Unity! Communist Party
1st May 2013
A world without workers is impossible A world without capitalists is necessary
INSIDE
May Day is the Workers’ Day! says Rob Griffiths
The EU is no friend of workers writes Anita Halpin
A Call to the Labour Movement T
he Tory-LibDem government is attacking the living standards and democratic rights of workers and their families on a scale not seen in Britain since the 1930s. It is an integrated, ruling class offensive to protect and expand big business profits. Resistance to this attack on incomes, jobs, public services and trade unionism has been sporadic, fragmented and defensive.
Industrial responses alone will not defeat such an allround political offensive. Unity of action and purpose is desperately required in and around the labour movement. The Call to the Labour Movement by the Communist Party makes the a series of practical proposals for action that can gve shape and direction to our resistence. More on page 2
Build the People’s Assembly says Bill Greenshields
CPB
Communist Party Ruskin House 23 Coombe Road Croydon London CR01 1BD office@communist-party.org.uk 02086861659 www.communist-party.org.uk
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a call to the Labour Movement
Resistance to this attack on incomes, jobs, public services and trade unionism has been largely sporadic, fragmented and defensive. Industrial responses alone will not defeat such an all-round political offensive. Unity of action and purpose is desperately required in and around the labour movement. That is why this Call to the Labour Movement makes the following proposals:
4Unite against austerity and privatisation For unity to become a reality, trade unions, trades union councils, anti-cuts campaigners, socialists, Labour Party activists and progressives must work together on the broadest, most inclusive basis. All who oppose the austerity and privatisation programme of this ToryLibDem government should be welcome in anti-cuts campaigning. The focus of opposition must be on the current government and its policies. We need to build durable militant movements of ordinary people in local communities throughout Britain. This will help ensure that a strategy of rolling, coordinated and generalised strike action by the trade unions puts the maximum pressure on the government. The People's Assembly Against Austerity on June 22 can play an invaluable role in building and uniting the resistance and winning people to an alternative.
4Rally support for the People's Charter Policies for progressive taxation, economic planning, public ownership, public investment and an independent foreign policy for Britain can safeguard public services, jobs, living standards, our environment and peace. Supported by the TUC, the TUC Women's and Trades Councils conferences, the Scottish and Welsh TUCs and many individual trade unions and local trades union councils,
the People's Charter provides the basis for an alternative economic and political strategy that puts the millions before the millionaires. Every labour movement organisation should affiliate to the People's Charter and help promote it.
4Campaign for trade union freedom Industrial action by trade unions to defend jobs, incomes and public services needs to be coordinated and generalised as widely as possible, with every effort made to secure popular support. The Tory-LibDem government, employers and the courts against trade union and employment rights are now opening a new front of class warfare against trade union rights and facilities. Based on the trade union movement, the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom provides the focus for a united response to this anti-trade union drive in the interests of working people and their families. 4Promote the Charter for Women As low-paid and public sector workers, lone parents, carers and service users, women are being hit particularly hard by austerity and privatisation measures. Supported by the TUC Women's Conference, many trade unions and the National Assembly of Women, the Charter for Women proposes policies to win genuine equality at work, in the labour movement and in society as a whole. 4Solidarity against EU
austerity and privatisation The Tories, UKIP and sections of the big business media fully support EUwide attacks on people's living standards and public services. But they want to protect the City of London casino and its US backers even from feeble EU regulation. For the labour movement, the key demand must be to restore to parliament in Britain the power to protect
jobs and industries, to take the utilities and transport back into public ownership and ensure that they are run in the public interest. We also need to support workers across Europe who are fighting for these powers, against the EU and its Constitutional Treaty commitment to 'an open market economy with free competition' (Article 98).
4Oppose militarism and war Britain's involvement in an endless series of wars to protect British and US big business interests is not protecting democracy or human rights here or abroad. Military spending should be reduced to average European levels and diverted into civilian production. Britain's nuclear weapons should be scrapped and the subservient military alliance with the US ended. 4Bring down the unelected Tory-LibDem coalition This regime was cobbled together at the behest of Tory paymasters in the City of London. Nobody voted for a coalition. Most people voted for parties (including the LibDems) that claimed to oppose the current austerity and privatisation policies.
Putting an end to this government before it does even more damage to our society is a democratic duty. The only realistic alternative to the ToryLibDems is a Labour government, which underlines the immediate need to fight for Labour policies that serve the mass of the people. We urge all who broadly support this this Call to the Labour Movement to win support for its positions throughout the labour and progressive movements. Use it to unite and ignite opposition to the ToryLibDem government around the positive alternative. Executive Committee Communist Party of Britain May 1, 2013
by Bill Greenshields
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rade unions in the forefront of resistance to government policies have united with anti-cuts groups, the Coalition of Resistance, the People’s Charter and others to organise the People’s Assembly Against Austerity. The intention of this huge event, held in London on June 22, is to bring together the forces that can build a movement of opposition broad and powerful enough to mobilise millions of people against the ToryLibDem government. Such a movement is vital if public support is to be won for widespread strike action taken to defend jobs, pay and public services. It would inspire and ensure solidarity for local community campaigns against cuts. The People's Assembly also provides a forum for discussing the kind of strategy to make this happen and promoting the alternative policies that are needed. It will constitute a strong voice for working class and popular interests
against those of big business and the City of London. Will all those taking part agree on every dot and comma about the way forward, the objectives, tactics and strategy? Of course not. If they do, they won’t represent the full variety and complexity of views within the working class and peoples of Britain. The People's Assembly must comprise delegates and representatives from Scotland, Wales and every region of England, from most trade unions and trades councils, from community organisations and campaigning groups, making real contributions to a real exchange of ideas. The aim should be to reach the maximum possible agreement on how to support unions taking bolder and united action and how to build stronger, broad-based local community campaigns that are linked to the trade union movement in a strategy to defeat the Tory-led regime. The People's Assembly will a be test of good faith for all those taking part, especially political parties and groups on the left. It must be open, tolerant and
inclusive, free from attempts at control and manipulation by any one organisation. Only by enthusiastically seizing the opportunity of working together to develop a broad, democratic movement will we maximise the chance of success. Let no-one be dismissive or cynical about the People’s Assembly, especially when there is no alternative on offer with potential mass support. It is up to all of us whether it can generate the kind of movement required, one which reaches every town, city and community, drawing in people who currently don’t think of themselves as 'activists’ or even as 'political'. In particular, it has to be a movement that finds a place not only for organised workers, but for those in precarious work, for those in self-employment, for small business people, for the unemployed, pensioners, students, carers and for people of every ethnic origin and sexual orientation – in fact, for everyone under the cosh of big business and its Tory and LibDem puppets. Bill Greenshields is chair of the Communist Party and trade union
A people’s budget On March 21 2013, the Communist Party proposed a People's Budget to stimulate economic growth and reduce growing social inequality with measures. H Invest in health, education, housing, public transport and the environment. H Halt all PFI and privatisation schemes to hand over public services to big business. H Boost state pension and benefits in real terms, restoring the link with the RPI. H Increase the national minimum wage and retain the Agricultural Wages Board. H Extend statutory equal pay audits into the private sector. H Freeze gas, electricity and water prices and prepare to take all the utilities back into public ownership. H Nationalise the banks and direct funds into manufacturing, small businesses, cooperatives and housing. H Take the railways back into public ownership and subsidise fares and investment not shareholder dividends. H Launch a massive public sector housebuilding programme. WHERE WOULD THE MONEY COME FROM? H Introduce a 2 per cent Wealth Tax on the super-rich, raising £90 billion a year – almost twice this year's public spending cuts. H Reverse the recent cuts in corporation tax for the biggest companies. H Restore the top rate of income tax (but at 60 per cent not 50). H Slap a windfall tax on energy, retail and banking monopoly profits. H Impose a financial transaction tax on the City bankers and speculators. H Divert Bank of England funds from Quantitative Easing and the impotent Funding for Lending Scheme into infrastructure bonds issued by local, devolved and other public authorities. H End the tax haven status of all territories under British jurisdiction.
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May Day is the Workers’ Day! 1949 Police, acting on the orders of the Labour Home Secretary try to break up a banned May Day rally organised by the London Trades Council
by Robert Griffiths
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n May 1, 1890, demonstrations took place around the world at the behest of the Socialist International of left-wing parties. The main demand was for limiting the working day to eight hours. Frederick Engels noted that, in all of continental Europe, 'it was Vienna that celebrated the holiday of the proletariat in the most brilliant and dignified manner'. But, he added, even this dramatic revival of the Austrian trade union and socialist movement was 'thrown into the shade’ by the 'most important and magnificent’ London May Day march and rally three days later. What had, in Engels’ words, roused the English workers from almost 40 years of slumber to join the great international army? He pointed his German readers to the previous year’s docks strike and the founding of the Gas Workers’ and General Labourers’ Union (pictured above), which had grown to embrace 100,000 members. He proclaimed the unionisation of huge numbers of unskilled workers and the fact that they wanted their unions to be led by socialists. This rise of militant, left-led ‘New Unionism’ could be contrasted with the aloofness and conservatism – both industrial and political – of the craft-based unions led by the aristocrats of labour.
Never slow to welcome the contributions of women, Engels also praised the role played by Eleanor MarxAveling, (pictured above with Engels, her parents Karl and Jenny Marx, and younger sister Laura), in raising funds for the dockers, organising a strike of young women workers in Silvertown, representing women gas workers and spreading socialist ideas through the Liberal radical clubs. Not that the May Day procession and its eight or more rallies in Hyde Park had been free of problems. In particular, the labour aristocrats who ran London Trades Council wanted to ban socialist organisations from
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the march and preferred a negotiated eight-hour day (with voluntary overtime) to legislation, while the SocialDemocratic Federation had a superior, sectarian attitude towards unions generally and those for the unskilled in particular. Of course, many of the basic issues in 1890 – working terms and conditions, trade union recognition, etc. – remain the same today because we still live and work in a capitalist society. But others have changed, emerged and come to the fore. This year, as millions of people mark International Workers’ Day across the world, the fight against austerity and privatisation, for pensions and public services and against racism and fascism will feature on many banners and in countless speeches. But so, too, will the vital call for peace instead of imperialist war. Over the past 120 years, millions of working people and their families have died as the imperialist powers strive to assert their control over markets, raw materials, transport routes, governments and whole countries and continents. Public consciousness even in the oldest imperialist countries such as Britain – let alone in Latin America, Asia or Africa – is probably more anti-imperialist and anti-war than at any time in history. Freedom and equality for women, too, is an aspiration and demand far more widespread than ever before, although there are many mountains still to climb. Respect and rights for people of different sexual orientation can now be raised in the labour movement in a growing number of countries. How to stop the capitalist monopolies and their state power imperilling our planet’s eco-system is a question that went unasked on May Days past, when inexhaustible supplies of energy were taken for granted. International Workers’ Day celebrates the gains of the trade union and left-wing movements and proclaims our determination to defend them. Today in Britain, we have public services, the NHS, pensions, welfare benefits and employment rights to protect and extend. Although the trades unions have advanced and retreated since 1890, they are bigger, better organised and more deeply entrenched in society today than they were then. Despite its victories and defeats during the 20th century, the cause of socialism has many more adherents now than it had in any period before the Second World War. There are socialist and communist parties in almost every country today, with a wealth of experience from which to draw and learn. Here is one of the reasons for studying the history of the labour movement. The limits, failures and betrayals of social democracy cannot be ignored, just as its beneficial reforms for workers and their families should be acknowledged and defended. The Communist Party’s programme, Britain’s Road to Socialism, analyses the experience of past Labour governments.
Winning political office in a general election is not the same as achieving state power, although doing so on the basis of mass working class action would complete an important first stage in the struggle for socialism. Instead, the low level of revolutionary political consciousness in the British working class movement has produced Labour Party leaderships that have no commitment or strategy to making deep inroads into the wealth and power of the monopoly capitalists. Little or no attempt has been made to politicise and mobilise the mass of the people, or to involve them and the labour movement in transforming the state apparatus. Crucially, the British labour movement has failed to understand and oppose imperialism in its economic, political, cultural and military aspects, including the 'special’ (ie., especially servile) relationship with US imperialism. Similar confusion persists about the monopoly class character of the European Union. Such muddled thinking about reforms, mass action, the ruling capitalist class, the state and imperialism has allowed every Labour government so far to be derailed by powerful forces within monopoly capital and the state apparatus. The history of the communist movement is not without its mistakes and crimes either, which is why Britain’s Road to Socialism draws up a balance sheet of the first attempts at building socialism in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe.
‘Winning political office in a general election is not the same as achieving state power’
Indeed, the programme goes further, renewing and updating the case for socialism and revolution in the 21st century. Workers will forever be on the same capitalist treadwheel until they learn from their own history. Trade unions could do much more to organise classes, schools and publications on the history and politics of the labour movement, which would contribute enormously to the consolidation and politicisation of members’ class consciousness. Mass activity, political education and debate is the basis on which the labour movement in Britain will resolve its current crisis of political representation. This is what will determine whether the labour movement can reclaim the Labour Party or, failing that, whether the trade unions have to take the lead in re-establishing their mass party. Whatever the outcome, the slogan coined by Lenin and the Communist International should continue to embody the spirit of May Day across the world: 'Workers and oppressed peoples of all lands, unite!'. Robert Griffiths is general secretary of the Communist Party
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The EU is no friend of workers and the labour movement by Anita Halpin
Crisis of political representation
How can the labour movement ensure that its collective views and interests are better represented in parliament?
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iktats from EU bosses in Brussels erode ever more of our hard-won democratic rights; diktats that this ConDem government applies with gusto when it suits their ideological purpose and political programme – for which they have absolutely no electoral mandate. Take just two decisions made last year by unelected EU bureaucrats. First, they introduced a new, harsh limit on the public sector 'structural’ deficit of just 0.5 per cent of GDP under the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance. Now, I’m not very fluent in Eurobabble but there aren’t too many stable governments in Europe (never mind the rest of the world). And then last December, they outlined mandatory reforms that will weaken our contractual rights. Two measures that day in and day out translate into all the evils of austerity: massive job losses; poverty wages; near Victorian workplaces; declining services in transport, energy, communications, health, education and local government. Savage cuts are neither necessary nor inevitable. It is clear why many trades unionists believe that some social gains made through being in the EU were significant. But many of the progressive gains in terms of equality and human rights, now targeted by Cameron, came not through the EU but from the European Court of Human Rights which predates the EU and is based on the European Convention on Human Rights following the victory over fascism. The social progress won and rights gained since 1945 and which we are fighting to save can only be maintained when we win stronger independent trade unions and a government with the independent powers (never mind the will) to deliver a budget that will both protect and advance the interests of working people. Yet this cannot be achieved until we loosen the shackles forged by the EU. The alternative economic strategy of the People’s Charter – to redistribute power and wealth – is far from a redblooded Communist planned economy, yet not one of its modest proposals can work while Brussels controls the purse strings. Indeed, most of our own unions’ policies are outlawed in the EU. In the growing fightback against austerity there will be victories but ultimately, you cannot oppose austerity budgeting and campaign to rebuild our economy while remaining supportive of the EU and its institutions. Arguing to leave the European Union is neither reactionary nationalism nor a betrayal of fellow workers across Europe but a first step in rejecting the xenophobic and right-wing agenda espoused by the Tory big business party, promoted by the mass media and exploited by UKIP. The left argued from the start that EU membership would undermine our democracy. Those who today refuse to acknowledge its undemocratic and anti-worker character are directly playing into the hands of UKIP and the BNP by blocking any progressive alternative. Anita Halpin is trade union coordinator of the Communist Party
The Communist Party welcomes the solution proposed by the largest Labour Party affiliate, Unite, in its political strategy. Members of Unite (and no doubt members of other affiliated unions) have long asked why they give millions of pounds to Labour without much in the way of a return. Unions ‘donate’ the time of activists and officials, the use of cars, phones, and meeting rooms. What do we get for it? To meet these sharp questions, a strategy to achieve Unite’s political aims has been developed for the union by its executive council. The essence of this goes beyond merely accepting that a Labour government is needed. Indeed, the Unite EC document notes that the
seriously challenge neoliberal ideology and the pressure groups within the Party. Its Regional Political Committees and Regional Political Officers have been charged with delivering the union’s political strategy in the nations and regions. The message is the same to regional industrial sector committees, area activists committees and all the equalities sectors; the task is to help deliver Unite’s plans to shift Labour to the left. Unite is ‘deadly serious about transforming Labour’. All this is a big change from what has gone on before. For the first time, a union will manage its own independent grass roots political structure from within Labour. Every member of Unite is to be pressed to assist; mass phone banks will engage in canvassing members. Maximising voter registration is a key aim. Much is going on Unite’s new initiative for the economically inactive, especially the unemployed, Unite Community, is a key part of the political strategy, for the first time linking the community in towns and cities with a trade union. Now, a think tank charged with coming up with ideas that favour unions and ordinary people is being funded by Unite and other unions – CLASS (Centre for Labour Studies) http://classonline.org.uk/ Communist Party Open Letter on the strategy to solve the crisis of political representation in the labour movement. http://tinyurl.com/bwl3h8b
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record of the last Labour government was ‘for the most part, a bitter disappointment’. As Len McCluskey has put it: ‘If in the future there is any return to the discredited recipes of Blairism, the Labour Party will be over for me and I believe millions more besides.’ Both he and the union’s EC believe that while workers need a voice, they should not be taken for granted. Winning back the millions of Labour voters lost by the unpopular decisions of New Labour is the goal, and policies that working people can get behind and support would be a good start. Unite clearly aims to fundamentally change the nature of the Labour Party and its governments.
The Unite EC statement emphatically points out: ‘… for all the talk of ‘reclaiming’ the party, little progress was made. This has led to great frustration within the union, the more so since the party’s requests for financial support from our union and others have continued unabated. So it’s time for a change.’ And to win for working people the Labour Manifesto for the next general election must spell out radical policies. Weak promises to cut less than the Tories will not turn out the Labour vote. The union is in the midst of recruiting five thousand new members from Unite into the Labour Party. ‘This is emphatically not just a recruitment offensive to benefit the Labour party with passive financial contributors – it is vital if we are to impact on constituency parties.’ These new activists will be organised by Unite’s now democratic political structures to act as a bloc within Constituency Labour Parties at all levels. Courses are being laid on and networking is being structured – for Unite councillors, for example. Only four per cent of MPs are former manual workers – 55 per cent come from PR, politics, and the media. To redress this imbalance, Unite is developing its own candidate programme to win more from the working class, more women, more younger people, and more from black and ethnic minorities to seek candidacy with the union’s backing. The union is set to
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This book challenges the consensus that has confined political economy to the options that the banks and big business will accept. Based on the policy agenda that Britain’s trade union and labour movement have begun to shape it analyses what is
wrong with the British economy, arguing that the country’s productive base is too small, that the economy has become too financialised and that power has become concentrated on the City. It sets out policies to establish democratic and social control of the City, arguing that regulation is not enough.The book focuses on how immediate growth and longerterm re-industrialisation might be achieved, arguing that a socially owned banking sector can foster the creation of a new, sustainable, social housing sector, a new communications infrastructure and new green industries. The book argues for an alternative economic strategy that breaks political dependence on the US, and diversifies economic
relationships, fostering those with emerging BRICS economies and questioning anew our dependence on the EU, whose ‘social model’ now seems a distant memory. Critically the book tackles the problems that a progressive government would face and argues that an alternative economic strategy must be accompanied by measures to devolve political power and encourage the participation of the people in exercising control over big business and finance. It sets outs a strategy that can boost spending power among the British people, begin to narrow the widening inequalities in British society and raise the standard of living and build a new, democratised public realm that insulates people from dependence on volatile financial markets.
Edited by Jonathan White with contributors 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. £6.95 (+£1 p&p) ISBN 978-1-907464-08-9 n Manifesto Press is a new venture that aims to publish working class history, socialist theory and the politics of class struggle. It is republican and antiimperialist; secular and feminist; anti-fascist and anti-racist; committed to working class political power, popular sovereignty and progressive culture. n www.manifestopress.org.uk