Union militancy and New Labour posted by lenin

This week's big two-day public sector strikes (detailed coverage with pics and on-scene reports here) is to be followed up by further local actions by PCS workers. There are picket lines by the Coastguard and Home Office employees across the country today. A nationwide three-day strike is now planned for Autumn. Passport workers in Northern Ireland have just voted for strike action as well. Employers are predictably talking down the success of the strike, saying only 100,000 turned out, but they protest too much. As Socialist Worker points out, the BBC regional correspondent reported 70,000 on strike in Yorkshire and Humberside alone.

Much as one may wish that strike actions were not so brief and the period between them so long, there is evidently something bigger percolating away here. The rate at which public sector workers are opting to fight the government is not just a manifestation of reviving industrial militancy in the most unionised sectors of the economy. It is poison for the government's electoral chances, who are now positioning themselves as the class enemy of some of their key constituents. Yet New Labour is so wedded to this policy that it is trying to defend a heartland Glasgow seat with a mountainous but threatened majority with a candidate who will not say a single word of criticism about the policy, preferring to rely on contrived prolier-than-thou credentials. Clearly, the SNP would have to fight a serious battle to take the seat, but the difficulty for New Labour is that its voters won't turn out to match their standing in the polls. The union leadership is evidently still hoping to force a change of policy with this rank-and-file pressure as an added bargaining lever. They know the governing party is short of cash and will be tapping them for it, just as surely as they know they will provide it unless the members force a decisive break with Labour. Despite the calamitous state of would-be alternatives for the time being, the scale of the government's attack on workers is likely to intensify moves in that direction. Absent a viable national alternative, funding may well tend to be distributed in a more fragmented fashion with some even going to the Liberals (yech, can you imagine?).

The opposition, despite its venomous hostility to trade unions, is keeping relatively quiet about this. In fact, it is bigging itself up as the party of the poor. Not only that, but when David Cameron made his lousy statement about absentee black fathers, he got the backing of a selection of 'community leaders' (how I hate that phrase and everything it implies), who said that the Tories were more progressive on social investment than Labour. This probably doesn't forebode an upsurge of working class conservatism as in 1979. After all, the Tories are concealing their agenda, not aggressively propounding it as the way forward. But with every passing day and every new action by the government, which has never seen a bungled attempt at right-wing 'populism' that it didn't like, it becomes more and more obvious that Labour voters are going to stay at home in droves, repelled by the government and unafraid of the Tories. New Labour is about to discover the true meaning of the phrase 'things can only get better'.

Labels: gordon brown, new labour, public sector pay, strikes, tories, trade unions

Marxism 2008 posted by lenin

Come along to Marxism, why not? It's starting this Thursday and spreads out lavishly over the weekend like a louche Waugh-esque bohemian. I will be speaking on 'Liberal Imperialism: from the Boers to Basra' which, as you might expect, covers some of the material in my fabulous upcoming book. As the book takes a strongly historical approach to the topic, I will be adding much more commentary on recent topics such as Darfur etc, updating the material on Iraq, and explaining why Christopher Hitchens drinks enough alcohol to strip the paint off the White House on a daily basis. I also intend to leave out the best stuff from the book, so you still have to buy it. Blogging comrade Hossam el-Hamalawy will also be speaking, both on the opening platform and on the strike wave in Egypt. Tariq Ali, Nick Davies, Gary Younge, Paul Gilroy, Moazzam Begg, John Bellamy Foster, Tony Benn, Steve Bell, Larry Elliott of the Guardian, David Hilliard of the Black Panthers, and others will also be there. If you want to get hardcore argument on the recession, the environment, Labour, the trade unions, racism and the 'war on terror', Marxism is the place to be. And don't give me that "I'm doing other stuff/I'm in hospital/I'm in another country" bollocks. Be there, or I shall have to use the rubber truncheon.

Labels: 'war on terror', environment, marxism 2008, new labour, socialism, trade unions

Brown and the unions posted by lenin

Labels: gordon brown, new labour, privatisation, public sector pay, trade unions

Pay strikes posted by lenin

Council workers have voted by a substantial majority for pay strikes this summer, following up from successful strike action by teachers and civil servants in April. 800,000 workers will be on strike, but there's no word yet as to what kind of action is going to be proposed by the national executive. I hope it's dawning on them that one day actions aren't enough - but Prentis et al are Labour men as far as I know, and are likely to face serious pressure from the government to scale it back a bit. Chancellor Alistair Darling is worried at any rate. He is quoted by the Telegraph as saying: "I certainly hope there won't be a series of strikes. Strikes very rarely achieve their goals". As if his concern here was that the unions might not succeed against his government. And the Tories are calling for an "extremely tough" stance, reinforcing the suspicion that once in office they are going to go after the big unions in a major way.

Labels: new labour, pay cuts, strike, tories, trade unions

UCU hits back on the 'boycott' hysteria. posted by lenin

I am told that the UCU has overwhelmingly passed three pro-Palestinian motions, an excellent development, particularly since they specifically rebut the storm of hysteria and legal threats raised over the previous 'boycott' motion. Here are the three motions:

SFC10 Composite: Palestine and the occupation University of Brighton – Eastbourne, University of Brighton – Grand Parade, University of East London Docklands, National Executive Committee

Congress notes the

1. continuation of illegal settlement, killing of civilians and the impossibility of civil life, including education;

2. humanitarian catastrophe imposed on Gaza by Israel and the EU;

3. apparent complicity of most of the Israeli academy;

4. legal attempts to prevent UCU debating boycott of Israeli academic institutions; and legal advice that such debates are lawful

Congress affirms that

5. criticism of Israel or Israeli policy are not, as such, anti-semitic;

6. pursuit and dissemination of knowledge are not uniquely immune from their moral and political consequences;

Congress resolves that

7. colleagues be asked to consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions, and to discuss the occupation with individuals and institutions concerned, including Israeli colleagues with whom they are collaborating;

8. UCU widely disseminate the personal testimonies of UCU and PFUUPE delegations to Palestine and the UK, respectively;

9. the testimonies will be used to promote a wide discussion by colleagues of the appropriateness of continued educational links with Israeli academic institutions;

10. UCU facilitate and encourage twinning arrangements and other direct solidarity with Palestinian institutions;

11. Ariel College, an explicitly colonising institution in the West Bank, be investigated under the formal Greylisting Procedure.

SFC11 Gaza emergency University College London

Congress notes
1. The humanitarian catastrophe that developed in Gaza in March 2008, following a long siege and military bombardment, during which over 100 people died.
2. The call by the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) to international trade unions to put pressure on their own governments to take action to stop the escalation of violence and relieve the humanitarian crisis.
3. Students and academics have been among those trapped in Gaza.

Congress resolves
To organise a fact-finding delegation to Gaza after the bombing stops and to send delegates on future TUC-sponsored visits.

SFC12 Palestine National Executive Committee

Congress notes the report of the Trade Union Delegation to Palestine in January 2008, facilitated by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, in which 4 representatives of UCU took part.

Congress notes that the delegation was generously hosted in Nablus by the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions.

Congress deplores the failure of the Israeli Histadrut to pay the approximately 2.5 million Euros owed to the PGFTU since 1995, representing 50% of the official organisational dues of Palestinian workers working in Israel, under the terms of the Framework Agreement of March 1995 following the Oslo Accords of 1993.

Congress calls on the Histadrut to pay the dues owed to the PGFTU; to call for an end to the siege of Gaza; and to call for an end to the occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territory.

The Israeli press are reporting this as a clear resuscitation of the previous 'boycott' motion, although in fact there was never an actual motion to boycott, only a motion to facilitate a debate on the possibility of a boycott. The UK Press Association describes the conference as 'urging' a boycott. Melanie Phillips, bless her bigoted witch-hunting socks, considers it a witch-hunt against the Jews. It has to be good if it's winding these idiots up.

One other piece of good news from the conference. They also voted overwhelmingly to try and stop the deportation of Hicham Yezza, who is due to be deported on Sunday. There was also some pressure on the University administration, whose conduct has been quite shameful (see this, for example). The main event will presumably be when it comes to discussions of future strike action - I would expect to see a big vote for industrial action.

Labels: boycott, Israel, palestine, trade unions, ucu

The (soaring) cost of living under New Labour posted by lenin

The baseline rate of inflation is now 3% and the headline 4.2%. This will clobber workers already suffering pay cuts and Victorian working conditions. The BBC says that the proportion of incomes going on essential goods has risen to over 30% - I don't know where these statistics come from, because in my household, what with the cost of rent, food, clothing, energy, water, council taxes and so on it has always been closer to 75%, and it's higher now. New Labour's neoliberal policy package relies on its promise to keep inflation down, not just as a means of suppressing pay demands, but also as a promise to voters that their incomes won't suffer sudden, big real terms cuts. Aside from everything else that was wrong with the policy, it was always an illusory idea when commodity prices are determined by global speculation without large-scale state intervention. Governments worldwide are talking about raising export tarrifs and price controls, given the furious social upheaval that rising costs have unleashed. Even Hillary Clinton is proposing temporary price controls on petrol and mortage interest (for this, liberal Obama-supporters upbraid her for failing to understand "basic economic theory"), while McCain is co-sponsoring a bill with Ted Kennedy to control prices on medicines. These are hardly radical measures, but don't expect New Labour to imitate them. Any help this government offers with the bills will be strictly in the form of modest tax-cuts, but as tax receipts fall with the economic downturn, the temptation would surely be to raise the shortfall through indirect measures such as VAT, or by borrowing billions. Either way, the Tories - whose past record in government is gradually sliding down the memory hole - are likely to hammer them for this.

Since these price increases are coming at the same time as New Labour pay cuts for the public sector, I would expect an increased tempo in industrial action. In 2007, the number of working days lost to strike action grew 20-fold over the year, with Prison Officers, Royal Mail workers, civil servants, lecturers and others out on the picket lines. It was the second highest rate of strikes in a decade. Although New Labour's early rule was characterised by a decreasing incidence of strike action, a momentum has built up since the firefighters dispute in late 2002. It's pretty far from the peaks of industrial action in the 1970s and 1980s, but as unions increasingly co-ordinate their actions in response to a co-ordinated offensive by the government, last year's record could well be broken. That changes matters. The Tories might like to capitalise on fears of a new 'winter of discontent', but this also serves to remind people of the hated Thatcher years that followed. Given that Cameron's strategy is to try and woo working class voters suffering, and pose as a 'progressive', he won't necessarily do himself any favours with loud union-bashing. Of course, talking to business audiences, the Tories are all for breaking the public sector unions, but in the context of strikes that will widely be seen as legitimate, they may decide to restrain their rhetoric a bit.

Union leaders are pleading with the government to tax the rich and forge a new election deal, modelled on the Warwick Agreement, in advance of 2010. But if New Labour failed to uphold its promises last time round, there is no reason why anyone should believe them this time. And why on earth would union members want to be party to an ass-saving deal with a government that gratuitously attacks them? Fortunately, the PCS is looking at further national strike action at its upcoming conference. Healthcare workers are being balloted on the government's pathetic pay offer, and if they vote against it, they may be out as well. Further education unions have rejected their pay offer. The NUT's recent, highly successful national strike action is likely to result in further action. If you want your money back, you better hope for a big co-ordinated stoppage, and soon.

Labels: gordon brown, neoliberalism, new labour, strikes, tory scum, trade unions

Fightback Thursday posted by lenin

1 million school students and 8,000 schools are affected by the teachers strike, apparently, which is much higher than was anticipated. According to The Guardian, this is the biggest strike over pay since Labour was elected. Predictably, New Labour are bashing the strikers and pretending that there is no problem. The schools minister has been briefed on his key statistics and sent out to face the newspapers and television studios. Teachers are apparently fat cats whose pay is being curbed in order to rollback their inflation busting pay rises. Of course, the truth is that since 2005 teachers salaries have been effectively cut each year, as pay rises have fallen well below the rate of inflation. Teachers on UPS3 have lost £2,000 due to these cuts. In the same period, the average pay for chief executives has risen by 37%. Such are the priorities of New Labour's Britain. The schools minister is quoted as saying: "The three-year pay award was a recommendation of an independent pay review body... we can’t re-open that process." Oh yes, you can - and you will. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats are demanding that a no-stike agreement be imposed on teachers. You might remember that when someone tries to tell you that the Lib Dems are a slightly more left-wing alternative to New Labour. From the picket lines and protest marches, you can probably get all the updates with photos at Socialist Worker, so keep checking in throughout the day.

Update: I was right. Reports and photographs from across the country are being filed regularly on the Socialist Worker website.

Labels: new labour, pay cuts, pcs workers, public sector pay, teachers strike, trade unions

Teachers: first national strike over twenty years. posted by lenin

The teachers voted to join the revolt against Gordon Brown's public sector pay cuts and ballot for strike action at their conference last week. Today, the results of the ballot have come out, and they've voted overwhelmingly for a national strike on April 24th. The UCU union is also balloting members for industrial action on the same day, and it is expected that hundreds of thousands of PCS members in the Department of Work and Pensions will also be out on strike.

Labels: gordon brown, neoliberalism, public sector pay, teachers strike, trade unions

Lebanon Strike posted by lenin

Via 3arabawy and Sursock, I hear that there's a general strike in Lebanon. Apparently, the army are being sent in to, er, keep order. Though I've seen no indication that Hezbollah are backing the strikes themselves, pro-American commentators are blaming Hezbollah for the general sense of disorder. The truth is that Hezbollah have been extraordinarily tentative about the effective collapse of the government, and are rather too reluctant to rock the boat.

Check out Sursock and 3arabawy for updates.

Labels: hezbollah, lebanon, strike, trade unions

Wages, prices and profits posted by lenin

As teachers threaten strike action over public sector pay, Socialist Worker reminds us why. It isn't just the lousy 2.45% pay deal that Ed Balls has offered teachers, which amounts to an effective pay cut. The chart on the left shows projected inflation versus Brown's planned pay rates up until 2011, and as you can see, there's a year on year fall in spending power.

Part of the inflation is driven by rising global energy and commodity prices, while companies appear to be driving their prices up to make up shortfalls in profits or pay off debts. The most recent report suggests that food prices rose 5.9% year on year, and liquid fuels like heating oil rose 32 per cent. Our electricity and gas bills are going to go through the roof this year. Once again, prices are rising on essential goods in a way that will disproportionately hit the poor. (Parenthetically, I note that "stagflation" is the word on the New York streets, largely because of the horrific increase in import prices.)

The government's solution appears to be to stop us greedy bastards consuming so much with a modern day incomes policy. Your pay is apparently what's causing inflation and, well, they'll fix that in a hurry. Aside from pegging incomes for public sector workers, it looks as if the Bank of England will use any increase in inflation to maintain higher interest rates and thus curb consumption further. Interest repayments relative to disposable income are at a very high rate, averaging 19% just over a year ago according to a study by Price Waterhouse Coopers. In December it was revealed that 1 million people in the UK are having difficulty repaying their mortgages, which means borrowing more or extending the mortage. That also represents a reduction in disposable income.

SW points out that while median executive pay is up 7.8%, recent research that finds three quarters of monthly paid workers actually ran out of money in the last week of their pay run and have to subsist on a mixture of borrowing and scraping. No surprises there - practically everyone who isn't on an above-average income goes through this, and there are always nasty little shocks (a bill you forgot about, overdraft charges that the bank has just made up, a rise in minimum repayments on your credit card, a direct debit that bounces because you're fifty pence short, thus incurring another bank fee). And it's going to get tighter and tighter. As Larry Elliott relates, the government seems to be doing everything it can to take us back to the Bad Old Days Of The 1970s. As Elliott also points out, incomes policies have a way of collapsing within a short space of time. Are trade unionists really ready to believe that a country with a net worth of £6.5 trillion, where the Prime Minister has a bottomless pit to pay for war and is always ready to cut taxes for businesses while funding whatever ludicrous white elephant scheme he thinks fit, is unable to afford decent levels of public sector pay?

Labels: incomes policy, new labour, socialism, trade unions, wages

The state of the unions. posted by lenin

Two recent firings of witch-hunted trade unionists, Karen Reissmann and Michael Gavan, bring to light the pressure from the state to break the resistance of public sector unions to pay cuts, diminished working conditions, and privatisation. It also reflects the politicised way in which the Labour government is approaching the problem - both were arguably targeted for being associated with Respect, a systematic challenge to Labour's hold on the left vote. The government can't afford to back down unless it is forced to back down, because a victory for the unions will both strengthen the left and damage the government's strategy of keeping Britain's economy running as a haven for international finance. For the last year, the government has kept public sector pay substantially below inflation, something that hasn't been achieved in the UK since the 'social contract' and the winter of discontent. The run-down of the postal service and other public services is leading to a growing rebellion by workers across the country. So, what are the prospects?

According to recent figures published by Labour Research, the TUC has since 2003 gently reversed its long-term decline in members. The main growth has been experienced in the teaching unions, particularly the NUT which grew by 6%, but also the construction union UCATT, which grew by a similar level. (The figures don't appear to include the RMT, for some reason). The new super-union Unite actually lost members on both sides, and the PCS lost a small percentage probably due to recent cuts - but it has to be said that the loss of 13,000 is very short of the 104,000 Gordon Brown wanted to cut in 2004, so while the fightback has a long way to go, it is holding back the government's attack. The same goes, I suspect, for the slight fall experienced by the CWU, whose members have braved successive attacks from the government brilliantly, despite an often indecisive leadership. The main growth over the last decade is supposedly in "associated professionals and managerial workers" - but this actually includes teachers, nurses, train drivers and media workers, whose conditions are increasingly under attack. It reflects the growing importance of the public sector in the labour movement, where employment has been on the up, while manufacturing has been allowed to crumble. As these jobs are particularly susceptible to government cut-backs, union struggles are increasingly politicised. The problem, regularly now, is a Labour goverment, which is why trade unionists have to keep asking themselves why they are funding the bullies. Unfortunately, the growth isn't keeping up with the growth in the jobs, so unless there is a massive drive to recruit new members, union density is still likely to fall after having picked up slightly.

It looks like there are two models of trade unionism which are competing here. The RMT's militant model is notoriously successful, leading to extraordinary increases in membership and density. It doesn't matter how much the Evening Standard pillories tube workers, you simply can't beat success. The more conciliatory model that seek sweet-heart deals and subordinates the interests of members to those of the Labour Party is not as successful. The old batch of right-wing leaders like the repellent Sir Ken Jackson, exemplified this model until deposed by the emerging "awkward squad". Increasingly, the question is raised among TUC-affiliated unions as to what can be done to take the government on politically. Yet, it is clear - as Mark Serwotka pointed out at the Respect conference - that even many of the more left-leaning union leaders are more concerned about keeping Labour in government than fighting for their members' interests. Only two union leaders explicitly advocate a socialist alternative to Labour - Mark Serwotka and Bob Crow. And there are worries that the Unite union, run by two moderately left-wing leaders both of whom are loyal to the Labour Party, will have an overwhelmingly decisive bloc in the TUC with the largest portion of its members. Unite's leaders are fully aware that Brown's strategy is destroying the manufacturing base they represent, but their answer seems to be propaganda rather than action, and adaptation rather than militancy.

The frontline today is the CWU. The heroic example of the postal workers should inspire others, and if they now oppose the proposed deal and fight on, I believe it will. The ballot closes on Tuesday, and until then the campaign continues up and down the country to send it back and prepare for further action. As Charlie Kimber writes, the sheer audacity of the postal workers in consistently upping their game every time the government and the bosses attacked is remarkable. They haven't had the leadership that they should have had, but still took unofficial action when they felt they had to. And, despite the fact that the government has introduced private competitors, the fact that they all rely on the more efficient Royal Mail to deliver the actual letters has meant that they can't perform when the posties are out on the picket lines. So, the postal workers still have the power to beat the government and its attacks. Yet, the dispute also illustrates why it isn't enough to have left-wing trade union leaders. Even the best of them, like Mark Serwotka, are still captive to their bureaucracy to some extent. No union has engaged in coordinated action with the posties, despite the clear importance of the dispute for all public sector workers. There are encouraging moves to engage in coordinated action in the future, but the basis of this will have to be strong rank and file organisation which enables a measure of independence from a leadership that is always under massive pressure to make concessions to the employers. This point is rammed home by the attempts of the CWU leadership to deflect attention from the Labour government's responsibility for the crisis - they accept Royal Mail's claims that it is in financial peril with pensions, but make no mention of the fact that Royal Mail management created the crisis and the government has a responsibility to protect the pension scheme. Even Billy Hayes has pointed out, somewhat reluctantly, that if this was Northern Rock the government would be pouring in billions. And it follows that the question of political independence can't be resolved soon enough - the unions need a political fund, but the ball-and-chain relationship to the Labour government is proceeding from absurd to masochistic.

Labels: labour, respect, socialism, trade unions

Gordon Brown's Identity Crisis posted by lenin

25 million is a lot of people to piss off. Imagine this had come out in the middle of a General Election campaign. The unanimous verdict from the various anonymous informers to the BBC appears to be - they have slashed jobs and destroyed staff morale, so a huge problem like this was an inevitability. The PCS civil servants union says that the government has cut 13000 staff since May 2005 and is preparing to cut another 12,500. Aside from this, offices are closing up and down the country. This has already caused enormous problems with the delivery of services, and anyone who needs a job centre or any service frequently has to travel much further today then before. There are fewer people trying to do more work in a recently re-organised department. No wonder Mark Serwotka argues that: "The government’s so-called efficiency programme of cut backs, office closures and outsourcing is an accident waiting to happen. It is vital that the review announced today considers the effect of these cuts and halts them while the review is ongoing." It is one of the cruel paradoxes of a state that tries to cut services while increasing its control over people's lives that it ends up wasting money, and protecting no one. Relatedly, the NO2ID guys are calling in their pledges. Anyone who signed their pledge now needs to send £10 to them.

Labels: cuts, gordon brown, new labour, trade unions

Posties on wildcat strike action posted by lenin

Unofficial walkouts have taken place at Royal Mail depots across the country. Two forty-eight hours strikes, over pay, flexibility and intimidation, have shown that the workers can bring the whole Royal Mail system virtually to a standstill (anyone who got mail is a scab, by the way - you heard me), and also threatened New Labour's finances since many CWU members aren't happy to keep funding the bullies. However, at the end of this last one involving 130,000 workers, management have apparently engaged in a bit of provocation by changing the workers' attendance times without notification or consultation. As a result, thousands of postal workers are going out to the picket lines this morning. If this spreads, and holds firm, then whatever the union leaders say it will have enhanced the position of the strikers, since it will show that they are not prepared to be bought of with a cheap compromise.

Clearly, this isn't happening only because of management's actions this morning. It reflects anger at the way Royal Mail management have responded at all turns to legitimate claims from the workforce. Adam Crozier, the scumbag in charge of the postal service, has been blustering for the last few days on the national media, presumably hoping he could ride out the latest wave of strikes. However, this isn't coming from Crozier: the pressure for the management's crackdown on pay and conditions is coming from the government, and the question it eventually comes back to is whether the government is prepared for a prolonged battle with the unions at the moment. Brown has certainly given himself time to do so now that he has ruled out an election. And he probably expects that union leaders will be more at ease with him than with Blair. The other question is, are the workers prepared for such a fight, to the extent that they will ignore orders from their union leaders? I suppose we're finding out: the frontline of British industrial relations is outside your local Royal Mail depot this morning.

Incidentally, the number one story on BBC News right now is that David Cameron says Gordon Brown looks like a phoney. Later today it will be updated with 'Brown Hits Back at Double-Phoney Cameron'. And the whole charade will unfold with tedious inevitability.

Labels: gordon brown, new labour, postal workers, strike, trade unions