what do we mean by democratic workers control

You may have seen me use this phrase many times on this blog when describing how the commanding heights of the economy should be run. But what do we mean by it when us socialists say this.

We mean that there will be no boss's any longer the day to day running of a organisation all of the top FTSE trading companies the most profitable companies will be taken into public ownership. Not semi nationalisation like Northern Rock was to avoid it going bust and the government taking over part of it.

But a full scale handing of the economy to the people. To be used not for individuals profits and personal gain. No not at all. No one person will gain out of this but we all will as a whole. The profits made by companies will not go to increasing the wealth of a select few individuals but to improving society as a whole.

This may be in the case of the railways any charge or funding gained by the railways will be plouded striaght back into upkeep of the railways and investing in new technology. Never will there be excessive profits for personal gain and high ticket prices again. There will be fair fairs to start with and a good standard of service too due to the fact that more money can be spent on our trainsport infrustructure due to more money being available to not just be going to some rich owner.
The life line for all this must be full democracy at al times. A right to recall any individual who is seen to not be being fair and taking advantage of others and the system will be able to be recalled by the people at any given time. The marxist planned economy and the ensurance that no elected representitive be that from a trade union or a leader in any sense at all will only ever recieve the wage of a average skilled worker. Meaning that no one will gain inflated wages and this would be one step towards preventing careerism and keeping peoples feet on teh ground to represent those they have been elected to do so.

Of course all this would just be the first phase to moving towards a class-less society where the need for money and the exchange of money will disappear. I will reinvestigate this next step towards full socialism. The higher phase of socialism aka commonism as described by Lenin at a later date.

But this society where the wealth is spread out equally amoungst all will be a revolutionary act and a start of a better all round society for the many not just the few. We all live on this great planet and its resources are being drained by capitalism but it doesnt have to be this way at all.

Many just feel that reforming capitalism will result in a social justice and fairness but this clearly shows a disregard to marx's aanalysis of capitalism and its contradictions that the boss's will always come back for more and to take back what they have given over as concessions to the workers this is a fact and has been proven to be their ways of doing things.

There is enough wealth and resources to go around for all if it is divided up equally. This is my vision of socialism and how i'd like to see things go in the future. Its the future i'm fighting for and hopefully others can join the fight with me too.

The case for a elected representitive to just take a average skilled workers wage

I feel there is a growing distrust of polititians in this country and across the world to be honest. It is still very fresh in peoples minds the expenses scandel of our elected polititians in this country decided to put the bill for all their fancy goods and luxury lifestyles on the heads of the electorate . Well how dare they ? so rightly so they are being punished this will result in a complete distrust of any MP i would think. No doubt this trust will be hard to win back and may not even ever come back.

Just today we hear of the latest figures for this year 2011.

In total, almost 25,000 claims were submitted and £3.2m was paid. Eighty four MPs had a total of £4,633 they asked for rejected.


Ipsa also revealed that MPs have spent £880,000 on official payment cards - similar to credit cards - since May 2010.

The cards - which have a monthly credit limit of £4,000 - were originally meant to pay for travel alone, but can now also be used for hotels, utilities and other bills.

This i find personally disgusting and provocative in the face of austerity measures to the working class.

The anger and disgust that people, already privileged with high salaries and positions, should then fraudulently claim thousands of pounds of expenses to which they were not entitled, is widespread.

A recent British Social Attitudes survey found that 60% of those questioned thought politicians "almost never" told the truth and only 28% trusted MPs not to fiddle their expenses.

The new rules set up in the wake of recent scandals in Parliament are administered by the Independent Parliamentary Scrutiny Authority; and already some MPs are complaining about it.

Those MPs will clearly have the heartfelt sympathy of tens of thousands of families who have had to challenge benefit decisions, or who now face massive cuts in essential services as part of the biggest austerity programme for generations. Or perhaps not!

MPs are already very privileged, receiving a basic wage almost three times the average. That, and the level of their generous expenses allowances, insulates and isolates them from the normal problems affecting the majority of the people they represent.

The Socialist Party requires all its members elected into public positions, such as MPs, to take the same wage as that of a skilled worker. When Dave Nellist , Terry Fields and Pat Wall were MPs in the 1980s, that worked out at around 40% of an MP's wage, or the equivalent of £26,000 today.

The 'surplus' was donated to socialist and trade union campaigns and causes, and accounts were regularly published in newsletters to be transparent.

Expenses should only be allowed where clearly necessary to do the job, and again be published and accountable, particularly to the working people locally who had elected that representative.

Much of the protocols of an MP's life, and the privileges lavished on them, are designed to suck them into defence of the system, so that (whether consciously or not) they feel more in common with the rulers than the ruled.

Breaking with those traditions, living in the area that you represent, and on the same wages, facing the same bills and problems as working people in a constituency can go some way to countering those pressures, and start restoring faith that elected, socialist officials would be different.

Only the Socialist Party regularly and consistently argues for that, and has the track record to prove it is not just simply words.


THE SHEER arrogance of MPs is astounding. Caught like rabbits in a car's headlights, they still claim they did nothing wrong when they asked us to pay for everything from KitKats to clearing out the family moat! Some of them are now offering to pay back some money but only because of the outrage from ordinary workers.

The only thing more astounding than the arrogance is the excuses. Apparently, MPs have to be able to claim lavish expenses so they can get to work on time.

One MP, whose constituency is in Luton, had her second home in Southampton, so she could maintain her relationship with her partner. No doubt, low-paid women workers who often have to take up several different jobs to secure a decent wage will be sympathetic!

Women who clean offices in the morning, work as teaching assistants or in a school kitchen by day, then have another job in the evening will know all about not seeing their family and ensuring that they get to each job on time. Not for them though, the luxury of a second home and taxi fares at taxpayers' expense.

Even when they clearly acted against the rules, MPs' excuses are that they over-claimed as they were 'too busy' to check. The trade union members who I represent would have been disciplined and sacked if they had used such a lame defence if they had ever been found to have over-claimed.

Yet, while MPs are living it up, we're expected to tighten our belts to pay for the economic crisis.


We need real workers' representatives to stand up for workers. The politicians, the government and the councils are not listening. We need a voice for the working class. This is why TUSC have stood candidates in this years local elections and will continue to do so to provide a working class socialist alternative that can benifit the majority not just the few.

what long term effect will the TUC demo on 26th March have on unions

I've been thinking a few days now about the impact of this demo in London will have in the long term. How will history remember it and what will be the fall out from this march. Whilst liberal types argue over whether UK uncut was right or wrong and as it is getting entangled with the Labour party i thought i'd look at how this could affect unions and union membership.

As we all know we are heading into a very uncertain time full of cuts and tightening our belts as the media like to put it. But as this starts to affect peoples jobs and working conditions will the workers look again at unions as organisations to take cover in and gain protection and support from. I do hope so. As someone who is a union member in Unite i feel that there are good benifits to being in a union. Few do agree though it seems with only 7 million in the trades unions now this is a dieing role. Even the labour party now is moving away from unions and asking for more opinions from its outside supporters and lib dems rather than the unions and waht they ahve to say.

It has been clear for years now that the labour party has no interest in ordinary working people. Constantly waging battle with the unions over various issues in the last government over privatisation which most unions if not all were strongly opposed to. Yes that's right a labour government intent on privatising industries such as the Royal Mail and parts of the NHS all be it through the back door. No wonder union membership has fallen anti trade union laws have been coming from capitalist governments from years from teh times of Maggie Tatcher right through her and John Majors timea nd carried on and followed through by Tony blair a Neo conservative. So do unions need to change the way they act do they need to modernise ?

I dont think so i think the anti trade union laws have restricted them so much they are powerless to do much at all. With this tory lead government threatening to brng in even more anti trade union and strike laws where will this leave the unions. Completely battered i would imagine. Not unless people rejoin them and try to reinvigerise them from within. Unions can move left from pressure from below. Rank-and-file member bases can forcea unin to move left. Take PCS for example that was quite a right wing union up untill the last decade or so it has now lurched to the left and is regarded is a very good union defending its members jobs and rights. It is also one of the key unions in this battle against the cuts as it represents public services workers it will be at the front of the cuts and the attacks coming from the tories.

I as well as many other socialists do believe in the role of trades unions they are key to the whole labour movement and giving workers a voice. I would suggest however that as labour have ignored their voices for years that as and when as i am sure it will happen a new workers party is formed with a socialist base to it having socialist principles and having workers interests at its heart maybe the unions who have been bankrolling the labour party for yers and getting very little back on their returns will break away from the Labour Party and join this new workers party in a democratic fashion. taking power back to the workers and workers interests . Taking waht is good about labour and the party we will take too leaving behind its capitalist power hungry careerist ideas.

Linked into this will be the fact that any MP's or trade union leaders will only recieve a average skilled workers wage. Nothing more, as this will keep them firmly within the working class and not stepping above this class which they represent. MP's in parliament today take as many expenses as they can and the expenses scandel highlighted the greed and power in the westminster village and how a new workers party would be so so much different and more rooted to its original principles.

ALl this should link back in to a more vibrant fairer and equal trade union movement too. With no part of the orgnisation being top down run with everybody having a democratic voice and say this is the sort of socialism i believe in and what we in the socialist party beleive in too. It is our aim and view for the future of the labour movement.

I think the TUC demo will do a lot to help the image of trade unions that they can be a voice for people and workers to side with and feel apart of a organisation which represents your interests.

It will be interesting to see if trade union membership increases as i beleive it should do after this weekends march with lots of people visibly seeing a union moving forward with confidence in its class it represents .

Why i feel all MP's should only claim a average skilled workers wage

This is a socialist policy that i do strongly agree with that we feel all elected representitives who claim to represent the working class should only claim the average skilled labourers wage and no more expenses. It has only just died down but the expenses scandels are still there and leaving a big scar on the Westminster bubble which seems increasingly detached from the rest of reality.

ive. been looking at a article below which puts the case for all MP's to not gain all these expenses which has damaged the trust people have in them beyond repair i feel but if they only took a average workers wage the public would not see them as above them ain any way.
If any socialist from be it TUSC or any other anti cuts direction will always look to only claim the average workers wage and no more.


During the expenses scandel the SHEER arrogance of MPs is astounding. Caught like rabbits in a car's headlights, they still claim they did nothing wrong when they asked us to pay for everything from KitKats to clearing out the family moat! Some of them are now offering to pay back some money but only because of the outrage from ordinary workers.

The only thing more astounding than the arrogance is the excuses. Apparently, MPs have to be able to claim lavish expenses so they can get to work on time.

One MP, whose constituency is in Luton, had her second home in Southampton, so she could maintain her relationship with her partner. No doubt, low-paid women workers who often have to take up several different jobs to secure a decent wage will be sympathetic!

Women who clean offices in the morning, work as teaching assistants or in a school kitchen by day, then have another job in the evening will know all about not seeing their family and ensuring that they get to each job on time. Not for them though, the luxury of a second home and taxi fares at taxpayers' expense.

Even when they clearly acted against the rules, MPs' excuses are that they over-claimed as they were 'too busy' to check. The trade union members who I represent would have been disciplined and sacked if they had used such a lame defence if they had ever been found to have over-claimed.

Yet, while MPs are living it up, we're expected to tighten our belts to pay for the economic crisis. In Greenwich, where I am a trade union representative, the council's latest cuts proposals will mean that care managers, responsible for putting together care packages for the elderly, will lose up to £5,000 a year from their salary.

Mental health social workers are to lose £400 a month and the children's social work team based at the local Queen Elizabeth Hospital is to be disbanded despite all the concerns raised about child protection.

Parents, together with Unison and the Socialist Party, are continuing to fight the closure of Charlotte Turner School [see page 11]. The council insists on this closure despite a huge majority of people telling the council, via its consultation exercise, that the school must stay open.

We need real workers' representatives to stand up for workers. The politicians, the government and the councils are not listening. We need a voice for the working class.

As the recession grows deeper, more and more people will demand that politicians stand up for ordinary people. They will want a bailout for the workers, not the bankers.

No such alternative can be found in the great hydra-headed Labour/Tory/LibDem parliamentary monster, which worships capitalism and the millionaires. We need a new workers' party to stand up for the millions.

When this new party wins members of parliament, it will need to withstand the pressures from MPs who don't bother trying to get a better deal for workers. When MPs get lavish expenses for often imaginary second homes, what do they care if more and more people find it impossible to pay for their only one?

From 1983 to 1992, socialists Dave Nellist and the late Terry Fields and Pat Wall became MPs. They only accepted the average wage level of a skilled worker and the expenses needed to do their jobs, which were fully vetted by local trade unionists. All the rest was donated back to workers' causes locally, nationally and internationally.


I myself think this is a excellent positive policiy to have and shows that as socialists we will not lavish our career's and try to do over the class we represent. If i ever stood for election which i may do i too will only claim a average workers wage. People say it is not enough for the hard work MP's do. I dispute this prefusely as although MP's have big responsibilities i fail to see how their work deserves big wages and almost unlimited expenses paid for by the good old tax payer.

Sure their job may be challenging but is it more challenging than a nurses, soldier, firefighter or a social worker for example. I really dont think it is i would say there is a case for wages to be increased across the board with a eventual level of a living wage increasing year on year to represent inflation and growth.

But i fail to see how a MP deserves big expenses while average workers struggle to get by. SO the case for all elected representitives national or council or on a European level should always be rooted in the working class's and that means not claiming and putting yourself on a pedestall above the rest of the class your supposed to represent .