From: New Worker Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 20:55:51 +0100
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [New-Worker-News] New Worker Online Digest - 6/7/2001.
New Worker Online Digest
Week commencing 6th July, 2001.
1) Editorial - Free Milosevich.
2) Lead story - Renewed attack on the disabled.
3) Feature article - TGWU warns Blair over privatisation.
4) International story - End Unionist diktat, defend Irish peace.
5) British news item - Downturn chill hits Yorkshire.
1) Editorial
Free Milosevich.
FORMER Yugoslav head of state, Slobodan Milosevich, should be released from
prison now! His detention in The Hague is illegal, his arrest the result of
a bounty payment by the United States government and the proposed trial
nothing but a travesty of justice.
The truth is the last thing that will come out in this farce of a trial
because if it did the leaders of the Nato states would find themselves
standing in the dock.
Not only did Nato launch a cruel bombing war against Yugoslavia in which
thousands died and the infrastructure of the country was devastated but the
United States and other Nato member states set the whole conflict going in
the first place by covertly encouraging and assisting reactionary
nationalist elements to break the country up.
The Milosevich government sought to uphold the sovereignty, unity and
integrity of the country. This included the use of the country's armed
forces to overcome the western-aided cessessionists and, like all civil
wars, it cost military and civilian lives.
When the Nato bombing stopped, the United States put their dollars to work
helping the most US-tolerant opponents of the Milosevich government to
scrape in at the election.
Then the US pursued its revenge against those who had so staunchly
defended their country from the ravages of western capital and its
war-machine -- Nato. Milosevich was bought for cash -- a US bribe instead
of the war reparations Nato should have paid in any case.
And if this travesty of a trial is allowed to go on how could it possibly
be considered valid? How could anyone believe the prosecution's evidence
when it includes what the US says are its own intelligence intercepts? In
the light of such a history of clandestine activity by CIA operatives and
other external agents, how could any evidence be guaranteed to be untainted?
Above all it is a calculated insult to set up an international war crimes
tribunal -- the first since Nuremberg -- and bring before it a leader of a
people that had, with tremendous heroism, fought the Nazis and stood along
side the Allies in the partisan army during the Second World War.
This court does not exist, as Nato claims, to punish war criminals and
deter future war crimes. It is there to mete out revenge on those who defy
the imperialist powers and to deter others from following that path.
It will never be used to bring to justice those who ordered the spraying
of Vietnam with Agent Orange, napalm and defoliant. It will not be used to
punish the likes of Ariel Sharon for his part in the massacre of
Palestinians. It will not put on trial those who order the relentless,
daily assaults against Iraq. It is an imperialist court set up to serve
imperialist interests.
The court should be closed and Milosevich freed. The US, Britain and the
rest of Nato should leave the sovereign people of Yugoslavia to run their
own affairs, including their own justice system.
*********************
2) Lead story
Renewed attack on the disabled.
by Daphne Liddle
INJURED and disabled workers will be forced to prove they really are unable
to work on a regular basis or lose their benefit under new proposals
outlined last Wednesday by Alistair Darling, the Work and Pensions
Secretary.
The move is driven by the Treasury which hopes to save a lot of money
through cutting benefits to the most vulnerable people in the country.
There has been a myth circulating in Government circles since the days in
the 80s when Tory Peter Lilley was Social Security Secretary that a large
proportion of people claiming to be disabled are frauds and a succession of
Ministers have set out to try to show them up.
Claimants receiving sickness benefit are paid at a slightly higher rate
than the unemployed and it is this difference that the Treasury begrudges.
The myth arose partly from the Government's own strategy in the 80s and 90s
to cover up soaring unemployment figures by registering some of the older
or less fit unemployed as sick.
The Tories scrapped invalidity benefit and replaced it with incapacity
benefit. To receive this a claimant has to pass the "all-work" test which
means being examined by a Government doctor to prove that your incapacity
is real. Previously a report from the claimant's family doctor was enough.
The Government had problems finding enough doctors willing to do this
dirty work and it cost more to operate than it saved because such a tiny
proportion of claimants were disallowed.
Nevertheless thousands of disabled people were forced through this
humiliating process. Some, whose condition was plainly not likely to
improve those in wheelchairs for example - were excused further tests.
Others, whose conditions were not so obvious or were intermittent, like
some types of mental illness, have had to endure these all-work tests on a
regular basis.
When Labour came to power in 1997, a new round of testing was introduced
and again found very few frauds. Labour also put the incapacity benefit on
a means tested basis.
Now all claimants will face regular testing, in case they have recovered
and kept it quiet from the powers that be.
Under Mr Darling's plans, the benefit will be paid for a fixed period
only. At the end of this period, there will be a fresh assessment and
claimants who fall will be transferred to job seekers' allowance and forced
to look for work.
Currently incapacity benefit is paid at �69.50 a week while job seekers'
allowance is at �53.05 a week.
He said the Government is adopting a fresh approach because "we cannot
allow people to be written off, or allow them to write themselves off".
The real result will be that many vulnerable claimants will be forced
over and over again through these humiliating and complex procedures to
prove they are entitled to a pittance.
discouraged
Some will be discouraged and perhaps this is the real motive behind the
changes, to save money by making it so difficult to claim that the sick and
disabled are put off. One claimant told the New Worker: "They might just as
well tell us to crawl away and die".
But there is some way to go before these changes are in operation. There
is a big question over whether the benefits agency has enough staff to cope
with the increased number of assessments this will mean or whether there
are enough willing doctors.
And there is likely to be strong opposition to the change from disabled
groups and from the unions, not to mention Labour's own backbenchers. It is
not an easy measure for them to defend to their constituents.
The Blair clique has already had a few knock backs and been forced to tone
down some policies. It could be this proposal will do yet more damage to
its grip on the leadership of the Labour Party.
*************************
3) Feature article
TGWU warns Blair over privatisation.
by Caroline Colebrook
BILL MORRIS, the general secretary of the Transport and General Workers'
Union, last week told the union's annual conference in Brighton he will not
hesitate to point out the faults in Government policy.
In particular he attacked Government proposals for a major "reform" of
public services -- by privatisation. "We will defend our public services
because our members need it," he said.
He also outlined a series of employment rights the union is demanding.
These include the right to secondary picketing and protection from
dismissal at work.
"Let us not forget, the first term Labour government was only the first.
It was not the last word. In the trade union movement we have unfinished
business yet to do to secure trade union rights."
But he was quick to end press rumours that the TGWU is considering
withdrawing its financial backing from Labour in favour of the Liberal
Democrats.
He said that although he was critical of the Government he also welcomed
its achievements and insisted that Labour, in spite of its faults, "is the
only card game in town".
He continued: "As far as this union is concerned, I say today there will
be no divorce and no separation. I say my party right or wrong but I
reserve the right to tell my party when it's wrong.
Meanwhile the Government has been forced to slow the rate of its mad dash
to privatise the entire public sector after talks with union leaders the
previous week revealed the strength of union opposition to the
privatisation of members'jobs and opposition from within his own party.
The union leaders reported that the meeting had resolved little and now
Tony Blair wants to hold regular Downing Street meetings in an attempt to
defuse the conflict.
He has suggested meetings with union chiefs on a "semi-official basis"
five or six times a year.
Mr Blair has said he will press on with reforming the public sector but is
now playing down the extent of the privatisation he plans and last week
told the House of Commons that privatisation is only a small part of his
plans for improving public services.
This of course is ducking and diving. The Government still denies that
Private Finance Initiative deals and Public Private Partnerships amount to
privatisation when they definitely are backdoor methods of privatisation.
He has said the private sector could "help" in the management of surgical
units while the staff would continue to be employed by the NHS.
This is still unacceptable. We have already seen that the bringing of
business attitudes into the NHS has led to he cutting of the number of
emergency care beds that "did not pay for themselves" because they were
only in use a few times a year. The result has been desperately ill and
dying patients being ferried hundreds of miles around the country in search
of intensive care beds in times of crisis.
But the unions are at last showing their strength and Blair is being
forced to notice.
*************************
4) International story
End Unionist diktat, defend Irish peace.
by Steve Lawton
ATTEMPTS by unionists to dictate the terms of how decades of conflict in
the north of Ireland should be settled, have once again been brought into
sharp relief: On 1 July Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader David Trimble
resigned as First Minister of the devolved Legislative Assembly.
He had long threatened this course of action, supposedly to put pressure
on the IRA to begin actual destruction of its weapons. The deputy's
positjon, held by the moderate nationalist SDLP's Seamus Mallon,
automatically falls. David Trimble called on Sir Reg Empey to do his
bidding in the interim.
The chorus of disapproval of the IRA has now also been voiced by the Irish
Premier Bertie Ahern and by Seamus Mallon. Perhaps he is still smarting
from the SDLP's drubbing by Sin Fein in the general elections.
There are now officially six intense weeks ahead for the British and Irish
Governments to sort this out with the parties concerned. Prime ministers
Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern are due to engage in discussions next week.
If that fails, British recourse to suspension of the Assembly and a return
to direct rule, or to begin new elections, would further delay resolving
nationalist grievances. It's hardly a signal to encourage calm as
Protestant parades hit the streets and loyalists continue to attack
Catholics with impunity.
Canadian General John de Chastelain, head of the decommissioning body,
duly delivered his latest report last weekend. But David Trimble was
already sure that it would confirm the IRA had not acceded to his demands
to begin destroying its weapons.
He knew this because the IRA has by now clearly demonstrated that it does
not respond to diktat. Even so, it has been capable of big shifts in order
to preserve the broader framework of the Good Friday Agreement.
Contrary to all the divining of the 'last word' from the Chastelain report
that the IRA has failed to live up to its obligations, the IRA actually is
acting in line with the Agreement, whereas the UUP is not.
The unionist approach is transparent: Is there not a massive arms market
throughout the world, or are IRA arms somehow finitely timelocked into a
corner of the island of Ireland?
Similarly, though unionists have a mental block in ever acknowledging its
existence, loyalist paramilitary weapons are just as renewable. The point
here, of course, is the big shadow of protection that British military
occupation provides -- the unspoken underpinning of loyalist belligerence.
The loyalist Ulster Freedom Fighters, while their leader Johnny Adair and
now his lieutenant Gary Smith is in prison, are refusing to engage in
decommissioning. And the Ulster Volunteer Force wants to see the IRA act
first.
The Chastelain report makes it clear that the IRA is positively engaged,
in that it maintains the July 1997 ceasefire, has opened some arms dumps to
inspectors, reaffirmed circumstances in which they would put weapons beyond
use and, it said, that the IRA noted Chastelain's need to know how this
will occur.
The Agreement is a minimal requirement for progress. It has particular
weight since it was popularly ratified in a cross community referendum
which backed the document by over 70 per cent in May 1998.
But the scene was set four years earlier when the IRA initiated its
briefly interrupted ceasefire. It is the combination of those two linked
conditions -- the Good Friday Agreement and the ceasefire -- that hardline
unionism is battling.
Together, it spells the end of the unionist veto in favour of a more
collective approach to life, work and development across communities and
boundaries. The process must, at some stage, begin to connect all of
Ireland.
This is the real bone of contention because unionism, with full
implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, is thereby prevented from
ruling in the old way. Sinn Fein is an all-Ireland party and it is set to
make further electoral gains in the Republic in the near future.
But the strength of that unionist resistance is a direct reflection of the
often two-faced political sharp-practise displayed by the British state.
That is particularly shown in the mangling of the Patten policing
commission proposals last year that have yet to be adequately addressed.
The British military occupation and its political infrastructure has
barely moved with the three-year-old Good Friday Agreement.
Loyalist paramilitaries are running amok while the RUC, as of old, fails to
prevent the rising ride of anti-Catholic loyalist raiding and bombing.
Republicans argue much of it involves tacit approval, if not collusion,
between the RUC and loyalists.
The persistent unionist accusation is made that while the IRA has guns it
cannot abide being in the same government with Sinn Fein.
Two of its ministers have long been illegally banned by unionists from
attending cross-border ministerial meetings crucial to their remit as
ministers. So Sinn Fein, in one way or another, has been prevented from
maximising its participation that is its elected right in any case.
It is not the IRA that is at issue, it is the unionist veto and the
British Government's persistent stringing out and near sabotage of critical
aspects of the process. A dangerous convergence of forces could emerge if
the British Government prevaricates.
If it aims to use unionism to limit the inexorable grassroots advance of
Sinn Fein, by allowing hardline unionism to tear up the Good Friday
Agreement in all but name, the British Government will be paving the way to
the past.
*********************
5) British news item
Downturn chill hits Yorkshire.
TWO MAJOR reports released last week indicate that engineering and
manufacturing in Yorkshire and the northeast are facing increasingly gloomy
prospects. The number of businesses failing in the region is climbing
steadily.
The Engineering Employers Federation in Yorkshire and the Humber reported
widespread job cuts and falling orders among its 400 members.
And the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) produced
further evidence that manufacturing is facing difficult times and blames
the strong pound for falling orders and employment levels.
Meanwhile the Confederation of British Industry is calling on the Bank of
England to cut borrowing rates again to head off a full blown recession.
The Engineering Employers Federation has cut its growth forecasts. It now
predicts just a one per cent increase in manufacturing growth this year,
the cutting of 153,000 jobs of which 56,000 will be in engineering.
EEF chief economist Stephen Radley said: "It's a mistake to believe the UK
economy alone is powering ahead on all fronts.
"The state of the world economy will further stifle growth. Services will
dampen inflation, with oil prices coming down and consumer confidence will
start to weaken once unemployment begins to increase."
The EEF survey showed the sharpest reversals in electronics and electrical
equipment.
*********************
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