revolutionary SOCIALIST
Issue No. 10 October 2012 Price: Donation
Working Class Monthly Published by the Revolutionary Socialist Organization
OCTOBER 20th AND BEYOND
A chance to step up and
Fight Back! F
ive years in and the global crisis of capitalism shows no signs of ending. It began with the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market in 2007, continued through ‘the credit crunch’ and led to the collapse of Northern Rock bank. Now the crisis has entered the phase of a brutal assault on the livelihoods of workers, especially social services and wages.
The ministers of the coalition government; Cameron, Clegg, Osborne and the like are driving through the policy of big business. The Prime Minister even says in his speeches that the aim of austerity is to reduce the U.K’s deficit to a level where investing in the U.K becomes attractive to business. But this raises the question then, what exactly is attractive to business? Businesses exist for the sole purpose of making profit. What is attractive to them is conditions in which they are able to make the biggest profits possible. To make bigger profits they need to have their workforce be as productive as possible and to pay them as little in wages as possible. The current economic crisis is being used by the ruling class to pursue an offensive both in the public and private sector to force workers to work harder for less pay. An age of austerity Integral to this policy are the cuts. The cuts are cuts to the budgets of welfare services that the state provides for the population of Britain. Workers are “made cheaper” by systematically cutting their wages and thus lowering their standard of living. Nothing else is the purpose of these cuts. To drive down the standard of living of the working class even further the capitalists try to make the lives of unemployed people so unbearable that they will be forced to take any job, at whatever low rate of pay. Thus George Osborne announced at the conservative party conference that the government will make £10 billion
pounds worth of cuts to the welfare budget in addition to the £18 billion pounds already announced. This will hit people unable to find work hard. As food prices soar this winter due to the global food crisis and rises in energy bills yet again a cut in housing benefit and council tax benefit will push ever more people closer to destitutions door. Young people targeted Young people are going to be hit especially hard by these measures. Currently, over 1 million 16-24 years old in Britain are unemployed. The government now proposes an absolute cut to housing benefit for anyone under 25. Currently there are 380,000 under 25’s receiving housing benefit and if the cut goes through all of these will be forced to move back in with their parents. Or if their parents do not have the space for them or don’t want them back at home they’ll be cast out into the streets. The homeless charity crisis estimates that more than 10,000 young people became homeless last year after being kicked out of their home by their parents. If the cut to housing benefit becomes law the number of homeless young people will rise astronomically. The government is even forcing an ever increasing number of the unemployed into workfare schemes whereby they have to perform labour for no pay except their paltry job seekers allowance, £56.25 for under 25’s. Many people have been forced to stack shelves in supermarkets for 30 hours a week, £1.87 doesn’t even cover aver-
age travel expenses!. Wages down So as people unfortunate enough to be out of work are squeezed ever harder those still clinging to their jobs are being forced to work harder out of fear of being cast in to the ranks of the unemployed. Workers in the public sector endured a three year pay freeze which they recently found out will be extended to a further two year cap on pay rises to 1%, this, while inflation has been averaging between 3-4%. Over a five year period this wage freeze will amount to a substantial drop in the living standard of the average public sector worker as their wages stagnate whilst prices rise. A crisis of leadership Those who claim to represent the working class, the Labour Party and the union bureaucrats, have not even the slightest intention of acting in the interest of the workers. Thus far the bureaucrats such as Brendan Barber, Dave Prentiss and the incoming TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady have refused to ballot for strike action over the 750,000 job losses in the public sector. They have done everything in their power to prevent the linking up of the struggles in the public and private sectors. They have sold out the workers in the public sectors pension dispute and they have generally acted with the utmost treachery to the interests of the people they are supposed to be representing. The same is true of the Labour Party. At its latest conference it has once
again shown that it is not in the least bit willing to consider alternatives to the programme of cuts. Even if they get back into government, they would continue the policy of “deficit reduction”. Workers willing to fight In the actions that have taken place in the last 30 months, the workers have always shown a determination to fight. Last year on November the 30th hundreds of thousands of workers in the public sector went on strike and participated in demonstrations. It doesn’t take much fantasy to imagine what would happen if the workers of both the private and public sector went on strike for an indefinite time in defense of their livelihoods. The workers in Britain are angry and agitated about much more than just “pension schemes,” that should be made clear in action! On the 20th of October the TUC has called for a “March for a future that works” in London. Like at the previous mass demonstration on March 26
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2011 many people will take their anger about the state of affairs to the street. Unfortunately those organizing the march have quite a different idea of a “future that works”. Whose Future? Our Future! For them it means first and foremost a future where the workers sit pretty, wait quietly for the next general election and vote for Labour which will get to administer the cuts instead of the Tories whilst the unions secure the interests of the bosses. For us a future that works is a future for the workers, a future without capitalism. The cuts benefit the capitalists at the expense of the workers. If we want to defeat the cuts we have to defeat the capitalists. To achieve this we need a real fightback with real, fighting unions not controlled by the bureaucrats. We can’t waste our time waiting for somebody to take up this fight back for us. We have to start organizing it ourselves!
revolutionary SOCIALIST
Issue No. 10 / October 2012
Greek Police abuses Protestors
A
bu Ghraib-like scenes have happened in Greece. But unlike 2004 it was not the military but the police torturing arrestees. The Greek police has worked hand in hand with the fascist organisation “Golden Dawn”. This is only the latest episode of an on-going romance between state repression and the far right in Greece. On September 30th, 150 people-made up of some young people and many bikers- gathered to protest against an attack on a community centre. Soon after, members of the far-right group Golden-Dawn turned up to disperse the crowd and a fight broke out. The police broke up the fight and arrested some of the protestors for “disturbing the peace with covered faces,” covered faces meaning their motorcycle helmets. In custody, the arrested protestors were spat on, verbally and physically abused, used as ashtrays and burnt with lighters, kept awake for 19 hours without food or drink and prevented from contacting legal representatives. They went on to be threatened with having their addresses passed on
to Golden-Dawn. One man had his legs spread and was then kicked in the testicles, and another was refused medical attention, despite having an open head wound. The next day a solidarity demonstration took place for the victims. Again, protestors were arrested and tortured. 25 people were made to strip naked, bend over and open their buttocks. They were slapped and hit by the police officers, other police officers witnessing the scene did not intervene. Pictures of one victim of the abuse have appeared showing massive bruises and a broken arm. Support for the far-right in Greece is steadily growing. There have been more instances of the police showing support for Golden Dawn-such as
telling people victims of crimes committed by immigrants to speak to Golden Dawn as they deal with “problems with immigrants”. The rise of fascist groups, such as Golden Dawn, is inflated by the numerous xenophobic acts of the Greek government. 4500 police officers were organised for a mass-immigrant raid in August, and the homeland security minister Nikos Dendias stated that Greece’s problems with immigrants were greater than their financial troubles. While the EU is occupied saving its capital interests in Greece, it does not care about the rise in fascist violence. Greece has a long history of involvement with fascist groups within the police force. The first security corps in Greece after World War 2 were recruited from former Nazisupporters, this was administered by the British military fearing the rise of communism. Facing severe crisis, capitalism will always throw away its democratic mask and make use of fascist thugs. That is a lesson that was bitterly learned and should never be forgotten.
No Cash for Food
O
n the 9th of October the UK retailer ASDA announced record profits. The store chain has raised its operating profits by 9.2% to £463.3 million. Whilst the food industry is riding the perfect wave of soaring food prices, the situation for many people in Britain resembles something more like a bath in ice cold water. With food prices rising by a whole 26% from 2007 to 2011 – and no end in sight – a lot of us have felt a severe tide in our wallets.
But what is worse is that with the government’s cuts in benefits for the neediest (unemployed, young families and disabled people) the number of those having to rely on emergency food aid from food banks has doubled in the last year. Just from April to September this year 110,000 people have been referred to emergency food aid. Especially shocking is that, of those receiving help - contrary to general opinion – only a small proportion were senior citizens living off tight pensions. A whole 16% were in the age bracket
of 16 – 24. That coincides with a massive rise in youth unemployment. Worst hit is the NorthWest, where youth unemployment has increased by 53% since the Con-Dem coalition came to power in 2010. A large contribution to the increase in emergency food aid is the government’s complication of benefit procedures. In their phony crusade against “scroungers” and “un-worthy claimants” a situation has been created where people of do not receive benefit payments for months. This apparently is the reason for 40% - 45% of all the
emergency aid. The whole situation is a sad travesty. For the interests of big business people are driven out of jobs and into poverty. The British state is a tool of the capitalist class and actively assists in driving down their living standards. Whilst the bosses talk of a crisis they still take home huge profits, not least by ruthlessly speculating on our daily needs such as food! With the abundance of food available – British supermarkets throw away between 25% - 50% of their food stock simply because it cannot be sold in time – there is no need for food banks. The real banks and their gamble on people’s livelihoods create the need for food banks. The money they lost by speculating on our houses that they now want to get back from us by speculating on our food. So why shouldn’t we start to get rid of the banks and the capitalists? In a world without capitalism and production just for profit, nobody would have to go hungry.
Work report: Stock in a sh*t Job
I
work in the stock room of a busy clothes shop in town. In retail, like most other sectors of work, the majority of positions are poorly paid, highly flexible and easily disposable. It definitely does not provide you with the kind of security or fulfilment you would hope to gain in exchange for most of your day light hours. I think the two most frustrating aspects about my job, and I think this will be true for most workers at a similar level, are the lack of control I have over the work that I do and the value placed on that work. The feeling of complete restriction that my job brings often become suffocating. There are two sides to this lack of control. Firstly, I cannot afford to lose this job, like most of us I don’t have shares and investments to fall back on, quite the opposite, I have bills and debts to pay. Knowing that no matter how bad things get, there is nothing I can do, I can’t quit, is a tough realisation. We like to think of ourselves as independent and in control of our own lives but in reality there are certain hoops that we have to jump through. No matter how independent I want to be, I have to pay my rent, I have to pay my bills, I have to eat, and the only way of meeting these most basic of needs is to work for someone else.
The second side of this is the actual work I do. The hours I work are dictated from above, derived solely from the needs of the company, if the shop wants to boost profits by going into sale I get more hours, if they predict a quiet week then my hours are dropped. I get my lunch break when it best suits the manager, I am often made to work later than my shift without even being asked; it is simply expected. I can be asked to do a single task for up to 12 hours, refusal would mean getting the boot. The second aspect that I find utterly depressing , and I know this is a common exasperation, is the value that is placed on the work that I do. While there are many things I am happy to spend my time
and energy on without any financial incentive, working to make a board of directors vast sums of money is not one of them. There is no social incentive involved in selling 2 for £20 t-shirts. The only recompense I receive is a measly £6.08 an hour, the legal minimum allowed. I work hard every day, I try, no matter what the job, to complete it to the best of my ability, and the company I work for believe it deserves only the lowest possible wage. If however, I attempted to level the playing field and performed only the minimum duties required I would promptly be replaced. Work is not something that I am averted to; most of us enjoy working hard at something. What we don’t enjoy is being forced through economic necessity to work a job that offers little, treats us badly and barely meets the financial needs that forced us to work in the first place. I wonder how different work could be if, instead of serving the interests of a tiny minority, we all had a say in how things were done and had our emotional as well as material needs met.
Contact: If you want to know more about the Revolutionary Socialist Organisation, check out our English website: www.revolutionarysocialism.blogspot.com or e-mail us at:
[email protected] or just simply talk to the person who sold you this paper.
A brief summary of the political positions of the RSO The Revolutionary Socialist Organization (RSO) is fighting against capitalism and for a new socialist economic and social order. Every day it becomes more evident that the so-called “free market” has nothing to offer for most of the world’s population. Capitalism means hunger, poverty, environmental destruction, war and misery. Even in the richest countries in the world, millions live at or below the poverty line. In contrast, a small portion of the population owns the majority of the assets; in Britain 1% of the population owns more than a third of all assets. Two classes are facing each other in the capitalist society. On one side are the capitalists who own the means of production. They are faced by the wage earners who are forced to sell their labor power. Many workers today are isolated, discouraged, and full of capitalist political ideas and filled with capitalist prejudices. Nevertheless, only the wage earners through strikes and other collective forms of struggle can bring the capitalist mode of production to a halt and hit the capitalist class at the critical point, their profits. Capitalism in its neoliberal phase after the collapse of Stalinism in 1989-91 is politically and militarily on the rise world wide. The working class of the European countries is subject to massive social attacks. Trade unions and social democratic parties are unable to oppose this, but are perfectly integrated into the system. Their representatives participate in cutting public services and creating racist divisions. The Green Parties are not an alternative, they are bourgeois parties, some of which have a progressive rhetoric on human rights issues, but, where they participate in government, show that they are part of the normal capitalist state. The different imperialist blocs are arming themselves. The imperialist “global player” is still the United States. But the EU is trying to downsize the military gap with the United States and is also more and more acting as a militarily independent bloc. In contrast, we support the resistance against imperialist wars and occupations and combine this with the slogan: “The main enemy is at home.” To secure its domination, capitalism is (also) using and fostering the division of the working class. We are fighting against the oppression of people because of their ethnicity, gender, age or sexual orientation and we oppose these divisions with the unconditional support of every fight for equal rights. We are for the socialization of large corporations and their transformation into co-operatives under democratic workers’ management and control. Capitalism can not be eliminated by a few votes or parliamentary reform. All attempts to overcome capitalism through reforms have failed (and have often led to bloody defeats). Only a fundamental upheaval, a revolution based on the active participation of large segments of the population can destroy the state of the ruling class, eliminate the bases of inequality, oppression and exploitation and create a free society. We are Marxists and follow in the tradition of the “left opposition” against Stalinism by Leon Trotsky. Our alternative is socialism. Our socialism is a free, democratic society built on elected councils. We refer positively to the Russian October Revolution of 1917. This revolution has indeed failed in the Stalinist degeneration in the twenties, but the idea of an alternative to capitalism retains its validity. Our socialism has thus nothing to do with the “social” democratic parties, or with the Stalinist dictatorships in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Cuba and China. Capitalism is internationally organized and networked. Therefore, our revolutionary alternative has to be international and internationalist. The RSO is not “the” revolutionary party. None of the currently existing organizations can claim that for themselves. A new revolutionary party will emerge from a process of transformations and mergers. The RSO will try to play a positive role in this process to build such a party and therefore put forward a revolutionary alternative to capitalism. If you are interested in this project, then get in contact with us and support us in building a revolutionary and socialist organization!
