Nurses on the RCN-organised lobby of parliament on 11 May
BECAUSE OF New Labour's attacks on the NHS, hospital Trusts are threatening to sack health workers, cut beds and close down wards. Around 13,000 jobs have already been placed at risk, including 1,000 at the NHS Direct helpline. The government is trying to push the problems their crazy market system has caused onto the shoulders of health workers and the sick and elderly.
One example is the deprived areas of Langwith, Creswell and Normanton in Derby, which are guinea pigs in Labour's plan to privatise primary health care - services run from GP surgeries and health centres. One of the world's largest health corporations, US-based United Health Group, has been awarded the contract to provide these services.
It doesn't have a scrap of experience of primary care in Britain, let alone in areas with widespread poverty and chronic ill-health. It has no staff, no local knowledge, no local support.
Yet they beat off 17 other bidders and well-respected local GPs weren't even short-listed. Blair's former health adviser, Simon Stevens, is president of United Health's European subsidiary. As one local resident said at a recent meeting: "It stinks!"
The $16 billion corporation has little interest in Langwith and probably won't make much money there. For them the big prize is a head start in bidding for control of the budgets of Primary Care Trusts, that pay for hospital treatments.
These are worth hundreds of millions of pounds in every county and city. If United Health get their claws in that, they could direct spending to treatment centres they own and away from NHS hospitals. They could cut expensive care for the chronically sick, concentrating on simple and potentially profitable treatments like elective surgery and patients will get treatment based not on their needs, but on shareholders' interests.
130 angry people were at the Keep Our NHS Public meeting in Langwith where speaker John Lister welcomed health campaigner and Socialist Party member Jackie Grunsell's victory in the Huddersfield council election. Along with victories for health campaigners in Kidderminster, he said: "When people get a choice they're voting strongly for candidates that support the NHS."
In a passionate defence of the NHS founding principles, that treatment should be available to all no matter where they lived or how much money they had, local GP Dr. Elizabeth Barrett, said, "To dismember the NHS limb by limb is an act of social vandalism."
Socialist Party member Brian Loader reported that the health service supplier NHS Logistics was being handed over to a private consortium - DHL/Novation. Workers were being balloted for industrial action. A national NHS demonstration would unite all the different campaigns up and down the country and give NHS workers confidence to fight this privatisation.
Derek Lambley, who organised a local Anti-Poll Tax Union 16 years ago, said: "We filled coaches and took people down to London and beat Thatcher. We should do it again now to save the NHS."
NEARLY 80% of people in Britain don't trust Blair and New Labour to safeguard the NHS. Only 22% think the service will get better over the next few years, while 45% believe it will get worse, according to a recent Deloitte opinion poll.
NHS feature
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Unison - RCN lobby of parliament in 2006, photo Paul Mattsson |
WHIPPS CROSS hospital Trust in east London recently declared a £24 million deficit. 400 jobs are already under threat as are some elderly care beds. The Trust are cutting overtime and agency staff but 50 compulsory redundancies are predicted.
They are looking to cut the number of beds and want to cut operating theatres and out-patients' departments. These cuts will inevitably mean understaffed wards and clinics, which will put the remaining staff under even more pressure. Unbelievably, the Trust are paying a hatchet man no less than £1,200 every day to look for cuts to make!
At the same time, the local Primary Care Trust, which provides the community's health care, has also declared a deficit. This is putting the jobs and services of vital staff like district nurses at risk.
But none of these cuts need to happen. Millions of pounds of our money earmarked for spending on the NHS is going straight into the seemingly bottomless pockets of big business sharks. Privatisation and the 'market', that aims to set hospital against hospital for funds, are bleeding the NHS dry.
Len Hockey, a hospital porter at Whipps Cross hospital and joint secretary of the UNISON branch, says the unions at the hospital will need to fight hard for no cuts and no redundancies, including for the low-paid, mainly migrant workers who were brought in to work after the cleaning services were privatised.
A campaign of strike action at Whipps Cross in 2003 won a landmark agreement to end the inequality of pay and conditions of workers doing the same job.
Len and other hospital workers are now determined that all the union's strength, both locally and nationally should be concentrated on beating off the threats to hospitals like Whipps Cross and with it, the Blair government's attempts to put the NHS at the mercy of privatisation and marketisation.
A resolution passed at the UNISON union's health conference last month, seconded by a Socialist Party member, called for a weekday day of action in defence of the NHS. It also called for union support and encouragement for all UNISON branches facing cuts in jobs and services to organise strike action.
AN ARTICLE in Hospital Doctor magazine claims that NHS managers offered "bribes" to some GPs to persuade them to send patients to a private treatment centre instead of local NHS hospitals. GPs were paid £30 for every patient sent to Greater Manchester surgical centre, a private unit run by South African company Netcare.
The Department of Health encouraged Ashton, Leigh and Wigan primary care trust (PCT) to sign a contract with Netcare guaranteeing a constant supply of NHS patients. The trust has to pay, even if patients go elsewhere, so it has a financial incentive to encourage use of Netcare's facilities.
Netcare are notorious for overcharging the NHS - every cataract operation they perform costs £115 more than it does on the NHS. After six months of its contract, West Oxfordshire PCT had paid out £225,000 for £40,000 worth of work. Netcare charged for about 500 operations and assessments but only carried out 93 of them.
PRIVATISING COMPANIES could reap £3.3 billion profits from the private finance initiative (PFI) scheme, pressure group London Health Emergency (LHE) claims.
LHE estimates that PFI schemes recently approved in London, Birmingham and St Helens will bring the companies involved £440 million windfall profits. What's more, it reckons, the private sector stands to make £2 billion bonus payouts from £10 billion worth of PFI schemes in the pipeline.
Under PFI, private firms raise the money to design and build a hospital, which NHS trusts must then pay back - with interest of course - over 20 to 30 years. The PFI's private consortia and their shareholders are bleeding billions out of the NHS.
THOUSANDS
OF nurses and other health staff joined the RCN-organised lobby of
parliament on 11 May. Some of the protesters spoke to Christine Thomas
about why they were on the lobby.
MOST OF the hospitals are in loads of debt, trying to reach targets that the government have set. They're closing down wards, staff are being made redundant and patients are being put at risk. We are concerned about all of that.
Obviously the Health Secretary is in complete denial and delusional about the situation and we're angry about that. We want something done, we want to be heard and we want changes to be made.
I'M A nurse from Bath. At a local level we've got the Bath spa project which cost £45 million to build when there's a lack of beds and basic needs in our hospital. They build up a national war chest for Iraq and now maybe Iran, spending money where they think the priorities are.
I'M A newly qualified nurse. I worked really hard during my three-year course, making sacrifices, my children having to go to nursery.
I thought that when I finished I would get a job straight away. But since September I haven't been able to get a job. All that money spent on training me has been wasted.
Most of the hospitals are asking for people with six months or 12 months experience. And because of the cuts, ward managers say they can't employ new staff. So that's why I'm here today.
We need change. Otherwise patients will be suffering, there'll be no staff on the wards. On some wards one member of staff can be expected to look after 15 to 20 patients.
Some of those are critical wards where patients can go into cardiac arrest and staff aren't able to look after them properly because of the workload. We need change because of patient safety and for nurses as well.
HEALTH WORKERS marched to stop the closure of Ruston Mental Health unit in Narborough, Leicestershire on 12 May. The local Health Trust plans to move the service to an acute ward, arguing that it will be best for patients. However, this is simply a cost-cutting measure, and will have a damaging effect on patients accommodated at Ruston.
The workers were angry at the government's attacks on the NHS. One nurse, a UNISON shop steward, said: "Campaigns against these cuts are taking place all over the country, but they need to link up. We need a national demonstration to unite these campaigns. We need to keep the momentum going and take forward the campaign, as there won't be any service left if we don't act fast."
Leicester Socialist Party members, who have been campaigning for months against the attacks on the NHS, will help build for an organising meeting. There is real anger everywhere against cuts, closures, and job losses.
ACCORDING TO the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report global warming, caused by 'man-made pollution' ie capitalist production, is at a critically dangerous level. The IPCC says that concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), are at the highest levels for 650,000 years.
The environmental impact from this rapid rise in global temperatures is catastrophic. The frequency of extreme weather events is increasing, including more severe droughts and floods. Global warming is also contributing to species decline and extinctions, including vital fish stocks.
Heatwaves, such as in France in 2003 which led to 12,000 extra deaths, will increase. But the main victims will be the world's poorest people. According to Christian Aid 182 million people in sub-sahara Africa could die of dieases directly linked to climate change.
So what are the world's 'leaders' doing to halt and reverse this environmental destruction?
The 1997 Kyoto treaty (which the US and Australian governments refused to sign up to) commits industrialised countries to cut their combined carbon emissions to 5% below 1990 levels by 2008-12. According to environmental scientists a 60% cut is the minimum requirement. Currently emissions are 25% above 1990 levels!
Emerging from Kyoto, the European Union (EU) established a carbon emissions trading market whereby carbon blocs are traded between under-polluting and over-polluting companies. Although permits were allocated to power generators for free, these companies passed on the notional costs of these permits to consumers netting them £800 million in profits!
Now it turns out that many EU member states allocated more allowances than needed, collapsing carbon prices and thereby reducing this 'market solution' to a futile nonsense.
US capitalism is the world's biggest polluter, contributing around 25% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Yet president George Bush remains in denial over the causal connection between capitalism and global warming.
Moreover, by relocating industrial production to countries outside its border, such as China, US capitalism has effectively cut its own emissions by 3% between 1997-2003. But this reduction in US emissions was more than matched by an increase in Chinese emissions. In 1997, exports to the US accounted for 7% of Chinese CO2 output; by 2003, the figure had risen to 14%.
In Britain, having pledged New Labour to cut CO2 emissions by 20% by 2010, Tony Blair quietly dropped this target at the request of the CBI bosses who say it would affect 'competitiveness'.
Blair is also lobbying, under the guise of 'debating future energy requirements', for a new generation of nuclear power stations. This is posed as a 'greener option'. In practice, it is an unsafe technology with no safe means of disposing of radioactive waste. It is also extremely expensive, which is why big business wants the public to pick up the huge tab for insurance and decommissioning.
Under capitalism, energy and industrial production, logging, mining and intensive forms of agriculture, etc are driven by the profit motive. This market-based system of competitive production and trade is unsustainable in terms of the environment. It also means that while the number of dollar billionaires is growing the poverty of billions is also increasing.
Capitalism cannot solve the world's problems. Only a socialist future embracing democratically planned economies can end the horrors of world poverty and solve today's acute environmental problems that, if capitalism is allowed to continue, threaten humanity's very existence.
Since this article was written Tony Blair has appeared to more openly give his endorsement to new nuclear plants, saying they were back on the agenda "with a vengeance" - ed
AFTER THEIR disastrous showing on 4 May, New Labour now has fewer councillors than at any time since 1973. Tony Blair is clinging to power by a thread - as Labour MPs and councillors realise that their own careers are a risk if they let Blair continue in office much longer.
But the press furore about the infighting that dominates New Labour's inner-circle ignores the real issue. New Labour is not only unpopular because of Blair but because of 'Blairism' - the relentless diet of cuts, corruption, privatisation and warmongering that Gordon Brown and the 'Brownites' are just as responsible for.
More than 60% of the electorate did not vote on 4 May. While a section of 'traditional' Tory voters could express their anger with New Labour by returning to the Tory fold, it was a very different story for the majority - the working class - who were effectively silenced in this election.
Where credible socialists, and other anti-cuts and anti-privatisation candidates stood, they received a good response. The Socialist Party, for example, came out of the election with seven party members as councillors. However, in the vast majority of seats around the country there was no candidate who opposed the sell-off of the NHS, or the raising of the retirement age, or the destruction of comprehensive education.
The need for a new mass party of the working class is now more urgent than ever. This is the lesson that the Socialist Party has drawn from this election and we will be helping to step up the Campaign for a New Workers' Party (CNWP), which was initiated in March, as a result.
Local launch rallies are planned in nineteen towns and cities across the country and at every trade union conference. To date almost 1,800 trade union and community activists have signed the 'declaration for a new workers' party' and we are driving to reach 5,000 in the coming months.
The far-right racist British National Party more than doubled its number of councillors to 46 in this election. They did so by falsely posing as a party of the 'white working-class'. In fact they are nothing of the sort. Where they have been elected they have voted for cuts in services and increases in council tax just the same as the big three parties.
But for as long as there is no major national party that fights against this brutal profit-hungry system and for decent jobs, housing and pensions for all working-class people, the danger that these racists succeed in dividing worker against worker will remain.
Most of the trade union leaders still argue it is possible to transform New Labour. Yet, since 1997 trade union leaders have given over £100 million of their members' money to New Labour, and the government has remorselessly attacked their members' interests.
In the CNWP we will be saying that the unions should stop funding New Labour now - and begin to build a party that will fight in their members' interest.
A few union leaders, such as the RMT general secretary Bob Crow and PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka, have correctly said that Labour is finished as a party of the working class and that a new alternative is needed. However, not even the best of the national union leaders have taken active steps towards the foundation of a new party. But there isn't unlimited time. The longer there is a delay in the foundation of a new party, the harder it will be to effectively undermine the BNP and their ilk.
On different issues working-class people are beginning to fight back. Just weeks before the election over one million local government workers were forced to strike action to defend their pension rights against the New Labour government and the Tory-controlled Local Government Association. Tens of thousands have taken part in local demonstrations against NHS cuts.
As working-class people become involved in struggle the need to, and more importantly the possibility of, building a new party becomes more widely understood.
You can get in touch with the CNWP by emailing [email protected] or by writing to CNWP, PO Box 858, London E11 1YG
Website: www.cnwp.org.uk
VISITS BY presidents to other countries are usually met with protests or indifference, but the visit by Hugo Chávez to London on Sunday was met by hundreds of people ready to welcome him to the city and eager to listen to what he had to say.
The late change of venue meant that many people were turned away at the door, although there was still room for at least 100 more people inside.
Chávez, having a reputation for his long speeches, spoke for around four hours. He appeared on stage alongside New Labour London mayor, Ken Livingstone, several members of his own government and various people associated with Venezuela support campaigns.
His speech covered a lot of ground - from his take on socialism, to historic Bolivarian revolutionaries, capitalism, imperialism and the threat to Iran.
Chávez thanked Ken Livingstone personally for his support and spoke of the 'two centuries of understanding between Britain and Venezuela'. He also thanked the British parliament and spoke of him and Ken having similar visions!
At various points in the speech, he returned to the topic of the 'Venezuelan revolution'. Chávez said that socialism was the only way forward, that we needed a socialism for humanity, that we should not see socialism purely as an economic system ('as in Russia'), but as a social system too.
There is no doubt that Chávez is a charismatic leader, he has done a lot for ordinary Venezuelans to improve their working conditions. He is recognised as one of the most prominent leaders to stand up to US Imperialism.
But where does he see the Venezuela revolution going? Chávez says that he and Ken will not be around to see the fruition of their efforts. In other words, he does not believe that a socialist revolution will be completed in Venezuela - at least not in his lifetime.
As socialists, we know that it will be the working class in Venezuela who will ultimately decide this - not just president Chávez - and definitely not Ken Livingstone!
See also: Appeal: Solidarity with Venezuelan workers
FRANCE, GERMANY, Italy... no not the World Cup finals but Europe in revolt against neo-liberal policies - this was the inspiring final discussion at the Socialist Party (SP) national committee meeting on 13-15 May.
Lynn Walsh described how French workers and students, in eight weeks of protest and five days of action, had defeated the right-wing government's youth (un)employment law and dealt a devastating blow to neo-liberal policies.
Tanja Neimeier gave a first-hand account of political developments in Germany, where a new Left organisation, the WASG, has emerged out of struggles against Blairite attacks on wages and conditions and public services. The Sozialistiche Alternative Voran (SAV), the German section of the Committee for a Workers' International, is playing a key role in opposing these attacks, particularly in Berlin where a coalition of the SPD and the Linkspartei are carrying them out. (See pages 4,6 and 7)
The question posed in the discussion was will these events happen in Britain. Well, they did in 1926 during the nine days of the General Strike - the 80th anniversary is this month. Peter Taaffe's new book, 1926 General Strike - workers taste power, will prepare active trade unionists and a new generation of young workers for such future struggles.
The beginnings of this process are indicated by the recent local election results. Peter explained that New Labour is in meltdown. Blair is finished, Brown is fundamentally no different. In the absence of an alternative, the Tories could make a comeback; the far-right BNP have also made gains.
However, the potential for a new workers' party is shown by the SP's election successes, which featured prominently in the discussion on building the SP.
Lois Austin highlighted SP member Jackie Grunsell's sensational victory for the NHS campaign in Huddersfield, along with the election of Rob Windsor in Coventry and the re-election of Ian Page and Chris Flood in Lewisham. These campaigns show how a working-class approach, uniting all sections of the community in a fight-back, can cut across racism and push back the BNP.
There was also discussion about how to advance the numerous campaigns erupting against NHS cuts. Jackie's election, the Big Demo in Stoke against NHS cuts and the resolution for action passed at the Unison Health conference show the effect SP members can have. All branches should be campaigning on the NHS crisis, which is affecting every area of the country.
Ken Smith outlined the progress made by the Campaign for a New Workers' Party (CNWP), initiated by the SP last November. The launch conference in March attracted around 420 delegates and 1,800 have signed the declaration so far. Fringe meetings at the trade union conferences are attracting new supporters and a series of public meetings are planned to build up the campaign in local areas. The officers and steering committee meet this weekend to draw up further plans.
The NC meeting reflected the seemingly non-stop activity SP members have been involved in for the last nine months. It therefore is even more vital that we see all all the people who have expressed an interest in joining the SP during our election and community campaigns, visits to the picket lines and the CNWP. New targets were agreed to prioritise increasing our membership over the next two months.
It is amongst young people that we are still most likely to find those looking for an alternative to war, poverty, environmental destruction and ultimately capitalism itself said Sarah Sachs-Eldridge, introducing the youth discussion.
Radicalised by the effects of globalisation and war, a growing number of young people have turned to the ideas of genuine socialism. This was graphically demonstrated in the session itself, in which many young members spoke as visitors to the NC.
It was agreed that we need to emulate the success of Socialist Students in the universities (societies now exist in 36 universities) amongst wider layers of young people. The socialist youth organisation, International Socialist Resistance (ISR) has achieved a reputation through mobilising on anti-war and G8 protests.
A thought-provoking debate, with 30 contributions, centred on how ISR can attract more young people to socialist ideas and the party. Frankie from Bury St. Edmonds reported that she had been told: "ISR is better known than the principal" at her college.
The principal at a Southampton college also thought so when he dragged three ISR members out of their class to interrogate them for putting up anti-cuts posters!
We need to make ISR that well known everywhere. Campaigning against the BNP, low pay, academies etc - we're confident that our young members will do just that!
The Executive Committee of the trade union Suprofrad, which organises the pharmaceutical workers in Caracas, Venezuela denounces the company RACE C.A for its refusal to recognise our trade union. We are the legitimate representatives of the workers on the shopfloor and the way in which management is behaving means that the workers we represent are being denied their most elementary rights. The right of workers to organise in trade unions and to be represented by the trade union of their choice is fundamental and established in the Venezuelan Labour code and in the Venezuelan Constitution.
Our trade union Suprofrad has been legally registered and can count on the support of the majority of the workers in this workplace. Company mangement refuses to recognise the trade union and refuses to start collective wage negotiations or to respond in any way or form to the demands of the workers. What management has done is to put pressure, intimidate and even physically threaten workers who are supporting the trade union Suprofrad. These tactics have been supplemented by illegal redundancies of workers, especially those workers who are known to be members of our trade union. Workers who are on a 12 month contract have not had their contracts renewed after it became apparent that they were supporting Suprofrad.
The management of RACE have started to organise a yellow trade union named Unitrace. This trade union is lead by the lawer Debora Espinoza who quiete conveniently for the management of RACE is also the labour inspector for the capital district of Caracas. The management is now steaming ahead with its plans to legalise Unitrace as the legal representative of the workers in RACE. We have to warn and repeat that when management will be allowed to achieve its sinister objectives and Unitrace will be recognised as the sole representative of the workers there will be no stability in the factory nor will their be any just collective convention for the workers. The only agreements imposed will be those who favour the so-called "economic reality" of the factory.
We are also denouncing the way in which the company has forced workers to sign a monstrosity of a contract that is made up of incomprehensible phrases but which in reality do not contain any of the by law required elements detailed in decree 4248 of the mininstry of Labour. This decree states that private companies which have commerical contracts with the state or any agency of the state have to comply with the labour law. This means they have an obligation to observe human, workers' and trade union rights in their workplaces. On the basis of this decree we are petitioning the Venezuelan state to cancel the contract between the national oil company PDVSA and the pharmaceutical company RACE.
We have called upon the workers of RACE C.A to remain firm and defiant and not to believe in the false promises of the company. Our common goal is to arrive at a just and equitable collective agreement in which our labour will be valued honestly. Only in this way will we be able to obtain better social and economic conditions for our families. The situation for the workforce and for the sacked trade union members is critical. Our trade union Soprofard will, after consultation with the membership and in accordance with the Labour code of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela take industrial action to secure the rights of the workforce.
We are calling on all the trade union organisations, national and international, to send letters of protest to the Ministry of Labour: [email protected] and [email protected]
Please send copies of your letter to [email protected] , [email protected] , [email protected] , [email protected] and [email protected]
We are also asking for financial support for the strike fund of the Suprofard trade union. Two members of the executive committee of the trade union have been made redundant by RACE. Jhonny Coronil has been without any income for the last 6 months and Andry Key has been without income for the last year. They were sacked illegaly and we are demanding the immediate reintegration into the company.
We are aware that the situation which has developed in the RACE company is not unique in Venezuela. A lot of other workers are going through the same experience, for example the workers in the textile factory Sel-Fex. This is a call for unity. The workers have to unite all similar struggles just as the bosses and management are uniting in Venezuela to drive down the conditions and wages of the working class. With unity, organisation and awareness we will succeed.
signed
The executive committee of Suprofard
Six female workers at the 'Kholodmash' factory in Yaroslavl city, Russia, including the leader of the plant's trade union, Olga Boiko, started an "indefinite hunger strike", on 16 May.
Workers began the hunger strike as part of their campaign demanding payment of several months wage arrears and to demand a plan to save the Kholodmash factory, which is now on the verge of bankruptcy.
Only weeks ago, on 27 March, the workforce occupied the Director's office in the factory and refused to release the Director until he promised to begin negotiations with them, including participation by the regional government.
The occupation ended after the regional governor, Anatolii Lisitsyn, agreed to participate in finding a solution (see previous report on socialistworld.net).
However, notwithstanding many promises, the workers' demands are still not met. At the end of April, the Regional Government (Oblduma) turned down a proposal to open a credit line for the factory. As a result, the workforce, once again, find themselves with no way out but to step up their protests.
In desperation, six workers have taken the drastic decision to go on hunger strike. On 30 May, the Arbitration Court is due to meet to decide whether to declare the factory bankrupt.
The Kholodmash workers need the energetic support of trade unionists, socialist organisations, and human rights groups. Solidarity protest actions are needed.
Please send emails, faxes or letters of protest, to: Valerii Kalinkin, Kholodmash Director
Also, please send protests to: Anatolii Lisitsyn, Yaroslavl Region Governor.
Fax to ++7 4852 328414.
Please send copies of protests to: [email protected] (And they will be passed on to the Kholodmash workers).
PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS are not always an accurate guide, particularly from a short visit, but my observations are backed by a wealth of evidence and statistics - provided by the public sector and services union Ver.di - showing the scale of Berlin's economic and social decay.
These figures are, in turn, a metaphor for German capitalism as a whole. In this, Europe's economic powerhouse, 20% of the population are poor - having a monthly income of less than €940 (£650). 18 million people in Germany have a disposable income of under €50 a month when the fixed costs for rent, food, social security etc., are discounted.
The polarisation between rich and poor is the same as throughout Europe. Germany's ten richest individuals own wealth equivalent to $100 billion but the working class has experienced a shocking and dramatic loss in the share-out of the wealth created by their labour.
Wages as a proportion of total national income dropped from 72.2% in 2000 to 67% in 2005. This is the same percentage figure as in 1965. So, in relative terms, German workers' share of the wealth has been pushed back 40 years. In absolute terms, many sections of the working class have gone back much further than that.
This chasm between rich and poor, of course, is not unique to Germany. Britain, through two decades of neo-liberalism, experienced the same thing. But what stands out in Germany is the speed of the descent, the consequences of German 'fast-track' Thatcherism firstly under the 'social democrat' Schršder and now by the measures of the Merkel 'grand coalition' government of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) with the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU).
Until recently, the conditions of Britain's working class occupied first place in warning Europe's workers' movement of what can happen if a determined resistance against Thatcherism, neo-liberalism - downsizing, privatisation, deregulation, etc. - is not taken up and the plans defeated.
Britain still remains a neo-liberal 'scarecrow' for the European working class but it is rapidly being overtaken by the plight of the German working class. Here, in stark facts and figures, is the future of all Europe and particularly for the poor and the working class if 'modern' capitalism on a continental scale prevails with its programme of savage cuts in the living standards of working class people.
AT PRESENT, German exports may soar ahead on world markets, elbowing aside their capitalist rivals in markets like China. The bosses' profitability has risen accordingly. But those who are responsible for the country's economic fireworks, at least on world markets, are rewarded with reductions in wages, the lengthening of the working day and week, and the undermining of national bargaining rights.
This is highlighted by the outcome of the recent public-sector strike of civil servants led by Ver.di, the first for 14 years. The German capitalists, helped by tame trade union leaders, have already successfully attacked some workers in the private sector. They used the threat of 'outsourcing' and lay-offs to enforce longer hours at the same wages for their employees. Now they seem to have achieved the same object with civil servants.
The finance minister of Baden-WŸrttemberg, Gerhard Stratthaus, gloated on radio: "For the first time in a long time, this supertanker [German capitalism] that was always steaming towards shorter working hours has turned in the opposite direction."
These words show the essence of neo-liberal policies, marking a decisive change from the past. In the period 1950-1975, an era of economic upswing throughout the capitalist world, the bosses adopted what Trotsky called the "religion of capitalist progress". Today is better than yesterday and tomorrow will be even better, etc, they argued.
Capitalist 'reality' today, however, prescribes that the working class must give up even their present conditions and rights, never mind looking forward to a brighter future, as German social democracy promised in the past. The post-war boom period was presented as the 'norm' for capitalism. This, in turn, reinforced illusions in reformist ideas that the working class would advance by incremental stages.
However, events have shown - and this will be reinforced in the next period - that this era was, in fact, exceptional in the history of capitalism. This present situation of neo-liberal wage cuts, deregulation and privatisation is, in fact, capitalism's 'norm'.
The very term 'neo-liberalism' harks back to the pre-1914 period of a 'liberal', unfettered, unrestrained capitalism. While capitalism went ahead in this period, playing what Karl Marx called a "relatively progressive" role in developing the productive forces - science, technique and the organisation of labour - it was based on nightmarish conditions for huge swathes, if not the majority, of the working class. In some ways, in this present era of a 'borderless' globalised world - at least for capital - the working class confronts an even more difficult situation than this.
In the pre-First World War era, trade unions and mass parties of the working class took shape and offered some defence against capital's onslaught. The workers' organisations even used their power, in some instances, to extract concessions, reforms, from the bosses, which Marxists and socialists welcomed. Now, tame pro-capitalist right-wing trade union leaders preside over the weakening and setbacks for the working class.
IT IS true that in France, the working class successfully resisted, heroically, some of the Chirac government's 'backdoor' neo-liberal measures against the young. These measures were only defeated by mass demonstrations, three million workers coming out on two occasions in one week, as well as the threat of a repeat of 1968 before de Villepin and Chirac beat a retreat.
Ironically, the very weakness, numerically at least, of the French trade unions - officially only 8% of the workforce belong to a union although in practice it is more than that through the social security system, etc. - ensured that in the short term working-class fury at this attack could not be fully constrained by the union leaders but burst out into mass action. This in turn compelled the bosses and the government to retreat.
To consolidate this kind of victory, however, poses the need for a political alternative to capitalism - socialism - and a mass party to fight for this.
The same fury exists amongst German, British, Belgian, Italian, Spanish and Greek workers against the unprecedented assault on their living standards and conditions. But now those very organisations, which over generations they have created, particularly the trade unions, act as a colossal brake. If this capitalist assault is accepted, it means not just a standstill for working-class people but going back to previously unacceptable conditions.
Already, Germany's union leaders - in the first instance the tops of Ver.di which represents public sector workers - have agreed to an extra half an hour to be worked each week for no extra pay for their members. The working week is to be extended from 381Ú2 hours to 39.
This falls short of the government's demand for a 40-hour working week but the capitalists are quite clear that this is just the start of the offensive on longer hours which they will ruthlessly pursue.
Anticipating further retreats, the International Herald Tribune gloats: "Ver.di will now find itself whip-sawed between different [state] governments, and in some cases legally obliged to extend concessions made in one negotiation to another." It quotes a "public sector expert": "The differences are not dramatic among the various settlements but they are going to grow in the future. The trend the unions wanted to avoid has finally arrived."
The Merkel government will also seek to build on these concessions to the bosses. It promises legislation allowing companies to "negotiate a 24-month waiting period during which new employees can be fired on short notice". This is similar to the law on young workers which the French workers defeated in their recent actions.
Moreover, this is against the background of contrasting 'parallel universes' in Germany. Seven million out of 26.3 million workers are low paid - with about half of these working more than 40 hours a week and two-thirds of them are women.
Meanwhile, 300,000 unemployed people are forced to work at slave labour rates with a paltry state top-up of €1 per hour, or have their state benefits cut. In Berlin, 35,000 workers are in this position. This is a modern version of the 'Speenhamland' system existing at the dawn of industrial capitalism in England. This forced agricultural labourers to accept very low wages backed up by 'parish relief'.
What's more, without a minimum wage in Germany, there is no theoretical limit as to how low wages can go. The claim that German workers are the "second most expensive in the world" is completely outdated. One million workers earn so little from their job that they get social benefits.
A Berlin gardener, under the collective wage deal struck between the unions and the employers for his sector, "earns €3.91 an hour, barely half the British minimum wage of £5.05 (€7.27)," reported the Financial Times. Also, if the employers are outside a wage deal, as are shops, hotels, etc, they can "deviate" from wage agreements and pay even less than what the Berlin gardeners receive.
Oskar Lafontaine, the leader of WASG, the new party launched by trade unionists and social activists, claims that wages in Britain have increased by 20% in the past period while German wages have gone down. Lafontaine exaggerates the level of wage rises in Britain but he is right about the stagnation and decline of some workers' incomes in Germany.
In fact, wages are so low in Germany now that capitalists in other countries complain that this gives German exports an 'unfair competitive advantage'! This is because the 'wage cost' element is so low!
On paper, German workers still have quite a high level of legal employment protection, but as the Financial Times gleefully comments: "The market has found a way around the rules." In other words, the capitalists will stop at nothing in their pursuit of policies aimed to boost their profits at the working class' expense.
However, this drive for profitability enmeshes them in a major endemic contradiction of their system. By cutting the share of the working class, it also cuts 'demand'; the working class cannot buy back the goods it produces. This reinforces stagnant production in the home market and high unemployment.
But the leaders of the ex-workers' party, the SPD, originally proposed many of the policies which Merkel is now pursuing. This, together with the ineffectiveness of right-wing trade union leaders, has brought the German workers, potentially Europe's strongest, to this dire situation.
They have been abandoned by 'their' party, the SPD, which historically helped to raise them out of the mud of capitalism, and trade union leaders with pro-market views are impotent against capitalism's offensive. This lack of a mass political alternative is also reflected in recent elections throughout Europe.
This underlines the rejection by the mass of the population in different countries of the neo-liberal nostrums propounded by the different capitalist parties. Merkel has no mandate for her policies; she had a narrow lead over Schršder's SPD in the elections but both were 'losers' in the sense that both their actual votes and their percentage share fell.
Moreover, the German elections followed a pattern evident in the US in 2000 and continued in Italy's recent elections where those who voted were divided almost 50-50. Commenting on this Jonathan Freedland of the guardian now agrees with our analysis made many times in the socialist since the 1990s that Europe's population "know what they are against, but they are yet to gather around a programme they're for. The result is a stagnant stalemate, repeatedly reflected at the ballot box."
THIS MAKES developments around the WASG (Die Wahlalternative fŸr Arbeit und soziale Gerechtigkeit - Election Alternative for Work and Social Justice) vital both for Germany and Europe. This is a serious attempt to provide an alternative reference point for German workers in revolt against the main capitalist parties' neo-liberal policies.
Unfortunately, however, the party leadership has gone along with the policies of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the remnants of the former Stalinist ruling party in East Germany, who are in coalition with the SPD in Berlin's state government and presiding over cuts in living standards (see the socialist 439 for details).
For workers, socialists and Marxists, the very minimum for any new formations within the working class must be clear opposition, not just in words but also in actions, to neo-liberal policies. Without such a commitment, including a refusal to participate in capitalist coalitions at national, state or local level, then any new development will inevitably became just another variation of the old discredited models and could be strangled at birth.
In this sense, the struggle of the SAV, the German section of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI), is vital, not just for Germany but for all of Europe. Its determined advocacy of a fighting socialist alternative for the WASG points the way for the workers' movement in Germany and Europe at present.
EUROPE ITSELF is at a crossroads. Capitalist Europe is split and demoralised after the recent defeats of the European constitution. However, the capitalists are absolutely determined to pursue their neo-liberal agenda. In countries like Britain and now Germany the 'race to the bottom' has already had a serious effect on wage levels and conditions at work.
The 300,000 immigrant workers who have come into Britain since 2004 - most of whom came from Eastern Europe after EU enlargement affected these areas - have been used as a huge reservoir of cheap labour, which capitalists have used successfully to undermine wages and conditions.
It has now reached the stage in Britain where Polish workers who came here three or four years ago now find themselves priced out of the jobs market by 'newcomers' from their own country working on wages even lower than this.
This has resulted in a bonanza for the rich and a further polarisation between the poor, particularly the very poor, and the super-rich. The solution is not to build a new 'Berlin Wall' to 'keep them out', as the far right argues, but to organise these workers into unions to fight for a living wage.
At the same time, Europe's capitalists are politically split. Economically, European capitalists as a whole have also given up the dream of catching up with and outstripping US imperialism. The latter now contemptuously say that the rulers of the continent are presiding over a "museum".
The shambles of the European constitution and continuing problems over the EU's enlargement show that capitalism cannot completely overcome the limits of the nation state. The national barriers of the separate capitalist states reasserted themselves in the form of economic nationalism by France and others when 'foreign companies' attempt to take over 'strategic' industries.
The result is a stagnant European economy with mass unemployment in key countries such as France, Germany, Greece and others. In Europe's periphery, the ex-Stalinist states that are clamouring to get into the EU are a picture of decay and destitution for the masses. In the hastily constructed ramshackle state of Bosnia, 70% of the budget of its 'government', constructed through a Byzantine constitution, is used just to pay for its politicians and officials!
Yet Europe is potentially a mighty reservoir for economic development and for the raising of the living standards of the great majority of the population and, with it, the elimination of poverty and want throughout the continent. However, capitalism is incapable of doing this.
Wealth polarisation, endemic unemployment, environmental degradation; all this exists in the so-called 'boom'. What will happen if the bottom falls out of the economy on a world scale? If the capitalists now seek to unload the burden of their system's problems onto the shoulders of the working class, it will be even more the case then.
The present travails of the German working class will be common and become much worse for the continent's working class on a capitalist basis. Socialists and Marxists, particularly the new young forces entering the struggle, are determined this will not come to pass. The left in the WASG, with SAV to the fore, are in the vanguard of this battle.
See also: Germany: WASG rebels suspended
IN AN unprecedented but not unexpected act, the national executive of Germany's new left party, WASG (Election alternative - work and social justice), suspended the regional executives in the federal states of Berlin and Mecklenburg Vorpommern.
By implementing those decisions, they have overruled the democratic decisions of the regional sections to stand independently and, subsequently, against the Left Party.PDS (L.PDS - the former East German 'Communist' Party); the party the WASG is about to merge with on a national scale.
WASG was formally established in 2005 and is led by Oskar Lafontaine, former chair of Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD). Standing in the last September's federal elections WASG and the L.PDS won 8.7% of the vote and secured 54 MPs.
There is a special situation in Berlin. Since 2001, the L.PDS has been in a coalition government with the SPD which has carried out privatisations, social and wage cuts, in order to "consolidate the budget", at the expense of the working class and youth.
When the WASG was first set up, it agreed as one of the founding principles not to join any government that carries out cuts, privatisations and redundancies.
Lucy Redler is one of the suspended regional executive members and SAV (Socialist Alternative, the Socialist Party's German counterpart) member. She explained that if the Berlin WASG stuck to its founding principles and presented a genuine left-wing, working-class alternative, the WASG would have no choice but to stand against all the established parties in Berlin, including the L.PDS. This position was confirmed by two regional party conferences and in a ballot amongst the whole of the WASG membership.
The suspension marks a further shift to the right by the newly formed party. The national executive is introducing a method whereby political differences are 'solved' by administrative means.
In the past few weeks, the Berlin membership has successfully started campaigning in order to collect the necessary 2,200 signatures for the election list.
The national executive selected an MP to be in charge of the Berlin WASG and who is expected to try and withdraw the nomination to stand. The Berlin WASG regional executive is ready to challenge the decisions legally as well as politically.
A regional party conference is taking place on 16 May and a national 'left opposition' meeting, which is getting a big echo amongst the membership nationally, will take place next weekend.
ON 6 May, in Athens, up to 100,000 Greek workers and young people including around 9,000 political activisists from the rest of Europe marched against war and capitalist exploitation.
The rally was called by the European Social Forum, which convened in Athens between 4-7 May.
The demonstrators marched to the US embassy to protest against the policies of the US and EU imperialists in the Middle East, Iraq and Iran. Then the protesters went to the Greek parliament to protest against the anti-working class policies of the Greek government and the European Union.
Xekinima, the Greek section of the CWI, campaigned enthusiastically for a successful demonstration and also took part in discussions during the ESF events. We produced 10,000 posters and 20,000 leaflets, calling on workers and youth to take part in the 6 May rally. There was also a Turkish, Italian and English version of the CWI/Xekinima leaflet that we distributed at the ESF.
At the same time, we criticised the policies of the ESF and, in general, the Social Forums (World Social Forum and national social forums) and the direction in which the social forums are going.
The slogans of the ESF - 'against war, neo-liberalism and racism' - are so general that they allow anybody to take part in its event, including social democratic parties which support these anti-working class policies and apply them when they are in government!
The social forums are now dominated, even more than in the past, by the parties of the European Left, like the Communist Party in France, Communist Refoundation in Italy, and the Party of Democratic Socialism in Germany.
Many of these parties are guilty of taking part in governments, along with social democrats, that carried out anti-working class and and anti-immigrant policies.
These characteristics of the ESF undermine its future perspectives and its ability to play a role in uniting the struggles of the working class against the policies which are of a European and international character.
Only a radical anti-capitalist approach and socialist ideas can provide the necessary programme for activists, all over Europe, to fight the profit system.
Xekinima (CWI) had an excellent contingent on the 6 May protest march in Athens, with over 400 participants, young and old, Greek and immigrant.
There were also members of the CWI from Britain, Ireland, Belgium and the ex-Soviet Union. Our contingent was noted by both friends and enemies for its militancy and youthfulness.
Socialists, trade unionists, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) and community and youth activists met to discuss a wide range of issues at the European Social Forum in Athens, covering for example, privatisation, growth of the far right, Latin America, war in Iraq and social liberation.
In comparison to the ESF held in London, two years ago, the mood in Athens was more serious but fewer attended.
The highlight for me was the very large demo, held on 6 May, against poverty, unemployment, war and racism.
Supporters of the Socialist Party (England and Wales) marched under the banner of Xekinima, the Greek section of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI).
This section was followed by the Youth Against Racism in Europe (YRE) delegation, which included many immigrants who live in Greece.
Both the CWI and YRE marchers were very vocal, singing various chants and songs, and the contingents were well stewarded and organised.
A small Maoist 'counter-demonstration', which fed into the main demonstration, and which attempted to get to the US Embassy, was attacked by riot police. Innocent marchers were tear-gased. The stewards on the CWI and YRE section of the march maintained a disciplined approach to defending their delegation from any possible attacks.
A TWO-month campaign led by students and lecturers has checkmated the University of Sussex's senior management's plan to close down its Chemistry department.
On 12 May, the University's 'Senate' - a deliberative body with student and trade union representation as well as the heads of the university's various academic schools ('Deans') voted through a plan that would retain a pure chemistry degree, despite our arrogant Vice-Chancellor Professor Alastair Smith's bullying tactics.
The first most students heard about the planned closure was on the BBC. The Vice Chancellor's Office sprung the decision upon students in the last week of spring term, in March. Many students had academic deadlines at this time, but well over 200 of them lobbied the Senate meeting where these disgraceful plans were to be endorsed.
Protests from the academic community poured in, and 55 MPs signed an early day motion calling for a Commons debate on the issue. Vice-Chancellor Smith was hauled in front of the Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology by Brighton MP Des Turner, who sits on this committee.
However, Chemistry at Sussex was not saved by Parliament but by students and academic staff who know how to stick up for themselves. Where were these MPs when Chemistry was axed at Kings College and Queen Mary College in the University of London? In effect they jumped on a bandwagon, trying to gain popularity, whilst contributing nothing decisive to the campaign.
Following the closure announcement, Jonathon Bacon, the Dean of Life Sciences, the school of which Chemistry is a department, supported the Vice-Chancellor's plan. However Bacon's attempt to avoid damaging his promotion prospects were stalled by furious chemistry students who repeatedly heckled him at a public meeting to 'discuss' the matter.
A student film-maker captured the scene and incorporated it into a documentary produced by the 'Sort Us Out' campaign. Utterly discredited, Bacon was forced to change his position by student pressure.
Current chemists feared their own job prospects would be undermined if they graduated with a Chemistry degree from a university that no longer taught it. Two well attended demonstrations were called within a week of the closure announcement.
Piles of objections to closure were collected and submitted to the senate, bogging down the closure process. Socialist Students and their supporters distributed thousands of newsletters denouncing the closure.
The day before the Summer term Senate meeting, 40 students occupied a 'Business Innovation Centre' on the university campus. On the day itself, 100 students came back to demonstrate outside senate. Senior management realised they were making a rod for their own backs and Chemistry was saved.
FIVE HUNDRED people joined a demonstration through Brixton on 11 May, led by Lambeth College staff and students, against government cuts of £2.3 million.
Rob MacDonald Lambeth Student Union
The protest, organised by Lambeth College NUS, Unison and Natfhe aimed to build the anti-cuts campaign in the local community and show senior management and the government the opposition that exists.
Lambeth students' rally showed that worker-student unity is strong at Lambeth. The loudest applause was for the statement that they should be spending the money wasted on the war in Iraq on education. There was also a call to unite all local people around a defend public services campaign.
The cuts in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), community education etc. affect the most vulnerable in our local community. Further Education should mean opportunities throughout your life. Over 80% of Lambeth college learners are over 19. Many of these courses help hold Lambeth's cohesion together, providing service for people where no others exist.
What we think
TONY BLAIR, we were told last week, wants to see major reform of Britain's decrepit pensions' system as his 'legacy'. Given the state of some of his previously desired 'legacies' - Iraq, the NHS, education, reform of public services to name a few - then the majority of people preparing to claim their pension from 2015 onwards will fear the worst.
Last week's news that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had come to a 'deal' on pensions - sounding like an agreement between two warring countries (not far from the truth) - will provoke indignation amongst millions.
Here are two men who will have a guaranteed pension pot of millions deciding how best to dole out in future the miniscule state spending allocated to pensions. Britain spends far less on pension provision than other EU countries.
This was not a debate about how to use the wealth of obscene profits of the big multinationals like Tesco and BP to improve the lot of the vast majority of pensioners in Britain living below the official poverty line. Nearly three million pensioners now claim pension credit.
Instead it was a discussion on how best to avoid a future social revolt against the increasing use of means testing for pensioners, something increasingly encroaching on the middle-class voters Labour believes it wins elections through.
The Blair and Brown argument about the implementation of the Turner Report on pensions was about how to save a future Brown government money and was a dispute over relatively small sums of money. There is no plan to increase the real amount of Gross Domestic Product spent on pensions over the decades ahead.
It means that the real pensions crisis that already exists for millions of working-class pensioners will not be addressed.
At present, this crisis means four out of ten pensioners live on less than £10,000 a year. More than 1.6 million pensioners have returned to work to supplement their meagre pensions. Millions of pensioners cut back on the essentials of heating and electricity just to live. A report in November 2005 revealed that over two million women are not entitled to a state pension nor do they have minimum entitlements.
THE BLAIR/Brown 'consensus' over implementing the Turner report has produced agreement that it will be the working class who pay the cost of pension reform.
To pay for claimed relatively minor 'improvements', working-class people will have to work up to three years longer (possibly more); see the restoration of the state pension's link to earnings occur five years later than Turner suggests and the increase from 2020 of the retirement age for women to 65.
The tax breaks and state subsidies that go to those high earners with gold-plated pension plans are likely to continue. And the government seems set to give subsidies to employers who say they cannot afford the pension contributions they are supposed to make under Turner's proposed scheme.
The TUC and some of its affiliated unions have initially welcomed the Turner report, whilst making minor criticisms about the increase in retirement age. However, there are signs from a number of unions that they could correctly reject the Turner Report's recommendations.
The GMB has announced it will oppose an increase in the state retirement age and at the CWU conference this coming week a number of motions rejecting the Turner Report are on the agenda.
At the same time the scheme negotiations for new entrants in the public sector are coming to a conclusion. But, the Tory Party has promised to rip up these agreements if elected at the next general election. This is a warning to all workers that attacks on their pensions - state and occupational - will be ever present under Labour or Tory governments.
Last year's united stand forced the government to back down in raising the retirement age for millions of public-sector workers.
That unity in action needs to be developed into a struggle on pensions generally, including the TUC calling a national demonstration opposing the raising of the state retirement age, and building a mass movement that solves the 'pension crisis' to the lasting benefit of the millions of working-class people now facing a poverty-stricken old age.
THE RAIL network across the whole of Britain looks to be heading for a long hot summer of discontent. The four rail unions, RMT, TSSA, ASLEF and the CSEU have joined forces in an attempt to safeguard their members' pensions.
The unions have made four demands of every rail company: Cap employee contributions at 10.56%, keep benefits at their current level, streamline the pension schemes from the current 103 to just three.
This would mean one scheme for train operating companies, one for all infrastructure and engineering companies and one for all other grades. The final demand is the pension scheme must remain open to all employees.
So far the unions have lobbied the Westminster parliament, held talks with the Department of Transport and continued talks with the various profiteers who are mismanaging the rail network, in an attempt to resolve the pensions crisis.
Labour MPs have also raised the issue in parliament with early day motion 1681, in the name of John McDonnell and 45 other MPs, urging the government to: "Do all within its power to protect the pensions of rail workers."
The threatened closure of some sections of the pension schemes, along with dramatic increases in employee contributions and cuts in benefits have left the unions with no choice other than to ballot the membership for industrial action.
In recent months the four general secretaries have toured Britain, explaining the situation to packed-out meetings.
Unfortunately, with just days to go before ballot papers would be sent out to the members, train drivers' union ASLEF have broken the unity of the campaign and signed agreements with a number of the train operating companies.
Despite this, the other unions seem determined to ballot for industrial action across the whole network.
This fight to safeguard our deferred wages is one we can and must win, not just for this generation of rail workers but for the generations to follow.
We need a clear and correct strategy, tactics that remain militant and flexible and the union leaderships keeping the activists and members involved at all stages of the dispute.
Then we will be able to force the profiteers and the government into taking the necessary steps to protect our pensions.
I believe we can turn this defensive action into a fight to provide rail workers with a safe and secure future. The union leaders and activists could use a victory here to build the confidence of the members into fighting for other benefits.
As a first step we should demand harmonisation of all terms and conditions, a shorter working week and an end to the corporate killings of our members, due to profit being placed before safety.
Nationalise the railways and put the network under the democratic control of the workers and transport users.
AS THE CWU national conference begins, the Communication Workers' Union (CWU) national executive committee has called an industrial action ballot of its postal members against the 2.9% pay rise imposed by Royal Mail.
The union has decided to give Royal Mail four weeks to come to an agreement. This is against a background of Royal Mail managers up and down the country trying to bypass the union wherever possible by going straight to members.
This is quite clearly de-recognition. This is a battle which the union must take on but giving them a period of four weeks to negotiate, prior to the strike ballot taking place, could be seen as a mistake.
The ballot should kick in immediately as members across the country are crying out for action now.
At the same time Allan Leighton, the Royal Mail chairman appointed by the Labour government, is attempting to push ahead with his so-called share offer.
He has written to the Department of Trade and Industry with his plans for Royal Mail in which 20% of the business will be privatised and 'shares' issued to Royal Mail employees. Part of his plans include 40,000 redundancies.
No matter how the government and Allan Leighton try to sugar-coat this, it is simply privatisation. This must be fought alongside the campaign for a decent pay rise for postal workers.
If the Labour government attempt to push this through it must be fought on two fronts. One, an immediate disaffiliation from the Labour Party in line with conference policy and two, a ballot for industrial action to fight privatisation.
This is the beginning of a major offensive by Royal Mail which will lead us to major conflict in the coming months.
This is why this year's conference must prepare for battle. It is time for the leadership to take up the challenge because members are not prepared to take this treatment any more.
COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY NTL have announced over 1,500 job losses. They recently merged with Telewest after both companies ended up in financial difficulties. This highlights the need for a democratically controlled public communications system.
NTL is the last of the fixed network operators who were supposed to bring competition to the market after the privatisation of BT. Now after over twenty years we are left with only these two competing privatised fixed-network companies. All the others were either bought out or failed due to a lack of investment.
Even now only BT has a commitment to provide universal service, so NTL can pick and choose the areas where it gives service. If you live in a rural area you still have the same choice as you had before privatisation - no choice.
BT got themselves into a financial mess due both to their failure to invest properly and the policy of the then chief executive of making BT the world's biggest telco. This is the same company that was making £3 billion a year profit and was the most cash-rich telecom company in the world. They had to sell off their mobile arm, O2 and their share in the telecom satellites. Now they've had to sell their satellite business to Barclays Private Equity.
The mobile companies are trying to out-do each other to provide the most gimmicks at the same time as trying to cut tariffs. This has resulted in attacks on pay and working conditions.
In O2, the only union-recognised company, new contracts have been introduced with pay rates several thousands of pounds below that which people who worked for BT before the sell-off received.
Billions of pounds that could have been used to both benefit customers and workers has been squandered on the altar of capitalist greed.
We can no longer allow the country's economic future or the jobs of the workers in the communications industry to be left in the hands of companies who have no concern for the future and are only interested in short-term profit. We must have a communications industry that is based on investment to take the whole of society forward. One that will allow the financial and intellectual resources to be used to benefit the many and not just a few greedy capitalist bosses.
The communications network must be taken out of their control and publicly managed for the benefit of all, under democratic control shared by the workers in the industry, the wider trade union movement and ordinary customers.
WORKERS AT Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port plant are facing massive job cuts. GM Europe want to cut 12,000 jobs as part of its 'restructuring' plans and Ellesmere Port could lose at least 1,000 jobs.
Workers walked out when they heard the news but the union leaders' reaction has been nowhere near as decisive. Amicus general secretary Derek Simpson threatened - not a strike or an occupation - but to cancel the Amicus contract for Vauxhall cars! And the unions' approach so far is to argue for job cuts to be shared across all three Astra plants in Europe.
Derek Simpson is also meeting MPs to complain that anti-union laws are leading to the demise of the UK car industry. TGWU general secretary Tony Woodley echoes this approach: "Britain is the soft touch in Europe when it comes to taking away workers' jobs... British car workers are among the best in Europe but they're the easiest to sack," he said recently.
Of course the bosses make the most of Britain's anti-union laws. Carl-Peter Foster, GM Europe's head, publicly admires Britain's "more flexible labour market." But the response to this should be to build a united campaign to fight the closures, involving all unions in the European plants.
On 18 April, Peugeot announced the closure of its Ryton plant in Coventry, with the loss of 2,300 jobs. Production is to move to a new factory in Slovakia, where wages are much lower.
The TGWU's response has been to blame the anti-union laws and call for trade unionists to boycott Peugeot products until they agree to negotiate with the unions around a "viable alternative plan".
But French union CGT has pledged its support for Britain's Peugeot unions and some workers are discussing joint action. The walkouts show that workers are prepared to fight for their jobs.
These closures come on top of other massive job losses, including the closure of the Rover plant, after Phoenix's asset-stripping antics. Clearly the union leaders' strategy of asking the bosses to be reasonable hasn't worked.
The Socialist Party has always argued for a fight for every job, linked to a programme of public ownership and democratic workers' control and management. Open the books - let's see where the profits have gone.
The loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs overnight can devastate any region. But the bosses don't pay for this devastation - the workers do. And public money is spent on picking up the pieces.
On the Rover closure, Socialist Party councillor Dave Nellist said in a resolution to Coventry council in 2005: "...public money should be invested now to retain Rover jobs, on condition that the ownership of Rover be now transferred back to the public sector and a plan drawn up, in conjunction with Rover workers themselves, for that public investment, under democratic public control, to produce a new product range that will better address the real transport needs of the whole of society."
Such a programme could build on workers' willingness to fight back and mobilise workers internationally against the devastation caused by the bosses' drive for cheap labour and higher profits.
ELLESMERE PORT car worker Dave Wevill spoke to the socialist about Vauxhall's walkout.
"THE PROBLEM at GM Europe is that there is a recession in the car industry. The company exploits this to try and get the workers in their European factories to compete against each other, to get the best pay deal that they can.
"The company announced that they need to lose a shift in Europe, and it has been said that the easiest, cheapest, place is in England. This prospect caused angry walkouts.
"The company, before the pay claim, presented a wish list, which includes: a return to the 40-hour week, unlimited payback of lay-off hours, compulsory overtime, overtime to be paid at normal time, an end to shift allowances and bonuses. This amounts to a loss of about £140 a week.
"People work shifts and overtime for money. If the company is not prepared to pay extra money for this then the workforce has no choice but to fight."
"UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT are acting like 19th century industrial capitalists using draconian strike breaking tactics" a geography lecturer at Northumbria University in Newcastle told the socialist. The lecturer wanted to remain nameless for fear of further management intimidation but explained that some members of the teaching staff union NATFHE have had 100% of their pay withheld by management. This is their reaction to the industrial action short of strike over both a national pay deal and local jobs and conditions.
In response to this lock-out, at a packed mass meeting on 12 May, lecturers voted unanimously for continuous and indefinite strike action. The strike could start on 23 May.
"Support for industrial action at Northumbria has been very strong, particularly since the management adopted these aggressive tactics of locking staff out without pay for 'partial performance'. In the geography department, 100% of staff are behind the action, five members are facing the threat of losing 100% of their pay if they don't meet the deadline for submitting a first year exam paper on 18 May.
"It has become clear however that the management are prepared to go to any lengths to break the strike. They are dispensing with their own quality controls and approving exam papers which have not been approved or set by the staff teaching the course and don't even accurately address the content of the course.
"The strike at Northumbria is not only about pay but about jobs, conditions and opposing the privatisation of higher education. Five redundancies are planned for the English Language Centre and eight more positions are being downgraded. All this is occurring alongside the prospect of the privatisation of a significant aspects of the English Language Centre's work to a company which has links with the Daily Mail.
"The lecturers who are on strike are asking for no more than was promised by Blair when he blackmailed his backbenchers into passing the bill introducing tuition and top-up fees. Blair promised that at least 30% of the additional income generated should be used for lecturers' pay.
"The lecturers are asking for no more than what vice-chancellors have paid themselves in rises over the last three years. The cost of basic senior management at Northumbria has risen by around £300,000 over the last three years. This is more than 100% and way more than enough to pay for the salaries of the five staff facing redundancy!
"In emails sent to staff and students, Kel Fidler, the Vice Chancellor, has been more than economical with the truth about additional income at the university, claiming there aren't even enough funds to meet the 12.6% pay offer.
"Fidler's office estimates that the amount of money needed to meet the pay claim would be £16.58million, the additional income generated by top-up fees bringing in £20 million and scholarships paying out £8 million, costing Northumbria £4 million more than is generated by the additional income. This means that the pay claim would be using 81% of the additional income from top-up fees, not the 33% NATFHE claim they want. However the university currently has over 13,000 full time undergraduate students - next year a third of these will be paying additional fees, two thirds will pay extra fees the year after and all students will pay the year after that, potentially bringing in a total of nearly £50 million not £20 million.
"Staff have been outraged by the claims in the Vice Chancellor's communications suggesting that they don't care about the students and are carrying out strike action designed to harm them. This is not the case and unlike the Vice Chancellor and members of the executive, lecturers are on the front line every working day dealing with students and their problems, as well as guiding them through their academic programmes to the point of graduation."
Some students have been worried by the strike action, largely due to a lack of information surrounding the dispute, exacerbated by the rotten local students' union who are 'actively backing the withholding of pay'.
This is in no way helping to resolve the dispute. The damage suffered by students failing to graduate would be small, lecturers have already offered to contact individual employers or institutions with provisional grades where they are needed for students applying for jobs or further education. The only people to suffer from the postponing of graduation through the marking boycott would be the university management, who set a high priority and invest time and money in the high-profile ceremony surrounding graduations.
Although Northumbria is one of only two universities where pay has been withheld, plenty of other universities have employed underhand methods, such as getting PhD students to mark exam papers or drafting in professionals, in subjects such as law and medicine, to mark dissertations. This is against their own quality practice just to ensure that the public humiliation of cancelling graduations can be avoided.
NATFHE members at Northumbria have unanimously voted to take continuous and indefinite strike action in response to the lockout of members instigated by senior managers. The union will be serving notice on the employer that unless the lockout is lifted within ten days, NATFHE members at Northumbria University will be on indefinite strike.
University workers and students must understand that these attacks on wages and conditions are part and parcel of the same neo-liberal agenda for education that forced top-up and tuition fees upon us. The National Union of Students, nationally and locally, must give full support to NATFHE and AUT members in struggle. This dispute will have direct consequences on the accessibility and quality of education.
FROM 10-12 May, higher education union AUT held its last annual council (conference) before its merger with NATFHE to form the University and College Union, UCU.
Both existing unions are in dispute over pay in higher education, against the employers, UCEA, after pay increases promised from the money generated by 'top-up' fees failed to materialise.
On the Monday before the conference, the unions had correctly turned down a 'final' offer from UCEA. This rejection was backed unanimously by council, which gave an overwhelming mandate to continue the current boycott of student assessment.
Motions were passed that called to extend this to other forms of action short of a strike, such as management boycotts. A motion calling for a further one-day strike and national demonstration was referred to the executive, who only committed to sympathetic consideration of 'national demonstrative action'.
Good points were made in the debate about the timing and effectiveness of strike action and the difficulties of the current boycott, which 'goes against all our instincts' as educators and does hurt students.
There was a further suggestion that the money that would be lost through a one-day strike would be better levied from members to support staff facing pay cuts for taking part in the assessment boycott.
These are tactical issues but what cannot be denied is the urgency of taking some form of united action that can help ease the isolation of those taking part in the boycott. As a minimum, a national demonstration should be organised with AUT, NATFHE, the NUS and teachers' unions.
UCEA and behind them the New Labour government, are 100% to blame for any problems faced by students as a result of the assessment boycott. While council reaffirmed its opposition to tuition fees in a separate motion, it was noted that the new income from fees presented a 'once in a generation' opportunity to win a significant pay increase. University workers have seen their salaries decline from close to those of doctors to salaries below those of school teachers, who are underpaid themselves.
Attacks on higher education mirror those throughout the public sector. Unity between public-sector unions and the wider labour movement will be needed to force the government to back down.
There were discussions of wider issues, in particular the adoption of a policy on international boycotts following last year's proposed boycott of Israel. While some conservative elements in the union argued that we should not campaign on anything other than the interests of education workers, this was defeated. Positive examples of international solidarity came from motions condemning the occupation of Iraq and in solidarity with the Venezuelan people against US interference.
There was also a resounding call for disciplinary action against racist, sexist and homophobic lecturer Frank Ellis of Leeds University.
Socialist Party members distributed a conference bulletin and held a meeting in support of the Campaign for a New Workers' Party.
We intend to build on this to establish a base in the new union, where we will argue for a fighting strategy but also that the cuts, closures and privatisation seen in universities and colleges are an inevitable consequence of the capitalist system. Only the socialist transformation of society can provide education for all at the same time as decent pay and conditions for those who provide it.
KAT FLETCHER, president of the National Union of Students described the AUT's decision to continue to refuse to set exams as "extremely concerning".
She led an NUS delegation to the AUT conference, where the boycott was endorsed but added after the decision was reached: "NUS will continue to make the AUT aware of the damaging consequences of this policy and the disproportionate impact this aspect of the boycott is having on students."
NUS accept that the employers' refusal to negotiate for weeks is "one of the reasons students are suffering now". They say they are putting pressure on the employers to begin new negotiations. But it is clear that, in the face of such intransigent employers, it is in all students' interests to give full support to lecturers in dispute - as Socialist Students are doing around the country.
Comment:
The bill enables a competent adult who is suffering unbearably as a result of terminal illness to receive medical assistance to die at his or her own considered and persistent request. The doctor can provide the patient with the means to end their life (in other countries this is a large dose of barbiturates) or, if the patient is physically unable to do so, to end the patient's life.
So what are the main issues that socialists may need to consider when deciding to support or not support this bill?
Firstly, take a step back and look at the mess the NHS is in at this moment in time. Throughout Britain at present, many workers are fighting to save NHS services, jobs and hospitals. Nationally the NHS is being run into the ground and dismantled through neglect.
Providers of palliative care (aimed at improving quality of life for patients and families facing problems associated with life-threatening illness, such as pain) rely on charitable funding to hold up services that are chronically under-funded by the state. These services are viewed at times of financial constraint as non-essential services that can be left without proper funding for staff and resources.
Many palliative care services barely have the funding to support cancer patients and those with other life-threatening illnesses. Many, such as Motor Neurone Disease and Multiple Sclerosis, are excluded from palliative care - this is often a post code lottery.
We live in a society where there is a marked gradient in the incidence of most health conditions in the poorer sections of society and this is due to income, the environment in which people live and a lack of education on health promoting activities/behaviours. People living in the most deprived areas are not only more at risk of diseases such as cancer but the community health care available to support them is usually under-resourced and stretched.
Access to health care is not equal. Cancer Research UK estimates that Britain could have over 100,000 extra cases of cancer in 2024 because of its ageing population - this will intensify pressure on our cancer services that are already cash-strapped.
The government has no intention of addressing the causes of ill health in our society - deprivation, improving air quality, providing decent housing, non-hazardous employment, affordable nutritious foods, recreational facilities and investing in health promotion programmes. Cynically I could argue that the government is more than aware of this predicted increase disease burden on the NHS that will require investment in health and social care in order to support patients. Physician assisted suicide however will not cost a penny and go some way to easing the burden.
Lord Joffe's Bill states that a specialist palliative care professional, be it a doctor or nurse, must attend the patient to discuss the option of palliative care. Therefore the bill is stating that palliative care is the first step in trying to alleviate patient suffering. However, until palliative care is resourced properly we can't assume that it has failed - many of us are ignorant of what modern palliative care can achieve. One of the main functions of good palliative care is that it returns power and control to the individual, enabling them to make choices about the last days of their life such as whether they are cared for at home or in hospital or a hospice.
I am not in principle opposed to physician assisted suicide, however I am concerned that we protect the most vulnerable from subtle pressures in society - pressure of feeling a drain on resources and the pressure of being a burden on family. The motives of such a bill cannot be trusted in a capitalist society that is driven by profit not care. We should demand equal and properly funded access to palliative care for all before pursuing suicide or euthanasia.
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What the Socialist Party stands for
The Socialist Party fights for socialism – a democratic society run for the needs of all and not the profits of a few. We also oppose every cut, fighting in our day-to-day campaigning for every possible improvement for working class people.
The organised working class has the potential power to stop the cuts and transform society.
As capitalism dominates the globe, the struggle for genuine socialism must be international.
The Socialist Party is part of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI), a socialist international that organises in many countries.
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http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/5225