JOURNAL OF THE CPBML

SAVE STEEL, SAVE INDUSTRYSOCIAL EUROPE? The big lie ENGLISH

TTIP The mask slips

BREXIT When, not if

DOCTORS Fight for the NHS

THEATRE Struggle offstage

IF YOU WANT TO REBUILD BRITAIN, READ ON

plusNews,

Book Review

and more

WORKERSWWW.CPBML.ORG.UK NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 £1

DEVOLUTION

WORKERS

NewsDigest 03

Features 06

Contents – November/December 2015Academy conversion by force, p3; Separatists join attack on BBC, p4;Wardens break pay barrier, p5; News Analysis: Arts – fighting the lowpay culture, p6

The atomisation of England, p6; No energy policy = no British industry, p8;TTIP – the mask slips, p11; The lie of Social Europe, p12; Not if Britain leaves,but when, p16; Doctors make a stand for the NHS, p18; Struggle offstage, p20

End Notes 21Book Review: The rape of Africa, p21; Historic Notes: Britain’s drugs wars

on China, p22

WORKERS is published by the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)

78 Seymour Avenue, London N17 9EB. www.cpbml.org.uk @cpbmlISSN 0266-8580 Issue 191, November/December 2015

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Steel and industry

THE CAMERON government wants to bombSyria, as do all too many Tory and Labour MPs.But British intervention could only be part ofNATO’s aim of ousting Syria’s government. Weshould have no part in it.

Some MPs are talking about establishing “no-

fly zones” in Syria, bringing the RAF into directconflict with Russian planes. Madness!

We have no interest in turning Syria intoanother Libya – now a country with no govern-ment, lawless, borderless, and a breeding groundfor jihadists. No British intervention in Syria! ■

No British intervention in Syria!

THE CURRENT CRISIS in steel (see article, page 8)is a perfect example of the debacle facing Britain asa whole. First we have a formerly nationalised indus-try being privatised, then inevitably finding its wayinto foreign hands. What long-term interest can Tataof India or Sahaviriya Steel Industries of Thailandpossibly have in a sustainable British steel industry?

Secondly, we have the European Union, whoserules on state aid form a perfect screen for the gov-ernment to hide behind. The EU is dead set againstnations being able to plan for the continued viabilityof their vital industries.

Thirdly, we have the complicity of our own gov-ernment. True, the rules are there, and very damag-ing they are too. But the government will not eventry to support British steel.

Listen to Gareth Stace from industry body UKSteel. “In Germany, government is the friend ofindustry,” he says. “Here, you wonder what is

behind the rhetoric of a northern powerhouse if acompany like SSI in Redcar can be allowed to goout of business.”

And then we have the hypocrisy of the sepa-ratists. SNP leader and EU groupie Nicola Sturgeonhas “pledged” to save the steel industry (in Scotlandonly). Yet Scotland’s biggest infrastructure projectof recent times, the new road bridge over the RiverForth at Queensferry, was built with steel from Chinaordered by the Scottish government.

Finally, we have high energy costs – a big factorfor energy-intensive industries such as steel. Thesein turn are a consequence of privatisation and theremoval of controls, with foreign (often state-owned)companies free to charge far more than they can intheir own countries.

Our future depends on having industries likesteel. If you want an argument against the EU andfor sovereignty, look no further. ■

EACH SUCCESSIVE Secretary of State for Education tightens the noose of state controlaround schools, and the current one, Nicky Morgan, is no exception. The Schools andAdoption Bill currently making its way through parliament is a short bill with a long arm.

Its remit is with “maintained” (state) schools only (academies and free schools areexempt), a rapidly diminishing sector. The intention is to speed up the rate of “conversion” toacademy status – by force.

By March this year, 60 per cent of state-funded secondary schools were academies(effectively independent schools funded by you and me). In primary schools the programmehas been less enthusiastically embraced – less than a fifth are academies or free schools.

The new bill intends to change this. It gives extensive powers to the state to intervene instate schools, using Ofsted as the tool. Any school deemed to be “inadequate” by Ofsted –a category that has been broadened in scope over its years of existence, and its definitionregularly changed to catch out more and more schools – will be forcibly converted into anacademy. “Coasting” schools, schools which are doing well but not as well as they shouldbe in Ofsted’s view, will also be subject to intervention.

Until now, the practice has been that schools which fail inspections have been leaned onheavily and bullied by the DfE to join an academy chain of government choice. The problemwas that often schools resisted the process. Now consultation with “stakeholders” is to beswept away in a procedure both rapid and brutal. To aid this, the right to appeal against anOfsted judgement is to be removed.

The 2006 Education and Inspections Act gave local authorities powers to intervene inmaintained schools. But local authorities have never had any jurisdiction over academies andfree schools, unless they are breaking the law. The secretary of state was supposed to bedirectly overseeing academies and free schools, but as the scandals and failures in theseschools started to stack up this became an embarrassment.

Last year the government created bodies called regional schools commissioners, as newappointed agents of the state, to do the job for them. In practice, this means that one personper region with a small staff and an advisory board is managing the whole thing.Unsurprisingly, the commissioners have so far shown limited capacity to cope, as well aslimited expertise. Yet the new bill will extend their wide-ranging powers over maintainedschools too, bypassing or overruling local authorities as they see fit.

How will they intervene? The idea is that academy schools will fly in to take on the jobonce carried out by specialist advisory staff employed by the local authority. Nobody seemsto know how academies will carry out this role. And now, Ofsted has announced that newschools (the vast majority of which are free schools and academies) will not be inspected atall in their first three years. ■• A longer version of this article is on the web at www.cpbml.org.uk.

SCHOOLSECONOMYAFGHANISTANBBCSCIENCEOUTSOURCINGAFGHANISTANNEWS ANALYSISON THE WEBWHAT’S ON

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 NEWS DIGEST WORKERS 3

RebuildingBritain

Forced to be an academy Rates threat The US stays on Separatists join attack Warning of ‘huge cuts’ Wardens bust pay barrier The US stays on Low pay in the arts More news online Coming soon

If you have news from your industry, trade or profession we want to hear from you.Call us on 020 8801 9543 or email workers@cpbml.org.uk

IMPERIALISM

Rates threatECONOMYAcademy conversion by force

THE US government intends to sendwarships into the South China Sea througha 12-nautical mile zone around the disputedSpratly islands which China claims as itsown territory. An anonymous defenceofficial said that the US government wasdetermined to put on a “show of militarymight” in the area. ■

IN WASHINGTON the US Federal Reserveis preparing to raise interest rates, eventhough this would destabilise already fragileeconomies across the world. The newGlobal Financial Stability Report from theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) warns:“Emerging markets must prepare for theadverse domestic stability implications ofglobal financial tightening…emergingmarkets should prepare for an increase incorporate failures…”

After the 2008 crash, £385 billion wasinvested in the “major emerging marketeconomies”, which have accounted for 80per cent of global growth in the past fiveyears, half of that coming from China alone.But in the past 18 months speculators havetaken £195 billion out of these countries.

Firms in these economies used thecurrent glut of cheap money to borrow fartoo much. Chinese firms led the way,assisted by Indian, Turkish, Brazilian,Mexican and Chilean firms. The firms’debts rose from £2.6 trillion in 2004 to over£12 trillion in 2014 and their average debtgrew from 48 per cent of GDP to 74 percent. Rapid debt growth preceded previousemerging market financial crises. ■

US confronts China

ON THE WEBA selection of additionalnews at cpbml.org.uk…

Volkswagen scandal: deadlyconsequencesThe Volkswagen diesel emissions crisisis the worst ever to hit the motorindustry. But what has Britain beendoing? The answer is nothing.

Welsh museum staff walk outWorkers at the National Museum(Amgueddfa Cymru) of Wales went onstrike against plans to scrap anti-socialhours payments for weekend working.

English National Opera on thebrink as cuts loomUnions at the English National Opera inLondon are waiting to hear whetherproper national funding will continue – orwhether the axe is coming.

Electoral Commission ignoredas new roll is pushed throughAgainst the advice of the independentElectoral Commission, the governmenthas reduced the time frame forestablishing the new electoral roll.

Council procurement policiesunder attack The government plans to change thelaw so that councils may only disinvest,boycott or adopt sanctions if the actionis in line with government policy.

Osborne eyes local governmentpensions, againThe new National InfrastructureCommission will steal money fromworkers’ pension funds to do what thegovernment should be doing anyway.

Plus: the e-newsletterVisit cpbml.org.uk to sign up to your freeregular copy of the CPBML’s newsletterdelivered to your email inbox.

THE SNP is weighing in behind those who want to see an end to the BBC as we know it.Scottish Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop has just outlined her plans for a “federal BBC withat least a Board for each nation” with a budget controlled in Scotland.

In an article headed “Sturgeon’s dangerous plan for the BBC” in The Scotsmannewspaper, Brian Wilson recalled that during the referendum campaign protests at the BBCheadquarters in Glasgow, the “mob outside Pacific Quay…was demanding politicalacquiescence. The bile led by Alex Salmond against individual broadcasters’ integrity wasorchestrated only to intimidate.”

And writer Kenneth Roy is forthright in his response to being threatened by “being heldto account”. Writing in the Scottish Review, he said, “Like many before me, I am discoveringthat if you're not totally for them, you’re totally against them. In Miss Sturgeon’s one partystate, dissent – any dissent – is simply not tolerated.”• Meanwhile, in a major blow to separatist fantasies, tax revenues from North Sea oil andgas have fallen to a negative position for the first time in the industry’s history. AlexSalmond's predictions of March 2013 – that production in Scottish waters would yield £57billion in tax revenue for an independent Scotland by 2019 – has been torpedoed below thewaterline.

Official figures now show that repayments to producers have cancelled out revenues,leaving the British government £39 million in the red. This loss over the first six months ofthe financial year shows the impact of falling production and prices. Pooling resourcesacross Britain is the only way to safeguard the long term future of this vital industry. ■

4 WORKERS

Campaign launchedADULT EDUCATION

THE WORKERS’ Educational Association(WEA) is calling for support for itscampaign to save adult education. Thearea is under increased threat in the run-up to the government’s ComprehensiveSpending Review, in which departmentshave been asked to prepare for cuts of 25and 40 per cent.

“Less than 6 per cent of Governmentspending on education and training is

devoted to adult further education andskills,” says the WEA. “Further cuts, ontop of the 24 per cent and 3.9 per centcuts to the Adult Skills Budget alreadyannounced this year, will inflict seriousdamage to our education and skillsinfrastructure with detrimental impact onlearners, employers and the economy.”

The WEA is targeting politicians,educators, policy groups andassociations of all kinds. It reports morethan 500 students, members and tutorswriting individual letters to MPs in the firstweeks of the campaign. ■

Separatists join attack on BBC

After successful demonstrations on 17 October in London, Nottingham and Belfastagainst the new junior doctors’ contract, the British Medical Association (BMA)announced that ballot papers will go out to its members in early November. Most of theplacards had been made by the junior doctors themselves but these were interspersedwith others such as “Nurses support the Junior Doctors Fight”. Others were made bymedical students who clearly understood that as the seed corn of the profession, theytoo are under attack. Photo shows demonstrators listening to speeches at the pre-march rally in Waterloo Place, off The Mall, London. See feature article, page 18.

Workers

NOVEMBERMonday 2 November, 1 pm

Protect the right to strike

TUC lobby and rally, London, againstthe government’s Trade Union Bill. Itstarts with a rally at Central Hall,Westminster, at 1 pm, moving to alobby of parliament at 2.30 pm. Fordetails, see https://www.tuc.org.uk/get-involved

Wednesday 25 November, 7.30 pm

“The Great Breakthrough – SovietPlanning versus Capitalist Chaos”

Brockway Room, Conway Hall, RedLion Square, London WC1R 4RL

CPBML Public Meeting

Capitalism is wedded to the anarchy ofthe market. Socialism is about planningto meet the needs of people and nations– and in the past it has been spectacu-larly successful. Come and discuss howa planned approach can help rebuildBritain. All welcome.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 NEWS DIGEST WORKERS 5

WHAT’S ONComing soon

TRAFFIC WARDENS working for outsourcing company NSL in Camden, north London,have voted to accept a new pay agreement. The settlement, which breaks through theceiling of the “London living wage”, also avoids the need for another two weeks ofplanned strike action. This follows two rounds of industrial action, first for four days inAugust and then for ten days in September.

The dispute came as a three-year pay deal came to an end. And in a strange caseof history repeating itself, the offer accepted was actually worse than one made by theemployer before members took their action. Why on earth would this state of affairsoccur – particularly given it had happened before?

In the NSL case the branch leadership marched the workers up to the top of the hillwith little thought as to what would happen next. For the branch leadership the endgame is industrial action itself – a great “political” act rather than an industrial strategy.The rallies, messages of solidarity and bravado then justify the action in itself. But inthe end the membership on the NSL contract saw through such games, accepting theoffer and setting their sights on the real objective of bringing the contract back inhouse.

“Workers’ ability to withdraw their labour is a powerful act, but it shouldn’t havesome mystical sentiment attached to it,” notes someone close to the dispute. “It ismerely a tool in the armoury of the worker, to be used when it is the most effectivestrategy (and when it can be delivered).” ■

Wardens break pay barrier

Turkey with 503 and Britain with 470 – arelikely to mirror the US extension. Germanyhas already said it is willing to extend itspresence by one year.

The US defence secretary, AshtonCarter, said: “The narrative that we’releaving Afghanistan is self-defeating. We’renot, we can’t and to do so would not be totake advantage of the success we’ve hadto date.”

Success? Fifteen years of war haveproduced only a collapsing economy,worsening security, and a splinteredcountry.

Afghan MP Shukria Barakzai said: “TheUS has created a lot of problems forAfghans, ever since the cold war, so it hasa responsibility to help and supportAfghans.” But staying on won’t achievethat. ■

THE US government now intends to keepUS troops in Afghanistan beyond PresidentObama’s departure from office in January2017, breaking his promise to end the waron his watch.

Obama had originally intended to pullout all but a small, embassy-based USmilitary presence by the end of next year,but is announcing that 5,500 troops willremain in Afghanistan.

The present force of 9,800 US troops isto remain throughout most of next year,being reduced to 5,500 in 2017.

Other NATO countries with troops inAfghanistan – including Georgia with 885,Germany with 850, Romania with 650,

STAY INFORMED• Keep up-to-date in between issues ofWorkers by subscribing to our freeelectronic newsletter. Just enter youremail address at the foot of any pageon our website, cpbml.org.uk

The US stays onAFGHANISTAN

through inflation, public investment inscience has declined to 0.44 per cent ofGDP, “the lowest of any G8 country in thelast 20 years,” says Science is Vital.

But even though the government saysBritain is pulling out of recession, there areno plans to reverse the decline in the R&Dbudget. Quite the opposite: GeorgeOsborne and the Department for Business,Innovation and Skills have told Britain’sresearch councils to model cuts of 25 to 40per cent!

In response, Science is Vital iscampaigning for a real rise in sciencefunding, starting with a rally at Conway Hall,London, on 26 October, along with eventsin Glasgow, York, Newcastle, Swansea,Southampton, Leeds and Bath – a list thatis set to grow. � ■

SCIENCE IS VITAL, a grassrootsorganisation composed of scientists andsupporters of science and research inBritain, is warning of “grave concerns” thatthe government is planning huge cuts to thescience budget. Ominously, the businesssecretary is said to have hired “consultants”to suggest where the axe might fall

Back in 2010 the organisation andothers fought off an attempt to cut thescience budget, succeeding in getting aring-fenced budget for research – but withno increases for inflation the value of thebudget has declined.

With value of that settlement eroded

Warning of ‘huge cuts’SCIENCE

Never mind that whenever the pe devolution is to be forced on Eng

The atomisatio THE DRIVE to local devolution, city-state politics, mini-region politics, mutual-ism, municipalism, carpet-bagging, asset stripping and associated opportuni-ties for privatisation and corruption is well under way. In the last issue ofWorkers we called for a national plan to unify and modernise services run byEnglish local authorities. Workers need a country where we can pull togetherto fight for our common needs – more unity not less, more clarity about howto win together.

In November 2014 a secret agreement between Manchester politiciansand the Treasury called “DevoManc” was published, a charter for massivepublic sector privatisation covering local government, health, transport, hous-ing, policing etc. Effectively the shreds of the savagely cut local authority bud-gets were being handed over for local politicians and private business tooversee and manage further decline in Manchester.

Clearly this is a blueprint to be rolled out throughout the country. Thecities' continued decline would be wrapped up in fantastic visions of job cre-ation largely centred on the housing market. Local politicians, mostlyunelected or unaccountable, would decide what is good for everyone else. Itgoes hand in hand with chancellor Osborne's scheme to concentrate powerin the hands of mayors in many cities.

“Combined authorities”, such as Greater Sheffield, are made up of theheads of adjoining councils, but they are not democratically accountable.Even the new mayors of Manchester and Sheffield will not be answerable toan elected assembly, as the mayor of London is, but only to their cabinet,composed of the other council leaders.

In the most crude and pie-eyed fashion, some local and regional politi-cians believe this will allow them to create islands of municipal socialism freeof central government's control, escaping the savagery of its cuts and auster-ity agenda. They seem to imagine that they can sit out the next five years withthe hatches battened down ready to emerge and flourish once the Tory gov-ernment has gone.

Stupidity or cynicism?What stupidity! Or perhaps, what cynicism. Many just can’t wait to get theirsticky fingers on the money, however little it may be.

Osborne has been promoting devolution and disintegration in all hisspeeches about making the Northern Powerhouse cities project a reality,hence DevoManc. Seeing a great political weakness, he has achieved asleight of hand – enlisting local and regional politicians to implement the gov-ernment blueprint while deluding themselves that they are really pursuingtheir own political agenda.

The Labour Party historically has been and still is a principal source ofdevolution mania. This year it was all over their election manifesto. NowOsborne has stolen their clothes and leads willing fools in the cities andregions to implement a programme for the disintegration of the country intowarring factions. No more pulling together, only pulling apart.

Is this what workers want? The electorate has not been consulted. Lasttime we were, on the question of regional assemblies, the idea was defeated.

6 WORKERS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

‘The electorate has not beenconsulted. Last time we were, theidea was defeated.’

NEWS ANALYSISArts: fighting the low pay cultureTHERE IS no alternative to fighting when it comes to pay.And then fight some more. Unions in the arts sector have adifficult job, especially where there is no continuous historyof struggle, where there is a culture of accepting low pay,even no pay, or neglecting workplace conditions.

To complicate matters, many union branches have a mixof skills and contracts, and the outcome of negotiation tendsto the lowest common denominator. There is also the squea-mish question of professional and vocational dedication,which employers and governments play on to shut us up.

Despite the difficulties in this sector, the issue of profes-sional recognition is gaining ground – though it is just a start.Artists are fighting the ignorant idea that if you love yourwork you should not expect to be paid for it. The Actors’Equity campaign “Professionally Made, Professionally Paid”is aimed at eliminating low pay or no pay in entertainment –not least in order to educate its own members. There is evenan acronym for it – LPNP!

“Free is not an Option” is the Writers’ Guild campaign totackle the growing trend of unpaid working. A survey foundthat 87 per cent of respondents in the TV and film industriesreported being asked to work for nothing. Authors, poetsand playwrights also said this was becoming standard prac-tice even with well established and resourced companies.

The Musicians’ Union campaigns under the slogan“Work Not Play”. Clubs, pubs and promoters want some-thing for nothing, treating music as a hobby rather than aprofession. Another campaign is “Support My MusicTeacher”, as funding for arts education is cut or withdrawn.

Meanwhile in museums, galleries and cinemas somevery basic union work is being carried out. At the LondonTate Galleries, those employed indirectly by security firmWilson James are paid significantly less for the same workas those directly employed, with zero hours contracts and nobasic employment rights. PCS continues to campaign therefor equal pay, under the banner “EqualiTate”.

At Windsor Castle wardens who voted by 84 per cent togo on strike earlier this year remain tight-lipped (probablysworn to secrecy) about a pay rise negotiated by PCS, say-ing only that the shop staff got a good settlement. As withthe Globe guides, this was based on the “median level forthe region”. And at the Royal Albert Hall in August staff nar-rowly voted to be represented by media and entertainmentunion BECTU – a vital first step toward collective action.

The “living wage” is no substitute for collective action onpay, and only a sign of weakness when used as a basis fornegotiation with employers. It is in fact the old “minimumwage” dressed up to seem something more generous, anddoes what the minimum wage did – acts as a maximum. Weneed to value our own labour power. ■

Workers

Tate Modern, London

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 WORKERS 7

To avoid this, decisions are now beingmade behind the scenes.

The cancer has rapidly spread. InLondon the Greater London Authority,London Councils, NHS England (London),and the Mayor of London have now pub-lished the London proposition to getTreasury agreement for London devolution.They conspire to create Boris Johnson’s“world class city”, which severs its umbilicalcord to the rest of the Britain and floats offlike Monty Python into the sunset.

26 citiesIn addition there are proposals covering 26key mid-sized cities – 7.9 million people anda budget of £163 billion. Combining theirservices would save the central Treasury£12.5 billion over the life of this Parliament.

All these bids are wrapped up in thetwisted language of “asks”. They are askingthe Treasury to devolve the budgets andrelated financial powers to them so thatthey can, as they put it, regenerate, re-cre-ate themselves. In reality it looks like geo-graphical chaos and fighting in blind alleysfor a bigger share of a smaller pot.

Health devolution in London will seegroupings of services and ever-greater divi-sion between the 32 boroughs. This will

bring disunity rather than city-wide integra-tion, and loss of centres of excellence andskill as every borough fights for its share. Itis a classic case of divide and rule.

All the talk of regeneration draws on thefantasies of Michael Heseltine, Thatcher’sminister for regeneration in the 1980s.There can be no regeneration without there-creation of industry and manufacturing ina planned and systematic fashion acrossthe whole of Britain.

This is the crucial factor consistentlymissing from all politicians’ visions, delu-sions, and proposals. Industry is the ghostat the banquet of devolution. Sheffield CityRegion proposes to create 70,000 jobs and6,000 new businesses by 2025, but behindsome brave talk, it really only plans to toutfor employers and promise them improve-ments in training and transport.

Hampshire and the Isle of Wight says itwill build 76,000 homes by 2026.Speculative developers will be given accessto the land they want to build on, and inreturn will provide a percentage of “afford-able” homes. A beautiful part of the countryis to be paved over, perhaps for foreigninvestors.

All the “asks” reinforce the big society,localism and parish pump diversion and

splinterist politics spouted by governmentand opposition during the Coalition years.Devolution will allow the local authorities tosink as they manage their own decline. Itwill centralise critical political decision-mak-ing processes in central government – fiscalpolicy, defence, civil liberties and so on.

While pretending to roll back the exis-tence of the state, the government will con-centrate real power at the centre by sowingdivision. Devolution is all about divide andrule as every city state and mini-regioncompetes to try and grab a share of thewealth and resources of Britain. How longbefore a federated England, a regionalisedEngland, becomes an England that is nolonger England?

And behind the scenes looms theshadow of the European Union with itsstrategy of breaking up and fragmentingnation states. What an incredible experi-ment Britain is providing for Brussels. ■

eople have been asked they have said they don’t want it – gland…

on of England

SEPARATELY, ALL THESE would-bedevolved authorities published propos-als before chancellor Osborne’sSeptember deadline, aimed at joiningup between 4 and 19 local authorities.Note the imperial ambitions of “Greater”Essex and Yorkshire.Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire (19authorities)Sheffield City Region (including bits ofDerbyshire and Nottinghamshire) Greater Essex (15 authorities)Gloucester County (7 authorities)Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (15authorities, 2 national parks)North Yorkshire (York and the EastRiding)Greater Yorkshire (Hull fighting off theEast Riding)West Yorkshire (Leeds City Region –Leeds, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirkleesand Wakefield – with land grabs intoNorth Yorkshire and York)West of England (4 authorities and theWest of England Core City Region)Devon and Somerset (17 authorities) ■

Bidding to devolveMillennium Square, Leeds, and the Civic Hall – now the centre of a regional land grab.

Mtaylor848

Without a credible energy policy Britain’s entire industrial fut hammer home that appalling truth…

No energy policy = no B

8 WORKERS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

TALK OF THE growth of sustainable energysources hides the truth that the British gov-ernment has no coherent energy policy. Itsdecisions consistently undermine the inde-pendence of our energy sources. Recentevents – steel plant closures, overseasstates to build nuclear power stations, andwithdrawal from clean coal burning – putbeyond doubt that this is a national crisis.

Job losses in steel this year exceed4,000 out of a workforce of 30,000. Othersare at risk. It is a body blow to the founda-tions on which British manufacturing is built.

In October Tata Steel announced 1,200redundancies; 900 in Scunthorpe and 270 atClydebridge plate mill and Dalzell works inMotherwell. Earlier in the year Tata cut 720jobs in its Stocksbridge specialty steel plant.

250 agency workers got the sack and aplate mill employing 150 workers atLlanwern was mothballed.

The Scunthorpe plant is one of thebiggest of its kind in Europe, producing spe-cialist steels for railways and rolling stockamong other things. Tata is appealing forstate aid, but the future for that town is grim.

Teesside closedSteelmaking on Teesside is now gone as theSahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) Redcarworks closed in September. The coke ovensand blast furnace are not mothballed butdecommissioned. Almost all the 2,000 work-force have received redundancy payments.Caparo Industries entered partial adminis-tration in October, putting 1,700 steel jobs at

risk across the Black Country.Many factors have accelerated the

decline of the already vulnerable steel indus-try. In particular China decided to dump sur-plus steel onto world markets at pricesbelow the cost of production, due to its ownslowdown in growth. Russia, Brazil andJapan are doing the same.

Commentators complain this is “not alevel playing field”, as if giving free rein tomarkets could ever be fair. China’s currentovercapacity is estimated at 20 times thelevel of Britain’s annual production. Left toits own devices, a “free” market cannotresist such overwhelming forces.

High British energy prices are a factor.British steelmakers pay twice as much forelectricity as their French and German coun-

Grubb/English Wikipedia

Port Talbot steelworks,south Wales. Owner Tatahas said workers havenothing to fear. Noteveryone is reassured.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 WORKERS 9

terparts. But even they cannot produce steelslabs at the world market price of $300 aton. These nations intervene in the market toprotect their national interest. Energy costsare subsidised and environmental chargeswaived. Imports, particularly from China, areclosely regulated or effectively blocked bylegislation. Unlike British steelmakers, theseindustries are state owned.

Self-imposed shacklesThe British government barely excuses itsown non-intervention, nor did previousgovernments. All protest helplessness inthe face of the market and ignore that theshackles are self-imposed. The businesssecretary Sajid Javid chaired a “high pow-ered summit” in Rotherham in midOctober to discuss the future of steel inthis country. In the face of the SSI Redcarclosure and as news of the bombshell inScunthorpe was breaking, all Javid couldsay was that he’d set up some workingparties.

The collapse of the core of British steel-making will have devastating consequencesfor the remaining production. Much of thespecialist output sourced raw material fromthe plants now closed.

Javid said in the Commons on 20October, “This Government is committed toa major programme of infrastructure spend-ing. I am determined the UK steel industryshould play a central role in its delivery”. Noone will yet admit it, but the only intentionmust be to rely on imported steel for thepromised homes, industrial developmentand new rail links.

In the short term, British manufacturingmay survive on imported steel. Some of ouradvanced, specialist steel makers will find ithard to source raw product. But cars canstill be assembled, houses can still be built.With the abandonment of the domesticindustry we become entirely dependent onforeign steel production.

When our national interests and those ofthe foreign producer diverge, that depen-dence becomes a millstone. The fate of agri-culture and fishing once we ceded indepen-dence to the EU should not be forgotten.

The story of Hinkley Point C in Somerset

ture is at risk. Events in steel and power generation

British industry

Continued on page 10

INNOVATION? What innovation? The gov-ernment has effectively washed its handsof the White Rose carbon capture and stor-age (CCS) project based at Drax powerstation in Yorkshire (pictured below).

Drax announced at the beginning ofOctober that it planned to withdraw fromthe project. The company said its decisionwas based “purely on a drastically differentfinancial and regulatory environment andwe must put the interests of the businessand the shareholders first.”

The final straw seems to have beenchanges in government support for lowcarbon technology through removal ofexemption from the climate change levy,coupled with a (temporary) fall in thewholesale price of electricity. So, the short-termism of the government in relation toenergy production prompts a short termresponse from an energy producer.

Planned to be the first large-scale CCSplant in Europe, the project continues toreceive £238 million in EU funding after anextensive competition with other EU pro-jects. Even the EU can see the potential fora method of extracting and storing emis-sions from fossil fuel burning while our gov-ernment struggles to present a strategy forenergy production.

The Unite union’s national officer forenergy, Kevin Coyne, said, “The underlyingmessage here is that the private sector hasbeen unable to provide the necessaryinvestment to support the carbon captureinitiative”. Garry Graham from the specialistunion Prospect said, “We need a coherentstrategy and a clear map of how we transi-tion to low-carbon generation, keep thelights on and meet the needs of consumers

and businesses.” Burning fossil fuels may not be the

longer-term future of energy production,but with 40 per cent of our energy comingfrom such sources for the next twodecades at least, a lot depends on triallingand succeeding in capturing and storingcarbon emissions from power plants andindustry. White Rose is an integral elementin advancing to full scale production. Thenew coal-fired plant at Drax would have thecapacity to heat 630,000 homes. It wouldcapture 90 per cent of the emissions –some 2 million tonnes of CO2 a year.

The pipeline to be constructed by theNational Grid would pump the gas intounderground saline deposits beneath theNorth Sea. The capacity of the pipeline is17 million tonnes a year. So there is capac-ity to expand and take emissions frompower stations along the Ouse and Trentvalleys plus other industry.

Abandoning the futureThis is about cleaning up our energy andexporting this new technology abroad: sci-entific and engineering research, powerplant engineering and construction,pipeline construction and management.The future is within our grasp – and thegovernment does not wish to be part of it

Tellingly, the Indian government, in arecent submission to the UN, revealed thatthey too were looking long term at movingaway from fossil fuel dependence, but theyconsidered three to four decades as a real-istic target to reaching that goal. In themeantime, they argue, there is a need toimport technologies which will assist withcarbon capture and storage. ■

Big blow for carbon captureStaraBlazkova

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

shows the dangers of privatising energy pro-duction and placing it in foreign hands. Thisis the first new nuclear reactor to be com-missioned since Sizewell B came on line 20years ago. The project has been plagued bychallenges since it began in 2006.

EDF, the French state-backed nuclearprovider to which we sold our entire indus-try, said that the reactor would be built at acost of £10 billion. Infamously EDF boastedthat it would be “cooking Christmas dinnersby 2017”. There are widespread doubts thatthe design chosen by EDF is fit for purpose,which has led to delays and spiralling costs.They are now estimated at £25 billion andwill rise further with completion some timeafter 2023.

Energy analyst Peter Atherton has cal-culated that for the same price as HinkleyPoint C, planned to yield 3.2GW, almost

50GW of gas-fired capacity could be built.The gas market is as volatile as any other;prices can go up as well as down. But thecost differential is impossible to ignore.

Even though the chosen design forHinkley Point is too big, too expensive andunproven, the government has alreadyagreed a “strike price”, a guarantee thatHinkley output will be sold at £92.50 permegawatt-hour, inflation-linked for 35 years,plus decommissioning costs. That’s two orthree times the strike price envisaged forsimilar projects in Finland and France. Thesubsidy from the British taxpayer will be tothe tune of £80 billion.

Bleak The state-owned Chinese nuclear industry isfunding a third of Hinckley, the costliestengineering project ever undertaken inBritain. Other providers are unwilling to sinkfunds into such a bleak prospect; Osborne

has already offered £2 billion worth of loanguarantees. The recent state visit to Britainby the Chinese president Xi Jinpingcemented deals already struck and gaveChina a toehold in Britain to develop its ownmodel reactor.

The government’s commitment to thenuclear option is pilloried by the anti-nuclearlobby on environmental grounds. But it is infact driven by a declared adherence to alow-carbon vision of the future, regardless ofcost. Nuclear is certainly part of the long-term future for energy generation, but theHinkley saga is an economic white elephant.Even those in favour of nuclear power arescratching their heads.

As a nation, we need to get our prioritiesin order. Do we want a forward-looking,independent manufacturing base self-reliantin energy, or do we want a succession ofgovernments incapable of governing in ournational interest? ■

Continued from page 9

‘EDF and theChinese are beingsubsidised by theUK taxpayer to thetune of £80 billion.’W

orkers

Rugeley coal-fired power station in Staffordshire, owned by French multinationalGDF Suez (itself part owned by the French state) and Japanese company Mitsui –which in 2013 abandoned plans to convert it to burn biomass that would havesecured its long-term future.

CPBML/Workers

Public Meeting, LondonWednesday 25 November, 7.30 pm“The Great Breakthrough – SovietPlanning versus Capitalist Chaos”Brockway Room, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion

Square, London WC1R 4RL. Nearest tube Holborn. Capitalism is wedded to the anarchy of the market. Socialism is about planning to meet the needs ofpeople and nations – and in the past it has been spectacularly successful. Come and discuss how a plannedapproach can help rebuild Britain. All welcome.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 WORKERS 11

When it comes to the EU and international tradetreaties, it’s the corporations that give the orders…

TTIP – the mask slips

OPPONENTS OF TTIP, the TransatlanticTrade and Investment Partnership treatycurrently being negotiated on our behalf bythe European Union, have consistentlynoted how secretive and undemocratic theprocess is. Just how undemocratic hasbeen shown in startling manner by an inter-view between John Hilary from War on Wantand trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström.

When Hilary challenged Malmström overthe extent of opposition, as witnessed bymore than three million signatures on aEurope-wide petition against the deal – notto mention a 250,000-strong demonstrationin Berlin earlier in October – she replied, “Ido not take my mandate from the Europeanpeople.”

No indeed. She takes it from thetransnational corporations.

Declared opponents are not the onlyones outraged by the negotiation process.When France’s minister for foreign trade,Matthias Fekl, was interviewed inSeptember by French regional newspaperSud Ouest, he said the “total lack of trans-parency” posed “a democratic problem”.

In particular, Fekl said that members ofthe US Congress had “access to a much

higher number of documents than we do inEurope”. He also revealed that members ofEuropean parliaments could only get to readthe negotiating texts in secure rooms in USembassies.

“Europe has offered many compro-mises, in all areas, and has received no seri-ous offers from the Americans in return,”Fekl added. “Neither for access to their pub-lic markets, nor for access to their agricul-tural and food markets, which remainclosed.”

‘Collapse’And he went further, saying that France

could walk out of the TTIP talks altogether.According to German newspaper Die Zeit,this makes him the first government ministerof an EU member state to talk openly aboutthe possibility of the TTIP negotiations col-lapsing entirely.

Initially those negotiating the deal werehoping to get an outline agreement by theend of the year. That looked like a modesttarget back in 2013 when EU member statesgave the European Commission the greenlight to start talking to the US about TTIP.Now it is looking ludicrously optimistic.

The Economist noted on Saturday 17October, “The TTIP negotiations haveslowed to a crawl; even the discussions ontariff elimination, which was supposed to bethe easy bit, have dragged.” According tothe website Politico, which said it had seenan internal Commission report, the US andthe EU have not even exchanged positionson 10 of the TTIP’s 24 “chapters”, whicheach cover different areas – let alone startedto negotiate.

StandardsMeanwhile, reports from Washington sug-gest that the European Union is alreadydropping its standards ahead of a TTIPagreement.

The newsletter Washington Trade Dailysaid that EU trade counsellor Damien Levietold a free-market US think tank that geneti-cally modified crops and chemically washedbeef carcasses were already being allowedinto the EU.

The news will do nothing to dispel anxi-ety throughout Europe that TTIP will involvea collapse of environmental standards in acapitulation to large-scale US agriculturecompanies. ■

Lucas Rosenthal (CC BY SA 2.0)

Part of the huge crowd of 250,000 people who marched in Berlin on 10 October against TTIP and CETA (the TTIP-equivalent the EU isnegotiating with China). Placards called for a Volksentscheid – a referendum – on both treaties.

TO JUDGE FROM what some trade unionssay about the European Union, you mightthink that if Britain left we would suddenlybe cast into an outer darkness stripped ofall rights at work – no holiday pay, no equalpay, no redundancy pay. It’s a nightmarescenario, and it’s leant on all the time topersuade us that there can be no advanceoutside the European Union.

These people talk about the idea of a“Social Europe”, the notion that “economicand social progress must go hand in hand”,as the European Trade Union Institute putsit. It’s the failed plea of social democratsdown the ages: make capitalism nicer, theysay, and the economy will grow and capital-ists will get richer too.

It’s an argument that has fallen on deafears, at least as far as the capitalists areconcerned. They know that they get rich byowning the means of production andexploiting the labour of others. Nice hasnothing to do with it. Capitalists may lackmany things, but they do have a very clearunderstanding of class relations and classpower.

Trade unions, too, have tried this argu-ment, and many still do. Good employeerelations are good for business, they say.The interests of the two classes are notopposed, the argument runs, they are iden-tical! But such sweet reason has never wona pay rise nor a recognition agreement.

The tragedy is that many unions, and

individual workers, have fallen for this failedthinking. And never more than when in1988, during the depths of the Thatchercounter-revolution, the then president of theEuropean Commission, Jacques Delors,came to the TUC to move it in a pro-EUdirection.

“It would be unacceptable for Europe tobecome a source of social regression, whilewe are trying to rediscover together theroad to prosperity and employment,” saidDelors. He promised that the new internalmarket, the free movement of people, capi-tal and goods, scheduled for 1992 wouldinclude a “social dimension”.

To the TUC, demoralised and devoid ofclass thinking (or creative thinking at all) itwas like manna from heaven. No longerwould they need to fight – the EU wouldsolve everything. “The only card game intown is in a town called Brussels,” said RonTodd, general secretary of the Transportand General Workers Union.

The Delors promise was never fulfilled.Indeed, how could it be? The EU is a capi-talist club. The EU has instead become aprincipal source of social regression. Andsome 24 years later, European Central Bankpresident Mario Draghi put the nail in thecoffin, telling the Wall Street Journal on 23February 2012, “The European social modelhas already gone.” That won’t be news tothe people of Greece.

Clearly, no one told the Labour Party.

Labour is still worshipping the corpse ofSocial Europe, trying to will it back into exis-tence. At its conference in Brighton inSeptember, in what passed for a “debate”,Alan Johnson declared that there was “noprogressive case for leaving the EU”, wilfullyignoring the case put so well by the RMT inJune when it voted to campaign for Britishwithdrawal from the EU (see Box, page 15).

Two years before the chaos of “BlackWednesday” in 1992 when Britain quit theExchange Rate Mechanism – a precursor tojoining the euro – the TUC was still peddlingits dream of “Economic and MonetaryUnion” (EMU) as a progressive force.

Back in 1990, the TUC dribbled, “Theobjectives of EMU should be to promotesustainable development, full employment,and economic and social cohesion as wellas price stability,” in what was also a tacitadmission that EMU meant the opposite.Thankfully, despite its best efforts, Britainhas stayed out of the euro trap.

The same deluded approach to the EUis evident in the TUC’s current approach toTTIP, the Transatlantic Trade andInvestment Partnership currently beingnegotiated in secret by Brussels on ourbehalf.

“The TUC is calling for a TTIP that cre-ates a gold standard for workers rights – sowe want American workers to have thekinds of rights protection and worker repre-sentation found in Europe,” says the bodythat should be speaking for British workers,concluding by calling the fight to “properlyinvolve unions in all parts of the negotiationson TTIP” an “opportunity to secure protec-tions for public services, labour and environ-mental rights”.

Fat chance. Neither the European Unionnor the US government have had or will

‘Thankfully,despite the TUC’sbest efforts, Britainhas stayed out ofthe euro trap.’

The lie of Social Europe

Many unions seem wedded to the EU. Yet look closely,and it’s clear the EU has been a disaster for workers…

12 WORKERS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

THERE ARE now 4.6 million self-employedworkers in Britain, according to the Officefor National Statistics, and on average theywork longer hours than employed workers.Their wages have fallen by around 22 percent since 2008. They account for 15 percent of the workforce, almost double thefigure when records began in 1975.

When it next trumpets the supposedbenefits of the EU, UCATT might like tonote its own calculation last year that963,000 workers in construction were paid,many of them falsely, as self-employed,according to figures the union obtained

from HM Revenue and Customs. No paidholidays for them.

Whether falsely self-employed or not,these workers are not protected at all byany legislation regarding hours of work.They have no guaranteed holidays. Theyhave no guaranteed workplace or privatepensions, and limited rights to even thebasic state pension. No redundancy pay.No protection when a business is trans-ferred. They are even hampered by EU leg-islation when combining to improve theirpay and conditions because they can betreated as employers setting up a cartel! ■

Loophole: self-employment

have any intention of telling unions what isgoing on in the negotiations, leave aloneinviting them to the table. But of course, theTUC knows that.

More delusionsThe delusions – and the misinformation –have seeped right through many layers ofthe union movement. Witness UCATT, theUnion of Construction, Allied Trades andTechnicians. “Since 1998,” it proclaims onits website, “thanks to the EU Working TimeRegulations, workers have had the right toguaranteed paid holidays. Since April 2009,workers are entitled to at least 5.6 weeks(28 days for workers working a five dayweek) annual paid holiday per year.”

The statement is wrong on just aboutevery level. First, the Working TimeRegulations are UK law, an implementationof the EU Working Time Directive. There isno such thing as the “EU Working Time regulations”.

That’s not just a quibble with wording. Ithighlights something crucial. An EU regula-tion automatically has legal force in everycountry of the EU. A directive, on the otherhand, needs to be put (“transposed”) intonational law before it has any effect.

So although our Working TimeRegulations are there because of a direc-tive, they exist – and will continue to exist –regardless of whether Britain is in the EU ornot. If we left the EU tomorrow, the lawwould still stand in Britain. It’s not a “right”

we would “lose” if Britain became indepen-dent of the EU.

Second, the statutory right to guaran-teed paid holidays was not a gift from theEU. It goes back to 1871, with the BankHoliday Act (admittedly, only a few days).Third, not all workers are entitled to 5.6weeks – the police and armed services arenot covered. Nor are “self-employed” work-ers – who number roughly 4.6 million inBritain.

In construction specifically, a reportfrom the University of Essex commissionedby UCATT and published in 2010 concludedthat around 400,000 workers were “falselyself-employed” – and that’s on top of aslightly larger number of workers in theindustry estimated to be genuinely self-employed. No guaranteed holidays forthem. UCATT’s total membership stands atabout 84,000. So much for the EU guaran-teeing the holidays of construction workers.

And as importantly, the EuropeanUnion’s Directive does not entitle anyone to“at least 5.6 weeks” a year. It sets a mini-mum of four weeks. In Britain the law con-strues that as excluding our eight publicholidays (8 days is 1.6 weeks), but the EUdirective allows countries to include publicholidays.

Unions besotted with the EU shouldconsider this: a British government – thiscurrent one, for example – would not haveto leave the EU to reduce statutory holidayentitlement by eight days. All it would have

to do is get parliament to amend theWorking Time Regulations. Entitlementwould shrink from 4 weeks plus public holi-days to 2.4 weeks plus public holidays, andwe would still be compliant with the EUdirective.

What’s stopping Cameron from doingthat? Only the knowledge that it is (cur-rently) politically impossible. So much forour holidays being protected by the EU!

In fact, in 1997, a year before the imple-mentation of the European Working TimeDirective in Britain, only 6 per cent of full-time workers received less than 12 days’paid holidays (though that figure probablyexcludes public holidays – it is hard to tell,as the survey gathering did not distinguishbetween public holidays and work holidays).The figure now, according to the govern-ment, is around 3 per cent (probablyaccounted for by employees such as thepolice excluded from the Regulations). So ataround 97 per cent of the working popula-tion didn’t benefit from the EuropeanDirective.

The only good guarantee of decent holi-days, and other working conditions, isstrong trade union organisation. Even now,with the current laws in place, the TUC saysthat (on top of the self-employed) 1,669,000employees are missing out on their legalentitlement to paid holidays. A survey byXpert PR published in 2011 found that a

Continued on page 14

Andrew Wiard/www.andrew-wiard.info

The beginning of a malign myth: European Commission President Jacques Delors at the rostrum at the 1988 TUC, Bournemouth,where the pro-EEC document “Europe 1992” was endorsed. Note, left, Ken Gill, head in hands – and well he might, having just ledhis union, TASS, into a merger with ASTMS, whose general secretary, Clive Jenkins (right) chaired the session. His union ended upsupporting the final composite after all its previous, clear objections to European union had been turned into vague aspirations.

common reason for increasing holiday enti-tlement was “employee/union negotiations”,and that companies with a “union pres-ence” had on average two days more holi-day a year. Sadly, less than 30 per cent ofthe workforce is covered by collective unionagreements, according to official govern-ment statistics.

If we leftPick up most newspapers and you can findtotal rubbish about the EU. Take this, fromThe Observer, speculating on the conse-quences of a Brexit: “EU law guaranteesworkers’ rights in areas such as maternityand paternity leave, holiday pay and in theevent of mass redundancies. There wouldbe pressure from business groups to relaxthese standards.”

As if there isn’t pressure now. One ofthe key ways that pressure is applied is inthe form of fragmentation of the workforcethrough casualisation, which abolishes allthese “rights”, and competition throughunfettered migration.

The undeniable fact is that membershipof the EU has gone hand in hand with aruthless assault on Britain’s trade unionsand on the pay and conditions of workers inBritain.

That’s hardly surprising. For all its talk of“a social dimension” and equal opportuni-ties, the EU has written into its treaties thesanctity of four fundamental freedoms.

Those freedoms have been neatlyspelled out by labour lawyer John Hendy inhis paper “The terrible tale of the EU andTrade Union Rights” (available attuaeu.co.uk): to provide services; to estab-lish business; to move capital; to movelabour – from one member state to another.“As we will see,” says Hendy, “these four

ASK A EUROPHILE ABOUT the “bene-fits” of the EU and one that might bethrown in your face is the AgencyWorkers Directive. Yet as trade unionlawyer John Hendy has pointed out, it“appears helpful but in fact has led to amassive increase across Europe in thenumber of workers employed throughagencies and hence without the full rightsof directly employed workers”

Much the same could be said aboutTUPE, the Transfer of Undertakings(Protection of Employment) Regulationsput in place as a result of the EU’s morestarkly titled Business Transfers Directive.

TUPE is supposed to protect work-

ers’ rights when a business is sold, byguaranteeing them the same terms andconditions when they move from oneemployer to another.

It is certainly true that it was intro-duced reluctantly as a piece of legislationoriginating in Brussels, in 1981. At thetime, the junior Conservative ministerDavid Waddington told parliament hewas recommending TUPE “with aremarkable lack of enthusiasm”.

But had he known what TUPE’seffect would be, Waddington might havebeen more enthusiastic, and unions lessso – especially as TUPE has offered virtu-ally no protection on pensions.

The EU talks big about “solidarity”and workers’ rights. But in reality it hasmade workers’ rights subservient to theemployer’s “fundamental right” to “busi-

ness freedom”. It has done this throughcourt judgements such as Alemo-Herronv Parkwood Leisure in 2013, where theright to be covered by a collective agree-ment after a transfer has been severelyreduced.

The case covered former employeesof Lewisham council, and initially anEmployment Appeals Tribunal upheldtheir case. Then the Court of Appealrejected it. Next the Supreme Courtwashed its hands of the case completelyand referred it to the European Court ofJustice.

The European Court sided with theemployer on the basis that the right torun a company to make a profit is a morefundamental right than anything else.That’s the EU for you.

DisarmingJust as importantly, a major effect ofTUPE has been to disarm workers in theface of privatisation. By holding out faintpromises that all will be well, it hasallowed buyers of a company orproviders of outsourced services to buythe staff lock, stock and barrel – andthere is a real stick as well as the phoneycarrot, because if you refuse to transferyou lose the right to redundancy.

So we get back to capitalism, pureand simple. TUPE plus the court judge-ments have returned to the original con-cept, effectively wage slavery: the newcapitalist buys the company or serviceand its assets – including human ones.

That’s not to say that clever tacticalthinking cannot take advantage of theregulations to strengthen union organisa-tion and even postpone privatisation. Fora recent example of how to do this, seethe fight by Unison’s branch at the RoyalNational Orthopaedic hospital to hang onto Orthotics (see http://bit.ly/1VBoFKy).

But in the end, the outsourcing orsell-off will go ahead, and organisationwill inevitably be weakened. ■

14 WORKERS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

‘EU membershiphas gone hand inhand with anassault on unions.’

They call this protection? Continued from page 13

freedoms practically trump all other rights.”Hendy does not dismiss all the individ-

ual employment rights in various EU direc-tives, but says that “the limited scope ofthese individual rights is notable”.

He goes on: “They have little applicationto most terms and conditions of employ-ment to protect or encourage good pay anddecent jobs. They say nothing about pen-sions nor about dismissal (save in particularcircumstances such as in a transfer of anundertaking). They neither promote nor pro-tect collective bargaining. They do nothingto protect the right to strike.”

Hendy’s paper should be compulsoryreading in trade union offices around thecountry. It gives specific examples wherethe European Union’s Court of Justice hasupheld the rights of employers againstthose of workers. Tellingly, it concludesthat: “The EU has become a disaster for thecollective rights of workers and theirunions.” ■

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 WORKERS 15

JUST ABOUT every union in Britain haspolicy opposing privatisation. Many arecommitted to fighting TTIP. It is the EU thatis spearheading these attacks on workers.

Yet most unions are in denial. Take RoyRickhuss, general secretary of steelwork-ers’ union Community. “I say it is not on theside of working people to threaten theUnited Kingdom’s membership of theEuropean Union,” he wrote on the union’swebsite on 25 September. Tell that to steel-workers whose industry the EU tells us wecannot support.

One union is certainly clear. In line witha motion carried at the RMT conference inNewcastle at the end of June, its generalsecretary, Mick Cash, has spoken clearlyabout the EU’s “anti-worker agenda”. Hisunion called in June for an out vote in anyreferendum on the issue:

“EU policies are at odds with the aspira-tions of this union as the various treaties anddirectives are demanding the privatisation ofour rail and ferry industries,” he said. ■

Andrew Wiard/www.andrew-wiard.info

Taking on the union myth-makers

MM

eet the PartyThe Communist Party of Britain Marxist-Leninist’s next series ofLondon public meetings in Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, WC1R4RL, continues on 25 November with the title “The GreatBreakthrough – Soviet Planning versus Capitalist Chaos”. Themeetings will take place in the Brockway Room, which can accom-modate more people than the room previously used. Other meet-ings are held around Britain. Meeting details will be published onWhat’s On, page 5, and on www.cpbml.org.uk/events.

The Party’s annual London May Day rally is always held on MayDay itself, regardless of state bank holidays. There are alsoCPBML May Day meetings in Edinburgh and Leeds. As well as our regular public meetings we hold informal discus-sions with interested workers and study sessions for those whowant to take the discussion further. If you are interested we

want to hear from you. Call us on 020 8801 9543 or send an email toinfo@cpbml.org.uk

MM

MM

MM

Joint RMT and TSSA demonstration against the EU outside its London headquarters, 2013.

16 WORKERS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

THE EUROZONE is at a critical stage.Meant to bring the countries of Europetogether economically, it has done theopposite. The eurozone economies that wewere told were going to converge havediverged. The gap between the northernEuropean countries (principally Germany)and the rest has grown and is growing.

The European Commission says that theEU must integrate or disintegrate. Its presi-dent, Jean-Claude Juncker has produced anew report urging progress on four “unions”– economic, financial, fiscal and political – tobe achieved by 2025 at the latest.

So unless we vote to leave, we will besubject to a very forceful process of integra-tion, or we will go down with the decline ofthe eurozone.

Unthinkable?Lots of different people are now looking intothe fine detail of what leaving would mean.For example in the Netherlands they aretalking about Nexit. It is no longer taboo totalk about this subject.

Nicola Sturgeon says “it would beunthinkable for Scotland to leave the EU”.Despite losing the Scottish referendum, shehas real difficulty in grasping that peoplemay think differently to herself. If it were truethat no one in Scotland would ever contem-plate leaving the EU, how come a Scottishconstituency in the last European electionvoted in a UKIP candidate?

Workers make up their own minds. Itmay not be what you as a trade unionist or aMarxist want them to think, but make uptheir own minds they will. Scottish RMTmembers were part of their union’s decisionto campaign for an Out vote (see page 15). Ifonly more trade unionists were as clear.

Don’t forget we were told that it wouldbe “unthinkable” not to join the euro, andthe sweet irony is that now nobody is givingthat idea a second thought.

So exit is not unthinkable – lots of peo-ple are thinking about it, right across Britainincluding Scotland and Wales.

Fleeing investors?You may have heard the refrain about “flee-ing investors” from several quarters. TheConfederation of British Industry likes to sayit at regular intervals – not altogether surpris-

ing when you consider it gets a substantialamount of its funding from the EU.

In 2013 the chief executive officer ofNissan said “Nissan will reconsider itsinvestment in the UK if Britain leaves theEU”. But then on 3 Sept 2015 Nissanannounced £100 million investment in theSunderland plant, which will secure its futurebeyond 2020.

So not only are they not withholdinginvestment ahead of the referendum, theyare happy to make a commitment forbeyond that period. Tim Tozer, until recentlymanaging director of Vauxhall, said a Britishexit would not cause “trouble” for the com-pany or its parent General Motors.Employing 35,000 people in Britain, it wouldcontinue to build its Astra model here.

Some 85 per cent of Nissan vehiclesproduced in Britain are exported, the bulk ofthem to the European market. But on theCBI’s own website it now states: “While theEuropean market is important, growth thereis constrained and Nissan is placing a grow-ing emphasis on emerging markets.”

In one major independent study of NorthAmerican and Asian investors one of thesurvey questions was, “If the UK renegoti-ated its relationship with the EU to be lessintegrated would that make you more or lessinclined to invest?” - and the answer was“more” inclined to invest.

As for the financial sector, the City ofLondon, we were once told that if we did notjoin the euro, financial services would sufferterribly. Not so. For many reasons (many ofthem things which concern us greatly)investment in the unregulated London finan-cial market will continue.

In short, for many investors it will makeno difference, and some will see a Britain“untied from the EU” as more attractive.

TradeA lot of Britain’s trade is with Europe. It istoday and was for a very long time beforewe joined the EU. And our trade has grownbecause now the EU has 28 countries in it.But as a proportion of our total exports theshare going to the EU is going down andhas been going down for two decades.

Put simply, dependence on trade withthe EU is a bad thing for us as a tradingnation: we must diversify. This applies in

capitalist economic terms, and if we asworkers had economic control we too wouldneed to look across the world to trade ourgoods.

Another sweet irony is that those of uswho want to leave the EU are told that weare “little Englanders”, when in fact it isthose of us who want to leave the EU whosee the need to trade with Brazil, India,China and Russia.

Britain will still continue to trade with EU

Image and reality: young male migrants sit around o

rkl_foto/shutterstock.com

It shouldn’t be if Britain l

Even before an actual day has been set for the referendum predicting disaster if Britain leaves. And yet it’s becoming

‘For many investorsit will make no difference.’

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 WORKERS 17

countries – including Ireland, of course –and they with us. A big incentive for the EUcountries is that they export more to us thanwe to them.

Britain is actually Germany’s biggestexport market. We do like a Volkswagenapparently, even when they have been fid-dling their figures on emissions! Why wouldthey put us out in the cold, when they wantus to buy their stuff?

EU and peaceAnother myth is that the EU has kept thepeace in Europe. Has it? Its origins don’tencourage that idea. It was the Nazis who in1942 first coined the phrase “EuropeanEconomic Community” (EEC), orEuropäische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft asthey called it.

The EEC as envisaged then was to formone single empire based around Germany.The idea had been simmering in fascist cir-cles for some time, and continued to. Thereis a picture of Oswald Mosley from theBritish Union of Fascists standing on a plinthin Trafalgar Square with the strap line“Europe a Nation” and an array of Europeanflags behind him.

Germany’s first chancellor after the endof the Second World War, KonradAdenauer, said: “a federated Europe will bea third force. Germany has again become afactor with which others will have to reckon.If we Europeans colonise Africa we create atthe same time a supplier of raw materials forEurope.”

Then look at what has actually hap-pened: modern historians call the period

from the end of the Second World War tonow as a time of “intervention”, when for-merly independent countries such as Iraq orLibya were bombed by meddling outsideforces who then left a horrendous patch oflawless territory for so-called “insurgents”,often funded and supplied with weapons, tofill the vacuum. The EU was certainly partyto the US-led NATO interventions and theiraftermath.

In Europe there was the break-up ofYugoslavia. NATO’s attack on Yugoslavia in1999, supported by the EU, was an illegalattack on a sovereign state. Remember thatGermany was the first country to recogniseCroatia as an independent country – animportant trigger in that conflict.

Fast forward to 2013 and Ukraine. TheEU wanted the elected government ofUkraine to sign an EU association agree-ment. That government thought it was a rot-ten deal and said it wanted to review itsoptions and talk to other countries such asRussia about a better deal. The EU thenbacked a fascist-led uprising against theelected government. So the EU hasfomented war in the Balkans, and on itsEastern border with Ukraine.

Let’s reclaim the words Europe andEuropean from the disastrous political pro-ject that is the EU and the eurozone.

Let’s remember that across the conti-nent there are people like us contemplatingand working out the final detail of what itwould mean to leave the disastrous projectbehind and reclaim their sovereignty anddemocracy. There is a great deal of work tobe done in the trade union movement to getclarity on this question. Let’s be inspired bythe debate at the RMT AGM in June 2015. ■

This article is a shortened version of aspeech given at a CPBML meeting inConway Hall on 22 September]

on graffiti-daubed concrete in front of the pretentious logo of the European Central Bank, Frankfurt.

leaves the EU, but when

m on membership of the EU, the mongers of doom are increasingly clear that the opposite is true…

‘Let’s reclaim thewords Europe andEuropean from thedisastrous EU.’

18 WORKERS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

THE BRITISH Medical Association (BMA)announced that ballot papers would go outto its members in early November. It is aballot which, should it go ahead, could wellresult in the first national strike action byjunior doctor members since the 1970s.

The BMA was acting in response to thenews that the government intends toimpose a new contract with effect fromAugust 2016, possibly using the fire and re-hire tactic increasingly popular with employ-ers, ever since Rupert Murdoch used it tomove newspaper production to Wappingand to try to break trade union organisationin the print industry. Protracted negotiationsover two years had reached an impasse.

Hunt has tried to muddy the waters ofthe negotiations by claiming that the newcontract is to enforce the government’s“seven-day working”.

This has been met with a sharpresponse from junior doctors, who knowonly too well that we already have a seven-day NHS, and understand the sham.Equally, when Hunt plays the safety card, ashe has been doing since the Mid-Staffordshire hospitals affair, all health work-ers know that adequate numbers of trainedprofessionals are the best guarantee ofpatient safety.

Evidence?The evidence used to support the seven-day working claim does not stand up to thescrutiny of critical appraisal. While it is truethat the published papers which Hunt likesto quote so often do indicate an increasedrisk of mortality for patients admitted atweekends, the evidence does not show alink with staffing arrangements.

In fact, patients admitted at weekendsfor elective surgery scheduled midweek willby definition be those in poor health, whocan expect worse outcomes than healthierpatients admitted the night before or on theday of their procedure.

Further government duplicity wasrevealed by an ex-Tory health minister anddoctor, who told newspapers that bySeptember 2014 there was broad agree-ment between the BMA and the Departmentof Health and a deal was close, but Huntintervened to change the Department ofHealth’s position. Negotiations, which had

begun in 2013, broke down as both consul-tants’ and junior doctors’ representativeshad no choice but to withdraw.

The government referred the contractsto the Review Body on Doctors’ andDentists’ Remuneration. Hunt announced itsfindings in a speech to the King’s Fund, aspart of his propaganda offensive.

Under the new contract junior doctors’normal working day would be increased toinclude a considerable amount of eveningand weekend working, with an extension of

“standard time” from 60 hours to 90 hours aweek. Currently 7 pm to 7 am Monday toFriday and the whole of Saturday andSunday are considered “antisocial” hours,rewarded by a higher rate of pay. Under theproposals, “standard time” would beextended to 10pm in the evening fromMonday to Friday and on Saturday too.Thiswould enforce a pay cut of 15 per cent formany junior doctors, especially those inareas like emergency and acute medicine,which depend on out-of-hours working.

Junior doctors make a s

Jeremy Hunt’s hamfisted attempt to force junior doctors t backfired. Armed with the knowledge that they are defend

Workers

Doctors turned out in their thousands on 17 October to march against the government’s propose

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 WORKERS 19

The achievement of limits to junior doc-tors’ working day, after many years of strug-gle, is threatened by an end to the sanctionsNHS Trusts can incur if agreements onjunior doctors working time are breached.

Under the current New Deal contractthis is enforced, not through the EuropeanWorking Time Directive as the governmentwould like us to think, but through a bandingsystem. The banding system, hard-won,enforces payments for hours according tothe length of the period spent at work, and

the hours when these fall. It has built-insafeguards to prevent excessive hours andto ensure doctors receive sufficient rest andbreaks, and is enforced by monitoring visits.If a Trust is found to be in breach of these, itfaces a financial penalty. This would bescrapped, and the Review Body suggestedthe European regulations be substituted.

The European regulations are far worsethan the existing contractual provision, onlyallowing for shorter and less frequent restperiods, with no effective enforcementmechanism. The New Deal contract pro-vides a safety net to prevent junior doctorsfrom having to work dangerously longhours. The government has told the BMA itplans to reduce the number of breaks duringshifts down to just 20 minutes every sixhours. In practice, the BMA says, this couldmean that a doctor working an 11-hour shiftwill only get a single 20-minute break.

Trainees in general practice, where thereis already a staffing crisis (covered in recentissues of Workers), could end up earningless than their hospital colleagues. At themoment GP trainees are paid a supplement,which ensures they are not financially disad-vantaged for their choice of specialty com-pared with hospital trainees. This would end,and general practice will be even more unat-tractive. In London, 30 per cent of GPvacancies are currently unfilled. This givesthe lie to Hunt’s and NHS England’s rhetoricabout the importance of general practice.

Losing incrementsMany who spend time in higher education orresearch would lose their right to annualincrements. Doctors who change specialty,a not-uncommon career path in areas suchas surgery, where there are many sub-spe-cialties, would have to start again at the bot-tom of the pay scales.

Doctors who work less than a full work-ing week, as is often the case in specialtieslike paediatrics, known as Less-Than-Full-Time, would be significantly disadvantaged.The practice of Fixed Leave, by which juniordoctors can be told by diktat when to takeannual leave, will continue. This has longbeen a significant problem for junior doctorsand their work-life balance.

The BMA is demanding the followingbefore negotiations can re-open:

• Proper recognition of unsocial hoursas premium time;

• No disadvantage for those workingunsocial hours compared to now;

• No disadvantage for those workingless than full time and taking parental leave,compared to the current system;

• Pay for all work done;• Proper hours safeguards protecting

patients and their doctors.The scandal of an NHS staffed by

exhausted, demoralised over-worked juniordoctors, and locums galore, has far greaterimplications for patient safety than any ofthe incidents that Hunt and his fans like tocite. Add to this that 20 trusts are now in“special measures” and a further 27 arereceiving “intensive support”, and Hunt’swrecking intentions towards the NHSbecome crystal clear.

Many of the medical Royal Colleges,which traditionally stand aloof from tradeunion issues, have voiced concern about theproposals. Consultants, who remember theconditions under which they trained, haveexpressed considerable support for theirjunior colleagues.

The junior doctors have shown spirit andunity, to say nothing of tactical ingenuity,and have wrong-footed the government. Afew have been heard arguing that doctorsshould betray their colleagues and run awayfrom the situation by emigrating. This strug-gle has made it clear how migration works inthe interests of capitalism, never in the inter-ests of workers. These voices should becondemned as cowardly agents of the gov-ernment. Stand and fight.

In their first struggles in the 1970s, juniordoctors understood that they were workerslike any other. They have come a long way,and are showing greater clarity over issueslike migration and the EU than many in ourclass. On their demonstrations they chantthe name of their union, showing a pride intheir organisation lacking elsewhere in theclass. We can all learn from their struggle. ■

‘The scandal hasimplications forpatient safety.’

stand for the NHS

o agree to an outrageous new contract has already ding the NHS, the doctors are fighting back…

ed new contract.

A LONG-RUNNING dispute over front ofhouse staff wages and conditions at theGlobe Theatre in London has been “settled”– for the time being. This follows a one-daystrike in May 2015, with the threat of furtheraction. A degree of progress has beenmade.

Action has concentrated minds onresolving some of the seemingly incompati-ble demands on theatre space, as well asthroughout the building. According to onerep, from media and entertainment unionBECTU, this could not have been achieveda year ago.

Considering that this was the first timethe Globe tour guides had voted to go onstrike, their action was commendablyunited. Management however had con-ducted a benchmarking exercise based onthe “industry median” (mainly low pay), whileignoring the guides’ special skills, as well asthe unique nature of the Globe itself.

The agreement, announced on 1October, was for an increase of 3 per cent inpay, applied to all staff across the boardregardless of skill level, including at the adja-cent Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Althoughit was well short of expectations, a ballot of

members resulted in a 78.1 per cent vote toaccept the company’s offer. Members arenow deliberating how to build on their mod-est success at a future date.

The guides’ pay settlement is less thanthat of professional guides in the commer-cial tourism sector, yet their contribution toan understanding of Britain's greatest play-wright is arguably of greater social value.Their specialist knowledge, practical skillssuch as crowd management and vocaldelivery, as well as their investment in pro-fessional development, should attract a cor-respondingly professional rate of pay, buttheir freelancing style of work plays into thehands of the employer.

Zero hoursUnlike staff exclusively conducting theGlobe’s educational tours, a number of the38 guides are primarily actors, who toleratea zero hours arrangement. This is seen torepresent “flexibility”, allowing them toattend auditions, or to work elsewhere asguides or translators. In reality the main ben-eficiary is management; the guides’ avail-ability for work at the Globe outstrips thenumber of jobs actually offered.

Many of those with language qualifica-tions also handle foreign student groups andtheir teachers, in case translation is needed.Hidden aspects of their labour power (theircapacity to generate profit) include promo-tion, sales and fundraising, street tours tothe Rose Theatre (also situated onBankside), costume dressing and printingpress demonstrations. Such work involvesthe company in few overhead costs, butindirectly subsidises ambitious projects likethe “Round the World Hamlet”.

Management takes full advantage ofstaff commitment to the Globe. A volunteer-ing ethos deriving from its struggling originsholds back progress in today’s environment.

VisionOpened in 1997, the Globe was the brain-child of Sam Wanamaker, the Americancommunist actor and director, famous forrefusing to testify against his fellow artists tothe US House of Representatives Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s.He subsequently found refuge in Britain(albeit under the watchful eye of MI5).Meeting official resistance to his plans forresurrecting Shakespeare's Globe,Wanamaker sank his own earnings into the project. He gathered around him a kind of cooperative dedicated to his vision,with no thought of putting profit before theplayhouse.

It is very different today. Capitalism hasbeen allowed to rampage. The world of thearts has become as cut-throat as the City,with managers putting their careers andbonuses ahead of public safety and satis-faction. Class interests reveal themselves instruggle: if we are to survive there can be noclinging to the illusion of worker andemployer forming one happy family, includ-ing in the arts. ■

20 WORKERS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015Workers

The Globe Theatre, London: drama off the stage as well.

‘A volunteeringethos derivingfrom strugglingorigins holds backprogress today.’

Struggle off the stage

In the theatre industry and elsewhere, managementknows how to take advantage of staff commitment…

The Looting Machine: Warlords, tycoons,smugglers and the systematic theft ofAfrica’s wealth, by Tom Burgis, hardback,319 pages, ISBN 978-0-00-752308-5,William Collins, 2015, £20, Kindle and e-book editions available, paperback avail-able soon.

THIS STUDY by investigative journalist TomBurgis about the systematic looting ofAfrica’s riches gives us case studies of thetheft of Africa’s resources. It covers Angola,the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria,Guinea, Niger, Ghana, South Africa andZimbabwe.

These countries all have vast naturalresources which benefit few of their citizens.Many live in extreme poverty, ranging from43 per cent in Angola to 88 per cent inCongo. Between 2007 and 2012, just 2.5 percent of the $41 billion generated by Congo’smining industry went into the national bud-get.

Nearly $6 trillion was illicitly taken out ofthe poorest African countries between 2001and 2011. Four-fifths of this was due totrade mispricing, where companies fix theprices at which they sell goods and serviceseither between their own subsidiary compa-nies or in deals with other companies.

The UN said that the companies tradingminerals in Congo were “the engine of theconflict” there, which killed millions. Burgispoints out that “the resource curse can stillbite where there is peace – abetted by theglobal institutions charged with alleviatingAfrica’s poverty and a financial system thatdrains away the proceeds of the continent’snatural wealth.”

The World Bank reported that the IMF“promoted aggressive privatization of signifi-cant mining and hydrocarbon assets forshort-term financing of the [government’sbudget] deficit. This did nothing to ensurethe creation of competition, efficiency gains,development of a domestic private sector, orenvironmentally and socially sound develop-ment strategies for the extractive sectors.”

Burgis explains why British governmentsgive aid. It is not altruism: “foreign aid… con-stitutes a significant share of many resourcestates’ income – effectively subsidizing pri-vate oil and mining companies with taxpayerfunds from donor countries.”

In 2002 China’s trade with Africa wasworth $13 billion a year; by 2012, it was$180 billion. Lamido Sanusi, governor ofNigeria’s central bank from 2009 to 2014,said, “So China takes our primary goodsand sells us manufactured goods. This was

also the essence of colonialism. The Britishwent to Africa and India to secure raw mate-rials and markets. Africa is now willinglyopening itself up to a new form of imperial-ism.”

The UN ranks countries on their humandevelopment and on their GDP per head. Byrelating the two, you can see whether acountry’s growth improves its people’s wel-fare.

Cuba comes out as the best in theworld. Of the ten worst, five are Africanresource-rich states: Angola, Gabon, SouthAfrica, Botswana and Equatorial Guinea.

We are often told that the cause ofAfrica’s poverty is corruption. Burgis’s ver-sion is that it is “a failure of leadership”. Butthe cause of Africa’s poverty isn’t corruption,it is capitalism.

Burgis calls the treatment of Africa anew kind of empire – financialised colonial-ism. But this isn’t new: it’s still imperialism.The City of London and its allies in HongKong, Singapore, the British Virgin Islandsand elsewhere exploit whoever they can,wherever they can, across the world.

We are also told by Burgis and othersthat globalisation now runs the world. No,again, we must call it by its proper name –capitalism. ■

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 BOOK REVIEW WORKERS 21Mark Schwettmann/shutterstock.com

Copper mine in Palabora, South Africa.

The rape of Africa

Africa should be a rich continent. But as a new bookreveals, its wealth is being systematically looted…

In China, the East India Company usedthe gold and silver it received from opiumsmuggling to purchase goods that could besold profitably in England. There wastremendous demand in Britain for Chinesetea, silks, and porcelain pottery, but therewas little demand in China for Britain's man-ufactured goods.

As Britain did not have enough silver totrade with the Chinese Empire, the BritishEmpire used the profits of the opium tradeto pay for Chinese products.

The amount of opium imported intoChina at first increased gradually fromapproximately 200 chests a year in 1729(about 12 tons) to 1,000 chests in 1767,before surging to 10,000 a year between1820 and 1830. By 1838 the amount hadsoared to 40,000 chests, over 2,500 tons ofopium extract.

For the first time the balance of pay-ments began to run against China and infavour of Britain. Such a massive network ofopium distribution had formed, that by the1830s millions of Chinese were hooked. Thiscaused significant damage to the health andproductivity of the nation. At this point theBritish Empire decided to force the issue ofincreased trade rights, stressing the opiumtrade.

The Qing ruling dynasty attempted toenforce tighter opium restrictions. In spring1839 Chinese authorities at Canton confis-cated and burned the opium. In retaliation,the British occupied positions around thecity. This trading conflict escalated into thefirst Opium War between Britain and Chinafrom 1839 to 1842. During the war theChinese could not match the technologicaland tactical superiority of the British forces.A British naval fleet arrived in June 1840,attacking along the Chinese coast.

22 WORKERS HISTORIC NOTES NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

The outcome of this war was not tolegalise the opium trade but it haltedChinese efforts to stop it. In 1842 Chinaagreed to the Treaty of Nanking and had topay a large fine. Hong Kong island wasceded to Britain. Five other ports, includingCanton, were opened to British residenceand trade.

ImportsIn the second Opium War (1856–60), theChinese government was again defeated bythe British and the French. This time it wasforced to legalise the opium trade, though itdid levy a small import tax. Opium importsto China had reached 50,000 to 60,000chests a year, continuing to increase for thenext 30 years.

The peace was as wicked as the war.With the Treaty of Tientsin (1858), China hadto open 11 more ports to trading and allowforeign ships including warships to navigatefreely along the coast and up the YangtzeRiver. The British were given trading rights inthe ports of Canton and Shanghai and in

Britain’s imperial wars fo EXTRACTED FROM poppies, opium is ahighly addictive drug, though it can serve asa medicine. By the end of the 17th century,non-medicinal drug use of opium hadappeared in China, particularly around theport of Canton (now know as Guangzhou),where most foreign merchants traded. In themid-18th century the British East IndiaCompany had secured trading rights foropium after gaining control of Bengal fromthe Moghul emperors. Profits from opiumexports were to help the British Empire payfor spices from the East Indies. For traders,a supply of addicted consumers meant abusiness boom.

Though the emperors of China wereworried about the spread of foreign influ-ence, they were also desperate for revenue.Foreign merchants were tolerated, as theybought Chinese tea and silk, though theirmovements were strictly controlled. Theywere allowed to settle in Macao, aPortuguese settlement since the 16th cen-tury. With Portugal’s decline as a maritimepower, the East India Company becamedominant there.

BannedThe spread of opium-smoking eventuallydisturbed the Imperial Court in Beijing. In1729 an edict banned opium smoking andits importation, except under licence formed-icinal use. There were heavy penaltiesfor dealing in the drug. Initially the East IndiaCompany kept to the ban, not wanting tojeopardise its influence, and opium smokersin China were limited to supplies from thePortuguese or freebooters.

The Chinese increased controls onopium throughout the 18th century. Toevade the ban, the East India Companyfarmed out transport to “country ships”, pri-vate traders whom the company licensed totake goods from India to China. It did notrisk sending opium in its own ships for fearof losing its lucrative tea trade.

Opium was grown by poppy cultivatorsin India, especially in Bengal, effectivelyunder British control like most of India at thetime. To bring the opium into China, thecountry traders sold it to smugglers alongthe Chinese coast. The gold and silver thetraders received from these sales were thenturned over to the East India Company.

‘The British Empireused the profits ofthe opium trade topay for Chineseproducts.’

The Opium Wars against China in the mid-nineteenth cent climax to a most disgraceful chapter in the history of the B

Above: an 1843 painting glorifying thedestruction by British naval vessels ofChinese war junks in Anson’s Bay in1841. Right: nineteenth-centuryphotograph of Chinese opium smokers.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

1860 more land to extend the Hong Kongcolony.

Foreigners were allowed to travel to theinterior for the first time. Christians gainedthe right to spread their faith and hold prop-erty, thus opening up another means ofwestern penetration. China's right to rule inits own territory was increasingly limited.The Chinese refer to this period as the timeof unequal treaties – one of national degra-dation and humiliation.

The importance of opium in the West'strade with China declined from the begin-ning of the 20th century. China also signed atreaty with India to end the import of opiumby 1917. But opium smoking and addictionremained a problem for China in subsequentdecades. Opium smoking was not finallyeradicated until after the accession of NewChina led by communists in 1949. ■

Our country is under attack. Every single institution is in decline. Theonly growth is in unemployment, poverty and war. There is a crisis – ofthought, and of deed. The Communist Party of Britain Marxist-Leninistheld its 16th Congress in November 2012, a coming together of the Partyto consider the state of Britain and what needs to happen in the future.Here we set out briefly six Calls to Action for the British working class –for a deeper explanation, see www.cpbml.org.uk.

1: Out of the European Union, enemy to our survivalThe European Union represents the dictatorship of finance capital, foreigndomination. The British working class must declare our intention to leave the EU.

2: No to the breakup of Britain, defend our nationalsovereigntyDevolution, and now the threats of separation and regionalism, are all products ofonly one thing: de-industrialisation.

3: Rebuild workplace trade union organisationUnions exist as working members in real workplaces or they become something elseentirely – something wholly negative. Take responsibility for your own unions.

4: Fight for pay, vital class battlegroundThe fight for pay is central to our survival as a class, and must be central to theagenda of our trade unions.

5: Regenerate industry, key to an independent futureThe regeneration of industry in Britain is essential to the future of our nation. Ourgrand-parents, and theirs, knew this. We must now reassert it at the centre of classthinking.

6: Build the PartyThe task of the Party is singular: to change the ideology of the British working class inorder that they make revolution here.

Interested in these ideas?• Go along to meetings in your part of the country, or join in study to help pushforward the thinking of our class. Get in touch to find out how to take part.• Send an A5 sae to the address below for a list of publications, or email us.• Subscribe to Workers, our bimonthly magazine, either online at workers.org.uk or bysending £12 for a year’s issues (cheques payable to Workers) to the address below.• Subscribe to our email newsletter – see the form at www.cpbml.org.uk• Follow us on Twitter.

Worried about the future ofBritain? Join the CPBML.66SIX CALLS

TO ACTION

CPBML78 Seymour Avenue, London N17 9EB

email info@cpbml.org.uktwitter@cpbml

www.cpbml.org.ukphone 020 8801 9543

or opium

tury were the nasty British Empire…

‘What isn’tdiscussed is justwhat apernicious conthis “benefit”really is...’

Credits for capitalistsSHOULD BRITISH workers demand the rightto working tax credits? The government’spush to reduce them is being greeted withhowls of outrage from many. The press isfull of examples of people who riskimpoverishment when the credits are cutback, which, of course, will be the result inthe immediate term.

But the basic problem is that workersare failing to fight for better wages – so taxcredits have been allowed to become alifeline for far too many workers. Theemployers have been happy, of course,since the tax credit system acts as a gianthandout for them.

The current system of tax credits wasstarted by Labour Chancellor Gordon Brownin 1999. Brown launched it with sloganssuch as “Tackling poverty and extendingopportunity” – an admission that many wereworking for poverty wages, and a deliberatediscouragement to wages struggles. Now,the system of credits, including child taxcredit (the latter payable to both the workingand non-working) has become fiendishlycomplicated. Around seven million workersare eligible, with around five million actuallyclaiming – a huge number. The cost to otherworkers is currently around £30 billion.

What isn’t discussed is just what apernicious con this “benefit” really is. Bearin mind that you have to be working over 16hours a week to be eligible. So a workergoes to work, but the pay is so low that theycan’t live on it or raise a family. So insteadof fighting in a trade union together withtheir fellow workers to force the employer toraise wages to a level which will be enoughto live on, the worker claims a top-up in theform of working tax credit. This top-up isprovided by other workers through taxation.

So one set of workers pays another setof workers to make it possible for them towork for a wage which is so low they can’tsurvive on it. What a brilliant wheeze for the

employers! They don’t have to pay a decentwage, because workers will subsidise themnot to. And what’s more, the workers whosepockets are being picked are campaigningfor the continuation of this daylight robbery.

Add to this the system of housing benefit– in 2013-14 this cost around £23.8 billion,money that went straight into the pockets oflandlords.

When the Thatcher governmentlegislated to abandon rent controls andother regulation of the private rental sectorin 1989, concern was expressed inparliament that housing benefit costs wouldrocket as, inevitably, rents went up. Thehousing minister Sir George Youngresponded “Housing benefit will underpinmarket rents…If people cannot afford to paythat market rent, housing benefit will takethe strain.” So that’s ok then!

Recently a London landlord, AndrewPanayi, was ordered to pay back £70,000after he was found guilty of renting out astorage basement as self-contained livingaccommodation. He had been charging£975 a month in rent.

How could Panayi charge so much for alightless hole in the ground? A combinationof no rent controls and housing benefit, ofcourse. So workers are pouring money intolandlords’ pockets to enable them to chargewhat would otherwise be unaffordable rents.Panayi rents out 180 properties. Hiscompany Ploughcane had net assets of £17million in 2013, and made an operating profitof £2.3 million. A landlord’s dream

Workers must learn again the lessons wehave conveniently forgotten. For those whocan’t work because of illness or disability,society must support a decent and dignifiedlife. But for others, it’s been too easy toavoid fighting for wages by claiming for taxcredits and housing benefit paid for by otherworkers. Fight for the right to work, and forthe dignity of a decent wage! ■

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