Do we support ATOS workers on strike ?

Normally i support all workers in struggle when up against the boss's but this latest strike has caused me difficulty and i'm not sure i can fully support the ATOS workers strike today. Being disabled and knowing many who have already been through assessments at the hands of ATOS i am just sickened by them the whole lot. People may say oh well its not the workers fault but that they have to do these assessments on some of the most in need people out there but i'd counter that by saying well they choose to work for ATOS and well what kind of person if you knew what ATOS were like and their reputation out there with disabled people and beyond would in their right mind take a job with them ? This dispute appears to be over pay this time though and Mark Serwotka the general secretary of the PCS union as i have published below claims these ATOS workers are hard working. This they may be but they are also inflicting pain and misery on many disabled people. The PCS again does not come out of this looking great i'm afraid. In a Union News Uk article "Around 2,000 PCS members working for ATOS are today on strike over a 2% pay rise at a time when their boss received a 14% rise and took home £2.3m. The French multinational company runs a number of privatised government contracts, including DWP medical examinations, National Savings, the Equitable Life compensation scheme and delivering IT support for customers such as the BBC. Staff working in healthcare have been offered a 2% rise; those working in IT services have been offered 2.8% in return for signing new terms and conditions that affect their annual leave. Last year Atos chief executive and chairman Thierry Breton was awarded a near 14% rise of £279,992, taking his total wage and reward package to £2,329,250. PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said : ‘PCS members will take action unless they get a fair pay deal. If the company can afford a 14% pay rise for its chief executive it can afford to reward its low paid hard working staff fairly. “Our members are angry and determined. Like workers elsewhere they have seen the money in their pockets and purses reduce, whilst food costs, energy costs, transport costs soar. This must end. Our members are being asked to suffer austerity whilst the cream from the £1.6 billion government contracts that Atos hold is skimmed off for the bosses and shareholders of this multinational company” Today’s action is likely to be the first in a series of walkouts that will seriously affect the company’s ability to meet government service level agreements on all of the contracts where PCS organise. The union will also embark on a “work to rule” from the 6th November that will impact on the company’s performance. * In Derbyshire, Atos, which assesses the capability of disabled people for work, will this morning be the focus of a demonstration by Unite members over the way it treats its clients. Unite’s local community group will be staging a ‘United Nations’ stunt at the Atos Healthcare Chesterfield Assessment Centre at Lordsmill Street, Chesterfield S41 7RW at 10.30am when a UN land rover with lights flashing will arrive to start ‘the probe’. Investigators, flanked by men and women in the trademark blue berets, will conduct ‘an investigation into alleged human rights abuses’. Unite community activist Colin Hampton, who is organising the demo, said “Many citizens in north Derbyshire have complained about their treatment at the hands of Atos which carries out the work capability assessments (WCAs). “A number of people, who have stories to tell of their treatment at the Lordsmill offices, will be there to give their testimony. The ‘investigators’ will attempt to question management and staff to ascertain the extent of the alleged abuses due to the implementation of government policy.” The Unite community group is also calling for a conference to be held in Chesterfield, early in the New Year to gather further evidence and propose changes to the current policy and systems, with the aim of restoring dignity to the sick, the disabled, and those that are out of work. " with thanks to http://union-news.co.uk/2013/11/atos-workers-living-wage-turn-heat-boss-claiming-2-3m/

NSSN to step up pressure on the TUC, name the day!

After the NSSN’s fantastic lobby of the TUC back in September almost 3 months on the TUC has still not called the day for a 24 hour general strike. We knew this wasn’t going to be easy or a demand it and it happens despite our calls in the past of 24 hour public sector strikes and a national demo. This time it’s different much bigger in what we are demanding. After N14 last week it is about time the British labour movement join our brothers and sisters on the continent on strike. We need the biggest pressure we can mount on the leaders of our movement only a movement from below like the NSSN which is becoming a force in the labour movement now not decisive but a significant force. We need to keep passing motions in our unions and trades council but this lobby too will be important. The NSSN which has now had 11 regional public meetings/conferences is really building a name for itself. Let’s make our voices heard on the 11th of December. The National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) is organising a lobby of the TUC General Council when it meets on Tuesday 11th December. It will assemble from 9.30am at Congress House in Great Russell Street, London. NSSN national chair Rob Williams said: Up to a thousand union activists came to our lobby of the TUC conference in Brighton in September to encourage TUC delegates to vote for the POA motion which called on the TUC to consider the practicalities of organising a general strike against the brutal austerity offensive from this government of the rich. The motion was overwhelmingly passed and the idea of a 24-hour general strike dominated the magnificent demonstrations in London, Glasgow and Belfast on October 20th which saw over 150,000 marches against the cuts. On the London platform, Bob Crow of the RMT, Mark Serwotka - PCS and Len McCluskey - Unite, called for this coordinated action across the public and private sectors. The incredible November 14th European-wide day of action against austerity saw general strikes in Greece, Spain and Portugal and strikes, protests and demonstrations throughout the continent. Speakers on the NSSN stage at the London 20th October protest called on the TUC and the union leaders to name the day for a 24-hour general strike when they next meet together on 11th December. The NSSN understands that this would need proper preparation and organisation with workplace and town hall meetings throughout the country explaining why this action is necessary in order to build maximum support for it as the start of the action needed to defeat the attacks that are raining down on us. Therefore, a date in the New Year or the first couple of months in 2012 would allow this but the main thing is to name the date now. The NSSN calls on all its supporters and fellow trade unionists to come on the lobby to make our voice heard.

NSSN conference 2012 the hot breath on the necks of the trade union leaders

Yesterday Saturday the 9th of June in London’s friends meeting house probably the most militant layers of the labour movement met for the 6th annual National Shops Stewards Network conference. What a fantastic opening and the bar was set high with the standard of PCS Union’s general secretary Mark Serwotka opened the conference with a rousing speech. Assessing the last year where so much has gone on since we last met in a smaller room which is testament to how far the NSSN has come in just a year.

The potential for a mass rank-and-file organisation like the NSSN which was set up for periods of crisis like we are living through now. The NSSN was originally set up in 2006 by the RMT union and various other lefts in the unions with the intention of holding the unions leadership to account. SO far the NSSN has played a vital role in the struggles of the working class as disputes are increasing all the time.

This year we heard some fantastic accounts of the brave fighting militant sparks and construction workers who defeated the bully boys in the construction industry and took unofficial action every Wednesday at various locations around the country going beyond the unions official leadership and this is a victory we must celebrate and look to build on. Victories of such groups of the sparks was helped by organisations such as the NSSN and this was one of the main reasons like this for setting it up to lend to support to ordinary workers in struggle.

The NSSN despite being widely written off a few years back is clearly going from strength to strength with a turnout of 400+ delegates this weekend alone and those were just the ones who could make it this weekend.
There was fantastic speech’s and calls for action and to go further into the unions and continue to build for October the 20th mass TUC demonstration but it was made clear that this cannot be enough and the call was put out to start building the slogans for a all out general strike involving the public and private sector. Each one of our slogans last year of a mass demonstration then a 24 hour public sector general strike went down really well too so we’re hoping this can lead to bigger, wider escalated action on pensions of course as that battle is far from lost as mochas the right wing union leads and the government would have you believe.

There is also an opportunity to tie the pensions battle into other big national disputes such as regional pay and pay freeze’s that some in the public sector have faced for some years now.

The NSSN as the title suggested can play an important role in acting as a lever on the trade union movement lending support and supporting those who wish to go above and beyond their union and beat back this government intent on making ordinary people pay for a crisis not of their making.

Speaker after speaker made it clear there is an alternative and if we fight we can win. Although celebrating victories in the last year it was clear that these attacks on our living standards, pay, benefits and standards of life will only continue we are only an estimated 15% into the proposed public sector spending cuts. Which is frightening in itself time after time the NHS was talked of and the need to keep fighting to defend the jewel in the labour movement’s chest. It is clear that all disputes are linked up and not lead to separate disputes as as a class we are all under attack not some more than others. An injury to one is an injury to all was another slogan put out that is still very
apt.
With the democratic nature of the NSSN with so many key speakers from key disputes telling their story as they saw it and not spun or twisted genuine workers stories was hugely inspiring indeed.

The conference confirmed to me that the NSSN is still very well placed to grow and gain influence and give a voice to the rank-and-file in all the unions. We don’t look to replace the unions but act as a lever where the union’s leaders shirk their responsibilities. If they will not act to defend their members then we will move them aside and change the unions from the bottom up.

There is plenty for us to get our teeth in and the NSSN is always looking for donations and support from trade unionists or trades councils so if you can lend supporting anyway please do.

March 26th a year on, where is the anti cuts movement heading?

A year ago today we were heading to London from all over the country to descend on what we’d hoped to be one of the biggest predominantly working class demonstrations for many years. We were not disappointed an estimated 750,000 working class people and anti cut protesters out on the streets of London. Almost as many who are set to lose their jobs in the public sector due to the con-dem government cuts agenda.

A year on this feels a very long time ago this demonstration I thought I’d look at what has happened since then and the fight back that has or has not ensued.

To even get a national demonstration was incredibly hard work the good comrades at the NSSN were up in Manchester the September before demanding and lobbying the TUC to call a mass national demonstration. They were eventually dragged kicking and screaming to call one. It just goes to show what can be achieved when the TUC lift their little finger.

But the day itself was fantastic many great moments and speech’s and lots of calls to arms. One of the best and well received speech’s came from the PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka who proclaimed today we have marched together tomorrow we must strike together.

This was one of the main messages to come out of the day I felt where we go from here. The NSSN and the socialist party made a terrific intervention on that day giving out thousands of leaflets and selling almost as many papers. A special edition was printed for that day giving a very agitation message to workers picking up our paper for the first time that these cuts can be defeated if we take the right choices.

As we have seen over the last year possibly some of those choices haven’t been taken and a reluctance to fight on the behalf of some in our movement has held us back.

The socialist party has been impeccable in its stance against all cuts be them carried out by Tories, lib dems or labour councils. This has not been widely taken up with some on the left still till this day defending labour councils who pass on Tory cuts unfortunately.


One man who was on the march last year Ed Miliband has himself confirmed that any future labour government will not reverse any of the Tory cuts and instead add a further pay freeze to public sector pay as a bonus. Some anti cuts mood ay?

SO we cannot put our faith in the labour party they have shown themselves to be defenders of the capitalist system and a defender of cuts. This is not acceptable in the anti cuts movement and should not be in the labour movement either. The disgraceful selling out of trade union leaders over the pension dispute in the public sector is evidence of this treachery and a fear of upsetting a labour party who seem to want to curb the unions even further still by weakening their link even further.

March 26th 2011 will go down in history as one of the biggest working class demonstrations ever but unfortunately the response since then has been slow in coming and hard work. November the 30th last year was huge and very impressive but bigger and more concerted efforts by the trade unions is needed. I am not sure whether another national demonstration like March 26th would be beneficial. Certainly for the NHS it could be vital to raise people’s morale that the NHS can be saved. On the question of cuts I think workers are turning to other means including standing in local elections. TUSC again as I have blogged about on here countless times will be standing widely once again hoping to catch the mood of workers when they shift in consciousness.
There is an alternative out there and TUSC offers this in the London GLA elections and right across the country. If you don’t have a TUSC candidate standing in your area why not join in and stand yourself. If you are against all cuts and privatisation and agree with our basic programme you can stand for TUSC too in the coming may 3rd elections.

National demonstrations are good but not enough in their own we pointed this out at the time industrial action on a co-ordinated determined level is needed. We have started that and the working class has re emerged onto the battle scene but far more is needed and I am sure as this period develops we will see more strikes, occupations and demonstrations. Will it be enough to bring this government down.....? Only time will tell

The role the NSSN has played in the struggles so far

The left was seen by many to have taken its time to organise a proper fightback to the cuts and austerity but we can be in no doubt now that the trade unions and the left is here and fighting back. We in the National shops stewards network can feel very proud of the role we have played so far in the struggles against the cuts and privatisation.

The increasingly important role the NSSN is playing in the anti-cuts movement means that the democratic debates which took place at the beginning of the year on whether the NSSN should launch an anti-cuts campaign at all now seem a distant memory.
Events have quickly confirmed that the NSSN was right to do so.

Split from SWP
Nonetheless it is worthwhile briefly commenting on recent developments in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) because they have so clearly confirmed many of the points made by the Socialist Party in the debate at the beginning of the year.

In the run up to the January NSSN conference the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) was among the most vociferous opponents of an NSSN anti-cuts campaign being launched on the spurious grounds that it would unnecessarily divide the movement to launch another national anti-cuts campaign when Coalition of Resistance (CoR) and Right to Work (RtW) were already in existence.

In the anti-cuts movement there is rightly and inevitably a mood for unity. Nonetheless, as was understood by a large majority of delegates at the NSSN anti-cuts conference, to attempt to use that mood as a reason to oppose the NSSN launching its own anti-cuts campaign was completely disingenuous.

The NSSN has consistently argued for the maximum possible cooperation between the national anti-cuts campaigns. To give just two examples from recent weeks the NSSN invited RtW and CoR to speak on its stages at the TUC demo and has taken part in joint delegations to discuss with the TUC.

However, to merge the three campaigns into one organisation would only be a step forward if the net result was an open, democratic anti-cuts campaign organised around a clear, fighting programme.

So as we move towards the autumn with the high possibility of big mass strikes to come in the public sector we feel that the NSSN has and still is playing a key role in the fight against the cuts. I do feel at present though we do have to keep trying to reach out to other parts of the working class such as the reserve army of workers AKA the unemployed, the disabled, the elderly and women too of course.

On 30 November, two to three million public sector workers will be on strike to defend their pensions. More workers will be out than on the first day of the 1926 general strike.

The NSSN is proud of the role that it's played in paving the way. On 11 September we lobbied the TUC Congress and held a rally under the slogan of a 24-hour public sector general strike. Over 700 shop stewards and trade unionists listened to leading union speakers such as Mark Serwotka of the PCS and Bob Crow of the RMT.

This government of millionaires can be defeated by coordinated strike action. Millions of workers striking together can stop the Con-Dems in their tracks. And if one day is not enough to force a u-turn, we must prepare for a two-day strike as the next stage of the escalating action.

In all the workplace meetings, shop stewards' committees and union branch committees, the message has to be hammered home that workers shouldn't pay the price for the bankers' crisis.

Workers have shown their determination to fight at every opportunity they've been given this year. Over 500,000 marched against the cuts in London on 26 March and over 750,000 civil servants, teachers and lecturers went on strike against the pension attacks on 30 June.

But the first job for 30 November is to win the strike ballots with an overwhelming vote. Meetings have to be organised in every workplace. Where there is more than one union, these could be joint meetings. Members of the PCS, NUT, UCU and ATL unions who were out on 30 June and have live strike mandates should be invited to speak. This can give confidence to the many workers who haven't been on strike before.

These can be supplemented by public meetings and rallies in towns and cities and on estates to draw in other working class people - young people and all those who suffer from and oppose the cuts, including private sector workers who also face job losses and pay and pension cuts.

The NSSN encourages all private sector workers involved in current disputes to consider coordinating their industrial action with the strike on 30 November. As Mark Serwotka said at the NSSN rally on 11 September: "Low-paid workers in the private sector are exploited by shareholders and executives, not by fellow low-paid workers in the public sector."

A victory for public sector workers on pensions, by forcing a retreat or even the downfall of this government, would raise the confidence to fight back.

What you can do:
If your union is balloting, you could organise a workplace meeting, if applicable jointly with other unions. This should form the basis for democratic control of the strike
You could organise a public meeting in your town or city with the unions in dispute or trades council, anti-cuts campaign or NSSN. Explain the need to prepare for further action if necessary
Plan a demonstration in your town or city on the day of the strike
All united - invite private sector workers, young people, unemployed, pensioners, etc to any public meetings, rallies and demonstrations

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In this issue


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Building for 30 November strike

Mass strikes can


Many call for unity at these times but certainly on the industrial front against cuts this is key and teh NSSN i feel is leading the way showing a lead in the struggles against the boss's. With big unions and trade union leaders now backing the network such as Bob Crow and Mark Serwotka two of the more militant trade unin leaders out there are highlighting the role the NSSN has played in putting pressure on the TUC to call for a 24 hour public sector general strike. We feel that we added to the feeling and the pressure by lobbying the TUC on the 11th of september and will happily do so again next year if need be. We will not rest and sit by while our fellow workers in the public and private sector are under attack. We need a organisation like the NSSN to bring together all of the struggles unite under one banner and give support quickly and effectively when needed to workers.

The NSSN is key in the struggle as it gives rank-and-file trade unionists a voice and a network to organise in. To learn off each other and unite our struggles.

I think we can feel proud of our role and i hope the NSSN continues to grow and remain strong, democratic and a fighting organisation for militant trade unionists.

Capitalism stuck in a blind alley

This excellent article below is from this weeks socialist, the socialist paper from the socialist party of England and Wales. It is by Peter Taaffe the general secretary of the party who sums up how capitalism lies in Britain today and how it has no answers to the crisis it finds itself in apart from making the working class pay.

'Murdochgate' is in effect Britain's Watergate - it has acted as a catalyst for all the gathering discontent that exists with the government and the system it defends. The News of the World (NoW) web of intrigue links the government, particularly David Cameron, to what some have called "institutionalised criminality" including the police.

As Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian commented: "No wonder the [Metropolitan Police] was so lethargic in investigating hacking: why look too deeply into the affairs of people who represent either a meal ticket or a future paycheck?"

Freedland compared this crisis to the revolutionary movement in Romania in 1989 when the Stalinist dictator Ceausescu was booed at a mass rally in Bucharest. This led to a revolution which overthrew him and his system.

Sarah Brown, wife of former Labour prime minister Gordon, invited Rebekah Brooks, former editor of the News of the World, to a 'pyjama party' at 10 Downing Street even after that paper had threatened to run an exposé on her son's health! Brown himself attended Brooks's wedding, alongside the rest of the New Labour glitterati.

David Cameron also hosted News Corporation figures at Chequers, the prime minister's country home, estimated in 2007 to have cost the taxpayer £1,738 a day to run. Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch's son James and others were entertained there.

The trigger to the crisis was the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone. Just to say the words 'they hacked the phone of a dead school student' produces nausea. A single incident can encapsulate all the doubts, all the horror in relation to the capitalist system.

Miliband


Labour leader Ed Miliband was on the ropes after the self-inflicted damage of repeatedly condemning the public sector pension strikes, provoking enormous anger. Even the question of his leadership was discussed within New Labour.

But he seized the time, recognising that the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone was a defining moment. By openly challenging Murdoch, he tied his fate to destroying the authority of Murdoch. As a result, he has gained a certain kudos.

Will it last? That is unlikely, no more probable than Barack Obama's ratification of the assassination of Bin Laden guarantees him a second term as US president. It is the economy, the bread and butter issues, which will shape the outcome of the next US election.

The BSkyB deal is finished. It doesn't mean that the Murdoch empire is finished yet. But as the Financial Times (FT) points out, if they had tried to carry the deal through the repercussions against would have been even greater.

News Corp's British newspapers are not its main asset internationally, with its Fox TV network, spewing out right wing propaganda, still making huge profits in the US. Nevertheless the company's share price has fallen 20% following the scandal.

As a result of his cosy relationship with Murdoch, Cameron is desperately struggling to maintain his position. Miliband, like the man who milks the cow only to kick over the bucket, undermined his new-found popularity by agreeing a common parliamentary position with the Tories and Lib Dems.

And, of course, he too previously danced to the tune of Murdoch, quaffing champagne at his summer party only weeks ago. For the three capitalist parties, Tory chancellor George Osborne's "We're all in it together" never sounded so appropriate.

However, we socialists and working class fighters like Scottish socialist Tommy Sheridan are not and never have been 'in it'. The Socialist Party took the political position that the case against Tommy was a frame-up. We, and all those who stood by Tommy, have been proved correct.

Following the Murdoch revelations, in particular around the role of Cameron's "friend", Andy Coulson, former NoW editor and central to the trial in Scotland, there has been a sea-change in Scotland, especially amongst the working class. The general feeling expressed on the streets and on radio and television is that Tommy Sheridan was framed and should be released immediately.

Brooks's departure and the sensational resignation of Metropolitan Police commissioner Stephenson, while welcome, are insufficient. We demand not a judge's but a workers' inquiry. The TUC should front it and the print unions, journalists and printers who were sacked at Wapping should form the basis of an independent inquiry by the working class.

30 June

Much to the relief of Miliband, Cameron et al, the magnificent strikes of 30 June have been temporarily pushed out of the media spotlight by the drama of this crisis. But from the point of view of the working class and ourselves, this development has been the most important event in Britain in the last period.

The capitalist press jeered that, in the light of the convulsive movements in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy, there didn't seem to be mass protests in Britain. This was even after the epic 26 March mass demonstration! Two days before the biggest trade union strikes in recent history, the Guardian ran an article: "Where is the anger now?"

Teachers, it was argued, don't have the power of the miners or other industrial workers who went on strike in the past. We argued otherwise, especially today, where so many parents work full-time. Schools occupy a crucial position. Teachers coming out on strike have a massive indirect effect on workplaces and industry.

In the strike and its aftermath, the government lost the argument over pensions. Perversely, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude claimed the voter turnout for strike action showed that civil service workers in the PCS union were not with the leadership.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka challenged that if Maude and the government really wanted to know trade union members' feeling, they should wait for the 30 June strikes. He also argued that the government should remove the ban, introduced by New Labour in 1999, on online voting for strike ballots.

On 30 June, workers massively answered the strike call. Far more than voted for the strike, in the NUT, ATL and UCU teaching unions and the PCS, participated in the hugely successful strike and demos. The strike represented a big defeat for the government and the employers' propaganda barrage. Maude then refused to appear on TV on the night of the strike to argue his case for attacking pensions.

Change of tack
Significantly, the government then changed tack. As we go to press, it appears that a deal including a 12-week consultation period is being dangled in front of local government trade unions. This is a blatant attempt to undermine the campaign for a four million-strong one-day public sector general strike in the autumn.

It wasn't just the government and the employers who were frightened by the power that was shown on 30 June; the conservative officialdom - the right wing within the trade union movement - also took fright. Dave Prentis, general secretary of the largest public sector union Unison, was manoeuvring behind the scenes.

Both Prentis and the government believe that they can arrive at some kind of a deal by limiting the increase to contributions of workers to the Local Government Pension Scheme, thus evading strike action. In other words, there is an attempt by the government with the connivance of right wing union leaders to counterpose negotiations to mass struggle.

Of course, if a victory can be won through negotiation all well and good. Workers do not support strikes just for the sake of it. But in this battle the government is most likely to be pushed back through action.

The government now wants to reach an agreement; if 50% of contributors are forced to opt out of the local government scheme, which amounts to tens of billions of pounds, it could fold. Together with other factors this could trigger a stock exchange collapse, thus enormously aggravating the current economic crisis.

Prentis is trying to ignore pressure from ordinary union members. The left in Unison must step in. Unison members face savage job cuts and attacks on wages, with the 'fire and rehire' approach to undermining workers' conditions, as attempted in Southampton, Shropshire and Labour-led Waltham Forest, for example.

The demand for a recall conference in order to press for a fighting programme of national action must be raised. Support for such a programme is inherent in the localised but ferocious battles that are developing across the country; in Southampton rubbish piles up on the streets but support for the strike by council refuse workers remains high.

There is now a visible and appreciable hardening of the mood of the working class. It is true that, as Murdochgate has shown, the ruling class in Britain is capable of bending in the face of hostile social pressures. But working class resistance to the cuts is also stiffening and a strong leadership can be decisive in securing victories.

Inequality
It is clear that capitalism, based as it is on the werewolf-like search for profit, is not able to escape this present impasse easily. In fact everything the capitalists have done, including the huge stimulus packages, has not solved the situation.

The relentless search for easy profits over the last three decades has accumulated massive problems for capitalism. Rising inequality is basically a growth in the share of the wealth taken by the bosses and a diminution in the share taken by the working class.

Median wages in the US were actually stagnant or declined for 20 years before this crisis. Cheap goods from China, cheap debt and low inflation went some way to softening the situation. But these factors have now changed or are likely to soon with, for instance, a slowdown in the Chinese economy, which could even become part of the worsening situation.

We are now supposed to be in a recovery! We have the phenomenon now of long-term permanent unemployment; 850,000 people in Britain have been unemployed for 12 months or longer. That's an indication of the sickness of the system.

The government claims to be in favour of 'job creation' yet 84 people are chasing every job in Merthyr Tydfil. This indicates the incapacity of capitalism in a 'phase of recovery' to be able to deliver jobs. In effect, we are in a double dip recession.

The international economic position is even more explosive now than earlier this year, compounded by the programme of 'fiscal consolidation', cuts in living standards. The potential for another Lehman Brothers-type event on a European scale is rooted in the situation. There's not just a sovereign debt crisis, but another potential banking crisis aggravated by Credit Default Swaps - the insurance on defaults - which are hidden in the system. The euro, in its present form, is doomed.

In general these factors mean that capitalism is stuck in a blind alley even if there's some economic growth. However, in Britain, estimates suggest only 0.1% growth in the last quarter. That is, as the figures show, insufficient to absorb the labour of the working class. All the targets of the government, even the most pessimistic, lie in ruins.

There is no question that elements of a pre-revolutionary situation exist in many countries, certainly in Greece. But some of these features exist in Britain also. The capitalist class is beginning to see the seriousness of the situation.

The consequences of the crisis can be seen in every single sector. The high streets have faced carnage with shops shutting daily; even the likes of TJ Hughes discount stores - a landmark in Liverpool, founded in 1912 - have closed their doors.

The dilemma and the stupidity of British capitalism are summed up in the sell-out of Bombardier in Derby. Thirty years after the Specials first performed their song, Derby could be reduced to a 'Ghost Town'.

For workers facing the loss of their livelihood, it's not enough for the trade unions to express opposition - they also have to consider occupation to prevent job losses and the movement of machinery out of the factory.

When you get library workers in an east London borough threatening to bring sleeping bags into work to occupy their libraries against closure, it is an indication of the temper of the mood and the possibilities that are developing.

The collapse of industrial investment is ominous. The Con-Dems' promise, their 'ark of the covenant', was that huge job losses in the public sector would be offset by the private sector. There is no possibility of this taking place.

Yet the public sector has been slashed and we face the cheap sell-off of public assets on an industrial scale. This year alone almost 3,000 contracts have been awarded to private firms.

Privatisation
The government's recent public services White Paper spells it out. Only frontline police, the judiciary and the army will not face outsourcing. Privatisation for the capitalists flows from their huge surplus of liquidity. There is no profitable enough outlet for it in industrial investment. The capitalists think that only by dismantling the state sector can there be any way out for capitalism.

But for the government this is not straightforward - every measure they take rebounds on them. Their plans for a cruel and, as the Socialist described, unworkable cap on benefits to £26,000 a household will result in 40,000 families losing their homes. Local authorities are expected to house them. What's more, we now know they have been aware of this for some time.

But the ruling class is, for the time being, locked into the policy of 'austerity'. Take the situation with housing. There is massive homelessness and growing unemployment, including among construction workers, yet bricks and mortar lay idle. Instead of public investment in house building as recommended in a recent Sheffield Hallam University study, we have the return of 'Rachmanism', the super-exploitation of tenants in squalid conditions by slum landlords. There is a catastrophe in education and in the NHS, where privatisation and £20 billion of cuts are going ahead.

It is impossible for the working class to remain dormant. The Daily Mirror's Kevin Maguire agrees with the Socialist that the government might not last the year. If the Con-Dems do manage to struggle on it will be mainly due to the incapacity of Labour and the trade union leaders to press home the advantage now.

Can Labour be changed? It is being changed - but not into a vehicle for struggle. Miliband, Peter Hain and others in the Labour leadership are proposing subsuming the remaining elements of the party into a 'movement', dissolving the branches and diluting any remaining power from the trade unions.

Nonetheless, defections by New Labour councillors and splits cannot be ruled out. Under the pressure of working class movements, the most unlikely types can be forced to act.

And the working class is moving to the left, socially if not yet politically. Thousands have joined the unions in the wake of the 30 June strike. The middle class is also affected. Every promise to them has been broken; their houses could be 'repossessed' to pay for care in old age and their children, denied not only this inheritance but also an education and a future, will be radicalised.

In this context, a determined opposition, even a small, but independent new workers' party, based on struggle, with a socialist programme could be decisive.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

News International scandal

Force Cameron out!

What next to defeat the cuts

in this week socialist paper from the socialsit party is a excellent editorial frm Hannah Sell assistant general secretary of the party who will be speaking in stevenage on Monday 18th of July if anyone is interested.

this article below takes a snapshot of where we find ourselves and the way forward, from a socialist perspective, you may or may not agree with all the proposals put forward but thought you'd be interested to hear Hannah's thoughts.

"They thought we wouldn't do it, they thought we'd lie down and let them walk all over us. They were wrong". This is how Mary Bousted, general secretary of the most 'moderate' union taking part in the 30 June strike - the ATL, summed up the mood of the strikers, to huge applause, at the London rally.

Those who took part in the strike action are now walking a head taller. A new generation has been imbued with the confidence that comes from taking part in effective collective action.

If the huge TUC demo on 26 March was a powerful show of strength by the trade union movement, on 30 June battle with the government was engaged for the first time.

This was the biggest single day of strike action since the 1980s. The strikes were overwhelmingly solid - decisively answering the government propaganda that a majority in the unions taking action did not support the strike. Overall at least 200,000 - 84% of PCS members - took strike action, far more than the 70,000 who voted in the ballot.

As Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS civil service union put it: "It is not voting in the ballot that matters, it is voting with your feet." PCS members in Downing Street even took strike action, as did 90% of all civilian police support workers, who are organised by the PCS.

For the first time in five years PCS members from the Cabinet Office organised and ran a picket line outside the main entrance to their department. The teachers' strike was just as solid, with more than 11,000 schools closing for the day.

And this was definitely not a 'duvet day' strike. In London a third or more of all NUT members participated in the demonstration. The same could be said of the marches and rallies that took place in virtually every town and city in Britain.

While all the major capitalist parties in Westminster attacked the strikes, with only a handful of MPs - who really do have 'gold-plated' pensions - refusing to cross the PCS picket lines, it is a different story with the population as a whole.

It is widely understood that the strikes were about defending all public services from the Con-Dems' slaughter, as well as the right to a decent pension. The picket lines and rallies were deafened by the constant sound of drivers honking their support for the strike.

Support

Click for gallery. 12 pics Manchester, photos Hugh Caffrey (Click to enlarge)

The latest opinion polls show the Con-Dems have lost the argument on public sector pensions, with a clear majority opposing the government's proposals. There have been desperate attempts by the capitalist press to whip up anti-strike hysteria - including the Daily Mail trying to blame the strike for the tragic death of a school student who was killed by a falling branch.

But the polls show opinion as being evenly divided. A new Guardian/ICM poll found 41% support the strike, as opposed to 42% who did not, with YouGov finding similar. However, among women, young people, and those in the North and Midlands a majority supported the strikes.

The government looks, and is, very weak as it scratches around to find a justification for its wholesale attack on pensions. As the pressure mounts on the government the cracks in the coalition are beginning to widen over a whole number of issues.

The latest divisions to be revealed could lead to another u-turn. Cracks are forming between sections of the Tory Party over the consequences of their brutal attacks on benefits. A letter written by the private secretary of Eric Pickles, Tory communities minister, to Cameron in January has come to light. It pointed out the glaringly obvious; that 40,000 or more families will be made homeless as a result of the government's housing benefits cuts.

It is clear that Eric Pickles is driven by the fear of the electoral consequences of 40,000 families living on the streets - and the economic cost of keeping them in hostels, which would be greater than the current housing benefit bill. This government is very weak and its vicious cuts agenda can be defeated.

Just as workers were given confidence by the 30 June strike, the government was frightened, it felt the earth shake beneath its feet. However, one day's action will not be enough to force the government to retreat from its attack on public sector pensions, which is driven in large part by the desire to 'prepare' the public sector for future privatisation.

This was the first such action many of the strikers, particularly the teachers, had taken. Inevitably, there were hopes that a one-day strike might make the government 'listen'. Others, however, understood that the government is listening; the Con-Dems know the pain they are inflicting, but are determined to drive through the destruction of public sector pensions in the interests of big business. And there was widespread determination among the strikers - to escalate the strike action if the government didn't retreat.

Next step
The Socialist Party's call for a 24-hour public sector general strike, received overwhelming support. At the London rally, Mark Serwotka's call for four million to strike in October - "including Unison, Unite and the GMB" was met with a standing ovation.

A massive campaign now needs to be built within all those unions who have not yet balloted for action. Those trade union leaders must be pushed to organise ballots immediately in order to be able to join the strike action in the autumn. The government must not be allowed to divide public sector workers.

The National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) is planning a rally and march to the TUC conference in London on 11 September, in order to exert pressure on the trade union leadership to coordinate a strike of the whole public sector in the autumn.

It was not only on industrial strategy, however, that the Socialist Party's programme got a warm response. Mary Bousted of the ATL, again summed up strikers' fury when she said: "I am glad that the ATL is not affiliated to any political party; Ed Miliband is a disgrace." She went on to ask: "What has he and his shadow cabinet, which is laughingly called an opposition ever done? Sisters, and brothers, we're doing it for ourselves."

The potential for trade unionists to create a new party - that stands in the interests of working class people - has been made crystal clear in the last week.

Even if trade union candidates were to initially stand on a limited programme - opposition to all cuts in jobs, pensions, services and benefits, and repeal of the anti-trade union laws - it would mark a significant step forward.

However, the struggle that public sector workers are currently fighting goes beyond those immediate issues. The pension reform is one aspect of the government's assault on workers' living conditions.

The government's pension reforms are estimated to 'save' £2.8 billion. The mass movement against the poll tax forced the then Tory government to scrap it at a cost of around £7 billion in today's prices. Faced with a determined mass movement the government can also be forced to retreat on pensions.

However, pensions are only one part of the £81 billion that the government is planning to cut from public services, the biggest cuts in 80 years. New Labour supports cuts on only a slightly smaller scale. While we can force the government to retreat on different aspects of the cuts, the struggle against them all is, in reality, a struggle against the consequences of capitalism today and therefore poses the need for a socialist alternative.

"Public sector workers are being asked to pay again for the £850 billion that was used to bail out the banks." Mary Bousted was correct in this, but it is not only public sector workers, but all workers, who are being made to pay for the economic crisis.

As Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, put it, workers in Britain are facing the longest period of wage restraint since the 1920s. Meanwhile the financiers and speculators, the capitalist wolves, are enjoying as big a bonanza as they did during the boom. In the last year the wealth of the richest 1,000 people increased by 18%.

Capitalist crisis
The crisis of capitalism goes beyond bailouts of the banks. The crisis in the financial system was the fault line along which all the underlying contradictions of capitalism have been laid bare. Capitalism has always been a blind profit-driven system based on the exploitation of the majority - the working class - for the profits of a few at the top.

There was a brief period - from around 1950 to 1973 - when capitalism developed rapidly. At least in the more economically developed countries, including Britain, working class people were able to win a few crumbs from the capitalists' table. In Britain a National Health Service and a mass council house building programme made a real improvement in workers' lives.

However, when that post-war period ended, capitalism set about restoring its profits by driving down the share of the wealth taken by the working class.

Production was moved abroad to countries with worse workers' rights and cheaper labour, wages were driven down, and spending on public services was cut back. Of course these processes were taking place even during the last boom.

As the Financial Times reported last week, wage restraint is not new: "Fork-lift truck drivers in Britain could expect to earn £19,068 in 2010, about 5% lower than in 1978, after adjusting for inflation. Median male real US earnings have not risen since 1975. Average real Japanese household incomes after taxation fell in the decade to the mid-2000s. And those in Germany have been falling in the past ten years."

During the last boom profits reached an all-time record. However, the bosses had difficulty finding profitable fields to invest in. Investment in science, technique and production remained at an historic low. Why? Not because they were not needed but because working class people lacked the means to buy the goods that could potentially be produced.

This is the terrible reality of capitalism. It didn't matter that two billion people are without the most basic necessities of life - they are not 'a market' because they lack the money to buy what is produced. Improving education or health care is only in the interests of capitalism if a profit can be made from it.

Instead of investing in industry the capitalist class made its profits in the last boom by gambling on the world's stock markets in a speculative frenzy. The financial crisis was the inevitable result.

Socialists, like growing numbers of people, argue that the rich should be the ones who pay for the crisis - via dramatically increased taxes for the super-rich and the big corporations.

For most of the 1970s the tax rate for the highest band of income was 83%. Back then big corporations paid 52% of their profits in tax, but that percentage has been reduced step-by-step ever since. It is currently just 28%, with reductions for the next three years planned by the Con-Dems.

Even with the existing low levels of taxation for the rich, the PCS union points out that more than £120 billion goes uncollected, evaded and avoided every year.

But while we favour taxing the rich, we also recognise that the 'markets' - either the big corporations or the bond traders who are holding whole countries such as Greece to ransom - will never meekly accept dramatically increased regulation and taxation.

So what is the alternative to this market madness? The starting point is to oppose all the cuts. Faced with a determined and organised working class, big business will be forced to retreat. However, in its relentless pursuit of profit, capitalism would then come back with other ways of making the working class pay for the crisis, for example by using inflation. That is why we need a socialist solution.

For a start we call for the nationalisation of the big banking and finance companies. Compensation should be paid on the basis of proven need - but without one penny going to the speculators who are demanding that the working class pay for the crisis for which they - the speculators - bear responsibility.

It would then be necessary to introduce a state monopoly of foreign trade - so that it would be a democratically elected government - not the market - that controls imports and exports including capital.

Nationalisation
A socialist nationalised banking sector would be democratically run by representatives of banking workers and trade unions, the wider working class, as well as the government. Decisions would be made to meet the needs of the majority, for example offering cheap loans and mortgages for housing and for the planned development of industry and services and ending all repossessions of people's homes.

However, that would only be the start. Capitalism has led to enormous economic destruction. In Britain around 10% of wealth has already been lost as a result of the recession, due to factories and workplaces closing. This has resulted in 2.5 million, and rising, officially unemployed. Nor is there any prospect of a return to healthy growth. The best prospect that can be hoped for under capitalism is a prolonged period of economic stagnation.

That is why a crucial step towards solving the economic crisis would be to take the big corporations that dominate Britain's economy into democratic public ownership. This would then allow for production to be planned for need and not for profit.

It would be possible to enormously expand the education system and the health service. Building workers, for example, could be put to work building and refurbishing high quality, environmentally friendly affordable social housing for the five million people who want it.

Huge resources could be put into the development of environmentally friendly technologies. The retirement age could immediately be reduced to 60, or even less, for all those that wanted to retire. The working week could be cut, without loss of pay. This measure, combined with an expansion of public services, could quickly eliminate unemployment.

All of these, and much more, would be possible on the basis of a democratic socialist plan of production.

Of course, capitalism is an international system, and any alternative could not stop at the shores of Britain. However, if a democratically elected socialist government in any country was to begin to implement the kind of programme outlined here it would act as an enormous inspiration to workers in the rest of the world struggling against capitalism's devastation of their living standards.

Even more so than the revolutions across North Africa and the Middle East, the ideas of genuine democratic socialism would spread like wildfire.

1st wave of co-ordinated strike action, today must be just the start

SO as the pickets and the plackards are taken down from todays successful strike action taken by the PCS, UCU, NUT and ATL unions in joint co-ordinated strike action where we have seen up to 750,000 workers out on industrial action be it on a picket line a rally or not working therefore withdrawing their labour.

I dont think we can emphasise enough how big today may prove to be in the months and years to come. Today was the start of something big. Where the public sector trade unions on behalf of the working class stood up to this con-dem government and said no we will not take your cuts and robberies laying down.

For the first time in many years the biggest show of the labour movement moved into action.

Many doubted it after march 26th thinking oh no these unions havent got the fight and wont organise anything now.

Wrong

They did and many congratulations has to go to those unions who did work so dam hard and i know many of their activists did to get as many out today as possible to oppose this vicious attack on our living standards in many years.

What today has shown us is that when we organise, when we come together and unite we can defeat anyone.

Although this battle over pension reforms is not won it has certainly given this weak government a lot to think about in the coming months.

If people think this is just it a jolly strike and we go back to work and take the cuts they are wrong, The tories are wrong, Labour are wrong for saying these strikes are a mistake.

We are right to fight and right to strike.

The myths the government and its media machine has been going into over drive today trying to pump out its properganda. But thankfully the unions own propeganda machine has been working equally as hard back, with excellent shows by PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka owning Francis Maud of the government on radio 4 earlier today. Francis Maud was taken apart and thrown about by Mark Serwotka who had clearly done his homework and exposed the tories as the rich thieving bastards they are i'm afraid.

The fact that public sector pensions are affordable and not unaffordable which the government keep peddling the line. The Hutton report from a labour lord which the government like to push was found to not contain anything on unaffordable pensions for public sector workers.

In fact it showed on a graph quite clearly public sector pensions falling as a cost to the tax payer as a percentage to GDP as the years went by as a prediction for the future.

So many of the tory lies have been defeated rendering the attacks on public sector pensions idealogical and harsh just to pay for the mess the bankers created.

So i am glad today went well but we must not feel this is the end. We must continue to pressure the other unions who were not out today to join us in the autumn while pushing that there is a alternative and that is by taxing the rich who evade billions of tax a year.

Strike 30th of June

Civil servants, teachers and lecturers balloted to strike on 30 June against the Con-Dems' attacks on public sector pensions and public services. The National Union of Teachers has voted 92% in favour of the action, while the Association of Teachers and Lecturers has voted 83% in favour of its first ever strike. London underground drivers in the RMT union are also due to take strike action on that day against victimisation of trade union activists.
Chris Baugh, assistant general secretary of the PCS civil servants union, spoke in a personal capacity at the National Shop Stewards Network conference on 11 June. Here is an extract from his speech.
Someone once said the Tories never talk about class war because they're usually too busy practising it. This crisis, caused by nearly 30 years of a high octane deregulated capitalism, fuelled by an explosion of credit and reckless speculation, has become the excuse for an all-out assault on nearly all the major social gains won by working-class people in the post-war years.

Perhaps the most callous elements of the cuts are reflected in the abolition of EMA student payments, the Sure Start children centre closures, the cuts in benefits to the disabled.

This is a government that is working to dilute 2,000 separate pieces of legislation, even the equality act that only came on the statute book in April. Everything is up for grabs.

But trade unions remain the major obstacle to the Tory-Liberal plans. It's why big business politicians introduced the anti-union laws. It's why the media attacks trade unions. It's why the employers pick out our activists and reps. It's why Vince Cable - supposed to be a restraining influence on the Tories - is already talking about even more limits on the right to strike.

This is a government that is fearful of the trade union movement. There is a massive and growing anger against the bailout to the bankers and the financial institutions and the attempt to make the working class pay the price for a crisis not of our making. The evidence was shown in the student protests, shown in the magnificent turnout on 26 March, shown by the action that we plan to take on 30 June, as the first wave of coordinated action.

If you're a worker in any other part of the public sector you will be asking the question: 'why are we not taking action with our brothers and sisters in the civil service and education institutions?'

The PCS will continue to press the Trades Union Congress for coordinated strike action and to build direct support with individual unions. We expect to be joined by millions of public sector workers in the autumn in the second wave of the sustained strike action that will be needed to challenge this government.

This is an enormous opportunity to reach out to the ranks of the most exploited sections of the workforce, the millions who aren't in unions, the millions who are unorganised. PCS has found that when the union is prepared to speak and act for its membership, that's when people are prepared to join, that's when they're prepared to get involved, that's when people are prepared to come forward and become reps in their own trade union.

We can start to challenge the dictatorship of the international markets, which are dictating the policy of individual governments. We can show that international worker's solidarity is not some utopian idea, it is the most powerful antidote to the neoliberal consensus, pursued by European governments, by mainstream political parties, by the Murdoch press, and by international bond and equity markets. We can raise the question of what sort of society we want to live in and start to pose a real socialist alternative.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In this issue


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fighting the cuts

Strike 30 June

Workers tur

striking for the alternative

So as we all walked away from march 26th in London coming up for two months ago now we were all wondering what next for the anti cuts movement. As i have blogged on here before i do feel that strike action has got to be the next course of action.

But it is the way it is framed which will be crucial to winning the battle on cuts.

Making sure we dont frame it in a way that will splinter the anti cuts movement at all and keeping maximimum unity in the class is key.

I dont buy this call that many on the left call for that we should all unite on the left. I feel those who do are missing the point slightly. I feel that class unity is far more important right now. As socialists we look to raise class contiousness wherever we can.
After 13 years of the harshest trade union laws not being even tried to be reversed by a right wing labour government we have little room to move today.
But trade union action on pay and job loss's will be crucial to putting up a resistance to the cuts i feel.

Many on the left accuse the socialist party of being secterian and divisive. Of course we refute these claims. We see things in a clear marxist perspective with elements of what Trotsky said too. We dont feel that individaul action will enhance the labour movement in any shape or form. We raelise that people do want to see action and fast but we should be careful to not jump into the wrong decisions which will set us back possibly permantly in this movement against cuts.

Only this weekend a few individuals who call themselves left attended the rally against debt march in London where only a pitiful 200 or so protesters turned out to protest about our debt crisis and how more action should be took to tackle the debt which in other words would mean more cuts at a faster pace.

So some on the left attending this march as a counter protest would help the anti cuts movement how exactly ?

it is just egotistical liberal left types who just want to be given some coloumn inch's in next weeks papers no doubt and will ultimatly achieve nothing.

Also we must be careful who we work with as at the moment many people still beleive labour are against the cuts. We must point out that this is blatent hypocrisy from the labour party as all across the country all of their councils this year have voted through the cuts at a local level. When they in the labour party claim to be socialist and against the cuts lets just remind them of these small but important facts. Lets also remind them how many cuts their party was committed too if it had been elected.

Lets not be under any illusions from anyone in the labour party left or right that they would be carrying out cuts just as savage and as brutal as the tories right now all be it at a slower less deeper pace. Like that would be felt in the working class communities across the country.

The fact is that labour are not the right people to lead this movement and we should be wary of working with them i feel.

But it is also up to people to decide for themselves we cannot tell them waht to think of course but we feel building a independant anti cuts message reaching millions of working class people will be music to many peoples ears.

This should start now after all elections are out of the way with building for strike action within the public sector. This is looking increasingly likley to be June the 30th this year. Where already several unions have committed to co-ordinated strike action on job cuts and pension reforms. We must rally around these unionsa nd put pressure on other public sector unions such as Unison and GMB to call on its members to ballot for strike action on or around that key date for the next stage in the anti cuts movement.

Just like with the RMT workers we must stand side by side with any members of the trades unions taking strike action as a injury to one is a injury to us all we will do well to remember that i feel.

SO as Mark Serwotka rightly pointed out on march 26th. We havea ll marched together today and that is good but now we must use our strength and strike together for our futures!