Tcs unity a4 2015

unity!

Communist Party Crewe 2015

Workers of all lands, Unite!

Labour must change course Trades councils have a logo!

Congratulations to Carla Paillard from Merseyside County Association of Trades Union Councils who entered the winning design for the competition to devise a logo for the trades councils movement.

So £50 of book tokens are on their way to her while Merseyside receives £200. The three runners up were from Dorchester, Southampton and Wolverhampton. Congratulations to all.

POLITICS

by Robert Griffiths OST CONTENDERS for the Labour Party leadership are falling over each other in their rush to disown the mansion tax and sing the praises of big business, the European Union, military spending and a new Trident nuclear weapons system.

One could be forgiven for thinking they are running for a seat in the Tory Cabinet.

Only Jeremy Corbyn is putting the case for taxing the rich and the capitalist monopolies, investing in public services instead of privatising them, building more council housing, taking energy and the railways back into public ownership, repealing anti-trade union laws and rejecting Britain’s costly, immoral and useless weapons of mass destruction. He also takes a more sceptical view of the antidemocratic, pro-austerity, pro-privatisation, anti-trade union and increasingly militaristic EU. A Labour Party campaigning for these kinds of policies would enthuse not only many of its core, loyal supporters. It could also begin to attract back some of the fourplus million Labour voters lost since 1997.

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Although Labour’s share of the vote actually increased by more than the Tory share at the 2015 General Election, including in England, it represented only 21 per cent of all those on Britain’s electoral registers, and fewer than one in five (19 per cent) of the adult population as a whole.

Eighteen million people in Britain either refused to vote on 7 May or failed to register in the first place.

Most were either young people, housing tenants, immigrants or from particular ethnic minorities.

These are people Labour needs to motivate, enthuse and inspire.

They might have aspirations too – for a job, a house, for social justice and a decent future.

When 13.5 million people voted Labour in 1997, they wanted a government that would halt privatisation, introduce a minimum wage, extend rights for people at work, invest in our public services and welfare state, renationalise the railways and give real powers to the peoples of Scotland and Wales.

Labour delivered most of those pledges in its first term of office.

Since then, it has embraced privatisation, the City, big business and militarism – with the exception of Syria, thanks to the anti-war movement.

Unless Labour changes course, there is no reason to believe that it will turn back the SNP or UKIP, let

alone defeat the Tories in 2020.

That’s why the Communist Party urges trade unionists, socialists and social democrats in the Labour Party – many of whom we work closely with across a range of issues – to do all in their power to win back the party from the New Labourites.

They will receive support from the Morning Star and many other socialists and Communists when doing so.

The proposal at last year’s Campaign for Labour Party Democracy conference for a trade union party, affiliated to Labour at least initially, would improve the prospects for advance.

But if no significant progress is made by next year’s Labour Party conference, the whole of the left and the labour movement should face that reality.

In particular, affiliated unions will have to consider what steps would be necessary to re-establish a mass party of labour, one capable of winning a General Election and enacting policies that benefit the millions of people, not the multimillionaires. H Robert Griffiths is the Communist Party’s general secretary the

The Communist Party welcomes the decision to hold a referendum but is well aware that ‘negotiations’ with the European Union will be a charade, used by the Tories to promote their right-wing agenda attacking migrant workers and employment rights while protecting City corruption from even the mildest EU regulation.

For all its posturing, the Cameron government favours continued British membership of the pro-big business, pro-austerity, pro-privatisation EU, in keeping with the interests of the Tories’ chief paymasters in the City.

The Communist Party will campaign alongside its left and progressive allies for a popular vote against EU membership in the referendum.

Regaining our consciousness Books AUSTERITY

by Moz Greenshields LAST YEAR Unity! called for a ‘mass anti-austerity movement in our communities and union memberships would go a long way to resolving the long running question of proper political representation, growing directly out of the organised working class’ and warned that, as ‘the Labour Party turns its back on us, the issue needs to be resolved and soon.’

We need now, as never before, our trades unions embedded in our communities. Our Conference agenda reflects solidarity and unity, rejecting the rotten dog-eat-dog world of the capitalist market. We need to win that struggle of ideas, as well as the very real class battles that are its context, in all our communities.

Our trades union councils need to build real class consciousness throughout Britain. Anti-austerity campaigning strengthens.

Next week will see the huge People’s Assembly demonstration where hopefully every trades

council will be well represented. But we have also just seen the electoral ‘green light’ to the Tories’ escalating attack.

The issue that needed to be resolved in 2014 remains. It isn’t simple. It is not just right-wing leaders that make Labour so useless. Not just ‘cowards flinching and traitors sneering’ as the Red Flag puts it. It’s surrender to, and embrace of capitalism – culminating in the coming leadership election and Labour Party Conference – has much deeper origins.

The economic crisis, the ruling class assault, and the struggle against it have had the effect of increasing class consciousness amongst those most involved, such as those of us at Conference. But millions of workers are not currently engaging with our movement – a consequence of decades of social, political, economic, propaganda, ideological and repressive action by the ruling class – and resulting in lowered levels of class consciousness.

This relative lack of grass roots challenge to the power and pressure of the City, big business, the EU and the Troika has allowed the Labour Party’s right wing to assert itself and seen Labour

H RedStar

socialists despairing.

If we are going to reassert and re-establish real working class political representation, it has to be through the reassertion and reestablishment of real class consciousness, engagement and activity. Any attempt at a quick fix by cobbling together disparate leftist groups would be as unsuccessful as similar “idealist adventures” in the past.

Our trades union movement needs now to help resolve the issue by taking the issues from this conference and placing them in lively local and national discussion and debate about how to win them, and how to ensure proper political representation of the working class, by the working class, for the working class.

It’s a union and community issue – a class issue - our trades councils issue!

Contributiors include Mark Baimbridge; Brian Burkitt; Mary Davis; John Foster; Marjorie Mayo; Jonathan Michie; Seumas Milne; Andrew Murray; Roger Seifert; Prem Sikka; and Philip Whyman £6.95 (+£1 p&p) ISBN 978-1-907464-08-9

Moz Greenshields is secretary the Derby Area Trades Union Council, a member of TUCJCC and CP EC

A weekend of discussion, debate, culture, music and food with national and international speakers from the labour, progressive and anti-imperialist movements

Festival

Building an economy for the people An alternative economic and political strategy for 21st Century Britain

31 July – 2 August Marx Memorial Library & Workers School 37a Clerkenwell Green London EC1R 0DU marx-memorial-library.org.uk/redstar-2

Defence or defiance?

Derbyshire and the fight for democracy by Graham Stevenson Published in collaboration with Derby Area Trades Union Council £11.95 ISBN 978-1-907464-09-7

Danger! Tory Trade Union Bill unleashed WORKERS’ RIGHTS

by Carolyn Jones

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HE LATEST Trade Union Bill holds few surprises. We knew it was coming. So what’s the Tory battle plan?

First they came for the strikers John Hendy QC defines collective bargaining without the right to strike as collective begging.

By demanding a 50 per cent turnout threshold in a ballot and an additional 40 per cent yes vote requirement in ‘core public services’ (health, education, transport and fire services). Add to this the new time limitations on ballot mandates and the Bill is an open invitation to employers and courts to interfere and delay legitimate industrial disputes and it will be well-nigh impossible for unions to organise lawful strikes.

To make it worse, even during official industrial action, new laws will allow bosses to bus in agency workers to cover the jobs of strikers, abandoning a law that’s been in place since 1973. Any attempt to picket the workplace to prevent the use of ‘scab’ labour will be subject to new criminal sanctions, backed up by the new and intrusive surveillance legislation.

Then they came for the trade union reps Workers in unionised workplaces enjoy better terms and conditions and trade unions help to rebalance power relations in the workplace – a fact commonly recognised by 70 per cent of respondents in MORI polls who see unions as ‘essential to protect workers’ interests’.

The last government put a cap on trade union facility time, restricted full time release and banned paid time off for trade union activities in the civil service. This government now proposes to extend these restrictions across local government and into the private sector.

Then they came for trade union finances Plans are also in place to change how unions collect their membership fees – both through individual payments and through

check-off arrangements. Believing that money is power, the Tories are determined to try and undermine trade union finances to make it difficult for unions to operate effectively.

Then they removed our rights Undermining the role of unions at work is fuelled by the Tory determination to deregulate the workplace. They want a labour market free from what they call ‘red tape’ and what we call rights at work.

They want to use the UK labour market as an example of what could be achieved throughout Europe if governments were determined enough to resist unions, remove employment rights and restrict the rights of workers to withdraw their labour.

Then they removed our benefits The back drop to this Bullingdon Boy Bill, is a set of additional proposals aimed at slashing benefits and creating a reserve army of workers forced to beg for any type of ‘apprenticeship’ or free work on offer – including as scab agency workers.

Now we must stand together This is a divide and rule Bill.

The Tory aspirations are clear. They want cheap workers, unable to withdraw their labour, unprotected by either trade unions or employment rights and threatened with destitution if they refuse to accept low-standard work.

The Tories believe that money is power. We know that power lies in numbers and that by standing together and supporting each other we stand a better chance of winning.

Our aspirations have to be to educate, agitate and organise. We are the many – they are the few.H

Carolyn Jones is director of the Institute of Employment Rights

More information at www.tradeunionfreedom.co.uk www.ier.org.uk

The daily miracle ... alive and kicking at 85 MORNING STAR

by Ben Chacko WHEN THE first Daily Worker rolled off the presses in 1930, Britain was reeling from the Great Depression.

Working people faced soaring unemployment and hunger.

Politicians and the monopoly media demanded savage cuts to wages and public spending in the name of

balancing the books. Sound familiar?

The Daily Worker was founded to counter that narrative, to provide a voice for the millions and not the millionaires.

On its first day a reporter phoned from the Daily Herald to ask if it would come out again a day later. Eighty-five years on, our name may have changed - we've been the Morning Star since 1966 - but we're still here and still true to that mission.

The Star is a co-operative - the only co-operatively owned national daily in the country. That means we answer only to our readers, not to some tax-dodging non-dom press baron.

Last month's election amply demonstrated the distorting effect a monopoly media owned by nondom tycoons can have on public debate.

Indeed, the first post-election edition of satirical magazine Private Eye noted that every daily newspaper owned by a non-dom backed the Conservatives (or the coalition) in the election, while every one that was not backed Labour (it didn’t mention the

Morning Star, but such censorship is routine — the point holds).

We remain the authentic voice of working people in struggle reporting on the stories the rest of the press won't touch.

We're the only paper to stand shoulder to shoulder with the trade union movement, backing workers taking industrial action to secure the pay and conditions they deserve.

We are the paper of the labour movement, with nine trade unions and one trade union region represented on the elected management committee.

And we're the only paper to expose the lies and propaganda of the ruling class, opposing imperialism and fighting for peace and socialism across the world.

The Morning Star is proud of the role it plays in the labour movement and as the sole voice for socialism in the British media.

We're proud of the way we're evolving, with the paper publishing a wide range of contributors from across the left. In 2015 our paper is bigger, brighter and better than ever.

But we need more readers, whether of the printed paper or of our new e-edition, in order to make that voice - the voice of resistance - heard louder and more widely and to ensure we're still championing the rights of working people after another 85 years.

If you aren't yet a reader of the world's only English-language socialist daily what's stopping you?

And if you like the paper or a particular story or feature tell your friends and comrades and remind them that as working people face this Tory government intent on accelerating the ruling-class offensive against us, the role of the Morning Star is more important than ever. H Ben Chacko is editor of the Morning Star

Time to reconquer our human rights

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HETHER IT'S rushing through the 'snooper's charter' (aka The Investigatory Powers Bill) or threatening to pull out of the European Court of Human Rights, the Tories have our rights and freedoms sharply in their sights so they're clearly not really building ‘one nation’. Here Liz Payne explains how the struggle to defend and extend human rights has always been a class issue However universal statements such as ‘all men are born free and equal’ appear to be, the ruling class never for a moment thought they applied to working people.

Human rights for workers are the antithesis of capitalism and imperialism. As Marx observed: ‘The whole history of modern industry shows that capital, if not checked, will recklessly and ruthlessly work to cast down the whole working class to the utmost state of degradation’.

Human rights for the mass of ordinary people, at home and or in the colonies, have never been of concern to the financiers, profiteers and industrialists.

The hallmarks of those with power and wealth are exploitation in the workplace; competitive wars for resources, labour and markets; mass oppression of populations; degradation of environments; crushing of opposition.

But throughout capitalism’s history, working people have fought back bravely and consistently for rights and freedoms in their workplaces, homes and communities.

The 1948 UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights marked a major victory in this struggle, achieved with the support and championship of the socialist countries. It stated unequivocally (and correctly) that disregard and contempt for human rights had resulted in ‘barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of humankind’ and that, ‘human rights

must be protected by the rule of law’.

Two years later in Europe, The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms was agreed by the Council of Europe and was underpinned by the European Court of Human Rights, which may I remind PM Cameron is not an EU institution even though he uses its alleged failings as part of his rationale for ‘renegotiations’ with the EU and his justification to smash human rights at home.

But human rights declarations have not deterred international capital from its ruthless exploitation and impoverishment of peoples in all parts of the world. So, the struggle for civil, democratic and human rights continues.

Hopes that the collapse of the socialist states, might somehow bring peace and progress in achieving rights and justice were quickly dashed, destroyed by the scramble of profiteers for ‘freed up’ resources, goods and markets and the wars and devastation that ensued.

In the current deep economic crisis and capitalism’s attack on working people everywhere, the super rich and governments who back them see no gain in promoting human rights. On the contrary, from their perspective, doing the things that respect for human rights forbids – silencing opposition, ruling by fear and taking by force what popular assent will never yield – is necessary for survival. There is no benign face to capitalism, whatever it may tell us.

The issue of rights is now centre stage in the struggle against capitalism and for a just and democratic future and our task, as Engels put it, is to ‘re-conquer’ human rights.

Liz Payne is chair of the Communist Party

by Bill Greenshields Immediately following the General Election result the People’s Assembly ‘sign up’ web page for the 20 June demonstration acted as a proxy petition expressing the anger and frustration of all those who had worked so hard at getting the anti austerity message across.

The numbers registering for the demo ticked up into the tens of thousands in a matter of days. But anger and frustration is not enough.

True, the electoral disproportional representation system worked against us. The Labour Party’s grim adherence to austerity delivered a non representation system for working class voters and abstainers.

But the fact is, given the scale of the five-year ruling class attack through their preferred beast the Conservative Party, we should have seen an anti-austerity landslide.

So we have a lot of strategic thinking to do. Demonstrations such as 20 June must continue to show that the anti-austerity campaign is alive and well, to allow us to feel and express our solidarity and confidence, to motivate and mobilise others. The TUC needs to take this up with a further demonstration in the autumn.

But demonstrations will not win the class war, the class war that will now intensify at the hands of the Tories. We need a huge movement reaching deep down into communities and trades union memberships – an unstoppable force made up of ordinary people, many of whom feel impotent in the face of the scale of attack, and

directionless without having been convinced of any alternative policy.

So The People’s Manifesto – updated, refreshed and renewed, must lie at the centre of our work – and direct contact with people at the most local level … door to door, street to street, pub to pub, in community organisations, village halls, workplaces, trades union council and union meetings and gatherings of every kind.

We need to prepare and do the day-to-day organising work for coordinated union action, for generalised strike action, for civil disobedience … NOT just ‘call’ for it, and shout slogans about it.

The Tories will step up the attack, and will attempt to provoke us into responses that we cannot sustain – planning to use the full force of the state with new repressive measures, to defeat us.

We now need a strategy for winning not just protesting. Our aim is not just to make a lot of noise. It is to inflict the kind of decisive defeat on the ruling class and its government that they plan for us.

Class war does not end in a draw.

Bill Greenshields is a Derby Trades Union Council delegate. He represents the Communist Party on the national committee of the People’s Assembly The People’s Manifesto is available from The People’s Assembly, 52 Beachy Road, London E3 2NS office@thepeoplesassembly.org.uk web@thepeoplesassembly.org.uk

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