Unity in action - together we can win!

In a show of unity and strength, public sector workers across Devon and the country have gone on strike in coordinated joint action. Taking part were teachers (from the NUT), further education lecturers (UCU) and workers in the Department of Work and Pensions (Jobcentre Plus) and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (both PCS).

For teachers and lecturers, the main reason behind the strike was pay, triggered by an insulting below-inflation 'pay rise' for teachers and the continued underpayment of lecturers in further education. For the civil servants, pay is also an issue (a three year pay deal where some will receive a complete pay freeze!), but also privatisation and job cuts led to action. Teachers and lecturers are also concerned with this, as well as increasing workload.

In North Devon, all secondary schools were closed for the day, a reflection of the anger and determination felt by NUT members. At North Devon College there was a tremendous 35-strong picket. Socialist Party members joining the picket to offer support were received well. The lecturers were pleased at the turnout, and one striker revealed that the strike had led to several inquiries from non-UCU members about joining the union. The problems faced by workers in further education in organising effective action centre around the multitude of different unions involved and increasing casualisation. Workers are organised not just into the UCU, but also the ATL, ASCL, UNISON and GMB. Anti-trade union laws mean that without a full ballot members of these organisations could be victimised for participating in action with the UCU.

The increasing casualisation at the college means that about half of the teaching staff are employed on an ad hoc hourly basis. This insecure and irregular employment is bad for the lecturers and their students, and obviously makes them very reluctant to raise their heads above the parapet and take part in strike action. All of this illustrates the need to organise united action across all public sector unions, and build a new political alternative to the main parties, which would enthusiastically campaign against the restrictive anti-trade union laws introduced by the Tories and kept on the statute book by New Labour.

Socialist Students and Socialist Party members also attended pickets at South Devon College and Exeter College. A lot of students signed our petition expressing support for the strikers. Many students also took part in the rally organised by the UCU from Exeter College to a rally held at St James Park, Exeter City's ground.

The rally, organised by Devon NUT, was incredibly well attended. The room was full to bursting and many people had to hand around outside the room and listen in. The broad range of speakers representing unions from the NUT, to UNISON, UCU, FBU, PCS and back to NUT (well it was their rally!) was admirable, as was the consistent theme of public sector unity. Addressing the rally, PCS National Executive member and Socialist Party member Mark Baker stressed the need for a political alternative to the main parties (all of whom condemned the strike action) and for unity: "On our own we can't defeat Gordon Brown's pay freeze. Together we can, together we will."

Eight members of the Socialist Party attended the rally. One of these, student teacher Jim Thomson, spoke from the floor following the main speeches. He stressed the need to combat the neo-liberal policies of New Labour and the other two main parties. The disaster of privatisation and private involvement in public services is clear, and he gave the local example of the costly and unpopular PFI scheme which rebuilt Exeter's secondary schools. Obviously, as well as industrial struggles to fight for 'public services not private profit' there will need to be political struggles too, which means unionists and campaigners must build a new party to represent the case for well funded public services where the priority is serving those who use it, and not lining the pockets of fat cats.

The rally ended with a tribute from the South West regional secretary of the NUT, Andy Woolley, to the late NUT general secretary Steve Sinnott. The tribute, like the rally and the atmosphere on picket lines, was positive and celebratory. All those present were aware, as Steve Sinnott was, that this action was the beginning, not the end, and that more struggles lie ahead for teachers and all public sector workers, in getting a decent pay rise, stopping job cuts and privatisation, and starting the fightback against neo-liberalism and the idea that public service = bad, and private profit = good.

Unity in action - 24th April joint public sector strike - some pictures

From the top:

Photos 1 and 2 - Strikers at North Devon College in Barnstaple.
Photo 3 - A picture from the well-attended rally held at Exeter City's St James Park.
Photo 4 - Socialist Party member and PCS National Executive member Mark Baker addresses the rally.
Photos 5 and 6 - Jim Thomson, a student teacher and member of Exeter Socialist Party, speaks at the rally.
Photo 7 - The picket line at Exeter College.
Photos 8 and 9 - The UCU, with supporters including members of the Socialist Party and Socialist Students, march to St James Park.

24th April - Pay, pensions and 'public services, not private profit'

This Thursday, thousands of teachers, further education lecturers, Department of Work and Pensions (Jobcentre Plus) staff and council workers in Birmingham are going on coordinated strike action. The action will take place on the same day not just to maximise the impact and pressure on the Government and other public sector unions, but to reflect the fact that the issues all these workers face are similar and linked.

Teachers are striking about the insulting pay offer, but are also angry about high and increasing workload, the privatisation of education and performance related pay. As the strike bulletin of the grassroots campaigning organisation 'Classroom Teacher' points out, "The Government wants us to carry on working ourselves into the ground meeting their targets when the best they can offer in return is year after year of below-inflation pay awards."

Further education lecturers have their own problems with pay. It seems likely that the Communication Workers' Union will ballot for strike action soon over Royal Mail pensions.

Staff in the Department of Work and Pensions are staging action on a number of issues, including pay, privatisation and brutal job cuts.

What links all 4 actions is a generalised assault on public services and the workers who day after day keep them running, despite the dead-hand of Government bureaucracy and targets, and crass and exploitative management. The New Labour government is trying to privatise and marketise public services, just as the neo-liberal faith it slavishly follows is crashing and burning in the wake of the global credit crisis and economic slowdown.

We support the strike action. With real inflation running at well over the official inflation (a ludicrous 2.5%) the Government dishonestly peddles, the pay offers to public sector workers means a decline in standard of living, and more and more workers struggling to make ends meet. In addition to this, the Government continues to claim that public sector pay rises are inflationary, a flat out lie, as admitted by most economists, many of them no friend to workers.

It is critical that this Thursday is not the end, but a stepping stone to future action involving all public sector unions. United action around the banner of 'public services not private profit', but encompassing other issues common to most public sector workers such as pay, pensions, workload and bullying management would be the best way to fight back against the Government, who won't rest until every public sector worker has their pay, pension and morale crushed, and every avenue of opportunity for private sector vultures to make as much money out of public services has been explored and exploited.

Join us on the picket lines and at the rally at St James Park, Exeter at noon!

Illegal to be young in Tiverton?

It seems that to be young in Tiverton today is a crime. According to headline after headline in the local papers we have 'Yob behaviour' that needs to be 'blitzed'. The Police, it seems, are only to keen to oblige. Only last week I witnessed a teenage girl being forcibly removed from outside Tesco, where she was, quite rightly, refusing to get into the back of a Police car to be taken home. In the end three police cars and a van were on the scene - to remove one teenage girl, who had not been arrested, nor charged with any crime, and Tesco had not called the Police.

It seems the Police have taken to imposing their own curfew on the area outside Tesco, and are disbursing groups of more than three teenagers and removing them home, for doing nothing more than 'hanging out' outside the supermarket. This is an infringement of these young people's civil liberties and a stop needs to put to it right now. As socialists we need to inform young people of their rights.

First of all, Tesco is private land, and the only argument for removal of anyone can be under the law of Trespass if Tesco refuse the right of entry to an individual. This can only be enforced through the civil courts in an action taken by Tesco. The Police have no right to attend Tesco's car park unless they are summoned to do so by Tesco, and they have no right to remove anyone unless they are under arrest.

Secondly, the Police have no right to forcibly disperse or remove young people who are not breaking the law from any public space anyway. Under a test case brought by Liberty and 'W' (An anonymous 15 year old) in 1995 the High Court ruled as follows:

"we are entirely satisfied that the power to remove in section 30(6) (Antisocial Behaviour Act 2003) is permissive, not coercive. It therefore confers no power on the Police or a CSO to interfere with the movements of someone under the age of 16 who is conducting himself (Or herself) lawfully within a dispersal area between the hours of 9 pm and 6 am.…Section 30(6) merely confers on the police a very welcome express power to use police resources to take such a person home if he (or she) is willing to be taken home."

The young woman in question had every right to refuse being taken home against her will by the Police, as does every other young person the Police attempt to coerce into their vehicles illegally. It is not (yet, at least, under this draconian Government) illegal to be young.

The latest development is that the Police are breathalysing young people in Tiverton! Unless the young person can reasonably be suspected of drink driving, once again the Police have no right to do this! What do they find when they do? According to the local paper, that one young woman was 'nearly one and a half times the legal limit' - what limit!? The drink driving limit! Was she driving? No, she was going to an under 18's night at a local club, and she had drunk the equivalent of 'nearly' two pints. She may have drunk this quite legally at home! It is not a crime!

Frankly, with this kind if insane policing going on, I am not at all surprised that we are seeing an increase in vandalism in the town's suburbs, if you force young people away from the centre of town against their will and marginalise them like this, you can expect them to have nothing but contempt for older people and private property. We can expect a lot more of the same unless facilities and activities are provided to keep young people occupied, and they are treated with respect as valuable members of society.

We need a campaign to inform young people of their rights and to fight back against these policing methods.

"I am not here, then, as the accused; I am here as the accuser of Capitalism dripping with blood from head to foot" - John Maclean

Ninety years ago, on the 8th May 1918, the Scottish socialist John Maclean opened the case for his defence at Edinburgh Crown Court with an impassioned speech denouncing capitalism, imperialism and war. He was charged with sedition, and more specifically with "addressing audiences in Glasgow, Shettleston, Cambuslang, Lochgelly and Harthill, making statements which were likely to prejudice the recruiting, training and discipline of H.M. Forces [and attempting] to cause mutiny, sedition and disaffection among the civil population."

These charges related to his strong opposition and campaigning against the slaughter of the Great War, then still raging. He saw it, correctly, as a war fought for the interests of the competing ruling classes in Europe, particular the British and German empires. Maclean was also a leader of the workers of Red Clydeside, whose increasing militancy in industrial struggle, anti-war protests and socialist and revolutionary leanings shook the ruling class.

As we see today with the role of the police and the courts in the witchhunt against Tommy Sheridan and his family, friends and comrades, the State is not a neutral force. It invariably takes the side of capitalism and imperialism. The case of John Maclean is no different. Prosecuted and imprisoned twice before, at his 1918 trial Maclean knew he would be found guilty and imprisoned again. The selection of the jury was rigged and they did not even bother with the formality of deliberating before finding him guilty. The judge sentenced Maclean to 5 years in prison. Upon sentencing he turned to his comrades and told them to "Keep it going, boys; keep it going". Although a mass campaign meant he was released early, his health suffered as a result of his imprisonment and he died in 1923 at the age of 44.

John Maclean remains an inspiration to all those who fight today for a better world, free from exploitation, oppression, inequality and war. We have republished extracts of his dramatic speech here in order to inform and inspire.

New(ish) article on rural poverty

Has been added to our sister site, Devon Socialist Party articles. Originally published in 'The Socialist' in 2006, it has never been online as we didn't have a website then.

The Devon Socialist Party articles website also includes the following articles:

'Low pay - the Devon way?'
'Plymouth Power! A book review of Todd Gray's 'Blackshirts in Devon'
'The smoking ban'
'Inequality - the human cost'