CP Britain
Unions andy Bain
CP Britain
communist-party.org.uk sunday 10/monday 11 september 2017
Pay is the big issue
the tuC agenda recognises the impact on workers of years of tory anti-union laws, left on the statute books by new labour and the privatisation offensive which lead to casualisation, zero hours contracts and the near disappearance of effective apprenticeships. the labour movement has faced an onslaught but there are healthy signs of a fightback. l the pioneering Bafwu organised strikes of macdonalds workers over a £10/wage and for an end to zero hour contracts. l unite’s months’ long strike against mixed fleet over cuts to working conditions and wages of flight crew. imaginative solidarity actions by non-employees, mostly in unite Community, add to the pressure on the employer. similar solidarity is taking place against sports direct l mainly young cinema workers in BeCtu are taking very public action against Cinema world and in glasgow the Better than Zero Campaign is taking solidarity actions, such as flash mobs, with sacked workers at one particular cinema l in the ‘gig economy’ there are disputes with uber, where gmB is winning the battle over the employment status of drivers l supplementing these struggles are others led by less formal trade unions such as the iww Andy BAin is the organising deliveroo workers the Cwu motion (72) notes the drop – Communist Party’s over the last year – of 275,000 in union new industrial membership. it highlights the need a new model organiser. a tssa of trade unionism and calls on the tuC and aCtivist sinCe starting affiliated unions to deliver a new deal for with British rail 40 workers and ensure wider society benefits. it years ago he, was on wants a review of recent successes, cohis union’s eC for ordination of solidarity and support for workers many years and for in dispute; flexibility in organisation and local six of these was activism to influence the gig economy; modern President. methods to win the next generation of representatives and members and ensure the whole movement better reflects the gender, ethnicity and diversity of the workforce, and to improve the scope and reach of collective and sectoral bargaining. it is crucial that the growing actions already taking place are supported while this review takes place. solidarity action strengthens workers in dispute and raises class consciousness. this is essential to winning future struggles and should be organised locally through unions and at the highest level by the tuC. this solidarity at different levels is well illustrated in the Pfa motion on collective bargaining (73) the nasuwt motion (71) notes that tory anti-union laws have created conditions where workers face poor quality, low-paid and precarious employment and workers’ fears of victimisation are a major barrier to trade union membership and participation. the motion concludes rightly that congress must support affiliates to work co-operatively to build the trade union movement and to counter government attacks on workers’ rights. trade unions should focus recruitment activities on workers who are not members of any union and not waste effort and undermine others by recruiting existing trade union members. the trade unions and the tuC have an important role in developing a new and flexible type of trade unionism and should ensure appropriate training of activists and lead campaigns to consolidate progress made and meet the challenges of the future.
When Keir starmer’s missile strike on Labour’s electorally successful Brexit policy first hit it struck me how closely his language echoes the siren voices of the ultra left and liberal groups now covertly attacking Corbyn’s eminently sensible strategy writes Groucho
challenge public sector pay restraint. Early signs are not positive with unions unable to agree a united campaign slogan let alone pay HIS YEAR’S Congress agenda could be demands and the TUC unions being upstaged read as a counsel of despair. Ten by the non-TUC RCN – filling the vacuum million workers in insecure with spin about phantom strikes and employment, 1.7m zero hours contracts, one capturing support of the labour front bench million public sector jobs lost, 850,000 agency workers, millions under employed and with its sectional scrap the cap campaign. On the industrial front a 5% claim has been so on. In short, the capitalist system isn't submitted in local government – the biggest delivering for workers. Nowhere is this more bargaining group – and this will be a key test obvious than in the squeeze on living of union resolve to break the pay cap. standards and pay. Ahead of Congress it’s being reported that The cumulative effect of a decade long public sector pay freeze – dating back into the the Tory Government – having resisted internal pressure in the immediate aftermath Brown/Balls era – has led to unprecedented of the General Election – will be phasing out wage stagnation. British workers have the public sector pay cap over the next two suffered a bigger fall in real wages (10.4% years perhaps up to the CPI inflation rate of according to the TUC) than in any other 2.6%. In its own time and on its own terms. advanced economy apart from Greece. Some may claim this as a victory but that’s far Moreover, the OECD’s recent annual report from the case. stated that real hourly wages in Britain are Ultimately reversing the decline in real 25% lower than if they had kept pace with earnings with inflation plus (RPI currently wage growth in the period 2000-07. 3.6%) pay rises will require co-ordination of So what is to be done? The absence of any bargaining and industrial action strategies. national pay offensive in private sector This is recognised in the PCS motion but negotiations is cause for alarm. Sporadic, much more than talk from the TUC is local wage struggles are important but not required. enough. The CWU call for a common bargaining The main focus of Congress debate will be the public sector where union density remains agenda and a new model of trade unionism that can reverse the decline in union power relatively high (53%) and collective and strength is long overdue. Our history bargaining endures in various forms albeit shows us that militant leadership at all levels ineffectually. This is a key test of union and stronger workplace organisation is the agency and resolve and in recent months a winning combination in wages struggles. renewed political push is taking place to
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Where next for the Labour movement? Morning star Fringe tuesday 12.45 syndicate 4, Brighton Centre
A resurgent Labour Party came within a whisker of defeating the Tories at the general election, and is now the government in waiting. in the meantime, workers remain hamstrung by anti- union legislation and a lack of sectoral collective bargaining. How can we rebuild the movement to face fresh challenges that lie ahead?
All is now explained. Tendance Coatsey – the well-informed and occasionally idiotic website of an entertaining trotskyite whose tendency is so obscure that even i only dimly remember its genesis – reveals that the young starmer was on the editorial board of a long-forgotten and equally obscure journal of that provenance. The TUC international department often gives the impression that it is an outstation of the Foreign office so closely does it track the priorities of the mandarins who guard continuity in the foreign dealings of our ruling class. To see where this leads us we can politically parse the following little gem from this year’s TUC annual report: “The primary objective of the TUC post-referendum campaign was to ensure workers should not pay the price for Brexit. The TUC’s aim has been to maintain all existing workers’ rights, including those guaranteed by European law and the judgments of the European Court of Justice, and to ensure that British workers have the same or better rights as workers in the rest of the EU in the future.” Would that be the European Court of Justice which found in favour of Viking and Laval, two companies which flagrantly flouted workers’ rights to proper pay. The Finnish shipping company Viking sacked domestic seafarers and replaced them with Estonian workers on a lower salary, while Laval imported Latvian construction workers to build a school in sweden to avoid local pay rates? Hear Morning Star editor Ben Chacko; Louise Regan, nUT president; Ronnie draper, general secretary BFAWU; Jane Carolan, expert on sectoral collective bargaining in the care sector; dave Ward, general secretary CWU; Chair: Bob oram, chair, Morning Star Management Committee TUC Congress credentials are needed to attend this fringe meeting
“From the standpoint of the economic conditions of imperialism—i.e., the export of capital and the division of the world by the “advanced” and “civilised” colonial powers —a United states of Europe, under capitalism, is either impossible or reactionary” vi lenin writing in Sotsial-Demokrat no. 44, august 23, 1915
What kind of EU exit? Communist Party fringe Fernando Mauricio Head of International Dept., CGTP General Federation of Portuguese Workers Moz Greenshields TUC delegate (personal capacity) Rob Griffiths Communist Party general secretary & LEXIT chair Andy BAin Communist Party industrial organiser 6 pm Tuesday, september 12, Friends' Meeting House ship st., Brighton, Bn1 1AF
starmer’s moment t of summer madness
CoMMUnisT PARTy sTATEMEnT
labour’s establishment tendency has made its play on Brexit. with his plan to stitch up a ‘transitional’ deal that would keep Britain in the eu single market and the customs union, Keir starmer threatens to sabotage the prospects of a labour government seriously challenging austerity
trump, us intervention and blockade: solidarity with Cuba and venezuela! fringe meeting monday, 11 5:30pm h.e. teresita vicente, Cuban Ambassador h.e. rocio maniero, Venezuelan Ambassador Kevin Courtney, Joint general secretary, National Education Union rob miller, CSC director francisco dominguez, VSC Secretary Char: diana holland, Unite the Union assistant general secretary meeting room 1a, Brighton Centre, TUC Congress credentials are needed to attend this fringe meeting
BREXiT niCK wright TARMER HAS edged upwards in the parliamentary leadership stakes. A big proportion of the parliamentary Labour Party are happy that – with the commitment to fully accept the EU treaties, rules and directives that constrain public spending, inhibit public ownership and police the EU marketisation regime – all pretence that a Labour government might sweep away the austerity straitjacket is abandoned. The decision will threaten Corbyn’s reputation for straightforward dealing and honesty. Millions of Labour voters – including many who were won back to support the party in the last election – will see this as a betrayal. Corbyn’s careful positioning on Brexit, his immediate pledge to respect the referendum result, his emphasis on protecting the rights of EU citizens living and working here and on strengthened workers’ rights for all went a long way to detoxify the post-Brexit debate. This is in danger of being thrown away with the possibility that the Tories’ Brexit pitch might gain some traction in comparison to Starmer’s surrender stance. It might even breathe some life into the UKIP corpse – enough to weaken Labour’s vote in the great majority of Labour constituencies that voted for Brexit. City finance houses and big business now find their desire – which underpinned their opposition to Brexit that Britain remain in the EU ‘free market’ – fulfilled in the
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BREXiT BooKsHELF five critical voices from within the european union, from ireland, denmark, Portugal, Cyprus and germany describe the austerity effect of eu membership. the EU deconstructed £2 printed at www.maanifestopress.org.uk or download free at http://tinyurl.com/zg6llar
HE TORY government is preparing to bind workers and a future Labour government with EU market and competition rules after Britain leaves the EU ‘Big business is putting huge pressure on Prime Minister May and her negotiating team to reach a settlement with the EU that would prevent any form of democratic intervention in the economy through an alternative economic and political strategy’, international secretary John Foster told the party’s political committee in August. He warned that any transitional or post-exit treaty with the EU that accepted existing single market or customs union rules and institutions would outlaw policies to support industry, control capital, regulate trade or use public procurement contracts to promote local employment, trade unionism, upskilling and R&D investment. John Foster pointed to the European Free Trade Association court judgement in the Holship case as an example of how EU competition and ‘right of establishment’ law is used to undermine trade unionism and workers’ terms and conditions. Last year, the EFTA Court ruled that a collective agreement protecting the pay of dockers was invalid under EU treaty law, despite the views of Norway’s supreme court. s Err! What have i done? ‘Trade union leaders need to speak out on medium term. Within hours arch Blairite the dangers that the single European market Peter Mandelson gave voice to their long and its super-exploitation of “posted” workers term preference – to extend the ‘transitional’ pose to jobs, living standards, communities period until it becomes permanent. and strategic industries’, John Foster said. He And with Starmer’s ‘transitional’ plan the welcomed the recent decision of Britain’s third continued ‘free’ movement of capital, biggest union, the GMB, to oppose continued labour, goods and services is guaranteed. membership of the single market. The power of big business and the banks Britain’s communists said it was now urgent will continue to be underpinned by the to bring down the minority Tory government unelected EU Commission, the European before it could commit Britain to rejoining Central Bank and the European Court of EFTA and its European Economic Area with Justice. the EU, or accepting any further jurisdiction Democracy and the Brexit vote will have here of the ‘anti-trade union’ EU Court of been subverted, workers will remain subject Justice. to the raft of ECJ judgements and in any The party warned that the Tories and their disputes between big business and elected big business paymasters are seeking trade and national and regional governments the EU investment deals with the USA, Canada and regulatory regime remains in place. other countries that would enshrine capitalist European Union structures are designed free market principles, putting profit before to constrain sovereign government action. the interests of workers and consumers. The EU diktat is unashamedly fashioned to On the so-called ‘free movement of people, protect the power of capital. Any measures John Foster accused the EU of hypocrisy and by a Labour government to regulate trade, racism: ‘The main concern of the EU has control the export of capital to invest in always been to ensure that businesses can public services, protect manufacturing, employ desperate workers from one part of abolish or modify VAT on goods and Europe on terms that undermine pay, services, prevent the use of ‘posted workers’ conditions and trade unionism in another’, he to weaken pay and workplace conditions or declared, ‘Free movement has never been force contractors to comply with higher extended to people outside “Fortress Europe”, standards will run up against the power of most of them non-whites’. unelected EU bureaucrats in the service of The Communist Party’s political committee big business. called on the British government unilaterally to grant residency rights to foreign nationals living here and to repeal all discriminatory niCK WRiGHT is the Communist Party’s head immigration and nationality legislation passed of CommuniCations. he is a former editor of PCs, BeCtu, aslef and asPeCt newsPaPers. since 1980.J
how are Brexit options defined by the government and what are their implications for workers? this pamphlet examines the eu: its positive achievements, its neo-liberal economic framework and the consequences for the crisis of social democracy and the rise of right-wing populism. it looks at the aims of big business and the City and the relationship with the us. The EU, winning a progressive settlement £2 from www.communist-party.org.uk/shop/
tory danger nEo-LiBERALisM John foster unite’s motion 18 is likely to be composited. it highlights and opposes the Conservative’s ideological approach to Brexit. the danger here is immediate. mrs may’s eu withdrawal Bill incorporates all the worst neoliberal aspects of eu law along with everything else. over the next twelve months we can be sure that she will seek to make these elements the basis of a binding treaty with the eu and that one key political objective will be to invalidate, and prevent the implementation of all the progressive elements of labour’s manifesto – those that most directly threaten the Conservatives electorally. What are these neo-liberal prohibitions ? Key among them is eu competition law. this disallows comprehensive state ‘monopolies’ and hence any full, integregrated public ownership of rail transport, energy or posts. it also precludes state aid and thereby severely limits the scope for state investment to safeguard manufacturing jobs and overcome Britian’s disastrous productivity gap, thus negating Corbyn’s activist industrial policy equally damaging are the eu’s procurement rules. unless there is a massive campaign of resistance these also will be included in any tory treaty. these rules will end the possibility of requiring state contractors to recognise trade unions or pay a full living wage – or to play an integrated role in regional industrial reconstruction. Compulsory competitive tendering will continue as before and labour’s objective of full sectoral collective bargaining will be lost. unfortunately these issues don’t figure at all in current debate. instead the mainstream press is focussing everyone’s attention on 'hardsoft' Brexit - while the government pursues its objective of a neo-liberal Brexit that matches the interests of the City and the big corporations and its own political and ideological ends. as the unite motion stresses, what happens in Britain is of great importance for workers across europe. if we can stop a neo-liberal settlement here, then it will help all those struggling internationally against eu neoliberalism. this week workers in france are demonstrating against the destruction of their contractual entitlements in line, as the french left newspaper l’ Humanite puts it, with the eu’s neo-liberal directives. the same goes for workers in Portugal, greece, spain and italy who have suffered similar attacks – and even those in norway who, as members of the single market, have just seen their dock labour scheme struck down by an efta court. PRoFEssoR JoHn FosTER is international seCretary of the Communist Party
this pamphlet from the Communist Party, written by John foster, ends with a warning. the european union’s imposition of neo-liberal policies on all governments, including those led by the traditional parties of the left, has resulted in the collapse of support for social democracy. Britain and the EU. What next? £2 from www.communist-party.org.uk/shop/