Saturday 13 December 2008

Anger at HMRC cuts

PCS last week condemned an announcement by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to go ahead with the closure of 93 offices across Britain and the loss of over 3,400 jobs by 2011.
With the economic picture growing ever bleaker, the union warned that the closures would be bad for business, the public and the taxpayer and would lead to the loss of valuable skills and expertise.
The union expressed deep concern that the ability of the department to collect revenues and provide tax advice to the public and local businesses would be further undermined by the closures.
Services are already suffering in HMRC with a drive to axe 25,000 jobs and close over 200 offices, leading to backlogs of post and reports that the department can only chase up those who owe £20,000 or more in tax due to a lack of resources.
Around 17,000 jobs have already been cut since March 2004 and the union fears that skilled and experienced staff will effectively be forced out of a job as they will be unable to relocate or travel to their nearest office.
The office closures breakdown as follows:• Eastern region - 18 offices to close and 800 jobs to go.• South West region – 19 offices to close and 835 jobs to go.• Yorkshire and Humber region – 9 offices to close and 400 jobs to go.• Northern Ireland – 5 offices to close and 190 jobs to go.• Scotland – 20 offices to close and 400 to go.• Wales – 11 offices to close 470 staff to go.• North West region – 11 offices to close.
Commenting, Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: “In these uncertain economic times, these closures and job losses will hit businesses, the public and the communities they serve.
“Rural areas will be disproportionately hit with face to face tax advice reduced to a bare minimum and quality jobs taken out of local economies.
“As the recession worsens this will come as a bitter blow to a dedicated workforce and will lead to a loss of valuable knowledge and expertise.
“Job cuts are already damaging the ability of HMRC to function and undermining public confidence in the department.
“Office closures and job cuts will do nothing to tackle the £21.5 billion worth of uncollected tax and £25 billion lost through tax evasion.
“The Government has to recognise that the erosion of public confidence can only be halted by having enough civil and public servants with the right resources to do the job.
“As the recession deepens and people become more reliant on public services, the department and the government should stop adding to the growing number of unemployed and call a halt to the office closure and job cuts programme.”

Welfare for All!

THE LEADERSHIPS of several unions last week joined forces to call for support for a joint statement to oppose the Government’s attacks on welfare benefits and to demand welfare for all. The statement said: “The welfare state is one of the UK’s greatest achievements and supports us all especially vulnerable and unemployed people and their families.
“In July the government published the Green Paper No one written off: reforming welfare to reward responsibility announcing plans to change the current provision of support.
“Many of the plans were unacceptable when they were first published and the worsening economic situation should lead to a fundamental rethink.
“However the Government is pressing ahead despite the current global economic downturn which is leading to increasing levels of unemployment. As a result we have come together.
“The Government’s proposals remove entitlements and fail to value the important work of parents and carers. Parents with young children, carers, sick, disabled, people with mental health problems and other vulnerable groups face tougher tests to qualify for benefits. If they fail they could be cut off with no support.
“We are opposed to the abolition of Income Support which ends the principle that those in need deserve help. We are opposed to compulsory work for benefits. People should be paid the rate for the job or at the very least be paid the national minimum wage.
“Jobseekers Allowance is shockingly low at less than £10 a day, if it had increased in line with earnings over the past 30 years the rate for a single person over the age of 25 would be more than £100 a week.
“The Government wants more of the welfare state to be handed over to the private sector. It is wrong to profit from the sick and unemployed. There is also the intention to share information with the police which raises real concerns about civil liberties.
“We want voluntary skills training and life long learning opportunities for unemployed people. The Government should focus on ensuring that there is more support to access jobs that have fair pay and decent conditions with a guarantee that when people cannot seek work they will not face poverty.
“The Government should introduce positive measures to challenge discriminatory attitudes held by employers, encourage flexible working practices and expand the provision of affordable childcare.
“We want the Government to rethink its plans. Support our campaign to help create a better welfare state and society.” It was signed by: Mark Serwotka - general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS); Paul Kenny – general secretary of the GMB union; Sally Hunt – general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU); Jeremy Dear – general secretary of National Union of Journalists (NUJ); John Corey – general secretary of the Northern Ireland Public Services Alliance; Katie Curtis – national women’s officer, National Union of Students (NUS); Ama Uzowuru – vice president welfare, National Union of Students (NUS); Colin Hampton – national unemployed centres combine; Eileen Devaney – national co-ordinator of the UK Coalition Against Poverty; Iman Achara – director of British Black Anti-Poverty Network; Peter Kelly – director of The Poverty Alliance Scotland; Frances Dowds – director of the Northern Ireland Anti-Poverty Network Miranda Evans – policy and public affairs manager at Disability Wales – and many others.

Friday 5 December 2008

PCS news round-up

Remploy rally in York

HUNDREDS of trade unionists braved the weather and took to the streets of York last Saturday to demonstrate against Government plans to close a local Remploy factory, job centres and post offices.
These are the three most important issues facing workers in the area. The unions GMB Unite, Community, PCS and CWU organised the protest to call on the Government to rethink its policies on welfare reform, the employment of disabled people and the provision of our Royal Mail Services.
North Yorkshire has seen the closure of 22 post offices and hundreds of job cuts, including the loss of 50 disabled workers’ jobs at York’s Remploy factory.
The campaigners also protested at proposals to close and privatise job centres.
York Labour MP Hugh Bayley joined trade union members on the march from Museum Gardens to a rally at the Royal York Hotel.
Speakers included GMB general secretary Paul Kenny, PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka, CWU general secretary Billy Hayes, GMB manufacturing national secretary Phil Davies, Unite national secretary Julia Long, GMB regional secretary for Yorkshire Tim Roache, GMB national Remploy convenor Less Woodward and Hugh Bayley MP.
“The closure of Remploy York on the 6th March 2008 effectively blocked opportunity for disabled people in the York and surrounding areas to find sustainable work,” said Paul Kenny. “GMB will not allow this is important issue to be forgot or ignored.
“The voice of disabled workers will get louder and louder as time goes on and GMB will make sure it is listened to by Government and Councils alike.”
Mark Serwotka said: “In these uncertain times, the closure of job centres in and around York will make it more difficult to find work and restrict access to an essential service when it is needed the most.
“Added to this is the privatisation of parts of Jobcentre Plus, which will see a workforce who have consistently outperformed the private sector, replaced by a private sector ethos that is governed by the profits of the few rather than the needs of the many.”
Billy Hayes said: “The closure of local post offices will mean that disabled people, the old and the vulnerable will have to travel long distances to use basic facilities.”
Julia Long said: “As a union representing disabled people, Unite has a duty to ensure that the Government listens to and meets their needs.
“Key in this is to ensure that there are jobs for disabled workers now and in generations to come. “Despite the promises, the closure of factory after factory over the past year has not helped our disabled members into mainstream jobs. We will not allow this to continue to happen and our members to be sold short.”

PCS signs new recognition agreement

PCS last week signed a trade union recognition agreement with the Training and Development Agency for Schools. The agreement was signed by PCS senior national officer, John Hickey, and the TDA’s chief executive, Graham Holley.
The Training and Development Agency for Schools develops standards and training for teachers and the whole school workforce.
In line with the Lyons Review, the TDA is planning to relocate to central Manchester by April 2010 with a planned transitional move to another building in central Manchester taking place between April 2009 and March 2010. alarmed
The transition and eventual relocation has concerned staff for some time and they have become even more alarmed as the organisation has driven the move forward despite the current economic crisis.
The union believes that the economic situation has changed so radically over the last few months that the costs to the tax-payer of such a move (part of the 2004 Lyons Review) require serious scrutiny.
PCS has written to the minister for children, schools and families, Ed Balls, requesting a review.
PCS, whilst eager to begin negotiating with the TDA on the whole gamut of workforce matters, will be taking forward immediately members concerns over their planned relocation.
John Bramson, branch secretary at the agency said, “It is really exciting for all of us in the TDA; we have worked hard to establish this union in the organisation in a time of great change and uncertainty; we now have the opportunity to build a fruitful relationship between staff and management through the strong backing of the union.”

Friday 21 November 2008

Spend, spend, spend!

THERE must be considerable confusion amongst the public these days. For years we’ve been told to save for our pensions or mortgage our lives to become part of the “property-owning democracy” that Britain is supposedly about. Now we’re to spend every penny we don’t have to rescue the economy and prevent the complete collapse of the financial system.
The sycophants who surround Gordon Brown never cease telling us about his financial genius, which allegedly steered Britain through the straight and narrow when he was Chancellor during the Blair era and now will chart the way to recovery following the biggest global crash since 1929. But what has Brown done to deserve such acclaim?
When Brown was Chancellor he loyally followed Treasury advice which was essentially to pursue the neo-liberal Thatcherite policies of deregulation and privatisation that got us into this mess in the first place. Now he, along with the rest of the bourgeois world, is returning to social Keynesianism to bail out the big corporations and banks hit by the global slump.
The Prime Minister’s spin merchants have already primed the media to expect a bumper £15 billion “bonanza” to boost the economy but what will it mean for the millions out of work and those soon to join them? Very little by all accounts apart from an increase in tax credits and winter fuel payments. While there is talk of massive investment in education and the health service this is almost certainly aimed at helping the commercial predators that leech off the system rather than creating work and improving services for the people.
Now if the Government really wants people to spend it could start by slashing VAT, which would bring prices down at a drop and also help the small traders and businesses that New Labour claims it wants to help. Then the Brown government could renationalise the transport services and pump public money to revitalise our trains and buses in time for the Olympics and follow it up by ending the restrictions on borrowing on councils to allow them to resume building affordable housing. This would not only end the scandal of homelessness but provide work for tens of thousands in the building industry. That finally would lay the basis for the restoration of the state and public sector that operated until 1979.
not an impossible dream
Restoring the public sector and state welfare to the levels that existed in 1979 isn’t rocket science. Taxing the rich to pay for it isn’t beyond the realms of the imagination. You only have to look at the speed at which these parasites have forgone their millions in bonuses this year to keep their directorships to see how easily it could be to tax them to the hilt – as it was to pay for health, housing, education and welfare for all in the past. But that will only come if the labour movement as a whole mobilises to force the Labour Party, which is almost entirely financed by the unions, to return to the principles in which it was established and carry out the wishes of the millions of workers in the trade union movement.
Keynesianism is, of course, not a cure but only a palliative and its aim is not just to bail out capitalism today by mortgaging its future but to stave off social unrest by providing work and benefits for those worst hit by recession. Its purpose is to preserve and safeguard the profits of the industrialists, landowners and speculators who live off our labour and rule this country and most of the world.
While arguing and campaigning for social reforms we must also make the case for the socialist alternative and the communist ideal because the only way to end the crisis of capitalism is to end capitalism itself.

Friday 31 October 2008

PCS calls on Government to avoid strike action

THE NATIONAL Executive Committee of the Public and Commercial Services Union , last week agreed the first stages of a programme of national industrial action across civil and public services over the Government’s public sector pay cap. The union urged the Government to come to the negotiating table to avoid damaging industrial action and review its public sector pay cap of two per cent, which is resulting in pay cuts and pay freezes for some of the lowest paid in the public sector.
If there is no movement from the government then industrial action will begin with a one-day civil service and public sector strike throughout Britain on 10th November, hitting passports, Jobcentres, Tax Credits, immigration and customs, as well as driving licences, coastguards, driving tests and museums.
“There is a three-week opportunity to avoid damaging industrial action, where the government can pay heed to the Bank of England’s warning on the economic consequences that the squeeze on wages is having.” Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary said.
The one-day strike, which will be followed by an overtime ban throughout the civil service, comes as civil and public servants across the country face mounting pressure on their finances as a result of the Government’s public sector pay cap.
With one in five in the civil service earning less than £15,000 and thousands earning just above the minimum wage, the Government’s policy of capping public sector pay has hit some of the lowest paid in the public sector the hardest.
In October, at least six Government departments and agencies, including coastguards and the Office for National Statistics, had to give emergency pay rises to lift earnings above the new national minimum wage rate.
The NEC also agreed outline plans for sustained and targeted industrial action that would stretch into next year in the different sectors of the civil service.
The NEC will meet after the one-day strike on 10th November to discuss dates for the sector by sector action, should there be no breakthrough with the Government.
Unlike other parts of the public sector, civil servants are doubly disadvantaged because “progression” (moving from the minimum to the maximum of the pay range) is included in the government’s pay cap along with cost of living increases. Hence there is less money available to fund basic pay awards.
This year has already seen pay strikes hit jobcentres, passports, immigration and coastguards across Britain, as well as strikes in the Scottish courts service, museums and sportscotland.
PCS members have also co-ordinated their industrial action over pay with other public sector unions, including NUT, UCU and Unison.
Commenting, Mark Serwotka said: “The everyday things we take for granted from passports and getting back into work, through to tax credits, coastguards and securing our borders are delivered by hardworking civil and public servants.
“Giving these people pay rises that take their wages to just 13 or 25 pence above the national minimum wage is unsustainable when you face double digit rises in food, fuel and housing costs.
“There is a three week opportunity to avoid damaging industrial action, where the government can pay heed to the Bank of England’s warning on the economic consequences that the squeeze on wages is having.
“The Government has the opportunity to recognise that its own workforce is doubly disadvantaged by a punitive pay system, that sees coastguards receiving special pay rises because the minimum wage has gone up and nearly half of jobcentre workers receiving no pay rise whatsoever this year.”

Saturday 25 October 2008

No need for a crystal ball

WHILE Gordon Brown and the rest of the leaders of the European Union try to steady the capitalist markets with a tranche of bank bail-outs, even the most bullish economists are at last conceding that the imperialist world is facing a slump of 1929 proportions. The media pundits are dusting down Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money but you don’t need a crystal ball to see that the Government is going to put the main burden of the crisis on the backs of those who can least afford it – the working class.
Lord Mandelson’s move to “review” and almost certainly freeze proposed new family-friendly flexible working rights shows which way the wind is blowing and it will blow even harder if the labour movement doesn’t move quickly to mobilise mass resistance to further attacks on employment rights.
The Labour Government has taken some comfort from a recent report that shows that the gap between rich and poor in Britain has decreased since 2000. According to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) measures of poverty and income inequality in Britain have fallen faster than in any of the world’s richest and most developed capitalist states.
Income poverty fell from 10 to eight per cent between the mid-90s and 2005 and the poverty level in Britain is well below the OECD average for the first time since the 1980s. The number of children living in poverty fell from 14 to 10 per cent between the mid-90s and 2005 - the second largest fall, behind Italy, during this period. But child poverty rates are still above levels recorded in the mid-1970s and 80s.
But the report, from an international organisation set up in 1948 to help administer US imperialism’s Marshall Aid, says Britain still has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the developed world. It also points out that the gap between higher and lower incomes widened by 20 per cent since 1985 and that the gap between rich and poor is still greater in Britain than in three quarters of the other OECD countries which are mainly from Europe but include Turkey, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, south Korea and the United States.
While billions upon billions are being forked out to keep the capitalist banking system afloat the media pundits tell us that we should expect to pay for it in more cuts to public services, job losses and pay cuts. Brown & Co say they are acting to safeguard what they call the national interest through state intervention and the nationalisation of some banks. They try to pass off pre-planned immense expenditure on weapons of mass destruction as job-saving projects and they claim that there is no alternative to their half-baked conversion to the theories of John Maynard Keynes – a Liberal bourgeois economist who became the guru for “Old Labour” central planning.
But there are alternatives. The first is to renationalise everything that was privatised from 1979 and then plough back the mega-profits of those corporations, like British Telecom, to subsidise the health service, pensions and welfare and revive what’s left of British manufacturing. The second is to force the rich to disgorge all of the immense sums of money they have made through tax breaks and kick-backs over the past 30 years. They’ve got plenty. They can well afford it.

PCS back strike action

A PROLONGED programme of industrial action, hitting civil and public services across Britain moved a step closer last Friday, as PCS members backed strike action in a dispute over the Government’s two per cent public sector pay cap.
Fifty-four per cent of those taking part in the ballot backed union plans for industrial action, which includes national civil service wide strikes, targeted strike action and overtime bans.
“Pay freezes and real term pay cuts are simply not sustainable when you are earning a pittance and experiencing double digit rises in food, fuel and housing costs. Bailing out bankers should not be at the expense of those who deliver public services or those who rely on them.” Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, declared.
The union’s national executive committee (NEC) is meeting on Thursday 23rd October to finalise plans and decide on dates for the programme of industrial action which could stretch over the coming months. An announcement confirming these plans will be made on 23rd October.
The ballot result comes as civil and public servants across Britain face mounting pressure on their finances as a result of the government’s public sector pay cap.
With a quarter of the civil service earning less than £16,500 and thousands earning just above the minimum wage, the Government’s policy of capping public sector pay has hit some of the lowest paid in the public sector the hardest, leading to real terms pay cuts and pay freezes.
Pay in the civil service is worse than other parts of the public sector because “progression” (moving from the minimum to the maximum of the pay range) is included in the Government’s pay cap. Hence there is less money available to fund basic pay awards.
This year has already seen pay strikes hit jobcentres, passports, immigration and coastguards across Britain, as well as strikes in the Scottish courts service, museums and Sportscotland.
PCS members have also co-ordinated their industrial action over pay with other public sector unions, including NUT, UCU and Unison.
Commenting, Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: “The hardworking people who keep this country running, from passports, immigration and justice, to coastguards, tax and jobcentres, face increasing financial hardship because of the Government’s public sector pay cap.
“Pay freezes and real term pay cuts are simply not sustainable when you are earning a pittance and experiencing double digit rises in food, fuel and housing costs.
“Bailing out bankers should not be at the expense of those who deliver public services or those who rely on them.
“Members feel betrayed and this ballot result illustrates that they are prepared to stand up for fair pay. The union’s NEC will be meeting next week to take forward that result and finalise plans for a programme of industrial action.
“The Government have a window of opportunity to avert industrial action and to recognise that their public sector pay cap is compounding the financial misery of hardworking families in these unstable economic times.”

Tax office cuts protest

SEVERAL hundred PCS members attended a protest meeting in Bradford against the planned closure of local tax offices last Friday.
The campaign against the cuts has attracted cross-party support from MPs including Marsha Singh, MP for Bradford West, Shadow Treasury spokesperson David Gauke MP, Shadow Treasury spokesman, Philip Davies, MP for Shipley, Ann Cryer, MP for Keighley, and Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman.
PCS, which represents 1,200 people in the Bradford area, highlighted its opposition to the planned closure of 200 offices by HM Revenue and Customs with the loss of around 25,000 jobs. The cutbacks are part of a move to axe 100,000 civil service posts announced in 2006 by Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The union says that about 100 remaining jobs are threatened in local offices earmarked for closure by 2011. They include Crown House and Hockney House in Shipley, Worth House, Keighley, Cavendish House, Skipton, Century House, Pudsey, and Empire House in Dewsbury.
PCS Bradford and District president Trudy Bates said: “Job cuts and office closures don’t make sense. A recent report produced by the TUC estimated the UK tax gap at £25 billion, or £1,000 a year for everyone at work in the UK.
“HMRC claims to have saved tax payers £105 million last year through job cuts whilst spending £106 million on private consultants. Office closures are bad for businesses and the communities of West Yorkshire.”

Friday 17 October 2008

PCS backs Palestine lobby

PCS is calling on all supporters and progressives to support a lobby of Parliament on Wednesday 19th November.
The lobby will mark the United Nations international day of solidarity for the Palestinian people. It is being organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Council for Arab-British Understanding and Jews for Justice for Palestinians, the event will take place from 2-6pm in Room W3 of the House of Commons.
Campaigners, including PCS, will be lobbying MPs on issues including ending Israeli occupation, ending the blockade of Gaza, Israeli settlements, Palestinian self-determination and the EU-Israel trade agreement.
This lobby is taking place at a critical time. Ensure that your MP hears your views – contact them straight away and ask to meet them on the afternoon of 19th November.
Campaign website or contact PSC – telephone 020 7700 6192/ email info@palestinecampaign.org

Seize control of the banks!

by Daphne Liddle

THE STOCK markets are falling again in London and New York after rallying for just three days.
The new policies of governments buying shares in banks to rescue them and putting up billions and trillions of pounds/dollars/euros to guarantee depositors’ money seemed to be working for a little while. Governments heaved sighs of relief; Armageddon had been postponed and Prime Minister Brown had come out of it like a banking super-hero who had, by pointing the way forward, delivered capitalism from its self-inflicted wounds.
But they had underestimated the greed and arrogance of the banking shareholders. After the Government had used billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to rescue them, the banks reported that the terms and conditions that Prime Minister Brown had imposed were deterring shareholders.
The bankers criticised the Government for its decision to stop dividends being paid out and asking banks to resume lending and called on Gordon Brown to water down the terms and conditions of the bail out in line with the package unveiled by George Bush.
Bush and his Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had followed Brown’s example and taken a £250 billion stake in vulnerable American banks, apologising as they did so.
The semi-nationalisation is totally contrary to their free-market dogma. “This is not what we ever wanted to do,” said Paulson, “but there is a lack of confidence in our financial system.” friendlier
But Bush set friendlier terms for the bankers on Wall Street than Brown had done. The American taxpayers must foot the bill but Bush has no intention of imposing the sort of conditions that would defend their interests.
Bush’s rescue package was announced after the weekend’s meeting in Washington of G7 finance ministers and banking chiefs from the US, Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. The 15 heads of the Euro Group, plus Gordon Brown, met immediately afterwards in Paris.
Once again the leaders of the rising economic powers: China, India, Russia, Venezuela, South Africa and so on were excluded.
The G7 powers agreed a five-point plan involving colossal sums of money but without setting precise figures or estimates. They pledged to prevent any bank going to the wall and to guarantee that financial institutions have access to liquidity and capital through the governments buying shares in the banks.
Even while the rest of the stock markets were enjoying a brief recovery, shares in the banks RBS, HBOS and Lloyds TSB were still falling.
Then on Wednesday the National Audit Office released figures showing that unemployment is rising steeply and the enormity of the coming recession swept away all remaining confidence on the London stock exchange and the FTSE started to nosedive again. similar fears
Wall Street was also falling amid similar fears of the coming recession. And many of the speculators who bought two days previously with prices at rock bottom were selling again to pocket a profit.
The problem with the G7 rescue plan is that it sends a signal to speculators that they can freely start runs on any bank or financial institution they like and the taxpayers are sure to bail them out.
It leaves the governments hostage to spend every pound and dollar they can scrape together – and the speculators will not stop until all the coffers are empty. As Peter Schwarz, writing in Global Research put it: “Governments have literally handed over the keys to their treasuries to the banks. The massive redistribution of wealth from the working layers of the population to the rich elite during the last three decades is to be continued and accelerated in the course of the current financial crisis.”
This is the madness of capitalism. The media is blaming the banking chiefs for their reckless lending and lack of control over recent years. But if any banker had refused to chase the easy profits that behaviour yielded and insisted on a more sober and cautious approach, they would have been sacked.
It is a system in which the greediest and most venal always rise to the top.
This is why semi-nationalisation cannot work; it must be full-nationalisation with full government control and democratic accountability.
The billions that have been stashed away by the profiteers during the last three decades must be taxed at the highest possible rate to return the stolen wealth to the workers who created it.

Saturday 11 October 2008

Still Going Down

THE BROWN government is holding crisis meetings to hammer out a package of economic reforms as the slump deepens while finance ministers throughout the capitalist world are scrabbling around trying to prop up an international banking system that’s on the verge of meltdown. There’s panic in the chancelleries of Europe.
Franco-German imperialism is trying to get European Union agreement for an EU-wide billion euro bank bail-out.The Irish government has effectively guaranteed its entire banking system for two years while our northern neighbour, Iceland, hopes to stave off “national bankruptcy” only through a four billion euro loan from Russia.
Though the American $700 billion “bail-out” package got through Congress last week it did nothing to halt the slide in the markets, while the nationalisation of Bradford & Bingley at home has only accelerated the big business demand for state intervention throughout the banking sector.
The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, says he’s willing to take some “pretty big steps” to help stabilise the markets. But the only measures the Government’s taken so far has been to replace the old Economic Development Committee with a “National Economic Council” headed by the Prime Minister and his Cabinet Ministers and to recall Peter Mandelson from the European Commission to take up a seat in the Brown Cabinet.
Mandelson’s appointment reflects a shift towards the pro-European Union elements within the ruling class but it has more to do with Gordon Brown’s need to get consensus amongst the Labour’s right-wing in the long run-up to the next election.
Meanwhile the Archbishop of Canterbury quotes Marx and his number two, the Archbishop of York, condemns the speculators as “asset strippers and bank robbers” and the Pope says the global financial crisis shows the futility of money and ambition. Benedict XV1 says that “the only solid reality is the word of God” and, no doubt, his answer to the crisis is prayers. But praying isn’t going to help the unemployed, the homeless and the destitute.
Nor can Brown’s half-hearted social Keynesianism, like the nationalisation of ailing banks, solve the crisis. The ruling class intend to put the entire burden of the capitalist crisis on the backs of working people. We have to ensure that they don’t.
The trade union movement has a crucial role to play in mobilising to set an immediate working-class agenda for the Labour Government. The state welfare system and the public sector must be restored, pensions and benefits guaranteed and homelessness eradicated through the building of mass council estates at affordable rents. And the rich must be forced to disgorge some of their wealth to pay for it.
Social-democratic reforms like those which Labour’s Attlee, Wilson and Callaghan governments pioneered from 1945 to 1979 defended the living standards of the millions of working people who put Labour in power in 1945, 1964 and 1974. But only socialism can emancipate the working class.
The year after the 1929 Great Slump Stalin said: “If capitalism could adapt production not to the obtaining of the utmost profit but to the systematic improvement of the material conditions of the masses of the people, and if it could turn profits not to the satisfaction of the whims of the parasitic classes, not to perfecting the methods of exploitation, not to the export of capital, but to the systematic improvement of the material conditions of the workers and peasants, then there would be no crises. But then capitalism would not be capitalism. To abolish crises it is necessary to abolish capitalism”.
How true those words are today.

Tuesday 7 October 2008

New Worker editorials on the current global financial crisis

The next step on the ladder

THE UNITED STATES Congress last Monday night voted to reject the $700 billion rescue package that had been worked out between Republican and Democrat leaders for the economic crisis. It sent the Wall Street stock exchange into freefall, losing a record total of 777.7 points in one day and sending stocks and shares crashing around the globe. The US Federal Reserve tried in vain to shore up share prices by injecting billions of dollars but soon gave up when shares continued to plummet anyway.
The Congress men and women voted narrowly against the package after pleading from George W Bush and most of those voting against were Republicans. They ignored Bush’s desperate please and dire warnings of the collapse of capitalism because they face a Congressional election in a few weeks and the proposal to give away billions of taxpayers’ money to failed bankers and fat cats is deeply unpopular among the American people.
Many of the die-hard American Republicans really believe in the capitalists’ mantra that there should never be any government intervention in the free market and that financial crises are nature’s way of wiping out the inefficient and less profitable. They believe the crash should be allowed to run its course unhindered. They believe any kind of state intervention – or democratically accountable control of the economy is covert socialism.
But they ignore the social and political consequences of the crash: the middle classes will lose their savings and pensions and face an old age of poverty while the working class will face millions of job losses, cuts in welfare and face dire poverty, hunger and homelessness. And in America these conditions already affect hundreds of thousands; the crash will multiply the numbers in dire poverty many times over.
The American people are already disillusioned with their government; after Iraq and the “weapons of mass destruction” they do not believe George Bush when he cries “wolf!” anymore.
The leaders of world capitalism fear the political chaos that could be unleashed and most of all they fear that the workers will turn leftwards. They are beset by contradictions; if they take over the failing banks to rescue them from collapse they are in effect nationalising them – a real step on the way to socialism. As Lenin pointed out in The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It: “For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly…. State monopoly capitalism is a complete material preparation for socialism; the threshold of socialism, a rung on the ladder of history between which and the rung called socialism there are no intermediate rungs,” (September 1917). Lenin did, of course, point out elsewhere that the political preparation for socialism required the destruction of the bourgeois state apparatus and its replacement with a working class state apparatus. But there is some substance to the fears of the die-hard free-market Republicans
The leaders of world capitalism could reduce interest rates to encourage lending and spending again. But that would be to repeat the policies that led to this collapse. The problem with all policies based on debt is that eventually is all has to be repaid – with interest. The borrowers must have a realistic prospect of being able to pay it back.
Or they could let the chaos take its course, leading to economic and political instability and even world war.
Chaos is fertile; it could, given the correct political leadership from the left, result in a massive swing towards socialism; or without that leadership it could result in fascism.
Capitalism is destroying itself because the capitalists can no longer trust each other. This crisis is thrusting forward the monopolisation process to a point where surviving banks and/or IT companies will be so big they will effectively be the state – all administration of the state will be privatised to these giants and the democratic structures will shrink into barely relevant rubber stamps like the European Parliament. We could soon be living under state monopoly capitalism. Our job is to be ready to push it forward to socialism and not let it go backwards to fascism.

October 3rd 2008


To be or not to be…


WHEN THE GOING got tough back in the 1960s Labour leader Harold Wilson famously said that a week is a long time in politics. Well Brown’s Labour government has 20 months to play with until the next general election. But if Labour doesn’t radically change its direction it will face crushing defeat at the polls at the hands of the Tories. Unfortunately this message has barely sunk through to Labour Party conference in Manchester this week, least of all to the New Labour leadership who still imagine that they can weather the storm of the current capitalist crisis by pursuing the same Thatcherite policies that have alienated millions of workers who make up much of Labour’s core vote.
Sure we heard union calls inside the hall for the taxing of the rich and the renationalisation of the energy companies but nothing will come of it unless the unions link their demands to the financial support they give the Labour Party to keep it afloat.
The two issues are linked. The Tory offensive against the working class began when they returned to office in 1979 and it has largely continued under New Labour since 1997. The state and public sector was privatised. Collective bargaining was severely curtailed and vital services like the Health Service, public transport and local amenities have all become seriously underfunded.
Working people who can remember the 1970s look back nostalgically to the days of free medical treatment, affordable council housing, dole money as a right, pensions linked to average earnings, controlled transport fares and energy costs and a domestic rating system that didn’t crucify working class homeowners. It was paid for by the profitable sections of the public sector and through progressive income tax.
We must mobilise the class in its own defence to fight for the restoration of state welfare to at least the levels existing in 1979. This demand can easily be met by returning to the income tax levels that existed in 1979 and returning the privatised corporations to state control. We must make the rich pay for them by disgorging a fraction of the wealth they extort from the working class every year.
This can only be done by building fighting, militant trade unions with leaderships determined to fight to defend their members interests against the employer and willing to use their immense financial bargaining and constitutional power within the Labour Party to ensure that a future Labour government carries out the wishes of those it was established to represent.
At the fringe meetings the left social-democratic and Trotskyist “alternatives” are scrabbling around for yet another platform to challenge Labour at the next election. Some sects still seek the Holy Grail of the “correct line” which will miraculously win over millions of workers if only it is repeated again and again and again. Others believe that left unity can be built around a left social-democratic platform that specifically excludes the Labour Party and its affiliated trade unions.
They call for social-democratic reforms while campaigning against the only mass force capable of implementing reform, the Labour Party itself. They foster the illusion that there is a left electoral alternative to Labour when the reality is that the only alternative, in the current situation, is a Tory or a Liberal Democrat government.
None of them wonder why Labour lost London or why the Tories have a 20 per cent lead in the opinion polls. None of them ask why past attempts like the Socialist Alliance, Respect and the Scottish Socialist Party have all failed.
A Labour government, with the yet unbroken links with the Labour Party, the trade unions and the co-operative movement, offers the best option for the working class in the era of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. The NCP’s strategy is for working class unity and our campaigns are focused on defeating the right-wing within the movement and strengthening the left and progressive forces within the Labour Party such as the Labour Representation Committee and the unions.
At the same time we must build the revolutionary party and campaign for revolutionary change. Social democracy remains social democracy whatever trend is dominant within it. It has never led to socialism. Our Party’s strategy is the only way to fight for the communist alternative within the working class of England, Scotland and Wales. We want day-to-day reforms and they can only be achieved by the main reformist, social democratic party in Britain, the Labour Party. We want revolution and that can only be achieved through the leadership of the communist party.

September 26th 2008

A $450 trillion black hole

Last Monday the giant American investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy after finding itself without funds to continue operating. It first announced its troubles a week ago and hoped to find a buyer to bail it out. The Bank of America and the British bank, Barclays, were interested but pulled out when they learned that the American government was not prepared to use its Federal Reserve to write off most of Lehman Brothers’ debts – leaving Lehman to collapse.
The Bank of America did however move to buy out Merrill Lynch, another of the top five US investment banks that was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. That makes three out of the top five firms – Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and, last March, Behr Stearns – either crashed or removed from the private sector. And the giant AIG insurance firm is also in deep trouble and seeking a $40 billion loan from the Federal Reserve.
Finance “experts” have estimated there is a $450 trillion black hole in total in and around Wall Street as bad debts pile up and each crash tears a hole in its neighbours.
The Federal Reserve – effectively the US taxpayer – has done some huge bailing out in the last two weeks, after it rescued (nationalised) the two giant mortgage companies Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae just over a week ago. We could almost believe it’s a dream socialist agenda – the commanding heights of the global economy being taken into public ownership. Alas the US taxpayers will be footing the bill but are not going to get much control in return.
They, along with workers all around the globe, are going to suffer loss of pensions as stock markets tumble, unemployment, personal bankruptcy and homelessness. The value of wages is falling as food and fuel prices rocket.
The banks, that a short while ago were complaining about state regulations and taxes, are now blaming the US government for failing to regulate properly and begging for taxpayers’ money. They are also blaming each other for “lowering standards”, taking risks and behaving like predators. But that is the essence of capitalism. Each one of those banks is hoping to be one of the tiny few that survive the storm to eat up those that have fallen. That is the process of monopolisation.
So many of the “financial experts” being interviewed are expressing shock and surprise while we Marxists know these crashes are an integral part of the capitalist process.
This will cast a shadow over the US presidential election, which is looking more and more like a very close race. The Republican candidate, Senator John McCain represents the most reactionary circles within the American ruling class while the Democrat, Barack Obama, is a liberal bourgeois who hopes to garner working class support with promises of welfare reform and a less aggressive policy abroad. Whoever wins, the American people will face a prolonged period of suffering from the outfall of this capitalist crisis.
The Bush administration has left the US militarily weakened, politically isolated and in deep economic trouble. It’s puppets like Sakashvili, Musharraf and Yushchenko are falling while those it has threatened, like Kim Jong Il, Chavez, Morales and Mugabe are prevailing.
Dick Cheney has urged Bush to treat the whole world as the enemy of the US and now that the US is visibly weakened those “enemies” are uniting to ensure the US gets no chance to regain its broken global powers and threaten them again.
None of this is good news for Gordon Brown as he faces efforts from the right-wing of his own party to unseat him in the run-up to the next general election. He has proved to be a disastrous and dithering Prime Minister from any point of view but changing the leader without changing the policies would be futile – and none of the current batch of Blairite challengers has even mentioned policies.
A leadership contest could only be of value if it leads to a real debate on policies and a massive shift to more pro-working class policies. Any other path and the Labour government seems doomed to defeat at the next election. If that happens, in the current global economic climate, we can look forward to extreme anti-working class measures from the Tories, now with greater powers of repression from the growth of the surveillance state and the draconian “anti-terror” laws. We must fight tooth and nail to prevent that.

September 19th 2008

Saturday 27 September 2008

Labour Party Conference 2008

To be or not to be…

WHEN THE GOING got tough back in the 1960s Labour leader Harold Wilson famously said that a week is a long time in politics. Well Brown’s Labour government has 20 months to play with until the next general election. But if Labour doesn’t radically change its direction it will face crushing defeat at the polls at the hands of the Tories. Unfortunately this message has barely sunk through to Labour Party conference in Manchester this week, least of all to the New Labour leadership who still imagine that they can weather the storm of the current capitalist crisis by pursuing the same Thatcherite policies that have alienated millions of workers who make up much of Labour’s core vote.
Sure we heard union calls inside the hall for the taxing of the rich and the renationalisation of the energy companies but nothing will come of it unless the unions link their demands to the financial support they give the Labour Party to keep it afloat.
The two issues are linked. The Tory offensive against the working class began when they returned to office in 1979 and it has largely continued under New Labour since 1997. The state and public sector was privatised. Collective bargaining was severely curtailed and vital services like the Health Service, public transport and local amenities have all become seriously underfunded.
Working people who can remember the 1970s look back nostalgically to the days of free medical treatment, affordable council housing, dole money as a right, pensions linked to average earnings, controlled transport fares and energy costs and a domestic rating system that didn’t crucify working class homeowners. It was paid for by the profitable sections of the public sector and through progressive income tax.
We must mobilise the class in its own defence to fight for the restoration of state welfare to at least the levels existing in 1979. This demand can easily be met by returning to the income tax levels that existed in 1979 and returning the privatised corporations to state control. We must make the rich pay for them by disgorging a fraction of the wealth they extort from the working class every year.
This can only be done by building fighting, militant trade unions with leaderships determined to fight to defend their members interests against the employer and willing to use their immense financial bargaining and constitutional power within the Labour Party to ensure that a future Labour government carries out the wishes of those it was established to represent.
At the fringe meetings the left social-democratic and Trotskyist “alternatives” are scrabbling around for yet another platform to challenge Labour at the next election. Some sects still seek the Holy Grail of the “correct line” which will miraculously win over millions of workers if only it is repeated again and again and again. Others believe that left unity can be built around a left social-democratic platform that specifically excludes the Labour Party and its affiliated trade unions.
They call for social-democratic reforms while campaigning against the only mass force capable of implementing reform, the Labour Party itself. They foster the illusion that there is a left electoral alternative to Labour when the reality is that the only alternative, in the current situation, is a Tory or a Liberal Democrat government.
None of them wonder why Labour lost London or why the Tories have a 20 per cent lead in the opinion polls. None of them ask why past attempts like the Socialist Alliance, Respect and the Scottish Socialist Party have all failed.
A Labour government, with the yet unbroken links with the Labour Party, the trade unions and the co-operative movement, offers the best option for the working class in the era of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. The NCP’s strategy is for working class unity and our campaigns are focused on defeating the right-wing within the movement and strengthening the left and progressive forces within the Labour Party such as the Labour Representation Committee and the unions.
At the same time we must build the revolutionary party and campaign for revolutionary change. Social democracy remains social democracy whatever trend is dominant within it. It has never led to socialism. Our Party’s strategy is the only way to fight for the communist alternative within the working class of England, Scotland and Wales. We want day-to-day reforms and they can only be achieved by the main reformist, social democratic party in Britain, the Labour Party. We want revolution and that can only be achieved through the leadership of the communist party.

Messages from the Left to New Labour

by Mervyn Drage in Manchester

IT WAS stimulating to be a part of the national Stop the War Coalition/Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament march last Saturday and to converse with comrades and friends from across Britain and the world.
There were many political, trade union, internationalist, peace and environmental banners on the march, which was called to put pressure on Labour Party delegates to end the predatory wars of occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The colourful, noisy and exciting march of around 5,000 men, women and children wended its way from All Saints, past the ring of steel around the Labour Party conference, the Midland Hotel and the GMex Conference Centre to end up in a rally in Castlefield.
Several New Communist Party members and New Worker supporters attended the march and rally and we completely sold out of papers.
The massive over-the-top policing of the event was most disturbing; we observed many Greater Manchester Police photographing demonstrators and taking notes. Police in military-style formations and mounted police revived memories of state oppression during the epic miners’ and printers’ disputes of the 1980s.
The Midland and Radisson hotels and the GMex Conference Centre and adjoining roads were sealed off to the public. Large metal bollards were used to close roads.
The right to protest peacefully is enshrined in law but it appears that protesters are being surveyed and monitored, and in effect criminalised, merely for exercising their democratic rights.
We need to know what the police, the security services and the state do with the information they are gathering on us. The worldwide capitalist crisis is intensifying and the Big Brother surveillance and database state is upon us.
A plethora of Labour conference fringe events took place but those meetings in the “secure zones” of the Labour Party conference were disgracefully off limits to the public. However it was possible to attend events at the nearby Friends’ Meeting House, the Mechanics’ Institute and local hotels.
New Workers were sold throughout the week at several fringe events and meetings, including the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) rally at the Mechanics’ Institute on Monday evening; the NO2ID public meeting at the Reynolds Building, University of Manchester on the Tuesday evening; and at the Question Time for the Left event at the Friends’ Meeting House on the Wednesday evening.
At the LRC rally, Karen Reissmann, the sacked psychiatric nurse, with 25 years’ work experience, gave an impassioned speech against NHS cuts and against private medicine.
John McDonnell MP, who chairs the LRC, spoke in favour of a radical anti-capitalist Labour manifesto and he announced that New Labour was on its last legs. He noted that right-wing Blairites are seeking to replace the current lame-duck Prime Minister Gordon Brown with David Miliband. Tony Benn also spoke at this meeting.
In the current global capitalist crisis, John McDonnell said that all New Labour could come up with was more privatisation of public assets and the introduction of more market mechanisms in the public sector.
He asserted that as New Labour was becoming increasingly irrelevant and there was a virtual coalition between Labour leader Brown, Tory leader Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Clegg on economic policies. He said it was imperative to articulate a socialist alternative policy to enhance and protect the lives of working class people and their families.
Other meetings are events during the week included a lunchtime Sinn FĂ©in meeting on Sunday 21st September on the theme, “For a United Ireland”.
There was a demonstration outside the Marks and Spencer store in Market Street on Monday morning organised by the GMB trade union in defence of their member, Tony Goode, who was dismissed from this bullying global corporation for revealing to the media details of cuts in the redundancy terms of 66,000 Marks and Spencer workers in Britain.
On Monday at lunchtime the Communication Workers’ Union organised a march and rally on the theme: “It is Time to Deliver a Positive Future for the Royal Mail – Labour Must Listen”.
Also on Monday, at 5pm, there was a public meeting at the Friends’ Meeting House to support the five Cuban patriots imprisoned for 10 years in the United States for opposing terrorism. And on Wednesday there was a lunchtime public meeting at the Friends’ Meeting House organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, on the theme: “If they can talk to the IRA, why can’t they talk to Hamas?”

Labour conference 2008


‘Tax the bonus system out of existence’

DEREK SIMPSON, joint general secretary of the giant union Unite, last Monday at the annual Labour Party conference in Manchester, demanded that Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, should “tax huge city bonuses out of existence. In an emergency motion to the conference, Derek Simpson called on the Government to challenge the city bonus culture which he says is “out of control”.
He said: “The powerful mega elite with no connection to ordinary people, an amoral class without a care for how their reckless behaviour is now wrecking lives.
“Alistair, these people want ordinary people to share their pain but they won’t share their gain. If you can’t regulate the bonus culture then tax it out of existence.
“It’s time for internationally co-ordinated government action to rein in these finance pirates, take the lid of their secrecy and punish them when their actions lead to disaster for working people.”
The union is also demanding a windfall tax on the giant oil and energy companies to be used to help low income people to pay their rising fuel bills – and Unite backed the demand with full-page advertisements in national newspapers.
According to Unite, even a “modest” windfall tax on oil and energy companies would generate an immediate £3.6 billion – enough to provide nearly six million homes in Britain with an estimated £250 each this winter towards their fuel bills and still have money remaining to make homes across the country fuel efficient.
According to joint general secretary Tony Woodley: “Energy companies in this country have seen their profits leap by an incredible 538 per cent in five years, money they’ve used to line their shareholders’ and executives’ pockets. Yet all consumers have had is price pain.
“In homes across the country, people will be facing an inhumane choice this winter: that of whether to heat or eat. That is simply an obscenity in this the fourth richest country in the world.
“People are looking to Labour, the party of social justice to put an end to this. We say it can be done – it is affordable, it is moral and action must be taken to protect needy people this winter.”
Unite is also launching a Warmth Webline to collect consumers’ energy cases, which the union is promising to present to the Government as further evidence of the need for immediate financial assistance.
The union also tabled an emergency motion to the conference calling for action to protect finance jobs.
Derek Simpson said: “This crisis has a real human cost with thousands of hard-working families at risk of losing their homes. The big city bankers have been exposed, they are not the masters of the universe they are the masters of disaster.
“In the short term HBOS and LTSB must engage with the unions immediately and reassure staff that they will do everything possible to protect jobs. If the banks don’t the Government must step in, they have already intervened and we believe, if necessary, they should intervene to protect jobs in the financial services.
“Looking ahead, the Government must act and undertake a thorough review of the regulations covering the activities of the finance institutions. We can never allow greed and excess to damage our country like this again.”
Meanwhile the public sector union Unison was calling on the Labour Party to remember why it was set up. Steve Warwick, who chairs Unison’s Labour Link, told a packed fringe meeting on the opening day of the conference: “The Government needs to start taking bold steps that speak loudly and clearly about its values and priorities.
“And that means priorities like continued investment in essential public services, delivered by Unison members: public services like childcare, long-term care for the elderly, community health services, youth and community centres, adult education and employment advice, and affordable social housing.
“The return of the Tories to power would be disastrous for our members and for the services they deliver to the public,” Warwick said.
“That’s why we all need this Labour government to demonstrate authority and a sense of purpose and show this country whose side it’s really on.
“The events of the past week have shown what can happen when regulation is weak, when greed takes over and the wider public interest is lost from view.
“History is once again teaching us the importance of a strong and active public sector, acting for the greater good and accountable to the wider society.
“That’s Unison’s agenda. It should be Labour’s agenda.”
Unison also took a swipe at Labour’s privatisation policies. The union last week published a report showing how using private companies to provide public services is exposing all Britons to enormous financial risks and examining the impact of the £79 billion “public services industry”.
“This hard-hitting report shows that the Treasury is at risk of having tens of billions of pounds of liabilities heaped on it, because of the way public services are now delivered and funded,” said Unison general secretary Dave Prentis.

Thursday 18 September 2008

Only a left turn can save Labour

by Daphne Liddle

PRIME Minister Gordon Brown is facing a tough time at next week’s Labour Party conference in Manchester with increasing calls for a new party leader from right-wing Blairites, while Downing Street and the White House scurry around like desperate jugglers trying to shore up the great banking pillars of capitalism as they lurch and sway in the current economic hurricane.
The right-wing attack on Brown has clearly been carefully coordinated in the week before the Labour conference. Three Labour MPs – former whip Siobhain McDonagh, former vice chair Joan Ryan and former special envoy Barry Gardiner all broke ranks to call for a leadership contest – and promptly lost their jobs.
On Wednesday David Cairns, the Scotland Office Minister joined them, saying: “There are a number of ministers who have cautiously looked at the situation and say they are very uncomfortable with it. It’s been in my mind whether I should step down, and if so, when.”
These dissidents have not made a single coherent criticism of Brown’s policies; they are not opposed to privatisation, to pay caps or to the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are worried because they face losing their jobs at the next general election.

policies

But they will not stand any chance of saving those jobs unless a leadership challenge involves a thorough debate on policies leading to a decisive turn to the left.
John McDonnell MP, who chairs the Labour Representation Committee, wrote to the press: “Witnessing the faction infighting between Brownites and Blairites has been like watching a crew having a punch-up on the deck of the Titanic.
“Just to set the record straight, I am not part of this plot and have not asked for nomination papers. I am still up for a leadership election if there is one, but it must be based on a thoroughgoing, open debate about policies and nor personalities.
“The two New Labour factions currently slugging it out have barely a policy difference between them and have supported every New Labour policy over the last 11 years, which has led us to the brink of a Tory government.
In July I suggested a compromise to hold the party together: a structured and inclusive debate about the future of Labour. If this shows support for radical change, as I suspect, it is only in this context that the party should convene an election for a new leader.”
The rebels seem to have only a handful of MPs supporting them. To mount a real challenge they would need 71 willing to nominate one challenger – and so far no one has emerged as a challenger.
To take Brown’s place in the current political and economic climate – without new policies – would be a poisoned chalice for any youthful and ambitious challenger. Only a cynical old hack seeking simply to improve their pension prospects would want the position.
But the rebellion that would have caught the headlines under any other circumstances has been completely overshadowed by the economic crisis.
Capitalism is showing itself in its true colours – commentators are taking about mismanagement by banks and governments but this is the way capitalism is; it cannot be managed to eliminate risk and gambling by speculators.
The capitalists demand a free and unfettered market and moan about taxes and then gamble knowing that ultimately the humble working class taxpayers will pick up the bill as Governments bail them out because various banks, mortgage lenders and insurance companies are “too big to be allowed to fail”.
The US Treasury has run out of funds to bail out anymore banks after rescuing insurance company AIG; anti-competition rules are abandoned as still solvent banks eat up the failing ones.
And still the stock markets plummet. Capitalism is failing.
If this does not inspire the delegates in Manchester – the trade unionists and the constituency representatives – to put working class-friendly policies back on the agenda and the word socialism back in the vocabulary, then Labour cannot win the next general election.

PCS defends state welfare

MARK SERWOTKA, general secretary of the civil service union PCS, on the final day of the TUC conference in Brighton last week, attacked the Government over welfare reforms, accusing it of “dismantling the welfare state”.
Moving an emergency motion on the Government’s welfare reform proposals he said: “The Government’s proposals for welfare reform outlined in their recent Green Paper represent the most fundamental attack on the welfare state since Beveridge’s proposals established the welfare state in 1948. first time
“Just reflect on this, it is the first time since 1948 that any government has seriously proposed abolishing the ‘safety net’ benefit for those without any means of financial support. It began life as National Assistance – today it is known as Income Support.
“It is not generous, below real subsistence on any modern standard; it is never given without question. But we must always remember – with no basic safety net you don’t just deny the parent – you also deny support to children.
“The Green Paper represents a complete u-turn on ‘workfare’. In 1997 experiments with forced labour, such as that in Wisconsin, USA, were explicitly rejected.

New Deal

“Rightly, the government opted for The New Deal, increasing support for jobseekers and ensuring that people were better off in work both through the National Minimum Wage and targeting incentives either through Tax Credits or specific programme payments.
“PCS members in Jobcentres are proud of the success of the New Deal, and in particular the voluntary approach central to its most successful strand, New Deal for Lone Parents, that has enabled over half a million parents, mainly women, to break free of dependency on benefits and get sustainable jobs.
approach that works
“When this approach to worklessness is clearly the approach that works, the question we need to ask is, why is James Purnell so obsessed with the forced labour approach?
“It is an approach that goes where even Thatcher and Howe wouldn’t dare to go in the 1980’s; an approach which stigmatises and demonises people as work shy and evokes images of the Victorian workhouse.
“It is shameful that a Labour government are seeking to implement a benefits regime that unpicks the fundamentals of the welfare state, that strikes at the very notion of a safety net for those in need.”

Thursday 11 September 2008

Unions ready for pay battle

by Daphne Liddle

CHANCELLOR Alistair Darling last week at the TUC conference in Brighton tried to pull off the impossible – to convince trade union delegates that if public sector workers could restrain themselves from fighting for fair pay the current economic crisis would be solved in a few months and everyone would be better off next year.
To cries of “rubbish”, he said that Britain was in a good position to ride out the global credit crunch, even though this would mean workers accepting below-inflation pay rises and big rises in food and fuel bills.
He warned that pay rises above the planned two per cent level would lead to inflation and unemployment.
Darling tried to appease delegates’ anger over huge bonuses being paid to City speculators. “A bonus should be for hard work, not big mistakes,” he said, “Excessive bonuses, which encourage traders to take excessive risks, at a time of easy global credit – one of the major reasons for the global credit crunch. We need to learn the lessons to prevent this happening again,” he added – as if this were the first capitalist crisis in history rather than a regular recurring cycle.
The unions were not taken in. GMB general secretary Paul Kenny said the performance was an effort to warm the delegates “but was only as warm as a toaster that had been unplugged for two hours”.
The big public sector unions had already agreed to coordinate a series of strikes for pay rises that at the very least should match the rate of inflation – PCS is already balloting. But they did reject a motion calling for a general strike.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber spoke up for public sector workers: “We have shown that you cannot create world-class services with a workforce battered and bruised by change, sapped of morale by a thousand reorganisations, and crippled by pay awards that do not begin the reflect the true cost of living.
“And don’t let anyone tell us that the government can’t afford fair pay for public servants. If it can spend billions on consultants, billions on tax breaks for UK plc, then surely it can find the money to give Britain’s teachers, prison officers, civil servants and local government workers the fair pay they deserve.
“But let us be clear about this: working people are not the cause of inflation; they are the victims of it.”
The rank and file delegates backed the fight for better pay. PCS member Andy Reid said: “The pay settlement is simply insufficient. The real rate of inflation is five per cent or more. Unless the Government changes its minds, it’s going to become even more unpopular.
“We have to work together to change things. I wouldn’t have any problem with a wider strike. But we are all working together. If we are united the Government will have to listen. If they will not listen to the force of our arguments we will have to make them do so.”
Unison delegate Lisa Mannion said: “People are really angry. My colleagues and I are keen to come out in industrial action. There hasn’t been this sort of strength of feeling for years, when pensions were the biggest source of dispute. “Everyone is fed up with the situation. The unions have got to work together. The Government hasn’t been listening.”
Many delegates were angry that the Government was trying to blame workers for inflation. Aslef delegate James McGowan said: “The Government’s standpoint is not good enough. Blaming public sector workers for inflation is wrong. It’s driven by private sector pay and executive pay. It’s just a political football.
“I was in Warwick recently for Labour’s national policy forum and Gordon Brown didn’t give unions the deal they wanted. The Government will have to listen to us at some stage.”
Unison deputy general secretary Keith Sonnet moved the composite motion that demanded “days of action including a major national demonstration against the Government’s pay policy” and the delegates backed it.
Sonnet told the delegates: “We have a clear message for the cabinet meeting today in Birmingham: we demand fair pay for public service workers – we demand it.”

TUC 2008: Unions challenge Brown

by Caroline Colebrook

A PENSIONERS’ rally marking the centenary of the first Old Age Pension last Sunday kicked off the week of activity surrounding the 2008 TUC conference in Brighton and drawing attention to the continuing, still unmet demands for a significant raise in the basic state pension and the restoration of the link with average earnings.
Speakers at the rally included Kay Carberry, TUC assistant general secretary; Frank Cooper, president of the National Pensioners’ Convention and it was chaired by Unison general secretary and TUC president for 2008 Dave Prentis.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber opened the conference on Monday with a reminder of union successes in the last 12 months. These included the agreement on agency workers “removing one of the worst injustices from our labour market,” and a “major pensions reform” forcing all employers to contribute to their workers’ pensions.
“What better way for us to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the Old Age Pensions Act won through the campaigning of previous generations of trade unionists?” he said.
He continued: “In the past year we’ve also become stronger as a movement. We’ve recorded a welcome 65,000 increase in our membership and reached out to migrant workers in every corner of the UK.
“And signed a new Protocol with our American sisters and brothers to combat the disgraceful activities of union busters on both sides of the Atlantic.”
He mentioned union involvement in the fight against the extreme right and the British National Party and the fight to defend the NHS from “reckless privatisation”.
Then he touched on the battles to come: “Gone are the comfortable realities of the past decade: that the economy can be taken for granted; that prices will remain stable; that the Tories are a spent political force.
“With the credit crunch biting, with incomes being squeezed by rising food, fuel and energy costs, with the gap between the super-rich and the rest of us now a yawning chasm, the British people are crying out for fairness – and I believe the case for action is compelling.”
Barber added: “But let’s also be clear. The credit crunch is no random act of god – but inevitable; inevitable because governments listened to those preaching the cult of deregulation; inevitable because bankers worked out they could make money by irresponsible lending and selling on the debts; and inevitable because property price bubbles always burst.”

Fuel poverty

One of the major issues debated at the TUC was the demand for a windfall tax on the energy companies that have been making obscene profits as the costs of domestic fuel have rocketed, plunging many working class people into fuel poverty.
Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of the giant union Unite, presented a Dossier of Disgrace exposing the greed and excess of the energy companies and the compelling case for a windfall tax.
Since 2003 gas and electricity companies have increased their profits from £557 million to over £3 billion and raised prices by up to 35 per cent in 2008 alone. But for every 10 per cent increase in energy prices, an extra 400,000 people fall into fuel poverty.
The dossier exposes the huge price hikes, profits and share dividends of the oil and energy utility companies. While the industry spends just £50 million a year combating fuel poverty.
Derek Simpson, Woodley’s co-general secretary, said: “Winter is approaching and in the coming months low paid families will be forced to switch their heating off because they won’t be able to afford the bill.
“The heartless excuses from the energy companies for not fulfilling their social responsibilities have been swallowed hook, line and sinker by the Government. It’s time for action, the situation is dire.”
Tony Woodley said: “The greedy oil companies have made billions and in the next four years they will make an extra £15 billion from the British public. The Government must intervene and intervene now.
“Our case for a windfall tax is compelling. It is morally right. So I say to the Government, it’s time to do the right thing and protect the most vulnerable in society.”
Conference backed the motion, which also criticised Ofgem, the industry watchdog, for failing to control price rises and profiteering.
It said: “Congress notes that the Prime Minister, in his speech of 4th September, ruled out financial assistance for households struggling to meet their energy bills, in favour of help with home insulation. Congress believes this is an inadequate response to the current energy crisis.
“Congress also notes that the ‘big six’ energy suppliers had profits last year of £1.635 billion, whilst the average household fuel bill has risen by 42 per cent in 2008. Congress condemns the actions of these suppliers, and the phoney competition between the energy companies.
“Congress further condemns the failure of the Government and Ofgem to take any action to properly regulate the energy market, and curb the excessive price rises being imposed on hard-pressed consumers….”

The NHS

The TUC conference celebrated – and vowed to defend – the “enormous benefits” of the NHS and its “core values of equity, universality and care free at the point of use”.
Unison representative Lilian Macer told the conference: “Despite the attempts of various governments to reform the NHS beyond recognition, it is to the great credit of all in the union movement that the service the service remains overwhelmingly publicly owned and free at the point of use.”
And it is “continuing to deliver high-quality care in the fairest and most compassionate way possible,” she noted, moving a successful resolution that celebrated the NHS’s 60th birthday and outlined key campaigning priorities to meet the challenges ahead.
“Let’s be thankful that, after 60 years, we still have an NHS that continues to strive for equality and fairness,” Macer told delegates.
She welcomed the moves towards an NHS constitution that “should preserve the essential core principles of the NHS”, but warned “we must also remain vigilant in confronting the many new challenges from both home and abroad.”
She outlined two major areas of challenge: the EU directive on cross-border health care and the Government’s obsession with “patient choice” and “personal budgets”.
“Of course everyone wants patients to be able to get the highest-quality care which is the most appropriate for their needs,” said Macer.
“But the Government hasn’t grasped the fact that choice does not necessarily equal quality. And choice certainly doesn’t equal equality either.”
And when it comes to the proposed pilot of personal health budgets, she added: “For once, pilots have to do exactly what they say on the tin: test a policy to see if it works. And if not, scrap it.
“We have been absolutely clear that opening the NHS up to a co-payments free for all would be the first step onto the slippery slope of a two-tier NHS, where the rich got a business class service and the poor had to settle for the leftovers.”
Similar dangers exist with the EU directive – “another cynical attempt by the European Commission to import market principles via the back door” – Macer warned.
“Far from its stated desire of reducing inequality, the directive would do precisely the opposite, as only those who could afford to pay up front for their treatment abroad, and who could afford the travel costs, would have any realistic access to healthcare in other European countries.”

Tax

Dave Prentis, general secretary of the public sector union Unison gave one of the keynote speeches. In it he backed the motion for a windfall tax on fuel companies and also called for higher taxes in general on the super-rich.
“And why stop there?” he said. “Our tax system is one of the most unfair in the EU – the lowest top rate apart from Luxembourg. Those at the top can and should pay more... pay more to help relieve the suffering of the very poorest in our society. A bold step to show whose side Labour’s is really on.

Workers’ rights

The RMT transport union drew the attention of Conference to the threat to trade union rights contained in recent rulings from the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
“Anti-union decisions by the unaccountable European Court of Justice have undermined workers’ rights even further than the Thatcher anti-union laws still on Britain’s statute books and urgently need to reversed,” the RMT said adding: “recent rulings by the ECJ add up to the most serious attack on union rights since the Taff Vale judgement more than a century ago.”
The union called on delegates to back its call for the TUC to step up the campaign against Britain’s anti-union laws and to work for Europe-wide action with the aim of restoring the human right to strike enshrined in International Labour Organisation norms.
“The ECJ is an unaccountable and politically driven body which aims to extend the ‘internal market’ – that’s privatisation to you and me – and its rulings effectively render the right to strike meaningless,” RMT general secretary Bob Crow said.
“The Viking, Laval and Ruffert rulings have each undermined the ability of trade unions to defend their members against attacks on living standards, and the Luxembourg ruling even attacks the right of EU member states to set decent minimum employment standards.
“Together they mean that an employer’s right to ‘freedom of establishment’ trumps the right to strike, and are more restrictive than even the Tory anti-union laws still in place in new-Labour Britain.
“These draconian judgments and EU rules on ‘free movement’, which are enshrined in the renamed EU constitution, the Lisbon Treaty, represent a fundamental attack on trade union rights.
“Unless we roll back these ECJ rulings we will be left defenceless against the EU’s drive to liberalise markets and institutionalise social dumping.
“That means stepping up the campaign for a Trade Union Freedom Act and ensuring that any new UK Bill of Rights includes all ILO conventions, and it means working with unions across Europe to demand the reversal of the ECJ’s anti-union rulings,” he said.
In the Viking case the Finnish ferry company Viking Line attempted to re-flag one of its ships to Estonia and replace Finnish seafarers with cheaper Estonian labour.
When the Finnish workers decided to strike to stop this social dumping, Viking began legal proceedings and, after sitting on the case for three years, the ECJ ruled that the company’s “freedom of establishment” took precedence over the Finnish workers’ right to strike.
The Vaxholm (or Laval) case began after Swedish trade unionists attempted to prevent Latvian firm Laval paying poverty wages to Latvian builders working in the Swedish town of Vaxholm.
The ECJ ruled that the right to take action is superseded where an employer complains that the union is seeking terms and conditions in excess of the minimum provided by the Posted Workers Directive.
It claimed that as Sweden has no minimum-wage legislation in place the industrial action was invalid.
In the Ruffert case the court ruled that a German public body was not entitled to include a clause in a public works contract that required contractors to pay foreign workers the same rates as those set down in collective agreements.
In the Luxembourg case the court ruled that Luxembourg must remove labour laws putting national and foreign workers on an equal footing with local employees.
In all these cases the ECJ asserts that EU rules on the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour give private firms protection against collective action by trade unions.

Friday 5 September 2008

Unions co-ordinate pay fight

by Caroline Colebrook

THE LEADERS of Britain’s major public sector unions have been meeting and discussing plans to co-ordinate their battle against a Government pay cap of around two per cent – well below inflation – on all public sector pay rises in the run-up to next week’s annual TUC conference in Brighton.
The unions will set new strike dates as this pay battle intensifies that will bring out civil servants, local government employees, teachers and health workers at the same time.
Four key unions have tabled motions to the conference demanding the TUC’s ruling council co-ordinate strike plans, including Unison; PCS, which represents civil servants; the National Union of Teachers; and the University and College Union, representing lecturers.
One TUC officer said: “Public sector workers feel they’re languishing around the two per cent mark when inflation is at four to five per cent, and by any standards that is a pay cut. There is a political price to be paid for those people who feel the Government is punishing them.”
A Unison spokeswoman said that the major unions had already discussed how to co-ordinate strikes, adding: “It’s not easy to do, but it is something we have on our radar in terms of what might make action more effective.”
There have already been some coordinated strikes against the pay caps involving civil servants teachers, NHS workers and local government workers but they have never yet all taken strike action together at one time.
The unions are angry that the Brown government is expecting them to carry the can for the current deepening economic crisis that has been brought about by capitalist greed and speculation.
The workers, especially the masses of them on very modest wages, are being disproportionately hit by steeply rising food and fuel prices – basic necessities they cannot choose to do without. Meanwhile the inflation figures are misleading because they are kept low by stable prices for goods and services that are not essentials. The lower the wage, the bigger slice of it that has to be spent on essentials and so the poorest workers are hit hardest.
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the civil service union PCS, said: “It’s time to stand up against pay cuts and pushes the message ‘public services not private profit’.”
He commented on the recently-published Deanne Julius report on privatisation, saying it made clear “something that I have been arguing for years – that New Labour has privatised more than the last two Tory governments combined.”
He said the report revealed that the privatisation industry has grown by 130 per cent since 1995. “Senior executives in the industry, like Serco chief executive Christopher Hyman with his seven figure salary, have clearly done well from this rapid expansion. What is far less clear is the benefit to the population as a whole,” said Serwotka.
“There is very little evidence to support the argument that services have improved – as the Julius report concedes.
Indeed, if one was to consider some of the areas most likely to have been privatised (or outsourced), a few questions might reasonably be posed. For example: catering operations – has school food improved? Security – are Government facilities and staff safer? Cleaning – are hospitals cleaner?
“We do know that outsourced cleaning and security is up to 17 per cent worse paid than when in-house. It is very hard to see how that ensures a better service.
“But there is a fundamental contradiction in public sector outsourcing. For those running public services the key question should be whether outsourcing improves the services provided to the public and society as a whole.
“For the outsourcing industry, though, the key is whether all opportunities to extract a profit have been fully exploited. There are those who would argue that these are not contradictory, but they seem to find it hard to locate the evidence to support them.”
Meanwhile in Scotland public sector workers are planning to build on their successful strike last month by announcing further strike dates in local government.
The unions say that Scottish local government employers have failed to improve their pay offer. Last week officers of the giant union Unite met with representatives of Cosla (the Council of Scottish Local Authorities) to try to resolve the outstanding issues of low pay and a below inflation pay offer which resulted in the recent strike across Scotland. Jimmy Farrelly, Unite regional official said: “Initially the employers indicated that they would offer a one year deal which would take the recent rises in inflation into account.
However, today they came back with a one-year deal of just 2.5 per cent which is exactly the same as their previous offer.
“This is a total misjudgement of local government workers’ commitment to fight for a decent living wage. We are extremely disappointed with their decision which will lead to an escalation of strike action.”
Unite, the GMB and Unison will be meeting within the next week to coordinate further strike dates.

PCS news

Acas staff to strike

CIVIL servants employed at the conciliation and arbitration service Acas last week voted for strike action in a dispute over pay.
PCS called on the Government to take immediate action to settle the row to avoid “embarrassing” industrial action at the organisation, which helps resolve disputes.
The union said that 59 per cent of those who took part in a ballot backed strike action, with 80 per cent supporting other forms of industrial action.
The industrial action ballot follows delays in settling this year’s pay and a pay remit submitted to the Treasury by Acas, which the union believes will result in real-terms pay cuts.
Workers are angry that pay negotiations for this year have yet to begin. The annual pay increase was due on 1st August. PCS says that this year’s delay follows a 10-month hold-up to last year’s 2007 pay increase.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “Members have indicated clearly that they are not prepared to accept below-inflation pay or a repeat of last year’s 10-month delay.”

DVLA walkout

WORKERS employed at the Department for Transport (DfT) in the Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) took strike action last Friday in a protest at pay inequality and a below-inflation pay rise in a 24-hour walkout organised by PCS.
The strike caused significant disruption leading to the closure of local offices and a restricted service in those remaining open.
The contact centre was also severely disrupted with the public being advised to contact the DVLA another day.
Picket lines across England, Scotland and Wales were well supported, with the Swansea headquarters seeing approximately 80 per cent of staff stay away from work and local politicians including Bethan Jenkins, Welsh Assembly Member, visiting the picket line.
In Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow, 90 per cent of staff stayed away from work, whilst elsewhere local offices were closed due to strike action.
The strongly supported action follows below inflation pay offers and widening pay gaps between the predominantly female staffed DVLA and the predominantly male DfT and related agencies.
With pay gaps of £2,524 existing between DVLA and the DfT, the union is pursuing equal pay cases.
A 10-day preliminary Employment Tribunal hearing starts on 8th September where the union will claim that women executive officers in DVLA are underpaid in comparison with male driving examiners in DSA.

Thursday 21 August 2008

Scotland on Strike

by Caroline Colebrook

AROUND 200,000 local government employees in Scotland took part in a 24-hour strike over pay last Wednesday, affecting refuse collection, libraries, swimming pools, day-care centres, ferry crossings and town hall services.
And joining them were around 5,000 PCS members.
They are protesting at Government attempts to impose a 2.5 per cent pay deal over the next three years. As such this strike is part of a wave of massive public sector strikes against below-inflation pay rises that is happening all around Britain.
Wednesday’s local government striking workers are members of Unison, GMB and Unite and their protest is directed at Cosla – the Scottish local government umbrella group.
Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said: “Our members are taking this action very reluctantly. They care deeply about the vital services they provide and those who depend on them and we apologise for any disruption.
“However, members feel they have no choice when the employers’ offer is effectively a pay cut.”
picket lines

The strikers mounted picket lines outside several council headquarters. Union members also distributed leaflets to commuters at Edinburgh’s Waverley Station and a midday rally was held at George Square in Glasgow.
Michael Cook, speaking for Cosla, claimed the local governments could not afford above inflation pay rises. He said: “The issues are difficult and complex and need to be carefully thought through.
“However, as soon as possible, we will arrange talks with the trade unions in a bid to reach a settlement which takes account of the soaring cost of living which affects councils just as much as our workers.”
John Swinney, Finance Secretary of the Scottish Parliament, stood aloof and urged “both parties to try to resolve the dispute to ensure that there is no further interruption to public services”.
But the unions hold him responsible for failing to give the local authorities adequate funding to cover the much needed wage rises to address low pay.

angry

PCS members are angry that Scottish Ministers have imposed a two per cent pay increase on their own workforce in the Scottish Government, which is in effect a pay cut whilst inflation spirals beyond five per cent. This is a rise of only £4.20 per week for those PCS members earning £16,500 in the Scottish Government.
Since 31st July, PCS members have been participating in an overtime ban and working to rule, which, as the Scottish Parliament prepares to return from recess will begin to slow down Ministers’ abilities to deliver key priorities in the session ahead.
PCS is also now balloting its members in the Sheriff and High Courts, and the Procurator Fiscals’ Department who, if they vote to join the strike campaign later, would bring Scotland’s justice system to a halt.
Eddie Reilly, PCS Scottish Secretary hit out at Scottish Ministers: “Low paid civil servants are not the cause of inflation – they are the victims. Salmond and Swinney can’t stay in hiding for ever.
“Ministers need to face up to their responsibilities in this dispute. It seems to be the case with Scottish Ministers that when the going gets tough, the tough go into hiding.”

Thursday 14 August 2008

ACAS workers pay ballot

MORE than 630 PCS members working for the conciliation service Acas last week began a ballot for strike action and action short of a strike in a dispute over pay.
The ballot, which runs until 27th August, follows delays in settling this year’s pay and a pay remit submitted to Treasury by Acas, which the union believes will result in real term pay cuts.
This year’s pay increase was due on 1st August yet pay negotiations haven’t started.
This year’s delay follows a ten-month delay to last year’s 2007 pay increase.
PCS national officer Dave Cliff commented: “After the ten-month delay to last year’s pay rise we had an agreement that this year’s pay settlement would be paid on time.
“However Acas management have dragged their feet and not even started negotiating yet. The prospect of a repeat of last year’s delay, combined with the likelihood of a below inflation pay award has left staff feeling angry and betrayed.”

Union leaders back petition for Miami Five

BEVERLEY Naidoo, Iain Banks, Harold Pinter and Susannah York last week joined Tony Woodley and Derek Simpson, joint general secretaries of the union Unite, last week called on the US government to grant family visiting rights for the Miami Five.
Next month marks the 10th anniversary of the arrest of the Miami Five – five Cubans jailed for trying to stop US-based terrorist attacks against their country and Unite is backing a campaign for justice for the imprisoned men and their families.
The campaign is particularly focused on the visiting rights for two of the wives of the prisoners, Olga Salanueva, wife of Rene Gonzalez, and Adriana PĂ©rez, wife of Gerardo Hernandez who have both been denied the right by the US authorities to even see their husbands for eight and 10 years.
To coincide with the anniversary of their arrests in Miami on 12th September 1998, British personalities, including several trade union general secretaries are adding their name to an appeal for justice for the five and their families.
Signatories include many famous names from the world of politics, law, music and arts including writers Iain Banks, Beverley Naidoo, Harold Pinter and actors Julie Christie, Susannah York and Maxine Peake.
Unite’s joint general secretaries, Tony Woodley and Derek Simpson, Unison’s Dave Prentis and CWU’s Billy Hayes have also signed the petition.
The full list of signatories will be published in the national media in September and there is still time for personalities and individuals alike to add their names to this petition by contacting Cuba Solidarity Campaign.
Tony Woodley said: “The Miami Five were acting to defend their country and have paid an enormous price. They are locked up in prison thousands of miles away from their children and wives.
“Unite is giving its support to gain family visitation rights and is seeking, ultimately, the release of the Miami Five.”