Campsie Scottish Socialist Party Branch meeting this Saturday 14 January at 11am in Kirkie Puffer. Discussing issues such as this:

  NO RETREAT ON CUTS FIGHT 

 By Richie Venton, SSP national workplace organiser

 11 January 2012

The experiences of 2011 and prospects in 2012 for working class people can be captured in one phrase: grim - and grimmer!
Food bills, domestic fuel, transport costs and daily essentials rocket as wages are frozen.

The sick, disabled and unemployed are hounded and demonised by the Westminster millionaires' Cabinet, with threats of withdrawal of their measly benefits unless they find jobs that don't exist.

One in three Scottish children officially lives in poverty, with an appalling 52 per cent of kids in north Glasgow.

Meantime the richest 10 per cent of the population are on average £100,000 better off than they were in 2005.

Workers living in fear for their jobs are bullied by bosses into working massive amounts of unpaid overtime – the equivalent of working for absolutely nothing up until 24 February this year – and enough hours to create 2 million new jobs, whilst a million young people rot on the dole!

Workers whose faces don't fit are to be stripped of the paltry rights at work they currently 'enjoy', as the Twin Tories rail against health & safety 'red tape' and plan to charge workers £1,000 just to go through an Employment Tribunal against unfair dismissal.

Things can only get worse!

All this mayhem and exploitation even before the Coalition's fangs sink into jobs, incomes and services, as they have only just begun to do.

Last year 24,000 Scottish public sector jobs were lost; forecasts abound of up to 100,000 more to go in the next year or so. No wonder the SSP's warnings of 'another lost generation' - first coined three years ago - has now become the currency of many commentators and Labour politicians on the make, trying to appear anti-Tory after 13 years of acting as the New Tories in government.
But as the multiple assaults impact, workers and communities have increasingly joined the resistance, challenging the axe-wielders with quiet fury, protests, and strikes. The most spectacular display of working class resistance in several decades was the November 30 strike by over 2 million public sector workers.

At least 300,000 Scottish trade unionists came out in a fight to defend their pension rights. But that issue also acted as the vehicle for struggle against all other aspects of the unprecedented cuts to jobs, conditions and public services.

Crossroads

That battle is now at a critical crossroads, and the outcome will heavily influence workers' conditions for years to come.
As the SSP warned in advance, the Tory/LibDem razor gang have used every dirty trick to try and derail a movement that, behind the smug arrogance, terrifies them.

On the eve of the historic N30 strike, Cameron & Co offered fake concessions, and tried to isolate strikers from the rest of society by issuing blood-curdling exaggerations of the economic ruin it would cause. That, and their hard-faced announcement of even deeper cuts in Osborne's autumn statement in parliament literally the day before, only hardened the resolve of workers and strengthened the strike.

Cameron then tried to demoralise workers by dismissing it as "a damp squib", but in the face of the derision and anger this provoked, had to then admit it was "a big strike".
By taking united, militant action, the unions attracted 100,000 new members in the period of the St Andrews Day showdown; confirmation that decisive action is the way to build the unions as powerful weapons of resistance to the millionaires' butchery.
Having failed to cow public sector workers, the government resorted to an age-old strategy; they sought to use the most right-wing, spineless 'leaders' of the TUC and individual unions to undermine the momentum and unity of workers taking action.

Right-wing treachery

Ten days after the biggest show of workers' power in generations, the TUC's Brendan Barber, GMB leaders and fake-radical UNISON leader Dave Prentis argued for acceptance of the government's allegedly 'new and final offer'.

In fact, as PCS union general secretary Mark Serwotka rightly said in point blank refusing to accept this deal, there is nothing new about it. It is a minutely-adjusted version of what was on offer prior to N30.
Coalition Minister Danny Alexander subsequently boasted to the parliament on 20 December that their 'new' offer did not involve a single penny less in 'savings' than their pre-N30 proposals. It is merely a rearrangement of the misery, peppered with crude attempts to divide and conquer the millions of workers who had displayed such magnificent determination to fight the cuts.

Workers over 50 have been granted minor concessions, but will still lose 20 per cent of their pension through the switch from Retail Price Index (RPI) to Consumer Price Index (CPI) as a measure of inflation.

Retirement age is to be tied to the state pension age – 67 or 68.
NHS workers earning under £26,000 are to be granted a year's delay in the implementation of the misery, but that will be funded by deeper attacks on NHS staff earning more. Likewise with local government workers - but only so the assault commences in 2014. A year's respite for a lifetime of cuts to their deferred wages!

Triple whammy remains

The three-headed monster attack on pensions - payment of more in workers' contributions, for longer, for lesser pensions - remains at the heart of this latest offer. It still seeks to double-tax public sector workers - not to improve the state of pension schemes (many of which are in the black, all of which are set to cost less over the next decade), but to fill some of the hole in government funds caused by the bankers' bailout and the recession that has been exacerbated by the ConDem cuts.

To their eternal shame, some UNISON leaders, keen to get back to their quiet lives, undisturbed by outbursts of action by hard-pressed members, blurted out the cynical opinion "this was always going to be a damage limitation exercise"! Not exactly the views of the pickets on N30!
The spineless posture of more right-wing union leaders gave the government the opening to issue a monumental lie through the media at the height of the holiday period; that a deal had been reached. This, alongside repeated assertions that the pension plans were going ahead regardless from April 2012, was designed to browbeat workers into surrendering. And for good measure, the union that has spearheaded the battle in the wider movement - the PCS - was excluded from the so-called negotiations: an attempt to isolate and demonise them, and a back-handed compliment from the arch enemies of workers to this socialist-led union's success in inspiring others to join the fray.

Socialist alternative critical in unions

The obscene readiness of union leaders like UNISON's Prentis and GMB to cave in after the momentous scale of action by millions underlines the dangerous pitfalls of accepting the idea of ANY cuts.

Echoing Labour (and SNP!) talk of the cuts being "too deep and too soon", these union leaders lack a vision of measures that make ALL cuts entirely unnecessary, and so they are outrageously willing to capitulate in the face of a government that puts on a hard face. It is no accident that PCS especially have been firm in opposition to this deal; they have rejected the case for any cuts, calling for taxation measures and investment in jobs instead. The political viewpoint of unions becomes critical in determining what kind of fight they put up.

But when the Tory and LibDem boot boys looked to the TUC right wing for salvation, they reckoned without the furious resistance of union activists and members, who have lobbied their leaderships with demands to not sell out their pension rights even before the battle properly engages. A whole succession of union leaderships has since rejected the deal: PCS from day one; the teachers' unions NUT and NASUWT; POA: university and college lecturers' UCU; UNITE sectoral committees in both the NHS and local government.

But the united front against the cuts has been seriously breached by the decision of UNISON to accept the ‘Heads of Agreement’ – the framework for talks - thereby suspending further industrial action for at least the short-term. The national leadership’s surrender pre-Xmas did enough to confuse and undermine the confidence of branch delegates to their sectoral committees. But UNISON members should still bombard their leaderships with demands that unless the attacks on pensions are withdrawn during the negotiations, rather than delayed by a year, the fight is back on, alongside other unions who have rejected this shoddy package.

Now is the time to fight, not flee

In a remarkable confirmation that now is the time to escalate the fight against an enfeebled government, the doctors' BMA has announced plans to consult 130,000 members in what could be their first industrial action in 40 years.

As the Voice goes to press, the TUC Public Sector Liaison Group meets. Union members who have fought to save the deferred wages of millions from grand theft by the millionaires' government are demanding that they name the day without delay for further, united strike action.

Despite UNISON leadership’s weakening of the united front, the other public sector unions should forge ahead with further united strike action – as PCS, NUT, UCU and UNITE appear to be committed to.

Such a day of action could also involve sections of private sector workers, who a increasingly up in arms at cuts to their own pension schemes, wages and jobs. For instance, the UNITE members in the construction industry, battling and balloting for strike action against mind-boggling 35 per cent cuts in their wages; and Unilever workers taking their first ever national strike action against abolition of their final salary pension scheme by the giant multi-national with a previous reputation for paternalism, high quality tied houses for their workers, model villages, etc.

In rejecting the government's not-so-new deal, the UCU called for another one-day strike before university half term holidays in mid-February. Time is of the essence. Another mass strike could include lobbies of council buildings, as councillors throughout the land set budgets, with demands that instead of wielding the knife on behalf of their paymasters in Westminster and Holyrood, they should set 'No Cuts' Defiance budgets, and help build mass movements that demand back the stolen £millions from central government, to save every job, wage and service. 

Councillors once again face the stark choice: defy or destroy! Faced with mass strikes, even a single council taking this principled route would add another layer of rebellion, another front facing the troubled Westminster cuts Coalition. 

And closer to home, an immediate mass strike of all public sector (and sections of private sector) workers would pound the SNP government with the demand that they stand up for Scotland, for services, for social justice - instead of Swinney and Salmond aping the Tories with their pay cuts, service cuts and job losses. The SNP rightly tell Cameron and Osborne to stop interfering with Scottish democracy on the issue of an independence Referendum; they need to be hammered into something of the same resistance to Westminster 'interference' in Scottish jobs, public services and pay packets...or be exposed as the Tartan butchers that they are.

The unions, with their millions of members - workers who are indispensable in providing critical daily services - are pivotal to the battle against cuts. The union leaders have a duty to lead, not surrender at the first threat of retaliation by the Tory bullies. If they capitulate on pensions, that would be a serious blow to the wider anti-cuts struggle. A serious battle to save pensions will require further, united, national strikes and demonstrations, which would embolden workers, communities and students not even in a union to join the resistance to all aspects of cuts. And at the heart of all this lies the issue of boldly advocating an alternative that explodes the myths that cuts a necessary or unavoidable. The Scottish Socialist Party has consistently broadcast the CSS for taxation of the rich and big business, and democratic public ownership, as the core of a socialist alternative. At critical moments, like right now, the socialist case against all cuts is the difference between confusion, division, and acceptance of very slightly lesser cuts - or unity, confidence and a sustained struggle that can defeat the Eton boot boys and their spineless local servants. 

Guest blogger: Left Banker: Will The Euro Fall Apart?

Raphie de Santos
 
As it currently exists the Euro as the single European currency is highly unstable. Ultimately it can only succeed if backed by a single European state power and the unification of existing national currency reserves. The latter is not the case but the former is only partially true. A single European state can only be created through a real consolidation of European capital. This is clearly not the case in any of the major European industries such as car production, engineering, and banking. The European capitalists have not surrendered the idea of “national sovereignty” of any of their major industries. So for instance there are German, French and Italian car industries. National states are then used to defend the interests of their own national industries, even though they may be multinational or transnational companies their profits are returned to the capitalists of one national state.
 The purpose of the European Union was and remains to create pan European monopolies to compete with the US and Japan. This has clearly not happened and we have in Europe a diverse set of economies based on the national capital but with a single European currency based on the idea of the complete integration and consolidation of all the economies.
 The European currency is therefore based on this contradiction and should be inherently unstable. These were the fears when the currency was launched but at the time they proved to be unfounded. The low interest rates set by the European Central Bank at the onset of the currency allowed the countries in the Euro to enjoy a boom based on easy credit and a housing bubble. This papered over the contradictions between the national capitals and the wide range of national economies including Germany, Ireland, Spain, and Greece. The latter three countries benefitted from much lower interest rates than the individually weak economies could sustain on their own.
 However, the onset of the credit crunch in 2007 leading to the deepest recession since the 1930s saw these contradictions come sharply to the surface. We are very probably in for a long period of stagnating and slowly declining economies, a second depression of modern capitalism. If so these contradictions will remain with the very probable consequence being the destruction of the Euro in its present form and the return of national currencies throughout Europe. 

What are the current contradictions that are likely to pull the Euro apart?

The Pull of the Weak Economies

The weaker economies of Spain, Greece, Portugal and Ireland are pulling the Euro in one direction. They initially benefitted from lower interest rates when they joined the Euro. This was an effective devaluation for their economies and allowed them to participate in a boom. In Spain and Ireland in particular this was a property boom. But the credit crunch and the following quasi depression has seen this boom lead to bust and large deficits appear. In the case of Greece the real deficit was concealed by the use of complex derivatives that moved it off Greece’s visible balance sheet.
 The Euro is a neoliberal project and restraining deficits to 3% a year for each member country should increase the rate of profit through higher levels of exploitation. The reduction of the ballooning deficits across Europe and in particular in the weaker economies is designed to put this process back on track under the guise of “prudent fiscal management”. 
 But the fight of the European Central Bank (ECB) against inflation and its desire to impose austerity means that these weak economies have a stronger currency that partially reflects the German and French economies. There are social, cultural and political reasons why they will not be able to impose fully the austerity measures that the ECB wants. If they had their own currencies they could have let them devalue and increase the competitiveness of their economies that way. Their inability to implement the austerity measures demanded of them will put pressure on them to leave the Euro so that this currency devaluation can take place. The pressure to do this will increase if as likely the Euro strengthens against the US dollar on the back of a slowing US economy.
 
The Pull of the Strong Economies

On the other side of the tug of war over the Euro are the stronger Euro economies of Germany, France, and The Netherlands. Their economies are subsidising the debts of the weaker European economies. This is putting further strain on their own fiscal situations and leading to additional austerity for the stronger economies. There will not only be pressure on these economies from bearing the debt and deficits of the weaker Euro countries but from the electoral disquiet at paying the debts of all the Eurozone countries.
 The debts are likely to be much larger than the ECB and the financial markets are estimating. This will happen on two fronts. Firstly the inability of weaker governments to deal with the huge levels of public debt and secondly the inability of the banking system to deal with further financial stress. 
 Take for example Greece, even if it was able to meet all the three year austerity requirements of the ECB and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) it would be still left with a debt at the end of three years of about 150% of GDP. Of course this austerity programme will create a deep recession – estimates for the shrinkage in GDP this year are around 4%. This will mean that Greece will not have the tax revenues to pay any of this debt or refinance the debt on the international financial markets. Debts of this level can only be sustained by subsidies from the stronger northern Euro economies. While the bailout plan will probably see the weak countries through 2010 the next major hurdle will be the refinancing of the weak Euro countries’ debt in mid 2011. At some point in the next few years Greece and the other weak Euro economies will have to reschedule their debt. This will effectively write down the value of their existing debt by around 40% creating huge losses for banks across Europe. The current stress tests on European banks are refusing to acknowledge the scale of these losses and they are being estimated at a much lower level.
 Only seven European banks failed the tests which were supposed to estimate how much money European banks could lose if a similar scenario to the financial and economic crisis caused by Lehman’s bankruptcy was repeated. The test came up with a total capital requirement of 3.5 billion Euros! This shows how divorced from reality these tests were given that the European governments including the British had to fork out hundreds of billions of Euros and Pounds to shore up their banks.
As well as underestimating the losses that European banks would incur from the rescheduling of debt by weak Euro countries there were a number of other short-comings with the tests. The first was that those tests only looked at the front trading books rather than the back loan books where most of the losses were made in 2008-9, mainly on declining commercial and private property prices. Finally, the tests included the banks’ current tier one capital hybrid securities which are government guarantees. Tier one capital is supposed to represent liquid capital which can be quickly turned into cash to cover immediate losses. The tests then overestimated the amount of liquid capital that the banks have at their disposal to cover losses from any new stress to the financial system. 

In conclusion, if as we believe that Europe will enter a double dip recession followed by stagnant growth – in effect a quasi depression – then the dual pulls on the Euro will increase. It is unlikely that in this situation that Euro can survive in its current form. The contradiction of a single currency covering competing national capitalisms which have varying degrees of developments will finally be no longer sustainable. 

EIS conference backs fight against cuts

In light of what happened in East Dunbartonshire over the last fortnight (the shortest and most effective campaign in the history of the Campsies?) it is fantastic to come to the conference of Scotland’s overwhelmingly largest teaching union – the EIS – and find that teachers are ready to stand up for our communities and services beyond the classroom door.

If there was a theme to day two of the conference, it was the opposition of teachers to the cuts, and like the small political parties, highlighting the fact that there IS an alternative to them other than the solution given by the large, mainstream parties. Motion 51 was passed unhindered. It calls for a ballot to strike to fight the budget cuts next March. If the membership vote for this, this will give a clear message to the mainstream parties and millionaire run press that even the professional middle classes are not “getting” the need for these cuts.

David Cameron and the Tories have been very clever in how they are playing public sector worker off public sector worker. They have re-framed their message from “cuts are inevitable” to “who do you want to suffer rather than you?” Trying to play off profession against profession, worker off worker – building on the disgusting Thatcherisation of society begun back in 1979. Thank Marx that the Scottish people do not buy this selfish and self defeating message. The last time we had a debt as huge as this (one not created by millionaires, but by World War Two and the fight against fascism) the government took the only line that could ensure no-one starved and everyone benefitted – they set up the welfare state, and indeed our wonderful NHS, the envy of the world. Unfortunately all of the mainstream parties are wanting to get rid of what was the countries saviour in those debt ridden and austere times in order to save the rich from paying for their crisis.

Speeches from the EIS podium called for redistribution of the billionaires and bankers wealth. People called for the scrapping of trident, and one speaker even called for the disbanding of the army, asking the question, “what has the military ever given us only the death of our soldiers?” Others spoke about the waste of people and resources in the Afghanistan theatre of war and others said “keep the dustmen and sack the spin doctors – who would you miss first?”

Amongst other superb debates, one that stood out, and will be revisited I am very sure, was one on banning the BNP, SDL or EDL from educating our children. Even though this motion was defeated (only just- and because some people were unsure banning was the most effective way to fight the fascists), what emerged from conference was an overwhelming distaste for the fact that fascists are allowed near our children. Those who led and spoke on the anti-fascist side on this issue were brilliant, emotive (one delegate spoke about the recent anti-Semite threats her daughter had received) and persuasive.

All in all, the conference has shown our teachers to be progressive and are definitely on the side of the working classes – and PTA’s – in this fight against the unrepresentative ConDemNation.

To see bigger version of SSP EIS Voice, please click on the images below.