National News
Workers’ reasonable demands
Unite,
has come up with a platform
of demands to meet the
needs, not just of its members
but of all working people
in the COVID-19 pandemic.
It correctly points
out that for lockdowns to
be effective, working people
must be supported.
This means: An increase
in Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)
to a living wage level and
available to all workers; the
furlough level raised so that
no one receives less than the
minimum wage; increasing
both public service wages and
the minimum wage; maintain
the £20 uplift in Universal
Credit and boost it further;
and a right to furlough for
those who cannot work due to
lockdown restrictions such as
school closures.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Working on the front line
BECAUSE we are all told
to stay at home and not go
out to work, Go North West
bus drivers in Manchester
are facing the threat of being
fired and rehired, which will
result in a 10 per cent reduction
in the number of drivers
employed, an increase in
unpaid working hours and
drivers’ conditions slashed.
These plans had been made
before the pandemic, but
bosses are taking advantage
of the situation to force them
through.
The response of Unite
has been to make proposals
for cost reductions of around
£1 million and a pay freeze
worth around £200,000 at
the company’s Queens Road
Depot, suggestions which the
company has dismissed as
insufficient. After all, it is in
the business of making money
for its shareholders.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Key workers or not?
ALTHOUGH it is now 10
months since the beginning
of the first lockdown,
it is still necessary for
trade unions to fight for
COVID-safe working conditions.
Transport union
RMT has accused “employers
of playing fast and
loose in light of virulent
new COVID variant”, saying
that proposals from the
Rail Industry Coronavirus
Forum (RICF) will put lives
on the line.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
How to Cope with a Pandemic
by our Scottish political correspondent
Calamity Jeane is the
nickname of Jeane Freeman,
the ex-communist,
ex-Labour Health Secretary.
Her most recent blunder
resulted in her issuing
an apology for revealing
the location of a secret
storage facility for COVID-
19 vaccine in England.
Her vaccination strategy
also had to be speedily
withdrawn from the SNP
Government website because
it also contained
secret information.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Starmer’s curious appointment
IT IS NOT unusual for
senior politicians to have
spies in their office. West
German Chancellor Willy
Brandt had to resign in
1974 when it was discovered
that his secretary
was passing his secrets to
the German Democratic
Republic (GDR). Labour
Leader Sir Keir Starmer
has taken an unusual
route to avoiding such a
scandal. He has appointed
a known spy to his office,
which means he cannot be
exposed for something he
discreetly announced.
The appointee in question
is one Assaf Kaplan, who
has spent five years between
2008– 2013 in the Israeli
intelligence services where
he worked for Unit 8200,
which is its cyberwarfare
department. It specialises in
spying, hacking and encryption.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
International News
Haiti: Imperialist manipulation meets popular resistance
by G Dunkel
HAITI is by far the poorest
country in the Western
Hemisphere – yet it has a
glorious history as the
first independent Black
republic and the first
nation in the Western
Hemisphere to abolish
slavery. Also, the Haitian
people militantly resisted
US occupation from 1915
to 1934 and carried out a
mass uprising that led to
Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s
election as president in
1990.
These are some of the
historical factors taken into
account by US imperialists
– whose goal is to continue
to dominate Haiti – in order
to repress the people’s
strong resistance to exploitation
and oppression.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
France: mergers and bonuses
Revolutionary Communist
Party of France (PCRF)
IN HIS New Year Address
to the Nation,
French President Emmanuel
Macron said
that by Spring France
will be stronger and
that a “new model”
of a nation will have
emerged.
The Revolutionary
Communist Party of
France (PCRF), however,
points out that the
“new model” always
turns out to be brighter
for big capital and darker
for workers. The decline
in wages, working
and living conditions,
and jobs continues in
France with increasing
rapidity. The Lapeyre
group [DIY products]
plans to liquidate 750
jobs, the Michelin
company plans to cut
2,300 jobs, the Danone
group [food] plans to
cut 2,000 jobs by 2023,
Bridgestone is closing
its Bethune plant
[tyres], 30,000 jobs
were cut in the aviation
sector in 2020 alone,
and this list is growing
every day.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Australian farm workers getting organised against big wage swindle
by Ned K
WAGE SWINDLES
with farm workers being
paid piece rates
less than even the
minimum legal Award
wage have been occurring
for years.
As Bob Dylan would
say, however, “the times
they are a-changing”. In
December, the Australian
Financial Review
reported cases of farm
workers being paid the
piece-work equivalent
of $3 per hour [one Australian
Dollar = £0.57].
Farm workers have
traditionally been covered
by the Australian
Workers Union (AWU),
but they fell into the trap
of focusing organising
resources on bigger industrial
worksites where
there were large concentrations
of workers
in full-time employment
and with a long
tradition of unionism.
Steel works, aluminium
smelters and foundries
were the priority, and
farm workers, whether
picking mushrooms,
tomatoes, potatoes or
cherries for the Christmas
dinner tables, were
put in the too-hard basket.
Most farm workers
do not have continuous
employment in the one
place all year round but
follow the harvest times
of many different crops.
Many are new migrant
workers but there is a
significant percentage of
farm workers who have
worked in the industry
for years.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Congress of Lao People’s Revolutionary Party
Xinhua
THE PRIME Minister
of Laos, Thongloun Sisoulith,
was elected as the
new General Secretary
of the country’s ruling
Lao People’s Revolutionary
Party (LPRP)
Central Committee at
the communist party’s
11th Congress held in
the capital Vientiane on
Friday.
The three-day congress
beginning Wednesday
has elected the new
members of the LPRP
Central Committee for the
2021–25 term. Participating
in the vote were 768
delegates at the congress,
who represented a total
of about 348,680 party
members nationwide.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Fascism – Indian Style
Communist Party of India (Marxist)
ACROSS the Indian
north-eastern state
of Tripura, which
borders Bangladesh,
the ruling Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP)
launched violent attacks
on Communist
Party of India (Marxist)
(CPIM) and other
opposition parties
last Sunday.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Features
Scandal brings down Dutch Government
The following
statement from the
New Communist Party
of the Netherlands
(NCPN) and its youth
wing the Communist
Youth Movement of
the Netherlands (CJB)
outlines their response
of a major scandal
involving child benefits
that has brought down
the Dutch Government.
LAST FRIDAY the Dutch
right-wing Prime Minister
Mark Rutte submitted the
resignation of his Cabinet
to King William-Alexander
- just two months before the
parliamentary elections will
take place. The reason for
the fall of the cabinet is the
so-called “benefits affair”,
which can be better described
as a terrible scandal.
The Government will continue
as a caretaker to tackle
the pandemic until the March
parliamentary election, apart
from the Economics Minister
Eric Wiebes who instantly
resigned for his role in the
scandal.
This involved approximately
26,000 parents who
received childcare allowance
being wrongly labelled as
fraudsters. These parents were
then forced to pay back enormous
sums of money (often
tens of thousands of Euros)
to which they were entitled.
There was also a racist element
to this because the tax
authorities applied ethnic
profiling, 11,000 of the cases
involved those with dual nationality.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
USA 2021 : An arresting start
by Greg Godels
ANOTHER election cycle
brings the USA a
new President, another
Congress and a new
Federal administration.
A cynic might see the
changes as cosmetic, a
mere opportunity for
another collection of political
operatives to grift,
to peddle influence and
to accumulate power.
Lobbyists favoured by
the Democratic Party
will now have access to
more elected officials
and agency and bureau
heads, whilst their Republican-
favoured counterparts
must now work
lower on the food chain
until their turn comes
up again.
Campaign contributions
will determine consulting
contracts, the flow
of government monies
and ceremonial appointments.
Where some see
corruption, others see opportunity.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Bolivia’s political, economic and COVID battles
by Ekaterina Blinova
FOLLOWING the win
of Evo Morales’s former
minister of economy,
Luis Arce, in Bolivia’s
October elections, the
country’s economy has
grown, says Aberto Echazu,
Bolivian journalist
for La Resistencia Bolivia
and political analyst,
adding that the Bolivian
opposition has not laid
down its arms.
Luis Fernando Camacho,
the leader of rightwing
political alliance
Creemos and one of the
most vocal proponents
of Evo Morales’s ousting
in November 2019, has
thrown his hat into the
Santa Cruz gubernatorial
race. Speaking to Bolivian
daily Página Siete on 3rd
January, Camacho said that
he had made the decision
to run after the snap October
elections that ended in
a landslide victory for Luis
Arce, the Movement Towards
Socialism’s (MAS)
presidential candidate.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
