We demand:

A minimum wage of at least £5 an hour as a step towards the European decency threshold of £7 an hour.

No exemptions. For an annual rise, linked to average earnings.

AN ELECTION is definitely in the offing. New Labour’s Stephen Byers has announced that the national minimum wage will go up by 10% this October. Welcome as any rise will be for the lowest-paid workers, that’s only about 40p an hour.

Steve Score, Leicester Socialist Party, and prospective Socialist Alliance candidate, Leicester West

The minimum wage, now £3.70 an hour, will rise to £4.10 an hour this autumn with a further tiny (10p) increase in October 2002. So in its first four years the minimum wage will have gone up by a measly 60p an hour from its starting rate of £3.60.

Compare that to the extravagant pay rises for fat cat bosses. Trevor Ball, chief executive of BSkyB, got paid £16.3 million last year. Someone on the new improved minimum wage working a 35-hoiir week would take 2,184 years to get that much!

This rise won't lift people out of the poverty trap. For many working families, most of any cash rise is taken away by benefit losses.

It's not until the hourly rate exceeds the European decency threshold of £7 an hour that low paid working families keep most of any wage increase. If New Labour were serious about ending poverty then that's the level it should be.

18-21 year-olds, at present on £3.20 an hour, won't get their wages reviewed until next May. Younger workers are not protected by any minimum wage laws.

Enforcement of the minimum wage is too weak. Leicester city council wants the Inland Revenue to conduct spot cheeks on employers. New Labour should have done that from day one!

Workers, particularly in low-paying sectors such as the textile industry, can't understand why only a tiny proportion of employers who pay below the minimum wage have been prosecuted.

This government has a £40 billion budget surplus in its election chest but it's more interested in cosying up to business than defending workers and raising living standards.

The fat cats tell us they can't afford it, yet top executives had an average pay rise of 17.6% last year!

Students mobilise to stop tuition fees

THE SUCCESSFUL protests that took place in many Universities where Socialist Student members organised interventions on last Thursday's NUS shutdown, shows the desire to fight against fees and for the restoration of the grant amongst many students.

Many of the demos were well attended and lively, despite the bad weather. The enthusiasm for building a mass campaign after the shutdown was demonstrated by the good attendance at meetings like the SFE one in Brunel. 21 students came along.

The protests showed the potential that NUS possesses for mobilising thousands of students against fees and the abolition of the grant. This is despite the New Labour national leadership and many students unions not effectively building for the shutdown.

Where activists, including Socialist Students members, are organised, students took action. At Coventry University the overwhelming majority of students stayed away from lectures, due to work that Socialist Students and Socialist Party members did.

NUS challenge

The success of last week poses the urgent need for free education activists and socialists to challenge New Labour for the NUS leadership. Later this month, Paul Hunt and Zena Awad will be standing for the part-time executive of NUS as candidates for Save Free Education. If elected they will fight to ensure that the NUS launches a genuine and effective campaign against fees and for the restoration of the grant, particularly through the strategy of mass non-payment to make the fees unworkable.

NUS must take up this strategy immediately, alongside a rolling programme of mass action building on the shut down. They must also announce that they will defend any student threatened with sanctions for non-payment of the fees.

However, students cannot wait for the national leadership to build non-payment. Non-payment campaigns of action must be built on the ground to defend students now and to spread the idea of non-payment.

Coventry

The NUS shutdown at Coventry University saw effective 100% of students not attending for the day.

Paul Hunt Coventry Socialist Students

A meeting and small demonstration was held with around 40 students. Most significantly on the day was the pressure from socialists students, the student union, and the Socialist group on Coventry council, which forced to the management to withdraw its immediate threats to expel fees non-payers, and the deadline has now been put back to 15th May.

The Vice Chancellor has sent out a letter to everyone who has received a threat and explained the university's new position, that students can pay by instalments and most importantly that no sanctions, such has been banned from computers, libraries and exams will now take place.

This is a small but not insignificant victory for free education activists on campus.

However, what is the next step in the NUS "Winning for Students" campaign? We need a militant and fighting NUS leadership, which will start a strategy of non-payment as the only way to bring back free education, not a leadership of Blairites tied to the Labour Party.

Swansea

AROUND 300 students lobbied Tony Blair at Wales Labour Party conference in Swansea. It was the culmination of an excellent NUS week of action against tuition fees, with Swansea University Socialist Students playing a dominant role in its success.

The lively lobby included students not just from Swansea but from higher education colleges and universities in other parts of Wales.

Particularly encouraging was the number of sixth-form students who were present and vocally expressing their anger at the level of debts they can expect when they go to university.

The efforts of Swansea University Socialist Students in campaigning to scrap fees and restore the grant was highlighted by the election of Socialist Party Wales member Sarah Mayo, in top position, to NUS national conference.

Manchester go into occupation

THE NATIONAL day of action on 1 March ended with a big bang in students occupied the Administration building of the University of Manchester after a rally against tuition fees.

Christian Bunke, Manchester University

The occupation lasted until Friday afternoon. Amongst the occupiers was a South African student who is threatened with being thrown out of university immediately, because of an administrative delay in paying his fees. He faces immediate deportation because of the university refusing him an extension until 31 March when he would be able to pay (see report below).

Other demands were that the university should be run for education and not for profit and that all the money within the access funds should be given to students in hardship.

Although the vice-chancellor was allegedly in Newcastle during the occupation and refused to directly negotiate with the occupiers, an agreement was reached.

Since Manchester University’s student union executive refused to give any support to the occupiers, a campaign of mass support will be necessary in order to prevent the South African student's victimisation.

Manchester Uni: An eyewitness report

Around 60 students occupied the University of Manchester on 1st March.

Hugh Caffrey Reports

"We started picketing at 9 am at the start of lectures. We'd been building for a couple of weeks with posters, and the Save Free Education (SFE) stalls. We picketed until 12 noon and then we had a rally with me speaking for SFE, along with a speaker from the SWP.

The students' union speaker didn't turn up and the AUT (university lecturers union) arrived after we'd gone into occupation. There was a call for occupation at the rally. The main demand is to stop the victimisation of Eric Majola, an international student from South Africa. The South African state will pay Eric's fees around that 31st March but the university have made a verbal threat to him that he will be forced to pay on Tuesday 6 March with all the consequences that can have.

It turns out that the university have had him on temporary registration since October but haven't told him!

We stayed in occupation until we got some kind of pledge out of the registrar. We'll build a campaign in Eric's defence. We're due to meet the Vice Chancellor on Tuesday 6 March at 12.30 and presumably we'll have a demo outside as well. There's a very good mood here.

Keele

STUDENTS BOYCOTTED lectures on 1 March. They also staged a protest march through the campus and signed a petition calling for an end to fees. The boycott was organised as part of the NUS day of action warning the government it risks thousands leaving higher education unless' fees are abolished.

Alan Holdway, Stoke-on-Trent

Goldsmiths

THE SHUTDOWN at Goldsmith's University saw some departments cancel lectures and seminars from midday, when the majority of students did not go into college.

Richard Harris

Things started to liven up at around 11am when 50 students marched to Lewisham College, making a lot of noise along the way and ensuring the public knew why we were marching.

We then went into the student union and discussed the way forward in the campaign. An emergency general meeting of the student union is being held on 7 March.

Canterbury

ON FRIDAY 2 March, 200 students marched through Canterbury. Socialist Students and Save Free Education (SFE) were the only group with a serious strategy. Socialist Students led the chanting: - 'Can't pay. won't pay'.

Groups such as the Socialist Workers' Party made angry noises with various four letter expletives against the tuition fees and the government, but it was left to Socialist Students and SFE to explain the need for a strategy based around mass non-payment.

Foot and Mouth Disease:

Government policy driven by agribusiness profits

The Government forms a ‘war cabinet’; passenger checks at Channel ports; sporting events cancelled; public access to the countryside restricted…has the country gone to war?

No. The current panic-stricken state of affairs over an outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) is being generated by media sensationalism and a jittery government beholden to on the election campaign.

But FMD is largely non-fatal to livestock and with a few rare exceptions cannot be passed to humans.

Why then does a relatively mild disease like FMD immediately stop the trade in livestock and the slaughter of herds? After all, prior to this outbreak beef was considered safe by the government despite the continuing BSE infection of herds - a disease that threatens human health.

The reason for the government's virtual state of emergency over a relatively mild animal disease is a concern largely for the profits of the farming industry. rather than public health or animal welfare.

Animals that suffer from FMD are less productive (lower milk and meat yields), so the economic losses if the disease ran its course would be greater than the costs of eliminating it through widespread slaughter - especially as the public pays the compensation bill.

Successive governments' zero tolerance policy to FMD was established over 100 years ago to protect the pedigree herds of a few wealthy stockbreeders. Having foisted this policy abroad British agribusiness is now hoist upon its own petard.

According to the veterinary researcher Abigail Woods: "Even a single case of FMD leads many disease-free nations to place an immediate ban upon our valuable export trade. Disease freedom is therefore a precondition of international trade and this could not be obtained through disease treatment or vaccination."

"The agriculture ministry therefore regards FMD primarily as an economic problem, not an animal welfare or public health issue."

This is why successive governments have never developed alternative disease treatment strategies or the use of vaccinations which are considered too costly.

The Socialist Issue 196 [Top] [Home] [News] [The Socialist] [Join] You'll always find more in The Socialist

Another food safety crisis

IN THE wake of safety concerns such as the BSE / vCJD scandal, food poisoning scares, concerns over genetically modified organisms and now FMD, it's of little wonder that many people have lost confidence in the food industry..

This increase in food safety fears has accompanied the development of capitalist intensive farming practices. The main motivation behind this revolution in agricultural practices in the last 60 years has been the drive to maximise profits. Instead of striving to produce safe, sustainable and wholesome food, capitalist agribusiness has slashed the agricultural workforce and increased the use of fertilisers and dangerous pesticides and herbicides. Nitrates running off from farmland are increasingly polluting water supplies.

Intensive animal rearing in buildings lids led to the increasing use of antibiotics and other drugs to counter disease. Drugs are also used in greater quantities to bring the livestock to market quicker. Some scientists are alarmed at the implications for human health, such as the use of BST growth hormone in cows to-increase milk yields.

Unsafe but highly profitable practices in the meat industry - i.e. recycling animals in animal feed - led to the spread of the BSE disease. This disease has resulted in hundreds of thousands of cattle being slaughtered in Britain and now in other European countries.

BSE has been able to jump the 'species barrier' to humans and has led to the deaths of over 80 adults from the human form of BSE - VCJD. Infected meat and bone meal, despite the known health risks by the then Tory government and top civil servants, continued to be used in Britain until 1995 and exported outside the EU until March 1996.

Instead of enlarging meat and farm inspection the government is now planning to sell off the Meat Hygiene Service. A privatised inspection service would be 'self-regulating'.

The Socialist Issue 196 [Top] [Home] [News] [The Socialist] [Join] You'll always find more in The Socialist

It's the workers who pay the price

The foot and mouth outbreak has left farms up and down the country in a state of chaos. Unions are meeting Agriculture Minister Nick Brown to discuss this and job losses. So far, over 1,500 food workers have been laid-off.

FMD was an accident waiting to happen. Globalisation and industrialisation of farming has led to poorer quality produce and jobs losses throughout the countryside. Fortunately, this crisis has happened in the spring rather than winter, which means that once the warmer weather comes the virus will be killed off.

Almost two thirds of abattoirs have been closed in the last decade supposedly because of increased costs and the BSE crisis. This has helped the disease to spread as animals are transported the length and breadth of the country. We must demand abattoirs in each town so as to cut down on transportation and contamination.

The main culprits are the supermarkets who demand more and more from the farmers whilst cutting their profit margins in the interest of their own. This is passed on to agricultural workers who remain amongst the lowest paid in the country.

Agricultural workers in the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) have consistently argued for more organic as well as sustainable agriculture. This would mean more jobs, less chance of diseases spreading and less contaminated food.

A socialist programme for the food industry

THE FARMING industry is dominated by finance capital. Each year £30 billion is handed out in subsidies by the European Union's Common Agriculture Policy (CAP). 80% of this money goes to the richest 20% of European farmers.

A consequence of this huge tax subsidy to rich farming interests is that it makes the practice of widespread use of pesticides and herbicides highly profitable.

Multinational biotechnology and agrichemical companies, together with the big five supermarkets in Britain, enjoy market domination and have enormous economic power.

This enables them to set the government's agenda on farming from GM foods through to food safety regulation. Intensive farming has revolutionised food production but at a high price. People cannot have confidence in an industry whose safety record comes second to big business profits.

To restore confidence, the pursuit of profit has to be jettisoned and replaced with a democratic, socialist agriculture policy

Our demands

NEW AGRICULTURAL techniques, land management and food processing, i.e. each stage of food production from farm to fork, must be based on what is environmentally sustainable, safe and wholesome.

Selective compensation

WHAT A brass neck! Tory agriculture spokesman, Tim Yeo (who, as a minister in John Major's government dismissed public fears over BSE as an "hysterical overreaction"), is now jumping up to demand government compensation for farmers over the FMD.

No criminal charges have been brought against those responsible for the BSE cover-up but the relatives of BSE/vCJD victims are only now due to receive compensation years after beef farmers received compensation. The total cost to the public purse of cleaning up BSE, so far, is around £5 billion.

And while agriculture minister Nick Brown, with an eye to the forthcoming general election, assures the farming industry that compensation is available, workers sacked by Corus or General Motors, etc, will be asking, "where's our compensation?"

Workers will be sympathetic to compensation for those small farmers held in an economic arm lock by the supermarkets but not for the super-subsidised big farming interests.

THE SOCIALIST Party will play a crucial part in what is potentially the biggest Left challenge to Labour at a general election for over 50 years.

The Socialist Alliance, of which the Socialist Party is one of the largest and most prominent parts, could stand candidates in 92 seats in England. This may include standing against up to 20 government ministers.

Additionally, the Scottish Socialist Party is planning to stand in all 72 seats in Scotland and the Welsh Socialist Alliance is considering standing in up to ten seats in Wales. In all up to 170 seats could be contested by socialist candidates against Labour.

Last week the Socialist Alliance launched its national general election campaign at a London press 'conference. Socialist Party member and national chair of the Socialist Alliance Dave Nellist said at the launch that the aim of the Socialist Alliance was to plant a flag for socialism and build a substantial Left alternative to New Labour.

Quoting from a Guardian article Dave said the Alliance may be "fresh and new" but he added "we're certainly not wet behind the ears".

Dave outlined how there was massive potential for such a challenge, pointing to the success of the Socialist Party in gaining six elected councillors. Additionally a few ex-Labour councillors had joined the Alliance. He said there was increasing dissatisfaction with Labour, especially at the growing wealth gap.

Dave gave the example of how in 1997, the last year of the Tory government, 4,800 people living in dire poverty on benefits had been rejected. for a social fund loan. Last year under New Labour the number of rejections had risen to 360,000!

The Socialist Alliance has a programme of massively increasing the minimum wage, of immediately increasing pensions by 50%, scrapping tuition fees and loans and restoring student grants, bringing the NHS, education and utilities back under public control and fighting for a socialist programme of wealth redistribution from rich to poor.

The Socialist Party will stand ten of its members as Socialist Alliance candidates and another two candidates will stand as Socialist Alternative (the Socialist Party's electoral name) in the general election.

IN LONDON and Doncaster, both the main teacher unions, the NUT and NASUWT, have voted. by over 90% to refuse to cover for staff shortages from 12 March.

They are likely to be joined by teachers balloting in several other areas including Leicester, Kent, Portsmouth, Southampton, Middlesbrough and Nottingham.

Thanks to years of government underfunding and mounting pressure on teachers, schools are facing a recruitment crisis. Thousands of classes are without a permanent teacher.

Yet ministers have been trying to deny that there is a problem. They have only been able to get away with this thanks to teachers taking on even more work to cover up the shortages.

Time intended for preparation and marking has been taken away from teachers so they can cover vacant posts. Children -of different ages have been put into one class to cover absences. This is childminding, not education.

Now teachers are refusing to allow this cover-up to continue. As with any industrial action, ministers and the press will be quick to condemn teachers for "damaging" children's education. But the government are to blame for the shortages and the damage they cause through the lack of qualified staff and the constant splitting of classes.

The action deserves the wholehearted support of school students, parents and trade unionists. It may well mean that some children are sent home but this seems the only way to make sure the government can no longer cover up shortages at the expense of teachers and pupils.

The crisis will only be solved when schools are adequately resourced and staffed to reduce the unbearable workload that is driving teachers out of the classroom. Schools don't only need to cover existing vacancies, they need more staff to reduce class sizes and give children the individual support they need.

The government also needs to attract staff by. giving all teachers a £2,000 pay rise as of right, instead of divisive performance related pay. To win these demands will take much wider action than refusing to cover for shortages. Socialist Party teachers think the next step should be a ballot for a nationally co-ordinated one day strike.

That would help unite teachers in all schools, rather than just those worst hit by shortages as with the present action. It should be linked to mass demonstrations that parents and pupils can support.

These would also boost the confidence of teachers to take further action to demand a decent education for all.

The Socialist 9 March 2001	We’re worth more than £4.10 an hour
We’re worth more than £4.10 an hour	AN ELECTION is definitely in the offing. New Labour’s Stephen Byers has announced that the national minimum wage will go up by 10% this October. Welcome as any rise will be for the lowest-paid workers, that’s only about 40p an hour. Steve Score, Leicester Socialist Party and prospective Socialist Alliance candidate, Leicester West
Students mobilise to stop tuition fees	THE SUCCESSFUL protests that took place in many Universities where Socialist Student members organised interventions on last Thursday's NUS shutdown, shows the desire to fight against fees and for the restoration of the grant amongst many students. Kieran Roberts, Save Free Education, followed by reports: Coventry Swansea Manchester go into occupation Keele, Goldsmiths, Canterbury
Foot and Mouth Disease: Government policy driven by agribusiness profits	The Government forms a ‘war cabinet’; passenger checks at Channel ports; sporting events cancelled; public access to the countryside restricted…has the country gone to war? Another food safety crisis It's the workers who pay the price A socialist programme for the food industry Selective compensation
The Socialist Challenge to Labour	THE SOCIALIST Party will play a crucial part in what is potentially the biggest Left challenge to Labour at a general election for over 50 years. The Socialist Alliance, of which the Socialist Party is one of the largest and most prominent parts, could stand candidates in 92 seats in England. This may include standing against up to 20 government ministers.
Teachers vote for action	Staffing Cover-up Exposed: IN LONDON and Doncaster, both the main teacher unions, the NUT and NASUWT, have voted. by over 90% to refuse to cover for staff shortages from 12 March. Martin Powell-Davies
International Women's day	More from The Socialist issue 196 in the International Women's Day feature

We’re worth more than £4.10 an hour

Low Paid Say