The Socialist 24 May 2002 | Top | Home | News | The Socialist 

Join the Socialist Party | Donate | Subscribe to The Socialist

 

Take Back Rail

• Put privatised rail bosses on trial for neglecting safety to boost their profits.
• Renationalise rail and transport under the democratic control and management of the workers and rail users. Shareholders should only receive compensation on the basis of proven need.
• A massive programme of public investment now to improve rail safety and service provision.
• Rail unions to take action - including strikes - to force re-nationalisation of the railways back on the agenda and stop PPP privatisation on London's underground.

OVER A week after the fatal rail crash at Potters Bar, government ministers are still trying to limit the damage to their pro-privatisation policies.

Speaking at the train drivers' union ASLEF's annual conference, New Labour transport secretary Stephen Byers said he'd "improve the way that the rail network is maintained".

He spoke of "fundamental change" to get better maintenance including a new safety culture. He talked about looking at improving the selection process of contractors and at the role of sub-contractors working on maintenance.

But he made no mention of the harmful role of privatisation, of the private rail bosses who put increasing their profits as their main priority. Everything is subordinated to profit, including the safety of the travelling public and of workers in the rail industry.

Railtrack contractors could face criminal charges after an inquest ruled that Michael Mungovan, a student who had been working on the railway track in London, had been "unlawfully killed" in October 2000.

An employment agency sent him to work for contractors Balfour Beatty. Michael's friends claim that he didn't get sufficient training before starting the job. Poor training and too little supervision can be seen everywhere on Britain's railways.

The Daily Mirror reported this week on a ten-mile length of track between London and Colchester, maintained by Balfour Beatty. It shows that there were ten potentially dangerous defects ranging from missing bolts to severe cracking.

After privatisation, the bosses cut their core, experienced permanent workforce so much that inspection was downplayed. This totally compromised the safety of passengers and workforce alike.

Byers' favoured solution to this disaster is to reward contractors with longer contracts! The rail unions, RMT, ASLEF and TSSA, should organise demonstrations and strikes if necessary to get their industry taken back into public ownership.

More on the perils of rail privatisation

 

 

The Socialist 24 May 2002 | Top | Home | News | The Socialist 

Join the Socialist Party | Donate | Subscribe to The Socialist

 

Bush And Blair's War Plans Increase World Tensions

AS THE Socialist predicted, Bush and Blair's 'war against terrorism' has not gone according to plan.

Preparations for extending the war into Iraq had to be pushed back as the Israeli government intensified its offensive against the Palestinians. Now, nuclear powers India and Pakistan are once more teetering on the brink of war over Kashmir.

US vice-president Dick Cheney has warned that "it's not a matter of if, but when" a new al Qa'ida terrorist attack takes place in the US. This is a clear admission that the 'war against terrorism' has completely failed to destroy al Qa'ida. But it was also an attempt by Cheney to deflect attention from mounting criticism of events leading up to 11 September.

It's been revealed that both the FBI and the CIA had information prior to 11 September warning that al Qa'ida might be preparing to hijack US planes. Yet nothing was done to improve security.

No doubt this inaction had something to do with a reluctance to cut into the profits of the big US airlines. Also, at the time, the hawks in the US administration were more concerned with increasing spending on the National Missile Defence system than countering terrorism.

Bush has been riding high in the opinion polls since 11 September. But these revelations and the fact that they have been kept under wraps for eight months could well lead to a fall in his support.

The situation in Afghanistan is also unravelling. Aid agencies estimate that 20,000 Afghans died as an indirect consequence of Bush and Blair's war. This is in addition to the 3,000 - 8,000 civilians killed by the bombing itself.

There is no real peace, security or prosperity for those who have survived the war. 30 different warlords are opposed to Hamid Karzai's interim government which has no real power outside of Kabul. Intense fighting has broken out between rival warlords and ethnic groups, sometimes encouraged and aided by the US. It's not surprising that no country wants to take responsibility from Britain for the international peacekeeping force.

1,700 British marines were sent to continue the US's ground war against al Qa'ida/Taliban (AQT) after US troops were killed.

Despite numerous 'operations' they don't seem to have even found any AQTs let alone enter into battle. The only thing they seem to have caught is an unidentifiable stomach illness.

Brigadier Roger Lane, commander of the British troops in Afghanistan said recently that "the war is all but won". Now he is being removed from his position.

In reality, most of the al Qa'ida leaders have disappeared over the border in Pakistan and the stage is being set for a prolonged guerrilla war which could embroil the outside powers for an indefinite period.

The suicide attack in Karachi, Pakistan which killed 14, including eleven French, shows how events in Afghanistan threaten to destabilise the region. Conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir could inflame the entire situation.

Capitalism is an inherently unstable system. The 'war against terrorism' has aggravated and intensified already existing tensions, unleashing events which can rapidly spiral out of the control of US imperialism and the major capitalist powers internationally.

 

 

The Socialist 24 May 2002 | Top | Home | News | The Socialist 

Join the Socialist Party | Donate | Subscribe to The Socialist

 

The Truth About PFI

ALLYSON POLLOCK of University of London's School of Public Policy has produced many articles and reports criticising the government's Private Finance Initiative (PFI).

Mick Griffiths (Wakefield and Pontefract Hospitals UNISON, personal capacity)

Government spin doctors try to discredit her views, claiming 'inaccuracy' and using 'outdated data'. However the PFI procurement press uses the cloak of "commercial confidentiality" to hide information from the public. Allyson Pollock's reports all use whatever statistics and consultation documents are publicly available.

Close scrutiny exposes the government's total faith in all things private. The PFI process is deliberately over-complex. Goalposts are continually moving as the government tries to keep one step in front of its critics and make sure that all routes lead to the private finance solution.

Allyson Pollock has been thrown off the Commons Health Select Committee 'independent' inquiry team while PFI proponents stay on the team!

Despite claims that private sector brings efficiency, in almost all PFI deals, cost differences are negligible (usually between 0.05% and 0.1%!), The overall cost to the public purse is far greater due to the massive increase in costs to NHS revenue budgets over the 30-60 year lifetime of PFI contracts.

The NHS Finance Act legalises guaranteed monopoly profit returns to the private sector (usually between 15% and 25%). Coupled with the bank's interest charges on private capital loans, PFI schemes cost four or five times what publicly funded development would.

The end result is fewer beds, fewer staff and much less revenue available for actual services. As Allyson Pollock says, it's "a policy without rationale".

Unacceptable strings

LABOUR'S CLAIM that the public don't care who owns and runs services is a joke. Try talking about "efficiency gains", "value for money" and successful risk transfer to victims of rail disasters!

New Labour are again caught lining fat cats' pockets at the expense of vital services. Despite Gordon Brown's fanfare of increased NHS spending, it comes with unacceptable strings attached. We are to be further taxed to make private sector parasites richer.

Health workers know that private profiting from illness will inevitably be detrimental to the improvement of the NHS.

Public sector unions need to gear up their campaigns to expose the mythology of Public/Private Partnerships. Trade disputes to protect health workers' pay and conditions are not enough in themselves.

NHS trade union activists locally and regionally need to organise a co-ordinated campaign to pressure national union leaders into leading a political and industrial campaign linked to local communities.

In Wakefield, we have commissioned an Allyson Pollock report on our proposed PFI scheme and are using its analysis to push for a publicly funded scheme. As a fall-back position we are at least hoping to win a "better value" case for the in-house preference for a large majority of support services staff.

It's now time for a serious national campaign to challenge New Labour's love affairs with the profiteers. The union leaders though, leaning towards company unionism, offer illusions in partnerships with our enemy.

UNISON's "Positively Public" campaign can only succeed if it exposes New Labour, severs once and for all our "political link" and campaigns for a new mass workers' party to fight for the international socialist alternative to global capitalism.

Allyson Pollock's latest report available on request - ring 01924 212335.

 

 

The Socialist 24 May 2002 | Top | Home | News | The Socialist 

Join the Socialist Party | Donate | Subscribe to The Socialist

 

Step Up The Struggle For Free Education

MARGARET HODGE, Minister for universities, says the government may do a U-turn and let universities charge their own top-up fees.

She admits top-up fees are among options being considered by the review into student finance initiated by the government last year.

Jono Owen

If the government actually supports proposals for top-up fees after the review is completed, they will enrage students. Already the introduction of tuition fees and abolition of the grant has forced thousands of students into massive debt and poverty.

At a time when students are reportedly more pessimistic about their job prospects than at any time in the last decade, top-up fees would only be another deterrent to working-class people thinking of going to university.

If introduced, top-up fees will create an even more unequal higher education system. The old, richer universities, will charge as much as £10,000 a year, ensuring that working-class students are kept out, while privileged students get in.

Working-class and most middle-class students will be relegated to the poorer, less well-funded universities, if they can afford to go at all.

When David Blunkett was Secretary of State for education, he said that he wouldn't let universities charge top-up fees. The Socialist Party warned then, that New Labour couldn't be trusted to honour that pledge.

Clearly students cannot trust any of the main, pro-business political parties to even scrap fees or bring back a decent, liveable grant.

Unless we build mass demonstrations, protests and a mass campaign of non-payment, the government will go further in pursuing its agenda of making students pay more and more of the costs of education.

It is vital that we ensure that students don't have to pay any fees in the future by stepping up the struggle for free education now.

 

Crisis In The Universities

THE BLAIR government wants universities to meet their targets of half of all under-30-year olds experiencing higher education by 2010. But Britain's universities are estimated to be £1 billion a year short of the money they need just to keep building and equipment in working order, let alone expanding to meet government demands.

The main people suffering from this are the staff and the students, particularly those from working-class and less affluent middle-class backgrounds. Any expansion needs far more staff and money for free education and decent grants for all.

Instead the universities are axing at least 1,400 jobs and next month's figures are expected to show that the proportion of 16- to 18-year-olds in full-time education is falling.

Larger classes, less tutorial time and growing pressure on students to do part-time jobs to meet the costs are taking their toll, as the article (right) shows.

 

 

The Socialist 24 May 2002 | Top | Home | News | The Socialist 

Join the Socialist Party | Donate | Subscribe to The Socialist

 

Rail privatisation exposed

"If It Costs Money It Just Gets Ignored"

THE DIRE effects of privatisation aren't just felt in the maintenance of the railway track. An engineer explained to The Socialist what it's like working on train maintenance for the privatised railways.

"THE INDUSTRY isn't run for the good of the passengers or to provide a service, it's just there to make profits. If it costs money to do anything then it just gets ignored.

We get 18 trains to do in a night, there's a lot of work on them but you just haven't got the time. You do whatever you can but everything else just gets left.

Before privatisation you used to be able to take a whole train out of service and have it in the workshops for a week so you could do it thoroughly. Then they used to rotate the sets (whole inter city trains).

Now they don't want to do that. While a set's just stood it's not making money. So everything is rushed.

We're doing the minimum they can get away with. We're under pressure all the time. All they talk about is sales. Unbelievably you have to sell stuff.

They charge for our labour but they want us to find things wrong so they can sell new stuff - like a new mirror on the wall or a battery charger. Anything they can make money out of.

There's not enough hours in the day to do properly planned maintenance - we can't believe that hasn't been picked up by any auditors. You have different types of examinations come in for the set - like different levels of servicing on a car. Say one should take 23 hours.

But you only have eight workers in a team and you might get five or six of these in a night, plus you've 12 other sets coming in for other jobs.

We've got all these sets and we haven't got the workers to do them yet the company still charges people like GNER for that service. I don't know how they get away with it.

Without us the company couldn't function but we're the ones who get the worse pay and the worse conditions. We work three weeks out of six as nights and work holidays and weekends. I'm skilled and getting £23,000 a year - for twelve-hour nights, including Saturday and Sunday nights.

The whole system needs renationalising."

 

Cutting Corners On The Track

THE PRIVATE contractor responsible for repairing tracks on the railway line around Potters Bar, Jarvis plc, are still trying to claim that it was 'sabotage' that caused the crash on 10 May.

Roger Shrives

Jarvis's claim was made to the London Stock Exchange to try to halt the firm's shares sliding. Even the police set no store by such sabotage claims - privatised firms' whole record is one of cutting corners.

In April 2001 Jarvis took over responsibility from Balfour Beatty, just months after the Hatfield crash when, it seems, Balfour Beatty knew of broken rails on the line around Hatfield four months before the crash but didn't repair them. The Daily Mirror (20 May) reports on at least 30 faults on a single ten-mile section of track maintained by Balfour Beatty between Liverpool Street and Colchester.

But Jarvis's record is no better. Just six days before the Potters Bar crash, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) successfully prosecuted Jarvis for "unsafe practice during railway maintenance work," after an engineering train nearly ran over track workers in the Midlands.

The HSE prosecutor said that: "The company's failure to manage the arrangements properly led to people who were not competent being expected to do jobs they were not able to discharge properly."

Jarvis has been fined for many accidents including two derailments in 1999 and for having too few staff working on the track. It has increased the number of SPADS (signals passed at danger) by its engineering trains.

Despite this Network Rail, New Labour's replacement for Railtrack, has made Jarvis its technical adviser on safety issues. Labour transport secretary Byers has also let Jarvis, as part of the Tube Line consortium, take over running the infrastructure of the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines.

Jarvis was a small construction firm until it made its cash from the widespread privatisations across western Europe.

It is responsible for maintaining 4,700 miles of track, making it Britain's biggest rail maintenance firm. It also has contracts for managing premises for schools, universities and hospitals, and has fingers in many different pies under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI).

Last year Jarvis made £17.7 million profit. Its board of directors is crammed with barristers, brokers and accountants - its only member with British rail experience pre-Jarvis is a personnel manager who was "heavily involved in the privatisation process".

Many other firms have comparably poor records of safety and reliability.

The real contradiction is for any private firm to be responsible for maintaining a public service.

 

Workers Control

THE CALL for renationalisation of the railway system gets a lot of support from the travelling public and particularly from railway workers.

Alison Hill

The Socialist Party energetically campaigns around this demand but we call for renationalisation under democratic workers' control and management. This is the only way a safe and efficient railway system, part of an integrated public transport system, can be guaranteed in the long term.

No one should look too fondly at British Rail's past but at least there was one organisation in charge of train services, the track and other infrastructure.

Indeed in the aftermath of the Potters Bar crash, Railtrack bosses are reported to be considering taking responsibility for engineering quality, track inspection and maintenance supervision away from its contractors.

Transport secretary Stephen Byers has told the train drivers' union Aslef's national conference that: "A new relationship is needed with contractors, based on best value, not lowest cost... that puts the interests of the travelling public first."

Even they can now see the fatal consequences of splitting up functions between a whole range of companies who consult the balance sheet before the safety procedures. But without the active participation of the workers involved in the industry at all levels, maintenance and safety standards can only be maintained in a bureaucratic way.

Any complex engineering function, like building and maintaining a railway system, not only needs skilled engineers but also people who design and execute systems to make sure the safest procedures are used.

In a capitalist firm, the bosses pay specially trained engineers to do this, giving them the power to reject work. This costs the company money but it will protect the company's reputation for safety and quality in the long run.

In the most effective systems, those people are held personally responsible for any subsequent errors. In a recent case, at Maidstone Crown Court, an engineer was jailed for eight months for authorising a weld on a helicopter which subsequently crashed, killing three people. Interestingly it was the engineer who went to jail, not the welder.

But competition, (including, it seems, competitive tendering), constantly undermines quality control under capitalism due to cost cutting. And it seems it is these mechanisms for checking, inspecting, quality control and auditing which have been cut on the railways.

Nationalisation under democratic workers' control and management would mean workers at all levels would have the time and training to ensure safe practices.

In the wild west environment of New Labour's drive for privatisation, more disasters like Potters Bar are inevitable. Only democratic workers' control and management can repair the damage of the past and build a safe and efficient public transport system.

 

 

The Socialist 24 May 2002 | Top | Home | News | The Socialist 

Join the Socialist Party | Donate | Subscribe to The Socialist

 

IRISH SOCIALIST Party TD (MP) Joe Higgins was resoundingly re-elected to the Dail (Parliament) from his Dublin West constituency on 17 May. Socialist Party councillor Clare Daly narrowly missed out on a seat in Dublin North under the proportional representation system. KEN SMITH who assisted in the campaign reports on our successes and the political background to the election.

Irish election: Socialist Party Scores Spectacular Successes

THE SOCIALIST Party in Ireland, the Irish section of the CWI (the international socialist organisation to which the Socialist Party in England and Wales is affiliated), scored spectacular successes in the recent Irish elections.

Joe Higgins was re-elected as a TD (MP) in Dublin West, coming second out of the three elected candidates. He got 6,442 first preference votes, 21.5%, which rose to 7,853 on the fourth count, when he was elected. Joe increased his vote over the 1997 election.

Socialist Party councillor Clare Daly, standing in Dublin North, got 5,501 first-preference votes (12.5%) on a 60.3% turnout - a higher first preference vote than Labour leader Ruairi Quinn. This went up to 6,772 votes when she was eliminated on count 8. Clare was in third position all the way through until the final count.

At that stage one of the three Fianna Fail (FF) candidates was eliminated and his 5,000 votes divided almost equally between the two other FF candidates, whom she had been ahead of all the way through. As it was she beat a former Fine Gael (FG - main opposition party) deputy leader, Nora Owen.

In the other seats where Socialist Party members were standing, Lisa Maher in Dublin South got 1,063 votes - 2.1%; Mick Murphy in Dublin South-West got 954 votes - 2.6% and Mick Barry in Cork North Central got 936 votes - 2.1%.

In total across five seats the Socialist Party got 14,896 votes - an average of 2,979 per seat.

In Joe Higgins's Dublin West constituency there was a 55% turnout - down from the last election but a big factor in this was the incredible driving rain that lasted all day of the election until about five minutes before the polls closed.

Another factor in this constituency was that it had been redrawn after boundary changes meaning that only three TDS, rather than the previous four would be elected.

The big majority of transfers of surplus votes that got Joe Higgins elected came from Sinn Fein voters. Joe got 1,122 of the Sinn Fein candidate's 2,404 first-preference votes. Sinn Fein gets a lot of its support from the more oppressed layers of the working class, but it's clear they intend to be in competition with the Socialist Party for a section of the working-class vote.

Clare Daly

IN THE Dublin North constituency the Socialist Party's main fight was with Labour and Clare was only a few hundred votes behind the elected Labour candidate and sitting TD Sean Ryan.

Although Socialist Party members in Ireland were disappointed not to get Clare elected, they pointed out that this was a similar platform to Joe's near-success in the 1996 Dublin West by-election, from which the party went on to win a seat in 1997. In the past few years over 100 public meetings have been organised by the Socialist Party in the constituency. Such is the respect for Clare Daly that one canvasser encountered a sign on a door which said: "No canvassers please - apart from Clare Daly."

In many ways Clare Daly's result was especially impressive. She was not starting with the advantage of being a sitting TD and there are big swathes of the Dublin North constituency that are quite affluent.

Also, at this stage the objective conditions - the potential for the development of a mass support for our socialist ideas - are still not fully favourable.

This is particularly the case in Ireland where a ten-year long economic boom, the 'Celtic Tiger', has partially dimmed workers' consciousness about the need for a fighting, socialist, class-based political party (see opposite).

On the other side has been the growing campaign against the bin charges, a double form of taxation where people have to pay for the amount of rubbish they have collected by the council. During the election the anti-bin tax campaign organised debates on the issue attended by up to 200 in some cases.

Even though the bin charges campaign is a favourable issue for the Socialist Party, which has played a leading role in the campaign, it still hasn't yet reached the same pitch as the anti-water charges campaign that helped get Joe Higgins elected after its abolition in 1997.

The Socialist Party has built up huge, almost overwhelming, support in some parts of Joe Higgins's constituency. Out canvassing with him one night he bumps into the FF candidate and his campaign team at the same time as a group of youth playing football rush over and chant a football-style "Go Joe, Go, Go Joe, Go" in warm support.

A similar pattern is emerging across Dublin where the Socialist Party put up thousands of billboards and distributed hundreds of thousands of leaflets throughout the campaign.

The Irish media is now trying to play down our success - referring to the party as Independents - and is playing up the increase in the number of Sinn Fein TDs.

Sinn Fein is now reported to be the richest political organisation in Britain and Ireland. And, if the amount of material and stunts carried out by Sinn Fein during this election is anything to go by - including the hiring of planes with huge display banners in Dublin West two days before the election - then the reports are accurate.

Although Socialist Party members were hoping to make a breakthrough with the election of Clare Daly at this general election, to get two TDs, nevertheless, the party has still rocked the Irish establishment.

 

Election Results And Analysis

THE RESULTS of the Irish general election are unlikely to produce much change at the top in Irish politics, whilst most of the significant pointers to the future shape of politics in Ireland occurred in the results of parties seen as outside the political establishment.

Bertie Ahern's ruling Fianna Fail (FF) party won 80 seats, three short of an overall majority. As The Socialist goes to press, the most likely outcome for a new government would appear to be a repetition of the outgoing FF/Progressive Democrats coalition.

The main opposition party Fine Gael (FG) suffered an electoral disaster, with their share of the vote falling by 5.4%. FG leader Michael Noonan resigned after the election.

Fine Gael's problem is that they too are tainted by the stench of corruption that lingers over Ireland's establishment parties and their economic programme hardly differed in any fundamentals from that of Fianna Fail.

Labour, although making some gains, also did less well than they expected and their national vote dropped by 2%.

It was the parties like the Socialist Party, Green Party and Sinn Fein, along with independents that had the biggest increases in their vote, taking 21% of the vote and 25 TDs (MPs) out of 166 - another sign of the growing disillusionment with the sleazy Irish political establishment.

The turnout at the election at 60% was down 3% from 1997, despite the introduction of longer opening hours for polling booths and electronic voting in three constituencies - including Dublin North and Dublin West.

Apart from the appalling rainstorms on election day, the lower turnout reflects a trend apparent in other countries; ie voters are increasingly alienated from corrupt, sleazy establishment parties.

However, the vote for those outside the establishment in this election shows another process at work, where a layer of voters (especially among the working class) are looking for a real alternative. Also a rise in tactical voting saw an unexpected increase in votes and TDs for the Progressive Democrats, showing that voters were wary of FF gaining an outright majority for the first time in 25 years.

At this stage, Sinn Fein are regarded by their voters at least as being outside of the Irish political establishment and their success in picking up five TDs reflects this. They have made increasingly loud overtures about being involved in some form of coalition government. During the election they played different tunes to different sections of the population, being more radical in working-class areas than rural areas.

In particular, they opportunistically latched on to the anti-bin charges campaign, although they have done very little work on the ground, where the Socialist Party has played a leading role.

 

The Stooping Celtic Tiger

THE CELTIC Tiger - Ireland's ten-year long economic boom - has proved to be more of a stooping tiger than crouching one.

It has brought with it an increase in class antagonisms against corrupt establishment politicians and the chaos in transport, housing, education and other aspects of crisis in the infrastructure caused by the lop-sided boom.

Just one day after the election a report from the Head of Economic Research at the Ulster Bank warned of a 5 billion euro (about £3.3 billion) black hole in government accounts, meaning likely tax rises and public spending cuts.

The Celtic Tiger has brought huge changes in Ireland which have produced a more dynamic and angry working class, with large swathes of women being taken in to the workforce. One-third of the nation's population now live in the Dublin area and these people are the ones experiencing the most health, traffic, housing and education chaos.

Irish gross national product rose from 41.9 billion euros in 1994 to 86 billion euros in 2000. This represented a leap from 60% of the European average in 1989 to 114% in 1999.

But Irish workers are paid 28% less than the European average and have the second longest working hours in the EU. In the last five years the gap between rich and poor has widened by Euro 242 a week (about £160).

Irish people also have a worse life expectancy than the rest of the EU, with the lowest number of acute hospital beds per capita in the EU and long waiting lists and completely inadequate (and expensive) GP and dentistry provision.

Irish spending on health, education, public housing and transport is all below the EU average, despite a Euro 5 billion public spending surplus (for a population of just under four million). Of this surplus 90% went in tax cuts - mainly to the wealthy and corrupt - and only 10% went to public expenditure.

 

 

 

The Socialist 24 May 2002 | Top | Home | News | The Socialist 

Join the Socialist Party | Donate | Subscribe to The Socialist

 

New War Threat Looms Over Kashmir Conflict

AN ATTACK on an Indian army camp in Kashmir by Kashmiri separatists has increased tensions between India and Pakistan threatening a potentially horrific escalation in the region's long-running conflict.

Kieran Roberts

Since the attack on the barracks, in which 34 people were killed, including the attackers, India has retaliated by expelling the Pakistani high commissioner. The troops of both governments have massed either side of their common border and along the Line of Control in Kashmir and have launched artillery shells at each other.

These events have the potential to spiral into full-scale war between Pakistan and India. In recent months, the media and both governments had already adopted an increasingly bellicose stance over Kashmir.

Kashmir is occupied and divided into Pakistan administered and Indian administered regions. In the last decade, thousands of Kashmiris have died from military repression in Indian occupied Kashmir. Unemployment and poverty is rife.

Were a war to take place it would be the third that India and Pakistan have fought over Kashmir since independence from Britain in 1947. However, war today could potentially have far more devastating consequences for the masses in the region.

Already, over the last months increasing tension and the threat of an escalation in the conflict have created a massive social crisis, with thousands of refugees fleeing villages near the border. Prior to the last attacks over 100,000 had fled on the Pakistani side of the border.

But most horrifying for workers and the poor across the subcontinent, is the potential for a nuclear conflict between the two countries. Both India and Pakistan possess nuclear weapons. Pakistan has said that it would be prepared to use them in the event of a conventional attack by India.

And while the ruling classes in India and Pakistan spend $billions on armaments the working masses and rural poor are denied access to proper healthcare, education and housing.

Instability

The threat of war, even nuclear war demonstrates the instability of the region under capitalism. This instability has increased since 11 September and the US-led war in Afghanistan.

Both Indian and Pakistani governments are playing a dangerous game in beating their nationalist drums to garner domestic support. They may find it impossible to put the nationalist genie back into the bottle.

In India, the Hindu nationalist ruling BJP has given succour to even more extreme Hindu nationalist organisations leading to renewed sectarian clashes between Hindus and Muslims in the border state of Gujurat.

In elections earlier this year in Uttar Pradesh state where the BJP was defeated, it ran a highly communal election campaign using the Ayodhya Temple issue to polarise voters along religious lines.

India and Pakistan last faced a military stand-off in January of this year. That followed the 13 December attack on the Indian parliament, which India claims was perpetrated by a Kashmiri Islamic group backed by Pakistan.

The situation was defused only after much pressure was applied to the Pakistani regime from George Bush and Tony Blair. Musharaff announced on 13 January the banning of Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other sectarian organisations.

However, Musharaff no doubt feels his status as a vital ally of the US against the Taliban and al-Qa'ida, has strengthened his hand against India. As a result he may feel more confident to ratchet up the tension, while counting on the US to keep India in check.

The US administration is frantically attempting to calm things down between India and Pakistan. A war between India and Pakistan would scupper their plans for the continuation of the 'war against terrorism' in the Middle East.

However, the divisions and instability created by imperialism in the region over centuries are not easy for it to control. Once a conventional war starts, it could spiral out of control.

Ultimately, the only solution to instability and the threat of war in the region is a socialist one. That means that capitalism and feudalism have to be overthrown.

The workers, youth and peasants of Kashmir, India and Pakistan have more in common with each other than their rulers.

The struggle for an independent socialist Kashmir, as part of a voluntary federation of socialist South Asian states, presents the only way forward.

 

 

The Socialist 24 May 2002 | Top | Home | News | The Socialist 

Join the Socialist Party | Donate | Subscribe to The Socialist

 

Firefighters Prepare For Pay Battle

DELEGATIONS OF fire fighters from around the country packed out the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) conference to deliver, in the words of one delegate: "a clear message to the employers - if you're not prepared to pay us, get your green goddesses ready, you're going to need them!"

Alistair Tice

Ted George, chair of the UK's fire authorities, who listened from a balcony, was left in no doubt of the determination of firefighters to win their pay claim for £30,000.

Regional and section representatives spelled out the same message. From the Black Members' committee: "Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights" ˆ la Bob Marley.

From Scotland: "The Tartan Army's ready". From Northern Ireland, remembering the 1977 strike: "We've not gone away you know" and from Buckinghamshire: "If you try to keep us in an out of date pay formula, the government will get, not just a bloody nose but a bloody good hiding!"

FBU general secretary Andy Gilchrist received a standing ovation for his opening speech. He explained how the 'comrades' of the 1977/78 strike had won a pay formula which had raised firefighters' wages.

Due to de-industrialisation, the link with manual workers' pay now left firefighters on £100 a week less than average male earnings.

A qualified firefighter, after four years training, gets £21,500 a year and after 15 years' service £24,000. Such wages leave many claiming Family Tax Credit or working a second job.

In launching the 'Fair Pay Equals 30K' campaign, Andy Gilchrist, reflecting the pressure from below, warned: "If we don't get this, then we'll go on strike and we'll get it then."

After a unanimous 241-0 vote, he replied by saying: "We're giving them (the bosses) the problem back." If the claim's not met, there will be a recall conference with an executive recommendation to ballot for a strike, which could take place this winter.

With the authority of his 'Left' face and unity on pay, in the next debate Gilchrist attacked delegates wanting to loosen the FBU's links to the Labour Party.

Last year resolution 101 was passed calling on the executive to bring back rule changes to allow the union to fund candidates other than Labour. Instead of bringing the rule changes to the conference, the executive reaffirmed Labour Party affiliation and tried to ridicule those advocating 'democratisation of the political funds'.

Gilchrist, arguing that: "there was nothing 'new' about New Labour", accused supporters of 'democratisation' of 'back-door methods' to achieve disaffiliation from the Labour Party, 'gesture politics' and 'not living in the real world'.

In response to the executive report there were a number of amendments to allow regional committees of the FBU to decide who to donate to, without having to refer to the executive.

Unfortunately, however, the movers evaded the executive's challenge over disaffiliation and when it came to the vote the amendments were defeated by around four to one.

The Socialist Party's position is that the character of the Labour Party has fundamentally changed and that the FBU and other Left unions should take a lead in initiating a new mass workers' party.

While it may not have swayed the conference vote this year, it is the only way to answer the leadership's arguments.

Whilst 'democratisation' may tactically be the best rule changes to advocate at this stage in the FBU, the union's Left needs to shed its illusions of reversing the rightward changes in the Labour Party.

Otherwise FBU activists may well find themselves lagging behind their members, especially in a pay strike against the New Labour government.

 

The Socialist 24 May 2002 | Top | Home | News | The Socialist 

Join the Socialist Party | Donate | Subscribe to The Socialist