The Socialist Issue 173

In a phone poll in the Midlands 94% agreed that the action was justified. Why is this? It's because people are feeling angry at what New Labour are doing and sympathise with any group that takes action. A woman queuing for petrol in east London told The Socialist. “I definitely agree with the protests. What about poor people, people on the social and people with kids? The trains are killing us and the bus takes ages. We need to get the price down. It's not just about the rich, it's about single mums, people like us."

People have had enough of high fuel prices. But they are also pleased that at last someone is standing up to Blair and New Labour. Crucially, in an act of workers' solidarity, tanker drivers refused to cross picket lines. Scandalously their leaders have ordered them to do so. In the real world workers support the protests.

Meanwhile at the TUC conference, trade union leaders were falling over themselves to condemn them. Bill Morris, general secretary of the TGWU has called for protesters to be arrested. TUC leader John Monks commented to one delegate who was critical of his lack of leadership "what do you want me to do, picket an oil depot?" Many workers will say "Yes"! We need action to defend our wages, jobs and public services.

AT THE Purfleet and Coryton oil depots and refinery, Essex, protestors included self employed owner-drivers, drivers working on percentage for haulage contractors, one haulage contractor, and local people who can't afford to run their cars.

At one depot, lorries had to block the entrance to stop tankers leaving, although they made an agreement to let any tanker destined for hospitals or emergency services through. At others there was no need to blockade; the tanker drivers weren't going anywhere.

Opinions were mixed on how to take the struggle forward. No-one was a trade union member - many couldn't see the point of joining one. Most people there had never taken action before.

Some protesters thought it better that the protests remained completely spontaneous, saying: "If we get organised we'll get leaders and if they're not very good leaders then where are you, we're better off like this." Others saw the need to coordinate to build more effective action and were trying to contact protests across the country.

AT CARDIFF docks, the main distribution centre for South Wales, tanker drivers were refusing to cross the picket lines. Lorry drivers explained issues in trade union terms. There's only a dozen or so lorries but they've brought the place to a halt.

AT ESSO'S Fawley refinery near Southampton, there were jeers for Tony Blair as he appeared on the small black and white picket line TV. Other drivers described him as a Tory. Ironic shouts of 'Thanks BBC!' followed reports that emergency services had two days fuel left; everyone knew it was lies.

Cut fuel taxes now!
No to the oil companies' profiteering. Bring them under public ownership and democratic control.
Increase spending on an integrated public transport system.
Increase public spending on research into alternative, environmentally friendly energy sources.

What the Protesters said

NEW LABOUR also argue (weakly) that Britain is duty bound to reduce gas emissions to stop global warming. This argument is disingenuous. The government should be trying to solve the problems by such measures as a massive investment in a cheap, integrated and improved public transport system.

In reality Gordon Brown is trying to use fuel taxes instead of income tax as a disguised way of generating government revenues.

Burning increasing amounts of petrol and diesel is harming people's health and the wider environment. But raising taxes is a very inefficient way of cutting fuel use.

Alternative technologies, such as fuel cells powered by methane that only produce water as a waste product, should be properly invested in.

But to plan and finance such a programme means taking the auto, oil and chemical industries into public ownership.

INDUSTRY MINISTER Stephen Byers argues that cutting duty on fuel by 2p a litre would mean cutting public spending by Ł1 billion.

This comes from a government that's sitting on an estimated Ł20 billion surplus from tax receipts! The money is there to cut fuel prices and increase public spending to rebuild the NHS and ensure decent services.

The government profits from rising oil prices. Campaigners claim that it's getting a Ł4.6 billion bonus and ministers could cut fuel prices by 8p a litre without hitting-public spending.

Why doesn't the government, instead of imposing flat-rate 1p taxes which hit the poorest, hardest, tax the rich?

The 1,000 richest people in Britain have a combined wealth of nearly $200 billion. In addition some 150 giant multinational companies, including the profit-bloated oil corporations, dominate the economy. They control investments, prices and output. They should be nationalised and run under democratic workers' control.

Prelude to a downturn

A THREEFOLD increase in oil prices is causing major headaches for the capitalists internationally. Fuel protests by fishermen, truckers and farmers brought France to a standstill, forcing the government to make concessions.
As French protestors reluctantly dismantled their barricades, lorry drivers and farmers in England and Wales were building theirs up. Protests have also spread to Scotland, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, threatening a Europe-wide movement.
New Labour spokesperson John Reid claimed that people in Britain "do not react to the French way of doing things." This was while pickets of refineries and distribution centres were rapidly escalating and farmers' leaders were warning of a new winter of discontent.
At the same time, fears of a global recession have grown. The capitalists had been congratulating themselves that the US economy was on course for a 'soft landing'. Productivity has been increasing and growth slowing gradually. But one global strategist at Meryll Lynch commented: "My concern is that the oil price rise will cause a much sharper than expected economic slowdown."
Shares of corporations such as Du Pont and Dow Chemical fell on the stock exchange after they issued warnings of lower profits due to higher oil prices.
The European central bank has been forced to increase interest rates, worried that price rises could push inflation well above their 2% limit. There are already signs that the German economy is slowing down and higher interest rates could mean lower growth throughout the Euro zone.
Japan, only barely emerging from a 10-year recession, is heavily dependent on imported oil and could be especially hit by rising prices. And in South East Asia an extremely fragile 'recovery' could also turn into its opposite.
Three times in the last 30 years, oil prices have tripled - three times the world economy has plunged into recession. Fears that prices could go over $40 a barrel (up from $10 eighteen months ago) and trigger a recession, prompted Clinton to put pressure on OPEC to increase oil production.
He's also worried that rising prices could scupper Gore's election campaign. OPEC have agreed to increase output by 3% (800,000 barrels a day). All this will have to come from Saudi Arabia, the only country with excess capacity. Other OPEC countries such as Venezuela are aganst increasing supplies. One Venezuelan newspaper summed up why with the headline: "Oil rises to $35 a barrel and poverty reaches 81%."
For every $1 drop in the price of oil, Venezuela's economy loses $1 billion a year. President Ch‡vez, who has attacked "savage neo-liberalism" and called for a "multi-polar" world, said: "Lower prices would be like passing a death sentence on ourselves and our people". For countries like Venezuela the crisis can only get worse.
Economic analysts doubt whether OPEC's decision will have much impact in the short term. This is already the third increase in production agreed this year. Stock levels in the US are at their lowest level for 24 years and it will take some time for any increases to come through.
'New Economy' evangelists argue that new technology will lessen the effect of oil price rises this time round. Certainly economic conditions aren't the same as when oil shocks hit the world economy in 1973 and 1979.
Then inflation was already much higher than it is now before the price increases took place. But every time that oil price rises have occurred, economists have underestimated their effect on the wider economy.
The US economy alone has been holding up the world since the collapse in south-east Asia in 1998. One factor extending the boom was precisely the low price of oil.
But even if oil is not the trigger for a world recession, consumer and corporate debt, a growing current account deficit and inflated share prices all mean that the US economy is extremely susceptible to external and internal shocks which could lead to a serious downturn world-wide.

WEF Melbourne protests

Force New Labour to Scrap the Fees

SINCE NEW Labour came to power the position of students has continued to deteriorate. Fees and the abolition of the grant mean that debts have spiralled, applications have fallen and student poverty has worsened.
Many thousands of students face returning to courses that they know they won't be able to afford. Now, there is the prospect of even greater fees in the next couple of years.
However, with the strategy of organised mass non-payment of tuition fees, students can force the government to scrap the fees and restore the grant.
Two years after tuition fees came in and the grant went out, the media have finally realised that New Labour's policies are deterring people from going to university. This is what the Socialist Party predicted would happen in 1997.
Over the last two years, total applications have fallen by 2%. However, it is the poorest sections of society who have been most affected by the tuition fees and the abolition of the grant - working-class students, black students, disabled students etc.
Mature students have been particularly hard hit too. Applications from men over 25 have fallen by 6.5% on last year and 1.1% amongst women of that age. This follows falls over the last two years.
The figures provide indisputable proof that tuition fees and the abolition of the grant are responsible for preventing thousands of young people from entering higher education because of their background.
They make a mockery of the assertions three years ago by David Blunkett, New Labour's Secretary of State for Education, that tuition fees would increase access to higher education (HE).
New Labour was forced to recognise this fact in Scotland, where the anger over tuition fees forced them and the Liberal Democrats to scrap up-front fees. The result of their U-turn in Scotland has been an increase in applications by 2.1% to Scottish universities over the last year.
While the Scottish concessions don't go far enough, replacing up-front fees with a graduation tax, it nevertheless shows that paying fees is a deterrent to students.

Non-payment grows
HOWEVER FEES are not just an obstacle for those who want to start university. They are forcing thousands of students off courses that they have already started.
Over the last two years many thousands of students have been unable to afford the fees. Many have been faced with threats from their universities to exclude them, and have faced various other sanctions while on their courses. Non-payers are often denied library facilities, computer facilities and other services.
Some universities like Middlesex have employed firms of bailiffs to intimidate and threaten students into paying.
These tactics are an outrageous attack on the right to a free education, which the Socialist Party is committed to defending. It is always the poorest students who suffer most from sanctions, because they are the ones who cannot afford to pay the fees.
The fact that universities resort to such underhand measures shows how worried they are about non-payment of the fees.
Over the last two years the numbers not paying, predominantly because they cannot afford to, have escalated. In the first year of fees, 1998-99, Ł15 million went unpaid in fees nationally, 10% of the total. Preliminary figures indicate that the numbers of non-payers almost certainly increased nationally last year.
They show the numbers of non-payers at many universities spiralling. For instance at Manchester Metropolitan University more than Ł1.1 million is outstanding from last year. Students at the University of Hertfordshire owe Ł1.6 million, an increase of Ł400,000 on last year's figures. At Staffordshire University non-payment has increased by 50%.
The levels of students unable to afford their fees will certainly rise this year. While all three years of students are asked to pay, second and third years will already be struggling with debts they have already incurred.

Strategy to beat fees
NON-PAYMENT can bring down tuition fees. So far, universities have coped with a certain amount of students not paying. However they will be less able to withstand organised mass non-payment.
The higher non-payment, the less universities will be able to cope as the fees become more difficult to implement. In order to defeat the fees as many students as possible must refuse to pay them, both those who cannot afford them and those who support the right of all students to a free education on principle.
But what will be decisive will be building organised mass non-payment. If students take organised action, they can force universities to let students stay on their courses. Universities will not be able to enforce sanctions against those that can't pay, or won't pay, if hundreds of non-payers are making a collective stand at universities across Britain.
Mass action such as occupations, demonstrations and walkouts would help non-payment make the fees unworkable. The government would be forced to acknowledge that tuition fees do not work and must be abolished. It could also be forced to restore the grant.
Students at many universities have already taken action to defend non-payers from expulsion. In 1998-99 a student occupation at Goldsmiths College succeeded in forcing university management to allow students threatened with expulsion to remain on their courses. There have also been occupations at UCL, SOAS, Guildhall and Sussex amongst others.
The task this term is to spread this action and make sure it is linked to the strategy of mass non-payment.

Top-up fees
UNLESS THE government is forced into retreat over fees and the grant, students will bear the cost in the form of an increasingly expensive and elitist higher education system.
When tuition fees were introduced, the Socialist Party warned that this would open the door to further increases in fees. This warning has been borne out. It is becoming clear that New Labour plan to allow universities to charge their own top-up fees, on top of the current tuition fees.
The Russell Group, the vice-chancellors of the 19 most 'prestigious' universities, are campaigning to be allowed to charge their own fees. They argue that the top British universities need to charge top-up fees in order to acquire the funding they need to become internationally competitive.
It is true that money is not coming from government. In fact Treasury officials are considering new cuts of 3% in HE funding. This means that none of the revenue raised by tuition fees will be used to improve university facilities. It proves that fees have always been about cutting government spending.
However, rather than demand the abolition of fees and a massive injection of funding from the government, the Russell Group universities want students to make up the shortfall by paying fees.
Why are the universities so eager to charge fees? It's all to do with making more money. Universities like Oxford and Cambridge look eagerly towards the creation of a US-style HE system. They too would like to charge as much as Ł16,000 a year as their US equivalents Harvard and Yale do.
Of course the majority of US students cannot afford to pay the high fees charged by the elite universities. They are relegated to universities in the lower divisions of the HE system. These are less well-funded, with poorer amenities and facilities. And of course for millions of young Americans, university is out of their reach full stop.

Privatisation
WHILE THE Tores' new draft manifesto talks of "freeing" universities from state control, New Labour's policies represent moves towards further privatisation of the higher education system.
More and more universities are being run as businesses, where the financial interests of universities are put before the education or needs of students. Top-up fees are a first step in the direction of completely private universities.
However, putting the profit of business before the interests of society in general is having and will have terrible consequences in HE. Already applications have fallen with the introduction of fees. Also, many courses and departments have been axed as business dictates what should and should not be taught in universities.
Even the very survival of some less well-off universities is under threat. The leader of the lecturers' trade union, NATFHE, has warned that as many as a fifth of universities could close if top-up fees are introduced.
He is quoted as saying: "There is not the kind of demand to sustain the size of the current system. People would not pay. Even if it was the poorest 20% of students who decided not to go to university, some would close".
This graphically illustrates the insanity of an education system run in the interests of big business. The Socialist Party campaigns for a free and fully funded education system, run in the interests of society as a whole, not just big business. Only then could everyone in society be assured of a decent education. Ultimately though, only a socialist society can guarantee this.

Bromley Says:

No cuts, No victimisation

THERE WERE Bromley UNISON members and local residents including night care workers and tenants in sheltered accommodation. There were other trade union activists.

Over 100 people joined a lively lobby of Bromley’s Social Services committee against cuts to services for the elderly and threats to UNISON branch secretary Glenn Kelly on 11 September.

The highlight was when the elderly residents and their carers led protesters into the committee meeting which had been shifted into the council chambers.

The Lib/Lab-dominated council allowed residents to ask questions, followed as in parliamentary question time with a supplementary question. Someone asked whether councillors would like to be an old person waiting for help after a fall when the council had cut night care services.

Tenants in sheltered accommodation asked whether they had the right to invite anyone they wanted into their homes. If so, why were the council threatening to sack Glenn Kelly for speaking in his own time at their homes against the cutbacks?

The committee chair and director of social services made a total fiasco of their replies. They said they couldn’t answer because the issue was "sub judice", which was nonsense.

Bromley council have set the disciplinary hearing for Glenn Kelly for 5 October. The campaign continues amongst UNISON members to tell their bosses that if the council try to sack Glenn they will stop work immediately.

+ Protest to: Jeremy Ambache, Director of Social Services, Bromley council, Civic Centre, Bromley, BR1 3UH. Fax: 020 83813 4620.

+ Send messages of support to: Bromley UNISON, Civic Centre, Bromley. Tel: 020 83813 4405. Fax: 020 83813 4885.

Prague 2000

Take direct action: End Profit System

WHILE PROTESTS against fuel prices were taking place in France and Britain, 10, 000 protesters blockaded the entrance to the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia. They disrupted the meeting of the World Economic Forum, a group of unelected, bureaucrats, including representatives of 1000 multinational companies. Along with the World Bank and IMF, this 'global economic think tank' is hell bent on promoting and implementing policies of privatisation and deregulation.

Protesters were dealt with in the same brutal fashion meted out by robocops on previous anti capitalist demos in Seattle, and Washington. They are preparing for more of the same when protesters converge on the IMF meeting in Prague on 26th September

The growing wave of direct action protests show that anger is growing against the corrupt elite capitalist system. Last week in an obvious attempt to defuse the growing anti-capitalist protests, the World Bank and IMF promised debt relief to the 20 poorest countries by the end of the year. But a year ago Western governments promised debt relief to 24 countries and just 10 have received anything at all.

These international protests directed at the capitalist institutions show the anger at a profit system which is run for the rich. Capitalism is incapable of ending exploitation, and poverty The obscene wealth gap between rich and poor is right at the core of the capitalist system. To be anti capitalist you have to fight to replace this system with a Socialist society.This means working class people organising to take the wealth out of the hands of the rich minority who own and control society. Then they could run society on the basis of need not profit.

The Socialist Party is part of the Committee for a Workers International (CWI). We have parties in 35 countries around the world, we are mobilising across Europe for the demo in Prague offering a Socialist alternative to the poverty, waste and devastation of global capitalism.

The Socialist 15 September	Blair: Running on Empty
Blair: running on empty	LIKE THE ghost of Margaret Thatcher, Blair has mobilised the forces of the state to break the fuel protests by truck drivers' and farmers.
Fuelling the anger	AT THE Purfleet and Coryton oil depots and refinery, Essex, protestors included self employed owner-drivers, drivers working on percentage for haulage contractors, one haulage contractor, and local people who can't afford to run their cars. Followed by: The Socialist says What the Protesters said Labour's green facade Cut Fuel Tax
Prelude to a downturn	A THREEFOLD increase in oil prices is causing major headaches for the capitalists internationally. Fuel protests by fishermen, truckers and farmers brought France to a standstill, forcing the government to make concessions.
Police fail to defeat protest	WEF Melbourne protests: MEDIA REPORTS of the recent three day protest against the World Economic Forum (WEF) could not hide the brutal tactics of the Victoria state’s police. By Zac Wright, Socialist Party, Australia
Force New Labour to Scrap the Fees	SINCE NEW Labour came to power the position of students has continued to deteriorate. Fees and the abolition of the grant mean that debts have spiralled, applications have fallen and student poverty has worsened
Glenn Kelly: No cuts, No victimisation	THERE WERE Bromley UNISON members and local residents including night care workers and tenants in sheltered accommodation. There were other trade union activists.
Prague 2000: End Profit System	WHILE PROTESTS against fuel prices were taking place in France and Britain, 10, 000 protesters blockaded the entrance to the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia.

Blair: Running on Empty

Blair: running on empty

What the Protesters said