THIS CABINET of millionaires plans to sound the death knell for the NHS. Tory health secretary Andrew Lansley said his proposals would bring 'power to the people' with control of most NHS spending in England transferring to "family doctors." This is nonsense. Power is being transferred to private companies in the NHS's largest ever rash of privatisation.
Just look at Lansley's plans for GP and hospital services. He wants 80% of the NHS budget to be businesses run by groups of GPs. But most GP practices are busy places, dealing with their priorities - treating patients' illnesses.
Even if they form 'consortia', as government ministers suggest, how many of Britain's 35,000 GPs have the time or the knowhow to operate budgets totalling millions of pounds?
But adverts will soon be winging their way to every doctors' surgery from private health care 'experts' who claim they do know how. These private health and insurance multinationals, like United Health, Bupa and Humana, who already have a foothold in the health service, will charge GPs and the NHS for their knowledge. And they will invite in their private sector mates for a share of the profits.
The Financial Times says the market for administering the NHS budget "could grow at least tenfold from its current £50 million a year". Private health firm Tribal welcomes the "denationalisation of healthcare services in England".
In this capitalist market, profit comes before health. The needs of private health firms and expensive Harley Street doctors will be paramount. What happens to public control and accountability? Privatisation measures in the NHS such as PFI have already proved an expensive waste of money.
Now they are clearly a threat to thousands of jobs (including 10,000 frontline jobs according to the Royal College of Nursing) and millions of people's services as a private-dominated NHS increasingly cherry-picks easier, more profitable cases.
It was the strength of the working class that created the NHS. Now, that strength must be mobilised to defend the health service against this attack through mass campaigns by the trade unions involving patients, service users and the general public.
The Socialist Party supports the call by the PCS civil servants' union, with the support of others, for the TUC to organise, as soon as possible, a mass national demonstration against the Con-Dem government's attacks as an urgent first step. The slogans of this demo must include opposition to the attacks on the NHS, defence of jobs and public services and no to all cuts and privatisation.
Such a demonstration would express the anger and opposition to cuts felt by hundreds of thousands of people. It could also prepare the way for further mass action, including generalised strike action.
As we go to print it appears that the TUC leadership has not taken the initiative to launch such a campaign. If this is so, left-led unions need to call a national demo.
At the same time pressure must be applied to the TUC by supporting the National Shop Stewards Network's call for a lobby of the TUC in September.
After New Labour's axe men began the education cuts, the Con-Dem butchers seem to have been let loose with a chainsaw.
Proposed cuts to university budgets over the next two years amount to £1 billion. £340 million is being removed from college budgets. The UCU lecturers' union believes this will mean 34,000 job losses at colleges in England alone.
These cuts will slam the door of access to further and higher education in the face of millions. The UCU estimates the effects of last year's cuts will mean that at least 170,000 qualified students will not find a university place.
Billionaire ex-BP chairman Lord Browne is conducting an 'independent' review into higher education funding and tuition fees.
It seems David Willetts, Tory universities minister, already knows the result of this report. He is dropping hints that the Conservatives are in favour of a gradual increase in tuition fees leading to removing the cap completely.
If this is implemented elite universities will be on the road back to the situation of the early twentieth century, when they were the preserve of the wealthy and privileged.
Lib Dem Vince Cable plans to expand privately owned universities and encourage ruthless competition in the higher education sector.
This will mean the closure of 20 of the lowest ranked universities and ruthless attacks on jobs, courses, wages, pensions and campus facilities.
Cable's graduate tax is a dodgy rebrand. Students would pay or owe the same amount or even more than under the present system of top-up fees.
Cable and the Lib Dems want to fool students that they are sincere about getting rid of unfair fees. However, they are really trying to convince their Tory coalition partners that a graduate tax will allow the government to cut harder, faster and deeper without provoking mass public opposition. But their agenda for education will not be accepted.
This autumn we fight back! Young people have no option but to organise for education and a future. Let's build a mass movement of students, anti-cuts campaigns, university staff, trade unions, communities and the wider working class.
In September, Youth Fight for Jobs (YFJ) and Socialist Students will go to the colleges and sixth forms inviting young people to pledge to take action. We can fight their cuts and fees with mass demonstrations and student strikes.
On 20 October the politicians will announce more education cutbacks in the Comprehensive Spending Review and it's likely that the Browne Review will have finally come to a conclusion.
YFJ and Socialist Students will respond by calling a national day of action of campus protests. We call on the National Union of Students (NUS) to begin to lead a mass movement of students to fight for free education!
The NUS is likely to call a national demonstration in November. Name the date now!
Every student on every campus needs leaflets and posters for this demonstration. Organise mass meetings and rallies. Let's show the government our power.
TWO WEEKS - two meetings! The 'Hackney alliance to defend public services' has been formed. With 50 at each meeting from many unions and workplaces and community groups, a real buzz has developed to fight the cuts in Hackney.
Over 3,000 leaflets in Turkish were distributed at the Day-Mer Festival (Turkish and Kurdish festival). By the second meeting, a draft bulletin had been produced. 3,000 will be printed and distributed in the next few weeks.
An arbitrary cut by the learning trust means subsidised nursery places have already been cut from 300 to 60. Teaching assistants have already lost their jobs at one school, with many more under threat. The community college faces yet more job cuts and course closures. Two dust trucks were removed from the waste round, putting more work on existing staff.
A refuse worker commented: "At Hackney waste depot around 30-40% of bin workers, sweepers and drivers are temps and most on minimum wage, most on day jobs. Temp workers are supposed to turn up at 5.30am and wait till 7.30am. If all regular workers turn up or too many temps arrive, people are sent back home without a job and unpaid - after having been employed at the depot for more than a year".
Unless we fight now these conditions could face many more of us. These alliances will be crucial in deciding whether this government founders as Thatcher's Tories did over the poll tax.
ON 14 July, 100 people joined a lobby of Lewisham's mayor and cabinet meeting. Socialist Party member and Lewisham NUT branch secretary Martin Powell-Davies called the lobby in response to £60 million worth of cuts tabled for the next three years.
Cuts include closing six crèches, five libraries, a £1 million cut to adult social care and one in four council jobs to go. The lobby had trade union banners from UCU, Unite, GMB and the NUT and banners from campaigners fighting library closures.
Former Socialist Party councillor Ian Page spoke, pointing to when the mayor had been forced, under pressure from local campaigns, to overturn decisions. In the meeting, mayor 'Sir' Steve Bullock felt the pressure, telling campaigners to "get real" then branding us 'f**king idiots', as reported in the press. Obviously a man who lives in the anodyne world of New Labour finds reality too hard to handle.
It was an important beginning for Lewisham's united anti-cuts alliance with the detail on most cuts still to be announced in the coming months. It also proved that despite fighting rhetoric, there is no new approach for New Labour.
The day after the lobby Lewisham Unison branch passed a motion to prepare for industrial action against the cutbacks, showing workers' growing anger and willingness to fight.
FOLLOWING THE Northern Public Services Alliance's successful launch at a meeting of 200 Unison, PCS and Unite members on 24 June, meetings have been organised across north-east England to launch local campaigns. The Alliance has the support of the Northern TUC and all the public sector unions.
In a region where 34% of jobs are in the public sector following the destruction of the mining, shipbuilding and steel industries, the Tory/Liberal budget and autumn spending review threatens to destroy at least 50,000 public sector jobs and devastate services over the next three years. A return to the 15% plus unemployment levels of the 80s and 90s is likely.
These meetings are an opportunity to start building mass campaigns involving both public sector workers and service users. It is vital they support the call of the PCS and others for the TUC to organise a national demonstration against these attacks.
I WAS born in 1936 and grew up with the welfare state, together with the nationalisation of many of the power industries. We took it all to be our right: free health care, council houses and subsidised rents, grants for higher education, and a network of welfare help for all those who needed it - the elderly, the disabled, big families, etc. This was our right, just as the railways, the gas and electricity, the water etc belonged to us.
When Mrs Thatcher 'sold the family silver' we had a rude awakening. Flush with the new freedom of credit facilities, some enjoyed the process of buying their council houses - until the crash began. Capitalism collapsed and now we are all being made to pay for it.
They are grabbing our health service and our welfare system to pay for their dishonesty and failure. Years ago we didn't know they could do that.
We should have seen that these major changes were vulnerable to attack. The creation of the welfare state should have been accompanied by a democratisation of power and decision-making, so that what was created could be sustained by the many and could never be taken away.
This, I have learned recently (although I'm a lifelong socialist), is what Trotsky meant by the permanent revolution.
TRADE UNIONS organising education workers, including NUT, NASUWT and UNISON, lobbied parliament on 19 July against the disgraceful cancelling of building and repair work to be carried out under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme and the undemocratic fast-tracking of the Con-Dems' flagship Academies bill.
Over 1,000 education workers piled into Westminster central hall for a rally before lobbying MPs. Teachers had also mobilised students who posed for TV cameras with homemade banners and placards and later headed an impromptu march on the Department for Education office on Whitehall.
Students told The Socialist how major problems with their school building, including holes in the walls and broken windows, made it impossible for them to concentrate. These problems had been due to be fixed as part of BSF.
Education workers clearly have the support of their pupils, parents and the wider working class. Education workers' unions should be confident to call further action calling for improvements to be made to schools, though not involving profit-grabbing private firms who tend to divert resources from meeting students' and teachers' needs into the pockets of fat cats!
They should also call action against privatisation and the break-up of national trade union agreements stemming from the Academies bill.
This could include making preparation for strike action in September, but will also need to involve action to continue campaigning over the summer.
TORY DEPUTY chairman Lord Ashcroft became the focus of the non-domiciled 'non-dom' scandal, whereby rich tax exiles influence Britain's legislation.
After more then ten years, he now says he will give up his non-dom status and start paying taxes.
Five rich 'nom-dom' members of the House of Lords have resigned their peerages rather than pay tax. Facing a deadline compelling them to pay UK taxes on earnings abroad if they wish to remain Lords, five of them chose to keep their fabulous wealth intact.
Three are Tories, including Lord Laidlaw who donated £4 million to the Conservatives, ex-treasurer Lord McAlpine, and Lord Bagri, ex-chairman of the London Metal Exchange. But ex-peers can still use their titles! Once a peer, always a peer it seems.
RICHARD MARCHANT, head of local government strategic partnerships at Capita, a FTSE-100 company which works for councils in Harrow, Swindon, Southampton and Sheffield, said recently:
"A major problem for the public sector is, we feel, a significant opportunity for us. Opportunities are at their highest level in two to three years. This year we have probably seen a 100% increase in opportunities [compared with 2009] and I suspect we will see another 50% increase in the following year."
So remember that when politicians tell you cuts are necessary - the net effect is to channel public money into the capacious pockets of privatisers like Capita. Capita profited greatly from the former New Labour government's privatisation agenda. The unions should oppose the privatisation agenda whichever canaille is in power!
BT and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) have agreed a three year pay deal which will be recommended to the union's members in a ballot.
The deal provides for a 3% pensionable and fully consolidated pay rise for this and the following two years, with the proviso that if the November 2011 inflation rate is either below 2.5% or above 3.2% an 'adjustment' to the final phase will be negotiated.
Although the industrial action ballot was cancelled before the votes were counted both sides were fairly sure that there would have been a 'yes' vote. This was no doubt instrumental in bringing BT back to the negotiating table. BT made the smallest offer which they believed the CWU would recommend to its members. The undoubted mood for struggle has been squandered by the union leadership at the first sign of a face-saving offer by BT.
If the likelihood of industrial action forced BT back into talks then it is clear that they could have got more than 3% by proceeding with a fresh industrial action ballot.
This deal brings the possibility of three successive years of pay cuts in real terms while senior directors and shareholders get well above inflation increases.
Andy Kerr, CWU deputy general secretary, hailed it as a 'fantastic' deal but there is no prospect of BT workers increasing their standard of living before 2013 at the earliest! The fighting talk of the union leadership during the early part of the campaign has been shown to be just that - talk!
It is true that many members will see this offer as a significant improvement and it may well be accepted, particularly as there are guaranteed pay rises for the next three years.
Two vital lessons have been learned. Firstly, the threat of industrial action forced more money from the company and they had to abandon the pretence that they could only afford a miserly and non-pensionable offer. Secondly, and more importantly the need for a leadership that will lead industrial action for as long as the members are prepared to take it. That requires a new, left leadership.
The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) announcement of an 'estate rationalisation consultation,' threatening the closure of 103 magistrates' courts and 54 county courts, commencing on 23 June until 15 September, comes as no surprise to MOJ workers.
During October 2008 the Times carried a leaked story headlined "10,000 jobs to go and 100 courts to close in the Ministry of Justice". This was rubbished by ministry officials as a gross overstatement. The truth is out and it threatens to be far worse.
They claim 5% of staff are affected in the 157 courts, this suggests around 900-1,000 jobs are at risk. The MOJ also blithely claims that no redundancies will arise. This will be severely tested when this unprecedented exercise is linked with the wider cuts proposals. The reality is that compulsory redundancies are a real possibility into 2011-12.
PCS in the MOJ has been warning of these threats since 2008, together with presenting an analysis of what the future looks like for those workers who will remain after this and any other cull in the near future. It is a future of oppressive factory-like conditions with the ever present risk of privatisation.
Closing courts is no different to closing any other public asset like a library, a school or hospital. Local democratic access to courts must be defended. Centralisation means that the public, defendants, witnesses, families, in fact all court users will have to travel much further at greater cost. Many will choose not to attend court because of cost and many will be deterred from bringing cases because of cost and distance. These assets and the workers within them provide valuable services that are the very fabric of a civil society, something that we as socialists should fight to protect.
PCS members in the MOJ were to the front of the action to defend redundancy terms and will defend themselves against these attacks.
The PCS MOJ group executive has launched a campaign in opposition to the cuts and meets on 27 July to consider our industrial strategy, including industrial action, taking account of the wider picture affecting PCS members across the civil service.
"It shows how far they'll go in making these cuts-they're willing to put our lives at risk. All the rich mates of these politicians have to do is whistle and they get handed billions of pounds of our money and then they tell us there's not enough left to run emergency services!"
This was the response of one person who signed the Socialist Party's petition against cuts in the fire service planned for South Wales.
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has reported that 50 jobs could be lost as part of the fire service's mis-named 'Risk Reduction Plan'. Three fire stations have been targeted first for cuts - in Maesteg, New Inn Pontypool and also Penarth, which lost 12 firefighters 18 months ago and could now lose another 16.
The fire authority has been ordered to make £4.5 million worth of cuts over five years, first by the last Labour government and now by the Tory/Lib Dem coalition.
Clearly a strategy to reduce fire cover in South Wales exists - and this is from an already low level. FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said that 3,000 firefighters' jobs were lost in the last five years under Labour - now the Con Dem government wants to cut into the very bones of the service.
South Wales FBU chair Mark Watt has warned that the cuts faced today are the "thin end of the wedge" and South Wales FBU secretary Cerith Griffiths told the local press that firefighters could have no option but to take strike action to stop the plan. 80 firefighters protested outside the fire authority's last meeting but their request to address the meeting was denied.
Like other public sector workers, firefighters are also facing a pay freeze and attacks on their pension entitlements.
Tube Lines is one of the maintenance companies on London Underground. The recent strikes and subsequent victory for the workforce were, on the face of it, about pay, job security and changes to working hours. But, as in all disputes, this was not the full story.
For years, management have bullied the staff, disregarded agreements and treated the elected reps with contempt. The straw that broke the camel's back was management offering a derisory 1% pay offer and attempting to tear up people's terms and conditions.
The RMT initiated a ballot on the request of the reps and this resulted in over 90% mandate to strike. Unsurprisingly the pay offer went up to 3.5% and concessions were made on rostering. But there was no guarantee on jobs.
On the eve of the first strike Tube Lines bosses threatened to withdraw their pay offer if we didn't sign immediately. We were not about to blink first and sent them packing. The 48-hour strike over 23-25 July was a tremendous success.
Train drivers and some station staff refused to work on safety grounds as the emergency response unit was on strike. Senior management went into meltdown, threatening to sue the RMT regional organiser for instigating secondary action. The organiser explained that people were acting lawfully in refusing to work when they felt they were in serious and imminent danger.
Managers threatened to withdraw the legally enshrined refusal to work policy. This was met by demands from branches to ballot the whole of London Underground (LUL) on the grounds that management was trying to kill us. LUL backed down.
Then Tube Lines negotiators returned to the table, stripped of their former bravado, and offered 4.5% with RPI plus 0.5% for the next two years. They withdrew the roster change proposals and gave a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies on all operational staff and managers.
Workers at the Linamar car parts plant in Swansea voted overwhelmingly to reluctantly accept the company's closure terms, at a mass meeting on Monday 12 July.
It could cost the Canadian company as much as £11 million to close the plant they have owned since July 2008 and put the 208 workers on the dole.
This deal, among the highest in the whole of the car industry, is testament to the continuous struggle of the workforce against both Visteon and Linamar's attacks on jobs, terms and conditions and pensions, as well as last year's successful reinstatement of sacked Unite convenor, Socialist Party member Rob Williams.
It proved impossible to convince the stewards and the workers that it was possible to stop the closure.
No doubt the reduced number of workers in the plant was also a factor. Workers understood the scale of action that would have been necessary to achieve a victory.
Socialist Party members argued for a rejection of the deal and for a strike ballot. This would have been used to raise the idea of an occupation. It would also be necessary to appeal for workers at Swansea's customer plants for its promised new work, the Ford engine plants in Bridgend and Dagenham, not to touch Linamar work.
Unfortunately, but understandably, this was rejected, and the plant is expected to close before Christmas.
The stewards were given a massive ovation by the workforce at the end of the meeting. As Rob Williams told the meeting: "We can hold our heads up high."
We will carry further material over the next few weeks on the lessons of the experiences at the Swansea Visteon/Linamar plant.
Members of the FBU in London were disgusted when brigade chief Ron Dobson threatened them with the sack on his blog! The London FBU has been in dispute with management for some months over threats to impose changes to shift patterns. Now Dobson has blogged that he will recommend in a paper to be put to political bosses that they terminate the contract of every firefighter if no agreement is reached.
FBU regional official Paul Embery said: "We've heard stories of companies sacking employees by text, but this must be the first time an employer has threatened to sack people by personal blog. Our members are dedicated, and in many cases very longstanding, employees of the London Fire Brigade. They have devoted their entire careers to protecting the people of London. So for them to turn up for work and be told by their boss, via his personal blog, that they will be sacked if their union does not agree to these detrimental changes is an absolute outrage."
The union has committed to issuing an immediate London-wide strike ballot if changes are imposed.
The PCS civil servants union's national executive committee (NEC) has met to discuss how to respond to the Tory/Liberal coalition government's cuts and privatisation programme.
Announcements of cuts of up to 25% in government departmental budgets were rapidly followed by instructions to plan on the basis of 40% cuts.
This is a cynically designed 'shock and awe' tactic meant to terrify the wits out of workers and unions and condition them into accepting massive cuts in the hope that even worse can be avoided. It is also intended to give the signal that no area is safe and none will be 'ring-fenced' against the cuts and privatisation programme.
PCS believes these cuts are not inevitable, that there is an alternative and, in order to defeat them, the trade union movement must show a lead and campaign to organise all forces in society opposed to this assault. PCS calls on all other trade unions to take action against these attacks on the public sector and working people.
Central to the PCS campaign is our demand for a major national demonstration in the autumn around the time that the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) is announced. (See below).
The Scottish TUC has announced a week of mobilisation against the cuts, culminating in a demonstration on 23 October. PCS demanded at the TUC General Council on 20 July that a demonstration is also held in London on that date.
The TUC can potentially attract millions to such an event, which would have two principal functions, to act as a warning to Cameron and Clegg that to proceed with the cuts will meet with the determined opposition of the working class, but also to build solidarity in action and galvanise workers for the struggle ahead. PCS is also calling for a day of action on 20 October, the day the CSR is announced.
PCS will continue to work with all other groups opposed to the cuts and committed to public services, including the National Pensioners Convention, disability and welfare groups and of course, other trade unions.
Within the union itself different departmental groups, like the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will closely cooperate on issues around welfare and taxation.
The union will also explore the possibility of carrying out an alternative poverty review, as well as the possibility of a national event, or conference with other unions and campaigning organisations to publicise and build support for the alternative to the cuts.
The threat of further attacks on pensions is not just an issue for public servants, but for all workers and requires a united, determined response from the whole movement with coordinated campaigning and industrial action if required.
The government is determined to make us lower our expectations on the absurd basis that 'we are all in it together' to impose pay freezes, which when inflation is running at 5%, is a depression in living standards that no low-paid public sector worker can afford.
We reject the pay freeze and will organise to defeat it - but the best way of doing that and defeating the cuts and privatisation too is to build the widest possible public sector trade union alliance, committed to joint campaigning, including joint industrial action.
PCS will work hard to build the type of Public Sector Alliance in every town and city, regionally and at national level that is required if we are to defeat these assaults. That also means working in our local communities, setting up local anti-cuts committees. Whenever a library or other local facility is under threat the unions must be there, leading the campaign, generalising the struggle and building the movement against the cuts.
This government can be defeated in their plans to make working people pay for their crisis, but the TUC must be more than acting as an arbitration and counselling service. The PCS NEC has decided that, in the light of the massive cuts already announced by the government, the invitation to David Cameron to address the TUC conference should be rescinded.
There are millions of workers in their workplaces and communities looking for a lead. With a properly organised, determined campaign, including coordinated industrial action, the attacks can be halted.
After weeks of vacillation the TUC has finally agreed NOT to call a national demo against the cuts this year.
PCS president Janice Godrich attended the TUC general council on 20 July and, along with other left union leaders, argued strongly for the TUC to call a national demo on 23 October, the Saturday after the Con Dem government's spending review is publicised. This spending review will contain the details of the massive cuts being planned in the public sector across most of the departments. When these figures are seen in the harsh light of day it will cause uproar amongst ordinary trade union members.
PCS also has a resolution down for September's TUC conference, calling for the demo on 23 October.
At the general council, TUC secretary Brendan Barber argued that 23 October would not give enough time for the unions to organise their members. But the real reasons against resisting the cuts were blurted out by a number of right wingers. They said that the strategy should be to "minimise the cuts", in other words accept them and throw yourself on the mercy of the employers.
The unions that supported the PCS call for a demo included the NUT and the CWU.
But Unite and Unison (the 'big two') opposed the idea. One of the Unison reps was reported as saying that: "the activists might be gagging for a demo but the members aren't".
This cynical comment was answered by Janice who said it was an insult to the thousands of hard working activists who keep the unions going throughout the year.
Barber counterposed to the national demo the idea of an open meeting in London on 20 October, with a lobby of parliament on the same day. This to be followed up with regional demos organised by the regional TUCs.
The PCS and other left unions will now discuss the idea of organising their own national demo if the TUC still refuses to do it.
Without a national demo and with just local action, it will be difficult to build an effective resistance to the cuts. The government is acting on a national level, so the unions have to respond on a national level.
The National Shop Stewards Network will now go ahead with organising a national lobby of the TUC conference in Manchester, demanding that the TUC does indeed get up off its knees and organise a campaign to defend the public sector with a national demo as a prelude to coordinated strike action.
As if the threats to our jobs and wages weren't enough, the bosses are also baying to cut our pensions. The continual drip, drip of attacks on public sector workers' pensions from the likes of the right wing taxpayers' alliance has now turned into a flood.
The latest attack comes from the misnamed Public Sector Pension Commission (which is neither a commission nor independent, but instead a cabal of bosses' organisations). It has called for an "end to the final salary schemes" and for workers to be forced to work longer for smaller pensions. With the setting up of its own pensions commission, the Con-Dem government is only too willing to oblige the employers.
The so-called logic behind the attacks on public sector pensions is threefold. Firstly, as the bosses have managed to shaft private sector workers' pensions (with three out of four workers losing their rights to a final salary scheme), they argue - 'now it's your turn'. Secondly: 'Why should the taxpayer in the private sector pay for public sector 'gold plated' pensions' and thirdly: 'We need to cut public sector spending because we can no longer afford pensions'.
Big business is responsible for pauperising thousands of workers in private industry by cutting or ending their pension schemes in order to protect their profits. Two-thirds of private sector companies do not pay any contributions to their workers' scheme, which means that many private sector pensioners are so poor they are forced to rely on a top-up to their state pensions costing the state £15 billion in pension credits. Because many public sector workers have a works pension, the state doesn't have to pay these benefits. Pension cuts will mean more pension credit payments.
For the two million council workers the average pension is just £77 a week and for women that falls to just £50 a week (due to the fact that more women tend to work part time and be lower paid). To qualify for these pensions we must pay 6-7% of our monthly salary. One third of all council workers don't even have a pension, as they cannot afford to join the scheme.
On top of this, public sector schemes have already taken a hit. Many of us now have to pay more and work longer to get the same pension as before. In the NHS the trade union leaders agreed to a deal which means that workers pick up the bill if there is any increase to the costs of the scheme, instead of organising to lead a fight to defend all pensions.
The fact that public sector workers have held onto many aspects of their pensions rights is because of the threat of a public sector wide strike in 2006. Then, confronted by five million trade union members, the Labour government backed off from a wholesale attack. Even more pension rights could have been defended in the likes of the NHS and council worker schemes if the union leaderships had held their nerve and not made concessions and called off the strikes.
The clear lesson for us today is that we must again unite public sector workers and prepare for a public sector strike when the government's pensions commission reports at the end of the year.
We must not accept, as some inside the Unison union have already done, that we have to give more concessions in order to keep the scheme. To do so is to wave a white flag of surrender before a single shot is fired in anger.
There is no reason why the unions could not demand public sector wide negotiations to avoid the employers using divide-and-rule tactics between funded and unfunded schemes or central government verses local government schemes.
The NHS is due to be turned completely on its head and there is no doubt that chaos will follow. If Andrew Lansley succeeds in getting his legislation passed the NHS logo will be all that remains to be misused by a multitude of new health care providers.
Private companies that specialise in 'out-sourcing' of public services, such as Capita, Serco and many others, are lining up to take advantage of the huge profits they can make by the 'denationalisation' of the NHS. Richard Marchant, one of the heads at Capita, openly stated that the 'problems' in the public sector represent a 'significant opportunity' for his company.
Can it be managed by the third sector? Can it be cut? Can it be privatised? These are the three questions the new Con-Dem government is asking about the NHS.
The White Paper calls for more and more NHS services (including those which directly provide patient care) to be tendered out to 'any willing provider'. Private companies will be lining up for their golden opportunity to take their pick of the most lucrative NHS services.
Profit maximisation in the NHS will have a profoundly damaging impact on a service which was designed to have the needs of the patient at the heart of its core philosophy. Lansley is explicit about his desire to "create the largest social enterprise sector in the world".
The idea of the 'internal market' was first introduced into the NHS by Thatcher in the 1980s and it was carried on with zeal by Tony Blair's Labour administration. One aspect of the market policy is that various NHS services get 'split off' into separate components and they are then tendered out to companies like Serco.
This process has happened wholesale in all NHS cleaning and catering services and it is happening increasingly with phlebotomy (blood taking) services. We have all borne witness to the damage inflicted on the NHS via PFI (private finance initiatives) which basically gave construction companies carte blanche to lock NHS trusts into long term, hugely expensive contracts for building new hospitals. NHS trusts ended up in massive amounts of debt as public funds were effectively diverted into the pockets of company shareholders.
The GMB union has identified around 640 current PFIs and more than 100 new projects in the pipeline (across all public services, although many may now be cut). The total cost was estimated at £250 billion over 25-30 years, four times the value of the assets built (£64 billion). This is equivalent to £8,400 per taxpayer.
Duplication of existing services will also be encouraged under the pretext of 'offering choice' and this production of excess capacity will lead to unnecessary waste.
Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) are to be completely abolished by 2013. This will fundamentally change the structure of the NHS and radically alter the existing funding and commissioning of health care. These changes will be costly and complicated to implement.
Groups of GP surgeries (consortia) will be handed responsibility for up to 80% of the £100 billion health budget. GPs will increasingly have their eyes on budgets rather than on providing and accessing care for their patient population.
When money is a factor in a GP's decision-making this will make purchasing the cheapest, possibly less effective health care option more attractive, regardless of a patient's clinical need. GPs will end up avoiding referring patients on for specialist investigations and services that are deemed to be 'too expensive' or are not deemed to provide 'value for money'.
35,000 doctors could form up to 500 consortia, which will then 'buy care' from local hospitals or other providers, including private organisations. They will hire staff to manage these processes. While some have welcomed this proposal, Unison reports that around half of GPs are opposed.
GPs are not trained for their new commissioning responsibilities and will need to employ existing commissioners to help them. Capita, for example, is already offering to 'help' GPs with billing and human resources etc. It is acknowledged in the White Paper that GPs will not fully understand all of the complex areas of the specialist services, eg mental health services, that they will be commissioning.
According to Rethink, a mental health charity, two-thirds of GPs say they lack the expertise to commission mental health services. Ignorance of the value of a particular service will rapidly lead to 'disinvestment' which is the current NHS buzz term for cutting a service.
There are some GPs who wisely realise that they are going to be handed a 'poisoned chalice' and will end up implementing the government's hidden agenda of carrying out cuts to patient services.
'Efficiency savings', ie cuts of £20 billion, are expected over the next few years and if GP consortia are deemed to 'fail', ie overspend on their allocated budgets, the government is being explicit about the fact that there will be no 'bailouts'. Any failure will pave the way for other groups with vested interests to take away the health care commissioning role from a GP consortium.
The abolition of the PCTs and SHAs will lead to masses of job losses as all of the existing staff cannot be absorbed into the new structure. Admin workers and other ancillary staff will be hit the hardest. In the meantime Andrew Lansley is already busying himself finding cushy, lucrative roles for the old bosses of the quangos.
Dame Barbara Hakin, chief executive of NHS East Midlands, has already secured a role for herself as one of the directors of the new NHS commissioning board. She will be paid £200,000 a year in the midst of 'the very challenging financial position' to which Lansley alludes.
In the meantime the accelerated privatisation of the remainder of the NHS will mean that the contracts of NHS staff will change and our pay and conditions will most likely be driven down in the process. Staff will find that who they work for, what they work for and the way in which they work will change fundamentally.
Lansley is signing the death warrant for national pay bargaining and agreements: "Pay decisions should be led by health care employers rather than imposed by the government. In future, all individual employers will have the right, as foundation trusts have now, to determine pay for their own staff." NHS workers' pensions are also under threat.
The White Paper also proposes changes in the provision of staff training which will be outsourced to the cheapest bidder. There is a real risk that the content and the quality of training will evolve over time to incorporate more of a 'business ethos' with reduced emphasis on the needs of the patient being at the heart of operational philosophy.
Staff who entered the service because they care about patients will end up feeling completely demoralised as they are pressurised to ensure that 'the company is successful'.
The drive towards 'payment by results' and introducing 'currencies' for units of care will be pushed forward and standardised. This is to ensure that service providers can be compared with each other and to increase competition between an ever-growing number of health care providers.
Prices for service provision will inevitably rise as new technologies, medicines and treatments are refined and developed. An organisation called 'Monitor' will be involved in price regulation, but only for publicly provided NHS services.
Competition rather than cooperation will become the order of the day. Disputes between providers could become a reality and the resolution of these disputes via the courts could put further strain on the public purse.
Health and social services will be integrated further and their budgets will be pooled. This integration has already been started and staff are finding that they have to take on additional roles and responsibilities for which they are not trained. This has a negative impact on the quality of care a patient receives.
Integration of services also leads to services being centralised in one building and patients then have to travel miles out of their local area to access the service they need.
Funding arrangements for social care are being scrutinised by the government and they are openly admitting that they are considering voluntary health insurance as one of the payment options. Of course this option will not be open to everyone, particularly the unemployed and could directly lead to those most in need of services being excluded.
The White Paper proposes radical changes to the way in which patients communicate with health care professionals. Patients and professionals will be encouraged to communicate about a patient's health status online. This is a time-saving exercise and there is no evidence that patients have requested this style of communication or will value this 'arm's length', and essentially dehumanising, approach.
There will be implications for patients as their confidential health information will be shared with a multitude of newer, profit-driven, health and social care providers and the government has yet to clarify the legal situation around this.
In reality it will be very difficult for GP consortia and the new NHS commissioning board to ensure that these many and varied health care providers are held accountable to the public.
A patient's confidential information could end up being misused in a variety of ways and there will be more opportunities for confidentiality to be breached and privacy eroded.
These proposed changes will make a mockery of the founding principles of the NHS constitution. Legislation still needs to get through parliament in order to effect the changes so urgent, nationwide action is needed right now to send a clear message to Andrew Lansley and the big business vultures that we, the NHS staff and service users will not tolerate the massacre of our NHS.
During the general election campaign Labour candidates liked to dress in the cloak of saviours of the NHS. This was and is pure hypocrisy. Labour's 13-year reign saw the massive expansion of the internal market in the NHS while Private Finance Initiatives sucked up enormous amounts of public money, depositing them in the pockets of private, profiteering contractors. Lansley's plan is but the next logical step.
While all three main parties agree wholeheartedly on the 'need' for private companies in the NHS the majority of public opinion wants the NHS to remain a publicly owned and run service. An overwhelming 89% of the public agree that "public services should be run by the government or local authorities, rather than by private companies", according to a 2005 YouGov poll. A mass workers' party that represents that majority view is desperately needed as part of the struggle to save the NHS.
We cannot sit back and allow this government to sell off the NHS. The Socialist Party calls for the formation of a broad coalition of NHS staff (nurses, ancillary and medical staff), trade unions, patients, carers, community and health campaigners to coordinate a nationwide campaign to save what remains of the NHS and rebuild it before it's too late.
We urgently need a national trade union-led demonstration against all cuts in jobs and services. The slogans for this demonstration must include opposition to the destruction of the NHS and for kicking out the profiteers, as well as defence of health jobs and services.
Wakefield, Pontefract and Dewsbury hospitals, which serve more than half a million people in Yorkshire, have announced savage cuts totalling £55 million.
Plans to cut costs by 15% will mean slashing the pay bill of Mid Yorkshire Hospital NHS Trust's 7,000-strong workforce by £20 million by the end of March - equivalent to £39 million in a full year - with further pay savings of £12 million next year.
£6 million has been earmarked to cover the costs of "workforce change", including redundancies.
Cuts in the time patients spend in hospital are proposed as well as plans to treat more people in the community and at home. Capital investment also faces the axe.
The report in the Yorkshire Post points out that: "The cuts are exacerbated by the opening of new £300 million-PFI hospitals in Pontefract and Wakefield which have 100 fewer beds".
The article also quotes Mick Griffiths, Unison secretary at the Trust, who said: "We are not prepared to pay the price of financial mismanagement due to the exorbitant costs of the private finance deal.
"It's pay, conditions and staff numbers that will bear the brunt of that. There is no financial justification for what is planned and we will be fighting for no redundancies and no pay cuts."
Unison at the trust will be campaigning on these demands:
"With the abolition of NHS PCTs tens of thousands of staff risk losing their jobs or being taken over by these new private 'social enterprises' or health companies.
"Alongside these measures, despite public announcements by the government that funding for the NHS is 'ring-fenced', in reality the health service faces its biggest economic crisis since 1948. For instance, in Wiltshire where I am a union rep, the PCT has announced that the health service needs to make cuts of £40 million this year, and every year.
"Already, before the cuts even start, services are under pressure and staff are expected to do more care with less resources. If the government is able to get away with implementing these proposals no one should be in any doubt that it marks the end of the NHS and a comprehensive healthcare service.
"We face a battle to defend the existence of the NHS - one of the greatest reforms won by the working class in the twentieth century. If the NHS is abolished we will see a return to the 1930s when health care was the preserve of the wealthy."
Private companies have and will, in large numbers, buy up the larger GP centres that provide primary care, refer to clinics and hospitals and hold the budget for these services. They can and will also buy up the clinics and hospitals. Some polyclinics are already run by private companies.
Therefore you have a cartel, whereby the profit making companies own and manage the care pathways in their entirety and can cream off profits at every stage.
The stated aim of the New Labour and former Tory government 'reforms' was to create 'competition' for the benefit of patients. The framework proposed by the Con Dem government in creating the landscape for such anti-competitive cartel arrangements exposes the real agenda, privatisation of the NHS, as the ideology behind these moves.
And you need the Socialist Party! If you agree with what you read in The Socialist please don't leave it at that, take the next step and join the Socialist Party.
The need to get organised has never been greater. Capitalism is a system in crisis and the big-business politicians are determined to make sure that it is working class people who pay for their system's failures. The Con-Dem coalition is launching an all-out assault on every aspect of our public services, NHS, benefits, pay and pensions.
If the workers' movement doesn't get off its knees we will be trampled into the dirt by this millionaires' government.
The Socialist Party is confident that there will be mass movements against the cuts. However, we believe our party has a crucial role to play in fighting to ensure that the movements are successful - that we stop this government in its tracks.
Our sister parties in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal are playing a role in the mass movements against cuts that are already taking place. The Socialist Party is part of an international group, the Committee for a Workers' International, which organises in over 40 countries worldwide.
Twenty years ago it was the Socialist Party - then called Militant - that led the 18-million strong movement which defeated the hated poll tax and brought down the Iron Lady, Maggie Thatcher.
Cameron can also be defeated but it will require a determined struggle. The Socialist Party is arguing that the first step should be a massive national demonstration, as preparation for a 24 hour public sector strike. At the same time our members are involved in bringing together trade unionists with community campaigns in order to create local anti-cuts unions in every local area.
We cannot have enough members to help us with this crucial task. We need every public sector worker who can convince workmates that it is possible to fight and win; every student member who can raise the need for a campaign against cuts at his or her university; every school student, parent or teacher who can put the case against academies; every young unemployed person who can get active in Youth Fight for Jobs. Every contribution, great or small, will play a part in taking the struggle forward.
Socialist Party members are not only campaigning to stop the cuts, but also making the case for socialism. Capitalism has always been a system based on the exploitation of the majority by a small minority.
The profound crisis that global capitalism entered in 2008 is resulting in increased hardship for hundreds of millions of people globally. The International Labour Organisation estimates that up to 200 million people worldwide have been pushed below the poverty line.
In Britain millions have been thrown out of work. Meanwhile the city speculators' profits are as high as ever; not least because of their obscene gambling on food prices which is driving the cost of staple foods through the roof - leaving millions starving.
Capitalism does not work. It is now 20 years since the fall of the Berlin wall which saw the capitalists claiming that theirs was the only viable system. For years the representatives of capitalism have claimed victory for their system, declaring that the 'free market' is the only way of running the world and that it would bring us all peace, democracy and prosperity.
This has been shown to be the lie that it always was. As a result growing numbers are looking for an alternative. This includes an increasing number of people who, angry at the effects of the economic crisis, are drawing the conclusion that socialism is the way forward.
From January to June 2010, hundreds of people joined the Socialist Party and nine new Socialist Party branches were founded - in York, Halifax, Rotherham, Grimsby, Wirral, Salford, Nottingham, Plymouth and Carlisle. That is a big step forward, but is only a glimpse of what is possible.
In the second half of the year we are confident of smashing through our recruitment target and surpassing 2,000 members in England and Wales. We will then launch a campaign to reach 3,000 members and beyond. If you think you are a socialist, and want to fight back, we appeal to you to join us.
The Socialist Party in Yorkshire started 2010 with a bang. The region saw a massive growth in party membership and activities during the first half of the year. The Socialist Party grew by one quarter in the Yorkshire region, with mainly young workers and college/sixth form students joining.
The fastest growing branch has been the re-invigorated Leeds branch, with 15 new members. Every person interested in joining the party has been contacted swiftly, usually by telephone and invited to the next meeting or to a one-to-one discussion if they prefer. There has been a meeting of 21 people discussing 'the socialist alternative to the budget', and 15 people were at the branch summer barbeque, with collections raising over £75 at both events.
The party has also launched new branches in Halifax, Rotherham and York, as well as initiating successful Youth Fight for Jobs marches in Leeds and Hull. A series of International Women's Day meetings took place around the region in March.
Many of the new members first met the party when the Socialist Party was campaigning outside their college against cuts, tuition fees and the far-right racist BNP.
A plan of action is being discussed to develop the party's work in the region, including a series of Marxist discussion groups. The first two topics are 'the case for socialism' and Leon Trotsky's ideas about the 'transitional programme'. There are also plans to develop the region's Socialist Party trade union, student, youth, LGBT and finance organisers' groups.
Meetings of new Socialist Party groups have taken place recently in Grimsby and Guiseley, near Leeds. We're also starting the ball rolling on trying to get the biggest ever Socialism weekend turnout from Yorkshire this year. The ideas of Marxism are on the march in Yorkshire!
S ocialist Party branches raised £23,763 fighting fund during the April-June 2010 quarter. This was a tremendous effort, as at the same time over £50,000 was raised to finance the standing of candidates for the Socialist Party and the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in the general and local elections.
Well done to Socialist Party members in the South West region, Wales, the East Midlands and the West Midlands, who all reached their targets. Members in every region worked tirelessly throughout the local and general election campaigns.
In Coventry we got a great response to our campaign to end hospital car parking charges. In Cardiff the main campaign was our call to end the war in Afghanistan and bring the troops back home.
Congratulations to the two new branches in Yorkshire, York and Rotherham, who both smashed their targets and to Southampton branch, where a new fighting fund organiser and some young members have had a big effect. Stoke branch has rejoined the branches that raise the most fighting fund, campaigning against the public sector cuts. Nottingham East branch and Mansfield and North Derbyshire branch have both kept up consistent records of smashing their fighting fund target.
Fighting fund is vital to enable the Socialist Party to finance the production of posters and leaflets and other campaigning material - this is particularly important now at the time of savage cuts and job losses and when the Con-Dem government has announced the wholesale privatisation of the NHS.
Branches will now be planning their fund-raising activities over the next three months - every member and supporter should be thinking how they can help and raise some money themselves to ensure that we reach the target by the end of September.
Can you make a donation? If so, please see the form below.
Introducing the discussion, Tony Saunois (CWI International Secretariat) explained how parties like the Labour Party in Britain and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Germany went from having an active working class base and pro-capitalist leadership, to being out and out capitalist parties that were losing their roots.
Since this decisive move to the right by these parties, some new left formations have come into being. However, with the exception of Rifondazione Communista (Prc) in Italy in its earlier stages, none of them have yet been filled out by large numbers of working class people, to become true mass parties.
Two key points featured in the discussion as reasons for this. Firstly, the lack of a clear left, anti-capitalist, socialist programme that would attract workers and youth in the context of the current capitalist crisis. Secondly, the consistent lack of orientation to workers' struggles and activity has meant that these parties have not been infused by the struggles which have erupted.
Due to this, the development of these parties and work within them has been complicated. Tony pointed out though that the question of new broad workers' parties is rooted in the objective situation and they are a necessary step in the development of working class consciousness towards forming mass revolutionary parties.
The complications with the new formations that have developed were reported on by a number of CWI members. Most of the leaderships of these formations do not see themselves as having the job of presenting a clear opposition to the establishment parties. German CWI members emphasised that none of the leaders of Die Linke (the Left Party in Germany), for example, portray socialism as a realistic alternative to capitalism. This can lead to struggles within the party, with the initiatives of CWI members being blocked by the party leadership. It is vital though that SAV members (CWI in Germany) are present to put forward clear socialist policies and to help organise a strong left force.
Splits in Die Linke are possible. It can, however, as can left formations elsewhere, play a pivotal role in the future formation of a new mass party.
As has been indicated by the instability of the new left formations, there is no possibility of new workers' parties being created along the lines of the reformist social democratic and communist parties in the post-war period. This is because the nature of the present economic period and crisis means there is not the same material basis for reforms to be delivered.
The issues of coalitions with capitalist parties and joining governments that attack working class people have arisen in some of the new formations. This adds to their inherent instability, with internal tensions and splits often posed.
The new left formations have different origins and characteristics. For example, the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) in France was formed by a Trotskyist organisation, the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, moving to the right and dissolving itself into a broader formation. The process of building Die Linke in Germany was kick-started by some lower level union officials and other individuals breaking in 2004 with the SPD to form the WASG and later joining with the successor of the former East German ruling party.
The Left Bloc in Portugal was initiated by a coming together of existing left organisations, in particular Maoists, Trotskyists from the USFI tradition and eurocommunists. Syriza in Greece is an alliance of left organisations, the biggest of which is Synaspismos, which emerged previously as a eurocommunist split from the Greek Communist Party.
However, they have key common features. The most striking has been the tendency to move, not to the left under the impact of the economic crisis, but to the right. Marco from Italy, in reflecting on the experience of Rifondazione Communista, highlighted the dangers of such a move, and of participation in capitalist governments.
The Prc, which had over 100,000 members at its height, has now been effectively destroyed by its leadership. CWI members in Italy are campaigning for the establishment of a "workers' left" involving both old and new activists.
Dimitrios from Greece reported on how at a certain stage, Syriza reached 17.5% in the opinion polls, but has fallen to 4% largely because of the political zig-zags of its leaders. Even when a formally socialist position was taken by its leading bodies, none of its main representatives put forward that position in public. The new programme for Syriza, proposed by its leaders, does not pose a clear left alternative for workers in the context of the profound economic crisis.
As a result, Syriza is in a serious crisis. The right wing in Synaspismos has been a brake on every move to the left. A month ago, this right wing split away, and Xekinima (CWI in Greece) welcomed this as an opportunity for Synaspismos and Syriza to take a decisive move to the left.
Cédric, from the CWI, explained that the Left Bloc in Portugal unfortunately displays many of the weakness of other forces of the new left around Europe. It has not responded effectively to the economic crisis, by launching concrete proposals that would mobilise workers and youth. Large sections of its leadership want to create a so-called 'modern left', which in reality means a left that sees class struggle as outdated.
A member of Gauche Revolutionnaire (GR, CWI in France), described how the NPA has been slow to orient to the big struggles of workers and pensioners. That party, like many other new left forces across Europe, has been overly focused on elections, rather than the class struggle in workplaces and on the streets.
One of the tasks posed inside many of these parties is to build left opposition groupings to oppose the leaderships' shift to the right. In Brazil, by doing this, the CWI section has played an important role in getting a left candidate selected as the presidential candidate of the Party of Socialism and Liberty (PSOL).
In the NPA in France, CWI members have played a role in a left platform grouping that won 30% in a vote of party members. Inside Quebec Solidaire in Canada, a left-wing grouping that stands at 9% in opinion polls, CWI members work with others to try to pull the party to the left. In Greece, we have been involved in similar national initiatives.
In countries where there are no new left formations yet, CWI members are involved in campaigning for new mass workers' parties. This is the case in Britain, where the Socialist Party (CWI in England and Wales) helped launch the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) which stood in the last election. In the discussion, the importance of maintaining TUSC was emphasised, as a step towards the building of a new workers' party.
Michael from Ireland reported that the right-wing nature of almost the entire Irish trade union leadership means initiatives by an "Irish Bob Crow" are unlikely. However, the prime position that the Socialist Party (CWI in Ireland) occupies on the left means that we will have a particular role in the development of a new formation and can have a key position within it. The strong likelihood of the Irish Labour Party entering government after the next election can create circumstances that are favourable for the launch of a new party. In the meantime, the Socialist Party is seeking through negotiations to construct a left alliance for the next elections.
One of the threads of the discussion was the developments in the Communist Parties, which can also be affected by the crisis. The example of Izquierda Unida (United Left - Spain), of which the Spanish Communist Party was a founder, was used to illustrate that process. Its new leader is speaking about 'class war' and it is shifting to the left, becoming much more attractive to many workers and youth in Spain.
The Portuguese Communist Party retains a strong base amongst working class people, with 57,000 members and key industrial positions. Unfortunately, it has a sectarian approach, refusing to do common work with others, and it puts forward no bridge between resisting the cuts now and the socialism that it professes to stand for. However, within this party there is growing discussion, with members looking to the wider left.
Greek CWI members said that after every serious class struggle, some rank and file workers leave the KKE (Communist Party of Greece), because of its sectarian approach. For example it always organises separate demonstrations of its own trade union front, rather than engaging with workers in the major PASOK-led unions.
Where there are both old Communist Parties with serious roots in the working class and new formations, the CWI argues for united front actions and joint discussions between the parties. Syriza's approach in Greece is broadly correct, as it repeatedly calls for the KKE to take common action with it and for joint discussion.
In summing up the discussion, Andros from Greece emphasised that the organisation of mass political parties does not necessarily happen overnight. The British Labour Party took decades before the process was completed. However, once a serious, class struggle-based party has been built, it will be an easier and speedier process for new parties elsewhere.
Examples from southern Europe in the 1960s and 1970s illustrate how speedily the process can happen in the context of a crisis. In a number of countries, very small groups exploded into mass parties in an extremely short space of time, like the Socialist Party in Portugal in the course of the Portuguese revolution.
The economic crisis is now a crucial factor in the development of new workers' parties. It is possible that Syriza and other left formations can take a leap to the left under the impact of the economic crisis. However, it is also possible that the fate of the Prc could befall them if the trend of the leaderships continues towards the right.
Although it has not been a straightforward process, it is clear that in many countries developments towards new mass workers' parties are progressing. The CWI can play an important role in these developments, as well as crucially building our own forces that fight for a socialist programme.
David Johnson, www.socialistworld.net, website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI, 09/07/2010
Up to 5,000 angry demonstrators protested in Alexandria on Friday 25 June, after the brutal murder of a 28-year old man, 19 days earlier. Khaled Saeed was sitting in an internet café. His family said he was posting a video online showing police corruption, when two plain-clothes police dragged him out and beat him in an alley. He was declared dead at the scene.
The authorities tried a cover-up, claiming that Khaled had choked on a plastic bag of cannabis hidden in his mouth. They attempted to smear him as a drug dealer. This did not explain the smashed jawbone and bruising of his face and convinced no one. As protests grew, a second autopsy was ordered, which concluded that he had died "resisting arrest." This also failed to stop the growing wave of protest.
After 29 years of 'emergency laws', allowing the security forces to do as they please in Egypt, anger is starting to boil over. One woman on the protest said that even if Khaled had been a murderer, the police should not be allowed to carry out capital punishment without a fair trial.
Khaled's murder has parallels to the shooting of a 15-year old boy in Athens in December 2008, which sparked a huge wave of protests. Journalists noted that many on the Alexandria demonstration were people with no known record of political activism. Smaller demonstrations have also been held in many other cities. In Cairo, demonstrators were violently attacked by security forces.
Two million workers have taken part in over 3,300 factory occupations, strikes, demonstrations or other forms of protest since 2004. Throughout this spring a wave of strikes, sit-down protests and demonstrations swept across Egypt. Barely a day went by without reports of a new group of workers taking action over their grievances. For weeks, several separate sit-down protests were taking place outside government offices or the Shura Council (Parliament) building in Cairo. Textile and engineering workers, government office employees and people with disabilities were some of the groups involved.
Many had already been on strike and were protesting against their employers breaking settlements. One protesting worker told a journalist, "Can you imagine 20 months without pay? We also lack health insurance. Our situation is like the siege of Gaza."
The largest group were from the Amonsito textile factories in 10th of Ramadan City, where 1,700 workers had not been paid for two years since the Syrian owner of the company fled the country. After repeatedly failing to get the government or the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation to compensate them, the workers camped on the pavements around the Shura building for over two months. They organized lively rallies, were joined by their families and demanded that the government either nationalize the factories or pay them compensation.
Tanta Oil and Flax workers also called on the government to either pay them LE 45,000 (US $8,000) in early retirement pensions or renationalize the plant to put them back to work.
After a few weeks of the Amonsito workers' sit-down, the government conceded, promising a LE 170million (US $30 million) compensation package - about three months' salary for each worker for every year of service. But the money did not appear and the protest resumed.
In late April, the government caved in to the Information Centres workers' demands and allotted LE100million (US$20 million) in back pay, bonuses and social and medical security benefits in the new budget.
On May 23, after two weeks on the pavement, frustrated Amonsito workers attempted to get into the parliament building. They failed to break through police barricades, so they regrouped and began to march on the federal bank a few blocks away to demand that the bank issue all LE170million that was initially promised to them. Police attacked the marching workers, forcefully breaking up the march and arrested seven. The next day, fearing that the movement was becoming too dangerous, security forces violently removed all other campers and closed the street.
Solidarity and donations from the public kept the striking campers going. Working people, despite their own hardship, donated food, blankets and tea. Taxi drivers, nurses, and textile workers, in different provinces, have also protested and been on strike over the past months, over pay and broken agreements.
Women have played an important role in these strikes and sit-ins, as nurses, textile workers, Information Centres workers, and as wives, daughters and sisters of strikers. Women now make up almost 40% of all employed workers. They have shown increasing militancy and confidence.
The government attempted to calm business anxiety that these strikes and protests threatened their profits. "It is not really part of a trend. Workers have their own demands and when some sort of solution for employer and worker is reached these protests do not develop further," said the Investment Minister.
But as the number of strikes and protests grows, more generalised action - mass protests and widespread strikes - could develop. Holding this back is the role of the official trade unions, which are part of the state machine. The leaders almost invariably side with the bosses.
The government allows the bosses to break agreements, pay poverty wages, and deprive their workers of medical insurance and holiday pay. Many state-owned industries have been privatised over the past few years. The new owners try to squeeze the maximum amount of labour from their workers for the smallest amount of pay. "I was happy working with the company when it was government-owned. But ever since it was taken over they've destroyed the company and made our lives hell," said one Tanta Oil and Flax worker.
The government forecasts economic growth of 5.2% this year, compared with 4.7% last year. Growth in the construction industry is expected to accelerate to 13.2% in the next year from 12.5% in 2010, while agriculture is forecast to expand 3.4% in both years. These figures could change if the world economy dips back into recession.
But growth does not mean better living standards for workers and the poor. The average government worker earns about LE 400 (US $70) a month. Around 40 % of all workers earn less than US $2 a day. A campaign has been launched for a LE 1200 (US $220) a month minimum wage by independent trade unionists and left-wing political activists.
Food and drink prices have reached record levels, shooting up by 21.2% in cities between March 2009 and March 2010. This March alone, meat and poultry prices increased by a record 3.1%, while water, electricity and fuels increased by an average of 1.3% and education went up 9.4%.
Egypt is facing mounting problems funding its healthcare system. The government is doubling monthly medical insurance fees to LE 8 (US $1.45). Hundreds of thousands of poor Egyptians are denied healthcare because hospitals refused to treat patients sent by the Health Ministry after it stopped paying treatment costs in December.
Against this background, the presidency of 82-year old Hosni Mubarak is finding it harder to stem the growing anger and frustration of workers and the poor. The protests over Khaled Saeed shows that fear of the regime is starting to lift. Workers who have been hit by police batons identify with other victims of the security forces.
Presidential elections are due in 2011, and it still seems likely that Mubarak's son, Gamal, will stand. But even if he won a rigged election - and the regime has plenty of practice of running these - there is no guarantee that this former banker could deliver a strong government for big business. On the contrary, his election would probably spark a wave of protests against the 'inheritance' of the presidency. A mass movement could quickly develop, as exploded on to the streets after the 2009 election in Iran.
Like Iran, a new potential candidate for the presidency has emerged out of the establishment in the past few months. Mohammed El-Baradei is the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in which capacity he was seen to have stood up to the Bush Administration over the non-existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He also has the advantage of having been out of Egypt for the past thirty years and so is untainted by the smell of corruption surrounding the Mubarak's and their clique.
When El-Baradei returned to Egypt in February, having retired from his UN post, he was greeted at the airport by an enthusiastic crowd of about 1,000. The National Association for Change (NAC) was then formed by a coalition of opposition movements from across the political spectrum agitating for political change in Egypt.
Since then El-Baradei has met leaders of the legal political parties, professional associations, some workers' leaders and Muslim Brotherhood MPs (who in an unprecedented move have given him some support). He has travelled around the country, but also extensively abroad, to the frustration of some of his supporters. One leader of the April 6th Youth Movement said, "We can't have an opposition in the transit lounge."
In early June, differences emerged between some of the leading members of the NAC and El-Baradei. These were partly because of his strategy until then of meeting prominent leaders of existing organisations rather than trying to build support on the streets. Two weeks later he attended the Alexandria protest against the killing of Khaled Saeed, although he only stayed 20 minutes.
El-Baradei's call "Together we will change" echoes Obama's pre-election speeches, although without the oratory. He has supported the minimum wage campaign, but he is mainly talking about democratic change. This is vital for workers to help struggle for a living wage, health care, education and housing. But capitalism will not concede genuine free elections, the right to freely organise independent trade unions and workers' parties, the right to strike and to demonstrate, without a massive struggle. The ruling class would quickly try to take these rights back again as a mass movement died down.
Workers will of course use any democratic rights won to step up their fight for decent living standards. The bosses were not prepared to allow reforms when the world and Egyptian economies were booming. They are even less likely to concede them now.
The battles for democratic rights and for socialist change are linked. Only when the major industries, banks and land are nationalised and democratically controlled and managed by workers and the poor, will real democracy be achieved in Egypt and throughout the Middle East.
"ENOUGH IS enough" by Donna Summer and Barbara Striesand may not be the greatest song ever but the title illustrates the mindset of many a modern day worker. In the six years I worked in the parcel delivery industry, I saw my working conditions deteriorate rapidly.
I was a round driver with a ten-hour parcel target. Once you learned your round you were expected to, and could achieve, your ten-hour target in about eight hours.
However, year on year, changes to rounds have led to drivers doing more and more. The ten-hour target now takes nine hours and often far longer.
There are many reasons why. There's bigger rounds, which came in when voluntary redundancies meant we lost ten drivers from our depot. There's also 'delivery compliance', which stopped some quick methods of delivery, such as leaving a parcel over a locked back gate.
We are also taking far bigger parcels, which earn the company more money, but take more time and effort to deliver and earn the driver the same amount as a featherweight parcel. The amount we could carry was increased from 28kg to 32kg, and we are getting more of this type as they attract the premium rate.
When you're humping a 32kg television up three flights of stairs, (it's always on the top floor) your hands are stretched from holding, your back is aching from contorting and your legs are burning from carrying the load.
Recently start times were put back by up to two hours. Instead of a 6am start we have been put back to 7:30am with 8:30am for the second phase drivers.
This is proposed as helping to get more next-day delivery parcels into the depots, which again are premium rate parcels, but there could be a more sinister reason.
The company are beginning to introduce evening deliveries, which are classed from 5pm. It was first thought this would mean more drivers would be employed to cover the evening deliveries, but by knocking back the start times drivers are finishing later and the evening shift can be done without employing any extra staff.
Evening deliveries have followed AM, PM and 'avoid school run' deliveries, which give the company greater revenue but, again, these deliveries reduce the drivers' efficiency as the round has to be reorganised to suit these timed deliveries. Sometimes you will have a delivery in one area for the morning and may have to revisit the same area for an afternoon delivery.
Many drivers feel that a soon-to-be-implemented 12-hour target over a four day week, is another concealed way of getting premium evening deliveries done on the cheap. The company will save money by not paying for extra drivers to do an evening shift.
Any driver who previously worked over their ten hour target to earn a bonus, will now have to do more than their 12-hour target to earn extra money, which would be very unlikely.
Losing this bonus would mean a pay cut or drivers being tempted into working the day off they have been allocated.
These cumulative changes led me to resign from a job which I once enjoyed, but a decent pay packet is pointless when there is little, or no, time to enjoy the fruits of your labours. I am now taking home far less in my pocket but feel far better in my mind.
However, come the winter months, there will be some very weary drivers out there, enough is enough!
THE EDITORIAL about united action to stop the cuts (The Socialist 632) was spot on. I am writing on the question of involving Labour councillors in anti-cuts campaigns.
Coventry Labour councillors pushed through pay cuts in 1999-2000 as part of a "single status" deal , threatening compulsory redundancy to workers who did not sign the new contracts.
If these councillors came to an anti-cuts event today, saying "Hi, sisters and brothers aren't the Tories rotten - I want to lead your campaign," I would be seriously concerned.
Just as I would if Labour councillors who cut eligibility for social care, voted to sell off all our council housing and voted to shut schools did the same.
In Coventry, every Labour councillor voted for what was then until last May, a Tory controlled council's Medium Term Financial Strategy proposing £72 million in cuts over three years.
And this was all under a Labour government. In our city only the Socialist Party councillors opposed and voted against all of the above.
No-one can stop Labour councillors coming to or speaking at events. A few will have resisted Blairite cuts, but this number is very small. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. I propose the following "pudding" for Labour councillors who say they "oppose" cuts, and want a position in anti-cuts campaigns.
Quite simply, they pledge to campaign vigorously within their Labour groups to commit their councils to a 'no cuts' policy and one of campaigning with other councils for government funds to keep services running.
They never vote for cuts and never vote for or support privatisation in any form. Also, they attend protests and support all strikes and call for a levy on councillors to back anti-cuts campaigning.
The test for them will be the period from October to budget setting in around February 2011, as well as any interim cuts proposals.
If they happily eat this particular pudding, they would have some credibility in anti-cuts campaigns. But all most of these people are interested in is getting elected in the hope that the Con-Demolition coalition's antics mask their previous rotten role in cuts and sell offs.
IN HIS interview (The Socialist 632), Brian Caton rightly highlights the hypocrisy of Ken Clarke's plans to cut the prison population by increasing community sentences.
As a probation officer, responsible for overseeing offenders in the community, I listened with interest as Clarke gave lengthy radio interviews about the importance of rehabilitation without once mentioning the probation service. As with prisons and all other public services, this government is planning to slash our budgets massively.
This year alone, the probation service has been told to cut £44 million and anticipates double this amount over the next two years. Cuts of this size will mean 20% fewer can be supervised safely in the community. So what is Clarke up to?
As Brian Caton points out, Clarke and his colleagues are looking for private companies and charities to do this work, and big business stands to make a healthy profit. Clarke gave the game away on the Today programme when he talked about "paying by results" to companies that show they stopped someone offending for two years by getting them a job or putting them through a rehabilitation programme.
But this is like telling a doctor that you will only pay them if the patient is cured. The logic of this is that you will only treat those you think you have a good chance of saving! So what happens to all the others with complex drug, mental health and personality problems in the prison system?
Prison and probation staff should stand united in defending our public services. We need also to fight for political change that can start to address the massive social inequalities that are the basis of much of the crime and anti-social behaviour in our communities.
To hear an audio version of this document click here.
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.
To hear an audio version of this document click here.
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/10009