From: New Worker Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 20:39:37 +0100
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [New-Worker-News] New Worker Online Digest - 29/6/2001
New Worker Online Digest
Week commencing 29th June, 2001.
1) Editorial - Crisis measures.
2) Lead story - Unions unite against privatisation.
3) Feature article - Byers to bulldoze tube sell-off?
4) International story - Athens international Communist conference.
5) British news item - "Dust down your marching shoes".
1) Editorial
Crisis measures.
THE Government is hell bent on letting private business get its claws stuck
into the NHS and other public services. But because this is extremely
unpopular it is doing all it can to reassure us that this does not amount
to privatisation and the thin end of the wedge for our state welfare system.
We are not fooled. Everyone knows that big business does not invest money
in anything without expecting to make a fat profit. And that profit has to
come from somewhere.
These are the questions Blair must be made to answer: How will the private
sector make money out of our cash-strapped health and education services?
Where will the creamed-off profits come from? And if there is a way of
making genuine profits from public services why doesn't the government
invest so that those profits can be ploughed back into the public purse?
There are only a limited number of possibilities: The profit could come
from cost-cutting schemes including job losses, cuts in staff wages and
conditions, cuts in training and by providing cheaper, and therefore,
poorer services.
It could, as with Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes, come from
trusts and authorities paying rents to the private investors without ever
having the possibility of owning the assets. Or it could come, as is the
case with the railway industry, from government subsidies to the new
private management bodies, that is, we pay the fat cats directly. And it
could also come from a mix-and-match of all of these scams.
In state education there is the extra danger that the involvement of
private business could open the door to commercial interests trying to
influence what is taught and a growth in the unseemly practice of
advertising company brand names and logos on school equipment.
Where a sizeable private sector already exists, as is the case with health
care provision, the further involvement of private interests into the NHS
itself will strengthen the private sector as a whole and encourage the
trend towards a two-tier service.
In all public sector privatisation schemes, whether by PFI, full
privatisation or some public/private/partnership (PPP) deal, there would
inevitably be a loss of democratic accountability and control -- government
regulation is only as good as the inspection system involved. And as we
know from health and safety problems in industry and agriculture, the
inspection services are usually grossly underfunded and understaffed.
Blair argues that private funding can provide the large scale capital
investment the public sector needs and that the involvement of private
money is the way to bring our services up to a good standard.
And yet only the other week we were told that Britain is going to upgrade
its fleet with a spanking new, and much larger, aircraft carrier, complete
with the latest United States-built warplanes, at an astronomical cost.
There was no talk then of the country not being able to afford it.
Furthermore, since big business has so much money available for investment
it means the rich could easily afford to pay higher direct taxes which
would enable the government to fund public services without handing over
public assets or public control. And this is exactly what the government
should do.
But it ignores this path because privatisation is also driven by the
desperate clamour for safe and lucrative places for the wealthy to invest
their capital. This search for new investment opportunities is going on
throughout the capitalist world and is the driving force behind the
International Monetary Fund's bullying of debtor countries to open up to
wholesale privatisation.
And the desperation to invest in the relatively safe area of supplying
basic human needs is in turn made more frantic by the crisis of the
capitalist system. One feature of this -- the crisis of overproduction --
means there are too many goods being produced for the markets to absorb --
the majority of the world's people, though they need the goods just cannot
afford to buy them.
Even after millions have been encouraged to spend more through credit
schemes, the crisis goes on. Now we are being forced to help the wealthy
minority stay on top by paying them directly out of our taxes and by the
theft of our hard-won assets.
The battle has to be waged against privatisation and it has to be fought
now. Already a number of Labour MPs have spoken out and the trade unions
are taking up the cudgels. But we can't sit back and leave it to others, we
must all speak out, protest and unite to defend what is ours!
*********************
2) Lead story
Unions unite against privatisation.
by Daphne Liddle
PRIME Minister Tony Blair last Wednesday invited the leaders of three of
Britain's largest trade unions to Downing Street to try to reassure them
that his radical "reforms" of public services like health and education,
with a far greater involvement from the private sector, do not amount to
privatisation.
But Bill Morris of the Transport and General Workers Union, John Edmonds
of the GMB general union and Dave Prentis of the public sector union Unison
were not fooled.
The growing strength of opposition to the "reforms" from the trade unions
and from within the Labour Party has alarmed the Government which is now
mounting a big spin operation to pretend it is not selling out to the worst
elements of avaricious capitalism.
The Government has not been helped by the publication on Monday of a
report from one of its own think-tanks - The Institute for Public Policy
Research - which supports pnvate sector involvement in principle but made
serious criticism of many ofthe existing Private Finance Initiative schemes
(PFIs) that Labour has agreed since 1997.
The report added that PFIs could not necessarily be expected to work in
other fields such as the building of private prisons and road building.
It also questioned proposals for Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) for
services like the London Underground and National Air Traffic Systems and
said there are "significant problems in the plans.
It said: "in some instances there are arguments in favour of transferring
the ownership of public enterprise to a not-for-profit trust, particularly
where there is a natural monopoly and where safety is a key feature.
"Such a trust should still be able to raise private capital and contract
for private management."
TUC general secretary John Monks welcomed this report and said it was "a
triumph for those of us who have been sticking up for public services for
many years".
The problem with this approach is that it implies that the faults are in
the technicalities of the contracts and the accounting and that with a bit
of tweaking the whole thing could be made to work for the benefit of he
public, the workers and the shareholders.
That cannot happen. The private sector will always put the need for profit
above every other consideration and this must in the end lead to cuts in
services and jobs. There is no other way to increase profits.
Another union leader adopting a similar position is Mark Serwotka, general
secretary elect of the giant PCS civil service union.
He welcomed the IPPR report, saying: "The private profit incentive is not
a magical answer to current problems. When public servants are backed by
proper resources and given flexibility to do the job, they have a proven
track record of providing high-quality, innovative and responsive services.
"We share the deep concern that policy in this area is now being driven by
dogma rather than pragmatism. The Government claims that "public bad,
private good" is no longer the guiding principle of policy in this area.
"But this claim seems to be getting harder to sustain by the day. The IPPR
report highlights the need for a long, cool, objective look at the evidence.
"So concerned has my union become that we are now considering launching a
major campaign, in conjunction with other unions, to defend public services
against what we feel are constant attempts to undermine them."
Stronger feelings against creeping privatisation were expressed at the
Unison annual conference this week when delegates voted in favour of a
motion which protested at the union continuing to fund a "party attacking
our jobs, wages and conditions".
Unison officials were quick to point out that this vote would not lead to
it cutting its �1 million-plus funding for the Labour Party but said it
represented "a shot across the Government's bows" on the issue of creeping
privatisation.
The danger is that the current Labour leadership would welcome such a cut
and a breaking of the party's organisational links with the unions. Blair
would be happy to seek alternative funding from big business, leaving the
labour movement fractured.
Unison has from the beginning staunchly opposed privatisation in any form
-- so many of its members work in services liable to be privatised with the
threat to their jobs, wages and conditions that represents.
The Government has tried to assuage the union and last week Chancellor
Gordon Brown agreed two pilot schemes that would protect the terms and
conditions of ancillary workers within the NHS if their jobs are
transferred to the private sector under PFI schemes.
This deal would apply to new and existing PFI schemes and would have a
major impact if extended to all 29 current NHS PFI schemes.
Labour veteran Roy Hattersley joined the battle last week with a savage
attack on his party's leadership and called for a "counter-coup" by members
to restore Labour's principles.
He said he could understand why some members might consider resigning but
that he would stay and fight for change from within the party.
He said that Blair is "openly contemptuous of ideology" and that the
mantra of "pursuing social justice" was a "vacuous platitude".
"One by one the policies which define our philosophy have been rejected by
the Prime Minister." he wrote in last Sunday's Observer. "The Prime
Ministers adoption of what is essentially a free-for-all philosophy
presents party members with a desperate choice.
"We could resign or we could sulk in our tents. Or, believing that the
party does not belong to Tony Blair, we could rise up against the coup
detat which overthrew the legitimate philosophy."
Comrades take heart, Blair is not having things all his own way by any
means. All the more reason to get stuck into the battle.
*************************
3) Feature article
Byers to bulldoze tube sell-off?
by Caroline Colebrook
NEW TRANSPORT Secretary Stephen Byers may intervene in the
public/private-partnership negotiations for the partial sell-off of the
London Underground network between London transport commissioner Rob Kiley
and the consortia of companies bidding for the contracts.
The Government handed control of the negotiations to Rob Kiley in the
run-up to the recent general election to end a long running dispute which
would have embarrassed the Government.
The people of London are opposed to the PPP sell-off after seeing what
pivatisation has done for the railways. This is how Ken Livingstone won the
election for London Mayor in the face of Labour leadership opposition. It
was he who appointed Rob Kiley as transport
commissioner.
Both Livingstone and Kiley favour funding the much needed renewal of
London Underground's infrastructure through the sale of bonds which would
leave the Tube as a single body and in public ownership.
The Tube workers' unions, the RMT and Aslef, are also firmly set against
the PPP because it will compromise safety and cost jobs.
They have been backed up by a report from the Health and Safety Executive
published early this year with over 100 concerns for safety in the proposed
PPP contracts. Most of the concerns are around lack of clarity as to who is
responsible for what when the Tube is divided into separate bodies,
especially in time of accident or emergency.
Ken Livingstone has mounted a legal challenge to the sell-off on safety
grounds on the basis of the HSE report.
Both unions have staged strikes over concerns for their members' jobs and
safety. Two strikes scheduled for the week of the general election were
called off after the Government agreed the contracts would not include any
redundancies.
The consortia involved were not happy with this, nor with Bob Kiley being
in charge of the negotiations. He has insisted that he should have day to
day control over safety and maintenance issues.
Now the election is out of the way, it seems the Government is ready to
push him out of the way to appease the capitalists.
An aide for Bob Kiley said: "We think that is just posturing by the
Government. There was absolutely no indication of that when Mr Kiley met Mr
Dyers. But Mr Kiley did lay it on the line and told him the negotiations
were not gong well.
"Mr Byers did indicate at that point that they might impose PPP
regardless."
"We do not know of any deadline -- that is whistling in the wind.
Certainly we would expect the Government to start upping the ante now to
see if we back away from the legal challenge."
A spokesperson for Mr Byers said: "There is not a deadline. Obviously we
do not want to see negotiations go on forever. Londoners are losing out on
funding. We need to get this resolved because we want the money to start
coming in."
But the two sides in the negotiations seem miles apart. Earlier this month
Paris Moeyedi, chief executive of rail infrastructure group Jarvis which is
part of the Tublines consortium said: "There is a massive gulf between us
to be bridged. "No financier will back a PPP where the contracting party
subjects all its rights to the recipient of the service."
He said there was little chance of contracts being signed by the autumn
deadline and said the beginning of next year looked "more realistic".
The whole sell-off is just part of a global trend, pressure from
international finance capital, to open up every aspect of public life and
public service provision, to private exploitation for profit.
The views of the people receiving the service and of the workers
delivering it are seen as irrelevant and democracy and consultation is a
hindrance to trade and the capitalist right to exploit anything and
everything.
*************************
4) International story
Athens international Communist conference.
by Our Athens correspondent
COMMUNISTS from all over the world met in Greece last weekend to discuss
the problems and challenges in the trade union movement.
NCP leader Andy Brooks and Richard Bos from the Central Committee
represented the Party at the International Meeting of Communist and
Workers' Parties that was held in Athens on 22-24 June on the topic
"Communists and the labour and trade union movement".
For some years now, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) has hosted
international communist meetings which have become important forums for
discussion within the world movement.
The KKE has a small presence in the Greek parliament -- the rest of the
seats held entirely by the ruling social-democratic PASOK party and the
conservative New Democracy -- and the party plays a major role in the Greek
union movement.
All told 49 parties took part in the discussions. Three ruling parties,
the Workers Party of Korea and the communist parties of Cuba and Vietnam,
sent delegations to Athens. The two major communist parties of Spain and
Italy, the communist parties of Norway and Denmark, the Workers Party of
Belgium and AKEL from Cyprus were there.
Many parties from the former socialist countries of eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union attended along with the two major Indian communist parties,
parties from the Middle East and comrades from the Americas including the
communist parties of Brazil and Colombia and the FARC-EP revolutionary
movement.
During the three-day meeting there was a high level of discussion.
Everyone acknowledged that these meetings were both useful and necessary.
Quite a few speakers mentioned the need for such meetings to continue to
be convened and with greater frequency, as they show that despite the
difficult conditions prevailing both internationally and locally, communist
and workers' parties continue to act, meet and exchange their experience,
constituting a significant force throughout the globe.
Many speakers talked about the growing opposition to capitalism and
imperialism throughout the world.
Organisations such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the IMF and the
World Bank as well as the EU summit meetings, like the latest one in
Gothenburg, have become the focus for huge protest demonstrations and
rallies.
Others referred to the preparations for the protest demonstrations against
the G8 meeting in Genoa in Italy and the EU summit in Brussels in December.
These mass protests ran in tandem with the struggle going on in the
developing world against the huge foreign debt and the anti-people,
predatory policies imposed by the lenders, particularly the IMF and the
World Bank.
These developments objectively bring many of these protest movements very
close to those countries also challenging global capitalism with their
demands for a radical change in the distribution of the world's wealth,
which is concentrated in ever fewer countries and hands.
Many representatives stressed the important role of unions and mass
organisations in the struggle against imperialism and exploitation and the
need for socialism, the only alternative to increasing exploitation and
oppression of working people.
It was noted in general that resistance was growing all over the world --
against imperialist aggression and the global offensive against working
people's rights.
Comrades talked about the reality of the "globalised" imperialist world --
the spread of deadly diseases that decimate entire populations, increasing
unemployment and the so-called flexible forms of employment, class and
national repression. Protests were being dealt with through increasing
police brutality as witnessed by the numerous arrests and the violence of
the Swedish police in Gothenburg who opened fire on unarmed protesters
leaving one badly wounded.
Quite a few speakers talked about the new opportunities opened up by these
demonstrations for the class forces in the labour and the trade union
movement and underscored the need for a yet more active and co-ordinated
participation of Communists in these protests.
Comrades looked back at the world-wide movement against Nato's war against
Yugoslavia in 1999. In some countries, especially Greece, it took the form
of a mass movement against the war.
The need to develop even further communist coordination and action in the
labour and trade union movement to combat imperialist interventions was
also highlighted.
Top of the agenda was the struggle against the American "National Missile
Defence Shield" plan, which will trigger a new uncontrollable arms race if
it is not stopped in its tracks.
Communists, many of them leading trade unionists, stressed the need to
co-ordinate the struggle of the trade union movement internationally -- in
corporations with plants in many different countries and amongst workers in
different companies or different countries facing a common threat from
reactionary legislation or an overall employer offensive.
Many also spoke of the particularly difficult conditions prevailing in a
number of countries especially in the former socialist ones -- where there
are bans on political activity in public enterprises and organisations as
well as other proscriptions, persecution and discrimination against
Communist parties, communists and generally all who resist capitalist
barbarity and imperialist intervention.
Special mention was made of the just struggle of the Palestinian people in
the face of the aggressiveness and barbarity of the Israeli government in
its fight for its own independent state with Arab East Jerusalem its
capital, for the return of all refugees and for the withdrawal of the
Israelis from all Arab territory occupied since 1967.
The need to strengthen solidarity with and support for the Palestinian and
Cypriot people was underscored.
During the meeting a moment of silence was observed in memory of the
heroic resistance of the Soviet Union to the Nazi invaders during the
Second World War.
A large number of ideas and proposals were put forward by many speakers on
issues facing the class today. Many felt that May Day 2002 should be a
focus for workers' demands for social justice and peace. Others argued that
the communists should themselves play a major role in next year's May Day
events.
The New Communist Party contribution focused on the Party's stand toward
the unions and the Labour Party. NCP General Secretary Andy Brooks was
interviewed by the Greek communist media, and the delegation had a
bilateral meeting with the Greek Communist Party and general exchanges of
views with many other delegations.
*********************
5) British news item
"Dust down your marching shoes".
by New Worker correspondents
ONE HUNDRED delegates representing 85 local trades councils and county
associations attended the 76th annual Trade Union Councils' Conference in
London last weekend.
The conference was opened by Transport and General Workers' Union general
secretary Bill Morris, who is also president of the TUC who urged
delegates: "Dust down your marching shoes as the autumn dawns" in
preparation for battles "to defend public services".
He welcomed Labour government reforms such as the statutory four weeks
paid holiday but stressed that "only the first steps have been made".
Unfinished business includes the repeal of the anti-union laws. Bill
Morris said it is a scandal that workers in small companies are excluded
from many legal rights.
Labour's reforms of the union laws have made union recognition easier, but
in many cases these reforms have led to employers launching legal
challenges.
Mick Rix, general secretary of the train drivers' union Aslef told the
conference that the strike ballot on London Underground had been challenged
because the union had not informed management of its membership list which
underlined this point.
In Wigan, members of the public sector union Unison who voted for strike
action were deemed to be in breach of the law as a few extra ballot papers
were issued.
Speaking about the rail industry Mick Rix highlighted the lax safety
standards that have resulted from privatisation. Now that sub-contracting
firms who have no information of the railways do maintenance work, it is
not unknown for safety certificates to be sold in pubs for the price ofa
pint.
He contrasted the �60,000 needed to relocate the signal that caused the
Ladbrooke Grove train disaster with the �1.4 million awarded to Railtrack
chief executive Gerald Corbett for managing failure.
The conference was not just for general secretaries -- the voice from the
shop floor was much in evidence.
The problems of organising trade unions at a local level was debated, with
delegates being urged to recruit student union delegates to trades councils.
Relations between the regional officers of the TUC and county associations
were critically discussed.
Delegates supported the renationalisation of Railtrack and pledged to
campaign for keeping London Underground in the public sector. Defence of
the public is not confined to the transport industry.
Delegates were warned that the General Agreement on Trade in Services
(Gats) posed a grave threat to education and the health services.
The 1994 treaty is a serious threat to democracy as it forces elected
governments to bow to multinational business corporations.
Lest anyone imagines that we are living in a "classless society",
delegates had a number of horror stories to share. Shirley Winters, a
veteran of the Magnet strike, said some employers in Durham are not merely
timing how long workers spent in the toilet but actually videoing them.
Unfortunately delegates passed a rather vague motion calling for "either a
Keynesian, bold socialist or Marxist economic policy". Presumably the TUC
will make its own choice from these offers.
The siting of mobile phone masts might not be seen as one of the most
pressing trade union problems, but delegates had an informed discussion
which resulted in conference opposing the siting of these masts in schools
until further research concerning the health risks had been done.
Tariq Aziq of Oldham United against Racism described recent events in
Oldham and said that Asian people were unjustly attacked by police for
resisting fascist activity. He stated that the labour movement is the only
force that can defeat fascism.
The local police chief is out of touch with the community and the local
evening paper regularly features news from the British National Party but
does not publish letters from anti-racists. The problems were caused by a
lack of jobs and decent housing.
The shock of the high vote for the BNP in Oldham led to an emergency
motion on racism. The Oldham delegate pointed out that the area worst
affected had received sums of regeneration money that had been squandered
on prestigious projects.
Another delegate praised the example of Phil Piratin, the Communist MP,
who resisted the British Union of Fascists in the East End of London in the
1930s by building tenants' associations.
The conference finished on an optimistic note with the adoption of the
plan of work for the next year. Delegates returned home to prepare for the
forthcoming industrial struggles. A third of the delegates to the
conference bought a copy of the New Worker.
*********************
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