Communist Party
PEOPLES ASSEMBLY As we organise in the face of the election result, and the acceleration of the ruling class offensive that will inevitably follow, The People’s Manifesto from the People’s Assembly Against Austerity becomes even more important writes Bill Greenshields. It is being taken up by both local communities, and in the trades unions – the National Union of Teachers for example having provided it to all Conference delegates, and the national Trades Union Councils Conference in June including it in all delegate packs, and with orders rolling in from local People’s Assemblies across Britain. continued overleaf
unity!
2015 Aslef conference
All out against austerity Delivering transport at the point of need POLICY by Graham Stevenson
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E FACE five more years where our transport system will be subject to a strict profit-and-loss scenario where the first commitment will be to line the pockets of the financiers with returns on their investments of 25 per cent or even more. Communists argue for a straightforward policy on transport that puts the need to move people and goods in a way that is integrated and sustainable, across all modes of transport. This would unite the interests of both transport workers and users. Only a strategy that is based on people before profit and is based on investment in transport that is accessible to all, affordable to all, and accountable to all is acceptable. For almost four decades, all we have seen is privatisation and deregulation and both have simply
undermined workers’ terms and conditions and degraded the quality to the user. Transport workers and the public alike want safe transport with decent working conditions and safe standards. Public investment in such forms of transport in the UK is well below the best international levels. Yet our transport infrastructure is desperately out of date. This would need to change radically. Fair procurement must include social impact issues and ensure fairness for British manufacturing and future jobs for the young. The withdrawal of union representation on bodies such as the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) was a first step in disregarding the expertise of transport workers. Consultation with civil society organisations and transport unions should be a central part of any government’s review of transport strategy. We should see an absolute commitment not to cut concessionary fares for the young, senior citizens, and disabled people.
A cap on annual train fare rises on every route is needed. Plus there should be a ban on train companies averaging out increases across a basket of fares. The bus industry needs a major over-haul, with a massive revision to the way subsidy is provided. This must mean genuine and democratic powers at all levels to co-ordinate strategic transport planning. In the rail, bus, and tram sectors there must be a move away from further fragmentation and towards public ownership and accountability, with no support for the European Commission’s drive towards `liberalisation’. Unambiguously, franchising in mainline rail needs to stop and both train operating companies and Network Rail need to be brought back in public ownership. Graham Stevenson is the Communist Party's trade union organiser. For many years, he was the T&G's senior transport officer and is a former President of the European Transport Workers' Federation
continued from page 1 The Manifesto opens with a challenging statement that, ‘austerity is working only for the ruling class in a period when we have seen the sharpest decline in real wages since Victorian times. The scale of the transfer of money to the rich and powerful from the rest of us, unprecedented in modern times, is combined with savage attacks on our rights to organise and fight back. This means we must demand an alternative to survive and make a future for ourselves, our families and our communities.’ It explains the real purpose of the austerity economic model and makes a clear and cogent case for the alternative based on the needs of ordinary people rather than those of the bankers. In that respect, it directly challenges the new Tory Governmento’ and it also challenges the political consensus of the ‘mainstream’ parties and the mass media in favour of continuing austerity cuts and privatisation; the ever more strident message from big business and the bankers through their representatives in national governments, the European Union and Washington. The PAAA is working hard nationally and locally to put down deep roots into communities and trade union memberships to establish a sustained political movement of a type not seen in Britain for many decades – a movement of ordinary people not waiting for the next demonstration or event called by its leaders … important as these are … but fighting every day against the effects and the causes of austerity in every way they can and to bring about that economic alternative.. The People’s Manifesto provides us with another tool to build the resistance and fight for the alternative in Britain, alongside our comrades throughout Europe … the best form of solidarity. There is a continuous print run – so it can be ordered in large numbers as well as individual copies. How can YOUR organisation use it best? Bill Greenshields represents the Communist Party on the national committee of the People’s Assembly The People’s Manifesto is available from The People’s Assembly, 52 Beachy Road, London E3 2NS office@thepeoplesassembly.org.uk web@thepeoplesassembly.org.uk 020 8525 6988 office hours 10am - 6pm
SOLIDARITY by Alex Gordon AS WE remember the 70th anniversary of the victory over fascism on 8 May 2015, bellicose anti-Russian rhetoric from NATO and EU leaders (egged on by UK government ministers) is promoting the rehabilitation of virulent fascism across central and eastern Europe, while banning communist and left wing parties from standing in elections. German political weekly Der Spiegel reports: 'The EU has provided Ukraine with €30 million to build and renovate migrant detention centres.... Brussels is apparently hoping that the system will reduce the number of asylum seekers in Europe — without attracting too much attention.' The resistible rise of Neo-nazis through some of Ukraine's ruling political parties and their integration of known fascists into key state positions is no accident. Promoting russophobic racism in Central Europe is integral to the US neocon strategy known as the ‘pivot to Asia’. This reliance on far right parties and paramilitaries — until recently seen as fringe lunatics and holocaust deniers — echoes US foreign policy in Central and South America for many years. On 2 May 2014 (the anniversary of the day in 1933 when German Nazis attacked trade union centres across
Germany), a premeditated massacre of over 40 trade unionists and antifascists in Odessa's Trade Union House was carried out by members of the Ukrainian fascist 'Right Sector' while police looked on. Over a year later not one arrest, nor prosecution of the perpetrators of the massacre has taken place. On 1 January 2015 in Kiev ranks of torch-bearing neo-nazis marched in honour of Stepan Bandera, who murdered thousands of Ukrainian Jews and Poles during WW2. In March 2015, 35 British military personnel began training members of the Ukrainian army. Over 300 US military advisors are currently assisting Ukrainian 'punishment battalions' in the socalled Anti-Terrorist Operation against the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas region. Far-right groups ‘Right Sector’ and Svoboda do not even bother to hide their racism — but as allies of the pro-EU regime in the country are politely ignored by Western governments and media. Ukraine's president Poroshenko and prime minister Yatseniuk openly pander to radical right wingers in their party electoral lists or support them in single-mandate constituencies. In 2014 Poroshenko declared 14 October the 'day of the defender of Ukraine' to commemorate the 'heroes' of the wartime Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) which collaborated with nazis and carried out atrocities against Poles, Jews and communist
partisans. A number of commanders of the Aidar Battalion, accused by Amnesty International of carrying our 'war crimes' including abductions, unlawful detention, illtreatment, theft, extortion and possible executions were elected to Ukraine's parliament last November. Immediately after the election the openly neo-Nazi deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, Vadim Troyan was appointed head of the Kiev District Police. Western media minimise the role of Ukrainian neo-Nazis, but in no other country in the world do declared neo-Nazis control security services and hold position in Ministries and Parliament. Trade unionists in Britain must stand resolutely against NATO's war against the people of the Donbas and call for an end to the use of British troops. Most importantly though we must offer our support to Antifascists in Ukraine resisting the state terrorism, conscription, and neoliberal economic restructuring project of Ukraine's right wing government. Alex Gordon is a member of the steering committee of SARU (Solidarity with the antifascist resistance in the Ukraine) Contact SARU on https://ukraineantifascistsolidarity. wordpress.com or follow their activity on Twitter @UkraineAntifa
Revolt against big business rule CLASS ENEMY by Robert Griffiths
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AST WEEK the Tories received a ‘green light’ to intensify the ruling class offensive on every front signalling a renewed assault on working class living standards, public services and democratic rights, while renewal of Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons system would accelerate a new arms race and threaten world peace’ Local government and our hardwon welfare state are now in danger of being hacked to death by a fresh and even bigger round of cuts, while workers face vicious attacks on their employment and trade union rights. Labour’s election campaign lacked courage and clarity, no surprise given that its manifesto failed to represent the real interests of millions of working class electors – something they quite clearly sensed it. With the assistance of the mass media, Cameron and Osborne were able to perpetuate the myths that a profligate Labour government had crashed the economy, that austerity is essential and that Britain’s recovery is the spectacularly successful result. One of the most crucial factors in Labour’s defeat was its refusal to confront monopoly capitalism with policies for public ownership, economic planning and modernisation and a massive redistribution of wealth across a federal Britain As soon as Cameron was back in No 10 the floodgates opened for a
grisly procession of New Labour relics who will be quite happy to return to full-scale Labour grovelling to big business, the gutter press, the EU, the US and NATO. This is not the time for a parliamentary fatalism that we’ve got to wait five years before we can unseat the Tories. The potential does exist to build a broad-based, people’s alliance against Tory big business rule, drawing together the trade unions, workers on benefits, the unemployed, tenants, carers and peace campaigners. The all-Britain demonstration against austerity organised by the People’s Assembly for Saturday June 20 in London is the beginning of a huge fight-back against a regime voted in by only onequarter of the electorate. We have to hit the ground running as working people face an 18-month ‘bltizkrieg’ by the party of the ruling class to get their draconian policies through before the dissent breaks out in their ranks in the run up to the referendum on Britain’s EU membership in 2017. Britain’s communists will help build a left, progressive and international alliance against EU austerity, privatisation and antidemocratic diktat. The left and labour movement should not allow the Tory and UKIP right to monopolise the anti-EUropean Union case with their reactionary anti-regulation and anti-foreigner arguments. Robert Griffiths is general secretary of the Communist Party
Free from Manifesto Building an economy for the people An alternative economic and political strategy for 21st Century Britain Contributors include Mark Baimbridge; Brian Burkitt; Mary Davis; John Foster; Marjorie Mayo; Jonathan Michie; Seumas Milne; Andrew Murray; Roger Seifert; Prem Sikka and Philip Whyman go to www.manifestopress.org.uk
The daily miracle ... alive and kicking at 85 MORNING STAR by Ben Chacko WHEN THE first Daily Worker rolled off the presses in 1930, Britain was reeling from the Great Depression. Working people faced soaring unemployment and hunger. Politicians and the monopoly media demanded savage cuts to wages and public spending in the name of balancing the books. Sound familiar?
The Daily Worker was founded to counter that narrative, to provide a voice for the millions and not the millionaires. On its first day a reporter phoned from the Daily Herald to ask if it would come out again a day later. Eighty-five years on, our name may have changed - we've been the Morning Star since 1966 but we're still here and still true to that mission. The Star is a co-operative - the only co-operatively owned national daily in the country. That means we answer only to our readers, not to some tax-dodging non-dom press baron. Eleven trade union organisations are represented on
our elected management committee. We remain the authentic voice of working people in struggle reporting on the stories the rest of the press won't touch, whether that was last year's People's March for the NHS, the battle of London's Focus E15 mums for affordable housing in the capital or, most recently, the election stories and candidates the rest of the media censored. We're the only paper to stand shoulder to shoulder with the trade union movement, backing workers taking industrial action to secure the pay and conditions they deserve. And we're the only paper to expose the lies and propaganda of the ruling class, opposing imperialism and fighting for peace and socialism across the world. The Morning Star is proud of the role it plays in the labour movement and as the sole voice for socialism in the British media. We’re proud of the way we're evolving, with the paper publishing a wide range of contributors from across the left. In 2015 our paper is bigger, brighter and better than ever. But we need more readers, whether of the printed paper or of our new e-edition, in order to make that voice - the voice of resistance - heard louder and more widely and to ensure we're still championing the rights of working people after another 85 years. If you aren’t yet a reader of the world's only English-language socialist daily - what's stopping you? Ben Chacko is acting editor of the Morning Star
Buy and read the Morning Star £1 every day from your newsagent www.morningstaronline.co.uk
The European Union, TTIP and all that! TTIP by John Foster THE EU poses two very significant threats; the first to workers and their rights to collective bargaining and the second which precludes individual member states from retaining public ownership or providing any form of state aid to industry. It is therefore no accident that the EU Commission is the joint architect of TIPP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) TTIP, taking us even further down the privatisation road. Articles 120 and 121 of the Lisbon Treaty specifically require member states to enable wage setting that takes account of differing levels of productivity and performance between firms and regions – in other words, to outlaw collective bargaining procedures across nations and industries. And this is no empty gesture. The European Commission is currently making it a very strong condition for the Greek bailout. Other countries such as Cyprus, Spain and Italy are being forced to dismantle existing collective bargaining structures and slash labour rights. Remember the EU asserts the freedom of capital, not the freedom of workers to organise. Unless trade unionists expose and challenge the EU on this, the legal drive to erode workers’ rights will only get worse This also applies to the EU’s assault on public ownership. The Single European Act and subsequent directives all require the phasing out of ‘state aid’ to industry and an end to public sector ‘monopolies’. Yet unless governments retain powers to intervene economically, and to actively develop their industries, most national economies, particularly Britain’s, are doomed to decline. Again the EU Commission is using the financial crisis to enforce massive privatisation programmes from Greece to Portugal, Most
recently, we have seen a centuries old public service, the Royal Mail, sold off at a knock down price to privateers Trade unionists need to challenge all the comfort talk about the EU. It’s not the worker’s friend. It’s a false friend, the persuader for big business and, as in Greece, its brutal enforcer. Months after the Greek election, the EU and the IMF are still waiting for the government to agree its terms before handing out a cent of new bailout funds. Not that they will be the life line that they might appear to be. After all, only 15 billion euro (less than 4 per cent) of the preelection bailout went into the Greek economy while 395 billion was repaid to external bank creditors in Germany, France, Britain and the US. Within Europe, the Tories will continue to give full support to the austerity policies of the ‘Troika’ (the European Commission, European Central Bank and the IMF). It is also backing the secretive EU-US trade deal - TTIP - which will threaten jobs, hard-won working conditions and environmental protections, as well as enforcing privatisation of more public services. Through TTIP, the EU will be opening public sector to for-profit venture companies. The Treaty will make it virtually impossible for member states to regulate the number of providers in any one ‘market’, develop accreditation procedures or impose quality standards. Under investor-state dispute settlement provisions, foreign investors will be able to challenge regulatory or policy measures and sue ‘host’ nations. Since the first May Day organised to commemorate those killed in Chicago in 1886 demanding an eight hour day, workers have fought for generations to secure their democratic right to regulate and control capital. The EU and TTIP now directly threaten those rights.
If not you, who? If not now, when? COMMUNIST PARTY
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HE DESIRE for a future based on peace, cooperation, community, solidarity and common wealth has long inspired the peoples of the countries of the British Isles. The Communist Party continues that living, revolutionary tradition. Our party is a product, first and foremost, of the British labour movement. Its roots lie deep in Britain’s trade unions, socialist societies and other working class organisations. In the late 20th century, the Communist Party led the fight against anti-trade union laws. The Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions united Communist and non-Communist militants in mass one-day stoppages in 1968, 1970 and 1971. The last of these moved the TUC to call a one-day General Strike, thereby defeating the legislation. Powerful Communist and broad left organisations were built in many workplaces and unions. These very successes of the Communist Party made it a particular target of the capitalist class. In recent years, the Party has worked tirelessly to rebuild membership and organisation in trades unions and mass movements alongside many socialists and others. Increasingly, the labour movement has noted that the Communist Party counts.
Join Britain’s revolutionary party of working class power I want to join the Communist Party/Young Communist League name address post code age if under 28
John Foster is the Communist Party’s international secretary
What makes Communists different? It is our analysis of the dominant structures and ideas of society, which reflect the ownership by a minority class of the means of production and the exploitation of working people. The capitalist world today is dominated by trans-national corporations acting through international institutions such as the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, the World Bank and NATO. The rich get richer as billions of people go without adequate food, shelter, clean water or health and education services. The need for popular resistance and class struggle, for the working class to take state power is as great as ever. But this requires theory as well as practice, through education and propaganda on the ideological front to inform and learn from action on the economic and political fronts. Communist trades unionists organise together to make a difference. Why not join us? The battle of ideas is crucial and our commitment to the Morning Star, the daily paper of the left is undimmed. We call on activists to read and buy the paper and ask trade union bodies to take out or expand shareholdings in the PPPS. But Unity! can play a role also; if you want to link up with us with more info or offers of help, email us at: tradeunion@communistparty.org.uk
return to Communist Party Ruskin House 23 Coombe Road Croydon CR0 1BD office@communist-party.org.uk 02086861659 H Rail