Storm clouds
are gathering as we turn our backs on 2020 and face the struggles of the rest
of the 2020s.
Several
groups of workers are flexing their muscles, threatening to fight back against
the multiple tributes being hacked out of their jobs, wages and everyday
conditions by the obscenely rich elite, to pay for the crises of 2020.
As we
reflect on the past year and prepare for the next, nobody should harbour any
doubt that class war is raging in the boardrooms of big business.
Employers
and governments work in tandem to unleash a massive redistribution of wealth to
the rich from the rest of us, with claims this is unavoidable to balance the
books after a year of unprecedented state expenditure. And they plan to use
Brexit to rob us further.
In battling
to defend every penny of workers’ pay, every job and public service, it is
necessary to see the bigger picture, to build the widest possible solidarity action
in reply.
The past
year has given us ‘2020 vision’ of capitalism in all its ruthlessly
exploitative nature.
The
globalised hunt for ever-greater profit and new capitalist markets has invaded wilder
parts of our planet, bringing humans into contact with lethal pathogens, unleashing
global pandemics with increased frequency and ferocity - in particular COVID-19,
the worst killer pandemic in a century.
Decades of
austerity cuts - better described as planned poverty, in pursuit of even more
grotesque wealth for a tiny minority - led to entirely avoidable human carnage,
with shortages in the NHS and failure to provide protective equipment or safe
conditions in care homes and countless other workplaces the most obvious
examples.
As 2020 wore
on, more and more people spotted the glaring contradiction between rhetoric and
reality; between mantras of “We’re All In This Together” and the brutal
expansion of inequality.
In just
three months the planet's billionaires increased their wealth by 27%, whilst
workers on furlough suffered 20% pay cuts, and a record 370,000 others a full
100% loss of earnings from August-October alone, as they were chucked on the scrapheap
of unemployment.
Amazon owner
Jeff Bezos increased his personal wealth by $87billion since January,
equivalent to the entire, combined NHS budgets for the whole of the UK.
The
government propaganda nonsense about treating the Coronavirus like a war prompts
one picture they would rather hide from us; as with wars, the pandemic has led
to further polarisation of wealth, including increased monopolization of
ownership.
That is plain
to see in the retail sector, the second biggest employer in the country after
the NHS. Retail giants like JD Sports and Mike Ashley's Fraser Group battle
over who picks up the spoils as Arcadia, Debenhams and countless small firms go
to the wall. Big retail thrives, the High Street turns into a wasteland.
Handouts
to Big Business
Government
policies in response to the pandemic were shaped by the clash of two opposite
class interests.
The furlough
scheme was the result both of demands by the trade union movement and
socialists to protect workers in their jobs, and the fear and loathing of collapsed
profits by big business.
Still, it was
primarily huge handouts for the capitalist rich and horrendous insecurity for
workers. For example, supermarkets got state handouts of £1.9billion in
business tax relief, which they converted into handouts of £1.3billion in
dividend payments to shareholders and 230,000 redundancy notices this year to retail
workers - whose efforts on the front line not only fed the people but fed the profits
of the big four supermarkets and their likes.
It's
Capitalism to Blame – not just COVID-19
In fighting
to shape the future in the interests of the vast working-class majority of the
population, we need to be crystal clear it was not the pandemic which created
the crisis of job insecurity, pay cuts and threats to essential services, but
the capitalist system itself. The pandemic simply exacerbated the crisis.
Pre-pandemic
Britain witnessed an incredible 54% rise in the number of people suffering not
just poverty, but destitution, between 2017 and 2019. The number of kids
condemned to destitution in their formative years rose by 50% in the same two
years.
The ultimate
indictment of capitalism must be the fact that in the fifth-richest economy on
Earth, UNICEF has been obliged to give a grant for breakfast boxes to feed
hungry children in South London on Christmas Day; the first such emergency aid to
the UK since UNICEF’s foundation in 1946.
Bosses
Unleash Class War
As we step
into 2021 it is no longer adequate to predict a ruthless crusade by employers and
their hired politicians to claw back the costs of 2020 from workers’ pockets;
it’s happening already! It requires at least equal determination to defend the
class interests of the millions as is on display by the millionaires in their
own self-interest.
Patterns are
emerging of systematic pay cuts; ‘fire and rehire’ schemes; reductions in sick
benefits, terms and conditions; reduced hours of available work, and a
slaughter of jobs.
And as Karl
Marx identified over 150 years ago, burgeoning unemployment - and indeed
underemployment - are being used to bludgeon workers into accepting lesser pay
and conditions, with the age-old, obnoxious declaration “You’re lucky to have a
job!”
The
Struggle Determines the Outcome
Workers in a
range of sectors are limbering up for crucial defensive struggles: in BT, Scottish
Gas, further education colleges, ScotRail, CalMac ferries, the NHS and wider public
sector, etc.
They face the
choice of fighting back or being crushed by pay cuts; jobs downgrading: the corporate thuggery of ‘fire and rehire'; decimation of jobs – and the immediate, ongoing threats
to health and safety in the workplace, as employers prioritise profit over lives
amidst new waves and strains of the killer COVID-19.
There is
nothing predetermined in the outcomes of these struggles.
But some
things are certain: the employers are out to use the twin viruses of COVID-19 and
capitalist recession to beat down workers’ wages, conditions and jobs; to beat
workers down onto their knees.
Unless we
get up off our knees and fight back with maximum solidarity across sectoral and
Union boundaries then working-class people will pay a terrible price at the
hands of class enemies who sing hymns of national unity and “We’re All In This
Together” as they seek to divide and conquer.
Defeat Divide-and-Rule
Tactics
The Tories announced
a public sector pay freeze with mock concern at the pay cuts in the private
sector, with Rishi Sunak trying to appear sincere when he said: “This means we
cannot possibly justify public sector pay rises.”
But they've taken
their divide-and-rule trickery even further, trying to split different sections
of public sector workers, promising pay rises to at least some NHS staff but
not the millions of frontline workers in local government, civil service
departments and others who also kept society functioning during COVID-19.
The Scottish
government is a bit more cute about this, announcing a £500 award to health and
care workers (which of course the Tories insist is taxable!). But that one-off
payment still excludes hundreds of thousands of other key workers in Scotland, and
should also not be allowed to distract from the entirely justified demands for
a 15% pay increase for all NHS staff, which the Scottish government has given
no indication of supporting or funding.
£12
Minimum Wage at 16
One of the
weapons which SSP trade unionists are determined to popularise in combating the
divisive tactics of employers and governments is the demand - first raised by the
Scottish TUC during the spring lockdown - for an immediate £2-an-hour pay rise
for every key worker, regardless of occupation.
This is an
extremely modest but unifying demand in recognition both of the heroic efforts
of workers in the NHS, care sector, retail, postal services, bin collections, utilities,
council and civil services, and countless others - and of the fact those
workers who society most relies upon are usually also the lowest paid.
However, as
we explained back on 1st April, it’s not just ‘Time £2 Pay All Key Workers’ (to
quote the STUC) but this needs to be underpinned by a legally enforced National
Minimum Wage of at least £12-an-hour from the age of 16 upwards, if we are to
avoid further divisions between different low-paid workers, and overcome the
rampant poverty which also undermines job security - because workers cannot
afford to buy the goods or services produced by other workers.
Workers’ Solidarity
and Socialism – not ‘Social Partnership’ With the Enemy
Solidarity
in action is a critical plank of what’s required in 2021.
Socialists and
trade unionists need to challenge and defeat the false and dangerous philosophy
which pervades the upper echelons of most trade unions; namely that of ‘Social Partnership’
between union leaders and company chief executives.
The ‘2020
vision’ of capitalism revealed to millions of people surely exposes the idea of
common interests between the very rich and the rest of us, the employers and
the working class, as a preposterous, dangerous nonsense.
It took
courageous struggle - including strike action in many cases, and even a
preparedness by union shop stewards to put their job on the line - to even win adequate
sick pay or Personal Protective Equipment from employers who put privatised
profit before people’s lives.
And the
Tories have gone from hypocritical claps to slaps in the face for key workers,
as they prepare to pick the pockets of the very people they proclaimed heroes
when it suited the government to get them to work in the jaws of death.
Collective
action, good old-fashioned working-class solidarity applied to the modern age,
is what’s required, not cosying up to company bosses who would cut your throat
as quick as they'd look at you in defence of their profit margins.
Workers
Need Socialist Party – join the SSP
Going beyond
that, one of the clearest lessons of the past year is that in order to end the
rule of the rich in a society based on class division and class exploitation,
workers need a conscious socialist party rooted in the workplaces and
communities.
A workers’party with a socialist vision and ideology - turned into fighting socialist
policies capable of mobilising masses of people because they are expressed in
the language and needs of the working class.
The SSP
enters 2021 determined to help build a socialist force in the unions,
workplaces and communities that can link immediate battles over jobs, wages and
rights at work with the need to take the likes of energy, construction, transport,
all public services and banks into democratic public ownership. As the
foundation for a Socialist Green Recovery Plan which could build 100,000
eco-friendly homes; establish an integrated, free public transport network;
provide cheap green energy to all; construct universal basic services fit for
the 21st century; thereby also creating at least 150,000 well-paid, unionised
jobs and apprenticeships, guaranteeing meaningful work and security to the next
generation in a socialist Scotland.
Look back in
anger at capitalist 2020, but look forward with determination to shape a
socialist future in the 2020s.
Join the SSP (scottishsocialistparty.org)
