Just before Christmas, the champagne coalition delivered a mean and spiteful present to local authorities, announcing additional cutbacks in government spending on top of those already planned.
In response, the leaders of Newcastle, Liverpool and Sheffield councils wrote to the Observer warning of "social unrest" as a consequence.
Yet even this dire prediction failed to ignite a New Year's resolution from Labour councils committing them to resist this hated government. Not a single council has had the courage to say "enough is enough".
There are a few honourable exceptions. In Hull a group of Labour councillors have declared that they will not vote for cuts. In Southampton, the two 'Labour Councillors against Cuts' are standing firm in their resolve to fight all cuts in the city.
As councillor Keith Morrell explained: "People in Southampton kicked out the Tories last May and won't look kindly on Tory policies being foisted on them this year."
This is absolutely true, yet members of the Socialist Party have been accused of being "from another planet" when we suggest that other councillors follow their courageous stance.
Instead of instigating a city-wide campaign and linking up local authority workers, service users and communities to refuse to implement these cuts, they resort to evasion, dishonesty and scaremongering, invoking the 'big bad wolf' of government minister Eric Pickles, ready to step on any council that dares to fight on behalf of its citizens.
Councillor Don Thomas added: "Labour councillors should stop whinging on about how 'tough' and 'difficult' it is for them to cut services. They should remember the fighting traditions of the labour movement and stand up and defend their class."
The fight to save youth services from extinction is receiving huge support throughout the city. Youth workers and their supporters are determined to "up the anti" and will be demonstrating outside the Extraordinary Council Meeting on Wednesday 16 January.
Under pressure the city council has been forced to ease off their 'bully boy' tactics of intimidating staff from speaking out. Now it is allowing council workers an unpaid two-hour lunch break to take part in an anti-cuts demo on 13 February when the council sets its budget. But it is essential that the unions organising the demo, Unison and Unite, call on the Labour council to side with Keith and Don and not implement cuts.
If the rest of the Labour councillors in Southampton and across Britain are going to carry on following Con-Dem orders, then we need to replace them with representatives who will fight for working class people instead of for the tax-dodging mega-rich elite.
That's why the Socialist Party is part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, which stands candidates that oppose all cuts to jobs and services and says 'make the banksters pay' for their capitalist crisis.
The coming year, like 2012, will be one of intense struggles by the working class in Britain, Europe and the world.
Five years into the most devastating capitalist economic crisis since the 1930s, the ruling classes continue to unload the burden for this onto the shoulders of the working class.
Because of inadequate and faulty leadership, working-class people have paid a terrible price: in mass unemployment numbering 18.5 million in the European Union, a slashing in living standards and the appearance of poverty that the present generation have up to now only been able to read about in books like George Orwell's 'The Road to Wigan Pier'.
'Civilised' Britain now experiences some of the conditions once confined to the neo-colonial world with the appearance of food banks, where middle-class people who have fallen on 'hard times' rub shoulders with the destitute in the lengthening queues for the bare essentials of food.
Guardian writer Zoe Williams suggests never mind, "be optimistic", down with pessimism and always look on the bright side.
She is correct in seeking to counter the government's mantra that "there is no alternative" to their cuts' programme.
She's also very good in debunking the "myths of the government" in relation to fraud in the benefit system, which accounts for 0.7% of the total bill. Cameron uses this to stigmatise all those forced onto benefits.
In a sense, Zoe Williams expresses admirable sentiments if the intention is to instil a sense of hope and resistance to the onslaught of the bosses against all past gains of the working class.
But she undermines her case by then asserting that "Britain is not Greece, our economy is stronger". The implication is that this country cannot go down a similar path to Greece.
This is a severe case of wishful thinking. Spain, Portugal and even Italy, although much stronger economically, have experienced similar problems to Greece with an economic slump together with massive and rising unemployment.
The capitalists in these countries also declared that they 'were not Greece'. Yet their economies have been plunged into crisis with debts, inherited from the 'boom', that is crippling them like Greece.
Today, the economic and political fate of each country in Europe is linked together as never before. Intensified globalisation ensures that not just Europe, but the world is now bound together with iron hoops.
If Greece was forced out of the euro, it could trigger a spiral of decline which would intensify the already catastrophic crisis and drag the whole of Europe into an economic abyss.
If Spain, Portugal and Italy were to follow, it has now been estimated that the cost of the default by 2020 would be the equivalent of 180% of eurozone annual gross domestic product (€17 trillion!).
Britain is not far behind; it is presently Greece in slow motion! Yet the collapse of the euro could speed up the process enormously.
Hence the nervousness of Cameron about the fate of the euro, despite the fact that Britain is not a member of the eurozone.
There is not an atom of pessimism in this. We socialists and Marxists are very confident in the ability of working-class people - especially when they have a farsighted leadership and a fighting mass party behind them - to not only resist the capitalist offensive but to provide an alternative to outworn and failing capitalism, in the form of a democratic socialist planned economy.
Proof of their combativity is to be seen in the titanic general strikes, one of the highest forms of struggle of the working class, in Greece, Portugal, Spain, India, Romania and other countries of Eastern Europe.
And here in Britain we saw the huge October demonstration of 150,000 marching in opposition to the austerity coalition Con-Dem government and with the major trade union leaders calling for a 24-hour general strike.
Yet austerity - planned poverty - will not only be continued but worsened, with 80% of the planned cuts of the government yet to be implemented.
There is therefore every likelihood - with the required militant leadership - that 2013 will see a heightened movement of the working class in Britain.
This, of course, partly depends on the national leadership of the trade unions giving the necessary lead in preparing for one-day general strike action.
But if they don't act then a movement from below can develop, as in South Africa with the marvellous movement of the miners who came out on strike in opposition not just to the bosses but their own union leaders.
New Labour local authority leaders in the North of England have warned that "civil unrest" could take place if the government continues to force through their cuts agenda.
These council leaders and others could avoid this if they refused to act as agents of the coalition by not carrying through cuts and instead lead a mass movement of opposition which could defeat the government on this issue and undoubtedly prepare its downfall.
Despite Zoe Williams's blandishments, British capitalism faces a bleak outlook, which means a terrible future on the basis of the capitalist system for the working class, above all for young people.
The blizzard of doom-laden facts and figures that have recently filled out the economic sections of the capitalist press amply demonstrates this.
British capitalism is reaping the rewards of a completely short-sighted policy over decades, not just years.
The refusal to invest in industry, which in turn resulted in industrial collapse, was highlighted by us in literally dozens of articles over the last three decades.
Indeed, Thatcher colluded in the deindustrialisation of Britain as a means of weakening the working class in the aftermath of the 1984-85 miners' strike.
The scale of the collapse is indicated in a recent report by the European Federation of Employers. It pointed out that capital replacement in the UK has fallen more than in any other European country since 2005: "The UK is turning into an old-style Third World country ... with low pay growth for most workers below managerial level, widening pay differentials and poor levels of capital investment".
The economy is bumping along the bottom, with growth "invisible to the naked eye outside of London". Stagnation, combined with a dose of inflation, and decline, is the best-case scenario.
The Economist characterises this as "the stuck society", a semi-paralysed zombie-type economy. Growth will probably be no more than 0.1% in 2012 and will be little more this year.
And this is without the threat of 'headwinds' - code for the deepening of the worldwide economic capitalist crisis which is severely affecting Britain.
The government loudly proclaims the success of its strategy for creating jobs and new businesses. The Economist, on the contrary, talks about "businesses without employees ... business creation is flat".
Sales of homes are at half the level they were in 2006, while even right-wing think tanks warn the government that house building is in a crisis, with the number of houses built the lowest since the 1920s.
This, in turn, impacts on the young, already confronted by mass unemployment, and now compelled to live at home with their parents.
Britain has begun to mirror Japan, where half of those between 20 and 34 are 'fridge raiders' in their own parents' homes. In Britain, the proportion is one in three for men and one in six for women!
This at a time when the next governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, will receive a whopping £250,000 housing allowance, on top of his mega salary of £624,000 - more than double what the current governor, Mervyn King, received for presiding over an economic collapse.
This just adds to the growing hostility - class hatred - which working people feel for the rich.
This extends to the government, which is seen increasingly as the protector of spivs and economic racketeers.
Russian billionaires are handed residency after five years for a minimum price tag of £1 million – with the qualifying period reduced to two or three years for £10 million or £5 million respectively – and then engage on a property-buying orgy, which in turn drives up all property prices throughout London.
One consequence is that Thatcher's 'property owning democracy' lies in ruins, with only a minority in London now owning their own house and the majority at the mercy of uncontrolled moneygrubbing landlords.
These supposed 'trustees' of capitalism are in a fog about the workings of their own system, let alone possessing any remedies for solving the crisis.
They have been like a cork bobbing on the waves in an economic tsunami. The Socialist did foresee the inevitability of a crash at a certain stage, although no one could predict the timing or the severity of this crisis.
The debt-fuelled boom which preceded this - a massive injection of credit - extended the 'growth' cycle but then deepened and lengthened the crisis when it finally struck.
On her recent visit to the Bank of England, the Queen - who has been drawn into a more and more openly political role, even attending the Cabinet - received a belated 'explanation' from one of the Bank of England's top economists as to why the crisis was not foreseen.
According to him, the City "was complacent" and in any case, crises were "a bit like earthquakes and flu pandemics in being rare and difficult to predict". In other words, the crisis of capitalism is like a natural phenomenon.
Marxism rejects such 'voodoo economics'. Marx pointed out that crises are man-made; they are an inevitable product of a system based upon production for profit and not for social need.
Capitalist 'overproduction' - unknown in previous economic systems - in a world crying out for continued economic growth to satisfy the obvious needs of the poor and dispossessed, is an economic absurdity and totally avoidable. This is on condition, of course, that the capitalist system is abolished.
Before departing from the Bank of England, the Duke of Edinburgh asked: "Is there another one coming? ...
"Don't do it again". But the capitalists cannot help "doing it", presiding over crises and slumps again and again.
So too with speculation and gambling, as is shown by the examples of fraud even during this world crisis.
This is organic to capitalism itself, like inhaling and exhaling to the human body. However, with age, the organism becomes weaker.
The booms becoming less effective in solving the problems created by the previous crisis while crises and slumps appear more often and drag out.
It is possible that the current crisis could be drawn out, similar to the depression in the 19th century from 1873 to 1896. But there is no "final crisis of capitalism".
Capitalism can always find a way out, through the destruction of living standards, and ultimately by curtailing and possibly destroying the democratic rights and organisations of the working class.
In this way, an unstable equilibrium can be established for a time. But as sure as night follows day, a new economic crisis will be prepared, as the history of capitalism itself has shown.
The conclusion arising from this should be that we should organise to mobilise working people for the replacement of the system by one that can use the full potential of the productive forces. This is only possible on the basis of democratic socialism.
In this period the working class is receiving brutal lessons in the character of capitalism, which puts the lust for profit by the bosses before all 'humane' considerations.
To the delight of the bosses, "a supply of people able to work for less than the cost of living gives parsimonious firms a convenient pool of temporary workers" (The Economist).
In other words, a reserve army of unemployed, as predicted by Karl Marx, has returned in Tory/Lib Dem Britain.
The plentiful supply of cheap labour obviously pleased the Bank of England's chief economist, Spencer Dale, who praised the labour market's "extraordinary flexibility ...
"The pay packets of the average worker bought 15% less than they would have done had the pre-crisis trend continued".
Unable to contain his delight at this impoverishment of the working poor, he continued: "One of the most striking - and indeed encouraging - features of the performance of our economy since the financial crisis is the falls in real wages that have been achieved without a very sharp rise in unemployment".
A low-wage economy alongside a mass and stagnant pool of unemployed, to be used as a weapon against those fortunate to have a low-paid job, is the future that is mapped out by the strategists of capitalism for the working class.
At the same time, a reduced standard of living for the great majority of the population is all that is offered.
Already, Britain has slipped down two places to sixth in the European league table of living standards.
But this is just the beginning with Cameron and King promising more of the same with their predictions that 'austerity' will last for at least another decade.
And of course the economic crisis will bear down greatest on the poorest households who have been hit by soaring food prices, even according to government figures.
These reveal that the consumption of every major nutrient has fallen in the last four years. Cash-strapped families have bought less lamb, beef, fish, fruit, vegetables, potatoes and alcoholic drinks, but more bacon, pork and cheese.
Is it therefore little wonder that rickets - the disease of poverty associated with the 1930s - has returned to Britain?
There are claims that the deficiency of vitamin D associated with this disease is due to lack of sunshine.
This may be a factor, but it is not the whole picture, as families scrimp on food. Teachers have increasingly found that they have to deal with hungry children who come to school without food or money, with the teachers themselves moved to feed them out of their own pocket.
Even the high Tories of the Daily Telegraph report: "Ordinary families will be more than £1,000 a year worse off after George Osborne's autumn statement ...
"Families in work will be hit hard by the decision to increase child benefit and working age benefits by just 1% a year".
The reason why the Telegraph is flagging up opposition, particularly to the withdrawal of child benefit, is because their readers, better off middle-class families, will have child benefit withdrawn next year.
More than half of those responding to a survey believe "that we are not in this together", as George Osborne has ceaselessly asserted.
He was given his answer by the booing which greeted his appearance at the Paralympics: "Why did 80,000 people boo George Osborne? Because that's the maximum capacity of the Olympic Stadium." (Andrew Rawnsley, Observer).
When Thatcher was in power, we argued that the economic wasteland she helped to create would lead to her being compared to a latter-day Genghis Khan.
This has now been confirmed from an unexpected source. Michael Heseltine, for many years Thatcher's partner in crimes against the working class - the man who presided over the complete destruction of the mining industry in Britain - now concludes: "government appears like villains descending like Mongol hordes on the most vulnerable, leaving community welfare like bleeding stumps".
But this government is continuing Thatcher's work, even going further than she dared. Recently released papers from her government in the 1980s show that even she rejected the complete dismantling of the 'welfare state' when it was suggested by her Chancellor, Geoffrey Howe. But Cameron and Clegg now intend to implement Howe's programme to the letter.
This is a moment in history similar to the early 1920s when the capitalists, through the Geddes report, proposed savage cuts in the living standards of the working class, which led to the 1926 general strike.
A seemingly irresistible force in the form of a government determined to face down the working class at all costs met an immovable object, a working-class ready to resist.
The only reason why the government of the time came out of this conflict victorious was because the trade union leaders refused to carry the strike - which was growing relentlessly each day - through to a conclusive victory.
This government will not retreat, unless it is confronted by the most determined and broad mobilisation of the working class ready to use the full power of the labour movement.
It is clear that British and world capitalism offer no way forward for the working class. Therefore, in 2013 the Con-Dem government will serve up the same toxic dish of further cuts in living standards, deeper cuts in national and local government budgets and attacks on the organisations of working people.
Over one million jobs will have been cut from the public sector if just some of the scheduled cuts are carried out.
Nor can salvation be expected from the private sector: "An extra 200,000 people in Britain may be without a job by this time next year, according to the think tank IPPR, and youth unemployment may again rise above one million" (Guardian).
Education Minister Michael Gove is riding roughshod over the objections of parents and teachers in the relentless drive to establish academies.
We don't have to speculate what the result will be; we have the evidence provided by our sister organisation in Sweden - Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna - where the Swedish equivalent of academies have been operating for some time.
They show just where Gove's plans will lead. They point out that Sweden and Chile are the only countries where profit-making schools are financed with taxpayers' money.
In Sweden this has led to a catastrophic drop in the quality of education. A handful of companies in Sweden - some of them hedge funds - have raked off record profits of over $20 million from running private schools funded by the state.
Within a few years this will also be the picture here, and not just in education, but also in health, conditions of work, etc.
This will be accompanied with a vicious attempt to nullify the effectiveness of the trade unions. Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude, together with Eric Pickles, the local government minister, is already attacking 'facility time' for trade union representatives.
Yet within the last few days it has been revealed in the Independent that "the government is paying staff from powerful firms including energy giants and a leading bank to work at the heart of Whitehall".
This 'facility time' will undoubtedly be used to enhance the agenda of the energy giants and the banks to squeeze even further those who are suffering from 'fuel poverty'.
The long-term consequences of Maude's attacks could rebound on the bosses and their government by producing more hardened, militant and younger fighters in the workplace and the unions.
But if these measures are not fiercely resisted now and defeated, in the short-term this could undermine resistance to the government's plans.
For too long, some of the trade union 'generals', like Brendan Barber at the head of the TUC, have been a massive brake on the working class.
At its annual congress in September the TUC decided on a one-day general strike. Yet Barber, together with some right-wing union leaders like Dave Prentis of Unison, has clearly been trying to frustrate any attempt to implement this decision.
His brand of 'responsible' trade unionism was clearly summed up in his departing message on his retirement from the TUC when he described the TUC as an 'institution', a pillar of the capitalist state.
The trade unions in their foundation and their aims are nothing of the kind. They are or should be implacably opposed to the bosses - and particularly today when the working class confronts capitalist forces, red in tooth and claw - in the struggle for a living wage, against unemployment, etc.
It is for this reason that the organising of a one-day general strike assumes paramount importance, linking together the struggle against the cuts, with pay, pensions and conditions of work. The anti-trade union legislation is an obstacle but not an insurmountable one.
It is true that the anti-union laws in this country are among some of the most repressive in Europe. But that does not mean to say that workers in other European countries do not have laws and restrictions limiting and in some cases prohibiting strike action.
Even in Greece, Spain and Portugal anti-union laws are in place - although not as restrictive or with the potential for financially damaging unions as in Britain.
But this has not prevented Greek workers from engaging in 18 one-day strikes and four 48-hour strikes against their government.
Firstly, a common date should be agreed - with the majority of trade unions committed to this - while the ballots for such action can be on different issues.
For instance, pay is now a burning issue for the great majority of workers with inflation exceeding the level of wage increases.
There is also the question of conditions at work - for instance the horrific workload of teachers, the question of low pay, etc. In the final analysis, where there is a will there is a way.
We cannot allow the onslaught of the Con-Dem government and the capitalists to go unanswered. Forward in 2013 to a mighty one-day general strike, which properly organised will shake this government to its foundations!
Also Ed Miliband in his Christmas message once again shows just why New Labour does not represent working class people.
By calling for the unemployed to accept any job, no matter how low paid, that is offered to them he is doing the Tories' job for them.
This is to signify an acceptance of a slave's charter, that a further impoverishment of the poor and the working class is inevitable and cannot be resisted.
The struggle of the cleaners on London Underground and the Tyne and Wear Metro gives the lie to this with a demand for a living wage.
This 'Labour leader' dares not agree with this for fear of alienating 'moderate' public opinion. The reality is that the mass of British people, not just trade unionists, would enthusiastically endorse this campaign.
Only a new mass party of the working class can adequately voice the growing mass opposition towards the government.
This opposition is increasing and is helping to provoke splits and divisions in the coalition. With their standing in the polls reduced to an all-time low, the Liberal Democrats could be forced by the social effects of further cuts to cut adrift from the coalition. 2013 could see the defeat of this government and a new general election, particularly if the trade union movement organises decisive action.
Despite his lack of programme, Miliband could be pushed into power. But New Labour has no answers to the burning problems that confront the working people of Britain.
Even right-wing Labour MPs have voiced doubts about the long-term consequences for such a government.
The failure of New Labour could pave the way for an even more right wing Tory government at a later stage.
Therefore it is urgent that in 2013 no time must be lost in preparing for a mighty battle on the industrial front and in creating a new party, which will provide real leadership to the working class in the big struggles that will take place.
This version of this article was first posted on the Socialist Party website on 1 January 2013 and may vary slightly from the version subsequently printed in The Socialist.
Unite general secretary Len McCluskey has decided to bring forward the next election for general secretary by almost three years.
Because of his age, realistically he would otherwise be a 'one-term' general secretary.
This move has been agreed after wide consultation on the left, including ourselves. Peter Taaffe and Rob Williams had a two-hour meeting with Len McCluskey where he asked for our party's endorsement of the steps he was preparing to take.
The Socialist Party has agreed to give him critical support. This is despite some political disagreement such as on Unite's continued support for New Labour.
This does not mean we will automatically endorse all decisions and actions of Len McCluskey and Unite's leadership.
We will argue for the need for Unite to break the link with New Labour, which has clearly indicated that, if it wins the next general election, will continue the present government's cuts.
Some, like Jerry Hicks, who has now declared that he will stand, and the Socialist Workers Party, have tried to argue that the early election is undemocratic and smacks of past sharp practice by right-wing ex-Amicus [one of the unions which merged to become Unite] general secretaries.
Some other activists, particularly from the ex-Amicus wing will have genuine concerns as well. But we have to frankly explain that it's not just a case of what is done but who does it and for what reasons.
Unlike with right-wing union leaders in the past or in the future, this election is not being brought forward in order to push Unite to the right but to consolidate the union for the left.
Providing the rank and file is strengthened, we believe that a victory for Len McCluskey can achieve this.
Ultimately the essential considerations are: what are the interests of Unite members, the left and the wider working-class?
The election of Len McCluskey in 2010 as the first general secretary of the merged union was a victory for the left in Unite and the wider trade union movement.
The Socialist Party supported his candidature rather than that of Jerry Hicks because we believed that Len was best placed to defeat the right wing.
A victory for the 'Simpsonite' [Derek Simpson, the previous Amicus general secretary] candidate Les Bayliss would have been a major setback for the left.
It would have meant Unite lining up with the other big unions, Unison and the GMB, along with the TUC bureaucracy against the smaller left unions.
Instead, Unite voted in favour of Resolution 5 at the 2012 TUC congress, supporting the idea of moving towards a general strike against austerity.
At the post-congress general council executive, Len McCluskey lined up with RMT general secretary Bob Crow and others to defeat the TUC leadership's attempt to effectively stop all talk of a general strike.
In apocalyptic words in 2010, Jerry Hicks warned that if he wasn't elected, it would be a disaster for the union and that it would never recover.
Actually, the huge potential of Unite has started to be realised under McCluskey's leadership. It is far from perfect.
In just two years in a union of up to 1.5 million members across 23 industrial sectors, with the history of the ex-Amicus unions, some of them right-wing, it would be an extremely difficult task under the best stewardship.
Unite is in some ways a mini TUC. It is four to five times the size of PCS. When this is considered, Jerry's words lacked a sense of proportion and perspective.
Despite Unite's weaknesses, there have been clear steps forward. There have been innumerable strikes by Unite members and some notable victories, even if partial and/or short-lived.
The Sparks, London bus workers, Paddy Brennan in Honda Swindon, and now the Doncaster Tesco drivers have all won some gains.
Many others from Unilever, Crown, Remploy and Amnesty, as well as public sector members in the pensions dispute have also engaged in action.
Len has emphasised that not once has he issued a repudiation letter to any Unite members taking unofficial action since becoming general secretary.
He repeated this in the national United Left meeting. He also immediately doubled strike pay to £30 per day.
In the public sector pensions dispute, Unite refused to sign up to the government's 'heads of agreement' and the union's members in the MOD and civil service sector took part in the 10 May strike alongside PCS and others, including Unite health workers.
However, this was under huge pressure from the health national sector committee. But this did show again that under McCluskey's leadership, the union can be pushed into taking action.
In local government, it has followed behind Unison and GMB as it regards itself as a minority union, which it is.
Therefore, unfortunately it didn't see its role as giving a lead and putting pressure on Unison in particular.
We believe it is correct to give support to McCluskey, while we raise criticisms where necessary when we think the union hasn't gone far enough.
We will raise our programme during the election, for instance about making Unite a more democratic union, including the election of officers.
We must continue to place demands on Len McCluskey, particularly about the Labour Party and the need for a 24-hour general strike or at least mass coordinated strike action against the Con-Dem austerity onslaught.
On the Labour Party, we disagree with McCluskey's view that the party can be reclaimed. We instead pose the need for Unite to disaffiliate and work with other unions to create a new party for working class people.
At the national United Left meeting, Len said Unite would support Labour councillors expelled for opposing cuts.
He said he would be prepared to put to the union's executive before the next council elections that they give Labour leader Miliband an ultimatum that Labour doesn't stand against them.
He was well aware that this could change the whole relationship between Unite and Labour.
We also need to use the general secretary election to push Unite to lead the call for mass coordinated strike action, up to and including a 24-hour general strike.
This approach has helped prompt Len to state that Unite will ballot and take action alongside PCS on pay, which he says is the next focus for the struggle against the cuts.
Unite could put pressure on Unison and the GMB if it seriously links up with left unions such as PCS.
Unite's United Left has many weaknesses - it is still too much influenced by full-time officials and hasn't been able to attract enough fresh forces - but we still think that it represents the most forces of the organised left. We will continue to strive to build it and make it more democratic and accountable.
Under Len McCluskey's leadership it has been possible to open up the union and push back the forces of the right.
But we shouldn't write off the potential for the right to reassert itself if the union's leadership disappoints.
Instead of following our advice and coming into the United Left after the last general secretary election, Jerry Hicks has continued with his own 'Grassroots Left'.
But we don't believe that Jerry has proved capable of building the broad left alliance that would be essential to drive the union to the left, combat the bureaucracy and build across the wider trade union movement.
The re-election of Len McCluskey is an important step to consolidate the real gains that have been made, which can be the foundation for the union to move forward.
This version of this article was first posted on the Socialist Party website on 3 January 2013 and may vary slightly from the version subsequently printed in The Socialist.
On 8 January Parliament voted to limit increases in benefits to 1% rather than by the rate of inflation as they had previously been.
Cutting the link between prices and benefit rises is effectively a huge cut to future benefits because people will be able to afford less with the money.
Iain Duncan Smith, minister for work and pensions who is driving the attacks, said it would be 'absurd' to raise benefits by inflation (currently officially 2.2%).
He said it was unfair because benefits are paid by the taxes of those who are working who are not seeing their wages increase by inflation.
But contrary to the government's talk of 'shirkers' the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has shown that this change will affect the benefits of far more working people than unemployed (7 million compared to 2.5 million).
This was just a day after the changes to child benefits came into force. Households where one person earns over £50,000 will see their benefit cut and over £60,000 will see it stopped altogether. The IFS has worked out that these families will lose an average of £1,300 a year.
The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has published research which shows government and media attacks on 'scroungers' are based on lies.
On average members of the public think 41% of the welfare budget goes to the unemployed. This 'fact' is used to justify attacking the unemployed as scroungers.
In fact the figure is 3%. And, with huge job cuts, any of the "hard-working taxpayers" of today could be denounced as the "work-shy scroungers" of tomorrow.
Alongside the massive tax dodging of firms like Vodafone and Starbucks, the amount of benefit fraud is even more miniscule.
The public has been led to believe it is 27% of the welfare budget. The figure is actually less than 1%.
Compared to the legal and illegal expenses claims of MPs most benefit fraud is tiny. All this has not stopped the Tories of Westminster City Council from floating the idea of cutting benefit for people they deem too fat. And next week people they deem too thin or too tall no doubt.
People in work are being asked to approve attacks on the unemployed because they 'get too much money'.
However, one of the questions in the TUC survey was about the benefits entitlement of an unemployed couple with two children aged six and ten.
The imagined figure was £147 a week, when £111 is the real figure they would be entitled to. But the amount that those surveyed thought the couple would actually need to live on was £202 a week (excluding housing costs).
The old adage would seem to be true. Figures can't lie but liars can figure. The Daily Express contained headlines "a new ice age", "a cure for cancer" and "the economy is booming" in the same month. Why on earth believe it when they tell you 80% of benefit claimants are frauds?
The TUC has done a good job in commissioning this research. Now what are they doing about that general strike they promised?
In another attack on union-won gains of the past, the government has announced that, from April 2013, it is to slash the redundancy consultation period from 90 to 45 days.
Laughingly, Jo Swinson, Liberal Democrat employment relations minister claimed changes were aimed at helping workers as well as employers.
Currently, employers must consult with staff for a minimum of 30 days before making more than 20 staff redundant, or 90 days when 100 or more jobs are at risk.
Swinson claimed: "The process is usually completed well within the existing 90-day minimum period, which can cause unnecessary delays for restructuring and make it difficult for those affected to get new jobs quickly".
What rubbish! How many of us have noticed a clamour from workers facing redundancy to be out of a job more quickly? If there had been widespread problems, trade unions would have been making demands to fix them years ago!
The plans remove redundancy rights from fixed-term contract staff, many of whom are not 'temporary workers' covering maternity leave or sickness, but long-term employees. At a stroke, these workers will lose any current job security.
Needless to say, employers' organisations wholeheartedly welcomed the announcement - you wouldn't expect any different response from bosses being told it will now be easier to sack people! The head of employment and skills at EEF, the manufacturers' organisation, went further by saying: "[The government] now needs to complete the package by introducing simpler settlement agreements and protected conversations."
Protected conversations mean employers will be able to 'talk to' staff about possible termination deals without having to worry about those conversations being referred to in subsequent employment tribunal cases. Not much scope for bullying, harassment and unfair dismissals there then!
This is just the next stage in this government's plans to create a 'flexible labour market' - the reintroduction of a hire and fire culture that unions spent the greater part of the 20th century trying to eradicate. Such plans need stronger opposition than just denunciations in the press.
The TUC is currently consulting on the idea of a one-day general strike. The doubling of the time before a worker can claim unfair dismissal in an employment tribunal to two years, cutting the redundancy consultation period and further attacks in the pipeline, are all further reasons why such a united response - in action not just words - is needed from the TUC.
The Tories plan that the National Health Service will have to pay over 100 private firms to treat patients in a major expansion of privatisation. The healthcare firms will be given the status of 'any qualified provider' (AQP) and allowed to offer services like physiotherapy, hearing aids and MRI scanning - for profit.
Companies such as InHealth, Virgin Care and Specsavers will be among the first to take advantage of this. NHS workers, including many doctors, fear that the NHS is being atomised, split into thousands of different providers.
Meanwhile patients have to find their way through many different organisations instead of one NHS.
Capitalism's future for the NHS is one where big firms, wary of investment elsewhere, make money from our public services and our health. We say kick big business, which cares only for profit, out of the NHS.
Happy New Year to NHS staff, patients and campaigners everywhere! Sadly, greetings cannot be extended to health minister Norman Lamb, who used New Year's Day to lament that ordinary working people don't do enough to help our elderly neighbours.
He told the Daily Telegraph that the "neglectful society" we live in drives the elderly into care homes. Perhaps the increasing life expectancy and rise in adults with long-term complex health problems escaped his attention. Clearly not, as he later said, if people were more neighbourly, it would reduce the burden on the state.
No-one is going to vote against human decency, but that's not what this is about. The government are set to announce plans to cap the amount that can be spent on an individual's care. Social care itself faces a long-term funding crisis. Elderly people and local authorities are being held to ransom by private care firms, squeezing profit out of old age. There is your neglectful society!
Britain has some of Europe's longest working hours. Women, who were traditionally looked to for providing care to family members, find flexible hours hard to obtain, and face penalties on their pay. They face hostile attitudes at work, as employers are reluctant to grant carers leave.
At the same time, the public services that maintain the fabric of our communities are being cut. Yet finger-wagging ministers lecture us for not providing care that should be available, freely to all, based only on your needs, not your ability to pay, or the niceness of your neighbour!
My great-grandparents' generation fought to create the NHS, removing the profit motive from health care.
What we need now is a nationalised care service. Private care homes and community based firms should be brought under public ownership, to provide top-quality, free, inclusive support to people getting older, whether in their own homes or not.
And finally... The Prince's Trust reckons that half of young people who can't find work are depressed. Can't imagine why. As if being thrown on the scrapheap before 25 isn't bad enough, they are demonised in the press as work-shy job snobs. Enough to mess with anyone's mental health!
The sad story shows why young people need to get involved in campaigns like Youth Fight for Jobs, to fight for a decent future.
Mothers with full time jobs and one young child spend a third of their salary on childcare - meaning they have to work for four months a year just to break even. On average a mother in Britain spends £7,127 a year on childcare.
Government ministers insist they want to see more women going back to work after having children. But they won't take any serious action to make this feasible - increasing the minimum wage and investing in subsidised childcare would be a start.
Yet more evidence has revealed that the government's attempts to appear tough on the banks are all a façade.
Cameron and Osborne claimed their levy on the banks would raise £2.5 billion. Instead it's going to raise £1.8 billion this financial year.
On top of escaping from part of the new levy, the banks are expected to benefit by £200 million from the cuts to corporation tax.
A survey carried out by YouGov for the National Union of Teachers has shown morale among teachers to be 'dangerously low'. 77% said the government has had a negative impact on education in England.
These results are unsurprising given the vicious assault on education being carried out by the government.
Academies are forcing teachers to put up with bullying managements and attacks on terms and conditions; sudden changes to qualifications are being foisted on them with little warning or consultation; children are coming to school hungry and unable to concentrate.
And Michael Gove is waging a propaganda war against them, even suggesting they have their pay docked for taking industrial action.
Train ticket prices have increased by an average of 3.9% this new year. But figures have shown that over the past 10 years they have increased by a whopping 50%.
Since the start of the recession in 2008 train fares have increased three times faster than wages. And then politicians have the cheek to tell us that unemployed people need to be more willing to travel to find a job!
While big business politicians in the US Congress were scrambling to postpone the fiscal cliff they managed to find time to give themselves a pay rise - bringing their salary to $158,103 a year.
The Financial Times, covering the story, strangely said the pay rise wasn't high enough. In the Socialist Party our elected representatives proudly take a wage no higher than the average wage of those they represent.
Socialist Alternative (our sister section in the US) stood Kshama Sawant for the House of Representatives in Seattle.
She won 30,000 votes against Frank Chopp, a member of the Democrat Party and Speaker of the House.
The National Union of Teachers has revealed more Tory links with privateers. Several Department of Education advisors work as schools inspectors.
One, Wiola Hola, inspected a primary school which scored 'satisfactory' or 'good' in three out of four categories and yet claimed its performance was "significantly" below expectations. The school was then pushed to become an academy.
Others worked for organisations that run academies while also advising the government. No conflict of interests there then!
The unprecedented anger in Delhi and across India against the gang rape of the medical student is an expression of the seething discontent that has been building against the system for a long time.
The response of the authorities to this spontaneous expression of anger has been to use the police to brutally repress demonstrators.
The heinous crime of rape happens everywhere: it happens inside homes, in families, in neighbourhoods, in police stations, and it is increasing.
Modern industrial times have increasingly brought women out of the confines of their homes and women's roles have changed phenomenally, but the ruling capitalist system, driven and controlled by the values of feudalism and patriarchy, has yet to come to terms with this change.
Across the political spectrum there is a contempt and impunity towards women and their rights. The system's mind-set perpetuates hatred against women and disregards the fundamental right of women for freedom.
Violence against women in India is particularly rampant amongst the marginalised communities such as Daliths, Adivasis, women workers in unorganised workplaces, sex workers, etc, for which the conviction rate is abysmally low or non-existent, with the perpetrators largely roaming free.
Most of the incidents of rape and sexual assault go unreported because of the feudal values that dominate Indian culture and society. The custodial torture and rape and the sexual crimes committed by state agencies barely evokes much indignation.
While the perpetrators of such crimes must be punished, the solution does not lie in reverting back to medieval practices such as the death penalty or castration.
Nor does the solution lie in increasing police surveillance. This will only end up empowering the government with unprecedented powers and to act with impunity against working people. For so widespread a crime band aid solutions are not the answer.
We blame the system and the ruling class for this malady as they have thoroughly failed to develop society beyond feudal and medieval values and practices.
Violence against women is a product of a diseased system called capitalism, where people are conditioned to see women as inferior and to see women's bodies as commodities or objects meant for pleasure.
A campaign against rape in isolation from all other aspects of women's oppression will not work. Rape, like domestic violence and sexual harassment, is a symptom of a deeply unequal class-based society that leads some men to think that they can control women, including sexually. This is reinforced by women's material inequality and lower status in society.
We must challenge sexism and through the process of struggle, which will see millions of people question the brutal, sexist and exploitative capitalist society in which we live, look for a socialist alternative.
An event that has the potential to change the political landscape of South Africa, as Marikana [where 34 platinum miners were gunned down by police acting on behalf of the government and mine owners] has done on the industrial plane, was marked in the founding of a new political party, the Workers and Socialist Party (WASP).
The need for such a party was clearly evident in the reports given by strike committee leaders of the situation that exists at various mines around the country after the return to work. At Bokoni Platinum a virtual state of emergency has been imposed and workers found not at work in the surrounding villages are frog marched to report for duty at the mine.
WASP will have to put as one of its key demands the nationalisation of the mines under the direct ownership, management and control of workers in the process leading to the socialist transformation of society which is the only basis on which a lasting solution to the problems of mine workers and the working class as a whole can be found.
WASP will have to distinguish itself from all other political parties by its clearly socialist programme, its approach to electoral politics as but one terrain of struggle and by its public representatives being subject to the right of immediate recall and to a worker's wage.
It will demonstrate the irrelevance of the ANC conference where candidates contesting for leadership are all committed to the preservation of the enslavement of the working class under capitalism - the very system WASP is dedicated to abolishing.
In the coming days and months leading to its launch WASP will mobilise support for the party with a resolution calling for the building of the party to popularise the idea of an alternative in organised formations such as unions, community organisations, social movements and like-minded political organisations who will be invited to adopt the resolution as part of their formal affiliation to WASP.
WASP will be a fighting party that will unite service delivery protests, student struggles against unaffordable tuition fees and workplace struggles against short time, retrenchments and labour broking.
A quarter of a million residents of Lewisham in south London are waiting to hear if they will still have a local hospital.
Asset strippers, led by special administrator Matthew Kershaw, are trying to carve up the local NHS.
Another 500,000 people could be hit by other changes Kershaw is considering in the South London Healthcare Trust hospitals.
The closure of state of the art medical facilities at Lewisham hospital is a disgusting waste of public money. For example it cost £12 million to upgrade Lewisham's
A&E department and put X-ray machines in each cubicle. It is now under threat. If the intensive care unit closes, 100 nursing and medical jobs will be put at risk.
The long term plan for Lewisham hospital is to downgrade it and sell off 58% of the site to property developers.
The administrators also plan to shut Orpington hospital completely and Princess Royal in Bromley may be managed by private providers.
But Hinchingbrooke hospital in Cambridgeshire is already being 'privately managed' with disastrous consequences.
With all of these cuts in our NHS, sitting back and complaining isn't enough. There is already a community-based fightback in south London which is holding another big protest on 26 January.
Lewisham hospital staff want to join in with the public and fight but they are being held back by their union leadership.
These leaders cannot stem the tide of anger forever. Regional officials from Unison recently attended a Greenwich local 'save our NHS' meeting. That shows the pressure they are under from their members.
In London, seven out of 32 A&E departments are already marked for closure by 2020 and the remainder will have to cover an extra 120,000 people on average.
But this battle is nationwide. It is time the health workers' unions and the trade union movement as a whole gave a clear lead in fighting these plans.
The fight needs to be escalated by encouraging nurses and other NHS staff to move to the forefront of the struggle and take industrial action. They will get massive public support and backing when they do so!
Socialist Party activists from Greenwich and Lewisham are offering staff encouragement and a programme to get their unions moving to defend all the hospitals at risk.
We are urging health workers to petition their union leaderships and put motions to their branches calling for a strike ballot.
We stress that these NHS cuts are not necessary. Our ideas are chiming with hospital staff and local people alike.
The fight for Lewisham A&E and the future of the NHS is on. With determined action we can defeat these cuts.
In true panto style Southampton city council recently embarked on a touring production which could have been entitled 'The Eight Consultations of Christmas'. Unfortunately for them it played to largely empty halls across the city.
Invites were sent out to community groups and organisations but members of the public were kept completely in the dark about their location and timing, resulting in ordinary Sotonians missing out on the performances.
In fact on one occasion, a Socialist Party member was the only person who turned up but that didn't deter the councillors from declaring 'there is no room at the inn' and refusing to allow him to attend!
Over two weeks and eight venues, a collective audience of approximately 150 people attended these meetings, the audience being outnumbered by councillors and council officers in some instances.
However, those with the 'golden tickets' were treated to a rare spectacle of method acting involving dishonesty, evasion and handwringing.
Even this selective invitation, designed to filter out opposition to their plans, failed dismally.
From the off it was the usual diet of "difficult decisions", with councillors saying how "heartbroken" they were.
One Socialist Party member, John, rightly asked: "If you and your colleagues are so heartbroken, why are there only two councillors who have stood up against the cuts?", adding that it "is a sad indictment of the Labour Party that it is doing the Tories' dirty work".
At the Redbridge meeting, a councillor lamented that they were doing this "with a tear in my eye". Don Thomas, one of the two 'Labour Councillors against the Cuts', scolded them by saying: "Stop feeling sorry for yourself and start feeling sorry for the people facing these cuts!".
In the first meeting, on a working class estate called Northam, we called for the city council to use its capital assets and reserves to fund borrowing to save all services and stop threatened closures.
It could then use this breathing space as an opportunity to build a city-wide campaign, and we added that it could link up with other councils to force the government into retreat.
They trotted out that this couldn't be done and we challenged them by asking if they had directly approached the finance officer.
They replied "yes." Did you get a written response from them and if so can we see it?" "No" was the response.
We then asked for it to be minuted that the councillors would officially speak with the finance officer to look at the viability of this option and then to forward the response to us!
These forums aren't the best environment in which to raise our programme against all cuts, nevertheless the Socialist Party members who have intervened have had a dramatic impact on the proceedings.
It has been very inspiring to see how we have taken the fight to the councillors and given them a roasting.
This in turn has encouraged other people to be more vocal and critical than perhaps they would have been.
In fact so chuffed were three comrades after 'dismantling' the arguments of Richard Williams, leader of the council, that they wished there were more meetings planned!
In the course of a month we have gone from being contemptuously batted away as "not understanding the figures" when we addressed the November council meeting, to now, all of them having to seriously engage and acknowledge our presence.
At the event I attended there were six councillors including a Conservative, and half a dozen council officers.
Two youth workers had to fight for the right to attend as they were "not on the list"! For their troubles they got to witness a tragic-comedic performance.
After about ten minutes of the same old leftovers, I said: "It seems to me that this government are acting like a bunch of bullying thieves and have stolen money from you.
"Now if someone tried to snatch your purse or wallet, you would fight back and get help to return your property.
"What you are doing is complaining they have stolen your stuff, and then nicking money off everyone else, particularly those who have the least". This drew the only applause of the night.
Jacqui Rayment, council deputy leader, responded by saying: "Gavin lives on a different planet to me", adding, "we don't want to do this, we are doing all we can".
I said: "You have no mandate from the citizens to do what you are proposing. You were voted in because people were sick of what his lot (pointing to the Conservative councillor) were doing to the city.
"You should be leaving no stone unturned in finding a way not to make these cuts and that includes investigating the capacity to borrow as a temporary stopgap".
The response to me was: "You have been raising this at all the meetings, we can't do it and will send you an email to tell you why". I am still waiting!
"Don't expect things to get any better if we get elected, there just isn't the money around", she continued.
To this, I said: "Are you seriously suggesting that we are to resign ourselves to another six years at least of this? There will nothing left in the city except the council tax.
"I am telling you that people will never forgive you if you go down this road and what's more, they will not accept it".
The council at least is consistent if nothing else. Not content with erasing the public from its 'sham' consultations, a leaked email to library staff from a senior line manager ordered them not to speak to any member of the public, including councillors, about the reduction in staffing and service. Don Thomas derided the gagging order, asking: "Is this North Korea or Southampton?"
In another development, following on from the massive public meeting in Newtown a few weeks ago, community activists are beginning to seriously ask "shall we do it again?", referring to the community standing independent candidates in the next local elections.
One activist commented: "Last time we only had a few weeks, this time we will have longer and it wouldn't matter who we stood, we would win the seats".
His message to the three local ward councillors, all Labour, was stark: "We want to see that you are going into meetings and fighting our corner, we want to see the notes so we know what you have said and done.
"If not you'd better hang up your bags". He added: "We are coming for your seats and this time it's in earnest".
This sentiment was echoed by a Muslim man I had invited to the meeting who commented: "All they do is come around the mosques at election time when they want our votes" and he agreed that they need a 'kick up the ass'.
This version of this article was first posted on the Socialist Party website on 2 January 2013 and may vary slightly from the version subsequently printed in The Socialist.
Birmingham city's ruling Labour Party has quickly raised the white flag to the Con-Dem government. The council organised public meetings to present its case for massive, highly damaging cuts.
In Erdington, the audience of around 150 were talked at for over an hour before we were invited to say which services were most or least important.
Labour's council leader, Sir Albert Bore, attacked me after I joined other audience members in demanding a 'needs budget'.
As the biggest local authority in Europe, Birmingham city council would be best placed to lead a rebellion against the government.
These points, and the others who argued against cuts, drew big rounds of applause, in contrast to the entire top table who received not a single clap in two hours!
In a grasping response Sir Albert recalled the 1980s Labour Party conference when then-leader Neil Kinnock denounced "grotesque chaos" at Liverpool city council.
Liverpool had indeed taken on the Tory government, and won £60 million extra funding for jobs, services and over 5,000 homes. How chaotic!
This approach, in the tradition of previous principled Labour councillors at Clay Cross and Poplar, is alien to the likes of Sir Albert who talk of the 'end of local government' and 'decommissioning entire services' in order to set a balanced budget. This is supposedly responsible!
Labour locally has concentrated on Birmingham being disproportionally hit. Sir Albert says he has written to Tory community-slasher Eric Pickles to win back £80 million. Even if Pickles concedes, this will barely make a dent in the £600 million of cuts.
Socialist Party members have also attended the other consultations, but more importantly we will be at the forefront in building resistance.
This includes building TUSC and encouraging local activists to stand as council candidates against the cuts.
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition is standing in three byelections on 17 January.
Two young workers are contesting in both Wirral byelections in Merseyside.
Greg North, in Heswall ward, and Mark Halligan, in Leasowe and Moreton East, have pledged to fight local service closures and oppose the council's £109 million cuts plans.
In Brixton Hill ward in Lambeth, south London, TUSC candidate Steve Nally has the support of local RMT transport workers' union, Prison Officers Association and Fire Brigades Union activists.
TUSC was set up in 2010 to enable trade unionists, anti-cuts campaigners and socialists to stand candidates against all the main parties.
It is supported by the RMT, leading members of trade unions such as the FBU, PCS, POA and NUT, and the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party.
250 people protested in December outside Sheffield town hall against the Labour council's planned slashing of Sure Start children's centres and nurseries.
The council is aiming to cut £3.5 million. 19 of the 36 centres have been earmarked for closure. All remaining centres will be downgraded.
200 parents and children packed into a council cabinet meeting - which had to be moved to another room to fit everyone in.
Emma Chadwick, whose three year old autistic son attends Darnall nursery, presented the 1,500 signature petition to the meeting.
On Friday 21 December, West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority met to pass £7 million worth of annual cuts to its budget.
But pressure from campaigners resulted in four of the six fire stations that were to be closed remaining open, but with less staff and fire appliances. Haworth fire station has a two year reprieve.
Other cutbacks went through, although not without some minor amendments, meaning that £3 million less has been cut than planned.
A petition of 700 signatures opposing cuts to council tax benefit was presented to the Green-led Brighton and Hove council.
The Socialist Party organised a lobby outside the council building.
The money that pays for council tax benefits is being cut by the government in April. In August it was reported that an 81-year old woman from Hove was jailed for 10 days for not paying council tax.
It is estimated that up to half the revenue 'raised' by cutting the benefit will be spent on enforcement!
Socialist Party members smashed through the fighting fund target, raising a fantastic £28,497 - 116% - in the three months leading up to Christmas. In the whole of 2012 our members raised £109,228!
This was a magnificent effort - as well as campaigning in the town centres and shopping arcades they also found time to relax and have a party, while still ensuring that fighting fund was raised!
Branches were campaigning on a whole number of issues, including against cuts, privatisation and hospital closures in the NHS, forced privatisation of schools through the academies programme and the profiteering of the energy companies.
At the same time we explained how we could stop this government of Con-Dem millionaires in its tracks through building a campaign to resist the council cuts alongside a 24-hour general strike of public and private sector workers.
Now we have to ensure that we maintain our fundraising drive throughout 2013 - this is vital for our campaigning to reach as many people as possible.
With sickening hypocrisy, the Con-Dems have just approved a below-inflation 1% cap on benefit increases.
The six million people who are in work but living below the poverty line, the unemployed, pensioners and disabled people will all see the buying power of their income fall.
In contrast, the richest 1,000 people in the UK saw their wealth increase to £414 billion in 2012, with the additional bonus of a tax cut courtesy of Cameron and Osborne, and can look forward to piling up more ill-gotten gains in 2013.
Unlike the Con-Dems we don't enjoy the support of the super-rich! We rely on the support of ordinary people; the small donations made to our party in the shopping centres, on picket lines and on protests and demonstrations. Can you help by making a donation?
On 5-6 January 40 people attended a Socialist Party national women's meeting in London. Every region was represented.
The meeting opened with a report from a recent meeting of the International Executive Committee of the CWI by Hannah Sell, Socialist Party deputy general secretary. Hannah reported on developments including in the Middle East, US and South Africa and the important role the CWI is playing in each.
The meeting then divided into two commissions - 'abortion' and 'women and the cuts'. The commissions discussed the details of the situation facing women at the moment and the risk of further attacks.
On Sunday the meeting discussed Rape Is No Joke, the Socialist Students campaign against misogyny in comedy. The discussion agreed that the campaign is a good addition to other work that areas are involved in. Several people reported very successful meetings and events of the campaign. The idea was raised of a week of action leading up to International Women's Day in March.
The final session discussed building the Socialist Party amongst women. We discussed the need to focus on campaigning and responding to events. We heard reports of how areas have organised in the last year, including two recent regional women's meetings. Women in each region then got together to make plans, including to increase sales of the Socialist Party's pamphlet Women: Fighting Austerity, Fighting for Equality and to report back to all branches from this very successful meeting.
Robbie Segal, a longstanding comrade in the Socialist Party and a leading activist in Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers), has died of a terminal neurological disorder.
Robbie joined her first trade union at 19 and was soon involved in industrial action against Express Newspapers.
Over the next four decades, she would be found at the forefront of workers' battles and on the streets arguing for solidarity and raising finance, whether it was defending the socialist Liverpool councillors, mineworkers and their wives, or the P&O seafarers' strike.
Similarly, she played a leading role in the struggle against Thatcher's Poll Tax. She was expelled from the Labour Party for her socialist beliefs.
For 25 years, Robbie worked in Tesco and was a shop steward for 24 of those years. She understood how essential it is to build a solid base and that gave her a platform for election to Usdaw's divisional council and eventually the Executive Council (EC) - serving four three-year terms.
As a member and as an EC member, Robbie recognised the power of the union was slipping away from its members to a handful of bureaucrats.
She campaigned against the danger of Usdaw leaders embracing New Labour's 'partnership' policy - resulting in pay that was little more than the minimum wage, and the worsening of conditions.
She understood the route the 'partnership' agreement between Tesco and Usdaw was heading in and resigned from the national store forum in protest.
Her warnings that this policy would result in attacks against the better-paid workers in distribution have unfortunately been proved correct.
For a number of years, Robbie was a solid voice of opposition and she was both vilified by the right wing and respected by the left for her uncompromising stand.
She was not only a fighter but also Usdaw left's most approachable figurehead. Branded an 'extremist' by Usdaw's right wing; however, hundreds of activists turned to her for advice and support.
Robbie's major challenge was her struggle to democratise Usdaw and win the union back for its members. She understood the urgent need to educate a newer layer of activists on a programme of action.
Robbie considered it near impossible to promote a militant alternative while the current leadership had a stranglehold on the union, so she helped establish and regularly contributed to the Activist, the bulletin of Socialist Party members working in Usdaw. Robbie wrote regularly for the Socialist paper on Usdaw matters.
At the union's annual conference, Robbie would be round the hall selling the Socialist, chatting to the delegates and by the end of the day she would have sold over 100 copies.
She would always linger a moment longer to give a word of encouragement to the younger delegates and discuss the agenda.
In 2008, Robbie stood against the incumbent for the post of Usdaw general secretary. With very few resources and no method of contacting the branches, she stood on a socialist programme with the theme of returning the union back to its members. Her stand won her over 18,000 votes, over 40% of the total vote.
Robbie warned: 'the bosses are intent on the working people of this country paying for their mess' and she concluded: 'only a socialist society offers a solution to the blight we face at present'.
Robbie understood that only a change in society would solve the problems of working people and her life was dedicated to that aim. She was always there to give advice and a smile, and she will be sadly missed.
We send our condolences to Eric, her husband and fellow Socialist Party activist, their three children, Johanna, Polly and Miriam, and grandchildren.
See the Activist: http://usdawactivist.wordpress.com/
I knew Robbie for many years when I was the industrial organiser for the Socialist Party. She was indeed a stalwart for the workers of Tesco in particular and the right wing in her union - Usdaw - knew this and hated her for it.
When at one stage Robbie was standing for the union's executive council the leadership put two full time officials to sit in a car outside her home to monitor her comings and goings.
This was a blatant attempt at intimidation against a woman member of the union who fought for her members and stood up to the bureaucracy.
On another occasion, when the left, led by Robbie, decided to put up a candidate in the union's presidential election, the Socialist Party hosted a fringe meeting at the TUC conference around 2003/2004.
The candidate and Robbie were on the platform and I chaired the well-attended meeting of delegates and visitors to the conference.
You can imagine our surprise when the right wing incumbent president and her entourage of full time officials turned up at the meeting.
Before the platform speakers had an opportunity to speak the right wingers started heckling from the back.
It gave me a glimpse of what it may have been like for Robbie when she attempted to speak at the executive councils of the union.
She would be shouted at by the bureaucracy whenever she attempted to raise alternative ideas to the right wing's sell-out of the members' interests.
Usdaw was well on the road to becoming what the American workers called a "yellow union". Robbie played a leading role in trying to stop that process.
This version of this article was first posted on the Socialist Party website on 20 December 2012 and may vary slightly from the version subsequently printed in The Socialist.
Admin and clerical Unison and Unite members at Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust have been fighting back against 'downbanding' ie pay cuts.
But since their three-day strike action ended on 22 November management have still not actually downbanded any staff.
The Trust proposals mean pay cuts of between £1,700 and £2,800 a year on over 350 medical secretaries, receptionists and other admin staff employed at Dewsbury, Pontefract and Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield.
Over 40 posts have also been axed through voluntary redundancy and a 'Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme'.
The Trust tried to bully workers into signing up to the pay cuts with the threat of dismissal and redundancy over Christmas and New Year but they failed miserably.
Two reps have been subjected to disciplinary action in separate incidents on spurious grounds. But the union refused to hold any negotiations with management whilst these two reps face disciplinaries.
The first was dropped without any action being taken before Christmas and now the second has also been dropped without going to a disciplinary hearing.
The union has been told that no further action will be taken against strike activists.
Unison has told the Trust that if any 'dismiss and reengagement' letters are sent giving notice of downbandings they will immediately call further escalated strike action.
Last week a manager sent out letters to some medical secretaries. The full time union official emailed management telling them of the intention to call a week-long strike. Management withdrew the letters saying they were sent out without their knowledge!
Unison is beginning a consultative ballot of the rest of the Unison branch members in other departments who are threatened with downbanding. Then they could move to a formal ballot when the timing is right.
The correctness of this approach to management's threats is shown by the Mid Yorks Unison branch recruiting 200-300 new members since the beginning of the dispute.
"We will not tolerate low pay in this day and age, nor being treated like second rate people. We clean your trains, your stations and your depots.
"We mop up all the nasty stuff that no one else wants to deal with. We clean up after four million people who use the London underground system so they can enjoy clean trains to use and clean stations to pass through".
So begins the leaflet given out by cleaners on London Underground on strike with the RMT union on New Years Eve and New Years Day.
The cleaners are employed by private companies Initial and ISS and are paid poverty wages of £8.30 an hour, with no holiday pay, sick pay, decent pension or free travel on the underground network they clean.
The RMT demands £12.50 an hour, plus better working conditions, and says that all cleaning jobs should be brought back in-house.
A lively picket of cleaners from stations across London took place on New Years Eve at Kings Cross station.
RMT assistant general secretary Steve Hedley made the point that the bosses rely on the hope that mainly migrant workforces will be difficult to organise.
But the RMT has worked to organise East European, African and Latin American workers together into a powerful force.
The bosses have stooped to a new low, bribing agency staff with £12.45 an hour to break the strike. The RMT made an appeal to agency workers with a special leaflet in different languages, explaining the strike and the bosses' bribe, and appealing to workers to join the RMT. "The union fights for secure, permanent employment for all".
National Shop Stewards Network supporters and Socialist Party members helped get the word around stations in the immediate run-up to the strike and brought our solidarity to the picket line.
The workers were also supported by other unions organising cleaners in different industries, including the PCS who organise and recently won a pay victory for cleaners at Buckingham Palace.
This version of this article was first posted on the Socialist Party website on 31 December 2012 and may vary slightly from the version subsequently printed in The Socialist.
Churchill cleaners working on Tyne and Wear Metro have taken a further 72 hours of strike action over the Christmas holiday.
As Craig Johnston, RMT Relief Regional Organiser, pointed out: "If you are going to have industrial action you have it when it is most convenient for workers and most inconvenient for bosses".
Craig went on to say: "Churchill have recently offered some of the workers a derisory £70. Not per month, but as a one-off payment!" Churchill then challenged the RMT union to put this derisory offer to its members - which it did.
The cleaners voted one in favour and 48 against accepting the offer. Needless to say the company had nothing to say about that.
In order to highlight the issue of their Scrooge employer Churchill strikers set up a soup kitchen outside the Nexus head office (the public body which oversees the maintenance and operations on the metro).
The RMT has also sent all councillors who are on the ITA (Integrated Transport Authority) a "Christmas hamper".
All the hampers contained was a letter urging the ITA members to make a New Year resolution to end poverty wages for Churchill cleaners on the Tyne and Wear Metro.
The ITA is overwhelmingly Labour controlled, and it was them who privatised the metro system and handed the operation over to DB Regio (German state railway), who in turn subcontracted the cleaning to "privateer rubbish company Churchill's".
Craig told us: "The German and Dutch railway have big stakes these days in the UK. They make so much money out of this that one official was overheard as describing Britain as Treasure Island.
"Meanwhile those at the sharp end, delivering frontline services are on miserable wages and piss-poor conditions.
"Labour politicians talk about the introduction of a living wage, but here we have a maze of privateers and contractors that deliver poverty wages to our members.
"It's all well and good David Miliband (South Shields MP) writing articles for national newspapers on the living wage - he should get down to South Shields metro station in his constituency and meet Churchill cleaners subcontracted by a Labour transport authority on miserable wages. My message to the Labour Party is that your actions speak louder than your words".
Strikers on the picket line made it clear that they are determined to fight Churchill bosses.
This version of this article was first posted on the Socialist Party website on 30 December 2012 and may vary slightly from the version subsequently printed in The Socialist.
In less than four weeks, over 150 union members in the transport have freely and without any influence from Unite, chosen to cancel their membership with Usdaw and transfer to Unite.
Concerns included ballot fixing allegations, union reps being removed for spurious reasons, and a union rep being appointed without a ballot. There was an 80-signature vote of no confidence in Usdaw.
Usdaw gave away the right to strike in return for recognition before the site opened five years ago. They also gave away the drivers' right to choose whether to opt out of the 10-hour night work limit.
In response, Usdaw have turned to the company for help, they have produced joint statements with the company threatening their members and former members stating that the company will not recognise any other union.
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/15931