The Socialist, January / February 2019 by Socialist Party

thesocialist

PAPER OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY

ISSUE 119

JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2019

Nurses Action Shows the Way... INSIDE Evictions: The sharp end of landlord profiteering

Yellow vest revolt in France

FIGHT & STRIKE FOR HIGHER PAY socialistpartyireland

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NEWS THE SOCIALIST

Snapshots of capitalism in 2019 Housing: Just wait for the grim reaper An entire generation of young people globally are being locked out of the property market as house prices and rents skyrocket. However, capitalism’s most prestigious mouthpiece, The Economist, recently had a novel answer to this crisis: the grim reaper himself. We just have to wait for the “baby boomer” generation to die off and then we won’t have to worry about having a roof over our head. Somewhat morbid? Perhaps, but what other solutions are on offer? Surely we can’t make housing accessible and affordable by building public homes on public land?

the minimum wage - this is certainly music to the ears of capitalism. “By your friends you shall by known.” Never a truer word spoken.

A pay rise for bosses. Sure thing! Expect nurses to be in the firing line of the capitalist media and political establishment in the coming weeks, for their just pay claim of 12%. Meanwhile, they’ve largely ignored the fact that last year the chief executives of Ireland’s top 26 compa-

Jair Bolsonaro’s good ideas? Many working-class people in Brazil and beyond have looked on with horror at the accention to power of the far-right and racist Jair Bolsonaro at the beginning of this year. While our friends in The Economist think he is a “dangerous populist”, he has some “good ideas” as well. What good ideas are they, you may ask? Attacking the Earth's lungs aka the Amazon, or attacking the Left, the workers' movement and various oppressed groupings in Brazilian society? The first act of the Bolsonaro regime was to cut

nies took in a tidy sum of €2.3 million in 2017, a pay rise of 6% on the previous year. The chief executive of Ireland’s largest company, CRH (Cement Roadstone Holdings) earned €8.65 million or 230 times the wage of an average worker according to a recent report from ICTU. Not bad for a day’s (of someone else’s) work!

The cruel legacy of austerity The legacy of austerity and underfunding of our public health continues to cruelly impact on patients. Last year a record number of patients, 110,000 in total, went without a hospital bed. This is a record high and double what it was 2017. Needless to say, the government don’t plan on doing anything about this, being the neoliberal hawks that they are. Best to keep tax breaks going for big business, landlords and developers while patients suffer on trollies.

The rise of the working poor The number of working poor has risen sharply across Europe in the last decade. According to Eurostat, 10% of workers on the continent lived in a household that was below the poverty line. This is as a result of precarity, austerity and the increasing exploitation that capitalism is built on. Even the Financial Times (30 December 2018) was forced to acknowledge: “Many factors contribute to the inability of workers in the bloc to achieve decent family income: not working enough hours, having a sole breadwinner, low pay, rising

prices, and cuts in benefits by many governments. Poverty has risen across most forms of job contracts, even among employees with good access to benefits and social protection.”

The planet’s #TenYearChallenge Have you taken part in Facebook’s ten year challenge? Maybe you like to see how life under capitalism has aged you? Nothing sums up capitalism’s ruthless destruction of our planet than the two images above. It makes for a chilling image and sums up why 2019 must be the year we organise against this system.

No to regressive Carbon Tax! he increasingly urgent need to challenge the climate crisis highlighted in the iPcc report – which suggested that there were 12 years left to take action that could keep global warming below 1.5c – has sparked even the irish government, europe’s worst performing on climate change for the last two years, towards some form of cosmetic action on the issue. The government is preparing the ground for increases in the carbon tax.

being a behavioural corrective. However they paint it though, the carbon tax is regressive. It hits the poorest sections of society hardest as they are hit by increased cost of fuel use and have the least ability to spend on transitioning to cleaner fuels. It is just another attack on working-class people and will be seen as such. Attempts to over-emphasise how much climate change is a result of personal choice and a failing of the public are nothing new. While personal attempts to limit the emissions you're responsible for are positive, they don't deal with the root causes of the issue.

Hitting working-class people With the water charges and the French yellow vest protests in mind, sparked in part by a regressive increase in the fuel tax, the government is said to be wary of a backlash. The government has therefore been talking about how the increase in the carbon tax would not be a revenue-raising effort, and instead selling it on the basis of

Individual solutions? A particularly absurd example of this was recently provided by Leo Varadkar talking about how he personally is trying to eat less meat in order to reduce his carbon footprint. As laudable as this may sound, it distracts from the fact that his government are seeking to aggressively boost the Irish meat industry, including the opening up of the Chinese market to

by Colm McCarthy

Rising fuel prices was a spark for the massive Yellow Vest protests in France

Irish beef and dairy. During the Paris talks, the Fine Gael/Labour government of Enda Kenny ruled out any reduction in emissions from the agricultural sector, responsible for around a third of the state’s total emissions until at least 2020. With 100 companies responsible for 71% of carbon emissions, the situation demands the type of confrontation with big business that is anathema to capitalist governments the world over. High-polluting companies need to be taxed heavily. In Ireland and elsewhere, this requires making public transport both more widely available and free. We need the full nationalisation of industries like transport, energy and the other dominant sections of the economy, taking them out of the of the private hands of companies whose primary focus is providing shareholder dividend rather than the long-term needs of society. There is no issue in the world that demonstrates the need for a socialist transformation of society more than the climate crisis.

NEWS

THE SOCIALIST

Evictions: The sharp end of landlord profiteering By Shane Finnan

The facts about evictions:

oThing sums up the reality of the profit-driven nature of capitalism today than the housing crisis. hundreds of thousands are affected by it, particularly young working-class people. One of the sharpest edges of the housing crisis is evictions. Successive neo-liberal governments have established a reality where landlords have virtually all power in the landlordrenter relationship. This is not accidental: Fine Gael and previous governments are committed to the capitalist market. A rigged system This means that parties of the superrich and landlords have set up an economic framework where corporate landlords at home and abroad have been able to exploit the housing market through the deregulation of the housing market. Such is the main focus of neo-liberalism: governments should not halt the predatory endeavors of private corporations and the ruling classes in any way they should act as facilitators for their profiteering missions. Landlords often evict tenants on spurious claims that they intend to move a family member into the property or that they intend to carry out renovations, when in reality they are just seeking to turf tenants out to get a fresh batch of new tenants in to

l The number one cause of homelessness is evictions from the private rental sector. l Some 32% of calls to the national housing charity Threshold, last year were from tenants faced with losing their homes. l Overall, Threshold received 73,526 calls in 2017, up from 71,319 the previous year. l There was an 18% increase in calls relating to tenancy terminations compared to the previous year. This points to the vulnerability of people in the private rented sector. This has in reality only worsened since 2017.

Take Back the City protest against forced eviction in Dublin, September 2018

exploit even more heavily. Landlords have been engaging in this practice as they see an opportunity to raise rents and increase their profit-margins. Anti-evictions bill Between September 2017 and September 2018 rents increased 11.3%. This is the profiteering backdrop to evictions. It's in this context that Solidarity and the Socialist Party are

putting forward our Anti-Evictions Bill. This bill, if passed, would act as a serious obstacle to landlords turfing out tenants on bogus grounds such as renovations and moving family into property. For example, tenants would have to be reimbursed six months rent should a landlord try to move a family member in. This example alone shows how the Bill would tilt some rights and power back to tenants.

As it stands, the Bill passed the first two stages in the Dáil, as it was voted upon and secured the necessary majority to bring it through to committee stage. The government and parties of the rich will be adamant to kick the can down the road and delay the reviewing of this Bill at committee stage. The new emerging housing movement could use this Bill as a pressure point, and, through mass protests, demand that TDs ratify it at committee stage this year. A new housing movement We need a mass housing movement organised in workplaces, communities and colleges that takes up the question of evictions in communities. The trade union movement have

a critical role to play in building such a campaign. When landlords try to evict tenants, tenants need to refuse to leave and local housing action groups and members of the community should back those at risk and refuse to allow landlords to throw people out onto the streets. Ultimately, we need the empowerment of workers and the young to fight back against this housing crisis. This Bill can be a useful aid in that fightback. We need to continue to build the emerging housing movement that fights to end the rule of profiteers in the form of landlords and developers. This is a movement that demands real controls that makes them truly affordable, a ban on evictions and the construction of public homes on public land.

Oppose the Trump style citizenship law By Michael O’Brien

olidariTy and the socialist Party have moved the irish nationality and citizenship Bill 2017 in the dáil. This Bill would restore the eligibility of all persons born in the island of ireland for irish citizenship. if enacted, the Bill would undo the Trump-style citizenship laws introduced in 2004. The removal of birthright citizenship in the law from 2005 by Fianna Fáil, with Fine Gael support, was aimed at some of the most vulnerable children in the country living in direct provision. In the US, Donald Trump wishes to end birthright citizenship which many Irish politicians, rightly, oppose given the impact it would have on the undocumented Irish community there. However, at home the Irish government defends a citizenship law President Trump would love to have. Deportations In the past 14 years there have been cases of children who were born here

ing in Ireland. Faced with the inhumane reality which results from the current situation, public opinion is clearly overwhelmingly in favour of a change. In November a B&A / Sunday Times opinion poll indicated that 71% wish to see citizenship being granted to all children regardless of their parents’ status.

being issued with deportation orders. Most recently, the case of Eric Zhi Ying Xue (9) outraged an entire community in Bray when he was issued with a deportation order to a country he was never in. At the time the Minister for Health, Simon Harris, said that Eric is Irish and has the same basis of being in the Wicklow community as he did. Our Bill now gives Harris the opportunity to end any further cases of Irish-born children being deported. Yet the indications are that the government, as well as Fianna Fáil, will oppose this Bill. This is not a surprise. The parties of the capitalist establishment have consistently pursued policies of state racism for the last two decades. Precarious existence Not having citizenship places these young people, whose home is Ireland, in a particularly vulnerable and precarious position. The ability to afford third level education, the right to work and the right to vote are all affected by having citizenship rights. There are an estimated 2,0005,000 undocumented children liv-

‘Save Nonso’, one of a number of recent campaigns to stop the deportation of a young person living in Ireland

Fight racism This Bill is but one measure in an overall struggle that is needed to combat state discrimination against migrants especially those in Direct Provision and the ongoing curtailment of the right to work for asylum seekers. We need to oppose all forms of state racism and racist division that is being whipped up by the likes of Peter Casey and his ilk. As well as defending the rights of asylum seekers and migrants, we need to build a movement that unites all workingclass people, migrant and non-migrant alike, in a struggle to demand state investment in housing and decent public services for all.

HEALTH THE SOCIALIST

Striking against wage restraint

Full support for nurses & midwives By Ciaran McKenna

urses and midwives, who are members of the irish nurses and midwives organisation (inmo) are scheduled to begin strike action on 30 January. it is to be the first day in a series of 24 hour strikes by the union and the Psychiatric nurses association (Pna). With “friends” like these The usual arguments are being made by media that nurses are “holding patients hostage” as well as outright lies about pay rates for nursing and midwifery workers. Even worse the other union that organises nurses in the health service, SIPTU, appears to be prepared to side with the government against the INMO. SIPTU Health Division Organiser and Labour Party councillor, Paul Bell, in effect stated that SIPTU nurses would cross the INMO picket lines. He went on to stress that SIPTU nurses would remain bound by the current public sector pay deal. The INMO issued a tweet to state that it was experiencing a “surge” in membership applications which could possibly be from SIPTU nurses defecting.

Horrendeous conditions Nurses and midwives, like all public sector workers, are still worse off than they were before the economic crash of 2008. The current Public Sector Stability Agreement, which runs to December 2020, doles out pay restoration at 1% or 1.75% every six to nine months over three years while rents are rising by 11% per year and house prices are beyond the reach of all but a minority of the very best paid workers. It takes a nurse or midwives well into their thirties before they hit the maximum of their pay scale. The strike is important because of the radical deterioration of working conditions in the health service. Regularly working without taking breaks, trying to provide complex and highly skilled care in an overcrowded and often chaotic public health system and litigation and defensive practice are all major sources of chronic stress that drives many to sick leave. This results in the mass defection of nurses to other countries like Australia, the U.K. and Canada or burnout and stress for those who remain. Nurses and midwives are bearing the brunt of the establishment's determination to degrade the public health system.

95% of INMO members voted for strike action

No more rotten deals We need to mobilise the power of The INMO's action also poses huge the workers movement and rebuild questions for the trade union move- the traditions of solidarity and miliment. Should workers allow ourselves tancy that built the trade unions in to be tied into deals which see us the first place. We need an end to rotmerely marking time or sliding gently ten deals and sell outs. Where workbackwards in terms of pay and condi- ers vote to take industrial action there tions? Particularly when we consider must be no more bethe cost of putting a roof over our hind the scenes heads is increasingly unaffordable? efforts to Since 2008 workers across the call off economy have endured huge strikes cuts to pay and, equally imf o r portant, huge changes to n There are 2,000 fewer nurses terms and condition. Decent pensions, for example, now than there were in 2008. are becoming a thing of the n Over 70% of the 2018 past. How do we stop this graduating class of nurses intend trend? to emigrate n Current staffing levels in the health service are unsafe by international standards

Did you know?

Why we need a national health service

health service – and for all workers crippled by the cost of private health insurance.

By Diana O’Dwyer

n announcing the nurses’ overwhelming decision to strike, inmo President, martina harkin-Kelly said: "We’re standing up for safe staffing, fair pay, and for our patients, who deserve better care”. decades of under-resourcing, compounded by austerity since the crash, have left us with 2,000 fewer nurses than in 2007 and less than two-thirds of the recommended number of hospital consultants. As with nurses, recruitment and retention of doctors and other healthcare professionals is difficult due to increasingly intolerable working conditions. The nurses’ strike is therefore a strike not just for nurses but for all public healthcare workers. Eleven billion in austerity cutbacks from 2009 -2017 have reinforced the two-tier system nature of the Irish health service. Public hospitals have been forced into financial dependence on income from private patients, allowed to jump the queue ahead of poorer, sicker patients. Even when public patients finally access treatment, the care they receive is generally inferior.

Waiting list & rising costs Health expert, Maev-Ann Wren, has explained that consultants “have an economic incentive to favour private patients, which contributes to public patient waiting lists and leaves much of public patient care in the hands of poorly supervised and trained junior doctors”. Aside from the appalling injustice of this, it means delaying treatment of public patients until they are sicker and treatment is costlier. It is one of the main causes of the one million people on public waiting lists and rising healthcare costs.

Unlike the consultant and GP organisations, which have historically blocked the introduction of free universal healthcare due to their economic interest in fee income from private patients, the INMO calls for “a free single-tiered, universally accessible, public health service where access is determined solely by need and not by ability to pay” and for all health professionals, including GPs, to be directly employed by the state. The nurses’ strike is therefore a strike for everyone who depends on the public

What kind of public system? The Socialist Party supports the INMO demand for a universal free and fully public health service but would go further. An Irish National Health System must also be secular. This means separating church and state: voluntary hospitals and other healthcare organisations must be freed from religious influence and along with the rest of the health service should be democratically run by workers and patients’ representatives rather than unaccountable managers. To enable optimal use of resources, private hospitals and healthcare companies must also be taken into public ownership. Public/private healthcare apartheid exists not only in the private ward in the public hospital but in the 21 private hospitals that account for one in six acute hospital beds yet deny them to the sickest patients. Another particularly striking example is the profit-hungry pharmaceutical companies that invent lifesaving drugs but price them out of reach of those who need them.

more 'talks'. Given the legal hoops that the union movement must jump through to hold a strike, when workers vote for strike action then that is what must happen. We need a wholesale clear-out of those in the trade union movement who have no faith in the ability of workers to fight to better their conditions. Every trade-unionist and worker in this country stands to benefit if the INMO win this battle against a callous Fine Gael government. Workers must therefore give 100% solidarity and support to the INMO and PNA on the picket lines from 30 January onwards. A victory for the nurses and midwives is a victory for all workers.

Socialist Party stands for: l Immediate reversal of all austerity measures l Pay restoration – no to two tier pay l A living wage for all – Wage increases in line with increases of the cost of living l End the outsourcing of jobs in the health service – for all staff to be directly employed l For a fully funded national public health service free at the point of use l Take all private hospitals, healthcare & pharmaceutical companies out of hands of profiteers by putting them into democratic public ownership

NEWS

THE SOCIALIST

Local & European elections…

Building a socialist left challenge By Councillor Matt Waine

he local and european elections will take place on 24 may. This will be the first opportunity for working class people to cast judgement on this government since the emergence of economic recovery. The recovery is an undisputable fact. However, what is also undisputable is that it has been a massively unequal recovery. The savage austerity measures implemented during the crisis have not been reversed. Actually, the crisis has worsened in housing, health, the cost of living and many other pertinent issues. Meanwhile super profits are being made by big business, landlords and developers. Solidarity, the broad left banner which the Socialist Party is part of, will field up to 25 candidates across the state, in all major cities. This isn’t just about winning seats. It is about using these positions to fight for the type of policies needed to fundamentally change society. It is about using these positions to assist building a new political movement for working class people in this country, one that fights the rule of those parties that are beholden to the super-rich, landlords and property developers.

Solidarity councillors and local reps on housing demo in December 2018

Organising working class people In the past five years, Solidarity has used our elected positions to bring the real struggles of ordinary working class people into the Council chamber and break up the cosy consensus that exists between all of the main parties. On the spiralling housing crisis, no other political force has done as much as Solidarity. By linking direct actions like occupations and reflect-

ing those actions in the Councils, we have forced the Councils into acquiring and building more homes. We also successfully used our positions to organise to defend vulnerable tenants in danger of mass evictions by vulture funds in Tyrrelstown, Cork and Limerick. Furthermore, Solidarity brought forward ambitious costed plans for social and affordable housing schemes – showing that Councils

could take action to address the housing crisis. But we also linked this to exposing the profiteering under the current system. Relying on neo-liberal policies like HAP and private developers will inevitably fail and this demonstrates the need to break EU spending restrictions. Workers representatives We don’t see ourselves as county councillors – we are workers’ repre-

Teachers demand pay equality The Socialist spoke to Socialist Party member Sandra Fay, a secondary school teacher in Tallaght and an activist in the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI). She spoke about the next steps for teachers’ quest for pay equality after the ASTI and Irish National Teachers’ Organisations (INTO) rejected a bogus offer from the government last year. “These rejections on the part of members happened despite the lack of a recommendation by the union leaders. It was clear that the appetite was not there among the officials to lead a fight to finally end two tier pay. “Knowing the offer was bad they could not recommend it. Instead they hoped that with the lack of a clear lead one way or the other teachers would conclude for themselves that it was the best deal possible in the circumstances and reluctantly accept it. Lead from below “Instead the lead had to come from below. The lead in fact came from young teachers in the INTO, victims of the two tier pay system, who ran a

Tesco workers fight union busting

spirited campaign for rejection among their colleagues. “Against all expectations the INTO membership rejected the deal. Fortunately, the ASTI ballot came after the INTO one and that union’s rejection had a big effect on ASTI members. It was the talk of all the staff rooms. “That said, momentum has been lost since those rejections. The unions should have immediately moved to ballot for strike action. No word yet has reached ASTI members about plans for a ballot. The INTO leadership are not going to consider a ballot until their next executive on 7th February! “There is massive annoyance amongst members. Most of the secondary teaching jobs that have become available are in the Dublin area and the rents are simply beyond the means of newly qualified teachers. The unions should be fighting not just for pay equality and restoration but also for cost of living increases. Follow nurses lead “The campaign of strike action announced by the nursing unions is being watched closely. There is massive sympathy and solidarity for their stand. The treats to their increments and the other partial pay restoration measures from the government to bully them out of their strike campaign is very familiar to ASTI members. The feeling among many of our members is that we should be out with them at the same time. “Initiatives need to be taken by the rank and file activist groups in the

sentatives. There has hardly been a strike or industrial dispute that we haven’t raised in the Council chambers, often getting motions of solidarity past, much to the annoyance of the right wing parties. Such was the case with the Lloyds Pharmacy Strike and the Greyhound Bin workers. Most people want to see the emergence of a new left wing movement in society. But we think that has to be principled. There is no point electing people who say they stand for working class people, when they ultimately turn around and support anti-working class policies. In 2014, many candidates were elected claiming to oppose the property tax and water charges, and yet very few of them actively fought the water charges when they were implemented by the last Government. If elected, we will use our positions to resist yet another austerity tax – the so-called Carbon Tax. Unfortunately, some parties, like Sinn Fein, have indicated that they will support this regressive tax. That merely underlines the need not just to elect more Solidarity councillors, but for working class people to get active in building a real movement for change based on ending the capitalist status quo, which facilitates the rule of profit and fighting for socialist change.

Fermanagh Trades Unions Council activists, including Socialist Party representative Dónal Ó Cofáigh, travelled the weekend before Christmas to stand in solidarity with striking workers in Tesco Sligo. The strike action was the second day in a row and the fourth taken by the plus workers since the start of the industrial action on 6 December. The cause of this dispute, like so many others in the retail sector, were moves by management to deny workers their right to trade union representation as another step to de-recognise their trade union, Mandate. ASTI and INTO members rejected the government pay deal

teachers’ unions, Glór (INTO), TUI Grassroots and ASTI Fightback to put pressure on our union executives to proceed with the ballots so we can join the nurses. “The reality is that nearly all the public sector union leaders including the teachers’ union leaders do not want the nurses action to succeed even if they don’t come out and say it (apart from Paul Bell in SIPTU). Their

core message to all of us is that pay restoration and pay equality cannot be forced by our own action but instead must come from a series of deals they negotiate with government that offer only partial restoration at a snail’s pace. If the nurses win or we win through determined action that undermines that argument completely and sets an example to all workers.”

In April 2017 workers raised a collective grievance that was ignored by management. The local union official wrote 10 letters on the matter but all were ignored. Attempts to mediate through the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) were frustrated as Tesco bosses refused to attend. In the industrial ballot taken in response, 97% voted for strike action on a 85% turnout.

6 SPECIAL FEATURE

THE SOC

Storm clouds gather for world economy By Paul Murphy TD

he longesT ever rising stock market in history came to a dramatic end in december 2018. share prices which had been rising since the lows of the crisis of 2008, buoyed by the cheap money made available by the Federal reserve and central Banks worldwide, dramatically plunged by 20% within a few days - going from what is known as a ‘bull’ market to a ‘bear’ market. Many are now asking whether this stock market collapse marks the beginning of a new wave of capitalist crisis. The most immediate causes of the collapse in share prices appear to be the expected rise in interest rates. However, an underlying nervousness about the state of the world economy is clearly also at play. This was indicated by the fact that a statement from US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnunchin designed to calm the markets had the opposite effect. After days of turmoil, he had phone calls with the biggest six US bank CEOs and tweeted a statement indicating that they have “ample liquidity”. This answering of “a question that no one was asking” (as Bloomberg put it) simply provoked a further decline in share prices! World recession in 2019? While stock markets soared in recent years on the basis of Quantitative Easing and low interest rates, the recovery in the real economy has been significantly slower. Growth rates for a supposed recovery have been some of the weakest since World War II. Given the lopsided nature of this meagre recovery, working class people have seen very little benefit, with wages stagnant across much the advanced capitalist world. While the exact timing of a new wave of crisis in the world economy is impossible to predict, a number of indicators suggest that this weak recovery is heading back towards a recession. For 2019, all of the major institutions of world capitalism , like the IMF, World Bank and European Commission, are predicting a lower rate of growth. They refer mostly to concerns about disruptions to global trade as a result of the rising US China tensions, the impact of such developments on an already weakening Chinese economic growth and to ris-

ing interest rates. In the course of 2018, global economic growth already slowed significantly. This is most clearly seen in the Chinese economy, which has been the one major section of the world economy with substantial growth rates over the past ten years. Now, the problems of debt, over-capacity as well as worries about the impact of protectionist policies by the US are asserting themselves. However, it is not only China. Germany, the engine of growth in the EU only narrowly missed entering into a technical recession in the second half of 2018, while Japan’s economy shrunk the third quarter of 2018. The profits of the capitalist class are beginning to fall too, with Goldman Sachs predicting a “sharp slowdown”. No way out All of these symptoms reflect the underlying weakness of the capitalist economy exposed in 2007 / 2008, which cannot simply be overcome by turning on the tap of cheap money with low interest rates. The resulting accumulated debt which has grown exponentially to a total world debt of over $200 trillion, more than three times the size of the world economy. The consequences of a new wave of world economic crisis coming so soon after the last deep crisis would be profound. Martin Wolf, writing in the Financial Times pointed out: “A powerful implication is that room for a response to a recession would be limited by historical standards, especially in monetary policy. If the US Federal Reserve had to make a standard response to a significant recession, its short-term rates might need to be minus 2.5 per cent. The European Central Bank and Bank of Japan would have to go further still.” This is an illustration of the fact that world capitalism has substantially exhausted its reserves in dealing with the last recession. This is not just true economically, but also politically. The undermining of the ‘extreme centre’ of capitalist parties means that the capitalist classes increasingly lack stable instruments for their rule. Another crisis would accentuate that instability and would pose the urgent necessity for mass socialist parties to direct the anger of working class people against the capitalist system responsible and replace it with a democratically planned socialist economy.

World Capitalism in turmoil Revolution explodes in Sudan By Manus Lenihan EVERY DAY videos are coming out of Sudan showing massive crowds marching through the streets of Khartoum, Omdurman and other cities and towns. They are chanting “Revolution is the people’s choice” – “Freedom, peace, justice, revolution.” Alongside videos of marching crowds come photographs of young people, the latest marchers to be gunned down by the police, and images of welts and burns and bruises left by beatings and torture. The word “revolution” is not an empty flourish but a real reflection of the strength and character of this movement. The revolt started on December 19th after the government, on the orders of the IMF, cut bread subsidies. The protesters struck first in the working-class stronghold of Atbara, burning local offices of the ruling party and sacking a security police building. Since then there have been hundreds of protests in many parts of the country. Reports from late December showed soldiers mingling with protesters and popular neighbourhood committees emerging in some areas. Doctors and other medical staff have taken very significant strike action, alongside professional workers such as engineers and pharmacists organised in independent unions.

The role of imperialism The Bashir regime has performed a delicate international balancing-act – at one time supporting Iran, then ditching Iran to please the United States, and now opening up to Turkish military bases. But Bashir and co are not so diplomatic when their own people march for bread and fuel: the police have killed 44 people as of mid-January, arrested over 1,000 and shut down newspapers and the internet. In spite of the “concern” on behalf of protesters voiced by the United States and others, the “international community” (ie the major capitalist powers), agree that the regime must stay. Their line is that Sudan must avoid “instability” – or else it will end up like Syria, Libya or Yemen. But in all of these three countries it is not protests but imperialist intervention that has helped fuel civil war. In the case of Yemen, the war and famine engulfing the country is the byproduct of the brutal intervention by the Saudi regime, a key ally of US imperialism in the Middle East. The real fear of the “international community” is that revolution in Sudan will threaten their ability to rule and dominate the region. Desperate conditions The workers and poor of Sudan have not taken to the streets on a whim. For years the regime tried to get away with blam-

ing economic problems on the US sanctions – but since they were lifted, Bashir has had nowhere to hide. The economy is shambling into chaos. Many families in Khartoum live on the leftovers from restaurants. Cars queue for fuel for days on end, inflation soars and salaries go unpaid for month after month. Sudan is a textbook example of the reality of capitalism in the former colonial world: three-quarters of the state budget goes on military and security costs; the politicians systematically loot the wealth of the state. The IMF’s “solution” for the Sudanese economy is what triggered the protests. The main targets in the gun-sights of the IMF are bread and fuel subsidies. Not the military budget, inequality, corruption – none of these, but the subsidies that keep people alive. This is a clear example of the IMF’s approach. Step one in their master plan always seems to be: Let the people starve. But after four years of cuts to fuel subsidies, defended as a “remedy” for the economy, the situation is much worse. A government of the workers & poor The workers and poor of Sudan know well, from harsh experience, that when they go out to protest they are putting their lives on the line. But the choice is clear, as a Sudanese woman explained to the BBC: “whether you go out and die

SPECIAL FEATURE 7

CIALIST

The Yellow Vest Revolt in France

By Myriam Poizat

n 17 november, French President emmanuel macron’s determination to increase the fuel tax saw the start of a mass movement with the uprising of over 200,000 ‘yellow vests’ or ‘gilets jaunes’, named after the roadside safety vests. Working people mobilised to block roundabouts and toll stations and demanded that macron withdraw his decision. myriam Poizat looks at the significance of this movement that has rocked macron’s “government of the rich.” While Macron has painfully tried to define this new tax as an ecological one, the President has not targeted any of the multinationals or French industries that are some of the 100 companies responsible for 71% of the gas emissions in the world. This is without mentioning that the French President abolished and reformed a series of taxes, handing about €14 billion to the super-rich in France and transferring about €41 billion a year to French companies, including multinationals.

in a protest or stay in and die from hunger.” It is hard to see them being dissuaded by IMF snake-oil remedies or warnings about “instability”. Life is dire and permanent instability, under this regime and this system. The “Revolution” that is needed is not one that leaves the oppressive and ex-

ploitative capitalist system in place, but one that passes power to a government of workers, peasants and the poor, a government that can deliver for the needs of the masses by taking out of private hands the main industries and the looted wealth of the ruling clique, and placing them into public ownership.

A regressive tax Additionally, France had already increased its fuel tax by 23% in 2018. From that €3 billion, only 19% was redistributed to energy transition, leaving many to wonder what the rest of their tax money was invested in. While companies are being exempted from having their profits taxed, taxes are being increasingly targeted at ordinary and working-class people. The latter are also being asked to get rid of their diesel cars by 2050, even though the French state has been putting them on the market for over a decade. No accessible alternative has been proposed to the majority of the population – such as affordable electric cars or, even better, environmentallyfriendly and free public transport for everyone. Yet, the Yellow Vests movement has quickly shown itself to be more than just a protest movement against the rise in the cost of diesel. As a matter of fact, Macron’s decision to withdraw his fuel tax increase - a couple of weeks after the explosion of the protests and blockades - did not slow down the movement. Hundreds of thousands of protestors have been meeting every Saturday to block roundabouts and march in cities to demand better rights for ordinary and working-class people.

Moving into battle Precarious workers such as ambulance drivers, minorities and oppressed people (i.e. young people from the ‘banlieues’, women, LGBTQ+ communities and school and college students) have all joined the struggle throughout the weeks to call for an end to economic exploitation and social oppression. Demands have included for the end of precariousness, the end of homelessness, a progressive tax system, a rise of minimum wage, a universal social security system, political representatives to be on an average salary, better funding in education and the end of police violence and state racism. The yellow vest movement in France has inspired similar powerful movements in Belgium and in the Netherlands, showing the positive impact it has had in fueling movements against the capitalist establishments of Europe. After a solidarity action on 22 December between French and Spanish yellow vests at the Spanish border, the impact of the French uprising forced the Spanish state to announce an increase of minimum wage by 22%, a reform seen as a way to avoid similar disturbance on the other side of the Pyrenees. The decreasing living conditions, along with the violent repression of

the French state, has resulted in over 70% of the population supporting the yellow vests movement. The attacks on the right to protest by the reactionary French state and the inability to meet the needs of ordinary people illustrates the reality of the capitalist system we live in: it is a system built on inequality and oppression. The role of the working class If a well-organised and mobilised movement of the working class takes the lead, there is no doubt that the Macron regime can be brought down. The role of the organised working class is critical to achieving this. The Socialist Party, and our sister organization in France Gauche Révolutionnaire, is calling for trade unions to join the struggle of the yellow vests and call general strike action. This needs to be linked to the building a new party of the working class that fights for a socialist government that takes the banks, industry and resources out of the private hands of the parasitic capitalist class that Macron and his ilk represent. It means nationalising this wealth under the democratic control of the working class and democratically planning the economy so that the needs of the majority can be met.

INTERNATIONAL THE SOCIALIST

Environmental destruction:

“We should change the system itself” ommendations of “take the bus more” and “eat less meat”. The establishment is trapped ideologically in market-based solutions to our problem. We need to take far more radical steps. We need to revolutionise all aspects of how we organise our society. This can only be achieved by breaking with the market-based capitalist system in favour of a democratically organised and planned economic system. Only by seizing the key aspects of the economy such as energy, food and transport and placing them into public ownership can we begin a transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. This is a task that we can achieve by building an international environmental and socialist movement of workers and young people.

By Gary McDonald

“W

e have come here to let you know that change is coming whether you like it or not. The real power belongs to the people”. These were the prophetic words spoken by 15 year-old school student and climate activist greta Thunberg in a stunning speech delivered at the coP24 un climate change conference in Poland. her speech has resonated with many people across the world with the video quickly going viral online. it is also inspiring other school students to take immediate action to halt this crisis. The pollution and the exploitation of our environments by big business is producing catastrophic effects for most of the living organisms on this planet – including humanity itself. Our civilisation is certain to be destroyed with the real potential that our species itself will be lost to a radically new ecosystem, inhospitable to life as we know it. Climate scientists and the broader scientific community are now sounding the alarm bells. We are rapidly approaching an unmitigated disaster for the globe unless, as Greta says, “we pull the emergency brake” and begin to take immediate action to avoid runaway global warming.

Greta with a sign that reads 'School strike for the climate'

Exploiting the planet Greta accurately sums up the current situation: “Our civilisation is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue to make enormous amounts of money... It is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few.” Such environmental destruction occurs solely for the profits of those very few people at the top, the capitalist class. These are the exploiters of not just the environment but also of the working class – the

Hungary: Mass mobilisations against draconian labour law

majority of us in society who must serve the capitalist elite day-to-day in our workplaces. With just 90 corporations having caused two-thirds of all methane and CO2 emissions, we can clearly see that ordinary working people are not to blame for the situation we’re in, rather it is the system that is constructed on the exploitation of people and the planet that bears the responsibility. We, the majority, endure low pay, poor working and living conditions and general

insecurity and precarity – for some to the point of death – all so the capitalist class can rake in their profits. They are doing the very same to our planet. Market based solutions Greta continues: “If solutions within this system are so impossible to find then maybe we should change the system itself”. We have seen the pathetic attempts of the political, business and media establishment to deal with this crisis with paltry rec-

School student action Greta has begun to take radical action by not attending school every Friday until the Swedish government begins cutting its carbon emissions by 15% a year. This has inspired school students across the world to take the same measures. Strikes have spread to at least 270 towns and cities globally in Australia, Britain, Belgium, the US and Japan. She finishes her speech: “You are never too small to make a difference – if a few children can get headlines all over the world just by not going to school – imagine what we could all do together if we really wanted to.”

Nigerian election: Socialists stand against corruption & capitalism By Thomas White

By Carah Daniel IN DECEMBER, laws were passed in Hungary that doubles how much overtime employees can work, boosting the amount of overtime employers can demand from 250 to 400 hours a year! It also states that employers will only have to pay their employees at some point within three years. Little surprise that they have come to be known as “Slave Laws.” 500,000 workers will be affected by their introduction. Opposing Orban regime The laws were brought in by far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Some of his other policies include attempting to dismantle various democratic institutions as well as trying to prevent immigrants from working. While the government argue it is overtime, workers and trade unions rightfully point out they have no say in the matter. It has sparked protests and opposition to the government. Students, unions and labour organisations are threatening strike action. This would be the first general strike in Hungary since the fall of Stalinism, and would be a very significant development.

general election will take place in nigeria during February and march. The last election in 2015 brought Buhari and his party, the all Progressive congress (aPc), into government. This came in the context of an anti-corruption mood in society and frustration with poor living conditions. While Buhari has made some cosmetic changes, the country is still riven with poverty and corruption to the frustration and anger of the working class. Burning issues such as unpaid wages, fuel price hikes, massive wealth disparity and general lack of infrastructure have not been resolved. February 16 is due to see the election of the President and the National Assembly, while on March 2nd elections of Governors and State Assemblies in most of Nigeria’s 36 states will take place alongside local elections in the federal capital Abuja. The socialist challenge The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) will be contesting these elections for the first time since it won its victory to become a registered political party. This can act as a focal point for

The Socialist Party’s sister party in Nigeria wil be contesting the upcoming elections

the struggles taking place around the country such as the fuel price protests. It can also help forge an anti-capitalist, socialist and workers party that stands for the needs of the working class and poor - not the corrupt and privileged elite. The SPN was founded by socialist, trade union and youth activists including members of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) the sister organistion of the Socialist Party. They will challenge the interests of landlordism, imperialism

and the profiteering of capitalism and build a mass campaign for socialist change. Through a campaign that mobilises the working class they can win important reforms and highlight the need to ultimately break with the capitalist system itself. The needs of working-class, poor and rural Nigerians can be met in a country with massive human and natural resources instead of being squandered by the corrupt elite in Nigeria and multi-national capitalists.

ANALYSIS

THE SOCIALIST

What we say on Brexit

For a socialist alternative to the bosses’ EU The following is an edited extract from a speech given by Solidarity TD and Socialist Party member Mick Barry in the Dáil in November, where we outlined our position on Brexit.

hroughouT The conversation on Brexit constant reference has been made to the national interest. We care about the interests of workingclass people. When we say working-class people, we mean the interests of working-class people here in the Republic of Ireland, the interests of workingclass people in Northern Ireland, both Catholic and Protestant, and the interests of working-class people in England, Scotland and Wales, and right across Europe. For us, the key questions are whether this agreement guarantees jobs, living standards and peace. Will it serve to heal sectarian division or will it serve to exacerbate it? Representing the interests of capitalism The Tory Government and the EU top officialdom represent the interests of big business elites. Nobody in these negotiations represented the interests of working-class people. The interests of working-class people need to be represented now. The Minister for Finance indicates a hard Brexit could cost 40,000 jobs. The ESRI has indicated that wage cuts could be in the 5% to 10% range for workers in agrifood, tourism and manufacturing. The ESRI, the Nevin Economic Research Institute and the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government all agree that Brexit will mean more rent rises in the big cities. In Northern Ireland, Bombardier welcomed the deal and then announced the destruction of 500 jobs, or 10% of its Northern Ireland workforce. Workers’ rights on the chopping block There has been much talk of "red lines" having been laid down by the various parties engaged in the negotiations to date. It is time for the organised working-class movement to lay down its red lines. No to job losses, no to wage cuts, no to cuts in services or an exacerbation of the housing crisis and, importantly, no to sectarian division. The bosses should be put on notice that any and all attempts to attack

our jobs, pay and conditions will meet with real resistance and no holds barred. We call for the convening of an emergency conference with the widest possible participation of workers’ representatives from workplaces across Ireland, North and South, alongside trade unionists from Britain. Such a conference should host a full and democratic discussion on how best to defend and fight for the interests of workers and the communities they come from. Our hope is that the Irish Congress of Trade Unions will take responsibility for the convening of such a conference. Should the congress decide not to take such a step, our hope would be that a coalition of the trade union bodies prepared to do so would do so. The trade union movement represents 800,000 members in Ireland, including 200,000 members in the North. The trade union movement has more than 6 million members in Britain and it has the potential to be a powerful force intervening in the matter. A benevolent EU? Such a conference should dispel the myth that workers’ rights have been handed down by a benevolent European Union. This turns reality on its head. The European Union has been central to waging a war on workers, particularly given its role in troika austerity programmes, as we have experienced in this country. It did it along with right-wing governments like the Irish Government. Who has really fought for workers’ rights and how are they really won? This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Ford strike in Dagenham, which forced a Labour Government to concede the Equal Pay Act. The incredibly strong strike of 8,500 council workers in Glasgow recently, which the BBC described as "one of the biggest ever strikes in the UK on the issue of equal pay" is testament to the fact that these rights are won through struggle. The trade union movement must reject the false choice of this deal versus the UK walking out of the EU. For working-class unity There is another reason the trade union movement must reject false choices on this issue. Both this deal and the UK crashing out of the EU with no deal contain within those processes the potential for sectarian polarisation in Northern Ireland. The real issue here is not the DUP. The real issue relates to the concerns and fears of ordinary working-class Protestant people. Even if the parliamentary arithmetic had been different after the previous general election and there had been no DUP-Tory deal, the op-

The Brexit debacle is a reflection of the political instability throughout Europe

position of Northern Ireland Protestants to any perception of an eastwest border being created would still be a factor to be weighed. Equally, on the basis of this deal being rejected now with a move to a hard border, there is the potential for a strong reaction from the Catholic community. Border posts, customs posts or any physical manifestation of a hard border would become symbols of a denial of the national aspirations of the Catholic population and would not be accepted in any way. They would be opposed in a vocal and very active way. Trade Unions, which unite people across the sectarian divide, should take action against any moves which would harden the border or raise the prospect of an east-west border in the Irish Sea. Border poll When our colleagues in People Before Profit issue a call for a Border poll in the same amendment, we must fundamentally disagree. A Border poll does not offer any solution to the issues raised by the Brexit negotiations or to the national question in Ireland. The logic of a Border poll is based on the mathematics of sectarianism. It either means a continued coercion of the Catholic population into the status quo or a vote that would attempt to coerce the Protestant population into a state that it would refuse to accept. The campaign itself would be a sectarian head count and carry the risk of ratcheting up sectarian tensions. The only solution to the problems of sectarianism is to build a

The EU is a neo-liberal, pro-big business, anti-worker institution

powerful workers' movement that can challenge both unionism and nationalism with socialist policies, including through the creation of a new mass political party that represents Catholic and Protestant working-class people. For a socialist Europe The real guarantors of peace in Northern Ireland are these people, who have been prepared to take to the streets to take action against the forces of sectarianism. The EU is not a guarantor of peace. Any idea that it is is completely contradicted by the recent calls by Merkel and Macron for a European army and the plans to ramp up EU military spending as well as the militarisation contained

in PESCO, which includes Irish Government participation. Nor is the EU a guarantor of the right of minorities. This was shown recently by EU support for the Spanish state in repressing the national aspirations and rights of people in Catalonia. Socialists are in favour of a genuinely united Europe. This will be possible only with the socialist transformation of society, allowing the coming together of nations of Europe in a democratic, Europe-wide confederation. We fight for socialism in Ireland, with full democratic rights for the Protestant community. We are in favour of a free and voluntary socialist federation of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales and a socialist "United States of Europe".

HISTORY

THE SOCIALIST

Unwavering fighter for socialism

Remember Rosa Luxemburg! By Robert Cosgrave

anuary 15th this year marked 100 years since the death of rosa luxemburg. she was kidnapped and murdered by the proto-fascist Freikorps militia at the behest of the right-wing reformist, socialdemocratic government. They were petrified by the revolutionary movement of workers and soldiers, which had already overthrown the Kaiser in November 1918, and now threatened to overthrow capitalism in Germany altogether. A socialist thinker Rosa Luxemburg had been one the main figures of the socialist movement prior to the outbreak of the First World War, a movement that was organised in the Second or Socialist International. She had gained a reputation for her uncompromising commitment to genuine revolutionary socialist politics. Her pamphlet Reform or Revolution written in 1900, dismantled the theories of Eduard Bernstein, a leading theoretician in the SPD who had argued that capitalism was no longer rooted in crisis and could in turn be slowly reformed into a new socialist system. For him. an active a revolutionary struggle for socialist change by the mass of the working class was no longer necessary. Opposing capitalist war The outbreak of the First World War

in July-August 1914 saw the eruption of waves of jingoist militarism across Europe, as the major capitalist powers went to war for profit and power. Shamefully, all the main parties and trends of the Socialist International backed their own ruling classes in this war, wilfully ignoring the antiwar motions they had previously supported at every conference. Revolutionary socialists – such as Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotsky and James Connolly in Ireland – stayed true to the principle of internationalism in the socialist movement. This stance flowed from their revolutionary understanding of society, that war was by-product of a rotten capitalist system that needed to be overthrown. Building a revolutionary movement In Germany, Luxemburg, along with other key leftists in the SPD such as Karl Liebknecht and Clara Zetkin, maintained their principles, and moved away from the “stinking corpse” of the SPD to oppose the war, for which she would end up in prison. Luxemburg and Liebknecht would first establish the Spartacus League and later, in December 1918, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). The greatest tragedy of Luxemburg’s life was that, despite her prescience on the degeneration and sell-out of the SPD leadership, the SPD Left was not as organised a force as the Bolsheviks were in Russia. Without an organised revolu-

"Those who do not move, do not notice their chains” – Rosa Luxemburg

tionary opposition to the growing opportunism within the SPD by the Left even a figure as towering as Luxemburg could not stem the tide. The KPD was founded a month before her murder but it did not have a politically experienced membership and was not sufficiently cohesive politically. With the murder of Luxemburg and Liebknecht the greatest leaders of the German working class were dead, figures who could have guided the young KPD during the continued rev-

olutionary period of the early 1920s in Germany. A successful revolution there would have meant the end to the isolation of the Soviet Union. This in turn would have prevented the growth of the Stalinist bureaucracy, and also the rise of Fascism. An inspiring figure A century on, Rosa Luxemburg remains an inspiring figure for all those who wish to see the birth of a better world. Her life, one that was always committed to the fight for

socialism, remains full of lessons for today. The following description by Paul Frӧlich, her comrade and biographer, should serve as a guiding light for socialists across the world. “She was always ready to take up the cause of the suffering and the oppressed; she felt doubly every blow that fell on others. The deepest sympathy with all those who were humiliated or wronged was the mainspring of her active life and was vibrant in her word, even her loftiest theoretical abstraction.”

1919 Belfast engineering strike: A heroic battle of working-class unity By Kevin Henry

anuary 2019, is the centenary of many important turning points in irish historythe opening of the first dáil and the soloheadbeg ambush, the start of war of independence. less is said today about event which dominated the press and the concerns of ruling class at the time; the 1919 engineering strike in Belfast. This titanic battle of Belfast working class saw 60,000 workers take strike action for one month. An estimated 750,000 work days were lost as a result of the strike. Electricity in the city was shut down to everything with the exception of hospitals, meaning there were no street light or trams. A strike committee of 130 workers held a massive say over what happened in the city including permits to access certain roads. Working class revolt The capitalist press raged against this “soviet” committee. This movement happened in the aftermath of the First World War- they demanded a 44 hour week in order to ensure that there would be work for demobilised soldiers. It happened at a

Catholic. Even after the strike came to an end its effect on the Belfast working class was clear. One hundred thousand marched on May Day demanding a 44 hour working week be implemented and for labour representation. The following year 13 Labour candidates where elected in Belfast five of them strike leaders.

time of global revolt in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. It was part of an upsurge in working class struggle across Ireland epitomised in the Limerick soviet. It was interlinked with industrial strife in Britain which saw 35 million days of strike lost in that year. It particularly was linked with the Glasgow strikes for 40 hour week led by socialist and which was brutally repressed using the British army. The strike went way beyond workers in the engineering firms, shipyards and the gas and electricity stations. It saw graveyard workers, crane, linen workers join the action in solidarity. At every stage it was driven by ordinary workers taking action and forcing union leaders to move. Repression Until the repression of workers in Glasgow strike the establishment where paralysed and refused to use the army against workers in Britain. When the strike leaders took a step a back from action and organised a ballot to retreat workers voted to reject this action. But smelling blood the capitalist establishment sent in troops to “protect” scab labour and break the strike. The leadership refused requests of

Harland And Wolff, 1919

workers to escalate the action – particularly by not accepting the offer of railway workers to take solidarity action. The weakness in the strike came not from the resolve of workers themselves but the nervousness of the leadership to escalate the action.

The strike itself showed the capacity to unite working class people across the sectarian divide. Epitomised by the fact in a strike where the majority of its participants were Protestant workers, the chairperson of the strike committee was a

“Labour can stand alone” The tragedy of this period was that a socialist alternative wasn’t built and sectarianism reasserted itself particularly with the 1920 pogroms and partition. Many of those kicked out of the workplace where labour activists, including 3,000 “rotten prods.” These included the main strike leaders. The strike itself showed the capacity to unite people and that none of this was inevitable. Socialist Party will mark this historic anniversary including with a pamphlet on the strike. We do so for a new generation to learn the basic lesson of a strike summed up by the workers slogan “Labour in Belfast has discovered that when it must fight, it must fight alone. No helping hand is stretched out to help on the way. Labour will fight, and labour will be right. Labour Can Stand Alone!”

ACTION & REVIEW

THE SOCIALIST

Organise now to…

Strike & walkout on International Women’s Day

Sexual harassment This cultural connection between women’s work and service provision can also be seen in the sexual harass-

ment statistics. In a recent survey conducted last year by the Prospect union in the UK, which took place across various industries, it was suggested that more than a third of women experience sexual harassment in the workplace, with this number jumping to 62% when for women under thirty. A survey from the beginning of 2018 in the United States suggests that up to 77% of women workers experience verbal sexual harassment and 51% have received unwanted touch. Women, as the ‘service providers’ of the workforce, are expected not only to selflessly forego liveable wages as caretakers, but they are also expected to sacrifice their own bodily autonomy in order to placate a boss, coworker, or customer. The patriarchal capitalist society has conditioned such people to view access to women’s bodies and empathy as part of the service. In this context, and in the radical, working class tradition of International Women’s Day (IWD), Rosa and members of the Socialist Party in Ireland are calling for walkouts on IWD this year. We should follow the example of the action taken by McDonalds workers in the US in the #MeToo strike in September and similar action taken by Google workers globally the following months. This action is now being supported by the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) and we want to build support for it trade unions, workplaces, schools and colleges.

Lynn Cheney, at times superseding her husband’s desire for power. Steve Carrell is darkly comical, if not terrifying, as a nihilistic Donald Rumsfeld. While the focus is on Cheney and his immediate associates the general role of presidents and their lackeys in the horrors of US capitalism and its imperialist adventures is

ruthlessly exposed. The often funny encounters of the ruling class are potently juxtaposed with the carnage their policies unleash throughout the world. Against liberal interpretations of Trump being some radical departure from previous policy Vice shows much of his reign as being continuous with that of his predecessors.

By Harper Cleves

nTernaTional Women’s day, which is observed every year on the 8th of march, is rooted in working class action and socialist politics. in 1908-9 there were a series of strikes in the garment industries in the united states. The young immigrant women that bolstered these industries demanded action from their union leadership, which led to a highly contentious eleven week strike of 20,000 workers. These actions inspired contemporary German socialist Carla Zetkin to mark March 8 as ‘International Women’s Day’ in 1910. Workers’ rights Women’s equality continues to be crucially linked to worker’s rights. This can be seen in Ireland today through the workplace mistreatment of nurses and midwives. Between 2008 and 2018, there has been a 6% decrease in staff nurses despite increased work due to an ageing population. Young nurses, faced with over-extended work hours, and insufficient pay, are quite understandably either taking their labour elsewhere or leaving the field entirely. Nurses that remain receive the pittances of government funding even with their increased work and the vital service they provide to patients. It is no coincidence that the perennially mistreated fields of nursing and midwifery are overwhelmingly

Rosa and members of the Socialist Party in Ireland are calling for walkouts on IWD 2019

occupied by women. A 2016 workplace profile published by the Public Health Service in Ireland revealed that 72% of Public Health Services staff are women, with 92% of these women working as nurses. Underpaid and undervalued Gender is a concept that has been historically used to segment the workforce, siphoning women off into

sectors of labour that involve caretaking and service; work that is often confined to the home and is thus frequently undervalued or even unpaid. Women are meant to be nurtures, without the expectation of payment. Politicians like Leo Vradkar draw from this cultural expectation of subservience when they attempt to undermine strike action that is led by women. In criticising nurses for

choosing to strike midday on the 30 January, the implicit suggestion is that it is selfish for workers in caretaking professions to place their needs at the forefront of the conversation and demand liveable wages.

Review: Vice directed by Adam McKay Reviewed by Darragh O’Dwyer

icK cheney, vice-president to george W. Bush, was an unapologetic war-hawk. Formerly the ceo of the oil giant haliburton, cheney drove the us invasion of iraq and callously championed torture in the name of his so-called ‘the war on terror.’ With that being said, Cheney may seem peculiar subject of a film best described as a political comedy. Yet for all its black humour, Vice is also a sobering portrayal of the main architect of the Bush regime and the machinations of the US ruling class. Director Adam McKay’s (The Big Short, Anchorman) narrative takes us from Cheney’s wild youth as a heavy drinker and Yale drop-out before an ultimatum from his wife Lynn forces him to broaden his horizons. Beginning his political career as an intern in the Nixon administration he quickly joins the staff of Donald Rumsfeld. Seemingly guided by no particular set of values, Cheney finds his life calling as “a dedicated and humble servant to power.” Cheney’s quickly climbs the ranks as Rumsfeld’s protégé, becoming the

youngest ever Chief of Staff. Gerald Ford’s failed election bid forces him out of the White House, but doesn’t halt his upward march. With the calculating support from his wife, he goes on to win a congressional seat in his home state of Wyoming in 1978. Rise of neoliberalism Although Vice is principally a detailed character study, it also charts the rise of neoliberalism as Cheney emerges as one of its chief political agents. McKay uses montage to give a concise but forceful explanation of this bosses counterrevolution, entrenching a free-market ideology that would become the status quo for decades. The final half-hour is undoubtedly the most chilling as it dissects Cheney’s time as vice-president to George W Bush. He carefully orchestrates unprecedented executive authority, that he deliberately wields. As chaos unfolds in the face of the tragic 9-11 attacks, Cheney stoically recognises war on the horizon, a calculated politics by other means. McKay reveals the behindthe-scenes effort to spuriously justify an invasion of Iraq, one that had nothing to do with retaliating

against the terrorist plotters and everything to do with oil. Strong performances Vice boasts strong performances all round. Christian Bale is compelling in the lead role, carefully balancing Cheney’s cruel pragmatism with a remarkably dull persona. Amy Adams stands out as the hard-nosed

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PAPER OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY

ISSUE 119

JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2019

intErnatiOnal WOmEn'S Day 2019:

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