WE DESERVE BETTER say people in N Ireland

The Portadown #wedeservebetter Rally 

Thousands turned out to protest rallies in 16 towns and cities in N Ireland yesterday, under the banner #wedeservebetter. They crowded into town centres; lined round lough-sides; even rallied on the beaches!

People from both communities combined in anger and frustration towards the elected but absentee politicians who have continued to draw their MLAs’ salaries but failed to form a government for 589 days, and counting! The rallies were called on 28^th August because that’s when N Ireland set a new world record for the length of time without a government – outstripping even Belgium!

The events were initiated by Dylan Quinn of Enniskillen, who captured the mood of a growing swathe of working class people – DUP and Sinn Fein voters alike. 
In my frequent visits to family in my native Fermanagh over recent years, I’ve witnessed the mounting rage at the MLAs from the two dominant parties – DUP and SF – who fail to reach compromises to form an Executive. People are increasingly furious at the failure of MLAs - whose combined salaries exceeded £9m in the 589 days of stalemate – to take any positive action on the horrendous NHS crisis; marriage equality; abortion rights; pay cuts for workers; or the looming upheaval of Brexit. 

NHS CRISIS - BUT £9M IN ABSENTEE MLAs SALARIES!

An illustration of the issues working class communities cry out for solutions to is the attacks on GP practices. Across the North the number of GP practices has fallen from 365 a few years ago to 336 now, which means fewer GPs per head of population than in the 1950s. But there’s much worse to come; government-initiated plans will slash this to an unbelievable 17 GP practices across the whole of N Ireland – with the monstrous consequence for access to treatment.

And no wonder Fermanagh was the birthplace of this #wedeservebetter protest: the planned ‘reforms’ in the NHS threaten to slash the number of GP practices in the county from 18 to 4 or 5 over the next two years – which is why the BMA describes this as the area of worst crisis in the whole of the UK. I know from first-hand family experience the terrible effect this has on the sick and elderly, in tandem with hospital cuts. 

Some of the crowd in Enniskillen 

Those who vented their anger at the politicians yesterday rightly linked the squandering of public funds on salaries for absentee MLAs with the need for investment in public services – for instance in speeches, and with home-made placards declaring “Get Back to Work”, “No Work, No Pay”, and “Take Back the £9m and Give it to the NHS”.

But the most nauseating spectacle was some of the very same politicians uttering how much they understand the protesters’ feelings and how ready they are to listen. Here lies the root problem; over two-thirds of votes cast in the last Assembly elections went to the DUP and Sinn Fein, each of whom relied on a brutal sectarian headcount to hold onto and even increase their votes – after previous years of decline in voters prepared to turn out for them. 

I’ve described the background to this in my blog of March 2017.  

These two parties have collaborated – during several years of power-sharing government -  in carrying out austerity cuts that devastate both communities; handed back powers to slash welfare benefits to the Westminster Tories; agreed on a monumental handout to big business in the form of cutting Corporation Tax to the 12% enjoyed by the capitalists in the South of Ireland; and actively practised (or at best, turned a blind eye to) the rampant corruption of the ‘Cash for Ash’ scam, the Renewable Heating Initiative... investigation into which is still ongoing.

REJECT THE ORANGE AND GREEN DINOSUARS!

The unpleasant truth facing the decent people on the #wedeservebetter rallies is that asking these sectarian-based Orange and Green politicians to ‘get back to work’ is like asking an arsonist to get his act together, gather up supplies of petrol and matches and stop slacking in his fire-raising crimes!

They can’t be trusted to defend the NHS, GP services, education, marriage equality legislation, abortion rights for women, or an end to austerity and growing inequality. They are the political architects of all that is rotten about the society both Catholic and Protestant working class communities suffer under. They need to be replaced, not cajoled into ‘power-sharing’.

The unity and anger on display on the #wedeservebetter protests needs to be built into a grassroots struggle for united working-class action on the issues and united working-class political representation. In short, for working-class unity and socialism, to harness the desire for equality, fairness and an end to tribal divisions that I’ve especially witnessed amongst younger people. 

Yesterday’s protests were heart-warming in their display of unity and desire for change; I hope it can be part of a start to dump the dinosaurs who exploit and whip up sectarian divisions to hold onto their power and salaries. 

[for more background, have a read of my March 2017 blog here]

WELCOME NEW USDAW CAMPAIGN FOR MINIMUM EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEES

In a major new breakthrough for millions of workers suffering poverty pay and insecure jobs, the country's fifth-biggest union, Usdaw, has launched a campaign for a £10 minimum wage, a guaranteed 16-hour minimum contract for all who want one, and contracts that reflect actual hours worked. 

And as agreed at Usdaw's annual conference in April, these policies are being taken to the September TUC congress, as a policy Motion, to seek the support of the entire trade union movement. 

Low pay is condemning a huge swathe of the population to stress, deprivation and dependency on food banks. 

Work is no longer a route out of poverty; 52% of the Scots officially living below the poverty line are actually in a job, working to remain poor. 

We have the grotesque spectacle of fast food workers and supermarket staff turning to food banks for emergency food supplies in 21st Century, rich, arable Scotland. 

Workers' wages have suffered the worst real stagnation and fall since the Napoleonic Wars, 200 years ago! 

And with a national minimum wage that peaks at £7.83-an-hour for those aged over 25, and slumps to £3.70 for apprentices, decent pay is not about to be gifted to us any time soon.

It takes an organised fight to win a decent minimum wage - with the abolition of the lower youth rates too. 

Demand £10 Now! 

£10-an-hour is an extremely modest demand. It's not even two-thirds of the median wage of male workers - the policy of the SSP since our foundation, 20 years ago. 

But compared to the pathetic wages on offer today, £10 would be a mighty step forward. 

And the SSP has always argued for the full rate at 16, recognizing younger people don't enjoy discounts on food, rent or clothing! 

So the campaign launched by Usdaw - the 440,000-strong main union in retail, with members also in food production, transport and distribution - for £10 minimum for all at 18 is a very welcome step. Especially after four years of holding that policy but doing nothing about it until now. 

The same applies to the TUC as a whole; it unanimously voted for "£10 minimum wage for all workers" a full four years ago, in September 2014, but hasn't lifted a finger to fight for it since. 

The time for serious action by the unions is long overdue, so Usdaw's campaign plan is very welcome. 

Demand Guaranteed Minimum 16-Hour Contracts 

Casualised, insecure work - in its modern forms - has been around since at least the 1970s. 

Zero hours contracts, the very pinnacle of this monstrously insecure employment, have existed in the UK since the 1980s. 

But a plague of job insecurity has exploded in more recent years, masked by government boasts of 'record levels of employment'. And low pay goes hand-in-hand with insecure contracts. 

TUC research suggests a full one out of every ten workers is in an insecure job. Latest figures on zero-hours contracts range from 1.4 million to 1.8 million. And much less publicized, but at least as pernicious, are short hour contracts - typically 8, 10 or 12 hours a week. These are absolutely rampant in retail. Increasingly so, as full-time jobs become an endangered species. 

These zero and short hours contracts put millions of workers at the beck and call of their employers; dragged in for far more hours than their contract when it's busy, slashed back to contract hours when it suits the bosses' needs. 

It blights workers and their families with totally insecure incomes, with all the attendant stress and suffering. 

It blocks workers on low guaranteed hours from loans and mortgages; it's their contract hours that count, not actual hours worked. 

Part-time work also imposes lower average hourly rates of pay than those for full-time jobs.

And it even denies access to wage top-ups for many; a couple seeking Working Tax Credit, for instance, must have one person on at least 16 hours.

Break the Chains 

Those are precisely some of the reasons I first came up with the idea of a minimum working week - a guaranteed 16-hour minimum contract - for all workers who want it, in Break the Chains, published in December 2015. 

In turn, this policy was agreed at the 2016 SSP conference. 

And in a major, pioneering breakthrough for the mass organizations of the working class, the April 2018 Usdaw national conference voted for this new policy, unanimously, after I'd proposed it on behalf of my Glasgow G111 Usdaw branch. 

After being recently elected to Usdaw's Executive Council, I've combined with others to insist on a plan of campaigning action on this agreed, pioneering policy - which is now being implemented. 

Join the Struggle! 

Workers and trade unions throughout Scotland and the UK should welcome and support these demands for a minimum £10-an-hour and guaranteed 16-hour minimum contract for all who want it - with the only exception being where a worker, accompanied by their union rep, asks for less than a 16-hour contract. 

Usdaw is committed to a public launch at the September TUC, plus putting these demands into all negotiations with employers, and lobbying all levels of government and political parties.

The SSP stands enthusiastically alongside Usdaw and all other trade unions prepared to fight for these life-changing demands. We appeal to other workers to join in campaign activities, to bludgeon the employers, the Scottish government and local authorities into conceding these minimum standards of employment. 

The demands for £10now and a guaranteed minimum 16-hour week for all workers who want it are both modest and also a revolutionary change compared to the low-paid, casualised wage slavery that curses society today. 

Join the struggle!