The Socialist 4 August	Fight For a Living Wage
Wealth Gap Widens...	THE GOVERNMENT fears that economic confidence is slipping. They're worried that pay increases averaging just over 4% a year, are 'overheating' the economy. But even if workers' wages increases were double that amount it's still less than what the top executives get as pay increases.
Peugeot workers: No choice but to fight back	TO THE shock of management and union alike, Peugeot cars were hit by two one-day strikes at the end of July. Workers stood firm and maintained their decision, in their third ballot, to strike against arrogant management plans to impose new working arrangements. Socialist Party support welcomed COVENTRY SOCIALIST Party was quick to mobilise support for the 3,000 striking Peugeot workers. PRESS STATEMENT from Socialist councillors, Karen McKay, Rob Windsor and Dave Nellist. Listen to the membership SOME OF the Peugeot workers' anger was shown when two workers circulated separate letters they had written to their stewards. What about the workers Mr Blair? AFTER COVENTRY council's refusal to discuss Dave Nellist's resolution supporting the Peugeot workers, these two letters were printed in the Coventry Evening Telegraph.
Defend Glenn Kelly, Bromley Unison activist	Rush in Protests at Bromley’s suspension of activist  BROMLEY COUNCIL in south London have suspended Glenn Kelly, UNISON branch secretary, chair of the Campaign for a Fighting Democratic UNISON  and Socialist Party member.
Leicester beats fascist threat	LEICESTER’S PRIDE event on 29 July was a huge success. Organised after the gay Mardi Gras was cancelled because of fascist threats, it showed the effect that unity in action can bring about.
Committee for a Workers' International School: European workers' movement	Capitalism’s chaos and the socialist alternative THE ANNUAL European school of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI - the international socialist organisation which the Socialist Party is affiliated to) was held recently in Belgium. 250 visitors attended, including sizeable groups from the USA, Israel and Australia. This week we look at the world economy and the European workers' movement.
Protest against capitalist IMF	THOUSANDS OF people will be converging on Prague to protest against the meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) taking place there between 27-28 September.

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Fight For a Living Wage

THE GOVERNMENT fears that economic confidence is slipping. They're worried that pay increases averaging just over 4% a year, are 'overheating' the economy.

But even if workers' wages increases were double that amount it's still less than what the top executives get as pay increases. Last year chief executives' pay rose by 17.6%, over four times the average increase in earnings. The average chief executive's pay package is worth 18 times the average worker's according to Warwick University.

These fat cats are rewarding themselves for massively increasing profits at working-class people's expense.

HSBC bank boasted an enormous 28% increase in its half-yearly profits to £3.32 billion. And as a government commission pointed to organised cartel price fixing among the biggest retailers, Sainsbury's reported its sales up by 9.2%.

Yet, the best these companies can give their workers out of this is just over 3%.

It's little wonder that public-sector union UNISON wants the TUC to demand a £5 an hour minimum wage.

Even where workers get over £5 an hour the bosses are trying to further erode workers' conditions. ROBBIE SEGAL, a member of the shopworkers' union Usdaw national executive represents Tesco workers, where check-out operators get £5.02 an hour, claimed to be the 'best' in the industry. But it's about more than just wages says Robbie.

She told The Socialist, in a personal capacity, that throughout the retail sector "companies operate a cartel on workers' conditions as well as prices. They've been making the most out of the high petrol prices and screwing their suppliers, especially in the Third World. Now they're fearful that American giant WalMart coming in will erode their massive profit margins, so they're attacking the workers once again."

Socialist Party members are the best fighters for workers' solidarity and fighting for socialist change to win better pay and conditions at work. Join us.

 

 

 

 

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Peugeot workers “pushed too far”

No choice but to fight back

TO THE shock of management and union alike, Peugeot cars were hit by two one-day strikes at the end of July. Workers stood firm and maintained their decision, in their third ballot, to strike against arrogant management plans to impose new working arrangements. The all-out strike scheduled to start on 21 August, has been suspended pending further negotiations and management have been forced to concede they will not impose the new working practices. But if there is any sign of going back on this, the workforce's decision to strike should be implemented as planned. Workers at the Ryton plant, outside Coventry, talked to Dave Griffiths, Coventry Socialist Party, on the most recent strike day.

"This would be the seventh new speed-up and shift-change in just over ten years. Workers who have been pushed too far have had enough. "But the greedy Peugeot bosses have seen profits rise 153% to £455 million. Workers had no choice but to fight back.

"Bullying management was stood up to at last. And they were shaken. They even offered £100 for every worker not to strike.

"Speed-ups threaten to destroy our already precarious family life. We're not humans we're automatons... with a limited battery life. For example there used to be 450 workers on trim, now there's just 143.

"Now the company know we're not robots. We must be united and resolute to win this battle. If we don't stop them now our lives will be made intolerable in the future.

"Peugeot need 206 production, the workers know it, but the union ignore it. The latest ballot was won 1,270 to 1,239, but the union recommended the company position all along.

"They were just as shaken by the result. On the first morning's picket one woman from the trim said: 'This ballot result is a massive vote of no confidence in the union'.

"In the press, engineering union, AEEU official Duncan Simpson didn't explain the workers' feelings but said the company 'had been very reasonable', even stopping the track to explain the deal! He went on to say that investment would be threatened. Workers were fuming.

"No wonder the press said: 'More pay for less hours - what's the problem at Peugeot?' As if we're morons and would strike if that was really the deal.

"Luckily the well-attended picket lines allowed strikers to explain the truth to TV cameras. With the help of Socialist Party councillor Dave Nellist, we got across why we've had enough.

"Now we need the unions out of management's camp and behind the workers.

"Throughout Britain workers are facing the same problems, that's why many round here support us, and workers throughout the country have an interest in us winning."

 

 

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Socialist Party support welcomed

COVENTRY SOCIALIST Party was quick to mobilise support for the 3,000 striking Peugeot workers.

Following Coventry council's banning of a motion of support for the carworkers, submitted by the three Socialist councillors (See last week's The Socialist) we organised a public meeting for the day before the ballot result was announced.

Dave Griffiths

The meeting was a success, over 80 attended with nearly half of them Peugeot workers from two of the three shifts. The other shift was working.

The speakers were a Socialist Party member from C shift, a parts department worker and Dave Nellist from the chair.

The first speaker said: "As for our unions, their handling of this issue can only be described as a farce". Applause and cheering broke out from every Peugeot worker there.

Workers' anger at having to fight their union as well as management was plain: "Workers rejected the union recommendation by 86%. Still they recommended it again. Workers still voted 59% -41% to strike. The union never articulated the workers' case and they and New Labour then tried to silence Socialist councillors trying to argue it. Then they  recommended the offer again to another ballot. It's 'ballot till they got the result they wanted.'"

"Management don't announce speed-ups or job losses, the union does.  Who's paying them? It's like a company union, the workers are standing up, but the union isn't."

Workers gave graphic accounts of the effects of the intensifying company demands on them and their families' lives. They told us they had felt they were fighting alone but were greatly encouraged by the support shown at the meeting.

Speakers condemned New Labour's snub to Peugeot workers. "What's the point of having a local council if they can't even verbally defend local workers against multinational companies? No wonder fewer people vote in elections."

35 attended the next Socialist Party branch meeting, including 12 Peugeot workers. After a victory in the ballot and the day's picketing, there was renewed determination to resist management's demands. The main discussion was how to reclaim our unions.

Some workers have said they'll join the Socialist Party and others are interested. A support group will be established but Peugeot workers were keen to organise to win a fighting and democratic union.

* Four workers took part in the successful Socialist Party stall in town the following Saturday, to petition for support.

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Listen to the membership

SOME OF the Peugeot workers' anger was shown when two workers circulated separate letters they had written to their stewards.

In the first Gary writes: "As a member of the AEEU for 12 years I am very disappointed and angry with both the AEEU and T&G unions... as members we should have a say... but this is not happening.

The convenor Mr McHendry has made his attitude to shop-floor workers very clear. To use his words we are 'brain dead, stupid and have nothing between the ears".

"If Mr McHendry has so little respect for the shop floor then I feel I have no choice but to ask for his resignation. As we don't want a representative that has no respect for his members, we expect our convenors to act according to the wishes of the majority and not the company's wishes.

"Over the last ten years the shop floor has given to the company time and time again. With such things as tea breaks, shift changes, higher production, better quality, the moving of holidays and early pay deals... now the company and union reps, with no thought for what we want, have just tried to blind us in a sea of technical mumbo-jumbo. We know the company will profit a lot more than us, including being able to get 200 cars a week built for just the cost of materials."

 

In the other letter, Nigel a TGWU member for 12 years wrote...

"The gulf between the wishes of the shop floor and that of the Joint Negotiating Committee has never been so apparent."

He describes the convenor's remarks as: "Contemptible, insulting and arrogant, and directed to all shop floor workers.

"As a result of this I would therefore ask that you the elected shop stewards don't lose sight of the fact that shopfloor workers are the membership and that you have been elected to represent our wishes.

"It is perhaps time to stand up and be counted, to represent the wishes and views of your electorate rather than those of the convenors… cosseted in some sort of comfort zone, only too willing to oblige company wishes at every turn

"Listen to the membership… It is your duty to represent our feelings honestly and to oppose and depose those representatives who don't have the sincerest and best intentions in mind for the workforce...We all have to live with these conditions for years and years to come."

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Rush in Protests at Bromley’s suspension of activist:

Defend Glenn Kelly

BROMLEY COUNCIL in south London have suspended Glenn Kelly, UNISON branch secretary, chair of the Campaign for a Fighting Democratic UNISON  and Socialist Party member.

Bromley acted after Glenn, as secretary of the public-sector union UNISON, played a leading role in campaigning to save the Night Care service for the elderly living in the council’s sheltered accommodation.

The council plans to cut the service, which currently provides two members of staff on site in each unit to give support from 9pm-7am. They want to replace it with two mobile workers covering all residents in the borough.

Glenn was invited to speak to residents in their homes after taking up the campaign. An hour later, management phoned Glenn at home, instructing him not to go into the homes. He was subsequently banned from having any contact with the tenants and their relatives.

Glenn told The Socialist: “This is a blatant attempt to stop the trade union, tenants and relatives fighting to save an essential service. In the past Bromley council has proposed some despicable things but this one is frankly sickening. They’re gambling with elderly people’s safety to cut costs.

“If implemented, these proposals could put tenants’ lives at risk and the council are trying to cover it up by trying to silence me. But we will fight this and have no intention of being silenced.”

Glenn has received many letters of support from tenants and their relatives. Other UNISON branches throughout the country have already sent in letters of protest about his suspension.

* A public meeting organised by UNISON, tenants and relatives will be held at 3pm on 3 September, HG Wells Hall, Masons Hill, Bromley.

* Letters/faxes of protest to Jeremy Ambache, Director of Social Services and Housing, Bromley Council, Civic Centre, Bromley BR1 3 UH. Fax: 020 8313 4620 or the Chair of Social Services on 020 8290 0608.

Solidarity messages to Bromley Unison, Civic Centre, Bromley. Tel: 020 8313 4405 or fax 020 8313 4885.

 

 

 

 

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Leicester beats fascist threat

LEICESTER’S PRIDE event on 29 July was a huge success. Organised after the gay Mardi Gras was cancelled because of fascist threats, it showed the effect that unity in action can bring about.

Darren, UAP and Socialist Party (Leicester)

Banners of the Socialist Party, UNISON and the Green Party were carried amongst those of gay organisations like Outrage, all behind the leading banner of Unity Against Prejudice.

The Nazi National Front (NF) and British National Party (BNP) both tried to disrupt the march, but over 400 people marched and danced through Leicester with whistles, placards and a Samba band.

Afterwards, at a rally, speakers included Naomi Byron of Youth Against Racism in Europe (YRE) and representatives from the Indian Workers Association, the NUS LGB campaign and Unity Against Prejudice (UAP) who organised the event.

The Socialist Party had over 25 members present, who handed out leaflets, held a stall and sold over 20 papers.

A handful of Leicester’s gay community and Left activists including Socialist Party members spent months organising this day, overcoming many obstacles. The NF threatened a national mobilisation; financial problems occurred throughout.

In the week before the event the SWP-run Anti-Nazi League (ANL) decided to hold and heavily publicise a separate event despite UAP’s pleas to join the Pride event behind their own banner.

70 organised fascists and bigots tried to intimidate and stop the march but were outnumbered and unsuccessful. A homeless Big Issue seller was attacked by five Nazi thugs who punched him and threw his magazines over a fence.

Overall however, the day was a great success and will make way for an ‘official’ Mardi Gras next year. We will ensure this ‘commercial’ event has an element of politics in it!

 

 

 

 

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A World to Win

Capitalism’s chaos and the socialist alternative

THE ANNUAL European school of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI - the international socialist organisation which the Socialist Party is affiliated to) was held recently in Belgium. 250 visitors attended, including sizeable groups from the USA, Israel and Australia.

The school discussed a number of themes of vital relevance to the workers' movement internationally; the state of the world economy and its effects on the European workers' movement; the significance of moves towards Left Unity in different countries and the prospects for a new mass workers' party and how the CWI was building in its respective national sections.

Over the next few issues we will report some of these discussions in The Socialist. This week we look at the world economy and the European workers' movement.

 

INTRODUCING THIS discussion, Per Ollson from the International Secretariat (IS) of the CWI said that as society headed into the 21st century the conditions of oppressed people were in some ways heading back to the 19th century.

Half of the world's population live on less than $2 a day and 1.2 billion live on less than $1 a day. In contrast the combined wealth of the world's 200 richest people is ten times bigger than that of the 600 million people who inhabit the world's poorest countries. In one of these countries, Sierra Leone, most people die before the age of 37.

The gap between the haves and the have nots has enormously widened during the last decade; despite the longest ever cyclical economic upturn in the USA and Western Europe. This so-called economic boom had concentrated the accumulated wealth in the hands of a small group of super rich. These, in the main, were the same people who owned and ran the multinationals that control one-third of world economic production and control two-thirds of world trade.

These multinationals are engaged in a frantic bout of merger mania to try and increase their wealth and power. But, Per argued, this was like two drunks trying to keep each other standing.

These mergers, however, don't give capitalism a new lease of life and do not overcome the anarchy of the capitalist market. Particularly, there is now a massive dependence on making money from financial transactions rather than profits from traditional manufacturing industries. $1.55 trillion is the daily turnover on the world's foreign exchange markets - 55 times the level of world trade.

Per gave a detailed array of statistics to show that world capitalism had extended itself even more than it did before the 1929 Wall Street stock market crash and that a severe stock market crash, which is a strong possibility, would cause a massive downturn in the world economy because of the high dependence of the rest of the world on the US economy. The present US boom has gone on longer than we thought but it cannot be sustained much longer.

Per concluded that even if there was not an absolute fall in world economic production, a downturn will provoke an enormous working-class backlash because the economic growth of the last decade has not generated any improvement in living conditions for the masses.

But in Europe there has been a certain economic growth this last year which has created new jobs - albeit part-time, deregulated low-paid jobs.

However, this has not diminished the anger of working-class people against capitalism's growing inequalities, and if anything it has given them more confidence in taking on the bosses in some countries.

Real wages have started to rise for sections of the working class for the first time in recent years. The bitterness and discontent felt by the working class against the capitalist system has been intensified by the scandals and excesses of the fat cats - especially in countries like Ireland.

The recent Norwegian general strike had been partially triggered by the bosses' arrogance over wage increases for themselves compared to what they were prepared to offer the workers.

Against this background the process of the transformation of the former mass workers' parties into openly capitalist parties had deepened. In Sweden it was one pundit estimated the Social Democratic Party was losing members at such a rate it would have no members at all by 2010.

Added to this was the process of Americanisation of European politics where support for the establishment parties is rapidly dwindling and fewer voters bother to vote.

Finally, Per said that the biggest problem facing the working class at this stage was the lack of an independent political voice. But the strike movements and anti-capitalist struggles will turn into a more organised political movement.

Our sections in the CWI are well placed to be at the fore of such a development. Even in a period which has not been the most favourable for socialist ideas we have made electoral gains, such as the election of Joe Higgins MP in Southern Ireland and the councillors we have in Britain.

Such experience could play a vital part in the formation of a new mass workers' party.

There then followed speakers in the discussion from Austria, Britain, USA, Ireland, Russia, Sweden, Netherlands, Scotland, Greece, Belgium and Germany.

Controversy in the discussion centred around the issue of how to characterise Haider's Freedom Party. Els from Belgium felt that they should be described, like the neo-fascist Vlaams Blok in Belgium. Other speakers disagreed with this categorisation.

No one disagreed that Haider's party had a core of fascists and Haider himself had a fascist past. But it was felt better to categorise the Freedom party as an extreme-right populist party.

Unlike the Vlaams Blok in Belgium the Freedom Party, at this stage, does not have a paramilitary wing intent on attacking workers' organisations and ethnic minority groups. Haider had not come to power like Hitler had by crushing the organisations of the working class. Indeed the Haider movement is currently being held back by the strength of resistance to it from the Austrian working class and youth.

Sonja from Austria reported that there were still  weekly demonstrations against Haider's Freedom Party despite the lack of organisation and response from the official trade union and workers' leaders in Austria.

Other speakers raised questions about what stage the world economy was at and how long the US boom in particular could be sustained.

Aron from Germany pointed out that although Germany has experienced its first real growth in jobs since unification ten years ago, the working class is also preparing to move. At present Germany's public-sector workers appear to be heading for strike action against the Schroder government this autumn.

Lynn Walsh, replying to the discussion, said the economy is heading for a downturn in the quite near future though it is not possible to put an exact date on this or how exactly it will unfold.

Lynn said an economic crash is possible but the capitalists are themselves trying to deflate the US market bubble at present, so fearful are they of the consequences of a sharp plunge. But the capitalists' problem is that they are currently making so much money that they don't want to stop and many seem oblivious to the social and economic consequences of the class antagonisms their greed is building up.

Lynn concluded that the recent anti-capitalist movements were a very significant development and represents an important swing to the Left in global society.

This new mood and embryonic movement puts a big responsibility on the members of the CWI sections to intervene and argue for a socialist alternative to the chaos and anarchy of capitalist society.

 

 

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Protest against capitalist IMF

THOUSANDS OF people will be converging on Prague to protest against the meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) taking place there between 27-28 September.

Rob Crowhurst

The IMF is a major global capitalist institution. It exists to help profit-hungry multinational companies exploit the world's people and resources. It does this by imposing 'Structural Adjustment Programmes' on the countries of the ex-colonial world and eastern Europe.

This means blackmailing these countries into opening up their economies to Western banks and corporations.

The brutal neo-liberal policies of privatisation and of labour deregulation that the IMF forces on these countries does nothing to help ordinary people as the capitalists cynically claim. In fact it means the opposite, ie, mass poverty, unemployment, disease, wars and massive environmental destruction.

The recent G8 summit in Japan, highlights the fact that the world's financial institutions, backed up by their governments, are incapable of solving the problems caused by capitalism. Claims of halving the number of people living in poverty, speeding up debt relief and tackling Aids, etc, are just empty gestures to try and quell the anger of protesters.

Similar statements were made at last year's summit in Cologne. To date little or nothing has happened. Only nine of the 25 countries scheduled for debt relief have received any.

The US, who promised $600 million, hasn't delivered a cent and the EU and Japan have used this as an excuse to delay their own contributions .

Over the last year anti-capitalist demonstrations have taken place around the world including London, Seattle and Washington. More and more people are questioning the role of these parasitic institutions as well as capitalism itself .

The Socialist Party and its sister organisations in the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI) in Europe will be mobilising for the demonstration in Prague. Come along and join us.

*Book your place on our transport. Write to Socialist Party PO Box 24697, London E11 1YD. Tel: 020 8988 8777 or email prague @socialistparty.org.uk

 

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