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O 1 N WORKERS Steel and industry THE CURRENT CRISIS in steel (see article, page 8) behind the rhetoric of a northern powerhouse if a is a perfect example of the debacle facing Britain as company like SSI in Redcar can be allowed to go a whole. First we have a formerly nationalised indus - out of business.” try being privatised, then inevitably finding its way And then we have the hypocrisy of the sepa - into foreign hands. What long-term interest can Tata ratists. SNP leader and EU groupie Nicola Sturgeon of India or Sahaviriya Steel Industries of Thailand has “pledged” to save the steel industry (in Scotland “ possibly have in a sustainable British steel industry? only). Yet Scotland’s biggest infrastructure project Secondly, we have the European Union, whose of recent times, the new road bridge over the River rules on state aid form a perfect screen for the gov - Forth at Queensferry, was built with steel from China ernment to hide behind. The EU is dead set against ordered by the Scottish government. nations being able to plan for the continued viability Finally, we have high energy costs – a big factor of their vital industries. for energy-intensive industries such as steel. These Thirdly, we have the complicity of our own gov - in turn are a consequence of privatisation and the ernment. True, the rules are there, and very damag - removal of controls, with foreign (often state-owned) ing they are too. But the government will not even companies free to charge far more than they can in try to support British steel. their own countries. Listen to Gareth Stace from industry body UK Our future depends on having industries like Steel. “In Germany, government is the friend of steel. If you want an argument against the EU and industry,” he says. “Here, you wonder what is for sovereignty, look no further. ■ No British intervention in Syria!

THE CAMERON government wants to bomb fly zones” in Syria, bringing the RAF into direct Syria, as do all too many Tory and Labour MPs. conflict with Russian planes. Madness! But British intervention could only be part of We have no interest in turning Syria into NATO’s aim of ousting Syria’s government. We another Libya – now a country with no govern - should have no part in it. ment, lawless, borderless, and a breeding ground Some MPs are talking about establishing “no- for jihadists. No British intervention in Syria! ■

WORKERS is published by the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) 78 Seymour Avenue, London N17 9EB. www.cpbml.org.uk @cpbml ISSN 0266-8580 Issue 191, November/December 2015 Contents – November/December 20”15 News Academy conversion by force, p3; Separatists join attack on BBC, p4; 03 Digest Wardens break pay barrier, p5; News Analysis: Arts – fighting the low pay culture, p6

Features The atomisation of England, p6; No energy policy = no British industry, p8; 06 TTIP – the mask slips, p11; The lie of Social Europe, p12; Not if Britain leaves, but when, p16; Doctors make a stand for the NHS, p18; Struggle offstage, p20

End Notes Book Review: The rape of Africa, p21; Historic Notes: Britain’s drugs wars 21 on China, p22 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 NEWS DIGEST WORKERS 3

SCHOOLS Forced to be an academy ECONOMY Rates threat AFGHANISTAN The US stays on BBC Separatists join attack SCIENCE Warning of ‘huge cuts’ OUTSOURCING Wardens bust pay barrier AFGHANISTAN The US stays on Rebuilding NEWS ANALYSIS Low pay in the arts ON THE WEB More news online Britain WHAT’S ON Coming soon

ECONOMY Academy conversion by force Rates threat EACH SUCCESSIVE Secretary of State for Education tightens the noose of state control IN WASHINGTON the US Federal Reserve around schools, and the current one, Nicky Morgan, is no exception. The Schools and is preparing to raise interest rates, even Adoption Bill currently making its way through parliament is a short bill with a long arm. though this would destabilise already fragile Its remit is with “maintained” (state) schools only (academies and free schools are economies across the world. The new exempt), a rapidly diminishing sector. The intention is to speed up the rate of “conversion” to Global Financial Stability Report from the academy status – by force. International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns: By March this year, 60 per cent of state-funded secondary schools were academies “Emerging markets must prepare for the (effectively independent schools funded by you and me). In primary schools the programme adverse domestic stability implications of has been less enthusiastically embraced – less than a fifth are academies or free schools. global financial tightening…emerging The new bill intends to change this. It gives extensive powers to the state to intervene in markets should prepare for an increase in state schools, using Ofsted as the tool. Any school deemed to be “inadequate” by Ofsted – corporate failures…” a category that has been broadened in scope over its years of existence, and its definition After the 2008 crash, £385 billion was regularly changed to catch out more and more schools – will be forcibly converted into an invested in the “major emerging market academy. “Coasting” schools, schools which are doing well but not as well as they should economies”, which have accounted for 80 be in Ofsted’s view, will also be subject to intervention. per cent of global growth in the past five Until now, the practice has been that schools which fail inspections have been leaned on years, half of that coming from China alone. heavily and bullied by the DfE to join an academy chain of government choice. The problem But in the past 18 months speculators have was that often schools resisted the process. Now consultation with “stakeholders” is to be taken £195 billion out of these countries. swept away in a procedure both rapid and brutal. To aid this, the right to appeal against an Firms in these economies used the Ofsted judgement is to be removed. current glut of cheap money to borrow far The 2006 Education and Inspections Act gave local authorities powers to intervene in too much. Chinese firms led the way, maintained schools. But local authorities have never had any jurisdiction over academies and assisted by Indian, Turkish, Brazilian, free schools, unless they are breaking the law. The secretary of state was supposed to be Mexican and Chilean firms. The firms’ directly overseeing academies and free schools, but as the scandals and failures in these debts rose from £2.6 trillion in 2004 to over schools started to stack up this became an embarrassment. £12 trillion in 2014 and their average debt Last year the government created bodies called regional schools commissioners, as new grew from 48 per cent of GDP to 74 per appointed agents of the state, to do the job for them. In practice, this means that one person cent. Rapid debt growth preceded previous per region with a small staff and an advisory board is managing the whole thing. emerging market financial crises. ■ Unsurprisingly, the commissioners have so far shown limited capacity to cope, as well as limited expertise. Yet the new bill will extend their wide-ranging powers over maintained schools too, bypassing or overruling local authorities as they see fit. IMPERIALISM How will they intervene? The idea is that academy schools will fly in to take on the job US confronts China once carried out by specialist advisory staff employed by the local authority. Nobody seems to know how academies will carry out this role. And now, Ofsted has announced that new THE US government intends to send schools (the vast majority of which are free schools and academies) will not be inspected at warships into the South China Sea through all in their first three years. ■ a 12-nautical mile zone around the disputed Spratly islands which China claims as its • A longer version of this article is on the web at www.cpbml.org.uk. own territory. An anonymous defence official said that the US government was If you have news from your industry, trade or profession we want to hear from you. determined to put on a “show of military Call us on 020 8801 9543 or email [email protected] might” in the area. ■ 4 WORKERS s r e k r o

ON THE WEB W After successful demonstrations on 17 October in London, Nottingham and Belfast A selection of additional against the new junior doctors’ contract, the British Medical Association (BMA) news at cpbml.org.uk… announced that ballot papers will go out to its members in early November. Most of the placards had been made by the junior doctors themselves but these were interspersed Volkswagen scandal: deadly with others such as “Nurses support the Junior Doctors Fight”. Others were made by consequences medical students who clearly understood that as the seed corn of the profession, they too are under attack. Photo shows demonstrators listening to speeches at the pre- The Volkswagen diesel emissions crisis march rally in Waterloo Place, off The Mall, London. See feature article, page 18. is the worst ever to hit the motor industry. But what has Britain been doing? The answer is nothing. Welsh museum staff walk out Separatists join attack on BBC Workers at the National Museum (Amgueddfa Cymru) of Wales went on THE SNP is weighing in behind those who want to see an end to the BBC as we know it. strike against plans to scrap anti-social Scottish Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop has just outlined her plans for a “federal BBC with hours payments for weekend working. at least a Board for each nation” with a budget controlled in Scotland. English National Opera on the In an article headed “Sturgeon’s dangerous plan for the BBC” in The Scotsman brink as cuts loom newspaper, Brian Wilson recalled that during the referendum campaign protests at the BBC headquarters in Glasgow, the “mob outside Pacific Quay…was demanding political Unions at the English National Opera in acquiescence. The bile led by Alex Salmond against individual broadcasters’ integrity was London are waiting to hear whether orchestrated only to intimidate.” proper national funding will continue – or And writer Kenneth Roy is forthright in his response to being threatened by “being held whether the axe is coming. to account”. Writing in the Scottish Review , he said, “Like many before me, I am discovering Electoral Commission ignored that if you're not totally for them, you’re totally against them. In Miss Sturgeon’s one party as new roll is pushed through state, dissent – any dissent – is simply not tolerated.” • Meanwhile, in a major blow to separatist fantasies, tax revenues from North Sea oil and Against the advice of the independent gas have fallen to a negative position for the first time in the industry’s history. Alex Electoral Commission, the government Salmond's predictions of March 2013 – that production in Scottish waters would yield £57 has reduced the time frame for billion in tax revenue for an independent Scotland by 2019 – has been torpedoed below the establishing the new electoral roll. waterline. Council procurement policies Official figures now show that repayments to producers have cancelled out revenues, under attack leaving the British government £39 million in the red. This loss over the first six months of the financial year shows the impact of falling production and prices. Pooling resources The government plans to change the across Britain is the only way to safeguard the long term future of this vital industry. ■ law so that councils may only disinvest, boycott or adopt sanctions if the action is in line with government policy. devoted to adult further education and ADULT EDUCATION skills,” says the WEA. “Further cuts, on Osborne eyes local government top of the 24 per cent and 3.9 per cent pensions, again Campaign launched cuts to the Adult Skills Budget already The new National Infrastructure THE WORKERS’ Educational Association announced this year, will inflict serious Commission will steal money from (WEA) is calling for support for its damage to our education and skills workers’ pension funds to do what the campaign to save adult education. The infrastructure with detrimental impact on government should be doing anyway. area is under increased threat in the run- learners, employers and the economy.” up to the government’s Comprehensive The WEA is targeting politicians, Plus: the e-newsletter Spending Review, in which departments educators, policy groups and have been asked to prepare for cuts of 25 associations of all kinds. It reports more Visit cpbml.org.uk to sign up to your free and 40 per cent. than 500 students, members and tutors regular copy of the CPBML’s newsletter “Less than 6 per cent of Government writing individual letters to MPs in the first delivered to your email inbox. spending on education and training is weeks of the campaign. ■ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 NEWS DIGEST WORKERS 5

SCIENCE through inflation, public investment in science has declined to 0.44 per cent of WHAT’S ON Warning of ‘huge cuts’ GDP, “the lowest of any G8 country in the last 20 years,” says Science is Vital. Coming soon SCIENCE IS VITAL , a grassroots But even though the government says organisation composed of scientists and Britain is pulling out of recession, there are NOVEMBER supporters of science and research in no plans to reverse the decline in the R&D Monday 2 November, 1 pm Britain, is warning of “grave concerns” that budget. Quite the opposite: George Protect the right to strike the government is planning huge cuts to the Osborne and the Department for Business, TUC lobby and rally, London, against science budget. Ominously, the business Innovation and Skills have told Britain’s the government’s Trade Union Bill. It secretary is said to have hired “consultants” research councils to model cuts of 25 to 40 starts with a rally at Central Hall, to suggest where the axe might fall per cent! Westminster, at 1 pm, moving to a Back in 2010 the organisation and In response, Science is Vital is lobby of parliament at 2.30 pm. For others fought off an attempt to cut the campaigning for a real rise in science details, see https://www.tuc.org.uk/get- science budget, succeeding in getting a funding, starting with a rally at Conway Hall, involved ring-fenced budget for research – but with London, on 26 October, along with events no increases for inflation the value of the in Glasgow, York, Newcastle, Swansea, Wednesday 25 November, 7.30 pm budget has declined. Southampton, Leeds and Bath – a list that “The Great Breakthrough – Soviet With value of that settlement eroded is set to grow. ■ Planning versus Capitalist Chaos” Brockway Room, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL Wardens break pay barrier CPBML Public Meeting TRAFFIC WARDENS working for outsourcing company NSL in Camden, north London, have voted to accept a new pay agreement. The settlement, which breaks through the ceiling of the “London living wage”, also avoids the need for another two weeks of planned strike action. This follows two rounds of industrial action, first for four days in August and then for ten days in September. The dispute came as a three-year pay deal came to an end. And in a strange case of history repeating itself, the offer accepted was actually worse than one made by the employer before members took their action. Why on earth would this state of affairs occur – particularly given it had happened before? In the NSL case the branch leadership marched the workers up to the top of the hill with little thought as to what would happen next. For the branch leadership the end game is industrial action itself – a great “political” act rather than an industrial strategy. Capitalism is wedded to the anarchy of The rallies, messages of solidarity and bravado then justify the action in itself. But in the market. Socialism is about planning the end the membership on the NSL contract saw through such games, accepting the to meet the needs of people and nations offer and setting their sights on the real objective of bringing the contract back in – and in the past it has been spectacu - house. larly successful. Come and discuss how “Workers’ ability to withdraw their labour is a powerful act, but it shouldn’t have a planned approach can help rebuild some mystical sentiment attached to it,” notes someone close to the dispute. “It is Britain. All welcome. merely a tool in the armoury of the worker, to be used when it is the most effective strategy (and when it can be delivered).” ■

Turkey with 503 and Britain with 470 – are AFGHANISTAN likely to mirror the US extension. Germany The US stays on has already said it is willing to extend its presence by one year. THE US government now intends to keep The US defence secretary, Ashton US troops in Afghanistan beyond President Carter, said: “The narrative that we’re Obama’s departure from office in January leaving Afghanistan is self-defeating. We’re 2017, breaking his promise to end the war not, we can’t and to do so would not be to on his watch. take advantage of the success we’ve had Obama had originally intended to pull to date.” out all but a small, embassy-based US Success? Fifteen years of war have military presence by the end of next year, produced only a collapsing economy, but is announcing that 5,500 troops will worsening security, and a splintered remain in Afghanistan. country. STAY INFORMED The present force of 9,800 US troops is Afghan MP Shukria Barakzai said: “The to remain throughout most of next year, US has created a lot of problems for • Keep up-to-date in between issues of being reduced to 5,500 in 2017. Afghans, ever since the cold war, so it has Workers by subscribing to our free Other NATO countries with troops in a responsibility to help and support electronic newsletter. Just enter your Afghanistan – including Georgia with 885, Afghans.” But staying on won’t achieve email address at the foot of any page on our website, cpbml.org.uk Germany with 850, Romania with 650, that. ■ 6 WORKERS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

NEWS ANALYSIS Never mind that whenever the pe Arts: fighting the low pay culture devolution is to be forced on Eng THERE IS no alternative to fighting when it comes to pay. And then fight some more. Unions in the arts sector have a difficult job, especially where there is no continuous history of struggle, where there is a culture of accepting low pay, even no pay, or neglecting workplace conditions. To complicate matters, many union branches have a mix The atomisatio of skills and contracts, and the outcome of negotiation tends to the lowest common denominator. There is also the squea - mish question of professional and vocational dedication, THE DRIVE to local devolution, city-state politics, mini-region politics, mutual - which employers and governments play on to shut us up. ism, municipalism, carpet-bagging, asset stripping and associated opportuni - Despite the difficulties in this sector, the issue of profes - ties for privatisation and corruption is well under way. In the last issue of sional recognition is gaining ground – though it is just a start. Workers we called for a national plan to unify and modernise services run by Artists are fighting the ignorant idea that if you love your English local authorities. Workers need a country where we can pull together work you should not expect to be paid for it. The Actors’ to fight for our common needs – more unity not less, more clarity about how Equity campaign “Professionally Made, Professionally Paid” to win together. is aimed at eliminating low pay or no pay in entertainment – In November 2014 a secret agreement between Manchester politicians not least in order to educate its own members. There is even and the Treasury called “DevoManc” was published, a charter for massive an acronym for it – LPNP! public sector privatisation covering local government, health, transport, hous - “Free is not an Option” is the Writers’ Guild campaign to ing, policing etc. Effectively the shreds of the savagely cut local authority bud - tackle the growing trend of unpaid working. A survey found gets were being handed over for local politicians and private business to that 87 per cent of respondents in the TV and film industries oversee and manage further decline in Manchester. reported being asked to work for nothing. Authors, poets Clearly this is a blueprint to be rolled out throughout the country. The and playwrights also said this was becoming standard prac - cities' continued decline would be wrapped up in fantastic visions of job cre - tice even with well established and resourced companies. ation largely centred on the housing market. Local politicians, mostly The Musicians’ Union campaigns under the slogan unelected or unaccountable, would decide what is good for everyone else. It “Work Not Play”. Clubs, pubs and promoters want some - goes hand in hand with chancellor Osborne's scheme to concentrate power thing for nothing, treating music as a hobby rather than a in the hands of mayors in many cities. profession. Another campaign is “Support My Music “Combined authorities”, such as Greater Sheffield, are made up of the Teacher”, as funding for arts education is cut or withdrawn. heads of adjoining councils, but they are not democratically accountable. Even the new mayors of Manchester and Sheffield will not be answerable to Tate Modern, London an elected assembly, as the mayor of London is, but only to their cabinet, composed of the other council leaders. In the most crude and pie-eyed fashion, some local and regional politi - cians believe this will allow them to create islands of municipal socialism free of central government's control, escaping the savagery of its cuts and auster - ity agenda. They seem to imagine that they can sit out the next five years with the hatches battened down ready to emerge and flourish once the Tory gov - s r ernment has gone. e k r o

W Stupidity or cynicism? Meanwhile in museums, galleries and cinemas some What stupidity! Or perhaps, what cynicism. Many just can’t wait to get their very basic union work is being carried out. At the London sticky fingers on the money, however little it may be. Tate Galleries, those employed indirectly by security firm Osborne has been promoting devolution and disintegration in all his Wilson James are paid significantly less for the same work speeches about making the Northern Powerhouse cities project a reality, as those directly employed, with zero hours contracts and no hence DevoManc. Seeing a great political weakness, he has achieved a basic employment rights. PCS continues to campaign there sleight of hand – enlisting local and regional politicians to implement the gov - for equal pay, under the banner “EqualiTate”. ernment blueprint while deluding themselves that they are really pursuing At Windsor Castle wardens who voted by 84 per cent to their own political agenda. go on strike earlier this year remain tight-lipped (probably The Labour Party historically has been and still is a principal source of sworn to secrecy) about a pay rise negotiated by PCS, say - devolution mania. This year it was all over their election manifesto. Now ing only that the shop staff got a good settlement. As with Osborne has stolen their clothes and leads willing fools in the cities and the Globe guides, this was based on the “median level for regions to implement a programme for the disintegration of the country into the region”. And at the Royal Albert Hall in August staff nar - warring factions. No more pulling together, only pulling apart. rowly voted to be represented by media and entertainment Is this what workers want? The electorate has not been consulted. Last union BECTU – a vital first step toward collective action. time we were, on the question of regional assemblies, the idea was defeated. The “living wage” is no substitute for collective action on pay, and only a sign of weakness when used as a basis for negotiation with employers. It is in fact the old “minimum ‘The electorate has not been wage” dressed up to seem something more generous, and does what the minimum wage did – acts as a maximum. We consulted. Last time we were, the need to value our own labour power. ■ idea was defeated.’ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 WORKERS 7 eople have been asked they have said they don’t want it – gland… on of England

splinterist politics spouted by government and opposition during the Coalition years. Devolution will allow the local authorities to sink as they manage their own decline. It will centralise critical political decision-mak - ing processes in central government – fiscal policy, defence, civil liberties and so on. While pretending to roll back the exis - tence of the state, the government will con - centrate real power at the centre by sowing division. Devolution is all about divide and rule as every city state and mini-region competes to try and grab a share of the wealth and resources of Britain. How long before a federated England, a regionalised England, becomes an England that is no longer England? And behind the scenes looms the 8

4 shadow of the European Union with its 8 r o l strategy of breaking up and fragmenting y a t nation states. What an incredible experi - M Millennium Square, Leeds, and the Civic Hall – now the centre of a regional land grab. ment Britain is providing for Brussels. ■

To avoid this, decisions are now being bring disunity rather than city-wide integra - Bidding to devolve made behind the scenes. tion, and loss of centres of excellence and The cancer has rapidly spread. In skill as every borough fights for its share. It SEPARATELY, ALL THESE would-be London the Greater London Authority, is a classic case of divide and rule. devolved authorities published propos - London Councils, NHS England (London), All the talk of regeneration draws on the als before chancellor Osborne’s and the Mayor of London have now pub - fantasies of Michael Heseltine, Thatcher’s September deadline, aimed at joining lished the London proposition to get minister for regeneration in the 1980s. up between 4 and 19 local authorities. Treasury agreement for London devolution. There can be no regeneration without the Note the imperial ambitions of “Greater” They conspire to create Boris Johnson’s re-creation of industry and manufacturing in Essex and Yorkshire. “world class city”, which severs its umbilical a planned and systematic fashion across Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire (19 cord to the rest of the Britain and floats off the whole of Britain. authorities) like Monty Python into the sunset. This is the crucial factor consistently Sheffield City Region (including bits of missing from all politicians’ visions, delu - Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire) 26 cities sions, and proposals. Industry is the ghost Greater Essex (15 authorities) In addition there are proposals covering 26 at the banquet of devolution. Sheffield City Gloucester County (7 authorities) key mid-sized cities – 7.9 million people and Region proposes to create 70,000 jobs and Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (15 a budget of £163 billion. Combining their 6,000 new businesses by 2025, but behind authorities, 2 national parks) services would save the central Treasury some brave talk, it really only plans to tout North Yorkshire (York and the East £12.5 billion over the life of this Parliament. for employers and promise them improve - Riding) All these bids are wrapped up in the ments in training and transport. Greater Yorkshire (Hull fighting off the twisted language of “asks”. They are asking Hampshire and the Isle of Wight says it East Riding) the Treasury to devolve the budgets and will build 76,000 homes by 2026. West Yorkshire ( Leeds City Region – related financial powers to them so that Speculative developers will be given access Leeds, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees they can, as they put it, regenerate, re-cre - to the land they want to build on, and in and Wakefield – with land grabs into ate themselves. In reality it looks like geo - return will provide a percentage of “afford - North Yorkshire and York) graphical chaos and fighting in blind alleys able” homes. A beautiful part of the country West of England (4 authorities and the for a bigger share of a smaller pot. is to be paved over, perhaps for foreign West of England Core City Region) Health devolution in London will see investors. Devon and Somerset (17 authorities) ■ groupings of services and ever-greater divi - All the “asks” reinforce the big society, sion between the 32 boroughs. This will localism and parish pump diversion and 8 WORKERS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 Without a credible energy policy Britain’s entire industrial fut hammer home that appalling truth… No energy policy = no B a i d e p i k i W

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TALK OF THE growth of sustainable energy 250 agency workers got the sack and a risk across the Black Country. sources hides the truth that the British gov - plate mill employing 150 workers at Many factors have accelerated the ernment has no coherent energy policy. Its Llanwern was mothballed. decline of the already vulnerable steel indus - decisions consistently undermine the inde - The Scunthorpe plant is one of the try. In particular China decided to dump sur - pendence of our energy sources. Recent biggest of its kind in Europe, producing spe - plus steel onto world markets at prices events – steel plant closures, overseas cialist steels for railways and rolling stock below the cost of production, due to its own states to build nuclear power stations, and among other things. Tata is appealing for slowdown in growth. Russia, Brazil and withdrawal from clean coal burning – put state aid, but the future for that town is grim. Japan are doing the same. beyond doubt that this is a national crisis. Commentators complain this is “not a Job losses in steel this year exceed Teesside closed level playing field”, as if giving free rein to 4,000 out of a workforce of 30,000. Others Steelmaking on Teesside is now gone as the markets could ever be fair. China’s current are at risk. It is a body blow to the founda - Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) Redcar overcapacity is estimated at 20 times the tions on which British manufacturing is built. works closed in September. The coke ovens level of Britain’s annual production. Left to In October Tata Steel announced 1,200 and blast furnace are not mothballed but its own devices, a “free” market cannot redundancies; 900 in Scunthorpe and 270 at decommissioned. Almost all the 2,000 work - resist such overwhelming forces. Clydebridge plate mill and Dalzell works in force have received redundancy payments. High British energy prices are a factor. Motherwell. Earlier in the year Tata cut 720 Caparo Industries entered partial adminis - British steelmakers pay twice as much for jobs in its Stocksbridge specialty steel plant. tration in October, putting 1,700 steel jobs at electricity as their French and German coun - NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 WORKERS 9 ture is at risk. Events in steel and power generation

British industry

terparts. But even they cannot produce steel slabs at the world market price of $300 a ton. These nations intervene in the market to Big blow for carbon capture protect their national interest. Energy costs are subsidised and environmental charges INNOVATION? What innovation? The gov - and businesses.” waived. Imports, particularly from China, are ernment has effectively washed its hands Burning fossil fuels may not be the closely regulated or effectively blocked by of the White Rose carbon capture and stor - longer-term future of energy production, legislation. Unlike British steelmakers, these age (CCS) project based at Drax power but with 40 per cent of our energy coming industries are state owned. station in Yorkshire (pictured below). from such sources for the next two Drax announced at the beginning of decades at least, a lot depends on trialling Self-imposed shackles October that it planned to withdraw from and succeeding in capturing and storing The British government barely excuses its the project. The company said its decision carbon emissions from power plants and own non-intervention, nor did previous was based “purely on a drastically different industry. White Rose is an integral element governments. All protest helplessness in financial and regulatory environment and in advancing to full scale production. The the face of the market and ignore that the we must put the interests of the business new coal-fired plant at Drax would have the shackles are self-imposed. The business and the shareholders first.” capacity to heat 630,000 homes. It would secretary Sajid Javid chaired a “high pow - The final straw seems to have been capture 90 per cent of the emissions – ered summit” in Rotherham in mid changes in government support for low some 2 million tonnes of CO2 a year. October to discuss the future of steel in carbon technology through removal of The pipeline to be constructed by the this country. In the face of the SSI Redcar exemption from the climate change levy, National Grid would pump the gas into closure and as news of the bombshell in coupled with a (temporary) fall in the underground saline deposits beneath the Scunthorpe was breaking, all Javid could wholesale price of electricity. So, the short- North Sea. The capacity of the pipeline is say was that he’d set up some working termism of the government in relation to 17 million tonnes a year. So there is capac - parties. energy production prompts a short term ity to expand and take emissions from The collapse of the core of British steel - response from an energy producer. power stations along the Ouse and Trent making will have devastating consequences Planned to be the first large-scale CCS valleys plus other industry. for the remaining production. Much of the plant in Europe, the project continues to specialist output sourced raw material from receive £238 million in EU funding after an Abandoning the future the plants now closed. extensive competition with other EU pro - This is about cleaning up our energy and Javid said in the Commons on 20 jects. Even the EU can see the potential for exporting this new technology abroad: sci - October, “This Government is committed to a method of extracting and storing emis - entific and engineering research, power a major programme of infrastructure spend - sions from fossil fuel burning while our gov - plant engineering and construction, ing. I am determined the UK steel industry ernment struggles to present a strategy for pipeline construction and management. should play a central role in its delivery”. No energy production. The future is within our grasp – and the one will yet admit it, but the only intention The Unite union’s national officer for government does not wish to be part of it must be to rely on imported steel for the energy, Kevin Coyne, said, “The underlying Tellingly, the Indian government, in a promised homes, industrial development message here is that the private sector has recent submission to the UN, revealed that and new rail links. been unable to provide the necessary they too were looking long term at moving In the short term, British manufacturing investment to support the carbon capture away from fossil fuel dependence, but they may survive on imported steel. Some of our initiative”. Garry Graham from the specialist considered three to four decades as a real - advanced, specialist steel makers will find it union Prospect said, “We need a coherent istic target to reaching that goal. In the hard to source raw product. But cars can strategy and a clear map of how we transi - meantime, they argue, there is a need to still be assembled, houses can still be built. tion to low-carbon generation, keep the import technologies which will assist with With the abandonment of the domestic lights on and meet the needs of consumers carbon capture and storage. ■ industry we become entirely dependent on foreign steel production. When our national interests and those of the foreign producer diverge, that depen - dence becomes a millstone. The fate of agri -

culture and fishing once we ceded indepen - a v o

dence to the EU should not be forgotten. k z a The story of Hinkley Point C in Somerset l B a r a t

Continued on page 10 S Rugeley coal-fired power station in Staffordshire, owned by French multinational NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 GDF Suez (itself part owned by the French state) and Japanese company Mitsui – which in 2013 abandoned plans to convert it to burn biomass that would have secured its long-term future.

‘EDF and the Chinese are being subsidised by the s r UK taxpayer to the e k r o

W tune of £80 billion.’

Continued from page 9 50GW of gas-fired capacity could be built. has already offered £2 billion worth of loan The gas market is as volatile as any other; guarantees. The recent state visit to Britain shows the dangers of privatising energy pro - prices can go up as well as down. But the by the Chinese president Xi Jinping duction and placing it in foreign hands. This cost differential is impossible to ignore. cemented deals already struck and gave is the first new nuclear reactor to be com - Even though the chosen design for China a toehold in Britain to develop its own missioned since Sizewell B came on line 20 Hinkley Point is too big, too expensive and model reactor. years ago. The project has been plagued by unproven, the government has already The government’s commitment to the challenges since it began in 2006. agreed a “strike price”, a guarantee that nuclear option is pilloried by the anti-nuclear EDF, the French state-backed nuclear Hinkley output will be sold at £92.50 per lobby on environmental grounds. But it is in provider to which we sold our entire indus - megawatt-hour, inflation-linked for 35 years, fact driven by a declared adherence to a try, said that the reactor would be built at a plus decommissioning costs. That’s two or low-carbon vision of the future, regardless of cost of £10 billion. Infamously EDF boasted three times the strike price envisaged for cost. Nuclear is certainly part of the long- that it would be “cooking Christmas dinners similar projects in Finland and France. The term future for energy generation, but the by 2017”. There are widespread doubts that subsidy from the British taxpayer will be to Hinkley saga is an economic white elephant. the design chosen by EDF is fit for purpose, the tune of £80 billion. Even those in favour of nuclear power are which has led to delays and spiralling costs. scratching their heads. They are now estimated at £25 billion and Bleak As a nation, we need to get our priorities will rise further with completion some time The state-owned Chinese nuclear industry is in order. Do we want a forward-looking, after 2023. funding a third of Hinckley, the costliest independent manufacturing base self-reliant Energy analyst Peter Atherton has cal - engineering project ever undertaken in in energy, or do we want a succession of culated that for the same price as Hinkley Britain. Other providers are unwilling to sink governments incapable of governing in our Point C, planned to yield 3.2GW, almost funds into such a bleak prospect; Osborne national interest? ■

CPBML/Workers Public Meeting, London Wednesday 25 November, 7.30 pm “The Great Breakthrough – Soviet Planning versus Capitalist Chaos” Brockway Room, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. Nearest tube Holborn. Capitalism is wedded to the anarchy of the market. Socialism is about planning to meet the needs of people and nations – and in the past it has been spectacularly successful. Come and discuss how a p lanned approach can help rebuild Britain. All welcome. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 WORKERS 11 When it comes to the EU and international trade treaties, it’s the corporations that give the orders… TTIP – the mask slips ) 0 . 2

A S

Y B

C C ( l a h t n e s o R s a c u L Part of the huge crowd of 250,000 people who marched in Berlin on 10 October against TTIP and CETA (the TTIP-equivalent the EU is negotiating with China). Placards called for a Volksentscheid – a referendum – on both treaties.

OPPONENTS OF TTIP, the Transatlantic higher number of documents than we do in The Economist noted on Saturday 17 Trade and Investment Partnership treaty Europe”. He also revealed that members of October, “The TTIP negotiations have currently being negotiated on our behalf by European parliaments could only get to read slowed to a crawl; even the discussions on the European Union, have consistently the negotiating texts in secure rooms in US tariff elimination, which was supposed to be noted how secretive and undemocratic the embassies. the easy bit, have dragged.” According to process is. Just how undemocratic has “Europe has offered many compro - the website Politico, which said it had seen been shown in startling manner by an inter - mises, in all areas, and has received no seri - an internal Commission report, the US and view between John Hilary from War on Want ous offers from the Americans in return,” the EU have not even exchanged positions and trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström. Fekl added. “Neither for access to their pub - on 10 of the TTIP’s 24 “chapters”, which When Hilary challenged Malmström over lic markets, nor for access to their agricul - each cover different areas – let alone started the extent of opposition, as witnessed by tural and food markets, which remain to negotiate. more than three million signatures on a closed.” Europe-wide petition against the deal – not Standards to mention a 250,000-strong demonstration ‘Collapse’ Meanwhile, reports from Washington sug - in Berlin earlier in October – she replied, “I And he went further, saying that France gest that the European Union is already do not take my mandate from the European could walk out of the TTIP talks altogether. dropping its standards ahead of a TTIP people.” According to German newspaper Die Zeit , agreement. No indeed. She takes it from the this makes him the first government minister The newsletter Washington Trade Daily transnational corporations. of an EU member state to talk openly about said that EU trade counsellor Damien Levie Declared opponents are not the only the possibility of the TTIP negotiations col - told a free-market US think tank that geneti - ones outraged by the negotiation process. lapsing entirely. cally modified crops and chemically washed When France’s minister for foreign trade, Initially those negotiating the deal were beef carcasses were already being allowed Matthias Fekl, was interviewed in hoping to get an outline agreement by the into the EU. September by French regional newspaper end of the year. That looked like a modest The news will do nothing to dispel anxi - Sud Ouest , he said the “total lack of trans - target back in 2013 when EU member states ety throughout Europe that TTIP will involve parency” posed “a democratic problem”. gave the European Commission the green a collapse of environmental standards in a In particular, Fekl said that members of light to start talking to the US about TTIP. capitulation to large-scale US agriculture the US Congress had “access to a much Now it is looking ludicrously optimistic. companies. ■ 12 WORKERS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 Many unions seem wedded to the EU. Yet look closely, and it’s clear the EU has been a disaster for workers… The lie of Social Europe

TO JUDGE FROM what some trade unions individual workers, have fallen for this failed say about the European Union, you might thinking. And never more than when in ‘Thankfully, think that if Britain left we would suddenly 1988, during the depths of the Thatcher be cast into an outer darkness stripped of counter-revolution, the then president of the despite the TUC’s all rights at work – no holiday pay, no equal European Commission, Jacques Delors, pay, no redundancy pay. It’s a nightmare came to the TUC to move it in a pro-EU best efforts, Britain scenario, and it’s leant on all the time to direction. persuade us that there can be no advance “It would be unacceptable for Europe to has stayed out of outside the European Union. become a source of social regression, while These people talk about the idea of a we are trying to rediscover together the the euro trap.’ “Social Europe”, the notion that “economic road to prosperity and employment,” said and social progress must go hand in hand”, Delors. He promised that the new internal as the European Trade Union Institute puts market, the free movement of people, capi - Labour is still worshipping the corpse of it. It’s the failed plea of social democrats tal and goods, scheduled for 1992 would Social Europe, trying to will it back into exis - down the ages: make capitalism nicer, they include a “social dimension”. tence. At its conference in Brighton in say, and the economy will grow and capital - To the TUC, demoralised and devoid of September, in what passed for a “debate”, ists will get richer too. class thinking (or creative thinking at all) it Alan Johnson declared that there was “no It’s an argument that has fallen on deaf was like manna from heaven. No longer progressive case for leaving the EU”, wilfully ears, at least as far as the capitalists are would they need to fight – the EU would ignoring the case put so well by the RMT in concerned. They know that they get rich by solve everything. “The only card game in June when it voted to campaign for British owning the means of production and town is in a town called Brussels,” said Ron withdrawal from the EU (see Box, page 15). exploiting the labour of others. Nice has Todd, general secretary of the Transport Two years before the chaos of “Black nothing to do with it. Capitalists may lack and General Workers Union. Wednesday” in 1992 when Britain quit the many things, but they do have a very clear The Delors promise was never fulfilled. Exchange Rate Mechanism – a precursor to understanding of class relations and class Indeed, how could it be? The EU is a capi - joining the euro – the TUC was still peddling power. talist club. The EU has instead become a its dream of “Economic and Monetary Trade unions, too, have tried this argu - principal source of social regression. And Union” (EMU) as a progressive force. ment, and many still do. Good employee some 24 years later, European Central Bank Back in 1990, the TUC dribbled, “The relations are good for business, they say. president Mario Draghi put the nail in the objectives of EMU should be to promote The interests of the two classes are not coffin, telling the Wall Street Journal on 23 sustainable development, full employment, opposed, the argument runs, they are iden - February 2012, “The European social model and economic and social cohesion as well tical! But such sweet reason has never won has already gone.” That won’t be news to as price stability,” in what was also a tacit a pay rise nor a recognition agreement. the people of Greece. admission that EMU meant the opposite. The tragedy is that many unions, and Clearly, no one told the Labour Party. Thankfully, despite its best efforts, Britain has stayed out of the euro trap. The same deluded approach to the EU is evident in the TUC’s current approach to Loophole: self-employment TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership currently being THERE ARE now 4.6 million self-employed from HM Revenue and Customs. No paid negotiated in secret by Brussels on our workers in Britain, according to the Office holidays for them. behalf. for National Statistics, and on average they Whether falsely self-employed or not, “The TUC is calling for a TTIP that cre - work longer hours than employed workers. these workers are not protected at all by ates a gold standard for workers rights – so Their wages have fallen by around 22 per any legislation regarding hours of work. we want American workers to have the cent since 2008. They account for 15 per They have no guaranteed holidays. They kinds of rights protection and worker repre - cent of the workforce, almost double the have no guaranteed workplace or private sentation found in Europe,” says the body figure when records began in 1975. pensions, and limited rights to even the that should be speaking for British workers, When it next trumpets the supposed basic state pension. No redundancy pay. concluding by calling the fight to “properly benefits of the EU, UCATT might like to No protection when a business is trans - involve unions in all parts of the negotiations note its own calculation last year that ferred. They are even hampered by EU leg - on TTIP” an “opportunity to secure protec - 963,000 workers in construction were paid, islation when combining to improve their tions for public services, labour and environ - many of them falsely, as self-employed, pay and conditions because they can be mental rights”. according to figures the union obtained treated as employers setting up a cartel! ■ Fat chance. Neither the European Union nor the US government have had or will o f n i . d r a i w - w e r d n a . w w w / d r a i W w e r d n A The beginning of a malign myth: European Commission President Jacques Delors at the rostrum at the 1988 TUC, Bournemouth, where the pro-EEC document “Europe 1992” was endorsed. Note, left, Ken Gill, head in hands – and well he might, having just led his union, TASS, into a merger with ASTMS, whose general secretary, Clive Jenkins (right) chaired the session. His union ended up supporting the final composite after all its previous, clear objections to European union had been turned into vague aspirations. have any intention of telling unions what is we would “lose” if Britain became indepen - to do is get parliament to amend the going on in the negotiations, leave alone dent of the EU. Working Time Regulations. Entitlement inviting them to the table. But of course, the Second, the statutory right to guaran - would shrink from 4 weeks plus public holi - TUC knows that. teed paid holidays was not a gift from the days to 2.4 weeks plus public holidays, and EU. It goes back to 1871, with the Bank we would still be compliant with the EU More delusions Holiday Act (admittedly, only a few days). directive. The delusions – and the misinformation – Third, not all workers are entitled to 5.6 What’s stopping Cameron from doing have seeped right through many layers of weeks – the police and armed services are that? Only the knowledge that it is (cur - the union movement. Witness UCATT, the not covered. Nor are “self-employed” work - rently) politically impossible. So much for Union of Construction, Allied Trades and ers – who number roughly 4.6 million in our holidays being protected by the EU! Technicians. “Since 1998,” it proclaims on Britain. In fact, in 1997, a year before the imple - its website, “thanks to the EU Working Time In construction specifically, a report mentation of the European Working Time Regulations, workers have had the right to from the University of Essex commissioned Directive in Britain, only 6 per cent of full- guaranteed paid holidays. Since April 2009, by UCATT and published in 2010 concluded time workers received less than 12 days’ workers are entitled to at least 5.6 weeks that around 400,000 workers were “falsely paid holidays (though that figure probably (28 days for workers working a five day self-employed” – and that’s on top of a excludes public holidays – it is hard to tell, week) annual paid holiday per year.” slightly larger number of workers in the as the survey gathering did not distinguish The statement is wrong on just about industry estimated to be genuinely self- between public holidays and work holidays). every level. First, the Working Time employed. No guaranteed holidays for The figure now, according to the govern - Regulations are UK law, an implementation them. UCATT’s total membership stands at ment, is around 3 per cent (probably of the EU Working Time Directive. There is about 84,000. So much for the EU guaran - accounted for by employees such as the no such thing as the “EU Working Time teeing the holidays of construction workers. police excluded from the Regulations). So at regulations”. And as importantly, the European around 97 per cent of the working popula - That’s not just a quibble with wording. It Union’s Directive does not entitle anyone to tion didn’t benefit from the European highlights something crucial. An EU regula - “at least 5.6 weeks” a year. It sets a mini - Directive. tion automatically has legal force in every mum of four weeks. In Britain the law con - The only good guarantee of decent holi - country of the EU. A directive, on the other strues that as excluding our eight public days, and other working conditions, is hand, needs to be put (“transposed”) into holidays (8 days is 1.6 weeks), but the EU strong trade union organisation. Even now, national law before it has any effect. directive allows countries to include public with the current laws in place, the TUC says So although our Working Time holidays. that (on top of the self-employed) 1,669,000 Regulations are there because of a direc - Unions besotted with the EU should employees are missing out on their legal tive, they exist – and will continue to exist – consider this: a British government – this entitlement to paid holidays. A survey by regardless of whether Britain is in the EU or current one, for example – would not have Xpert PR published in 2011 found that a not. If we left the EU tomorrow, the law to leave the EU to reduce statutory holiday would still stand in Britain. It’s not a “right” entitlement by eight days. All it would have Continued on page 14 14 WORKERS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

Continued from page 13

They call this protection? common reason for increasing holiday enti - tlement was “employee/union negotiations”, ASK A EUROPHILE ABOUT the “bene - ness freedom”. It has done this through and that companies with a “union pres - fits” of the EU and one that might be court judgements such as Alemo-Herron ence” had on average two days more holi - thrown in your face is the Agency v Parkwood Leisure in 2013, where the day a year. Sadly, less than 30 per cent of Workers Directive. Yet as trade union right to be covered by a collective agree - the workforce is covered by collective union lawyer John Hendy has pointed out, it ment after a transfer has been severely agreements, according to official govern - “appears helpful but in fact has led to a reduced. ment statistics. massive increase across Europe in the The case covered former employees number of workers employed through of Lewisham council, and initially an If we left agencies and hence without the full rights Employment Appeals Tribunal upheld Pick up most newspapers and you can find of directly employed workers” their case. Then the Court of Appeal total rubbish about the EU. Take this, from Much the same could be said about rejected it. Next the Supreme Court The Observer , speculating on the conse - TUPE, the Transfer of Undertakings washed its hands of the case completely quences of a Brexit: “EU law guarantees (Protection of Employment) Regulations and referred it to the European Court of workers’ rights in areas such as maternity put in place as a result of the EU’s more Justice. and paternity leave, holiday pay and in the starkly titled Business Transfers Directive. The European Court sided with the event of mass redundancies. There would TUPE is supposed to protect work - employer on the basis that the right to be pressure from business groups to relax run a company to make a profit is a more these standards.” fundamental right than anything else. As if there isn’t pressure now. One of That’s the EU for you. the key ways that pressure is applied is in the form of fragmentation of the workforce Disarming through casualisation, which abolishes all Just as importantly, a major effect of these “rights”, and competition through TUPE has been to disarm workers in the unfettered migration. face of privatisation. By holding out faint The undeniable fact is that membership promises that all will be well, it has of the EU has gone hand in hand with a allowed buyers of a company or ruthless assault on Britain’s trade unions providers of outsourced services to buy and on the pay and conditions of workers in the staff lock, stock and barrel – and Britain. ers’ rights when a business is sold, by there is a real stick as well as the phoney That’s hardly surprising. For all its talk of guaranteeing them the same terms and carrot, because if you refuse to transfer “a social dimension” and equal opportuni - conditions when they move from one you lose the right to redundancy. ties, the EU has written into its treaties the employer to another. So we get back to capitalism, pure sanctity of four fundamental freedoms. It is certainly true that it was intro - and simple. TUPE plus the court judge - Those freedoms have been neatly duced reluctantly as a piece of legislation ments have returned to the original con - spelled out by labour lawyer John Hendy in originating in Brussels, in 1981. At the cept, effectively wage slavery: the new his paper “The terrible tale of the EU and time, the junior Conservative minister capitalist buys the company or service Trade Union Rights” (available at David Waddington told parliament he and its assets – including human ones. tuaeu.co.uk): to provide services; to estab - was recommending TUPE “with a That’s not to say that clever tactical lish business; to move capital; to move remarkable lack of enthusiasm”. thinking cannot take advantage of the labour – from one member state to another. But had he known what TUPE’s regulations to strengthen union organisa - “As we will see,” says Hendy, “these four effect would be, Waddington might have tion and even postpone privatisation. For been more enthusiastic, and unions less a recent example of how to do this, see so – especially as TUPE has offered virtu - the fight by Unison’s branch at the Royal ‘EU membership ally no protection on pensions. National Orthopaedic hospital to hang on The EU talks big about “solidarity” to Orthotics (see http://bit.ly/1VBoFKy). has gone hand in and workers’ rights. But in reality it has But in the end, the outsourcing or made workers’ rights subservient to the sell-off will go ahead, and organisation hand with an employer’s “fundamental right” to “busi - will inevitably be weakened. ■ assault on unions. ’ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 WORKERS 15

freedoms practically trump all other rights.” Hendy does not dismiss all the individ - ual employment rights in various EU direc - M tives, but says that “the limited scope of eet the Party these individual rights is notable”. The Communist Party of Britain Marxist-Leninist’s next series of He goes on: “They have little application London public meetings in Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, WC1R to most terms and conditions of employ - ment to protect or encourage good pay and 4RL, continues on 25 November with the title “The Great decent jobs. They say nothing about pen - Breakthrough – Soviet Planning versus Capitalist Chaos”. The sions nor about dismissal (save in particular meetings will take place in the Brockway Room, which can accom - circumstances such as in a transfer of an modate more people than the room previously used. Other meet - undertaking). They neither promote nor pro - ings are held around Britain. Meeting details will be published on tect collective bargaining. They do nothing What’s On, page 5, and on www.cpbml.org.uk/events. to protect the right to strike.” M The Party’s annual London May Day rally is always held on May Hendy’s paper should be compulsory M Day itself, regardless of state bank holidays. There are also reading in trade union offices around the CPBML May Day meetings in Edinburgh and Leeds. country. It gives specific examples where As well as our regular public meetings we hold informal discus - the European Union’s Court of Justice has M M sions with interested workers and study sessions for those who upheld the rights of employers against M those of workers. Tellingly, it concludes want to take the discussion further. If you are interested we that: “The EU has become a disaster for the want to hear from you. Call us on 020 8801 9543 or send an email to collective rights of workers and their [email protected] unions.” ■ Taking on the union myth-makers

JUST ABOUT every union in Britain has policy opposing privatisation. Many are committed to fighting TTIP. It is the EU that is spearheading these attacks on workers. Yet most unions are in denial. Take Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of steelwork - ers’ union Community. “I say it is not on the side of working people to threaten the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union,” he wrote on the union’s website on 25 September. Tell that to steel - o f

workers whose industry the EU tells us we n i . d

cannot support. r a i

One union is certainly clear. In line with w -

a motion carried at the RMT conference in w e r

Newcastle at the end of June, its general d n a secretary, Mick Cash, has spoken clearly . w

about the EU’s “anti-worker agenda”. His w w union called in June for an out vote in any / d r a referendum on the issue: i W “EU policies are at odds with the aspira - w e tions of this union as the various treaties and r d directives are demanding the privatisation of n A our rail and ferry industries,” he said. ■ Joint RMT and TSSA demonstration against the EU outside its London headquarters, 2013. 16 WORKERS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 Even before an actual day has been set for the referendum predicting disaster if Britain leaves. And yet it’s becoming It shouldn’t be if Britain l

THE EUROZONE is at a critical stage. ing when you consider it gets a substantial Meant to bring the countries of Europe amount of its funding from the EU. together economically, it has done the In 2013 the chief executive officer of opposite. The eurozone economies that we Nissan said “Nissan will reconsider its were told were going to converge have investment in the UK if Britain leaves the diverged. The gap between the northern EU”. But then on 3 Sept 2015 Nissan European countries (principally Germany) announced £100 million investment in the and the rest has grown and is growing. Sunderland plant, which will secure its future The European Commission says that the beyond 2020. EU must integrate or disintegrate. Its presi - So not only are they not withholding dent, Jean-Claude Juncker has produced a investment ahead of the referendum, they new report urging progress on four “unions” are happy to make a commitment for – economic, financial, fiscal and political – to beyond that period. Tim Tozer, until recently be achieved by 2025 at the latest. managing director of Vauxhall, said a British So unless we vote to leave, we will be exit would not cause “trouble” for the com - subject to a very forceful process of integra - pany or its parent General Motors. tion, or we will go down with the decline of Employing 35,000 people in Britain, it would the eurozone. continue to build its Astra model here. Some 85 per cent of Nissan vehicles Unthinkable? produced in Britain are exported, the bulk of Lots of different people are now looking into them to the European market. But on the the fine detail of what leaving would mean. CBI’s own website it now states: “While the For example in the Netherlands they are European market is important, growth there talking about Nexit. It is no longer taboo to is constrained and Nissan is placing a grow -

talk about this subject. ing emphasis on emerging markets.” m

o

c

Nicola Sturgeon says “it would be In one major independent study of North .

k unthinkable for Scotland to leave the EU”. American and Asian investors one of the c

o

t

s

Despite losing the Scottish referendum, she survey questions was, “If the UK renegoti - r

e

t has real difficulty in grasping that people ated its relationship with the EU to be less t

u

h may think differently to herself. If it were true integrated would that make you more or less s

/

o that no one in Scotland would ever contem - inclined to invest?” - and the answer was t

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_ plate leaving the EU, how come a Scottish “more” inclined to invest. l

k constituency in the last European election As for the financial sector, the City of r Image and reality: young male migrants sit around o voted in a UKIP candidate? London, we were once told that if we did not Workers make up their own minds. It join the euro, financial services would suffer may not be what you as a trade unionist or a terribly. Not so. For many reasons (many of Marxist want them to think, but make up them things which concern us greatly) ‘For many investors their own minds they will. Scottish RMT investment in the unregulated London finan - members were part of their union’s decision cial market will continue. it will make no to campaign for an Out vote (see page 15). If In short, for many investors it will make only more trade unionists were as clear. no difference, and some will see a Britain difference.’ Don’t forget we were told that it would “untied from the EU” as more attractive. be “unthinkable” not to join the euro, and the sweet irony is that now nobody is giving Trade capitalist economic terms, and if we as that idea a second thought. A lot of Britain’s trade is with Europe. It is workers had economic control we too would So exit is not unthinkable – lots of peo - today and was for a very long time before need to look across the world to trade our ple are thinking about it, right across Britain we joined the EU. And our trade has grown goods. including Scotland and Wales. because now the EU has 28 countries in it. Another sweet irony is that those of us But as a proportion of our total exports the who want to leave the EU are told that we Fleeing investors? share going to the EU is going down and are “little Englanders”, when in fact it is You may have heard the refrain about “flee - has been going down for two decades. those of us who want to leave the EU who ing investors” from several quarters. The Put simply, dependence on trade with see the need to trade with Brazil, India, Confederation of British Industry likes to say the EU is a bad thing for us as a trading China and Russia. it at regular intervals – not altogether surpris - nation: we must diversify. This applies in Britain will still continue to trade with EU NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 WORKERS 17 m on membership of the EU, the mongers of doom are increasingly clear that the opposite is true… leaves the EU, but when ‘Let’s reclaim the words Europe and European from the disastrous EU.’

from the end of the Second World War to now as a time of “intervention”, when for - merly independent countries such as Iraq or Libya were bombed by meddling outside forces who then left a horrendous patch of lawless territory for so-called “insurgents”, often funded and supplied with weapons, to fill the vacuum. The EU was certainly party to the US-led NATO interventions and their aftermath. In Europe there was the break-up of Yugoslavia. NATO’s attack on Yugoslavia in 1999, supported by the EU, was an illegal attack on a sovereign state. Remember that Germany was the first country to recognise Croatia as an independent country – an important trigger in that conflict. Fast forward to 2013 and Ukraine. The EU wanted the elected government of Ukraine to sign an EU association agree - ment. That government thought it was a rot - ten deal and said it wanted to review its options and talk to other countries such as on graffiti-daubed concrete in front of the pretentious logo of the European Central Bank, Frankfurt. Russia about a better deal. The EU then backed a fascist-led uprising against the countries – including Ireland, of course – The EEC as envisaged then was to form elected government. So the EU has and they with us. A big incentive for the EU one single empire based around Germany. fomented war in the Balkans, and on its countries is that they export more to us than The idea had been simmering in fascist cir - Eastern border with Ukraine. we to them. cles for some time, and continued to. There Let’s reclaim the words Europe and Britain is actually Germany’s biggest is a picture of Oswald Mosley from the European from the disastrous political pro - export market. We do like a Volkswagen British Union of Fascists standing on a plinth ject that is the EU and the eurozone. apparently, even when they have been fid - in Trafalgar Square with the strap line Let’s remember that across the conti - dling their figures on emissions! Why would “Europe a Nation” and an array of European nent there are people like us contemplating they put us out in the cold, when they want flags behind him. and working out the final detail of what it us to buy their stuff? Germany’s first chancellor after the end would mean to leave the disastrous project of the Second World War, Konrad behind and reclaim their sovereignty and EU and peace Adenauer, said: “a federated Europe will be democracy. There is a great deal of work to Another myth is that the EU has kept the a third force. Germany has again become a be done in the trade union movement to get peace in Europe. Has it? Its origins don’t factor with which others will have to reckon. clarity on this question. Let’s be inspired by encourage that idea. It was the Nazis who in If we Europeans colonise Africa we create at the debate at the RMT AGM in June 2015. ■ 1942 first coined the phrase “European the same time a supplier of raw materials for Economic Community” (EEC), or Europe.” This article is a shortened version of a Europäische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft as Then look at what has actually hap - speech given at a CPBML meeting in they called it. pened: modern historians call the period Conway Hall on 22 September] 18 WORKERS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 Jeremy Hunt’s hamfisted attempt to force junior doctors t backfired. Armed with the knowledge that they are defend Junior doctors make a s

THE BRITISH Medical Association (BMA) announced that ballot papers would go out to its members in early November. It is a ballot which, should it go ahead, could well result in the first national strike action by junior doctor members since the 1970s. The BMA was acting in response to the news that the government intends to impose a new contract with effect from August 2016, possibly using the fire and re- hire tactic increasingly popular with employ - ers, ever since Rupert Murdoch used it to move newspaper production to Wapping and to try to break trade union organisation in the print industry. Protracted negotiations over two years had reached an impasse. Hunt has tried to muddy the waters of the negotiations by claiming that the new contract is to enforce the government’s “seven-day working”. This has been met with a sharp response from junior doctors, who know only too well that we already have a seven- day NHS, and understand the sham. Equally, when Hunt plays the safety card, as he has been doing since the Mid- Staffordshire hospitals affair, all health work - ers know that adequate numbers of trained professionals are the best guarantee of patient safety. Evidence? The evidence used to support the seven- day working claim does not stand up to the scrutiny of critical appraisal. While it is true that the published papers which Hunt likes to quote so often do indicate an increased s r

risk of mortality for patients admitted at e k r

weekends, the evidence does not show a o link with staffing arrangements. W Doctors turned out in their thousands on 17 October to march against the government’s propose In fact, patients admitted at weekends for elective surgery scheduled midweek will by definition be those in poor health, who begun in 2013, broke down as both consul - “standard time” from 60 hours to 90 hours a can expect worse outcomes than healthier tants’ and junior doctors’ representatives week. Currently 7 pm to 7 am Monday to patients admitted the night before or on the had no choice but to withdraw. Friday and the whole of Saturday and day of their procedure. The government referred the contracts Sunday are considered “antisocial” hours, Further government duplicity was to the Review Body on Doctors’ and rewarded by a higher rate of pay. Under the revealed by an ex-Tory health minister and Dentists’ Remuneration. Hunt announced its proposals, “standard time” would be doctor, who told newspapers that by findings in a speech to the King’s Fund, as extended to 10pm in the evening from September 2014 there was broad agree - part of his propaganda offensive. Monday to Friday and on Saturday too.This ment between the BMA and the Department Under the new contract junior doctors’ would enforce a pay cut of 15 per cent for of Health and a deal was close, but Hunt normal working day would be increased to many junior doctors, especially those in intervened to change the Department of include a considerable amount of evening areas like emergency and acute medicine, Health’s position. Negotiations, which had and weekend working, with an extension of which depend on out-of-hours working. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 WORKERS 19 o agree to an outrageous new contract has already ding the NHS, the doctors are fighting back… stand for the NHS

the hours when these fall. It has built-in safeguards to prevent excessive hours and ‘The scandal has to ensure doctors receive sufficient rest and breaks, and is enforced by monitoring visits. implications for If a Trust is found to be in breach of these, it faces a financial penalty. This would be patient safety.’ scrapped, and the Review Body suggested the European regulations be substituted. • Proper recognition of unsocial hours The European regulations are far worse as premium time; than the existing contractual provision, only • No disadvantage for those working allowing for shorter and less frequent rest unsocial hours compared to now; periods, with no effective enforcement • No disadvantage for those working mechanism. The New Deal contract pro - less than full time and taking parental leave, vides a safety net to prevent junior doctors compared to the current system; from having to work dangerously long • Pay for all work done; hours. The government has told the BMA it • Proper hours safeguards protecting plans to reduce the number of breaks during patients and their doctors. shifts down to just 20 minutes every six The scandal of an NHS staffed by hours. In practice, the BMA says, this could exhausted, demoralised over-worked junior mean that a doctor working an 11-hour shift doctors, and locums galore, has far greater will only get a single 20-minute break. implications for patient safety than any of Trainees in general practice, where there the incidents that Hunt and his fans like to is already a staffing crisis (covered in recent cite. Add to this that 20 trusts are now in issues of Workers ), could end up earning “special measures” and a further 27 are less than their hospital colleagues. At the receiving “intensive support”, and Hunt’s moment GP trainees are paid a supplement, wrecking intentions towards the NHS which ensures they are not financially disad - become crystal clear. vantaged for their choice of specialty com - Many of the medical Royal Colleges, pared with hospital trainees. This would end, which traditionally stand aloof from trade and general practice will be even more unat - union issues, have voiced concern about the tractive. In London, 30 per cent of GP proposals. Consultants, who remember the vacancies are currently unfilled. This gives conditions under which they trained, have the lie to Hunt’s and NHS England’s rhetoric expressed considerable support for their about the importance of general practice. junior colleagues. The junior doctors have shown spirit and Losing increments unity, to say nothing of tactical ingenuity, Many who spend time in higher education or and have wrong-footed the government. A research would lose their right to annual few have been heard arguing that doctors increments. Doctors who change specialty, should betray their colleagues and run away a not-uncommon career path in areas such from the situation by emigrating. This strug - ed new contract. as surgery, where there are many sub-spe - gle has made it clear how migration works in cialties, would have to start again at the bot - the interests of capitalism, never in the inter - The achievement of limits to junior doc - tom of the pay scales. ests of workers. These voices should be tors’ working day, after many years of strug - Doctors who work less than a full work - condemned as cowardly agents of the gov - gle, is threatened by an end to the sanctions ing week, as is often the case in specialties ernment. Stand and fight. NHS Trusts can incur if agreements on like paediatrics, known as Less-Than-Full- In their first struggles in the 1970s, junior junior doctors working time are breached. Time, would be significantly disadvantaged. doctors understood that they were workers Under the current New Deal contract The practice of Fixed Leave, by which junior like any other. They have come a long way, this is enforced, not through the European doctors can be told by diktat when to take and are showing greater clarity over issues Working Time Directive as the government annual leave, will continue. This has long like migration and the EU than many in our would like us to think, but through a banding been a significant problem for junior doctors class. On their demonstrations they chant system. The banding system, hard-won, and their work-life balance. the name of their union, showing a pride in enforces payments for hours according to The BMA is demanding the following their organisation lacking elsewhere in the the length of the period spent at work, and before negotiations can re-open: class. We can all learn from their struggle. ■ 20 WORKERS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 In the theatre industry and elsewhere, management knows how to take advantage of staff commitment… Struggle off the stage ‘A volunteering ethos deriving from struggling origins holds back progress today.’

Many of those with language qualifica - tions also handle foreign student groups and their teachers, in case translation is needed. Hidden aspects of their labour power (their capacity to generate profit) include promo - tion, sales and fundraising, street tours to the Rose Theatre (also situated on Bankside), costume dressing and printing press demonstrations. Such work involves the company in few overhead costs, but indirectly subsidises ambitious projects like s r e

k the “Round the World Hamlet”. r o Management takes full advantage of W The Globe Theatre, London: drama off the stage as well. staff commitment to the Globe. A volunteer - ing ethos deriving from its struggling origins A LONG-RUNNING dispute over front of members resulted in a 78.1 per cent vote to holds back progress in today’s environment. house staff wages and conditions at the accept the company’s offer. Members are Globe Theatre in London has been “settled” now deliberating how to build on their mod - Vision – for the time being. This follows a one-day est success at a future date. Opened in 1997, the Globe was the brain - strike in May 2015, with the threat of further The guides’ pay settlement is less than child of Sam Wanamaker, the American action. A degree of progress has been that of professional guides in the commer - communist actor and director, famous for made. cial tourism sector, yet their contribution to refusing to testify against his fellow artists to Action has concentrated minds on an understanding of Britain's greatest play - the US House of Representatives Un- resolving some of the seemingly incompati - wright is arguably of greater social value. American Activities Committee in the 1950s. ble demands on theatre space, as well as Their specialist knowledge, practical skills He subsequently found refuge in Britain throughout the building. According to one such as crowd management and vocal (albeit under the watchful eye of MI5). rep, from media and entertainment union delivery, as well as their investment in pro - Meeting official resistance to his plans for BECTU, this could not have been achieved fessional development, should attract a cor - resurrecting Shakespeare's Globe, a year ago. respondingly professional rate of pay, but Wanamaker sank his own earnings into Considering that this was the first time their freelancing style of work plays into the the project. He gathered around him a the Globe tour guides had voted to go on hands of the employer. kind of cooperative dedicated to his vision, strike, their action was commendably with no thought of putting profit before the united. Management however had con - Zero hours playhouse. ducted a benchmarking exercise based on Unlike staff exclusively conducting the It is very different today. Capitalism has the “industry median” (mainly low pay), while Globe’s educational tours, a number of the been allowed to rampage. The world of the ignoring the guides’ special skills, as well as 38 guides are primarily actors, who tolerate arts has become as cut-throat as the City, the unique nature of the Globe itself. a zero hours arrangement. This is seen to with managers putting their careers and The agreement, announced on 1 represent “flexibility”, allowing them to bonuses ahead of public safety and satis - October, was for an increase of 3 per cent in attend auditions, or to work elsewhere as faction. Class interests reveal themselves in pay, applied to all staff across the board guides or translators. In reality the main ben - struggle: if we are to survive there can be no regardless of skill level, including at the adja - eficiary is management; the guides’ avail - clinging to the illusion of worker and cent Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Although ability for work at the Globe outstrips the employer forming one happy family, includ - it was well short of expectations, a ballot of number of jobs actually offered. ing in the arts. ■ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 BOOK REVIEW WORKERS 21 Africa should be a rich continent. But as a new book reveals, its wealth is being systematically looted… The rape of Africa m o c . k c o t s r e t t u h s / n n a m t t e w h c S k r a M Copper mine in Palabora, South Africa.

The Looting Machine: Warlords, tycoons, The UN said that the companies trading also the essence of colonialism. The British smugglers and the systematic theft of minerals in Congo were “the engine of the went to Africa and India to secure raw mate - Africa’s wealth , by Tom Burgis, hardback, conflict” there, which killed millions. Burgis rials and markets. Africa is now willingly 319 pages, ISBN 978-0-00-752308-5, points out that “the resource curse can still opening itself up to a new form of imperial - William Collins, 2015, £20, Kindle and e- bite where there is peace – abetted by the ism.” book editions available, paperback avail - global institutions charged with alleviating The UN ranks countries on their human able soon. Africa’s poverty and a financial system that development and on their GDP per head. By drains away the proceeds of the continent’s relating the two, you can see whether a THIS STUDY by investigative journalist Tom natural wealth.” country’s growth improves its people’s wel - Burgis about the systematic looting of The World Bank reported that the IMF fare. Africa’s riches gives us case studies of the “promoted aggressive privatization of signifi - Cuba comes out as the best in the theft of Africa’s resources. It covers Angola, cant mining and hydrocarbon assets for world. Of the ten worst, five are African the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, short-term financing of the [government’s resource-rich states: Angola, Gabon, South Guinea, Niger, Ghana, South Africa and budget] deficit. This did nothing to ensure Africa, Botswana and Equatorial Guinea. Zimbabwe. the creation of competition, efficiency gains, We are often told that the cause of These countries all have vast natural development of a domestic private sector, or Africa’s poverty is corruption. Burgis’s ver - resources which benefit few of their citizens. environmentally and socially sound develop - sion is that it is “a failure of leadership”. But Many live in extreme poverty, ranging from ment strategies for the extractive sectors.” the cause of Africa’s poverty isn’t corruption, 43 per cent in Angola to 88 per cent in Burgis explains why British governments it is capitalism. Congo. Between 2007 and 2012, just 2.5 per give aid. It is not altruism: “foreign aid… con - Burgis calls the treatment of Africa a cent of the $41 billion generated by Congo’s stitutes a significant share of many resource new kind of empire – financialised colonial - mining industry went into the national bud - states’ income – effectively subsidizing pri - ism. But this isn’t new: it’s still imperialism. get. vate oil and mining companies with taxpayer The City of London and its allies in Hong Nearly $6 trillion was illicitly taken out of funds from donor countries.” Kong, Singapore, the British Virgin Islands the poorest African countries between 2001 In 2002 China’s trade with Africa was and elsewhere exploit whoever they can, and 2011. Four-fifths of this was due to worth $13 billion a year; by 2012, it was wherever they can, across the world. trade mispricing, where companies fix the $180 billion. Lamido Sanusi, governor of We are also told by Burgis and others prices at which they sell goods and services Nigeria’s central bank from 2009 to 2014, that globalisation now runs the world. No, either between their own subsidiary compa - said, “So China takes our primary goods again, we must call it by its proper name – nies or in deals with other companies. and sells us manufactured goods. This was capitalism. ■ 22 WORKERS HISTORIC NOTES NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 The Opium Wars against China in the mid-nineteenth cent climax to a most disgraceful chapter in the history of the B Britain’s imperial wars fo

EXTRACTED FROM poppies, opium is a In China, the East India Company used highly addictive drug, though it can serve as the gold and silver it received from opium a medicine. By the end of the 17th century, smuggling to purchase goods that could be non-medicinal drug use of opium had sold profitably in England. There was appeared in China, particularly around the tremendous demand in Britain for Chinese port of Canton (now know as Guangzhou), tea, silks, and porcelain pottery, but there where most foreign merchants traded. In the was little demand in China for Britain's man - mid-18th century the British East India ufactured goods. Company had secured trading rights for As Britain did not have enough silver to opium after gaining control of Bengal from trade with the Chinese Empire, the British the Moghul emperors. Profits from opium Empire used the profits of the opium trade exports were to help the British Empire pay to pay for Chinese products. for spices from the East Indies. For traders, The amount of opium imported into a supply of addicted consumers meant a China at first increased gradually from business boom. approximately 200 chests a year in 1729 Though the emperors of China were (about 12 tons) to 1,000 chests in 1767, worried about the spread of foreign influ - before surging to 10,000 a year between ence, they were also desperate for revenue. 1820 and 1830. By 1838 the amount had Foreign merchants were tolerated, as they soared to 40,000 chests, over 2,500 tons of bought Chinese tea and silk, though their opium extract. movements were strictly controlled. They For the first time the balance of pay - were allowed to settle in Macao, a ments began to run against China and in Portuguese settlement since the 16th cen - favour of Britain. Such a massive network of tury. With Portugal’s decline as a maritime opium distribution had formed, that by the Above: an 1843 painting glorifying the power, the East India Company became 1830s millions of Chinese were hooked. This destruction by British naval vessels of dominant there. caused significant damage to the health and Chinese war junks in Anson’s Bay in productivity of the nation. At this point the 1841. Right: nineteenth-century Banned British Empire decided to force the issue of photograph of Chinese opium smokers. The spread of opium-smoking eventually increased trade rights, stressing the opium disturbed the Imperial Court in Beijing. In trade. The outcome of this war was not to 1729 an edict banned opium smoking and The Qing ruling dynasty attempted to legalise the opium trade but it halted its importation, except under licence for enforce tighter opium restrictions. In spring Chinese efforts to stop it. In 1842 China med-icinal use. There were heavy penalties 1839 Chinese authorities at Canton confis - agreed to the Treaty of Nanking and had to for dealing in the drug. Initially the East India cated and burned the opium. In retaliation, pay a large fine. Hong Kong island was Company kept to the ban, not wanting to the British occupied positions around the ceded to Britain. Five other ports, including jeopardise its influence, and opium smokers city. This trading conflict escalated into the Canton, were opened to British residence in China were limited to supplies from the first Opium War between Britain and China and trade. Portuguese or freebooters. from 1839 to 1842. During the war the The Chinese increased controls on Chinese could not match the technological Imports opium throughout the 18th century. To and tactical superiority of the British forces. In the second Opium War (1856–60), the evade the ban, the East India Company A British naval fleet arrived in June 1840, Chinese government was again defeated by farmed out transport to “country ships”, pri - attacking along the Chinese coast. the British and the French. This time it was vate traders whom the company licensed to forced to legalise the opium trade, though it take goods from India to China. It did not did levy a small import tax. Opium imports risk sending opium in its own ships for fear to China had reached 50,000 to 60,000 of losing its lucrative tea trade. ‘The British Empire chests a year, continuing to increase for the Opium was grown by poppy cultivators next 30 years. in India, especially in Bengal, effectively used the profits of The peace was as wicked as the war. under British control like most of India at the With the Treaty of Tientsin (1858), China had time. To bring the opium into China, the the opium trade to to open 11 more ports to trading and allow country traders sold it to smugglers along foreign ships including warships to navigate the Chinese coast. The gold and silver the pay for Chinese freely along the coast and up the Yangtze traders received from these sales were then River. The British were given trading rights in turned over to the East India Company. products.’ the ports of Canton and Shanghai and in NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 Worried about the future of Britain? Join the CPBML. tury were the nasty British Empire… 66SIX CALLS or opium TO ACTION Our country is under attack. Every single institution is in decline. The only growth is in unemployment, poverty and war. There is a crisis – of thought, and of deed. The Communist Party of Britain Marxist-Leninist held its 16th Congress in November 2012, a coming together of the Party to consider the state of Britain and what needs to happen in the future. Here we set out briefly six Calls to Action for the British working class – for a deeper explanation, see www.cpbml.org.uk. 1: Out of the European Union, enemy to our survival The European Union represents the dictatorship of finance capital, foreign domination. The British working class must declare our intention to leave the EU.

2: No to the breakup of Britain, defend our national sovereignty Devolution, and now the threats of separation and regionalism, are all products of only one thing: de-industrialisation.

3: Rebuild workplace trade union organisation Unions exist as working members in real workplaces or they become something else entirely – something wholly negative. Take responsibility for your own unions.

4: Fight for pay, vital class battleground The fight for pay is central to our survival as a class, and must be central to the agenda of our trade unions.

5: Regenerate industry, key to an independent future The regeneration of industry in Britain is essential to the future of our nation. Our grand-parents, and theirs, knew this. We must now reassert it at the centre of class thinking.

6: Build the Party The task of the Party is singular: to change the ideology of the British working class in 1860 more land to extend the Hong Kong order that they make revolution here. colony. Foreigners were allowed to travel to the Interested in these ideas? interior for the first time. Christians gained • Go along to meetings in your part of the country, or join in study to help push the right to spread their faith and hold prop - forward the thinking of our class. Get in touch to find out how to take part. erty, thus opening up another means of • Send an A5 sae to the address below for a list of publications, or email us. western penetration. China's right to rule in • Subscribe to Workers , our bimonthly magazine, either online at workers.org.uk or by its own territory was increasingly limited. The Chinese refer to this period as the time sending £12 for a year’s issues (cheques payable to Workers) to the address below. of unequal treaties – one of national degra - • Subscribe to our email newsletter – see the form at www.cpbml.org.uk dation and humiliation. • Follow us on Twitter. The importance of opium in the West's trade with China declined from the begin - CPBML ning of the 20th century. China also signed a 78 Seymour Avenue, London N17 9EB treaty with India to end the import of opium by 1917. But opium smoking and addiction [email protected] remained a problem for China in subsequent email decades. Opium smoking was not finally twitter @cpbml eradicated until after the accession of New www.cpbml.org.uk China led by communists in 1949. ■ phone 020 8801 9543 Credits for capitalists

SHOULD BRITISH workers demand the right employers! They don’t have to pay a decent ‘What isn’t to working tax credits? The government’s wage, because workers will subsidise them push to reduce them is being greeted with not to. And what’s more, the workers whose discussed is just howls of outrage from many. The press is pockets are being picked are campaigning full of examples of people who risk for the continuation of this daylight robbery. what a impoverishment when the credits are cut Add to this the system of housing benefit back, which, of course, will be the result in – in 2013-14 this cost around £23.8 billion, pernicious con the immediate term. money that went straight into the pockets of But the basic problem is that workers landlords. this “benefit” are failing to fight for better wages – so tax When the Thatcher government credits have been allowed to become a legislated to abandon rent controls and really is...’ lifeline for far too many workers. The other regulation of the private rental sector employers have been happy, of course, in 1989, concern was expressed in since the tax credit system acts as a giant parliament that housing benefit costs would handout for them. rocket as, inevitably, rents went up. The The current system of tax credits was housing minister Sir George Young started by Labour Chancellor Gordon Brown responded “Housing benefit will underpin in 1999. Brown launched it with slogans market rents…If people cannot afford to pay such as “Tackling poverty and extending that market rent, housing benefit will take opportunity” – an admission that many were the strain.” So that’s ok then! working for poverty wages, and a deliberate Recently a London landlord, Andrew discouragement to wages struggles. Now, Panayi, was ordered to pay back £70,000 the system of credits, including child tax after he was found guilty of renting out a credit (the latter payable to both the working storage basement as self-contained living and non-working) has become fiendishly accommodation. He had been charging complicated. Around seven million workers £975 a month in rent. are eligible, with around five million actually How could Panayi charge so much for a claiming – a huge number. The cost to other lightless hole in the ground? A combination workers is currently around £30 billion. of no rent controls and housing benefit, of What isn’t discussed is just what a course. So workers are pouring money into pernicious con this “benefit” really is. Bear landlords’ pockets to enable them to charge in mind that you have to be working over 16 what would otherwise be unaffordable rents. hours a week to be eligible. So a worker Panayi rents out 180 properties. His goes to work, but the pay is so low that they company Ploughcane had net assets of £17 can’t live on it or raise a family. So instead million in 2013, and made an operating profit of fighting in a trade union together with of £2.3 million. A landlord’s dream their fellow workers to force the employer to Workers must learn again the lessons we raise wages to a level which will be enough have conveniently forgotten. For those who to live on, the worker claims a top-up in the can’t work because of illness or disability, form of working tax credit. This top-up is society must support a decent and dignified provided by other workers through taxation. life. But for others, it’s been too easy to So one set of workers pays another set avoid fighting for wages by claiming for tax of workers to make it possible for them to credits and housing benefit paid for by other work for a wage which is so low they can’t workers. Fight for the right to work, and for survive on it. What a brilliant wheeze for the the dignity of a decent wage! ■

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