the Socialist The paper of Socialist Party Scotland ISSUE NO 31 - MAY/JUNE 2014 price: £1 solidarity price: £2 to YES independence to a socialist Scotland doing so to find an end to low pay, by Philip Stott zero-hour contracts, falling in - YEcomesS and savage welfare cuts. “Austerity is just another word Alex Salmond and the SNP won’t for an unremitting class war car - deliver that. They want to change ried out by the elite and the the flag, but not the economic sys - bankers against the 99% in our so - tem of profiteering capitalism that ciety. Today, five people in the UK is seeking to drive working class have more wealth than the poorest people into the dust. Only fighting thirteen million. Wages are falling socialist policies can turn the tide and the numbers using food banks against austerity. are rocketing. That’s the backdrop Socialist Party Scotland is cam - against which the Scottish inde - paigning for a Yes vote in Septem - pendence referendum on Septem - ber. But we’re also fighting to build ber 18 is taking place.” a mass movement to end the cuts, Speaking at a huge public meet - for public ownership of the banks, ing in Dundee in April (see picture the oil and gas industry, the energy opposite), Socialist Party member companies and the major sectors John McInally – who is also a leader of the economy. of the PCS trade union - summed The powers of independence up the reasons why hundreds of should be used to deliver a living thousands of working class people wage for all, an end to zero hour are planning to vote Yes in the ref - contracts and a decent welfare erendum. state. To do this we need the trade Support for independence has unions to help set-up a new mass been increasing recently as many workers party that can fight to be - of the “victims of austerity” seek an come a majority in the Scottish escape route from the unending parliament. cuts being carried out by the Con- Building a mass movement Dem coalition. against the cuts and for an inde - With Labour leaders like Ed pendent socialist Scotland is the Miliband promising to carry on only escape route from savage aus - where the Tories left off, it’s no terity, which will continue after wonder that support for a Yes vote September whatever the result of is rising. the referendum. Vote Yes on Sep - “Project Fear” - the tember 18 – But join the struggle Labour/Tory/Lib Dem lash-up is for socialism today . conducting an unprecedented campaign of blackmail under - pinned by a future of capitalist sav - End austerity - Make the bosses pay for their crisis agery. G But the majority of the over one million people who currently say G Build a new party for the working class majority they will vote Yes in September are Project Fear failing as support for independence grows Pages 6/7 2 editorial the socialist www.socialistpartyscotland.org.uk - May/June 2014 Editorial: Economy Capitalism is in a crisis, not a recovery There is no recovery for the millions facing attacks on their benefits, wages and living standards while £120 billion goes avoided and evaded by big business and the billionaire elite. Desperate times call for desper - grip of zero-hour contracts, living worked out that "the average, in - get so obscenely richer. Protections against precarious - ate measures. That must have been precarious, stressed-out lives. flation adjusted, earnings of those The anger that is bubbling below ness and poverty are also needed the line of Con-Dem Chancellor Unsurprisingly ONS figures who are self-employed fell from the surface will explode at a certain for workers who wish to remain George Osborne's thinking when show that two million or one in five just under £15,000 a year at the stage and pay and jobs will be a self-employed. he went about claiming new jobs part-time and temporary workers turn of the century to £10,400 in major factor in that explosion. Making affordable credit avail - and wages figures proved that his say they would like full-time work. 2011, a real decline of just over A foretaste of the action we can able from banks would help. Na - austerity measures were yielding a 31%." expect has been provided by the tional Insurance payments should recovery. As the Socialist Party has ex - construction workers who suc - guarantee benefits when workers Far from bringing relief to 'hard- Lack of investment plained many times, capitalism is cessfully demanded to be taken on are unable to work. working families', the Coalition's in a blind alley, unable to further by the profiteering building com - But a programme needs a strat - cuts and pro-capitalist policies are Other figures reveal that Britain develop the productive forces (fac - panies on direct contracts. egy to achieve it. Socialist Party rapidly turning the clock back on is being propelled back to the 19th tories, offices, science and tech - The frustration is also fuelling members at trade union confer - living standards at a terrifying rate. century. As job cuts in the public nique), or to use the surplus the votes for strike action on pay ences have been winning big sup - Real growth can however be seen sector hit hard and big business re - created by workers to invest in by workers in the NHS, among port when they argue for decisive in workers' anger. fuses to invest its hundreds of much needed industrial develop - teachers, on the railways and action to defend workers' rights. Osborne's claim, faithfully re - hoarded billions in new jobs "wor - ment. more. This includes making the case produced across the big business- ried workers price themselves into So the basics- clean water, It is what makes the Bakers' for a 24-hour general strike as well owned media, was that wages are the jobs market", as an ES writer homes, jobs, healthcare, environ - Union and Youth Fight for Jobs' as arguing the case for action on now rising faster than inflation. put it. mental protection- are denied to 'Fast Food Rights' campaign the issues affecting workers in the Statistical contortionists manu - In particular, frustrated and de - billions of people. against junk jobs so appealing to different sectors. factured this figure by including moralised workers, seeking to Instead the capitalist classes ap - the super-exploited workers in that Fundamentally, though, we ex - fat-cat bonuses in the measure of avoid the humiliating benefit pear to be retiring from their his - industry. plain that capitalism is utterly in - wages and excluding sky-rocketing regimes and workfare on the one toric role. In Britain the number of capable of satisfying even the house prices by using the CPI not side and low-paid insecure work employing businesses has fallen in modest aspirations of the 99% for the RPI measure of inflation. In re - on the other, have opted out to most years since 2008. For a real living wage a secure job, for a home that is not ality real wages are still 6% below enter into self-employment. The number of private-sector prey to the whims of greedy land - The Socialist Party fights for the the pre-crisis peak of 2008. Increases among Britain's 4.5 businesses with 250 or more em - lords or banks, for public services immediate implementation of the The London Evening Standard million-strong self-employed ployees dropped 8.2% to 6,600 be - that meet their needs. Living Wage (currently set at £7.65 (ES) produced a devastating graph. workforce account for more than tween 2000 and 2013. So linked to the struggles for or £8.80 in London) as a step to - It showed that energy bills have 40% of the 'jobs' growth over the It is also predicted that there jobs and decent pay, must be a wards a minimum wage of £10 an gone up by 57%, food prices by last year, and for almost two-thirds could be more self-employed by struggle to achieve all these basic hour, with regular increases to 40%, and petrol has risen by 49%. in the last quarter. 2018 than the number of employ - needs, as part of a struggle to cover price rises. Housing is in a league of its own This, accompanied by aggressive ees in the public sector. change society along socialist We oppose the pay cuts and pay with prices and rents increasing at privatisation drives, represents an The TUC reports that rapid ex - lines. freezes, parts of the Coalition strat - a speed Usain Bolt would envy. attempt by big business and their pansion of this sector, normally a This would mean, as a start, na - egy to make the working class pay London house prices have risen by servants in government to undo all feature of recession, is growing tionalising the banking system and for the bosses' crisis. 22% in the past year, with other the gains of the working class over fastest among impoverished pen - the big companies that dominate We say that, for example, the es - areas also seeing significant rises. the last century. sioners, part-time workers and the economy and placing them timated £120 billion lost to tax eva - We were also invited to celebrate Self-employed people are often odd-jobbers. under democratic workers' control sion mainly by the super-rich 1%, the latest employment figures. Un - forced into financial and personal and management. would go a long way to rolling out employment is down by 320,000 to uncertainty. While the capitalist Socialism would mean demo - Bubbling anger a mass programme of socially use - 2.2 million.