WWWW.CPBML.OORG.UK RKEJULY/ARUGUST 20S 15 £1 INDUSTRY WHY MAKING THINGS MATTERS L MORE GPs Where from? UNIONS Take part M B P BREXIT Yes, please UNIVERSITIES Pay up C E plus H T BALLOTS New chains News, F O L TTIP Myths exploded Book Reviews A N R THE MOTOR INDUSTRY and more U O J IF YOU WANT TO REBUILD BRITAIN, READ ON WORKERS After the election AFTER 7 MAY , what should workers do? We don’t now to survive as a nation and as a class. have the luxury of just preparing for the next elec - Above all, that means fighting on four key tion, as the Labour party is doing – though it looks issues – key not just because they are needed to like it is seeing how to lose the next election too. survive as a class, but because they have the MPs know what to do. Their first priority is to vote potential to unite us, not divide us (see “Take part, themselves a £7,000 a year pay increase. take heart,” page 19). “ Be honest. In the general election we got what Those issues are straightforward: pay, an issue people voted for. More people voted for the for all; national unity, the answer to separatism Conservatives than for any other party. If people and the opposite of division; control over the sup - had wanted above all to defeat the Tories, they ply of labour, without which we cannot hope to knew what they had to do – vote tactically for the control its price; and national independence, as candidate most likely to beat the Tory in their con - opposed to control from Brussels. stituency. But people didn’t choose to do this. The last three of those issues are ones on Likewise in Scotland with the SNP. which most unions display the least clarity. The The election result shows the measure of our European Union is a capitalist club lauded by the task. There is no quick fix through electoral international monopolies. Every employers’ organ - reform, nor much democracy in the parliamentary isation is for the free – not free, actually, more like version. Democracy is far more than just putting a uncontrolled – movement of labour. They know it’s cross on a piece of paper once every five years. If good for them. Yet many in the unions defend the it means anything, democracy means we all take EU and the endless search of workers round responsibility, not leave it to others, and certainly Europe for work wherever they can find it, on not to parliamentary parties. whatever pay and terms the employer dictates. Forget elections, or revisions to electoral sys - That’s the measure of the task. m o c tems. There will be no advance without a change Already since the election the tone has been . k c in people’s minds, without a change in the ideol - set by Cameron on the EU referendum – we’re in o t s r ogy of the working class. for a prolonged period of half-truths, outright lies e t t The tasks facing British workers are the same and bullying, coupled with a large dose of inepti - u h s as before: the employer is the same, the govern - tude. We cannot look to Westminster for a lesson / l i a ment is the same, so is capitalism, so is the in principled debate. We are going to have to start r t n European Union, so is NATO. We have to fight it ourselves. o i r ■ o e g a WORKERS is published by the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) m i r e 78 Seymour Avenue, London N17 9EB. www.cpbml.org.uk @cpbml v o C ISSN 0266-8580 Issue 189, July/August 2015 Contents – July/August 2015 ” News Budgeting for decline, p3; Wandsworth: union rights restored, p4; UCU 03 Digest ready to fight on pay, p5; News Analysis: A waste of a dispute?, p6; News Analysis: The GP numbers lie, p7 Features The facts about what Brexit would mean, p8; Why Britain needs an industrial 08 policy, p10; Who needs the EU? Not the motor industry, p12; Workers against the state, p16; Take part, take heart, p19 End Notes Book Review: TTIP and welfare – two myths mauled, p22 22 JULY/AUGUST 2015 NEWS DIGEST WORKERS 3 BUDGET Planning for decline TUBE Massive strike vote WANDSWORTH Union rights restored UNISON Anyone voting? UNIVERSITIES Ready to fight on pay HEALTH Cuts to shore up PFI LOCAL GOVT A waste of a dispute? Rebuilding GP NUMBERS The big lie ON THE WEB More news online Britain WHAT’S ON Coming soon TUBE Budgeting for decline Massive strike vote CHANCELLOR GEORGE OSBORNE will deliver TUBE DRIVER members of ASLEF have another government budget on 8 July. Familiarity with voted overwhelmingly in favour of action the themes of “austerity” and “balancing the books” against London Underground’s attempt to should not blind us to what is going on behind the impose new rosters and payments for figures. Nor is it enough to decry the cuts to benefits night shifts from this September. As paid out, damaging and vindictive though they are. Workers went to press, 24-hour strike Economists such as Nobel prize-winner Paul action was planned for 8–9 July, with Krugman describe the plans for deficit reduction and other tube unions RMT and TSSA, which austerity as bound to fail, creating a spiral of decline. are also balloting, due to declare their Yet all the parliamentary parties subscribe to the lie results at the end of June. that this is what is needed. They only differ on the In May, steel workers at Indian-owned detail. Tata – members of Community, the main Most tax for state spending comes from workers. union for the industry – voted by 88 per Whether PAYE from wages or VAT on spending, it is cent for strike action on a 76 per cent still taken out of earnings (twice with VAT). The turnout, in a pensions dispute. As the government manages how that tax is spent. Its strike loomed, Tata made a massive decisions are not made for social redistribution or turnaround: an improved offer which the HM Treasury, London investment but solely to maintain and run the combined steel unions are recommending capitalist economy. to their members. After the 2008 crisis that purpose was evident to all. But since then it has Now it seems that tube drivers are manifested itself in many other ways. Benefits are cut and employers are subsidised for following suit. The ASLEF ballot turnout paying low wages. Both these directly undermine the ability of organised workers to was 81.3 per cent, with the vote in favour regain a greater share of the value they create. of strike action 97.6 per cent. The dispute What we expect and will get from this government is not accidental or poorly goes to the heart of issues around thought out. It is a desperate, deliberate attempt to ensure that the working class pays drivers’ pay and conditions when London for the failure of the capitalist system. They hope that somehow the economy will revive Underground introduces all-night once workers have been reduced to near-slavery. Their view of the state is that it is no weekend tube services on some lines. more than a tool to ensure capitalism can’t be touched by those it exploits. The union says it is not against night Our ruling class knows those methods have failed elsewhere and in the past. Yet working, but that it will bring huge their economic system cannot live with workers having more of a share in what their changes for its members – changes which labour produces, or even keeping what we have now. Capitalism does not know where need to be carefully negotiated. But the to turn. The drive to increase profits and the rate of profit is incompatible in the long run employers ended direct talks and decided with anything other than increasing the exploitation of the working class. instead to simply impose their will – no The dominance of finance capital and the way it bleeds the wealth of nations is the pay increase for night working, with result of that contradiction. All budgets and fiscal plans attempt to grapple with that instead a one-off payment (non- issue and manage them politically. They are not plans for maintaining and developing pensionable) to drivers, and no the economy of Britain and the wealth of its people. ■ guarantees about the number of night shifts to be imposed. If you have news from your industry, trade or profession we want to hear from you. • A longer version of this article is on the Call us on 020 8801 9543 or email [email protected] web at www.cpbml.org.uk. ■ 4 WORKERS 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 ON THE WEB r d n A A selection of additional Tens of thousands of people took part in the “anti-austerity” marches on Saturday 20 news at cpbml.org.uk… June. Photo shows marchers in London. Rail strike threat draws new offer Planned strikes at Network Rail over pay and conditions were called off after the Union rights restored rail operator increased its pay offer to 2 IN THE WEEK leading up to the general election the London Borough of Wandsworth per cent this year. restored deduction of trade union subscriptions from payroll and returned to the Local ‘Extremism‘ proposals that Government national agreement which they had torn up nearly 35 years ago.