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Labour Can’t Deliver

NEW LABOUR is in a panic. Across the board people are rejecting New Labour - from working-class voters at elections to Blair’s handbagging by the Women’s Institute.

All of a sudden government ministers realise they’re increasingly unpopular but they’re wondering why. Well, we can tell them why people are furious with the government.

Many people hoped that Labour would deliver change. But as one Labour adviser warned Blair this week “things have got worse”.

Labour have delivered nothing positive. Poverty is increasing and the government’s measures to remedy it offer little relief.

A report by the United Nations Children’s Fund showed that even if the government gets everyone who is available for work into a job, one-third of Britain’s children will remain in poverty.

That’s assuming the jobs are there. The government’s economic policies are intensifying capitalist manufacturing industry’s crisis and this means more jobs are being lost.

The threat of tens of thousands of job losses are still to work their way through from the car industry crisis and every week many other companies are going under. Another report out this week showed that the government’s New Deal is not cost effective and not meeting the bosses’ needs, who then refuse to offer jobs. In short another Labour failure.

Health isn’t getting any better. Every week brings new scandals about how the NHS’s internal market sees arrogant fat cat consultants get increasingly rich, while patients and other doctors and healthworkers get an even worse service.

Anger over education has reached boiling point among teachers, pupils and parents.

Millions of people are homeless or living in sub-standard accommodation but Labour’s answer to the housing crisis is to sell off housing stock and plead with private industry to build new homes in the South-East, where there is an explosive housing crisis.

Some newspapers say Labour has lost the plot. We don’t believe they ever had the plot; not one that meant improving the lives of working-class people anyway.

But if you are angry at being spun along by New Labour and want an alternative, then join us and fight for the socialist alternative to New Labour.

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Hands Off Housing

Build decent affordable housing not yuppie flats

Across the country residents are being forced to fight back against attempts to privatise and yuppify council housing. George King from south London and Bill Hopwood from Newcastle show how successful campaigns to defend public housing can be built.

THE LONDON Borough of Southwark is one of the poorest areas in England and Wales. An estimated 62% of residents claim some form of benefits. It has suffered from decades of under-investment in housing repairs due to inadequate government funding.

Now greedy New Labour want to see Bermondsey turned into a 'new Hong Kong' with £200,000-£500,000 yuppy flats in the South Bank and Riverside areas.

How will local people, particularly youth, be able to afford to live in the borough? The New Labour council, following Blair’s housing green paper, is selling all its 55,000 properties to a new housing partnership company who will then lease the housing stock to eight or more new ‘social landlords’.

Consultation is meant to have started but hasn’t, but there is a ballot of tenants on the transfer. Southwark Socialist Party is making the fight to reject the ballot our key campaign this year.

We have produced leaflets for our Saturday stall, used petitions to discuss with residents, attended council lobbies and recently helped build for a successful ‘Defend Southwark Council Housing Campaign’ meeting.

The experience of the successful struggle in neighbouring Lewisham, where the Socialist Party and its councillor Ian Page played a key role in the campaign to fend-off a housing transfer scheme, won’t be lost on many of the best campaigners in Southwark.

Newcastle

NEWCASTLE COUNCIL is proposing to demolish over 3000 working-class homes, mainly council but some privately owned. Virtually all of Scotswood is threatened with destruction. 1,000 homes in the East End are similarly threatened.

The council plan to knock down good houses, many with gardens, to make way for yuppie villages. The areas up for demolition suffer from unemployment and some linked problems. Although the council talk about these issues, they fail to deliver basic services for working-class people.

Newcastle council are more interested in grand schemes to boost the city’s image rather than providing services for people. They are building 2,500 executive homes and encouraging more office and retail development. It’s a property developers’ charter.

One of their main aims is to increase council tax revenue by having more houses in the higher tax bands.

Residents are fighting back. Over 500 people attended a meeting in Scotswood. The council claim it will consult but already residents have spent years being consulted and then being ignored. This campaign is being built to force the council to listen.

The Socialist says

§       Build a million affordable new homes to ease the housing crisis immediately. 

§       Nationalise the construction industry, banks and financial institutions, under democratic workers' control and management.

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Brazil’s workers and poor have nothing to celebrate

IN APRIL 1500, Pedro Alvares Cabral, a Portuguese navigator, accidentally encountered the coastline of what was to become Brazil.

Cabral's "discovery" opened the way for the colonisation of what became modern Brazil and the eventual development of capitalism and landlordism.

Portuguese domination of Brazil and the eventual development of modern capitalism was accomplished in the most bloody slaughter of the indigenous peoples. In 1500, the local population was an estimated five million people who lived in 1,400 tribes, speaking approximately 1,300 languages.

Today, the indigenous peoples, although growing, number no more than 350,000 (0.2% of the population) living in just over 200 tribes speaking 175 languages. However, their plight and fight for culture recognition and land now forms a part of the struggle of all the oppressed of Brazil against capitalism and landlordism.

Massive inequalities

THE HYPOCRISY of the ruling class was fully displayed during the 500th anniversary commemorations. President, Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC), spoke of the need "to be aware of the social wounds that are part of our heritage. To celebrate our history does not mean we are idealising our past."

Such 'awareness' was demonstrated in the deployment of 5,000 riot police and 1,000 soldiers who blocked attempts by 3,000 indigenous people marching into Porto Seguro, the place where the Portuguese landed. The violent repression of this movement even forced the resignation of the head of the government's department for Indian rights, FUNAI.

The mass movement of the landless, MST, organised the seizure of more than 100 farms by more than 30,000 landless families and the occupation of government offices in 22 of Brazil's 26 states. At least one landless worker was killed during subsequent clashes.

The distribution of land reflects the inequality of Brazilian capitalism and landlordism. The richest 20% of people own more than 90% of the land while the poorest 40% are left with a mere 1%.

FHC and the ruling class have conducted a major political offensive claiming that Brazil has overcome the effects of the international economic crisis in 1997 and 1998. "The worst is over" has been the battle cry of the government promising, "Things will get better".

However, although the economy has recorded a sluggish growth in 1999, the plight of the mass of the population has only got worse. Unemployment has continued to rise, reaching ten million nationally. In Sao Paulo state, the number of unemployed has rocketed by 250% between 1990 and 1999 to reach 1,673,000.

Even this picture does not tell the whole story as the number working in the informal sector (street sellers etc) has also increased massively from 587,000 to 923,000.

Workers in the public sector have received no increase in wages since the economic crisis in 1998 and because of the massive devaluation that took place have suffered a real fall in living standards.

Political crisis

FACED WITH these conditions the popularity of the government has plummeted. FHC has not won the support of more than 15% of those questioned in opinion polls since the crisis in 1998.

This is a marked turn-around. Previously, Cardoso and his government enjoyed substantial support because of the hope that the introduction of the Real Plan, which brought the social cancer of hyperinflation under control, would resolve the economic plight faced by millions of Brazilians. The onset of the crisis in 1998 shattered such illusions.

The collapse in support for the government has opened rifts and divisions with the governing coalition. This has gone side by side with the exposure of corruption scandals involving all of the main capitalist parties. As a result of one such scandal the Mayor of Sao Paulo now faces impeachment proceedings.

The ruling institutions in Brazil have seen an erosion of their authority and social basis as a consequence of these developments. Brazilians now have less confidence in the courts, parliament, local councils, police, etc, then at any time since the days of the military dictatorship, which collapsed in the early 1980s.

The desperation of some sections of Brazilian society and the lack of an alternative, has driven some to seek solace in religion. Both the Evangelical and Roman Catholic churches have grown. The failure of the official workers organisations, the Workers' Party (PT) and the Trades Union Congress (CUT) to offer a revolutionary socialist alternative is the main reason for this growth.

However, even sections of the Catholic church have been affected by the pressure to fight against the effects of capitalism. The Congress of Catholic Young Workers condemned the capitalist system.

Its manifesto declared: "The unemployed men and women if the streets and all of the marginalised people are the fruit of the irresponsibility of the Brazilian elite, including its defenders, like FHC. We declare that the main cause of these facts is the capitalist system and its mechanism of exploitation that suffocates our wishes and happiness...."

The manifesto, like the National Congress of Brazilian Bishops demands an increase in the minimum wage, a reduction in the working week and non-payment of the foreign debt.

Public-sector protests

THE GOVERNMENT, despite its collapse in support, has been intent on continuing to force through a rigorous adjustment programme, including privatisations and further cuts in state expenditure in order to meet the IMF financial targets.

The loss of support and determination to implement the austerity programme has now provoked a massive strike wave in the public sector. Teachers, health workers, metro workers, bus drivers, and students from technical colleges and universities have all been involved in struggles against the government.

40,000 marched in Sao Paulo against the government on Avenida Paulista on 18 May. Mario Covas, governor of Sao Paulo, was pelted with eggs and tin cans by teachers involved in struggle. This demonstration and other protests have faced repression by the state not seen since the days of the military regime.

Students aged 15, 16 and 17 were removed from a student building and marched onto the streets by the Military Police with their hands above their heads.

This served to enrage workers and young people. This protest was followed by another on 25 May in which between 80,000 and 100,000 workers and young people took part.

Workers movement

THE PT in the last few years, like other former traditional parties of the working class, has taken a sharp turn towards the right. Its last congress did not support the slogan of a struggle to "force out FHC and the IMF".

In contrast to its history, it has formed pacts and agreements with small capitalist parties in the majority of the states of Brazil. Rather than a party of struggle, which it was when it was formed in the early 1980s, its leaders are now mainly concerned with increasing the electoral support of the party and not leading and participating in the mass struggles.

Despite the swing to the right by the leadership, the party is still viewed by many workers and youth as being different and as being untouched by the corruption scandals. This and opposition to the parties of the government coalition, is sure to mean that the PT will make important gains in local elections that are due to take place later this year.

The PT leadership are attempting to forge a "centre left alliance" together with some smaller populist capitalist parties such as the PDT (Democratic Workers' Party), PSB and the PPS (Brazilian Socialist Party and the Popular Socialist Party), in preparation for the presidential elections in 2002.

The impact of a renewed economic crisis and mass struggles that have begun could propel this type of multi-class coalition to adopt a radical populist programme involving other sections of the capitalist class.

The prospects for this taking place were illustrated when the capitalist state governor of Minas Gerais imposed a moratorium on payments of debt to the federal government.

However, should such a coalition (although initially having massive support), by involving representatives of a section of the ruling class and with a programme that remains within the capitalist system, would not be able to solve the crisis in Brazil.

Socialism

AN INDEPENDENT socialist programme is necessary to defeat FHC and solve the problems of the working class, peasants and urban poor. It needs to include a struggle to overthrow the government of FHC and reject any idea forming alliances with sections of the ruling class.

The struggle needs to centre on the idea of forming a socialist government of workers and peasants that would:

* stop payment on the foreign debt;

* implement a programme of land reform;

* nationalise the major banks and monopolies both national and international under democratic workers control and management as the basis to implement a socialist plan of production.

A victory of the working class in Brazil poses the possibility of socialist revolution throughout Latin America and the defeat of capitalism and imperialism.

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Brazil aka “Bel-India

THE UNEVEN and contradictory character of Brazilian capitalism combines the poverty and lack of economic development of India with features of the fully industrialised economies of Europe, such as Belgium. (Hence the title, 'Bel-India'.) The result is one of the most unequal distribution in wealth that exists in the world today.

The night sky in Sao Paulo is filled with private helicopters carrying executives home from the financial sector based on Avenida Paulista. These privileged passengers fly over the 20% of Sao Paulo's population who live in the squalor of the favellas [shanty towns] that punctuate the city.

The great social equaliser

OUT OF desperation and because of the lack of an alternative there are features of a social collapse in some areas of Brazil. Capitalist commentators now speak of an "undeclared civil war" reflected in the crime rates.

More than 50,000 people are killed every year because of violent homicide. On some days, 40 or 50 people are killed every day in the state of Sao Paulo. As one commentator put it: "The revolver has now become the greatest social equaliser".

Congress of Socialismo Revolucionario

TONY SAUNOIS attended the national congress of Socialismo Revolucionario, the Brazilian section of the CWI.

Socialismo Revolucionario has participated in all the recent struggles in Sao Paulo and is fighting for:

* Unification of all the struggles of workers.

* Solidarity strikes of all workers.

* Prepare for a 48-hour general strike with defence of all demonstrations and protests.

* A national conference of rank-and-file workers of all those involved in Struggle to prepare a programme of struggle to force out FHC and the IMF and non-payment of the national and foreign debt.

* A workers' and peasants' socialist government.

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Left unity put to the test in London

THE LSA conference was overwhelmingly made up of members of existing Left organisations; the biggest number came from the SWP. Anyone who attended had the right to vote.

The SWP have a reputation as being extremely undemocratic. They are renowned for using 'front' organisations which, whilst they have the token appearance of being politically broad, are actually under the absolute control of the SWP.

They have become involved in the LSA partly to try and overcome this reputation. They keep insisting that they are genuine in their desire to build the LSA as a democratic alliance.

Unfortunately, Sunday's conference showed clearly that the SWP's approach to the LSA is no different to their attitude to any of their previous front organisations.

With the support of some small Left organisations and a few 'Marxist' individuals, the SWP voted to ban parties from selling their paper while canvassing for the LSA. The arguments they put forward were no different to those of the Labour Party right wing when they expelled us (we were then called 'Militant') from the Labour Party.

If the SWP continue down this path the LSA will very quickly suffer the same fate as Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party (SLP). (The SLP is in the process of disintegration because its bureaucratic high-handed approach.)

To be a genuine alliance the LSA would have to be organised on the principle of a united front. This means that it unites the participating forces on a common socialist platform, while allowing organisations, groups and individuals, to uphold their own political positions.

Instead, not only did the conference ban paper selling, it agreed a constitution which virtually obliterates the united front element of the LSA. This will exclude forces that any genuine alliance would aim to involve. For example on the basis of this approach, the LSA will never recruit those socialist young people who are active in the anti-capitalist movement.

The result of the SWP continuing down this road will be that workers and youth moving into struggle completely bypass the LSA.

The rights of organisations

AT THE pre-conference Steering Committee four out of six organisations and parties within the LSA voted to support election guidelines based on Socialist Party proposals. These proposals made it clear that LSA candidates and LSA written material would be based on the "widest possible" consensus in the alliance. Alongside this it also proposed that "all participating parties, organisations and groups have the right to distribute their own material and sell their papers when working under the umbrella of the LSA.

All election candidates standing as part of the LSA have the right to state the name of the organisation they belong to on election material."

The conference opposed these proposals and passed an alternative which stated:

"All participating parties, organisations, groups or individuals have the right to distribute or sell their own material at LSA events, but no such activity will take place while canvassing on behalf of the LSA." (our emphasis)

The conference also agreed that candidates in elections could not state the name of the organisation they belong to on election material. If Socialist Party councillor Ian Page was to stand for the LSA this could result in the ridiculous position that Ian could not say he was a member of the Socialist Party in the leaflet!

The rights of local Borough alliances

THE SUCCESS of an alliance is measured by its ability to involve a wider layer in its activity. This means trade union campaigns, community campaigns and individuals who are drawing socialist conclusions.

This constitution gives no rights to local borough alliances. This means that any new people who get active in the LSA will have no possibility to influence LSA decisions.

The only body that can take decisions between conferences is the Steering Committee, yet borough alliances, including the already active Lewisham and Greenwich alliance, are not allowed representation on that body. The SWP attempted to disguise this by electing 16 'individuals' to the Steering Committee.

We are not opposed to individuals being on the Steering Committee. However, individuals chosen by an SWP-dominated conference are no substitute for the right of local alliances to send democratically elected representatives to the Steering Committee.

An arrogant approach

A GENUINE alliance could play an important role in the development of independent political representation for the working class. That means the creation, in the longer term, of a new mass party of the working class. The SWP do not support the LSA calling for such a party. What is more their approach means that the LSA could become an obstacle to the development of a new workers' party.

An alliance like the LSA can only play a positive role if it does not arrogantly assert it is the only necessary electoral alternative to New Labour. A genuine alliance would be prepared to encourage and support groups of trade unionists and community campaigners who decide to stand in elections even if they are not initially willing to stand under the banner of the alliance.

It is clear from the conference that this is not the approach that the SWP are taking.

The potential for a left alternative to New Labour was demonstrated in the Greater London Assembly elections, which took place at the same time as the mayoral elections: 26% of voters in the top-up ballot voted for non-mainstream parties.

The Greens, backed by Livingstone for the top-up list, won three seats. The Left candidates received a combined vote of 88,515 votes (5.34%) in the top-up poll. This gives a glimpse of the potential for a socialist alternative.

However, the GLA elections also demonstrated the fractured nature of the opposition to New Labour. Unfortunately, despite the efforts of the Socialist Party, the Left vote was split between five different organisations and individuals.

The LSA received a marginally higher vote than the others (1.63%), but Peter Tatchell (a gay activist and socialist) and the Campaign Against Tube Privatisation (backed by the regional union council of the London Underground workers) were not far behind with 1.38% and 1.05% respectively.

One of the goals of a genuine socialist alliance should be to try to ensure that socialists don’t stand against each other in the general election. It is in all our interests to achieve the maximum possible unity.

Sunday’s conference makes it very unlikely that the LSA will achieve this goal.

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Nigeria: General strike wins big concessions

ABSOLUTELY SOLID. That has been the impact of the general strike against the Nigerian government’s 50% rise in oil prices which began on 8 June. Across the country workers and students have taken the lead in opposing the price rise.

James Long

Such is the depth of opposition that some State governors have supported the strike and President Obasanjo’s own People’s Democratic Party officially declared on 11 June that “it is obvious that the procedure, timing and margins of increase were wrong”.

This magnificent action has shown that, despite a background of increasing religious and national divisions within Nigeria, decisive working-class action can create a unified national movement.

At the time of writing the government has already offered to cut the price rise from 50% to 25%, but this offer of compromise has, so far, been rejected by the union leaders.

The strike is rapidly reaching a crucial stage. In Nigeria most people live from day to day; especially in the towns large numbers have only casual work.

In addition the combination of heat, lack of electricity and poverty means that the vast majority of people have to buy their food daily from street markets. This means that pressures for a return to work can quickly develop in the towns and cities as food and money start to run out.

In this situation the labour movement has to seize the initiative. While the walkout has been solid, the labour leaders’ policy of a “Seat at Home” strike can isolate workers at home, does not mobilise the strikers in activity or allow for a collective discussion of the issues involved.

The Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM – the Committee for a Workers’ International section in Nigeria) has called for a policy of mass mobilisation in action.

In Lagos State the Council of Industrial Unions (COIU), chaired by DSM member Ayodele Akele, has linked the strike against the fuel price rise with its own demand for parity with the new 7,500 Naira monthly minimum wage being given to Federal government workers.

While this time the government may retreat, the PDP statement shows that the capitalist politicians do not rule out further attempts to raise prices. The result is that there is a widening questioning of the new civilian regime and a search for an alternative.

In these circumstances, the DSM is getting a positive response to its call to “working people and youth that, while fighting against this fuel price hike, we must also begin the process of building an independent political party of the working people with distinct programmes and policies different from those of the capitalist ruling class.... (a party that will realise its goals) by putting into power a workers’ and poor peasants’ government that will implement a socialist programme.”

*THE TEXT of the DSM 2 June statement and the 6 June special issue of Socialist Democracy can be obtained from the CWI at inter@dircon.co.uk

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Barak retreats over ‘tax reforms’

A THREATENED general strike by Israeli workers has forced the coalition government of prime minister Ehud Barak to back down on his so-called ‘tax reform’. MANDY RABIN of Maavak Sozialisti (CWI, Israel) reports:

BARAK HOPED to use the proposed tax reforms to notch up at least one achievement for his coalition, paralysed by internal conflicts and stumbling from disaster to disaster. Instead, the reforms have only served to increase the government’s unpopularity, and Barak has been forced to back down.

The tax reform proposals were published amid ecstatic declarations by the government and media of how they would reduce social inequality and increase taxation on capital. The Finance Ministry even declared that 95% of families would be better off.

Despite this propaganda, 60% of Israeli workers opposed the reforms before even having seen them, having learnt through bitter experience that government proposals only mean bad news for workers.

Reacting to workers’ opposition to the reforms, the government wasted 3.5 million shekels on a media campaign to convince us of how wonderful they are, to no avail.

The Histadruth trade union leadership declared a struggle against sections of the reform that proposed to introduce taxation on workers’ savings plans and on shift workers, and to cancel tax exemptions for working women. But instead of the demand being for the outright cancellation of these measures, it was only for Amir Peretz, the Histadruth leader, to be involved in discussions on them.

Therefore, a general strike planned by the Histadruth was called off at the last minute, after the Finance Minister agreed to enter into discussions with Peretz.

At a rally of 3,000 workers, Peretz declared this a victory for workers, won due to the opposition of the workers themselves. While it is true that the government backed down in the face of workers’ anger and the threat of a general strike, the retreat was partly due to the government’s own weakness and instability.

The Barak coalition government is highly unpopular after failing to deliver on election promises, the economy is mired in recession, the peace talks with Syria’s late President Assad failed and the coalition is in crisis.

Maavak Sozialisti has been calling on workers not only to struggle against the most odious sections of the reform, but to oppose the bosses’ tax reforms with workers reforms – to abolish subsidies to big business, increase taxation on capitalists and nationalise companies that sack workers as a result of these measures. 

In this way, the trend of moving the tax burden from the bosses onto the backs of workers that has taken place over the past 15 years could be reversed.

We have warned against workers sitting back while Histadruth leaders discuss with Finance Ministry officials and are calling instead for the active mobilizing of rank-and-file workers in struggle.

In the past, striking workers have returned to work, only to discover that the Histadruth leadership has sold them out. Therefore, we are also calling for no return to work until the terms have been agreed by the majority of workers.

We have leafleted workplaces and distributed 2,500 leaflets at the Histadruth rally. At this rally, we also called on workers to actively support the struggle of workers at the Yedioth Aharonoth newspaper (see last week’s Socialist), and for united workers’ defence against the vicious attacks on Yedioth workers by management thugs, in an attempt to smash their union.

As a result of our intervention, we are now widely known by workers, especially at Yedioth, where we have gained the respect and support of workers despite political attacks on us by union leaders.

Messages of support to: Haim Meiri, Workers’ Committee, Yedioth Aharonoth, c/o Histadruth, Fax: 00 972 3 696 9296. (Please mention that you heard of the strike from Maavak Sozialisti.)

e-mail copies to Maavak Sozialisti: info@maavak.org.il

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