The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 21st June 2024
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 21st June 2024
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
This election is so interesting that in the online edition of the Guardian on Tuesday afternoon, only one out of 10 most-read stories was about the forthcoming vote. On the Scottish Herald it was two out of 10. So it is to be hoped readers will not be put off with the contents of this page.
The publication of Labour’s manifesto brought a range of response from trade union leaders. Some clearly thought it was akin to Moses handing down the tablets of stone. Christine McAnea of Unison said: “This manifesto sets out a clear plan for the future. It shows how a Labour government could rebuild a Britain broken after years of Tory austerity and chaos.” Given that Unison is the major NHS union it should have noticed that a former pledge to the effect that “The NHS is not for sale” has been discreetly dropped. But that could prevent union officials from getting appointed to quangos when Starmer gets to Downing Street.
Her opposite number in GMB, Gary Smith, took a similar line. Taking Labour’s vague promises at face value, he said the watered down “The New Deal for Working People is a once in a generation chance to completely transform the lives of working people”. The GMB was, however, tougher on the SNP, who are deemed to be unsupportive of the nuclear power industry. As noted last week, Unite refused to endorse the manifesto for its vagueness on workers’ rights.
Shopworkers’ union USDAW went even further, explicitly admiring “Keir Starmer’s pro-business, pro-worker manifesto” which “will deliver the changes that USDAW members desperately need”, citing in particular “more uniformed police, town centre banning orders for repeat offenders and an end to the £200 threshold for prosecuting shoplifting”, to say nothing of “transforming our high streets to tackle the retail crisis by reforming business tax, investing in town centres and supporting small independent retailers”. It is pitiful watching union leaders support tax cuts for their highly profitable employers.
Community, the former steelworkers’ union, was equally deferential to Starmer, in particular welcoming “enhanced partnership working across employers, workers, trade unions and government”.
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has broadly welcomed Labour’s manifesto, in particular the commitments to improve the fire and rescue service and strengthen workers’ rights, an important matter as firefighters were one of the main targets of recent legislation to curtail strike action.
FBU general secretary, Matt Wrack, said “reversing recent draconian anti-trade union laws will be a vital first step in undoing the damage of the last decade”. That he also said it was a hardfought battle to secure such commitments to basic trade union rights from Labour suggest that Wrack was wary of relying too much on promises from Sir Keir Starmer. Wrack also said: “It will be our duty to ensure that a new Labour government makes good on these promises within the first 100 days of taking power. We will hold Labour’s feet to the fire.” That is a most unprofessional thing for a fireman to suggest, but a degree of scepticism about Starmer’s promises is welcome.
Earlier the FBU demanded that the Labour leader reinstate barred candidates, but Starmer never paid any attention, which is likely to be an omen for the future.
The RMT took a similar view, with General Secretary Mick Lynch saying it is “in the interests of working people to get the Tories out which means getting a Labour-led government in, and our members will need to campaign and vote accordingly”.
As befits a union unaffiliated to Labour he added that that there would be “no blank cheques for Labour and we also challenge Labour to provide an alternative, coherent and credible economic strategy that radically challenges the current orthodoxy on spending and borrowing so that we can properly fund our industries and public services”. Uniquely for a union, RMT also endorses “socialist” challengers to Labour at the ballot box.
One of the smaller specialist unions, the Musicians’ Union, welcomed the Labour manifesto, for issues concerning musicians such as helping to “break down barriers for artists touring in the EU” (no mention of these problems being caused by rules imposed by EU countries) and support for musical education.
These goodies it credits to being affiliated to the Labour Party and being on the NEC, but that means it must also take the blame for the negative parts of the Manifesto such as increased military spending and reactionary economic policies. No union seems to take issue with the reactionary economic agenda, and those which support higher military spending. GMB and Unite take care not to mention it for fear of annoying those members who do not work in those sectors.
No-one seems to have noticed that of the aims of the New Deal is to “Make Work Pay”. That slogan was coined by the Tories in the 1980s and aimed to do so by cutting unemployment benefits to get people “on their bikes” to take low-paid menial jobs.
PCS, a civil service union which is not affiliated to Labour, set out a hopeful shopping list of demands for candidates that focus largely on Civil Service-related issues, seeking a four-day week and an end to outsourcing. They deplore Universal Credit and demand a more supportive replacement, and higher taxation on the rich and big business with investment in HMRC to catch them. It is not difficult to imagine how seriously Starmer is going to take these demands. Someone could start a book to take bets on what excuses will be made by Starmer for non-action.
Crap Jobs
One matter needing urgent reform is the drastic increase in insecure work. The TUC recently estimated that one in eight workers are now in jobs that offer little or no security. It also notes that such jobs have been the main source of growth in the jobs market, which is responsible for the comparatively low level of unemployment.
It estimates that 4.1 million are in this situation which covers people in zero-hours contracts, low-paid self-employment, and casual or seasonal work (and in any combination thereof).
Between 2011 and 2023 insecure work rose by almost a third at a time when the numbers in secure employment rose by only 11 per cent.
The figure does not vary much across the country, but the West Midlands and the South West are both slightly worse.
It is not a case of hi-tech workers skipping from one short term contract to another with a Mediterranean cruise in between as some would have us believe. It is in low-paid, unorganised sectors where the problem is worse. The care, leisure, service occupations and elementary occupations have seen most of the growth with numbers growing by over 70 per cent or 600,000 since 2011. Apart from the insecurity, the pay in these sectors is over a third less an hour than workers on median pay. Seasonal and casual work are in the same boat.
The TUC also displays a childish belief in Labour’s “New Deal for Working People” to herald a golden age. It cited a survey by the Chartered Management Institute of its members who overwhelmingly thought Labour’s policies were wonderful. That alone ought to be a warning that they are designed not to change very much.
Paul Nowak, the TUC’s General Secretary, said: “The UK’s long experiment with a lowrights, low-wage economy has been terrible for growth, productivity and living standards.” True enough – but he is no class warrior. He reassures the bourgeois that “as well as preventing workers from being treated like throw-away labour it would stop good employers from being undercut by the bad”.
One of the points he mentions is that bosses will be forced to “introduce ethnicity pay gap reporting and disability pay gap reporting”. Fantastic, now we will know more about how much certain groups of workers are underpaid, but he failed to suggest what the unions will be doing to ensure that they stop being underpaid.
Last week we reported on the low density of trade union membership in Britain. If the TUC spent more time dealing with that vital issue the problem of insecure work could be tackled.
It is not just the Chartered Management Institute that seems unconcerned about Labour’s supposed New Deal. The Chartered Institute of Profession Development, which represents Human Resources managers, does not seem too worried about Labour’s vague promises either. It notes that the creation of a single enforcement body to replace the present various authorities was one the Tories made in 2019 and ignored.
It laments that plans to change the remit of the Low Pay Commission so it takes into account the cost of living when calculating the level at which the national minimum wage could see wages rise. It does not see much problem with plans to end zero-hour contracts as, along with some on the left, it notices there are plenty of loopholes.