LENIN'S TOMB

Friday, October 08, 2010

Ed Miliband pandering to the right posted by Richard Seymour

He intervenes to stop the BBC strike, then appoints a Blairite for shadow chancellor and puts Ed Balls in charge of immigration policy. Johnson, the new shadow chancellor, favours Alastair Darling's savage cuts agenda. The unions will have to put up a lot more of a fight before they get more than small change for their votes.

Labels: austerity, blairites, cuts, labour, neoliberalism, new labour, tories, unions

Friday, May 21, 2010

Bourgeois, property-based rights and their exclusions posted by Richard Seymour

The other day, Clegg was making grandiose comparisons between his little bundle of reforms and repeals, and the Great Reform Act of 1832. The analogy would seem to be as absurd as the spectacle of a bunch of rather grey, suited Whigs trying to impart some sort of radical edge to their Grey-era liberalism. On the other hand, Paul Foot used to mockingly point out that the 1832 reforms left the vote concentrated among 2% of the population - thus were only 'great' in the sense of unavoidably shifting political power from the landed gentry to the urban bourgeoisie. The changes abolished some rotten boroughs, and created new constituencies for rising industrial centres, but maintained a property-based voting system which ensured that those who voted were also those who ruled. So, the legacy to which Clegg is appealing is not particularly democratic - if anything, it was a legislative effort to contain the revolutionary democratic pressures of both workers and middle class radicals who, it was feared, might withhold their taxes and use the dough to purchase an arsenal or two. It marginalised rather than empowered the working class majority.

And whatever reform agenda that Clameron's cluster coalition ultimately spews up will also exclude workers in a very particular way: there will be no talk of repealing undemocratic anti-union laws. The laws as they stand enable employers to pursue vexatious legal challenges to workers' right to strike on the grounds of balloting irregularities. According to the Labour Research Department, this has been the single most important means by which employers seek to bring an injunction against a union since the first anti-union act was passed in 1983. The complexity of strike laws, and the increasing number of specificities as to procedure, have made it possible for employers to win injunctions on the basis of absurd technicalities. This week's victory for BA in the courts, overturned on appeal, was precisely an example of such - the employers alleged that the union had broken the law by failing to advise members of twelve spoiled ballots. You'll recall that there was a similar case where the RMT were hit with an injunction when a court decided that the union had failed to specify the exact location and details of the workplaces at which workers were based, though the union was using data supplied by the employers. There is only one purpose for such laws, and that is to decisively compromise the democratic right of all workers to withdraw their labour.

Moreover, aside from the letter of the law, there is always a battle over interpretation. Judges are not mere verdict-vending machines. They may be independent of party control, but they are not independent of the class relations in which they are situated. The ideological biases imparted to them by their class status, as heads of a highly conservative legal profession, are hardly of negligible import in their verdicts on such matters, whatever the high-minded abstractions they imagine themselves to be motivated by. The fact that in a number of high profile disputes at the beginning of what is likely to be a period of intensified class conflict the courts have decided to openly interpret the law in such preposterously biased ways suggests that there is an attempt by many in the judiciary to set a precedent that makes it almost impossible to hold a legal ballot. To put it another way, these decisions constitute class conscious acts of repression, facilitated by - but not determined by - existing anti-union legislation.

The underlying issue here is that the democratic right of workers to withhold their labour is one that conflicts with the property-based right of capitalists to invest, and managers to manage. The Thatcherite mantra was to restore the primacy of the latter at the expense of the former. (The Tories have tended to obscure the class basis of such arguments by insisting that they are also upholding the rights of consumers to consume, unimpeded by recalcitrant unions). All members of the cabinet are committed to this orthodoxy, and the prevailing view is that the class power of the employers - with respect to employment law, regulation, taxes, etc. - is still insufficiently buttressed. So, we have progress to look forward to alright - progress to 1832, and the the great zenith of liberal reformism, in which the industrial capitalists were empowered and the workers put in their place.

Labels: civil liberties, clameron, liberal democrats, liberalism, new labour, strikes, tories, union-busting, unions, whiggery, working class

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Obama's two constituencies posted by Richard Seymour

At its simplest, Obama's electoral coalition can be expressed as comprising Wall Street dough on the one hand, and most oppressed social groups on the other, including African Americans, Latinos, women, and the poorer working class white voters (those earning less than $50,000 a year). As Socialist Worker put it last week:

Obama won huge support from the African-American population – some 95 percent of black voters backed him.

He also won two thirds of the Latino vote. This was a significant win – the Latino population favoured George Bush in 2004, and during the primaries they rallied behind Hillary Clinton.

One factor was crucial in breaking support for the Republicans among Latinos – the immigrant rights demonstrations of May 2006.

More than two million Latinos and their supporters came onto the streets to protest against a vicious anti-immigrant bill being pushed by the Republicans.

Among white Americans some 43 percent voted for Obama and 55 for John McCain. But these proportions were reversed for white voters under the age of 30.

And the Democrats registered some of their strongest swings in overwhelmingly white, rural and traditional Republican states such as North Dakota, Utah and Montana.

So there is no doubt that Obama’s appeal spanned racial divisions. But the class composition of his vote tells a more complex story.

If you divide Americans up by their income levels, the poorest households were the ones who voted the most heavily for Obama – 73 percent of voters with an annual family income of less than $15,000 backed him.

As you go up the income level, Obama’s vote steadily drops – until you reach the very top bracket, where this trend reverses.

A majority – 52 percent – of households that earned over $200,000 a year opted for the Democratic candidate.

The victorious Republican electoral coalition in 2004 mobilised quite different groups, with a hardcore of white Christian rightists among them. Bush lost every income layer below $50,000 and won every layer above $50,000. Bush won more Hispanic votes than McCain, but still didn't gain a majority. He lost overwhelmingly among African American voters. What Obama did was to win over white women, who voted 55% for Bush in 2004; he gained a larger majority among voters earning under $50,000 than Kerry had; he increased the Democratic support among both African American and Hispanic voters; and he cut away at Bush's 63% support among those earning $200,000 or more. It is also worth noting that Obama benefited from the demoralisation of a substantial sector of the Republican base. While Obama won a higher share of white voters than Kerry did in 2004, 1 million fewer turned out to vote. The increase in turnout was entirely made up of ethnic minorities.

Obama's appointments, the only major policy signals he can make at the moment, thus far reflect his commitment to the Wall Street constituency rather than to those worst off in American society. Thus, we have endless Clinton-era appointments, Senator Clinton offered the position of Secretary of State (which reports say she has accepted), Republicans offered top posts (it looks as if Robert Gates has been begged to stay on as Secretary of Defense) and a right-wing scumbag from the Chicago boss politics scene and the Democratic Leadership Council named Rahm Emmanuel made chief-of-staff. Thus far, organised labour hasn't got a look-in as far as appointments are concerned, but representatives of corporate America saturate the economic advisory board. Selecting Clinton as Secretary of State indicates that Obama intends to run a hawkish foreign policy, and it also demonstrates that he genuinely wasn't all that upset about the Clinton team's endless race-baiting and crazed smears in the primary. The vast majority of Obama's voters will already have cause for grave disappointment.

To the extent that Obama has to offer something to his majority supporters, he tends toward vagueness, and is already under immense pressure to back off from anything specific. Corporate America is getting terribly worked up about the Employee Free Choice Act, a moderate piece of legislation that they are working to ensure will either be bottled up and killed or watered down to near vacuity. Obama's efforts to 'tweak' the borderline criminal TARP plan includes redirecting some funds to help homeowners, while also protecting US auto manufacturers (to the chagrin of Gordon Brown). But so far the only concrete proposal is $25bn for the car companies. It is simply impossible to imagine that any 'bail-out' for working class households that gets passed will be remotely adequate. It will be better than nothing but, at best, like the modestly redistributive measures Obama has proposed, it will sweeten a lousy deal.

The vital question is, what are the majority of Obama's supporters going to do? For example, if those immigrant workers who marched in such vast numbers in 2006 recognise that they have not so much a friend in the White House as a brief window of opportunity opened up by a slightly more humane policy, they may well be the cutting edge of popular movements of the future. Immigrant groups are already protesting the escalation of ICE raids under Bush, and are pressuring Obama to scale them back. Any reforms they can win will enhance their ability to organise, and all indications are that they are the most militant and effective organisers when given the chance. They will drive up wages and conditions for other workers too. Similarly, if the antiwar movement has learned from its huge setback in 2004, when it subordinated its campaigns to help the pro-war Kerry to victory, then it can limit Obama's scope for widening America's brutal engagements in south Asia and Africa, and for any subversion in Latin America. Obama is already hinting through subordinates that he may be 'flexible' on withdrawal from Iraq, which means he may back off his already vague electoral promises. Given that the Sadrists are about to toss out the gradualist 'withdrawal' plan with its 'status of forces agreement', it would be an ideal point for the antiwar movement to apply pressure for rapid withdrawal with no further delays. The momentum that went into securing Obama's victory shouldn't be dropped for a second. Larry Summers, another Clinton-era revamp in the Obama administration (and former Reaganaut), is warning Wall Street backers that the administration won't be able to diminish the government's involvement in healthcare, and therefore any cost reductions will have to come from efficiency savings. The intriguing thing about this is that the emphasis for the corporate audience is miles away from the promise of increased government involvement to support universal healthcare that Obama has been touting. So, again, this is an issue on which organised labour in particular will have to be actively campaigning about right away. This is becoming a critical issue as state and city budgets plummet due to the economic crisis - so, if Obama can support a bail-out for investment banks, he ought to be able to bail out city treasuries to support existing public services, at a minimum. As it stands, threats of cuts to education and health budgets are already current.

The one advantage that the Left has now is that Obama needs his active constituents. He could not have won 'blue-collar' Pennsylvania as well as Jesse Helms' old state of North Carolina without them, and he can't necessarily repeat his success in 2012 without giving them something. So, there is an opportunity now to decisively shape the agenda of the new administration, precisely because their aim is to contain social movements and stabilise American capitalism. Silence and passivity at this point will simply be rewarded with condescending lectures, put-downs, attacks, and the occasional bit of flattery.

Labels: 'obamamania', american working class, barack obama, democrats, health care, immigration, left, unions

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Screw the anti-union laws posted by tony collins

It's big, and it could get bigger.

We’ve not seen images like it for over 15 years. The scene outside that prison in Liverpool at just gone 2pm this afternoon is required viewing. The local Prison Officers Association secretary on a wall, addressing a mass meeting. He’d just got off the phone to “our national vice-chair, Steve Gough” whose reaction to the government obtaining an injunction against the union was “tell them to stuff it up their arse”. The sound of journos’ jaws dropping was drowned out by the roars and cheers.

The biggest success of this action so far is the fact that it has taken place. The BBC, having had it as top item, moved it rapidly down the pecking order. No one can seriously doubt there was contact with the Ministry of Justice. This image of raw, effective, illegal action with the rest of the state powerless to do anything is one that the government, state agencies and employers will be desperate to bury. Typically, the BBC website has been at pains to quote union officers saying the action has to end because of the injunction, yet strangely, the newsworthy quote above seems to be missing from their story. In addition, of two pictures the BBC is showing online, one of them is of Bristol POA members returning to work.

In one burst of officially sanctioned unofficial action the prison officers have brought the possibility of serious action to break Brown’s pay freeze many steps closer. More significantly, they have rehabilitated the great weapon of the 1970s – the wildcat strike – traditional values in a modern setting, you might say.

Of course, prison officers as a category are not clear cut in the way, for example, nurses are. The state ultimately is bodies of armed men and their associated courts and prisons, and all that. But both in the demands of this dispute and the wider positions taken by the POA over the last 10 years, there’s a significant shift towards a social democratic trade unionism as opposed to a narrow craftism shot through with highly reactionary views and thuggery.

The statement put out by George Galloway and Respect rightly placed the dispute in the wider context of overcrowding and the government’s crazed policies:

"The POA and its members have my full support. I utterly condemn the injunction issued against the union, and Jack Straw should hang his head in shame for seeking it. Prison service management and the government ought to know that sympathy for the POA over the denial of union rights goes way beyond the trade union movement.

"The government is responsible for this action, and any consequences that flow from it, and no one else.

"This action is taking place on the day when news breaks of an ever growing bonanza in the boardroom. Anger among public sector workers over Gordon Brown's pay curbs, which amount to a cut, is growing.

"The prison officers' union has resisted the obscene privatisation of the service and has also championed calls for providing the staff, resources and training to ensure rehabilitation rather than tabloid-driven retribution.

"This government in caving in to that tabloid pressure is responsible for record prison overcrowding, which is damaging to prisoners and staff as well as doing nothing to tackle crime and its causes.

"Everyone should support the POA in this battle, which the government has it in its power to avert. In particular, I believe all public sector workers and their unions have an immediate interest in standing together and acting together to break Brown's pay freeze and ensure decent pay for all.

"In taking action despite the unjust anti-union laws and in refusing to cave in the prison officers union has set an example for the entire labour movement. Everyone must rally to their side.

"Respect opposes the Tory anti-union laws, which New Labour has reinforced. Every union has policy to have them repealed, as does the TUC. Now's the time to act on that policy."

The central question is that the prison officers today said, “Screw the anti-union laws.” In so doing they have created an example that might well spread.

At the time of writing Bristol had gone back in, but others were staying out. Whether they are all back tonight or by 7am tomorrow is not decisive. The genie is out of the bottle.

What's clear is that there will be relentless pressure on the strikers to return to work.

What else is clear is that we need to make sure those workers are inundated with messages of support, and that they are under no illusion that if action is taken against them by their bosses or by the government, we'll all do whatever we can to back them.

Send emails right now to general@poauk.org.uk - but don't stop there. Raise the issue at work and get your colleagues to send messages too. Make sure everyone in your union does the same. And be prepared to do a lot more if the action spreads.

Labels: prisons, solidarity, strikes, unions