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Somers Forge workers continue pay strike

Somers Forge strikers. Photo: Wolverhampton and black country socialist party (uploaded 19/01/2022)
Somers Forge strikers. Photo: Wolverhampton and black country socialist party (uploaded 19/01/2022)
Somers Forge strikers. Photo: Wolverhampton and black country socialist party

Somers Forge strikers. Photo: Wolverhampton and black country socialist party   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Nick Hart, West Midlands Socialist Party

Workers at Somers Forge in Halesowen took their fourth day of strike action in their current dispute for a living pay increase – and also the fourth ever in the company’s 155-year history!

Strikers told us about the Victorian working conditions at this Victorian company. It’s not uncommon to see pools of water, with squirrels and ducks nesting in the workshop, which produces large metalwork for military and other specialist applications.

On top of this is a bullying culture from management that has seen over 50 staff come and go in one section in the space of three years. Far from the company taking necessary measures to minimise Covid during the pandemic, workers were not only being trooped into the plant, but reportedly threatened with the sack for not taking overtime!

GMB union members there have a further two days of strike action planned for late January, as part of their campaign to win a pay rise in line with inflation and backdated to last April’s pay anniversary. Yet another group of workers not taking the cost of living crisis lying down!

Probation union Napo sets date for strike ballot

Vote ‘yes’ to fight for decent pay and workloads

Adam Harmsworth, Napo national vice-chair, personal capacity

From 19 October until noon on 13 November, probation service workers in Napo will be balloted for industrial action over both pay and workloads.

The recent chaos around the early release of thousands of prisoners has put the spotlight on problems in probation that have existed for years. Probation workers are already severely overworked, and many were dreading the immense extra work they would be forced to shoulder with the early release.

Pay has fallen in real terms over many years, leaving some staff working two jobs even while being overworked. To add to the insultingly low pay, a year ago probation bosses didn’t even bother to make a pay offer for an entire year!

On top of that, there is a horrendous culture of bullying and discrimination.

Napo members in probation have had enough of being overworked and underpaid.

In June, Napo’s National Executive Committee (NEC) passed a motion of no confidence in HMPPS, demanding “immediate and substantive change”.

When neither HMPPS nor the government reacted, 90.76% of members voted for industrial action in an online indicative ballot. From there, the NEC unanimously voted to continue the campaign, including a formal ballot for industrial action.

Napo has 7,000 members. It has had two online all-member meetings since announcing the formal ballot, with 490 members attending the first and 300 at the second.

Everything indicates this is a union whose members are prepared to fight back, to improve pay and workloads, and to effectively rescue probation from a crisis of years of underfunding.

Napo members in probation should vote ‘yes’ to strike, and make clear this union will not back down until funding is restored to probation and the culture of overworking is torn down.

Pressure on Burnham

If the Labour government were truly on our side, it would have begun restoring pay to the public sector and investing in public services like probation. But there is no word of this from new prime minister Andy Burnham. Instead, at the time of writing, even the threat of strike action hasn’t budged the government to intervene to ensure any decent offer on pay and workloads could be put to the union.

At last year’s annual general meeting (AGM), 37% of attendees voted for a motion for Napo to begin discussions with sister unions on building a new political voice for the working class. Since then, Keir Starmer was booted out, massively unpopular due to his continuation of Tory austerity.

While no similar motion has been taken to this year’s AGM, many members will feel let down by a Burnham government promising to be different, but in practice acting just the same.

Napo AGM

All Napo members are encouraged to attend the AGM at Newcastle’s Civic Hall from 15 to 17 October, and join the discussion on how we can build the industrial and political fightback together to win a probation service that works for its staff, service users, and the community.

That must include Napo pressing the TUC to call the national demo against Labour austerity agreed at TUC Congress in September.

PCS national strike ballot dates set

Now we organise to win

PCS Broad Left Network

PCS will be balloting from 20 October to 1 December for national industrial action. The ballot for action is in support of the union’s demands on pay, jobs and conditions – demands which cannot be met by the 3.5% government-imposed pay remit – only 2% of which is funded.

If we want more money we will have to fight for it.

The task now is to turn the decision into the biggest possible organising campaign across PCS and deliver the turnout and ‘Yes’ vote we need to take effective national action.

PCS demands a 10% pay rise, an £18-an-hour minimum civil service wage and appropriate London weighting. Low pay and the erosion of differentials continue to plague the civil service, with increases in the legal minimum wage repeatedly catching up with the lowest civil service grades. The government’s 3.5% civil service pay remit does not meet those demands.

We are also demanding a job security agreement, including protection against compulsory redundancies. Tens of thousands of jobs are potentially at stake. The Institute for Government estimates that around 40,000 civil service jobs could disappear by 2029, and other significant budget cuts across departments could lead to 72,000 job losses by the end of the decade.

We are fighting for our pensions, against attacks on terms and conditions, and against arbitrary office-attendance requirements, which can cost members hundreds of pounds a month simply to travel to work.

Coordinate with others

The millions of workers who run government departments, schools, colleges, hospitals, councils and other public services possess enormous collective power. Where different groups of workers are fighting over the same fundamental issues, the trade union movement should seek the maximum possible coordination of campaigns and industrial action.

A strong ‘Yes’ vote in PCS, alongside successful ballots elsewhere in the public sector, would strengthen every worker fighting against falling living standards. We will be discussing coordinated action capable of forcing the government to move.

The NEC also agreed that members will be consulted on the question of a levy to fund targeted strike action and for longer-term requirements. The National Disputes Committee will set the dates for membership consultation. The Broad Left Network (BLN) firmly believes that members should have their say on the future of the levy and how we properly resource industrial action.

Between now and 20 October, PCS needs to build organising campaigns in every branch: cleaning membership data, recruiting new members and reps, holding workplace meetings and systematically speaking to members about why they need to vote ‘Yes’.

Once ballot papers land, every part of the union must be focused on beating the legal 50% turnout threshold and delivering the strongest possible ‘Yes’ vote. BLN members on the NEC will continue to push for reps to have the resources of the national union thrown behind them.

  • Ballot papers will be sent electronically, unless members are in Northern Ireland or do not have a valid email address
  • Socialist Party members play a key role in the PCS Broad Left Network which, in a coalition alongside others, forms a left majority on the PCS NEC. BLN supporters have fought hard for this ballot to take place

Gaza devastation: build international youth walkouts

FIGHT FOR OUR FUTURES NOT THEIR WARS

Mark Best, Socialist Party national committee

Nearly three years after the start of the Israeli state’s genocidal war on Gaza, the satellite images on Google Maps have been updated. They reveal the extent of ongoing devastation and deprivation imposed on Palestinians whose homes are in the strip.

Rows and rows of buildings reduced to dust. Homes, workplaces, places of leisure, completely flattened. In their place, tent cities, now the home of 2.1 million people. Two thirds of the buildings in Gaza have been destroyed.

The images are shocking and emphasise, despite over a year of supposed ceasefire, the ongoing humanitarian crisis, with disease, hunger and dispossession commonplace. And despite the slight changes of emphasis amongst the bosses’ politicians, real action to end this situation from governments across Europe isn’t there. (see pages 8-9)

The before-and-after photos show destruction on a par with the aftermath of a nuclear blast, created by the bombardment of tens of thousands of missiles. The Israeli state’s genocidal slaughter, with capitalist elites internationally complicit, has exposed to millions that this capitalist system is one capable of untold destruction and suffering as a result of their wars of plunder.

Fear of mass working-class opposition and a threat to their rule weighs heavy in the calculations of the capitalist classes in their descent into deeper and broader conflicts and wars.

Their actions have already provoked mass movements. In Britain, huge protests against the war toppled Tory home secretaries, contributed to the end of a Tory government and sowed the seeds for Keir Starmer’s resignation.

Now as politicians beat the drums of war, and want us to pay for increased spending on the military with more cuts and hits to our living standards, we should continue that struggle. They are worried about the impact our actions can have – that’s what’s behind every attempted attack on our democratic rights.

We can take inspiration from the young people fighting back across Europe; from school students in France, housing protesters in Spain, to the school strikers against conscription in Germany (see pages 2-3).

The capitalist system offers a world filled with wars making all of us less safe, and attacks on our living standards to maximise the profits of an uber-wealthy elite.

That’s why we’re organising for the international youth walkout on 20 November. To fight for our futures, not their wars. The way to provide us all with a world in which we can thrive, instead of struggling to get by, is to take the wealth and power out of the hands of the thieving few, and democratically utilise the world’s resources to provide us all with a home, a decent job and end climate chaos.

Join us, fight for socialist change!

France erupts into youth revolt and strikes

French student protests Photo: Guallendra/CC
French student protests Photo: Guallendra/CC

Gauche Révolutionnaire, CWI France

The school students’ mobilisation, which began more than 15 days ago, reached a new stage after the public sector strike on 29 September – 338 high schools were blockaded. More than 1,000 were affected by mobilisations on 1 October.

Thousands of young people have taken to the streets to reject the deterioration of their study conditions and their sacrificed future.

For years, school students have endured the shortage of teachers, overcrowded classes, absurd timetables, and the endless days that keep piling up. In many schools, buildings are dilapidated, toilets are insufficient, water leaks are multiplying, and heating or ventilation conditions are unfit for study.

When the time comes to think about the future after high school, it is either the search for jobs, hardship or unemployment. For those considering continuing their studies, Parcoursup (higher education application system) turns access to education into an obstacle course through fierce selection.

Faced with the anger being expressed, President Macron barely even pretends to hear the demands, and prime minister Lecornu proposes nothing. The government is even planning further cuts to teaching and staff posts.

At the same time, the repression is very violent, especially in working-class neighbourhoods and workers’ towns. Students’ blockades have been violently dispersed, police forces have been deployed outside schools from the outset, and school students have been attacked. So far, 170 school students have been injured. One young person lost an eye in Tours, shot by a rubber bullet. Another in St-Ouen, aged 14, had his jaw completely shattered. In Lens, a 15-year-old school student had his left hand torn off. 5,000 people have been taken into police custody since the start of the movement.

The government is now seeking to prevent young people from gathering by closing schools in a kind of ‘lockout’.

Youth defiance

All this reveals the government’s fear of seeing the mobilisation spread and connect with workers’ anger. This strategy is already failing, because all the teaching staff unions have been calling for mobilisations alongside students since 2 October.

Young people understand more and more clearly that the deterioration of the education system is not simply a ‘management error’. It is the result of a policy that prefers to finance the capitalists rather than meet the needs of the population.

The movement of 1 October showed the anger, rage and determination that have developed among young people. A revolt is developing.

The aggressiveness of the police is frightening but no longer stops the mobilisations. A small section of young people confront the police, sometimes in a logic of revenge against the government and the violence they suffer in working-class neighbourhoods. And there are small organised fringe groups seeking to smash things up. Infiltrated police officers who provoke and smash things are also regularly identified.

The chaos is Macron and the capitalists who feed it every day through their policies, and who want it. Damage to school buildings, fires and attacks on education staff are not a sign of radicalism. What is truly radical is being thousands-strong in demonstrations putting forward demands, building a mass struggle of young people for their futures.

Accusations of manipulation against La France Insoumise have the same objective: to divide young people and workers. But it is not working! Activists from La France Insoumise and from other left-wing organisations are present alongside school students to support the mass struggle, not to control it… which is impossible anyway.

Our side is taking shape again against Macron, the far-right National Rally, and all the capitalist parties: it is that of young people and workers uniting in a massive and determined struggle.

To win, it is necessary to discuss, decide together and give the struggle a clear direction. School students must be able to meet in general assemblies, draw up their demands and regularly elect representatives in each school. Coordination between mobilised high schools would make it possible not to remain isolated, to share experiences and to prepare common actions, locally and then nationally.

It is to prevent students organising that the government is closing the majority of secondary school premises on the eve of the 6 October strike. The workers’ movement has a duty to support those who are fighting. We must reopen the secondary school buildings and ensure these are spaces where pupils can come together and decide for themselves what their demands are and how they wish to organise themselves.

Since Friday 2 October, education, health and other sector unions have begun calling strikes and organising solidarity, aware of the essential role that organised workers can play. Unions in education, health and social care, railway workers and others will stand alongside young people on Tuesday 6 October. In workplaces, assemblies must be called to discuss the situation and decide on concrete actions.

6 October must not be a simple day of demonstrations, but the beginning of a lasting struggle. The public-sector strike on 29 September showed that potential exists. It is now necessary to prepare a massive strike, public and private, which could take the form of a three-day consecutive strike in all sectors.

Such a struggle against Macron will strengthen all workers against the capitalists and their system. The activists of Gauche Révolutionnaire are fighting for this in their workplaces or places of study, and in their trade unions. We are fighting for a society free from exploitation, poverty and the destruction of the environment: a socialist society managed democratically and collectively by the workers themselves.

This article was published in full at socialistworld.net on 6 October

Spain: Eviction sparks mass movement and snap election

Protests against Sanchez Photo: Barcex/CC
Protests against Sanchez Photo: Barcex/CC

Spain has been rocked by mass protests. Now, under pressure, trade union leaders are preparing to name the date for a 24-hour general strike. Unable to pass housing reforms though parliament as concessions to the mass movement, the prime minister has been forced to call an early general election. The body of caretaker lawmakers that serves until the election on 29 November is set to pass the reforms. Paul Kershaw, Chair of Unite Housing Workers’ branch and Socialist Party member, reports. First published in full online at socialistworld.net, 3 October


The brutal eviction of the 87-year old disabled woman, María del Carmen Abascal, known as “Maricarmen”, who had been living in her Madrid flat for 71 years, sparked fury across Spain. She was carried out of her home on a stretcher by riot police after her housing block had been tear gassed.

The state machine violently backed Urbagestion, the investment fund that increased her rent by over 400%. On Maricarmen’s limited pension, this was simply not affordable. But the huge popular response has shocked the politicians and capitalists who have retreated as the mass movement spreads. 

There had been repeated attempts to proceed with eviction which were thwarted by the housing movement. After legal battles, the Supreme Court ruled in March to end her lease because in their view, she was not sufficiently disabled to require support.

On Wednesday 23 September the eviction was carried out. Over 500 supportive neighbours organised by the tenants’ union camped out to peacefully stop police entering the building. The police arrived at 6am with 15 vans, a helicopter and dozens of police to violently disperse the crowd.

Maricarmen was carried out and taken to hospital. Images of the eviction sparked outrage and there were protests in cities nationwide. Up to 300,000 people marched through Madrid on Saturday 26 September and there are protest encampments in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square, and similar movements in other cities. In some ways, these encampments echo the 15-M movement, the huge wave of anti-austerity protests and public square occupations in 2011 following the impact of the global financial crisis of 2008.

The huge response has terrified the ruling class and won significant but limited reforms. Urbagestion, the landlord, now says Maricarmen can move back under her old rent.

The mass movement forced promises of reforms from the ‘progressive’ PSOE government that it failed to deliver during more than eight years in government. They include protections against eviction until 2030, curbs on investment funds buying residential property until 2028, automatic lease extensions until 2028, more strict control of short-term rentals and support for first-time buyers.

But they don’t go as far as the ‘Maricarmen decree’ drawn up by the Madrid Tenants’ Union, which calls for a ban on ‘Vulture funds’ – speculative investment funds – buying housing, a law against evicting vulnerable individuals without offering alternative housing, a further curb on price rises, a freeze on rents and automatic renewal of leases. Tenants’ union representatives have demanded its full implementation and discussions in the encampments have moved on to more fundamental change. There are calls to expropriate the vulture funds and Sumar, the smaller party in the governing coalition, has called for Maricarmen’s building to be expropriated.

Housing commodity

In capitalist economies housing is a commodity, tradable for profit. In the wake of the global financial crisis, government policies around the world gave this an added twist. The banks were rescued and quantitative easing drove rising house prices by transforming the housing market into a primary outlet for what has been called a ‘global wall of money’ seeking safe investment. Liberalised financial systems facilitated vast amounts of capital moving around the world in search of profit, and house prices were increasingly decoupled from wages and workers’ ability to pay.

In the absence of mass workers’ parties, the neoliberal policies driving this process were not seriously opposed by any mass party. Financialisation has gone through various phases since then, but the essential features of high housing costs, badly managed rental property and insecurity persist. Taking over empty homes and expropriating the corporate landlords – with compensation on the basis of proven need – along with nationalisation of the banks are essential measures for a sustainable plan for genuinely affordable and secure housing.

Trade union members have been active in the movement and unions, including the largest ones (CCOO and UGT), have given official backing. They said they were holding off calling a general strike awaiting the result of voting on the housing reforms in congress. But the unions should be pressing to go beyond the temporary measures from the government rather than waiting on a parliamentary vote.

Attempts to put through emergency housing reforms collapsed after Congress rejected both government decrees. The government needed support from Catalan populist Junts to pass the measures, but the party withdrew its backing at the last moment. Opposition parties PP and Vox also voted against both texts, leaving the minority coalition without a path to approval.

The defeat dealt a significant blow to Pedro Sánchez’s government, intensifying calls from the opposition for early elections. Meanwhile, protests continue across Spain, with housing groups organising demonstrations in dozens of cities and demanding stronger protections against speculative investment and rising rents.

Linking the enormous potential power of organised workers to the protesters in Puerta del Sol and other squares would lead to an unstoppable movement. It will be crucial to hammer out a programme for real change through democratic debate.

Across Europe, struggles are developing against the capitalist housing crisis. Struggles such as these, and the debates around strategy and programme they produce, have the potential to lead to new mass parties worthy of the working class.

In Spain, one tenants’ union statement this week states that a “historic window of opportunity has opened to reverse decades of the commodification of housing. That is why we need to step up the pressure.” Another states: “This is just getting started.”

Build international youth strike 20 November

‘Fight for our futures, not their wars’, a Europe-wide day of youth walkouts is taking place on 20 November. With 20+ other youth organisations from across the continent, Socialist Students is taking part. The strikes are being organised by two youth organisations taking part in the mass movement in Spain, as well as two student organisations in France. The German school strike organisation which led tens of thousands walking out in September have now also announced 20 November as another strike day.

Unions must fight Burnham’s pension pinching attack

Photo: Paul Mattsson
Photo: Paul Mattsson

Editorial of the Socialist issue 1385

Andy Burnham, in his Labour conference speech, sought to feed hopes among some that his government will be different. However, big-business bosses watching will have been quite satisfied. Particularly pleasing for them, his announcement to unlock the triple lock on the state pension – pinching an estimated £50 billion out of pensioners’ pockets by 2050.

The Financial Times is one of the main mouthpieces of British capitalism. It has argued for the scrapping of the triple lock for years on behalf of the big business bosses as one of the ways they seek to maximise profit and minimise the share of wealth going to the working class. Its editorial approved: “Burnham’s pledge to remove the generous ‘triple lock’ on state pensions in the next parliament is promising”, and its appetite grew with the eating.

The FT editorial continued: “What is needed above all is a credible plan to contain spending in the near term”, saying “direct reductions in welfare spending are needed too”, and specifically mentioning Personal Independence Payments (PIP) – another threat to disabled people’s benefits. Recognising that announcing cuts would arouse the kind of opposition that brought down their last representative, Keir Starmer, they advise: “Significant savings may be unrealistic in this Budget. But Healey can at least spell out how welfare costs will be contained and signal a tougher spending review, slated for next year.”

The pensions triple lock has not ended pensioner poverty but it has reduced it. The state pension had dropped to about 16% of mean earnings by 2010 but raising it annually by the highest of inflation, earnings growth, or 2.5% means it is about 26% now. Burnham has announced that the link with earnings growth will be changed.

The FT and co argue that the triple lock is too “generous” and rising too fast – in relation to stagnating wages –  and so needs to be cut loose from annual earnings growth and linked to a more general average. But despite propaganda, those claiming the state pension today are not in clover. A full new state pension is worth just £12,548 this year, the lowest in the G7. Instead of young workers and pensioners being pitted against each other, we need mass workers’ struggle to fight for wage rises and restoration  and pensions that allow dignity in retirement.

Last November, a response from the DWP to a freedom of information request by consultancy LCP showed that 11.7 million future pensioners – almost one in three of today’s workers – would receive a pension income lower than the minimum retirement living standard if the state pension were linked to inflation.

Government guidance anticipates a ‘saving’ of up to £50 billion by 2050. The current spending on pensions is £154 billion so this attack equates to a large proportion being cut, hitting the poorest pensioners hard. More future pensioners will be poor then, given that many more will not be homeowners or have good private pensions thanks to ‘40 years of neoliberalism’.

The FT’s campaign under the five prime ministers since 2017 has been unsuccessful so far. All the governments before who sought to roll back on the triple lock have found opposition to any changes to be widespread and across the generations. A recent Times YouGov poll went as high as 93% of pension-age people defending it.

National Care Service

Why then has YouGov now found support for Burnham’s plan by 48% to 28%? In his speech he said that the money taken from pensions could be used to fund a National Care Service – in the next parliament which in today’s volatile world is not a concrete commitment. He even spoke of it being “Free at the point of use and no care charges paid out of your basic state pension. Care that is about people not profit.”

The Bagehot column in the Economist, while impatient for more spending cuts, did put it correctly: “Greater scepticism is in order”. It writes: “This is a golden age for the faux heretics…So with Mr Burnham. The big ideas that propel him are wearily familiar, shared among most of the six prime ministers who have governed Britain in the past decade. Policies recur word for word.” Governments attempting to carry out the demands of the capitalist class get replaced when mass opposition makes them unviable. The demands of the capitalist class for less public spending are again attempted and come a cropper. And so on.

The idea of a National Care Service was also raised by Tory PMs Theresa May and Boris Johnson seeking support for their unpopular governments. They also had no plans to fund it other than taking money off the working class. Like them, Burnham does not intend to encroach on the care home business model dominated by private firms, where low wages and high charges to individuals and councils see profit margins of up to 18%! The plans are limited to personal care, food and accommodation will still have to be paid for.

Jeremy Corbyn’s manifestos in 2017 and 2019 pledged a National Care Service, committing to “Introduce free personal care for over 65s and fill existing projected funding gap”, which was costed at £10.8 billion. Corbyn’s 2017 manifesto proposed nationalisation of the utilities  and Labour’s vote increased by 3.53 million – 9.6% – the biggest increase between elections by any party in both the absolute number of votes won and the percentage share of the vote since the 1945 general election.

Nationalisation

The Socialist would expand on his formula with the call for the nationalisation of the top 150 corporations and banks that dominate the economy under democratic working-class control and management. This would start to put the levers of the economy into the hands of the working class, which could start to plan how it is run, including investing in care, nationalising the care ‘industry’, and providing all generations with the means to live a decent life.

Unite the Union leader Sharon Graham has said: “Instead of going to try and pick the pocket of pensioners, we need to move over to the other side of the equation and think about things like wealth taxes way before we try to stop something like the triple lock.” Unite could lead a movement to fight for this to be realised.

Keir Starmer’s Labour government was unable to carry through its attacks on pensioners in the form of the winter fuel payment cut, because of the working-class pressure brought to bear on MPs. The unions must take the initiative to mobilise that pressure now.

If Unite demanded that the 83 Labour MPs it has sponsored (to the tune of millions of pounds) move to block the attack on the triple lock in parliament – including by raising a private member’s bill – and coordinated with other trade unions for a mass Saturday demo, it could cost the government its majority and defeat the measure, which is expected to be voted on in this parliament.

Despite his so-called ‘landslide’ election win, Starmer lasted just two years as prime minister because he governed in the interests of the capitalist class – with the attacks on the working class and pensioners that entails.

Bond market pressure will not ease on Burnham, and demands from the capitalists for spending cuts deemed necessary to protect their profits will grow. The content of Burnham’s speech was another confirmation that he intends to do their bidding. The pressing question for our movement is how can the working class build opposition most effectively – including by mass youth strikes on 20 November, strengthening our unions, and building our own party with a socialist programme for ending the grip of the capitalists.

Labour prepares attacks on young people’s benefits

Jobcentre Plus, credit: Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons) (uploaded 07/04/2016)
Jobcentre Plus, credit: Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons) (uploaded 07/04/2016)

… and the Tories one-up them

Thomas Butler, Liverpool Socialist Party

While Andy Burnham decreed that Britain had taken a wrong turn under Thatcherism during his speech at Labour conference, secretary of state for work and pensions Pat McFadden declared a “moral crusade” on the ‘need’ to cut unemployment and disability benefits for young people.

Benefit cuts are posed across the board. The health element of Universal Credit is being considered for removal and Personal Independence Payments are being ‘overhauled’ – code for cuts. Reading this, it might sound like Keir Starmer had never left office! The Starmer government had been forced to U-turn on multiple attempts to slash benefits, such as the vicious proposed £5 billion cuts to disability benefits and maintaining the cruel two-child benefit cap.

It is clear ministers are hoping to lay the ground for more benefit cuts. For all they say they are boosting support to help young people find work, they are still making young people’s lives worse through no fault of their own when the jobs aren’t there. The bills and rent still need paying! Young people deserve support to live comfortably and not worry about going without as they search for work.

The Conservatives have been singing from the same hymn sheet – but louder. Kemi Badenoch has promised to cut Universal Credit for those who have not paid enough national insurance after a small period, to restrict how claimants spend their money to allow only the bare basics, and to totally block young people from claiming any Universal Credit up to the age of 25. It would instead be replaced with a ‘get to work’ scheme which would see financial support cut if young people ‘failed’ to get a job. Badenoch says she’ll stop young people going straight from education to claiming benefits. Thousands of young people today experience applying for hundreds of jobs and never hearing back from any one of them – it begs the question of where the fundamental issue lies: the jobseekers or the so-called super- rich ‘job creators’. The Tories remain a party representing big businesses’ naked interests – attacking our living standards to protect the profits of a few.

It comes as no surprise that, despite all the talk about hope and change, Labour continues an offensive on welfare. Pat McFadden was responsible for the cutting of over 2,000 Cabinet Office jobs a year ago and supported the 2016 leadership coup attempt to oust Jeremy Corbyn, leader at the time. He sits alongside the likes of fellow pro-capitalist politicians like Wes Streeting, John Healey, Shabana Mahmood and the rest in Burnham’s government. Young working-class people don’t need more of the same pro-big business politicians that served under Starmer’s failed government, we need a mass political voice that stands up for working-class interests first and foremost. An alternative to the Labour Party: a mass workers’ party with a genuine socialist programme which fights for the resources we need to thrive, not cuts at the behest of the bosses.

Burnham and social care: big business to be left untouched

Photo: Number 10/CC
Photo: Number 10/CC

Fight for nationalisation

Dave Gorton, Chesterfield Socialist Party

Trade union leaders fell over each other to congratulate Andy Burnham on his Labour Party Conference speech. Unison’s Andrea Egan welcomed the legal repeal of the public ownership ban on water and called for full renationalisation of water, but didn’t call for the same about social care. Others were even more embarrassing in their unjustified praise.

But Unite’s general secretary, Sharon Graham said before Burnham’s speech: “Going to a group of people who are getting around £12,500 a year in order to pay for it [social care], to take away their security, is wrong – I think it’s morally wrong.”

Yet, Burnham made it plainly clear that while ordinary working-class people will be asked to pay, not a single penny will be taken from those who’ve robbed social care for decades – big-business private profiteers and billionaires.

But the figures speak for themselves:

  • More than 400,000 people are currently waiting for a care assessment, review or direct payment. 250,000 older people have died since 2014-15 waiting for care that never arrived in time
  • Councils in England were already £715 million over budget last year (on adult care alone). They are spending more than 80% of their core funding on adult and children’s social care
  • Private equity firms own or partly own 11 of England’s 20 largest fostering and children’s home providers. The four largest independent fostering agencies have paid out or reserved at least £205 million in interest to shareholders and investors since 2020
  • Local authorities in England have spent £250 million on more than 1,800 unlawful placements of children in unregistered homes over the past two years. A recent prosecution saw one set of owners fined £92,400, with surcharges of £2,960 and costs of £17,250. In this single case, the directors who were acting illegally collected more than £1.7 million from local authorities
  • Social care private provision stands at 83% while the public sector is responsible for just 4%. Public money has simply been handed over to private equity-funded big business. Unless this is stopped and reversed, no social care plan will survive. Extra money put into it will still be siphoned off into the pockets of private profiteers

The starting point for any reform of social care has to be the nationalisation of the resources with no compensation given to those who’ve plundered the system for decades. Nothing else will suffice.

Christmas comes early for housebuilders’ profits

Photo: Aethonatic/CC
Photo: Aethonatic/CC

We need council houses and rent controls

Katie Tulloch, Swansea and West Wales Socialist Party

Andy Burnham has announced the ‘Your First Home’ scheme, with the stated aim of reducing the difficulty of stepping onto the property ladder for first-time buyers. Under the scheme, first-time buyers of a new-build home, with a minimum deposit of 2.5%, can receive a 20% equity loan with an initial interest-free period. But will it solve the problems that the thousands of people whose sub-par housing situation comes with rent that eats up a larger and larger amount of our pay every month?

Upon closer inspection, ‘Your First Home’ appears to be largely a remodelling of then-Tory chancellor George Osborne’s 2013 ‘Help to Buy’ scheme, only with a lower minimum deposit and a fresh three-word designation.

In 2019 the National Audit Office found that Osborne’s scheme had failed to boost social mobility as nearly two-thirds of people who used the scheme could have bought a home without it and that: “the Help to Buy scheme led to an increase in prices in areas that were already relatively expensive, meaning properties in those areas remained too expensive for many.” The scheme did, however, have a positive impact on the financial performance of developers who saw an increase in revenues, profit before tax and profit margins.

Builders’ bonanza

This may be why RBC Capital Markets analyst Anthony Codling declared in response to Burnham’s announcement that “Christmas has come early for the UK housebuilders”. Construction companies’ share prices jumped accordingly after the announcement, anticipating future profits. While the government has said developers will be expected to make a contribution to the scheme, this cost will likely be passed on to homebuyers. The price of an average home may be pushed even higher than the current rate of at least seven times the median full-time annual salary.

Rather than reversing decades of underinvestment and under-construction of council housing, Burnham is recycling the policies of previous pro-capitalist governments which have driven the current housing crisis by subsidising inflated property prices for the benefit of greedy developers.

If Burnham was really committed to increased housing affordability and radical change, as he claims, the government must commit to the mass building of genuinely affordable, high-quality council housing. It is imperative that safe and secure homes be treated as a fundamental right, not an opportunity to pad the already inflated pockets of developers. Construction companies should be taken into democratic public ownership to address shortages in supply and drive prices down by flooding the market with high-quality council housing.

Energy bills set to hike – nationalise!

Nationalise the energy companies. Photo: Public Domain
Nationalise the energy companies. Photo: Public Domain

70% of people in Britain support energy nationalisation. 82% support public ownership of water. Despite Burnham’s talk of “ending 40 years of neoliberalism”, he hasn’t put nationalisation onto the agenda.

He did use his speech to Labour conference to announce Great British Grid – which is actually just a part of the already announced ‘Great British Energy’ scheme.

“Great British Grid will complement, rather than replace, the existing institutions responsible for Britain’s energy system and the role of existing network operators remains unchanged”, so says the government website.

So far this year, energy companies have made £6 billion in profit from their operations in Britain. Oh, and our bills are projected to be hiked by £276 a year. Diesel prices have also reached record highs.

But Burnham is doing nothing to take energy infrastructure out of the profiteering bosses’ hands. We need nationalisation. Take over the big energy companies to be put under democratic working-class control and management, with compensation only on the basis of proven need. For a democratic plan of investment to lower our bills while protecting the environment.

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