahead to top-up fees, they may cap them at around £4,000 a year! Maybe the government thinks this will make the policy more palatable to parents and students.

However, it won't be lost on either students or their parents that, before the last election, the government ruled out top-up fees in this parliament yet now it's considering introducing them. If top-up fees are introduced, we can expect them to rise far higher in the future.

The other option the government is considering is an increase in the level of the existing fees.

What top-up fees will mean for students:

SOCIALISTS ARE opposed to both options. Both will mean students will graduate with tens of thousands of pounds more debt. Both options will be a major deterrent to working-class young people going to university.

Moreover, every attack on students and education is inevitably followed by another unless a mass movement is built to stop them. In 1997 the Socialist Party warned that the £1,000-a-year tuition fees would increase dramatically once they had become established and could even pave the way for top-up fees. This is exactly what has happened.

If introduced, top-up fees will lead inexorably towards further privatisation in the university system. It will lead towards a two-tier system in which the rich minority pay tens of thousands for a 'superior' quality education at an elite institution, while the rest are relegated to a lower tier of less well-funded universities.

Many of the more prestigious universities in the UK are looking across the Atlantic to the USA for a model to emulate. They would like to be the Harvard and Yale of the UK, competing in an international market for the 'top' (richest) students and academics.

No doubt the vice-chancellors also have their eyes on the vast salaries that they could award themselves, from all the extra money from top-up fees.

However, the US system is not so beneficial to students from a low-income background. According to William Bowen, the former President of the exclusive university Princeton, the lower socio-economic quartile has just a 3% representation at the 28 elite universities.

It is not difficult to see why. Many US universities charge fees for tuition and board in excess of $30,000 (£20,000). Graduate debts of $50,000 (£33,000) are fairly typical.

Even if the government introduce a 'graduate tax' system in which top-up fees or increased tuition fees are paid back when students start work after university, students would still finish their courses with colossal debts. These debts will be a massive deterrent to working-class students, even more so than the current level of tuition fees have been.

With a recession developing in Britain, graduates will not enjoy the same job prospects that they have had over the last few years. In which case, Margaret Hodge's assertion that graduates earn an extra £400,000 over their career as a result of gaining a degree won't wash.

Even during the 'boom' of the nineties, the jobs graduates have gone into have increasingly been insecure and low paid. Even assuming that a graduate finds employment, paying off their debts could take decades, particularly if top-up fees are introduced.

Opposing top-up fees

TOP-UP fees must be stopped. But we also need to go further and force the government to scrap all fees completely and to introduce a decent grant that students can survive on.

Ultimately, only a system of free education can guarantee everybody a chance to go to university regardless of his or her background. However, to force the government to reverse their attacks of the last few years will require a mass movement.

The Socialist Party has been raising the need to build a mass movement based on mass non-payment of the fees and mass action to defeat the government. The strategy of mass non-payment allied with mass action is based on the fact that many thousands of students cannot afford to pay their fees.

Many other students are prepared to take action to defend the right of those students to a free education. Many will refuse to pay their fees in solidarity with those too poor to pay.

Students took up the ideas of building non-payment of the fees in some universities in the three years following their introduction. Demonstrations and occupations were organised to defend non-payers from penalisation, often successfully.

However, if the government introduces top-up fees, a much larger movement could potentially develop in the universities. There is much more anger towards New Labour among students and in society in general in 2002 than 1997.

If a non-payment campaign is built across the country, thousands of organised fees non-payers could make tuition fees (and top-up fees) completely unworkable. Mass action such as demonstrations, walkouts and occupations if necessary could stop universities from taking action against students that can not or will not pay their fees.

We call on the NUS executive to organise such a movement. However, we will not wait for the New Labour-dominated NEC to organise action. If they will not build a serious campaign then students must organise one on the ground alongside those student unions that are prepared to stand up to Tony Blair's government.

Where should the funding come from?

THE GOVERNMENT and vice-chancellors that argue in favour of them claim that top-up fees must be introduced because public funding can not expand or improve the university system. Funding per student has fallen by 37% over the last decade. While the HE system has been expanded, funding has not.

In reality though there is plenty of money to properly fund a well-resourced higher education system that is free for all.

However, New Labour like the Tories and the Lib Dems, is a party of big business. It follows the capitalists' agenda of privatisation, cuts in public spending and tax cuts for big business. Top-up fees are part of this agenda.

But the government can find the cash to pump millions into funding other priorities when it wants to, for instance the millions being set aside for the war on Iraq.

At the same time, big business is making colossal profits. Rather than being invested in jobs or public services they end up in the pockets of the bosses. That's why the Socialist Party fights for a socialist system in which these profits could be channelled into education, health, public services and jobs.

Blair Declares War On FBU

"THE GOVERNMENT has completely lost control of the agenda. This is no longer just a dispute between the FBU and the government: it has descended into a fight between the government and the whole union movement" (Observer 24 November).

This quote from John Edmonds, leader of the GMB union, accurately sums up the firefighters' dispute.

The class lines are drawn. On the one side, the firefighters and control staff, fighting for a decent living wage and to protect their jobs and working conditions. Behind the firefighters, public sector and other workers who understand that a victory for the firefighters will be a victory for low paid workers everywhere.

Pitted against them are Blair, Brown, Prescott and the New Labour government, cheered on by the bosses' club, the CBI, and the right-wing press, all determined to take on the FBU so that they can continue with their agenda of privatisation and poverty pay for public sector workers.

Chaos and blunder

Blair brought forward his monthly press conference in a desperate attempt to regain the initiative after a week of chaos and blunder. Both army and police chiefs said they wanted nothing to do with his proposal to seize the red fire engines and the chief of defence staff warned that using troops in the strike would undermine Blair's plans for war with Iraq.

Then Prescott showed his contempt for firefighters by staying in bed when a deal between the FBU and employers was in reach. He then seemed to contradict Brown by saying that the deal was "still worth talking about".

Blair's hardline intervention has hardened the mood of firefighters on the picket lines as they gear up for what could be a long, drawn out struggle.

Blair is still insisting that any pay rise over 4% must be linked to 'modernisation', which all firefighters know means less jobs, worse conditions and an inferior service for the general public.

Everything they have fought for over the past 25 years is at stake. With New Labour digging their heels in for a protracted struggle, the FBU should consider moving from discontinuous action towards all-out action to increase the pressure on the government.

It's clearly big business that is pulling New Labour's strings. Digby Jones of the CBI has called on Blair to "stand firm" and "not budge an inch". The Financial Times turned up the heat by asking "does the government govern?". "Each surrender would make resisting the next one more costly" they declared, using the language of war. "A government's monopoly over coercive power is the basis of civilised life." (25 November) They call for "proper preparations" for a long strike including the use of red engines "If that means limits on Britain's deployment of troops in a new Gulf War, so be it."

Solidarity vital

There is huge public support for the firefighters and any provocative action by New Labour could turn opinion even further against the government. However, urged on by his big business backers, it's possible that Blair could move in the direction of trying to seize the red fire engines or using the courts to ban the strikes.

Police chiefs have said that they do not want their 'neutrality' to be compromised by crossing picket lines. But although individual police (who are also threatened with 'modernisation') and soldiers have sympathy with the firefighters, ultimately the army and police are not impartial, but used to defend the profits and interests of big business and the capitalist class - as clearly happened in the miners' strike of 1984-85 (see page 10).

If there is any attempt to escalate the dispute in this way, the whole of the trade union movement should be organised in support of the firefighters, including general strike action.

Blair says that this is a strike that the FBU cannot win. He claims that any rise over 4%, if not paid for by 'modernisation' will wreck the economy. But as the Financial Times bluntly put it: "The principle is not that the £200 million cost of a deal with the firefighters would cripple the public finances - it represents less than 0.05% of annual government spending. But it would set an extremely dangerous precedent".

Blair is taking on the firefighters to set an example to all public sector workers. But the firefighters can win. Solidarity action by other workers, most of whom are also facing low pay, cuts and privatisation, is the key to winning this strike (see page 6). Left union leaders such as those in the RMT, ASLEF, PCS and CWU should, together with the FBU, call a conference of shop stewards and trade union representatives to discuss how solidarity action can be organised. A victory for the firefighters will be a victory for all workers.

"All we want is to be paid a decent wage and to get back to doing the job we do well. But instead we are on a picket line. I feel awful about it but the government are determined to break our union and keep all other public sector workers' pay low.

They can afford to go to war in Iraq. They are prepared to spend millions a day to keep this strike going but they won't pay us a decent wage. It looks like being a long battle and a lean Christmas, but we have to believe that we can win."

Zoe, fire controller, Swindon

Fighting For A Living Wage

Fighting To Save The Fire Service

ANDY BRICKLES, East Midlands regional FBU chair spoke to The Socialist on 23 November:

Khalid Obadele from Euston blue watch, in central London explained what a lot of workers are feeling:

What 'modernisation' really means

BLAIR HAS underlined that any pay increase has to be linked to changes in working practices, so-called 'modernisation'. But Andy Gilchrist points out; "The only way to make savings in the fire service is cut the amount of firefighters, cut the amount of fire appliances and cut the amount of fire stations.

"Tony Blair has sent out an agenda for life-threatening cuts across the fire services. He just doesn't want to own up to it."

Noel Pine, from Tameside UNISON explains what 'modernisation' has meant in other public services: "There are parallels in direct care jobs such as residential and homecare for the elderly. There has been an enormous increase in the number of part-time jobs and a reduction or virtual elimination of full-time jobs. Workers in these areas often want full-time hours and so end up doing additional hours regularly at the employer's whim, reducing labour costs and undermining the unions."

As Andrew Price, a member of the lecturers' union NATFHE's national executive said when he sent a letter of support to the Welsh FBU: "As you may know Further Education colleges were separated from the control of local authorities a little over 10 years ago. Since this act of privatisation we as a union have fought an almost continuous war with the employers over attempts to worsen working conditions. The employers' offensive has been fought in the name of 'modernisation', a singularly hypocritical term when one sees the extent it has taken our members' working lives backwards and the adverse effect it has had on the service we offer our communities."

Many firefighters agree. A firefighter at St Mary's station in Southampton told Nick Chaffey: "Modernisation is about cuts and it's going to cost lives. Overtime means reducing the number of firefighters. They want to undermine the union and walk all over us. We've got no problem doing extra training but we want pay for what we do now."

John Hardcastle, a Sheffield firefighter sums it up: "Look at what has happened in the past... They 'modernised' the NHS, they 'moderised' the railways, they 'modernised' the education system... And they're all better than they were 25 years ago, right?"

Building support in Coventry

AROUND 200 fire fighters and supporters from Coventry's trade union movement held a lively protest on 23 November outside the city's Council House.

Mark Power, Coventry Socialist Party

Speakers from the FBU and local representatives of various unions, including the CWU and NUT addressed the rally.

Rob Windsor, speaking on behalf of Coventry's three Socialist Party councillors, said:

Chris Hobbes, carrying the FBU's banner as he led a spontaneous march through Coventry's main shopping precinct, said:

What you can do now to support the firefighters

Visit the picket lines and show your solidarity with the striking firefighters.
Invite a firefighter to speak at a union/workplace meeting to discuss the dispute and how to organise solidarity support.
With the strike running into Christmas, firefighters could lose £1,000 in pay. All unions should be urged to make donations to the FBU hardship funds. Collections should be made in the workplaces where the idea of more solidarity could also be raised.
John Monks, TUC general secretary, has said that all unions should make sure that their workers feel safe at work during the strike. Under existing legislation workers do not have to work in unsafe conditions and can walk out.
Workers can demand that their employers carry out a risk assessment in the workplace. If the employer refuses, or it is not carried out satisfactorily, then a dispute can be registered and ballots for strike action initiated.
Trade unionists should call for the TUC to organise a national demonstration in support of the firefighters. If the TUC does not respond then the Left union leaders should come together to organise a national demo. This would serve as a warning to the government that any provocation against the FBU and its right to take strike action will be met with solidarity action from the unions.

Support from other Trade Unions

RMT

THE RMT is balloting its 8,000 members on London Underground for strike action. Tube bosses will not give assurances that staff refusing to work on safety grounds will not be disciplined. The ballot result is due on 12 December. Railworkers could also be balloted.

Amicus

AMICUS, which covers the nuclear power, gas, water and electricity industries, has told its members to stop work if they believe their safety has been compromised by the firefighters' strike.

UNISON

UNISON GENERAL secretary, Dave Prentis has called for unions to do all they can to support the FBU: "On behalf of UNISON I would like to express solidarity with the striking firefighters and urge all our branches to offer them financial support."

UNISON has also protested about Bain's proposals to merge fire and ambulance control rooms and to expand firefighters' role into that of paramedics. They point out it takes three years to train as a paramedic, which would be impractical for firefighters to do in addition to their own training.

"Ambulance controllers aren't dispatchers like a local mini-cab service, they give telephone advice to keep the patient alive and suggest treatment. They also ensure that the ambulance crew know the facts of what the patient needs before they arrive on the scene, which could make the difference between life and death."

Lies, damn lies and government statistics

The cost of the 16% deal:

The cost of implementing the Bain report:

Other aspects of Bain's proposals, including management training: £60 million

Total costs, known so far, of Bain: £210 million (£30 million more than the 16% deal)

But the firefighters deserve their full claim. That would cost around £450 million. That's just 0.1% of annual government spending.

Overwhelming public support

CLIVE PROTHEROE, Secretary, FBU South Wales explained why practical support from the public and other trade unions is essential:

But Dave, Steve and others on the Cardiff Central picket line gave an idea of the massive public support for the firefighters:

In the east midlands the FBU regional secretary reported that at one picket line a women brought down ten cooked Sunday dinners (beef - even including the horseradish sauce).

Steve Brinkley, chair of Ipswich FBU agreed about public support: "It's been phenomenal. Better than last time. If the government are trying to get an anti-FBU response they've blown it!

Residents near one Ipswich firestation have been complaining about the hooting that has been continuous - even through the night. They are asking motorists to find other ways of showing their support. They said they could cope for 48 hours but not eight days!

BACK IN the 1980s Thatcher claimed to have won the hearts and minds of working-class Tories. Standing on the picket line at Chelsea fire station it appears that the bourgeoisie have responded by embracing trade union militancy.

Looking down the pages of signatures on petitions supporting the FBU action I saw some of the most exclusive addresses in Chelsea, Kensington and Belgravia!

Meet Mr "Me, Me"

WHAT A nerve! Digby Jones, £310,000 a year director-general of the bosses' Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said the firefighters were "still talking the ideology and working practices and 'me, me' attitude of another age."

You'd never guess from this po-faced claim that Jones' CBI members include the country's greediest, most cream-guzzling fat cats.

Top drug group GlaxoSmithKline were offering their chief executive Jean-Pierre Garnier, a near £20 million a year pay package. The £7 million a year he earned last year wasn't enough, despite Glaxo's profits dropping from £6 billion to £4.5 billion.

Directors of stock exchange companies earning over £500,000 a year had average pay rises of 16.1% last year. That's eight years running that they've had pay rises in double figures.

Over the last five years, the chief executives of companies in the FTSE 100 put their pay up by 89% on average. 130 company directors got paid over £1 million a year. Workers' wages however, grew on average only by 3.4% in 2001.

The CBI say that firefighters shouldn't be paid more because there are people queuing up to join the fire service. Strangely enough, when it comes to their own pay, executives say they should get big increases every year because of a 'healthy' international market for top executives ie loads of people queuing up for their jobs!

Where's the money coming from? The rich!

THE GOVERNMENT aren't saving any money by opposing the firefighters' strike. Blair and Co. have spent a small fortune on training 19,000 troops to provide emergency cover during the strike. Channel 4 News put the cost of the strike at £5 million a day.

But firefighters and their supporters will still be asked: "A full settlement would cost around £450 million. Where's the money going to come from to pay this claim?"

For a start, how about making the rich pay their tax? Rupert Murdoch, head of the multi-billion News Corporation, has just been voted Britain's "greatest living businessman" by a panel including New Labour trade secretary Patricia Hewitt and CBI director-general Digby Jones.

News Corporation paid only £128 million in corporate taxes worldwide from 1995 to 1999 - that's just 6% of the £2.1 billion profits his company made in one year!

CBI boss Digby Jones thinks New Labour are too fond of corporate taxation. But over the last year the government has cut corporation tax on profits and capital gains so much that they have given back some £11.6 billion to big business!

Revenues from corporation tax declined from around £17.4 billion in 2000 to around £5.8 billion in 2001. Just bringing corporation tax back up to the already low pre-2001 level of 33% would easily pay the firefighters' and other wage claims.

Under New Labour most middle-income earners are now paying the same rate of taxation as the richest in society. We say, make the rich pay for a change.

Miners' strike

When Maggie Did A Blair?

ON 22 November The Sun's exultant headline was "Blair's done a Maggie." Tony Blair had earlier described the Fire Brigades Union's leaders as "Scargillite".

Roger Shrives

All this was meant to draw parallels between the firefighters' strike and the battles of the 1980s, particularly the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) heroic year-long struggle against pit closures in 1984-85. Scargillite was a derogatory reference to Arthur Scargill, left-wing NUM leader during the strike.

Blair's comments were calculated to turn public opinion against the FBU's cause and also to scare firefighters with the prospect of a long battle, ending in defeat.

In reality the miners could have won in 1984-85, if the trade union and Labour leaders had shown even half the determination that most striking miners did. An organised, united working class could have stopped Thatcher's plans for the whole workers' movement.

For decades the British ruling class had wanted to destroy the collective strength of the working class and in particular the power of the trade unions, which they pathetically blamed for the decades-long collapse of British capitalism, especially its industrial base.

After 1979, prime minister Thatcher introduced new anti-union laws, part of Tory MP Nicholas Ridley's blueprint for taking on the unions. The Tories built up to the inevitable confrontation with Britain's strongest and most militant union, the NUM, by building up coal stocks at power stations, developing nuclear power, importing coal from abroad, beefing up the police and changing the laws.

The Tories knew that the NUM would be hard to defeat. The NUM had beaten Tory governments before - in 1972 and 1974 they had not only helped beat Heath's anti-union legislation but forced Heath to call a general election, asking the rhetorical question - who rules - us or the miners? Heath lost!

In 1981 the miners beat off a Tory attempt to close down pits and even got extra money for the industry.

Thatcher's Tory government planned revenge. In November 1983, the National Coal Board (NCB) confirmed that 49 named pits would close during the next eight years due, they claimed, to 'exhaustion' of coal reserves. The miners' strike started in March 1984.

The ruling class spent £7 billion to beat this strike, largely to build a 'national' police force where riot cops were ferried across Britain and given a free hand to attack strikers and their communities.

State violence

THE STATE used tactics previously only seen in Northern Ireland - riot shields, batons, mounted cavalry and dogs. Medieval laws were miraculously exhumed. The police stopped vehicles heading towards mining areas and even threatened to arrest Kent miners if they strayed outside their own county.

The miners were called the 'enemy within' to try to justify the state's vicious methods. At the Orgreave picket line in June 1984 these included batoning down a woman who was summoning an ambulance for a wounded miner.

The ruling class saw this as a decisive class struggle. So did the miners, who moved heaven and earth to win. But the 'leaders' of the working class in Britain held the movement back.

Throughout the strike, Militant, The Socialist's predecessor, consistently called for united solidarity action by all workers to beat off the bosses' attacks. Such action did take place.

Railworkers knew that their interests and the miners' were the same - 60% of rail freight was coal. Members of the rail unions NUR and ASLEF stood firm despite many being victimised. Seafarers in the National Union of Seamen blacked coal throughout this strike.

Joint committees of miners, railworkers and dockers could have paralysed Britain but the union leaders never organised the solidarity action.

Militant called for a 24-hour general strike. If the TUC didn't make this call, we said that the 'left' union leaders should do so. Neither left nor right leaders took this step.

The labour movement's right-wing leaders were typified by Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock's speech at TUC conference. blaming the miners for "picket-line violence" created by the state forces.

The Tories showed their gratitude to right-wing EETPU leader Frank Chapple, by making him a Lord in the 1985 New Year's honours list. Chapple, who made 'no strike' deals for his members, had called for stiff penalties for Scargill.

But even the left leaders who wanted a miners' victory lacked confidence in their own members. The leaders of the National Union of Seamen, whose members had meticulously refused to carry strike-breaking coal, had not called for strike action when Sealink was privatised. This would have opened up a 'second front' against the Tories.

Workers' determination

THE DOCKWORKERS struck twice during the strike after being harassed over the blacking of coal. But their union, Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU) didn't call for the action to be extended both in solidarity but also for the extension of the national dock labour scheme. The TGWU said their strike was 'non-political' and nothing to do with the NUM.

NUM leader Arthur Scargill played an inspiring role in the struggle. However Militant did criticise Scargill and the NUM leadership for some tactical failings. If the union had called a ballot before the strike, they would have won and convinced the majority of Nottinghamshire miners to come out.

As it was, the strikebreaking Notts-based scab "Union of Democratic Miners" - financed by Tories and big business - proved decisive in the long term.

Militant also said that the NUM should name the day for a 24-hour general strike, and make an appeal to the rank and file of the unions. This would have mobilised tremendous support.

But the NUM merely called for support without suggesting a specific date. In January 1985 South Wales NUM did call for a one-day strike and Militant produced 50,000 leaflet for the miners, backing their call.

Solidarity

By then, tragically, the tide was turning, particularly after the leaders of the pit deputies' union NACODS (whose members had voted 82% for strike action) refused to take action and made a separate settlement. NACODS members suffered along with NUM members later when many were sacked after the strike.

Miners started to return to work in March 1985, after just short of a year on strike. The NUM's defeat devastated the mining areas and for a time weakened the trade unions as a whole. But the basic power of the trade unions remains.

Now the movement is beginning to take serious action again, trade unions will again be battling for their members against a vicious ruling class and a right-wing anti-union government.

The 1984-85 miners' strike showed the fighting spirit of the working class, their determination and inventiveness and their understanding of the need for unity and solidarity. But these qualities need to be matched at all levels of the trade union movement and organised effectively. One union must never again be left to fight alone in such a vital battle.

Recession Hits The Capitalist System

NOT LONG ago, Chancellor Gordon Brown suggested that Britain could be isolated from the problems of the world economy. Now he's saying the opposite and using the economy as a stick to beat the firefighters and to prepare other workers for attacks on pay and working conditions.

Kevin Parslow

Twice last week, Brown warned that all's not right with the world economy. "Of the 20 of the world's biggest economies that are or have been in recession", he told Parliament, "the US was in recession for three quarters of 2001, Germany... for three quarters of that year, Japan... for most of the past year".

Because a recession slows down economic activity, governments' tax receipts fall. "As a result", Brown continued, "the world is seeing the largest increases in government deficits around the world since... the 1970s".

Pundits predict that Brown's own forecasts will be out by at least £5 billion, leading to a budget deficit this financial year of £16-£20 billion. Brown will now have to increase government borrowing.

He told the Financial Times: "We've had the sharpest slowdown in world growth since 1974; we've got the fastest deceleration in world trade for more than 20 years... the combination of risks and uncertainties is more numerous than probably at any time in recent economic history".

Capitalism is in an economic crisis; Brown says the biggest since 1974, some others say the biggest since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The 'irrational exuberance' which boosted capitalist economies in the 1990s, when huge amounts were invested in unproven businesses, leading to huge rises in share prices, is now deep pessimism as much of that money has been lost in calamitous ventures and corporate scandals.

Capitalism exists to make profits, and many of these ventures made only huge losses. Stock markets have fallen dramatically around the world, and where share ownership is closely tied to income growth, particularly in the USA, consumer spending has begun to be reined in.

Alternative forms of funding consumer expenditure, particularly borrowing against the value of homes, has extended this boom a little longer, but not by enough to prevent a capitalist recession and storing up worse problems in the future.

Now, the economic commentators are worrying about a 'double-dip' recession and/or a period of extended low growth and depression in the USA and the rest of the leading world economies.

Globalisation won't help them. The Economist recently pointed out: "The very forces of global integration are likely to synchronise economic cycles more closely, so that downturns in different countries reinforce one another.

"America's economy now looks awfully like Japan's in the early 1990s, when Japanese investment fell but consumer spending and productivity growth remained robust for a couple of years. Deflation did not appear until 1995. America may yet face further troubles".

The bosses' only solution is to make the working class pay for their crisis. But we say make the bosses pay. Fight for a system that puts the interests of the majority before the profits of the few.

Teachers, council workers

Marchers Demand United Action

THOUSANDS OF striking teachers and local government workers joined the 26 November demonstration calling for big increases in London weighting allowances.

The demonstrators' overwhelming support for the firefighters reflected their anger at government attacks on public sector pay and conditions. Workers were impressed by the Socialist Party's leaflet, paper and petition, including our demand for a one-day public sector strike against low pay and privatisation.

Unfortunately, the unions' leaders weren't as determined as their members. In the post-demo rally, Doug McAvoy of the NUT said that this "was not a political campaign" or against the government's policy on public-sector workers!

He urged teachers to wait for the review body report in January before deciding on further action. But they've waited eight months since their last action on this issue!

An angry teacher from Hertfordshire said that the government was "papering over the cracks" in education by employing "teaching assistants, nursery nurses and anybody with a pulse" in classrooms.

Stuart from Ealing quoted Nye Bevan's words - "a silent scream provokes no response" - to justify the action, while a Camden teacher explained that she spent her summer holidays driving a bus through Central London to earn extra cash!

Debra Morano, of Newham NUT and a Socialist Party member, offered a clear programme. Opening the rally with a broadside against the government, she said it was "unreasonable" for Blair to expect teachers to work longer hours and weekends, to live like a student years after qualifying and to expect to afford £150,000 for a mortgage.

Teachers couldn't wait months for more action. The dispute must be escalated now. Further united action with other public-sector workers is vital to win the claim.

AT A very successful Socialist Party meeting after the demo, GLENN KELLY, UNISON London regional executive member, said that: "The employers are worried. They have brought forward talks not due until 12 December to early next week.

NUT national executive member LINDA TAAFFE, speaking in a personal capacity, said

Liar Blair!