Unity!@TUC Tuesday 11 September

CP BrITaIn

CP BrITaIn communist-party.org.uk

Tuesday 11 September 2018

Workers of all lands, unite!

@TUC It ain’t ’arf ’ot, mum! than they can be replenished, whether they be food or forests or fuel. In 1970 the date was ENVIRONMENT December 29. Just a few days ago, a hE yEar 2018 was the hottest Uns-commissioned scientific report summer in England since records said that capitalism has to die if the world is to make the switch from began, and the joint hottest fossil fuels and at the same time solve elsewhere in Britain. across much of the linked crises of rising inequality, Europe, July temperatures soared, unemployment, slow economic regularly exceeding 30oC. Wildfires growth and rising debt levels. broke out in Sweden, Britain and We urgently need to move to Greece. On 28 June Oman saw the decarbonising our economy. Where hottest night ever recorded anywhere we use fossil fuels – and this could on earth, never falling below 42.6oC. include coal, deep-mined in Britain In the 136-year monitoring again – there has to be carbon history, 17 of the warmest 18 years capture and storage (CCS). have occurred this century. and, while that might seem a bonus, given Elsewhere, we should be investing in renewable energy resources and the ‘typical’ British summer, the downsides are not trivial, quite apart public transport, encouraging electoral victory - and then to keep from the wildfires: droughts depress reduced use of private transport and Labour governments to their shifting freight from road to rail. farm yields, leading to higher food manifesto pledges. yet the Tory government, acting prices; by 2050 regular heat waves Cold War anti-communism for the business lobby, is going in the are expected to kill thousands in divided the trade union movement opposite direction. Its support for Britain each year; and the melting of in the late 1940s. The ‘broad left’ fracking – a technology associated polar ice-caps will make low-lying militancy developed in the labour with growing health risks – without coastal areas (where most of and student movements in the late CCS at gas-fired power stations Britain’s population live) 1960s and early 1970s lost its unity, uninhabitable or very vulnerable to threatens to lock Britain into a drive and direction, disarmed by the storms. carbon-based polluting economy for ‘Social Contract'. decades. The expansion of In the developing world, some Defeatism and misplaced faith in island nations will be completely heathrow with the third runway will the EU helped weaken the labour mean a massive increase in CO2inundated; droughts already mean movement still further in the 1980s, the difference between life and death producing air freight. The as the Communist Party was almost in africa, resulting in the mass government has bailed out hitachi destroyed. migration of hungry people; while over the hinckley C nuclear power Which underlines the fourth elsewhere the warmer air and station construction, although lesson. The labour movement oceans mean more frequent and nuclear power is by no means ‘lowneeds a Marxist party that can offer intense hurricanes and monsoons, carbon’ over the lifetime of its cycle, strategic analysis, direction and leading to terrible loss of life, as we including mining and processing coordination based on class and saw recently in Kerala. uranium ore, power station anti-imperialist politics and the goal There is a clear correlation of construction and decommissioning, of a socialist society. global temperature with the amount and nuclear waste disposal.

That is the Communist Party and of the main greenhouse gas, carbon On top of that, investment in its programme, Britain’s Road to dioxide (CO2), in the atmosphere, green energy has halved under the Socialism. the result of burning fossil fuels. In Tories, and is projected to fall by 95% Fifth and finally, winning and the 10,000 years up to the midover the next two years. Just a holding government office is eighteenth century, CO2 amounted couple of months ago, the nowhere near the same as achieving to 280 parts per million (ppm); now government threw out the Swansea and exercising state power. it’s 410 ppm, and still rising. The Bay tidal lagoon project because it Britain’s ruling capitalist class will 2015 Paris agreement aims to cap was “not value for money.” tolerate and subvert Labour CO2 production in order to limit the The wealthy will always be able governments. But it will fight to the global average temperature rise this to escape environmental disaster – it death to maintain the structural century to 2oC above pre-industrial is working people who will be institutions, processes and relations levels. however, there are no regarded as expendable. as always, which perpetuate its class power the responsibility for protecting enforcement mechanisms, the and wealth. working people falls on the labour reduction target is insufficient and But winning a left-led movement. at this year’s Congress, Donald Trump has already government free from EU motions 8, on ‘Fracking’, and 9, withdrawn the United States from restrictions to carry out its left and ‘Strategy for a low-carbon industrial the agreement. progressive policies - and backed by region’, would make an excellent Driven by profit-seeking, a politically conscious mass start in taking the lead on capitalism will always consume, and movement - will mark an important produce waste (which includes decarbonising our economy. step along Britain’s road to CO2), like there is no tomorrow. socialism.  Martin Levy is a UCU member This year, august 1 marked Earth and editor of the Communist Party’s Overshoot Day, the date on which rOBErT GrIFFIThS IS GEnEraL theoretical journal, Communist the planet has used up a year’s Review. supply of natural resources faster SECrETary OF ThE COMMUnIST ParTy MarTIn LEvy

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yet they all ended up on the pavement outside Ten Downing Street, discredited and rejected by LABOUR millions of voters.

What lessons can be learnt from ESPITE aLL the sneers and smears, Jeremy Corbyn has a this history, so we can break the cycle in future? fighting chance of leading Firstly, Labour tends to defeat Labour to victory at the next General the Tories when standing on a bold Election. Of course, the British manifesto that shows a substantial establishment and its allies in the difference between the two parties.

Tory Party, the Parliamentary This was especially the case in Labour Party, the EU and naTO 1945, 1974 and 1997. The formula will do everything they can to didn’t work in 1983, because the prevent this from happening.

Corbyn and John McDonnell are fanatically pro-EU, pro-nuclear weapons ‘Gang of Four’ split the not members of the establishment party. Their Social Democratic Party club. They challenge the big business, ‘free market’, austerity and received huge media coverage until polling day, when most ex-Labour privatisation status quo.

MPs lost their seats despite a clear a left-led Labour government run from the Liberals. might revive policies of selective When Labour stands on a timid public ownership, economic manifesto, as for example in 1964, planning and the redistribution of wealth. horror of horrors - it could 1992 and 2015, the results have been disappointing given the abolish anti-trade union laws and promising circumstances. diversify ownership of the mass Secondly, Labour governments media!

So trade unionists should expect are always ejected from office after they have abandoned any radical ‘Operation Stop Corbyn’ to be policies and embraced ruling class cranked up another few gears as orthodoxy. election-time approaches.

This happened in 1931, 1951, Clarity of policy and unity of 1970, 1979 and 2010. In every case, purpose will be vital in the labour movement if we are to win a left-led Labour governments had ended up government. So will an escalation in trying to impose policies to please mass campaigning activity, especially big business, the Bank of England, the City and British imperialism at in working class communities and the expense of public services, the workplaces. welfare state and the working class.

But we should also understand Millions of workers, the that electing such a government will unemployed, single parents and be merely the beginning. pensioners switched to other In Britain, we have elected parties or stayed at home at Labour governments before. election time.

Labour took office in 1923, 1929, Thirdly, Labour needs active, 1945, 1950, 1964, 1966, 1974, 1997 campaigning movements outside and 2001 promising reforms and parliament that are strong enough improvements that would change to create the conditions for Britain for the better. rOBErT GrIFFIThS

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s Building an economy for the people An alternative economic and political strategy for 21st century Britain Edited by Jonathan White with contributions from: Mark Baimbridge; Brian Burkitt; Mary Davis; John Foster; Marjorie Mayo; Jonathan Michie; Seumas Milne; Andrew Murray; Roger Seifert; Prem Sikka; Jonathan White and Philip Whyman.

Available as a free download at https://21centurymanifesto.files.wordpress.com/20 18/03/an-economy-for-the-people-free.pdf

MANIFESTOPRESS.ORG.UK

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Labour and the unions

Morning Star Fringe Today Tuesday 11 September 2018 12:45 - 2 Exchange 1, Conference Centre

How can the union/Labour link be developed from the workplace upwards. Under Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party has re-established a close working relationship with the trade unions. But what does that mean in practice, and how can the link be strengthened at local and national level?

Chair: Carolyn Jones, vice chair Morning Star Management Cttee H Ben Chacko Morning Star editor, H vicky Knight UCU president, H Gail Cartmail UNITE AGS, H Manuel Cortes TSSA GS, H amanda Martin NEU VP, H Matt Wrack FBU GS, H Dave Ward CWU

PEOPLES’ BREXIT Tonight! Tuesday 11 September 6-8.30pm Friends Meeting house, 6 Mount Street, Manchester M2 5nS Brian Campfield Former president Irish Congress of Trade Unions Graham Stringer MP robert Griffiths chair Lexit the Left Leave campaign Chair: Liz Payne Unison activist

Post-Brexit worries allayed

Break the chains

but in socialist Europe it was embodied both in law and practice. all working people need to be protected by a set of standards negotiated by unions and employers in their sector and enforceable in law.

Third, we need to strengthen and extend employment rights so that all workers are protected and strengthen our enforcement mechanisms so that the unorganised and vulnerable are not defenceless before predatory employers.

The CWU’s motion A New deal for Workers adds strength to the new approach, while nEU and PCS add in features which reflect their experience in dealing with the raft of measures which obstruct and penalise collective action.

GrahaM STEvEnSOn AEROSPACE Claims by Labour’s right-wing that aerospace manufacturing is under threat misses the point that Blair’s government saw the sector halve as a share of the British economy, the fastest rate of decline in our history. With the sector dependent on just-in-time supply chains alarmist claims by remainers suggest that competitiveness could be damaged.

But the aerospace sector is highly productive, with output per employee 49% higher than in the economy as a whole. at 7% of manufacturing output, it directly employs 114,000 people in a highly globalised industry of very large firms, operating multiply-integrated supply chains, with massive economies of scale. The specialist sub-sectors, such as the construction and design of wings, fuselage and engines, are often high-value production capacities.

The UK’s independent participation in the “plurilateral” WTO agreement on Trade in Civil aircraft, means that there are no post- Brexit tariff barriers of concern. This agreement eliminates import duties on all aircraft, other than military aircraft, as well as on other products – civil aircraft engines and their parts and components, all components and subassemblies of civil aircraft, flight simulators and their parts and components. The EU is the destination for around half of the UK’s exports of air and spacecraft, while almost all European based aerospace are collaborative projects that will continue unaffected.

The UK has certain specialisms not currently matched elsewhere in the world, so trade will carry on, making a key need that the Government secure as near frictionless aerospace trade as possible after Brexit, not that difficult so long as customs procedures can be negotiated. It’s not helpful for anyone in the labour and trade union movement to play with these issues as if aerospace workers’ jobs are a political football. and it might help if ministers knew what they were talking about, cared about the issues, and consulted with skilled workers via their unions. But the globalised nature of aviation regulation means that, whilst there is little to be gained from massive regulatory divergence in the foreseeable future, equally, there is nothing to be gained by being obliged to follow EU directives.

The UK is a full member of the 10-year old European aviation Safety agency (EaSa), whilst this does gives access to other global markets, notably through the Bilateral aviation Safety agreements (BaSas) in place between EaSa and its counterparts in the US, Canada and Brazil, this does not mean that Brexit forces us to stay with the entirety of EU provisions.

The Department for Transport has been privately reassuring anyone with interest that Britain will stay within it, not hard since fully 40% of the technical expertise behind EaSa is from the UK Civil aviation authority (Caa), making the UK government’s negotiating position stronger than ministers probably realise is the case. The UK provides much of safety data gathered by EaSa and two-thirds of its safety rulemaking. So, if EaSa and the Civil aviation authority of Singapore can enter into a working arrangement to recognise each other's certifications, it would be simple for the UK Caa to do so.

The main problem is that, under present rules, although non-EU member states can be associate members of EaSa, they are subject to the indirect jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Thus far, such jurisdiction has not been a direct problem for the aerospace sector but exemption could surely have been achieved. yet Teresa May has given up this aim already by a statement that the UK will respect the remit of the ECJ in all EU agencies it continues to participate in after Brexit, without extracting any concessions. Some negotiator! yet EaSa is looking to have formal agreement on a Bilateral aviation Safety agreements with China and Japan. The UK should ensure its participation in these and any other future agreements.

This is vital to opportunities arising from the fact that, up to now, the EaSa and its US Federal aviation authority (Faa) have connived to set global product standards that impinge on safe operations. at a global level, the International Civil aviation Organization is a Un agency that better works to build an Earth-wide consensus on Standards and recommended Practices for aerospace regulation.

GrahaM STEvEnSOn IS a FOrMEr PrESIDEnT OF ThE EUrOPEan TranSPOrT WOrKErS FEDEraTIOn anD a MEMBEr OF ThE COMMUnIST ParTy ExECUTIvE COMMITTEE

balance of power in the workplace was shifting. Which is why the Tories, under Thatcher and her successors, were so keen to slice WORKERS' RIGHTS away at the organised power of workers and their unions. hErESa May asked Jeremy The scandal of the last decades Corbyn why he is so strongly committed to teaching young is that new Labour, under Blair and Brown, obstructed every attempt people about trade unions. his predictable reply illustrates the gap in to get the party to carry through its promises to repeal the Tory antiunderstanding and empathy that union laws. distinguishes the leaders of the two With the current shadow class parties that confront each other. cabinet's willingness to take on The key feature of Labour's board the well-crafted and expert new approach to strengthening proposals contained in the policy workers’ rights and trade union platforms put forward by the freedoms is underpinned by an Institute of Employment rights and understanding that law is always the Campaign for Trade Union class law and that justice is best Freedom we have the basis of a achieved from a position of strength. as capitalism entered the legislative programme which, if buttressed by a willingness to take mid seventies cycle of crisis, the action, could shift the balance of ruling class understood well that class power in the direction of the the procession of working class working class. victories – the strikes which freed Three million workers are the Pentonville Dockers, the locked into zero-hours contracts, successful miners’ pay strikes, the growing power of the rank and file agency work or in low-paid selfemployment and nearly five million and influence of the Liaison cannot enforce their rights with Committee for the Defence of their 'real employer’ because they Trade Unions – meant that the anITa haLPIn

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are outsourced or working for a franchise. So whether you are a McDonald’s worker, a cleaner in the civil service, local government or nhS you probably cannot hold your parent company to account because the workforce has been fragmented and franchised. a Labour government’s first commitment must be to a Ministry of Labour that will ensure that Britain’s 33 million workers have a direct channel to government and a say in an industrial strategy that shapes the investment, training and employment planning that is essential in a productive economy that is shifted away from predatory finance and the City and towards production and human services.

Second, we need every worker to be covered by a national agreement that provides a floor of rights below which no worker should be forced to work.

One of the features of the European constitutions that were crafted after the war was the value attached to labour. The Italian constitution makes it explicit (which is why the right wants to change it)

Rolling out the Manifesto for Labour Law edited by K D Ewing, John Hendy & Carolyn Jones

Rolling out a Manifesto for Labour Law: towards a comprehensive revision of workers’ rights Edited by K D Ewing, John hendy and Carolyn Jones The Manifesto is supported by Jeremy Corbyn’s team and by the Britain’s major unions www.ier.org.uk/ www.tradeunionfreedom.co.uk anITa haLPIn IS a FOrMEr MEMBEr TUC GEnEraL COUnCIL anD ChaIr OF ITS WOMEn’S COMMITTEE anD ChaIr OF ThE COMMUnIST ParTy OF ThE

s China’s new era and what it means.

The aim of this pamphlet is to strip away the layers of myth and misunderstanding that surround discussions on China and its growing role in the world economy.

by Kenny Coyle £2 €2.5

s All power to the working class This pamphlet examines the role of the Communist Party in winning working class political power £2 communist-party.org.uk

s Education for the people Education activists, parents and teachers argue the case for a democratic education system. £2

Towards cultural democracy tight budgets from attending together. There is undemocratic, private ownership and control of CULTURE clubs and sports associations.

“Culture is ordinary – that is where There's too much funding for elite sport and not enough at grassroots we must start,” the writer and level. critic raymond Williams once In the media, the private wrote. Culture includes not just the ownership of the means of arts but also sport, the media, communication by gigantic religion, eating and drinking, monopolies like Google and fashion and clothing, and many Facebook means information is other popular activities. taken from us to practise Taking part in cultural activities surveillance and shape our is not some optional extra. research shows that is essential to commercial and political choices.

Companies like Sky, netflix, our health, well-being and happiness. But class divisions in our Disney and Fox are dedicated to society based on unequal property making profits rather than meeting human need. Broadcasting media, ownership and undemocratic control prevent our full enjoyment including the BBC, are institutionally biased against radical of cultural activities. politicians or newspapers.

Culture is part of the social Our social cultures of eating wage for working people, like and drinking are badly affected by other parts of the welfare state – capitalist corporate profit-seeking. health, education, housing and Food and drink is loaded with benefits. Like our economic and political struggles for fair wages and sugar, salt and fats, causing immense mental and physical for ownership and control of health problems. essential goods and services like In the arts, state funding the railways, the utility companies blatantly unequal. Money that and the health and education comes from our taxes and our service, we face a struggle against Lottery tickets is overwhelmingly the co-option, misuse and appropriation of cultural activities. focused on upmarket provision in the London area, which benefits In sport, high ticket prices for mainly the well-off and tourists. football games stop families on MIKE QUILLE

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Working-class people wishing to have an arts career cannot get in or afford to sustain a career. Cuts and curriculum changes in education mean our children are being deprived of the chance to learn how to appreciate and participate in cultural activities. and as part of austerity economics, libraries, museums and other cheap or free cultural facilities are being cut back, across the country. a culture policy for the many, not the few So what kind of democratic and socialist culture policies should a Labour government implement to benefit the labour movement?

Everyone must have an equal opportunity to join in and enjoy all the arts and cultural activities, as consumers and as performers.

That means dismantling existing barriers to access in terms of cost, geography and content. arts and sports education should be embedded into the national curriculum.

Leaders of cultural institutions – not only theatres, art galleries, and concert halls but sports clubs, churches, broadcasting and media corporations – should be encouraged and directed to engage with all sections of the community, particularly the least well-off.

The media — newspapers, Google and Facebook, Tv and radio – should be in shared, social ownership and under democratic control.

We need to defend, democratise and renew our cultural commons.

s Challenge Magazine of the Young Communist League, Britain’s fastest growing revolutionary youth organisation. £2 www.ycl.org.uk

Culture Matters www.culturematters.org.uk, promotes a socialist and progressive approach to art, culture and politics. We H run a website about politics and culture; H run Bread and roses arts awards, sponsored by trade unions; H deliver cultural education workshops to trade unions; H publish books sponsored by trade unions; H contribute to the development of culture policy in the labour movement.

MIKE QUILLE IS ChaIr OF CULTUrE MaTTErS CO-OP LTD.

Jeremy Corbyn “The Morning Star is the most precious and only voice we have in the daily media” £1 weekdays, £1.50 at weekends. From newsagents or online at www.morningstaronline.co.uk

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