RAGE AGAINST THE TORY MACHINE with no Scottish mandate

Angry. Sick. Frightened. Despairing. Utterly bemused. 

Those are a few of the sentiments expressed on this Friday 13th - a day already laden with superstition - by many working class people at the prospects of five more years of Tory rule and all it threatens to the rights and conditions of workers and their communities. 

I'll postpone any attempts at a wider analysis of the root causes of the reactionary,  anti-working class Old Etonian, Boris Johnson, getting away with pretending to be the leader of what he today had the typical, lying audacity to declare "this people's government"! 

For now, suffice to say that although the radical social and economic manifesto of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership won Labour over 10 million votes for only the second time since 2001 - the other time being under Corbyn's leadership in 2017 - this was largely buried beneath the toxic choices and utter confusion whipped up in "the Brexit election". 

Not to mention the vicious, systematic, non-stop lies poured out against Corbyn by the media, including especially the BBC, in the panic of the ruling rich at the potential popularity of his Manifesto amongst the working class, and the expectations of radical change it would arouse. 

Scottish Labour Wipeout 

In the fundamentally different terrain of Scotland (a different world in this Dis-United Kingdom) the virtual elimination of Scottish Labour in a country where they had 50 MPs elected as recently as 1987, is their reward for decades of taking the working class for granted, using them as voting fodder. 

Infamously 'weighing' the Labour votes, only to preside over cuts and corruption in Labour-run councils; sending in the Sheriff Officers and issuing wage arrestments as they implemented Maggie Thatcher's hated poll tax; getting into bed with the Tories in the 2012-14 Better Together campaign against the right of self government for the Scottish people. 

And then compounding that undemocratic, myopic position with their current refusal to even grant a second independence referendum, let alone put a socialist stamp on the case for independence, as the SSP has persistently done since 1998, with our championing of an independent socialist Scotland.  

Labour Right on Rampage 

Those are the core reasons Labour has been wiped out, not Corbyn's radical manifesto, as a chorus of treacherous Blairites in his own party lined up to claim throughout election night, from within five minutes of the polling stations closing, in a blatantly orchestrated assault, using the identical, spurious arguments in the opening moves to drag Labour back into being an unashamed, undiluted capitalist party. 

This diatribe against the most radical Labour manifesto in years came after rightwingers spending much of the election campaign undermining Corbyn's efforts to cut through the noise of Brexit  - including a cabal of former Labour MPs taking out paid adverts calling on voters to back the Tories against Corbyn! 

No Tory Mandate in Scotland 

So where does this sorry state of affairs leave the Scottish working class majority? What immediate steps should we advocate? 

The Tories have absolutely no mandate to rule and ruin Scotland. They were roundly rejected at the ballot box. But we can't afford to sit back in mourning for the next five years. Nor can we switch from passively 'waiting for a Labour government' to relying on salvation by 'waiting for an SNP government in 2021'.

We need rapid preparation of resistance to BoJo and his reactionary band. And the biggest single organisation in civic society  - the trade union movement - has a duty to lead that resistance. In a fashion that can heal the toxic divisions between Leave and Remain voters, between the false choices of a capitalist EU or a capitalist Little England/Little Britain.  

Demand Trade Union Demos Against Tories 

The STUC and individual union leaderships should kick off 2020 with thorough preparations in the workplaces to mobilise for mass rallies and demonstrations, in defence of our rights and livelihoods from a Tory onslaught. 

Such rallies should declare and build wider support for workers already in struggle, including the posties, university workers and RMT members. 

They should be held in opposition to the crucifixion of the NHS in Brexit trade deals with Trump's USA, whereby whatever happens to the NHS in England has consequences here. 

Rallies should include demands to defend workplace and union rights, including the right to strike, which is under threat in the Court rulings against the CWU posties' strike, and in the Tory plans to ban the right to all-out strikes on the railways. 

And the STUC and affiliated trade unions should also include at these rallies the demand for the right of the Scottish people to choose their own future, not have it imposed by the Tories we never elected. 

Defy the Tories in Action 

The sweeping majority for the SNP does not just signify a narrow nationalist upsurge. It was in part a harnessing of Remain voters against Brexit, in part a straight forward anti-Boris Johnson vote, enlisted by Nicola Sturgeon's call to "stop Boris" and "lock Boris out of Number 10" by voting SNP.  

That purely electoral strategy has crashed into the roadblock of a massive Tory majority. So the potential power of collective workers' action needs to be harnessed to halt the mayhem that the Tories intend to impose on us. 

Independence and Socialism 

Working people should not stunt their ambitions to merely being voting fodder for the SNP,  instead of for Labour. We need to combine struggles to be free of rule and ruin by Boris Johnson with battles for a vast redistribution of wealth through fighting socialist measures on wages, hours, public services and a socialist Green New Deal to combat poverty and pollution alike. 

During the election, numerous people asked me for advice on how to vote, because they liked Corbyn but didn't trust Scottish Labour; wanted independence but were attracted to Corbyn's manifesto; wanted to vote for independence but dislike the SNP; and combinations of these quandaries. As I said at the time, the first-past-the-post election system is rigged, the media is rigged, so the choices these people wrestled over between radical socialist change and self government is a false choice. 

Build Mass Socialist Party 

The bigger task confronting us is not how to tactically decide on voting between two parties - neither of which is socialist, and one of which is dogmatically opposed to self-government for Scotland; it is to patiently forge a mass, working class socialist party that combines class-struggle politics with the democratic demand for national independence. The SSP's demand for an independent socialist Scotland. 

My appeal in the face of the Tory nightmare, this Friday 13th, is twofold.  

Discuss in your trade unions how to demand action, rallies, demos in the New Year to help defy and defeat the multiple attacks from an emboldened BoJo Tory regime with no democratic mandate in Scotland. 

And to all the genuine socialists who voted either Scottish Labour or SNP, or who indeed are members of either party, to break free from your political imprisonment. 

You don't have to curb your wishes to stand up for the working class or fight for  socialist change just because you want Scottish independence - which is the fate of self-defined socialists in the SNP. 

You don't have to support the right to self-determination for nations across the globe whilst denying that same right here in Scotland, falsely counterposing class issues to national rights - which is the fate of those socialists still in Scottish Labour. 

For both sets of socialists, there's a natural political home in the SSP, who have consistently fought for class-based socialist solutions on the material issues facing millions of workers, whilst advocating national independence as the most realistic route to a clean, green, socialist Scotland. 

The stark divide between the election results in England and Scotland propels the case for Scottish independence to the fore, and socialist policies to transform the lives of millions are the irreplaceable weapons of persuasion required to convince the working class majority of independence. The SSP offers both; join us.

https://membership.scottishsocialistparty.org/join_us/

PUTTING VAMPIRE CAPITALISTS IN CHARGE OF SCOTLAND'S FUTURE??

Contrary to all their warm words about 'valuing trade unions' and 'supporting social partnership', the SNP government appointed a corporate lobbyist (Andrew Wilson) and 23 business representatives to produce the Growth Commission on Scotland's future - but totally excluded the STUC and unions which organise and represent over 630,000 workers.

So it's no wonder the Commission's Report advocates a neo-liberal nightmare of ten more years of low Corporation Tax, low wages, insecure jobs, capped public spending, 'fiscal responsibility' - another decade of savage austerity cuts, in plain English.
This is an offer any self-respecting worker will refuse, in anger and disgust. 

Even compared with the milk-and-water SNP government White Paper - 'Scotland's Future' - published in the run-up to the 2014 Referendum, the Growth Commission Report is a monumental, catastrophic retreat. 
Far from painting a picture of the future that would recommend Scottish self-government to the huge swathes of working class people yet to be persuaded, the multiple threats to the material well-being of the working class at the core of this document couldn't be better designed to dissuade them if it had been written by hardcore Blairite Unionists.

But unless the independence movement wins the hearts and minds of the working class majority, no amount of cosying up to big business and the multinationals will convert the 45% into a majority for Scottish self-government.

When people rightly object to the total exclusion of the trade union movement - Scotland's biggest civic organisation, by far - from constructing a vision for an independent Scotland, we have the bizarre spectacle of Glasgow SNP councillor, Russell Roberston, who defected from Labour in 2016, tweeting that inviting the unions into the Growth Commission would be like "letting Dracula control a blood-bank".
This is a contemptuous insult to workers and their families - which, to the best of my knowledge, has yet to be denounced by the SNP leadership.

Vampires in Charge of Blood Donors' Future!

In fact, it would be more appropriate to point out that asking a neo-liberal corporate lobbyist and his cohort of business interests to frame the future of the working class majority is like letting Dracula shape the fate of the blood donors - given that it's workers who produce the wealth of the economy, only to see it sucked dry for the profits of a tiny handful.

The STUC and affiliated unions should now combine with genuinely pro-trade union parties to devise an entirely different vision of Scotland's future, in stark contrast to the Blairite dystopia from the SNP's Growth Commission. 

One based on secure, well-paid jobs; a minimum wage based on two-thirds male median earnings; a guaranteed minimum 16-hour week instead of casualised labour; progressive taxation to fund jobs, house-building for rent, and other services; democratic public ownership of all public services, transport, energy, banks and big businesses.

That's what we argued back in 2012-14, with many workers persuaded to vote YES by the SSP and Trade Unionists for Independence, because of the vision we presented of a radical socialist change to the society we live in - not a Mini-Me UK capitalism.

That's the kind of Scotland workers need - not a haven for the tax-dodging rich and corporations.

INDEPENDENCE, SOLIDARITY, SOCIALISM #indyref

When it comes to reporting the stance of trade unionists on the Referendum, the picture is consciously distorted in the mainstream media by announcements of national union leaderships declaring their adherence to Better Together, or their sub-contracted messengers, United with Labour.
Under the surface, a groundswell of trade union members are concluding independence is the quickest, and maybe the only, escape route from decades of miserable poverty, job insecurity and capital's dictatorship over their working lives.

It is no accident that the leaderships of giant unions like UNITE and UNISON - plus the STUC as a whole - have remained studiously unaffiliated to either the Yes or No campaigns, whilst in fact regularly lacerating Better Together for its lack of vision and failure to persuade workers of any benefits from continued UK rule. These union leaderships know full well the ranks wouldn't tolerate affiliation to the Tory-funded, Labour-fronted BT. So their Labour affiliation has not led to them toeing the party line. And in the case of UNISON, this is despite pressure from UK general secretary Dave Prentis to accept a huge sum of members' money to affiliate to BT!

Members in revolt

Even in those unions which used UK-wide conferences to impose support for a No vote on the Scottish membership, usually with little or even no prior discussion in Scottish branches, members are refusing to obey the dictats of remote, overpaid national leaderships.
USDAW members on or just above the pathetic minimum wage have a radically different view of the glories of Britain from that of a Labour-loving general secretary on six or seven times the wage of a full-time retail worker.

ASLEF members are angry at the lack of real debate prior to their affiliation to BT, and are now insisting on debates to inform members prior to September.
GMB members are furious at the way their union leadership nailed them to the No camp, which is why Scottish officers have been desperate to disassociate from BT, clinging onto the veneer of being United with Labour instead.


CWU sham consultation 

The CWU leadership are the latest to hoist their flag for the No camp, after an exercise in sham consultation in Scotland. They didn't ignore the Scottish membership as brazenly as the likes of USDAW; they held a series of city-based debates, with members invited to hear a speaker from both sides. But as one of those who spoke in some of the debates for the Yes side, I can testify that the recent UK conference decision to call for a No vote flies in the face of the sentiment of those meetings. 

The leadership circulated scaremongering bulletins to every member, lifted straight from the book of the BT fear factory. At the meetings they consciously never took a vote after the debate. In some of the meetings there was a clear majority for Yes, judging by comments during and after, and in the rest a substantial Yes minority - all despite the leadership documents. 

But fury at the UK union leadership wielding the vote of UK conference - where over 90 per cent of delegates are from outside Scotland - has only added to the determination of CWU activists to campaign for a Yes vote.

The Scottish Prison Officers' Association debated and voted overwhelmingly for Yes. 

The RMT is about to announce the outcome of their consultative members' meetings, where several were enthusiastically for independence. 

And PCS held an extremely democratic consultation of members, where not one single branch in the whole of Scotland supported the No camp.

Escaping the Tories 

Workers face a stark choice. Continued, and indeed escalated, attacks on the working class from a Westminster government regardless of what colour rosette the Prime Minister wears after the May 2015 General election. Or kicking the door open to radical redistribution of wealth and power towards the working class through Scottish self-government, not by relying on the pro-big business SNP, but by fighting and organising to shape Scotland into a socialist society.

The latest polls are reason enough to vote to escape Westminster, with the Tories ahead of Labour and UKIP leapfrogging the LibDems. But even if Labour defied most predictions and won in 2015, what future do they offer workers?


Labour prepared the path for Cameron

We can't afford to forget 13 years of Labour in government preceded the current Etonian butchers, and acted as John the Baptist preparing for the arrival of Christ. Labour initiated the vicious Workfare schemes and benefits sanctions now carried out with the zeal of maniacs by the Coalition, driving 70,000 people a month into destitution. And worse is to come, with threats of daily visits to the JobCentre, compulsory work for no wages - all of which not only condemns the unemployed to pauperism, but helps drive down the wages of those in jobs. And Labour has promised to be tough on benefits too!

Labour retained Thatcher's anti-union laws, now being added to by the Coalition, with plans to effectively outlaw public sector strikes. Westminster are the ones to ban solidarity action between workers - not some bogus splitting of the working class through Scottish independence.

Labour jokers

When Ed Miliband and Gordon Brown promise 'the best of both worlds', with a 'strong Scottish parliament and the benefits of sharing resources across the regions within the UK', with tantalizing promises of only one Xmas until a Labour government that will usher in social justice, I don't know if they're standup comedians or downright stupid, or just lying.

Social justice in the UK after 13 years of Labour in office means the most regionally unequal state in the whole of Europe. As even Coalition LibDem lapdog Vince Cable admits, the City of London "sucks the life out of the rest of the country".
Since the massive recession, London has had twice the growth rates of any other part of the UK, and whilst 284,000 jobs were lost across the UK from 2007-12, 267,000 jobs were created in London.
In Scotland today, the 'best of both worlds' means the richest tenth of the population enjoy 900 times (yes, nine hundred) as much wealth as the poorest tenth of Scots.

Organise to shape Scotland

Independence is a sure way to escape Tory dictatorship, which is a real and present threat up until 2020 or beyond if we remain chained to Westminster.

But that is not to delude workers that a land of milk and honey automatically follows a Yes vote. The wealth is there aplenty in Scotland, but it depends entirely on who owns and controls it.
The SSP wants independence as a means to very desirable ends. 

To banish poverty pay with a decent level of legally enforced national minimum wage - at least £9 an hour in today's figures. 

To end the nightmare of Workfare and benefit sanctions, with massive job creation in housing, green energy, public services - plus a caring welfare system for the young, elderly, sick or disabled, funded by taxation of the rich and big business. 

To scrap the anti union laws and enshrine the right to work, the right to strike, the right to take solidarity action in the constitution. 

To demand widespread democratic public ownership of the banks, energy, transport, construction, and major industries - with elected, accountable workers' representatives making up the majority on boards of management.


Internationalism

These steps towards a socialist Scotland would vastly enhance the lives of the working class majority in Scotland, but also enhance the fighting spirits and chances of similar transformation being fought for by workers in neighbouring countries. 

Workers and their unions should join the fight to shape such a socialist future.
Independence, socialism and international solidarity should be the watchwords of the trade union movement - not surrender to the dictatorship of capital and its various political mouthpieces.

vote YES in #indyref... FOR A DECENT LIVING WAGE

"A human catastrophe" is how its authors described the findings of a new study of poverty in Scotland by a clutch of anti-poverty projects. A devastating 870,000 Scottish people officially live below the breadline. 

They simply can't afford a decent life. For many they can't meet the mounting food bills, or the rocketing cost of heating, let alone eat AND heat their homes without worrying.

Destitution
As Jim Sillars said at the recent SSP public meeting in Ayr, "I grew up during the second world war. There was rationing, but nobody starved. Now people are destitute. Some who oppose independence claim to be proud Scots, I am not. How can anyone be proud when kids are in poverty?"
The fact that not far short of a million Scots live in such dire straits in the world's eighth-richest country is a searing condemnation of successive governments and the system of capitalism they subscribe to.
Skinflint benefits and the ruthless cuts to them by Westminster are one major source of poverty. Pitiful pensions - one of the lowest in Europe - is another. 

The working poor
But whilst it's old news for many of us, the most appalling indictment of the current system is the fact 436,000 of those in poverty are actually in jobs. The working poor now make up the biggest single group - 52 per cent of all those in poverty - whose standard of living don't match even the most miserly standards set by the government.
A new report shows 80,000 children in Scotland living in poverty despite at least one of their parents working. An absolute majority of the kids below the breadline - 52 per cent of them - have one or more parent working, and in two parent families that proportion rises to 72 per cent. Work is no longer a route out of poverty, as previous generations have been told it is.
A lethal cocktail of rock bottom hourly pay, widespread underemployment and part time jobs, not to mention zero hours contracts, add up to an ocean of poverty in Scotland's workplaces.

Workers' children are being robbed of their potential so the capitalist employers and bankers can engorge themselves. Bailouts for rich bankers, food banks for the poorest. Booming profits for the few, poverty pay for the many. Who said class was dead?

Praying for payday!
When I was a child my mother and father would occasionally advise 'don't wish your life away, son', as I yearned for some future date, like reaching my teens or 18. Now, more than a few moons later, I share the fate of far too many in work: praying for pay day for at least two weeks, 'wishing your life away'. What kind of society is that?!

SSP pioneers
Back in the mid-1990s the forerunner to the SSP - the Scottish Socialist Alliance - organised the one and only demo in Scotland demanding a national minimum wage. Fifteen years ago a Labour government introduced it. But from the outset it was shot through with more loopholes than the worst dodgy insurance policies of the oiliest salesman - and the hourly level set was pathetic from day one. On top of that, young workers were doubly exploited with lower minimum wages - age wage discrimination.
In recent times it's mostly got even worse. Because the national minimum wage - even the 'adult' rate that is - has failed to even keep up with official (totally understated) inflation, every worker on it has lost a total of £675 in the past five years. 

Current minimum wage legalizes poverty pay
Today, over one in five workers earn below the officially recognized 'living wage'. The current £6.31 an hour for workers aged 21 and upwards is set to pole-vault to an Olympian £6.50 in October!
The press hype about this "inflation-busting 3 per cent rise" doesn't impress the hundreds of thousands marooned in a sea of poverty. Even less cause for celebration is the 2 per cent 'rise' for younger workers, and the current £2.68 slave labour rate for Modern Apprentices being inched up to a jaw-dropping £2.73!
A decent living wage for all at 16, scrapping the lower youth rates, and with equal pay for women, must be a central plank of any anti-poverty strategy.
It is morally justified. It is easily affordable in one of the richest nations on the globe. It is even more eminently affordable if we scrapped Trident and fighter jets - putting wages before war.

And it makes perfect economic sense, because amongst other reasons, working people spend their extra earnings and thereby boost the economy and boost job creation for other workers - unlike the one per cent of obscenely rich on incomes over £150,000, who can afford to hoard their wealth, or squander it on luxury items that do nothing to boost employment.

£9 an hour at 16
And what would a decent level of guaranteed minimum be? Certainly not the insulting £6.50 graciously promised by the Westminster Coalition of millionaires for October. Not even the recently-uprated £7.65 Living Wage. 

Welcome though that would be as an immediate step, it is still far below what workers need to live, and more to the point it is entirely voluntary, dependent on the whims and fancies of the employers. If, for instance, its updating from £7.45 to £7.65 displeases any of the employers who have voluntarily signed up as accredited Living Wage employers, they are at full liberty to withdraw, with absolutely no legal consequences.

Two-thirds male median earnings

A good start for a decent living wage would be the demand popular in most trade unions 30 years ago; two-thirds male median earnings as the statutory national minimum. In today's figures that would mean over £9 an hour for every worker and trainee over 16. Not a princely sum, but a decent wage. It's not even asking for two-thirds the AVERAGE male wage, which would be much higher, given the obscene growth of astronomical levels of income for a small minority at the top. Maybe it should!
The fact it is calculated on the median male wage in this country - the middle wage of all the wages paid - not only makes it very modest, but also helps to close the gender gap, and guarantees its automatic uprating, to reduce the growing scissors opening up between the lowest and highest incomes in society. 

A real live chance to win a living wage
That's what the Scottish Socialist Party has argued for since our 1998 founding conference. But 15 years later, not only is it even more urgent that we wage a war on poverty pay, but we also have a unique historic opportunity to stride in that direction. A vote for self-government, a Yes vote in September, would vastly speed up the chances of getting such a decent income guaranteed.
Let us be clear, it will still take a fight to achieve it, even with independence. But it is far more a realistic prospect than if we remain imprisoned by Westminster capitalist rule, where three factions of Thatcherism compete over who is most devoted to boosting the profits of big business at the expense of workers' wages, and where Miliband's Labour is busy dismantling the influence of the trade unions in their party - hardly a harbinger of socialist measures from any potential Labour government at Westminster!

Beyond the SNP White Paper
The SNP White Paper is what it says - the vision of one party, the SNP. Other visions of Scotland's future are being fought for, including that of the SSP. But the White Paper does pledge a Fair Pay Commission, with trade union involvement. The SNP promise the minimum wage will rise "at least by the level of inflation". A modest step forward, but far too modest, and certainly not a route out of poverty - if the starting rate is the current minimum wage.
However, by establishing a forum on pay, this rams open the door to the unions and socialists to organise and vigorously demand a decent living statutory minimum wage for all at 16 - £9 an hour in today's figures, uprated accordingly whenever an independent Scotland tackles this issue. 

Vote YES to decent pay
That's why the SSP is campaigning to convince people to 'vote YES for a decent living wage for all at 16'. 

Kick the door open to this path by voting YES, but also by organising before and beyond the referendum to shape the future, to demand eradication of the criminal poverty blighting workers, their families, their children. 

With 630,000 members, the Scottish trade union movement has the potential power to achieve this goal, by championing a decent living wage and linking it with support for Scottish self-government, getting shut of the purveyors of poverty pay, decades of successive Westminster governments.

Seize the time! Banish the human catastrophe of poverty pay!

My 11 minutes on why you should vote YES to #indyref

This was videoed in front of a packed hall in Ayr.

 

Jim Sillars, Colin Fox and Liz Swan speaking in Ayr


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More videos of the night HERE

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.