Communists @ Trades’ Council Conference

The outcome of the recent general election represents a real challenge to working people. 13 years of New Labour privatisation and war will now be replaced by the one thing that we can categorically say is worse – a Conservative government. Because that is the reality of the situation; LibDems or no LibDems, this government will be Tory through and through. It is working people who will bear the brunt of this government’s policies– as workers but also as service users, in their own communities. The only thing to stand between this government and its destructive agenda is the trades union movement and the wider working class. Over the coming months and years, we will need to build the strength and unity of the movement to withstand the attacks that we will face. The recent rulings on Unite and RMT disputes at BA and Network Rail show the lengths to which employers will go to prevent unions from taking action to defend their members interests. Work must begin now to build the kind of movement which can not only respond to the ruling class offensive but which can put forward an alternative set of policies in the interests of working people. Continued Overleaf

Big business and the City have got the government they wanted in a hung parliament. A Blue-Yellow Tory coalition will now lead the offensive against public services, jobs and employment and trade union rights. The £6 billion cut in government current expenditure this coming financial year is not even the beginning. (What happened to the LibDems' pre-election warning that such a cut would risk a double-dip recession?). New Labour's Budget in March had already proposed a £10 billion reduction in capital expenditure. Of course, these sums are small beer compared with the £1,350 billion spent or pledged in bailing out the banks and money markets during the Great Finance Crash. But they will cost many thousands of jobs & worsen the lives of the most vulnerable people in society. The first Blue-Yellow Tory budget in a few weeks time may stick the knife in even deeper. Certainly, a rise in VAT is on the cards - a regressive tax not based on ability to pay. And we know that civil service chiefs have been drawing up plans to cut budgets by between 11 and 30 per cent - as much as £102 billion. This leaves the whole trade union movement facing an enormous challenge in the period to come.

We have to explain to service users and communities that public spending cuts will unavoidably hit front-line services, as back-up posts and services deteriorate. Workers and unions in the private sector need to understand that slashing procurement expenditure will have an immediate impact on their jobs, wages and conditions. Back in July 2009, a TUC report revealed that 29 per cent - almost a third - of public expenditure goes directly to private sector enterprises in procurement and subsidies. That's a higher proportion of the public budget than the 26 per cent which goes on public sector pay (and which mostly ends up buying goods and services produced by the private sector). The objective basis therefore exists for uniting all trade unions in a huge coalition against public spending cuts. At local level, Trades Councils can play an important role in developing broad-based campaigns of trade unionists, service users and local community bodies to defend our public services. Labour Party organisations, MPs and councillors should also be challenged to oppose public sector cuts. But it will also assist campaigning if a positive alternative to Blue-Yellow neo-liberal policies are put forward. Continued Overleaf

Blackpool 15th & 16th May 2010

Now we need a peoples’ coalition against cutsNow we need a peoples’ coalition against cuts by Robert Griffithsby Robert Griffiths

by Gawain Little

People’s Coalition Against Cuts Cont. The People's Charter for Change, endorsed after a struggle at the Trades Union Congress last September, provides the basis for presenting this alternative to a mass audience. Now we need to turn the words into action, and link the fight against public sector cuts with campaigning for the People's Charter. At the same time, we should also recognise that our battles here in Britain are the same in essence as those being fought in other countries. As the financial crisis unfolds in Greece - and likely to spread to Portugal, Spain and possibly Italy - it should be noted that across Europe the neo-liberal, anti-trade union agenda is being spearheaded by the EU Commission, the European Central Bank and the European Court of Justice. Workers need and deserve international solidarity. But the institutions and basic treaties of the undemocratic European Union are no friends of public services or the trade union movement. Robert Griffiths is general secretary of the Communist Party.

With the agreement of the EU and the IMF abroad and the liberal New Democracy (ND) and nationalist L.A.O.S at home, the social democratic PASOK government has announced the barbaric measures which condemn the working class to poverty and unemployment and preserve the profits of monopoly capital. The KKE (Communist Party of Greece) strategy today is to respond to this offensive of the ruling class with an offensive of our own. To block these barbaric measures, to help the workers distinguish their position from PASOK, ND and their policies, to condemn the compromised leaderships of GSEE and ADEDY (the Greek Trade Union Confederations in the private and public sector respectively) who originally boycotted the strikes and then were unwillingly dragged into them due to pressure from their members - in short, to regenerate the movement and start the struggle for socialism. A key factor in this unfolding struggle is the birth of PAME - All Workers’ Militant Front - 10 years ago. PAME is a coalition of trade unions and activists, which participates in GSEE and ADEDY, but does not follow

their compromised line of class collaboration and clearly confronts capital and its political expressions – whether of the social democratic or neoliberal variety. PAME has a class-oriented framework of demands and organises its own militant demonstrations. During the last few months, 7 out of 10 strikers have joined PAME rallies. From our experience, the stronger the opposition to social democracy and its leadership in the trade union movement, the faster the trade unions will fulfil their goals. This Front of workers, small farmers, self employed, the youth, needs to become a huge social and political anti-imperialist antimonopoly coalition, with only one duty: to bring the working class in power, for an economy with socialised monopolies, central planning and workers’ control. Millions of Greek workers have clearly spoken: No sacrifices at the altar of capital. Now the Communist Party is calling for every workplace, every working family’s house, every neighbourhood, every school and university to become a centre of counterattack. Europe’s people, rise up! We have the power to sweep them away!

No sacrifices at the altar of capital by Isabella Margara (KKE in Britain)

The People’s Charter Cont. The People's Charter presents just such a set of alternative policies around which unions, campaigns and communities can unite. But we need to seize the initiative. Already, People's Charter campaign groups are being formed which bring together union branches, campaign groups and community organisations on a local basis to begin the fightback. Trades councils have a key role to play in this process. They provide a direct link between unions and the communities in which they are based. If we want to see a real change, we need to organise not only in the workplace but also out in the community. Whether it is a campaign to save a local school or hospital, or to build affordable housing, to defend a community centre or increase access to local facilities, trades unions must be on the front line. And every opportunity must be used to link theses struggles to the alternatives put forward in the Peoples' Charter. A united movement can not only defend and extend our current rights but can forge a new direction in politics. This truggle is too important to wait. The fightback begins here! Gawain Little is President of Oxford & District TUC

As we contemplate the election result one thing seems certain – post-election cuts will fall on the many, not on the few. The working majority will pay for an economic meltdown created by the privileged few. Deregulated during the Thatcher years and encouraged under New Labour, bankers and bosses speculated, asset-stripped and exploited until the whole rotten system stumbled and fell. Now, in an effort to rebuild a meaner, leaner international capitalist structure, politicians, media moguls, employers and the judicial system are united in their determination to ensure that the workers pay while the capitalists play. And play they are. Bosses bonuses and bankers bonanzas are back. £38 million to HSBC bosses; £1.3billion to investment bankers at RBS; 58% rise in profits to British Gas shareholders. This is war. Class war. And battle lines are being drawn throughout Europe. In Greece, France, Germany and Spain, thousands are taking to the streets under a common theme – we will not pay for your crisis. Back off and look

elsewhere for savings (war machine) and income (Fair taxes). Noting and fearing a similar response, British bosses are inceasingly turning to anti union laws to deny democratic decisions of workers. Recent injunctions against First London bus drives, BA cabin crews, EDF Power workers and Milford Haven harbour crews show how the full force of the law is being used to quell worker resistance and undermine union attempts to protect members’ jobs and conditions. If the law on ballots continues to prevent unions responding to their members then the law must go. That’s why we continue to support calls for a Trade Union Freedom Bill and why we support John McDonnell’s EDM 710 on simplifying the balloting procedure. But the law will not change until it’s challenged. And the time to challenge is now. Carolyn Jones is director of the Institute of Employment Rights

Workers’ ballot & bosses’ bonuses by Carolyn Jones

The continuing rise in unemployed within Britain, at 2.51 million in May, makes it increasingly likely that it will soon reach 3 million. However, as the YCL has continuously been arguing, the picture is likely to be much worse. The governments official figures are based on the number of people currently claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance, whereas due to the difficulties in claiming, the correlation between unemployment and precarious work, the true figure is likely to be much closer to the record number of economically inactive people of working age, currently at 8.2 million. If you also take into account 1,066,000 people who are working part-time because they could not find a full-time job. What we see is somewhere in the region of at least 12million people within Britain who are unable to find decent secure, well paid employment. What this shows is that to separate unemployment from temporary, part-time, casual and so-called flexible work is to misunderstand the situation facing an increasingly large proportion of the Working Class. The reality is that the `choice’ between precarious work or unemployment is what the vast majority of young people face. However it is also the lot of most women, migrants, and ethnic minorities of all ages. The ONS figures showed youth unemployment rising, with 941,000 16 to 24-year-olds out of work in the January to March period- a rise of 18,000 on the previous three months. However the latest ONS figures suggested that people in the 35 to 49 age bracket had been hardest hit. Over the last three months 85,000 in this age group have left the workforce, a drop of 0.8 per cent, a much bigger drop than the 0.3 per cent fall witnessed across all age groups. Joanne Stevenson is the YCL Industrial Organiser.

by Joanne Stevenson

"Freedom from Tyranny" is essential reading .In his well illustrated book, Phil Katz outlines the international events which led to WW2. Katz deals effectively with the thwarting of Soviet attempts to build an anti-fascist alliance to stop Hitler’s expansionist plans by the "traitor class" in Britain and France, whose sole aim was to appease the Nazis and destroy Socialism in Russia. He deals with the immense self sacrifice, struggle and solidarity of the British and Soviet people on the home front and in battle, as well as the suffering & resistance of People across occupied Europe. The book is particularly timely given current attempts to rewrite history by revisionists - which has culminated in the notorious Prague Declaration of 2008. This gross distortion by far-right politicians across Europe places the blame for the outbreak of war and only begrudgingly acknowledges that Fascism might have

played some role. Anti-Communism is on the rise and feeds on these lies. Phil's passion and research shines throughout and makes this book both extremely readable and enlightening. He does not shirk issues which anti Communists thrive on and he writes in detail on the German-Soviet pact of 1939, the Katyn Wood massacres, the Finnish-Soviet war and the Warsaw uprising of 1944. "Freedom from Tyranny" has been published to coincide with the 65th anniversary of V.E. day on May 8th. To preserve the memory of that remarkable generation from Coventry to Stalingrad who stood together against Hitler's murderous regime with millions giving their lives reading this book goes some way to show our gratitude. Freedom From Tyranny - The fight against fascism & the falsification. ISBN 978-1-907464-03-4 £5.95 (+£1.50 p&p) 114pp illustrated Published by Manifesto Press with the CP History Group.

Freedom from Tyranny by David Horsley

manifesto press www.manifestopress.org.uk Manifesto Press is a new publishing venture with a focus on politics and analysis, action and culture. It aims to make the link between working class power and liberation with an ambitious publishing programme.

Uniquely, it commissions work in cooperation with trade unions, progressive campaigns & pressure groups in order to reach new audiences with books that connect directly with their experience and interests.

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by Théodore H. MacDonald (£13.95 +£2 p&p, 265pp illustrated) US interventions in Latin America published for free distribution

with the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The Imperial controversy: Challenging the empire apologists

by Stop the War chair Andrew Murray (£12.95 + £2 p&p, 150pp) Killing no murder? South Wales and the Great Railway Strike

of 1911 by Robert Griffiths (£12.95 + £2 p&p 126pp illustrated) published in cooperation with the RMT Union.

Publications from the Communist Party & Young Communist League Communist Review, Quarterly theoretical and discussion journal £3. Challenge, bi-monthly magazine of the YCL £2. All pamphlets £2.50. *All prices include p&p. Cheques/PO payable to CPB. Communist Party Merchandise & Publications, Ruskin House, 23 Coombe Rd, London CR0 1BD. www.communist-party.org.uk www.ycl.org.uk