Issue
146
February 18th 2000
|
|
| Striking Against Low Pay |
NEW
LABOUR has backtracked on its refusal to raise the
minimum wage. Growing anger from low-paid workers and
even union leaders and MPs has forced the government to
concede a paltry 10p a week increase. |
| Sudents Defiant |
ABOUT
400 students marched through Oxford in protest against
tuition fees and the abolition of the grant. |
| INDIA - 50 years of a failed
“republic” |
INDIA - 50 years of a failed
“republic.” Strikes
demonstrate working-class power. BJP
government – neo-liberalism and
chauvinism. A prison house of
nations. “InfoTech Czars”.
Build a new workers’ party |
| Northern Ireland |
On
the horns of a dead-end dilemma: THE NORTHERN Ireland
‘peace process’ has stalled. The IRA has
withdrawn from all arms decommissioning talks. |
| Teachers |
March
against performance pay |
| Austria |
A
Socialist Campaign to defeat the far-right |
| UNISON:
right wing in panic
Full results and analysis in the
next issue – out on the 3rd
March
|
The
UNISON General Secretary election is now in its late
stages. Whatever the result, the grassroots
campaign of the Campaign for a Fighting Democratic UNISON
(CFDU) has been fantastic. (Full story in The
Socialist p 3)
|
CFDU
Candidate Roger Bannister (second left) at TUC conference
 |
Striking Against Low Pay
NEW
LABOUR has backtracked on its refusal to raise the minimum wage.
Growing anger from low-paid workers and even union leaders and
MPs has forced the government to concede a paltry 10p a week
increase.
Josie Nicholls, Leicester
But
it’s still got strings attached and is nowhere near enough
to wipe out poverty pay in the private or public sector. The 1.4
million members of public-sector union UNISON are in the final
stages of balloting for a new general secretary.
Socialist
Party member and Campaign for a Fighting Democratic UNISON
candidate Roger Bannister has said that if elected he will
“be mobilising low-paid UNISON members to take all
appropriate action, including industrial action, to achieve
UNISON’s demand for a £5 an hour minimum wage for all with
no exceptions”.
Roger
is also, unlike top UNISON officials, backing striking
Leicestershire care workers who, like many public-sector workers
around the country, are facing attacks from New Labour councils
and the government.
A
mass rally last week of 300 of the careworkers angrily opposed
the 'buy out' (compensation) offers they'd received after
management attempts to end their weekend pay enhancements. The
careworkers are striking against these proposals, which for some
could mean losing up to £1,800 a year.
Management
threats of privatisation and the 'buy out' letters backfired on
them when the mass meeting voted overwhelmingly for further
strike action. “It’s a joke" and
"insult" were just some of the comments as some
strikers ripped up their ‘buy-outs’.
Over
100 workers have joined the union since the ballot for action.
The next three-day strike starts on Sunday 20 February.
Earlier
in the strike regional UNISON officials had attempted to suspend
the strike in favour of binding arbitration without consulting
the strikers themselves. The workers now intend to take control
of their strike and are setting up a strike committee with
representatives from all the homes and the home care workers.
A
rally has been organised for this Sunday. They are calling on
trade unionists from around the country to support it - be there!
·
Rally - 1pm, Leicestershire County Hall, Glenfield, Leicester
(follow A50 from Junction 22 of M1).
·
Messages of support and donations: Hardship fund, Leicestershire
County UNISON Branch, County Hall, Glenfield, Leicester.
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Sudents Defiant
ABOUT 400 students marched through Oxford in protest against
tuition fees and the abolition of the grant. Oxford students
called the demo in response to harsh measures employed by Oxford
University against tuition fee non-payers.
Kieran Roberts
Last
month, 30 students were threatened with effective exclusion for
non-payment. Now only one non-payer remains, the others having
paid. But Oxford students are determined that they will do all
they can to stop him being ‘sent down’.
Students
from the many Oxford University colleges turned out while Save
Free Education (SFE) activists brought students from Coventry,
Southampton, the South West, London and Newcastle.
Paul
Hunt, SFE member and Coventry University non-payer, said the
demonstration was “really good. It was especially good to
see students from all over the country showing their solidarity
with the Oxford students.
“The
demonstration will have given other students who have not paid
their fees the confidence to make a stand. At Coventry University
the finance office has said that there are hundreds of other
students in my position who haven’t paid their fees because
they cannot afford them. Now letters have gone out telling them
that they have to pay up.”
SFE
has called a national day of action to help spread the action
that has taken place in Oxford and some London colleges recently.
They are demanding that college managements across the country do
not exclude or suspend any students for non-payment of tuition
fees.
We
must let students know that they do not have to pay up or drop
out. If mass action, such as demonstrations and occupations, is
organised to defend non-payers then the universities can be
forced to allow students to stay on their courses.
Mass
refusal to pay will make tuition fees unworkable.
National
day of action: Wednesday 23 February. Scrap tuition fees;
Introduce a grant students can live on; No exclusions or
suspensions; For an amnesty on all unpaid fees.
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INDIA - 50 years of a failed
“republic”
IN
STARK contrast to the lavish celebrations marking 50 years of
independence nearly three years ago, the ruling elite in India is
not that enthusiastic to rave about the anniversary of the
formation of the Republic on 26 January 1950. JAGADISH CHANDRA of
Dudiyora Horaata (Workers’ Struggle), looks at capitalist
India today.
“FIFTY
YEARS into our life in the republic we find that justice -
social, economic and political - remains an unrealised dream for
millions of our fellow citizens”, lamented President KR
Narayanan on the eve of India’s republic day.
Not
a single one of the nation-building tasks that the ruling class
took upon themselves has been completed, and many social problems
have worsened, courtesy of capitalist/landlord rule.
Marxists
are all always accused of being negative, who point out only the
faults and failures of the capitalist class. But only a hi-tech
virtual realist can afford to ignore the problems faced by the
overwhelming majority of this newly billion plus country.
Vendor
economy
THE
GLITZ and glitter story of economic liberalisation and
globalisation would have us believe that India, despite all its
problems of poverty, hunger and disease, is poised to leap-frog
into this new millennium. The wishful thinkers of Indian
capitalism are daydreaming that this century belongs to India.
India,
a protected market until the 1990s, had a relatively strong
manufacturing sector amongst the “third world” or
“developing” countries. Though the growth rate was very
low (of not more than 3% to 4% in the 1980s) it at least
maintained its grip over the domestic market.
But
the drastic economic reforms (annihilation of the local industry
and the manufacturing base), set in motion in the 90s and the
subsequent opening of the economy to foreign domination, has
turned India into a vendor economy.
The
protagonists of liberalisation in India call this “creative
destruction”. Of the 4,000 firms that went public between
1989 and 1995 barely 1,500 are still running.
Recently,
the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE) reported that
over 1,000 listed corporations indicated an 18% rise in sales and
an 8% rise in profits. But CMIE also added: “Multinationals
have outperformed all other ownership groups in terms of the rise
in profits.”
It
is true that the stock markets are seeing a boom in India, mainly
in relation to information technology (IT) and pharmaceuticals.
But the sudden fall in the USA’s NASDAQ share prices of IT
industry showed the fragile nature of the Indian economy; the
value of the IT stocks in India plummeted sharply.
The
present weak bubble in the Indian economy is pegged mainly to the
American bubble. One shudders to think of the consequences of a
burst or even a ‘soft’ landing in USA.
In
a country where more than 45 million are officially unemployed,
the ruling classes glorify the job creation potential of
information technology, which can be counted in thousands not
millions.
It
is true that some of the services such as medical transcripts and
legal transcripts of the Western countries in general and US in
particular is largely done in the IT centres of India. Of course
some of the upper middle class computer whiz kids have made it
good in this IT revolution. But can India, with 420 million
illiterate people, take real advantage of the advanced
technology?
On
a capitalist basis there is no way out for India apart from
languishing in the present hellhole.
Near
collapse
THE
CAPITALIST snake charmers would like to create a mystique around
us. But the hard realities tell a different story - a horrifying
tale of the failure of capitalism in India.
Every
third human being in the world without safe and adequate water
supply is an Indian. Every fourth child on the globe who dies of
diarrhoea is an Indian. Every third person in the world with
leprosy is an Indian. Every fourth being on the planet dying of
waterborne or water-related diseases is an Indian. Of over 16
million tuberculosis cases, worldwide, 12.7 million are in India.
All
the Indian metropolitan cities have air pollution levels
stupendously higher than the specified WHO (World Health
Organisation) standard. The rise of asthma, emphysema, lung
cancer and many other related ailments threaten the life of
millions of people - almost 35% of the people in Mumbai, Delhi
and Calcutta are at the same risk as someone who smokes 40
cigarettes a day.
The
greatest threat to India’s future ecological balance comes
from a fast decline in fresh drinking water. Almost 400 million
people in India drink contaminated water and have insufficient
quantity of water, which is less than eleven gallons a day per
person as against 30 gallons required according to the WHO.
Besides,
40% of children in India suffer from malnutrition. Almost one out
of four Indians goes to bed hungry, eating less than 2,000
calories a day.
Cities
are on the verge of collapse, with 270 million living in urban
areas. Almost 108 million live in the most degraded slums. As the
cities continue to grow and expand, it is projected that almost
60% of the urban people will live in the miserable conditions of
slum jhuggies (clusters of slums) by 2010.
Socialist
change
IT
IS proved beyond doubt that the capitalist system has failed
miserably and has no future. “The unabashed, vulgar
indulgence in conspicuous consumption by the nouveau riche has
left the underclass seething in frustration”, says
India’s president. True, but unlike the fretful president,
we say this rotten system has to go!
Only
a social system which can take control of the productive forces
and run it on a democratic socialist planning can harness the
latent energies and talents of the vast mass of Indian populace.
Only such a socialist system can take India forward and end the
misery, poverty and the degradation of environment. And that new
socialist alternative is the urgent need of the hour in India.
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Strikes
demonstrate working-class power
INDIAN
WORKERS have been resisting the BJP government’s plans to
restructure public-sector industries, initiated by the World
Bank, as a prelude to privatisation.
On
2 February, an estimated 1.5 million workers struck against
poverty pay and the privatisation policies of the BJP. The
24-hour strike was called by a number of trade union federations
and involved public sector workers in steel, coal mining, power
generation, and others.
There
are also plans for a mass protest march on parliament on 9 March.
In
January, 95,000 power workers in India’s most populous state
of Uttar Pradesh struck for eleven days against the state
government’s attempt to split the electricity industry into
three separate businesses prior to privatisation.
The
BJP state and federal governments were determined to break union
resistance. The strike was declared illegal and police arrested
and jailed several union leaders. 4,000 workers were sacked
during the strike.
Workers
in neighbouring states threatened to come out in solidarity. And
although the strike was badly prepared by the union leaders,
workers in the industry - by taking action - began to feel their
industrial muscle.
The
union leaders decided to call off the strike after the
electricity bosses agreed to defer the company’s break-up
for a year.
Immediately
following the start of the power workers’ strike around
170,000 unionised and unregistered dockers struck for a 100% pay
rise and against dismantling the trusts which manage the ports -
the first stage to privatisation.
The
authorities brought in the Indian navy and territorial army to
run several major ports. In Calcutta, police baton-charged a
demonstration by strikers.
The
strike was suspended after a week pending further talks between
the unions and authorities.
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BJP
government – neo-liberalism and chauvinism
LAST
YEAR’S Indian general election was won by a BJP-led
coalition, who defeated an opposition bloc led by Sonia
Gandhi’s Congress.
The
BJP (Banata Jawaya Party) - fronted by the ‘moderate’
prime minister AB Vajpayee - is an extreme right-wing Hindu
chauvinist party that has led sectarian attacks on Muslims and
other religious minorities.
It
used the recent conflict with Pakistan over control of Jammu and
Kashmir to whip up Hindu chauvinism.
While
proclaiming a policy of Swadeshi (economic self-sufficiency) the
BJP is pursuing a neo-liberal economic policy of privatisation,
cutting state subsidies, increasing prices and opening up Indian
markets to multinational corporations to exploit.
It
is also upgrading and procuring new weapons for the military at
enormous cost while over 300 million Indians live on incomes of
$1 a day or less.
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A prison house of
nations
‘DEMOCRACY’
AND ‘Republic’ have no meaning to the present
capitalist rulers. It is only at gunpoint, under the garb of
parliamentary democracy, that the so-called nation is held
together.
Foreign
media sarcastically refer to India as “the biggest
democracy”, but India is literally a prison house of
nations. The issue of self-determination for Indian-occupied (and
Pakistan-occupied) Jammu and Kashmir is threatening a nuclear
holocaust.
Other
national questions in the north-east and south of India may not
make the headlines but they too are burning questions. The Kodagu
movement in Karnataka and separate Telangana movement in Andhra
Pradesh are the new entrants to the arena.
The
capitalists are trying to circumvent the national question by
dividing the existing linguistic states, but they are opening a
Pandora’s box. The attempts to grant autonomy to the hill
regions in West Bengal, Uttaranchal in Uttar Pradesh, the
Chattisgarha region in Bihar and Vidharbha in Maharastra are
future conflicts waiting to blow up in the face of the ruling
elite.
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JUST
476 rich families own and control corporations that dominate the
Indian economy.
India’s
richest businessman is Azim Premji, whose 75% share of Wipro
Corporation is estimated to be worth $12 billion. This does not
take account of any of his extensive property assets.
“Infotech
Czars” as the Times of India calls them, “are bound to
become fantastically wealthy.” (6/1/00)
But,
once infotech shares begin to crash it will be another story.
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Build a new
workers’ party
IN
LAST year’s general election the two main Communist Parties
tail-ended Congress in a failed attempt to defeat the BJP. Yet it
was the capitalist policies of Congress which bred communalism
(religious, ethnic and caste discrimination) in society.
In
West Bengal the ruling communist Left Front, which has been in
power for 23 years, is more than willing to accommodate the
interests of multinational corporations. It has no alternative
economic strategy different from that of the BJP or Congress.
The
genuine forces of socialism explain that the only way to defeat
the BJP is to unite the working class and peasantry around a
socialist programme. This means fighting within the trade unions
for a socialist anti-privatisation, anti-cuts policy linked to
the formation of a new workers’ party.
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On the horns of a dead-end
dilemma
THE
NORTHERN Ireland ‘peace
process’ has stalled. The Assembly and other institutions
set up after the 1998 Good Friday agreement have been suspended,
returning direct rule to London. The IRA has withdrawn from
all arms decommissioning talks.
Yet,
there is not the same angry mood on the streets of Northern
Ireland as there was after the Canary Wharf bomb in 1996. Then,
after decades of bloodshed, people feared a return to sectarian
violence and paramilitary campaigns.
Now,
working-class people are disappointed that the Assembly has gone
and that the peace process has stalled over decommissioning arms.
But there is no mood for mass protest.
Most
people could accept the Assembly not being there. They think it
better that it did exist, allowing people access to politicians.
But the Assembly members’ first actions, mainly to give
themselves pay rises, alienated many people.
For
most people as long as the peace process is maintained, with the
cease-fires and gradual demilitarisation, that is a preferable
situation.
But
this crisis is going to be harder to get round than previous
problems. The fact of suspension makes it harder for the
Republican movement to shift.
There
has been little change in the attitude of the leadership of the
main parties. If it was just down to the Trimble leadership of
the unionist UUP, of the Adams wing of Sinn Fein and of
governments in London, Dublin and the USA, they would have
reached some compromise on the decommissioning issue.
This
would probably have involved some means of registering weapons,
saying this put them ‘beyond use’, the phrase used in
the Good Friday agreement.
But
neither Trimble nor Adams could sell their own supporters such a
compromise at present. Trimble possibly faced removal as Unionist
Party leader and Adams has risked a significant split in the
Republican movement.
The
Republican movement has moved away from opposing decommissioning
on principle to discussing how it can be implemented.
The
final statement they put out last week accepted the need for
decommissioning but would only do so in the context of full
implementation of the agreement, and removal of the ‘root
causes of the conflict’.
The
Republicans are trying to sell some movement on arms to their own
members in tandem with movement from the British government on
further withdrawal of troops, closure of some army bases and on
the RUC.
Despite
some British press reports, there is no significant basis for the
IRA rearming. It runs completely contrary to Sinn Fein strategy.
A
return to a war strategy would scupper their electoral strategy.
Their military campaign proved a dead end. Their political
strategy is equally wrong.
They
linked up with the SDLP, the Southern government and the Irish
establishment in America in a right-wing pan-nationalist alliance
which was designed to bring them a place in safe constitutional
politics.
Unfortunately
for the Republicans, everybody else in this alliance thought that
they should decommission. Sinn Fein are isolated, caught on the
horns of two dead-end strategies, military and political.
Now,
the only step Sinn Fein can take is to restart the political
process by making a compromise.
The
Unionists too have dug in. Trimble made himself more of a
prisoner of the Unionist council by telling them that any future
deal that came out of a review would have to go back to them. He
also said that he’d throw other issues such as policing, the
name of the RUC, into the equation. That won’t be accepted
by republicans.
Sectarian
politics will end in a deadlock, either now or in the future.
There is a huge vacuum in capitalist politics in Northern
Ireland. Socialists will be fighting for a new peace process
built from the bottom up, based on building the class unity of
working people.
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Teachers
march against performance pay
LAST
SATURDAY, 12 February, up to 1,500 teachers and parents marched
through London against Performance-Related Pay (PRP) in schools.
Martin
Powell-Davies, chair STOPP
The
demo was about twice as big as the organisers, School Teachers
Opposed to Performance Pay (STOPP), expected. Teachers in
Victorian costume led the protest. Banners proclaimed: “No
to Victorian values”. Hundreds of balloons sent the message
‘No to Performance Pay’ into the London sky.
Teachers
will press the teaching unions to ballot for a one-day strike
against performance pay.
Tony
Benn MP got a standing ovation at the rally when he described PRP
as “discriminatory, arbitrary and unfair”. Bernard
Regan, NUT National Executive member said: “Our campaign is
not just about getting rid of a pernicious system where pay
depends on labelling pupils, it’s about defending
comprehensive education.”
Linda
Taaffe, NUT national executive member, was cheered when she said
that the national executive meeting would be voting on a motion
calling for one-day strike action.
Linda
said: “The government try to give the impression that PRP
can’t be stopped. They’re wrong. We’re going to
organise a mass campaign of action to defeat it.”
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Austria:
A Socialist Campaign to defeat the far-right
MORE
THAN 20,000 people took to the streets of Vienna on Saturday 12
February. This demonstration, lasting more than five hours,
became the most lively and determined march organised so far
against Austria's new right-wing government.
Per Olsson, reports from Vienna
The
demo was called by a bloc of different left organisations,
including the newly formed Sozialistische LinksPartei (SLP), [the
Socialist Left Party, the Austrian section of the Committee for a
Workers’ International (CWI)].
The
march went through Vienna and ended in Dobling, in front of the
huge working-class estate still named Karl Marx Hof, famous as
the scene of fierce fighting when workers fought police, troops
and the fascist Heimwehr during the brief civil war in February
1934. (see last week’s Socialist)
The
demonstration was cheered and applauded by the spectators on the
pavements or looking out from windows. The air was filled with
political slogans, singing of the Internationale, speeches and
music. At least 3,000 copies of a special SLP broadsheet were
sold.
City
of protest
VIENNA
HAS been a city of demonstrations and protests since the
formation of a “black and blue” government on 2
February, a coalition between the conservative People’s
Party (OVP) and Jorg Haider’s extreme-right Freedom Party
(FPO).
Each
night last week thousands of people assembled at the starting
point, outside the Hofburg presidential palace, and walked
through the workers’ districts of Vienna. These
demonstrations have played a key role in providing an alternative
to all that want to take an active stand against
the
government. It has also given a radical voice to the discontent
and anger that has developed in Austria over recent years.
However,
the movement has reached a point where it has to take a further
step. It is now obvious that daily demonstrations of thousands
alone will not bring down the government. The
“Widerstand” (resistance), the main slogan of the
movement, has to become broader.
However,
there are many obstacles to overcome. The leaders of the OGB (the
Austrian TUC), are not prepared, at this stage, to organise a
fightback.
The
trade union leaders are living in the past. They want to maintain
the old “social partnership” between the classes that
the bosses are deserting. The ruling class now want to replace
“Social Partnership” with a de-regulated and so-called
flexible labour market. This is why they were prepared to support
the formation of an OVP-FPO coalition and to see how far it can
go.
Nevertheless,
there are sections of the trade union movement, like the railway
workers, that are discussing the possibility of taking strike
action against the government. Our call for a
“Warnstrike” (warning strike) is getting a good
response amongst the demonstrators.
What
is needed now is a definite date to be set and committees of
action, involving shop stewards, immigrants, school students and
students that are prepared to organise such a warning strike,
from below if necessary. The SLP is campaigning for such a course
of action and this will be the message sent out by the day of
action and the school student strike on 18 February.
It
will then be followed by a big demonstration the day after. It is
almost certain that this demonstration will be bigger than the
70,000-strong demonstration organised on 12 November last year in
response to Haider’s election gains.
Next
phase
BUT
WHAT will happen afterwards? The movement so far has been united
in its hatred towards the new government. The next phase in the
struggle against the “black-blue” coalition will
inevitably bring more to the fore the question of what kind of
government we need to replace it.
There
can be no trust in the established parties. The Social Democrats
(SPO), the trade union bureaucrats and the traditional capitalist
parties all are responsible for the rise of Haider. Their
pro-capitalist policies of privatisation, welfare cuts and
promoting racism, made it possible for the FPO to become the
biggest extreme right-wing party in Europe.
The
SLP is against every capitalist government. A return to the
“old” SPO-OVP coalition is not an alternative to the
present one. Haider’s electoral support was built upon the
increasing alienation from the old coalition.
The
fight against Haider is a fight to build an alternative to all
the parties that stand on the basis of capitalism. The struggle
against the extreme right and racism is part of the fight against
unemployment, cuts, privileges and capitalism. It is a struggle
for socialism and a government that acts in the interest of
working people - a socialist government.
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