Unity@ TUC
New Series Number 2 September 2013 Published by the Communist Party
EUROPE OF BANKERS AND BIG BUSINESS BY JOHN FOSTER
BREAK THE TABOO! paying interest to the banks are high enough already, but around 40 per cent On August 29, when Labour and the of them are distributed in share House of Commons voted against dividends. war in Syria, they broke an Meanwhile, chronic underimportant political taboo. investment in new production and They defied the diktats of US foreign storage facilities continues, with policy and upheld the sovereignty of warnings from Ofgem that Britain faces the people of Britain. blackouts from 2016. The interests of the peoples of Britain and Syria prevailed over those ‘two-thirds to threeof the US military-industrial complex. quarters of people believe Now we need to break another that postal services, the political taboo, urgently. The case for public ownership of railways and water should essential industries and services needs belong in the public to be put, boldly and publicly. The corporate monopolies and their sector’ so-called 'free market' are failing to provide decent jobs, wages, services, It's a similar story in the water living standards or security for many industry. Regional monopolies milk a millions of people. vital industry for extra 'shareholder While a tiny minority of the super value', while companies such as Severn rich continue to get richer by the week, Trent, United Utilities and Thames the majority of people struggle to pay Water lose a quarter of their supplies the bills. through leakages. Big business are by-words for greed, Still no national water grid has been corruption, tax dodging, waste and built, which means another round of incompetence. bans and restrictions next year. Six huge corporations now dominate Significantly, while most companies the vital gas and electricity market in wage a price war against their own Britain. They buy and sell between domestic and industrial customers, the themselves and the oil giants to lowest increases come from one of the manipulate wholesale and retail prices, few not-for-profit enterprises, Welsh then pass the higher costs to Water. consumers and the inflated profits to Behind local sounding names, their top shareholders. Britain's water resources are mostly As the six threaten yet more price owned by a complex web of financial rises this autumn, tame regulator and industrial companies, from Europe Ofgem pretends to disapprove and and the Middle East to Japan and calls for more market competition. Australia. The myth is that higher bills are As intended, Ofwat is toothless in necessary to fund investment in new the face of rampaging waste and technology and capacity. profiteering. Yet current prices include elements On Britain's privatised railways, to cover depreciation. Profits after government subsidies account for one BY
ROBERT GRIFFITHS
third of the revenues on what is one of Europe's most expensive networks. Without public money, most of the train operating companies would collapse within weeks. Network Rail, a 'not for shareholder dividend' company effectively in the public sector, ensures that substantial investment goes into the industry's infrastructure. But the privatisation of bus, air, port and road freight services has meant that all attempts to create an integrated public transport system, with the transfer of freight from road to rail, have come to nought. The lack of coordinated planning across our energy and transport sectors is stacking up huge supply and environmental problems for future generations. And it is now clear that without strategic elements of public ownership, strategic planning will continue to be ineffectual. The same principles apply in the economy as a whole. Today in Britain mass unemployment (especially among young people), low wages, job insecurity, tax avoidance and underinvestment are the norm. The British capitalist class owns huge capital assets around the world, but has no commitment to build a modern. diverse and productive economy at home. The City of London and its financial institutions control credit, investment, markets and government policy making across the British economy. Yet without the £1.3 trillion bail-out of Britain's financial sector and huge injections of public money through 'quantitative easing', the City would have gone bankrupt. We nationalised the losses and liabilities during the post-2007 crash.
However, now that RBS, Northern Rock and Lloyds are returning to profitability, kept afloat by public money, those profits will be privatised! Yet, as China shows, large scale public ownership within the financial sector can ensure economic growth, investment, job creation and rising wages across the whole economy. For example, a nationalised banking system working with local government could succeed where the private market has failed by building affordable homes for Britain's five million people on council and housing association waiting lists. Across Europe and Latin America, water and waste services are being taken back into municipal ownership. Even in Germany, public utilities are buying up local electricity generation and supply facilities. The Welsh government is nationalising Cardiff-Wales Airport after decades of private underinvestment. Meanwhile, in England the East Coast mainline rail franchise is being handed back from a successful public enterprise to the same private sector that failed it previously. After keeping pension fund assets and liabilities in public sector, the Royal Mail is being fattened up for gifting to multinational corporations. Yet opinion polls indicate consistently that two-thirds to three-quarters of people believe that postal services, the railways and water should belong in the public sector The time has come for the Labour Party leadership to break another taboo and embrace public ownership. ROBERT GRIFFITHS IS GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY
Root and branch, the European Union is an apparatus of monopoly capitalism. It is organised in such a way that it cannot be substantially ‘reformed’ in the interests of workers or the people generally. Ruling classes across Europe are using the EU in every way possible to enhance their interests and maximise the exploitation and oppression of working people . We already have the judgements at the EU Court of Justice, undermining national collective agreements negotiated by trade unions, allowing employers to import cheap, super-exploited labour from across the EU .In July 2009, the European Union Commission’s economic and financial committee (ECOFIN) instructed EU member state governments to plan for spending cuts from 2010. It also stipulated that such cuts should be linked to ‘labour market reforms…to facilitate appropriate wage setting and labour mobility across sectors and regions (of the EU)' . The following year ECOFIN declared Britain’s budget cuts ‘not sufficiently ambitious’ … and so the story continues. Such messages are welcomed by the British capitalist class and its government. They are determined that we should accept them meekly. The founding Treaty of Rome (1957) provided for the creation of a ‘free market’ for goods, services, capital and labour across Europe. That means the freedom of big business to maximise profit, free from any controls by democratically elected national governments. Article 98 of the 2007 EU Lisbon Constitutional Treaty confirms that ‘Member States and the Community shall act in accordance with the principle of an open market economy with free competition’ . Since then EU leaders have used the Eurozone crisis to impose much tighter central control of national budgets and reinforce neo-liberal market rules. Across the 18 states now in the Excess Deficit Programme there have been radical assaults on public sector employment and a drive to achieve flexible labour markets. The 2012 Stability, Coordination and Governance Treaty takes this a stage further. It requires the elimination of all budget deficits and further demands that national debts in excess of 60 per cent of GDP be reduced at the rate of 5 per cent a year (Britain’s currently stands at over 90 per cent). British banks and corporations are fully in support. They want austerity continued. And they need to be inside the EU in order to control European financial services and have the power to minimise any interference. continued overleaf
TUC week 80 years ago BY
GRAHAM STEVENSON
A BUILDING workers leader charged that ‘Wars were not due to the bad temper of statesmen’, even if peace treaties made provisions not to ‘resort to the use of poison gas’ but ‘even mere novices’ knew that it was being ‘manufactured’. Mass unemployment was ‘driving capitalism to war’ and mass action was required to prevent this. An ASLEF leader sought to prevent
the debate sliding off into a vague support for international diplomacy and mass inactivity. He was actually on the rostrum and about to but the chair prevented him in favour of a ‘cry for the vote to be taken’ and the block vote of the powerful unions closed discussion for the second time that congress. Gloomily, the Dai headlined: ‘TUC General Council Lines Up With The Warmongers’. The General Council refused to admit that year's Hunger Marchers to
Congress on the strange grounds that, if admitted, the marchers would advocate the United Front, the call to unite all working class political forces on the left against fascism. Even so, many delegates found themselves forced to praise the marchers, ordinary folk every one of them. A Glass Blowers' delegate said he'd seen a lot of young people in the march: ‘I am not patting the Communists on the back, but there are a lot of young people drifting away from
A STRONGER VOICE FOR WORKERS AND UNIONS BY
CAROLYN JONES
September 2013 began with reports that Britain is increasingly divided. As ever we have the rich and the poor, the in work and the unemployed, the secure and the insecure. But now research shows that our labour market is increasingly divided, with a “second division” workforce of mainly women and the under 30’s, stuck in low paid, part time, temporary jobs. Many are on zero hour contracts, many more falsely classified as self employed. Too many are surviving only through in-work benefit top ups, with 40% of those approaching CABs for assistance actually in employment. And yet the posh boys in power still peddle the same arrogant message. Using the stale and discredited narratives that say regulations hurt business and rights cost jobs, this Government continues to hit out at those least able to hit back. The latest rights-reduction scheme came into force on 1st September. Workers who already invest their time, energy, skills and commitment into their company are now being asked to sell their rights to unfair dismissal and redundancy for a “share” in the company that they are helping to build daily. A cursory glance through the 2013 TUC Agenda highlights the extent of the ever-growing employment rights problems facing workers in all sectors of our economy. Whether it’s on health and safety, unfair dismissal, redundancy, maternity or equality issues, this government has ignored all the evidence and sidestepped opposition to force through changes that not only turn back the clock but are now destabilising the very bases of our industrial relations settlement. And there’s more to come. In the
drip-drip fashion reminiscent of Thatcher’s rolling programme of anti trade union laws, Cameron has more horrors in line for individuals between now and April 2014. First, a law allowing employers to hold “protected conversations” with workers will prevent Tribunals assessing the true facts behind a dismissal – a modern day bullies charter. Second, the 114 year old law that holds employers liable for breaches of health and safety procedures will be reversed. In future, the burden of proof will be on the injured worker to prove that the employer was to blame for the accident. And in the run up to those changes being imposed, access to justice has been systematically shut down to working people. Workers who are abused at work, discriminated against by their boss or simply sacked for saying the wrong thing, will now have to fork out at least £1,200 and out up to £2,800 to pursue their claim for justice through the tribunal and court system. Now that they’ve dismantled the legal system that protects workers against abuse and holds bosses accountable for bad practices, what’s to prevent the downward spiral into yet more abuse and even higher forms of exploitation? Bad practice trickles down far faster than wealth! Witness the growth in free interns, “work experience” schemes and zerohour contracts. And what is blacklisting if not a cabal of modern day industrialists punishing those who dare to speak up in defence of workers. The answer, of course, rests in a stronger voice for workers and their unions both at the workplace and at the national negotiating table. That’s why at this year’s TUC one of the main policy proposal pushes is for an economic strategy that has at its heart, a dynamic role for trade unions and
collective bargaining. A new report by Keith Ewing and John Hendy H shows in detail how putting collective bargaining at the heart of our economic reconstruction would be good for economic efficiency, good for social justice and a good step towards meeting our international labour law obligations. Of course the arrogant posh boys in power together with their friends in the media will portray this as backward looking and revolutionary, claiming it’s simply trade unions looking after their own self interest. But even the IMF has published research suggesting that collective bargaining contributes to economic stability. And negotiating terms and conditions at sectoral level sets standards not just on pay and not just for union members. Standards of training, health and safety, numbers of apprentices, percentages of part time workers, minimum hour guarantees and levels of pay would all be agreed and applied across whole sectors of the economy. Companies would no longer be able to compete by cutting labour costs. The downward spiral would be broken, replaced with a road map towards high standards based on economic efficiency, justice and democracy. It’s time for UK politicians – particularly those looking for working class votes - to put the “enemy within” ideology aside and join the growing proportion of the population who see unions and collective bargaining as a force for good. CAROLYN JONES IS THE DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE OF EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS. H RECONSTRUCTION AFTER THE CRISIS – A MANIFESTO FOR COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IS
IER FOR £10 AT 4TH FLOOR, JACK JONES HOUSE, 1 ISLINGTON, LIVERPOOL L3 8EG. AVAILABLE FROM
us.’ He had once been part of the old continued from page one Left in the Social Democratic But this ‘new’ EU stands in the Federation, but was now a firm rightway of every progressive demand of winger. the TUC for alternative economic The Worker's correspondent on the policies that can redevelop Britain’s spot, J R Campbell reported the General productive economy. The same EU Council's ‘policy of attempting to policies are openly condemned by escape from the present crisis by means the UN’s 2012 Trade and of price-raising’ with growing anger and Development Report as a threat to incredulity. Delegates from the the world economy and particularly Draughtsmen and the Shop Assistants to world’s poorest. The report had opposed this, at least without also points out that those countries raising wages. A great deal of what was that have most successfully being said by the General Council, they survived the world recession were complained, seemed almost tuned to those that were free to develop back the then coalition government's public sector intervention. line. The TUC leader, Citrine, rose to his This is the freedom that we are feet to blind with pseudo-science. He denied by the EU. Not everyone will declared that those who differed with support the call for withdrawal. him were also opposing all the world's But we should not be denied the economists. Moreover, it was less that democratic right to decide for he had agreed with Chamblerlain then ourselves. Do we want to continue the Chancellor of the Exchequer, more down a road that is leading to total that Chamberlain was agreeing with big business dominance? him. Thus blinded, Congress became committed to a policy of raising prices JOHN FOSTER IS THE COMMUNIST PARTY’S without any rise in wages. INTERNATIONAL SECRETARY Picture shows women workers marching marching to the 1933 TUC. GRAHAM STEVENSON WRITES A REGULAR COLUMN FOR THE MORNING STAR ,DIPPING INTO THE PAPER’S ONLINE ARCHIVE .FOR JUST £72 A YEAR, OR £5.99 FOR 10 DAYS, YOU CAN READ DIGITISED PAGES FROM THE DAILY WORKER (1930-45) AND THE MORNING STAR (2000 - PRESENT) AT HTTP://TINYURL.COM/DWMS ARCHIVE.
Visit the Morning Star stall for lots more about the paper’s excitng development plans.
FREE TO YOU AT THE TUC
The rise of UKIP and the resurgence of anti-EU posturing inside the Tory Party makes it all the more important that the alternative, left and progressive, case against the EU is projected. The Communist Party’s position is clear, reiterated after full discussion and debate throughout the party. The CP is for Britain's withdrawal from the European Union. The party thinks that the best basis on which this should take place is that of popular support for a programme left and progressive policies to rebuild productive industry; take key sectors of the economy into public ownership; expand and invest in the public sector; redistribute wealth; secure future non-nuclear renewable energy supplies, and restore democratic accountabilitty. But these kind of policies would be challenged and undermined by EU treaties and institutions at every turn.
New from the Communist Party
Earlier his year the Manifesto Press book Building an economy for the people was widely welcomed in the labour and progressive movement for its challenge to 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 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 a narrow economic fraction based in the City. 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.
Manifesto Press is making this vital book available free in pdf and web based formats. For your copy visit www.manifestopress.org.uk
www.communist-party.org.uk