|
|
Post by dodger on Mar 16, 2014 16:07:30 GMT
Bob Crow – patriot, socialist, internationalist.
Posted on Tuesday, March 11, 2014
GFTU President John Fray mourns the passing on March 10th 2014 of Bob Crow, General Secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union: “Bob Crow will be missed by all who knew him and by those who put their trust in him and who he never failed to help or defend. The GFTU sends its deepest condolences to Bob’s family and friends and his great union the RMT.”
Speaking of the passing of a friend, GFTU General Secretary Doug Nicholls said: “The international workers’ movement has lost one of its great leaders. He was a patriot, a socialist and an internationalist. Not only was he a strong organiser and negotiator and tactician, he was clearer than many that workers’ and socialist aspirations in Britain and Europe were impossible to achieve within the European Union neoliberal straightjacket.
When we had trade unionists visit us from overseas, whether it was from China, Vietnam, the USA or elsewhere, they always wanted to learn about the RMT and hear Bob speak if they could. His reputation as a courageous advocate of workers spanned the globe, as did the appreciation of his humour, humility and collective approach. Of course he cultivated and was given a lively media image, even getting in the Sunday Times Style section this weekend because of his trendy duffel coat, but his media presence supported the cause of his class which he embodied with massive intelligence and commitment. He was unrelenting and inspirational in his advocacy of a social system designed for and by the people.”
|
|
|
|
Post by dodger on Apr 3, 2014 0:31:45 GMT
www.workers.org.uk/features/feat_0414/wages.htmlIronically, the government has done unions a good turn through its directives on public sector pay...
We can win on wages
WORKERS, APR 2014 ISSUE By imposing a below inflation rise of 1 per cent for some health workers while denying anything to 60 per cent of non-clinical staff and 70 per cent of nursing and midwifery staff, health secretary Jeremy Hunt has sent a clear message out to NHS staff. And what has allowed the employers to present an offer that further depresses real pay is the linking of local government wages to the national minimum wage (in the union’s case the so-called Living Wage). Workers on the march in London, October 2012.
Photo: Workers At last public sector workers are coming to accept that since this government came to power in 2010 it has never wavered in its strategy of driving down public sector wages, establishing pay freezes as the norm, and contempt for workers who provide Britain’s core essential services – health, education, and the local services essential to society. Hunt spelt it out further as he destroyed the Health Pay Review Board’s 1 per cent offer by indicating pay freezes and wage cuts to continue way past 2016.
The unions have been hiding behind the Boards since the 1980s, with a strategy of asking an “independent” body to determine wages (independent of whom when the Treasury controls the purse strings?), instead of relying on members’ strength. Their strategy has now been well and truly wrecked. Dismantling of national agreements is likely to be a Tory pledge if re-elected in 2015.
The employers are on their knees to the government, and strategically the unions are fundamentally wrong and stupid to rely on the begging bowl of the Living Wage, pleading for more like Oliver Twist.
The universities, meanwhile, continue to accrue vast reserves of cash, with stunning increases for senior managers but with a pig-headed refusal to shift from the 1 per cent in the 2013 pay round and a similar offer for 2014-15.
For workers, facing reality means stopping the heated diversionary debates about whether we should be in the Boards, whether we should pursue local or national bargaining, and whether defending national bargaining to the death engages with our members. There has been a time and place for all those debates. That time has gone.
We have a ruling class government intent on destroying our ability to organise and to promote the interests of our class. And Labour is not saying much different.
This is not business as usual. This is the most dangerous period in the history of the organised working class in Britain. We need to renew the unions’ ability to function, re-discover our skills for beating employers and re-engage with our members about how to fight, not because we want to but because we have no choice.
In response to the 1 per cent offer in health, the unions are now identifying and addressing the many forms of government divide-and-rule where differing groups of workers are played off against each other over what offer they get or what rates apply in competing NHS trusts.
But also we need to defend the National Health Service. That NHS is now being seen as Britain-wide, not divided up into the so-called four countries with England, Wales and Scotland being played off against one another and Northern Ireland tagged on as the oldest British colony.
Resurgent
The key will be to centralise the unions’ role on pay, making it not only a Britain-wide fight but also a priority. This fight must be protracted and imaginative in its tactics, not just using industrial action but rebuilding a workplace consciousness, so that our army of labour can be resurgent, unified and competent in taking on the employers .
The government and the employers have thrown down the gauntlet. They think we are too weak to resist. They believe that siren voices in the labour movement will quiver at the knee and wail about not fighting in the run-up to a general election. They believe the traditional social democratic voices who argue that 1 per cent is better than zero will still be able to carry influence with our members.
We must cast away such illusions. We are not for engaging in a “one size fits all solution”; we can put the “general strike brigade” to one side. But we can engage in resurrecting workplace consciousness and anger. We can get organised. We can show unity. We can show the tactical discipline to pick our fights, on our terms, on a protracted basis. We can beat the government over wages and beat them we must. ■
|
|
|
|
Post by dodger on Apr 3, 2014 0:38:08 GMT
www.workers.org.uk/news/news_0414/ambulance.htmlAmbulance dispute looms
WORKERS, APR 2014 ISSUE Ambulance workers’ unions are dusting off their plans for a ballot on industrial action in England after negotiations over sick pay have reached an impasse. Thanks to devolution, never mind separatism, there is no longer any such thing as a British ambulance service, at least as far as the employers are concerned, and unfortunately unions too.
The problem has its origin in recently negotiated changes to NHS pay and conditions that neglected to take into account ambulance workers. These changes gave unscrupulous ambulance employers an opportunity to deduct up to 25 per cent (which they get for working unsocial hours) out of any ambulance workers’ sick pay.
More significant than the technical (and complicated) detail was the fact that employers saw a weakness and sought to exploit it. They simply deducted pay from workers’ pay packets without a negotiated settlement – indeed, without any negotiations at all. But workers are far stronger than they think they are. Especially when they’re organised in unions.
The weakness that the employers perhaps spotted was that ambulance workers have allowed themselves to be divided between three unions, and indeed have an unenviable reputation for hopping from one to another when they don’t like what they see, especially when one of them demands taking some responsibility or involvement. Even Unison, with by far the largest membership in the area, has great unevenness across its 20,000+ members. Some having the best leadership in the British trade union movement, and some the worst. This too the employers were trying to exploit.
But Unison moved swiftly, and in the absence of a formal agreement, or even any proposed negotiations, agreed to ballot for industrial action at the end of 2013. The other unions, seeing no immediate poaching advantage, meekly followed suit. Within a day of the receiving the ballot notice the employers conceded negotiations, and Unison agreed to lift its strike ballot.
The negotiations have been difficult, and are not over yet, although pay deducted has indeed been reinstated. But a signal lesson has been learned: with clarity, determination and courage much can be achieved – all without the loss of any pay through industrial action, in effect without workers having to do much more than flex their little finger. Workers are not weak, as we are so often told. Our weakness is in the mind, and this dispute reveals that old truth.
More than once during the course of negotiations a deal looked possible, one which would have vindicated Unison’s position. Now it turns out that the employers are in even more disarray than are the unions, who are currently unified under Unison’s leadership, and no agreement has yet been sealed
|
|
|
|
Post by dodger on Apr 3, 2014 1:05:35 GMT
imarxman.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/teachers-a-class-lesson/Teachers – A Class Lesson
Posted on March 27, 2014 by imarxman 26th March saw the latest one day strike by teachers. In Sheffield there was a sizable gathering at Devonshire Green, a short march, then an assembly in front of City Hall. Speakers addressed the converted via a PA system that broadcast their message little further than the fringes of Barkers Pool.
The demonstration was distinctly smaller than the previous Day of Action last October, but by now only one teachers’ union, the NUT, is pursuing strike action as a policy. Previous involvement of ATL and then the NAS/UWT has fallen away.
This must be heartening for the state, knowing it has only to hold steady as teachers become divided and the impact of any action wanes. It was noticeable that after the event the strike and demonstrations were not lead news items.
A problem for teachers in general, and the NUT in particular, is the lack of clarity over what the reasons for their actions. The present Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, has become the focus of teachers’ anger. While this may be understandable, it completely misses the point.
The state acts on behalf of the interests of capitalism which, in the era of global finance capitalism, demands all sectors of the economy be opened up for private profit. The individuals in the state apparatus act according to this ideology.
If the teachers’ demand that Gove be removed actually was conceded, he would be replaced by another Secretary of State driven by the same agenda. The same remains true should Gove’s party be replaced in government by another. He has largely moved on policies begun under the previous Labour administration.
2014 is being marked in South Yorkshire as the thirtieth anniversary of the Miners’ strike. Its heroic nature is being lauded rather than understanding it was a serious defeat and setback for the British working class that has not yet been recovered from.
The state feels it can act with impunity because it views the unions as largely emasculated by its legislation seriously restricting action that can be pursued. Another lesson of the miners’ strike is when one section becomes detached, the Union of Democratic Miners, the whole becomes seriously, even fatally, weakened.
This is a factor the NUT will have to consider when planning future action. The NAS/UWT should also be aware that the compliance of the UDM with the state did not spare their industry. Class divisions are always in the interests of the state, of capitalism.
As always at such events, the Sheffield demonstration attracted the paper sellers of the Far Left. While most teachers did not buy papers their influence was to be heard in calls for further action, more protracted and militant action.
If the campaign is to continue and be effective then clarity is required. What would its purpose be? Which action best serves its purpose and is sustainable? The law of diminishing returns threatens to undermine the remaining motivation of teachers, many of them young and involved in union action for the first time.
If the state simply holds firm and the teachers’ action just dwindles away, then the whole concept of trade unionism will be seriously undermined, and not just in teaching.
Militancy and effectiveness are not the same things. Direct confrontation may feel like a show of strength, but slogans chanted demonstrations effectively ignored by their target become empty rhetoric.
Worse, they become a demonstration of the opponent’s strength, sending the wider message to other trade unionists that they are, for all intents and purposes, powerless to effect change.
The NUT conference in April is going to have to confront these issues and develop strategy which utilises the membership’s strengths and plays upon the government’s weaknesses.
This must develop the whole of the membership’s active involvement, otherwise support will dissipate as more and more become disillusioned. Siren songs demanding radical seeming but futile actions have to be seen for what they are, lures to destruction.
Guerrilla campaigning may seem less militant, but is sustainable and can be maintained on a continuous basis. One off “Days of Action” every six months or so merely saves money on the wages bill. Calls for all out strikes, of which there will no doubt be some, would split teachers even more at the moment.
The class lesson is that workers are at their strongest united behind a coherent plan of action in which they invest their common interest. It is not about what is the most radical, but what is most likely to work.
And a clear view of the enemy helps: it is not Michael Gove, but capitalism intending to boost its profits by further exploiting teachers. Not only teachers though.
The increasing privatisation of education means profits being made through state payments for provision to private enterprises. Those payments come from general taxation; so workers of all types are being exploited by capitalism through the educational system.
The only way to confront this reality remains the same now as when capitalism was in its infancy, workers united in strong and effective trade unions. Those unions rediscovering solidarity and mutual support, for the victory of one is a victory for all.
|
|
