Unity 2016 for People's Assembly demonstration

unity!

Birmingham october 2016

communist-party.org.uk

hundreds of thousands of working class people in protests and actions rejecting austerity and has always made clear that the unions (organised labour) must be at the heart and the head of the antiausterity movement.

We must promote the PA’s work and distribute the assembly’s new publication In Place of austerity – a programme for the people.

Jez we did it, again

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t’s BEEn a roller-coaster 12 months. this time last year, what had for so long been a dream became reality, a socialist was elected by the biggest ever majority to lead the Labour Party. the reaction then of the big business party and its media puppeteers was predictable, but the year of the long knives inside the party of labour was shameful.

Ignoring the increased proportion of Corbyn’s vote this time round (up to 61.8%), the begrudgers will say ah, but, it was a lower turnout (only 77.6%). In reality, this is a direct effect of the selective ‘culling’ of Corbyn’s supporters so brilliantly reported day-in-day out in the The government will use every Morning star. economic and social means to attack us Ever since he was first elected, the for daring to resist – and they’ll tell us that right-wing mantra has been that it is our own fault. They’ll try ever harder Corbyn will fail - say it often enough to divide us on race, gender, cultural and and it becomes believable. He any other grounds that would hinder would, they said, be an electoral building a united mass movement. They’ll albatross. attempt to provoke set piece battles on achieved without the growing mass Yet Labour’s results in the May together. The current political situation their own terms, as they have before. elections were better than predicted demands that we seize every opportunity struggle, in which the People’s Assembly and its allies - including the trades unions - They’ll use every aspect of the State they - is that a crime? the party hasn’t to build a united movement to defeat feel necessary for them to win are key players. lost a single by-election under austerity cuts, privatisation and political In reply, we need to build a deeply The furious reaction of the capitalist Corbyn’s leadership and, only last attacks and so defeat this austerity rooted People’s Assembly movement in class, its leading politicians in the Tory week, won back a council seat from government and the class it serves.

Party (and sadly in the Labour Party), and all our communities to promote the the snP; a significant result given Despite Theresa May’s ‘trust in me’ message and bring millions into industrial how crucial a revival of Labour cynically seductive siren song, it’s clear her its media propagandists illustrates what and direct action. we have long known; this anti-austerity support in scotland will be come the government is totally committed to the We need a strategic movement of struggle is a class war – as TUC general general election. austerity agenda at home and abroad. secretary Frances o’Grady declared when opposition and protest capable of the Eu referendum result was The establishment has recently been the PA was founded – and it won’t end in defeating austerity policies and the used by the plotters to launch their badly damaged in two major battles – government that seeks to impose them. a draw. offensive. two-thirds of Labour firstly by the re-election of a socialist either we will inflict a major defeat on members voted to remain in the Eu leader of the Labour Party, and second by BILL GReenShIeLDS IS A MeMBeR oF The the government, or they will smash us. exactly the same proportion as snP the vote to exit the eU bosses’ club.

The assembly has directly involved members, yet no-one went baying neither of these could have been CoMMUnIST PARTy’S exeCUTIve for nicola sturgeon’s blood. the attempts of pro-Eu Labour MPs to shift responsibility for their own failure onto Jeremy Corbyn were breathtaking in its hypocrisy.

Many of them had very high - even majority votes - to leave in their own to buy controlling shares in strategic strangling our productive economy. procurement and direct labour through constituencies; so who was to blame companies to combat ‘shareholder value’ An example would be the Wood local government. It also requires full the leader or the local MP? rip-offs and to invest in technology and Group, the giant contractor dominating compliance with eU Court of Justice Lets remind those MPs who see the workforce. the north Sea oil sector, currently trying decisions which have hamstrung trade the threat of reselection as a witch H Using the tools of state-aid to industry hunt that the original demand of the to sack hundreds of its employees. In union freedom to take action against the and procurement to develop strategic September, in order to satisfy its big super-exploitation of migrant workers.

Chartists wanting to build an industrial concentrations regionally, shareholders, it announced that it was In addition, Mrs May will seek accountable democracy was the increasing its dividend payment by 10 per drawing on the R&D capacity of remembership of the european economic right of recall with annual funded Universities, and democratically Area and the eU Customs Union - further cent despite its earnings falling by 20 per reselection; if AgMs are good run through local government cent. In the same month BP actually hamstringing progressive policy by enough for our workplace reps then borrowed money to maintain its dividend. H Using government statutory powers to it's good enough for our subjecting us to CeTA and, if ratified, enforce employer obligations to invest in This is happening everywhere. Big TTIP. It is only outside the Single Market parliamentary reps. training and to end exploitative zero hours shareholders benefit. Workers suffer. and the european economic Area that It serves no purpose to claim that And our productive economy is crippled. contracts. A trained and stable workforce Jeremy Corbyn is not an effective real opportunities for progressive is the essential base for any productivity That is why a pro-active economic economic transformation – strategies for leader of the Labour Party when increase. public sector intervention that can rescue strategy is so urgently needed. Its key membership has grown three-fold All this is possible, but not within the elements are only possible outside the manufacturing, rebalance the economy and Labour is now the largest single Single Market. All this has been promised european Single Market. and curb the baneful influence of City of political party in Europe.

by Shadow Chancellor McDonnell, but he H Restoring public ownership of energy, London.

In his victory speech, Jeremy thinks he can deliver while remaining transport and communications to ensure This external financial control remains described Labour as the ‘engine of that profits go into restoring our country’s within the Single Market. Well, sorry, he the biggest single threat to our economy. progress’ and starts his offensive to can’t.’ crippled infrastructure – not the pockets Investment banks are now the dominant win the general Election next week shareholders in every major company. By of bankers. by defending education (not John FoSTeR IS The CoMMUnIST PARTy’S H Creating a State Investment Bank that demanding maximum dividends at the segregation) which, with the can use the current very low interest rates InTeRnATIonAL SeCReTARy expense of new investment they are introduction of the 1944 Education Act, was the start of our welfare state.

A welfare state we will win back when we repulse the tide of austerity which threatens us all.

In place of austerity By

BILL GReenShIeLDS

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E ALL need to commit, in whatever ways we can, to assist the People’s Assembly in ‘changing gear’ in its already very successful anti-austerity campaigning.

There is now a very healthy antiestablishment mood that challenges neoliberal economics and politics everywhere. very few now believe that austerity is inevitable or that there’s no alternative. nobody believes any more, if they ever did, that people regardless of class, wealth and power are all in it

The Labour movement must develop its own economic strategy in time for government

By John FoSTeR

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n August the former governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, castigated both sides in the referendum debate for exaggerating the economic consequences of leaving the Eu: ‘in truth,’ he said, ‘the economic consequences are much more evenly balanced’.

What he did not add is that for working people these consequences, good or bad, will depend on how Britain leaves the eU. The challenge for the Labour movement is to ensure that the new freedoms are used to our benefit.

Theresa May will do all she can to prevent this. on behalf of the City of London and big business she will seek to maintain all existing neo-liberal constraints through membership of the european Single Market. Just like the eU itself, the Single Market bans public ownership, state aid to industry, public control over

Communist Party Midlands

From Saltley Gates in 1972, through solidarity with Derek Robinson in 1979, to militant action against austerity and for a socialist Britain in the 21st century

AnITA hALPIn IS A MeMBeR oF CoMMUnIST PARTy’S exeCUTIve AnD eDITS The UnITy! SeRIeS oF PUBLICATIonS

Defend quality public services, stop the cuts, pay the workers ‘The Morning Star is the most precious and only voice we have in the daily media’ Jeremy Corbyn By

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unsuccessfully - to gerrymander the result was truly shocking Repeated studies have shown the scale of media bias against Corbyn and his team, from a BBC that helped coordinate on-air resignations to newspapers whose hostility has been exposed in studies by the Media Reform Coalition and the LSe. There's one exception among daily papers: the Morning Star. And that's not a coincidence.

It's owned by its readers, rather than some billionaire tax exile. Anybody can pay a pound and become an owner of the people's paper with full voting rights at the annual general meetings that elect our management committee - no retrospective £25 supporters' tax applied.

And we're the paper of all working people and those suffering discrimination and oppression.

Alone in the press the Star has welcomed the revolution in the Labour Party and the new mass membership.

Britain needs a decisive break with years of privatisation and financial speculation: we need democratic public ownership and an industrial strategy for growth.

Alone we cover the industrial struggles of the unions and put the workers' case against that of the bosses who have ruled unchallenged for too long. you will probably pick up a copy of the Star here, but isn't it time you made the Morning Star your daily paper?

Ben ChACKo

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he eU ReFeRenDUM result has provided a huge opportunity to argue for an alternative to austerity and fresh investment in public services.

Many who voted Leave did so because of a resentment which has built up as a direct result of austerity policies.

Whether your union was favouring in or out or neither, all of us have a responsibility to make sure that our movement leads the argument on how the UK should adapt to life outside the eU. The nhS, the civil service, education, local government and many more public services will be further decimated or disappear altogether if we don’t fulfil our responsibilities. In that context, positive motions and stirring speeches are a good start, but will mean nothing if policies aren’t put into practice.

Workers pay is repressed – many have not had a real pay rise in years We demand the immediate lifting of all public spending limits, an end to all government pay caps and work for a united campaign in defence of public services and the workers who provide them.

In the longer term, we look to a Labour government to restore good pay and conditions across the public sector so that, once again, all our communities receive quality services at the point of need.

rItAIn's working people today face greater challenges than at any time for years. over the summer our prime minister may have changed, but the determination of the Conservative government to press ahead with its assault on working people has not.

The Act leaves workers weaker, and bosses stronger, than ever: and the bosses are hardly proving trustworthy custodians of our economy.

From asset-stripping BhS before leaving this icon of our high streets to die, to watching impotently while our steel industry stares into the abyss, Britain's rulers in both the business and political worlds have shown they have no vision or strategy for the future That's why working people's wages are still not worth what they were when the bankers' crash hit us eight years ago.

That's why young people are entering a world of precarious work and sky-high rents.

And that's why the movement to change all that, in the form of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party, is more important than ever.

Corbyn has had a rough ride in his year at the helm. Generals have threatened military coups if he wins an election. his own MPs have waged a ceaseless campaign of vilification, culminating in their mutiny following the eU Ben ChACKo IS The eDIToR oF The referendum. As the leadership contest unrolled the dirty tricks to attempt MoRnInG STAR

Public sector Public sector unions must work with communities to reverse the attacks on services and their members’ terms and conditions Another year, another TUC conference will take place amidst massive attacks on public services, sure to be continued by the latest incarnation of Tory government.

Delegates to conference will undoubtedly agree on many things this week - the scars which sustained austerity are leaving on our public services and society means there isn’t much room for public disagreement. however, too often our movement fails to rise to the challenge of uniting to fight for change.

Any government could make the provision of properly funded public services a priority. The campaign to see Jeremy Corbyn win shows that there is a mood amongst the electorate to do so.

Unions must seize the opportunity and stand up for their members and communities where we work.

Cuts are everywhere with the removal from many communities of services that have been in place for decades– libraries, bus services, social security payments, adult education. And as services close or involve a longer journey to get to, people

government based at Westminster continues to implement its austerity agenda via its mouthpiece nhS england.

The latest cuts to services are the ones under the sustainability and transformation plans (STPs) where local ‘health and social care leaders’ are devising ways to cut services to meet nhS england and no 11 monetary targets rather than patient needs or demands.

These cuts are on top of the ones already being demanded by nhS england of five per cent efficiency savings. The government wants an expanded service on less money and the only ways they can get this is by cutting and/or freezing wages and terms and conditions and by destroying service provision.

Local government Social services, The on-going BMA Junior Doctors housing, refuse collection, libraries, dispute will only be the first of a number recreation. Working-class communities of potential disputes as the central rely on local government to provide demand for a seven-day nhS but no essential services. But in order to deliver quality services local government must be increase in funding means that the accessible and must be accountable to the Department of health and nhS england have to attack present agreements on communities they serve. Fundamentally local government must be precisely how it terms and conditions to steal the money from the wage packets of nhS staff. is described and not in a context of cuts Full support must be given to the BMA and privatisation a wing of private and their fight and all must get ready to organisations like Capita. defend all nhS workers.

The tendency to outsource essential services to profiteering organisations leads Education no politician has anything to a lessening of accountability when things go wrong as well as an undermining other than warm words when it comes to of terms and conditions of those workers the power of education. But strong rhetoric is no match for sustained who are transferred, with the aim of investment and sensible policies. From a weakening trade union organisation. In purely financial standpoint, educational fact, delivering quality services to local underachievement and social exclusion communities goes hand in hand with the cost the country billions of pounds every defence of the rights of workers who year. deliver those services.

If we are to build a better society, we Take social services as an example, over have to recognise that, while there may stretched social workers with unmanageable caseloads and high rates of be no silver bullet when it comes to social mobility, education is surely the best thing stress and burnout are not as likely to deliver an effective service as those with a we have – for the individual, their family and the country. supportive management structure and a Despite education being a force for protected number of cases. nor is delivering quality services about good and politicians’ apparent commitment to it, we have a dedicated achieving targets through a box ticking workforce constantly being asked to exercise on a computer. It is about deliver more for less, and financial barriers enhancing the quality of life in being put up in front of potential students. communities. For this a decently paid A cocktail of education policies from workforce, whose rights at work are successive governments, including axing respected is essential. the education maintenance allowance – a weekly payment of up to £30 to help Health The once united nhS is now a service that is different in each of the four teenagers meet the cost of college, the introduction of charges for adults who nations of england, Scotland, Wales and want to study at college, increased northern Ireland with different decisions made over funding of services and wages. university tuition fees and cuts in english classes for foreign language speakers, will The one common thing is that cuts are happening and they are always dressed up restrict access to education to those people who most need it. as ‘savings’.

We should be encouraging people to england is the largest part of the nhS strive for qualifications, not pricing them and the one facing the largest cuts and out. wage freezes and disputes as the Tory have to rely more and more on often dodgy internet connections.

Public services continue to be sold off – ensuring that there is more fragmentation and poorer terms and pay.

Where is the mass campaign to bring these services back in house? Redundancy terms will, should the government get its way, be worsened for the second time in five years so enabling government and councils to sack workers on the cheap.

Some unions appear to have already given up the fight and have agreed to talk to government – others are campaigning against them. our members demand we oppose these changes all unions should join together to do so.

Britain’s youth needs socialism and so on as the private sector shrinks at the same time as the public sector is torn HE torY government's new apart.

This increase in poverty is most acutely national 'Living' Wage is a seen in this generation. The first lot to joke. A poor joke at the expense of the working class of this come through without the same opportunities as their parents. Let me nation. not only does it offer a repeat this; the lack of opportunities for paltry rise in workers' salaries it doesn't even apply to the under 25s. the youth of today is a result of the ruling class's most recent offensive: operation Today’s youth are the first generation Austerity. The increases in child poverty to be worse off than their parents in a and youth unemployment is not a result very long time. Centuries, claim some. of the financial crisis of nearly a decade This is no accident, neither is it confined ago. A tired excuse still being to Britain. It is the result of austerity. A global phenomenon whereby the capitalist hegemonically peddled by news-reading mouthpieces of the ruling class in today's class snatch back any past form of social media. democratic reforms of the capitalist young people need socialism. They system. namely the welfare state. need it to combat low wages. The Basic economic principles follow that abolition of the wage system is the more money is taken from the undoubtedly a long way off but in the masses and into the hands of a wealthy meantime the youth need a society where few then the more an economy suffers. we can fully develop without being Bringing with it the resultant job losses By

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return to Communist Party Ruskin House 23 Coombe Road Croydon CR0 1BD e mail office@communist-party.org.uk or call 02086861659 H Austerity 2016

oWAIn hoLLAnD

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malnourished at the end of a telephone line umbilical cord waiting for the next zero-hours job opportunity to phone through with a couple of hours work.

We need a society that can provide social housing so that we can be guaranteed shelter from becoming another number in the rising tally of young homeless people. We need nationalisation to provide us with jobs as well as to prevent us from lining the pockets of the rich by trying to keep warm every winter struggling to afford rising energy costs.

We can achieve all these things if we work at it and we can start by getting a pay rise tomorrow if we teach the young people how to organise as part of the trade union movement and take the fight for a better life to their bosses. oWAIn hoLLAnD IS GeneRAL SeCReTARy oF The yoUnG CoMMUnIST LeAGUe