"Not content with yearly pay-cuts, repossessing our homes, trying to rob us of our measly pensions and consigning our kids to the next 'lost generation' unemployment figures, this government of parasitic hypocrites, happy in its world of bonuses and backhanders, is now coming with a hatchet for our jobs.
These cuts will be in the very services that are needed now more than ever, as the recession turns our lives upside down.
How many times over do they expect us to pay the price for this mess of theirs?
We will fight to defend our jobs, conditions, vital services and our children's futures. We'll make Brown and his cronies wish they'd never tried to make us the scapegoat for a system in crisis."
"Along with my union members, I am not surprised that all the political parties are saying the same thing - that public sector workers will have to pay for this economic recession. But we are angry!
How dare they spend millions of pounds on bailing out the banks with our money, as taxpayers, and then still want to attack our jobs, wages and pensions - a double whammy! How have they got the nerve?
The union leaders should be railing against 'the market' and demanding the things that we want - jobs, decent wages, homes and pensions, instead of cowering in front of the great god 'the market' that brought us into this terrible economic recession."
"It is an outrage and tantamount to theft on a grand scale that health workers and other Unison members are expected to suffer service cuts, job cuts and exploitative working conditions to pay for the capitalists' economic crisis. We both provide and depend on these very services.
A mass campaign of coordinated action by the public service trade unions should be called urgently, linking up with service users, to answer these plans of this parliamentary cross-party coalition of the greedy."
"We are all busting a gut in Jobcentre Plus to deliver services to the public in this recession so Brown's speech at the TUC came as a real slap in the face.
Public and Commercial Service union members are essential workers and we would be in a far better position to support people if the government hadn't slashed 30,000 staff and 700 offices.
Brown should remember the mess that his last assault on the civil service caused and think before doing it again. He should scrap Trident and close all the tax loopholes.
Billions of pounds are going uncollected because of the cuts that have been made to PCS members working in tax offices."
"It's a disgrace that public sector workers are expected to pay the price through cuts in jobs, pay and conditions. The three main parties all say cuts are inevitable after the election. In reality cuts are already taking place. At our hospital there has been a recruitment freeze in domestic services since January, putting extra strain on existing workers to make up for the resulting staff shortages."
"Gordon Brown's comments that frontline services won't be hit are just not true. At the end of last term, thousands of schools throughout the UK laid off teaching assistants.
Social care services remain chronically understaffed and experienced social workers are drowning in paperwork, not allowing them to provide safer environments for vulnerable children and adults.
There is a huge amount of resentment and anger being stored up which eventually will explode to the surface as public sector workers defend their services against Brown, Cameron or whoever."
"Savage cuts needed". This refrain sung by Nick Clegg at the Liberal Democrats' annual conference is going to be repeated, albeit in different keys, at both the New Labour and Tory conferences. All the establishment parties accept the logic of capitalism, therefore demanding that working class people and public services should pay the price for capitalist crisis and bankers' greed.
Anxious to add his party's voice to the 'slash and burn' frenzy, Nick Clegg has abandoned the few policies which made his party appear fractionally to the left of the big two; particularly the pledge to abolish tuition fees for students.
Leaders of the Liberal Democrats have expressed outrage at Tory leader David Cameron's declaration that there is barely a cigarette paper's breadth of difference between the two parties' policies but this is merely a statement of fact.
Beyond the general election a Tory-Liberal coalition is possible if the Tories do not achieve the majority they are hoping for.
New Labour prime minister Gordon Brown used his speech to the TUC congress to 'reveal' the open secret that Labour too plans to make drastic cuts in public spending after the general election.
The TUC leaders recognise that a Tory government would be a disaster for the working class. For the majority of them, however, the only way forward is to continue clinging to the coat-tails of New Labour.
The biggest trade unions in Britain have handed over many millions of pounds of their members' money to New Labour. The CWU alone has handed over £6 million since 2001. Yet its members in the Royal Mail are currently being forced to take strike action against an onslaught of attacks designed to prepare Royal Mail for privatisation.
Brown has presided over a public sector pay freeze and the slashing of tens of thousands of civil service jobs. At the TUC he made it crystal clear - using the word 'cut' four times even in one sentence - that a future New Labour government would also decimate public services.
Rank and file trade unionists are increasingly unwilling to accept that their money should be used to fund a party which is attacking their pay, conditions and public services.
In London, CWU members have organised a regional indicative ballot over whether the union should continue to give money to the Labour Party. In the PCS, which does not fund New Labour, members are going to be consulted over whether the union's political fund should be used to back trade union candidates in opposition to New Labour in future elections.
Of most immediate importance, the RMT is currently organising discussions with others on taking part in a coalition that would stand trade union and left candidates in the next general election. The RMT has called a potentially important conference to discuss the relevant issues on Saturday 7 November, in London.
A glimpse of the potential for a trade union-backed left coalition in the general election is shown by the German general election. There, Die Linke - the 'Left Party', established three years ago, is currently on 14% in opinion polls for Sunday's general election.
Despite the present political limits of Die Linke, it is winning support by standing in defence of public services and for withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
In Britain, a trade union backed left coalition would mark a significant step forward in the struggle to create an independent voice for working class people.
It could stand candidates that argue for a socialist programme and demand that working class people do not pay the price of the capitalist crisis.
Such candidates would stand in stark contrast to all the establishment parties, and would play an important role in giving confidence to the struggle to defend public services, which will be crucial after the general election, whichever of the axemen is prime minister.
Lord Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, is telling the millions who are losing their jobs or who can't find work to consider going to university. But if the government was serious about offering higher education as an alternative to mass unemployment why don't they use the wealth in society to remove the barriers blocking young people's right to learn?
Instead, students in England, who are already being charged up to £3,225 a year in tuition fees, could soon face a massive hike in fees. While over a trillion pounds has been found to bail out the banks, the government wants students to foot the bill for funding courses and tuition.
Universities UK, the vice chancellors' lobbying group, is urging the government to increase the cap on tuition fees to at least £5,000 a year. The government appears to be listening. Mandelson said that the cap could be raised if universities increase student support bursaries.
But that offers students no security. Universities set their own bursaries and there is huge variance depending on the wealth and decisions of the university. Oxford, which receives large donations, offers generous bursaries to a student body that is mostly from richer backgrounds. Meanwhile the poorest universities have the least money to share among the poorest students.
And is university, which already results in an average of £23,000 debt an attractive option for those worried about their financial future? How about scrapping fees, writing off student debt and introducing a grant that covers the living and study costs of all students?
University vice chancellors plead poverty, pointing to large budget deficits in higher education institutions. Their mismanagement has seen universities lose millions in collapsing banks and when private contractors pull out of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) investments.
They claim that public spending cuts mean they have to sack staff and that students will have to pay higher fees if universities are to continue to provide a high quality service.
In its recent report, Betraying a Generation, the UCU lecturers' union outlined the jobs massacre in universities. Overall government funding for higher education will be cut this year by 1.36%. This amounts to £65 million worth of cuts to 100 universities across England.
According to UCU at least 6,000 jobs will be lost. London universities will be the worst hit. London Metropolitan, one of the capital's largest institutions, is in dire financial straits after being fined millions for over-admission of students. Staff and students are campaigning to save 550 jobs at this university where the vice chancellor was paid £276,000 in 2006-7. London Met Socialist Students demand that the account books be opened. Hundreds of jobs are also at risk at the University of the Arts and University College London.
Wolverhampton University, with debts of over £8 million, plans to axe 250 jobs. Many universities are claiming their large debts and budget deficits mean they have no option but to make cuts.
Betraying a Generation exposes universities, such as Kings College London whose management publicly state that with 'increasing financial problems' cutbacks are inevitable. Kings has the money to employ the 390 staff it wants to sack. It has the lowest net debt of any London university with reserves of £185 million.
If a university genuinely doesn't have enough money to finance its staff and courses, it should demand adequate funding from the government rather than passing on government cuts to the staff and students.
The escalating funding crisis in higher education is widening the gap between the elite and lower ranked universities. The ex-polytechnics and new universities which have the highest numbers of students from poorer backgrounds have been run on the cheap and now suffer severe financial problems. London Met faces the prospect of bankruptcy. Other struggling institutions such as Swansea Institute look to merge with wealthier universities in their local area.
Private companies are making millions by profiteering out of services like catering, accommodation and research on campuses. New Labour, the Tories, vice chancellors and fat cat bosses dream of a US-style higher education system with elite institutions bankrolled and run by big business where students are at the mercy of private institutions and philanthropists for funding.
Apart from a handful of state school students from working and lower middle class backgrounds, the US Ivy League universities such as Harvard and Princeton are the preserve of the sons and daughters of the rich and powerful from private schools.
A recent UK parliamentary report found that only 29% of students - and just 16% of those at the top Russell group universities - come from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
The merger of government departments, with the all powerful Lord Mandelson now being responsible for universities and business, highlights New Labour's intention to intensify the marketisation process in universities.
The Tories share this agenda. Shadow education minister David Willetts has stated that a Tory government would "encourage a range of providers of higher education at different prices, including private companies".
Industrial action has begun at further education colleges, such as at Tower Hamlets, and looks likely to spread to universities in the new term.
The trade unions UCU, Unite, EIS (teaching staff in Scotland) and the GMB have rejected the appalling offer of a 0.5% pay increase from UCEA, the university employers.
This basically amounts to a pay cut. The unions have come together in a 'Defend Higher Education Campaign'. This is a step forward but, for the campaign to be effective, it needs to be based on coordinated industrial action by all these unions.
University managements portray workers' pay demands as "greedy". The right wing of National Union of Students (NUS) and local student unions disgracefully claim that strikes are an attack on students.
To cut across these lies the campaign must explicitly link demands on pay with fighting against job cuts and opposition to higher student fees. Socialist Students will help to mobilise the active support of students for staff industrial action and calls on student unions to organise solidarity action.
The question is: can the opposition to fees, cuts and closures be mobilised? The UCU, in attacking the government, has suggested that raising tuition fees will be as unpopular as the poll tax was in the 1990s.
The student movement can draw important lessons from the magnificent anti-poll tax struggle. This campaign successfully forced the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher to abandon that hated anti-working class policy and, ultimately, to resign.
The poll tax was not overcome by its unpopularity alone. It was also the organisation of an 18 million-strong campaign of non-payment, defying the bailiffs and the courts in working-class communities across the country, combined with mass local and national demonstrations.
This was coordinated by the Anti Poll Tax Federation, which was present in every major town and city. It was organised on a democratic basis with mass participation of workers, trade unionists, the unemployed and youth. The backbone of this movement was the Militant, the predecessor of the Socialist Party.
To force a right-wing government to scrap tuition fees and stop its education cuts programme will require a campaign of similar national scale and strength among students, with support from the wider working class. Socialist Students views this as a key objective for the student movement.
Occupations can be successful if they have the aim of mobilising large numbers and if the tactic is combined with other action and mass support.
This was seen in the successful struggles at the Visteon car parts factory, where sacked workers, with support from the wider labour movement, forced concessions from the bosses.
Some on the student left, for example the Socialist Workers Student Society, suggest that occupations of whatever size and nature are the most effective tactic of resistance that can be used by students. However, occupations should not be seen as the only tactic.
In the Republic of Ireland the prospect of increased fees inspired mass blockades on any campus a government minister dared to visit. These successful actions were organised by Free Education for Everyone, a campaign involving the sister organisation of Socialist Students.
Occupations against jobs and cuts should be combined with big public demonstrations, student strikes and mass campaigns of non-payment of fees coordinated with action taken by university and other workers.
Successful mass action on a local basis could force universities to back down from cuts and other attacks and could spread nationally, as the idea of student occupations against the slaughter in Gaza did.
The student movement faces a significant obstacle in the lack of an organisation that is willing or able to mobilise students on a national basis.
Since the right-wing, pro-New Labour leadership removed its limited democratic structures, the NUS resembles a lobby group rather than a fighting student organisation.
The NUS leadership, a cabal of aspiring New Labour politicians, even welcomed pro-big business Mandelson taking on ministerial responsibility for higher education.
However, in the absence of a coherent alternative, the NUS is still seen as the 'voice of students'. It has a consistent profile in the mass media and is accepted by the majority of the trade union leaders. Its national structures, although rotten and hollow, link up student unions across the country.
Socialist Students aims to link up local campaigns and student unions that want to fight against attacks on education. We need to build a fighting democratic student organisation involving all who want to fight for free and good quality education.
Socialist Students is active in many of the local campaigns that have been set up to fight cuts.
Our Campaign to Defeat Fees has gained a reputation for organising effective protests on a local and national level with limited resources and, unfortunately, with the opposition of the National Union of Students leadership.
The scale of the attacks, at all levels of education, demands a national response. Socialist Students calls for a one-day national shutdown of universities, colleges and schools involving industrial action by the education trade unions and strikes and walkouts from students, coordinated by student unions and campaigning groups.
Local campaigns, often with the decisive influence of Socialist Students, have been able to score victories. At Exeter University Socialist Students ran a joint campaign with the local Unison branch that stopped the privatisation of childcare facilities in 2008.
There is an ongoing struggle at Sussex University to save the linguistics course. Using the position of a Socialist Students activist who was a full-time student union officer to put pressure on the university, Sussex Socialist Students mobilised a campaign of action by students.
Protests and threats of boycotts of lucrative academic surveys forced management to maintain linguistics as an option for students when they wanted to get rid of the course entirely. The campaign for the full reinstatement of linguistics continues.
Our strategy is to fight attacks on education in the universities and colleges with campaigning that aims to mobilise the mass of the student body and utilises the industrial power of campus workers.
This has to be done with or without the official backing of local student unions, and with democratic discussion and debate over tactics, and unity in action around common interests.
In the last few years, struggles of students, young people and workers against attacks on education have erupted across Europe.
University students and workers have joined forces in occupations and strikes against privatisation and other attacks in France, Italy and Ireland.
The December 2008 uprising in Greece mobilised school students and large school student strikes have taken place in Germany and Austria.
These movements have challenged the agenda of governments that share New Labour's neoliberal attitude towards education. They show the potential for building a fightback in higher education in Britain and the need to begin to mobilise college and school students, who will be most affected by attacks such as higher fees in the future.
Mass resistance can halt and disrupt attacks on education. Socialist Students fights for a free, high quality, fully publicly funded, democratically-run education system at all levels.
Under capitalism education will always be run in the ultimate interest of the profit of a minority, not for the benefit of all. That is why Socialist Students fights to overthrow this profit system and build a democratic socialist society.
Gordon Brown said that through education, his government wants to "unlock the potential of every young person". How many university students can say that this meets with their experiences at university? Education is now a 'product' rather than a service. Universities are being run on the basis of minimum cost and maximum student numbers and profit.
Personally, I have found my two years at university so far quite disheartening. The whole experience is based around the end result, in other words the exam and the qualification you finish with. It's not about what you've learned or what potential you've "unlocked" in yourself in the process.
I have a maximum of nine hours of lectures and seminars a week. We are told that university is about "independent learning" rather than being taught. I have no problem with going away and reading dozens of books, but surely this can only work when combined with an actual human discussing it with you.
It's not the fault of the lecturers and other staff. They are under constant pressure to meet targets and conduct research that brings in money for the university through research grants. This leaves little time to spend on students beyond what is allotted for lectures and seminars. The financial costs of university for students have additional impacts too.
A large number of students have to continue living with their parents in order to avoid pricey student accommodation. Many also have no choice but to work to help pay their way through university. These things can isolate you and hamper your experiences at university and your ability to work on your full-time degree.
Now, with the number of available jobs decreasing, students will be placed in an even more difficult financial situation having to compete for insecure, low-paid jobs.
The students unions, the places you might expect to be supporting and defending students at this time, are generally not up for a fight. Most of the students running the unions are bureaucrats in training, with their CV at the forefront of their mind more than the interests of other students. They focus on little more than organising drinking binges, and are deemed irrelevant for much beyond this by most students.
This will be a great opportunity to bring students, workers and the unemployed together to fight attacks on education, jobs and for our basic rights. Join us!
According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary universities are "formed for the purpose of giving and receiving instruction in a fixed range of subjects at a level beyond that provided at a school". Most people don't need reminding of this.
However, it seems that university vice chancellors and their fat cat friends in the bosses' organisation, the CBI, do. During the current debate about university funding one retired vice chancellor is reported to have described UK students as "nothing but a drain". All three main political parties stand for making students pay high fees, making it harder for most young people to learn.
This year students face a disastrous situation. Government policies of privatisation and cuts, and mismanagement have caused a student finance crisis, a lack of places on courses, an accommodation crisis and a crisis in the whole of higher education funding. Around a quarter of students don't know if they'll get the loans they need and vice chancellors plan to cut thousands of jobs across the sector.
The same ex-vice chancellor sees students as "the charity end of the business". As well as raising fees, the CBI wants to see UK 'charity case' students, charged commercial rates on student loans, 'saving' up to £1.4 billion per year.
Meanwhile the profiteers and 'banksters' enjoy the 'charity' of tax loopholes, which according to the TUC, save the wealthiest in society an estimated £25 billion in tax avoidance. They laugh all the way to the bank while public services suffer.
But students will not accept this situation. Having worked hard to achieve the grades for university, anger and frustration are increasingly making students question the way the education system, and even the country, is run. They are looking for the best organisations to join.
Socialist Students, with its record of fighting fees with the Campaign to Defeat Fees, of opposition to war, racism and sexism, and of democratic organisation is a very attractive option.
Under capitalism the lives of millions the world over are blighted by starvation, war, poverty and environmental destruction. Socialist Students clearly stands for a socialist alternative where the enormous wealth, resources and human talent that exists in the world would not be squandered, but planned to improve the lives of all.
At freshers fairs around the UK Socialist Students members are asking the question: "Are you socialist?" and are getting a very enthusiastic response.
At Leeds University 50 people signed up to join Socialist Students on the first day. One student explained his reason for joining: "The logic of capitalism is if you want the rich to work harder then you pay them more and if you want the poor to work harder then you pay them less". Another was really pleased that Socialist Students was the first stall he saw.
Students at Dundee were keen to get active. A fourth year pharmacology student said: "I've been complacent for too long now. If I don't take a stance and fight for a better society now, no one will and nothing will change. Young people need to get active to fight for our future."
ED BALLS' announcement of Labour's plans to impose £2 billion of cuts - 5% of the total schools budget - spells out the onslaught that all the main parties plan to unleash on teachers and schools after the next general election.
Many teachers expect a Tory administration to brandish the public spending axe but Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, also warned of the need for 'savage' cuts and attacks on public sector pensions. All the mainstream politicians want teachers and school students to pay for their economic mistakes.
Schools spend most of their budget on staff, so 5% cuts can only mean one thing - significant job losses and pay cuts. But schools are already understaffed in reality - that's why most teachers already work a 50-hour week even according to Balls' own official figures. Cutting posts will mean inflicting even greater workload on the staff that are left. Education is bound to suffer as a result.
Where does Balls expect schools to be able to make these cuts? His talk of cutting back on 'bureaucrats' is the kind of nonsense that civil service unions have had to put up with.
Most senior staff and heads of faculty are already run ragged trying to keep on top of the demands inflicted on schools by the government's testing and targets regime, not sitting in an office twiddling their thumbs!
Of course, if Ed Balls genuinely wanted to 'cut bureaucracy' without harming education, he could start by abolishing Ofsted and SATs, but he won't because they are both key parts of his government's bullying machinery.
Ed Balls even has the cheek to suggest that another part of his agenda - setting up 'Federations' (often as unaccountable Trusts designed to break up local authority schooling) can help make the required savings. In fact, Federations usually increase bureaucracy - introducing an extra layer of 'Executive Heads' on top of existing structures.
But Balls imagines that Federations can cut posts and make staff take on roles across several schools. The idea that, say, a head of maths in one school can rush around supporting staff and students across a whole Federation, certainly without anyone filling in for the work left behind, is nonsense.
At least we have been warned. Teachers and their unions know what is coming. Now we have to prepare an urgent defence of teachers and education. Teaching and other public sector unions need to be liaising immediately to prepare a campaign of national action to defend pay, pensions and jobs.
We need to reach out to our communities to explain what is at stake. A united campaign of staff, parents and students, can make the next government think again.
GORDON BROWN'S speech to the Trades Union Congress was an open declaration of war on working-class people. We were told that, in order to pay for an economic crisis not of our making, we will face unprecedented job cuts, attacks on terms and conditions, pay restraint or possibly freezes, privatisation and destruction of vital services.
£1.3 trillion was spent on bailing out the banks but now big business, backed by all the main political parties, in one of history's most breathtaking con-tricks, have made the "need" for spending cuts to tackle the spending deficit the focus of policy rather than the need to deal with the failure of the unrestrained market.
While Brown said: "Every redundancy is a personal tragedy" his plans to halve the deficit in four years will mean the loss of 300,000 public sector jobs in a £50 billion cuts programme.
Brown will be: "Demanding that internationally we look at setting limits on city bonuses". In other words, nothing so far has been done to curb bankers' excesses. His message to the City fat cats is clear - 'go on, enrich yourselves, you're safe with Labour'.
Profiteers now see the recession as a golden opportunity to privatise large swathes of the public sector on the cheap, while driving down wages and conditions to maximise profits, whatever the cost to the rest of society.
Labour's strategy was summed up when Brown said the deficit would be reduced by: "cutting costs where we can, ensuring efficiency where it's needed, agreeing realistic public sector pay settlements throughout, selling off the unproductive assets we don't need, to pay for the services we do need.
"Labour will cut costs, cut inefficiencies, cut unnecessary programmes and cut lower priorities budgets. But when our plans are published... people will see that Labour will not support cuts in the vital front line services on which people depend".
Brown's commitment to protecting frontline services is spin. Cuts on this scale will mean the wholesale destruction of frontline services.
Brown shamelessly lied when he said that government's attempt to steal the contractual rights of low-paid civil servants to their accrued redundancy terms was actually being directed at highly paid Whitehall "mandarins" in an effort to create jobs. PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka exposed the real motivation, to cut jobs and privatise on the cheap, in an emergency motion carried unanimously by the congress.
All the main political parties are working themselves into a sickening frenzy as they try to out-bid one another as to which can cut the deepest. Liberal leader Nick Clegg called for "savage" cuts - no doubt the Tories will now try to top that.
Cynical politicians claim the public support spending cuts but when the reality of what these cuts hits home there will be widespread anger as communities are stripped of vital services, jobs are slashed and conditions attacked.
The TUC and Labour affiliated union leaderships welcomed the speech, in some cases uncritically. They say we should just keep our heads down so as not to damage Labour's general election chances. But it is Labour's policies that make a Tory victory almost inevitable. Incredibly, the affiliated unions are still handing over tens of millions of pounds to a party that treats their members like dirt.
These assaults will grow in intensity, particularly after the general election, if not challenged - there is now an urgent need to build the widest possible alliance to resist and reverse them. Public sector trade unions must clearly be at the core of any such alliance but all workers, in the private as well as the public sector, service users, and those, including one million youth thrown onto the unemployment scrap heap, have an interest in joining together in response to these attacks.
A fighting, campaigning response to the cuts, which poses the alternative of a society that puts people before profit, can potentially draw millions to its banner.
The orthodoxy established by the press that there is no alternative to cuts can be challenged. This means raising specific demands, like calling for collection of the £100 billion in taxes the rich have "avoided" paying. It also means setting out a clear alternative that includes bringing the banks and public utilities, including the railways, into public ownership, an expansion of council house building and an expansion of public services.
Struggle on the industrial front must be supplemented by that on the political. The need to build effective political representation for working people is now urgent, particularly the need to establish an effective electoral formation that can represent workers' interests as the establishment parties represent those of the rich.
Despite the difficulties our class faces, the empty ideology that 'only the market can deliver' has been irretrievably exposed for the nonsense it always was. There exists a real potential for building a socialist alternative and that is what the left must set about doing.
FOLLOWING THIS year's important industrial movements, it might have been hoped that the TUC conference would launch an offensive to defend jobs, pay and conditions. Sadly, this was not the case at this largely right-wing gathering.
Unite assistant general secretary Len McCluskey commented that actions like Lindsey, Linamar and Visteon were worth 1,000 motions. Vestas workers got a marvellous standing ovation during climate change secretary Ed Miliband's speech. But any attempts to force action against the Labour government were opposed.
An NUT motion calling for "a national demonstration, and, as appropriate... industrial action" against unemployment prior to the general election was defeated. Most resolutions were composited to the lowest common denominator to allow for 'unity'.
At times, the anger of most workers nationally was expressed on the conference floor including against the anti-trade union laws.
Action against the laws which New Labour has failed to change in over 12 years of government will inevitably be raised again next year. Future governments will probably try to back a brutal cuts agenda with attempts to limit the right to strike in essential services.
The elephant in the room all week was the question of political representation of the working class. Labour Party-affiliated trade unions have given £100 million to Labour in 12 years - for what?
In the conference itself, a CWU resolution calling for "a conference of all [TUC] affiliated unions to consider how to achieve effective political representation for our members" was defeated. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said it was a motion for a new political party, even though the resolution made no mention of this. CWU members and other trade unionists will draw their own conclusions!
This lack of representation for workers came up often in fringe meetings. Up to 100 people crowded into the RMT-organised fringe meeting "Respect the Irish 'No' vote - Reject the Lisbon Treaty" and heard Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins denounce the "arms merchants and big business moguls" directing the EU and its neoliberal laws.
Joe called for a new workers' party and a socialist alternative. Bob Crow said: "I have more in common with the striking Dublin port workers or a Chinese labourer [than with the British bosses]".
Socialist Party members held a successful meeting addressed by PCS vice-president John McInally, Vestas workers and Liverpool 47 councillor Tony Mulhearn. This enthusiastic meeting outlined a real way forward for the unions, and delegates and visitors pledged and donated over £500 to the party's fighting fund.
THE US and NATO's top military chief in Afghanistan has told his political bosses that western forces will fail there unless there is a change in policy. A secret 66-page document from General McChrystal, leaked to the Washington Post, says that unless the insurgent tide is turned back within 12 months then the Taliban may become unbeatable.
But McChrystal's warning isn't simply about winning militarily, but is a call to shift the western forces' emphasis from fighting the Taliban to winning the 'hearts and minds' of angry and alienated Afghan people. "The insurgents cannot defeat us militarily but we can defeat ourselves", he laments. But can a turnaround in strategy be achieved?
It isn't rocket science to understand that blasting the country back to the stone age, tolerating mass unemployment and widespread poverty, and allowing an unaccountable, rich, corrupt and brutal warlord regime to rule, has proved to be a recruiting sergeant for the Taliban.
Eight years on from the Bush and Blair initiated invasion of Afghanistan, the vast majority in the country are worse off in terms of security, the economy and democratic rights.
The Socialist Party opposed the invasion and we continue to call for an end to the occupation.
Demonstrate against the continuing occupation/bring the troops back - Saturday 24 October, central London.
Action by postal workers has continued in many parts of the country, against management's attempts to impose new shifts and working conditions without consultation. These strikes have been going ahead whilst the ballot for national strike action on 'modernisation' proceeds. The ballot closes on 8 October.
'Modernise' seems to be the key word in the current dispute between Royal Mail and its workers. A meaningless word in itself without personal interpretation but one that's top of the list in the manager-speak handbook.
As a postman of 20 years service I surely can speak of the changes that have brought the current situation to a head. The threats and intimidation, and appalling attacks on pay and conditions have left myself and colleagues incensed.
Full year profits are expected to double those of last year to a record £320+ million, with the best quality of service targets met in history, despite the economic downturn.
When compared to its largest European competitors Deutsche Post, whose earnings fell 38%, or TNT's net profit falling a massive 60.5%, the publicly owned Royal Mail's success is something we should all be proud of.
So why has my pay been frozen? Why has my post-round nearly doubled in size? Why is my back aching from carrying up to six or more increasingly heavy (16kg+) sacks of mail later and later for my customers?
The so-called 'modernisation' plan is a retrograde step for pay and conditions and every hard fought national agreement. Health and safety is conveniently ignored to get the job done. Currently the delivery office is a mess of undelivered mail and packets blocking every available inch of space causing health hazards and fire risk.
The computerised Geo-Route plotting of walks and drives was always destined to fail despite the warnings from staff who are now, according to management, complicit in the failure. So the bullying and intimidation has started.
Individuals are being spied upon with video cameras, bullied into working unpaid overtime, suffering sackings and forced ill-health retirements.
This is all to maximise profits, minimise labour costs and destroy a public service because although part-privatisation failed this time due to the credit crisis, it is inevitable according to both New Labour and Conservatives.
I'm appealing to every colleague to wise up and resist the plans currently being implemented by executive action. The £320 million earned off of our hard work is paying dividends for management's record bonuses while we struggle with rising living costs and falling wages.
Over 200 drivers were on official strike last week at the Royal Mail's north west regional distribution centre in a dispute over imposed changes to shift patterns.
Private hauliers and agency drivers were crossing the CWU picket line, although some lorries did turn back. Several agency drivers told pickets that they had been told they faced the sack if they did not cross. On the other hand some have apparently been told that if they cross the picket lines they will be guaranteed another two months work.
"I don't want to be here mate, but I'll be sacked if I don't do it", pleaded one agency driver, but he got short shrift from angry CWU members.
They called: "Go on, just get off. We're fighting for our future here."
One worker, who did not want to be named, explained the background. "Every year the work patterns and shifts are reviewed, and the changes are negotiated.
"But this year when they didn't get agreement they have just gone for 'executive action', no agreement, nothing. They want to put the names in a hat, and assign the shifts - earlies, lates or nights - more or less at random. And if your name's not picked in the three shifts, then you'll be on a float shift, covering any shift they say. We run on seniority here - as you stay here longer, you can move to the shifts that suit you. And they want to rip all that up."
"It's going back to the old days, like on the docks," said another picket. "At least under our old system you could plan ahead, you could have a life, but they just want to assign you wherever and whenever they want."
The effect of the anti-union laws are being felt: "Royal Mail don't want to settle the dispute, all they do is look for legal angles to trip the union up".
Strikers complained of petty bullying in the depot. "The job's nothing like it was. We used to have a bit of banter. Now you just turn up and go through the motions. The managers here have been told to rule with a big stick. But it's management out of business college, not the real world.
"They flooded the place out with agency workers, so they went over budget, now they're trying to make the money back off us."
The strikers were determined and bitter. "The way we've been treated is unbelievable - after 23, 25, 28 year's service. It's all changed."
Vestas wind turbine workers and their supporters rallied and took to the streets of Newport, Isle of Wight, on their day of action on 17 September.
They were buoyed up by their visit, as members of the RMT union, to the TUC Congress. "We were given a standing ovation by the TUC during Ed Miliband's speech...
"Later we discussed our concerns with Miliband and explained that Vestas had still not paid redundancy to the eleven of us sacked and he agreed to contact Vestas to sort this out. The support at TUC has kept up the pressure on the government and they have agreed to a meeting with us," reported Vestas worker Ian Terry.
At the TUC an RMT resolution, seconded by Unite, was passed applauding 'the Vestas workforce and their families who courageously fought to save their jobs, including occupying the factory' and calling for 'publicly owned wind turbine manufacturing capacity, including at the Vestas site'.
Locally the blockade of the factory continues. The Isle of Wight council, feeling the pressure of the campaign, have approached the Vestas workers to discuss the future of the company but also served an eviction notice on those camped outside the factory. On the night of Monday 21 September police forced out protesters but they reassembled the following day.
Then, on Tuesday, 120 police enabled the remaining turbine blades to be removed from the factory.
Nevertheless, Vestas workers remain determined to continue with their campaign. RMT Vestas members are meeting this week to discuss the way forward and what they will be doing next. Mark Smith said: "We are still receiving support from across the country and are attending meetings to build support for the campaign, including a visit to Belfast."
Led by Wessex region RMT activists, Vestas workers and supporters marched from a protest outside the closed South-ampton Vestas factory to a rally at Southampton dockers' club where over 50 people turned up to hear about the campaign.
The meeting, organised by Wessex RMT, was chaired by Mick Tosh, RMT, with speakers Martine from Vestas, Pete Gale, RMT regional organiser, Ian Woodland, Unite officer and Nick Chaffey, Socialist Party.
"We are tired but determined to carry on", was the message from Martine, who thanked everyone for the magnificent support the campaign has received. The speakers and discussion focussed on the lessons of the fight of Vestas workers, the example they have set and how continued support needs to be built for the campaign.
Wider issues such as the need for a political voice to represent the struggles of Vestas workers and others was highlighted by Pete Gale: "Anyone who thinks New Labour will offer that support is mistaken, workers need a new party that will unite these struggles and give people a real alternative in the general election."
This meeting showed how the solidarity for disputes such as Vestas will bring together trade unionists, socialists and environmentalists and create the basis for such a new party.
The meeting agreed to continue with support for Vestas and organise further meetings to discuss the way forward.
THE ANNOUNCEMENT by the government on Wednesday 16 September of 2.5 million unemployed was met by public protests organised by Youth Fight for Jobs (YFJ).
Officially UK unemployment is 7.9% of the total workforce, up from 5.6% only one year ago. Of the total unemployed nearly one million are young people aged between 16 and 24 years - a 14 year high. This means that one in five young people cannot find work and the situation is likely to get worse with only one quarter of employers planning to hire workers aged between 16 and 18 years.
Despite finding hundreds of billions of pounds to rescue failed banks, the government's response to solving youth unemployment has been totally inadequate. Chancellor Alistair Darling has trumpeted the government's one billion pound Future Jobs Fund (FJF), available to private and public employers.
However, FJF lasts for only six months and doesn't apply to 16 and 17 year olds. It only applies to the long-term unemployed, fuelling the suspicion that FJF is all about massaging the unemployment figures rather than providing real jobs.
Another fear is that FJF placements will simply occupy positions which otherwise would have to be filled by workers on better wages and conditions.
Youth Fight for Jobs is campaigning for permanent jobs at decent rates of pay and working conditions. The jobs crisis is a product of the general crisis within capitalism, so only socialist policies can provide a lasting solution. YFJ has called a national demonstration on 28 November for real jobs, for free education.
OUR UNION branch recently discussed the Future Jobs Fund. As a branch predominantly of youth workers, we are well aware of the disproportionate impact of this recession on young people.
We discussed and passed a motion from Youth Fight for Jobs, and agreed to affiliate and donate to the campaign. We will make organising the young people employed in our workplace under FJF, a priority.
Our workplace is having cuts by the backdoor - we have lost seven full time members of staff through posts being 'frozen'. And women on maternity leave are faced with coming back to work to find their projects fallen by the wayside as apparently we are told we can't afford cover for these staff.
We now have only 30 full-time members of staff who are overworked and stressed yet we are now told we have to manage between eight and 12 (it depends what manager is briefing!) employees of the FJF. This is likely to push some staff to breaking point.
We are all for properly resourced, sustainable job creation schemes for young people where they are paid the rate for the job, not undercutting existing pay rates, on the minimum wage (which is substantially below the wage rates of other staff on the same nationally agreed job descriptions in the case of youth work).
We are also told that these employees will be starting work in advance of their CRB [criminal record] disclosures being received possibly putting other young people at risk, all so that the government can massage the unemployment figures in advance of a general election.
OVER 100 local residents packed into the Link community centre on Wednesday 16 September for the second meeting of the 'Hazel Must Go' campaign in Salford.
Film crews from various networks clamoured to cover this event, following on from a series of television and radio interviews with the campaign's secretary, Socialist Party member Steven North.
The campaign began after the local Labour Party refused to deselect the unpopular incumbent, Hazel Blears, an MP in the frontline after the MPs' expenses scandal.
She is rightfully vilified for her role in voting for the war in Iraq, the £76 billion Trident nuclear missile replacement, closures of maternity wards and post offices and for allowing homes in the area to be sold off for private greed.
A speech from Martin Bell, a former independent MP, was well received despite the clear political differences between him and the majority of those in attendance, as he offered constructive advice and support for the campaign's efforts to prepare to stand an independent, community-based candidate in the coming general election.
Despite the vain efforts of a Blearsite Labour Party member to derail the discussion, a variety of socialists, left-wingers and people of previously no political affiliation spoke with conviction on the need for a grassroots, bottom-up community campaign to challenge the Labour Party in the area.
This is the first time in recent history that the area has been declared a marginal seat by Labour.
Those in attendance voted to adopt an eleven point plan of socialist inspired principles for potential future candidates to follow.
This included the demand for MPs to receive only the average wage with reasonable expenses; better public services; homes and jobs for all; and a defiant 'no' to racist and divisive politics.
An ultimatum was issued to Blears to stand down by 31 October, Halloween, after unanimous consent was gained from those in attendance.
The challenge for the campaign now is to find a suitable local candidate who will fight for the needs of the working class people of Salford,who feel failed by mainstream politicians and the system.
ONCE AGAIN the 'big six' UK energy companies have stuck two fingers up to demands that they reduce the prices charged to consumers.
Ofgem, the toothless energy market regulator, pitifully asked the big six to reduce tariffs in the light of dramatic falls in wholesale energy costs.
Ofgem calculates that lower energy costs will ramp up the big six's profits on each duel-fuel customer by £60 this year.
This is on top of similar profiteering by the energy supply companies over the last few years.
As usual, the energy giants say they are 'victims of market conditions' - despite themselves having sizeable stakes in energy production.
Ofgem bleats that it lacks powers to cap prices but the pro-big business Labour government refuses to give them these powers, or to contemplate a windfall tax on company profits, let alone nationalise the big six.
COVENTRY SOCIALIST Party councillor Dave Nellist has warned that council budget cuts for Coventry's leading homelessness charity will see more people sleeping rough in that city from next month.
After news that the homelessness charity, Coventry Cyrenians, was facing a £750,000 cut in its £2.2 million budget from the end of September, Dave told a meeting of councillors that a much-reduced homelessness service at the Cyrenians would be unable to cope. It would have to turn away referrals from Walsgrave Hospital, Coventry council's own children's services, the police and city wardens.
The Tory Cabinet member for Housing Services agreed to Dave's request for an urgent meeting of senior councillors to see whether the situation can be reversed or, if not, how the city would cope with more people sleeping rough.
Dave Nellist said: "Home-lessness in Coventry is less visible than in many other cities because of excellent work by the Cyrenians. But unemployment locally has doubled in the last 12 months, and could double again; and as those numbers rise so will family break-ups, evictions, and homelessness.
"We live in a country that can afford hundreds of billions of pounds to protect bankers and their bonuses, but the most vulnerable in our society, without shelter or a home, face service cuts in the help they desperately need."
"THE PRESIDENT of the European Commission, Mr Barroso, and his commission have been interfering in the debate in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty, which is to be voted on in a referendum on 2 October. Mr Barroso has cynically abused the Commission's resources to work for a Yes vote.
For the past weeks, Commission employees have been visiting schools all over Ireland, speaking of the benefits of the European Union for Ireland. This is a cynical means of sending a message to parents that they should vote Yes to the Lisbon Treaty. A senior civil servant of the commission, the secretary general of the commission in fact, openly participated in public rallies of organisations calling for a Yes vote.
The left in Ireland is in favour of the widest democratic debate on the Lisbon Treaty and we are fully prepared to debate with any of the political groups around Europe, but it is a gross abuse of taxpayers' funds and of democratic procedures for the commission to intervene in a one sided fashion in the way it has done in Ireland.
Unfortunately, the Irish government and many of the establishment organisations calling for a Yes vote are relying on a campaign of fear to pressurise the Irish people to support Lisbon. Basing themselves on anxiety among most people about the current economic crisis in Ireland, they are threatening further economic catastrophe if Lisbon is not passed and encouraging people to vote Yes for jobs and the economy.
It is also an extremely unbalanced debate, with strong media bias towards the Yes side and big business funding for the Yes campaign on a massive scale. I believe that the Yes campaign will spend ten times as much money on the campaign as the 'No' side.
The Lisbon Treaty advances the agenda of the economic and political establishment in Europe - of the major corporations, the right wing political parties, the military and the armaments industry. It is hostile to the interests of working people.
Lisbon seriously diminishes the democratic leverage of ordinary citizens in the EU, facilitates further privatisation of public services like health and education, institutionalises attacks by the European Court of Justice on workers' rights and gives a huge impetus to militarisation and the armaments industry. That is why we are opposed to it.
The reappointment of Mr Barroso as President of the EU commission will motivate us to redouble our efforts over the next two weeks to secure a No vote. Europe has had enough of Mr Barroso's neo-liberal agenda."
"EVERYONE ON the roof", seems to be one of the slogans uniting workers in struggle in Italy. Another is "let's do an INNSE", referring to the marvellous victory of workers in the INNSE factory, near Milan, after a 15 month struggle and occupation, culminating in five workers climbing to the top of a crane and staying there for eight days.
All over the country, workers have taken encouragement and inspiration from those at INNSE. According to the Italian financial newspaper, Il Sole 24 Ore, there are at least 30 occupations and struggles taking place at the moment, many of them involving workers climbing onto their factory's roof to publicise their dispute.
Some of the struggles are to stop closures, often involving the transfer of production to China or Eastern Europe. At Disco Verde near Bologna, for example, 82 workers came back from the summer break to find out they were all losing their jobs and the company was moving to Romania. Other struggles are to stop a section of the workforce being sacked.
Despite the victory at INNSE, many workers do not feel confident that they can stop their factories from closing, but are fighting to improve unemployment benefits or recover unpaid wages.
In the public sector, thousands of unemployed teachers have also been scaling roofs, chaining themselves to buildings and stripping off to their underwear, as well as employing more traditional forms of protest and demonstration.
A veritable 'bloodbath' is taking place, with the mass sacking of 42,000 teachers and 15,000 support staff just this year. All are 'precarious' (temporary/insecure) workers on short-term contracts. These are not necessarily young teachers and staff. Many are in their 40s or 50s and have been 'precarious' for 20 years in some cases. They have been used by successive governments as cheap labour and are now being thrown away like a used tissue. Mass job losses, of course, will also mean overcrowded classrooms and an inferior education for school students.
All these workers are angry and determined to fight. But as CWI members have pointed out in our material, what is also needed is a strategy to win.
The struggles have, thus far, been very fragmented. The main trade union federation, Cgil, organised a general strike "against the crisis" last December but with no clear programme or strategy. Workers were mobilised to 'let off steam' and then effectively abandoned. Now that the economic crisis is really starting to hit - with at least 700,000 more jobs at risk - the leaders of the unions are virtually silent.
Unlike the two other main unions, the Cgil has refused to sign a new agreement which will undermine nationally negotiated contracts and worsen workers' pay and conditions. But the union has made no attempt to mobilise workers against the agreement, resulting in some of the different sectors which make up the Cgil signing the new contracts anyway!
One sector which is holding firm is Fiom (the Cgil metal workers' branch), which represents engineering and other industrial workers who are the most affected by job losses and closures. Their contract is due for renewal at the end of the year and Fiom is threatening strike action to press home its demand for a €130 a month wage increase.
Clear demands will be vital to take the movement forward. After a tenacious and determined struggle, the INNSE workers managed to find a new buyer for their factory who has agreed to keep on the workers and restart production. Other workers in some factories are considering organising themselves as cooperatives.
However, neither of these strategies would permanently protect workers from the effects of the economic crisis. What is needed is an alternative to domination by the market.
Where an employer refuses to keep open a factory and the other two options are not possible, the demand for a factory or group of factories (94% of companies in Italy have less than ten workers) to be taken into public ownership could gain support.
The INNSE workers were able to keep production going for three months without the bosses organising production under the democratic control and management of the workers' themselves.
The occupations are gaining the support and solidarity of local workers and activists and there have been some attempts to set up networks of factories where struggles are taking place.
The precarious workers in the schools are also coordinating their struggles nationally. It's vital that they link up with permanent teaching staff as well as students and parents in order to create a new wave of struggle throughout the education sector which, unlike that of last year, forces the government to reverse the cuts and employ those staff who have been sacked, in permanent posts.
Pressure will now need to be built from below in the trade unions for a national school strike and the linking up of the public and private sector in a more generalised struggle.
The fightback in Italy is still at an early stage and will not be easy given the severity of the crisis and the weakness of the trade union leadership.
The situation is exacerbated by the fact that for the first time in recent history the Italian working class has, since the virtual collapse of Rifondazione Comunista, no political party in which to organise collectively and to represent its interests. But a new wave of struggle could begin the process of transforming the trade union movement into a fighting force and of building a new workers' party.
KEITH GIBSON, a Socialist Party member and leading activist in the Lindsey Oil Refinery jobs dispute in England earlier this year, was a guest speaker at a festival organised by the Cgil (Italian General Confederation of Workers) near Parma, north Italy over the last weekend in August.
Keith informed the audience about the Lindsey struggle, where the wages of Italian and other migrant workers were established at the same rate as British workers. He spoke twice. On the first day he dealt with the strike and standing in the 'No2EU' election alliance. The next day he talked about how the strike was conducted at Lindsey, including how they had prevented the far right from getting a foothold amongst workers there.
Keith was speaking alongside Italian trade unionists who spoke about the rise of the far-right Northern League and how to combat it in the workplace.
I sensed straight away where this meeting was heading due to the fact we were given a mere 30 minutes to look through a 20-page document (employers' final pay and conditions offer).
30 minutes to pick through what could have a lasting effect on thousands of construction workers across the country. Why this document was not distributed before the meeting is beyond me.
All stewards were given an opportunity to speak regarding the agreement that was being recommended to us by the Unite and GMB national officers. The 50 or so stewards raised numerous issues to the top table.
One of the main issues brought up was item 6, Register of unemployed workers: "A NJC working party to be convened to consider the establishment of a voluntary database of unemployed operatives."
In my opinion this would be an excellent addition as this would be a database on what skills and trades are available. It would counter the companies who claim there is a skills shortage in the UK and bring in cheap labour from Europe to undermine our National Agreement. It would help eradicate agencies, who seem to be getting a major foot in the door on NAECI contracts at present.
It was suggested that this database be set up immediately but no promises were given from the top table. To accept the agreement all points had to be agreed by the stewards. Because the establishment of the database was not made definite, I for one will not be accepting the agreement.
Another main point was the 2% pay deal on offer. The same old talk of "recession", "bad times", "we were lucky to be getting a pay rise" etc was given to us.
The bonus scheme of £2.50 per hour will rise to £2.55 per hour. But £1.85 will be "automatically forfeited to the audit period in question, in the event of any form of unprocedural action or any other unauthorised stoppage of work". This is a blatant attack on the trade union movement and organisation in the workplace.
The threat of losing your bonus for the month, if you have an unofficial meeting and get organised on site, will surely put people off attending meetings. At present it's hard work getting an hour a month from the employers to report back to the shop floor, never mind agreement for more official meetings. The 2% increase is a disgrace at best, but to have attachments that blatantly attack organisation in the workplace, only reaffirms what we're up against.
The recommendation from the top table was put to the stewards. If accepted, we would take it back as a recommendation to the members. It was passed 25-20.
The closeness of the vote shows how uneasy the stewards feel about the offer. For the first time it was admitted from the top table that without the Lindsey disputes earlier this year and in June, negotiations would not have been favourable to the workforce!
With an official ballot for strike action across seven sites, now is the time to hit back against the employers, not bow down to their demands. Instead I've got to go back to the members and give them a shop stewards' forum recommendation to accept this deal.
At Lindsey the fear of striking has gone. After the members read the deal on offer I'm sure many will vote 'no'. Hopefully members across the country will follow suit and stand up against the employers and denounce the NAECI pay and conditions offer as totally unacceptable.
Around a dozen copies of The Socialist were sold at the meeting and one young worker indicated interest in joining the Socialist Party.
Four hundred GMB shipyard workers in Portsmouth have voted to take strike action over working conditions and proposals forcing them to work in other parts of the UK.
They are employed by BVT, a consortium of BAE systems and shipbuilders Vosper Thornycroft, formed to build two new aircraft carriers. However, while part of these vessels will be built in Portsmouth, BVT are trying to force workers to move to other parts of the UK, including Scotland and Cumbria for up to three months at a time, while they are being built.
In the recent ballot, 82% of GMB members voted for strike action. GMB organiser Bob Stokes said: "Unless we get a settlement we'd be starting with a total stoppage of work for a period, for one day probably. If we stop work we'll picket all the gates. An overtime ban and work-to-rule arrangements would follow, but there are no dates fixed for action yet".
JCB workers have been made to pay for the economic crisis over the last year with 1,600 redundancies in the UK and many other attacks on our pay and conditions. At the plant in Rocester in Staffordshire we are now expected to take an extra week off in October added to our normal week's holiday for this time of the year.
The company has said that we will be paid for the week off but we have to pay them back when things improve.
This means that effectively we will have to make up 39 hours by working overtime without being paid for it or being paid an hour less than our normal 39 hours for the next 39 weeks.
At a business review meeting recently we were told that despite the recession JCB had still made £29 million profit this year and had never made a financial loss in its 64 year history. Why then do we have to work for nothing? Where has all the money gone?
Owner of JCB, Anthony Bamford saw his personal wealth increase by £600 million in 2008 to £1.8 billion. Not everyone at JCB is making sacrifices it seems.
A ballot will be held to secure agreement on this issue as JCB are breaking our contracts of employment and can only push this through with the acceptance of the workforce. At a union meeting to discuss this, we were told by the works' convenor that we have to accept this proposal or the alternative could be further redundancies.
Workers spoke out at the meeting saying that we should reject this latest attack and oppose any further redundancies. But before the meeting was over and the discussion ended the convenor walked out, saying he had another meeting to go to.
The bosses are holding a gun at the heads of workers in order to secure reductions in pay and conditions. We must oppose any further attacks by taking industrial action if necessary.
Workers at the Lindsey oil refinery and Linamar as well as the Vestas workers have inspired others to fight back against these kind of attacks and pass by union leaders who are not prepared to make a stand.
Around 200 delegates from the four main steel unions: Community, Unite, SIMA and GMB gathered at TUC Congress house last week to decide a response to the announcement by Corus to close the British Steel pension scheme to new entrants.
Corus, which is owned by TATA Steel, originally announced its intention of attacking the final salary scheme last January but buried it behind the loss of 3,500 jobs.
Delegates debated for a couple of hours before voting unanimously for a resolution proposed by representatives from Teesside: "The Steel Committee delegates utterly condemn Corus for its disgraceful and unnecessary attack on our pension scheme. We call upon all our constituent unions to take any action necessary to stop this, including a national ballot for industrial action up to and including strike action."
In August the company began what it considers to be a consultation process. This amounted to letters being sent to all employees asking for their response to the proposed closure.
They received over 1,500 replies; all but 14 of those were opposed to the scheme being closed to new entrants.
The company simply ignored this and announced that on 21 September the scheme would close to new employees who would be offered a defined contribution scheme.
This is a clear example of yet another company using the recession as an excuse to attack the terms and conditions of its employees. The scheme at this moment is 100% funded and is reviewed every three years so that knee jerk reactions to short term difficulties are not made. The next review will be in March 2011 when the recession is predicted to be over.
Closure of the scheme to new joiners is the beginning of the end for the final salary pension for steelworkers. Very soon after purchasing Tetley Tea, TATA closed the pension scheme there, saying it was not a viable option.
The steel unions must now show the company that they mean business and have the resolve for a fight. Members must be fully informed and the message that enough is enough must be made clear to workers who have seen in the last 12 months cuts in overtime, shift payments, jobs and the illegal non-payment of bonus.
TATA Steel proudly boast that in 100 years they have never had a blast furnace operation shut down due to industrial action. This is now under severe threat unless the company backs away from attacking the workforce.
Before our strike, Enterprise-Liverpool management told us: "You can walk out for six months if you want but you will come back with nothing". We won something like 95% of what we went on strike for, in three weeks.
We actually marched back into the yard after the meeting at the end of the strike with the union banners and made a point of passing the offices.
What made our action succeed was the fact that it was rock solid from start to finish.
Nobody wavered at all despite the pressure we were put under. After the reports in the Echo trying to undermine us, some of the lads have said they are going to stop buying it, like the Liverpool fans did with the Sun.
This is one of, if not the most successful strike action I have ever taken part in, in spite of heavy pressure from management. And the younger workers who were striking for the first time were really great.
Reading Arundhati Roy's collection of lectures and articles about India could make you want to weep, or to emit the 'feral howl' she herself is tempted to resort to. Her main aim is to reveal the sordid truth about the death, destruction and devastating injustice that underlies the so-called 'democracy' and 'progress' of which India's 'leaders' and friends abroad (especially Washington) tend to boast.
The book takes its title from the swarming of grasshoppers - an ominous sign - that preceded the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by the Turkish state in 1915. She urges the Indian people to see that bigger horrors are ahead even than the Gujarati 'riots' of 2002, unless big changes can be carried through.
She exposes the devotion of India's two main parties - Congress and the BJP - to neo-liberalism in the period following the attack on the Twin Towers in New York and the slavish adoption of a 'war on terror' in India (and Kashmir).
She exposes the hypocrisy and downright villainy of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), in control for decades of West Bengal, when it uses state forces and its own armed gangs to drive poor farmers from their land in the interests of multinational corporations.
She shows how Hindu nationalist pogroms and mindless terrorism wreak havoc with people's lives and how official responses bear little resemblance to justice.
Arundhati's picture of her beloved India is of a place where human life hangs on a very thin thread; even its rivers, mountains and forests are under attack. Not one major river now reaches the sea because of bungled, ostentatious and expensive irrigation projects.
Whole mountain tops are being sliced off in the pursuit of profit through bauxite and other mineral exploitation - by some of the world's most notorious corporate monsters, all with the willing assistance of the state.
The invasion of areas inhabited for millennia by people who know how to sustain life and nature is akin to the rape of South America by the European colonialists of the 18th century.
Arundhati Roy has pointed to the abject failure of Non Governmental Organisations to overcome the dire plight of the most downtrodden and oppressed.
She exposes the inadequacies of Gandhism, as well as accusing Non-Governmental Organisations of undermining people's will to organise and fight back. She sees how armed struggle becomes the only course of action left to people without the power to defend themselves and to run their own communities. One quarter of India's vast land is actually beyond the control of central and local governments.
Brought up in the 'Communist'-run state of Kerala, Arundhati Roy shares the sentiments that still lie under the surface of Indian society - for struggle against oppression and for a real equality of opportunity in life for all.
The country's new middle class as well as the rich come in for a verbal hammering and a warning of the explosive conflicts they are creating through their drive to maximise profit.
Roy has carried out her own courageous campaigning work, especially on the issue of environmental destruction, but also on issues such as the slaughter of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
She has been not only viciously attacked in the country's media (which she also describes in ugly detail) but has spent time in prison for her brave campaigning. She points to the "systematic dismantling" since the early 1990s, "of laws that protect workers' rights and the fundamental rights of ordinary people" all under the relentless pressure from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank.
A powerful author and speaker, Roy plays an important role in exposing the crimes of capitalism - the flagrant everyday injustices being wrought in India on a sickeningly massive scale.
But she stops short of saying what can be done to right these wrongs and fill the huge political vacuum in Indian society.
The situation she describes is crying out for a new mass organised force of workers and poor people with representatives and leaders fully accountable to them and living as they do. The way to replace the gangsters, murderers and hypocrites at the top of Indian society is to conduct a struggle against the system of capitalism itself, root and branch. The most genuine form of democracy in India would be a socialist society. Arundhati Roy is an ally in the struggle for such a society.
The term 'Dirty Thirty' has lived on long after the miners' strike ended in 1985. It was the name given to a small band of Leicestershire NUM members, who joined the year long strike in spite of their right wing branch leaders telling miners in the four pits in the county to work normally.
At the time, I was a CPSA (forerunner of the PCS union) branch secretary and I remember being in awe of these brave men, who were prepared to make enormous sacrifices to stand up for what they believed in.
Their fight against the Tory government was proved ultimately right. The defeat of the national NUM action, caused in no small part by the leaders of other unions failing to organise supportive strike action by their own members, as well as the 'scabbing' activities orchestrated by the right wing in the Leicestershire NUM, led directly to Thatcher's vengeful destruction of the British mining industry. It also severely dented workers' confidence in the ability of trade unions to fight for their interests, a legacy which is still felt by significant numbers to this day.
Twenty five years on and David Bell has made good use of the testimony of a number of the Thirty in his book.
Bell explains why, against all the odds, they joined the strike and recalls the hardships that they had to endure.
It is more of a diary than a political tract. I was a little disappointed by this, especially since Bell quotes one of the main leaders of the Thirty, Malcolm Pinnegar (known as 'Benny' - he always wore a woolly hat like the TV Crossroads character), as saying that: "My talks were always very political. The strike was always a political thing to me..."
Bell accepts that he has only mentioned within the book a few of the names of the many supporters of the Thirty throughout the world. But it is a pity that he fails to mention the contribution made by Militant members (forerunner of the Socialist Party).
Early in the book, Bell writes that a number of the Thirty came out on strike after the Leicestershire pits were picketed by first the Kent NUM and then miners from South Wales. The first group of these Welsh strikers were from Tower Colliery and were under the leadership of Militant members and their supporters.
They had made contact with other Militant members in Leicestershire, who put them up locally and also helped organise the picket that saw Benny, his co-leader Mick Richmond (Richo) and a number of others stick with the dispute for the duration.
Some initially thought that they were the only person who had come out on strike and Bell tells the experience of Johnny Gamble, who was actually the sole striker at the South Leicester Colliery.
Crucial, therefore, was the solidarity that the Thirty were able to build early on, when a number of them attended a meeting in Coalville in support of the national NUM action. This was organised by the Labour Party Young Socialists under the leadership of Militant.
The meeting provided them with a realisation that although they were small in number, Leicestershire had some men who were on strike.
Together with many others in the movement, Militant members gave practical support to the Dirty Thirty. We helped organise tours to other areas, attended pickets, raised money and in my own case gave advice about social security benefits that the men or their families could claim. We were an integral part of the network that was crucial both physically and mentally to maintaining the strikers and their magnificent support group of wives, partners and other family members who tirelessly campaigned with them.
Bell's book is proof of the struggle and sacrifice of this small group who have subsequently passed into folklore, not just in working class history in Britain but also internationally. He dryly comments that even the official history of the Leicestershire NUM records: "Through their level of activity which was out of all proportion to their numbers, the Dirty Thirty came to have considerable symbolic significance".
A work like this is long overdue and although it is easy to say that it misses this or that out, it captures the events and the spirit of a time that is still very much alive in my own memory. This includes the magnificent support that the Thirty were given by the NUR (now RMT) and Aslef members at the Coalville Mantle Lane depot, many of whom refused to let coal trains move during the dispute.
Bell's text might lack a solid political perspective, but I would still recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about the history of Thatcher's Britain and its legacy, so warmly embraced by the suits of New Labour.
The latest offering from Anti-Flag at first seems like a bit of a trip down memory lane for the band. Quite a few of the songs are rougher and shorter than their previous album and sound more like their albums from around 10 years ago.
The political content of the songs is anything but from Anti-Flag's past.
Whereas over the last few years Anti-Flag's inspiration has come from anti-war movements and general anti-capitalist angst, this album draws much more from the traditions of workers' struggles.
This is at its most stark in When All The Lights Go Out, which talks of "One million workers stand up..." whereas in the past something more vague like the word 'people' would have been used; and then states "Revolution: the engine of history".
Further on, the song speaks of how "We don't need the CEO's, they need us" and even quotes the Communist Manifesto: "Proletarians of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains". And Marx is quoted elsewhere in the album's liner notes for Sodom, Gomorrah, Washington DC, a song about how religion is used by the ruling class to divide people.
The title of one of the songs is taken direct from the slogans of the May-June 1968 events in France, The Economy Is Suffering... Let It Die, the song itself being a crying indictment of how capitalists and their governments have propped up themselves whilst placing the burden of the crisis on the working class.
The song describes how they have been "Lining up their pockets with the people's cash..." whilst asking "Where are all the bailouts for the homeless and the poor?"
Anti-Flag's lyrics drew me towards the anti-war movement and eventually towards socialist and Marxist ideas, hopefully this album will draw many more young people towards political activity with the Socialist Party.
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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/8181