CLIMATE CHANGE is already with us. Temperatures are increasing, polar ice caps melting, glaciers retreating, sea levels rising, biodiversity being lost, food production being threatened, water scarcity spreading. Extreme weather - storms, floods, droughts and heatwaves - is occurring more frequently. It's going to cost a lot of money to put it right - but who's going to pay?
A new United Nations report says that climate change is "the outcome of a gigantic market failure." But the capitalists, who are responsible for this failure, are trying to avoid paying the true cost of emitting the greenhouse gases and want to make sure that society picks up the bill. For 'society', read ordinary working-class families.
The consensus amongst climate scientists is getting bleaker. 90% of them, in two recent polls, do not believe that the world can reach emissions targets that will keep global warming to an "acceptable" two degrees this century.
That is even though "acceptable" still means millions of people, particularly in poorer countries, falling victim to more violent weather and crop failures such as the looming famine in Ethiopia and the dying livestock in Kenya's drought.
According to Imperial College in London, the additional spending needed to build new flood defences, transport water for agriculture, treat an increase in the range and severity of diseases, and replace buildings and other infrastructure affected by rising temperatures or water levels, could easily reach £200 billion a year or more.
Such costs now don't seem quite so high in the light of the trillions of pounds spent bailing out the banks and the international finance system. Ordinary working people are expected to pay for this through tax rises, benefit cuts, public spending cuts and rising unemployment. Similarly, if the capitalists have their way, they would pass on the cost of rescuing capitalism from climate change.
Left to themselves big industries will always put profits for shareholders above any notion of social responsibility. Privately owned Drax power station in Yorkshire, Europe's largest emitter of global warming gases, will produce electricity in a way that gets the biggest profits for its shareholders.
Danish multinational Vestas Wind Systems closes down the UK's only wind turbine manufacturing plant, destroying 600 jobs, to move elsewhere in the world where profits are greater.
Instead of rationally and rapidly reducing emissions through safe, non-polluting methods, governments want failing market mechanisms such as 'carbon taxes'. These taxes could feature high on this December's UN climate change conference agenda, which is discussing a successor to the (extremely weak) Kyoto treaty.
No major party in Britain stands for renationalisation of energy, or transport, or the public ownership of the resources necessary to construct low carbon producing houses - that party has yet to be built. Without the ability to direct the country's resources and rationally plan how to tackle the urgent problems of climate change, solutions won't materialise.
ALL OF Britain's capitalist politicians aim to tackle the economic crisis of recession and public-sector debt by hitting out at vital public services and public-sector workers.
At TUC conference Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned that spending cuts are coming. Tory leader David Cameron agrees; the capitalist parties just argue about what to cut and how deeply.
But who caused and worsened the present recession and massive public debt?
Surely the greedy bankers, extravagantly paid and bonused executives and avaricious top shareholders of the world's private companies desperate for maximum profits, are to blame.
Most public sector workers have already suffered an effective pay freeze. But it is they who are threatened with cutbacks, sackings and pay cuts and all of us who are threatened with cuts in services.
There is now the bizarre spectacle of the Tories and New Labour trying to outdo each other with promises of cuts after the next general election to reduce the public finance deficit. Tory leader David Cameron declared the need for an "age of austerity". Now Labour government ministers Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson have said that Labour will also cut spending, but not as savagely as the Tories, they claim.
Tory cuts are likely to be the most brutal, but the level of anger towards Labour was shown in the results of a recent poll: more people thought that a Labour government rather than a Tory government would make the most damaging cuts.
While promising a diet of cuts for ordinary people, neither the Tories or Labour are willing to legislate to stop city bankers from getting obscene levels of pay and bonuses, not even in the banks that are now fully or partially owned by the government.
The Centre for Economic and Business Research has estimated that bankers could receive £4 billion of bonuses this year, up from £3.3 billion last year. This is after £1.2 trillion of taxpayers' money has been given or loaned to the banking system.
While most public sector workers suffered an effective pay freeze last year and the average wage increase for ordinary private sector workers was 3.1%, the pay of Britain's top company executives increased by 10%.
Whether New Labour or the Tories are in power, the dictates of the capitalist market will reign supreme, so under pressure to reduce the public debt, it is the public sector rather than fat cats' profits and pay that they will try to cut.
The growing public deficit, expected to reach at least £175 billion this year, is the highest annual deficit in the UK since the second world war. The April budget set out cuts and tax rises aimed at halving the deficit in the four years from 2010/11. But since then it has increased further, due to the government's stimulus measures, falling tax receipts and because two areas of expenditure are inevitably rising during the recession: social security and interest payments on the debt.
However, although alarmed by the size of the deficit, ordinary working people are not in a position to tolerate further public sector cuts. Trades Union Congress leader Brendan Barber reflected this when he spoke of the possibility of riots breaking out, like those in Liverpool's Toxteth in 1981.
He also echoed the wing of capitalist economists who argue that drastic spending cuts would cut across economic recovery and plunge Britain into the second dip of a 'double dip' recession. They argue for a Keynesian stance; for the public deficit to stay high, and government and Bank of England stimulus measures to be maintained, to avoid a collapse back into deep recession.
Other economists say the opposite, that government financial intervention should be wound down now, to prevent it fuelling future inflation. There is a growing chorus for public spending cuts from this quarter.
The government is in a no-win situation, but faces more dangers with the second course of action than the first at present. The unprecedented feeding of the economy with public money has staved off a depression of the severity of the 1930s, but too sudden a move away from it could lead to renewed downturn.
Cutting public spending or increasing taxes will further reduce the money in people's pockets, reduce their spending power, and so also be a brake on economic recovery.
At best, recovery is expected to be anaemic, and is still uncertain. Many banks are insolvent in reality and still failing to issue much credit. The signs of recovery being played up by top politicians and the media can be explained largely by the effects of the stimulus measures, which are temporary, and to cyclical factors within the overall recessionary period, such as renewal of run-down stocks.
For sustainable expansion, a steady increase in consumer demand is needed, but there is no sign of this yet. On the contrary, consumer demand is still being held back by pay freezes and job losses.
Around three quarters of a million people have already lost their jobs in this recession, the jobless total is expected to rise over 2.5 million this week and could reach over four million if the government doesn't prevent it. Recovery, when it comes, is expected to be 'jobs-light', but it could even be a 'jobs-loss' recovery.
Workers were told to tighten their belts because of the recession, and now will be told to tighten them further so as not to threaten recovery. But even during the boom years before the recession, workers faced cuts in services and the share of GDP spent on their wages went down.
The high public debt and the severity of the recession are due to the extravagance and greed of the wealthy and not the wages and services of working class people. The fact that workers' trade unions provide over 70% of the funding of New Labour - an out and out party of capitalist big business and finance - is ever more nonsensical and ludicrous. It is a burning necessity that there should be workers' candidates standing against Labour and the other main parties in the general election, as a step towards the formation of a new mass workers' party.
"Brown mentioned by way of tribute that Jack Jones's politics were shaped by the Great Depression of the 1930s. Yet Brown didn't mention that Jack came to the conclusion that socialism was the answer to the Depression."
"The Guardian today described Mandelson's statement as Labour making the 'kindest cuts'. But Brown told the TUC that the government has to tell the 'tough truth about hard choices'."
Janice Godrich, president of PCS, urged Brown in a direct question to reconsider cuts to early exit schemes for civil servants, which would affect thousands of low-paid workers. She also asked him to reinstate national pay bargaining in the civil service, abolished in 1994 and not reintroduced in 12 years of New Labour. Brown replied that because inflation and interest rates are low, this should be reflected in moderate pay deals. But every worker knows inflation is effectively much higher for the lower paid. Brown said he would be happy to write to the PCS over national pay bargaining, which attracted derisory laughter from their delegation!
I JOINED trade unionists from my local PCS branch on their way to Liverpool to join a rally on the eve of the TUC conference. The 200-strong rally encouraged trade unions to fight for jobs and decent conditions and against privatisation. Its message was - 'why should we pay for the bosses' crisis?'
Bob Crow of the RMT deplored the Tories' anti-trade union laws, still operating under New Labour. He described the "revolving door" where some union leaders meet government ministers, go in with nothing and leave with nothing! And then the same government ministers sit down with the bosses to give them what they want.
Tracey Edwards, of the PCS union, said it was vital that young people fight for jobs and spoke of the scandal of 600,000 school and university leavers without a prospect of employment. If the government can bail out the banks to the tune of billions of pounds, then why can't it provide jobs for us?
Glenn Kelly and Yunus Bakhsh of Unison (in personal capacities) railed against the hypocrisy of trade union leaders in witch-hunting left activists, whose only 'crime' was to organise and stand up for their members.
Socialist Party member Glenn Kelly said that Unison should go further than simply threatening to stop donations to its Labour-sponsored MPs and emulate the majority of its members who refuse to give anything to New Labour.
Keith Gibson, one of the leaders of the successful Lindsey Oil Refinery jobs disputes' spoke about the strikers ejecting the BNP from the picket lines and about how the intervention of the Socialist Party was able to cut across the nationalist slogan of 'British jobs for British workers'.
Lastly, there was a very moving contribution from one of the Shrewsbury pickets [24 trade unionists were tried following the 1972 building workers' national strike], who included Des Warren and Ricky Tomlinson. He reminded us of their campaign for a public inquiry to expose their frame-up by the state.
Altogether an excellent and inspiring rally - but the fighting talk now needs to be matched by action from the major trade unions. They need to stop funding New Labour and begin funding genuine, working-class struggles.
'OPERATION PANTHER'S Claw' was intended to prevent the Taliban from disrupting the Afghan elections. However the elections have been undermined from within by the ham-fisted attempts of supporters of president Hamid Karzai to rig the result. They are accused of inventing up to 800 'ghost' polling stations that returned thousands of completed ballots and taking over a further 800 to report tens of thousands of fake votes.
In Karzai's home province of Kandahar, 350,000 votes were cast compared to 25,000 estimated by election observers! When questioned he said that fraud is inevitable in a budding democracy!
This incredible statement was backed up by UK foreign secretary David Milliband, who stated that what is important is that Afghanistan should have a "credible government without any illusions that this is a Western-style democracy".
A UN-backed electoral complaints commission has ordered a recount in some of the southern districts but it remains to be seen whether Karzai's supporters will allow this to take place. Western governments will probably try to stitch together some power-sharing arrangement to save face but former government minister and presidential rival, Abdullah, has said that he will not take part in any deal with Karzai.
For the Western imperialist allies, sinking deeper into the Afghan quagmire, the election farce further undermines the legitimacy of the occupation in the eyes of ordinary people in their countries.
With almost daily reports of deaths and serious injury of soldiers, support for the occupation is leaking away. 24 UK troops have died in the last six weeks, compared to the five who died in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2005.
More US soldiers died in August than in any other month previously. A recent Gallup poll in the US reported that 61% of respondents thought the war was going badly. In other polls, a majority were in favour of withdrawing the troops.
President Barack Obama is currently considering a report from General Stanley McChrystal, his own commander in Afghanistan, telling him that current US strategy isn't working. Moreover, the Taliban control much of the countryside and have a presence in the major cities; they are running courts, hospitals and even a parallel government ombudsman.
McChrystal is asking for a surge of 40,000 to 50,000 extra troops, similar to the US strategy in Iraq, on top of the 68,000 that will be there by the end of this year.
Meanwhile the US-backed government barely exercises any real control outside Kabul. Every atrocity carried out by the allied forces, such as the bombing of the two oil tankers which killed and injured over 100 local villagers, further undermines support for the government.
Ordinary Afghans and the ordinary men and women that make up the occupying forces are paying the price for the capitalist allies' bankrupt strategy in Afghanistan. Over 1,000 civilians have been killed so far this year; and life expectancy at 44 is one of the lowest in the world. Soldiers are being killed and injured daily, while struggling with inadequate equipment and having to fight for compensation for the most terrible injuries.
Far from escalating the conflict, the troops should be withdrawn. But we need to build an alternative to the main capitalist parties that dragged us into this war. A new workers' party in Britain could provide a political voice to the millions that oppose this war.
THE RUNNING down of smelting facilities at Anglesey Aluminium is a devastating blow to the economy of Holyhead and the rest of the island of Anglesey, North Wales. The company (which at the beginning of the year employed over 500 and was estimated to account for a third of Anglesey's economy), will only retain around 80 workers.
The immediate pretext for the closure of the plant is the ending of a discounted energy supply from Wylfa nuclear power station. The end of this deal had been on the cards for some time now - the closure of Wylfa, announced back in 2006, is expected in 2010. But the company has in the past stated that they would not be threatened by the closure of Wylfa. So what has changed now?
The current crisis of capitalism and rising production costs are being used as a scapegoat, for attacks on pay and conditions and the switching of production to non-unionised plants in low wage economies, in order to drive up profit margins further.
In most cases, there is no pressing need to switch production; it is simply another case of profits coming before people.
Such is the devastation that these job losses will cause to the island's economy that the Welsh Assembly and Westminster governments have been forced to intervene, offering £59 million in state subsidies over a four year period, which amounts to a massive £1 million a month.
However, management at Anglesey Aluminium, Rio Tinto (which owns 51% of AA), and Kaiser Aluminium (49% ownership) rejected the deal, claiming that they would need at least double that figure in state subsidies to retain production on Anglesey.
Yet Anglesey Aluminium has been extremely profitable in the 36 years it has been on the island. Furthermore, both Rio Tinto and Kaiser Aluminium are multinationals turning huge profits.
Rio Tinto posted record profits in 2008, delivering net profits in the first quarter of 2008 of an astronomical US $2.94 billion. They have not fared quite so well in the first quarter of 2009 but still made $1.6 billion in net profits in that period, or $177 million per day!
Just like the banks, we see private enterprise demanding that the losses are nationalised while the profits remain private.
Despite redundancy notices being issued, the situation is not hopeless as the action at the Vestas Blades plant on the Isle of Wight shows. There, workers and their supporters have created huge pressure upon both the company and government to stop its closure.
They are currently taking action to stop the remaining wind turbine blades and machinery being removed from the plant as part of their campaign to force the government to nationalise the plant.
In both cases the levels of profits of the multinational companies, and the continued profitability of these plants, demonstrates their viability. Both companies should be made to open their books to see where these profits have gone, and if necessary the plants should be nationalised, under democratic workers' control and management, to ensure future jobs and opportunities for skilled workers.
Government inspectors have published their report on the scandal of the 'Phoenix four' directors who bought MG Rover from BMW in 2000 for £10 and allowed it to collapse in 2005. The direct cost to Longbridge and other workers in Birmingham was 6,500 jobs, plus there were a further 20-30,000 jobs lost due to the knock-on effect in the local economy.
The inspectors who produced the 850 page report costing £16 million were only allowed to investigate the financial dealings of the directors. Therefore the report did not comment on the role of Labour ministers who approved the deal at the time. But it condemns by implication their approval of the Phoenix consortium rather than the other bidder, Alchemy Capital Venture.
The report is scattered with financial shenanigans and downright thievery that would make any Russian oligarch proud. The latter looted a whole country after the collapse of the soviet economy in the early 1990s, whereas the Phoenix four only had one company to play with. Nevertheless they were able to squeeze the company for all it was worth, without any overseeing - under the guise of commercial secrecy - including by the trade unions. The interests of the Longbridge Rover workers never once came into their calculations, heaven forbid.
What takes your breath away when reading the newspaper accounts about the four, is their concentration on getting as much out of it for themselves, without spending any time on building up the company to give it a future, even under capitalism.
From the beginning, in secret meetings, they gave the company no more than five years before it would collapse, so that was the time they had to profit from its existence.
This was while Labour ministers and unfortunately trade union leaders were drinking the health of the four as the "saviours" of what was left of the British owned car industry.
The Rover directors used double bookkeeping, financial sleight of hand and other methods, to get their hands on the bulk of what was available. The inspectors highlight how they filched at least £42 million for themselves over a five year period and had their eyes on another £75 million of the £500 million that BMW had given them to take Rover off its hands "with a pledge from the four that it would not pursue BMW for indemnity payments".
A week after the government appointed the inspectors, Peter Beale, one of the four directors, loaded software onto his computer called "evidence eliminator" which removed all evidence on his hard drive including a sub-folder called "MG Rover".
The four set up various projects to allow them to hide the money they were filching. One was entitled "project slag" (a stock lending agreement), another was "project aircraft" - which netted over £10 million by getting Rover to buy a share in an aircraft leasing company that owned two Boeing 737s and writing off the cost of that transaction against tax.
The £10 million was put into a Guernsey trust to pay their pensions.
Another director, Nick Stephenson, employed his partner, a Dr Li, as a consultant for 15 months at a cost of £1.6 million to Rover. "That didn't seem to add much" to the company, other than translating documents, according to the inspectors.
The Phoenix consortium were able to do all this with no risk to themselves. We should not be surprised this went on. But we should also ask what the trade union leaders were playing at when they gave the takeover their support in 2000.
They expressed not one word of criticism at the time and resisted calls by many workers for the company to be nationalised.
100,000 Birmingham workers marched through the city in April 1999 when the crisis first developed. The union leaders didn't make any demands on the government to take over the plant to save jobs, but instead allowed the Phoenix gangster capitalists to appear as saviours.
Is history going to repeat itself when we watch the fate of the Vauxhall plants now that they have been sold by General Motors to a Canadian company, Magna?
Magna have been given a £4 billion pound bribe by the German government to not close the four German Opel plants, which are also being sold by GM. No reassurance has been given to the Vauxhall workers in Britain by Magna or to the Belgium workers either, whose Antwerp plant now faces closure. It has been reported that Magna may cut 10,500 Opel and Vauxhall jobs across Europe.
Trade Secretary Peter Mandelson is saying nothing. Unless the union leaders insist that the government takes over Vauxhall if threatened with closure, we could see another Longbridge, only this time in Luton where the Vauxhall van is due to end production in 2011, or at the plant in Ellesmere Port in Merseyside.
Car workers should be demanding now that their union calls for industrial action in defence of jobs, on the slogan 'nationalise Vauxhall'. If it's good enough for the banks, it's good enough for car workers as well.
In an interview in the Saturday Times, Bob Crow, the general secretary of the RMT transport workers' union, announced that he has had informal talks with pensioners' groups, students' organisations, green campaigners, socialists and other union representatives to draw up a joint manifesto for a 'workers' alliance' to contest some seats in the forthcoming general election.
Speaking on the eve of the annual TUC, in Liverpool, he said that working-class voters had been abandoned by all the main political parties and as a result some were turning to the BNP. "We would be putting up policies that we believe people want. What our members vote for is their democratic right but we certainly can't just sit back and say 'vote Labour'."
On 12 September a meeting, sponsored by Camden 3 RMT Branch, was held on the future of political representation for the working class. Representatives from London RMT branches, the RMT presidential candidate and member of the Council of Executives Alex Gordon, along with the RMT Regional Organiser London Transport, Steve Hedley attended.
It was agreed that a campaign for an election coalition be taken to branches through a draft resolution. We need to get the democratic involvement of the rank and file in our union and in other unions. It was reported that as well as the RMT, the Prison Officers Association (POA) may be involved.
RMT activists from the Socialist Party pointed out that the Socialist Party would normally stand candidates in the general election but would fully support a democratic coalition of trade union, community groups, left Greens and Socialist candidates standing on an agreed minimum programme. No one group should dominate such a coalition and each group should be allowed to produce its own material as well as distributing the agreed manifesto and material.
The meeting felt that we are not strong enough to stand everywhere, as only the RMT is involved at the moment and maybe the POA (although there are moves within the Communications Workers' Union, especially in the London region). But some electoral challenge needs to be made.
A representative conference has been called by the RMT on Saturday 7 November in Camden, central London to discuss political representation. The meeting agreed to build support for this amongst activists in the RMT and in other unions.
Around 600 Leeds "Streetscene" council workers, including street cleaners and refuse collectors, are on indefinite strike. This has been caused by Leeds City council's decision to cut annual pay by up to one third on average, from £18,000 to £13,000. As shop steward Glen Pickersgill said: "People will lose their homes if this goes through."
This could be the first of many disputes between councils and unions as cuts are made in public spending. The Tory/LibDem-run council say they have to make cuts. But the council leader, Richard Brett, claimed a staggering £45,833 in allowances last year.
The council also claim they have to do this in order to comply with equal pay laws. But how can cutting the wages of some of the lowest paid workers, including women, serve the cause of equality? The council is refusing to negotiate.
The strike is starting to bite, with bins left unemptied and refuse collection sites closed by pickets or for lack of staff.
The Unison and GMB members have strong support from the people of Leeds. They are appreciated as hardworking people who turn out every day in all weathers.
A demonstration at council offices on 10 September was followed by a march across the city centre to a meeting, which voted unanimously to continue the strike.
Support and donations for the strike fund to: Geoff Hodgson House, 160a Woodhouse Lane, Leeds LS2 9EN, or [email protected] or to the GMB at [email protected]
Workers from Newcastle's National Grid office walked out on 11 September in protest at the threat of their jobs being outsourced to a low wage economy. Hundreds then rallied at the Monument in Newcastle to protest against the threat of 189 workers from the office being sacked.
Terry Merrin explained: "The main aim today is to raise the profile re the potential job losses in Newcastle. National Grid are actively looking at outsourcing jobs to outside providers. They are looking at poorer countries like India".
One of the workers, Wah, commented: "The National Grid is profitable, they made £3 billion last year, so it's not the recession - just shareholders wanting more". Another protester, Darren Polwarth, whose wife works at National Grid pointed out: "They're already making a profit - so it's just greed". While workers in Newcastle face the sack, seven National Grid directors have been given £9.7 million in salaries and bonuses.
Workers have also been angered to hear that while they are facing the sack National Grid found money for a senior executive to park his Ferrari in a dehumidified garage!
Workers who spoke to The Socialist were pleased with the turnout for the rally. However, one worker correctly pointed out: "Today's demo will raise awareness, but we also need strike action".
Following widespread unofficial strike actions earlier this year, engineering construction workers in the Unite and GMB trade unions at seven major industrial sites have been balloted over the review of national (NAECI) terms and conditions for 2010.
It is reported that they voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action against the employers' refusal to offer any pay-rise. However, trade union officials are expected to recommend acceptance of a revised offer to the NAECI shop stewards meeting that takes place in Manchester on 17 September.
Whilst details of this offer have not been released, it is widely believed to be a two-year deal of 2% in 2010 followed by an inflation-linked rise in 2011 with a minimum of 1%. The threat of official strike action has forced the employers to drop their original plans to attack conditions like the tea-break, and make concessions on the audit process, transparency and a skills register which could all increase job security. However there is a lack of detail and workers at Lindsey Oil Refinery in June saw how the bosses will renege on deals.
With major construction projects coming up and a big yes vote in the official ballot, NAECI workers are in powerful position to win further improvements in job security, pay and conditions, so the Socialist Party urges rejection of the deal and that the stewards forum make plans for national industrial action.
Construction workers in the greater Manchester area have launched a campaign against blacklisting in the industry.
There was a protest of 20 construction workers at the gates of "the rock triangle" development site in Bury, Lancashire, in August. The Rock is a massive project employing hundreds of people. Yet, there is no effective trade union representation on site.
The main contractor is Laing O'Rourke who appointed N.G Bailey to do the electrical work. Both companies were subscribers to the anti trade union blacklist operated by private detective Ian Kerr on behalf of many UK construction companies. (See previous coverage in The Socialist.)
The blacklisting scandal has been exposed. But the Bury council chief executive failed to respond to demands by the local Unite branch for a guarantee that there would be no blacklisting on the rock.
Steve Acheson, himself a blacklisted electrician for ten years, told The Socialist: "Blacklisting puts enormous psychological pressure on the victimised workers and their families. Not only are you being put out of work, but you are deliberately not given any work. This can bring entire families to breaking point.
"Unite should use its resources to build trade union organisation on sites and give support to all victimised trade unionists. This way, confidence can be built amongst workers to fight back against the bosses' offensive."
According to The Guardian 170,000 students face the prospect of starting term without the loans and grants they are entitled to. Once again young people are paying the price for the government's failures. Many students and their families are wondering how they can pay the first instalment of their rent or pay for basic living costs without financial support.
The administration of student finance in England has been taken over by a private company - Student Finance England (SFE), an arm of the Student Loans Company (SLC). SFE set a ridiculous applications deadline of the end of May 2009. How were students supposed to have sent in the mountains of paperwork involved in applications during their exam period? By July horror stories had started to appear in the press and on student internet discussion forums.
Every student must show their university a letter documenting their financial support before they can enrol on their course. Universities, if they wish, have the power to turn away students who cannot provide this information.
Some vice chancellors say they will defer payment deadlines and allow students to enrol. But students cannot depend on the 'goodwill' of vice chancellors, many of whom have made it clear that they want to charge much higher tuition fees, have privatised university services and have a history of excluding those who cannot afford to pay.
There are daily reports of students dropping out of their courses or opting to decline a university place because they cannot afford to pay upfront without the loan, or to take the chance that they will get funding. It is the government's disastrous privatisation policy that has thrown student finance into chaos.
Student finance was taken away from local authorities in September 2008 with a loss of jobs in local government. It took until February 2009 for SFE to begin processing students' applications as all the information held by local authorities had been discarded. Without this, SFE has struggled to deal with the increase in applications (16% according to UCAS) and higher numbers of existing students who have begun to claim loans due to the recession.
The SFE and New Labour ministers keep promising that every student who applied before the deadline will get funding. Why should anyone believe them? They assured everyone in June, when delays were first reported, that there was nothing to worry about as the backlog would soon be cleared. But then SFE had to increase its staffing levels by 50% at the end of August because they were still eight weeks behind. Term has begun and hundreds of thousands are still waiting.
Higher education minister David Lammy has promised the poorest students who claim means tested support that they will receive the full loan and grant payment even if the means testing process has not been completed. But any overpayment will be recovered from students later in the term, thereby punishing students for the government's mistakes.
It is clear this vital service for students is being run on the cheap. Understaffed call centres have the task of processing applications of over one million students. Staff are being asked to work more and more overtime. A private company is getting away with making money out of failing to provide a basic administration service.
The anger of students and families across the country is increasing. Why should we pay for the incompetence of the government and private companies? Along with the threat of even higher fees, rising student debt and mass employment there is another reason for students to join the fightback this year.
Youth Fight for Jobs members from Cardiff and the Welsh Valleys held a protest last Tuesday when Alistair Darling came to Cardiff to announce cuts in public spending. We demanded free education and for money to be invested in creating jobs for young people. Nearly one million young people are estimated to be unemployed in Britain, South Wales being particularly badly hit.
We also opposed Darling's audacity in implementing further 'soft' cuts, while the bosses continue to live lives largely unaffected by the recession - creaming off bonuses - while more and more workers are made redundant.
At the protest the angry atmosphere was quite contagious, with the security guards joining in chants such as 'make the bosses take the losses'!
Two members gave interviews to the BBC news, expressing their fury at the cuts. Although Alistair Darling was too cowardly to show his face, there is no doubt that the message was put across.
This demonstration showed that the youth will fight back and are not prepared to be complacent in any way.
About 400 students, education workers and supporters gathered in Altab Ali Park in Aldgate to rally in support of the striking UCU members at Tower Hamlets college in East London.
The workers are taking indefinite strike action against the severe cuts management want to make to courses and against the sacking of staff. College management want to slash up to 1,000 ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) places.
As many as 90 people could lose their jobs. Yet the college's management is to be increased by 15 and the principal earns around £160,000 a year. Over the summer the management sent letters to 13 lecturers telling them they had no jobs.
Several of the speakers were students for whom English is not their first language. They explained that the cuts would have a dramatic effect on their lives particularly when looking for work.
John McLaughlin from Tower Hamlets Unison announced that the results of the ballot for action of Unison members at the college would be announced the following Monday, meaning that the whole of the college workforce could be on strike.
This was generally a very good rally and showed the level of community support for the strikers and the struggle against cuts at the college. However, incredibly the organisers allowed the leader of the Tory group on Tower Hamlets council and prospective Tory parliamentary candidate in Tower Hamlets to address the rally. Why was this person allowed to speak when, as some of the other speakers at the rally had made clear, the Tories are vying with New Labour about how many cuts they can make to public services?
Tower Hamlets is one of the worst hit so far, but several London colleges face massive cuts this year. Staff and students cannot be left to fight on a college-by-college basis. A united national fight to defend education is necessary.
Socialist Party members got a good response to this demand. 16 copies of The Socialist were sold and six people filled in cards to find out more about the Socialist Party.
At the time of the camp the workers were preparing for the day of action on Thursday 17 September. A march is planned on the island and the workers want to make it clear that, although they were evicted from their occupation, the campaign is not going away.
Mark Smith described the occupation and the bullying tactics the company employed. This came after a long history of intimidation and harassment on the job. On the first day of the occupation the local police threatened to smash in the doors and to drag them out, and to charge the workers for the damage.
On the second day the riot police were banging at the doors with their shields. "This was very unnerving. We didn't know what they were going to do". Later Vestas' security firm hammered wedges under the doors and cable-tied the handles to see if the occupiers tried to get out. They were threatened with a charge of aggravated trespass, and denied proper access to food.
In fact, supporters at one point resorted to catapulting tennis balls stuffed with chocolates, cigarettes etc, to stave off starvation. The management had Mark Smith's number to arrange the meagre food rations but they used it to call up at all times of the day and night, threatening that the workers in occupation would never work on the island again.
Contrast this to the support and solidarity that has poured in from workers, not only from all over Britain, but from occupying factory workers in Korea, from trade unionists in Australia, the US and elsewhere. Mark Smith, whose number was distributed when the occupation began, so supporters could send solidarity messages, said it "didn't stop ringing for four days. Since then the support has been phenomenal... It boosts the way you feel about things and makes you feel like carrying on the struggle."
At this stage the main focus of the campaign, apart from the urgent fight for redundancy pay for the eleven sacked occupiers, is stopping the turbine blades that were inside the factory getting out. The blades are worth £70,000 each and around nine remained in the factory. They also hope to prevent Vestas removing the moulds used to make the blades, which are worth £1 million each. A 24-hour picket is in operation, and support continues to grow.
This required large amounts of effort as the workers were having to be out looking for new work, and had to try to get on with their lives - no easy task with only 100 jobs on the island at that point. Many of those were seasonal jobs - in bars, kitchens, care work etc which very possibly could be surplus to requirement after the holidays. And these are skilled industrial workers. It's not easy to move to care work.
The effect of Vestas closing, which contributed £13 million a year to the island's economy, is yet to be fully felt. But the effect of the new level of trade union activity is already clear. RMT Vestas workers marched down to the postal workers' picket line to give solidarity and support. A meeting to plan a day of action in support of the Vestas workers' demands had 44 in attendance, mainly trade union activists, including Vectis bus workers who are also organised in the RMT and taking industrial action, postal workers who are organised in the CWU and ferry workers.
They had also been discussing with shop owners about a possible half-hour solidarity closure. The GMB is also starting to organise some previously unorganised workplaces on the island where cuts and closures are threatened.
Vestas is known as a viciously anti-union employer. Mark and Mark described the company's drive for profit which disregarded health and safety legislation to such an extent that the, usually slow to respond, Health and Safety Executive (HSE) fined them.
So dangerous to health was sanding the blades that workers should only do it for three hours a day. However, at the Vestas plant the timers kept breaking and many spent up to six or seven hours at it. This could result in 'white finger' - a condition where workers lose sensation in their fingers and suffer damage to the nerves.
A number of workers became sensitised to the epoxy resins used in the preparation of the blades. Symptoms include a rash with nasty blisters and also respiratory problems where the resin becomes airborne. The workers said that despite health and safety legislation the air in the factory sparkled with resin dust. Sensitivity makes working in the industry impossible. Vestas tried to blame the workers to avoid compensation.
Apparently the resin is banned in Denmark so a lot of the resin work is done on the IOW. After the HSE fine the regulations were adhered to - until the pressure built up. Bullying from the top down risked workers' health.
Since joining the union Mark and Mark and the others became acutely aware of the difference union organisation makes. Each Vestas factory is forced to compete with the other plants for funding and investment.
The IOW St Cross plant had the highest production, particularly after workers there had been promised that the plant would be re-tooled to make blades that could be sold in the UK - if they agreed to speed-ups, shift changes which had detrimental effects on the workers' health and personal lives, and other intensifications.
Instead of job security for the workers at the St Cross factory, the workforce was shocked to hear they were expected to train the American workers to do their jobs after closure! Far from being on its uppers, Vestas, already in profit to a tune of £72 million for the first quarter of the year, was laughing all the way to the bank with rumoured plans to double the price of the blades in the US.
Now a skilled workforce will be lost. In a show of blatant profit-seeking, Vestas is opening factories in eastern Europe, where they hope to exploit cheaper wages.
The sacked workers have also been shocked at the rate of benefits available. Many, on the basis of the promise of secure jobs, had taken out mortgages and now face the potential of losing their homes. With the scarcity of jobs on the island, Vestas jobseekers have been told that they risk losing their benefits if they are not willing to accept any job, including jobs off the island.
With almost 600 newly redundant workers, the island's jobcentre held an open day but Mark Smith found that he received only one suitable job offer - and that that was in Holland and even if he moved his family there he would be travelling away for three to four months a year.
Vestas had initially offered to contribute around £700 per worker towards the cost of retraining but withdrew this when they found out the government was offering grants. In any case the workers discovered that this money would have been taken from that set aside for redundancy pay.
Sickeningly, this company which has shown a blatant disregard for workers' rights, has been in receipt of large amounts of public money. Via the South East Development Agency (Seda) they had received £6 million, but apparently with no demands on job security or rights for the workers.
Campaigners have spoken to the council about the possibility of withdrawing financial support for Vestas' other sites on the island which are owned by Seda. The campaign calls for nationalisation of the threatened or closed factories factory. Given the workers' experience this could not be a 'Northern Rock style' nationalisation.
The workers would also demand a say in how the factories were run and also that the bullying management would have to go. There would also be conditions such as employing people from the island and the right to be organised in a union.
Beyond the day of action there were plans for taking the campaign to the TUC to build support and for producing a broadsheet to keep supporters up to date. Through their membership of the RMT and through the experience of their struggle, the workers said that they felt part of a bigger movement and had had their outlook transformed.
Initially they had just wanted to talk to Vestas and never expected things to turn out as they have. Their message is clear - you don't have to take what the bosses chuck at you - you can stand up and fight!
Thursday 17 September
3 Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2AW
This motion forms part of the solidarity campaign. Socialist Party councillors and members fully support the Vestas workers' campaign, including stopping the blades leaving the factory. We intend to use this motion to build even more solidarity in Coventry. Already a number of trade union donations have been sent down from branches in the city. A worker from the plant received a very warm welcome at two meetings, of Coventry Socialist Party and Coventry CWU postal workers' union. We support the call for nationalisation and want to do all we can to ensure this demand is raised.
This Council believes that targets for increasing the proportion of energy produced in a non-polluting, sustainable way to combat climate change can best be achieved over the next decade via wind, tidal and wave power.
Council therefore deplores the decision of Vestas Wind Systems to close the UK's only wind turbine blade plant in Newport on the Isle of Wight with a loss of over 600 jobs on the island and in Southampton.
Council fully supports the actions of those workers who occupied the factory during the summer, and their continuing campaign to prevent product, plant and equipment from leaving the UK.
Council supports the call for the nationalisation of this factory to retain the skills of the workforce, provide much needed local employment, and as part of the development of a serious green energy strategy for the future, and agrees to forward this motion to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.
I come from a family of nine. I was brought up in Barnsley, my Dad worked as a collier. I was always a rebel at school. In fact I've got a school report which says: "If Brian doesn't improve his behaviour he will end up in prison."
My Dad was a union official when he was 16 and active in the 1960s. He was a very principled man.
I was in the army for 12½ years and I saw at first hand how devious governments of any colour can be.
My intention when I left the army was to be a probation officer. I was interviewed to be an assistant probation officer, then they scrapped those jobs.
They offered me a job in a rehabilitation hostel for drug offenders and alcoholics. But I just couldn't live on the wage. I was living in a council house but I had one child and my wife was heavily pregnant.
I passed the entrance exams for the police, prison and fire services. And because I'd been at Wandsworth prison as a potential probation officer I thought I'd go there.
I was a prison officer for 19 years from 1977. I started at Wandsworth and then went to Wakefield.
I was on the POA national executive, then in 1996 I left the Prison Service to become an assistant secretary.
Britain is the current leader in the world in having private prisons. In fact, per head of population, Wales is the world leader in private prisons. All of these have been built in the last 20 years.
Most of the companies involved with running prisons have got very long contracts. The public sector was never allowed to bid for them, the Tories just privatised them.
Justice Minister Jack Straw said there would be a level playing field for the running of prisons but then he said he's opening private prisons that the public sector will not be allowed to bid for.
We are not even allowed to bid for the transportation of prisoners. Public servants used to do all of this work.
The idea of Titan prisons - massive warehouses - was checked fully and was scrapped. But many Category C prisons have already got 1,500 prisoners, as big as Titans.
Straw is also pulling prisons together in clusters. The biggest travesty for us concerns Blakenhurst prison in the midlands, which we won back from the private sector.
Straw clustered it with Hewell Grange and Brockhill prisons, which were close to it. Now it's come up for retendering. So the other two which have never been private are now involved in a compulsory tender. He said he wouldn't do that, once again misleading the POA.
Birmingham, one of the biggest prisons in the country, has been named for potential privatisation. There is quite an active POA branch there and they took action in August 2007. So the threat of privatisation is Straw having a kick-back at us.
We're not opposed to modernisation but the modernisation they are putting forward is dangerous for prison staff, dangerous for prisoners and dangerous for society.
We had the biggest turnout in a ballot ever in our history that rejected that modernisation. We're not allowed to take lawful strike or industrial action, so we go to the negotiating table at a disadvantage. They listen to what we say and then they ignore it.
We rejected workforce 'modernisation' in a ballot and now they're trying to impose it on us. This is alongside pushing forwards this market testing and privatisation. So we are in conflict with them.
I've been fortunate in having Colin Moses to work with. He's one of the few elected black trade union leaders in the country. We're both socialists and have very strong trade union beliefs. We both believe in trade unions doing the job for the members.
We have thrown BNP members out of the union, about six people. We were able to get the Prison Service to say they would sack any prison officers who were known to be members of far right organisations. In order to achieve this we constantly bombarded the Prison Service with the fact that we'd thrown people out for being members of the BNP but they were keeping them employed as prison officers. We got the Prison Service to make a declaration that if they found anyone in those organisations they would sack them. This applies to everyone who works in the Prison Service. This is part of a motion at the TUC this year.
If you get sacked for being in the BNP, if you're a POA member we won't support you.
We couldn't live with the thought of anyone with racist or fascist leanings having a key with a black person behind the door. We discussed it a lot and we decided to throw them out of the union. If we find any more we will throw them out. It's in the union rules.
I'm sick and tired of people saying that just because you're a prison officer you're right wing. I had three gold brooches for the amount of prison officers I have recruited to the Labour Party. I'm sad at having to leave the Labour Party but I couldn't stay in it with Jack Straw being politically dishonest to me.
I have respect for some Labour politicians and I have lots of friends in the Labour Party. Lots of my executive are still members of the Labour Party.
But being the general secretary of a union means you get face to face with people and you can ask questions that others can't. I asked questions and got waffle when I expected to be treated with respect and given honest answers.
I left a meeting at our conference with Jack Straw and made a presentation to him of a decanter from the POA to say thank you for coming to the conference. I also gave him a book entitled The Right To Strike and I said: "I've got you a third gift. You can have my Labour Party card after being a Labour Party member for 40-odd years."
I got a standing ovation.
He asked me what I was going to do now politically. I said I'll join the workers' party.
He did say that his father had been locked up for being a conscientious objector. I asked him what the founding fathers of the Labour Party would think of him now - fighting illegal wars and privatising prisons. I got a standing ovation for that as well.
From 1 September they're bringing in prison officers at £14,000 a year - £6,000 less than the proper rate. This will mean conflict. We've taken them to arbitration but it's all on the back of our members refusing the modernisation.
They want to scrap the principal officer grade and run prisons with people in suits. We're not up for modernisation if it means cost cutting, cutting our wages and conditions, and the conditions for prisoners.
If prison officers can't rehabilitate, all they can do is confine. That looks like what they really want us to do.
When we send those prisoners back into society under those circumstances, they will rape, rob and murder again. If we can't attempt to rehabilitate them or tackle their mental health problems, drug or alcohol problems then we're wasting our time sending them to prison.
We've said let's have an integrated system where prison officers and probation officers work together. Where non-custodial sentences deliver the same programmes as in the prisons but out in the community. But we can't do that with overcrowded prisons, filling them up with people who are mentally ill.
These things are part of the POA's policies. We argued these points with Labour in opposition. They said they would talk to us when they got into power but 12 years later they haven't done anything.
Cameron's lot will cause a massive increase in crime. They will lock people up for longer, try to cut the prison budget and privatise.
One of the things about the day's strike that we took was that we said: "You push us too far and we'll strike." No law will stop working people saying I will withhold my labour.
My members don't want to break laws but we don't want bad laws either. I'll be arguing at the TUC that for any union to be able to bargain properly with the employers, the union membership must be able to withdraw their labour.
Socialist Women
Socialist Party members in Leytonstone, east London, held a protest on Thursday 10 September outside a local bar called Zulus, and scored a quick victory.
The bar had just started advertising an "oil-wrestling" event - where "hot babes" would wrestle in oil - ie a variant of high street lap-dancing and strip clubs.
As soon as we saw the degrading flyers being given out on the high street, we contacted the local press to warn against Waltham Forest borough being littered with empty shops and strip joints as a result of the recession, with no opportunities for young people.
The bar owners evidently want to improve their takings in this recession, and had allowed their bar to be hired by the organisers of this event. We went to confront the bar manager. A young woman worker behind the bar agreed with us that the event was disgusting.
We pointed out to the manager that evidence shows that when lap-dancing and similar clubs open in new areas, attacks on women increase. We told him that bosses and bankers have had an orgy of profits in recent years. Now they want workers to pay for their crisis, through losing our jobs and our homes and through devastating cuts to public services. We cannot accept that women in Leytonstone should be forced to pay for the crisis in this way. It is gross exploitation to profit from the desperation many young women will feel.
The manager said he would talk to the bar owner. We told him to warn the owner that we would organise a campaign of people who live and work in the area until Zulus cancelled this event. The fact that Socialist Party members had just helped organise a similar campaign in Lewisham, and managed to get a lap-dancing club shut down, obviously started to rattle him.
So, two days later we set up our protest outside the bar, with leaflets, petitions and a big banner saying "No oil-wrestling at Zulus Bar", "No to the exploitation of women". Within minutes we had support from local passers-by. After a very short time the manager came out to us. He announced that the event had been cancelled!
Not all campaigns win such a swift victory, but this certainly shows that campaigning works. Ordinary working class people do not have to accept the results of this crisis, whether that's by fighting to save jobs, defending our local communities, or making a stand against some of the more exploitative and degrading effects of capitalism.
THE BRITISH aristocracy hated and feared Thomas Paine - the "philosopher" and pamphleteer of the 1776 American Revolution and the 1789 French Revolution - in his lifetime. It was fashionable amongst their number to wear shoe nails inscribed with 'TP', so as to trample on Paine and his ideas with every step they took.
For the poor masses, however, Paine's radical ideas, calling for an end to colonialism, slavery and monarchy, and for democracy, equality, progressive taxation and even an early welfare state, were enormously popular and hugely influential. After his death, Paine's writings had a direct impact on the emerging workers' movement, including the Chartists in Britain.
On the 200th anniversary year of Paine's death, the British playwright, Trevor Griffiths, has produced a marvellous, energetic play, A New World: A Life of Thomas Paine that entertainingly covers Paine's eventful life; interspersing dialogue with songs and extracts of Paine's stirring words. John Light is impressive as Thomas Paine, as is Keith Bartlett, who plays Benjamin Franklin, the play's narrator.
Beginning with Paine's arduous voyage from Britain to the American colonies, in 1774, which nearly cost his life, the 37-year old 'master stay-maker' soon made a name for himself by publishing articles against slavery in a Philadelphia journal.
He quickly comes to the attention of leading anti-colonialists, such as Thomas Jefferson, who entreat him to write a pamphlet in support of American independence.
The result is Common Sense (1776), the plain prose style of which makes a direct appeal to the working masses' egalitarian instincts. Over 100,000 copies sold in a few months, though Paine never profited greatly from his works and generously gave much of his income to revolutionary causes.
So powerful are Paine's words that General George Washington instructs that Paine's American Crisis pamphlet, which begins with the famous words, "These are the times that try men's souls..." is read out to the Continental Army to boost morale before battle.
The popular American Revolution finally ensures that 'superior' British might is defeated but with victory Paine finds he has enemies amongst conservative fellow 'revolutionaries'.
When Paine denounces a former American envoy to France, Silas Deane, for corruption, a Congress investigation backs Deane. Filled with disgust, Paine declares they have "ensured the rich and powerful remain".
Paine travels to revolutionary France, in 1790, where amongst other leaders he meets the revolution's great orator Georges Danton (brilliantly played by James Garnon). When Edmund Burke publishes his infamous Reflections on the Revolution in France, Paine responds with his immensely popular defence of the revolution, The Rights of Man.
Paine's enormous popularity in France sees him offered a seat in the National Convention in 1792. But he finds himself isolated in his opposition to the execution of the King, arguing that while he supports abolishing the reactionary monarchy, guillotining the despot will only play into the hands of counter-revolutionaries.
Regarded as an ally of the Girondins, Paine is imprisoned by Robespierre and his allies in December 1793. While others around him, including Danton, are taken from their cells to the guillotine, Paine writes the first part of The Age of Reason, which includes an attack on organised religion: My Mind is My Own Church.
Paine is convinced that one of his old conservative adversaries, Gouverneur Morris, who is now US ambassador to France, thwarts his pleas for liberty on the basis of his American citizenship. He also comes to believe that George Washington abandoned him, later publicly quarrelling with the President.
Eventually a new ambassador ensures Paine's liberty in 1794 and he returns to America, where he is attacked for his views on religion, his association with the French Revolution and for his friendship with the new President, Jefferson.
Paine is shown dying, at the age of 72, and just a handful of mourners attend his funeral, including black freedmen. Yet the play ends with Paine's revolutionary inspiration, as he declares that despite all the setbacks he witnessed through revolution and counter-revolution, men and women "will be free".
THE EDIFICE of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) rule has finally come tumbling down with the dramatic defeat it suffered in the Lower House elections on 30 August. The LDP, which, with the exception of eleven months of coalition government in 1993, had ruled Japan for the last 54 years, saw its share of the popular vote reduced dramatically, falling from just under 48% in 2005 to less than 27% in the present election.
The finance minister plus a slew of former ministers and party bigwigs lost their seats as well as most of the public spokespersons of their smaller ally, the Buddhist Komei party. The LDP was defeated in the rural areas, which under a rigged electoral system had provided its main bastions of support since 1955, as well as in the major cities.
In reality, the LDP regime has been in a prolonged period of crisis since the bursting of the 'bubble economy' in the early 1990s, although the first cracks in the monolith were apparent much earlier. This was followed by what has been called 'the lost decade' (although in reality it was closer to 15 years than ten years) - a period of stagnation.
Successive LDP governments failed to bring back the prosperity of the boom years. The much vaunted 'life-time employment' system began to fray at the edges as permanent employees were replaced by temporary workers. Now these workers make up over a third of the workforce. Working conditions worsened but people still got by somehow. The LDP staggered on, mainly because of the lack of an opposition with a clear alternative policy. Eventually, though, people began to lose faith in the LDP.
The LDP's fortunes seemed to enjoy a brief revival under the right-wing populist Koizumi Junichiro at the turn of the 21st century. The right was helped by international events, in particular the revelation that North Korea had kidnapped and held Japanese citizens.
However, Koizumi's popularity was largely based on his success in portraying himself as an enemy of the old guard in the LDP. A section of the urban middle-classes bought into his neo-liberal 'reforms' as offering a way out of the stagnation.
Koizumi left office at the height of his popularity, before the full effects of his policies became apparent. Ironically, rather than save the LDP, his policies laid the basis for the party's devastating defeat. His policies of postal privatisation and a reduction of support to farmers led to a split in the LDP and a weakening of support in its rural strongholds. His 'structural reforms' and neo-liberal economic policies led to an explosion of poverty and a growth in inequality.
The onset of the world recession in autumn 2008 marked a dramatic turning point in the situation. There has been wave after wave of lay-offs, with temporary workers being the first to go. Unemployment, which now stands at 5.7%, has risen rapidly and, with only 42 positions available for every 100 applicants, is almost certain to rise further. Some business analysts have estimated that it would stand at 12% if all 'excess workers' were unemployed.
Those in work have fared little better. For example, in June monthly wages were 7.1% lower than a year earlier. There has been a massive expansion of the working poor, who are now said to number over ten million. Japan now has the fourth highest rate of poverty in the OECD.
While it is still in its early stages, there have been the beginnings of popular movements against the government like the Hakken-mura (literally 'temporary workers' village') movement in support of dismissed and homeless workers.
It is not surprising, given this situation, that the majority of Japanese - working class and middle class - lost whatever faith they once had in the ability of the LDP to offer a way out of the crisis, paving the way for the landslide victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in the election.
The DPJ is likely to form a coalition government with the much smaller Social Democratic Party (a rump left from earlier splits) and the People's New Party (a right-wing populist party formed by a section of Diet [lower house of parliament] members expelled from the LDP for opposing Koizumi's postal privatisation). The DPJ actually has a majority on its own in the Lower House but has announced the intention to form a coalition, in part to help it get legislation through the Upper House. What kind of party is the DPJ and what will its government mean for Japanese workers?
The DPJ is a second party of Japanese big business. Most of its leaders were former members of the LDP. Hatoyama Yukio, the DPJ leader and present prime minister, is the grandson of former prime minister, Ichiro Hatoyama, whilst his father was foreign minister. His mother was the daughter of the founder of the Japan-based Bridgestone Corporation - the largest tyre manufacturer internationally.
As it became apparent to sections of the ruling elite that the LDP's rule could not last forever, a plan was hatched to create an opposition party that could be safely relied upon to do their bidding should the LDP fall from power. Major movers in the formation of the DPJ have been the leaders of the right-wing company unions organised in the Rengo union federation.
Under the pretence of building a "party that could defeat the LDP", they orchestrated a breakaway of the right-wing of the Japan Socialist Party, which at the time was the main opposition party. It merged with the cold war warriors of the Democratic Socialist Party and assorted dissidents from the LDP to form what eventually became the DPJ. Hatoyama and his brother, who later returned to the LDP, used their mother's fortune to bankroll the new party.
The electoral system was changed, with the introduction of single-seat constituencies and a reduction in the number of seats elected by proportional representation. The 'two big-party system' was born.
Resembling the Democratic Party in the USA, the DPJ is a capitalist party with a wholly bourgeois leadership, but with a support base that includes conservative labour unions. Like many Japanese parties, the DPJ as an organisation is more a federation of support groups for individual members of the Diet than a unified political party. It lacks any kind of unifying ideology.
Hatoyama has espoused support for the philosophy of 'Yuai', roughly translated as 'fraternity', although it is doubtful whether many in the DPJ other than Hatoyama take this at all seriously. The party's representatives include both former members of the right-wing of the Japan Socialist Party and ultra-right nationalist Diet members who visit the Yasukuni Shrine (where the 14 'Class-A' war criminals are buried) each year.
The DPJ has sought to present itself as 'all things to all people'. It is the party of small government and free markets to supporters of Koizumi's structural reforms, while at the same time distancing itself from and promising to reverse his liberalisation of the dispatching (sub-contracting) law, in an attempt to win working class support. In the middle of the election campaign Hatoyama first called for a free trade pact with the USA and then dramatically reversed course when he realised that this would undermine the DPJ's support in farming communities.
This political schizophrenia was probably taken to its extreme by one of the minor party candidates, former Nagano governor, Tanaka Yasuo, who, with DPJ support, won in the industrial suburb of Amagasaki between Osaka and Kobe. His leaflets featured pictures of Sakamoto Ryoma (one of the architects of the 1868 Meiji restoration), Barack Obama, and Che Guevara!
It is doubtful whether such an electoral alliance can remain intact for any length of time. The DPJ will not be able to reconcile the interests of the forces that voted for it in this election for very long.
In order to win the election, the DPJ was forced to make a number of electoral promises, which include a guaranteed minimum monthly pension of ¥70,000 ($750), a monthly allowance of ¥26,000 ($280) for all children under 15 and abolition of fees in state high schools. The last two are intended to address the problem of declining population. These are in addition to the reversal of the liberalisation of the dispatching law, and sops to the environmental movement such as a promise of a 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.
Already the employers' organisation, the Keidanren, is exerting pressure for the DPJ to reverse course on the dispatching issue and carbon emissions and is pushing for other measures to be financed by an increase in the sales tax. There is a great deal of scepticism about how the DPJ is going to finance these reforms in a country where the national debt is approaching 200% of GDP.
The DPJ's answer is that they will pay for the reforms by a reduction of "wasteful" spending. In particular, by cutting back on publicly financed construction projects. Many of the LDP's large construction projects have served little purpose other than to fill the pockets of their financial backers. They are environmentally destructive and agreed with the collusion of bureaucrats who have often exaggerated the need for the project and who may receive backhanders or guarantees of employment on retirement from the construction companies in return.
These projects typically provide few benefits, while local people have been left to pay for them through taxation. However, a wholesale cutback in spending on public works is likely to mean mass redundancies amongst construction workers and carries the danger of deepening the recession.
Given that it bases itself on capitalism in crisis, the DPJ will inevitably be forced to preside over attacks on the working conditions and living standards of the masses. Far from a government of reform, the coalition government will prove to be a government of counter-reform.
Despite the widespread scepticism about the DPJ, the government will enjoy an initial honeymoon period. However, gradually, opposition will begin to mount and increasingly the majority of workers and young people, threatened with mass unemployment, will look for a political alternative.
The DPJ is well aware of this, hence their plan to further reduce the number of seats elected by proportional representation. The Japanese capitalist class wants to create a situation where discontent with DPJ rule will be channelled back into the safe-for-them sphere of the Liberal Democratic Party.
To the left of the DPJ, although only a little to the left, stand the Social Democratic and Communist parties (the SDPJ and JCP). The SDPJ is the rump that was left of the old Japan Socialist Party which suffered splits from the right to form the DPJ and a smaller split by a section of the left to form the New Socialist Party. The Social Democratic Party is in an alliance with the DPJ and on life support. It would probably have been wiped out in this present election without the support of the DPJ for a number of its candidates in the single-seat constituencies.
The fact that the SDPJ will enter the coalition government means that it is unable to provide any kind of alternative. But, given the likelihood of DPJ attacks on the pay and conditions of public sector workers - the main base of its union support, along with the DPJ's pledge to increase the number of first-past-the-post seats in the Diet, the relationship may not proceed smoothly. It could not be ruled out that, at some stage, the SDPJ breaks with the coalition.
The JCP on the other hand has attracted support from some layers of society disillusioned with neo-liberalism and hit by the effects of capitalist crisis. Surprise bestsellers last year included not only Karl Marx's Capital, but also Kani Kousen (Crab Boat), a novel written by a 1920s-era CP member and "proletarian novelist", which enjoyed popularity amongst a considerable section of youth.
Although the share of the CP's vote fell slightly from 7.3% last time to 7.0%, their 4,936,753 votes was about the same as last time - not a bad vote, considering the polarisation between the DPJ and LDP and the strong desire to get rid of the highly unpopular LDP and its leader Taro Aso.
However, while the JCP's programme still formally calls for the building of socialism some time in this century, it claims that what Japan needs now is a "democratic revolution" to regain Japan's independence from the US and the introduction of an "economy governed by rules" and an end to "excessive pro-business policies". Their election programme was a very limited reformist programme (it can be found at www.jcp.or.jp/english/jps_weekly09/20090729_04.html).
While the JCP is unlikely to be permitted by the DPJ to enter the government, far from ruling out their participation in future capitalist governments their programme actually calls for a "democratic coalition government". They have promised to play the role of a "constructive opposition" to the DPJ government, supporting some of its policies while opposing others.
A section of worker activists voted for the JCP but rooted in the present situation is the need for a new party of the working class, a party that fights to build a socialist society. Such a party will not be built overnight, but the need for such a party is an idea that will grow as sections of the masses move into action against the DPJ government.
Such a party will arise from the struggles of the fresh layers of the working class and the youth who will seek real change, not the capitalist 'politics as usual' and empty debates that they will get from the newly-elected Diet.
Below is part of a programme of demands put forward by Kokusai Rentai in its election article:-
On 2 September, a demonstration through the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, was proceeding peacefully until it reached a police blockade. After a standoff, sections of the police moved in on specific targets.
Professor Anu Muhammad, a leading economist and campaigner, was savagely beaten, both his ankles broken. Two women activists who ran forward to protect him sustained serious head injuries and remain in hospital. More than 50 other protesters were injured.
The protest had been called by the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports, a broad coalition of left groups, environmental campaigns and individuals.
Set up in 1998, it has campaigned, with some success, against the leasing out of Bangladesh's main port to the US, the construction of oil pipelines, and other issues linked to the exploitation of Bangladesh's natural resources and people by multinational corporations in the US, Europe and Britain, and their backers in Bangladesh.
The police violence provoked an angry response, with a four-hour general strike called for 14 September and public meetings taking place around the country. It was also the trigger for the London branch of the National Committee to call a public meeting in Whitechapel, east London, on 13 September.
Several members of the National Committee spoke from the top table, along with guest speakers from the campaigning group London Mining Network, and the Socialist Party, while others spoke from the floor in a lively discussion. The meeting's stated objectives were to condemn the police violence on 2 September, support the protest marches and strikes, oppose the plunder of mineral resources by multinationals, and resist the plan for opencast mining in Phulbari, Bangladesh.
TAMIL PEOPLE have begun mobilising again with the first of weekly Friday protests outside Downing Street in response to the horrific conditions in internment camps in Sri Lanka. Hundreds of thousands of Tamils, including elderly people and young children, are being held under armed guard in filthy camps with inadequate sanitation, water, food, shelter and medical facilities.
Janani Paramsothy of the Tamil Youth Organisation, which organised the protest, explained to The Socialist how the Tamil community felt betrayed by the inaction of the British government and other agencies: "With all the protests earlier in the year we expected the British government to do something. With all the killing - 20,000, 50,000, 100,000, no one knows - the people in Vanni [where the final army assault took place] expected the government to do something, too."
The protests she refers to were massive. In Britain, the majority of the Tamil population came onto the streets in demonstrations which reached 200,000 at their height. And 24-hour vigils in Parliament Square were maintained for nearly two months. Numerous Tamils lost their jobs, while students failed or underperformed in exams as the relentless protests took their toll.
Understandably, when the Sri Lankan army overran the Tamil areas and the people were rounded up into the camps, dismay and exhaustion kicked in. "Over the summer," Janani said, "we knew we had to continue but the demos were not sustainable. Then, the Channel 4 TV footage came out [showing the apparent summary execution of Tamils] and we knew we had to respond, that now, we can't stay silent. Of course, we knew those things were happening - info always gets out, at great risk - but when we saw it, it was shocking."
Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, denies all allegations against the military, as well as the suffering in the camps. But, as Janani points out: "If it's not true, why won't they let the media in?"
Under pressure from mounting international anger and the reports from human rights organisations, which are not allowed into the area, the UN is now threatening to withdraw funding for the camps. And the EU has warned that it will cancel a $1 billion trade concession to the Sri Lankan government.
However, Rajapaksa feels he can resist such pressure, bolstered by Sri Lankan links with China and India, as well as Libya and Burma among others. Many British and western companies continue to hold important commercial interests in Sri Lanka. As ever, big business interests dominate Gordon Brown's agenda.
The latest leaflet by Tamil Solidarity: 'for the rights of workers and all oppressed people in Sri Lanka', distributed by Socialist Party members, was well received. The Downing Street protests mark an important new stage in the struggle against the oppression of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
One of the big issues to address is how to widen support, to help overcome the isolation felt by many in the Tamil community. Taking the campaign into the trade unions would make a significant contribution, and Tamil Solidarity will do all it can to assist in this task. That working-class based approach is why Tamil Solidarity also defends Sri Lankan socialists, union activists and the journalists brave enough to challenge the censorship of the regime, against severe state repression, whether they be Tamil, Sinhala, Muslim or from other ethnic and religious groups.
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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/8044