Tuesday 27 August 2019

Harland & Wolff: THE POWER OF WORKERS!


At the end of July, the iconic Harland and Wolff Belfast shipyard was declared dead by politicians and 
management alike. The 123 workers and their unions (Unite and GMB) seized the initiative, seized hold 
of the yard, and demanded “Save Our Shipyard – Renationalise Now!”.
Their courageous, decisive action and clear-cut battle-cry has mustered the active support of workers 
all over Ireland, north and south, as well the UK, USA, South Africa, and across Europe. Daily solidarity 
visits, collections for the hardship fund, and solidarity rallies and marches, have given a glimpse of the 
latent power of a united working class determined and willing to take action.

Occupied - Renationalise Now!

When the politicians – particularly the DUP, who ‘represent’ the shipyard area of East Belfast – refused 
to take meaningful action to pound the minority regime of Boris Johnson into saving the yard, its jobs 
and skills, the workers declared they will stand trade union-backed candidates against them in a 
general election.

This determined stance and collective action has not only inspired thousands of trade unionists, but 
brought the local DUP politicians to heel, and won extensions (by the administrators) of the ‘unpaid 
temporary layoff’ period to 30 September, buying time to either achieve renationalisation or get a 
serious buyer, with every existing job guaranteed.

Four weeks after the yard’s obituaries were being written, five credible bids are now being 
negotiated. That’s the potential power of collective union action, which needs to be deployed 
far more generally.

Two Futures

This battle provides a glimpse of two stark choices for the future. 
One where the government is prepared to let the whole community, jobs and skills sink to the 
bottom of the Irish Sea, because, in Johnson’s words, “this is a commercial decision.” 
Or one where the collective strength and action of workers through their unions secures 
public ownership and a whole new green industrialisation, with quality jobs for the future.

The entire trade union movement – including those gathering at the TUC in Brighton, should 
pile in with solidarity until victory for the Harland and Wolff workers – and apply its lessons 
across the board.


Joe Passmore (on right), UNITE shop steward, with Paul Beattie (GMB)


I spoke to JOE PASSMORE, Unite shop steward in Harland & Wolff, about their heroic       showdown with those who would leave an industrial desert in Belfast and call it progress!


Richie: YOU'VE TAKEN ACTION TO STOP CLOSURE OF THE SHIPYARD. WHAT WOULD 
THE IMPACT OF CLOSURE HAVE BEEN, PERSONALLY OR GENERALLY?

Joe: “The impact would have been on the wider community. Yes, it was about our 123 jobs, but 
the number of jobs generated when we get a  contract goes into the hundreds, and a few years 
back we had 1,500 working here. A lot of them local people, living in Belfast, feeding into the local 
economy. 
It would have been a catastrophic loss, and also a lot of industries feed off us. In fact a lot of jobs 
have been lost in other companies since we went into administration.
But it’s not only about jobs, Harland and Wolff is iconic in Belfast. The idea that those giant cranes 
would become a monument to the past would be heart-breaking. And aside from the emotional part, 
an economic disaster.”

RV: WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO OCCUPY THE YARD?

Joe: “We occupied because this was a set-up. The more we learn, the more we think plans to close 
this place go back years, with key players including politicians and government departments.
They sold us a dream about refitting cruise liners and gave an exclusivity clause to the company 
promising this, MJM Marine, of Newry. Two weeks before they were meant to finalise the deal, 
MJM withdrew the bid, cut it from £9m to £2m, and didn't include the workforce in their plans!
Their plan was to bring people in from abroad, on slave wages, and then get rid of them. That's
 what this company has done elsewhere.
Pulling the plug was blatant profiteering at the expense of working people.

There was intense anger at this. The union held meetings at board level with the owners, and took 
over the running of the meetings! We called in the politicians. But we also set up our very own
 "Cobra Committee", a Council of War.
We made it plain we are not going to lie down. We planned to take control and that's exactly 
what we've done, blocking off all entrances bar one. And our motto is that we only let people 
in who have our future at heart; we will not accept the vultures.

Five or six companies are starting to finalise bids this week. Why were they never in the loop before?
They were excluded because of the agenda to close the shipyard. Now they are falling over themselves 
because of the stand we've taken and the publicity it's gained. We've scared off the vultures and scared 
the living hell out of the politicians.

The DUP has the ear of the government but wasn't prepared to do anything. We were butting heads 
with them. It's only very recently they've shown any willingness to help, because we had them on the 
ropes. 
We focused their minds by announcing we would oppose them in East Belfast in a general election, 
taking away workers' votes, which would lose the seat for the DUP.”



RV: YOUR CALL FOR RENATIONALISATION HAS BEEN DYNAMITE IN LIFTING THE 
SIGHTS OF WORKERS HERE. WHY DO YOU DEMAND THAT?

Joe: “Renationalisation is the easy way to solve this. We have plenty of work we could bring in right 
now.
Before they pulled the plug, BAe packages for submarines worth about £3m were lined up to come 
to us, with all the technical stuff sorted.
Even since going into administration, enquiries about use of our docks for ship-repair work, worth 
about £1m-£1.5m, have come in. So we could already have enough work to keep us going up to 
Christmas. But we couldn’t take the work because we don’t have an owner.

The government are aware of all this, and the work it could bring in, but seem reluctant to go near 
the word nationalisation. I don't care what they call it, but it's the obvious solution.
We need to force industrial leaders to recognise the advantages of long term planning and
investment in people over short-term financial gain. the consequence for continuing on the 
present trend will be catastrophic to British industry. 
Looking at Ferguson's in Scotland, even the DUP parliamentary leader has recently said there's no 
reason why if the devolved Scottish government can nationalise, that the UK national government 
can't do so.
Now it looks like we need to rely on the big hitters to buy us.”

RV: ANOTHER SOURCE OF INSPIRATION TO MANY OF US IS YOUR CALL FOR RENEWABLE 
ENERGY PRODUCTION AT H&W. WHY?

Joe: “That has to be a big consideration. At least two of the five bidders are concentrating on 
renewable energy. The last ship we built was 2004, it's been mostly green energy production 
since. We have a history of it, and have all the prototypes. It's what we are capable of.”

Previous article in Scottish Socialist Voice 


RV: WHAT ARE YOUR MAIN MESSAGES TO TRADE UNIONISTS HERE?

Joe: “We have hit a nerve with our stance. We've found a way of fighting. We will not let anyone 
destroy our communities for short-term financial gain. 
My biggest wish of all is that other people, other workers, see something unfair, morally corrupt, 
and that they stand together, refuse to accept it. If we don't take charge, say we're not moving 
until these things are put right, the whole of industry will be destroyed.

My main message to other trade unionists: this is what you can do if you stand together.

We are 100% unionized, but it's not enough to get a membership, this is what the unions should 
be doing. Get over the defeat of the miners and other issues. We are stronger and smarter. We 
shouldn't underestimate what we can do. Several other disputes in Northern Ireland are drawing 
on this example, beginning to see the potential.”

………...
Send union donations to either Unite or GMB offices in Belfast - help sustain this very 
important struggle. 

Unite, 26-34 Antrim Rd, Belfast BT15 2AA
GMB, 1A Victoria Rd, Holywood  BT18 9BA 

Friday 16 August 2019

PETERLOO MASSACRE,1819: Rise Like Lions!



Two hundred years ago, on 16 August 1819, one of the defining events of working class history in Britain occurred; the Peterloo Massacre. 

A crowd of 60-80,000 working-class men, women and children gathered in St Peter's Fields, near Manchester, demanding radical reforms in the face of rampant political corruption, and ruin and starvation for the people. 

The ruling authorities - magistrates, politicians and military officers, fully endorsed by the UK government - replied with a savagery that profoundly changed the outlook of the masses in the days and years that followed. 

At least 15 were killed and 700 wounded as the cavalry of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry charged, swords drawn, hacking left and right into the crowd, under the orders of magistrates safely ensconced in a nearby mansion, who feared the entirely peaceful, well-disciplined crowd would challenge their economic and political monopoly of power. 

The first to die was two-year-old William Fildes, knocked from his mother's arms as one of the cavalry galloped to St Peter's Fields, intent on helping to put these protesting workers back in their box.

Political corruption remains today - if modified compared to 1819

Corruption and Famine

The demands of the mass rally arose from bitter anger at their treatment by those in power, especially in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, which ended in 1815, and in its wake led to a very brief boom in textile manufacturing, followed by deep and chronic depression. 

Whilst the mill owners and other rising capitalists continued to luxuriate in wealth, mass unemployment, starvation and actual famine stalked the country, including Lancashire, the main centre of textile weaving and spinning. 
The Corn Laws of 1815 exacerbated the conditions of mass starvation, imposing tariffs on foreign grain imports, forcing food prices up and the quality of food down, triggering outbreaks of famine. 

Rotten Boroughs

Propping up the inequality and mass hunger was a political system stinking of the worst corruption.  

Voting rights were restricted to adult male owners of freehold land above a threshold rental value. This tiny, narrow franchise - part of the shoddy compromise between the landowning and capitalist classes in the decades after the English Civil War - totally excluded the wealth producers, the working class, those rightly described by many historians as "the manufacturing class". 

For instance, Manchester and surrounding towns had a population of a million, but the whole county of Lancashire had just two MPs, returned by a tiny handful of the propertied class. 

Of 515 MPs across England and Wales, 351 were sent to 'the Mother of Parliaments' by a minuscule 177 rich individuals - and every single one of Scotland's 45 MPs relied on the same system of patronage. 

In at least two separate seats, two MPs (in each) were elected in a 'rotten borough' by one, single, solitary voter! So twice as many MPs as voters! 

Next time you get a lecture from a Tory, or employer, or lickspittle defender of the wonders of capitalist democracy, it might be worth acquainting them with this slice of rotten, corrupt reality. 

Peaceful Demands for Democracy

The 60-80,000 who assembled, after marching in well-drilled formation from neighbouring towns and districts, carried banners with slogans like Universal Suffrage, Vote by Ballot, Annual Parliaments, No Corn Law, Liberty and Fraternity, Unity and Strength. 

They were entirely peaceful, but put the fear of rebellion into the corrupt, cankered hearts of the rich and their magisterial agents. They amassed troops from Special Constables and several cavalries, thousands of armed men in total. 

"The Tory party in arms" feared revolution and assaulted peaceful meeting 

Business Mafia on Horseback!

These sabre-wielding militias were enlisted from the class of tradespeople, shopkeepers and especially publicans, described at the time by one local newspaper as "the fawning dependents of the great, with a few fools, who imagine they acquire considerable importance wearing regimentals." 

More recent historians have described them more succinctly: "The local business mafia on horseback", or, in another case, "Young members of the Tory party in arms."

Next time you're assured British democracy is a God-given blessing we should be grateful for, it's worth remembering the struggles and martyrdom workers went through to even win the elementary right to vote every few years - and the armed savagery in opposition to basic democracy of "the Tory party in arms", the "business mafia on horseback". 

From Peterloo to Chartism

The horror and outrage at the massacre in St Peter's Fields - dubbed the Peterloo Massacre in bitter ironic reference to the Battle of Waterloo, just four years earlier - spread beyond Lancashire to the whole country. 

But it met with an escalated bout of repression, including the arrest and prolonged imprisonment of those who organised and spoke at the Peterloo rally, such as the radical orator, Henry Hunt. He was slapped in jail for 30 months. Workers were sacked, leaving their children to starve, for merely attending the rally. 

But repression cannot hold down the working class indefinitely. Henry Hunt contributed to a new force in the decades after Peterloo, the Chartist movement, Britain's first working class political party. 

Gradually, through mighty battles, general strikes and attempted insurrections included, this movement squeezed incremental reforms on the right to vote from a capitalist ruling class that fought brutally to retain a monopoly not just of economic but also political power. It took over a century after Peterloo to win full suffrage for the working class, for women as well as men. 

Democracy Today - a Good Idea!

Today, of course, we live in a very different world - in some respects! 

Past generations fought and suffered to win the limited democratic rights of today. The demands for universal suffrage and vote by (secret) ballot have been conquered, at a high price for earlier generations of fighters. 

But unless we win economic democracy there can never be full-blown political democracy.  

Two hundred years on, we may not be suffering famine in this country - but that's the cruel fate of millions in the global South, and here in the fifth-richest economy on earth, we have mass reliance on food banks. It's sobering to register that one of the causes of this is the fact real wages have declined more and for longer in the last ten years than in any decade since Peterloo! 


We may have the right to assembly - so long as the ruling powers deem it safe to allow us to exercise that right. Police assaults on striking miners' demonstrations in 1984/5 were a harsh reminder of the limitations of even that right, so long as we have a capitalist  minority in ownership of the main centres of wealth. Likewise, their kettling of anti-capitalist protesters on numerous occasions since. 

Orgreave: Capitalist state was mobilised to smash miners' union 

Workers in Chains - Still!

The (anti)Combination Acts passed 20 years before Peterloo were torn to shreds by mass workers' resistance, but the whole array of anti-union laws - introduced by Tory governments, retained by Labour governments - still make this one of the most repressive countries in the developed world. 

The rights fought for by the pioneers at Peterloo and in the Chartists are still often denied to workers, such as the growing number of employers who refuse to permit let alone recognise and negotiate with workers' collective trade unions. 


We may have the right to vote in this country,  but we don't really have the right to decide.

The working class majority population are still dictated to by a few capitalist monopolies: a few big banks; the Big Six energy companies; private shipyard owners who throw skilled dedicated workers on the scrapheap; one-man capitalist dictators like Jim Ratcliffe of INEOS who threaten to shut down the whole Grangemouth plant and hold the Scottish government to ransom; Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Walton family (ASDA owners) who threaten workers with the sack if they don't surrender to their dictats, and likewise instruct governments on what they must do, even when it subverts the will of those who elected the governments.



Break the Chains!

In saluting and honouring our dead and maimed predecessors at Peterloo and elsewhere, we should redouble our determination to fully achieve real democracy. 
Including workplace democracy, economic democracy, as well as an end to political rule by a rich, powerful elite. 

We need to relentlessly expose the corruption and inherent exploitation and inequality of capitalist rule. We need to paint a picture of a socialist democracy, where those who produce the wealth of goods and services also collectively own and control that wealth, taking concrete steps to eradicate poverty and inequality. And use that vision to inspire others to rise like lions. 


As a modest contribution to that effort, I wrote the book, Break the Chains. It strives to arm activists with arguments for socialist change, and elaborate the case behind a whole package of 21st century policies that would transform the lives of millions.

Introduction to Break the Chains

I quite consciously referenced the Peterloo Massacre in the Introduction to Break the Chains - and just as consciously quoted Percy Bysshe Shelley's inspirational poem, written in anger at the Massacre.  

In Shelley's phrase, the working class still, 200 years later, need to "Rise, like lions after slumber/In unvanguishable number!" 
Never forgetting that - even more so than in the world of 1819 - "Ye are many - they are few." 

Copies of Break the Chains available HERE


Wednesday 14 August 2019

50 YEARS SINCE TROOPS SENT INTO IRELAND








It's hard to believe it was 50 years ago today, on 14 August 1969, that the Harold Wilson Labour government sent troops into N Ireland, declaring it a stop-gap, emergency, temporary measure. 

They first arrived in Derry, the next day were also deployed in Belfast, and were to remain for 30 years, during the bleak, dark days of sectarian division, 3,720 violent deaths, and ruthless state repression; the 'Troubles'.

The vast majority of people today - whether Protestant, Catholic or neither - are absolutely determined there will be no going back to those days. 


During election times, the Orange and Green sectarian politicians still today rely on headcounts of 'their own' communities to hold onto their overpaid positions, trading on the Good Friday Agreement to climb to office - where they are quite relaxed about cosying up to politicians of 'the other side' to carry out Tory austerity cuts; privatise services; impose the miseries of Universal Credit; slash budgets by cutting Corporation Tax on big business; and make a fortune for friends and family through the corrupt Renewable Heating Initiative scam. 


The same politicians would prefer us not to know that it was repeated waves of strikes and rallies by workers, united in opposition to the sectarian killings, that were instrumental in bringing about the ceasefires 20 years ago. 

What is equally unknown and unspoken of - including outside of Ireland - is that during the period immediately prior to the British army's arrival, multiple opportunities for working class unity and indeed socialist change were thrown up. 
Opportunities created by the courageous struggles of ordinary people, including trade unionists at shopfloor level, but unforgivably squandered by the leadership of the trade union and wider labour movement. 


Background reading on why troops sent in & results



In this short pamphlet - Class not Creed, 1968 - I sketch out the bloody and pernicious history of Britain's ruling rich in their exploitation of Irish land and labour, in particular their coldly calculated incitement of sectarian divisions; their divide-and-rule tactics, culminating in the 1921 partition of Ireland. 

That side of history is relatively well known; the pamphlet also unearths some of the many, many examples of working class Catholics and Protestants uniting in struggle, in defiance of their political 'masters', who sought to keep them divided and thereby easier to exploit.  


That happened right throughout the 20th century - including on the eve of the violent eruptions of August 1969, when the Labour government deployed troops rather than a united workers' movement to confront the Paisleyite mobs and RUC/B Special police who went on the rampage in Derry's Bogside and parts of Belfast, burning Catholic families out of their homes. 

Even less known, are the heroic efforts of shop stewards in the Belfast shipyard - who set the tone and set the pace for others in workplaces where the bigots threatened assaults on workers, by calling a mass meeting of all 8,000 workers, passing a declaration of opposition to sectarian division and intimidation, leading them out in a token strike against sectarian violence; actions unanimously agreed by the 8,000 and acted upon that day, 15 August 1969. 


Or the Peace Patrols and Vigilante groups - many of them joint Protestant/Catholic in composition - who patrolled several Belfast estates in August 1969, quelling the bigots from attacking people's homes, preventing a slide into outright civil war, in a way that the British army was simply incapable of doing. 

With very rare exceptions, these defence groups were not only non-sectarian but anti-sectarian. 

In the Ardoyne and Unity Walk, they stopped attacks on Protestant families. In East Belfast they prevented attacks on the homes of the Catholic minority. Joint Catholic/Protestant peace patrols operated in several areas, including Ballymurphy, Turf Lodge, New Barnsley, Springmartin and Springhill. Far more homes would have been burnt out, far more murderous attacks would have happened, had it not been for these courageous efforts. 


Troops take aim on Bloody Sunday, Derry 1972


The tragedy is that the leaderships of the trade unions and labour movement in 1969 did nothing to coordinate and build on these ground-level and workplace efforts to stem the sectarian tide, relying instead on pious pleas for 'calm', and support for use of the British army.  


The latter went on to prove in action that working class people have to rely on our own forces, our own unified communities and organisations, not the forces of a capitalist state. 
Far from being defenders of the Catholic community, the army was soon deployed in an array of repressive measures, including house raids; curfews; internment without trial; shoot-to-kill policies; torture - and as some socialists warned at the time, practiced methods later used by the British government and its state against workers in struggle, most spectacularly against the 1984-5 striking miners. 


Workers' unity in action, 2019 


The failures of the leaderships of the Civil Rights, Labour and trade union movements turned a golden opportunity for unity and socialist change into decades of bitter sectarian reaction, starting in August 1969, as the bigots drove the peace patrols out of existence and put the workplace shop stewards on the defensive. 


To their eternal credit, however, these same rank and file union leaders led several waves of strike action against the killings - from both sides - during the 1970s and 1980s, preventing outright civil war. 
Meantime, the best the army could offer was - in the cold, cynical phrase of Tory Minister, Reginald Maudling - to reduce the North "to an acceptable level of violence"


I encourage you to have a read of Class not Creed, 1968. It gives background context to the deployment of the British army 50 years ago, why the ruling class through the Wilson government decided to send them in. It recounts some of the main events afterwards. And it describes what might have been if there had been a large, cross-community socialist party that could have built on the real events and heroic efforts of thousands of working class activists, 50 years ago. 


We need to study and learn from the past to ensure there is no going back. We need to base our efforts on class, not creed. 

Order copies here (£3 including postage): 
https://scottishsocialistparty.org/product/class-not-creed-1968/

Friday 2 August 2019

September 20: WORKERS AND YOUNG PEOPLE UNITE AGAINST THE CAPITALIST POLLUTERS!



Youth climate strike, Sydney, Australia

As we live through the molten heat, thunder and lightning, floods and general climate chaos of recent weeks, new reports on the catastrophic impact of global warming highlight the urgency of action. 
And plans are in motion for the biggest global protest action so far, on 20 September, with striking school students appealing to workers to join them in 'a climate general strike'. 

A new Australian academic study warns of “a high likelihood of human civilisation coming to an end” by 2050!

Even at the less apocalyptic end of the scale, there is widespread agreement that unless the impact of relentless plundering of the planet by the likes of Shell, BP and the banking sector that finances their environmental rampages for profit is reversed, the world's poorest will suffer most – and devastatingly.

Flooding, mudslides, raging fires, homes wiped out, loss of clean water and destruction of farming land are already happening, and could be joined by escalated wars and conflict.

No wonder tens of thousands of young people have decided enough is enough; started the Fridays for Future school strikes; staged bold, eye-catching direct-action protests - and called for a global 'climate general strike' on 20 September. 

That call, that appeal to workers to join the school students’ protests, is a very welcome glimmering of recognition of the potential role and power of collective workers’ action to challenge the climate crisis. 

Harland & Wolff workers demand 'Save Our Shipyard - Renationalise Now'

Harland and Wolff Workers Inspire Others

As 20 September looms, we've had glimpses of that potential power in the land, as groups of workers and their unions take collective action on their own immediate struggles for survival. 

Probably the most dynamic display of the power that needs to be unleashed more generally - with concrete demands that point to solutions - has been the courageous and audacious action by the workers in Belfast's Harland and Wolff shipyard. 
During 1939-45 war production, 35,000 worked there! As part of the deindustrialisation and deskilling of the economy - in favour of cheap-labour, insecure, service sector jobs and fast profits - the yard has been decimated, with a mere 130 now employed there. The last time a ship was built was in 2003. And the current battle is to prevent outright closure.

Save Our Shipyard - Renationalise Now!

Under the privatised ownership of Norwegian Fred Olsen's, these highly skilled workers turned to ship repairs and construction of offshore equipment for wind turbines, oil and gas drilling. But Olsen faces bankruptcy, tried to sell H&W, convinced the workforce a buyer named Flack was the bees’ knees, until he flacked off and left the workers and their families facing closure on 30 July.

Rather than lie down in abject surrender, the workers and their unions - Unite and GMB - staged an occupation of the yard days before the administrator was due to wield the knife, and made a clear, stark demand: Save Our Shipyard - Renationalise Now!

Their fighting action and demands rallied the support of a whole array of other trade unionists and young people.

People Power: ‘Together we become Giants’


This highly visible, militant collective action - with the clear-cut call for the government to take over the yard and save the jobs and skills - won at least a short reprieve from closure.

As UNITE rep Joe Passmore said,

"This is people power, a small step, but we were due to close today if it hadn't been for our action. Not just ours, but the actions of the entire trade union movement which has responded en masse. It shows that when we shout together, somebody has to listen. When we stand together, we become giants." 


Nationalisation would allow diversification and create vastly more jobs

Climate Crisis is a Workers’ Issue

This battle highlights several critical points of general significance: the utter inability of private capitalism to secure jobs and a future for the next generation; the power of organised workers to effect change, because of their role in the economy (in contrast to pleading with remote politicians for solutions); the central role of the working class in the struggle to utterly change the system and thereby protect the environment from the rapacious destruction by profit-hunting capitalist owners, whose only concern is short-term maximisation of profit margins; and the equally pivotal solution of democratic public ownership in order to protect people and planet alike. 


Diversify to Clean Production


Harland and Wolff workers have skills they want to utilise and pass on to the next generation. They are rightly demanding nationalisation to achieve that. 
They have already diversified use of their skills to an extent, but the entirely piecemeal nature and appallingly limited (in fact, declining) rate of investment by governments and big business in clean, renewable energy means the potential for the yard in these fields has been totally untapped, leaving workers looking into the abyss.

They are demanding some of the substantial Royal Navy contracts should go to Belfast, and their decisive action could embarrass Johnson into conceding that. In itself that would be a victory for collective union action - and would buy time to campaign for urgent diversification of production into the likes of marine engineering for offshore energy production, as part of a publicly owned green energy industry. 


Scotland's offshore energy could be a massive source of jobs - if publicly owned


BiFab & the Caley - Cases for Public Ownership


Meantime in Scotland, two groups of workers face devastation that could easily be averted, and transformed into secure, expanded, socially useful production, if the Scottish government had the political ideology and will to take them into public ownership: the BiFab yards in Methil and Burntisland, and the Caley railway workshop in Springburn. 

 
Rally at the Caley - 163 years of tradition wiped out



Workers were in tears of rage and sadness as they rallied at the Caley on the day it shut down, after 163 years of rail manufacturing. That is industrial vandalism, by the capitalist owners since privatisation, and by the SNP government who spurned the unions' calls for nationalisation. 
It could be an integral part of a public rail and transport network, building and repairing rolling stock for a vastly expanded and improved rail service. 
And as the SSP has pioneered and fought for over the years, a fare-free public transport system would slash car use, combat poverty and pollution - a radical and immediate contribution to tackling climate change. An example of workers’ jobs, skills and livelihoods being vastly improved whilst reversing the destruction of the planet wreaked by capitalism.

 
Empty rhetoric about Scotland leading the way on green energy not matched by action

At BiFab, the Fife yards are to be awarded production of a paltry 8 out of the total 54 turbine jackets ordered for the massive, £2bn Neart Na Gaoithe (NnG) offshore wind project, just off the same Fife coast. The promise is of this saving "up to 200 jobs". 
That's 'up to 200' more jobs than would have existed if there hadn't been a vigorous campaign by the unions and local communities. But it’s still an insult; the other 46 jackets will not be built a few miles from the offshore windfarm, but in Indonesia! Built by cheap labour, then shipped across the globe and up the Fife coast by diesel-burning barges. 
So much for the boasts by the Scottish government of Scotland pioneering green energy! 


Public Ownership a Key Solution


Full and democratic public ownership of all forms of energy, transport, construction, shipyards and the banks is at the heart of a solution to pollution.

To have a just transition from fossil fuels to clean green energy, but with guarantees that all the jobs and conditions of today's workers in the energy sector are protected and transferred by agreement with their unions into a green public energy company.

To deploy the skills of workers in the shipyards, railway workshops and others to build the new ferries and the fleets of buses, trains and trams to create a world-class, free, integrated public transport network.

To create 100,000s of well-paid, unionised jobs and apprenticeships in a Green New Deal for the working class. 

To resurrect the social housing sector, building at least 100,000 new homes for rent a year, built to the highest environmental standards, combating fuel poverty and the housing crisis as well as creating vast numbers of decent, fulfilling jobs.

With local authorities, local cooperatives and the Scottish government aided in funding these projects by a state bank, instead of the current scandal of banks helping BP, Shell and other multinationals desecrate the planet for profit.


Free public transport - would cut poverty, isolation, pollution...and create jobs

Local Workers’ Struggles & Socialist Change


These links between local workers’ struggles and the need for socialist change in how the economy is owned and run in order to tackle the climate crisis need to be discussed and popularised in the run up to the 20 September action, and beyond. 

It would be fatal if the courageous young people who have electrified the awareness of the climate emergency did not get the support of workers, young and older. 
It would be disastrous if the young protestors began to blame older workers for a crisis that has been created by a tiny, fabulously rich minority of the population, through the very nature of capitalist production for profit. 
It's the capitalist minority who plundered and polluted the earth, not older workers. It's not a generational issue, it's a class issue!

It's capitalists - Shell, BP, etc - who pollute, not workers of any age 



Action on 20 September


Achieving a genuine general strike on 20 September is a tall order. And it's a demand that should not be light-mindedly thrown around without thinking through the almighty preparations it would take, at workplace level, especially in the teeth of anti-union laws. 

But that should not prevent trade unions organising for maximum solidarity and participation in some forms of protest - armed with some of the policies described above, to help convince working class people that we can be far, far better off by taking drastic measures to tackle climate change - rather than being asked to pay for a crisis we didn't create, through jobs being slaughtered and services slashed. 

Local union organising meetings are being held to discuss practical protest actions. Workplace meetings should be called to discuss the issues and solutions, as well as action. And the UCU union has proposed a Motion to the TUC Congress in early September, calling for a 30-minute strike to be called by the TUC on 20 September. 




Workers and Young People Unite


Young people have lit a fire underneath the backsides of those in power. Workers are beginning to take action in some areas in their own self-defence, in ways that would and should be linked to expansion of 'green' jobs that would help reverse the tsunami of destruction caused by capitalist ownership and production.

The power of the working class, united with the power of protest by young people demanding a future, needs to be wielded to ensure we have a world to live in.

And socialism - collective, sustainable production for the democratically decided needs of people, not profit - is the increasingly urgent need of the hour.