Why I’m scared for our future

You may say what future and you may have a point… Today we saw another government take office this time a fully Tory Tory one and lets be honest not many expected them to gain a outright majority how they managed it is open for debate but they have done and we must face facts. The labour party shouldn’t go without comment in their disgraceful backing of tory austerity they have been a hammered in the polls and rightly rejected yet we are left with the proper tories at least we know what this lot stand for and that is outright destruction of the working class if they get their way. As a disabled person I have been worrying all day what will happen to us come the next 5 years. Chills of dread have flooded me and the horrors of the last 5 years tell me with Tories on their own they can get away with so much more not that the Lib Dems stopped them with any of their brutal cuts but this time it feels we are facing the abyss in terms of our welfare state, our NHS and our public sector services. A total of 12 billion pounds is to be slashed from the welfare bill and this will I tell you now directly will hit the poorest the most vunrable in our society I fear for many of us I really do. A leak last week suggested the following cuts have already been drawn up by the Tories The proposed cuts included: • Limiting support to 2 children in child benefit and child tax credit, so cutting up to £3,500 from a family with three children. • Removing the higher rate child benefit from the first child, an average cut of over £360 for every family with children. • Means testing child benefit – cutting £1,750 for a two child middle income family • Removing child benefit from 16 to 19 year olds – a cut of over £1,000 for parents of a single child. The Conservatives have been under sustained pressure to detail how they will cut £12bn from the welfare budget by 2017-2018, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank confirmed this week the Tories have so far disclosed only 10% of these cut in the form of a two-year freeze in working age benefits. With further cuts to benefits surely on its way the DWP have wasted no time in outlining plans to slash the access to work scheme a benefit which is close to my heart and helps me every time I go to work. The attacks on this particular benefit already destroy the lie that the Tories are there to help the disabled in to work and in work they just do not care and are taking the axe to this next benefit. How it will affect me long term we will have to see but be sure I will not let any attacks on me working go unheard. In a piece in the independent tonight it is said. http://fw.to/EMNy4cK The DWP has moved further to examine cutting a scheme that helps disabled people into work – just hours after the Conservatives won the election. The fund helps people and employers cover costs of disabilities that might be a barrier to work. The biggest single users of the fund are people who have difficulty seeing and people who have difficulty hearing. A policy document originally quietly announced in March suggests capping the £108m Access to Work fund. An impact assessment of the policy was released on the day the general election results. “[Spending] has risen significantly over the past five years … One of the significant strategic questions we face is how to establish the right balance between the need to support as many disabled people as possible and what it is reasonable to offer individual users,” the assessment says. The first option outlined by civil servants in the document is “to set a cap on the maximum value of support per user”. The party's manifesto boats that "last year alone, 140,000 disabled people found work" but says that "the jobless rate for this group remains too high. "As part of our objective to achieve full employment, we will aim to halve the disability employment gap: we will transform policy, practice and public attitudes, so that hundreds of thousands more disabled people who can and want to be in work find employment," it pledges. The overall spend on Access to Work in 2013/14 was £108m, covering 35,540 people. • An earlier version of this story indicated that the policy had been announced in the hours after the general election result. In fact the impact assessment for the policy was issued in the hours after the general election result, while the policy itself was issued in the run up to the general election in March This is just a glimpse of the tories aims in this next 5 years. Be under no illusion they are coming for you and they will not give a stuff about who you voted for or anything. Its time to organise ourselvesin our communities find common allies and fightback in whichever way we can using any means at our desposable. We may never see the welfare state ever a gain if we do not fightback now. The last 5 years was justa warm up for what is coming next …..

Support students right to a free education for all

Tommorrow students from up and down the land will be protesting against teh attacks on their opportunities of a decent life for themselves and others who will follow them. This is also a fight for free education to international students too who have also been put off in coming heer to study we cannot forget them too. Free education should be a right in this day and age why should young people today have to pay when many of their parents and the smug politicians never had to pay a penny. Many students and young people are joining a London demonstration calling on the government to scrap tuition fees and cuts. Paired with the introduction of £9,000 university tuition fees for 2012’s student intake, the slashing of benefits and key services for students and young people is having a devastating impact, the organisers say. Scrapping of the education maintenance allowance (EMA) The EMA was a weekly means-tested payment of up to £30 for students aged 16-19, at schools or in further education colleges, in return for their attending lessons. It provided a lifeline to students . Around 45% of students qualified for the EMA, costing over £560m. But in late 2010, the government scrapped it in England. It still exists in Scotland and Wales. The budget was slashed to just £180m and reallocated to a 16-19 “bursary fund”. Unlike the EMA, which was distributed according to parental income, the new fund can be distributed by schools and colleges as they see fit. Pupils can apply even if they weren’t eligible for the EMA, so it’s unclear how many students qualify. Some of today’s sixth formers don’t know the EMA ever existed, but those with older siblings have found the injustice hard to swallow. “It seems as if the government is trying to make higher education less accessible to those from lower income families. University now feels like something more related to social class rather than to education.” Youth services have been slashed, with councils closing youth clubs up and down the country. Connexions – which provided information, support and advice to 13- to 25-year-olds – has been almost completely cut and replaced by the National Careers Service with disastrous results, particularly for the most vulnerable. Aimhigher – a programme that aimed to widen higher education participation – was also scrapped in 2011, just before the fees increase. “Where you come from remains such a key factor in whether or not you go on to university,” says Megan Dunn, NUS vice-president for higher education. “Young people from the most advantaged neighbourhoods in England are three times more likely to enter higher education than those from the most disadvantaged.” The government planned to “modernise” the DSA, which students in England can receive to meet the extra study costs arising from their disabilities, long-term mental and physical health conditions, and learning difficulties. Some changes have been postponed for at least two years after protests from students. But from 2015, many of the provisions the DSA currently pays for, such as standard computers for disabled students, will no longer be covered. Since 2010, the Department for Education has protected funding for educational provision for five-16s, but has slashed funding for 16-18 education. Some sixth form colleges will have lost a third of their funding by the end of this parliament, according to the Sixth Form College Association (SFCA), because of a combination of cuts to entitlement funding, which provides tutorials and enrichment activities, a new 16-19 funding formula, and a reduction in funding for 18 year olds. This has meant increased class sizes and a reduction in the number of A-level and vocational courses available at many schools and FE colleges. A survey of sixth form colleges by the SFCA found that 68% had dropped courses, with 38% cutting modern foreign language A-levels and 22% Stem subjects. with quotes and extracts from http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/nov/17/robbed-of-their-futures-how-austerity-cuts-hit-young-people-hardest?CMP=twt_gu In a National campaign against fees and cuts press release students wrote "This Wednesday, on November 19th, thousands of students will march through London in what is likely to be the biggest education protest in several years. The demo – which is organised by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts in coalition with a number of other student groups – will march on parliament under the banner of ‘FREE EDUCATION: no fees, no cuts, no debt’. The demonstration aims to be the spark for a new and proactive generation of student protests. There will be a press conference on the day of the demonstration. The press conference will include school students, activists from across the country and representatives of the different organisations behind the march. The press conference will take place at UCL (University College London) at 10am. Callum Cant, from Warwick for Free Education and the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts said: “At Warwick we have been campaigning on the ground for almost a month, and we’ve seen our hard work pay off. On campus, the mood is changing, people are excited, and we have seen a huge number of people getting involved in student activism for the first time.” Hattie Craig, from Defend Education Birmingham and the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts said: “The students attending this demonstration are a new generation: one that was not involved in 2010, one for whom £9,000 fees are the norm. Despite this, they’re daring to call for demands which envisage a radical reshaping of education. This demonstration, expected to be the biggest since 2010, is the start of big things for the student movement.” Kirsty Haigh, from NUS Scotland and the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts said: “NUS scotland firmly believes in free education and we are supporting the demo on November 19th. We believe education is a right that should be accessible to everyone and barriers such as fees are unjust. That is why I, and many other Scottish students, will be marching this Wednesday.” Deborah Hermanns, from the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, said: “We will not win this with one march, but by creating a movement too big to ignore or to betray. So we have called for two further days of action on 3 and 6 December in campuses and communities across the country, and will keep fighting for as long as it takes to win.” Notes: 1. NCAFC is a democratic coalition of students and workers fighting for free education and against fees, cuts and privatisation in education. It has existed since 2010 and has around 500 members. " http://anticuts.com/2014/11/18/demonstration-to-be-start-of-big-things-as-students-prepare-for-an-autumn-of-protest/

TUC Side With Bosses To Back Tory Workfare Scheme

Posted on August 2, 2014 by johnny void “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” In an astonishing and genuinely sad day for the trade uni0n movement, the TUC have teamed up with the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) to issue a statement supporting unpaid work. The TUC have sided with the bosses to sing the praises of the Tory Traineeship programme. This unpaid scheme can involve up to five months full-time work, sometimes for giant profit making companies like BT or Virgin. The placements are used to ‘prepare’ young people to be Apprentices, although there is no guarantee that they will be offered even this at the end of the scheme. Just like Margaret Thatcher’s despised YTS schemes, Traineeships represent a wealth grab by greedy employers. Once companies recognised they had to pay young people whilst they trained – now the tax payer will pick up the tab whilst the worker gets nothing. And just like the YTS programme was used as political cover to strip benefits from 16/17 year olds, Traineeships will be used to undermine social security payments for those under 25. George Osborne has already announced that under 22 year olds who refuse a Traineeship will soon face the prospect of six month’s workfare somewhere else instead. Despite Osborne’s announcement, the TUC say in the statement that Traineeships should be voluntary. As claimants themselves know, very little is voluntary such is the current mass benefit sanctioning culture at the DWP. This doesn’t seem to bother the scabs running the TUC who seem to have decided that Traineeships aren’t workfare, and even if they would rather they were voluntary they appear to back them anyway. This is an appalling attack on not just young unemployed people, but all workers who will see their own wages and conditions undermined by an army of unpaid staff. It is hardly surprising that the CBI are salivating at the prospect of this huge subsidy for business at the expense of the working class. Tory Skills Minister Nick Boles has joined them saying he is ‘delighted’ that the TUC support this scheme. They no doubt dream of a day when they don’t have to pay people under 25 at all. That day may not be far away and that the TUC are helping to bring it closer is as shocking as it is shameful. This blog has no sources of funding so here’s a quick reminder that you can help ensure it continues by making a donation. Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid

J10 and its impact

According the trade unions, over 1,000,000 people took part in yesterday’ public sector strikes, with many participating in marches and rallies across the country. Predictably, the Government claimed that the real figure was less than half of that, with David Cameron claiming the strikes as “illegitimate” and “not causing any disruption”. Government agencies proudly reporting how many of their services & offices remained open, despite the national call-out by several trade unions. This blatant massaging and manipulation of the figures is just another facet of the David Cameron School of falsification. Yes, an office, job centre, call centre, fire station, or school may have opened their doors; however, it is hardly business as usual. Operating a skeleton or token service, run by scabs, whilst 80% of that workplace is on strike, cannot be described as a victory for the employers. It seems that the Government and Tory media think that if a school stays open with just one person manning a telephone, then they can record that as a non-closure. If, as David Cameron claims, that the strikes were a damp squib that didn’t cause any disruption, they why is he providing a statement, and why is he plotting new legislation to attack trade unions? Yes, it would be better if the turnout for a strike ballot was 100%, but for many reasons they rarely are. However, the suggestion that ballots are usually less than 30% is another government falsehood. More importantly than satisfying the legal hurdle of a ballot – is the turnout of the day – as most of those striking vote with their feet, not with a pen. If and when legislation is brought in to set a minimum voting threshold, then I would expect to the number of people voting to rise significantly, and would then anticipate the government ferreting around for a another loophole or hurdle to utilise in their attempts to break trade unions. Oxbridge wanker, multi-millionaire, government ‘union-buster’, and former PPS to a paedophile, Francis Maude, said that “The more unions go on strike, the stronger the case for a change in the law being included in the Conservatives’ general election manifesto next year.” …. The irony of being elected on approximately 35% of those eligible to vote in constituency is apparently lost on Mr Maude. Francis Maude may soon find that he has a more pressing matter at hand should the investigation into child abuse by politicians want to look at his role as PPS to Peter Morrison, and the deal allegedly struck with the Labour Party & Police…

solidarity with striking J10 workers, their fight is our fight

Adapted from a Workers Liberty leaflet: Up to two million workers will strike on 10 July. Members of unions in local government will strike to oppose a 1% pay offer, and are demanding an increase of at least £1 per hour or to the "Living Wage", £7.65, or £8.80 in London. Other unions involved in the action have their own pay demands. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the cost of maintaining a decent standard of living in the UK has risen by 46% since 2008, while wages have increased by just 9%. It's the harshest squeeze on real wages in the UK since records began. According to TUC figures, around five million workers in Britain (20% of the total workforce) are paid less than the living wage. The 10 July strike can be the start of a working class counter-offensive challenging the capitalist logic that demands workers pay for the financial crisis. We need a plan, not a day at a time One-off strike days, each followed by a long wait until union leaders report back or call further action, aren't nough. The remedy is not just to convert one-day protest strikes into two-day protest strikes, but to plan continuing action, discussed and decided in advance by union members. This could include limited, selective action as well as all-out strikes and be directed by local strike committees. Local strike committees should continue meeting after 10 July, and the executives of all the striking unions should meet together. After 10th July? Unison's leaders have already talked about further strikes on 9 and 10 September. Unions should liaise with each other in order to pin down the most effective date, and other actions should be planned between now and then - even small, local events like lunchtime rallies, demos and street stalls. NHS workers should be brought into the dispute. Unison should act on its 2014 Health sector conference decision to ballot for strikes over pay. Strike funds should be levied at both local and national level to ensure the lowest-paid workers are supported in taking sustained and escalating action. On strike days every workplace should be picketed, with pickets approaching non-striking workers and attempting to persuade them not to cross. In 2011 some activists held members' meetings with discussion and voting - not just set-piece rallies.' We should organise such meetings this time, as well.

Can the NSSN be a rank-and-file movement??

I was told last night by a socialist party member after I pointed out the upcoming public sector strikes over pay on the 10th of July were more than likely to be sold out once again by the union tops. I was told we need to do something so I suggested a rank-and-file movement to hold the union leaders to account and prevent them selling out any dispute. So in return the National Shops Stewards Network the NSSN was suggested my way. I do not believe this to be the best vehicle for this and I will explain. The NSSN is simply a anti cuts group as a front for the Socialist party to cozy up to left union bureaucrats and curry favour in terms of influence and positions in the unions not really interested in building a mass fightback to win. The problem with unions isn’t poor leadership, but a set of circumstances where the only way they can maintain their ability to negotiate with management is by enforcing law and order on its membership, and either sabotaging or co-opting independent action (or even just undesirable militancy). These circumstances will remain in place no matter how “left” the leadership is groups like the NSSN fail to understand this crucial fact and carry on lobbying the TUC and the lefts in the unions regardless. One of the more entertaining elements of hanging around on the political left is the insistence of the various leftie parties that they are “open and democratic,” usually moments after they’ve been caught out playing silly buggers within a broad church movement. "Open and democratic" is a phrase which obviously has a lot of baggage when it comes to any democratic centralist (Trotskyist, Stalinist, Socialist etc) outfit, tarred as they are by years of capitalist propagandising on the failings of the Soviet Union. Similar and connected is "entryism," the practice of joining a burgeoning movement en masse and attempting to capture it by packing votes and capturing/creating powerful leadership roles. But that baggage becomes heavier rather than lighter when incidents like the Socialist Party stitch-up of the National Shop Stewards Network happen, continuing a long line of similar Lenin-inspired efforts stretching back into anti-war, anti-racist and class struggle history all the way back to 1917 and beyond. Lenin’s crew pioneered and continue to offer the pinnacle of such tactics in the 1910s and 20s when they used the bodies they had captured to destroy grassroots organisations they considered to be rivals, effectively ending any hope of a genuine communism emerging in Russia. Since then, Trotskyists, Stalinists and the like in Britain have attempted the same tactics within an ever-dwindling circle of sympathisers and lefties, seemingly unaware that every time they do so they help put another generation off left-wing politics entirely. Now I have to confess I was once a socialist party member myself and once sat in on a NSSN steering committee meeting the body which controls what the group does and campaigns on. In the meeting there was only one non socialist party member present and before the meeting we caucused or whatever the trotskyist term is and were given the line we were to go with in the proper meeting with this one individual who was in no party at all oddly who stuck around after the split in the NSSN back in 2010 which set about making the NSSN another anti cuts group on the left. I was once a keen member of the SP but became so disillusioned and eventually my disagreements grew too large so I left not before facing all sorts of intimidation and trouble off various people involved locally. Incidents like those linked to above, picked off the top of my head out of a list of hundreds in Britain alone, would be best summed up by the famous Albert Einstein quote “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” And so today, on a much, much tinier scale, we have the Unite the resistance formally Right to Work (SWP), the Peoples assembly formally the Coalition of Resistance (Counterfire), the National Coalition Against Fees and Cuts (AWL, sort of) and the People’s Charter (CPB) while the Socialist Party’s gone a bit anti-cuts crazy with two separate front groups, Youth Fight for Jobs and now the NSSN. All squabbling among themselves and prioritizing not the fight against cuts but their own level of influence within the left ghetto. In fact the only group of any note not fronting itself is the CPGB, which is making a bid for non-sectarian status by calling for a uniting of all the different fronts into a kind of super-front capable of looking, at least initially, like something big enough for local groups (and fronts) to sign up to. The mind boggles. Because the thing is we already know what all the possible outcomes of both normal fronting and super-fronting are, none of which have the least bit to do with improving things for working people or threatening business as usual. Because we’ve already seen it over and over again. The peoples assembly has been the only one to mobilize ny sort of numbers seeing around 50 thousand on their against austerity march the weekend just gone. What really needs to happen to these groups is for the sound and solid people to leave. If you are in one of these outfits, just go and do what you should have been doing in the first place, acting as an independent militant whose work focuses on the REAL big picture and attempts to form a resistance without this inane, counterproductive bullshit. We need to help local and workplace comrades to organise themselves and stop trying to trick them with false promises of democracy when you could be helping create a genuine one accountable to its members rather than your far-removed central committee. We’re not idiots, when your high command tells you to pack a meeting and pretend it’s democratic because “every view got some time” we notice these things and it kills wider participation. Your leaders on the other hand, because they refuse to learn the lessons of their own history, are. Doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over. Let’s build genuine resistance on the ground with no leaders and no hidden party political agenda's.

Happy New Year

So its now 2014 and I’d like to wish you all a happy new year with greetings to all who have been kind enough to red my blog over the last year and shared with their friends. Last year was a bit of a up and down one for me politically I came out of it thinking political parties are the problem rather than the answer and that democracy and solidarity are just words to some people. The level of bullying I received when I was a member of the socialist party shocked me and eventually leads to my resignation last September. The lengths some will go to to silence you speaking out are incredible too. I will always think independently and for myself and perhaps the party form never suited me in this sense. I do not like to be told what to think I’d like to make up my own mind. One of the big things I can take out of 2013 is that we are best when we do not rely on a central committee to think for us and we are best when we act and think for ourselves at all times. Socially I have made some good friends over the last year some who came to the surface recently who I didn’t know before but all who have stood by me I thank you for that and is much appreciated. I hope for change in 2014 with austerity looking set to deepen and the cuts biting hard I look forward to bigger and more focused fight backs. I will continue to support workers in action and communities standing up and fighting back. There is much to look forward to this year and much to be aware of. Ultimately the fight against capitalism continues and is something more will join as the year goes on. Our common solidarity with our fellow workers of men and women, black or white or any ethnic background is key to uniting the fight back. Lastly we are all on a journey mine has taken me from the labour party to a Trotskyist organisation and now to a point where I’m wondering what it is all about. I will continue to look into new ideas and learn for myself what is best route to take. As Karl Marx once said it is for the workers themselves to change society I believe that I do not believe anymore a party has the working class’s best interests at heart only their own self interests of the party. I think this is wholey undemocratic and not what is necessary any longer. I think autonomous struggles will develop from below as those at the bottom of the pile feel they have nothing left but to stand up and make a stand. We are a long way from changing society but each day in our small day to day actions we can have an impact building and organising are key ingredients to making something happen. We should not rely on our so called leaders of our movement and political figures be them of a party form or of a union to do it for us their role is different to ours ours is to remove all forms of power and structured power all together. We do not want political power but to do away with it in all senses. The hierarchy of structures like political parties and unions are not helpful a lot of the time but they do exist and we must recognise them for what they are there to safeguard dissent and to moderate how far radicals can go. To go beyond this and break out of the traditional modes has got to be our target in the coming period in my opinion Thank you for reading I wish all a happy new year and keep safe and strong.

The question of leadership

I have been in organisations with strong and weak leadership and have come to the conclusion that leadership itself is fundamentally flawed in many ways. During my time in the socialist party we were told the working class needs new fighting leadership but I am not sure this is quite true on many levels. Of course we were told while a member of such sects that Trotsky’s famous quote that the crisis facing the working class is the crisis of leadership and some seem to have taken this particular quote to the point of dogma and frozen it in time and done little with it sadly. I am a believer that we are our own leaders and that leadership as a concept is a concept for bureaucracy. I think we all have it within us to lead and control our own struggles now. Why do we need a self appointed leadership to control and manage our own struggles they are ours for a reason surely? I have firm belief that the working class can lead its own struggles and battles without a leadership. In fact leadership starts from within and some take it further but if we all lead our own struggles by not giving our struggles over to some far distant appointed body we can remain in control. In fact I believe now that if we reject the concept of leadership in the term understood today anyway which of course can and will change in time is no blueprint for success at all. I do think that if we, we own and control our own struggles we cannot and will not be sold out by leaderships and bodies looking to act and speak on our behalf. Only us the workers the rank-and-file of the movement and the world can control and affect change. Lets be honest when has a leader ever acted in our own interests. Once we have given permission to someone else to decide what is best for us we have in affect already lost because we can no longer affect change ourselves it is down to someone else not us. Leadership as a concept is not a bad thing but it is how that power of change and understanding shifts from us to a body of people we are trusting to act and speak on our behalf. I am naturally dis trustful of leadership due to my experiences some may have good experiences but I do think in the end we will all see leaders or those who claim to be our leaders in the light cold light of day for all to dsee as opportunists . The mass's have the answer and will not be fooled some may be some of the time but not forever. Workers and those at the bottom of the pile will have nothing to loose very soon and then you will see a fight back and this will be spontaneous and leaderless. For this to succeed people will need to learn for themselves and take each step at a time if they loose they must take that on the chin and learn from it not look to leaders to make things better as they simply will not they will act in their own interest as they always have done and always will.

Work till you drop

Today people are having to work longer and longer hours and harder still. Those who are lucky enough to be in work anyway are facing incredible hardship which I’m sure some will say oh well at least they have a job well yes but not many stop and think how tough that job is and how tat job may have changed with a employer looking to get more flesh for their pound so to speak. As many companies struggle on and instead of employing new staff and the costs of training new staff up the existing workforce are forced into longer days and asked to do a lot more for less. You see this now in London where the rush hour which used to tail off around 7 pm is now going way on to 8 and beyond in some case’s. People have to work longer and harder than ever before just to make ends meet it would seem. The untold stress and knock on affects of this on workers in Britain and beyond is very sharp with family life becoming difficult and also time for yourself to relax and enjoy your life becomes less and less. This post may seem like a stating the obvious but quite often we are talking about unemployment and all the rest of it but those who are still in work are often over looked. We must not forget them. Due to capitalism’s inability to solve the low rate of profit it is trying all sorts of counter tendencies including lengthening the working day and cutting wages where it can all in a bid to restore the rate of profit for various companies sectors and ultimately economies. Clearly workers are at the sharp end of capitalisms problems and are feeling its affects the worst as they are bearing the brunt of the crisis without a doubt. The idea of working hard which was pushed a lot at last weeks Tory party conference is the key to a happy life is clearly not quite the reality it is made outdo be on the ground. Many struggles to put food on their tables s it is with loan take outs and pay day loans shooting up in the last year or so as wages are squeezed again and again. Clearly there is a cost of living crisis which capitalism cannot solve as its main motivation is making profit workers feelings and lives are not important ultimately as long as they are making surplus value and profit as a result for the capitalist there is no concern. We have to be honest working dam hard and getting ill and stressed out due to work is no way to live and we should be making the case against work and for a change of society which doesn’t base life on work and the ability to work being the be all and end all. Pushing communist and socialist ideas can make sense to many right now all is it many are so tired and stressed to think anything than where we are is possible at all now. It must feel like you’re on a giant hamster wheel where you cannot get off being a cog in a giant system of money making which you barely benefit from if at all. Take tonight on the radio I heard a plumber ring in to a phone in show claiming he works till 11 or 12 at night only to have to be back in work the next day at 7.30 am now that is no life for anyone surely. Its also no point blaming migrant workers as I am sure some out there will as ok they may work harder but they are not getting any more for it in fact their lives are no better than British workers for doing the same. Migrant or British worker our problems and issues at work are the same. This is a class problem not an us or them one. The only we and they there is is us the workers and the capitalists. It wouldn’t surprise me if in a few years time we don’t see people dieing through stress and over working as this capitalist system grinds workers into the groundin pursuit of its own goals which is greater and greater profit. Quite frankly this system does not benefit the majority of people and it simply has got to go. Whilst I say that we are still a long long ay of major system change as it stands today but things can and do change as we have seen in the past. Providing works with confidence to organise in their workplaces must be a revolutionaries mission in life here and now to provide the means and the ideas to fight back against their employer to win small battles at first but to know that fighting back can get you wins. Much like the Hovis workers who defeated 0 hours contracts the other week which got no real media coverage but can be a beacon to workers up and down the land facing stress and the daily grind of this exploitative system.

Hovis workers make toast of 0 hours contracts dispute

Much solidarity and congratulations must go to the workers and members of the BFAWU over at Hovis in Wigan who could well have set a new stage in fighting 0 hour contracts potentially in the UK. A historic win in many ways is coming to an end today and this sis something we should all be shouting about I feel. With few victories about right now for workers its worth making the most of all that we do get and show to other workers look you can win if you fightback. From The excellent Union news Uk website: More than 400 bakery workers have voted overwhelmingly to end two weeks of strike action in a protracted dispute over zero hours contracts at the Hovis bakery in Wigan. Under a settlement which was put to the workforce on Saturday (21 September), agency employees who work 39 hours per week for 12 consecutive weeks will be moved to parity pay. BFAWU said the strikes had been triggered after the company broke an agreement designed to limit the number of agency workers at the Lancashire bakery, so that people were only employed on “zero hours” contracts in absolute emergencies. Following talks last week, the company has now agreed that future production will be covered from overtime and “banked hours” by members of the full-time 400-strong workforce. Union reps say the increasingly confident wave of strikes had secured “everything we were looking for”. However, negotiators have insisted that the local management of Premier Foods, which owns the Hovis brand, must put the new agreement to them in writing before they formally call off further strike action. BFAWU regional organising secretary, Pauline Nazir, told UnionNews: “The sense of solidarity among the workers has been absolutely brilliant. “It makes you see why you’re a member of a trade union and why our parents told us to join a union.” The second of the two week-long stoppages had seen scores of strikers and supporters blockading one of the gates at the Wigan site. They prevented up to 80% of scheduled delivery lorries from leaving the bakery. Strike organisers said those lorries which did leave were so heavily delayed that they would have failed to meet their delivery deadlines for stores in the Midlands and North Wales. Drivers based at the Wigan bakery had refused to run the gauntlet of noisy, but largely good-natured pickets with the Hovis-liveried lorries on health and safety grounds. Some workers at the Wigan bakery had been on zero hours contracts for up to 3 years before they were given full-time posts, only to find they were doing the same job as they had been doing previously on a temporary contract. The local Labour MP, Lisa Nandy, had told the company the dispute gave Premier Foods an opportunity to reach a settlement which could “demonstrate to the whole country that people do not have to put up with terms and conditions that blight lives and blight whole communities”. Geoff Atkinson, BFAWU’s lead official in the dispute said the commitment from the company over agency staff “also has the potential to create jobs in the local area”. News of the settlement came less than 48 hours before workers at the Wigan bakery were due to begin a third week of strikes. With thanks and credits to Union news Uk at http://union-news.co.uk/2013/09/hovis-workers-win-zero-hours-contracts-toast/

What is holding the working class back?

Is an interesting question in many ways? I do not subscribe to the theory that it is simply due to those pesky trade union leaders putting a block on all out class warfare and if only we had better leaders all would be fine. This is frankly delusional and a position a lot of the Trotskyist groups hold tat there is a mass militancy just waiting and bubbling under the surface waiting to get out. This is just not the case. For the most part the working class’s are scared today, scared of what the future holds. While many have seen their fellow workers jobs go and they now fear for their own many are keeping their head down in fear of loosing their join job. I think this can be one of the major reasons for a lack of activity from workers in struggle. A factor of fear that if we do take strike action we will just be crushed and this can also be put down to a lack of confidence in their leaders who will more often than not try and sell them out. The TUC and the union structures in particular have done their job almost too well from a ruling class point of view they have policed workers and put breaks on movements that may develop. I’m not saying that any other leadership would be any better it is the structures that link the unions into the capitalist system and play a certain role for capital. For sure the leaders of the unions have been a block on action but I don’t think we can put the lack of action and the lowest amount of days lost to strike action solely down to that I think that is far too simplistic if we’re honest. I do think we have to start looking at different and new ways of organising. If the union structures re not offering way forward for workers we should look at other ways of going over the heads of the unions and their leaders or looking at new ways of organising such as pop up unions which was tried down at the Sussex University occupation. Workplace and non workplace networks should be taken up in my view building links in the community and beyond. We do have to remind ourselves of the important victories the workers have won in the past to build confidence among other workers to spread the idea we can win and by struggling we can get somewhere and it isn’t a dead end strategy as some like to make out. Take the sparks dispute from a few years back workers were only victorious in the end due to independent workers action from below forcing the union leadership to recognise a struggle was taking place and eventually backed the strikes and actions. This was all orchestrated from below and militant workers action not from the tops of the unions. I do think further struggles in the future will be forced from below with workers finding new ways of organising and trying new things that they may not have tried before just to fight back. There is no grantee on winning any battle but if you don’t fight you have no chance of winning. The working class of today is a very different beast to the past as is the labour movement we have to recognise this before we can move forward in any meaningful manner.

Making work pay, what a con

The Tories and the government’s whole idea about making work pay I’ve discovered me a complete lie. The whole idea pushed by Iain Duncan Smith tat no one should be able to gain more being on benefits than in work. Already this is ridiculous as many are in work who claims benefits due to low pay. Much like myself I am a part time office worker doing 16 hours a week at present and claim working tax credits to top up my pitiful pay. This still puts me way below the average wage of a worker in Britain coming in just shy of 10k a year. This week I’ve been notified that my working tax credits are to be lowered or cut if you like by £200 from what I got last year. My pay is a tiny amount above the minimum wage I would not be claiming tax credits if I was earning a decent wage so the idea I’m earning too muc is stupid. The government or HMRC if you like claim I have earnt too much in the last year so I shouldn’t get so much next year. Making work pay therefore is an absolute joke my wages have not gone up or down in the last year and as a result I’ve applied for working tax credits once again so how has HMRC worked out I shouldn’t get the same as last year? Is this down to inflation or government cuts? In which case I am highly dubious that my extra £200 will help the government all that much. But of course this is not about paying of far deficit or anything like that it is a clear attack on the poorest in society. Rhetoricof a general strike is one thinglets see some action and something which can provide hope to many struggling by today. I will no doubt have to cut back on some of the things I spend on in a month cutting back on some of the things I enjoy to make up the short fall. I am also disabled registered blind and do get a extra component to my working tax credits yet this really isn’t much and I am still struggling by every month to live. I do live with my mum at present as no where cheap enough to move out to so I am hoping my cut in benefits wont mean I can no longer pay my mum rent. How this works out that I should be one of the people to pay for the private sector and the bankers mess I do not know but as we know big business’s run off laughing to themselves to the banks evading and avoiding tax to the tune of billions. Fair? I think not. This has really fucked me off if I’m honest and made me realise how little fight back there has been to the cuts. A couple of marches from A to B to listen to Ed Miliband and a 1 day public sector strike are not what I call an effective fight back. Many people are angry and growing angrier by th week. With the bedroom tax no more than a plaything to the mainstream parties who can say how bad it is a actual fightback is still needed desperately. No wonder unions are not looking to fight back most of the leaders are on good money and the cuts are not affecting them as yet. Change is going to have to come from below the unorganised I feel. No political party seems prepared to stand up and fight back so it is left to the down trodden and the disenfranchised to fight back. Unions are one thing but when they are offering no lead to fight back we could do with the money some of their full timers are on but their advice of sitting back and waiting for a labour gov is frankly insulting to many of us who’re struggling. I’ve had enough if you have to join me in the fight to change things. We need a new way of doing things work has never paid for many people and is even less now its time for change in 2013!

solidarity with PCS tax and welfare strikes this week:

From a PCS press release: A week of rolling strikes involving 135,000 workers from the two largest government departments kicks off today, 3 June. Starting in north east England and Yorkshire and the Humber today, and in the north west tomorrow, jobcentre and benefit office staff from the Department for Work and Pensions join tax workers from HM Revenue and Customs in a series of regional walkouts until Friday. The strikes form part of the union's three-month civil service-wide campaign against imposed cuts to pay, pensions, jobs and working conditions, which has involved weeks of industrial action among the union's 250,000 public sector members since a national walkout on budget day on 20 March. The latest threat from Labour to universal benefits for pensioners is further proof that these two departments are at the heart of the political debate about public spending. The workers involved provide invaluable public services - with HMRC collecting and administering the taxes that fund all other public services and our welfare state that are currently being undermined by the Tory-led government. Successive years of cuts in HMRC have left the department unable to properly tackle the estimated £120 billion lost every year through tax evasion, avoidance and non-collection. And, despite high unemployment, DWP has cut 20,000 staff since May 2010 and the government is now threatening to cut even more support for people entitled to benefits. These strikes come as the union is campaigning to stop government plans to close all 281 of HMRC's walk-in tax advice centres in the UK and divert enquiries to already overloaded jobcentres. Pilot closures of 13 enquiry centres in the north east also starts today (3rd June). The union has previously announced it will hold a fresh national civil service-wide strike towards the end of June if the government continues to refuse to negotiate.

What has happened to the student movement?

Is a very good question since two big demonstrations one a lot smaller and angrier than the last 2013 has been a somewhat quieter year for the students movement. Not being a student myself I look on from outside but the anger on tuition fees, lack of EMA, rental prices for students, cost of studying all haven’t gone away surely and the anger can’t have either. No doubt much of this lack of fight can be laid at the door of the NUS who have failed to mobilise students to defend education and mount a challenge to this rotten government. Socialist students which are affiliated to the socialist party have been doing excellent work on campuses up and down the country having our best year yet in terms of numbers. But our influence is still small. We will be putting pressure and calling on the NUS to organise a national demonstration this autumn very shortly. There have been small victories and incidents Sussex university had a fantastic demonstration with an occupation which was disgracefully evicted a while back now in protest over privatisation of the education system. Again NUS did not show up most students now are starting to fight without their own union of students this is a worry but not unsurprising given the role the NUS places with its pro labour party leadership and timid outlook. Recently a victory at Birmingham university has shown an example how students and workers when they unite can win victories even on a small scale and not totally resolved is a good start and shows we can win. Maintenance & support staff at University of Birmingham are celebrating near-total victory as university management have abandoned restructuring plans. 361 Hospitalist and Accomodation Services (HAS) staff faced compulsory redundancy, pay cuts and being forced to work anti-social hours under plans announced in March; the £407,000-a-year pay packet of the Vice-Chancellor would have been unaffected. The University also planned to force staff to work weekends and holidays for no extra pay. These plans have all been dropped and staff has won extra flexibility in setting their own schedules. Edmund Schluessel - NUS NEC-elect, UCU and Socialist Students Birmingham University Unison worked closely in partnership with the students’ union, Birmingham Guild of Students, to fight back against the cuts and job losses. Staff and students demonstrated together against university management on May Day, and, in a major show of solidarity, the Students’ Union put out a call for a national student mobilisation in support of the Birmingham HAS staff. In a statement, student campaigning group, Birmingham Defend Education, said, “This outcome demonstrates that protest and direct action work. Unions were negotiating on these issues behind the scenes for two months, whilst the University kept announcing further attacks. As soon as they started to sign up large numbers of new members and talk about strike action, and we sent our statement to David Eastwood, the University abandoned the majority of their attacks within two weeks. This also illustrates the power of students and staff when working together. We should remember that staff and students, not management, are what make the University work. If we recognise this, and the power that we have when we stop doing what we’re told, we can claim the conditions of work and study that we want to see.” The problem of low pay remains unresolved. Many maintenance staff at Birmingham and dozens of other universities is paid only the national minimum wage, while the university makes annual profits of nearly £30 million. Lecturers and other uni staff on the national pay spine have received real-terms pay cuts every year since 2009. The five-way consortium of university trade unions, consisting of UCU (lecturers), Unison, Unite, GMB (all support staff) and EIS (teaching trade union), are meeting with employers on the 21st to discuss the latest 0.8% pay offer. The five unions should unanimously reject the offer and prepare for national coordinated action to stop the pay cuts and job losses, and push the TUC (Trade Union Congress) to name the day for a 24-hour general strike against all the cuts. As an incoming Socialist Students member of the National Union of Students’ (NUS) executive I will push for NUS to learn from Birmingham students’ example and to give the fullest possible support to any action in defence of education and against the cuts. Once students come back after the summer there will be new angry students paying higher fees getting charged even more to live and get by. It’s a disgrace that the NUS would rather spend their time doing pointless survey’s and focus on the smaller issues not that they are not important but when our whole education system is at threat surely their priorities could be better placed. With socialist students getting its first member elected on to the NEC of the NUS in Edmund Schluessel we can now begin to gain influence beyond our own ranks. A statement put out by Edmund on socialist students website said that students need a voice and for too long the NUS has not represented the real views of students on the ground. Our aim is to turn the NUS into a fighting union to give students hope and an avenue to fight back in. Socialist student’s basic aims and demands are: What We Stand For Education  Abolish tuition fees. Write off student debt.  Restore EMA. Campaign for full living grants to cover the living costs of all students in post-16 education – including those at university.  No to higher and further education funding cuts. Defend every course, job and service.  No to academies and Free Schools.  For exam boards and all other privatised services to be taken back into public ownership – no repeat of this year’s exam mistakes fiasco!  Stop the marketisation and privatisation of universities in Britain. No to the government’s white paper and a two-tier Higher Education system. No university should be allowed to go to the wall!  Lift the cap on places and publicly fund the expansion of high quality higher education.  Build local anti-cuts campaigns and ‘Youth Fight for Education’ groups in every school, college and university, linked on both a regional and a national level.  Support action taken by education workers to defend their conditions and our education –their fight is our fight.  For the transformation of Students’ Unions into fighting organisations, with bottom-up democratic structures.  For a fighting NUS.  For education that is fully funded, publicly owned, democratically run and universally free at all levels – a socialist education system. Work and Welfare  Support the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign.  No to mass youth unemployment- for a decent job for all.  No to the government’s slave labour ‘workfare’ schemes. For decent training opportunities and apprenticeships for young people which pay at least the minimum wage, with a guaranteed job at the end.  No job losses in the public or private sector. When private bosses claim they can’t afford to maintain jobs, we say open the books. Let us see where the money has gone.  For nationalisation of companies threatening closure, under democratic control with compensation given on the basis of proven need.  Fight for a minimum wage of at least £8 an hour as a step towards a living wage.  No cuts to housing or other benefits.  End lower benefit rates for young people – for the right to Job Seekers Allowance at 16.  No to ‘workfare’ and slave labour internships. For decent jobs paid at least a minimum wage of £8 an hour.  Support the National Shop Stewards’ Network anti-cuts campaign which fights all cuts to jobs and services  The immediate re-opening of all youth services that have been closed, including reinstating sacked staff. Rights  Defend the right to protest. No to the victimisation of student protesters. For the right to organise in every school, college and campus.  No to ‘kettling’ and police violence on demonstrations.  No to racism, sexism, homophobia and all other forms of discrimination.  Fight the far-right racist BNP and EDL. Jobs, homes and services- not racism. Build mass campaigns to defend communities.  No platform for fascists in education.  Rape is never the victim’s fault. For a mass campaign against sexism.  No to reactionary attacks on women’s rights.  Defend and extend abortion rights.  No to the three main bosses’ parties. For a new mass workers’ party that fights in the interests of ordinary people. For International Solidarity and Socialism  For solidarity between working class and young people across the world.  Solidarity with the Arab Spring – No to western intervention – it is on behalf of big business and capitalism.  No to war and imperialist intervention. For the Immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.  End the siege of Gaza.  No to Trident nuclear missile replacement  Support the Sri Lanka Tamil Solidarity campaign – for the right of all people to self-determination.  No to environmental destruction. For a sustainable democratic socialist plan of production that won’t destroy the planet.  No to capitalism. For a socialist world, where the big monopolies are taken into public ownership, the economy is democratically planned and resources are used to meet the needs of all humanity. A campaign for students must start here. As terms are drawing to a close exams are being taken work must start now for action in the autumn to defend education and to fight for free education for the many not just the few.

The real meaning of May Day

A press release from the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) Millions of workers around the world will be marking May Day today (1st May) and over the next few days. The media and the mainstream politicians will attempt to gloss over the real meaning of this holiday. But it will be a celebration of the struggle of workers and ordinary poor people through the ages for a decent life. The NSSN believes that this 2013 International Workers' Day must be more than a memorial. NSSN national chair Rob Williams said: "The first May Day in 1886 was the first general strike in the USA, called to fight for an eight hour day. "The bosses' reprisals saw four of the workers' leaders executed. May Day isn't some quaint holiday but a celebration of the struggle undertaken by working people for the basic necessities, none of which were given willingly by the employers or their governments. "In that sense, nothing much seems to have changed, with the huge Con-Dem austerity offensive which is attacking the poor, the sick and the unemployed - young and old. "For those in work, more is being demanded for less. 60% of those being affected by the cuts to welfare are working and there are 1 million workers claiming housing benefit - a figure that's doubled. 40% of the civil servants administering the new Universal Credit will be claiming it! The NSSN will be attending the countless May Day rallies to call on the TUC and the unions to name the date for a 24 hour general strike" At last week's TUC General Council meeting, lobbied by the NSSN (video-nssn-lobby-of-the-tuc/) it seems that the TUC agreed to organise a meeting of all unions currently engaged in strikes and those planning ballots. With 250,000 civil servants from the PCS taking action plus some 700,000 teachers about to recommence their dispute plus innumerable other smaller disputes currently taking place, this could be significant. Also, the government has made its final pay offer to millions of council workers confirming its 1% pay cap - effectively a 2% pay cut in real terms. The NSSN believes there is a basis for joint strike action on a similar scale to that of 30th November 2011, when up to two million public sector workers went on strike to defend their pensions. The NSSN was initiated by the RMT in 2006 and is holding its 7th annual conference in London on 29th June 2013. Speakers include PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka and the leaders of the CWU and the POA. Email - info@shopstewards.net Website - www.shopstewards.net Phone Rob Williams on 07816134690

Make the bedroom tax unworkable

In similar ways the bedroom tax has been the straw that broke the camels back and a little like the infamous poll tax which saw Margret Thatcher finally defeated this bedroom tax could become David Cameron and the tories very own poll tax. We need to make this tax unworkable with mass resistance and mass civil disobedience needed to defeat this vicious tax. The socialist party says : • No evictions of tenants who fall into rent arrears as a result of austerity cuts. Organise local campaigns to oppose the tax and defend our homes • Stand candidates against councillors who try to evict us. Build a new mass workers' party that draws together workers, young people and activists from workplaces and anti-cuts campaigns, to provide a fighting, political alternative to the pro-cuts parties • Cap rents and build homes. Invest in a major programme of council house building and refurbishment to provide affordable homes for all and decent jobs • End low pay! If workers are paid a genuinely living wage they would not need to claim housing benefit • Fight all the cuts. Trade unions must build for a 24-hour general strike as the next major step in the campaign against austerity • For a socialist alternative to cuts and capitalism with a democratic socialist plan of production based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people - not the 1% Many of those actively taking part in anti bedroom tax campaigns are mostly those not affected by this tax but want to get involved and lend solidarity all the same. More the better i say. It says everything about the major movement and politicisation that could develop that most of those participating are not affected by the bedroom tax but are acting in solidarity. The rage against the rich and their political representatives is palpable - the sheer injustice of bankers' bailouts and their bonuses, MPs' expenses, pay-day loan sharks, foodbanks, food prices, unemployment. There is also an understanding that those in power will not cease their attacks on the working class and gains of the past such as social housing unless they are forced to. 'Spare room' myth-busting! Myth #1: people have 'spare' bedrooms So-called 'spare' rooms aren't spare at all. The government's criteria mean children and young people are forced to share bedrooms with siblings - up to 16 if they're the same sex. They don't take into account people's disabilities which might mean they occasionally need someone to stay over to help them or to sleep separately from their partner. And if parents are separated, only one is entitled to have a room for their child. Myth #2: the bedroom tax is going to 'encourage people into work' It's hard to encourage people into jobs that don't exist. In some areas there are up to 20 jobseekers for every vacancy. And the government continues to cut more jobs from the public sector. Figures have shown all the schemes they've tried, including their heralded Work Programme, have failed to increase the numbers getting jobs. Besides, many of those affected by the bedroom tax are already in work - 90% of new housing benefit claimants from 2010-2012 have a job but are so poorly paid they are still entitled to support with housing costs - a bailout for stingy, low-paying bosses. Myth #3: the bedroom tax will result in a reduced housing benefit bill The housing benefit bill is so big because of high rents - mainly in the private sector but now social landlords can charge 80% of the market rate too. Private sector rents have increased by 86% in 40 years. The best way to reduce it is to introduce a cap on rents. People have been forced to move to urban areas to look for work, increasing the need for affordable housing. But the amount of social housing being built has fallen at the same time as the existing stock has been sold off. What the government really wants to do is attack the welfare state in every way possible and to force working and middle class people to pay for the bankers' crisis. Myth #4: it's only fair to create parity with the private sector The reduction in housing benefit for a spare room in the private sector hasn't always existed either. And the real problem is that there isn't enough decent housing, and virtually none that is really affordable. People being hit by the bedroom tax have nowhere to move to because of the massive shortage of social housing - mainly as a result of decades of successive governments continuing the sell-off of council housing. Myth #5: the £500 benefit cap is only bringing benefits in line with average wages This figure doesn't include benefits that people in work have to claim, including child benefit and working tax credits. That so many people earn less than £500 is a disgrace, best tackled by increasing the minimum wage, not bringing benefits even further into poverty levels. Those who are fighting this savage attack should stand in elections and join other anti-cuts campaigners in building a new mass party, based on ordinary working class people, to put an alternative to austerity on the agenda.

17 thousand blind people at risk from bedroom tax, time to fightback!

I’m registered as blind myself and reports in the daily Mirror have shocked me. They describe that up to 17,000 blind and partially sighted people could be affected by the Tories bedroom tax a spare room subsidy in affect. A report in the Sunday People gave a taste of what this will mean: the Royal national Institute for the Blind (RNIB) “An estimated 17,000 registered blind [people] face a forced move." One blind woman explains how she will be affected: "If I had to move I'd face weeks in isolation, unable to step outside the front door because it's too dangerous. "It's a long process to learn a new area. I'd have to wait for a trained guide to teach me the roads." Funding cuts mean there is a long waiting list for trainers who can help by plotting routes from blind people's homes to shops and bus routes. This woman is contemplating absorbing the extra rent into her meagre income - adding another candidate to the queues in Foodbank Britain. But the bedroom tax can be beaten. The death of Thatcher has reminded us of the battle against the hated poll tax that saw the tax defeated by a mass movement and eventually removed Thatcher from power. While there are differences with Thatcher's poll tax, her descendents' bedroom tax is rapidly becoming a focus for workers' anger over wider austerity: council tax benefit cuts, housing benefit changes, and all the myriad forms of misery we face. All anti-cuts campaigners, trade unionists and socialists should get behind the anti-bedroom tax movement as part of the campaign to defeat austerity. The Socialist Party says: • Scrap the bedroom tax! • No evictions! Call on council and housing associations to refuse to evict all tenants that fall into rent arrears as a result of austerity cuts. Organise local campaigns to defend our homes • Stand against councillors who try to evict us. Build a new mass workers' party that draws together workers, young people and activists from workplaces and anti-cuts campaigns, to provide a fighting, political alternative to the pro-cuts parties • Cap rents and build homes. Invest in a major programme of council house building and refurbishment to provide affordable homes for all and decent jobs • End low pay! If workers are paid a genuinely living wage they would not need to claim housing benefit • Fight all the cuts. Trade unions must build for a 24-hour general strike as the next major step in the campaign against all the cuts

Growing need for a 24 hour general strike

As the cuts deepen the need for a 24 hour general strike becomes clearer and clearer all the time. The socialist party and the NSSN’s calls for this seemed abstract at the time but are now gaining an echo. With unions such as Unite coming on board taking up the calls this could really take off. With one of the biggest trade unions in the UK calling for such actions the calls really gain extra weight and carry far more influence than before. The beginning of this month marks a step change in Con-Dem attacks on all workers. Class war has been ratcheted up, with the charge cynically led by Iain Duncan Smith (IDS) on £134,000 a year and living in a rent-free mansion. New Coalition welfare rules will see the poorest face swingeing cuts; the disabled penalised even more; and to top it all, cuts to housing benefit for the “crime” of having a so-called spare bedroom will kick in. If they get away with all this then the next step looks like being the freezing, or even cutting, of the minimum wage. Meetings and protests have been getting off the ground all over the country like Hull, Swansea, Leeds and elsewhere. It feels a bit like the early days of the anti-poll tax campaign. Reminiscent also of the poll tax struggle, the biggest protest so far has taken place in Scotland, where last Saturday 5000 marched in Glasgow, and a further 2000 in Edinburgh demanding “Bin the bedroom tax”. The fighting spirit of all the angry demonstrators was not in any doubt. But we have to ask – where is the fighting spirit of the leaders of our most powerful defence organisations the trade unions? What plans are they making? We have heard media reports of churches and voluntary bodies coming out against the changes, pleading the case not to penalise the poor. We have heard Labour front benchers criticise the changes, but at the same time remain welded to free market policies and steadfastly refuse to commit to reversing Tory cuts if they come to power. In a meeting at the end of the Glasgow demo Rob Williams Chair of NSSN got a huge cheer when he demanded that the trade union leaders start organising now for a 24-hour general strike where everyone, both in the public and private sector can join together with community campaigners, the unemployed, students, disabled and pensioners in a day of mass action to demand these changes are immediately withdrawn. The government have done so many U-turns on various issues we have almost stopped counting! They could be beaten on this. The anti-poll tax struggle played a significant role in melting the iron lady Margaret Thatcher. The TUC and millions of workers could crumple these paper tigers Cameron and Clegg. The TUC general council will be discussing the general strike at its next meeting on Wednesday 24th April. NSSN has called a lobby outside Congress House from 8.30am onwards, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS. We urge as many as possible to be there. (LINDA Taaffe NSSN National Sec )

It’s no longer enough just to get angry

With the rising tide of austerity washing over us in Britain and across Europe it is starting to dawn on people how big this is. This is not the 1980’s and could surpass even the great depression. The crisis has already lasted longer even if not as deep quite yet. The crisis capitalism finds itself in is huge and fundamental. This is not simply a cyclical crisis which a few temporary fix’s can fix this is a crisis of the actual system itself. Not structural but fundamental and this crisis is not going away anytime soon. So I ask you are it enough just to get angry shout at your TV moan with your mates in the pub going on a few demonstrations. Sadly it no longer is bigger bolder action is going to be needed to stop austerity and go further to ending this crisis ridden system of capitalism for good. While the 1% increases their wealth as a result of the crisis the poorest in society are suffering hugely under the weight of cuts, privatisation and an onslaught on their living standards. We can’t simply vote this system out of existence either. I do support the campaign for a new workers party but that alone will not be enough we need to arm people with the ideas and the hope to change society. Show people victories are possible and things do not have to be this way. Sometimes it does feel like the trade union leaders and society is fixed and cannot be changed but society has changed in the past and will again in fact it is under the surface all the time. Marxism the political guidance of revolutionaries gives us a guide to changing society. While things feel and seem quiet on the surface big seismic changes are going on beneath the surface and bubbling under waiting for that “straw that broke the c camels s back” this is the breaking point which turns quantity into quality and produces a shift in consciousness and things at that point can change very quickly. The working class is stunned in many ways under the weight of cuts and austerity and while suffering huge defeats in the 80’s and the collapse of Stalinism has set it back decades in consciousness. It’s for us Marxists to reinspire workers to show that struggle is the only way not hopelessly relying on MP’s and our leaders to do it for us. Only by struggle from below can we affect change. Peoples thinking can catch up very quickly we must be aware of that. I think this April may be a turning point in the fight against austerity. We must be prepared to step up the fight for a 24 hour general strike within the unions and take the fight to our union leaders as well as the capitalists themselves. As more often than not the union leaders are acting as blocks on the movement and holding back struggle. If the leaders won’t budge we will have to go round them or remove them I’m afraid. You cannot halt the progress of society history and the idea of system change is reappearing on the scene and the working class will pick up the mantle of trying to change society. People won’t take this laying down but also we need to provide direction and examples of struggles. It’s no coincidence Trotsky once described Marxists as the memory of the working class looking to speed up the process of drawing workers ideas to the idea of changing society towards a socialist society b asked on the needs of the many over the few.

march 26 2011 a look back, TUC vacated struggle for now

2 years ago today we were on the embankment in London lining up to march against the cuts the first major demonstration since the con-dems came to power. There was great noise and expectation that this could be the start of a mass fight back by the unions and the working class as a result. Yet today looking back 2 years on we’re left wondering what was it all for? Hearing big grand speeches from union leader after union leader we need to go further one march is not enough one day strike action is not enough yet barring November the 30th 2011 was a big march up a hill and back again. The TUC disgracefully has still not responded to the consultation on the consideration of a general strike agreed at last year’s TUC congress in September which the NSSN lobbied. I hear today unison one of the biggest public sector unions has the lowest days lost to strike action in its history at this present time one strike and one strike ballot live at present apparently. That for me sums up the trade union leadership absolute capitulation to the cuts a willingness to rush into negotiations before fighting. November the 30th sell out by right wing trade union leaders set our movement back a huge way from a point we were at a weak point anyway before. Thinking back to march 26th 2011 I was full of optimism I’d just joined the socialist party and felt the working class was awakening again to take on this vicious undemocratic government yet we’re in this big lull at the moment waiting and intervening where we can waiting to see which way the class turns . But I can’t help feeling March 26 and the following year was a big disappointment and an opportunity lost. The following year in October of 2012 there was far less on the demonstration a “future that works” was the title not march for the alternative this time and from a demonstration of 500 k plus in 2011 was probably less than half of that who c amen on October the 20th. No doubt disillusioned and disheartened by the continued sell outs of union leaders and a failure to take the struggle on. While labour politicians used both platforms to spout their too far and too fast line rightly miliband got booed on the last demo. No pro cuts MP should be invited from now on in my view it disarms us. We will again be lobbying the TUC with the NSSN this April on the 24th when the general council meets again. We cannot let these bureaucrats off the hook. If it has to be we will go it alone PCS has already shown it is prepared to fight even if no other unions are alongside them. This is far from ideal and PCS must be supported with solidarity and other unions joining the action next time. The Tories are out for unions like the PCS so they need our solidarity and what better way than to get other unions to join the action. Unity is strength in this case. March 26th will live long in the memory for me one of my first big demonstrations and inspirational in some ways yet it could have been so much more. We must remember that going forward learn from our setbacks so we do not make the same mistakes again.