Unity 2016 tuc 2016 tuesday

communist-party.org.uk

unity!@TUC

Tuesday 12 l Wednesday 13 September2016

Wheels on fire

Political economy came into being as a natural result of the expansion of trade, and with its appearance elementary, unscientific huckstering was replaced by a developed system of licensed fraud, an entire science of enrichment.

by

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Engels, Outlines of Political Economy (1844)

Members of Unite protest outside the Sports direct nottingham store urging the retailer to ‘have a heart’ by putting staff on permanent contracts and paying the real living wage.

West bridgeford TV You Tube

t’s excItIng tImes, with the leader of the Labour Party calling for the popular (60 per cent) in recent opinion polls renationalisation of the railways. He has also pledged to extend public ownership of our bus networks Corbyn has set a progressive transport agenda but also shifted the parliamentary centre ground to the extent that Owen Smith is more or less matching him and the new prime minister has had to sound like a social democrat, insincere as that may be.

The flow of finances in the railway industry, from passenger and tax-payer to shareholder is much like the other privatised utilities with charges to the user increasing consistently over many years at a much higher rate than inflation. The rail franchisers fight hard to protect their winwin contracts which give profits most of the time but when they fail the government takes no action against them. Well known examples include the East Coast which was successfully developed under state control but then refranchised to Virgin, and now Southern with its numerous train cancellations and resulting commuter demonstrations.

The 2011 Mcnulty Report called for significant reductions of station and ontrain staff and both in the name of efficiency. Since then the government and train companies have been working behind the scenes and this is now coming to a head with disputes at Scotrail and Southern. in the past it has generally been the case that if train staff were to be cut then responsibilities shifted to the station staff and vice versa. defence of these jobs is the problems of a tory government essential for passenger safety, comfort and determined to silence political information. opposition, cull collective action, The very recent extra £20m gift from criminalise solidarity on the picket the government to Southern ‘to get to line and strangle unions with grips with things that go wrong on this part bureaucratic red tape controlled by of the network’ is money that must be a state surveillance officer. spent to ensure guards stay on their trains. or embrace the possibilities of a And the very next day one of the socialist alternative, with a labour Southern consortium declared profits of leadership determined to place £100m!The free market also has a negative trade unions back at the heart of impact on the freight sector. Rail freight economic, industrial and social produces 70 per cent less CO2 per tonne regeneration. We know the answer carried than the equivalent road journey, – as do the thousands returning to and road congestion costs UK businesses support Labour. £24bn per annum, but the decline of coal spread the word! and steel traffic is so severe that the very future of the industry is at risk.

CAROLyn JOnES iS diRECTOR Of ThE A sharp decline in rail freight capacity could be disastrous for the future of the inSTiTUTE Of EMPLOyMEnT RighTS economy and public ownership of the rail freight industry is needed for long-term growth in the sector and secure future.

One of the biggest problems with the fragmented private railways is the chaotic fares structure. A public railway should have a much simpler and unified fares policy with uniform concessions and fares more closely related to distance, as they are in much of Europe.

The Labour Party is considering how best to bring the railways into public ownership, including decentralising some transport powers to the regions. The level of centralisation and local variation should be subject to widespread discussions with passenger groups, trades unions, local government bodies, and while they are still A manifesto for Labour Law: involved, the private companies running towards a comprehensive revision of the services. workers’ rights can be bought from the institute of Employment Rights at Andy bAin iS A TSSA ACTiViST www.ier.org.uk.

Tory problems and socialist possibilities by

CAROLyn JOnES

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THE BATTLE FOR THE LABOUR MOVEMENT 2015: A year of struggle A Morning Star pamphlet

Andy bAin

He tory trade Union Act received royal Assent earlier this year. over the summer, the government ‘consulted’ on various aspects of the Bill’s provisions – you’d be excused if you missed the detail! suffice to say, by the end of 2016 the government will kick start the restrictions relating to industrial action including the 50 and 40 per cent thresholds, new rules on voting papers, longer notice periods to employers and shorter life-spans of trade union ballot mandates.

Life in tory Britain continues.

While they consulted on how to restrict trade union freedoms, Jeremy corbyn was consulting on how to strengthen the voice of workers and their unions.

His Workplace 2020 project opens a new chapter in workplace relations. For the first time in years, a Labour leader intends to put trade unions at the heart of economic and industrial regeneration.

As part of that consultation the Institute of employment rights developed a set of policy proposals for consideration. the manifesto for Labour Law was drafted by 15 leading labour lawyers and academics and has already won the support of trade unions and the labour leadership team. the UK’s framework of law has

to change. It was born out of 19th century conditions and ignores today’s economic and workplace realities. It’s not fit for purpose in 21st century Britain.

And the shift to unenforceable individual rights must be reversed. that’s why the manifesto shifts the balance of regulation from legislation to collective bargaining. extensive sectoral collective bargaining structures underpinned by strong trade union rights and enforceable statutory employment rights is the way forward. the manifesto recommends a labour model closer to that of the UK’s major european competitors, the majority of which negotiate wages and working conditions at a sectoral level through the process of collective bargaining between trades unions and employers’ federations.

It makes sense. In the absence of collective bargaining, wages and conditions are set by the employer unilaterally, a situation that leads to exploitation and abuse. Under collective bargaining, inequality diminishes and productivity is boosted, benefiting the economy as a whole. the manifesto proposes a ministry of Labour, led by a secretary of state with a seat at the cabinet table to ensure the interests of the UK’s 31 million workers are heard at the heart of government. the choice is stark. stick with

Fighting for gender equality defend quality public services, stop the cuts, pay the workers 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.

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AniTA WRighT

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or centUrIes women workers have had to suffer poor conditions and low wages. In June 1863 Karl marx wrote about a 20-year old London milliner, mary Anne Walkley who died of exhaustion because she was made to work on average 16½ hours without a break and up to 30 hours in the main season, working and sleeping in one room with 60 other girls.

The women chain makers of Cradley heath (pictured above) showed that you could fight back and win. Their 10-week strike in 1910 resulted in them securing the first ever minimum wage and the strike by women machinists at fords paved the way for the 1970 Equal Pay Act. Women began to show the predominantly male-led trade union movement that they were prepared to fight for their rights and their dignity as workers.

The most dramatic example of this was the 1976 grunwick dispute when a group of mainly Asian women workers led by Jayaben desai went on strike against appalling working conditions,

compulsory over-time and an average pay of £28 per week when the average full-time wage for a female manual worker in London was £44 per week.

There have been many disputes involving women workers over the 40 years since grunwick and the battle for gender equality at work continues to this day. in May 2016 researchers from glassdoor Economic Research ranked britain 11th out of 18 countries on gender equality at work, behind US, france, Spain and Sweden.

According to the latest institute of fiscal Studies (ifS) report women earn on average 18 per cent less than men and the gap between men’s and women’s hourly pay rates has only fallen slightly from 28% per cent in 1993 to 23 per cent in 2003.

The Chartered Management institute (CMi) found the pay gap worse in Scotland at 29 per cent representing a pay difference of £10,862. in northern ireland the hourly earnings for women working full-time was slightly ahead of full-time male earnings and the Office for national Statistics believes this is because there is a higher proportion of public sector jobs.

The ifS research found that the gender

pay gap sharply increases after the birth of a first child. The gap between hourly earnings of the two sexes becomes steadily wider over the subsequent 12 years after the birth of a child with women failing 33 per cent behind men.

This so-called ‘motherhood penalty’ particularly hits more highly educated women who often miss out on subsequent wage progression. The ifS estimate that this group of women’s wage loss is 4 per cent for each year out of paid work. if women continue to be treated as cheap labour by employers and penalised for the entirely natural process of giving birth to children then it disadvantages our whole society which is why the campaign for gender equality at work is a campaign that must be fought by the whole trade union movement.

Women’s experience and knowledge enhances and strengthens our movement, particularly as we now make up over 53 per cent of our trade union membership. So let’s hope the TUC and all its affiliates make sure gender equality is central to every campaign and not left off the agenda in brexit negotiations.

AniTA WRighT iS PRESidEnT Of ThE nATiOnAL ASSEMbLy Of WOMEn

Unity against austerity clear the trade unions must be at the heart and the head of the anti-austerity movement. The assembly has directly nIons need to take involved hundreds of thousands of working urgent action to assist the class people in protests and actions People’s Assembly in rejecting austerity. Very few now believe ‘changing gear’ in its already very that austerity is inevitable or that there’s no successful anti-austerity alternative. Nobody believes any more, if campaigning, they ever did, that people regardless of There is now a very healthy anticlass, wealth and power are all in it establishment mood that challenges together. neoliberal economics and politics We urge every union to promote the PA’s everywhere, The current political situation demands work and distribute the assembly’s new publication, In Place of austerity – a that we seize every opportunity to build a programme for the people. More members, united movement to defeat austerity cuts, lay officials and full timers should be privatisation and political attacks and so directly involved in the work of the defeat this austerity government and the assembly. class it serves.

The government will continue to attack Despite Theresa May’s ‘trust in me’ trade union rights, and rights to organise in cynically seductive siren song, it’s clear her government is totally committed to the communities. They’ll use every economic and social means to attack us for daring to austerity agenda at home and abroad. resist – and they’ll tell us that it is our own The establishment has recently been fault. They’ll try ever harder to divide us badly damaged in two major battles – on race, gender, cultural and any other firstly by the election of a socialist leader of the Labour Party, and second by the vote grounds that would hinder building a united mass movement. They’ll attempt to to exit the EU bosses’ club. provoke set piece battles on their own Neither of these could have been terms, as they have before. They’ll use achieved without the growing mass every aspect of the State they feel struggle, in which the People’s Assembly necessary for them to win and our unions are key players.

In reply, we need to build a deeply The furious reaction of the capitalist rooted People’s Assembly movement in all class, its leading politicians in the Tory Party (and sadly in the Labour Party), and our trades unions and local communities to its media propagandists illustrates what we promote the message and bring millions into industrial and direct action. have long known; this anti-austerity We need a strategic movement of struggle is a class war – as Frances O’Grady characterised it when the People’s opposition and protest capable of defeating austerity policies and the government that Assembly was founded – and it won’t end seeks to impose them. in a draw.

Either we will inflict a major defeat on biLL gREEnShiELdS iS A MEMbER Of ThE the government, or they will smash us.

The People’s Assembly has always made COMMUniST PARTy’S ExECUTiVE by

biLL gREEnShiELdS

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manifestopress.org.uk

the empire and Ukraine This book sets the Ukraine crisis in its global and local context, and draws the lessons needed for the anti-war movement as great power conflict returns to Europe and threatens a new cold war or worse.

by Andrew Murray £11.95 (+£1.50 p&p) 138 pages

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 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.

Local government Social services, housing, refuse collection, libraries, recreation. Working-class communities rely on local government to provide essential services. but in order to deliver quality services local government must be accessible and must be accountable to the communities they serve. fundamentally local government must be precisely how it is described and not in a context of cuts and privatisation a wing of private organisations like Capita.

The tendency to outsource essential services to profiteering organisations leads to a lessening of accountability when things go wrong as well as an undermining of terms and conditions of those workers who are transferred, with the aim of weakening trade union organisation. in fact, delivering quality services to local communities goes hand in hand with the defence of the rights of workers who deliver those services.

Take social services as an example, over stretched social workers with unmanageable caseloads and high rates of stress and burnout are not as likely to deliver an effective service as those with a supportive management structure and a protected number of cases. nor is delivering quality services about achieving targets through a box ticking exercise on a computer. it is about enhancing the quality of life in communities. for this a decently paid workforce, whose rights at work are respected is essential.

Health The once united nhS is now a service that is different in each of the four nations of England, Scotland, Wales and northern ireland with different decisions made over funding of services and wages. The one common thing is that cuts are happening and they are always dressed up as ‘savings’.

England is the largest part of the nhS and the one facing the largest cuts and wage freezes and disputes as the Tory 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.

The on-going bMA Junior doctors dispute will only be the first of a number of potential disputes as the central demand for a seven-day nhS but no increase in funding means that the department of health and nhS England have to attack present agreements on terms and conditions to steal the money from the wage packets of nhS staff. full support must be given to the bMA and their fight and all must get ready to defend all nhS workers.

Daily paper of the working class movement from your newsagent and at www.morningstaronline.co.uk