SOCIALIST UNITY

During a ceremony to mark the country’s annual Australia Day celebration in Canberra, Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, was forced to flee the event surrounded by police and bodyguards after being besieged by angry protesters demanding aboriginal rights.

Supporters of aboriginal rights in Australia refer to the annual event marking Australia’s creation as ‘Invasion Day’. The issue of aboriginal rights is particularly controversial, given the history of abuse, cruelty, and racism the indigenous people of Australia have suffered.

Nominations are now closed for the leadership contest for Plaid Cymru. I am delighted that bookmakers have Leanne Wood as favourite to win.

 Leanne, has already garnered impressive support, ranging from popular former MP Adam Price, from AMs Bethan Jenkins and Lindsay Whittle; from Allan Pritchard, the Plaid leader of Caerphilly County Borough Council; from Carmarthenshire MP Jonathan Edwards; and  from Gwenllian Lansdown Davies, Plaid Cymru’s former chief executive.

There should be no doubt that electing a talented and principled socialist like Leanne, who has the personal qualities for leadership of her party; who has the ability to connect with the concerns of ordinary voters; and is also a highly intelligent and sophisticated political thinker, would be an enormous benefit for Plaid, and to Welsh politics generally.

It is refreshing to see an authentic left wing, progressive voice appearing on Question Time for a change. Mark Steel, comedian, writer and activist, will be appearing on this week’s show from Plymouth on a panel with the vile Melanie Philips, the Labour Party careerist and Blairite David Lammy, and two complete nonentities from the Tory Party and Lib Dems.

Watch out for an interview with Mark on SU in the near future.

This official history of NUPE from 1928 to 1993 (when it merged with COHSE and NALGO to form UNISON) deserves to be a standard reference book for those interested in the evolution of modern unions, particularly in the public services. It is comprehensively researched, although mainly from the written records, rather than tapping into the rich vein of oral history; and for those of us who were members of NUPE (as I proudly was between 1979 and 1981) it does capture the ethos of the union.

It would be fair to say that the early years of the union were sometimes controversial, as NUPE took an often belligerent stance towards other unions; and the General Secretaries of the earlier years, Jack Wills and Bryn Roberts, were blessed with a monomaniacal devotion to the principle of unions organised by industrial sector, and a passionate aversion to general unions like TGWU and NUGMW. The era of Jack Wills saw the union run will almost no concessions to the concept of democracy, but the simple force of will of the General Secretary saw the union grow through grim,  unglamourous hard work with some of the lowest paid and most downtrodden manual workers, often working for public authorities in Tory run rural areas, and NUPE made a big effort to recruit road workers; countering employer prejudice that these men were inferior and undeserving.

Bryn Roberts was also a General Secretary of extraordinary personal talent, but almost unblemished by the attributes of tact and diplomacy. As a union open to all grades, NUPE came into frequent conflict with craft unions, and had a stated policy of wanting to be the only union, for example, in London County Council’s housing maintenance division. Roberts published an inflamatory book in 1961 “The Price of TUC leadership” which castigated the other unions in the most forthright terms, and effectively denounced the general unions for being an obstacle to advance towards socialism. Williams and Fryer make the point that Roberts was so focused on the issues of union structure, that he overlooked the significance of the TGWU moving to the left when Frank Cousins became General Secretary in 1956. As a result, Roberts was never elected to the General Council of the TUC, and up until the early 1970s NUPE was seen as a slightly eccentric and wayward organisation.

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, NUPE was extremely popular with its members; who were often the lowest paid and lowest status workers, and who enjoyed the attention that Bryn Roberts’s intransigence brought them. NUPE always embodied a crusading spirit of genuine indignation about the scandal of low pay, and the social stigma associated with the dirty but necessary public service jobs that its members worked in.

One area where I did find this book slightly disappointing was in not expanding on the substance of these debates. As an official history of NUPE it focuses only on NUPE’s point of view, without explaining the counter-arguments from the general unions. A good case in point is that while the inspiring story of the victorious 1970 council workers dispute – which really established NUPE’s national reputation – is well told; the union subsequently had to increase weekly subscriptions by 50% due to the cost of the strike; but TGWU and GMWU who were also involved in the strike were able to avoid this by spreading the cost over their broader membership in other industrial sectors.

The sections relating to the years of the Social Contract are fascinating, telling the story from NUPE’s point of view. The Social Contract, based upon the Labour Party’s 1973 Programme was the high point of labourism, with the unions pledging wage restraint in exchange for government action to boost the social wage, tackle inequality, improve industrial democracy and increase state ownership and planning in favour of economic growth.

However, the Party was not fully committed to the programme, and the Croslandite revisionists like Douglas Jay were already flirting with the idea that inflation could only be controlled by a rise in unemployment, and cuts in government spending. In the face of this strong internal opposition, the government could only be encouraged to stick to the programme if the left and the unions had persuasively stood together, and maintained pressure in support of the programme. But this unity, while superficially present, was not based upon a shared understanding or commitment.

What this book throws an interesting spotlight on is the division between the unions; where NUPE’s dedicated focus only on public service workers led to it making sectional arguments against the cuts, causing some anger among the leaders of other unions who emphasised the need for productive investment in manufacturing to boost growth and jobs. NUPE at the time adopted an under-consumptionist approach to economics, and argued that maintaining the spending power of low paid workers would sustain demand.

This was a substantial difference from the economic policies of unions like AEU and TGWU, who argued the priority for investment in manufacturing. While the political arguments against wage restraint were often carried by unions with some muscle in engineering like TASS; NUPE was instrumental in creating an alliance of public service unions that campaigned against both cutbacks and low pay.

This book is extremely useful in explaining the Winter of Discontent, from NUPE’s point of view; and also for recounting the history of how militancy grew in the NHS in particular as an assertion by low status workers of their demand for dignity and respect.

Leadership and Democracy
A History of the National Union of Public Employees
Vol 2 1928-1993
Stephen Williams and R.H.Fryer

Paperback, 600pp, All rights L&W December 2011
ISBN: 9781907103377

This is a cross-post from Tony Greenstein’s blog.

The 30th Conference of PSC promised to be one of the more controversial PSC AGMs and it certainly lived up to it. Entering the conference, who was there giving out blue badges commemorating the massacre at Deir Yassin, but the eminence grise of the holocaust deniers, Paul Eisen – neo-Nazi apologist extraordinaire.

Despite his fulminations against what he calls ‘Zionism’ Eisen is remarkably similar to them. The Zionists exploit the holocaust for their own purposes and Eisen exploits the massacre of Palestinians for his own purposes, i.e. denial of the holocaust and rehabilitation of the Nazis.

The first item on the agenda was a closed session at which the appeal of Frances Clarke Lowes against his expulsion was to be heard. Last April, Francis declared on the Brighton & Hove PSC Discussion List that he was proud to be a holocaust denier. For his pains he was expelled from Brighton PSC and not one voice was raised in his defence in Brighton PSC. I reported his statement to the Executive and sometime in May he was also expelled from national PSC. Francis however had the right of appeal to the national conference and chose to exercise that right.

The speech is printed, in a highly edited version, on (who else?) Gilad Atzmon’s site.

It is fair to say that Clarke-Lowes speech did him no favours. It was extremely anti-Semitic, talking about the ‘Jewish narrative’ and speaking about Jews as a group with common properties. He openly stated that the holocaust was a myth (something Atzmon has not included in his version of the speech). People literally gasped as they heard him describe the holocaust as a ‘myth’ and a number of people told me that if he hadn’t been expelled they would have resigned.

The speech from the Executive, from Hugh Lanning, was superb, moving and to the point. It ended by asking conference not to let evil enter our hearts. Conference upheld the expulsion by 165 vote to 35 with 6 abstension. A couple of days ago I had sent an e-mail to the Secretary of PSC, Ben Sofa, saying that in my opinion a majority was not good enough, we needed at least a 3-1 majority. In the end we got 5-1. In fact it was considerably more because I had not realised that the zany Communist Party of Great Britain – Marxist Leninist, the followers of the hereditary oligarchy otherwise known as the ‘socialist state of North Korea’ had taken a decision to oppose any condemnation of holocaust denial. Their amendment to the Executive’s Motion 2 read:

‘This AGM resolves that PSC’s chief focus shall remain that of building support for Palestine and Palestinians and against zionism and imperialism. It is not the PSC’s job to act as thought police on behalf of zionism and imperialism, and we refuse to ask the Palestinians to bend their narrative to one that is acceptable to zionist ears.’

That so-called communists, led by Harpal Brar and his daughter Joti Brar, think that the Palestinian narrative includes holocaust denial or that there is any contradiction between opposing the denial of the holocaust and opposing imperialism and Zionism is truly amazing. But as Harpal Brar made clear in a subsequent speech he cast no doubt on the fact of the holocaust.

In other words most of those who voted against Clarke-Lowes’ expulsion, did so despite his views on the holocaust and primarily as part of a wider disagreement with PSC Executive. And since they brought virtually all of their membership of about 20 to the conference, it is clear even that that stage that those who had any sympathy with Clarke-Lowes were a tiny handful.

After the lunch break we had a guest speaker, Omar Barghouti from the Palestinian Boycott National Committee. He detailed the increasingly open racism of the state, its attacks on the memory of the Nakba, which has been made unlawful, the shameful decision of the Supreme Court to uphold the Citizenship Law which prevents Israeli Arabs from living with their spouse in side Israel.

It must have been a shock when Omar went out of his way to make it clear that anti-Semitism and holocaust denial were no part of the politics of the Palestinians. ‘Ours is an anti-racist cause’ he stated, in case anyone had failed to decipher the meaning of the speech. He generously paid tribute to PSC as the world’s most effective solidarity organisation and to Britain for leading the way in Boycott. It is a compliment that are indebted to honour and repay.

After Omar’s speech the Executive motion 2 and that from Naomi Wimborne Idrissi were taken, along with all 3 amendments from Gill Kaffash/Rosemary Earnshaw, Exeter PSC and the CPGB-ML (above). All the amendments were heavily defeated with less than 20 votes out of over 250 delegates (the votes in the Executive elections indicate there must have been an increase in people arriving by at least 50). Harpal Brar was the only person to speak with any passion or conviction for the amendments. And to his credit he made it clear that of course he accepted that fact of the holocaust without reservation but that there were a number of other acts of genocide we should condemn – that of the Armenians for example, the Iraqis and others. In other words he was speaking agains the Zionists’ holocaust exceptionalism – the idea that the holocaust of Jews is unique. I agree.

Even Gill Kaffash chose not to mention anything to do with holocaust and instead mounted a free speech argument, coupled with the assertion that we stick to Palestine not extraneous issues. But speaker after speaker, with the exception of Exeter PSC’s constitutionalist Dave Chappell (FBU), made it clear that it was not possible oppose the racism that Palestinians suffer from and yet tolerate holocaust deniers and their associates. A member of the Communications Workers Union, whose name I didn’t catch, made this clear in a particularly impassioned contribution, as did Roland Rance from Jews 4 Boycotting Israeli Goods and other speakers.

In the end both the Executive Motion and the one from J-Big were passed with barely 10 votes, if that, against. A humiliating and crushing defeat for the Atzmonites and holocaust deniers in the movement. In my own speech I quoted Atzmon’s statement that Jews who speak as ‘ethnic’ Jews, i.e. who are Jewish simply reinforced Zionism. I asked how is it that people agreed when UNISON passed boycott policy in 2007, that I should speak as someone who is Jewish precisely in order to take head on the Zionist lies that to support the Palestinians is anti-Semitic? I never received an answer from Atzmon’s few supporters. Nor will I. Because the growing number of Jews who are breaking from Zionism, partially or completely, has been growing, especially in the United States. Only the Zionists and the Atzmonites deplore this phenomenon.

It is the Zionists’ supporters – be it the EDL and BNP in this country – or John Hagee of Christians United for Israel – who described Hitler as god’s messenger sent to drive the Jews to Israel, who are the real anti-Semites, and on this of course Harry’s Place is silent.

Many other motions were also passed including one on the disgraceful attacks on Palestinian children by the Israeli military. It is to the eternal shame of the West that they have nothing to say about the shackling and torture of children even, to say nothing of the shackling of Palestinian women prisoners, even while they are giving birth.

There were discussions about the growing successes of the boycott movement, in particular the loss of a £500m contract for Veolia in West London and tribute was paid to Angus Geddes for his sterling work in this area. The closure of Ahava, the Israeli store that traded in stolen goods was also highlighted as was the Judaification of the Negev. Bernard Regan in particular spoke well on the latter and his experiences when visiting Israel with a delegation.

This is also the 30th anniversary of the foundation of PSC and a motion was passed mandating the Executive to organise series of fundraising activities and celebrations. When you consider what we have had to battle against to build an organisation that has now achieved over 5,000 members, then this is indeed a success and tribute was paid to faithful stalwarts like Jeremy Corbyn MP, Baroness Jenny Tonge and Bruce Kent. It is a measure of our success that when I first became involved in Palestinian politics Gerald Kaufman and Tony Benn were both members of Labour Friends of Israel. Today Gerald Kaufman has sponsored an Early Day Motion with Jeremy Corbyn on the racist Jewish National Fund.

And conference also made us, including myself, realise, that whatever disagreements we may have with the Executive, what we have in common is far greater than that which divides us. For the first time ever I even voted for Bernard Regan for the Executive and he accused me of stealing his lines! A special mention should be made of Ben Sofa, the Secretary, who has never wavered in his support for tackling the issue head on.

Because the Executive realised that if the holocaust deniers had got their way, the trade unions – with their history of fighting fascism – would have disaffiliated and we would be a cacophony of noise without influence. Those who argued that we should concentrate on Palestine and Palestinians failed to recognise that that means you must politically engage with the mainstream of society and that you have, at all costs, not to hand your opponents weapons to attack you with.

People were angry at the constant misrepresentation of Palestinian activists you see on sites like Harry’s Place, a place where only rabid Zionists with cloth ears venture. However it was important when attacked by such people to recognise that whilst their accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ may be libels 99 times out of a hundred, there are occasions when we have to sit up and take notice.

So it is that Nahida, an Atzmonite in Liverpool branch, where there have been problems, could write that:

‘The crusade against PSC was ignited by Zionists from outside the movement beginning in September, following an article published on the Zionist hate-website Harry’s Place (HP), and a letter from the Board of Deputies of British Jews” (BODBJ), accusing PSC and its branches of publishing anti-Semitic articles and linking to Holocaust denial websites, which arguably is a crude lie. However, the crusade was sustained, promoted and amplified by insiders with questionable loyalty, who roam freely within the Palestine solidarity movement.’ Following those attacks and demands by BOD of British Jews, certain elements inside the solidarity movement picked up where Zionists stopped. Since then they have initiated a campaign of defamation against Palestinian activists (including myself) and numerous other supporters.’

We, i.e. me and members of groups like J-Big, are the ‘inside’ Zionists as opposed to the honest ones. The problem with the Atzmonites is that their arguments and terms of reference are merely an echo of the Zionist argument. They are the reflection of Zionism in much the same way as Zionism was a reflection of anti-Semitism. And as I pointed out, to most Jews, in the pre–holocaust period, Zionism was considered a species of anti-Semitism.

All in a all a very good day for PSC and the Palestinians and an abject defeat for the apologists for Atzmon and Eisen.

Because I was heavily involved in the debate on specific motions, comments would be welcome both on this and the other issues debated at the conference.

Tony Greenstein

This is a cross-post of an article by Jon Rogers, following yet more attacks in the media on trade union reps.

This evening’s Standard carried what is, I would say by any reckoning, a disgraceful attack upon a dedicated public servant.

Some (not very) bright spark has asked Haringey Council to tally up the salary of an elected lay representative of the National Union of Teachers over a period of six and a half years and (lo and behold) it adds up to quite a lot of money.

This really is only “journalism” in the sense that the “Taxpayers Alliance” conduct “research”. It is clearly driven by the fact that the NUT (and others) in Haringey have got Gove on a back foot over trying to force an unwanted Academy – and is surely intended to act as a warning to every other trade union representative on full time release to carry out trade union duties.

But this blog aims to provide a balanced assessment of workplace issues, so let me try to see things from the other side…

I don’t know the elected NUT rep in question, Julie Davies, personally but (much like the “Taxpayers Alliance” and all those astroturf grassroots campaigners) I know “her type”.

Here is someone who has wilfully refused to advance her career for 12 years, wantonly choosing to represent her fellow teachers at disciplinary, grievance and sickness hearings (often to the mutual benefit of the individual and their employer) rather than progress to a management role.

Shamefully, she has accepted the repeated democratic decisions of her fellow teachers that she should continue to represent them rather than (as would be supported by this Government and their supporters in the press) sticking two fingers up to her colleagues and concentrating upon personal advancement.

Quite clearly, such selfless commitment to the best interests of those who choose to devote their lives to public service deserves every ounce of the criticism which it has today attracted.

How unlike this case is that of poor Stephen Hester, another public sector employee (running a nationalised bank), whose entitlement to a bonus is quite scurrilously being challenged.

How much more positive an example is set by a banker willing to double an already astronomic salary at the expense of an impoverished nation than by some public sector trade unionist scoundrel who persists in rejecting their own individual self-interest in order to represent workers’ collective interests!

You see, dear reader? Once you look at things in a balanced way like this, it really is so straightforward…

You know, this reform of the benefits system really could not be more brutal. Worse than that, the glee with which various Tory ministers, MPs, and supporters have taken to the TV studios, newspapers, and every other media platform to boast of its morality has been truly shocking in its callous disregard for the plight of those who will be affected.

On last night’s Newsnight, Jeremy Paxman, a man paid a whopping 800 grand per year by the taxpayer, was almost orgasmic as he lambasted the Shadow Works and Pensions Secretary, Liam Byrne, not for Labour’s opposition to the benefits cap, which Byrne took pains to point out that Labour supports on principal, but for failing to support it enough. The other two guests on the Newsnight panel to discuss the changes were one of the Church of England bishops who voted through the piecemeal amendments to the reforms in the Lords, and a Tory MP. There wasn’t one dissenting voice to make the case against the actual concept of a benefits cap, which could only leave the less discerning viewer at home with the distinct impression that there is no alternative.

The right wing press has been having a field day too, revelling in labelling benefits claimants ‘scroungers’ and other such epithets in their front page headlines, safe in the knowledge that this particular demographic is powerless to fight back.

And just how are they meant to fight back when we have a Labour leadership that in the past week or so has capitulated to the economics of austerity and in the process turned its back on the poorest and most disadvantaged in society? So far the unions have also been conspicuously absent from this debate, which is hugely disappointing as well as mistaken, especially considering that in the current climate today’s public sector worker is tomorrow’s benefit claimant.

Where is the movement to fight these blatant and ever more brutal attacks on the poor and working class? Where are the voices in the mainstream coming out against the coalition’s attempt, which on this issue has thus far been successful, to divide low paid workers and those on benefits?

We are in the midst of a class war, but so far it is a war in which only one side is organised and landing blows.

The bulk of the responsibility for the parlous state of the left in Britain at present lies with a Labour Party that has betrayed the very principals upon which it was founded. The hard truth is that over thirty years after she left office, we are still living in Thatcher’s Britain. Economically, politically and culturally the right continues to dominate both at the level of ideas and cultural values. Blairism has not been defeated within Labour, reflected in Ed Miliband’s failure to make any headway as leader. People are understandably asking why support a Tory Party in Labour garb when we already have the real thing? This is evidenced in the fact that Cameron has surged ahead in the latest opinion polls, as revealed in the Guardian.

In the midst of an economic crisis precipitated by the greed which Thatcher introduced into society as a virtue, the scandals over MPs expenses, phone hacking, police corruption, executive pay and bankers bonuses, the left is still to gain any traction when it comes to the debate never mind concrete action.

Therefore it is no surprise that Scottish independence looms ever larger as a viable alternative to the status quo, offering the possibility of a sanctuary north of the border from the worst excesses of the Tory/Lib Dem/and Labour neoliberal bloc that is intent on eradicating the poor rather than poverty.

The very concept of social and economic justice is now under threat. The price paid will be immiseration, desolation and the complete atomisation of society.

This is a bleak assessment of the situation. There is no point deluding ourselves. The left is being defeated.

The latest hammer to fall in the vast experiment in human despair which the coalition calls an economic policy is a cap on welfare benefits of £500 per week per family. This is assuming it passes through the Lords, of course, which at time of writing is still to vote on it.

Over the past few days we’ve been regaled with the government’s attempt to posit this attack on the most disadvantaged sector in society as a positive measure that will ‘encourage’ people back into work. Orwellian language aside, the sheer cruelty and brutality of this particular reform should leave no one in any doubt as to the utter disdain it reflects towards those living on the margins, especially as there are no jobs to encourage people into. According to figures released by the think-tank IPPR North (Institute for Public Policy Research), up to 20 jobseekers are currently seeking every vacancy in parts of the UK. And this figure is set to rise with more redundancies on the way in the public sector.

A leaked internal document from the DWP, the findings of which were published in the Observer, reveals that up to 100,000 children will be pushed into poverty as a direct result of the government’s cap on benefits. Yet despite this the coalition remains determined to push ahead with these reforms, which if passed by the Lords will come into effect probably at the start of 2013.

When it comes to the specific issue of housing benefit, those on the receiving end, painted as people and families living the high life in exclusive parts of London and elsewhere at taxpayers’ expense, are in fact victims of the lack of social housing that continues as a festering sore in society on the one hand, and a private housing sector that is crying out for rent control on the other.

Since Thatcher destroyed the country’s stock of council housing when her government introduced Right to Buy legislation allowing tenants to buy their council houses at a huge discount, no government since has addressed the housing crisis that occurred as a direct consequence. In particular, this stands as an indictment of Labour’s 13 years in office, further evidence of its rightward shift and embrace of free market nostrums.

The housing charity, Shelter, estimates that currently there are 1.7 million households on the waiting list for social housing in England, while in Scotland the figure stands at just under 200,000.

Increasing the mendacity of the coalition’s attempt to package this measure as anything other than an attack on the powerless, is its determination to turn low paid workers against benefit claimants on the specific issue of housing benefit. It is an argument that unfortunately will carry some weight with many, utilising as it does the race-to-the-bottom logic of which the Tories and their Lib-Dem equivalent are fond. If they aren’t trying to pit public sector workers against their private sector counterparts on the issue of pensions, heterosexual couples against homosexual couples when it comes to marriage, they are pitting those on low wages against those on no wages when it comes to welfare reform.

Housing charities are already seeing demand reach unprecedented levels, with more and more people unable to meet the shortfall between high rents and benefit levels. London Councils have estimated that 133,000 households across London will be unable to afford their rent as a direct result of the cap on housing benefit. The difficulty in finding cheaper alternative accommodation, with added demand leading to higher rents everywhere as landlords take the opportunity to cash in, has left entire families facing homelessness. Moreover, the stress incurred as children are forced to change school and location for those fortunate enough to find a cheaper alternative has come in for sharp criticism from children’s charities.

According to the DWP’s own impact assessment, the cap on housing benefit will mean that

• 45% will lose up to £50 a week (in 2013-14)
• 26% will lose between £50 and £100
• 12% will lose between £100 and £150 a week
• 17% will lose more than £150 a week

As if the aforementioned isn’t enough of an indictment, Church of England bishops have entered the fray with the publication of an open letter warning of the danger to the welfare of children living in vulnerable households as a direct result.

Attacking the poor for an economic crisis caused by the rich has been the coalition’s overarching objective since coming to power. It fits in with Tory values that hark back to a Victorian era mantra of poverty being the result of a congenital moral and character deficiency within those afflicted by it. But make no mistake, society as a whole will suffer as the maladies that are associated with poverty rise in line with its increase – i.e. crime, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, child abuse, and so on.

This argument will not find a sympathetic hearing on the Tory benches, however, as their religious attachment to austerity blinds them to anything other than ensuring that the poorest in society are purified with pain.

What was it Nye Bevan said again: “No attempt at ethical or social seduction can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.”