COVID-19 CRISIS: ISSUES FACING WORKERS

The entire world and its political-economic system has been turned upside down by the Covid-19 coronavirus crisis. 

Beliefs and ideologies preached as unchallenged gospel for decades are being exposed and ignored even by their most zealous adherents, such as the British Tories.

Tory Ideology Junked 

Maggie Thatcher infamously declared "There's no such thing as society".
Now we see the monumental mobilisation of collective efforts to combat C-19, where selfish individualism and the greed incited by Thatcher and her successors is exposed to millions as utterly useless and morally repugnant in a crisis. 

Theresa May mockingly rejected calls for investment in jobs, wages and services by announcing "There is no magic money tree."
Mere months later, an entire orchard of them has cropped up, as the Tories are compelled to wield the power and resources of the state to fight this virus. 

Just weeks ago, Home Secretary Priti Patel denounced millions as "unskilled" (and unwelcome in Britain!). Now millions of underpaid, undervalued workers in social care, cleaning, retail and the NHS are being begged to risk their lives to "save the nation."

And contrary to decades of denial - not only by the Tories, but Blairite New Labour,  and even some self-styled 'socialists' - we are being forcefully reminded that there's such a thing as 'the working class'! 

Everyday life, indeed human survival, depends entirely on millions of workers, with multiple skills in multiple occupations, getting out of their beds and going to work. In contrast, some of the engorged fatcat company executives are so critical to civilisation that they are selfishly bolting the country in search of safe havens for themselves!

Wakeup Call to Millions 

This whole, frightening crisis is a huge wake-up call about the continued, deep class divisions in society, and the utter inability of the capitalist 'free' market to protect the mass of humanity. And equally, it may open the eyes of millions to the advantages of human cooperation, solidarity and collective effort. 

The criminal consequences of decades of globalisation and capitalist neoliberalism are wreaking havoc, literally slaughtering the innocent. 

Millions are gripped by fear, and amidst this unprecedented crisis we see all that is best and worst about the world and the people we live amidst. The hedge fund speculators making £50m by betting that shares in the leisure industry will fall; the taxi drivers giving free lifts to NHS workers. 

At the heart of this nightmare, the need for human solidarity, for cooperation and collaboration has never been more critically urgent, putting human need for millions first, second and always, as opposed to the inhuman greed of the handfuls who rule and ruin our societies.

Free Market Failure 

Up until a matter of weeks ago, Boris Johnson and his class were adamant that the free market economy, with the drive for profit maximization as its kernel, is the one, the only, and the ideal way to organise society. The notion of state intervention was condemned as interfering socialist lunacy, totally inappropriate in 'the modern world'. 

BoJo's government has inherited the legacy of his own party, his own government and his own parasitic class - in the form of privatised public services; decimation of the NHS; a crisis of staffing in hospitals and primary care; bed shortages; an epidemic of mental illness in a stressed-out, insecure population. 

The would-be Churchillian national hero of the C-19 crisis helped create workplaces where health and safety standards have been mocked as red tape, to be scrapped by legislation, compromised as employers take shortcuts to higher profit margins, and where the unions have been savagely attacked, manacled and weakened in their efforts to defend workers' rights and safety.

Delayed Reaction 

As the Coronavirus erupted in China, and scientists gave dire warnings, BoJo's Tories paid no attention whatsoever to preparations for its spread here, being far too busy preparing even more repressive anti-union legislation, including a ban on all-out strikes. 

The historic turn away from manufacturing useful commodities to manufacturing profit for the bankers and speculators, in devilishly obscure financial skulduggery in the casino economy, means there are not even the ready-made facilities to manufacture emergency supplies of Personal Protective Equipment for frontline workers fighting to save lives. Or ventilators and Intensive Care Units for our overstretched hospitals. Or even adequate supplies of basic hygiene equipment like hand sanitizers and clinical wipes. 

From Testing to Herd Immunity 

For a brief spell, the government started testing, especially healthcare workers, only to abandon it - with a leaked National Health England document explaining "no more healthcare workers will be tested because laboratories couldn't keep up with the significant demand."

In a new turn, the callous, class-ridden inhumanity of Johnson, and the 1% that he seeks to further enrich, was revealed in his chilling declaration that "We have to be prepared that we will lose loved ones..." 

He wheeled out government scientists to justify the notion of creating "herd immunity", by acquiescing in the spread of the life-threatening virus. The scientists widely agree it requires 80% of the "herd" suffering infection to trigger any possible chance of creating immunity - with no certainty of success even, with this new and aggressive virus. And with a 1% or 2% fatality rate (it's actually about 7% in Italy) that would lead to 500,000 to a million dead! 

Tory columnist Jeremy Warner let the mask slip entirely, when he wrote (3/3/20):

"COVID-19 primarily kills the elderly. Not to put too fine a point on it, from an entirely disinterested economic perspective, the COVID-19 might even prove mildly beneficial in the long term, by disproportionately culling elderly dependents."  

Wash Your Hands & Social Distance 

After the backlash against this social Darwinism, letting rip this barbaric expression of competition and the survival of the fittest, the Tory government did a massive U-turn, starting to belatedly intervene with advice designed to delay the spread - after squandering at least weeks, even months, of preparatory action. 

Day-by-day they have escalated the advice to 'wash your hands' and 'keep your social distance ' - all absolutely justified advice, according to the evidence. 

That subsequently led to calls on people to stay at home, with specific instructions to self-isolate not only for those suffering symptoms of C-19, but also those on a government list of most vulnerable people - including those aged over 70, pregnant women, those with underlying health problems such as asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, etc. Again, absolutely appropriate advice - but delayed so long compared with many other countries that countless lives have probably already been put at unnecessary risk.

But a central contradiction screams out: we are told to keep our 'social distance'  - but to go to work! 

And not just told to go to work, but for millions, compelled to go to work, as a result of rampant job insecurity, poverty pay, and the unliveable level of sick pay available - if any! 

Hygiene Equipment in Workplaces 

Furthermore, the conditions in vast numbers of workplaces make them breeding grounds for infection, endangering the lives of many workers and their families. 

In the most obvious case, thousands of NHS workers are at their wit's end in fear of infection, as they heroically strive to save the lives of others. 

Contrary to the claims of the upper echelons of NHS bosses, PPE is not being adequately supplied to these frontline emergency service providers. Trade unionists on the shopfloor are inundated in their efforts to get proper provision of hand sanitizers in hospitals, or for ambulance workers, who do not have ready access to soap and water. 

As a nurse, in her 50s, told the Guardian (20/3/20):

"I've just finished four 12-hour shifts over five days. There are no hazmat suits for this ward, even though we have six C-19 contacts in isolation. We get a pair of gloves, a paper mask with a plastic shield and plastic apron. It's a fucking joke. 

I'm working with a healthcare assistant who is 71 and a nurse who is 72. They should be at home, but they just say 'who is going go do it otherwise?' 

We nurses are not being tested."

Crisis in the NHS

The same staff are trying to cope with an NHS starved of funds, staffing levels and equipment, for decades. 

In Scotland alone, 6,000 hospital beds - 25% of the total - have disappeared in the past 13 years of SNP governments failing to stand up for Scotland against Westminster Tory butchery. 

And this has not been replaced by investment in social care; Scotland's local authorities have been savaged by 7.4% cuts to funding by Holyrood, making proper, attentive home care services impossible.

Another chilling fact in the current crisis is that in Germany, there are 30 Intensive Care Units (ICU beds) for every 100,000 population, whereas in the UK it's not 30, but 6.6. 

The chronic staffing shortages in our hospitals are starkly highlighted by the current pleas by the government for retired medical and nursing staff to return to work, alongside students. And thousands have responded, proving the fundamental instinct for social solidarity that is a feature of humanity, given the right circumstances and the right vision. 

Care Workers, Retail Staff...

Lack of adequate hygiene measures in workplaces is not confined to the NHS. 

Care workers - many of them on zero hours contracts or bogus self-employment - are expected to visit vulnerable people at home, or work in residential care, without an adequate supply of protective equipment. 

The second-largest workforce in the country, retail, employs 3 million workers in the UK. Despite the sustained efforts of union reps, and promises from employers, the big majority of supermarkets and retail giants I have knowledge of have still (at time of writing) not provided basics like hand sanitizers, surgical wipes, or deep cleans of stores. At best, the measures are inconsistent, for instance with wipes for either checkouts or doors and surfaces, but not both.

That's despite the fact those in logistics and delivery handle goods from across the globe; checkout staff handle goods touched by thousands of shoppers, and exchange cash and cards potentially contaminated. 

And how are retail workers supposed to keep a safe social distance from shoppers, many of whom are in frantic panic buying mode, in far too many cases also frustrated at shortages and abusive to retail staff? 

I know of several instances where Store managers have ordered hand gels several weeks ago, but where supplies have yet to appear. 

Posties Offer to be Emergency Service 

The same applies to Royal Mail, where posties have still not been equipped with hand gels or surgical wipes to combat the potential contagion from parcels, letters, gates, doors and buzzers.  

This is particularly insulting after the same posties, through the CWU union,  suspended strike action despite a renewed 94.6% Yes vote, offering instead to become an additional emergency service.  

They have rightly highlighted Royal Mail is the only service which connects every address in the UK, with the local postie a trusted figure in the community, and offered to carry out critical services such as delivery of food and medicine, and checking in on vulnerable people during the C-19 crisis. All provided proper protective measures are taken. Most of them still haven't even had hand gels for the delivery rounds! 

Strikes for Safety

As in other countries, like Italy and the USA, there have been localised strikes by workers denied cleaning facilities and equipment. 

Cleaners, members of the GMB, walked out on strike in Lewisham after cleaning contractors ISS failed to pay them their full wages for the second time in a month, and failed to provide protective equipment. They won. 

In Glasgow, workers in the Polmadie bin depot recently staged a sit-in until proper washing facilities in the depot and hand gels for the bin wagons were provided. 

This one health-threatening fact highlights the criminal nature of capitalist production for profit, with cut-throat competition between rival producers. 

Belatedly, and with an eye to making money out of an urgent necessity, some Scottish whisky distilleries have switched to production of alcohol-based hand gels. In a sane, rational system, the state should be able to seize appropriate assets for emergency mass production of medical supplies, embracing the expertise of workers through their elected representatives in adapting skills and production - whether sanitisers, ICU beds or ventilators - even building brand new emergency hospitals, if necessary. 

Working From Home

In the last week or so, some employers have acted on belated government advice to let some staff work from home. 

Aside from the stress of working from home alongside children off school, this option only applies to a minority of workers. 

Those whose jobs can be done from home tend to be the higher paid. A survey of 2016-7 found that only 2.9% of workers in the lowest-paid decile (tenth) are in jobs that could be done from home, rising to 16.2% of those in the 7th decile, and 27% of the highest-paid tenth of staff. 

Better-paid, senior managers can often work from the relative safety of their (relatively spacious) home; I find it difficult to drag a pallet truck up to my third-floor flat! 

High Risk Workers 

Unions have helped convince some employers to send workers home who are on the government's high risk list. But whether it's paid or unpaid varies greatly. 

Gregg's, which is unionised by Usdaw, has agreed full pay for their core workers. Wetherspoon's (non-union) only offered the penury of Statutory Sick Pay, whilst Waterstone's have told bookshop staff forced into self-isolation to use up holidays, including next year's holiday allowances. That's not only immoral, but illegal; workers are entitled to claim back holidays if they fall sick during them! 

Virtually all employers have so far resisted union demands for workers living with other vulnerable people to be given leave on full pay, thus endangering elderly parents, partners or children with poor respiratory or immune systems with infection picked up at work. I've had members in tears at the dilemma they face. 

Underlying this brutal contradiction between calls for social distance and the obligation to get up close and dangerous in the workplace, is the state of the labour market and lack of workers' rights. 

Household debts are at a record high, meaning millions of working people are a pay cheque away from destitution, potential eviction, house repossession. 

Three out of four people aged under 24 have less than a month's wages in savings; that's also the case for 58% of the lowest-paid tenth of the working population. These millions are less than a month away from being literally penniless if they are laid off without pay. 

They can't afford to be unpaid, or even go on the sick. 

Statutory Sick Pay: Demand the European Average

Statutory Sick Pay is a miserly £94.25 a week. That's a catastrophic 18% of the average weekly wage of £512. 

It's an appalling indictment of British capitalism in particular, as the average Statutory Sick Pay in Europe is £245 a week; 65% of average wages. 

And in Norway, Luxembourg, Austria, Belgium, Malta and Croatia, workers off sick get 100% of their average pay! 

In France, workers have a 'right to withdraw' clause where they can leave work, on full pay, if they feel their health and safety is at risk. 

It gets worse; there are 2 million workers (on low hourly pay and short hours) who earn less than the £118-a-week Lower Earnings Threshold required to qualify for any SSP! 

Alongside that abominable situation, most employers have been systematically slashing their company sick benefit schemes, and tightening the absence management procedures precisely at a time when staff cuts, job insecurity and overwork have produced an explosion of work-related mental ill-health. 

That's certainly the situation with several of the retail giants. 

In the case of Wilko, any of their 21,000 workers with less than a year's service get no sick pay, and Wilko are in the midst of plans to abolish company sick pay for anyone off more than once in the year. 

So millions are dragging themselves into work, often unsure whether they may be carrying the virus themselves due to the appalling failure of the government to carry out tests and tracing in the manner many other governments have done. 

Or nervous wrecks at the thought they could carry infection back into their family home. A survey by GMB union found "77% of low-paid workers say they are going in to work even though they feel unwell". Because they can't afford to be unpaid. 

Protect Frontline Services Workers

Of course, emergency frontline services require investment and boosted staffing levels. But this must be with accompanying emergency production and distribution of adequate Personal Protective Equipment.

Likewise, it's welcome that after decades of being insulted as unskilled, the vast army of retail, production and delivery workers in food and pharmaceuticals have just been recognised by the government as 'key workers' - with the offer of childcare as they go to work - in common with workers in healthcare, social care, Royal Mail and others. 

But this recognition would mean a lot more if a series of urgent immediate steps were taken: emergency state production of hygiene equipment and other PPE; isolation on full average, normal pay (not just contract hours) for those in high risk health categories, or living with people who are, or in need of childcare with the schools lockdown. 

Shut Down Non-essential Retail

And to genuinely implement the scientists' advice on social distancing, both in workplaces and on public transport, unions should join with those of us who have been calling for temporary shutdown, on full normal pay, of retail stores not selling or producing life's daily necessities such as food, drink, household essentials, medicines, funeral-care, etc. 

In times of mass danger of potentially fatal infection, getting the latest footwear, clothing and fashion accessory items, or home furnishings, are hardly the priority over human health! 

Bailout for Businesses

All the early measures by the Tories focused on bailouts for business, not for the workers who create those businesses' wealth. The Tories were lobbied for 'holidays' from payment of business rates, VAT, sick pay contributions - by the likes of UK Hospitality.

The Blairite reptile Richard Branson told his 8,500 Virgin Atlantic staff to take 8 weeks' unpaid leave, while he rattled the begging bowl in front of the UK government, asking for a £7.5billion handout from the public purse. 
This sums up the class divide that remains, and has been further deepened, during the human catastrophe of C-19. Instead of seeking a public subsidy for his profits, Branson could pay every one of his workers £500 and still retain 'net worth' of £4.064biilion, a minuscule 0.88% shaving off his obscene personal fortune. 

As sectors like aviation, hospitality, entertainment and retail collapsed, the Tories were petrified at the forecasts (for example, by Capital Economics) that the unemployment rate would double from 4% to 8%. 

Certainly, under the hammer blows of mounting crisis, public unease and trade union lobbying, the (17th March) £350billion rescue package was a radical rupture in the Tories' previous policies and actions over previous decades.

No Excuses Left for Redundancies

But behind the eye catching headlines, this measure is not quite the outbreak of 'Tory socialism' some have been duped into seeing. 

Most of the £350bn is an offer of loans to businesses; repayable on the wing and prayer of economic revival after the Coronavirus crisis has passed. Therefore, still not an attractive offer for whole chunks of the profiteers, who are still left with the power to decide whether to take up such short-term, repayable state largesse via the banks - or proceed with pay cuts, unpaid leave, or outright sackings for their beleaguered employees. Which is precisely what some of them have forged ahead with, only retreating from a slaughter of jobs and wages under protests from unions and public outrage - as with Stefan King's G1 empire, or the brutal sackings and evictions of hotel staff from their accomodation by Britannia Hotels in Aviemore. 

And as always, it's the bigger businesses which are to the fore of the Tories'  concerns. Small and medium businesses have been offered grants of £10,000 and £25,000, which in many cases wouldn't even pay a month's wages bill. Plus as we write this, there is still utter confusion about what firms qualify for these loans, or how willing the banks are to oblige (despite government loan guarantees).

For 100% of Average Pay

Bombardment by the unions then won the further, very significant concession (20th March) of the government offering to pay 80% of wages of under-threat workers, up to £2,450 a month, for the next 3 months. 
This came as a huge relief to millions of workers. It leaves businesses - certainly bigger ones - with absolutely no excuse for slashing hours, pay or jobs; they will be getting 100% of workers' labour power for (at most) 20% of the wage bill.  

But it still leaves huge gaping holes in the safety net for workers and their wages - even compared with other countries, let alone the socialist demand for no job losses and guarantees of 100% of normal, average pay.

In Denmark, for example, the government pays 75% of their wage directly to the worker, and insists the employer pays the other 25%, conditional on workers being kept in the job. 

In the UK, the employers retain the power to decide what is done with this handout from the public purse, with no clear mechanism for guaranteeing every penny goes into the pockets of workers, rather than the bank balances of businesses. It's open to corruption, such as falsification of payroll lists, or simply taking the 80% but refusing to top up the remaining 20% of workers' wages. 

Reinstate on Full Pay

Also, it does nothing to reinstate the thousands of workers in the likes of the car industry, aviation, cinemas, retail and hospitality who have already been chucked on the scrapheap of unemployment by unscrupulous, get-rich-quick employers who refused to dip into their accumulated profits - stashed away in bank accounts - to sustain the very workers who loyally produced their wealth in the first place. 

The unions need to step up the demand for reinstatement of these newly-redundant workers. And the collective power of organised workers will need to be wielded to win reinstatement in most cases. 

Five Million Fall Through Torn Safety Net

The biggest holes in the entire, torn safety-net on wages is the exclusion of the technically (or bogus) self-employed, casual and agency workers, freelancers and those on zero hours contracts. These millions are not included at all, despite there being 5 million classified as self-employed alone. 

And contrary to the image some might have of them, these people are not some pampered elite. The average self-employed male only earns two-thirds the average wage of a male employee; for females, it's only half the average female PAYE worker's wage. It includes not just writers, journalists and artists, but care workers, plumbers, electricians, cleaners, shopkeepers...an army of 5 million so far not guaranteed anything except slightly easier access to benefits, about £4,800 a year maximum! 

Protect the Self-Employed & Insecure Workers

There are plenty of simple devices to guarantee a decent income to these workers  - and likewise the battalions of workers on zero hours contracts and in the gig economy. 
One option is a Universal Basic Income for all during this C-19 crisis. 
Another could be based on what's been done in Denmark: government pay-outs based on the average income of the self-employed over the past three years. Denmark has made it 80% of the average; we should demand 100% of the average over 3 years, to guarantee all categories of workers full pay during the lockdown dictated by urgent, cataclysmic public health needs. 

Mass Testing: Reduce Risks

There are many more issues confronting workers and their unions, in an extremely rapidly moving situation. 

For instance, it's right and urgent that unions like the Fire Brigades Union and STUC have increased the demand for testing and detection, starting with healthcare, social care, fire service, postal service and food retail workers. 

Many absolutely essential workers are putting their own lives at risk for the common good. Others, including emergency service workers, may be unnecessarily self-isolating out of fear. Emergency measures should be enacted to produce test kits, to detect and contain as far as humanly possible, rather than just wait until people are seriously ill and hospitalised by the noxious virus. 

Again, this issue shows up the continued class divide in society in stark relief. Private, elite clinics on London's Harley Street have already sold home testing kits to the wealthy, at £375 each, which explains the mystery of why weeks ago MPs and several TV, sports and music celebrities declared they had tested positive, even though they had no symptoms whatsoever. A sharp contrast to the worry and life-threatening risks being forced upon millions of workers. 

Seize Private Hospital Assets

It's right and proper that 8,000 beds in private hospitals have been accessed by the NHS for this national emergency. But it's absolutely repugnant that the profiteering owners of the private hospitals - who already earn 25% of their income from NHS contracts, well before the Coronavirus happened - are getting £300 a day for each bed. That's £2.4m a day, robbed by these racketeers from the depleted NHS. 

The whole crisis, and the course of action forced upon a Tory, anti-socialist government, throws up the case for systematic state ownership - but with democratic working class control and management - as the model for the future. 

That arises from the need to prioritise production, distribution and exchange for the very survival of the mass of the people, and for direction of maximum effort into life-saving services like health, social care and food distribution. 

For Public Ownership of Retail Giants

It's welcome that the big supermarkets have indulged in some degree of cooperation to improve the delivery of food, but they still do so to maximise profits and dividends, with unscrupulous price increases all too common. The government has relaxed anti-cartel competition laws to allow cooperation between the supermarkets in improving food supply lines; they should impose price controls to protect the public from profiteering.  

Share prices for the likes of Morrisons, Sainsburys, Ocado and Tesco have rocketed, in anticipation of juicy profits from this whole exercise. After shedding thousands of jobs, and slashing paid breaks and other benefits to staff, these outfits are hiring thousands of temporary workers to seize the market niche this human tragedy has created. 

Instead of relying on the self-interest of these profiteering giants, why not merge them into a public sector retail company, with reversal of the job losses and cuts to terms and conditions, with permanent jobs and a guaranteed minimum 16-hour week for all workers who want it, and a £12-an-hour minimum wage for all at 16? 

Planned Production for Need & Human Solidarity 

The production and distribution of life's vital necessities - including food, medicine, healthcare, education, transport, housing, medical research - are far too important to be left to the cruel anarchy of the market. 
It makes the case for a democratically planned economy, with human collaboration for the common good, the foundations of socialism. 

This crisis could reveal that profound truth to millions, as they struggle and collaborate to stay safe and survive. 

WIN INDEPENDENCE FOR WORKERS' RIGHTS: don't rely on EU bosses bearing gifts!

The SNP government's declaration of a second Referendum, including its timing - and the brutal, dictatorial response of unelected Tory Prime Minister, Theresa May - has framed the whole debate about independence around EU membership and Brexit. 

As the Scottish Greens, rightly, help the SNP vote for Indy Ref2 in the Scottish parliament, they both - wrongly - make Brexit and membership of the EU and its Single Market the centrepiece of the case for Scottish independence.

Socialists unequivocally support Scottish independence - but not as a means of making life more comfortable, more obscenely profitable for the capitalist elite, whether home-grown or multinational.

We want to win independence as a means to end Tory dictatorship from Westminster, on behalf of the bankers and billionaires, wielding the butchers' knife to public services, pay, job security, rights at work, and our civil rights. 

The SSP's call for an independent socialist Scotland is an inspiring goal that would transform the lives of the working class majority of the population, from the cradle to the grave. Independence would empower a Scottish government – provided it was a government with the principles, policies and political will to confront the capitalist powers at home and abroad – to redistribute wealth and power from top to bottom.

That also makes the case for a socialist Scotland an indispensable weapon of persuasion in the battle for self-rule. Without that message being heard loud and clear, working class people won't be inspired to vote for change, and could be thereby imprisoned in at least another decade of Tory savagery, especially given the enfeebled, war-torn state of Labour. 

Separate Fight for Indy from the EU 

Socialists and trade unionists need to wrestle the case for independence away from being about membership of capitalist Brexit Britain or the capitalist EU. 

It's true enough indeed that the 62% Remain vote in Scotland being ignored by the Blue Brexiteers adds to the case for the Scottish people being empowered to make their own decisions, through independence. But that alone will never win independence; for starters, calling on the 400,000 pro-Indy voters who chose Leave to now vote for independence so Scotland can Remain in the EU is utterly divisive and counterproductive.

I strongly believe we need to demand two key things alongside describing the transformational vision of what could be achieved in an independent socialist Scotland, to decouple the case for Indy from the divisive, confusing issue of the EU. 

Firstly, call for a separate decision on an independent Scotland's relationship to the EU to be fully debated in democratic forums AFTER winning independence, including a post-independence Referendum on the options then available. 

And secondly, here and now broadcast that we want an independent socialist Scotland to help forge cooperation between equals, on the basis of an alliance of socialist democracies across Europe - instead of either the Blue Brexiteers' capitalist, isolationist hell-house, or the EU of brutal big business interests. 

Tell the Truth - about Brexit

In fighting to convince a majority of working class people to vote Yes, we need to tell the truth - including on what needs to be done to defend and vastly enhance workers' rights, at work and in their communities. 

Those who imagined a Brexit vote would turbocharge a wave of united workers' struggle against the Tories and capitalist bosses are indulging in a dystopian version of La La Land. Whilst for many the Leave vote was a raging against years of neglect by the capitalist machine, the Brexit outcome has sown even more confusion and division, including the scapegoating of migrant workers, and handed the Tories an unexpected golden opportunity to bludgeon to death the flimsy rights workers cling onto. If we let them away with it!

Tell the Truth - about the EU 

But when the SNP and Scottish Greens advocate the gushing glories of Scotland keeping its place in the EU, they are at bottom advocating a continuation of the capitalist Age of Austerity, and the interlinked attacks on workers' rights. 

Whilst most ordinary people who voted to Remain in the EU did so for honourable, internationalist ideals – and in rejection of the axe-wielding, service-slashing, pay-cutting Tories, plus the ugly racism of Farage, Boris Johnston and their Leave leadership - many also shared the SSP's view that it was the lesser of two evil choices in the binary EU Referendum. 

One of the key tasks of socialists, including in our workplaces and unions, is to unmask the debilitating, demobilizing nonsense peddled not only by the SNP and Greens, but especially (and more importantly) by most trade union leaders, that membership of the EU is the road to salvation for workers' rights. 

Struggle is the only Guarantee 

Our fundamental message needs to be that united, collective struggles by workers is what's won the all-too-limited rights we have; not some benign handouts from the EU and its ruling, unelected executive, the European Commission (the selected heads of 28 Member states). 

And whether in or out of the EU, it will require massive resistance and action by workers and their organizations to halt and reverse the tide of assaults on our rights and conditions. Just as we need to hoist high the case for a Scotland run by its working class majority, a socialist Scottish republic, so too we need to enhance people's understanding that class-based struggle is the only guarantee of decent wages, workplace conditions, equality, humane public services, environmental protection...

Evolution of the capitalist EU 

Like any institution, the EU has changed over time, reflecting wider trends throughout the capitalist societies it was founded to uphold and develop in the first place. And those changes are reflected in the EU Directives, Regulations and policies - issued by the European Commission, or sometimes ruled on by the EU's Court of Justice (ECJ). Some have been helpful to those struggling for better rights andconditions for working class people in the various member states; others have been downright dangerous, obstructive and regressive. 

Space prevents a full description, but suffice to say in an earlier period of the EU, particularly from the late-1980s - some progressive regulations were issued, encapsulated in the term 'Social Chapter'. But the EU never pretended to be a socialist institution; it preferred the term 'Social Market' - the model of post-War Germany, with some limited state regulations over the excesses of the capitalist market.

Social Chapter - a Passing Phase

Compared to the red-in-tooth-and-claw savagery of Maggie Thatcher’s monetarists of the 1980s, EU President of the time, Jacques Delors, won rapturous applause at the 1988 TUC conference, for his promises of what became the Social Chapter at the following year’s Strasbourg Summit. What Delors carefully concealed, of course, to the assembled TUC delegates, was his role – as its Finance Minister - in helping the ‘Socialist’ Mitterand government of France abandon all the promised reforms that had enthused millions in the previous elections.

In the face of subsequent defeats at the hands of Thatcher’s civil war against workers’ rights and livelihoods, culminating in the defeat of the 1984/5 miners’ strike, a big majority of union leaders sheltered behind the mildly progressive rules and Directives issuing from the EU Commission in that period. It was a substitute for giving leadership in struggle. It ran in tandem with their constant refrain during the 13 wasted years of Tory rule: “Wait for a Labour government”. It was one feature of the defeatist, class-collaborationist philosophy of far too many union leaders at the time – which aided and abetted the biggest wealth transfusion to the rich from the rest of us over 30 years of them discouraging a more combative course by workers.

As the crisis of capitalism intensified, the EU’s phase described as the Social Chapter died; morphed from being a sweetener to bitter pills, to being the poison of austerity and deregulation of the market itself; from being a partial shield from Thatcherism in Britain to being a vehicle for the spread of ‘Thatcherism’ across the EU.

The EU's lifelong adherence to the interests of monopoly capitalism has increasingly meant the Commission, European Central Bank, and European Court Justice have helped national governments enforce vicious austerity, particularly since the 2008 bankers' crisis. 

European Decency Threshold Downgraded 

A few examples illustrate the general trends, and the central lesson that we need to rely on working class struggle, not the EU, to resist the savagery of the capitalist class and their pliant politicians. 

In the past, the European Decency Threshold, which called for the national minimum wage in each EU country to match 68% of the national average wage, was a very useful weapon in the hands of those of us fighting against the growing theft of wages for profit. But it was only ever an aspiration, not legally enforceable on each state's government. And as social democratic parties and governments converged with the traditional conservatives in unabashed defence of capitalism - as in New Labour - the EU reflected this and drastically downgraded the Decency Threshold, rendering it almost useless in the fight for a decent living wage here or abroad.

Workers Won Reforms, not EU bosses 

Many of the positive rights attributed to the EU by its zealous advocates are either the product of class struggles by workers in one or more EU state, or actually have nothing whatsoever to do with the EU! 

When the TUC General Secretary, Frances O'Grady, last year wrote that "It's the EU that guarantees workers paid holidays, parental leave and equal treatment of part timers" - a claim repeated almost verbatim by Jeremy Corbyn, who added "equal pay" to the list - they were at best misleading workers.

Dangerously misleading, in a fashion almost designed to make workers rely on the benign EU Commissioners rather than defend our rights and conditions through the organised trade unions and their allies. 

Nothing to do with the EU!

Entitlements to paid holidays vastly predate the very existence of the EU, or even its EEC predecessor. French workers won guaranteed annual paid leave of 12 days back in 1936, when they forced the elected Left Front government to take action by occupying the factories and striking! 

Trade union struggles in the UK won the Holidays Pay Act in 1938. 

And even today, organised union pressure has meant UK workers are guaranteed 5.6 weeks paid holidays, well better than the 4 weeks the EU demands.

Equal Pay 

Equal pay - still disgracefully denied to millions of women in practice - was legislated for in the UK in 1970, well before Britain even joined the Common Market/EEC, in 1973. And the Equal Pay Act was forced upon the British government by the ground-breaking strike action of women workers in Fords Dagenham plant in 1968. Furthermore, the same women had to launch a more prolonged strike years after the Act was passed, to actually get the equal pay it promised! 

So whilst anti-discrimination Directives from the EU are welcome, they merely reaffirmed what was won on the picket lines and workers' demonstrations. 

The EU Directives guarantee 14 weeks paid maternity leave; decades of campaigning has won the concession of 37 weeks here. 

Health and Safety laws in Scotland are based on the 1974 Act that was conceded on the wave of industrial struggles that overthrew Ted Heath's Tory government in February 1974; it was not a generous handout from either British capitalists nor their EU co-thinkers. 

Some EU Regulations, like the Working Time Directives, acted as a dented, limited shield in the face of savage attacks by Thatcher's, and subsequently Blair's governments. In terms of capping compulsory hours of work at 48 and insisting on guaranteed minimum break times during and between shifts, they are welcome reforms. 

But all along the British government insisted on opt-out clauses, and can do so entirely legally, within the framework of EU regulations and rulings. For instance, the Tories' railroading laws to remove doctors and nurses from the 48-hour limit underlay the Junior Doctors' strike last year. And all workers in Scotland can 'choose' - often under 'subtle' duress from employers - to waive that right anyway, fuelling the life-threatening long hours culture we are cursed by.

Capitalists Pick and Choose 

The positive EU measures are often ferociously resisted and bypassed by the Westminster club of capitalist politicians, but the equally numerous anti-working class EU Directives and regulations are eagerly seized upon to back up their drive to privatize, slash public expenditure and make workers pay for a capitalist crisis caused by bankers and the profit system. 

And in the case of Scotland, these EU Directives have been frequently used as an excuse for inaction, or regressive measures, by the SNP government. We shouldn't forget that as an added reason to decouple the case for Scottish independence from the SNP's advocacy of the EU as a land of milk and honey.

Strangling Public Spending 

For decades, and increasingly in recent years, the EU has framed laws to aid the privateers and the help enforce the capitalists' chosen path of austerity. 

The EU Stability and Growth Pact prohibits government budget deficits above 3% of GDP, thereby banning state expenditure to provide jobs, houses and services, reinforcing the downward spiral of cuts. 

A 2008 Directive called for postal services to be "fully open to competition by December 2012", adding to the Tory (and Labour) armoury in shedding the 400-year-old, public sector Royal Mail. 

From the EU's First Rail Directive in 1991, to its more recent Fourth, the EU Commissioners seek to break up and privatize the entire rail networks of all EU states. 

Successive British Tory and Labour governments needed no encouragement from the EU to privatise all and sundry, or apply a scorched earth policy to public services. But they certainly got encouragement, as increasingly anti-working class governments in the member states huddled together in the one and only EU institution with the powers to initiate rules and Directives - the unelected European Commission.  

SNP Hide Behind EU Directives 

That's an example of where the SNP government chooses to comply rather than defy all that's reactionary and regressive about the EU. 

On both the issues of railway renationalisation and Scotland's ferries, they chose to obey the laws of the capitalist market, including its EU bureaucracy, and hide behind them instead of proceeding to implement the oft-expressed wishes of the overwhelming majority of Scottish people by taking the entire transport system into public, democratic ownership. 

It was only after strike action and legal challenges by the RMT union that the SNP government conceded on keeping some of the ferries in the public sector, and retreated on implementing their contract clause for ScotRail that insists on driver only trains - in itself the product of their refusal to nationalise the railways, regardless of EU rules.

Undermining Wages 

Another major weapon used by employers and national governments in their war on wages is the EU Posted Workers Directive (PWD). This, and associated ECJ rulings, allows profiteers to set up shop abroad, or post workers from one EU country to another branch of their operations, to undermine wage rates. 

In its actual wording, the EU PWD states: "Member states shall guarantee workers posted to their territory the terms and conditions of employment...which in the member state where the work is carried out...are laid down by law, regulation or administrative provision." 

On the surface, harmless sounding? On the contrary, it means bosses paying only the national minimum wage to migrant workers, not the rate for the job negotiated and fought for through the unions in the host nation.
For instance, last year construction workers' unions in Rotherham, Yorkshire, waged a battle against a Croatian subcontractor company hiring Croatian workers to build a power station on £7 an hour, undercutting the national industry collective agreement rate of £16.64 an hour. The unions rightly fought to organise the migrant workers and win equality, the rate for the job, rather than fall prey to the racist division this Posted Workers Directive inevitably triggers. 

Tory Brexiteers Wage Class War 

The Tories are hell-bent on inciting division during the Brexit process, to ease the path to further crush workers' rights, public services and wages as a share of national wealth.
It's no accident their recently-implemented Trade Union Act has taken full effect in March 2017, with barely a whisper of protest, as the white noise around Brexit lets rip. 

But to counter this reactionary plan by the Tories and employing class, it's worse than useless, indeed downright dangerous, to counter-pose it with claims of the EU being some Nirvana of workers' rights and protection of all that's civilized. 

We need to advocate Scottish independence as the best, quickest escape route from Tory dictatorship.

An opening to demand and enforce a Charter of Workers’ Rights, alongside other key measures like a £10 minimum wage for all at 16 (in 2017 figures); a maximum wage no more than 10 times the minimum to help close the chasm of inequality; the union-negotiated rate and rights for the job for migrant workers; guaranteed minimum 16-hour contracts instead of zero hours serfdom; public ownership of all services, energy, banks and landed estates.

Greek Tragedy 

But that's got nothing to do with false claims that EU membership would gift the Scottish people a secure, pleasant future. 

On the contrary: not only will that claim drastically undermine the case for independence, but it is selling a lie to the working class. And underneath it all is the pernicious message that we don't need to organise in an almighty class struggle for transformational change, but that we should just rely on benign politicians to hand out workers and communities rights and services like sweeties issued by kindly grandparents. 

Try telling that tale of 'EU bosses bearing gifts' to the Greek people, who voted massively against austerity, and then were told by the EU to slash spending even further, despite starvation on the streets and hospitals running out of painkillers, and to tax the poorest as part of a grossly misnamed 'rescue package'. 

For an Independent Socialist Scotland - In a socialist Europe

We need to decouple the issues of independence and the EU.

For an independent Scotland that can then proceed to debate and decide its place in Europe and the wider world after gaining self government.

For an independent socialist Scotland that could help pioneer collaboration between equals in a future alliance of socialist democracies across Europe.

Most important of all perhaps, we need to unmask the demobilizing myth that Scottish people should rely on the EU and its benign regulations to protect us from capitalist exploitation.

Anything protective, however limited and feeble, that the EU calls for is the result of struggle by workers' organizations, and in any case hedged with umpteen opt-out clauses.

And as the populist right and hard-faced capitalism holds more and more sway across Europe, the EU act as thuggish enforcers for the Age of Austerity. 

Working class people need to rely on their own organised strength, demanding all that's best in Europe for the people of Scotland, and likewise defying all that's worst in the EU capitalist club. 

We need independent workers' struggle, an independent socialist Scotland, and an alliance of European socialist democracies to confront and eradicate the crimes of profit against people. 

UNITE TO BLOCK THE BLUE BREXITEERS: defend workers' rights

"To restore Britain's competitiveness, we must begin by deregulating the labour market."

These words - from Liam Fox, one of the Tories' Three Brexiteers - should send a chill down the spine of any worker.
Many are sick of listening to endless news items about Brexit. But behind the fog of procedures and jargon, we need to be wide awake to the brutal slaughter of rights and conditions for working class people the Tories aim to impose as part of Britain's exit from the EU, including some progressive rulings by the EU's Court of Justice.

Millions of those who voted to Leave did so as a roar of outrage against decades of neglect and devastation in their communities by successive Tory and Labour governments, since the days of wholesale industrial vandalism by Maggie Thatcher.
Of course, the chief leaders of both the Leave and Remain campaigns also incited a dose of racism, blaming immigrants for the inhumane conditions imposed by the capitalist elite. However, it's an outrageous slur to imagine all Leave voters are racists, just as not all Remain voters are devoted fans of the capitalist European Union. 

But anyone who imagined the Brexit vote would usher in a revival of struggle to topple the Tories and their capitalist system of daylight robbery were living in a dark, dystopian version of La La Land. 

Instead, it's increased the levels of confusion, division, and real danger that the very Westminster elite rejected by so many millions through a Leave vote will get away with murdering even more of workers' rights and living standards. 

The organised trade union movement, alongside community campaigners and socialists, needs to counter this real and present danger with a determined crusade to unite working class people in struggle, to defend and vastly enhance their conditions of life.

The Singapore of Europe 
Several Tories have let slip their aim of making Britain the Singapore of Europe. 

A deregulated tax haven for big business and the obscenely rich, shredding even the flimsy framework of rights that remain for workers already subjected to a cruel, concerted class war for the past 40 years in capitalist Britain. 

They want to usher in even lower tax on corporations and the 1%; drive down wages even lower, despite escalating inflation, and wage stagnation since at least 2008; and dismantle regulations on Health & Safety, food standards, environmental protection, and a host of workplace rights.

Turning their backs on the EU marketplace, the Atlanticist wing of the Tories seek trade deals with some of the craziest capitalist governments they can snuggle up to, including the dictatorial Turkish regime (having just signed a £100million arms deal with them) and, especially, Trump's USA. 

Theresa May is set to hold hands with a Donald Trump whose slogan 'America First' should be a warning that any trade deals with him will be at terrible cost to the people of Britain, as The Donald pursues his nationalist, protectionist version of imperialist plunder. 

Already there's rampant speculation about UK food safety standards (under EU regulations) being dumped to import US pork that's pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics, and of US corporations being invited to seize privatised chunks of the NHS under new trade deals.

EU No Workers' Nirvana
Contrary to the gushing love of the EU displayed by Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP government and indeed the Scottish Greens, the EU is no Nirvana for working class people. 

Rather than welcome in the huddled masses escaping war and starvation - frequently from regions bombed and previously colonized by big European powers that injected the poison of ethnic and religious sectarianism to make it easier to rule over them - Fortress Europe has allowed thousands of refugees to drown in the Mediterranean. A reported 4,000 tragic, miserable, deaths at sea for these desperate people in each of 2015 and 2016.

As well as being an anti-democratic bureaucracy, the EU has several Directives designed to block nationalisation, accelerate privatization of public services, and batter down wages by measures like the Posted Worker Directive - which allows corporations to hire workers in a low-pay, nil-rights country and then post them on those terms and conditions to another country with better working conditions.
As national governments lurched to the right in recent decades, what used to be called Social Europe has died. 

However, for a period of history, EU Directives and subsequent legislation acted as a badly dented shield for workers in Thatcherite and Blairite Britain. 

Some of the laws of EU origin that partially protected workers from the worst excesses of super-exploitative British capitalism were enforced as a result of mighty battles put up by the unions, and subsequent EU Court of Justice decisions to over-rule the governments and judiciary of Britain. 

For example, some of the laws governing break times at work; Agency Workers' rights; paid holiday entitlements; maternity rights; manual handling and other Health & Safety regulations; payments for some travel-to-work time, etc. 

Tories Dismantling Flimsy Protection of Workers 
Now, using the unexpected golden opportunity of Brexit, the Tories and capitalist overlords are determined to dismantle this flimsy framework of protective laws, to drive forward their mission of a low-waged capitalist free-for-all, to turbocharge their profit margins; to "restore Britain's competitiveness", in the weasel words of Tory Brexit leader Liam Fox.

That's why they're pushing through the Great Repeal Bill - to repatriate all these workplace regulations to Westminster, with the false promise EU-initiated rights will be retained... until the Tories find it timely to flush them down the toilet!
That's why they're about to implement their 2016 Trade Union Act, to throw up ever higher obstacles to workers and their unions resisting this class war on rights, conditions, jobs and wages. 

In that context, trade unionists and socialists should highlight and support the Workers' Rights (Maintenance of EU Regulations) Bill currently being pursued as a Private Member's Bill in Westminster.
But it will take an awful lot more than parliamentary measures to stop the class-driven civil war on the working class by the Tory Brexiteers and their big business puppet-masters.  

Mass Action to Stop the Slaughter 
The first time any employer tries to wield the truncheon provided by the Tory Trade Union Act, all unions need to rally to the side of the workforce and unions in the firing line.
For instance, if bosses try to halt a strike or picketing under this legislation, the STUC, TUC and each affiliated union leadership will need to get off the fence, turn oppositional speeches into mobilsation for mass protests, and defy the anti-union laws in the process.

That's the militant spirit and method required to render such laws powerless. Recent history proves this. In the 1970s, Ted Heath's Tories were forced to abandon their anti-union laws in the face of mass, unofficial, illegal strikes and mass demos of 250,000. 

A stark contrast to the feeble mumbling of the TUC in 2016, when they barely lifted a finger to take action to halt the Tory Trade Union Bill being passed. And a million miles removed from this week's appalling desertion of RMT strikers on Southern Rail by the leadership of the drivers' union, Aslef. 

Or the spineless role of the TUC, who acted as a treacherous referee, brokering the deal between Tory government-bankrolled Southern Rail bosses and Aslef, whilst slamming the door to these negotiations in the face of the RMT - after RMT members have sacrificed 45 days' pay in strikes to protect the travelling public's safety. 

Such readiness to grovel and break workers' solidarity will never in a million years win repeal of the battery of anti-union laws implemented by the Tories, retained by 13 years of Labour governments, made even more repressive by the Tories' 2016 Act.

Over recent decades, numerous workforces in Scotland and beyond have brushed aside the heavy hand of the law in pursuit of their cause, striking and winning without going through all the legal rigmaroles - for instance, postal workers, Glacier Metal workers, council staff, oil refinery construction workers.

Open trade union defiance of legal obstructions to basic rights is the only route to repeal of legislation consciously designed to enslave workers and aid unfettered profiteering for the few.

Beware Tory Divide and Rule 
Another core task we face - even more urgently after the Brexit vote - is to combat the vicious divide-and-rule tactics of the employers, government and most of their hired media. 

The issue of immigration has been whipped up to confuse, divide and weaken working class people's resistance to the real causes of their plummeting standard of living. 

The trade union movement needs to confront the lies and myths on immigration, or suffer the consequences of a divided working class, prey to plunder by the billionaires who feed us this toxic diet. 

Many capitalist politicians - the SNP included - sing hymns of praise to the EU Single Market, a mechanism primarily based on freedom of movement for capital, goods, services - and people, as sources of labour, as the EU capitalist club chases after profit maximization in the biggest possible market.
Whilst defending to the hilt the right of big corporations to shift their investments and operations round Europe and the rest of the globe - with a full 30% of all Direct Foreign Investment flowing through tax havens! - capitalists and their political parties systematically distract and divide us with tales of how the migration of people causes wage cuts, job losses and attacks on local public services. 

Blame the Rich - not Migrant Workers 
It's a monstrous lie; a myth that must be tackled head on by the trade union and socialist movement in order to show people the real causes of poverty pay and austerity cuts. Numerous in-depth studies - including recently by the London School of Economics - prove that immigration does NOT reduce wages for workers in this country. 

Wages fell after the 2008 financial collapse, at the same time as immigration slumped.
Contrary to the claims of many - right-wingers, but even Jeremy Corbyn in a recent concession to the lies of the right - that immigrant labour is driving down wages in the UK construction industry, wages there have risen every single month in 2016, at the same time as a mini boom in construction led to an upsurge of immigration.

In any case, immigrants don't impose low wages, or zero hours contracts, or the worst anti-union laws in the western world; governments and employers do.

Nor does immigration cut public services. For instance, a recent study by University College London shows EU migrant workers pay £20billion a year more in UK taxes than they take back in any form of benefits or services. 

And in Scotland, the aging population means we need net annual inward migration of 24,000 workers, just to stand still, let alone broaden the tax base to fund improved pensions, other benefits and public services.

Unite Against Slave Wages
But the unions also need to face up to other facts: bosses do try to hire slave-labour workers from abroad, or shift their investments overseas to cheap labour economies, and leave a desert behind them. That's where socialist strategy and tactics applied by the potentially powerful trade unions comes in. 

The rights of EU migrant workers in the UK is one of the key issues of concern post-Brexit. But a significant minority of workers are being duped into thinking immigration is a threat to their jobs and wages; incited to scapegoat migrants by the very same profit-hungry capitalist exploiters who are battering down wages in a race to the bottom.

United, collective action by workers, in particular through their unions, has always been the way to fight off such divide-and-rule trickery - not liberal pleas to the non-existent consciences of billionaires who don't give a damn what colour or creed of worker they can exploit, but do strive to divide and conquer. 

A key demand that unions need to actively pursue, to confront the Tory plans around Brexit, is protection and improvement of all existing rights for all workers, regardless of national origin, and application of the nationally negotiated wages and conditions to migrant workers, with full union rights.

The National Rate for the Job

Capitalist shipping magnates have a history of enslaving overseas crews under 'flags of convenience' to undermine the conditions won by workers in the countries they then operate in. The EU Posted Worker Directive aided this plan in other industries. 

In recent months, here in Scotland, we've witnessed an excellent example of a socialist trade union response to this outrageous practice. On the Seatruck freight ferries to Orkney and Shetland, overseas workers were being paid a derisory £4 an hour. The RMT union fought this in a high profile campaign, embarrassing the SNP government who were hiring this company under contract, and have just won agreement that all crew will get at least the UK national minimum wage. 

Hot on the heels of that breakthrough for workers' conditions, the RMT is now bombarding the Scottish government with the same demands for Lithuanian workers on ferries from Rosyth, paid only £1.64 an hour in 2014, and current wages the government declines to reveal! 

Fighting for 'the national rate and rights for the job', the unions should marry that to a vigorous campaign for a national minimum wage of £10 now, the policy shamefully left on the shelf by the TUC and most national unions since it was unanimously agreed as the policy of the TUC a long, lamentable 30 months ago! 

Unite Around Fighting Policies 

The unions and socialists have a critical role to play in preventing the divide-and-conquer strategy of the Blue Tory Brexiteers. Alongside the issues already mentioned, they should spearhead a dynamic struggle for a maximum wage no more than 10 times the £10 national minimum wage; for secure jobs with full trade union rights and restoration of collective bargaining; abolition of zero hours contracts and instead a guaranteed minimum 16-hour week for all who want it; repeal of all anti-union laws and a charter of workers' rights; reversal of cuts to services and privatization.

Such a package of policies would unite workers in struggle, regardless of origin, and indeed regardless of which way they voted in the EU Referendum. 

Alongside these fighting policies, the unions need to review their position on Scottish independence. Instead of offering workers the false choice of a capitalist EU or a low-wage capitalist tax haven for the rich in Brexit Britain, we need to popularize the case for an independent socialist Scotland in a European alliance of socialist democracies, where workers of all countries combine to make sure people come before profit.