Campaign for a New Workers’ Party


IT’S HARDLY surprising that Tony Blair’s government is fuelling anger
amongst working-class people, not least because of its big business
policies in education, the NHS, public-sector pensions and in the
provision of public services.  Also, millions of people have taken
to the streets to protest against Blair’s slavish support for George
Bush’s military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yet despite these rotten policies, many trade union leaders continue
to give millions of pounds of workers’ contributions to finance this
anti-worker party and advocate a Labour vote.
Breaking from New Labour and establishing a new workers’ party would
give the working class a political voice in their struggles against
exploitation by big business.
That is why attending the 19th March conference will be an important
step in the campaign for a new workers’ party. Make sure you’re there!

Why I’m going to the conference…

"As a young anti-war activist I feel that young people have no
political voice that will speak up for them anymore. My trade union
supports New Labour.

If you ask them why, they will tell you that there
is no-one else we can support.

That is why I think it is so important to
‘gather the forces of workers and youth’ and set up a new party that
will represent the working class.

Together we can bring the troops home,
fund the NHS and education and give everyone decent housing. I will go
to the CNWP conference confident in what we will achieve in the next few
years."

Glyn Matthews, USDAW shop steward, Cardiff

"I am attending the CNWP conference for one important reason, that
the working class have no political representation and therefore New
Labour have been able to attack vital resources and services that the
working class rely on.

"A new mass workers’ party would be able to challenge New Labour’s
neo-liberalism and defend the gains that the working class have fought
for over the last 100 years.

As a student I also understand that students are exploited too, and
have a duty to be active in any new party which can fight against top-up
fees and the commercialisation of education."

Jim Thomson, Exeter University

"New Labour is stepping up its drive to privatise our public services
and even break up the comprehensive education system but the mainstream
political parties offer no resistance.

In fact they compete to see who can destroy them quicker. A new
workers’ party is desperately needed to provide a voice for the millions
who rely on these services.

"I believe the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party conference will be
an important step in trying to provide that voice. This is why I am
planning to attend and would urge all trade unionists, community
campaigners and environmentalists to do the same."

Phil Clarke, NUT, Brighton

Campaign for a new workers’ party

National Conference

Sunday 19 March 2006, 11.30am-4.30pm.

University of London Union,

Malet Street, London WC1

(nearest Tubes – Goodge Street or Euston Square)

£5 entrance fee, cheques payable to CNWP, or
pay online

Speakers include:

  • Mark Serwotka, general secretary PCS union;
  • Dave Nellist, Socialist Party councillor; a speaker from WASG the new
    Left formation in Germany.

Local launch meetings coming up

Liverpool

9 March 7:30pm

Casa Bar, Hope Street.

Manchester

14 March 7.30pm

Friends Meeting House, Mount Street.

For more information on the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party, go to
www.cnwp.org.uk

email [email protected] or write to CNWP, PO Box 858, London E11 1YG.


Building support for the campaign

HACKNEY SOCIALIST Party have drawn up plans to advertise the
campaign, gain signatories to the declaration and get people to the 19
March conference.

Fiona Pashazadeh

These plans include visiting local workplaces such as the local
hospital, Department for Work and Pensions offices and the council
offices, as well as visiting Hackney College. Publicity material has
been carried on Saturday stalls and made available at local rallies
against the privatisation of education.

The branch have also put together a list of people from the local
area to ask to attend the conference and so far have booked a number of
places.

Socialist Party members in Huddersfield have approached the Fire
Brigades Union and PCS civil service union locally about the campaign
and the conference and have had a good response. They are aiming to fill
at least one minibus for 19 March and are in touch with a number of
local trade unionists, including the UNISON shop steward who led a
recent caretakers’ strike.

Manchester Socialist Party branch have been doing regular public
activities since the campaign was launched at the end of last year. To
publicise the conference and their local meeting on 14 March, members of
the branch have been visiting various workplaces and also leafleting
workers at Victoria train station in the morning. This has got a good
response, especially when using the slogan, "time for a party of the
working class!".

All Socialist Party members attending the conference should register
today by using the online payments form at
www.cnwp.org.uk/booking.htm
or by sending contact details and a cheque (£5) to CNWP, PO Box 858, E11
1YG.

Branches should also approach others who may be interested in
attending such as shop stewards, student union activists and local
campaigners. Ask them to register as soon as possible using the online
booking form.


CNWP meetings in England and Wales

Swansea

A CNWP launch meeting in Swansea on 16 February was attended by 25
trade unionists and young people.

Opening speaker Rob Williams, (union
convenor at the city’s Visteon plant) argued that the union link with
New Labour lessens trade unions’ ability to defend their members, citing
the MG Rover closure and the sackings of Gate Gourmet workers.

Yet unions like the TGWU still give millions to New Labour! However,
Rob said: "We don’t want non-political trade unions but a new mass party
for working-class people."

Gloria Tanner, PCS union branch organiser at the Pension Centre in
Swansea gave an update on the civil service job cuts dispute. Gordon
Brown’s jobs massacre is deepening the crisis in delivering public
services, with benefit claims taking as much as 12 weeks or more.

PCS young member, Sarah Mayo gave an angry attack on the future that
Blair and Brown have shaped for young people. Low pay, student debts and
ASBOs for wearing hoodies! Young people have no loyalty to New Labour,
and the large youth contingents in the anti-war movement showed that
young people are not apathetic or non-political.


Lambeth

‘Our class needs socialism’

"WHEN I looked out the window again I saw 150 riot police in the
street. When they came into my house ten riot police with shields
surrounded me in my little room. I grabbed a bag and had to leave".

Steve Nally (Lambeth Socialist Party)

Delroy’s crime? Living in a massive, well established and peaceful
squat in Kennington, Lambeth and daring to stand up to Lambeth council
to keep a roof over his head.

Delroy’s experience around homelessness, combined with other
activists’ local struggles, set the combatative tone of the South West
London launch of the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party.

Over 30 campaigners, trade unionists and socialists heard Lewisham
Socialist Party councillor Ian Page and Rob MacDonald, President of
Lambeth College Student Union, outline the burning need to build a
socialist alternative to New Labour. There were also speakers from
NATFHE, Lambeth UNISON, Northern Line RMT and Luke from the Save The
Playgrounds Campaign.

Rob summed up the mood when he said "that unless we fight for
socialism then nothing will change for our class in this area".


Sheffield

Fight the cuts

THREE MONTHS ago, South Yorkshire Fire Brigades Union (FBU)
secretary, Jerry Pagan, said he stayed in the Labour Party to have
influence for his members with Fire Authority councillors.

Alistair Tice

Last month, Labour councillors voted to close three fire stations! On
Saturday, Jerry attended the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party meeting
after the Sheffield ‘March for Jobs and Services’.

So did disabled people activists who are currently fighting Sheffield
Labour Council’s proposed 165% hike in community care charges! And a
dozen civil service PCS union reps, including three branch secretaries,
were amongst the 40-strong audience who heard Socialist Party councillor
Dave Nellist outline the case for a new mass workers’ party.


Walthamstow

PCS members, teachers, workers from libraries, adult education and
Whipps Cross hospital, school and FE students attended the CNWP launch
meeting in Waltham Forest. We had support from tube drivers and postal
workers who couldn’t make the meeting.

Paula Mitchell

Andy, PCS rep at Inland Revenue, said: "When the minimum wage was
brought in, we discovered that some Inland Revenue workers were on less
than the minimum! Workers are asking ‘where’s the party that fights for
us?’"

Nancy Taaffe, UNISON activist, summed up the meeting when she said
that if the union leaders looked at their members, they’d see a fighting
spirit that would follow them in a call for a new mass workers’ party.


New Socialist Party pamphlet


Join
the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party

£1 or £2.50 for 5.

Cheques made payable to Socialist Publications at PO Box 24697,
London, E11 1YD.


Stoke councillors join the Socialist Party