As the clouds of recession grow darker, practically every section of society feels the grim effects. Apart from one group - there are few signs of recession for the super-rich!
Worldwide, they are still prospering and trying to solve the economy's problems by attacking their workers. Bosses at the industrial giant Unilever are trying to savagely cut the pensions of their workforce in Britain. But workers are fighting back with strikes.
Pickets at Unilever's Purfleet factory told Socialist Party members why they're angry at their bosses. "Unilever is the 18th richest company in the world. Chief executive Paul Polman is on £54 million in pay and share options. He has a chauffeur and claimed £75,000 in travel expenses last year."
But, as the pickets concluded: "It's us that makes them their money!" - though it's us who suffer. The government attacks public sector workers' jobs and aims to slash benefits for the sick and disabled. Pension rights are under siege. Real wages fell 4.2% over the last year.
Now, the Resolution Foundation 'thinktank' predicts that the recession's effects will be long lasting. Looking at ten million families with incomes between £12,000 to £29,000 a year, it predicts, on the basis of sluggish growth rates, that such families' earnings might not return to pre-recession levels until at least 2020. But in this land of permanent pay freeze, again the super-rich will dodge the permafrost.
Most working class, middle class and young people are not prepared to accept this gloomy future offered by capitalism in decline. The rich, the owners of industry, finance and commerce, have declared war on us. As Unilever workers and many public sector trade unionists have already done, the unions need to fight.
The capitalist system of booms and slumps looks like being mainly slump for the next decade - unless you're part of the richest 1%. If you reject this bosses' future, join the Socialist Party, help build a working class-based opposition and help lay the basis for a socialist society.
What we think
Labour lords voted against the introduction of the benefit cap which threatens 67,000 families with grinding poverty and homelessness. Is this the start of Labour standing up to the Con-Dems' cuts? No. Liam Byrne, shadow Work and Pensions secretary, appeared on Newsnight after the vote making it abundantly clear that Labour supports the cap.
In fact the Labour leadership, Eds Balls and Miliband, have made it clear that they would not repeal the Con-Dem cuts if they won the 2015 election. Miliband believes that Labour will not be seen as 'credible' if it pledges to reverse the cuts. However, despite the hatred of the government, Labour is lagging in the polls.
The hope against hope that Labour can offer any defence against cuts is now very difficult to maintain. The question of how to build working class political representation is now posed sharply.
Even the most pro-Labour union leadership, Dave Prentis, has been forced to respond to this announcement or risk the wrath of Unison members. The leaders of Unite and the GMB, unions that also bankroll Labour, have even questioned the continued funding of the party.
We demand that this question of breaking the link with Labour is immediately put to trade union members and a discussion launched at special union conferences on how to use the political fund, posing the question of standing anti-cuts trade union candidates in this May's elections.
But there will be resistance. Prentis said that his members "needed hope and a reason to vote Labour". But there have been no signs of this for years! And Prentis said nothing about breaking the funding link.
In Southampton Unison members are in a bitter dispute with the Tory council involving sustained strike action. The Labour group has attacked the strike and said that it would also cut jobs should it take power. But the Unison leadership has called on its members to campaign for a Labour victory.
Writing in the Guardian, Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite the Union, said that: "Unions in the public sector are bound to unite to oppose the real pay cuts for public sector workers over the next year. When we do so, it seems we will now be fighting the Labour front bench as well as the government." Paul Kenny of the GMB union announced that such talk by Labour leaders "could have consequences for [unions'] affiliation to Labour."
Miliband was never going to fight for working class people. At the last Labour Party conference he assured delegates that "most of the cuts implemented by the Con-Dems will not be reversed". However, the refusal of Miliband to support the magnificent strikes against attacks on public sector workers' pensions on 30 June and 30 November has infuriated many trade union members.
Some Labour Party members hoped that with Labour out of power there would be an opportunity to reclaim the party for workers and take it back to 'Old Labour'. Although dominated by a capitalist leadership, up to about 20 years ago, Labour was at base a workers' party with democratic structures and where unions and working class members could bring pressure to bear on the leadership.
McCluskey has blamed the Blairites in the Labour Party for arguing not to back workers - but Miliband and the Labour leadership have embraced capitalism as much as the Blairites. Recent events will undoubtedly have led many Unite members to draw that conclusion.
Despite the presence of left MPs like John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, Labour is today a capitalist party. Its 13 years in power were years of anti-working class legislation including the introduction of university tuition fees, mass privatisation, war and the maintenance of the anti-trade union laws on the statute books.
The Socialist Party does not believe that it is possible to reclaim Labour for the working class. However, as we have previously said: "We can never say never where politics are concerned. Nor is it theoretically excluded that if a mass workers' party is not urgently built, the impulse for a new party could come from within even a bourgeois party."
The likelihood of dramatic change is hard to imagine. In response to growing anger over the inequality in society Miliband, like many other politicians who wish to defend their system, now talks about attacking 'predatory capitalism'. But capitalism as a whole is a predatory system. It is a false idea to differentiate between finance and other capitalism.
There is no such thing as a benign 'productive capitalism'. In the years after Thatcher and Co deregulated the finance markets many so-called 'producers' made much of their profit from speculation. Now, in the recession, they prefer to hoard their wealth, refusing to invest in research and production as they believe there is no profit to be made. Big business sits on a whopping £130 billion.
But even in the 'good times' of the post-war upswing, capitalism was a system based on exploitation. The relatively high wages were fought for by a growing and strengthening trade union movement.
The trade union leaders may not draw the conclusion that the Labour Party no longer represents working people but their members will. Labour councils have refused to defy the Con-Dems' cuts which are devastating the lives of ordinary people. Many will not see the point in voting Labour. This was reflected in the sustained ovations at the strike rallies for those union leaders who denounced Miliband for his betrayal of the 30 June pension strike.
Working class people are in effect disenfranchised if all the main parties are united in placing the burden of the capitalist crisis on the working class. It is no accident that the most effective unions, such as the RMT, have broken with Labour, or in the case of the PCS have never affiliated. Trade unions have a pivotal role in once more setting out to build a mass party for the working class.
The Socialist Party has concluded that it is very unlikely that the Labour Party can be reclaimed for the working class and has therefore called for the formation of a new mass workers' party. Under the banner of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) trade unionists, socialists and anti-cuts fighters will be standing in the local and London elections this year.
and
As the leaders of the big Labour-supporting trade unions warn Labour of the risk of losing trade union support, an electoral challenge in the Greater London Assembly elections involving leading trade unionists is being prepared.
A Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) list will be presented which can articulate the enormous anger at the horrific cuts to jobs, pay and services, and at the rich who wallow in increasing wealth.
The TUSC list will involve leading trade unionists in a personal capacity, each of whom represents thousands of members.
An appeal from Steve Hedley and John Reid, London Transport RMT, Ian Leahair, FBU national executive member for London, and Ben Sprung, FBU London organiser, has now been signed by hundreds of trade unionists.
Add your name to the supporting petition: http://www.tusc.org.uk/supportGLA.php
Open to all TUSC candidates, agents and supporters, and those still considering whether to stand in the local elections on 3 May. The conference will be divided into two sections: 'How can local councillors fight the cuts?' and 'Organising an election campaign'.
Email tuscbulletin@yahoo.co.uk if you are planning to come.
In the immediate aftermath of the TUC-led retreat over pensions, the 'coalition of the willing', those unions still determined to fight on, have needed time to regroup. But now that coalition is gathering strength.
Over Christmas, the danger of isolation and concerns that members might no longer be prepared to take action understandably weighed heavily on union leaders. The PCS Left Unity Conference on 7 January helped to swiftly galvanise union activists and a call was made for union leaders to meet to agree a coordinated action plan. The NUT is now convening exactly such a meeting with a number of other unions already pledged to attend.
The decision by Unite to reject the Heads of Agreement has helped bolster confidence, as has the action taken by private-sector Unilever workers in defence of their pension schemes. It now seems likely that the FBU may also need to ballot for strike action with the government apparently insistent on an unworkable scheme where firefighters work until they are 60 and pay at least 13.2% of their salary in pension contributions.
The growing confirmation of support for action in the workplace is helping to reassure union leaderships that they can securely call further strikes. NUT members have been meeting to agree motions pledging support for action as well as responding to a national email survey. Just like the BMA's separate survey of doctors, it seems likely that the results will confirm clear opposition to the deal.
Of course, nothing can be taken for granted. In the build-up to further strikes, unions need to campaign hard in every workplace and community to build the strongest support for action.
No worker can lightly lose pay but most will be willing to do so if unions show they are serious about continuing the campaign. After all, if we don't carry on the fight, we're guaranteed to be losing pay every single month in higher pension contributions.
Unions now need to agree a clear plan of coordinated action. At least a further day of national strike needs to be called before April, when the first phase of increased pension contributions is to be imposed. Unions also need to make clear that this isn't just a 'last hurrah' but part of an ongoing campaign to force the government to retreat further. It could coincide with a ballot of Unison members, giving them confidence to demand further action of their leadership as J30 did for N30.
The lecturers' union UCU executive, at its meeting on 20 January, became the latest union to formally reject the Heads of Agreement. It also proposed that a programme of coordinated rolling strike action should begin in February, with Thursday 1 March proposed as a day for national strike action.
This is a useful starting point for discussion between unions although the exact details may need to change - particularly as Welsh teachers have pointed out that clashing with long-prepared events for St David's Day would not be popular.
There is certainly a pressing need for the joint-union discussions to arrive at a firm date for the next coordinated action. NUT divisional secretaries from branches across England and Wales are being called to an emergency national meeting on 2 February to discuss the campaign.
Hopefully, when the PCS executive meets again on 9 February and the UCU executive on 10 February, we will all be in a position to announce a common plan of action.
While it will be important to negotiate over the dates so as to bring the strongest possible alliance together, it would be a mistake to postpone a decision in order to try and bring unions like Unison and GMB on board at this stage. A strong campaign is being waged inside health and local government unions in opposition to the 'Heads of Agreement' but, even if it eventually succeeds, it will be several months before these unions could be brought back into action.
Joint-union staff meetings and local trades councils should organise debates so that the real facts about the Heads of Agreement can be explained - so that everyone understands that it means 'pay more, get less and retire older'.
However, a significant joint-union strike in March, even if on a smaller scale than November, will be the best way to support those arguing to reverse the position of unions who have signed up to the shabby 'deal'.
Above all, that united action will send a clear signal to the government that they still face strong and determined opposition to their pensions robbery.
249 workers have been shown the door at Peacocks' head office in Cardiff following the retail company going into administration. They were sacked as the administrators stripped down the company to make it as attractive as possible to potential buyers.
Peacocks is still a profitable company but couldn't afford to pay the interest on a loan its bosses took out with New York hedge funds to buy the company.
According to the Western Mail: "Peacocks has been burdened with a loan of £149 million that was taken out at a massive 17.18% interest rate when chief executive Richard Kirk led a management buy-out in 2006.
"It has been reported that the money is owed to two hedge funds, Och-Ziff and Perry Capital, the same New York hedge funds that bankrolled the bid by the US-based Glazer family for Manchester United.
"Yet the details are difficult to confirm, partly because a holding company called 'Hanson Number 2a', registered in the Cayman Islands, holds the Peacock Group's debt."
And the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which was bailed out in 2008 and is still majority owned by the government, decided that even though Peacocks could afford to pay for further loans to keep it going, it would not extend its line of credit because it can make more money elsewhere. Basically it decided to pull the plug on hundreds of livelihoods.
On 12 January shares of RBS had gone up by 5.5% as a result of 3,500 job losses. John Hourican, head of RBS's investment bank, had been given 21.3 million shares which become due to him in April. According to the Financial Times their value rose by £250,00 as a result of the job cuts.
Less than a week later he shook his head at re-funding Peacocks' loan and the firm went into administration.
Cardiff workers were squeezed by off-shore hedge funds and a failed bank still largely owned by the government. Vince Cable, the Lib Dem business secretary, could have picked up the phone and ordered RBS to save their jobs but the government has a policy of not interfering in the bank that taxpayers, including Peacocks' workers, had bailed out. So workers at Peacocks helped bail out RBS but RBS would not return the favour.
La Senza, Peacocks, Bon Marche, Thomas Cook, Hawkins Bazaar, Barratts, and who can forget the one that started it all, Woolworths. The increasing number of high street shops facing liquidation seem to have something in common - price. The most expensive dress available at Peacocks costs £50, while the highest priced at Harrods would set you back £8,750.
But Harrods and similar luxury stores seem unaffected by dropping sales - perhaps because the rich still have plenty of cash to splash while the cuts in jobs and services mean people who were already struggling are having to cut back spending, even on the essentials.
Official figures show that in the three months up to November last year unemployment rose by another 118,000 to break the 2.5 million mark. That's 118,000 more people who are unable to earn a living to support themselves and their families. There are only 463,000 job vacancies for all those people. In some places 32 people are chasing every available job.
In December, the number of Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) claimants rose from 1,200 to 1.6 million. That's over one and a half million more people who will be made to not only struggle to survive on poverty incomes, but will also be made to feel like they are the lowest of the low by the right-wing media. Meanwhile the ruling classes and the bankers who caused this crisis take pay rises and bonuses. So who are the real scroungers?
Youth unemployment which was already over one million, a little less than half of the overall figure, has hit a new record of 1.043 million. That's 1.043 million futures being destroyed. Many will be unable to find a job even after paying out over £9,000 a year for three years of university tuition. Most are unable to move out and get their own homes and become independent. Some are just looking for a means of filling their day with a sense of purpose but instead are Con-Demned to day after day handing out CVs by the hundred and getting nowhere.
On workfare schemes like the Work Programme, young people are forced to work for free for billion pound companies in order to earn their JSA! The government would call it work experience but I would call it slave labour! Apart from it being grossly unfair it also provides the companies with no incentive to actually employ somebody because they are getting free workers.
Last year Youth Fight for Jobs (YFJ) organised two marches against youth unemployment. The first was from Merthyr to Cardiff which was sparked by Iain Duncan Smith's comments telling people from Merthyr to "get on a bus" to Cardiff and find a job.
The second was the Jarrow march from Jarrow to London which served as a fitting tribute to the original march 75 years ago as well as a way of highlighting the current crisis in society and showing that young people are prepared to take an organised stand and fight back.
Tory Iain Duncan Smith's vicious Welfare Reform Bill, which the government aims to make law by May, will leave thousands destitute.
One measure alone, the capping of benefits a household can receive to £500 a week, is estimated to push 80,000 children into homelessness. A family with four children in London would have a measly 62p per person to live on after paying bills.
IDS, by contrast, struggles by on a salary of £145,492, with £94,000 expenses and a pension contribution of £43,825.
The bill will affect those with disabilities particularly badly. The cap on benefits will cut additional support currently provided for those with disabilities, despite government promises. Even on the government's own figures, 5,000 households with someone with disability will lose on average £87 a week.
The Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which under the bill replaces the Disability Living Allowance (DLA), is much harder to get and will lead to more disabled people losing out.
Even under the present system, judging who is eligible for disability benefits has been made much harder, outsourced to the notorious private firm Atos that uses staff with five days training that do not require any previous medical experience.
Atos are questioning around 11,000 claimants a week. Questions that can only be answered 'yes' or 'no' can lead to benefits being stopped. Over 400,000 appeals have been made against such test decisions since October 2008. 39% have been successful.
The inadequate 'social fund' - which can provide loans to those in dire need - will be abolished, with part of the funding reallocated to local government budgets, but without being ring fenced. This will push more people towards loan sharks, legal and illegal, on top of the estimated one million people who amass huge debts just to get by.
As job cuts continue, the impact of the Welfare Reform Bill will affect wider sections of society, and Tory mayor Boris Johnson's warning of 'social cleansing' in London will become a reality - not that he put forward an alternative. Part-time and temporary jobs are increasingly replacing permanent contracts. Last month's figures showed that there was a 75,000 increase in part-time jobs, and a loss of 57,000 full-time ones.
Pushing unemployed families out of high-rent areas, where there are generally more jobs available, will create unemployed ghettos across the country.
Rent is often a major cost for families, especially in inner city areas. But housing benefit is a direct subsidy to landlords charging astronomical rents. The housing benefit bill, that Con-Dem and Labour MPs complain about, could be reduced massively by capping rents at an affordable rate. A massive public housebuilding programme could provide employment and cheap rents.
The House of Lords has passed a number of amendments to the bill, which Cameron and Clegg have pledged to overturn when it returns to the House of Commons. But even these changes do little to blunt the axe being taken to provision for some of the most hard up. Guardian commentator Polly Toynbee described the amendments as 'minimal'.
But what lies behind the parliamentary bluster is the huge anger that exists among unions, campaigning organisations and disability activists. This will explode when the real effects of the bill become clear to the majority of the population.
On Friday 20 January a demonstration against Tory MP Nadine Dorries' Sex Education (required content) Bill 185 was interrupted mid way through when a victory was announced.
To cheers from the crowd I reported that the Bill had suddenly been withdrawn, effectively killing it dead.
Around 250 people turned up to protest against the Bill, which would have required girls aged 13-16 to be given compulsory abstinence lessons as part of their sex education. Over 2,000 people joined a campaign against the Bill on Facebook at facebook.com/stopdorries.
As well as the Socialist Party and Youth Fight for Jobs and Education, the opposition was supported by the British Humanist Association, Abortion Rights UK, Education for Choice, the National Secular Society, Feminist Fightback, Queers Against the Cuts, Slut Means Speak Up, and others.
The Bill had many problems - it was sexist by being just for girls, and abstinence-only education has been proven not to work in reducing unplanned pregnancies or sexually transmitted infections.
As the majority of sex and relationships education (SRE) is not currently compulsory, many schools, particularly academies and religious schools, don't teach comprehensive SRE, meaning that the Bill effectively could have meant abstinence-only education for many.
Although the Bill had little chance of passing its second reading due to scheduling, opposition was rallied in order to raise awareness of the need for statutory, evidence based, comprehensive SRE.
However, Dorries is threatening her intentions might become part of another bill she puts through, so while celebrating the success in defeating this Bill, campaigners are keeping an eye on Dorries and her government, as we know we haven't heard the last of their attacks on women's' rights, education and sexual liberation.
The 'English Defence League' (EDL) is threatening to visit Leicester on Saturday 4 February. The last time they came, in October 2010, they attacked shoppers and smashed city centre shops. They also broke away from police control and attempted to march on Highfields, an area with a large Muslim population.
The only thing that stopped them was a mass mobilisation of local people including up to 2,000 Asian young people. Socialist Party members and other anti-racists stood side by side with the local youth defending their area. At the same time anti-racist protesters who joined the Unite Against Fascism (UAF) rally against the EDL were kettled in by police.
The EDL is a racist organisation that claims to only oppose "Muslim extremism". In reality their actions on such demonstrations as this prove otherwise. They use Muslims as a scapegoat, but try to win support among people who are looking for someone to blame for the problems they face - unemployment, poor services and attacks on living standards.
They aim to divide working class people and must be opposed with a political answer. However because they bring their racist thugs on these 'protests'- the issue of physical defence is necessarily raised.
A counter demonstration has been called by trade unions and UAF, which will be well supported. However, there is concern that people do not want a repeat of last time when the UAF was kettled but the EDL was allowed to attack people. There is also a desire in the local communities for self defence.
The Socialist Party supports the right of self defence of communities, and believes that a mobilisation will be needed in Highfields and St Matthew's on the day. Ideally we need enough people mobilised to defend these areas and to prevent the EDL rampaging through the city centre on the day.
At the time of writing, the exact details are unclear. Last time there was a ban on marches, with the EDL and UAF being allowed 'static rallies'. In addition there was a massive campaign by the police, the council and religious leaders and others to persuade people not to join the counter protests. It is not yet certain whether the same will happen again.
The Socialist Party will be doing our best to get a turnout on the 4th, at the same time we will be raising socialist answers to the problems people face to cut across the EDL's attempt to divide Leicester. For jobs, homes and services not racism!
Cameron's rhetoric about clamping down on bankers' bonuses is becoming more and more farcical. RBS chief executive, Stephen Hester, looks set to receive a bonus of up to £1.6 million. A sweetener in anyone's books, especially as it would come on top of his £1.2 million annual salary. It's not really clear what he is being rewarded for either - shares at RBS have slumped by over 40% in the past year and the bank has cut thousands of jobs. RBS is 84% state-owned (owned by us, that is) so Cameron could step in and do what he does best - veto. But somehow we doubt he will. He does promise though that Hester's bonus will be "less than last year" - that's less than £2 million - hard times for all.
In the Socialist issue 700, Them and Us reported on the bargain offers on food and drink available in the bars and restaurants of Parliament at a cost of £5.8 million to the taxpayer. We should probably apologise for complaining as it seems our poor MPs are having to put up with sub-standard service. The salami, for example, is far too thickly sliced: "It makes it a bit tricky to eat because the rinds are so sturdy." Most outrageously of all, in a dish of kedgeree: "The boiled egg had been cut into THREE quarters - no sign of the fourth...Petty and insulting way to save a buck." Clearly they expect more for our tax money.
Trade unions are dastardly things. Always costing the taxpayer money by taking their members out on 'pointless' strikes for the fun of it. Even Labour, which relies on unions for much of its funding, insists that their power has to be limited because they're such a bad thing. But research shows that trade unions actually save us money! For every pound spent on union reps in public sector workplaces, £9 is saved as a result of lower staff turnover, fewer workplace-related injuries and sickness and fewer employment tribunals. We're yet to see any evidence of the money we spend on MPs' wages and expenses saving us money - quite the opposite in fact, they seem to see it as carte blanche to steal our jobs and services.
A recent piece in the Coventry Evening Telegraph highlighted the devastating poverty tens of thousands of children across Coventry and Warwickshire currently face. In the St Michael's area of Coventry, which Socialist Party councillor Dave Nellist represents, four out of every nine children are growing up below the poverty line.
Dave said: "This report paints a disturbing picture of family life, and children's poverty, in Coventry in general and in St Michael's in particular, where children start their lives with all the odds stacked against them. Children are the victims. They haven't caused the banking crisis. These shocking figures are an indictment of all politicians who want merely to manage or 'better manage' the crisis back to 'business as usual'! Our country has become much more unequal with directors of the top 100 companies last year getting a 49% rise, while ordinary wages and benefits are cut. That's a country being run for the 1%, not the 99%."
Primary school parents in Haringey, north London, are in the front line of the battle against the Con-Dems' destruction of our education. Five Haringey schools, which supposedly do not meet the government's 'floor' targets for results, are threatened with being compulsorily turned into academies.
Over 600 people attended a Haringey meeting to organise against the bullying tactics of the government. Saturday 28 January will see a massive demonstration through the streets of Haringey.
Already education secretary Michael 'Royal Yacht' Gove has had to back down: one of the schools, Downhills School, where results have improved recently, will undergo an Ofsted inspection before any decision about a change of status.
New Labour used bribery to turn schools into academies with up to £2 million promised from a business sponsor. The coalition government are now using compulsion.
The Con-Dems argue that academies are the only way to raise standards in under-performing schools. Yet recent research publicised by the Anti Academies Alliance shows that in London, on the measure of five GCSEs including English and maths, the best performing schools are NOT academies. Nationally, 20% of academies failed to improve on their GCSE results in 2010.
Haringey parents are right to call academies 'privatisation'. Already bigger academy 'chains' run more schools than some local authorities.
Oasis Community Learning, for example, runs 12 high schools all over England. Nine teachers were sacked at its Media City Academy in Salford at Christmas.
And ultimately, academies can pay staff whatever they like.
Despite business involvement, eight academies recently had to be 'bailed out' by the government for nearly £11 million.
An academy at Backwell near Bristol recently failed to enter 100 pupils for GCSE science exams. A parent commented: "I feel badly let down... now the school is an academy, who is it accountable to?"
Academy plans can be defeated. At St Leonards RC School in Durham staff voted 105 to 15 against academy status and the plan was dropped. Protesting parents stopped an academy project at Varndean School in Brighton. Teachers from Lancashire to Gloucestershire, from Coventry to London, have taken strike action against academy proposals. If the NUT and NASUWT teaching unions mobilise promptly, they can kill the plans before they get underway.
(Next to Downhills School)
The National Union of Students (NUS) has finally announced a series of actions to fight against the sweeping privatisation and cuts threatened to hit our universities if the government get their way. This comes after a week of twists and turns in which the government 'dropped' its controversial Higher Education white paper.
Unfortunately, however, much of what was contained in the paper is being implemented on campuses without the need for government legislation. The dropping of the paper is yet another signal that the government intends to take forward its agenda by more underhand means - perhaps due to a fear of a repeat of 2010's mass student protests.
NUS is organising a parliamentary lobby on 7 March and a 'week of action' from 12-16 March. The centrepiece of the student action should be the national walkout that has been announced. Liam Burns, NUS president, has called for this to take place this term. This development should be welcomed by all students who want to campaign against the whole range of attacks currently underway on our campuses.
Clearly, the NUS leadership has been forced to take this action by pressure from below. It cannot be forgotten that last term's two most successful protests aimed at students and youth, the Jarrow March for Jobs and the student demo on 9 November, were organised outside of NUS structures.
We demand that NUS immediately names the date for the walkout. Socialist Students activists will be organising on campuses across the country to make it a success, but NUS must organise and build for this strike to be nationwide and solid. To do this, the most important first step would be to name a date.
NUS should be mobilising to support teachers and lecturers in their battle to defend pensions. When these workers next take strike action NUS should mobilise student solidarity on the picket lines and rallies, calling on all students to join the strike. While very important, student action alone will not be enough to stop the higher education slaughter. Unity with workers, particularly when they strike, is key. Workers and students unite and fight!
The next two weeks are absolutely vital in the construction electricians' struggle against the employers' imposition of the Besna contract. Unite are re-balloting in Balfour Beatty (BBES), the leader of the 'Dirty 7' construction companies who want to withdraw from the JIB agreement and open the door to 35% pay cuts on the back of de-skilling the trade.
In December, the strike ballot in BBES was won with a whopping 82% majority yet Unite have re-balloted because BBES challenged it on a technicality. Yet again, the class nature of the law has been clearly revealed. The employers can run to the courts, even though they have the protection of Thatcher's anti-union laws - the most undemocratic in Western Europe, and scandalously maintained by Blair and Brown's New Labour.
It is vital that the ballot is won again with the biggest possible margin. The scale of the Yes vote in December undoubtedly legitimised the dispute and was a major factor in the successful unofficial action that took place on the intended strike date of 7 December, when thousands of electricians took action. No Balfours' sparks worked on their site in Blackfriars train station in London.
A week later, the electricians linked up with the other construction trades under the NAECI/Blue Book who are facing a pay freeze, in a day of action which saw over 5,000 workers take part in an unofficial walkout.
This has to be the model for this re-ballot. We look to take the official route but if blocked, the dispute can't be constrained by the Tory courts. However, it seems that the union stepped back in December under only the threat of legal action. This time Unite should not back down to threats.
And if BBES get a verdict in court this would clearly show to all of the electricians that unofficial action has been forced on them and would then be the only effective way to continue the battle.
Whether official or unofficial, Unite should call a national demonstration on the first strike day at one of the sites. When this was done in November, over 2,000 electricians were mobilised. This would really raise the sights of sparks that the dispute is far from over. It could be accompanied by a full page advert in the national press to overcome the media blackout of this dispute.
However, it must also be linked up with the other disputes that are currently unfolding in the construction industry or closely linked to it. We support coordinating any further strike action with the NAECI pay dispute, as well as the Unite oil tanker drivers working for Wincanton, who could shut down some of the refineries that are maintained and renovated by the construction workers.
This would bring home the message to the employers and their customers that these disputes will seriously damage their profits. Balfour Beatty alone made almost £100 million in profits in the last six months and has an order book of over £15 billion!
This has been an incredible struggle in that for almost half a year, rank and file electricians have built and maintained a dispute that has forced Unite to take it seriously. We welcome the union's involvement and recognise the advantages that it brings. But the battle has exposed the role of the full-time officials and the necessity of the rank and file in democratically controlling the dispute and keeping the officials accountable.
The letter from the national officer Bernard McCauley advising workers to sign the Besna contracts has created unnecessary confusion and even potential demoralisation. If the union thought it was necessary for tactical reasons because the vast majority of sparks had signed, it should have been explained clearly at meetings on the sites and at the national rank and file meeting and put to the vote.
This would then be accompanied by an absolute assurance from the union of the dispute continuing with a viable strategy of action outlined.
Many struggles have shown, including industrial disputes and even the poll tax that just because an attack gets onto the statute book or into a contract of employment doesn't mean that the battle's over.
Sometimes workers have to see the reality of a change before they are stung into responding. But that still not need happen in this dispute, which if the work is done now can lead to renewed strike action that can defeat the employers and their Besna contract.
Electricians are currently fighting a 35% pay cut and the deskilling of their trade, being imposed by seven companies using the new "Besna" contracts.
There have been huge walkouts to defend current terms and conditions under the "Joint Industry Board" (JIB).
However, the JIB itself has been opposed for years by rank and file trade unionists in the electrical industry.
Rather than a collective-bargaining structure where unions can negotiate with employers, instead it has always been a "social partnership" agreement between the electrical union tops and the employers, to the detriment of ordinary electricians.
After the right wing seized control of the electricians' union (EETPU), it wanted to consolidate that control, and so under a legally-binding agreement in 1968 a unique partnership was forged between employer and union and introduced to British industry.
It was the Joint Industry Board (JIB) and consisted of the Electrical Contractors Association (ECA employers) and the Electrical Electronic Telecommunications and Plumbing Union.
The two parties were the only two permanent members, under Rule 6 of the JIB's constitution. Its national board consisted of members appointed by the ECA and EETPU and this was the principal executive committee (Rule 23).
This JIB was imported into the British Electrical Contracting Industry after a delegation visited New York to meet with the JIB there which had been in existence for more than 20 years.
This New York model was effectively a sweetheart deal between the JIB partners, the ECA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 3.
In return for the union disciplining its members, improving productivity and eliminating strikes, the employers delivered an agreed package of pay, welfare benefits and training.
Eric Hammond, then an executive member of the EETPU, who had been part of that delegation to America described it, as his "first revolution" in how trade unions operate.
The JIB replaced the old National Joint Industrial Council, in which the NJIC hammered out agreements between two opposing sides in the industry.
Instead of normal collective bargaining of trade union and employer on different sides, they would now work in partnership.
Right from the outset, the two parties to the JIB formed a trade union, namely the JIBTU, even though the legality of such registration was always in doubt.
Even the chief registrar noted in his 1967 annual report that it was an unusual type of union as it included representatives of both employers and employees.
It was challenged in June 1991 by electrician Frank Graham and John McAllion MP (for Dundee East). Addressing parliament, John McAllion stated:
"When Frank Graham and I challenged it about its registration, it claimed initially to have received special dispensation to register in 1968 from the then Minister for Labour, Mr.
"Ray Gunter. The JIB made that claim in letters to the certification officer and to the Chairman of the Employment Sub-Committee, but the claim is bogus.
"The then Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Trade and Industry, told me in a letter in 1996 that he could find no reference to such dispensation in the Department's records.
He added that he could find no statutory basis - past or present - under which anyone in any Government could have given such a dispensation." (Hansard, 26 Oct 1999).
Yet the dispensation claimed by the JIB allowed for a provident fund to be established to provide benefits to members.
The JIB gained considerable material benefits from being registered as a trade union, such as tax exemptions.
In reality the JIB had received tax allowances to which it was not legally entitled. Following the 1991 challenge, the JIB asked to be deregistered as it followed the JIB was not and never had been a trade union.
Yet the relationship between the two parties grew ever stronger and the detriment to members ever greater and in 1979 another unique dispensation was granted by the Tory Secretary for State Patrick Mayhew.
This gave exemption to the JIB by allowing it to substitute its own dismissal procedure for unfair dismissals, it is the only such exemption order granted in any industry.
It effectively denied access to independent arbitration for the electrical personnel. John McAllion explained to parliament that:
"... although on paper the JIB dismissals procedure allows for access to independent arbitration, in reality that access is blocked.
"The JIB's procedure, as set out in its handbook, makes it clear that any appellant must give good reason to the JIB national board to justify reference to independent arbitration.
"Clearly, if the JIB national board does not accept those reasons, there will be no reference to independent arbitration for that appellant."
This exemption order would be revoked by parliament after the mass sacking of 240 electricians at the huge Pfizer project in Kent in April 2000 because it fell foul of the Human Rights Act. However, the legal status of the JIB itself was questioned by John McAllion:
"We simply do not know the current legal status of the JIB. If it is an unincorporated association [as it claimed to be - EC], it has no legal personality of its own.
"We do not know who is legally responsible for registering it, to whom it makes returns, or who holds it to account.
"For a large and wealthy organisation that exercises tight control over one of our most important industrial sectors, that is entirely unacceptable."
The partnership would continue and even formed its own employment agency for electrical contracting, "ESCA Services", which was owned by employer and union.
The fact that here clearly existed what would have been obvious conflict of interest for the union, was ignored.
The employers, by paying "union dues" on behalf of "union members", were able to give the union more than £1million every year through so-called "check-off".
The employers paid the piper and clearly evidently they called the tune. The EETPU was expelled by the TUC and only gained re-entry by merging with the AEU and using the new name of AEEU.
Through its expulsion a new union was formed in the electrical industry, namely the Electrical Plumbing Industrial Union (EPIU).
It was this new union which brought about the revocation of the exemption order at Pfizer's, but would see its entire membership placed on the blacklist revealed by the Information Commissioner's Office.
Even suspicion alone of membership of the EPIU was enough to secure an individual's name on the blacklist.
Many of the larger electrical companies who were ECA members were subscribers to the blacklist.
In conclusion the JIB promised an industry of benefits, training, welfare, industrial harmony but in reality became an industry of have-a-bash electrics, of mass sackings, an industry of workers in which 95% of workforces would be employed via agencies, where companies install their own union reps, an industry that sought complete control over its workforce with its partners it always refers to as "our" union.
An industry run by a one-sided agreement in which union officials turned a consistent blind eye to the detriment of their own members, an industry in which union officials colluded in blacklisting members of the EPIU and many of their own activists.
As many have witnessed, the officials who have served employers so well are able to secure positions with the employers and obviously do so without ever having swapped sides.
Many electricians pay for the right to be paid and are often employed by three companies: the JIB, the agencies, and the "satellite offices" which many electricians have to pay in order to receive a pay slip. An industry where even on major projects JIB rates are not paid.
An industry that the whole country has recently witnessed the rank and file magnificently organise itself throughout the UK as it responds to the threatened tear-up of our national agreement by seven companies who wish to implement what they call the Besna agreement.
No coincidence that after years of detriment, the Rank and File ignores its union officials in the electrical sector of Unite, where the national officer wanted to wait till December before responding to the threatened sackings of thousands of its members.
Clearly frustrated with the Rank and File lead in the mass response he turned vehemently on the Rank and File committee by accusing them of being cancerous, troublesome, mindless and divisive for initiating the mass response so crucially required.
No coincidence that six of the seven Besna companies were subscribers to the construction blacklist. After 43 years of witnessing the partnership of union and employer in the JIB electrical contracting industry the Rank and File are saying they've suffered enough and will suffer no more.
The employers' grip on the electrical union and subsequently on the electrical sector of Unite is now being lessened each and every day.
The democracy for so long denied the workers will soon be wrested from the grip of the employers. The Rank and File have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
A London Employment Tribunal has found that engineer Dave Smith had been blacklisted by Carillion (JM) Limited and Schal International Limited (a wholly owned subsidiary of Carillion) because he raised concerns about asbestos on building sites and because of his trade union activities. The firms actually admitted that their managers had supplied the malicious information in a signed statement to the court.
But shockingly because Dave had been employed through an employment agency, UK employment law does not protect him or millions of other agency workers. So the multi-national construction firms won the tribunal on this legal technicality.
During the tribunal a blacklist file collated by the Consulting Association was presented as evidence and contained many details about Dave and how he had complained about issues like asbestos or poor toilet facilities on building sites. The file was covertly shared among the 44 largest construction firms in the UK.
This is almost certain to become a key element in a larger "class action" style claim being brought to the High Court by 100 blacklisted workers in the next few months.
Ex-police officer Dave Clancy is the Head of the Investigations Team at the Information Commissioners Office, the man who led the raid on the Consulting Association premises and discovered the blacklist. He said in the hearing under oath: "There is information on the Consulting Association files that I believe could only be supplied by the police or the security services". He also told the court that the Consulting Association held information on elected politicians, journalists, lawyers and academics.
Labour MP John McDonnell said after hearing these revelations: "I am calling upon the government to launch a public inquiry into the full extent and impact on people's lives of blacklisting. These revelations are truly shocking and warrant a detailed and open, public investigation."
"Egypt is like a house where the curtains have been changed but everything else is the same," a revolutionary activist recently told CWI reporters. The 25 January 2011 demonstration started a revolutionary movement that brought down Mubarak 18 days later.
Mubarak was forced to resign by his own military leaders. Taking power themselves, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf), in effect, carried out a military coup. They understood that if he had attempted to cling on any longer, the revolutionary movement, particularly the rapidly developing strike wave, could have swept the whole ruling class away.
Since then, Egypt has swung between revolution and counter-revolution, often with movements in both directions taking place at the same time. This reflects the weakness of the Egyptian capitalist class and their inability to stabilise their rule, while, at this stage, the working class is without either a mass party or a revolutionary party to lead a successful overthrow of capitalism.
Prime minister Kamal el-Ganzouri, the fourth to hold the post this year, tearfully stated recently that Egypt's economy is "worse than anyone imagines." Economic growth for 2011 is expected to be around 1.2%, down from around 5% in 2010. Unemployment is now almost 12%, compared to 9% a year ago.
Tourism accounted for over 10% of GDP in 2010, employing one in eight of the workforce. Visitor numbers fell by a third during 2011.
Global economic crisis has contributed to this sharp fall, as well as the violent scenes seen on TV. The government and its apologists, however, blame workers' protests, for 'putting their own agendas ahead of the greater good.'
Foreign direct investment fell 93% in the first nine months of 2011 to $376 million. Government borrowing costs are a record high. The government has received an unusual source of help - the armed forces loaned it $1billion in December!
Inflation topped 10% in December. 40% of the population struggle daily to survive on less than $2. The government is under pressure from big business to tackle the budget deficit. On 5 January it announced huge public spending cuts which will include public sector wages and energy subsidies. The government is now negotiating with the IMF for a loan, the price of which will probably include cutting food subsidies, hitting the poorest.
The Scaf junta has lost much of the support it had immediately after the ousting of Mubarak in February 2011, when the army was widely viewed as having refused Mubarak's orders to carry out a Tiananmen Square-type massacre of Tahrir Square protesters. Over the next few months, it became clearer to most activists that Scaf's hand was tightening its grip on power.
After Mubarak's ousting, 150 new trade unions were formed with 1.6 million members. These are independent of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation, which had leaders appointed by the old regime. A law was introduced in late March banning strikes but - despite many strikes taking place - it was not used until July, when five workers were jailed.
A survey in July counted 22 sit-ins, 19 strikes, 20 demonstrations, ten protests and four short-term protest gatherings. The total was slightly fewer than in June, but there were more strikes. These were not only to win higher wages and secure permanent contracts, but also to clear out Mubarak's stooges from senior management.
During last summer, Friday demonstrations grew again. The government raised the minimum wage substantially (but only to LE[Egyptian pounds]700 a month - about £74 - not to LE1,200 demanded by trade unionists, and just for public sector workers). It announced increased spending on education and healthcare. Further privatisation was halted.
Reflecting the views of a section of the ruling class, one minister, Ahmed Hassan al-Borai warned: "Before the 25 January revolution, Egypt expected a social revolution and not a political one. So now it has to carry out real reforms, otherwise another social revolution could occur."
Frustration among activists grew due to the lack of political change, leading to some re-occupying Tahrir Square on 8 July. Many groups of activists, including Islamists, agreed to hold a joint demonstration on 29 July, demanding an end to Mubarak's emergency law, public trials for Mubarak and his cronies, the prosecution of police officers and soldiers accused of attacking protesters during the revolution and more power for the civilian government.
However, when it became clear that the Islamist organisations were mobilising heavily for this demonstration, with many coaches coming in from outside Cairo, most youth and revolutionary groups boycotted it, returning to the square afterwards.
One million took part in the demonstration in what became called the 'Day of Kandahar', reflecting the conservative religious outlook of many taking part. There were chants in support of Scaf leader Mohamed Tantawi.
Undoubtedly, there has been behind-the-scenes collusion between Scaf and Muslim Brotherhood (MB) leaders throughout much of 2011. Emboldened by this show of support, security forces attacked the occupiers a few days later and cleared the square.
Scaf announced that they would retain control over the armed forces budget, rather than the new parliament when elected. They also reserved the right to appoint a constitutional committee to draft a new constitution. These moves sparked a massive demonstration in Tahrir Square on 18 November, in which the MB and the hardline Islamist Salafists participated - the first real challenge their leadership had made to Scaf.
The Islamists left the Square at the end of the afternoon of the 18th. Activists reoccupied it demanding an end to military rule. They were bloodily attacked over the following five days by the army and security forces, leaving 70 killed, some suffocated from unusually strong tear gas. Hundreds were injured. Showing the potential strength of workers' action, five customs officers blocked the import of seven tonnes of tear gas from the USA.
Further brutal attacks by military and security forces on these demonstrators on 16 December left at least another 17 dead. Among the shocking scenes was that of a female demonstrator dragged along the ground being repeatedly kicked by security personnel. An angry march of 10,000 women took place a few days later in protest - the biggest women's demonstration in Egypt's history.
These attacks from the regime - the whip of counter-revolution - have served to further radicalise the activists. However, the gap between them and the less active masses is widening, as seen during the elections taking place since late November. Following the attacks on Tahrir Square, most activists there favoured a boycott of the elections. They correctly argued that the election process was under the control of the military and that the new parliament did not have real powers.
However, a vital task is to point the activists towards the large numbers who saw this as their first opportunity to participate in relatively free elections. Many less active workers and poor intended to vote in the elections. Many also abstained, some put off by the deliberately confusing procedure. Turnout in the first round of voting covering a third of the country, including Cairo, was 52%, although this fell in later rounds. There was a threatened LE500 fine for not voting.
Many of the more politically advanced workers and youth, particularly in the cities, were highly sceptical, if not cynical, about 'elections' called under the control and management of the military. This also contributed to the high abstention rate. But even if activists did not intend to take part in the voting, building support for an alternative requires intervention in election meetings, questioning and challenging candidates in front of their audience. Such debates also help activists gain better understanding of how to win support among the masses.
The Islamist parties did not participate in the late November and December protests, concentrating on their election campaigning.
The election procedure was very complicated, with party lists, individual lists (some with over 200 names on the ballot paper), reserved seats for 'workers' and 'farmers', and run-offs where individuals got less than 50%. At least ten candidates were prevented from standing, having been nominated for worker seats by new independent unions and not the Egyptian Trade Union Federation, led by Mubarak supporters.
The commonest breach of election law were the 20-30 members of the Islamist parties campaigning right outside polling stations as people went to vote.
The MB stood as the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and won around 235 seats (47%). The Salafists of Al-Nour ('Light') came second with around 120 seats (27%). Their support was highest in the poorest areas, neglected by the other parties.
The two biggest Liberal blocs have 68 between them. The sixth largest group, with ten seats, is Revolution Continues, the left bloc of which the Popular Socialist Alliance is the biggest component. Its vote varied between 1% and 19%. In rural areas, a few former members of Mubarak's NDP have been elected with new party labels.
These results do not reflect the real balance of forces, seen in the mass revolutionary movements and in the strikes last summer and autumn. With no mass workers' party at this stage, the working class has not been able to express itself in this election as a class. Genuine independent trade unions need to develop a political voice and could play a key role in helping to establish such a party, along with socialists and other revolutionary activists.
The MB's Freedom and Justice Party are styling themselves on Turkish prime minister Recip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, trying to present a moderate and modern image. They had 46 female candidates on their lists and were in an alliance with some small parties that included two Coptic candidates.
The MB's long record of opposition to Mubarak, their charitable and welfare programmes and being viewed as relatively incorrupt all helped explain their vote. However, their programme is aimed to appeal to business, including reducing the budget deficit and cutting subsidies. Many of their leaders come from a business background, such as 'deputy supreme guide' Khairat El-Shater, a wealthy tycoon. They will inevitably disappoint those who voted for them with high hopes of improved living conditions.
The MB is seeking coalition partners. Its preferred partners would be small liberal parties, giving the regime some sort of claim to be linked to the revolutionary events, from which the MB leadership stood back until it appeared that Mubarak's days were numbered. Such partners would also make a MB government more acceptable to capitalist governments around the world (and the IMF), to whom it would look for economic support.
Sections of MB youth had already split away in disagreement with the leadership's policy of standing aside from direct confrontation with Mubarak or Scaf. Now the election for the lower assembly is over, the demand for the immediate ending of Scaf's rule could gain massive support, although the MB leaders are more likely to continue to compromise with them.
The liberals' almost exclusive concentration on democratic demands and secularism gets little echo among those struggling daily to feed their families. It is clear that the gap in outlook between many Tahrir activists and the masses in the poor districts of Cairo and elsewhere has grown.
This growing isolation of activists has emboldened the state and the pro-big business MB to launch attacks in recent weeks on the NGOs and the Revolutionary Socialists (RS), the Egyptian section of the International Socialist Tendency.
This is a serious threat to the left in general. The RS worked with the MB a few years ago. Now they complain that the MB is being used as a "tool of the state" and appeal to its memory of being oppressed by this same state machine.
It is vital for the socialist movement to undermine support for both the MB and the Salafists. This cannot be done by appealing to the leadership of these organisations, or by falling into the trap of debating Islamism and secularism (portrayed as atheism to many practising Muslims). Instead, a programme that could appeal to poor and working class supporters of the Islamists, demanding jobs, decent pay, housing, good education and free health care is needed.
A mass workers' movement is required that could fight for this programme and unite Muslims and Copts, men and women, young and old around it. The Islamist parties would fracture along class lines if this were built with a revolutionary leadership explaining the need to sweep out the capitalist system responsible for poverty and oppression.
The need for a second revolution is becoming clearer to many who took part in the 25 January 2011 uprising and the many demonstrations and battles since. But what sort of revolution is needed, and how can it be achieved? The first revolution has only 'changed the curtains' - the political representatives of the ruling class, which has kept its wealth and power.
A second revolution is needed to take into public ownership and place under democratic workers' control and management all the big companies, banks and large estates. The economy could then be planned for the benefit of the majority instead of the tiny elite that grew wealthier under Mubarak and still maintain their riches under Scaf.
Working class power in the developing strike wave of February 2011 ended Mubarak's struggle to hang on. Some of that power has been seen in the year since, although no workers' party has yet been able to draw together activists in the trade unions, socialists and the masses.
A democratic socialist planned economy would use the wealth produced by the majority for the benefit of all, instead of having it stolen by the capitalists and their military and political defenders.
The popular neighbourhood committees that started to develop after 25 January, together with democratic workplace committees, could redevelop and expand on the basis of new revolutionary upsurges and be the basis for genuine democracy, linking these together at local, regional and national level. A democratically elected constituent assembly could draw up a constitution that would defend the rights of all, including religious and national minorities.
In the course of fighting for such a socialist programme, the balance of forces in society would change. All defenders of the existing order would increasingly be forced together in opposition to the growing movement of the masses, led by the working class. Such a movement would overcome sectarian divisions and result in a completely different assembly to that which has just been elected. A majority government of workers and poor would act in the interests of the majority in society.
At the same time, the deepening global economic crisis is undermining support for capitalism around the world. If the working class develops a decisive revolutionary socialist leadership, seriously struggling to take power in Egypt, it could ignite further revolutionary movements, laying the basis for a socialist Middle East, north Africa and world.
Workers at multinational company Unilever are making a stand to defend pensions. Following a strike of 2,500 workers last month, from 17 January thousands of Unite, Usdaw and GMB members at Unilever are taking strike action for up to 12 days.
The strike is because the company threatens to end the final salary pension scheme, leading to pension cuts of up to 40%.
Pickets at the Purfleet factory on the first strike day, warmed by cups of tea and bacon sandwiches in the drizzle, explained their anger at the company.
"You should look at the pay at the top. They're taking off us to give to them.
"Our contributions were nearly doubled three years ago - we went from paying 4% to more than 7% - on the guarantee that would save the final salary pension."
One woman striker explained: "I've been here ten years and I'll lose £2,500 a year - and that's based on the assumption of extra contributions. And it's only guaranteed for three years, then they could come back and move the goalposts again. Some of the guys here will lose a lot more.
"Unilever is refusing to talk. Unite and the other unions have gone to Acas and are willing to talk but the company refuses."
As the pickets recognised, public sector workers fighting to defend pensions are being told they should be grateful for what they've got compared with the private sector, while private sector workers are being told what they've got is too generous. "What we should do is all join up together!"
The company, which was founded by philanthropist Lord Leverhulme, still claims to hold social responsibility among its values. Yet despite making €4.6 billion in profits last year, they now claim they can't afford to pay the workforce a decent pension. And as for Unilever workers outside Britain, a recent video produced by Unite the Union points out the entire workforce of the Lipton's tea factory in Pakistan are temporary workers with no job security.
If the company are still refusing to come to the negotiating table then it is likely to take an escalation of the action to do so. In the meantime, Unilever workers and the unions should aim to build links with all others fighting for decent pensions, not least workers in the public sector who face similar attacks on their pensions.
Unions and trades councils should invite Unilever workers to speak at meetings to help counter the government's attempts to divide public and private sector workers and fight for a decent pension for every worker.
Pickets from Unite and GMB were outside the Unilever works in Warrington from 6am on 18 January. About 30 union members picketed with placards and flags reading "Unilever - Not as clean as you think" and "Unilever - Ditching my pension", while being watched by management and security guards from the security lodge at the main gate.
Manchester Socialist Party members joined the picket line at Trafford Park Unilever site again when the weekend shift walked out on 22 January.
Unilever cancelled Christmas for staff at other sites in retribution for the previous strikes. But at Trafford Park, workers haven't seen a company Christmas hamper in years!
Further action may well be needed and it's urgent that the trade union movement rallies round with donations to ensure workers can continue the fight.
At the Port Sunlight picket line on 18 January, one Usdaw steward said: "Management like to talk about needing to pay big salaries and offer fat pension rewards otherwise 'you don't get the right quality of management', but you don't hear them talk like that when it's about what, say, the forklift truck drivers should get."
As with any such struggle no one wanted to lose pay but there was an awareness that a stand had to be taken. The mood was one of quiet determination to carry on a drawn-out struggle otherwise "they'll just walk all over us."
At Unilever's Manchester factory several strikers voiced anger at the cynicism of the company: "They're just jumping on the bandwagon, they've looked around and seen other companies doing it and thought 'Oh, we can do that too'."
"You get a Tory government in and the bosses think 'Right, here we go again'," said one striker to me.
"This used to be PG Tips, it was locally owned, you'd have managers and workers having a laugh together in the pub. Not now though, it's a big global company like all the others."
Shock and outrage by porters, domestics and switchboard staff at Whipps Cross hospital east London, greeted the news of the threat by Initial Facilities to discipline Unison joint branch secretary Len Hockey.
In a move clearly aimed at trying to intimidate the workforce, Len has been invited to attend an investigation hearing on 30 January in connection with his role as lead representative for these staff. This comes on the back of attacks by the company in the recent weeks.
These include making domestic supervisors and help desk staff redundant and the demotion of deputy head portering grades. The workers have also experienced a big increase in the number of disciplinary measures they have been subjected to over the recent months.
The fighting record of these staff was shown in two rounds of strike action over the past years. This succeeded in eliminating inequality of treatment among workers and secured harmonised pay and conditions with NHS staff. It earned the branch first prize nationally for organising and recruitment.
Len, a porter at the hospital for 23 years, went on to describe workers' anger turning to revulsion when his members informed him over the weekend of a letter sent to them and which he had not seen.
This is from the Unison Greater London region. The letter, signed by the regional organiser and sent to Len's members but addressed to Len, attacked and misrepresented his campaigning record in what appears to be a deliberate attempt to drive a wedge between the members and Len himself.
"With cuts and all the daily problems workers face, the last thing you would expect is a blow from behind," Len commented. "This act points up the urgent need for all union officials to be elected, paid a wage in line with the members they represent and held to account - particularly to our low paid members as is the case here". He added: "A campaign and response to these attacks is now set to take place."
At Pontefract hospital in West Yorkshire NHS bosses had been in discussion about using army medics to help run the accident and emergency unit. The trust has now said it won't use the army, but the A&E will remain closed at night.
In October last year, Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust announced the "temporary closure" of the emergency unit between 10pm and 8am at the new hospital due to a 'national shortage of medium level doctors'.
The closure was implemented in November and was met with a barrage of outrage from the local community which culminated in a public meeting where the trust board attempted to explain their decision. Hundreds of people demanded the resignation of the board and the immediate reopening of the unit overnight.
The local MP, shadow minister Yvette Cooper, has opportunistically jumped on the bandwagon attempting to blame Tory cuts for the closure. But it was New Labour's Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deal which turned Pontefract hospital into a glorified out-patients department.
The new £60 million Pontefract hospital is part of a £310 million PFI also covering Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield. The new PFI meant approximately 300 beds moving from Pontefract to Pinderfields along with all 'blue light' emergency services. The New Pontefract was left with a rehab ward, day surgery and out patient services.
Unison members campaigned against the run down in services in Pontefract, including public meetings and a march through the town centre at which the local Labour MPs were all conspicuously absent.
We said that the PFI would be the end of the Pontefract as a district general hospital and that the exorbitant cost of the PFI would lead to cuts in the NHS throughout the district.
I was interviewed on the local news about our thoughts on army doctors working in the hospital. I said that the army is usually called in when natural disasters occur not when the NHS can't cope due to staff shortages. The lessons of Pontefract hospital are that PFI and service reconfigurations are a man-made disaster which could and should have been avoided at all costs.
Mid Yorkshire Unison is calling for the immediate reopening of the A&E and the restoration of NHS services to the people of the Pontefract area.
We also call for taking the PFI scheme, which is costing the Trust £40 million a year, back into public hands and an end to the £60 million cuts package imposed by national government between 2011 and 2013.
Vine in Leeds provides specialist education provision for young adults with severe and complex learning difficulties. Many of the staff are female Unison members working part-time as Learning Support Assistants (LSAs). But since the beginning of the economic downturn in 2008 they have seen the service contract and deteriorate.
The students' funding is provided by Leeds City colleges via the Young Peoples' Learning Agency but there is a question mark as to how many students will be funded this way and how much will be provided by our own employer to keep our members in jobs. Overall it is predicted that Leeds City council is to cut another £55 million from its 2012-13 budget. That may mean up to 600 jobs will go!
Our members at Vine have lost out in the re-evaluation of our jobs as it failed to account for the 'Special Needs Allowance' for the personal care we provide to the students. Although we qualified for the three-year pay protection that ran out in February 2011, and with no decent national pay increase in years, our members have really felt the pinch.
We say enough is enough. No more cuts. Fair pay now.
In Llanelli, south west Wales, the threatened closure of Prince Philip accident and emergency unit will not be accepted without a fight.
The proposals will put more strain on other hospitals and see a worse service for people in Llanelli, Carmarthen and Swansea.
The cutting of hospital services is an attempt to provide lower quality health treatment on the cheap. Community based treatment could be supported if it was properly funded and in place before hospital reconfiguration, with no job losses.
Instead, reconfiguration plans will follow the fate of the underfunded mental health care in the community, where vulnerable patients have been left isolated.
Already the NHS in Wales is struggling. In September, 33,312 people in Wales had been waiting for six months or more for hospital treatment. This figure is set to soar as more cuts begin to bite.
Llanelli and West Wales Socialist Party, alongside Llanelli Against the Cuts, has been campaigning against all cuts, from Westminster, Cardiff and Carmarthenshire administrations.
The health cuts have to be fought, but they also need to be linked into the fight against all public sector cuts. A united struggle mobilising the growing anger developing can succeed in forcing health boards, local authorities and governments to back down over their cuts agenda.
A Socialist Party public meeting on 31 January at 7.30pm in Stamps, John Street will be followed by a demonstration organised by Llanelli trades council on 11 February at 11am, gathering at Llanelli town hall.
Over 100 people - service users, carers, staff, pensioners - filled the room at a Salford Unison protest meeting to stop the closure of two day centres for the elderly and disabled. If the council has its way, 40 jobs will go and 200 service users will no longer have access to a day centre.
Pensioners' representative George Tapp pointed to the 27,000 pensioners who died of hypothermia last year. Closing day centres will mean pensioners in fuel poverty have to heat their homes more. He made it clear that we are fighting to retain all centres and we will have no truck with trade-offs.
George is standing for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition in this year's council elections in the ward containing one of the threatened centres.
Staff member Clare cut the ground from under the feet of Salford's Labour council who repeat the Tory line about 'needing to get away from a dependency culture': "Salford council say 'Get a life, not a service' - but what if the service is your life?"
Steve, a colleague of Clare's, pointed out that many disabled people in their 50s have been attending day centres for 30 and 40 years and it is the high point of their week; their parents are often now in their 80s, struggling with infirmity, and need a break.
Social worker Ade explained how day centres combat loneliness and isolation for elderly people.
A young mother, who has three children and also cares for her severely disabled brother, spoke: "It's hard but my brother loves the centre and it's all he knows. We have to fight."
Salford Unison secretary Steve North read out a solidarity message from Bolton Unison who fought off a similar attack 18 months ago, and outlined a programme of action with demonstrations and lobbies.
People queued at the end of the meeting to take model letters to councillors and window posters.
Towards the end of last year, the Labour-led Kirklees council in Yorkshire announced a consultation over the future of 32 Sure Start centres.
The council proposes mothballing 17 of these centres, in effect halving essential childcare provision in Kirklees, once again hiding behind the government's cuts.
Refusing to even stand up to the Con-Dem government's agenda, the Labour councillors have merely decided to pass on these cuts.
But parents are resisting. At the start of January, a Saturday morning meeting of 35 parents launched a campaign and a 12-strong committee is now meeting every week to coordinate opposition.
They have collected thousands of signatures, made three MPs support their campaign, organised two further public meetings, organised another bigger lobby of the council and called a local demo on 3 March.
Every centre is being visited by the committee to gather more signatures and identify more parent reps to coordinate the fightback.
The parents are supported by the local Unison branch which has donated £1,000 to the local group and offered practical support.
Parents are now lobbying every councillor demanding that they stop the phoney consultation exercise and look instead at measures to keep every centre open.
Local councillors are being bombarded with emails and invitations to visit the centres they intend to mothball.
The Kirklees mayor has been forced to apologise for the "ignorant and unprofessional" conduct of a councillor.
Four parents had separately addressed the full council, but one councillor, Shabir Pandor, fell asleep during their impassioned submission.
Additionally, the Labour leader of the council was alleged to have been arranging to meet a friend on his Blackberry!
Parents are considering standing candidates in May's local elections against councillors who refuse to support the campaign.
Unite members in Greenwich, south London, were out in force for the second Saturday running on 21 January, fighting to stop the council privatising the library service.
Stalls in Eltham and Greenwich have attracted great public support. Not a single member of the public has said they want the service privatised.
The union believes that if Greenwich Leisure Limited takes over the service, as the council plans, this will be followed by cuts, closures and the introduction of charges.
The union has already rumbled plans to scrap the mobile library and use volunteers to provide the service for the housebound.
The stall in Eltham was abused by racist BNP thugs who drove past several times in a BNP campaign lorry. Their friends were at the bottom of the high street handing out disgusting leaflets claiming that those convicted of the murder of Stephen Lawrence were innocent.
This made our stall, which put forward a united working class opposition to all cuts and privatisation, all the more important.
The European Court of Human Rights have accepted the prison officers' union application for restoration of trade union rights. Successive governments have enforced legislation prohibiting prison officers from taking legitimate industrial action. Steve Gillan, POA general secretary, said: "I am pleased that this issue is moving forward to right a wrong on a basic human fundamental right that is denied to my membership. This obviously is the first of many hurdles but at least our application has been successful by being accepted".
About 400 TV licensing employees in Bristol, which is now operated by private company Capita, have been in a pay dispute over the last few months. Their latest one day strike was timed to coincide with the N30 public sector pensions strike. Now Capita are considering closing down the office in Bristol and relocating, probably to the North West, with a potential massive loss of jobs as a consequence.
This brutal response to a modest pay claim shows what the bosses are capable of and requires a firm response by the unions and maximum solidarity.
Trade unionists have been quick to respond to the victimisation of three activists in the University and College Union (UCU). Craig Lewis, a member of the UCU national executive, Peter Jones, vice-chair of UCU Wales, and Ray Williams, a UCU rep were all suspended and threatened with disciplinary action by Coleg Harlech principal. The college covers campuses across north-west Wales.
The suspension followed UCU members raising multiple grievances, including management's decision to leave tutors out of pocket for travel expenses between the college's teaching sites - two of which are 90 miles apart.
But UCU and Unite members, National Shop Stewards Network supporters and Socialist Party members from across Britain flooded the principal's email box with so many messages of solidarity and support for the three that it shut down. Four days from the announcement of the suspensions, college management capitulated, lifted the suspensions, withdrew the threat of disciplinary action and promised to pay money owed for holiday work.
100 Bectu members held a rally in Birmingham on 19 January to mark the end of a 24-hour strike against plans to effectively mothball the majority of BBC Birmingham's studios. The BBC wants to move programmes currently produced there to Bristol. The move would mean state of the art studios, the lease for which still has several years to run, being closed. Then the inferior facilities at Bristol would be expanded at a cost of millions. As one steward commented: "Staff are really angry that no explanation has been given for this decision, which won't save money or lead to more creativity".
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/13586