IMAGINE HOW TO FIGHT THE SLAUGHTER OF JOBS & WAGES!

“We’re All In This Together” declares the signage in one famous supermarket.

Far from it! The household name displaying those posters, Marks and Spencer’s, have just announced another tranche of job losses, tossing 7,000 workers onto the growing scrapheap of mass unemployment. 

Workers are being made to pay a heavy price for the Coronavirus. 

The government and capitalist employers are making us pay with job losses, pay cuts, slashed conditions, intensified exploitation, the massacre of sick benefits and, yes, loss of lives. 

Years of failure to invest - and consciously planned poverty pay – contributes to the slaughter of the innocents during this pandemic.

Care Home Carnage 

Decades of austerity left the NHS prone to being overrun when COVID-19 hit these shores, so both the Tory government and the SNP Scottish government prioritised clearance of bed spaces in our hospitals over securing the safety of elderly patients thrown into residential care homes.

Freedom of Information investigations have revealed at least 1,200 elderly patients in Scotland were transferred from hospital wards into care homes without being tested for COVID-19. And that is a gross underestimate, because five of Scotland’s health boards, including the two largest, refused to answer.  

Worse still, the same investigations revealed many others thrown in amongst the most vulnerable elderly population at the height of a pandemic had been tested positive in the hospital.

As professor Allyson Pollock commented “This was like throwing a lighted match into a tinderbox.”

This austerity-rooted regime helped trigger the care home carnage that accounts for half of all COVID-19 deaths.

Workplace Infection and Death 

As we repeatedly warned and denounced in recent months, whilst the governments told us to stay at home they also told us to get to work. They were driven by their preoccupation with upholding the profit margins of the profiteering rich.

The Health and Safety Executive this week reported 600 people in Scotland have caught the virus in their place of work, nearly two-thirds of them in care homes.

As the STUC points out, that figure is only the tip of a vastly larger iceberg. Especially given the notoriety of sectors that employ many of the lowest paid for not reporting accidents at work let alone infection with the killer virus. 

Now a new virus is sweeping the country, demolishing jobs, wages and family livelihoods.

Whilst their capitalist competitors in Germany have extended the wage subsidy furlough scheme for a period of 2 years, to mitigate redundancies, the short-sighted get-rich-quick brigade in charge of capitalist Britain are cutting off the life support machine of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, triggering mass redundancies. 

Those of us who remember Maggie Thatcher’s Dark Ages in the 1980s are suffering deja-vu; TV news back then always ended with a massive list of redundancies and closures, in part designed to browbeat workers into thinking job losses were an unstoppable force of nature.

In recent weeks, thousands of job losses have been announced daily: Boots, John Lewis, M&S, Debenhams, hospitality, airlines and even the public sector.

Fire and Rehire 

This relentless slaughter of jobs is not always purely based on companies suffering the economic impact of the pandemic.

It’s often something previously planned, but now implemented with maniacal zeal by company bosses under cover of Coronavirus, in a race to the bottom, making workers pay the price for sustained profiteering.

British Airways’ “fire and rehire” tactic is the best known of these assaults on workers with the excuse of COVID-19. An extremely profitable company grabbed public funds to furlough staff, but still fired all 42,000 and then bullied and blackmailed 30,000 of them into accepting wage cuts of 50-60% - or else join the 12,000 chucked out the door. 

Centrica Cowboys 

Centrica is not far behind BA in these criminal methods.

As one of their workers explained to me, 

“At the moment we get six months full pay for sick absence. Centrica want to abolish that entirely unless we opt into a taxable private health scheme. If we do that, 13 weeks will be on full pay and the next 9 months on two-thirds of pay. Otherwise if we refuse to opt into private health we're meant to survive on nothing but £95 a week Statutory Sick Pay. And it's even worse for those of us with less than 2-years service; just 10 weeks full pay if we go into private health, the rest on £95 SSP.

For the industrial staff, Centrica plan to increase contracts from a 37 hour week to 40, with no uplift in pay. So they want 3 hours a week free labour. Office staff are expected to gift them half-an-hour a week free of wages, with worsened opening hours. 

And the overtime rate is to be slashed from time and a half to single time, with a cap of 25 hours a year.

Centrica call centres seem to be the new Victorian mills.”

Pockets of Resistance  

Thankfully, pockets of resistance by workers to the slaughter of their jobs and theft of their wages is beginning to erupt, but urgently requires coordination and leadership from the wider trade union movement.

GMB union members in Centrica have voted by a whopping 95% for strike action, in a 68% turnout.

British Airways workers - cabin crew, baggage and loading staff alike - are poised to vote on taking strike action. 

Healthcare workers have got together and staged a series of marvellous rallies demanding pay justice and pay equality, many of them pushing for a 15% pay rise, after being slapped in the face by the government when they were excluded from the all-too-miserly public sector pay rise - after having put their lives on the line, face-to-face with COVID-19. 

Many other workers are furious at attacks on conditions, including sick pay entitlements, which is particularly outrageous and dangerous when COVID-19 has hit chicken factories, meat plants, textile factories and other workplaces.

For example, one multi-billioned retail giant has gone from stopping wages to workers with COVID-19 to slashing company sick benefit entirely after 3 days’ absence per year. 

Precisely those workers with underlying health problems, and therefore most vulnerable to the ongoing Coronavirus, are the same people most likely to be disqualified from anything more than £95 Statutory Sick Pay, because ill health has forced them off work for periods. 

Stark Choices 

Workers face harsh, stark choices, thrown into high relief by the Coronavirus and its economic consequences.

The road being travelled not just by the Tories but also the Scottish government involves mass redundancies as the subsidies to big business dry up, and the massacre of pay and sick pay. Which not only further endangers lives by dragging people into work despite being infected, but also blows to smithereens the previous nonsense talked by governments and some economists about a rapid V-shaped recovery.

With household savings at an all-time low, household debts at an all-time high, and wages being crushed down even further as a share of national wealth - in order to enhance the share that goes in profit - the consumer-led boom, which capitalist Britain and Scotland has been far too reliant on, has now turned into its opposite.

Far from being “all in this together”, the Corona crisis has highlighted the gaping chasm between the classes in this system of running society. 

Britain’s 45 billionaires increased their personal wealth by 20% in the months of March and April alone.

In neat, grotesque contrast, the average NHS worker has suffered at 20% pay cut since 2010.

Two-thirds of all care home staff are thinking of leaving their low-paid, insecure and dangerous jobs, in a new survey by the GMB.

Fighting Socialist Alternatives 

So what’s the alternative to this tsunami of job losses, pay cuts and life-threatening attacks on sick pay?

Scotland’s trade union movement embraces nearly 650,000 workers - and could recruit as many more if they demonstrated an iron determination to fight for immediate improvements in working conditions and organised action that would remove the fear factor that dominates the minds of many workers.

At the height of the pandemic the STUC and its affiliated unions called for an immediate £2-an-hour wage increase for all key workers.

That should not wither on the vine and become just an empty rhetorical flourish.

Turned into serious campaigning and collective action, it could be one part of unified demands for better wages across the board, underpinned by an absolute minimum, legally enforced wage of £12-an-hour for all at 16.

Such improved wages will transform the lives of hundreds of thousands and radically improve workers’ spending power, which in turn would make jobs far more secure in sectors such as retail, hospitality, tourism and entertainment. 

Minimum 16-Hour Week 

At the 2019 STUC annual conference, I proposed my union USDAW’s policy motion for abolition of all zero hours contracts and other forms of insecure, casualised labour, to be replaced by a guaranteed minimum 16-hour week for every worker who wants it. 

That pioneering policy was passed at the STUC without a single vote against. It now needs to be turned into a major plank of the trade union movement's alternative to low wages, rampant job insecurity, and the vicious spiral of job losses they both contribute to.

We live in a society where capitalist ownership of the core economy leads to monstrous levels of work-related stress, as the profiteers strive for greater output by fewer workers on lesser wages.

An epidemic of mental ill health has already been stored up and is now added to by the lockdown - and indeed new forms of physical and mental illness created by working from home.

Capitalism is a system which by its very nature puts profit before people; the health of bosses’ wallets before the health and wellbeing of the working class who produce society's wealth. 

100% Wages for Sick Workers 

An increasingly critical issue for the massed ranks of the trade union movement to struggle for is sick pay equivalent to 100% average wages, instead of the pathetic £95-a-week Statutory Sick Pay and the rapid obliteration of company sick benefit schemes currently being witnessed.

That one measure could have prevented countless COVID-19 deaths by removing the financial pressure to go to work despite carrying the virus, thereby infecting others.

The Tories have severed the lifeline of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme despite the fact the deadly disease is still here and still as lethal.

They've thrown the sop of £1,000 grant for every worker not made redundant.

Plenty of big businesses will pocket that publicly funded grant to the benefit of their profit-and-loss accounts.

Means Tests for the Rich! 

The trade union movement should demand means tests for businesses, instead of the humiliating means tests to which the poorest people are subjected.

Let’s examine the secret accounts of every business. Where a small enterprise, doing useful work in safe conditions, genuinely cannot afford a minimum wage of £12-an-hour and retention of all staff, they should be granted state funds or loans to save jobs and pay decent wages.

No such largesse can be justified for big businesses, whose profits are measured in £millions or £billions. 

If they announce job losses or closures and they are involved in socially useful production or services, the unions should mobilise action for measures like a 4-day week on 5 days’ pay - and the takeover of their assets and operations by the government or local authorities, in order to sustain jobs and their workers’ contribution to the economy for the benefit of society.

4-Day Week on 5 Days' Pay 

Even the capitalist government of Germany is contemplating a 4-day week, after the giant 2.3 million-strong IG Metall union called for a 30-hour week to save jobs. 

We face a crossroads. What kind of economy, what kind of work and what kind of society do we want for the 21st century?

Vast areas of human life require work to be done, yet the system we live under means the optimists around the Bank of England predict 2.5 million unemployed by Christmas, whilst the economic pessimists warn of about 4 million, including one in every three young people.

Such waste of talent, energy and skills, and the attendant misery and poverty of mass unemployment, is a searing condemnation of a capitalist economy founded on the profit motive.

School leavers should be guaranteed either an apprenticeship on at least a £12 minimum wage, free further education with a living student grant, or a decent, meaningful, unionized job.

Society is screaming out for adequate numbers of highly trained workers in areas as varied as the NHS; social care; mental health services; education; council services; environmental improvements; house building and retrofitting; vastly expanded public transport; production and distribution of clean green energy and all the equipment that goes with it. 

150,000 Green Jobs 

The potential for a vast green jobs plan was illustrated in the recent STUC report showing where 150,000 new, green jobs could be created in Scotland.

But instead of fulfilling the verbal flourishes of “Scotland becoming the Saudi Arabia of renewables”, as declared in the past by Alex Salmond, the SNP government has utterly failed to challenge the system whereby growth in wind farms and other green energy projects has almost entirely bypassed any job creation in Scotland itself.

Instead, they preside over the obscene absurdity of wind farm construction and decommissioning of North Sea oil and gas installations being carried out abroad, as far afield as cheap labour Bangladesh and Indonesia, while fabrication yards and other facilities a few miles inshore lie idle. For example the BiFab yards in Fife and Lewis. 

Rubbing salt into the wounds of a country facing mass unemployment, the new Viking onshore wind farm on Shetland, the biggest of its kind in the UK, is now to be built and operated by the Danish Vestas company.

At least 400 initial construction jobs are therefore in the hands of an overseas profiteer, rather than being part of a Scottish public sector energy corporation which could provide tens of thousands of well-paid jobs, and apprenticeships for young people, giving them purpose, dignity and a secure future.

Why should the Scottish government leave the fate of Scottish workers in the hands of Vestas, the same company which in 2009 declared mass redundancies at its factory in Newport, Isle of Wight, leading to a factory occupation by the workforce, which the SSP built solidarity for in Scotland, as those workers rightly demanded nationalisation to save jobs? And they were spurned in their demands by the same Labour government of Gordon Brown which previously spoke eloquently of creating 400,000 green jobs. 

Green Socialist Recovery Plan 

Instead of a new 2020 Dark Ages that could make Thatcher's atrocities look mild and more resemble the 1930s, the collective potential power of the trade union movement and socialists needs to be mobilised in pursuit of a Green Socialist Recovery Plan.

Based on public ownership of key sectors like construction, public transport, energy, major industrial enterprises and the banking system, Scotland could lead the way by immediately creating at least 150,000 new green, well-paid jobs with full collective union rights, and workers’ control over health and safety and other day-to-day decisions.

Imagine what such a planned socialist recovery programme could mean for the construction of 100,000 social sector houses, built to the highest environmental standards, with varieties of stock guaranteeing gardens or other outdoor spaces for all who want it.

Imagine how household energy bills, which have rocketed during the lockdown, could be slashed through retrofitting and insulating existing housing stock, and removing the profit margin in a publicly owned energy sector.

Imagine the scale of green re-industrialisation Scotland’s shipyards and factories (including under-threat Dennis buses) could enjoy in the production of vast new fleets of ferries, buses and trains for a vastly expanded and integrated public transport network - free at the point of use, thereby combating poverty, social isolation and pollution.

Imagine how hundreds of thousands of workers could be liberated from the health-threatening drudgery of 12-hour shifts and more, by employment of new staff in areas of greatest need on a maximum 4-day week. 

Imagine – and Organise 

Workers and their unions need to imagine this and much more, but turn these entirely realistic visions of our collective future into reality by fighting for it.

Truly the choice we face is that posed by Rosa Luxemburg a century ago: socialism or barbarism. 

WIELD ORGANISED WORKERS' POWER FOR A SOCIALIST RECOVERY PLAN

As Billy Bragg sang, "There is power in a union".

Or at least, enormous potential collective power, provided leadership is given on the right issues.

Tens of thousands of workers have awoken to that in recent times, with a significant upsurge in trade union membership.

Surge in Union Membership

During 2019, 90,000 workers joined a union; that's over 200,000 new recruits in two years.

The biggest increase has been amongst women workers, who now constitute 3.6 million in the UK, the highest figure since 1995.

In Scotland,15,500 joined a union last year.

Of course, to keep perspective, that still leaves only 23.5% of workers unionised, with even lower density in the private sector and amongst those aged under 35. Less than a quarter of trade unionists are under 35, whereas 40% of them are aged over 50.

Likewise, we've had several successive years of very low strike figures, and therefore low profile for collective action and the advantages of trade unionism for younger generations to observe and absorb.

That is the result of a cocktail of factors.

The most repressive anti-union laws in the western world - introduced by the Tories, sustained by Labour governments. A regime of fear, wielded by senior management buoyed up by this battery of anti-worker legislation. And all too frequently, weak, compromising leadership from the top of the unions, far too accustomed to cosy relationships with employers and a lifestyle more akin to that of the company chief executives than to the average worker who pays their union subs.

The Times They are A-changin' 

There are moments in history when sharp changes occur.

There is a tendency throughout history for workers to seek solutions to their daily privations and problems through collective industrial struggle when no political solutions appear imminent, and vice versa.

To take random examples: the 1880s were marked by a monumental surge into the unions by the most downtrodden, lowpaid, so-called unskilled workers,  previously neglected by craft-based trade unions, when they increasingly saw no salvation from the dominant Tory or Liberal politicians.

In turn, that industrial wave helped fuel the birth of independent working class political representation, creating the newborn Labour Party.

In the 1970s, disappointment with the 1964-70 Labour government and savage onslaughts by the 1970-74 Ted Heath Tory regime triggered the biggest modern wave of strike actions, increased union membership, a rise in workplace militancy, and through this showdown between rival class forces led to 1975 being the year with both the highest union membership in Britain and the lowest levels of inequality across society.

That stark statistic in itself is a profound lesson for today's young working class. Indeed 'there is power in a union', and correctly wielded it can not only combat poverty, unsafe working conditions, and bullying by management, but also reduce inequality.

Coronavirus Crisis: a New Turning Point 

The coronavirus crisis is poised to be a new turning point in trade union and working class history.

The experience of millions in recent months has taught many profound lessons.

It's demonstrated the simple fact but there's such a thing as a working class, an idea previously sneered at by the commentariat, including some self-styled lefts and socialists.

It's shown in action that the people essential to society's functioning, to the very existence of human life, are workers of multiple and varied occupations, and certainly not the remote, grotesquely overpaid company chief executives and directors or financial speculators.

More pertinent still have been the lived experiences and visible displays of the role of trade unionists in fighting for measures to save lives in the teeth of the deadly virus, often in conflict with employers and indeed governments slow or unwilling to put people before profit.

It took relentless pushing and demanding by workplace shop stewards and the best national union officials to eventually win basics like hand sanitizers, cleaning equipment, protective screens and of course PPE for the millions of workers who have sustained life and society throughout the crisis.

Unsung Heroes on the Frontline of Trade Unionism

The unsung heroes of these times, whom the Tories would never applaud on a Thursday night, are thousands of workplace union representatives who have fought for the safety of fellow workers. Often under intense pressure from senior management, and sometimes under threat of victimisation for daring to demand measures like shutdown of non-essential workplaces, with 100% pay; protection of workers' holidays; and rigorous Risk Assessments with the full participation of union health and safety reps, to help prevent a second spike in COVID-19 deaths as the lockdown eases.

It is the determined action of these unsung heroes, and the lobbying by national unions, which forced the government into the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

Observing this collective effort, thousands of new workers have joined unions in the past three months.

That is the experience of most major unions.

Unison have reported 65,000 new recruits since January. The National Education Union (NEU), engaged in frontline battles in England over premature reopening of schools, has had over 20,000 recent recruits.

Previously scattered, unorganised and heavily exploited sectors, such as fast food and hospitality, have also begun to unionise, with some spectacular localised success stories in reversing employers' plans to make thousands redundant, gaining furlough with at least 80% pay instead.

A Dangerous Phase for Workers' Health 

Currently we are living through potentially the most dangerous phase of the whole crisis, where UK and Scottish governments are to varying degrees declaring against mass outdoor gatherings, but encourageing or insisting upon mass indoor gatherings - by reopening non-essential workplaces, to revive production and sales for flagging profits.

The newly enhanced profile of the trade union movement - not seen for at least a generation - needs to be organised at both national and workplace levels to insist on proper safety measures, alongside a fully-funded and staffed regime of mass testing, tracing and isolation.

This moment should be seized to push for workers' control of workplace health and safety, through elected union reps.

The Capitalist Virus of Mass Unemployment 

The other virus about to sweep the country, rooted in capitalist production methods just as much as the coronavirus, is mass redundancies and unemployment.

Millions of jobs are on life support through the taxpayer-funded Job Retention Scheme.

Around 8 million workers were at least temporarily kept in a job, albeit with 10% or 20% pay cuts in many cases, through this state subsidy of businesses.

As that scheme tapers off, the greed-driven employing class are frequently poised to slash thousands of jobs and family livelihoods.

Daily announcements by the likes of British Airways, Rolls Royce, retail and hospitality firms are a deafening wake-up call to the devastation facing the working class in the months ahead.

The unions need to rise to the challenge, not only by consciously involving members and wielding the collective 'power in a union', but also by advancing concrete fighting alternatives to this capitalist blitzkrieg.

We cannot tolerate a re-run of the devastation visited upon the working class in the wake of the 2008 bankers' crisis; a lost decade of savage pay cuts, job losses and punishment of workers for a crisis they never created.

For a 4-day Week on 5 Days' Pay 

The unions have the potential power to spearhead an alternative Socialist Recovery Plan.

That could start with the immediate demand to share out the available work through a shorter working week, but critically, without loss of earnings.

The demand, for instance, for a 4-day week on 5 days' pay would evoke massive sympathy amongst workers who have either been enduring regular 12-hour shifts during the pandemic, or gained a taste of other things in life outside the drudgery of long hours at work.

That one measure could create and save tens of thousands of Scottish jobs.

Socialist Green New Deal 

A Socialist Green New Deal built on the foundations of public ownership of key sectors such as construction, transport, energy and banking must become the clarion cry of the organised labour movement.

A recent STUC study shows the massive potential for job creation in such a scheme.

Analysis by Transition Economics - in part based on information from post-2008 investment schemes in other countries - gives precise figures of potential job creation in 23 different clean infrastructure projects in Scotland.

Overall, they demonstrate that £13billion investment in a two-year infrastructure recovery plan could create 150,000 jobs immediately.

Examples of the schemes they cite include expansion of the rail network (including for freight) with 13,700 new jobs.

Other clean, green investments include construction of cycle lanes and pedestrianisation (nearly 18,000 jobs); low income residential retrofit programme (34,000); residential retrofit programme (over 14,000 jobs); and upgrade of ports and shipyards for offshore wind supplies (almost 6000 jobs).

Wield the Power of Organised Workers 

Socialists and trade unionists need to agitate and seek to organise the collective power of the trade union movement to demand precisely such an emergency green re-industrialization plan. It will require the social, class power of the organised workers' movement to translate fine ideas on paper into living reality.

The catastrophic impact of deindustrialization over the past 40 years led to a lack of equipment for hospitals, an inability to rapidly produce such equipment, which in turn meant both the UK and Scottish governments initially resorted to the obscenity of 'herd immunity', and then an emphasis on stopping our hospitals being overrun. Leading to such tragedies as over 1,000 elderly patients in Scotland being emptied out of hospitals into care homes without being tested, and the carnage that followed.

Housing, Public Transport, Jobs 

The housing crisis has been highlighted during the pandemic, with the huge differential between the experience of those in cramped or substandard housing during the lockdown, and people even with a decent house and modest garden.

In addition to the plans detailed in the STUC study, an emergency social sector house-building plan - with a variety of types of homes for rent according to demand, including gardens for all who want one - would solve both a housing crisis and the desperate need for decent, well-paid, skilled jobs and apprenticeships.

As people return to work, the problem of ensuring social distancing on public transport serves to underline the case for democratic public ownership of all public transport and massive investment in fleets of buses, trains and ferries. Both to accommodate safe travelling and prevent a return to the appalling pollution caused by massive reliance on cars, which the lockdown has given temporary respite from, and given millions a glimpse of how better life could be if freed of both pollution and poverty.

Invest in NHS and a National Care Service 

There are plenty of other immediate areas requiring huge state investment. Not investment of public money to boost the private profits of capitalist enterprises, but public sector investment accompanied by democratic public ownership and working class control. With massive job opportunities created.

Two of many such areas are the NHS and a public National Care Service, to cut out the profiteering that kills elderly people. To instead construct a care service free at the point of need, with decent wages, conditions, and training for a vastly expanded workforce that is guaranteed collective union bargaining rights.

Underpinning this socialist recovery plan is a vast redistribution of wealth from the remote, grotesquely privileged capitalist elite to the working class, who have been seen with renewed clarity to provide life's daily essentials and all that makes for a civilised existence.

Not only those rightly classified as 'essential workers' during the pandemic, but every worker, needs to be guaranteed a £12 minimum wage rising with inflation - rather than another lost decade of pay cuts and reduced spending power, which in itself further undermines job security.

Battle Commences for a New Future 

COVID-19 throws up a profound challenge on what kind of future we want.

Nothing is predetermined in history. The future will be decided by a clash between rival living forces.

On one side the capitalists, bankers, landlords and their hired politicians, who want to return to the old abnormal, the inhumane pursuit of profit at terrible cost to peoples' lives and the planet we live on.

On the other side, the growing forces of an organised working class, who need to feel a renewed self-confidence and demand a Socialist Recovery Plan that rejects the obscenity of production for profit, and builds on the values of human solidarity touchingly displayed in thousands of small incidents during the Covid crisis.

Join the battle!

CLIMATE CHANGE: A WORKERS' ISSUE

As school students and other young people spearhead global strikes and direct action against the planet-threatening climate crisis, they have appealed to workers to join them in 'a global general strike'. 

This appeal is an extremely important and welcome step forward; a glimmering of recognition by young people too young to have experienced work or trade unionism that the organised workers' movement is critical to winning meaningful action against global warming. And an important riposte to the utterly false and dangerous idea that it's older people who are to blame for the climate crisis.

As we've said before, the climate crisis is not a generational issue, it's a class issue.  

Older or middle-aged workers haven't polluted the planet. Profit-crazed capitalists have. 

For over 200 years they've plundered the planet and exploited its people for carbon, to fuel their accumulation of private profit. 
Recent reports confirm that it's the likes of BP and Shell - financed by the big banks - who are the biggest polluters. 
Another reveals the biggest 100 companies on earth account for 71% of carbon emissions. 

Trade Union Issue

As the recent TUC Congress unanimously agreed, climate is a trade union issue. The radical changes needed to tackle the impending disaster - with scientists giving us a mere 12 years to stop irreversible damage to the planet - require the active, urgent, collective action of workers. 


As the SSP has consistently argued, and TUC Congress reiterated, we need a Just Transition to fossil-free energy, not a punishing programme of job decimation and deprivation of working class communities, as some of the fringes of the environmental movement advocate. And public ownership of all forms of energy and other key sectors of the economy - including transport, housing, shipyards, and banking - is at the very heart of the solution to pollution. 

Public Ownership of Energy 

Policies adopted - unanimously - at the recent TUC Congress recognise this truth. Alongside Motions demanding that 'workers must be at the heart of delivering' a Just Transition, and a green transport system, Congress demanded public ownership of energy and the big banks. As Bakers Union general secretary, Ronnie Draper, said in proposing it:


"Public renewable power is less expensive than private, which not only faces higher interest rates and other costs, but also relies on various subsidies and long-term “power purchase agreements” in order to guarantee profits for investors.
Public ownership not only eliminates those unnecessary costs and provides cheaper power for users, but also allows us to address domestic skills deficits. Under public ownership and a planned approach, we can make use of the skills we have in the present, while we develop the new skills we need for a vibrant, thriving sector in the future."

SSP Members Active on Issue

SSP members in the unions have combined with others to maximise involvement of workers in the Youth Climate Strike week of action. For instance, both as an elected Usdaw national Executive Council member for Scotland, and SSP representative, I've collaborated with union activists in Unison, GMB, PCS, Unite and EIS to establish a Campaign Against Climate Change group in Glasgow. 

Though in its infancy, this group is working to involve workers alongside young people. We recognise that the first task is to engage with workers, explaining the issues, offering alternatives that would enhance workers' lives, rather than pose a threat to jobs and living standards. 
For example, we've discussed the win-win policy of free installation of solar energy in homes, and I advocated the council unions lobby Glasgow city council to take over the bus service being surrendered by First Group, as a baby step towards a full municipal bus service, which in turn should become part of a free public transport service to help combat car pollution. 

Alongside that we have been building for attendance at the demos and rallies on 20 September, for instance during workers' lunchtimes, or using flexitime, or days off, or where possible by clocking off to attend. Unison stewards have negotiated non-victimisation agreements with councils for members who participate.

Answering Workers' Fears 

Likewise, at the September meeting of the Usdaw Executive Council, I got the issue put on our agenda, introduced it, spelling out the key issues from a worker's perspective, and advocated concrete steps by our union - all of which were agreed, unanimously.  That includes appealing to all reps to take part in rallies if possible, encourage members whose shifts allow to join the events, and to stage workplace events where feasible - above all, starting discussions on climate change and alternatives in meetings of members.  

Crucially, we need to overcome the legitimate fears of many workers that what's on offer is the slaughter of jobs and a 'hair-shirt'  existence. That emerged in our very healthy discussion at the Usdaw EC, which our explanation of massive job creation through a Green New Deal, and trade union control of a Just Transition, convinced the entire meeting. And that's in the union primarily organising retail workers; how much more critical it is to have a package of policies to engage, convince and mobilise workers in the fossil-fuel sector, such as North Sea installations.

Class and Climate 

That's precisely where a class-based socialist alternative comes into its own. The public ownership demanded by the TUC would open up the opportunity to redeploy existing workers, reskilling where necessary, as well as a whole new green industrial strategy that could create at least 1.5 million skilled, well-paid, unionized jobs. 


The concrete example of the heroic resistance to closure being staged by the 123 Harland and Wolff shipyard workers in Belfast proves the point.  They are battling for renationalisation to include green energy production, which they've already done as their primary source of work in recent years, to help build equipment for offshore energy. 


Alongside the campaign to end the globalised capitalist lunacy of equipment for the giant £2bn NnG offshore windfarm a few miles from the Fife BiFab yards being built in cheap-labour Indonesia, and then transported 7,000 miles in diesel-belching vessels, this shows how democratic public ownership of all production and distribution of energy supplies could vastly boost jobs and wages, combat fuel poverty, and help clean up our corner of the planet for generations to come. 

System Change - to Socialism 

We urgently need system change to combat climate change. 

Change to a system of democratic public ownership, where the skills of workers are deployed to produce and distribute clean, green energy; build and retrofit homes to the highest environmental standards; offer an integrated, free public transport network that combats both poverty, social isolation and pollution; and uses the vast funds of a state bank to help finance a Green New Deal. 


The power of organised workers - alongside the energy and vision of young people - needs to be mobilised for such a clean, green, and nuclear-free, socialist Scotland. 
The SSP commits to combine with others for that future. 

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 

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.