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only achieve their aim if they are planning on getting rid of a significant number of people, but this time they are doing it through office closures, digitalisation and privatisation rather than the across the board percentage cuts which were a feature of the early days of the Coalition. Past history tells us that the Tories will aim to ‘front load’ the cuts in the opening years of their term, so we don’t have long to organise ourselves to stop jobs and services being decimated. Therein lies the big issue facing
without it, any bargaining demands we make are simply posturing, particularly in the current hostile environment. There are examples of where this can be achieved – in the Land Registry and the National Gallery, members have stuck together and achieved wins by putting the employer on the back foot with innovative campaigning tactics and strong membership engagement. The junior doctors have provided a magnificent reference point in their refusal to go away over the Government’s imposed contract. All of these campaigns have one thing in common – they were all focussed on a small number of issues and had messages which resonated with members and the public. This points to a need to avoid developing our campaign with a ‘shopping list’ of demands which only serve to distract instead of engage. Members must be clear and convinced on what we are trying to achieve and can then help attract non members around simple messages. This won’t be easy, the issues in the workplace are many and people are angry with the way things are with some of this frustration directed towards the union. However, we must stick to the task, take confident messages into the workplace and be prepared to win members over one by one if necessary to deliver the type of effective campaigns we need to start scoring more wins against this bankrupt Government.
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HE RULING by Judge Elisabeth Laing that it was unlawful for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to stop our union’s use of the check-off system is a rebuff to the government’s the union. After the relentless anti-union offensive and a attacks on PCS over the past two satisfying slap in the face for the years, the union is very much in unsavoury former Cabinet Office recovery mode. Membership minister Francis Maude. density is as low as it has been in The judgement opens the way years because of the check-off for our union, which has been attacks; we have a contracting forced to spend much time and activist base as the cultural shock resources re-recruiting tens of of facility time cuts inevitably sees thousands of members to pay by us need to bring through new direct debit, to claim damages for blood and the new organising loss of income. focussed staff structure is still It is good that we are now bedding in. working on further legal Communists have always argued challenges against other that organising workplaces has to government departments that be the primary focus of our work as have blocked check-off. The campaign to get members to pay by direct debit was a big test for the union’s activists and leadership and by and large we rose to the challenge. financing to prevent rising unemployment. The success of the campaign ACK IN THE 1980s when Instead unemployment itself was meant provided a vital financial backstop the trade union movement to overcome crisis by reducing wages and and showed the employers that faced a massive onslaught pushing workers to wherever labour the union is firmly rooted and able from the Tories, Jacques Delors as markets remained tight. to draw on great reserves of unity president of the EU Commission, This has remained the basic economic and loyalty. spoke of trade unions as social principle of the EU ever since and had Nevertheless, we need to be on partners. Over the following ten years he sought been progressively tightened. In 2012 the guard. EU Fiscal Compact banned ANY deficit at Confronted with a revived to give content to the term ‘Social all. This is what the European Congress Labour Party and firm union Europe’ by introducing measures which of Trade Unions said at the time: opposition the Tories, already gave the same basic rights on health and Running as a red line through the forced to carry out U-turns on safety, working hours, works councils and programme of Economic Governance is the some of their legislation, have gender equality at work to all workers idea of turning wages into the main backed down on some aspects of across the EU. instrument of adjustment: currency its Trade Union Bill. But the new These measures were of significant act still carries great dangers. assistance for trade unionists in Britain and devaluations (which are no longer possible inside the Euro Area) are to be replaced by A trade union that organises won many to give wholehearted support a devaluation of pay in the form of thousands of state employees in a to the EU as an institution – even though deflationary wage cuts. To achieve this capitalist state that enshrines – in traditionally the Labour Party had opposed the EU from Atlee and Bevan on wage ‘flexibility’, labour market institutions domestic and European Union law – a systematic assault on our to Michael Foot, Barbara Castle and Tony which prevent wages from falling are perceived as being a ‘rigidity' which should right to organise needs to Benn. be eliminated. maintain a high level of These measures were, however, This is also why the EU has moved to organisation. directly accompanied by the first great dismantle collective bargaining structures Clear thinking about the nature push to secure an EU Single Market: across all the ‘debtor’ nations and why the of our employers and the class opening up local government to private nature of the state is vital. procurement and requiring public utilities, EU Court of Justice has banned trade union action to enforce the same Still a useful read is the rails, gas, electricity, communications and collectively bargained rates for local and Communist Party’s pamphlet ferries, to be broken up into competing ‘posted’ workers. Trade Union Bill and how to kill it and privatised units. EU economics are neo-liberal. They This pamphlet is a timely It was claimed that this new Single require competition between workers to reminder of our belief and Market would generate, through the be maximised. That’s why solidarity and experience that action and elimination of inefficiencies, massive new collective bargaining are off the agenda. solidarity do have the power to levels of demand and create five million So equally is economic democracy: the defeat anti-trade union legislation new jobs – even though workers would and defend our freedoms and need to move on to where the work was ability of parliaments to limit the powers of big business. democracy. needed. This is why the movement needs a At the same time rules were laid down Available from the online shop at rethink. There is no basic difference under the Maastricht Treaty that banned www.communist-party.org.uk between the principles of the EU today governments facing economic crisis from £2 A5 sized and TTIP. adopting Keynesian policies of deficit £3 large print A4
An example to follow HE CONSULTATION has closed and we all wait with baited breath for the Government’s next move in their latest assault on the Civil Service Compensation Scheme. Everybody reading this will be familiar with the details of what the Tories want to do and they will undoubtedly be discussed in detail in Brighton this week, so it is important to be focussed on what the CSCS attacks symbolise and where this leaves the union. We all know that the Government attacks on the CSCS
May 2016 communist-party.org.uk
A re-think on the European Union is needed
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Books@ manifesto
Building an economy for the people An alternative economic and political strategy £6.95 (+£1 p&p)
The Morning Star is the world’s only English language socialist daily paper. Founded in 1930 as the Daily Worker, the organ of the central committee of the Communist Party, it is today run by a co-operative, the People’s Press Printing Society whose management committee includes nine national trade unions. It provides day to day coverage of the fight for workplace rights and the struggle against the cuts and the Tory government. Until his election as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was a weekly columnist. Leading figures in the Green Party and Plaid Cymru, in Momentum and CND, Stop the War write regularly in the paper.
Its online edition is proving very popular with busy trade union activists who want and need reliable and informed labour movement news. A top flight design team from the famed Danish Robotnik design agency are working on a relaunch. Its sports coverage, especially football (including womens’ football), boxing and racing is renowned. The paper’s Voices of Scotland series, every Tuesday, includes leading figures from the Labour Party, SNP, SSP and the trade union movement. The paper is available at all Cooperative Stores and at RS McColls and can be ordered at any newsagent.
Buy and read the Morning Star £1 from your newsagent www.morningstaronline.co.uk This new pamphlet from the Communist Party, written by John Foster, ends with a warning. The EU’s imposition of neoliberal policies on all governments, including those led by the traditional parties of the Left, has resulted in the collapse of support for social democracy. In the coming referendum voters will be asked to support an even more neoliberal and probusiness EU. Such an outcome would pose an additional danger that Cameron would use it to argue that the electorate has voted in support of the EU’s so-called free market policies and therefore against Labour’s programme for public ownership and enhanced public spending. £2 from online at www.communist-party.org.uk/shop/
Communist review Theoretical and discussion journal of the Communist Party Number 79 • Spring 2016 The 1916 Rising: A risen people challenges the empire Eugene McCartan State monopoly capitalism Part 2 Gretchen Binus, Beate Landefeld and Andreas Wehr Marxism versus reformism in the 1926 General Strike Jack Cohen The French anomaly Jimmy Jancovich Women workers and trade unions: still much room for improvement review: Mary Davis plus letter, further review and Soul Food
young workers that unions don't have to be simply defensive and that they can be proactive taking RADE UNIONISTS know that the zenith of organised the fight to the bosses to secure gains in terms of pay and labour coincided with the conditions. most equal society ever seen in Young workers are the future Britain. Wages were higher and normal working class people were and if we fail to recruit them then unions will cease to exist in mere better off in the past because of decades. To engage with the wider our unions. group of unorganised young Since then we have witnessed a workers unions must listen to their ruling-class offensive that singled young members who are far more out and defeated the most likely to understand the problems powerful, militant unions. This in reaching out to their colleagues. allowed them to re-write the law, Recruiting workers into unions shackling trade unions leaving may secure better futures but it is them in a weaker position to act only the start of permanently as vehicles for working class changing society for the better, struggle. This caused the decline one which must harness the of union membership. A potential power of organised stagnation associated with the type of employment now available, labour, the trade union movement, casualisation of labour; zero hours to secure a socialist society. In the last year the prospects for contracts, low pay, little working class advance have been opportunities for advancement transformed by the changes in the and increasing isolation from the Labour Party, driven by anger at products of labour. These the Tory government, the mass disproportionately affect young movement against austerity led by workers. the Peoples Assembly, by a We are still under attack and resurgent anti war movement must begin by combating the lack headed by Stop the War and CND. of class-consciousness among The Communist Party and today's youth. Young Communists have played a One of the problems we face is full part in these movements and making unions relevant to young work in unity with all on the left. people. We need to inform young Beyond our shared immediate workers about what unions can do. aims the Communist Party works Many people see unions as purely defensive 'insurance' organisations. for a socialist Britain, an end to exploitation and oppression. A Many may think it worth paying state in which the working class is sometimes costly dues to keep the ruling class. Join us. If not you, themselves secure-if they are who? If not now, when? getting paid well. Many young people are not paid well, and may see dues as an expense that can be OwAIN HOLLANd IS gENErAL SECrETArY OF foregone. We need to inform THE YOUNg COMMUNIST LEAgUE
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