WORKERS NEED INDEPENDENCE TO IMPROVE THEIR LIVES

The annual conference of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) meets against a background of ferocious attacks on workers, their rights and living standards by employers emboldened by the most vicious government of millionaires in memory. And it meets amidst raging debate on whether trade unionists should support Scottish Independence. 

With 37 affiliated unions and 630,000 members, the STUC represents a huge force, so the battery of progressive policies and demands being debated are potentially vital to the future working people face, provided the STUC takes decisive action in pursuit of its own decisions.

STUC MOTIONS FOR REFORMS

As the Westminster old-Etonians kick seven colours out of workers' rights, and preside over the most prolonged decline in wages since the 1870s - yes, the worst drop in real wages for 140 years! - the STUC Motions up for debate rightly demand an end to austerity; investment in public services; fair pay; a living wage; redistributive taxation; reduced inequality; social justice; support for carers; investment in public sector housing; a ban on zero hours contracts; an integrated public transport system; renationalisation of Royal Mail; public ownership of the Big Six energy companies; collective bargaining rights for workers; industrial democracy; election of accountable trade union representatives on company boards; take union facility time for unions in all workplaces with over 21 workers; state retirement at 60...and a host of other specific reforms that would enhance the lives of millions in Scotland. 

HOW TO WIN REFORMS

Two related questions arise. How can the trade unions best put up a serious fight to achieve these gains? And how does that relate to the Referendum?

Nothing has ever been gained by merely passing Motions at conferences. It's always taken determined action, with maximum unity, to win every reform, however mild or far-reaching. The STUC and it's affiliated unions have a duty to give leadership amongst working people, their families and communities, through public forums, rallies, demonstrations and in some circumstances united industrial action - such as in opposition to the crucifying cuts emanating from the Twin Tory Coalition. Pleas for mercy fall on deaf ears; action by the working class speaks far louder than words. So the STUC conference needs to support those Motions that include a strategy for action.

TRADE UNIONISTS FOR INDEPENDENCE

But that inevitably also raises the issue of the Referendum. 

Those unions backing the scrapping of Trident and Defence industry diversification must surely face up to the fact a Yes vote would guarantee this path, whereas it is beyond the powers of a devolved Edinburgh parliament in a continued UK.

Calls for collective bargaining, trade union facilities at work, employment rights will fall on utterly stony ground if we remain under Westminster rule - even in the less than probable event of Miliband's Labour winning office in 2015; look at Labour's record in office. And again this is all beyond the remit of a devolved Holyrood.

Likewise with the level of minimum wage; state pension; welfare spending; retirement age; fully redistributive taxation - not to even mention the fact Holyrood is powerless to take Royal Mail, transport or energy into public ownership, or to pursue the general aim (in UNITE's Motion) of "public and common ownership, with election of trade union reps onto company/industrial forums and boards".

Only a fully-fledged government elected by the Scottish people would have the powers to transform workers' lives, through these and other measures.

MAJORITY RULE!

And here again there needs to be a bit more consistency on the parts of many trade union leaderships. The STUC and its affiliates have a proud record of fighting South African Apartheid (as, in fact, referred to in a Motion to this STUC on the death of Mandela), fighting for majority rule. So where are many of the same trade union leaders when it comes to majority rule for the Scottish people - with an overwhelmingly working class majority? Are they going to advocate a No vote on 18 September so we continue to suffer 'rich minority rule' by Westminster Tories - who have been openly, nakedly dictating over Scotland for at least 34 years since 1955, despite never once getting a majority vote in Scotland since that year?

SELF-DETERMINATION FOR GREECE, PALESTINE...AND SCOTLAND?

A Conference Motion from ASLEF rightly offers solidarity to the Greek people, supporting "democracy, sovereignty, independence and the right of the Greek people to determine their own future free from oppressive external intervention". Does this not sound uncannily familiar? 

So why therefore do union leaderships like those of ASLEF, USDAW, GMB, CWU not apply the same principles to Scotland? Why are they so rightly eager to support self determination for the Greeks or Palestinians, but so eager to ignore the right of their own Scottish memberships to determine the views of their own trade union on the Referendum -  through branch debates, votes and a Scottish conference, rather than having no consultation or sham consultation after the UK-wide union leadership declared and imposed support for Better Together?

WORKERS' UNITY AND SOLIDARITY

And the dusty old argument that independence would wreck the unity and solidarity of the working class melts in the face of reality. Since when did any British government - including Labour ones - ever encourage or facilitate the unity and solidarity of workers across the UK? 

On the contrary, measures banning so-called secondary action, combined with the break-up of public sector industries and services through rampant privatization, have been used to block workers' unity, to divide and conquer.

On the other hand, when Liverpool dockers, Manchester care workers, or Bristol civil servants were brought on tours of Scottish workplaces and unions by those of us who founded the SSP, not one Scottish worker ever spurned them on the grounds they were English. Nor did they turn away appeals for support to Irish car workers or Danish bus drivers that I toured Scotland with. The solidarity of Scottish workers - which also dates back to the 1930s Spanish civil war or the 1973 fascist coup in Chile - has never been dependent on workers being part of the UK, and certainly never awaited the support or permission of any Westminster government. 

A BEACON TO WORKERS ABROAD

So why should that change after Scotland gained self-rule? The opposite: an emboldened Scottish working class, which helps not only to win a Yes vote but goes on to organise to shape the type of Scotland we build, would act as an example, a shining beacon, to workers across England, Wales, Ireland, Europe and beyond. 

Trade unionists should not only stand up for Scottish self-determination, but fight to achieve a just and egalitarian Scotland, based on the best traditions of the trade union movement - an independent socialist Scotland - which would advance the cause of workers and socialism well beyond the boundaries of Scotland. In contrast, continued rule and ruin by the Westminster puppets of bankers and capitalists spells misery for millions of working class people. The choice is stark, the opportunity for sweeping change in favour of working people far too precious to miss.

THE TIDE IS TURNING IN THE TRADE UNION RANKS

 

 It's been a good week for those of us campaigning as trade unionists for independence. Huge numbers of trade unionists have voted for Scottish independence after thorough, well-informed debate.  



And even those union leaders who unceremoniously imposed their union's support for the anti-independence camp with no - or entirely sham - consultation of Scottish members, are now desperately scrambling to distance themselves from the toxic, Tory-funded Better Together campaign. 



 Workers hold the key to Scotland's future - both on and beyond September 18th. We make up the vast majority population. We have most to gain from escaping the brutality of Westminster rule. 









We have the potential power to shape an independent Scotland's policies by forging a force for radical redistribution of power and wealth, for socialist change. And we have most to lose if workers continue to be ruled over and dictated to by the three factions of Thatcherism that dominate Westminster politics.  



 GENERAL GEORGE! 



On 13th February George Osborne sallied forth to Edinburgh like a colonial governor to tell the uppity natives that if we dare vote for self-government he will take away the pounds in our pockets. 

Workers could be forgiven for thinking Osborne and his millionaire razor gang had done that already, considering the savage pay cuts we've 'enjoyed' at the hands of various stripes of Tory, Labour and Coalition Westminster regimes in recent decades!  



Leaving aside for now the whole issue of the currency - which I strongly believe Scotland should own and control as part of genuine democratic self-determination - working people are furious at this dictatorship by the Tories. And if anything, trade unionists are even more incensed at Labour's carefully orchestrated support for Osborne's anti-democratic threats.  









 HIGH STAKES 



This assault on the right of the Scottish people to share the assets we have helped create over generations is a timely reminder of just how much is at stake. A confirmation of the fear of British capitalist politicians at losing Scotland's vast natural resources; huge financial assets; highly educated workers' talents and skills; nuclear bases for housing their USA puppet-masters' weaponry; and not least their power and prestige on the global stage of competing imperialist overlords.



 THREE THATCHERITE FACTIONS 



It is a timely reminder to working people that Tory, LibDem and Labour all piss in the same pot, in defence of the profits, power and prestige of capitalist dictators whose wealth depends on low pay, restricted workplace rights, and stoked-up divisions within the working class.  



We can't rely on any of them to rescue the working class majority population from obscene levels of poverty and inequality in this fabulously rich nation. Switching from Tory to Labour at Westminster is about as useful as switching energy suppliers so as to be ripped off and still left in fuel poverty under a different logo!  



The three factions of Thatcherism have proven the need for democratically electing our own Scottish governments with their carefully choreographed chorus of threats on the currency issue.






 WORKERS' REPLY 



And on the day after Osborne, Balls and Alexander played their roles as schoolyard bullies, workers employed by the Westminster government replied! 
The members' meeting of the 1,000-strong Glasgow DWP branch of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) voted by about 2:1 for their national union to recommend a Yes vote in the Referendum. And the one-third minority were NOT calling for a NO vote; they were personally for Yes, but wanted the PCS union to make no recommendation on it, to be 'neutral' as a national union. 






Days later, on 18th February, 570 members of the giant 2,200-strong branch of the same PCS union at East Kilbride Revenue and Taxes met and debated the same three options. After thorough and democratic debate the vote was 60% for PCS to recommend a Yes vote; 20% to remain neutral; 20% to call for a No vote.
Other PCS branches in the DWP, HMRC, Scottish Government and Driving Examiners also voted for Yes. 



 TRADE UNION NEUTRALITY? 



However, in several PCS branches the members openly and overwhelmingly declared they would be voting Yes, but then by (a sometimes slim) majority called on their national union to make no recommendation one way or the other.
Two distinct types of arguments were advanced for this. 



Tiny handfuls of Labour hacks and anti-independence campaigners argued for PCS neutrality because they knew there is a better chance of snow surviving Hell than of them winning members to a No vote; an entirely bogus stance.  



On the other hand some genuine members who actually intend to vote Yes have sincere fears that if PCS calls for a Yes vote it could divide the union and shed members; genuine worries, but entirely misplaced. 

PCS has a proud history of debating and deciding policies on a wide range of progressive policies, and have never seen a split in the union nor a mass exodus of members despite strongly held opposing views on issues such as abortion rights, apartheid, wars, Trident, etc.  

PCS members who see the merit of being in a union do not treat this as merely a private preference; they would never advocate 'neutrality' on whether the union should seek to openly convince non-members of joining PCS.  



Likewise when they are convinced of the need to take industrial action, even though a minority vote against it; the odd handful might leave the union in protest, but larger numbers have joined, impressed by a union with the courage of its convictions, standing up for its members and its democratic majority decisions. 



 ANSWER THE LIE MACHINE 



In reality there is no such thing as 'neutrality' available to the trade unions on this vital issue. Day and daily the government impose attacks on civil servants, with closure of HMRC Contact Centres, attacks on facility time for PCS reps to represent their members, and removal of the check-off system of union subs payments as a means of trying to cripple and crush the union as government agencies wade through jobs and services like a marauding army of occupation.  



Day and daily the millionaire media pummel PCS and other trade union members with lies, distortion and fantasy fears to cow them into voting No, into accepting Westminster's butchery of jobs, pay, services and workplace rights. To remain 'neutral' in this context would be to leave the Fear Factory unanswered. 



 INDEPENDENCE: THE ROAD TO IMPLEMENTING TRADE UNION AIMS 



In the specific case of PCS, repeated annual conferences have called for far-reaching progressive policies such as a decent living wage for all over 16; public ownership of the energy giants to combat fuel poverty; a free, publicly owned and integrated transport system to challenge poverty and pollution; abolition of all the anti-union laws; opposition to wars and nuclear weapons of mass destruction; democratic public ownership of the entire banking and financial sector; progressive taxation of big business and the rich elite to create jobs, fund public services and dismantle the gross inequalities suffered under the current system. 



These are precisely the policies pursued by the likes of the Scottish Socialist Party and the broad-based Trade Unionists for Independence. They are policies with precisely zero chance of being implemented by any of the three Thatcherite factions dominating Westminster. 

So in order to pursue these clean, admirable principles, first in Scotland, then in the neighboring nations, the PCS nationally should not pretend to be neutral, but forcefully campaign for independence. 

NO IS NOWHERE IN PCS UNION
Of course that is what their Scottish conference of branches will debate on Saturday 22nd February. Hopefully delegates will see that calling for a Yes vote is entirely consistent with the emerging intentions of most members, but also the best route to implementing the PCS unions' own democratically agreed policies and principles. 

But regardless of how they vote on 22nd, one thing is starkly clear: NO is nowhere within PCS! 



Members see no sense in giving a vote of confidence to successive Westminster governments which have slaughtered their jobs, slashed their services, plundered their pay packets and now robbed their rights at work.  



The anti-independence parties can salvage no comfort whatsoever even if the PCS union decides to make no recommendation for Yes/No, because members attending the debates have shown a decisive tide is running in favour of a Yes vote by individual members. 

For instance, in one big branch where a 58% majority opted for 'neutrality' on the part of their union collectively, just three members out of the 266 who voted favoured PCS calling for a No vote!! 



 VOTING YES DOES NOT MAKE YOU A NATIONALIST 



To their credit the SNP government has declared continued adherence to 'no compulsory redundancies' in the civil service and refused to implement the Westminster assault on the check-off system of collecting union membership fees. 



The SNP White Paper has pledged Commissions on pay and workplace rights that kick the door open to the unions demanding an entirely different set of rights at work and pay levels under an independent Scotland.  

 But the key thing also confirmed by recent debates and votes at union meetings is that trade union members are increasingly taking on board the point consistently made by the SSP and Trade Unionists for Independence, and by the more recent growth of Labour for Independence: voting Yes is NOT a vote for Alex Salmond nor indefinite SNP governments.  



It is not a vote for the SNP implementation of a 1% pay cap, nor for their failure to defy all Westminster public sector budget cuts with a clarion call for mass rebellion to win back some of the billions stolen from Scotland's budget. It is certainly not a vote to cut Corporation Tax by up to 3% whilst promising very welcome social reforms. 



 A VOTE FOR DEMOCRACY: A MEANS TO DESIRABLE ENDS 



It is a vote for democracy. For the actual right to choose and elect your preferred government. To then fight for measures like a decent living minimum wage for all at 16, with equal pay for women. For repeal of the anti-union laws devised by Thatcher, kept by New Labour, added to by the current Coalition, and with no prospect of being removed by any future Labour government. 
For public ownership of not only Royal Mail - as pledged by the SNP White Paper - but also of energy, transport and banking as demanded by the likes of the SSP and TUFI.  



 In other words, voting Yes is a means to a very desirable end: it opens the path to vast improvements in the rights and living standards of the working class of Scotland - which have absolutely no prospect of being achieved under a Miliband government let alone some computation of the Tories, LibDems or UKIP.
The Yes supporters within the Society of Radiographers have captured the choices facing workers perfectly in their graphic (see at top of this article). 



 A TIDE IN THE AFFAIRS OF HUMANITY  



As Shakespeare wrote, "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune." And in the affairs of women, of course!
The tide is turning in the trade union ranks towards the gains to be made and organised for by winning a Yes vote in September.  

That's why trade union leaders like those of the GMB - who foisted their union's support for the No camp on members - are now desperately seeking distance from the Tory-funded but Labour-fronted Better Together campaign. 



For instance, when several union branches have approached Better Together for a speaker to debate the issues at members' meetings they are often offered people like Richard Leonard, GMB Scottish political officer (and member of the so-called Red Paper Collective, which makes grandiose claims to put class before nationality) who then insists he is no part of Better Together! 



That's also why the Scottish UNISON leadership have firmly resisted offers of UK UNISON funds from fake-left general secretary Dave Prentis to join the Better Together cabal.
And it's also the fundamental reason the giant UNITE union has pointedly refused to join Better Together. 




LEAD ON TO FORTUNE! 



Every trade unionist who supports independence should redouble their efforts to push this tide forward. 
The Yes Scotland campaign should go beyond the limits of the SNP White Paper and forcefully broadcast - as a bare minimum - the opportunity to repeal the anti-union laws; ensure the best workplace rights in Europe; achieve a living minimum wage for all over 16; and win democratic public ownership of Royal Mail, transport, energy and banking in order to create well-paid and secure jobs for all.  



Workers have suffered too many privations at the hands of the capitalist overlords of Whitehall and Westminster. We need to fight for the hearts and minds of the 630,000 Scottish trade unionists - and those workers too terrified by anti-union laws and anti-union employers to become members - with a vision of the "fortune" available to the working class, provided we organise not only for a Yes vote but also for radical changes in favour of the millions rather than the millionaires.

WORKERS FACE STARK CHOICES IN 2014

Working class people, the majority population of Scotland, face a stark choice this September. Vote NO to democratic self-government and get a renewed dose of attacks on jobs, wages, rights at work, benefits and public services from a Westminster regime emboldened by their success in seeing off any threatened 'Scots rebellion'. 

Or vote YES this year so that in 2016 and beyond we get the governments chosen by the working class majority, under a Proportional Representation system more in tune with voters' wishes, boosting the prospects of a government of the left, hastening the day when a radical socialist transformation of society banishes low pay, poverty, inequality and exploitation.
But nothing will be handed to us on a silver plate by the billionaires, bankers and business tycoons who currently rule the roost. Working class people, trade unionists included, need to organise to shape Scotland's future...not just fighting for a YES majority, but simultaneously forging the policies and measures that would decisively change the lives of the millions thereafter.

A NO vote is a Tory vote
The evidence is mounting that a NO vote is a vote for Tory dictatorship over Scotland - a message that trade unionists and workers clinging onto their Labour loyalties would be wise to heed.
The anti-independence Better Together is blatantly Tory-funded whilst Labour-fronted.
They must have thought Christmas was a good time to bury bad news, but no Labour voter can afford to ignore the announcement of £1.3m in donations to Better Together by 19 obnoxiously wealthy individuals who are also longstanding donors to the Tory party.

People like Andrew Fraser, City of London stockbroker, former head of Barings Bank (before it collapsed), and previously giver of £1m to the Tory party. He gave BT £200,000 to hold onto Scotland's wealth for his parasitic class.

Hotel and whiskey tycoon Donald Houston gave them £600,000.

London-based Deutsche Bank executive Ivor Dunbar donated £50,000.

Another £20,000 was handed over by two leading figures from Hakluyt, the 'private intelligence' company with links to state spy-network MI6.

Paying the Piper
So bankers, capitalist chief executives and spies - none of them resident in Scotland - want to fund the Fear Factory that is Better Together, in a ruthless bid to terrorise the Scottish working class into leaving the rich elite's political puppets at Westminster in charge, to sustain the profiteering and exploitation of workers and natural wealth they currently enjoy.
He who pays the piper calls the tune. 

As veteran leading Labour figure, former Glasgow Provost and trade unionist Alex Mosson astutely said,
"This roll-call of NO campaign donors should come as no surprise to anybody who understands the vested interests at play. This should act as a wake-up call to everybody, especially those in the Labour Party, if they're kidding themselves that the NO campaign is anything other than a Tory-led propaganda machine."

Back to the Future
The other Yuletide pronouncements that should put the fear of god into any worker bamboozled into thinking of voting NO was that of Tory Chancellor George Osborne. His declaration of class war included a further £25billion cuts, over half of them to welfare benefits, with plans to abolish housing benefits to the under-25s, slash Scotland's funding from Westminster through 'changes' to (or abolition of) the Barnett Formula, and target pensioners for cuts - a move previously seen as taboo, for fear of alienating the 'grey' vote. 

That's the future if working class Scots fall for the NO camp's scaremongering.
If you'll forgive the 'musical' pun, it's not even the Status Quo, but One Direction - backwards!

Labour panic at being found out

Some Labour Party and trade union officials who have done their members and supporters the unforgivable disservice of jumping into bed with the sworn Tory enemies of the working class are beginning to panic that traditional Labour voters have spotted their treachery.
They panic at polls showing one in five Labour voters already plan to vote YES, and the growth of Labour for Independence, with several Labour veterans recently supporting independence.

Some union officials, like the GMB's Richard Leonard, are desperately seeking to distance themselves from the Tory-funded Better Together, because their own members are up in arms about Labour and many union leaders joining forces with the party of the bedroom tax and naked class war.

Gordon Brown has been wheeled out to breathe life into United for Labour, which in reality is the Labour wing of Tory-funded Better Together, but talks hypocritical platitudes about being 'united for social justice' in the UK. Where was Gordon Brown, or BT's Labour poster boy Alistair Darling, when the last Labour government presided over escalating inequality, savage job and service cuts to fund the bankers' bailout, and continued use of hate-figure Thatcher's anti-trade union laws to cow workers into submission?

Labour in government 
Labour has had decades to prove their claims that workers are 'better together' under Westminster rule, but the real-life results included rampant privatization and profiteering (under New Labour), the most ruthless workplace repression in western Europe (by Blair's own admission/boast), the squandering of £1.3trillion of taxpayers' money to prop up the bankers and their bonuses, the worst levels of regional inequality (between the South East of England and the rest) of any EU country, and amongst the lowest wages, longest working week and poorest pensions in the whole of Europe. That's Blair, Brown and Darling's heritage, and the future they offer workers in a Labour-run capitalist UK.

Labour no longer exists
Sustained Tory or Tory-UKIP rule is an indescribable nightmare for the working class. But even the far-from-guaranteed prospect of a Westminster Labour government should fill workers with dread. British Labour are beyond redemption, beyond the reach of trade unions or socialists trying to reclaim the party founded a century ago to represent the working class. The party that generations of workers put their faith in no longer exists. 

And Scottish self-government is the only realistic route to reviving the founding principles of the labour movement pioneers, provided working class people get organised now to demand change after winning self-rule.

Hope through YES
That's where fighting for a YES vote and for the longer term combine. To win a majority of the working class for YES requires a bold, dynamic vision of a new Scotland, one where the fabulous wealth of resources and skills are deployed to boost the living standards of millions.

The SSP On the march...

This is a struggle for the hearts and minds of working class people, and the YES campaign needs to tap into the deep seated traditions of hatred for unfairness, injustice and inequality in the soul of Scottish workers. That's where the fighting demands for change put forward by not only the SSP but also broad-based campaigns like Trade Unionists for Independence (TUFI) become critical.

The Scottish SNP government's White Paper has put the NO camp on the run by exposing their complete lack of a clear vision of what would follow a NO vote. In contrast to their reliance on lies and scaremongering, the White Paper pledges numerous welcome reforms, such as childcare provision for all 3-4 year olds on a par with primary school hours; protection of pensions; defence of fee-free university education; a 5 per cent cut to energy bills; encouragement and involvement of trade unions; rises in the minimum wage to match inflation; restoration of 90-day consultation on redundancies; renationalisation of Royal Mail; removal of Trident weapons...to name a few.

...for a socially just Scotland...

A bold vision for Yes Scotland
But to win a YES majority in the population that counts most - the working class - Yes Scotland should boldly go beyond these welcome promises. And the SSP, TUFI (which includes Labour for Independence trade unionists) and individual union branches have a critical role to play in popularising measures that could and should be carried out after a YES vote.

Nobody expects a Coalition like Yes Scotland to embrace the entire socialist aims of the SSP, but they urgently need to go beyond the limited agenda put by their SNP component if they are to win the battle for the working class vote. 

Rather than merely promising to inflation-proof the current pathetic £6.31 minimum wage (with far lower youth rates) Yes Scotland should spell out a vision of a guaranteed living wage as the minimum for all at 16, without age discrimination.

In addition to public ownership of Royal Mail, they should highlight the opportunity for public ownership - at the very least - of our railways and energy companies to combat nauseating profiteering and the crime of fuel poverty.

...for YES in September 2013!

Workers' rights
And to expose the nightmare facing people at work if Westminster's dictatorship of the rich is allowed to continue, Yes Scotland should as a bare minimum adopt a charter of workers' rights that includes the right to join and organise unions without fear of victimization or blacklisting; legal guarantees for elected union representatives to function during works time to represent members; an end to state interference in the running of union affairs and internal elections; abolition of fees for Employment Tribunals; a constitutional right to strike and removal of the ban on solidarity action. By putting forward measures to lift the climate of fear in workplaces, allowing unions to function independently of employers and the government, Yes Scotland could give 630,000 trade union members and countless other non-members a glimpse of a new Scotland where they would be profoundly better off.

Gorbals Public meeting - come along and hear about OUR alternative!

Organise workers for change
Whilst calling on the umbrella Yes Scotland to travel this route, trade unionists should and will champion such policies as part of organising to shape Scotland's future in the interests of its working class majority.
That is why all of us should celebrate the overwhelming decision by the Scottish conference of the Left Unity formation in the biggest civil and public service union, PCS, to campaign for independence - which SSP members in the union played a major part in achieving. 

That is why Trade Unionists for Independence, embracing workers from several parties and none, has a major part to play and is stepping up its efforts to reach workplaces.

Socialism and independence

That is why the SSP - which is uniquely placed as the only party to have for fought for an independent socialist Scotland for the past 15 years - is determined to pick up the banner trampled in the muck by the Tory-collaborating Labour leaders. 

Our vision of an independent Scotland goes miles beyond the timid reforms advocated by the SNP leadership, as we champion taxation of big business and the rich; democratic public ownership of the major industries, services and banking; a socialist democracy where working class people gain the full fruits of their labour instead of being stripped of living standards and rights so the bankers and billionaires can amass obscene profits.

Working people, traditionally many of them Labour voters, face a stark choice. Socialists have a duty to help clarify that choice, show how a YES vote can kick open the door to radical socialist change, whereas a NO vote would condemn them to the jailhouse conditions suffered by millions in a capitalist Britain where different factions of Tory ideology are all that's on offer. 

The SSP is determined to help workers reach that conclusion and to organise to shape Scotland's future.

Just back from chairing superb, lively, passionate Trade Unionists For Independence public meeting in Glasgow

Text message I sent to TUFI and SSP volunteers...

Members of huge breadth of unions - GMB, USDAW, UNITE, PCS, CWU, UNISON, RMT, ASLEF, FBU, NUJ, EIS - and several branches of many. Ranged from young shop stewards in charge of their union website and conveners & reps for workers in front line of assaults by todays government of and for the millionaires - to an ex-miner and a veteran of victorious 1971 UCS shipyards occupation. Passionate speeches.

Clear, hardhitting arguments on the workers' case for independence, and determined plans to go back to workplaces to shape our future.

People left more equipped to convince fellow workers, more confident to challenge those union leaders who've imposed a NO position on their unions, more united across party boundaries in favour of a Scotland for the millions, not the millionaires.

Richie Venton, TUFI & SSP

WORKERS CAN BE WON TO INDEPENDENCE

The working class make up the vast majority population in Scotland. Over 630,000 of us are in organized trade unions. Tens of thousands more would join to improve their wages, health & safety, job security and rights at work if they didn't feel under threat of reprisals from employers emboldened by the most repressive anti-union laws in Europe. 

That makes the battle to win the hearts and minds of workers for Scottish self-government absolutely central to the tasks facing the Yes campaign.

The anti-independence parties recognize this. That's why their self-named Operation Fear desperately tries to scare the wits out of working people at the alleged consequences of daring to vote for the Scottish people to have the powers to shape Scotland's future - rather than letting anti-working class Westminster regimes impose their ruinous policies on us.

Labour - chief Unionist prop

Very few self-respecting workers in Scotland vote Tory. Those duped into voting LibDem under the illusion they were a fresh challenge in 2010 are deserting these treacherous yellow Tories, as 'Saint' Vince Cable leads the Coalition's assault on workplace rights - in addition to their treachery over student tuition fees, nuclear weapons, the bedroom tax, war on Syria, etc.

So the only real weapon in the hands of the Unionists - especially when it comes to fooling workers into voting No - is the Labour party component of Better Together. Hence Alistair Darling's role as poster boy for the Tory-funded front. Hence Gordon Brown's lumbering attempts to put a hairline distance between the Tory/LibDem/Labour cabal and 'United with Labour' - with it's spurious arguments about retaining workers' solidarity and looking after those most in need by pooling and distributing resources in a 'United' Kingdom.

Vote Labour - get hammered!

Ultimately their argument boils down to this: vote No to Scottish self-government and wait for a Westminster Labour government in 2015, to resolve all your problems of job insecurity, low pay, public service cuts, fuel price rises, bedroom tax. They trade heavily on the longstanding link between Labour and the trade unions to peddle this message, constantly spreading the lie that the referendum is a vote for or against Alex Salmond and 'the nationalists'.

But this argument is absolute bunkum; it takes no account of the real living experience of the recent 13 years of Labour governments at Westminster and how they treated trade unionists and workers generally - far less the stated intentions and policies of Labour for 2015 onwards.

No change – all change

The pro-independence movement needs to waken up to a brutal truth and act accordingly, gloves off: all the talk (from the likes of Alex Salmond) that things will remain the same after independence is a recipe for disaster. Workers are bombarded daily with bloodcurdling scare stories about the dangers of independence (most of them simply absurd) by the Westminster government and Labour, which are printed and broadcast as if they're gospel truth by the mainstream media. So why should workers resist this monstrous lie machine if the Yes camp merely replies "don't panic, nothing will change" - when for workers that means no change to poverty pay, rocketing prices, mass unemployment, vicious anti-union laws?

Union debates 

It is to the credit of unions like the CWU, PCS, GMB, RMT (and the STUC as a whole) that they are holding debates and forums for members to discuss the issues - something which the likes of USDAW, ASLEF and COMMUNITY utterly failed to do before hitching their wagons to the No camp. 

This is an opportunity that must be seized by Yes Scotland, with all its resources - as is being attempted by Trade Unionists for Independence (TUFI), with it's minuscule resources - to hammer the false Labour prospectus in particular, and spell out the positive, radical changes to working people's lives that are available through independence - and only through that route.

Every union or workplace will have particular issues of concern, but several key issues are common to many.

Anti union laws – keep or scrap?

The package of vicious restrictions to the ability to freely join a union, function as a union on behalf of members, and ultimately take united action in defense of wages, jobs, pensions and conditions has been added to by the unelected Coalition. But whilst the recent Labour conference tried to sound a bit more eye-catchingly radical on issues like energy prices and the bedroom tax, they didn't even pretend that on repressive workplace laws.



And why would they? Labour retained Maggie Thatcher's vicious laws throughout 13 years in office. Tony Blair boasted Britain had the most repressive workplace legislation in Europe. Glasgow Labour council threatened striking UNISON members with jail in the '90s, using those very laws. Nowhere has Labour pledged that voting NO in 2014 and voting Labour in 2015 would lead to repeal of any of these repressive measures.

Yes to workers' rights

In contrast a Yes vote would provide workers with the opening to have them scrapped, and the most advanced charter of workers' rights in the whole of Europe fought for.
The riposte of some trade unionists is that Alex Salmond has never openly declared for total repeal. True; and if he did, or if Yes Scotland as a broad umbrella body did, it would be dynamite in demolishing the fake objections of union leaders tied to Labour.
However, this Referendum is not about supporting Alex Salmond. It's about winning the powers to banish the anti-union laws - which neither the Tories, LibDems nor Labour have any intention whatsoever of doing - and then wielding the might of the organized working class to elect a government of the left that is prepared to legislate decent workplace rights. It's a stark choice.

Poverty Pay - or Living Wage?

Precisely the same arguments apply to this, one of the central concerns of most working people. Better Together and United with Labour have a lot of explaining to do! If remaining in Britain is such a rosy prospect for workers, how do they explain away the fact that in the past 40 years of successive Tory and Labour governmnets, workers' wages as a share of national wealth have plummeted? Why UK workers today get £60billion a year less in wages than they did in 1980? Why if someone currently on £12,000 a year had their wages at the same share of GDP as in 1975, they'd be earning not £12,000, but over £23,000? That the last Labour government presided over a massive increase in inequality - the biggest gap since 1864? That their legacy means one in 11 people today are left with a mere £10 a month disposable income, after paying essential bills?

Carve out our future

Voting Yes in 2014 would permanently rid us of Tory rule, with their conscious strategy of driving down wages. And no self-respecting trade unionist has ever sat back and waited to be liberated by one or other brand of pro-big business, capitalist politician. Rather, we seek to carve out the future we want, through collective organisation - for instance by demanding the government of an independent Scotland implements a living national minimum wage for all over 16, with equal pay for women. That would be a genuine measure to assist a race to the top! - and imagine the way such an achievement would embolden workers in England, Wales, Ireland and beyond to follow suit.

Public Services – cut or expand?

As part of their survey of members on the Referendum, the PCS union has found the biggest single concern is the future of public services - exceeding even pay and pensions. Leaving aside the rather important fact that only 20 per cent of the Coalition's cuts have been implemented so far, meaning an eye-watering four times as much is yet to come, what are the prospects for public services and the workers who provide them if Labour manages to win in 2015?
It was United with Labour's Gordon Brown who declared 100,000 job losses in the civil service a clear 3 years before the Coalition took office. And in contrast to the populist speechifying at Labour's recent conference, Ed Balls and others made brutally plain their intention to be ‘ruthless’, with ‘iron discipline’ in making cuts to jobs, pay and services. That's the prospects even if - and it's far from guaranteed - Labour wins Westminster in 2015 and Scotland remains under its control.
By contrast, a Yes vote opens the door to a mighty push by workers and their unions for a massive expansion of public services, with the powers to tax the rich minority to help fund them, expanding jobs in the construction of cradle-to-grave care, expanded education, health and public transport, alongside a massive social sector house-building plan. Without the powers that go with independence, this is impossible under devolution.

Labour's Welfare spokesperson Rachel Reeves says Labour cuts will be deeper than Tories'

Privatization - or public ownership?

Royal Mail workers - and millions more of us reliant on the service - are reeling at the naked profiteering of the sell-off of a service that's been state owned for nearly 500 years. Over £1.1billion was stolen by the speculators and profiteers on the first day after privatization. Already the head of Royal Mail has admitted the prospect of dearer postage stamps. The experience of privatized energy - where the recent price rise by SSE was even higher in Scotland's coldest northern regions than in the rest of Scotland - is a warning of regionally varied prices for mail services, on top of the threat to the universal service, especially in rural areas.
But what do we face under continued Westminster rule, if workers are persuaded by the likes of the CWU union leadership to vote No?

Labour privateers

If some combination of Tories, LibDems and UKIP win in 2015, the answer is too obvious to elaborate. But whilst Labour took £1.8m from CWU members since 2010, and graciously rewarded them with the opportunity to win unanimous support for the CWU's Motion to renationalise the service at Labour's national conference, Ed Miliband and Co immediately spat in their face, trampling on Labour's conference decision, declaring they will absolutely not take Royal Mail - or the railways, or the exploitative Big Six energy companies - into public ownership.
In contrast, not only has the SSP consistently fought for the past 15 years for democratic public ownership of all these services - and banks, big business, transport - but Alex Salmond has now also pledged re-nationalization of Royal Mail in an independent Scotland.
So the choice workers face is stark: vote No for continued privatization, profiteering, service cuts, rip-off prices, or vote Yes to reverse privatization and extend public ownership.
Again, the SNP's failure to call for extensive public ownership, including North Sea oil, misses the point. The 2014 Referendum is not a vote for permanent SNP rule, but for the first ever chance to elect a government of our own choice, where the option of a government of the left that is committed to such massive restructuring of power and wealth is available.

Workers’ solidarity and internationalism

The last resort argument of Labour scoundrels for retention of Westminster rule is that "independence will break the unity and internationalism of the working class".
That's rich coming from people like Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling or Anas Sarwar!
Since when did workers' unity depend on Westminster? In fact, under successive Tory and Labour governments, 'divide and rule' has been a favourite tactic to defeat workers' attempts to defend their jobs, wages, conditions and communities. For example, the toxic combination of privatization and laws against solidarity ("secondary") action has been used to stop railway workers doing the very same jobs from uniting in action, because they're hired by separate profiteers.

Internationalism - not British nationalism

And since when has the solidarity and internationalism of Scottish workers halted at the shores of Britain? What about their solidarity actions with the workers of Chile under Pinochet or apartheid South Africa? What about the solidarity tours I've personally helped organise in Scotland for trade unionists from Denmark, Nigeria, Ireland...or Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol? Did anyone ever decline solidarity with any of these workers in struggle because they're English, or because their country is not part of the UK?! Nobody but a reactionary British nationalist would put such a viewpoint.

And why would this genuine internationalism suddenly cease once Scotland's working class majority had won the powers to elect a left government able and willing to transform workers' lives?
In fact, by voting Yes and simultaneously fighting to carve out a Scotland based on workers' interests, a socialist Scotland, Scottish workers and their trade unions can give a massive push forward to workers' struggles everywhere, starting with our nearest neighbours. And the fact that unions like UNITE and the NUJ straddle the borders of Britain and Ireland - north and south - buries the lie that self-government equals division and isolationism.

Workers need independence and socialism 

The case for independence - and socialism - is there to be won amongst workers, the very people who stand to lose most under continued rule by Westminster's competing capitalist factions, and most to gain from shaping Scotland into an egalitarian socialist democracy.

VOTE YES TO REVERSE ROYAL MAIL PRIVATISATION

Don't be fooled by the Labour weathervanes...

As the New Labour weathervanes whizzed round 180 degrees at the Brighton beaches last week, trying to face the same way as majority public opinion, announcing popular promises that fly in the face of their earlier track record, some people might have fallen for their trick: vote to stay in the UK in 2014, vote for 'Red' Ed and a Westminster Labour government in 2015, and live happily ever after.

Not any more!

Enemy within!

One in three Scottish households, shuddering in fuel poverty, will cheer the threat of a 20-month price freeze, reject the blackmailing of the Big Six profiteers with their threats of an investment strike, power cuts and general mayhem - and ask where the mainstream media screams about "holding the country to ransom" and "the enemy within" have disappeared, since they trot out such diatribes every time miners or other workers dare to defend their communities from destruction. 

And those of us in the broad-based Trade Unionists for Independence (TUFI) will still ask why Labour doesn't just declare for democratic public ownership of this blackmailing, profit-crazed cartel of energy giants - because you can't control what you don't own!

Labour's belated abolitionists

Scottish working people will mightily cheer the pledge to scrap the bedroom tax. But we will still ask why Labour did nothing to expose and resist it's introduction at Westminster a year ago; failed to pledge its abolition when it was imposed 6 months ago; why for months Labour councils refused to even ban evictions and indeed issued eviction notices in North Lanarkshire; and only eventually got round to announcing their new policy of abolition long after the SSP, SNP, Greens and even the LibDem conference had all done so.

Political weathervanes rely on people having short memories. They can't be trusted. Labour announced this in large measure to con people into 'waiting for a Labour government' at Westminster to banish the bedroom tax - to vote NO in 2014 and leave the entire welfare system in the tender hands of Westminster, just forgetting that successive Labour and Tory governments have hammered the poorest and cut public sector jobs through their savage cuts.

Gyrations on Royal Mail privatization

But for anyone teetering on the brink of voting against Scottish self-government, surely Labour's gyrations on public ownership of Royal Mail is a loud, rude awakening?
Trade Unionists for Independence (TUFI) - founded 15 months ago - has consistently stated (including in our Statement of Aims) that we are not out for independence just to swap flags and emblems, but to give the Scottish working class majority their first EVER real chance to elect a government with the powers AND the political will to stand up for the working class, through measures such as "reversal of all privatization and outsourcing".

Tory theft for private profit

The Tories are rushing through privatization of Royal Mail, threatening the universal service, six-day delivery, rural services, and the jobs, conditions and pensions of postal workers. There is no excuse for this, as Royal Mail makes hundreds of millions in profit, (£403m last year), which could be invested in genuine modernization.

So TUFI - which includes our affiliate, 4,000-member Scotland no 2 branch of the Communication Workers Union - welcomed the announcement of Alex Salmond that a post-independence government would bring Royal Mail back into public ownership. 

That makes at least the SNP, Scottish Socialist Party and Greens on the side of public ownership and of the CWU union, whose members rejected privatization by 96%!

Deterrent to criminal profiteering

Imagine the joy of most working people when the UK Labour conference in Brighton added its voice to the call for renationalisation of Royal Mail, assuming the Tories and LibDems ram it through regardless?
Of course some of us who've been around a while, with good memories, didn't forget that it was the Westminster Labour government of Blair, Brown and Mandelson that first tried to privatize Royal Mail, only retreating in the face of strike action by the CWU, and general public outcry.

Nevertheless, the UK conference of Labour adding its voice to the declaration of future renationalisation was a powerful warning to the profit-hungry vultures hovering to pick apart the body of the universal service, devouring the profitable bits, tossing aside the likes of rural services. A deterrent to criminal profiteering at public expense.

Labour spits on its own conference

Well, it would be, if decisions at Labour conferences meant anything! 

Before the trade union delegates who moved the motions for taking back Royal Mail (and the railways) into public ownership had returned to their seats, 'senior figures' in Labour's leadership were briefing the media that a future Labour manifesto for 2015 would NOT include these policies. Just like numerous similar conference decisions had been ignored by the Labour leadership in the past.

And now we have it out in the open. Labour's Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna‏ has spelt out unequivocally that Labour will NOT reverse privatization of Royal Mail.

Chuka Umuna: Labour will NOT reverse privatization on Royal Mail

Solidarity with strikers

TUFI is committed to building solidarity with workers taking action against attacks by the UK government - in this instance, 120,000 postal workers, across Scotland, England, Wales and N Ireland.

Our solidarity knows no national boundaries. 

Can the same be claimed by the poisonous cocktail of Tories, LibDems and Labour in Better Together? Or even Gordon Brown's 'United with Labour' wing of Better Together? Are they out denouncing privatization of Royal Mail, pledging solidarity with strikers, promising to take the service back in 2015?
No, the only sure route to saving this (and other) services from being plundered by the profiteers is to combine international solidarity with fellow trade unionists alongside campaigning for Scottish independence as a means to an end: to win the powers and a government of the left with the willpower to save our public services, through their return to public ownership where they've been privatized.

Legal strangulation of workplace rights

And we haven't even mentioned the fact Labour conference never even committed to repeal of the vicious anti-union laws, being added to day and daily at the current Tory conference. 

The Tories are using their Blue Jamboree in Manchester to announce plans to treble the membership threshold required to seek union recognition; abolish the 'deduction from wages' system of collecting union membership subs in order to hamper the unions' functioning; scrap facilities for elected union shop stewards and reps to represent members; charge 'market rates' for union accommodation for meetings; in addition to the insurmountable hurdles of fees for Employment Tribunals recently added to the most oppressive anti-union laws in Europe.

These laws - ushered in by Thatcher, retained by 13 years of Labour governments, added to already by Cameron, Clegg and Cable - are designed to prevent unity and solidarity in workers' self-defense, and in action to save public services. But a Westminster Labour government after 2015 is set to keep them.

Workers: join TUFI

It is time more trade unionists and trade union branches followed the road of the 4,000-strong CWU Scotland no2 branch, by joining TUFI, fighting for a workers' vision of what we want in an independent Scotland, helping to liberate working people from the suffocating stranglehold of Westminster regimes (whether Tory, LibDem, New Labour, UKIP, or any combination thereof).
A Scotland with a Charter of Workers' Rights as part of a written constitution, matching at least the best of any in Europe. A Scotland that protects and expands public services and taxes the obscenely rich and big business to help fund them. A Scotland for the millions, not the millionaires.

Don't be conned by the Labour weathervanes; they don't even listen to their own party members!

By Richie Venton, Trade Unionists for Independence (TUFI) steering group

Trades Unions for Independence Meeting tomorrow

West of Scotland Trade Unionists for Independence

Tuesday 14th May 6pm:  In Auctioneers Bar, 6 North Court, Glasgow  (off St Vincent St/corner George Sq - 2minutes from Queen St station).