Saturday 12 February 2011

LRC Conference: Don't carry out Con-Dem cuts!

By Caroline Colebrook

The New Worker, 21 January 2011

LABOUR councils must absolutely refuse to implement spending cuts ordered by the Con-Dem Coalition – even if it means a Government commission stepping in and imposing them. This was the message of resistance that came loud and strong from the annual general meeting of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) that packed London’s Conway Hall last Saturday. It is impossible to oppose the cuts and at the same time implement them.

The LRC was established in 2004 by left Labour Party members, MPs and trade unionists who want to restore the Labour Party to its original socialist roots.

The New Communist Party affiliated to the LRC in 2005 and a number of party members and supporters took part in this year’s conference including NCP leader Andy Brooks as well as Michael Fletcher, Daphne Liddle, Ken Ruddock and Theo Russell from the Central Committee.
The meeting was entitled “Resist the Cuts; Rebuild the Party” and LRC chair John McDonnell MP opened with a fitting tribute to veteran campaigner Tony Benn and a run-down of measures currently going through Parliament.

These include the Localism Bill that will end council housing as we know it and lead to the social cleansing of low income people from being able to live in fashionable areas.

There is also the NHS Bill that will hand control of the finances to General Practitioners – who will in turn hand it to private companies. “This is the privatisation of the NHS,” said McDonnell.
“The rise in tuition fees will mean that education is no longer a gift from one generation to another but a commodity to be bought and sold.

“The cuts in benefits and pensions will be causing impoverishment of the kind we haven’t seen since the 1930s.”

He went on to stress the importance of pushing the TUC and union leaderships into action, mobilising for the big demonstration on 26th March and hundreds of other actions around the country. The 29th January students’ demonstration is now turning into a really big event.
And he again stressed – we must demand “No cuts at all!” – at any level, not to jobs or services.
Many spoke in defence of the postal services and Conference passed an emergency motion backing the fight of the Communication Workers’ Union against Royal Mail privatisation.

Fire Brigades Union leader Matt Wrack, called for unity in the fight against the cuts and against sectarianism of the kind that was mocked in the film The Life of Brian – “We can’t have the Judean Popular Front refusing to speak to the Popular front of Judea.”

He also attacked those who fought cuts by saying, “Don’t cuts us, cut somewhere else”.
“We want no cuts at all, anywhere,” he declared.

After a lively discussion Conference agreed to “actively but critically” support the campaign of Ken Livingstone for Mayor of London as he was “committed to protect Londoners from the effects of economic uncertainty and government cuts”.

Many other motions were debated and passed including one from the New Communist Party, moved by Daphne Liddle, on wages jobs and working hours – as well as one from Left Front Art including the LGBT Community in the fight against the cuts.

Only one was rejected that sought to change the slogan from “Rebuild the [Labour] Party” to “Rebuild the Labour Movement”. The argument that the fight to rebuild inner party democracy was essential to winning genuine working class policies and defeating the right-wing opportunists, including what is left of “New Labour” won the vote.

Veteran Labour statesman Tony Benn spoke to a standing ovation in recognition of his lifelong contribution to the working class movement. He spoke of the history of state welfare and the vital role of local government and he reminded the conference that at the end of the Second World War the tax rate on the super rich had been 95 per cent.

In the afternoon Jeremy Corbyn MP put the struggle in an international context, explaining the huge international dimension of the economic crisis.

He explained that the extreme monetarist economic policies pioneered by the fascist regime of General Pinochet in Chile had been the model that imperialism had tried to impose throughout the Third World ever since and was “effectively a recolonisation”.

Corbyn explained that it is this economic policy – giving absolute free rein to the banks – that was behind the sub-prime crash in the United States. Now they are trying to impose a similar economic doctrine in Europe, starting with Greece.

“Will we be carved up like Latin America was in the 1980s, or will we stand up to the IMF and the economic imperialists? “There has to be the same internationalism in everything we do,” said Corbyn, “if we don’t we are going to be picked off one by one.”

A guest speaker from Tunisia, Mohammed Ali Harrath, brought news of the “revolution” he said was happening there. The exiled Tunisian Islamist leader said “this is our 1917” in his report of the upheaval that had, at last, driven out the hated dictator.

Student leader Clare Solomon, the president of the University of London Union, was another guest speaker, and she stressed the importance of Maintenance Allowance that allows students from low income families to stay in further education between the ages of 16 and 18. It covers their bus fares and other costs but without it thousands of students, however brainy, will not even get a chance at university entrance.

LRC membership has increased by around 25 per cent in the past year and now stands at over 1,000 individual members. The committee is supported by five Labour MPs, a number of trade unions at national and regional level, and socialist, co-operative and progressive movements, including the NCP, that do not stand against Labour in elections.

The increase in membership could be seen by the contributions from delegates from all round the country. There were dozens of significant contributions from the floor from seasoned trade unionists, peace campaigners like Walter Wolfgang and young students new to the movement.

It was a day of debate and commitment to the struggle to build a fighting, democratic Labour Party that will defeat the Tory-led coalition on a platform based on union rights, social justice and public ownership. It ended, as always, with a rousing rendition of the Red Flag.

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Con-Dems back off from pensions fight

By Caroline Colebrook, The New Worker 4 February 2011

THE CON-DEM Coalition last week announced that it would not be introducing major changes to public sector pensions in the Budget this March, saying it would not have the detailed proposals ready until the summer.

The plans, being drawn up by former Labour Cabinet member Lord Hutton, are expected to raise worker contributions substantially and may end final salary pensions in the public sector, in favour of pensions based on career average salaries — a big reduction when inflation is taken into account.

The interim Hutton report, published in October 2010, claimed that public sector pensions are “inherently unfair” and advocated increasing contributions and reducing payouts for civil servants.

The Treasury is hoping to save £1.8 billion through these measures, in conjunction with drastic cuts to the public sector.

The announcement followed a meeting of union leaders at TUC Congress House to coordinate the national day of action in protest against cuts to public sector jobs, pensions and pay, planned for 26th March.

They focused on pensions as being an issue on which they could legitimately call for industrial action, under current anti-union laws that forbid strikes on issues of policy.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said strengthening the anti-union laws would be a last resort. “I would like to see unions moving from the looking-for-a-fight approach to one that exists on the continent where they see themselves as public partners,” he said.

New restrictions on right to strike

It cannot have been the same continent that includes Greece, Portugal, France, Spain and so on, where unions have many more rights that workers in Britain and are using them in the fight against cuts. Nevertheless, in spite of Maude’s pretence about “last resort”, the Con-Dems are contemplating even more restrictions on the right to strike.

They are looking at raising the threshold in a strike ballot so that a strike would only be lawful if more than 50 per cent of those entitled to vote backed a strike — though most of their parliamentary majorities are well below 50 per cent of those entitled to vote.

Meanwhile some union leaders seem lukewarm for the fight. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “As a result of discussions with the Chancellor and other ministers, the Government has agreed to central talks on the future of public service pensions.

“Ministers have now accepted that they will not force through changes in the March budget. We hope that the talks can make progress, but we cannot rule out industrial action taking place on this issue.”

The TUC general council meeting agreed that pensions were likely to form the focus of any calls for industrial action but some union leaders privately admit they need more time to negotiate with Government and to build solidarity across the unions.

In the short term many public sector unions are simply fighting job losses in local councils.

Barber said: “Unions will work very, very closely together in responding to all of those issues including, as a last resort, in some circumstances, potentially industrial action.

“As a result of discussions, the Government is now not intending to try and push through changes in public service pensions in the budget in March... they have proposed discussions that will take place over the next few months.”

Barber said workers were facing a “volatile cocktail” of job cuts and attacks on pay and pensions which could spark widespread industrial action. “No one is talking about a general strike, but of course these attacks could well give rise to industrial action around specific disputes.”

Clearly union activists need to be putting as much pressure as possible on their leaders to stand firm and ensure that 26th March is just the first battle of a long hard campaign, not an overture to compromise and retreat.

First NHS hospital privatised

The New Worker, 3 December 2010

HINCHINGBROOKE Hospital in Cambridgeshire last week became the first NHS hospital to be handed over in its entirety to be run by a private company.

The East of England Strategic Health Authority voted for Circle, an employee-owned company, to become the preferred partner to run the hospital.

Hinchingbrooke has regularly been described as a “failing” hospital, and has a £40 million deficit.

Private companies have previously been involved in running various services within NHS hospitals, including social care; this is the first time an NHS district hospital. But it is likely to be the first of many.

The Labour government approved the bid process last year – indicating it would prefer another NHS organisation to take over.

But now private takeovers could become the norm. Former Goldman Sachs banker Ali Parsa, Circle’s managing partner, said the company’s co-operative model offered a “Big Society” solution for Hinchingbrooke.

Circle already employs 1,000 seconded NHS staff and treats more than 130,000 patients a year at day-surgery hospitals in Nottingham and Burton, and runs other surgical clinics in Britain and one private hospital in Bath.

Public-sector union Unison head of health Karen Jennings said: “It is completely unnecessary for a private contractor to take over. The hospital has made enormous progress and turned itself around,” she said.

Jennings warned that the decision was “a strong signal of the expanding privatisation of our NHS” as other hospitals in similar financial situation could now be targeted for takeover.

“Profits will now be put before patients at Hinchingbrooke Hospital. Merchant banks will reap the rewards while local people will suffer the consequences.”

And she accused the authorities of pricing out NHS providers by running an expensive and complex bidding process.

“Hinchingbrooke hospital could have continued to turn itself around. Sadly increasing privatisation in the NHS is the only show in town for the Tories,” she said.

The British Medical Association also expressed its opposition. BMA chair Dr Hamish Meldrum said there was “no good evidence” that private companies could deliver health services any more effectively than the NHS.

“Previous initiatives with the private sector, such as independent-sector treatment centres and the private finance initiative have often proved to be quite expensive for the NHS. This is an untested and potentially worrying experiment,” he said.

Geoff Martin of the campaigning group Health Emergency warned that the Hinchingbrooke Hospital takeover was a “massive step towards a fully privatised US-style system” run solely for private profit. He said that the debt would remain with the NHS, even though it was the excuse for handing over operations to Circle.

“It’s a one-way ticket to the bank for the private sector where their profits are ring-fenced.

“By underpinning the cost of the debt, we as taxpayers are subsidising the break-up by stealth of the NHS that people rely on and believe in.”

Former NHS boss Mark Britnell recently told Health Investor magazine that “more than 20 organisations could follow Hinchingbrooke’s lead in the next 12 months.”

The franchise will need to be ratified by the Treasury and the Department of Health and this is due to happen in February.

Colchester against the cuts

by New Worker correspondent

The New Worker, 26 November 2010

TRADE unionists, students and members of disability organisations last week took part in a meeting at Friends House in Colchester to discuss the effects of the proposed Government public spending cuts and how to fight them.

The trade unions involved included the civil service union PCS, general unions Unite and Unison, the Communication Workers’ Union and the National Union of Students.

The meeting moved a vote of solidarity with three local students who were arrested for demonstrating outside the Conservative headquarters in Milbank London.

Three Hundred students from Essex University went to the demo.

The regional secretary of CWU spoke of the fight against privatisation within the postal services.

Call for affiliations

New Communist Party industrial organiser Michael Fletcher called for all organisations to affiliate to the Labour Representation Committee.

In the debate he said this was a crisis of capitalist over production and the cuts would reduce the purchasing power of the people.

He said also that the Blairites had gone from the leadership of the Labour Party and changed the situation; the movement should support the Labour Party as the mass basis of the working class, to extend its trade union influence in Parliament.

The platform of the meeting agreed with this statement.

A speaker from Colchester health branch of Unison described the cuts at Colchester General Hospital as increasing stress, with fewer workers taking on more workloads, and the first have been announced among the nursing staff.

The meeting was very successful and inspiring, and the venue was packed out, with people standing outside in the corridor.

Also a delegate from the Police Federation was there supporting the campaign.