WORkERS’ RIGhTS

By CAROLyN JONES

At last! The recently publishedparty manifestos put some clearwater between the Tories and the

Labour Party. As expected, the Tories focused their

attention on bashing the unions. A chunkof their manifesto rants on aboutrestricting the right to strike, increasingthe balloting thresholds and allowingemployers to bus in scabs during strikes.

Ed Miliband on the other hand vowedto put the interests of working peoplefirst, debunking the Tory idea that low

pay is necessary for Britain to succeedand promising to end the tired old ideathat as long as we look after the rich andpowerful everything will be ok.

So far so good. I'm voting for Ed. Theproblem comes when you look for thedetail on how a Labour Governmentwould give power and better pay toworking people. Increasing the minimumwage in the not too distant future won’tcut through the growing level ofinequality. We need more fundamentalchange.

We need to start rebuilding oureconomy by investing in the kind ofdecent jobs needed to grow us out ofrecession. In short we need to rebuild

collective bargaining, invest in thepurchasing power of workers and puttrade unions at the heart of oureconomic recovery.Without thiscollective voice the balance of powerremains massively in favour of theemployer. The result? The growth ininequality, exploitation and bademployment practices that haunt the UKtoday.

We know that bad practice tricklesdown to those parts that wealth neverreaches. And it shows. In January the UKwas criticised at the international bar oflaw for failing to protect workers againstunpaid overtime, unpaid holidays,inadequate rest periods, failure to securea decent standard of living, failure tocompensate workers exposed tooccupational health risks and much more.

These are problems that should bedealt with by collective bargaining, settingstandards at a national level across allsectors of the economy. Even the IMFnow says that collective bargaining isgood for economic health! That’s why wewant to see a Ministry of Labour at theheart of government, tasked to give avoice to the UK’s 29 million workers,both in the corridors of power and in theboardrooms of Britain.

It’s not rocket science. It’s notuntested. It works. But if you still needconvincing, watch Keith Ewing and John

Hendy* explain how andwhy a future governmentmust learn from our past,invite unions to thenegotiating table and startbuilding an inclusiveeconomy.

CAROLyN JONES IS DIRECTOR

Of ThE INSTITUTE Of EMPLOyMENT RIGhTS

*http://tinyurl.com/pwflctg

Workers of all lands, unite!

The daily miracle ...alive and kicking at 85By BEN ChACkO

WhEN ThE first Daily Worker rolled off the pressesin 1930, Britain was reeling from the GreatDepression.

Working people faced soaring unemployment and hunger.Politicians and the monopoly media demanded savage cuts towages and public spending in the name of balancing the books.Sound familiar?

The Daily Worker was founded to counter that narrative, toprovide a voice for the millions and not the millionaires.

On its first day a reporter phoned from the Daily Herald toask if it would come out again a day later. Eighty-five years on,our name may have changed - we've been the Morning Starsince 1966 - but we're still here and still true to that mission.

The Star is a co-operative - the only co-operatively ownednational daily in the country. That means we answer only toour readers, not to some tax-dodging non-dom press baron.

Eleven trade union organisations are represented on ourelected management committee. 

We remain the authentic voice of working people in struggle- reporting on the stories the rest of the press won't touch,whether that was last year's People's March for the NHS orthe battle of London's Focus E15 mums for affordable housingin the capital.

We're the only paper to stand shoulder to shoulder with thetrade union movement, backing workers taking industrialaction to secure the pay and conditions they deserve.

And we're the only paper to expose the lies and propagandaof the ruling class, opposing imperialism and fighting for peaceand socialism across the world.

The Morning Star is proud of the role it plays in the labourmovement and as the sole voice for socialism in the Britishmedia.

We're proud of the way we're evolving, with the paperpublishing a wide range of contributors from across the left. In2015 our paper is bigger, brighter and better than ever.

But we need more readers, whether of the printed paper orof our new e-edition, in order to make that voice heard louderand more widely and to ensure we're still championing therights of working people after another 85 years.

If you aren't yet a reader of the world's only English-language socialist daily - what's stopping you?

BEN ChACkO IS ACTING EDITOR Of ThE MORNING STAR

Price: £1 Monday to Friday and £1.20 for the weekend editionor online at morningstaronline.co.uk

LABOUR

By ROBERT GRIffIThS

ThE PROSPECT of Ed Miliband asPrime Minister doesn’t set thepulse racing. Indeed, the thought

of Ed Balls as Chancellor is enough toget the blood boiling.

I am in no doubt that the onlyalternative to a Labour government is oneled by the Tories, who would regard theirvictory as a mandate to intensify theirinhuman treatment of the poor, sick anddisabled. Which is not to say that anyoneshould write the Labour Party leadership ablank cheque nor stop campaigningagainst Tory-LibDem policies.

Ed Miliband has made some positivecommitments, including abolition of thedespicable Bedroom Tax and repeal ofthe 2012 Health and Social Care Actwhich opens the door even wider toprivate service providers.

Would his government keep its word?I’m not the author of Old Moore’s

Almanack and have no powers ofprophecy. That’s why it is crucial is to stepup the extra-parliamentary campaigningagainst the Bedroom Tax, includingwinning more Labour-run councils toavoid evictions or homelessness for non-payment.

In England in particular, privatisation ofNHS services is accelerating as PFIpayments pile up to £2 billion a year.Marches and rallies like the People’s Marchfor the NHS and the recent People’sConvention for the NHS could not comeat a better time to make the case why aLabour government must repeal the 2012Act, but also begin reversing the wholeprivatisation agenda.Most of Britain’strade unions will be putting their weightbehind a Labour victory in the GeneralElection. Their reasons should not be hardto fathom. In particular, they do not wantanother barrage of anti-union laws,notably the Tory proposal to furtherrestrict the right to strike even after asecret ballot.

Of course, a Labour victory guarantees

nothing for as long as spokespersons suchas Douglas Alexander, Vernon Coaker,Chuka Ummuna and Rachel Reevesworship at the shrines of the EU, NATO,big business and the poorhouse.

We need Labour policies which inspirethe millions, not appease the millionaires.

A big Communist Party vote will sendthat message to a future Labourgovernment without jeopardising itselection. The same could be said for otherleft and progressives candidates, wherethey don’t diminish or endanger theprospects for a Labour victory.

A victory that will raise working classmorale, expectationsand demands, althoughwe would must guardagainst any illusions thata Labour victory willproduce significantprogress.ROBERT GRIffIThS IS

GENERAL SECRETARy Of ThE COMMUNIST PARTy

AND COMMUNIST CANDIDATE fOR MERThyR

TyDfIL AND RhyMNEy

RE-BUILDCOLLECTIVEBARGAINING

Still the only show in town

May Day Special

unity!

By JOhN fOSTER

COMMUNIST PARTy candidates arechallenging the big businesspolicies of the European Union.

They are standing up for popularsovereignty, democratic rights overBrussels diktat, putting people beforeprofits and promoting public ownershipover capitalist competition anddemanding outright rejection of theTransatlantic Trade and InvestmentPartnership

At this moment in time the EU posestwo very significant threats; the first toworkers and their rights to collectivebargaining and the second whichprecludes individual member states fromretaining public ownership or providingany form of state aid to industry. It istherefore no accident that the EUCommission is the joint architect of TTIP,taking us even further down theprivatisation road.

Articles 120 and 121 of the LisbonTreaty specifically require member statesto enable wage setting that takes accountof differing levels of productivity andperformance between firms and regions –in other words, to outlaw collectivebargaining procedures across nations andindustries. And this is no empty gesture.The European Commission is currentlymaking it a condition of bailout forGreece. Other countries such as Cyprus,Spain and Italy are being forced todismantle existing collective bargaining

structures and slash labour rights.Remember the EU asserts the freedom

of capital, not the freedom of workers toorganise. Unless trade unionists exposeand challenge the EU on this, the legaldrive to erode workers’ rights will onlyget worse

This also applies to the EU’s assault onpublic ownership. The Single EuropeanAct and subsequent directives all requirethe phasing out of ‘state aid’ to industryand an end to public sector ‘monopolies’.Yet unless governments retain powers tointervene economically, and to activelydevelop their industries, most nationaleconomies, particularly Britain’s, aredoomed to decline.

Again the EU Commission is using thefinancial crisis to enforce massiveprivatisation programmes from Greece toPortugal. Most recently, we have seen theRoyal Mail, sold off at a knock down priceto privateers

Trade unionists need to challenge allthe comfort talk about the EU. It’s notthe worker’s friend. It’s a false friend, thepersuader for big business and, as inGreece, its brutal enforcer.

Five months after the Greek election,the EU and the IMF are still waiting forthe government to agree its terms beforehanding out a cent of new bailout funds.Not that they will be the life line that theymight appear to be. After all, only 15billion euro (less than 4 per cent) of thepre-election bailout went into the Greekeconomy while 395 billion was repaid to

external bank creditors in Germany,France, Britain and the US.

Within Europe, Britain’s Coalitiongovernment has given full support to theausterity policies of the ‘Troika’ (theEuropean Commission, European CentralBank and the IMF). It is also backing thesecretive EU-US trade deal, theTransatlantic Trade and InvestmentPartnership (TTIP), which threatens jobs,working conditions and environmentalprotections, as well as enforcingprivatisation of more public services.

Through TTIP, the EU will be openingpublic sector to for-profit venturecompanies. The Treaty will make itvirtually impossible for member states toregulate the number of providers in anyone ‘market’, develop accreditationprocedures or impose quality standards.Under investor-state dispute settlementprovisions, foreign investors will be ableto challenge regulatory or policymeasures and sue ‘host’ nations.

The first May Day was organised tocommemorate those killed in Chicago in1886 demanding an eight hour day.

Workers have foughtfor generations tosecure their democraticright to regulate andcontrol capital. The EUand TTIP now directlythreaten those rights.

JOhN fOSTER IS ThE COMMUNIST PARTy’SINTERNATIONAL SECRETARy

By ZOE hENNESSy

UNION SWEEThEART deals withemployers –known aspartnership agreements – are in

place across the public and privatesectors. Some unions claim that theseagreements are beneficial because theyallow elected reps access to facilitytime in the workplace.

They also make the case thatpartnership agreements mean thatemployers must notify unions of anychanges in the workplace or business.

But if we want unions to be activelyorganising we should treat thesepartnership models with extreme caution.

They are hugely restrictive for unionactivists who want to organise in theworkplace. Some partnership modelsenable employers to bypass our tradeunions, dividing workers and allowingemployers to negotiate with employees onan individual basis.

For example, I work in a major UKsupermarket which has a partnershipagreement with one union. We have aworkplace committee which is lead bystore management. Union reps areallowed a place on thiscommittee, but soare workers who may not even be in theunion, let alone elected reps!

The issues raised are rarely important.They are generally plans for the Christmasparty, or management feeding informationdown about promotions for specialoccasions like Mother’s Day.

Typically, this means when the unionnegotiates pay, management can refer backto the minutes to undermine the claim,arguing that pay, for example, doesn’tseem to be a concern.

Often the only consultation that theunion gets from this agreement is to betold that something is happening, rather

than having any power to negotiate. Young communists argue that

concessions have to be forced fromemployers by organised and militantunions, and are not just handed out bybeneficent bosses, as some forms ofpartnership working suggest.

The problem with partnershipagreements is that they deny the inherentcontradiction between capital and labour,and also assumes that workers and bossesare on a level playing field.

Capital is always seeking to maximiseprofits and the most direct way of doingthis is to attack the terms and conditionsof workers.

They are most effective at doing thiswhen trade union density is low, andworkers are not well-organised.

In a society geared towards privateprofit, workers and employers are neveron a level playing field, and to actotherwise only aids employers, who havethe upper hand already.

Communists believe that workers mustretain their democratic right to takecollective strike action when circumstancesdemand it. This is a fundamental right notincluded in some partnership agreements.

Young workers are employed inincreasingly low paid and precariousemployment. They are often inunorganised and highly exploitativeindustries. It is vital that young trade union

activists organise in theseworkplaces. We also needto make the case forrestoring collectivebargaining rights to youngworkers so that ourunions can effectivelyorganise.

ZOE hENNESSy IS GENERAL SECRETARy Of ThE

yOUNG COMMUNIST LEAGUE AND COMMUNIST

CANDIDATE IN GLASGOW NORTh WEST

The EU, TTIP and all that

Partnership dangers

Origins of May DayDungeons dark? Gallows grim? Words from the Red Flag …but what’s it all about? And in that second verse, often notsung let alone understood, why Chicago?

The sturdy German chants its praise,In Moscow's vaults its hymns are sungChicago swells the surging throng.And how does this fit with May Day. Isn’t all about dancing

around a village green or something? The big struggle, thirteen decades ago, was to win the 8-

hour work day without a cut in pay – eight hours rest, eighthours play, and eight hours work. This coincided with a newmood, which included interest in the newish idea of socialism.This had begun to reappear in Britain in the 1880s and,intriguingly considering later developments, in America, too,and this is where May Day as a workers’ day began.

At a national convention of unions held in Chicago in 1884, itwas decided to call for the 8-hour day to operate, whetheremployers agreed it or not, from May 1st 1886. It was ageneral strike call, effectively.

More than 300,000 workers in 13,000 workplaces across theUnited States walked out in the first May Day celebration inhistory. In Chicago alone there were nearly 100,000 out. Onlyon May 3 did violence erupt on the picket line at a factorywhere a lock-out had been underway for six months.

Private security agents and police both with firearms andheavy clubs attacked steelworkers as they picketed. Thisprovoked rock-throwing by workers, to which the policeresponded with gunfire, killing two and wounding many more.

A protest meeting was called for the following day inHaymarket Square. There, as the mayor of Chicago himselflater testified, the crowd remained calm and no speakers calledfor violence.

But two detectives rushed to the police lines, claiming aspeaker was inciting violence. Just as the police were urging thealready departing crowd to leave, a bomb was thrown. It hasnever been established who did this but it was enough for thepolice to fire into the crowd. At least eight civilians and eightpolice died and up to forty were wounded. But only one policeofficer died as a result of the altercation, the rest were killedby what would today be called `friendly fire’.

Despite a complete lack of evidence, eight people wereconvicted of murder by a jury of businessmen, though onlythree were even present at Haymarket.

On November 11, 1887, after many failed appeals, thehangings began, although three escaped the noose and werepardoned six years later.

In 1889, at a congress in Paris, attended by socialists frommany countries, on the 100th anniversary of the FrenchRevolution, a call for international demonstrations on theanniversary of the Chicago events was made and internationalworkers May Day was launched. Today, it is an official holiday ineighty countries and unofficially celebrated in many more, butrarely is it recognised in the country where it began.

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