Something
major must be happening when you get a senior Tory party conference delegate
declaring on TV: "We need to rename our party to the Conservative Workers
Party"!
The
proposed launch of the CWP isn't just a sick joke, when compared with the
Tories' obnoxious track record on slashing wages, slaughtering public services
and aiming to wipe out workers' rights - all in the name of turbocharged profit
for the few.
It's
also a half-acknowledged reflection of the latent power of working class people
to change the society we live in, and the sheer dread of the Tories and their
millionaire cohort at the mounting anger and opposition of workers - including
the growing outbreaks of protests and strike actions.
Age
of Austerity
We
live in the infamous Age of Austerity. Since the bankers brought the economy to
the brink of collapse in 2008, working class people have paid the terrible
price of capitalist profiteering - twice!
First,
through the £1.3trillion bailout of the bankers from public funds in 2008.
Since then, through the systematic theft of wages under the seven-year public
sector pay cap; robbery of wages and conditions in the private sector; and
savagery against public services and the benefits of society's most vulnerable
people, including the sick and disabled.
The
Tories are panic-stricken at the potential of the lid blowing off the pressure
cooker of plummeting pay and rising inflation, with outbreaks of strike action
over recent months - and unanimous backing for a Motion at the recent TUC
conference for coordinated demonstrations and strike action against the pay
cap. They dread a winter of discontent.
Savage Pay Cuts
TUC
research has shown five million public sector workers have lost between £2,000
to £5,000 in wages from the zero and 1% pay cap of the last seven years.
Recent
official inflation figures of 3.9% have added to workers' fury.
Trade
unions in the civil service and local authorities have lodged pay claims of 5%
to stop the ongoing annual pay cuts; and at least the current RPI inflation
rate of 3.9% in the case of NHS unions.
Tens
of thousands joined the demo outside Tory conference. The civil service PCS
union held pay-day protests in over 100 places on 29 September, and is
starting a consultative ballot of 160,000 members on strike action on pay from 9
October.
At
the TUC, PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka rightly called on other public sector
unions to do likewise, to seriously prepare the grounds for actual strike
ballots, building up the readiness of members, in order to overcome the
high-hurdles obstructions to action imposed by the 2016 Tory (anti-) Trade
Union Act, with its 50% threshold.
 |
| PCS general secretary, Mark Serwotka |
Divided
Tories Seek to Divide Workers
They know a total, across-the-board climb-down would
embolden millions of workers - including in the private sector - who are
struggling to survive the planned poverty that is austerity.
But they also know
the pay cap is unsustainable, a recipe for explosions that could even threaten
the downfall of the enfeebled Theresa May regime.
The
Tories resort to divide-and-conquer trickery, with talk of responding to the
Pay Review Bodies' Reports - hiding the fact these bodies only cover less than
45% of public sector workers - and offer piddling pay rises to prison officers
and police that don't even match half the 3.9% inflation rate.
The
warnings we've made of their divisive tactics have materialized: after seven
long years of draconian pay cuts, they might offer token rises a bit above the 1%
cap to prison officers, police, firefighters and nurses - but exclude civil
service and council staff, in the hope they don't enjoy the same levels of
public sympathy.
On
top of which, any pay concessions are poised to be paid for by job cuts and
slashed services. Already, the GMB union has calculated the loss of nearly a
million public sector jobs since 2010 - driving down that sector to 17% of all
workers, the lowest proportion since the year before the NHS was founded!
Scrap
the Cap - by how much?
Workers
will all welcome the promises of both Jeremy Corbyn and the current SNP
government to end the Tory pay cap. But what remains unanswered from both is
what level of pay rise is on offer when they 'scrap the cap'. Neither has
openly backed the modest demands of 5% demanded by civil service and council
unions.
In
the most immediate situation, will any pay rise from the Scottish government be
funded by taxing the rich, and mounting a serious struggle to win back some of
the £billions robbed from Scottish budgets by successive Tory and Labour
Westminster governments?
Or just from a reshuffling of the block grant budget
between pay, jobs and public services? Robbing Peter to pay Paul.
In
the private sector - such as retail - any recent concessions on paltry pay have
been accompanied by savage attacks on other terms and conditions, such as
premium payments for working Sundays, bank holidays, nightshifts or other
antisocial hours. Robbing Peter to pay Peter!
Don't
Trade Jobs or Services for Pay
The
real danger is that unless the unions take united, decisive action to prevent
it, the Scottish and UK governments - and alongside this, local councils - will
try to trade off pay rises for cuts to jobs, conditions and public services.
The
anti-austerity message from Jeremy Corbyn has emboldened workers in England
that something radically different is available. The brutal realities of pay
cuts and other assaults on conditions has led to outbursts of small strikes -
such as BA cabin crews, and the courageous group of McDonald's workers - which,
in my own experience, has encouraged some other workers to talk about the role
of the unions.
 |
| Posties on the picket line |
Stand
by Your Post!
Royal
Mail workers in the CWU - 110,000 of them - have voted for strikes against the
loss of up to 30% of their pensions; for a decent wage on retirement; against
the introduction of lower pay for new starters - a two-tier workforce; against
assaults on union reps; and for reduction of the working week to 35 hours,
without loss of pay, inclusive of paid breaks.
In the first national ballot to be held since the 2016 Tory Trade Union Act threw up barriers against winning a vote for action that would make Aintree's Becher's Brook look like a molehill, CWU members smashed through the Tory blockades to democracy with an astonishing majority. In a 73.3% turnout, a whopping 89.1% voted for strike action.
Their
anger has been fuelled by the handout of £770million in dividends to
shareholders, and the payment of up to £200,000 a year to top Royal Mail
bosses' separate pension pots, which remain untouched.
The
CWU's call for a shorter working week without loss of earnings, to tackle
workload, protect full-time jobs, and prepare for the impact of 'the fourth
technological revolution', exactly matches workers' needs in general - and
matches the polices of the SSP.
RMT
members across several profiteering rail companies are striking against the
safety- threatening Driver Only Operated trains being imposed as government
policy. They are showing admirable courage in the face of government-sponsored
brutality by the rail companies and a vicious media onslaught. They deserve the
solidarity of other unions.
For
Coordinated Action
The
time is increasingly ripening for coordinated action on pay and related
conditions.
Not at the expense of jobs, or public services, but at the expense
of the obscenely rich and profiteering corporations.
The
TUC has a horrible history of doing little or literally nothing to implement
their own agreed policies and actions. Rather than simply sit and wait for them
to implement the agreed demos and coordinated strikes to scrap the pay cap,
socialists and other union activists need to bombard their own union
leaderships with demands for action.
The
welcome pledge by PCS leader Mark Serwotka to initiate meetings of all public
sector unions could help mobilize millions of public sector workers.
Those
of us in private sector workplaces should build solidarity with workers in
Royal Mail, the railways, and the public sector, making demands on our own
employers for pay rises to compensate for years of eye-watering pay cuts, but
without loss of jobs or other terms and conditions.
Demand
No Cuts Budgets - and £10 Now!
The
season of budgets from the Westminster, Holyrood and local authority
governments is upon us, and the unions should unite with community groups and
socialists in demanding real and concrete actions to reverse the tsunami of
austerity.
The
SSP is calling on unions to mount a battle to demand the funding for a
(voluntary, non-statutory) £10 Living Wage for all 500,000 Scottish workers
employed directly or indirectly by the Scottish government and the 32 Scottish
local authorities.
This
would help combat poverty pay. It would set a benchmark for the other 80% of
workers employed in the private sector.
It would be a serious step by the
unions to implement the "£10 minimum wage for all workers" that they
agreed - unanimously - a long, excruciating 3 years ago, at the September 2014
TUC conference!
B
ut
Scottish and council politicians should be bombarded to set No Cuts budgets,
demanding the funding off Westminster and Holyrood to at least protect existing
jobs and services, with the £10 minimum included, and equal pay for women - not
rob Peter to pay Pauline (or Peter!).
The
Acid Test for Labour and SNP
SNP
Councillors, MSPs and MPs won mandates by claiming to be anti-austerity.
In
England, Jeremy Corbyn's Labour won massively increased support with its
anti-austerity message. Now in Scottish Labour, Richard Leonard is seeking
votes as leader by association with Corbyn.
All
these political forces need to be put to the test with demands to turn grand
words into meaningful action.
Instead
of passing on nearly £3billion of Westminster cuts since 2010, the SNP
government needs to face a movement - led by unions and community organisations
- demanding they defy all Tory cuts and win back some of our stolen £billions
through mass action.
The
teachers' union, EIS, is currently in tripartite talks where the Scottish
government and COSLA (councils) have offered 1.5% pay rise for new teachers and
those at the top end of the pay scale, and only 1% for other teachers. That
hardly matches Nicola Sturgeon's bold public promises of ending the pay
cap!
Labour
and SNP councillors need to be pounded with pressure to reverse their sorry
record of cutting jobs, pay and public services.
 |
| Birmingham bin collectors strike against Labour council axe-wielders |
Labour
and the Brummie Bin Strike
There, Labour has acted
to 'delete' 113 safety critical bin collectors' jobs, with a £5,000 pay cut;
employed agency workers to undermine the resultant strike action; and then
reneged on a deal brokered through ACAS - issuing real, live redundancy notices
to their own workers. This was only halted by the resumed strike action of the
bin workers, which helped Unite the union win a court ruling that outlawed
Labour's redundancy notices.
Here's
the crunch; the warning to anyone falling for the idea that workers should
"wait for a Corbyn government" rather than fight back now, with
strikes where necessary.
Not once has Jeremy condemned the role of Birmingham's
Labour councillors. Not once has the massively popular, anti-austerity,
left-wing Corbyn leadership issued a call to its own Labour councillors,
anywhere, to defy Tory funding cuts, to set No Cuts budgets. Instead, as well
as the savagery suffered at the hands of years of Labour councils in Scotland,
their counterparts in Durham and Derby have provoked strikes by teaching
assistants, against Labour council pay cuts of 23%; with no condemnation, let
alone expulsion, of these Labour axe-wielders by the national, Corbyn
Labour leadership.
Waiting
for Godot?
Workers
have been undoubtedly enthused and encouraged to fight back by the inspiring
speeches of Jeremy Corbyn, with their core message of standing up 'for the
many, not the few'. And the Corbyn surge in England has seriously weakened the
May Tory regime.
But
it would be fatal to rely on 'waiting for Godot'. How are workers and their
families meant to live whilst waiting for the election of Corbyn as Prime
Minister? How can workers topple the enfeebled Tory regime without taking
action on pay, pensions, jobs and public services, here and now? And can we
believe there will be an outright end to austerity under Labour - even when led
by Jeremy Corbyn - given their failure when the chips are down in several local
authorities, and the absence of any sanctions against right-wing Labour
councillors from the left-wing UK leadership?
Workers'
Potential Power
The
Tories, in their own perverse fashion, recognize the potential power of the
organised trade union movement, and its potential allies amongst students and
other young people.
In
battling against austerity, pay cuts, attacks on pensions, jobs and services,
we need to rely on that potential and help mobilize it - not wait for some
future salvation by politicians, no matter how decent or
well-intentioned.
Those
who rule the roost, making profit out of working people, are past masters at
divide-and-rule tactics. Trade unionists, community campaigners, young people
and socialists need to help build the campaign for coordinated demos and strike
action to reverse the tide of cuts to our share of the wealth which we created
in the first place.
SSP
is Battle-Ready
The
SSP is ready and willing to play its part (in our unions, communities and
colleges) in the struggle for a £10 minimum wage here and now, with no loss of
other conditions; to scrap the cap, with pay rises to compensate for seven
years of wage cuts; No Cuts council and Scottish budgets, with a struggle to
win back some of the £billions stolen off Scotland by Tory and Labour
governments; for an immediate 35-hour maximum working week without loss of
earnings, to share out the workload and take advantage of new technology; and
ultimately for a socialist society run by the many millions, not the few
millionaires.
