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No Way to Run the NHS

THE BRITISH Medical Association described the NHS as "in trouble and under pressure." This is mainly because the New Labour government puts its faith in the private profit system.

Blair's government says it's trying to get 20,000 new nurses into training and it's offering extra cash for senior nurses in London to help with accommodation.

But last week furious student nurses at St Bartholomew's School of Nursing and Midwifery had to stage an overnight vigil outside the Department of Health.

They had been told that they would be evicted from their nurses' hostel at St Andrews Hospital, Bromley by Bow on 31 March. The building is due to close to make way for new luxury flats!

The student nurses haven't been offered suitable alternative accommodation, let alone luxury housing. They get a £470 a month bursary. Some may be offered a place with a housing association at £320 a month, twice their present rent.

Rachel Voller, a student nurse at Bart's who's campaigning against closure of St Andrews, told The Socialist: "We work 37.5 hours a week on the wards and receive the equivalent of £2.60 an hour. That's below the minimum wage level. Now they're making us homeless as well."

On top of attending university, working 37.5-hour weeks on the wards, many student nurses also take part-time jobs. The college discourages students from doing this as it leaves them exhausted but they are desperate to make ends meet.

If these students have to find dearer accommodation, many more will have to find extra work to fund their training.

Rachel Voller commented: "Accommodation at St Andrews is far from perfect but it's affordable. Many students now facing eviction will be forced to leave their course."

This is no way to entice young people to join the NHS. In fact this is no way to run a health service.

We say: Bring back the NHS, which provided health treatment free at the point of use. Get rid of the profiteers who suck the NHS dry! Take action against the property speculators who put private profit before housing for essential workers!

 

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Sack Mad Max not Council Workers

HACKNEY COUNCIL is out of control. Confidential documents to be put to the council's Finance and Policy committee on 4 December show that there is a projected overspend of £76 million by March 2001 and not the £40 million originally announced.

Chris Newby

This catastrophic situation means that another £17.5 million of cuts are planned on top of the £4 million already announced. The council is also considering a council tax increase of 10% a year for the next three years. Hackney already has one of the highest council tax rates in Britain.

Hilary Armstrong, Labour's local government minister, talks of taking services away from the council, no doubt into similar private hands as Serviceteam who are receiving an £8 million handout to take over waste collection and street cleaning.

Chris Woodhead, ex-head of OFSTED the schools inspectorate, says Nord Anglia, the company already running some of the Hackney education services has a 'patchy record' but incredibly Woodhead’s solution is to call for the wholesale privatisation of education services.

But privatisation is no way out, it will only make a bad situation even worse. One woman on a Stoke Newington estate explained to The Socialist how, last summer, the rubbish was piling high and causing a health hazard. After getting nowhere with the council, the tenants moved the rubbish away from the housing themselves.

Several days later the tenants each got a letter from the council threatening to fine them £1,000 for moving the rubbish!

Council workers are angry about the state of Hackney borough and the incompetence of senior management. After hearing that Max Caller, the £150,000-a-year managing director, had asked to speak at the all-union mass meeting one worker said that she wanted to mummify him!

Hackney Socialist Party members have been to the fore in proposing and attempting to implement a strategy in the workforce and the community to fight the cuts.

 

DEMONSTRATION, SATURDAY 25 November, Stoke Newington Common to Hackney Town Hall, starting at 11.30am.

 

SOCIALIST PARTY public meeting, Thursday 30 November. 7.30pm at the Black & White Club, 22 Ashwin Street, off Dalston Lane, Dalston, London E8, all welcome.

 

COMMUNITY CONFERENCE, Sunday 3 December, Chat's Palace, Brooksby Walk, London E9. To attend, write to Hackney UNISON, 3rd Floor, Netil House, 1-7 Westgate Street, London E8.

 

• Sack 'Mad Max' Caller and all incompetent senior managers
• Councillors resign now - elect representatives from the community who will fight privatisation and defend services
• No cuts in jobs or services
• No privatisation
• Build a mass campaign of the council workforce and service users to force the government to provide full funding for all services.

 

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Angry Hackney Workers Ready for Struggle

HACKNEY COUNCIL workers were so outraged by the speech of Mad Max Caller, chief executive of Hackney council, that some of them tried to pull him off the stage of the Hackney Empire at the 21 November mass meeting.

Bill Mullins

One worker, mad with anger, jumped onto the stage. Hackney’s boss made a hasty "exit - stage right" out of the theatre.

Caller tried to justify to the packed meeting why he wanted to cut their wages and sack hundreds of their colleagues to solve the council's crisis. "It's your jobs or the services," he told the stunned gathering.

The day before the meeting a leaked report revealed that the council was facing a deficit of £76 million. Max had already put through a massive cuts budget when it was thought that the deficit was £40 million but every council worker was left in no doubt that they were in for the "most serious fight that they had ever faced", in the words of Gary Nash TGWU branch secretary.

Caller had asked to address the mass meeting and take questions. I don't know what he expected to get out of it but it was the best thing that could have happened to develop the struggle.

Worker after worker came to the microphone and asked why he expected them to shoulder the burden of the crisis.

One worker demanded to know how much he’d got in backhanders from the private company that had made such a mess of managing the council tax and housing benefit departments.

To huge applause a housing worker demanded to know how Caller on his £150,000 expected her to live after he had cut her wages by half.

A night care worker was almost in tears as she accused Caller of wanting to drive her into poverty along with 200 of her workmates if he cut her wages by £50 per week.

Carlene Edwards, a library worker and Socialist Party member, brought the mass meeting to their feet when she demanded that Caller resign - and the whole council as well. "I've worked for the council for two and half years but I'm still considered a temporary worker".

Caller had said that his job was to protect the permanent staff, "even if it means letting go the hundreds of temporary workers on the payroll".

"We have to demand back the £50 million robbed from the council by the Labour government, not cut our jobs and conditions," said Carlene.

Brian Debus, UNISON chair and Socialist Party member, moved the main resolution from the shop stewards. This outlined a series of actions including all-out support for the 25 November demonstration and the community conference on 3 December (see back page).

He also called for all council workers to join the day of action on 29 November and lobby the council meeting. "Leave your workplace at 12pm and join the mass lobby" said Brian.

The meeting voted unanimously for his resolution, including an all-council strike on 18 December, after the strike ballot result has been announced.

A teacher's leader earlier had said that he’d instruct all his members not to cross a picket line on that day: "So make sure that every school in Hackney is picketed on 18 December".

Clearly after this meeting, Hackney’s workers are ready for a mighty struggle. It is unfortunate that some of the most decisive sections such as the bin workers will already have been privatised by 18 December and therefore legally not able to participate in the strike action.

Nevertheless, this meeting was a gigantic step forwards in the campaign and shows how this struggle can be won.

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25,000 say No to Tuition Fees

THEY CAME from all over Britain to London on Wednesday 15 November. In a colourful and angry protest, over 25,000 students voiced their disgust at tuition fees.

Students from Luton wore T-shirts saying "Stop the Blair Rich Project". Other students wore T-shirts with chained feet on them, depicting the debt they'll be chained to after leaving university.

A student in a Superman outfit had the logo 'Fee Fighter' emblazoned on his chest. One banner showed students' feelings about the National Union of Students leadership's closeness to the New Labour government saying: "NUS - Tony's crony's training camp."

The NUS leadership had to be dragged kicking and screaming into organising demos last year and this against New Labour's tuition fees and the axing of the grant.

Yet, this year, the NUS's waves of red placards called for "grants not fees". This showed the pressure the NUS leaders are under. Revealingly the protest was sponsored by public-sector union UNISON, the largest union affiliated to the Labour Party.

50 student nurses, all UNISON members, led the demo. They'd come straight from an all-night vigil, sleeping outside the Department of Health, protesting at their low pay - £2.60 an hour for a 37.5 hour week - and the fact that their health trust is closing down their nurses' home.

Overseas students and mature students were noticeable on this demo. Students chanted: "We won't pay our loans back" and building workers and office workers took students' placards into their work.

The size and anger of this demonstration showed that the fight to scrap tuition fees and to get a living grant is still very much alive in students' minds and actions.

 

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Build mass non-payment

THE TURNOUT on the 15 November NUS demonstration showed very clearly that the anger over the government's introduction of tuition fees and abolition of the grant has not abated. More students are prepared to take to the streets against these attacks than before.

Kieran Roberts

This growing anger is directly related to students' increasing impoverishment under New Labour. Many students said they'd come along because of their own experience of struggling to survive at university, particularly with paying their fees.

The size of the demo gives a huge boost to students' confidence in building a mass movement to force the government to scrap fees and reintroduce the grant.

However, students need to elaborate a strategy to build such a mass movement. On the NUS demonstration, the overwhelming majority of students, while keen to fight the fees, had little idea of how to do so successfully and win a victory against the government. None of the speakers on the platform at the rally, or the NUS, assisted the demonstrators in this respect.

The Socialist Party has been putting forward the strategy of mass non-payment of fees over the last three years. We believe that if enough students withhold their fees and organise action to defend their right to a free education, fees can be made unworkable.

We have seen the correctness of this strategy borne out - so far £21 million in fees remains unpaid. Clearly, thousands can't afford to pay them. The main tasks are to organise these students in a campaign to defend their right to stay on their courses and to spread non-payment. We must persuade thousands of other students who oppose fees, to refuse to pay and to take action too.

Organised mass non-payment could potentially develop at any time. Thousands of students who haven't paid their fees will face threats of sanctions over the next few months. They can draw the conclusion that it is necessary to take action to defend their education.

Scrap tuition fees - build mass non-payment. Reinstate the student grant - free education for all. Fight all exclusions and disciplinary threats of non-payers and anti-fees campaigners.

 

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"How can we afford to pay?"

ONE OF the liveliest groups on the march were a dozen or so students from Wembley High School. "We're here because we all want to go University next year or afterwards. How can we afford to pay? Our parents haven't got enough to pay these fees - education should be free!"

Paul and Louise from Barnsley college:

"The demonstration was really good. We don't have to pay fees but it's going to become relevant to us When we go to university, we'll be threatened with really expensive fees."

Natalie and Rachel (Sixth-form students from Southampton):

"We're against tuition fees. It's completely wrong that people with less money are denied the chances that people with more money have.

"We're here today to show solidarity and to show how society is based on wealth where people are denied opportunities because they don't have the money."

Adela from Valencia studying at Queen Mary college:

"I believe education is a right not a privilege. We should have a more equal society where people have the same rights for the same education with the same standards.

"I'm impressed by the size of today's demonstration. Although I'm only here for a few months I plan to get involved in the campaign against tuition fees."

Sara Mayo, third year English student at Swansea University:

"I feel very strongly about tuition fees and the lack of a grant; we need to take urgent action about it. I've only get £300 to live on for the next five weeks, the rest of the term.

"I think I'll leave university with debts of over £10,000 and my overdraft will push it over £11,000. I've had to pay fees for all three years.

"There's mow a stronger anger amongst students against fees. Over 300 came today from Swansea University. Last year only 30 came on the NUS demo.

"I've also got involved with SFE and Socialist Students to see what I could do and how I could contribute to change society."

Kevin Cullen, mature student Swansea University:

"People should have good education. It's been promised for years and Labour haven't delivered on their promises.

"After three years of higher education I'll be £10,000-£12,000 in debt. This is now happening to every student. And at my age and being a mature student that level of debt is off-putting. Before going to college. you have to weigh up the options and think of your financial situation.

"I've been very impressed with the demonstration. I think the government should listen to this protest that fees should be scrapped and grants reintroduced."

 

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Wanted: a fighting NUS

LAST WEEK'S demonstration showed the potential the NUS have for mobilising hundreds of thousands of angry students across Britain.

The NUS has a massive responsibility to build on the demonstration's success and launch a rolling program of action against fees and the abolition of the grant. Above all the NUS should put their authority behind the strategy of mass non-payment of the fees and actively build it nationwide.

The NUS's active support would immeasurably strengthen the chances of defeating tuition fees and bringing back the grant.

Unfortunately, the NUS leadership refuses to lead such a campaign. There was no attempt to give students on the national demonstration a lead, Instead it falls to groups like Save Free Education to build mass non-payment on the ground.

Nevertheless, as well as building mass non-payment, students returning from last week's demo must also fight to transform the NUS into an organisation that is prepared to lead defend students.

Over the last decade the NUS's New Labour leadership has done its best to "de-politicise" the NUS. They have discouraged and blocked students who want to fight back against New Labour and the Tories at every turn. They are more concerned about their own careers in the Labour Party than in leading a serious opposition to the government.

For most students on last week's demonstration, this would have been the first contact with their student union or the NUS. They will not have been aware of the role the NUS has played in attempting to hold back the struggle against fees.

But as more students are drawn into movements, against fees, top-up fees or on other issues, more and more students will be drawn into conflict with the NUS's New Labour leadership.

The free education campaigns, those students involved in the fight for free education and left student union activists, must anticipate these clashes. We must build a challenge to New Labour and their hangers-on in the students' unions now.

The Socialist Party and Save Free Education are calling for a conference before the end of term, to organise the battle to transform NUS. Such a conference could agree the left slate for next year's NUS National Executive elections as well as acting as a launch pad for an intensive campaign in the universities in favour of the slate.

 

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Campaigning in Coventry

COVENTRY UNIVERSITY Socialist Students have started the year in top gear. Since the freshers fairs, we have had three meetings on the anti-capitalist movement, Che Guevara, and on the campaign to save free education.

At the Guevara meeting, 17 people came along including overseas students from China, Germany and France.

We have also been doing regular activity with at least two stalls a week. We are now recognisable to many students as the only actively fighting society, we've built up a big list of contacts, and increased sales of 'The Socialist' in Coventry.

Coventry Socialist Students and Young Socialist Action (YSA) recently made a big impact on the Students Union UGM, with a motion calling for the union to support a campaign of mass non-payment of tuition fees.

This caused a big debate amongst the 130 students in attendance. The Student Union executive were clearly under severe pressure from the University management, who outrageously threatened to cut the Student Union grant!

The Students Union (SU) therefore strongly advised a vote against our motions. Is the SU a union for students or a branch of university management? The answer was clear.

The SU executive are relatively sympathetic to the case for Free Education but they wouldn't back the only tactic that could win it back. As a result of the SU executive we lost the vote heavily. However, it was far from a wasted exercise, it enabled us to put our ideas forward, and we won respect for our fighting attitude.

The university is also under pressure over the unfinished arts block. Students and lecturers angered by their lack of facilities are taking action against the university management. The NATFHE and UNISON lecturers and staff members and the Students Union could be looking at joint strike action.

Unprecedented legal action by the students union could also follow to claim back tuition fees for the students, as the university has not provided decent facilities. However many of the arts students affected have refused to pay their fees in protest. In effect they have their own non-payment campaign!

Coventry Socialist Students and YSA will be working hard at playing a leading role in the struggles ahead. Along the way we will build support for our socialist ideas.

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Students must get political

OVER 50 students came to a very successful meeting organised by Save Free Education (SFE) and Socialist Students after the rally, even though most people were tired by what turned out to be a route march across London.

TIM LESELLS from Coventry Socialist Students outlined why students need to get involved in politics not just the fight against fees or for a student grant.

Students had played an important role in battles around the world. In Indonesia, students had taken part in a revolutionary movement in 1998 which removed Suharto. Along with workers, the unemployed etc, students should fight for a change in the political system.

ZENA AWAD from SFE said that figures proved the effect that fees had had on the number of students applying for university, Applications had gone down by 2% - especially amongst mature students. Many had to work for a year to save money for their education.

More students are going to local colleges so they can save money by staying at home, regardless of whether a more relevant course to their needs may be at other universities.

In Scotland, the Cubie report recommended abolishing up-front payments in favour of a graduate tax. although this only puts off people's debts, applications in Scotland have gone up.

CLARE JAMES from the Socialist Party said that this year's demo had been a lot bigger than last year's. Students aren't here just for a day out, she said. They want a real fight. Having a non-payment strategy is extremely important. You can shout until your face turns blue but without a strategy, you'll get nowhere.

The whole education system is being eroded by creeping privatisation. New Labour aim to sell off everything, eroding workers' conditions. Labour doesn't represent young people and students; it only represents big business.

Capitalism can't afford to give things free - no-one makes a profit. So the capitalists say privatise everything. The gap between rich and poor is growing.

Most of world is under the grip of global capitalism, which puts the rule of profit above everything. The system we live under doesn't offer a secure future.

Very significantly, anti-capitalist protests such as Seattle are organising against capitalism's environmental and social destruction. But if you're going to fight a system, you need an alternative. We're fighting for a system which benefits the majority of the world's population - socialism.

Clare appealed to people to join the Socialist Party which had the programme and experience to build for a socialist future.

 

 

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Vietnam 25 years on: Now it's Clinton's mercenaries

TWENTY–FIVE years after American capitalism’s ignominious defeat in the Vietnamese war (which cost three million Vietnamese dead and 58,000 US troops killed), US President Bill Clinton has invaded the country - this time with an entourage of 2,000 representatives of big business including Nike, Coca-Cola, General Electric and General Motors. Keith Dickinson examines this new imperialist invasion.

DESPITE THE statements of Vietnam’s Communist Party leaders defending its "Socialist System" and that Vietnam had fought a long war to end occupation by imperialists, they are taking the country in the opposite direction.

As The Economist says: "Sparring with America’s trade lawyers is always bruising work, so Vietnam’s leaders would not have put themselves through it – and undertaken to carry out another round of reform [ie capitalist restoration] – if they were not serious".

At present, Asian companies supply two-thirds of Vietnam’s foreign direct investment - the bulk of which withdrew during the regional downturn of 1997. Also, the competition of cheap exports from China has seen the Vietnamese government respond by encouraging the growth of the private sector and trying to diversify its trade and capital flows, particularly through deals with America.

Export trade

WITH ITS low wages the textile industry is raring to take advantage of the lowering of US tariff barriers from an average of 40% to 3%. Vietnamese exports to the US have grown steadily from $204 million in 1996 and are expected are reach $600 million this year.

Since the lifting of the trade embargo in 1994, US companies such as footwear giant Nike has moved 10% of its production to Vietnam using local contractors.

One company, Fashion Garments, has 500 young women churning out children’s clothing and school uniforms in a brand new factory outside Ho Chi Minh City, and is planning to build another. Thanh Cong Textile-Garment Company, which is presently state-owned, employs 3,000 at a huge complex in the same city.

However, international labour reports have highlighted the low pay and long hours endured by many workers. Young women workers in these sweatshops have suffered heat exhaustion and have been docked punitive fines from bullying foremen.

Probably most symbolic of American capitalism’s attitude to workers and peasants the world over is the ceramics firm American Standard, which, in anticipation of an export surge, already has moulds for toilets designed to meet American specifications. It is not the first time Vietnam has been dumped on!

The Americans dropped 20 million gallons of Agent-Orange (a defoliant containing Dioxin) over Vietnam during the war, causing illness, terrible deformations and death over three generations.

A thorough survey by Canadian researcher, Chris Hatfield, shows that Dioxin has not really reduced at all in some areas but has spread wider into the food chain.

International socialism

DURING THE Vietnam war the Militant (forerunner of The Socialist) argued that without the fight for workers’ democracy and international socialism by Vietnamese workers and peasants, the Stalinist ‘Communist’ leaders would derail the revolution.

The Communist Party has become the instrument for the re-establishment of capitalist and imperialist interests. However, the Vietnamese with their tremendous history of struggle and a very high literacy rate can overcome these obstacles and return to the fight against capitalism and to the genuine ideas of socialism.

 

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Car Industry Under Threat

FORD WORKERS at Dagenham, east London are balloting for industrial action in defence of jobs. After assurances from the Ford Motor Company in 1997, none of the promised $425 million investment has materialised. Instead, production of the new Fiesta is switching to Cologne, Germany, and the assembly plant at Dagenham is to be closed. A Yes vote is essential to begin the fight back.

Manny Thain

After 70 years' continuous production at least 3,500 jobs will go, another 6,000 related components jobs will be lost, with thousands more from shops and businesses in and around Dagenham itself. In total, 15% of what remains of London's manufacturing employment is threatened.

And Ford Motor Company is flush with cash - it has $13 billion in reserve. It recently bought LandRover from BMW for £2 billion. Despite the fact that Dagenham workers have reached higher productivity rates on lower labour costs than elsewhere in Europe, the legacy of Tory anti-trade union legislation - retained by Tony Blair's New Labour - is that it is cheaper and easier to sack workers in Britain.

With massive overcapacity in the world car industry, Ford management has decided to cut back. But it will still add to last year's $2.7 billion record profits. The shareholders will continue to receive dividends which have been increasing by 10% year-on-year. It is the workforce who will pay the price if the plans go ahead.

How can Ford workers fight this vicious attack? This will be a hard struggle against a massive multinational with huge resources, backed by a New Labour government which kneels down to big business.

Ford management has used a divide-and-rule policy at Dagenham. Promises to build a new engine hall have been used to try and undermine the unity of the workers.

Ultimately, the workers hold immense power in their hands. There can be no mega-profits without vehicles to sell. The international interconnection of the different Ford plants and just-in-time methods of production mean that European-wide production can grind to a halt in a matter of days when key sections of workers strike.

Translating the latent power of Ford workers into effective and determined action requires clear and determined union leadership.

National officials like Tony Woodley of the Transport and General Workers Union, want a Yes vote in the ballot. That would strengthen their hands in negotiations.

But many workers are not convinced that they would be committed to an all-out and bitter battle.

The union came under harsh criticism from Ford workers at a public meeting on 14 November. And that criticism was not only levelled at the national officials. Although the unions have produced two leaflets, they have not been properly distributed at Dagenham.

Even the mass meetings the day before the ballot played into management's hands. Instead of one meeting bringing together the whole workforce, where a show of hands could have demonstrated the strength of feeling and give the workers a sense of their own power, three meetings on different sites were organised.

The workforce must regain control of their union. Officials, convenors and shop stewards have to be made accountable to the union members they represent. If any of the workers' representatives are not willing or able to lead this vital struggle, they should be replaced by those who will. That was a key lesson of the strike at Peugeot in the West Midlands earlier this year.

Support can also be mobilised in the local community and throughout east London.

A Yes vote should be the trigger for a national campaign in all the other Ford factories and subcontractors. The Basildon radiator plant is under threat, as is the foundry at Leamington, the Halewood body plant, Southampton and others. Ford management has cynically used subcontractors to run down general terms and conditions and undermine national negotiations.

All the unions involved could use those issues to link up Ford workers nationally so that Dagenham is not fighting alone. That would provide a national platform from which to call for solidarity from European Ford workers.

With initiatives like a national demonstration and the demand for the nationalisation of Ford and the whole car industry - under workers' control and management as opposed to the bureaucratic bungling of the past - massive support could be built to defend Ford Dagenham jobs and the entire industry.