Unity! People's Charter Convention 2009

unity People’s Charter Special

MAKE THE RICH PAY We should lobby the TUC to demand an action programme to promote the People’s Charter says Robert Griffiths

G o rdon Brown’s government is heading for the rocks. But the ship’s captain has his eyes closed, hoping that the rocks will disappear. Unless New Labour change course, they will have thrown away what, in 1997, was the biggest parliamentary majority in history. What will be the legacy?

There were a few positive measures, especially in the first term: the minimum wage, the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland peace process, improved trade union and employment rights ... then the list shortens.

Most of the anti-trade union laws remain in place. Privatisation has been driven into areas of the public sector untouched by Thatcher and Major. Britain is still one of the most unequal societies in the developed

Saturday 21 November 2009

world. The richest 10 per cent of the population have seen their share of wealth increase from 63 per cent in 1996 to 71 per cent.

According to the Inland Revenue, the poorer half of the population – where most trade unionists are – have had their share cut from 6 per cent to 1 per cent.

The Blair and Brown regimes have been the most warlike in modern British history: Iraq, Serbia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq again. No wonder millions of electors have lost faith in a government that put aside £1,350,000 million to bail out the banks and money markets – but won’t use a fraction of that to rescue productive but failing enterprises, maintain the post office network or substantially increase state pensions and benefits.

Former GMB leader John Edmonds once condemned the ‘greedy bastards’ who cream off Britain’s wealth without a care for the rest of society. Yet even after those greedy bastards have wrecked their own system, had their begging bowls filled by the Bank of England and the Treasury, and carried on helping themselves to enormous bonuses and pensions, New Labour ministers sabotage attempts at the G20 financial summit to cap bankers’ bonuses.

Gordon Brown needs to be told that he is drinking in the last chance saloon. If government policies do not change in favour of workers and their families, then he will be turfed out by the electorate. A Tory government will be even worse because the ground has already been prepared for it by New Labour policies of privatisation, war and grovelling to the super-rich.

The decisive backing given to the People’s Charter by delegates to the TUC this year opens up an opportunity to broaden the campaign. Elements in the TUC hierarchy and in some unions will try to block public campaigning but we can take the initiative at all levels in the trade union movement. We can breathe new life into trades councils with the Charter – make active links with local community campaigners. Regional TUCs and union organisations should be pressed to take action and every election candidate should be quizzed on their stand. continued on back page

unity People’s Charter Special Rally for the original People’s Charter Kennington 1848 In 1836 the London Working Men’s Association drew up six demands. Over the next decade the People’s Charter gathered support with mass rallies all over Britain – 200,000 in Glasgow, 250,000 in Leeds, 300,000 in Manchester and 80,000 in Newcastle.

Led by the trades unions – under the leadership of the black tailors’ union leader William Cuffay – and with a massive contingent of Irish workers with their green banners the Charter supporters rallied in Kennington with the red, white and green colours of the British Republic.

Public services under attack

by Tony Conway The public sector is under sustained attack from media, big business and government. There has never been a time when the public sector ethos, delivery and its workers’ pay, jobs and terms have been under such pressure.

Does Britain spend too much on its public services? Are our public services are inefficient?

Are employees’ terms and conditions are too generous?

No, the real motive behind this attack is to ensure that big business and the banks get an increasing share of the public sector cake to shore up their profits. The impact of this on government policy – always at the service of big business – is more speculation, more debt and reductions in services to hard pressed communities.

Right wing pundits and City economists tell us that Britain must cut public service expenditure. But even they have to admit that the public debt mountain is because the bankers blagged us into a recession and the government decided bail them out.

This conventional ‘wisdom’ results in a sustained attack on the jobs that public service w o r kers do – social work posts cut but social workers blamed for the ills of society; a pretence that private hospital provision is better; market testing of prisons so that private security firms can cream from the state; Fujitsu shedding staff blaming the UK economic downturn, whilst making record profits; defence contractors b egging for public subsidy, when once such work was undertaken in the public sector.

Tory Councils delight to think the unthinkable – Barnet stating that it should offer a Ryanair style council services.

Public sector pensions are compared with the worst in the private sector and rather than bad employers forced to meet decent standards, public pensions are dragged down. The

bank and insurance industry wants to get its hands on pension contributions to bolster their profits and cash flows.

It’s the same argument as put forward by US health insurance companies.

Why is the Royal Mail under attack – so that speculators can get their hands on the profitable areas, stopping cross-subsidy and leaving the state to carry more of the burden?

Likewise the attack on the Civil Service Redundancy Scheme is not about saving money – it’s about getting rid of jobs on the cheap.

The attack on housing benefit and social security payments is about diverting responsibility from the rich to the poor.

Unison and PCS are right to express concern about contracting-out including to social enterprises. Our unions are right to recognise that it’s the low paid workers who see their jobs contracted out. We are right to argue that health and safety suffers. The POA is right to condemn private prisons.

Transport unions are right to argue that a publicly owned rail and bus system would both be cheaper and more efficient –

just look at Metronet, National Express and local bus services – their profits bolstered public subsidy! Water and power companies make massive profits whatever happen at the expense of working people. Poor pension provision means pensioner poverty.

N ext year’s election will be an opportunity to raise these issues, but with the Tories signed up to £100 billion of cuts and Labour to £80 billion action deferred will see schools and hospitals closed, workers lose their jobs, the economy suffer, and workers thrown on the dole.

Wide unity to demand a programme of public works including an expansion of house building, to oppose privatisation and to bring back into public ownership utilities and transport, to improve pensions for all and increases in social security benefits is needed.

The People’s Charter gives us a vehicle to channel the massive popular support for these policies and take the campaign beyond the workplaces and communities and to change the direction of politics in Britain.

Tony Conway is a member of the PCS executive committee

People’s Charter Special unity

Struggle & solidarity First bus workers win A zero per cent pay policy that bus monopoly First tried to impose on its 20,000 workers in 19 companies is in tatters.

First hoped to defeat a planned series of rolling strikes, co-ordinated so as to bring out first a few hundred, then several thousand drivers. It looked as if some 10,000 would be out by the end of the year, with another 10,000 joining by April 2010.

These local disputes began stalling as First went to court, using the anti union laws that Labour opposed in opposition but have failed to repeal.

Aberdeen’s 450 drivers struck early but settled. In August, South Yorkshire’s 1,600 drivers struck and the company found itself facing three local ballots over three separate issues.

Strikes crippled the company until a two-year deal with lots of goodies for 2010 was rejected by the drivers, even though it was locally recommended by the union. More money and conditions was added to the pot, with an even larger sum of money, payable in voucher form for 2009, which would not be formally called a pay ‘offer’.

Then additional benefits for 2010 were hastily thrown on to the table to keep South Yorkshire quiet. This was because 850 drivers in West Manchester had now joined with their own one-day a week

dispute.

Injunctions followed in Manchester but the company could only win limitations on picketing.

First now faced simultaneous action on three fronts, since, meanwhile, Essex had had its third vote for strikes, finally escaping the legal hurdles.

More Unite members in Leeds and London looked like coming out, so a top up offer was put that satisfied North Essex but 500 South Essex drivers refused and strikes have continued t.

West Manchester clocked up to eight days of strike when Unite called together its stewards from across the country. A decision to hold a national ballot of all 20,000 was put on hold to enable the company to meet Unite nationally. First claimed there was no imposed no zero per cent pay policy. Suddenly, an offer too good to refuse was made in Manchester that included new money for 2009, plus concessions to the drivers on sick pay and holidays for 2010.

Like South Yorkshire, there was money for 2009 disguised to not look like a pay rise. The union’s local negotiators recommended acceptance only to find that their members had had enough.

The offer was turned down in a ballot by a vote of three to one.

FirstWest Manchester and South Essex are still in dispute.

West Yorkshire, London and Southampton are balloting for strike action. Whatever the outcome, a zero per cent pay policy in First is now in tatters.

Interestingly, the furore that First’s failed attempt provoked amongst its Unite employees has

now spread to other parts of the bus industry. 2,400 Unite members at Barking, Bow, Leyton, Romford, Upton Park and West Ham garages are now in their second wave of strike action. Their employer, East London Bus Group, was sold by Stagecoach for a massive sum a while back to MacQuarie Bank, a gigantic Australian finance house. They too look like they’re in for a shock as the old slogan of London busworkers’, popularized by Bert Papworth, the Communist rank-and-file leader from the 1930’s: “Nothing is too good for the busworkers!” … including the respect afforded by a pay rise!

other in Dunstable is GMBorganised but with low membership. So Unite members are fighting on their own and the Company has opened a temporary depot to maintain supplies to its stores.

Superdrug is prepared for a long battle and hopes to starve the workers out but they have a very important weak spot; their customers. Unite members have been all over Yorkshire outside Superdrug stores distributing leaflets and asking shoppers to go elsewhere. They have been getting excellent support.

If you can picket a local Superdrug on Saturdays between 12 noon and 4pm Solidarity action e-mail the shop stewards at Superdrug; Steve Benn on benny1000@talktalk.net or Simon on kateandleeo@aol.com Donna.Reid@unitetheunion.com has leaflets

Superdrug staff on strike 300 Unite members at Superdrug in Pontefract – on indefinite strike since 4 November – need help. The company is trying impose cuts and dismiss workers who fail to sign new contracts.

This is a vicious employer that has two other depots working normally. One in Avonmouth is non-union and the

£2.50 from the Communist Party at www.communist-party.org.uk or CPB Ruskin House, 23 Coombe Road, Croydon CRO2 1BD

Three new books from ■ manifestopress Killing no murder? South Wales and the Great Railway Strike of 1911 by Robert Griffiths £12.95 (£2 p&p) 126pp illustrated Published in co-operation with the RMT Foreword by Bob Crow The education revolution Cuba’s alternative to neoliberalism

by Théodore H. MacDonald £14.95 (£2 p&p) 265pp Illustrated Published in co-operation with the NUT Foreword by Christine Blower, Bill Greenshields and Martin Re e d The imperial controversy Challenging the empire apologists

by Andrew Murray £12.95 (£2 p&p) 150pp Foreword by George Galloway MP

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unity People’s Charter Special

Pensions threat

by Bill Greenshields The fundamental battle over wages and pensions – properly described as “deferred wages” – never goes away – it is as much part of the capitalist system as corrupt politicians, greedy bankers and economic crises.

Just four years ago public service unions stood up to a full-on government attack on our pensions. We lobbied together, campaigned together and balloted for strike action together… and we won.

Faced with such united opposition the government backed down.

There were those within our movement who didn’t recognise the scale of the victory at the time. Attempting to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, they suggested that we continue the strike action, as “new entrants” to the pensions schemes would be subject to a raising of the pension age.

What they failed to recognise was that the pensions “agreement” would never last to

BA ballot TWELVE THOUSAND British Airways cabin crew are voting on whether to launch a preChristmas strike over imposed new working practices. Workers are worried over the rise in stress levels among cabin crew because fewer staff would be on duty during flights. Health and safety issues, especially over passenger care, is a big aspect of the dispute but BA only wants to make savings to make its merger with Iberia easier.

BA’s top management show all the finesse of a back-street sweat-shop owner as they force their crews to work new shifts that impose heavy burden on

the time – 30 or 40 years ahead for most – when those new entrants would reach retirement age. Every generation of workers needs to be prepared to fight for themselves – there are no “lasting settlements” under capitalism.

This truth is now clear to all.

Just four years after the victory, we have to do it all again.

Can we do it again? Of course we can! Will the outcome of the coming struggle protect workers into the indefinite future? Of course it will not! But that doesn’t make the struggle less necessary – in fact it simply underlines the fact that workers, in both private and public sectors, need to be constantly vigilant and increasingly well organised and united to fight off the attacks that will come again and again – until we finally seek a fundamental political reconstitution of society that puts working people in control.

The current capitalist crisis leaves any government administering that system with “no alternative” but to attack w o r kers – no alternative as they are clearly not willing or able to make those responsible for the crisis pay for it.

As “the General Election debate” is focusing on public sector cuts we can be assured

that, whoever wins the election, we will be in for attacks on pay and pensions. Unless something really dramatic happens in the Labour Party, the Tories will win as workers will refuse to vote for a New Labour Party if they continue to attack us. Only if the Labour Party grabs the lifeline of such programmes as the People’s Charter does it stand a chance of winning!

The Charter says: “Link state pensions and benefits to average earnings. Protect pension schemes and restore the lost value of private pensions.”

Why is this seen by some to be such a “threat” to the Labour Party – the historic mass party of the working class?

The fight for pensions four years ago took place in the run up to a General Election, which gave us a real opportunity. We are here again – the same attacks, the same dangers, the same opportunities… As we prepare for the pensions fight again, we have to ask ourselves, “How long will we put up with this corrupt and vicious system that exists to make the rich even richer at the expense of ordinary working people?”

Bill Greenshields is NUT past president and a member of the Communist Party executive committee

continued from page one The whole point of the Charter is to apply irresistible mass pressure on political decision makers.

Whether Brown changes course or not, whether or not the Tories form the next government, the Charter provides a powerful basis on which the labour movement can unite, inspire and mobilise people for the battles ahead. With electoral defeat staring us in the face, the trade unions and working class communities have to fight as never before to defend workers and their families and to project an alternative.

Front page illustration is a detail from the 1928 fresco ‘Night of the Rich’ by the Mexican communist painter Diego Rivera It is at the North wall, Courtyard of the Fiestas, Ministry of Education, Mexico City

those who have family responsibilities. Workers joke that running shoes rather than elegant footwear will now be required of them as fewer staff cope with more onerous tasks.

Alone in Europe, BA does not certify its cabin crew to the highest emergency standards.

The union is seeking a reversal of the imposition as well as significant compensation.

The Unite merger of the T&G and Amicus has at last resolved the problem of a break-away which the pro-employer AEEU took into membership.

Unite says that it will not back the merger of British Airways, privatised in 1987, and Iberia unless commitments

are given to avoid compulsory redundancies, and that passenger service standards will be of the highest possible quality.

agreement. Management imposition has been shelved in favour of the need to agree change. Postal workers will work normally during the Christmas period, thus getting the chance to earn back money they’ve lost, a benefit that had been denied to union members as Royal Mail tried to build a casual workforce.

The agreement deals fairly with discipline cases, clear-up arrangements and stops Royal Mail from taking people ‘offpay’. The partial settlement is very specific on how a full and final agreement will be shaped.

But, just in case and wisely, the national ballot and all local ballots remain in place!

Post dispute TWICE AS many people supported the CWU over Royal Mail bosses during the dispute.

The union’s achievement is in winning an interim agreement that contains significant concessions – developments that mainly emerged after all the media attention died down.

Long-running and bitter local disputes should now be resolved by negotiation and

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