communist-party.org.uk
International Women’s Day March 2017
unity!@WTUC 19172017
One woman council leader is not enough
In 1922 the Soviet government decided to establish International Women’s Day as a special holiday in commemoration of women’s participation in the street demonstration in Petrograd in on March 8, 1917.
LASS WAR
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oMen In the north of england, with hard hats, hi-vis jackets and men’s suits, recently picketed delegates at the male-dominated northern powerhouse conference in a protest about female under-representation. The Manchester event had 15 men as speakers highlighted in a press release. only 13 out of the 98 speakers over the two days were women. The “Lass War” protest was organised by the stand-up comedian and poet Kate Fox, who made a comedy series for Radio 4 and is poet in residence for the Great North Run. Protesters have been encouraged to dress up and recreate classic “northern powerhouse” photographs: “men with ties signing things and looking proud, as well as men on construction sites pointing at things and looking important”. Eleven male council leaders from Greater Manchester signed the first English devolution agreement with the then chancellor, George Osborne. Stockport’s Sue Derbyshire, then the region’s only female leader, was on holiday so did not appear in the picture. “I think it makes the north look sexist and outdated,” Fox said of the lack of highprofile women. “Exactly the opposite of what is needed when the north needs to be pulled together into a future vision which inspires everybody. “There’s been a lot of interest in the protest and hopefully several of us can remind the delegates that there are actual women in the north that they need to take into account. It might also make them think about the messages they are sending out by having all these ridiculous pictures which are as man-heavy as Trump’s cabinet.”
It was most probably on Alexandra Kollontai’s recommendation that the Petrograd Bolshevik Party Committee called on women to openly demonstrate for Bread, Peace, Land. The women were fired on by the police, an important trigger point in the events that followed. Four days later, the Tsar abdicated and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote, within months, full Soviet power was established.
Women need a new deal Its Manifesto for Labour Law contains 25 recommendations, the principles of which have been oMen, MoRe likely to work in low-paid sectors, adopted by the Labour Party, calls have been hit particularly for minimum pay and conditions to hard by the worrying march towards be collectively agreed at sectoral levels and built on at enterprise Sports Direct-style models of levels; a universal status of worker to business; adding to the strain of ensure all people in employment are increasing discrimination during eligible for the full suite of workers’ pregnancy and the difficulties mothers face finding flexible work on rights from day one; representation for workers at all levels of the civilised terms. economy, all the way from a seat on This trend has been barely company boards to the mitigated by the uK’s weakened establishment of a Ministry of labour laws. The Tory review of Labour and national economic rights will not consider let alone Forum to scrutinise the impact of deliver what is needed. But there is policy on all sections of the populace. an alternative. The Institute of To resist still firmly entrenched employment Rights calls for the gender inequalities in the workplace, reform of uK laws to reshape the the IeR calls in particular for world of work. WoRK
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maternity pay be increased to full pay for the first six months’ leave and for parental leave to be fully flexible in order that it can be shared between parents, to help keep women in the workforce. The Institute also calls for career breaks for workers of up to five years to care for children up to the age of 18, and stronger provisions for flexible working, as well as better enforcement of equality laws to ensure women are provided equal opportunities in the workplace. Join the call for a real review of uK laws, and the full implementation of the Manifesto for Labour Law www.ier.org.uk/manifesto CAROLYN JONES IS DIRECTOR OF ThE INSTITUTE FOR EMPLOYMENT RIGhTS
The chief danger to peace IMPeRIALISM
billion. One and a half billion live in countries affected by imperialism’s wars. Almost a billion are hungry. e MuSTn’T let the It was headlined this week that millions personalities of Trump of children in four war-torn countries and his cabinet (Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia and dominate our opposition to Yemen) are in danger of starvation. imperialism. They, warns LIZ Eleven million have been displaced in PAYne, are but a part of the most Syria or forced to flee as refugees, more reactionary wing of the uS ruling than 300,000 are dead and the country’s class. infrastructure destroyed. If ever we needed proof that This is the inevitable legacy of capitalism, in the words of Britain’s Road to Socialism, “is a system of exploitation capitalism, created by it in a systemic cycle of destruction. The most that generates crisis, inequality, reactionary forces of imperialism can corruption, environmental degradation only worsen the suffering. There is no and war and is innately incapable of resolution for the masses in the solving the most fundamental problems of humanity,” we have it before our eyes. relentless crisis-driven quest for new investment potential and higher rates of The plight of humanity is desperate profit. and worsening. Just one per cent of the And so to the newly inaugurated world’s population controls 99 per cent president of the leading imperialist of its wealth and the cavernous gap power. No matter how often Donald between rich and poor is widening at an Trump repeats his “America first” slogan, alarming rate. there is no doubt that the only ones who Oxfam reported in January 2017 that will come first are the most reactionary the fortunes of the richest eight men on the planet are equal to the wealth of half sections of the ruling class, hell-bent on of its entire population of just over seven shoring up their position through a new
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openly totalitarian US-dominated world order. Since they have been completely unable to solve the continuing global economic crisis and new exacerbating factors are constantly emerging, the ironfist is blatantly revealed as the tactic of last resort in salvaging for themselves the juice of every last squeeze by whatever means at their disposal and openly attacking the working class of the United States and across the world. Behind the populist razzmatazz it is the darkest forces of monopoly capital, which are ruthlessly attempting to reassert their hegemony over the resources, labour and markets of the world. Through the Trump mouthpiece, they have made it clear that the days of niceties such as respect for international agreements or indeed fundamental human rights are gone. If you want something, you “just go in and take it.” As Defence Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis warned the people of Iraq: “Do not cross us because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.”
So it is then that recent weeks have seen a massive and very dangerous ratcheting up of international tension focused especially on the Middle East and the countries of the “Pacific Rim,” where several potential flashpoints are carefully provoked, stirred and nurtured. For the Middle East, US imperialism’s strategy is clear — control of its resources and vital supply routes while limiting the access of rival economies to what the region has to offer. This is to be achieved without the massive cost of US armies on the ground. Others must do the dirty work. Conflict and division must be maintained. No sustainable peaceful outcomes in the foreseeable future can be countenanced for the people of the region — not in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and neither for the Palestinians nor the Kurds. Trump’s backing of the one-state (Israeli state) solution will kick the decades-long struggle for a Palestinian state into the long grass of history. CONTINUED OVERLEAF
What next?
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veR 40 years after equal pay became law, big differences remain. Women are still getting almost a fifth less than men yet they are probably earning more for our society by being as productive as men in the workplace and more productive in the home. The argument amongst experts is all about whether it will take a quarter or a half a century to close the gap. Women wonder if it will ever be right? Two women prime ministers and a brace of female top coppers doesn’t hack it either. Tougher pay-reporting requirements for businesses may help to focus attention on the problem. But there’s a desperate need to scrap the costs deterring women from taking their cases to tribunals. Gender segregation is a tough nut to crack but essential. There are more women in engineering and scientific professions than ever but women still dominate sectors such as the caring professions. All families need real choices about lives at work, study, and home. Whichever way our nations move forward, the solutions need to be good for women but for men and children also.
‘The Morning Star is the most precious and only voice we have in the daily media’ Jeremy Corbyn
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19172017
A true supporter of the WTUC
International Women’s Day To mark International Women’s Day in the centenary year of the Russian Revolution Manifesto Press has published Alexandra Kollontai’s essay on the historical and class significance of International Women’s Day £2.50 at manifestopress.org.uk and available at the TuC Women’s conference
Join communist women in struggle In 1951 the first edition of the Party’s programme, The British Road to Socialism stated that Britain must achieve socialism by its own path, using mass struggle to transform Parliament into a democratic instrument of the will of the vast majority of the people. Almost alone in the labour movement, we called for parliaments for the peoples of Wales and Scotland. Based in the working class movement, it led the fight against anti-trade union laws. The Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions united Communist and nonCommunist militants in mass one-day stoppages in 1968, 1970 and 1971. The In Britain, a rich historical seam of last of these moved the TUC to call a communist ideas dates back to the Middle one-day General Strike, thereby defeating Ages and beyond. The desire for a future based on peace, co-operation, community, the legislation. Alongside other left-wingers, solidarity and common wealth has long Communists also gave the lead in the inspired the peoples of England, Scotland Upper Clyde Shipbuilders’ work-in and and Wales. The Communist Party the 1972 and 1974 miners’ strikes. continues that living, revolutionary Powerful Communist and broad left tradition. Our party is a product of the British labour movement. Its roots lie deep organisations were built in many workplaces and unions. in Britain’s unions, socialist societies and Since then, the Communist Party has other working class organisations. The roots of the Communist Party are in worked tirelessly to rebuild membership and organisation in industry, public the anti-war movement of 1914-18. services and mass movements, carrying Throughout the 1930s, it led the on the finest traditions of the Party and is unemployed workers movement and the recognised as the sole successor of the fight against fascism. During the Second World War, it campaigned tirelessly for the communist tradition in Britain by over 100 Communist and Workers parties across opening of a 'second front' to confront the globe. hitler in the west. “The aim of the Communist Party is to achieve a socialist Britain in which the means of production, distribution and exchange will be socially owned and utilised in a planned way for the benefit of all. This necessitates a revolutionary transformation of society, ending the existing capitalist system of exploitation and replacing it with a socialist society in which each will contribute according to ability and receive according to work done. Socialist society creates the conditions for advance to a fully communist form of society in which each will receive according to need.” Communist Party Aims & Constitution
Join Britain’s revolutionary party of working class power and liberation I want to join the Communist Party/Young Communist League name address
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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 IWD 2017
ConTInueD FRoM PAGe 1 For the US today, no single power must be allowed to dominate — not Saudi Arabia, not Turkey, not Iran. The influence of any external powers that might challenge the US from the Mediterranean to the borders of China must also be restrained. States such as Syria and Iraq are to be divided to isolate and better control the richest pickings of oil and gas and weaken potential opposition. Sectarian divisions must be fermented. Left and progressive movements must be suppressed. Trump’s White house chief strategist Steve Bannon has declared a new war brewing and put Iran “on notice.” No sooner did he enter the White house than Trump picked up the phone to allies in the region — Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel. his message? The imperative of strengthening bonds between each one and the US. Already a new mutual defence alliance along the lines of Nato is in the offing between Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey. The danger according to the US is there for all to see: Iran is “the biggest sponsor of state terrorism,” according to Mattis. The push towards conflict between the US and Iran is not only disastrous for the people of Iran struggling against a theocratic dictatorship but also for the peace process in Syria and the stability of the region as a whole. The Trump administration knows this. It is deliberate and reckless. Trump boasts of huge growth for the US arms monopolies, while Congress has been put on a war footing, now needing to give no further ratification prior to the opening of hostilities. War threatens to engulf the region in an all-encompassing conflict that might easily spark an even more widespread conflagration, while the threat provides the life blood of the region’s dictatorships and the opposite for all who
ouR HISToRY In 1982, 300 women machinists went on strike in protest at the sacking of two men at the Supreme Quilting clothing factory in Smethwick, West Midlands. The men had been recruiting for the Transport and General Workers Union. The women also complained of low wages - many having a take-home pay of £30 for a 40-hour week, maybe a quarter of the then norm in manufacturing. After a prolonged dispute, during which the mainly Asian women strikers maintained a 24-hour picket of the Raindi Textiles factory, a sister company, they went back to work after promises of union recognition, which led to nothing. The two men remained sacked.
struggle for rights and freedoms and a just and peaceful future. In the Far East too, the heightening of tensions in the South China Sea and towards North Korea serve another major US strategy — the economic and military containment of China. Any softening of attitudes towards Russia by sections of the US ruling elite should be seen in this context, as should the alacrity with which the Trump administration has moved to cement ties with Japan, pursuing its militarisation and pitting it on a battleready standby. The Japanese reactionary government has proved a willing ally. Despite huge opposition, the country’s prime minister Shinzo Abe gave the go-ahead for full-scale work on construction of the new US military base in Okinawa just a week before he hurried off to the United States to offer homage to Trump. The left in Japan condemned him, the Japanese Communist Party writing of his “extraordinary obsequiousness” as he endorsed the US-Japan alliance while remaining silent on Trump’s antihumanitarian ban on all Syrian refugees and Muslims from a number of countries entering the US. Elsewhere, the writing is clearly on the wall. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is promoting regime change in Venezuela (refering to it as “a negotiated transition to democratic rule”) and urging Colombia and Brazil to rally behind the US to achieve it. Intervention in Cuba is also in the strategic mix with no sign of any lifting of the 55-year long blockade. And in terms of worldwide trade, the hugely antidemocratic, big business-focused Ceta deal with Canada looks set to become a model and foundation for US-dominated economic arrangements throughout the world. LIz PAYNE IS WOMEN’S ORGANISER AND ChAIR OF ThE COMMUNIST PARTY
There had been a number of disputes in the region in this sector in addition to Raindi: for example, Reeve Polishing and Plating, Smethwick in 1978; R J Vickers in 1980; Sandhar and Kang in 1982.These were followed by Kewal Brothers and G & M Plastics in 1984. All of these disputes involved Asian workers, often women, and most had as one precipitating factor - management strategies to thwart union organisation. In some of the earlier of these disputes, union support was at best half-hearted but the later cases saw support coming, sometimes a little late). For example, at Sadhar and Kang in also in 1984 the T&G aided the picketing by getting its member drivers to embargo deliveries from large supplying firms. The strike did have a degree of success.
Kevin Halpin (1927-2017), who died recently, was at the centre of Britain’s labour movement for over half a century as a workplace militant and communist activist. Unity@WTUC remembers him. Like many women trades unionists, former Unite/GPMU national official Ann Field remembers being in awe of Kevin Halpin when she first attended conferences and other demos and pickets. “He was inspiring, knowledgeable and determined. He appealed to me as a raw young Communist and trade unionist because he spoke plainly and straightforwardly, no jargon, no mysterious hard-to-follow political theory but plain class politics rousing us all for the struggle, the class struggle.” An aspect of Kevin’s political and trade union work was his recognition of the need to involve women in organising on issues most relevant to them. This had been brought home to him by his dealings with women members at Briggs, so the 1968 strike for equal pay by Ford sewing machinists did not arise from a vacuum. He was prominent in insisting that more attention should be paid to the TUC women’s conference which was for too long treated as the Cinderella of the organised labour movement. Former trade union official Philippa Clark met Kevin in the early 1980s when she was working at the AEU and involved with the Engineering Gazette broad left organisation. She says: “We spent a lot of time convincing people it was an important conference that needed to be organised to make advances. “Kevin was always there, selling the Morning Star, and getting a coffee if anyone needed one. (His wife) Anita’s birthday usually fell during women’s conference, so he’d put a notice in the Morning Star and then appear at lunchtime with a treat for her. He gave great support to our conference as part of his Communist Party industrial work. This helped to put women’s conference on the agenda as a conference to be fought for politically as it could effect change in the TUC.” Institute of Employment Rights director Carolyn Jones remembers Kevin and Communist Party industrial organiser Bert Ramelson as regular visitors to her home in Kirkby when she was young. The visits revolved around discussions with her dad Bill about the Building Workers Charter joining forces with the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions, which Kevin chaired, in support of the dockers and assisting the 1972 national building workers strike and the Shrewsbury conspiracy trials that followed. “Those discussions clearly left an impression,” she notes drily. “In later life Kevin visited Liverpool once again to pursue me to take over his role as party industrial organiser of the CPB, a role I was honoured to take up.” Vicky Knight is another woman strongly influenced by Kevin, recalling that she was staying with him and Anita “when I was appointed to the first ever seat for women on the Fire Brigades Union national executive committee.” On turning in one night, she found a letter on her pillow from Kevin. “It is a letter I still prize today, outlining his delight at my appointment, the scale and gravitas of the task ahead of me and an unfaltering belief in my ability to rise to the challenge and make a difference in our movement. Kevin empowered so many people in this way — he made such a difference. I’m proud to have been able to call him a friend.”