Food or fuel? The choice now facing workers and pensioners this winter

We are truly lucky to be living in an age of free market capitalism. Time and time again the unplanned chaotic 'hidden hand' pulls a rabbit out of the hat. Housebuilding slowing down when 3 million need to be built. Enough food to comfortably feed the whole world and yet there are shortages and starvation. And now, gas prices up 35%! Thank goodness everyone's pay (and benefit) rises are keeping in line with inflation....

British Gas made the announcement, citing the need to maintain their profits because of the increase in wholesale gas prices. While it is true that wholesale gas prices have increased recently, they were declining quite sharply over the course of 2006 and the start of 2007, and yet British Gas continued to increase the price of the gas it sold. The same is true for the other gas companies, who will no doubt follow suit with eye watering increases of their own in the wake of today's news.

In February of this year, British Gas announced that it made a profit of £571 million in 2007. Clearly this is not enough for the shareholders, who wish to freeze pensioners this winter to maintain and boost their income.

All privatisation and deregulation has done is increase the price of gas while enriching executives and shareholders. Any 'externalities' (consequences of a corporation's actions that do not impact on profit) are disregarded. These externalities include people struggling to pay fuel bills, squandering of finite natural resources by wasteful exploitation, damage to the environment and rank inefficiency and anarchy.

All the gas and energy companies should be nationalised immediately, with compensation paid only on the basis of proven need. The infrastructure and operations can then be harmonised and used according to a national energy plan determined democratically by gas and energy workers and the public at large. Massive investment in researching and developing renewable energy sources will enable non-renewable resources like oil and gas to be used only where they are needed, as a source of other chemicals and for heating, rather than the generation of electricity.

This will result in cheaper fuel, but also ensure that supplies are not squandered.
In addition, gas and oil must be stored in the event of shortages, not sold off for a quick buck as is presently done.

There is a rational, effective way to use natural resources, for the benefit of all and nature. The claims of pro-capitalist propagandists that their system is that way are looking increasingly threadbare and nonsensical.

Save our Post Offices campaign update

Finally, the sham 'consultation' period is over, and as expected the Post Office has kept the hit list of Post Offices it wants closed largely intact.

We have been pressing Devon County Council to commit to saving the vast majority of the threatened Post Offices, as well as collecting names on a petition that will be presented to County Council leader Cllr. Brian Greenslade. The support for our campaign, particularly in the Exeter area, has been strong. In addition to local supporters, former Labour MP and Postmaster General Tony Benn also gave the campaign his backing.

The County Council's approach has been very weak to say the least. During the 'consultation' period it earmarked only 10 to keep open in its submission to the Post Office. A motion passed by the Council Executive earlier in the month contained only vague generalities and a committment to appoint a 'Project Worker'.

What the council needs is a bit of imagination and a bit of backbone. The Post Offices can be saved if the council steps in. These can be used as community facilities with sub-postmasters and mistresses given the opportunity to top up their income by undergoing training to perform council services closer to where people live. Council funds could also be used to develop the Post Offices to perform other functions - a local shop or coffee house perhaps. A democratic plan could have been drawn up by people living in the area served by the Post Office.

In response to lobbying by Devon Socialist Party, Brian Greenslade promised that Devon would react to the threat with a better plan than Essex's. Essex County Council saved the bulk of their threatened Post Offices. Unless Cllr. Greenslade and his associates have a rabbit up their sleeves, their 'better plan' of letting the Post Offices close seems a little underwhelming. The campaign will continue, as it will against generalised cutting of public services.

Punishing the jobless for being jobless - No to New Labour's welfare counter-reforms

Work and pensions secretary, James Purnell, has announced a major attack on benefits claimants in his new welfare green paper. His claim that the changes will "transform lives" will be borne out, but disgracefully it will be in a transformation for the worse for large numbers of the poorest people in society. Tory leader David Cameron heaped praise on the paper, saying that he is "thrilled" with it and that most of it will be fully supported by his party.

All 4.5 million people on 'out-of-work' benefits will be affected, as major benefits will be renamed and altered. But the main aim of the changes is to force at least one million people off out-of-work benefits altogether.

The draconian measures include forcing people to work for their paltry dole money. After one year of unemployment, claimants will have to do four weeks of work, as if they have to be punished for being out of work. After two years, they will have to work continuously for their benefits, doing work "such as community work". Previously only people with criminal convictions have been forced to do community work.

Incapacity claimants are to face potentially harrowing questioning and tests to force large numbers off benefit. They will have to have a medical check from someone other than their GP.

Single parents will have to seek work when their youngest child is seven. Drug addicts will be 'required' to have treatment. Only full time carers and the severely disabled will escape similar coercion.

If this was not bad enough, the proposals go alongside measures to increase private sector delivery of welfare, consequently reducing jobs in the public sector and ensuring that the profit motive will come before delivery of good quality services.

Purnell has thrown in some small sweeteners.

Slightly higher benefit will be given to those who get through the new incapacity tests. Money given to lone parents from ex-partners will not be deducted from their benefits. Businesses will be offered more funding to help them employ disabled people. Treatment facilities for drug addicts are to be increased.

Hypocrisy

But these limited measures will not mitigate the effects of the attacks for most claimants. One illustration of this is that funding for the access-to-work programme which presently helps 24,000 disabled people to find work or stay in work will be doubled. But a doubling means this will only potentially help around 48,000 people instead of 24,000, when the government aims to force one million off incapacity benefit.

Much higher funding measures should be introduced while leaving intact the right to claim benefits without sanctions and harassment, and while increasing benefits to a level that can be lived on. But such improvements would be completely contrary to New Labour's cuts and privatisation agenda.

If the government really wants to help people who are out of work, it would not have cut £2 billion from the Department for Work and Pensions. However, the greatest barriers to reducing unemployment are a lack of longterm, well paid jobs, decent childcare, workplace facilities for disabled people, and so on.

Ironically the government tries to dress up its proposals as part of the fight against poverty, sometimes using the slogan 'work works'. But over half of children living in poverty are in working households. Millions of people in poverty are on low wages that make them little better off than being on benefits. Where community work is needed, it should be properly paid to provide real jobs, not forced out of people for £1.60 an hour as Parnell proposes.

This green paper comes at a time when the economy is fast tipping into recession. The number of people on unemployment benefit has risen by 45,000 since the end of January and hundreds of thousands more jobs are likely to go. The Ernst and Young Item Club thinktank has described the economic outlook as a "horror movie".

With its budget deficit heading way over its forecasts, the government is determined to step up its attacks on basic benefits. The budget deficit for the first three months of the financial year was a record £20.4 billion, up £12.5 billion from the same period last year. It is set to worsen further, as the slowing economy means lower government tax receipts.

Meanwhile the super rich evade an estimated £42 billion of taxes a year and the chancellor is backing off from introducing some limited tax-avoidance measures for the top UK corporations because of their cries of alarm. Yet the cries of alarm of the poorest in society are ignored.

Hundreds of thousands of the poorest and most vulnerable people are to be made to suffer further while the super rich are left to wallow in massive luxury. This green paper must be vigorously opposed.

Article by Judy Beishon, from this weeks 'The Socialist'

Local government strike - Plymouth report

Cowardly Treasury minister Yvette Cooper ducked out of a photo-opportunity rather than face the anger of local government strikers in Plymouth.

Cooper, deputy to Chancellor, Alistair Darling, was due to attend the Tamar Science Park with Plymouth City Council's chief executive on the second day of the pay strike.

But the visit was hurriedly cancelled when strikers converged on the venue to form a welcoming committee for her.

Plymouth UNISON officer, Jeremy Guise, told the strikers: "This shows the Labour Party daren't face us. They know they have no answers to our questions and when they find out we're waiting for them, they bottle it."

Throughout Plymouth on the two strike days, lively pickets at most of the council workplaces gave a determined signal that workers will no longer settle for crumbs at a time of obscene wealth and rising prices.

At the Ballard House social services centre, union members stayed out but there were disappointingly high numbers of GMB members and non-union workers who went through the picket lines.

We were buoyed up by freshly cooked scones, a gesture from Helen, a 60-year-old worker in her final year who was gutted at having to come to work to preserve her pension. There were also solidarity doughnuts from local CWU members and plenty of support from passing drivers.

Before the next set of strikes there is clearly a lot of work to be done persuading colleagues to join us.

Report by Rob Rooney from Plymouth Socialist Party

Decontamination threat update - NDDH Trust decides to delay decision

In response to the many postcards sent to the Trust Chief Executive and the criticisms of the scheme by health unions, clinicians and professional bodies, the North Devon Healthcare Trust has decided to delay a decision on whether to outsource sterile services to private company Decon Sciences until September.

It has become clear to the Trust that there are serious deficiencies with the plan to privatise the services, including financial considerations on top of the health, practical and environmental problems previously outlined by Devon Socialist Party, and by UNISON and professional bodies such as the Royal College of Surgeons.

Six options are now being investigated by the Trust:

1. Do nothing;
2. On-site at NDDH;
3. Collaborate with a smaller number of Trusts to create an NHS-provided service;
4. Collaborate with a smaller number of Trusts with an outsourced provider;
5. Investigate a partnership with private healthcare providers such as BUPA;
6. Create a local NHS service, provided off-site.

Devon Socialist Party would favour options 1 and 2, which appear to be the same but differently worded. The current service is very effective. The Healthcare Commission's 2007 Report on North Devon District Hospital noted that "medical devices which can be re-used were properly cleaned in well-run decontamination facilities." There is no clinical rationale for outsoucing the services. Additionally, the distance of a Taunton facility could cause supply problems. The need for Decon Sciences to turn a profit could lead to the cutting of corners, as has happened elsewhere when Sterile Supplies services have been contracted out.

Sterile Supplies needs to be LOCAL.
Sterile Supplies services need to be done by the NHS.

Please continue to send postcards, letters and emails to Trust Chief Executive Jac Kelly.

South and East Devon strike report

This strike had a very local feeling with many picket lines within easy reach in many of the small towns in Devon. The holiday resorts of Teignmouth and Dawlish had four picket lines resulting in the closure of three schools and very dubious lack of Health and Safety cover in the other. Classroom assistants, technicians and caretakers were at the forefront in a determination to make a stand against low pay. This was their first taste of strike action and many felt that this was not the last against what they see as a paycut. What was surprising was how quickly they have learned to organise themselves into effective pickets given how little industrial action has occurred in this area over the past decades.

Towns such as Torquay, Totnes also saw schools and libraries close with disruptions in bin collections. In North Devon, Barnstaple Civic Centre had only a few going in but there was reports of agency staff covering for normal staff. Unison is following up this 'scabbing' with legal action. It was reported that one of the UNISON members was calling for unions to put up their own candidates in elections. Socialist Party members donated to the strike fund. These are things that the Campaign for a New Workers' Party fully supports.

Plymouth and Exeter saw fairly well attended demonstrations. However the impression of the 48hr strike was that this was about workers taking widespread strike action in their local area. As one picket said "We did not take serious action against pensions - but now our backs are against the wall and this is serious business, our bills have gone through the roof and we must defend ourselves and our families."

Report by SB, Secretary of Devon and Exeter Socialist Party

North Devon strike report

The national strike action called by UNISON Local Government workers met with a great response in North Devon. Pickets were out in force in a variety of places and were upbeat and in good humour.

Around 35 were present at the Works Unit in Seven Brethren and about 15 at the main entrance to the Civic Centre. Other places picketed included the Social Services offices near Bear Street car park.

Barnstaple library, Lynton House and several schools (including Ilfracombe College, Pilton Community College, Hatfields, Chaddiford Lane and Forches) were closed.

Very few UNISON members went into work. At the Civic Centre, only 3 'exempt' members did so, because they are in their last year of retirement and even these made their support for the strike known by wearing stickers. Only 2 UNISON members went into the Works Unit, much to the disgust of pickets who feel that these people should resign from the union. After all, why should they expect any future help and support when they have let down the strikers and flagrantly flouted the democratic ballot that decided on the strike.

The use of agency staff at the Works Unit has been called into question by UNISON. Colin Lewis, a UNISON steward at the Works Unit, quoted on the North Devon Journal website, says that agency workers were deployed to perform tasks they are not contracted to perform, and have never done so before. For instance, two agency workers who usually work on recycling vehicles had been working on refuse lorries on Wednesday. UNISON are threatening legal action because of this. The agency in question, Abacus, have denied strikebreaking, but it's interesting that no agency workers turned up to the Works Unit today.

Despite affecting their pay on these two days, UNISON members are convinced they are right to strike because they have reached the point where they have no alternative, to stop their living standards deteriorating further. Their resolve is even stronger given the recent figures revealing the inflation rate is rising even further, compared with the pay offer.

Their contempt for New Labour was clear. They no longer see it as the party for working people and one of them suggested that the time had come for the unions to stand their own candidates in elections.

By DL, a North Devon UNISON Health member

Pictures of today's strike action in Barnstaple

At the civic centre:





























At Lampard Community School:














At the Works Unit at Seven Brethren:





























Photos courtesy of Mark Bennett, North Devon UNISON member

Support the council workers!

Tomorrow, 600,000 local government workers go on strike, which will continue through to Thursday. While inflation has significantly increased the cost of living, the Government has insultingly offered the people who keep public services working just a 2.45% pay 'rise' this year. Coming on top of the abolition of the 10p tax rate, this is yet another kick in the teeth for some of Britain's lowest paid workers.

Unison and Unite are therefore holding joint action, and the Socialist Party gives complete support to those on strike. The unions are asking for 6% or an extra 50p an hour, whichever is the greater. It should serve as a reminder as to the values of capitalism and its representatives and apologists in parliament that essential and valuable public servants such as refuse collectors, librarians and teaching assistants should have to strike to try and secure what is a very moderate demand, while billions are spent on war, diverting public money into shareholders pockets and tax cuts for the wealthy.

Unfortunately, Unison and Unite continue to fund the very party that is trying to cut the living standards of its members. They would be better placed for fighting for fair pay, union rights and defending jobs, pensions and public services if they broke with New Labour, which is just another party of big business, and helped form a new party that fights for workers and young people.

Devon Socialist Party calls for:

- United public sector trade union action, wherever possible.
- A Devon Living Wage at a level to be determined by the relevant trade unions and inflation linked.
- Laws limiting the ability of trade unions to be swept away, and for unions to be allowed to be more flexible in their actions and the use of their funds, and for solidarity strikes and picketing to be legalised.
- An end to cuts and selloffs in public services at local and national level.
- A new party of the working class to be formed, based on the unions and involving socialists, community campaigners, environmentalists, antiwar activists and young people.

Decontamination threat - update

The campaign continues to persuade Northern Devon Healthcare Trust to keep Sterile Supplies services in-house (see 'North Devon District Hospital - Decontamination Threat') and not 'out-source' them to private company Decon Sciences.

Unison South West, Unite and the Royal College of Nursing South West have produced postcards containing a message for the local Trust Chief Executive, on the other side of the cartoon at the top of the post. We have a limited supply of them, so email us (at the top of the page) if you would like some for yourself and your workplace/union branch/college. It is important that there is a groundswell of opinion against this potentially dangerous move in order for it to be defeated.

Please address your postcards, or any other letters etc. to:

Mrs Jac Kelly, Chief Executive, North Devon District Hospital, Raleigh Park, Barnstaple, EX31 4JB.

If you would like to get in contact with North Devon Unison Healthcare Branch please contact Pauline Brennan, the branch secretary. She can be reached at Level 3, North Devon District Hospital, Raleigh Park, Barnstaple, EX31 4JB or by email at northdevonhealth@hotmail.co.uk

Mid-year report - looking back and forward

The first six months of the year has seen increasing dissatisfaction with Gordon Brown and his New Labour government, the resurgence of the Tories, increasing union militancy and the continuing of the neo-liberal assault on public services and the authoritarian stripping away of our civil liberties. Troops remain in Iraq, and to a much greater extent, Afghanistan. Inflation is rising well above pay rises while tax has been hiked for the lowest earners. But don't worry, Tesco's and British Gas' profits are unharmed, in fact they're in fine shape.

For the Socialist Party in Devon, we have continued to support workers in struggle and build campaigns to defend public services such as the Fire Service and the Post Office. Our student members have been leading campaigns to stop the Exeter University Family Centre being privatised and to defenfd abortion rights. We continue to press the case for a new workers' party, a political voice for workers, unions, young people, campaigners and socialists and for continued united public sector strike action in the defence of public services, jobs, pensions, living standards and conditions.

Many new members have joined the Socialist Party over the past months. This allows us to meet more regularly in Exeter to plan and organise, and to campaign across Devon. The next six months will be critical for workers. As prices rise and wages stagnate, people's quality of life will decline. There will be increasing unemployment and cuts and privatisation of public services. The unions (public and private sector) must lead a fightback, but critically the organised working class needs a political voice. New Labour's defeat in the Henley by-election was notable for a number of reasons. One was that their candidate got less votes than the BNP. In times of increasing hardship, and with the remoteness and corruption of the mainstream parties, organisations like the BNP will grow in strength without a real alternative.

The main campaigning priorities are continuing defence of workers and public services, while building the strength of fighting and militant unionists throughout the trade union movement, while garnering increasing support for a left, worker voice on the political stage. The National Shop Stewards Network, which was an initiative of the RMT Union, seeks to do the former. The Campaign For A New Workers' Party campaigns for the latter. The Socialist Party is heavily involved in both organisations. Nationally and in Devon we seek to build these organisations and discuss the ideas behind them over the next six months.

If you would like to get involved in the fightback, and struggle for a better, democratic socialist world, email us at socialistpartydevon@gmail.com