Unity! Why we need an alternative economic strategy by John Foster The public sector cuts being imposed by George Osborne are doing irreparable damage. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that the 2012 budget cuts were ‘twice as big’ as those inflicted on the public sector between 1975 and 1982 and their extension to 2017 would mean ‘the longest sustained cuts in public spending since the Second World War’. Since present government took office and December 2011, 232,000 jobs were lost in local government alone. And this is only the beginning. Osborne’s cuts are scheduled to continue at a real rate of 3.7 per cent annually for five more years. For the economy as a whole these cuts are crazy. The only gainers are Osborne’s pals in the City who want spare state to cash to bail them out. The cuts are killing the productive economy and increasing long-term debt. Britain’s economy is now over 4 per cent smaller than it was in 2007 – the only major economy to have contracted to such an extent apart from Spain. It is still contracting. This is why alternative economic policies, based on active state intervention, are needed. The last couple of years have seen a transformation in attitudes to such intervention. In 2010 the TUC backed the People’s Charter. In 2011 it additionally called for alternative economic policies based on expanding the public sector. What we need now are specific demands that can unite trade unions and communities to campaign politically and add up to a coherent strategy that can rescue our economy. The first demand is obvious: stop the cuts. This is the quickest way of restoring consumer demand: end the insecurity of imminent job loss, halt the new pensions levy, reverse the
benefit cuts and end a wage freeze that is currently cutting real incomes by up to 3 per cent a year. The second is for the government to create real, well-paid jobs and hence boost tax income as well as demand for goods. Council housing is one obvious area. There is desperate need and the private sector has failed – house building has collapsed from 180,000 in 2006 to 120,000 last year, the lowest since the 1920s. Building houses under local democratic control also makes it possible to introduce comprehensive energy saving with green technology – another key area for investment. Equally essential is the demand to take water, energy and transport back into public ownership, end extortionate pricing and stop the state subsidies to monopolist owners. There must be action to stop closures in the productive economy, to take over failing manufacturing enterprises and to penalise companies that shift production overseas – even if this means defying the EU directives. Can this be paid for? Yes, easily – by imposing a tax on the City’s financial transactions, reclaiming the £100 billion lost through tax evasion, closing down Britain’s many tax havens and reversing Osborne’s tax cuts for the rich and on company profits. What we can’t afford is austerity. This is actively destroying national wealth by shrinking the economy – with between £50 billion to £100 billion lost every year compared to 2007. What’s needed is a mass movement that can remove this government of financial speculators and ensure the Labour Party adopts the alternative policies needed save our productive economy – in the interests of the vast majority of the population.H John Foster is a member of the Communist Party’s economic commission
Communists at the 2012 Tolpuddle Rally
Beware of regional pay! by Liz Payne The Coalition has made no secret over recent months of its intention to introduce regional pay in the public sector whenever it can get away with it. The idea is to con everyone that there’s already huge regional variation in the cost of living and that pay in the private sector is based on local market conditions. Yet, research shows this to be a complete fabrication. There’s little regional variation outside London and the majority of larger private firms pay national not regional rates. The truth is this is a thinly disguised attempt to impose further massive wage cuts on the public sector, enhancing its attractiveness to profit-seekers, as jobs and services are privatised. The whole thing is designed to cause maximum division and conflict between groups of workers and break trade union power in national pay bargaining. It won’t be only public sector workers who suffer. Wage cuts in so-called ‘lowcost’ areas (for which read ‘already poor’) will increase skills shortages and hit services to the most vulnerable. Slashing spending-power will in turn further depress struggling economies. Private sector businesses will close with further job losses and misery in a spiral of decline. It’s all part of the age-old ruling class strategy of ‘divide and rule’. Stand together against regional pay! Always say ‘Never’! H Liz Payne is a Unison activist in the South West and the Communist Party’s national women’s organiser
It’s time for the People’s Charter
The SouthWest of England and Cornwall District of the Communist Party of Britain was re-established in early 2011. Like other districts of the Communist Party, we cover the same geographical area as that of the regional TUC: Bristol, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. We have an active branch network and members involved in local trade union, community, anti-racist, anticuts, Stop the War, Cuban and Palestinian Solidarity Campaigns and other progressive organisations. Most branches in the district also work with Morning Star ‘Readers and Supporters’ groups, raising funds for the paper and selling it at trade union events and on street stalls. The Communist Party presence at the Tolpuddle Martyrs' Festival is growing every year, as is our commitment to
promote the Morning Star to festival goers.
Cornwall The Communist Party also recognises the special position of Cornwall in relation to England. Our party’s programme, Britain’s Road to Socialism, notes that: “The distinctive cultural and social characteristics of Cornwall should be expressed through a directly elected Cornish Assembly, with powers that match local aspirations” and that: “The national movements in Scotland, Wales and Cornwall also contain substantial progressive and left-wing elements that oppose reactionary policies of monopoly capital and the British state”. Party Kesunyans a Vreten Vur - Randyr Soth-West Pow Saws ha Kernow! H Find out more on our district website: www.southwestcommunists.org.uk/
The People's Charter for Change is supported by the TUC, 16 trade unions and many trades unions councils up and down the country and it is included in the TUC's plan of work for the trades councils. It promotes a progressive alternative set of policies not only as an antidote to ConDem cuts, but also for the expansion of the economy through a programme of directed investment, control over the export of capital, public ownership, the development of sustainable industries, a reduction in working hours, and a programme of skills training and retraining. The Charter’s 6-point programme demands: HA fairer economy for a fairer Britain HMore and better jobs HDecent homes for all HProtect and improve our public services – no cuts HFairness and justice HA secure and sustainable future for all Impossible? Far from it! The Charter shows how these could be brought about through the implementation of an alternative economic strategy to bring about a fundamental shift in wealth and power in favour of the working class. The People’s Charter deals with the whole of society and aims to promote a positive alternative instead of just saying Stop the Cuts. The Charter six points are aspirations which any political party purporting to represent working people should be proud to put forward and demands that the Labour Party must adopt it as a winning alternative political strategy. Visit www.thepeoplescharter.org for more information and affiliation details or write to The Peoples Charter, PO Box 53091, London E12 9DA H
21st Century Marxism Festival
First launched in 1935 the Country Standard journal is now run by an editorial collective of Communist and Labour Party members, environmentalists and trade unionists. Get your copy from the Communist Party stall
21-22 July 2012 Bishopsgate Institute 230 Bishopsgate London EC2M 4QH www.communist-party.org.uk
Stop the European Union, we want to get off
by Anita Halpin As the capitalist crisis deepens the myth of the ‘social’ chapter, the reason so many trades unionists loyally backed the EU, lies shattered. Britain’s withdrawal from the EU is the only way to recover democratic control over the economy, save manufacturing, restore employment rights and rescue our welfare state. The EU serves the interests of big business and the banks. No wonder Cameron, Clegg and Cable support the Single Market as it enables the City of London to continue to dominate EU finance and banking. The anti-democratic and pro-big business
character of the EU is now fully exposed as it replaces elected governments and the European Central Bank – with its partners in crime the International Monetary Fund and the World Central Bank – impose drastic deflationary policies. In the USA, even Obama’s economic stimulus package creates some new jobs but such investment programmes are outlawed in the EU. So it is highly unlikely that the ECB would be able or willing to replicate this for France or any other member state. The peoples of France and Greece have expressed their clear opposition to EU austerity and privatisation policies in their votes for socialist, Communist and other left candidates. Yet both François Hollande and
the Greek Euro-leftist Syrzia coalition remain committed to the EU and the single currency. It is impossible to separate rejection of the austerity programme from the institutions that crafted it or to discard policies created solely to sustain those same institutions. The Communist Party believes that a commitment by left and progressive forces in this country to withdraw from the EU will strengthen the position of all those in Europe fighting to preserve and defend their democracies and halt a race to the bottom. That is why trades unionists have a duty to say enough is enough: we want to get out. The message is getting across. In March the ETUC unequivocally condemned the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance, which imposes even more deflationary budget controls and directly abrogates the democracy of debtor states. In April the STUC annual conference accepted a motion condemning the antidemocratic and deflationary character of the EU and calling for national powers to again be able to invest in the productive economy and provide public services. Most significant was the call to negotiate a new relationship with the EU based on a most favoured nation trade agreement on the same basis as Norway but outside the provisions of the Single Market. While the STUC executive did not endorse the call for withdrawal it stressed the critical threat the EU now posed to democracy and trade union rights. A threat that is all too evident. At the end of last month the EU Commission report on the UK economy called for reinforced austerity. A week later, and following the ECB’s line, the Bank of England monetary policy committee played it safe (in banker’s terms) and kept interest rates at 0.5 per cent. H Anita Halpin is the Communist Party’s trade union coordinator
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campaign for the overturning of the judgement. The Builders' Union; the Leeds, Huddersfield and Bradford District Union; the’ Clothiers’ Union; the Cotton-spinners’ Union and the Potters’ Union all sent delegates to meet with the Grand National to help in the campaign. A quarter of a million signatures were collected. The Times put the march in London (pictured) at 30,000 led by Dr Arthur Wade Chaplain to the Metropolitan Trades Unions. It was the solidarity that we celebrate today. In 1834 despite their differences the trade union movement understood that they were “all in it together.” Today we salute both the Tolpuddle six and the solidarity of their fellow trade unionists up and down the country. Gerrard Sables is the secretary of the North Devon Communist Party
The roots of the Tolpuddle union by Gerrard Sables The Tolpuddle Martyrs' Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers was not the beginning of trade unionism in Britain even of agricultural trade unionism. The Loveless’s Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers emulated and used the rites of the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union set up by the Chartists. Sidney and Beatrice Webb describes the six as “simpleminded Methodists”. This Fabian patronisation was to be repeated by George Bernard Shaw in the TUC Tolpuddle centenary book published in 1934. The six were dedicated, courageous and articulate members of their community as is
normal for trade union activists. But let’s put it in context. Three years prior to the indictment England had been racked by riot both urban and rural and there had been revolutions throughout Europe. The judiciary reacted harshly. A seventeen year old Dorset lad was hanged for knocking a JP’s hat off his head. But by 1832 the Duke of Wellington was complaining to Lord Melbourne that half the agricultural workers in Hampshire were paying contributions to a trade union. The sentence of seven years was ordered by a newly-appointed judge and the Tories backed him up. The Grand National went into action. It was a trade union centre - an early version of the TUC which had rivals in the North of England. However the rivals joined forces in the
Demand our rights at work by Carolyn Jones Earlier this year there was a Mudochled media furore when Len McCluskey raised the spectre of “civil disobedience” at the Olympics. Why? A cursory glance at the state of employment rights and trade union freedoms highlights the extent to which these freedoms and access to justice is systematically being shut down. Cuts to the legal aid system of £350 million; increasing the qualifying period for unfair dismissal from one year to two; proposals to end facility time for trade union reps; exempting small firms from “dismissal regulation”; compulsory conciliation before an ET can be lodged; the introduction of “protected conversations” and now proposals to charge workers for taking a case to tribunal. Workers are being systematically regulated out of the justice system and denied a collective
voice at work. All at a time when they most need protection. So how exactly do those in power (including Murdoch) expect workers and their unions to respond when failed austerity measures are eating away at jobs, pensions, standards of living and workplace rights? Cameron and his chums in the Cabinet may be sitting happy on their combined wealth of nearly £70 million, with the Minister in charge of the Olympics – Jeremy Hunt – sitting particularly comfy on his reported £4.8 million fortune. But for the rest of us, waving the flag at the Olympics won’t pay the rent. Nor will it reverse the rush into economic policies that make the vulnerable pay for the arrogance of the rich and the misdeeds of the bankers. Workers need a legal framework that offers fairness at work, social justice and economic opportunities. If not, civil disobedience will grow. We saw it during the Lindsey oil refinery dispute. We saw it again during the electricians
Our History Tolpuddle special £1.50 dispute. We are seeing it daily throughout Europe as workers resist failed austerity measures. Insecurity at work and fear of poverty may demoralise workers. But as Jack London wrote in Iron Heel “there is a greater strength than wealth....our strength, the strength of the proletariat....it is in our muscles, in our hands to cast ballots, in our fingers to pull triggers..... a strength stronger than wealth and that wealth cannot take away”. We should heed the words of Joe Hill: . Workers of the world awaken; break your chains, demand your rights. All the wealth you make is taken, by exploiting parasites. Shall you kneel in deep submission from your cradle to your grave? Is the height of your ambition to be a good and willing slave? Another world is possible and belongs to the many, not the few. H Carolyn Jones is director of the Institute for Employment Rights