TORIES OUT OF SCOTLAND!
No to another lost generation
By Richie Venton
SSP National Workplace Organiser
February 22 2012
The Tories are returning to the scene of their many crimes against the working class! Westminster 's Butcher-in-Chief, David Cameron, hopes to breeze into Troon on Saturday 24th March to address the Scottish Tory party conference.
Ayrshire has the highest unemployment in jobs-starved Scotland , which makes this Eton boot-boy's visit all the more provocative. Cameron's slaughter of the public sector will add thousands to the queues of misery in this area. And for every civil servant, council worker, NHS worker or teacher who loses their job, at least another private sector worker will be made jobless through the knock-on effect.
Demo against youth unemployment
Ayrshire has already been turned into a desert after numerous multinationals were bribed by grants and government subsidies, only to then 'up sticks' and move to richer pastures and cheaper labour abroad.
Now a whole new generation is being condemned to oblivion by a capitalist system and capitalist government whose only interest is profit, not people.
Scotland is virtually a Tory free zone, and the SSP in Ayrshire and beyond aim to help keep it that way. We are spearheading the buildup of a mass protest against this invasion by an unwanted representative of brutal, red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalism, around the message "Tories out of Scotland - fight the crime of youth unemployment - no to another lost generation".
The STUC has called a demo in Troon against austerity-induced youth unemployment. The SSP is wholeheartedly building this, calling on workers and young people in Ayrshire and Scotland to keep Cameron out, and to demand that everyone over 16 should have the genuine choice of either a decent, well-paid job; proper training with a job at the end; or a living grant to fund further or higher education.
Plague of mass unemployment
Mass unemployment is stalking the country like a plague. Nobody is spared, apart from the capitalist elite who are perpetrating this crime against working class communities.
Over 230,000 Scottish people are officially unemployed, though the true figure is far higher. Of these, an obscene 103,000 are under 24 years old, a terrible indictment of a society with no future.
For everyone directly hit by it, unemployment is a human tragedy. It means eking out an existence on £65 a week, as inflation lets rip, usually spending it all on essentials the first week, begging or borrowing for the second week. If anything worse still, it means a sense of hopelessness and living without purpose, something nobody should be subjected to, whether that be older workers who have contributed to society's productive wealth for decades, or young people stepping out on life's journey.
Free labour in the 'free' market
The victims of mass unemployment are being used as slave labour by the same government and same capitalist employers whose system creates the jobs wasteland in the first place. Under the coyly-named Mandatory Work Activity, the government's Department for Work & Pension is forcing unemployed people into jobs with multinationals, retail sector giants, and even some 'charitable' employers - but unpaid, apart from their benefits and expenses!
These unemployed people face the choice: work for nothing, or lose your benefits!
The government has so far refused to reveal details for Scotland, but down South the companies exposed for this 21st century slavery include Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, TK Maxx, Waterstone's, Matalan, Pizza Hut, Poundland, Shelter and Oxfam. The public outrage has forced most of these outfits to withdraw or 'review' their involvement, but there is still a big job to be done, in tandem with unions in retail like USDAW, to oppose this ruthless exploitation, which is also a huge threat to the jobs of the low paid workers these unemployed conscripts could potentially replace.
No excuse for jobs slaughter
And the criminal reality is that there is no excuse for mass unemployment. Plenty of jobs need doing. Kids need smaller classes for a better education, which demands more teachers. Elderly people need expanded care services, which requires trained staff. The burgeoning housing lists cry out for a massive house building programme, to the highest environmental standards, offering the opportunity for thousand of apprenticeships and secure jobs in the construction industry. The SSP's demand for free public transport, to combat poverty, pollution and social isolation, would require thousands of extra jobs as drivers on trains, buses and subways, as well as job expansion in the manufacture of buses, trains, railway networks, ferries. A serious investment programme in publicly owned energy would be another source of sustainable, green jobs that could benefit people and planet alike. And those are just a few illustrations of the much needed, socially useful jobs that could and should be created.
Long hours - and no hours!
In tandem with the jobs that need to be done, there are plenty of potential sources of funding and ways of creating these jobs, if the political will was there, and if we challenged the very foundations of the rotten system of capitalist contradictions.
Whilst 230,000 Scots are officially unemployed, working no hours, 260,000 workers in Scotland are enduring the toil and stress of working over 48 hours a week. And a breathtaking 54,000 Scottish workers are putting in more than 60 hours a week!
Why do workers do such backbreaking hours, with the horrendous consequences to their health, stress levels, family life, health and safety risks at work - and even the damage to the economy that tired and dispirited workers create?
Appallingly low wage levels, clashing with rising prices, are the prime cause of the 'long hours culture'. Added to that is sheer terror at losing your job, having to 'show face' and put in extra hours when it is demanded to suit the business needs of bosses who use the threat of mass unemployment, and the existence of a mass 'reserve army of labour', as a battering ram.
If wages were raised to a decent level, including the national minimum wage being hiked to £9 an hour to match two-thirds of male average earnings, the pressure to work outrageously long hours would be largely eliminated.
Cut hours of work - not jobs or pay!
The fight for a shorter working week is a central demand that the trade unions should champion far more forcefully, in an aggressive a campaign against unemployment, in favour of jobs for all.
But in doing so, why should workers pay for the crisis created by the capitalists, bankers and billionaires? Why should workers suffer even a penny cut in pay with the introduction of a maximum 35 hour working week, as a first step towards the goal of a 4-day week? The unions and their allies should fight around slogans like "cut hours - not jobs or pay", "for a 35 hour week with no loss of pay".
Given the growing trend towards long hours of toil alongside mass unemployment, well over two million full-time jobs could be created by this one measure; around 200,000 in Scotland - enough to eliminate current unemployment.
Jobs, not profit
But of course this flies at the heart of the capitalist system: profit! Demanding shorter hours with no loss of earnings, as a way to share out the work and enhance everyone's life, challenges the whole idea of production for profit for the few, which is why the capitalist exploiters will have to be defeated and replaced with a system of democratic public ownership and control of the major economic sectors.
Unpaid overtime: start being paid on 24 February!
There is also a more naked form of exploitation, mostly caused by bosses using the weapon of mass unemployment as a threat to employed workers - but which adds to that very unemployment: unpaid overtime.
How do you fancy working your full hours, from 1st January to 24th February this year, before you get a penny in pay?! This is no fantasy nightmare; it is the reality, the average, concrete consequence of the two billion hours of unpaid overtime worked last year.
Over one in five workers across the nation felt bullied and terrified into giving this free labour to their employer, 'donating' £29.2billion worth of free work in 2011. That is an average of £5,300 each lost in wages.
And the two billion hours worked were the equivalent of a million full-time jobs across the UK , about 100,000 in Scotland , which in one fell swoop would mop up all the unemployed young people languishing on Scotland 's unemployed registers.
Tax the rich to create jobs
The SSP unashamedly campaigns to tax the rich, as another central means of creating well-paid jobs for all, as well as funding decent public services. To take one simple example: the richest 1,000 fat cats last year enjoyed a combined income of £350billion. A modest 10 per cent wealth tax on their ill-gotten gains would rake in £35bn, enough to fund 1.4 million new jobs with an annual wage of £25,000. Scotland's share of that would be about 140,000 new jobs, with decent pay, and increased spending power that would create even more jobs and boost local communities.
Fight for decent jobs for all
Nobody should believe the dirty lie that there is no alternative to mass unemployment. It is not a divine creation, but the product of a profit-crazed, grotesquely contradictory system known as capitalism - and the result of conscious political decisions by politicians who support and uphold the system of capitalist profiteering.
Join the protest against cuts and youth unemployment in Troon on Saturday 24th March. Keep the Tories out of Scotland . And join the SSP in a campaign for socialist measures that would create millions of secure jobs, give young people a future, and improve the lifestyles and well-being of all workers.
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SSP select Council candidate for Kilwinning
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Workers hammered for profit
by Richie Venton - SSP National Workplace Organiser
February 7 2012
Working people and their families face the worst assaults on their rights and conditions in generations, and the leaders of the multi-millioned trade unions need to rise to the challenge and defeat the Tories, if they are not to allow a lost generation.
Young people, the disabled and women workers are amongst the hardest hit, but nobody is exempt, except the obscenely overpaid top company executives.
Over a million young people are unemployed in the UK , 250,000 of them for over a year. In Scotland 230,000 people are jobless, a third of a them aged under 24.
A recent Commission on youth unemployment calculated that the long term impact on young people includes a loss of £2,000 to £3,000 a year after they reach the age of 25, even if they manage to then get a job.
Parasite capitalism
The destruction of the manufacturing base of the country from the days of Thatcher in the 1970s; the turn to service sector and finance as the main source of profit; and the complete dominance of the monetarist razor gang in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank have all piled on the misery and destitution for a whole generation.
School leavers now usually face a choice of low-paid or even unpaid work experience; insecure 'precarious' jobs; pressure to take on voluntary work on pain of loss of benefits; or shoddy training schemes.
Even University places are shrinking, with a massive drop in applications recently reported, through a combination of rocketing fees, cuts to student support grants and fear of rising graduate unemployment or underemployment. In the further education colleges, increasingly an escape route from poverty and unemployment for some working class people of all ages, savage cuts threaten to choke off people's chances. Behind the noisy battle between the SNP government and the imperialist arrogance of Cameron & Co, the SNP quietly slashed student support grants by over 10 per cent, from £95.6m to £84.2m. And that is on top of about £54m being hacked off FE college funding.
Cameron out of Scotland !
When Cameron breezes into Scotland on 23 March to address the Scottish Tory Party conference in Troon, he should face a furious demo against youth unemployment, cuts to education and cuts in general. The unions need to make a massive event against the Westminster butcher. They should likewise mount pressure on the SNP government to stand up for Scotland's future in terms of jobs, education, and housing (which they have cut by an appalling £150m, or 40 per cent, despite 120,000 Scots languishing on the housing waiting lists), as well as on the constitutional issue.
Recession an excuse to attack workers
As the recent survey by Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) confirms, employers are using the recession as a golden opportunity to hammer workers' rights, wages and conditions. Over the past two years CAS has dealt with 107,000 cases of unfair treatment at work - and that is only the tip of the iceberg. Tens of thousands more are afraid to object to pay cuts, withheld wages, longer hours, illegal changes to contracts and victimisation of those who dare to object.
As the CAS report comments, often these are low paid and low skilled workers, who do not even know their legal rights.
The unions have a massive job to do to organise and defend these vulnerable sections of workers, who are being hammered to pay for the capitalist crisis and the naked greed for profit of those at the top of society.
Mad-dog Tories on rampage
Of course the Tory Coalition is egging on all the worst employers to do their damnedest. They are planning further anti-union legislation. An obnoxious cabal of right wingers in the Tory party has launched what is called the Trade Union Reform Campaign.
This extremist outfit has been praised in writing by David Cameron. It is chaired by Aidan Burley MP, who was sacked as Transport Minister after it was revealed he had strutted round in a Nazi SS uniform, toasting the Third Reich, with Nazi salutes, at a stag party in France . It's most prominent members include Eric Pickles, local government minister, and the disgraced Liam Fox.
At their launch meeting in Westminster they boasted that the government is about to produce a White Paper to slash trade union facility time in the civil service, issue 'helpful guidance' to councils on how best to cut facility time for union reps, and charge unions for deduction of union subs from wages across the public sector.
Shackling workers' reps
These creatures of profit and reaction want to outlaw unions, to abolish the ability of elected shop stewards to defend workers from abuse, as highlighted in the CAS report. In doing so, they ignore inconvenient facts, like the report by Hertfordshire University showing that the role of workplace union reps in reducing staff turnover, cutting down on the number of Employment Tribunals and reducing workplace sickness and injuries, saves the economy about £700m a year!
Compare that to the paltry sums paid in wages to shop stewards, who in real life invest vast amounts of their own time in defending workers from the unscrupulous attacks that are running riot across workplaces, especially now the employers have the whip of mass unemployment to try and cow workers who live in fear of their jobs.
And contrast too, the vast sums of taxpayers' money consumed by the salaries and expenses - legal or otherwise - of MPs and government ministers, who then use hobnail boots to walk all over workers' rights!
The bankers, bosses and billionaires rely on capitalist politicians to pass laws that help to shackle workers whilst this class of robbers dip their pockets, with pay cuts, benefit cuts, job losses, grinding more work out of fewer workers, and vast amounts of unpaid overtime, squeezed out of workers through terror tactics, fear of losing their job and family livelihood.
Wealth transfusion to the rich
It is no surprise to discover that a new study proves workers today are paid £60billion a year less in real terms than 30 years ago!
This shocking revelation goes alongside company executives' pay rising 10 per cent in 2010 and another 17 per cent in 2011- a planet apart from the pay cuts workers have suffered, with economists predicting their wages will not recover their pre-banking crisis value until at least 2020.
This appalling transfer of wealth to the rich from the rest of us, from those who actually produce and deliver the goods and services, is causing such widespread fury that the parties of the capitalist elite have to pretend to do something about it - whilst actually making it easier to exploit workers and those on the likes of sickness benefits through their legislative changes.
Sops and diversions
The recent hue and cry about stripping Sir Fred Goodwin of his knighthood is cheap diversionary tactics, a tiny sop to the public outcry at greedy bankers. He still has his £650,000 a year pension, on top of the £2.7m lump sum he walked off the job with in the middle of the taxpayers' bailout of the banks. If a worker had wrecked the state of his company (let alone a whole banking system), he would at best have been sent packing without a penny or a reference, and probably jailed.
Likewise the headlines greeting Stephen Hester's decision to hand back his £963,000 bonus as head of the RBS diverted many people's gaze from the fact that his fellow executives are to get £425m in bonuses, that Hester himself got a package worth £7.7m last year, and that the Coalition has said they will not 'micro-manage' future RBS bonuses.
So they intend it to be 'big business as usual', with a thin smokescreen of one or two high profile 'sacrifices'.
Stand up and fight!
Fighting for a reversal of the wealth transfusion from the millions to the millionaires is at the heart of every specific struggle against cuts to pay, jobs, benefits, education and workers' rights. Without powerful union memberships, workers will be left defenceless against ruthless employers out to maximise profit. And unless the unions are seen to stand up on their hind legs for the members they already have, young workers in precarious jobs, or workers of all ages in the least-organised sectors, will see little point in joining the unions.
Pensions battle continues
That is one of many reasons why the battle over public sector pensions is of critical importance, to the future of the entire working class. Well over 2 million workers showed their readiness to battle the Westminster pension robbers on the magnificent 30 November strike. To their eternal shame, central leaders of the TUC, UNISON, GMB and other unions caved in to the pre-Xmas offer from the government, despite the latter boasting it still contained every single penny in cuts to pensions that was threatened before the N30 strike.
And to their eternal credit, other union leaders - and a vast army of active members who have bombarded their leaderships in protest any dirty betrayal of their pension rights - are standing firm and preparing for further united strike action to try and force the Coalition into retreat.
United strikes in March
The national executives of several teachers' unions (NUT, NASUWT, UCU, EIS), the civil service PCS, and UNITE in local government and the NHS have all rejected this shoddy offer, which would still mean workers paying more, retiring older and getting less in their pensions. The PCS, NUT and UCU have called for strike action in March, before some of these attacks take effect in April.
In addition, members of the SSP have spearheaded the demand for a recall delegate conference of UNISON branches in local government, to debate and overthrow the attempted sell-out by the union's national figureheads, led by fake-radical Dave Prentis. And UNISON's Scottish NHS committee has thrown out the deal, calling a series of strikes in months to come.
Put a million on the pickets
A united strike in March - one day or if possible two days - of over one million workers would be a powerful impetus to the resistance to pension cuts, a revival of the flagging momentum, and could help members of UNISON and GMB rescue their own situation from the capitulation by their 'leaders'.
SSP members in all the public sector unions will continue to strive for this courageous course of united action, confident in the knowledge that the Coalition is not some all-knowing, all-powerful dictatorship that cannot be beaten. In fact, as several partial retreats and sops to public opinion shows, they are susceptible to the pressure of a mass movement - but only if that opposition goes beyond verbal outbursts into united strikes, demonstrations, peaceful civil disobedience, and a real political challenge too.
Defy Coalition, Labour and SNP cuts
Labour clearly won't provide that; Miliband & Co have spelt out their support for continued cuts to pay, services, pensions and jobs even if they were elected in 2015.
The SNP government has rightly made mincemeat of Cameron's interference in a Scottish referendum, but they have capitulated like wee timorous beasties when it comes to Westminster 's cuts, passing on the pain to councils, colleges, the NHS - to workers, students and communities that spurned the Tories by 85 per cent in the last election.
Give youth a future
The Scottish Socialist Party stands up for Scotland , for working class people and young people whose future is lost unless we unite and fight back.
We demand the choice for all school leavers of a well-paid, secure job, or proper training, or a place in education with a living grant.
We demand taxation of the rich and big business, and democratic public ownership, to fund vast investment in jobs, public services and decent pensions and benefits - not a few token nail-clippings from a handful of individual bankers or 'rogue' bosses.
It is not just these notorious individuals that need to be tackled: the entire capitalist system of profiteering and exploitation is rotten to the core, with the chasm between rich and poor, the corruption in 'high' places and rule by Old Etonians just as prevalent as in the Victorian times portrayed by the great Charles Dickens.
Struggle or starve!
Employers and pro-capitalist politicians of numerous party colours are trying to hammer the working class and young people, to grind even bigger profits out of them. In the 1930s, one of the slogans common on banners was 'Struggle or Starve'. That same choice has come back to haunt us in the 21st century.
They might be the millionaires, but we are the millions - and united in action with a fighting socialist alternative, we can win. Join the SSP and help to secure a future worth fighting for.
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North Ayrshire councillors pass £23million cuts
Activists from the North Ayrshire Branch of the Scottish Socialist Party lobbied and petitioned the budget meeting of Labour-controlled North Ayrshire Council (February 1). Despite the petition, signed by 1,178 local people, councillors of all parties ignored calls to set a budget that meets the need of communities in North Ayrshire. Instead, Labour, SNP, Tory and Liberal Democrat councillors pushed through further savage spending cuts totalling £23million over the next three years.
This new wave of cuts - on top of multi-million pound cuts in previous years - will hurt some of the most vulnerable people in North Ayrshire, and will lead to further cuts to services that local people desperately need. In addition to slashing services, North Ayrshire Council has already made redundant 400 workers.
North Ayrshire councillors have ignored the voice of local people, and have turned their backs on the communities that elected them. Instead of standing up for the people of North Ayrshire, they chose to punish them by imposing cuts ordered by Tories and Liberal Democrats in London and the SNP in Edinburgh.
The next North Ayrshire Council Election is on May 3rd - which is when councillors can't ignore the people. Pay them back for their treachery! Elect Socialist councillors who will put first the interests of local people.
The petition presented by the Scottish Socialist Party to the budget meeting of North Ayrshire Council read:
The attached petition, containing the signatures of 1,178 North Ayrshire residents, condemns multi-million pound cuts implemented in past years by North Ayrshire Council, which have impacted on services and have compounded the district’s disgracefully high levels of poverty and deprivation: condemns savage funding cuts imposed on North Ayrshire Council by a Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government that has no mandate in Scotland: further condemns the SNP Scottish Government for accepting Westminster cuts and passing them to Councils, instead of standing-up for the people of Scotland: calls on North Ayrshire councillors to protect jobs and services by refusing to implement further cuts in the budget for 2012/2013 or in subsequent years: demands councillors put the interests and needs of the people of North Ayrshire before implementing Tory-Lib Dem and SNP cuts: further demands North Ayrshire councillors set a ‘No Cuts’ defiance budget, and agree to actively support and encourage a mass campaign for the return to North Ayrshire of millions-of-pounds cut from the Council’s funding by governments in London and Edinburgh.
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NO RETREAT ON CUTS FIGHT
By Richie Venton
SSP National Workplace Organiser
The experiences of 2011 and prospects in 2012 for working class people can be captured in one phrase: grim - and grimmer!
Food bills, domestic fuel, transport costs and daily essentials rocket as wages are frozen. The sick, disabled and unemployed are hounded and demonised by the Westminster millionaires' Cabinet, with threats of withdrawal of their measly benefits unless they find jobs that don't exist. One in three Scottish children officially lives in poverty, with an appalling 52 per cent of kids in north Glasgow . Meantime the richest 10 per cent of the population are on average £100,000 better off than they were in 2005.
Workers living in fear for their jobs are bullied by bosses into working massive amounts of unpaid overtime – the equivalent of working for absolutely nothing up until 24 February this year – and enough hours to create 2 million new jobs, whilst a million young people rot on the dole!
Workers whose faces don't fit are to be stripped of the paltry rights at work they currently 'enjoy', as the Twin Tories rail against health & safety 'red tape' and plan to charge workers £1,000 just to go through an Employment Tribunal against unfair dismissal.
Things can only get worse!
All this mayhem and exploitation even before the Coalition's fangs sink into jobs, incomes and services, as they have only just begun to do.
Last year 24,000 Scottish public sector jobs were lost; forecasts abound of up to 100,000 more to go in the next year or so. No wonder the SSP's warnings of 'another lost generation' - first coined three years ago - has now become the currency of many commentators and Labour politicians on the make, trying to appear anti-Tory after 13 years of acting as the New Tories in government.
But as the multiple assaults impact, workers and communities have increasingly joined the resistance, challenging the axe-wielders with quiet fury, protests, and strikes. The most spectacular display of working class resistance in several decades was the November 30 strike by over 2 million public sector workers.
At least 300,000 Scottish trade unionists came out in a fight to defend their pension rights. But that issue also acted as the vehicle for struggle against all other aspects of the unprecedented cuts to jobs, conditions and public services.
Crossroads
That battle is now at a critical crossroads, and the outcome will heavily influence workers' conditions for years to come.
As the SSP warned in advance, the Tory/LibDem razor gang have used every dirty trick to try and derail a movement that, behind the smug arrogance, terrifies them.
On the eve of the historic N30 strike, Cameron & Co offered fake concessions, and tried to isolate strikers from the rest of society by issuing blood-curdling exaggerations of the economic ruin it would cause. That, and their hard-faced announcement of even deeper cuts in Osborne's autumn statement in parliament literally the day before, only hardened the resolve of workers and strengthened the strike.
Cameron then tried to demoralise workers by dismissing it as "a damp squib", but in the face of the derision and anger this provoked, had to then admit it was "a big strike".
By taking united, militant action, the unions attracted 100,000 new members in the period of the St Andrews Day showdown; confirmation that decisive action is the way to build the unions as powerful weapons of resistance to the millionaires' butchery.
Having failed to cow public sector workers, the government resorted to an age-old strategy; they sought to use the most right-wing, spineless 'leaders' of the TUC and individual unions to undermine the momentum and unity of workers taking action.
Right-wing treachery
Ten days after the biggest show of workers' power in generations, the TUC's Brendan Barber, GMB leaders and fake-radical UNISON leader Dave Prentis argued for acceptance of the government's allegedly 'new and final offer'.
In fact, as PCS union general secretary Mark Serwotka rightly said in point blank refusing to accept this deal, there is nothing new about it. It is a minutely-adjusted version of what was on offer prior to N30.
Coalition Minister Danny Alexander subsequently boasted to the parliament on 20 December that their 'new' offer did not involve a single penny less in 'savings' than their pre-N30 proposals. It is merely a rearrangement of the misery, peppered with crude attempts to divide and conquer the millions of workers who had displayed such magnificent determination to fight the cuts.
Workers over 50 have been granted minor concessions, but will still lose 20 per cent of their pension through the switch from Retail Price Index (RPI) to Consumer Price Index (CPI) as a measure of inflation.
Retirement age is to be tied to the state pension age – 67 or 68.
NHS workers earning under £26,000 are to be granted a year's delay in the implementation of the misery, but that will be funded by deeper attacks on NHS staff earning more. Likewise with local government workers - but only so the assault commences in 2014. A year's respite for a lifetime of cuts to their deferred wages!
Triple whammy remains
The three-headed monster attack on pensions - payment of more in workers' contributions, for longer, for lesser pensions - remains at the heart of this latest offer. It still seeks to double-tax public sector workers - not to improve the state of pension schemes (many of which are in the black, all of which are set to cost less over the next decade), but to fill some of the hole in government funds caused by the bankers' bailout and the recession that has been exacerbated by the ConDem cuts.
To their eternal shame, some UNISON leaders, keen to get back to their quiet lives, undisturbed by outbursts of action by hard-pressed members, blurted out the cynical opinion "this was always going to be a damage limitation exercise"! Not exactly the views of the pickets on N30!
The spineless posture of more right-wing union leaders gave the government the opening to issue a monumental lie through the media at the height of the holiday period; that a deal had been reached. This, alongside repeated assertions that the pension plans were going ahead regardless from April 2012, was designed to browbeat workers into surrendering. And for good measure, the union that has spearheaded the battle in the wider movement - the PCS - was excluded from the so-called negotiations: an attempt to isolate and demonise them, and a back-handed compliment from the arch enemies of workers to this socialist-led union's success in inspiring others to join the fray.
Socialist alternative critical in unions
The obscene readiness of union leaders like UNISON's Prentis and GMB to cave in after the momentous scale of action by millions underlines the dangerous pitfalls of accepting the idea of ANY cuts.
Echoing Labour (and SNP!) talk of the cuts being "too deep and too soon", these union leaders lack a vision of measures that make ALL cuts entirely unnecessary, and so they are outrageously willing to capitulate in the face of a government that puts on a hard face. It is no accident that PCS especially have been firm in opposition to this deal; they have rejected the case for any cuts, calling for taxation measures and investment in jobs instead. The political viewpoint of unions becomes critical in determining what kind of fight they put up.
But when the Tory and LibDem boot boys looked to the TUC right wing for salvation, they reckoned without the furious resistance of union activists and members, who have lobbied their leaderships with demands to not sell out their pension rights even before the battle properly engages. A whole succession of union leaderships has since rejected the deal: PCS from day one; the teachers' unions NUT and NASUWT; POA: university and college lecturers' UCU; UNITE sectoral committees in both the NHS and local government.
But the united front against the cuts has been seriously breached by the decision of UNISON to accept the ‘Heads of Agreement’ – the framework for talks - thereby suspending further industrial action for at least the short-term. The national leadership’s surrender pre-Xmas did enough to confuse and undermine the confidence of branch delegates to their sectoral committees. But UNISON members should still bombard their leaderships with demands that unless the attacks on pensions are withdrawn during the negotiations, rather than delayed by a year, the fight is back on, alongside other unions who have rejected this shoddy package.
Now is the time to fight, not flee
In a remarkable confirmation that now is the time to escalate the fight against an enfeebled government, the doctors' BMA has announced plans to consult 130,000 members in what could be their first industrial action in 40 years.
As the Scottish Socialist Voice goes to press, the TUC Public Sector Liaison Group meets. Union members who have fought to save the deferred wages of millions from grand theft by the millionaires' government are demanding that they name the day without delay for further, united strike action.
Despite UNISON leadership’s weakening of the united front, the other public sector unions should forge ahead with further united strike action – as PCS, NUT, UCU and UNITE appear to be committed to.
Such a day of action could also involve sections of private sector workers, who are increasingly up in arms at cuts to their own pension schemes, wages and jobs. For instance, the UNITE members in the construction industry, battling and balloting for strike action against mind-boggling 35 per cent cuts in their wages; and Unilever workers taking their first ever national strike action against abolition of their final salary pension scheme by the giant multi-national with a previous reputation for paternalism, high quality tied houses for their workers, model villages, etc.
In rejecting the government's not-so-new deal, the UCU called for another one-day strike before university half term holidays in mid-February. Time is of the essence. Another mass strike could include lobbies of council buildings, as councillors throughout the land set budgets, with demands that instead of wielding the knife on behalf of their paymasters in Westminster and Holyrood, they should set 'No Cuts' Defiance budgets, and help build mass movements that demand back the stolen £millions from central government, to save every job, wage and service.
Councillors once again face the stark choice: defy or destroy! Faced with mass strikes, even a single council taking this principled route would add another layer of rebellion, another front facing the troubled Westminster cuts Coalition.
And closer to home, an immediate mass strike of all public sector (and sections of private sector) workers would pound the SNP government with the demand that they stand up for Scotland, for services, for social justice - instead of Swinney and Salmond aping the Tories with their pay cuts, service cuts and job losses. The SNP rightly tell Cameron and Osborne to stop interfering with Scottish democracy on the issue of an independence Referendum; they need to be hammered into something of the same resistance to Westminster 'interference' in Scottish jobs, public services and pay packets...or be exposed as the Tartan butchers that they are.
The unions, with their millions of members - workers who are indispensable in providing critical daily services - are pivotal to the battle against cuts. The union leaders have a duty to lead, not surrender at the first threat of retaliation by the Tory bullies. If they capitulate on pensions, that would be a serious blow to the wider anti-cuts struggle. A serious battle to save pensions will require further, united, national strikes and demonstrations, which would embolden workers, communities and students not even in a union to join the resistance to all aspects of cuts. And at the heart of all this lies the issue of boldly advocating an alternative that explodes the myths that cuts are necessary or unavoidable.
The Scottish Socialist Party has consistently broadcast the call for taxation of the rich and big business, and democratic public ownership, as the core of a socialist alternative. At critical moments, like right now, the socialist case against all cuts is the difference between confusion, division, and acceptance of very slightly lesser cuts - or unity, confidence and a sustained struggle that can defeat the Eton boot boys and their spineless local servants.
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Workers show power in action
by Richie Venton - SSP National Workplace Organiser
“I’ll remember this day for the rest of my life!” So said Steven, a UNISON steward in Glasgow’s museums, as we marched with about 20,000 others to Glasgow’s Barrowlands on 30 November.
He has that in common with over 300,000 people across Scotland, up to 3 million UK-wide, who made N30 the biggest single day of strike action since the momentous 1926 General Strike.
In Scotland, 180,000 council workers went on strike; 50,000 NHS staff; tens of thousands of teachers and civil servants. Tens of thousands marched to rallies in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, Motherwell, Paisley, Glenrothes, St Andrews, Dumfries, and a host of other towns.
Around 1,000 rallies were held across the UK on the day they all went on strike together in a massive display of the indispensable role of the working class in the production of vital services and goods – and the power of workers to challenge a government hell-bent on dragging us back to the hunger and deprivation of the 1930s.
Picket-line Avenue
The morning of N30 was a spectacle to behold, music to anyone who wants to change the world to a better, fairer place. It was picket lines everywhere: every corner, every side of hospital buildings, council offices and depots, civil service offices, schools, colleges, universities, police HQs … every area of the public sector.
On several streets, you could see the multiple flags and banners of several different unions on two or three other picket lines from the one you were standing on. The sense of unity and strength was palpable.
The numbers on picket lines were massively larger than usual. Fifty or more at many hospital gates (despite the ruthless intimidation meted out to NHS workers by senior management on the eve of the strike); dozens at college, university and civil service buildings that are well accustomed to strike action against axe-wielding Tory and Labour governments in recent years.
The success in getting workers to honour the strike was phenomenal. A PCS officer getting reports on her phone from all over Scotland told me it was over 95 per cent out on strike; in some buildings we visited to show the SSP’s solidarity, it was 97 per cent.
Only 33 schools out of 2,700 in the whole of Scotland were open!
Every workforce was encouraged not only by the scale of the ballot majorities, but also the sweep of other unions and workplaces striking simultaneously. As a member of the First Division Association – the union of the real civil service mandarins! – said to me, “This strike is far bigger than the sum of its parts”.
“This was about everything”
It was about brutal attacks on workers’ pensions – being asked to pay more, for longer, for lesser pensions – but it was about far more. As a council worker in Paisley remarked to me the next day, “This was about everything, the whole lot. We’ve had enough – and I hope this doesn’t turn out to be a one-day wonder.”
A nurse at Glasgow’s Western Infirmary perhaps captured best the thoughts and feelings behind the decision by 3 million workers to lose a day’s pay.
“I was out on strike in 1982, never since. I’ve brought my young teenage daughter with me on the picket so she can understand what this is about.” A woman who was gentle in manner, polite, probably not in the habit of swearing, then almost whispered to me, “This is against everything the government is doing to us. They are pissing on us from a great height.”
Most generations were present on the pickets and marches. In reply to Cameron’s desperate, daft suggestion that parents should take their kids into work, many parents took their kids to the pickets at their workplace, and on the united marches. A day the kids will remember too.
Decisive, united strike action raised millions of other working class people off their knees. Rather than condemn the strikers, as Tories and LibDems tried to incite them to do, thousands of shoppers stood on every street corner and road junction, applauding the marching strikers, shouting their encouragement, making the hair stand on the back of your neck with the sense of workers’ solidarity.
A political strike
Sneering millionaire boot-boy Cameron tried to dismiss the strike as “a damp squib”. He’s not even kidding himself! He and his Cabinet of cut-throats know this was a powerfully political strike; not party political, but clearly and resolutely anti-government.
That was plain to see and hear on the pickets, marches and rallies.
Many chanted “Tories Out” as they marched. The SNP MSPs were booed at the Edinburgh rally for crossing picket lines to conduct ‘business as usual’ in the Scottish parliament. Labour MSPs desperately sought to be seen on the marches – especially those competing for the Scottish Labour leader’s post! But strikers booed at mention of the hypocrisy of Labour MPs crossing Westminster pickets and the Labour leadership refusing to support the strike, while their MSPs posturised after 13 years of brutal Labour cuts.
Fury fuelled by inequality
The strikers’ political awareness has been fuelled by rage at the bankers; fury at the revelations that Britain has the most rapidly growing inequality of any advanced country; anger at the rank lies from the government about there being ‘no money’, whilst company directors have average pensions of £175,000 – after pocketing pay rises of a mind-boggling 4,000 per cent since 1980!
Far from being ‘a damp squib’ the potent cocktail of pay freezes, rocketing prices for essentials like food and fuel, and savage job losses exploded into this mass strike.
Many – probably a huge majority – of those taking part had never been on strike before. Women were there in vast numbers, which is hardly surprising, given they make up over 75 per cent of public sector workers, but also given the Institute of Fiscal Studies’ report showing they face 75 per cent of the cuts to pay, benefits and pensions in Osborne’s plans.
War declared by Osborne
Osborne’s Autumn Statement on the eve of the strike demonstrated the callous determination of the ConDems to forge ahead with cuts, and with attacks on workers’ rights that not even the hate-figure Thatcher dared implement.
Their answer to rocketing unemployment is to make it far easier to sack workers! They want to make it almost impossible to vote for strike action. They plan to charge workers £1,000 for an Employment Tribunal hearing against unfair dismissal – and only then if they’ve been in the job for two years, rather than the current one year. Their Sackers’ Charter combined with two more years of horrendous austerity inflamed tens of thousands of workers who might not otherwise have bothered to actually picket their workplace.
Further strike days
One of the most common remarks from strikers was “I’m afraid we’ll have to be out again”. Not with reckless enthusiasm for losing more days’ pay – but a steely determination to see this fight through to victory, recognising that although N30 has rattled the Butchers’ government, it will take further strikes and protests to force them to abandon their savage cuts.
To their credit, the leadership of the civil service union, PCS, shares that understanding and has initiated a mid-December summit of union leaders to discuss the next steps.
There are numerous symptoms of the body-blow felt by the Eton thugs on N30. Osborne’s hard-faced statement of aims at a time when families are set to lose an average £2,500 a year for the next three years was intended to cow the strikers; it did the opposite. Clegg’s subsequent feeble mutterings about ‘transparency’ on the incomes of the obscenely rich shows their panic that millions have rumbled the inequality the millionaires preside over. Partial U-turns on capital investment - and new compulsory YTS schemes for young jobless people - are signs that they fear the mass backlash against this dictatorship of millionaires.
Resist divide and rule
One of the oldest dirty tricks in the book is ‘divide and rule’. The union leaderships need to guard against government attempts to reach shoddy compromises on specific pension schemes. In a sense there is nothing to negotiate; the increased pension contributions being demanded of workers has nothing to do with filling gaps in pension schemes, many of which are in vast surplus (£2bn in the black in the case of the NHS scheme). This is theft of workers’ wages, a double taxation, to bail out the bankers and the growing deficit exacerbated by the government’s cuts programme.
Fair pensions for all
Nothing less than the status quo – as a step towards fair and decent pensions for all, public and private sector – with reduced retirement age, is acceptable. And the battle to defend pensions is a war of resistance to all forms of cuts, as hundreds of thousands of pickets understood.
It is critical that the union leaders step up the momentum, by naming further days of united, simultaneous, national strike action. Overtime bans, selective strike action, targeted strikes – all have their place. But the most unifying form of workers’ action – which makes it the most terrifying form of action to the butchers of Westminster and Holyrood – is more of the same as on 30 November.
No delay – name the day
Timing is of the essence. Hot on the heels of the most dramatic display of the power of the awakening giant of the trade union movement, workers and communities need a swift follow-up, to keep chasing the millionaires’ Cabinet – and to pound the SNP government with demands to ‘stand up for Scotland’ instead of meekly passing on Westminster’s cuts.
The SNP MSPs and Ministers who criticised Osborne’s declaration of war on the working class lamentably failed to side with 300,000 workers and their allies when they stood up to the Twin Tory bullies. Instead, John Swinney told Newsnight Scotland that the one per cent cap on public sector pay for two years after the current pay freeze “seemed about right”!
Demand Defiance – not destruction
In January and early February, the Scottish government and local councils will finalise their budgets. That is when workers’ organised power should be wielded – alongside communities, students, pensioners, disabled people and the unemployed – in a one-day or two-day mass strike, with tens of thousands mobilised to lobby the parliament and council buildings.
The STUC and public sector unions should popularise the unifying slogan “No cuts – tax the rich”, and demand that councillors and MSPs set No-Cuts Defiance budgets, instead of cravenly kow-towing to the dictatorship of Cameron and Clegg’s Coalition. These millionaires have no mandate to rule and ruin Scotland; there are more Pandas in Scotland than Tory MPs!
For socialist independence from the Butchers
N30 was historic. But it would be criminal if any union leaders made it into an exercise in letting off steam. Instead, they should harness the energy and fury expressed by workers into a powerful motor for social change, with a further united national strike in early New Year.
Union members – those who joined the pickets and demos – should bombard union leaders with calls for this swift follow-up blow to the governments that seek to make workers pay for a crisis of capitalism.
And in fighting back against the cuts, thousands will see the sense of a socialist case against all cuts – for taxation of the rich and democratic public ownership of the banks, big business, services and energy resources – putting people before profit.
They will increasingly support the SSP’s call for independence from the Westminster Butchers – but not so that Salmond and Swinney can wrap cuts in the Saltire instead. For a cuts-free, poverty-free, independent socialist Scotland; that’s what we need to re-double our efforts towards in 2012.
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For other articles by Richie Venton see News (above)_______________________________________________
NORTH AYRSHIRE PUBLIC AGAINST THE CUTS
Members of the public in Saltcoats and Irvine queue to sign the SSP's 'Stop the Cuts' petition.
The strength of public anger against cuts being imposed by politicians in London, Edinburgh and Irvine has been demonstrated by the hundreds of people who have signed the Scottish Socialist Party's petition.
The SSP is the only party on the side of the people, campaigning to stop the cuts - cuts to jobs, cuts to public services, cuts to benefits, cuts to pensions, cuts to education - and all to pay the debts run-up by multi-millionaire bankers in London.
The Scottish Socialist Party believes the ordinary people of North Ayrshire should not be paying the debts of millionaires and billionaires.
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NO CUTS - TAX THE RICH
North Ayrshire SSP activists were to the forefront of 15,000 people who marched through Glasgow on October 1, calling for an end to the savage and unjust cuts being imposed on the poorest members of local communities by Tories and Liberal Democrats in London, the SNP in Edinburgh, and Labour councillors in North Ayrshire.
Ordinary men, women and children in North Ayrshire shouldn't be paying the debts of multi-millionaire bankers in London. Instead of punishing the poor by cutting jobs, public services, benefits and even pensions, we should be forcing the wealthy to pay their fair share.
Every year multi-national corporations and company directors avoid and evade £120billion of taxes. Every year those millionaires and billionaires are stealing £120billion from our pockets.
In Scotland, a modest 10 per cent tax on just the wealthiest 100 people would raise £1.6billion.
There is no need for any cuts! We should be taxing the rich, forcing them to pay their fair share.
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Read Richie Venton on Resisting the Cuts (News - above)
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“All the so-called ‘mainstream’ political parties – SNP, Labour, Tory, Liberal Democrats – are now on the right of the political spectrum, embracing the free-market capitalist system that has brought world economies to the brink of bankruptcy. It’s just the SSP that’s over there on the left, with the people of Scotland.”
Campbell Martin
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North Ayrshire has the highest unemployment and some of the worst poverty and deprivation in Scotland, yet Tory and Lib Dem politicians in London, and SNP politicians in Edinburgh tell us we have to accept savage cuts to public spending and services in order that millionaire bankers can be bailed-out. Labour politicians are no better. If Labour had won the 2010 UK General Election, rather than the Tories and Liberal Democrats, they too would have slashed public spending, hitting the poorest hardest.
The Scottish Socialist Party is campaigning in North Ayrshire to protect local people against the cuts imposed by wealthy and cosseted politicians. There is no need for any cuts. Instead, we should be investing in the public sector and creating jobs. We should also be introducing a fair taxation system, which sees the rich pay their fair share.
In North Ayrshire, the Scottish Socialist Party also opposes the austerity budget passed by the Labour administration of North Ayrshire Council, with the help of three so-called Independents. Again, cuts are not necessary. Many local people desperately need Council services, so why is the local authority cutting those services and looking at making people redundant. Again, we should be investing to ensure we provide the services people need and securing the employment of Council staff.
The Scottish Socialist Party condemns North Ayrshire Council’s cost-cutting plan to close many local public halls and libraries. These facilities belong to the people and provide essential focal points for local communities. The Labour councillors behind this idea must be stopped.
All of the so-called ‘mainstream’ political parties active in Scotland – SNP, Labour, Tories, Liberal Democrats – are now on the right of the political spectrum, supporting the capitalist system that has brought western Europe to its knees. All of these parties support the cuts that are hammering ordinary men and women here in North Ayrshire and across Scotland. Only the Scottish Socialist Party is on the side of the people, opposing the cuts and fighting for a better, fairer Scotland.
Everyone can help in that fight, so why don’t you come and join us.
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